Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 03, 2016

Video - Why Israel Must Have Defensible Borders (JCPA)

From the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a great description of why territorial compromise is dangerous to Israel. This argument gets ignored by people who believe that somehow the PLO can be trusted to secure Israel from today's violent jihadists.

We are doing everything we can to fight for Israel with hard work, research and - above all - the truth. I could sure use your help. Please donate today. If you have other skills you can volunteer for EoZ, send an email to volunteer@elderofziyon.com

01/03 Links: UN Media Centre Ignores Murdered Israelis; BDS Discredits Itself

From Ian:

Bernard Lewis (1976): The Return of Islam

From the foregoing, certain general conclusions emerge. Islam is still the most effective form of consensus in Muslim countries, the basic group identity among the masses. This will be increasingly effective as the regimes become more genuinely popular. One can already see the contrast between the present regimes and those of the small, alienated, Western-educated elite which governed until a few decades ago. As regimes come closer to the populace, even if their verbiage is left-wing and ideological, they become more Islamic. Under the Ba’thist regime in Syria, more mosques were built in the three years after the Jaysh al-Sha’b incident than in the previous thirty.
Islam is a very powerful but still an undirected force in politics. As a possible factor in international politics, the present prognosis is not very favorable. There have been many attempts at a pan-Islamic policy, none of which has made much progress. One reason for their lack of success is that those who have made the attempt have been so unconvincing. This still leaves the possibility of a more convincing leadership, and there is ample evidence in virtually all Muslim countries of the deep yearning for such a leadership and a readiness to respond to it. The lack of an educated modern leadership has so far restricted the scope of Islam and inhibited religious movements from being serious contenders for power. But it is already very effective as a limiting factor and may yet become a powerful domestic political force if the right kind of leadership emerges.
In the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, an ominous phrase was sometimes heard, “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.” The Saturday people have proved unexpectedly recalcitrant, and recent events in Lebanon indicate that the priorities may have been reversed. Fundamentally, the same issue arises in both Palestine and Lebanon, though the circumstances that complicate the two situations are very different. The basic question is this: Is a resurgent Islam prepared to tolerate a non-Islamic enclave, whether Jewish in Israel or Christian in Lebanon, in the heart of the Islamic world? The current fascination among Muslims with the history of the Crusades, the vast literature on the subject, both academic and popular, and the repeated inferences drawn from the final extinction of the Crusading principalities throw some light on attitudes in this matter. Islam from its inception is a religion of power, and in the Muslim world view it is right and proper that power should be wielded by Muslims and Muslims alone. Others may receive the tolerance, even the benevolence, of the Muslim state, provided that they clearly recognize Muslim supremacy. That Muslims should rule over non-Muslims is right and normal. That non-Muslims should rule over Muslims is an offense against the laws of God and nature, and this is true whether in Kashmir, Palestine, Lebanon, or Cyprus. Here again, it must be recalled that Islam is not conceived as a religion in the limited Western sense but as a community, a loyalty, and a way of life—and that the Islamic community is still recovering from the traumatic era when Muslim governments and empires were overthrown and Muslim peoples forcibly subjected to alien, infidel rule. Both the Saturday people and the Sunday people are now suffering the consequences.

Ben-Dror Yemini: The enlightened and the benighted

Jewish terrorism encouraging Arab terrorism?
The video from the "wedding of hate" was aired on Wednesday's news broadcast. The very next morning, it was a political commentator on Israel Radio - public radio - who thought he still has a chance to spew out his political views. "In my humble opinion," he said, "Arab terrorism encourages Jewish terrorism." He is of course against Jewish terrorism. He's only explaining it and helping understand it. There's no need to provide explanations or to try to understand it, not the Jewish underground of the early 80s, Baruch Goldstein in the 90s, or the "price tag" hooligans in recent years. An understanding of this kind is more suitable for Baruch Marzel, not a political commentator on public radio.
The truth is that the commentator said something completely different: "Jewish terrorism encourages Arab terrorism." And that's interesting. Because support for Jewish terrorism is next to nonexistent. Yes, there are several hundreds of hooligans from the extreme right wing in Israel, and it's safe to assume they have several thousands of supporters, and if we exaggerate, we'll reach something that is less than one percent of the population. Compared to that, Palestinian support of the current wave of terrorism - meaning, slaughtering Jews with knives - is at 67 percent. Even Mahmoud Abbas stresses this is a "justified popular unrest." When a Jew is murdered in a terror attack, candy is being handed out on the Palestinian street. However, when a Palestinian child is murdered by a Jew, and this happens on average once every few years, 99 percent of Israelis are shocked, condemn it, and are feeling remorse. So saying Jewish terrorism encourages Arab terrorism is like saying an ant can carry an elephant.
But damn the facts. When the comment "Jewish terrorism encourages Arab terrorism" is said, it is seen as coming from among the enlightened, the thinkers, and the progressives. But when the opposite it said, that "Arab terrorism encourages Jewish terrorism," it is seen as coming from among the benighted. Both of these statements are benighted. Not just on the right, on the left as well.

BDS Discredits Itself

The boycott, divestment, sanctions movement has taken a special interest in Malaysia.
That’s not surprising since Malaysia is an aggressive violator of rights. Its Sedition Law permits the government to intimidate its critics, and for this and other reasons it’s press is rated “not free” by Freedom House. Anwar Ibrahim, a leader of the opposition, is serving a jail term for sodomy, “a charge seen as politically motivated,” according to Freedom House. Anti-Semitism is rampant and has received official encouragement. Freedom House also reports discrimination against homosexuals (“same-sex sexual relations are punishable by up to twenty years in prison”), Shiite Muslims (last year 114 Shiites were arrested while attending a religious ceremony), and women. Since BDS is eager to distinguish its attacks on Israel from attacks on Jews, and to define itself as part of a human rights movement, it is refreshing that it has turned its attention to Malaysia.
Sorry, my mistake. The Palestinian BDS National Committee does mention Malaysia prominently in its list of seven major achievements for 2014. But it mentions Malaysia only because a BDS coalition has been established there, as well as in Egypt. The penetration of BDS into anti-Semitic countries with poor human rights records is, from the standpoint of the BDS movement, an exciting sign of its growing international reach.
This is no anomaly. Prominent BDS activists, Ali Abunimah and Anna Baltzer, showed up and spoke at the “BDS for Justice” conference in Kuala Lumpur in September 2015. In her thirty plus minute address, Baltzer had nothing to say about Malaysia’s repression of its own citizens but did have the poor taste to complain before her Malaysian audience of the “state repression” BDS activists supposedly encounter in the U.S. Of course, since Baltzer was speaking at a Malaysian university, and Malaysia, according to the U.S. State Department, restricts academic freedom, “particularly the expression of unapproved political views,” Baltzer couldn’t say anything without risking the punishment of her hosts. Did I mention that one of the reasons BDS deems Israel, whose universities remain centers of dissent, deserving of boycott is its supposed indifference to academic freedom?

There are two things that I would like to see friends of Israel promote this year; the first is acknowledging the futility of any possible negotiated conclusion of hostilities between Israel and Palestinian-Arabs and the second is clearly articulating that although Israel remains a close ally with much of the West, it will also, as a matter of basic common sense and national well-being, pursue mutually-beneficial relations elsewhere.

Acknowledging the Futility of a Negotiated Conclusion of Hostilities

Anyone who is not hostile to Jews should acknowledge that the effort ulimately was pointless, because the Arabs do not want a negotiated conclusion of hostilities via a two-state-solution (TSS).

2016 should be the year that we finally bury Oslo and TSS.

I was a proponent of TSS ever since Clinton stood on the White House lawn with Yitzhak Rabin and that grinning terrorist, Yasser Arafat.

But those days are long gone. It is now time for Jewish people and the Israeli government to make it exceedingly clear to our frenemies that this particular phase of the Long Arab War Against the Jews is concluded.

It is a matter of learning from the past. We tried to settle things with the Palestinian-Arabs by offering them the entirety of Gaza, something close to all of Judea and Samaria outside of Israel "proper," with the eastern section ofJerusalem as a Palestinian-Arab capital, but that is not what they want. If the Arabs felt the need for another bloody Arab-Muslim theocratic-dictatorship they could have had that long ago. They could have accepted any number of offers thatcame their way since the Peel Commission, but they did not.

Instead they chose to sacrifice their own children because they honestly believe that any bit of land that at any time came under Muslim domination must, for theocratic reasons, remain under Muslim domination. This is basic Islamic doctrine and there is little that we can do about it.

In countries where Muslims dominate they will only accept Jews and Christians as dhimmis. This should not be a controversial statement because it could not be more clear. Anyone who cares about the well-being of the Jewish people, not to mention the Christians of the Middle East, and who has followed the conflict over the previous decades knows this in their bones because the Arabs have been good teachers. They simply will not accept free Jews in the Middle East. They do not even accept Jews as a people.

From a human rights perspective Israel treats Israeli-Arabs better than Arabs treat themselves. Nonetheless, they constantly scream to the heavens that their misery is the fault of an exceedingly generous, and long persecuted, people. They even managed to convince westerners that the source of Arab misery is the Jewish state.

This is unjust in itself, but what makes it morally insidious is that these westerners frame their hatred for Jewish autonomy and independence in the language of "social justice." Western children in the universities want to claimthat they are part of the lineage represented by Martin Luther King, Jr., despite the fact the MLK, himself, was a friend of Israel and despite the fact that Israeli Jews offer more social justice to their enemies than any people have ever done throughout human history.

So the question, as always, is what is to be done?

My growing inclination has been for Israeli unilateralism. Israel should declareits final borders, remove the IDF to behind those borders, and toss the keys over its shoulder.

In any case, Ted Belman is correct.

There is no diplomatic solution.

East Asia, India, and Friends

The people of North America are generally friendly toward the State of Israel.

It is hackneyed to say so, but we do share similar values. The Israeli government and the governments of the West are democratic and liberal. The hostile Arab-Muslim dictatorships that surround Israel are not. This being the case, Israel should endeavor to maintain good diplomatic, scholarly, and economic relationships with the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Nonetheless, Israel must diversify its economic relations. Europe, for reasons that should be entirely obvious, is becoming increasingly hostile to the Jewish state. The United States is starting along a similar path, but is maybe a decadeor two behind.

Thankfully, the non-Muslim parts of the Asian Pacific Rim have no particular history of anti-Semitism. Furthermore, this is the most economically aggressive section of the world today. In the coming decades China will really flex her financial muscle, you can be sure.

Given these circumstances it is wise for Israel to look eastward.

India is increasingly friendly and that, too, is for obvious reasons. For over acentury the West has longed for China to open its markets to western goods, but that has not really happened, at least in part because China has been a poor country.

This is changing, the USA is not the only show in town, and the Israelis know it.

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.

We are doing everything we can to fight for Israel with hard work, research and - above all - the truth. We need your help. Please donate today. If you have other skills you can volunteer for EoZ, send an email to volunteer@elderofziyon.com

Palestinians celebrate Tel Aviv terror with antisemitic cartoons

Here are some cartoons and photos going around Palestinian Arab social media in response to the New Year's Tel Aviv attack:

"How good it is to snipe two heads!" (pun on an Arab expression)

"Heroic Tel Aviv operation"

If 2015 was the year of the knife, many are now calling for 2016 to be the year of the bullets:

And here is a barber and his customer making an image of Arafat to mark 2016 (I originally thought it was the shooter)

But as more Arabs start shooting Jews, no Western "experts" will look at these as incitement. Just like they won't look at a Ma'an column today that is very proud of how the Tel Aviv terrorist murdered Jews as encouragement for more shooting attacks.

No, the "experts" will ignore the cartoons and articles praising terrorism (and the absence of any Palestinian media condemning Arab terrorism) and say this is all part of a "cycle of violence."

(h/t Ibn Boutros, Shai Alfasi)

The official PA news agency Wafa reports that residents of a village west of Jenin are complaining about wild boars that are running through their town, frightening their children.

They say that the Israelis released the boars through an iron gate in the separation barrier - or, in Wafa's words, the "wall of annexation and racial expansion."

The residents further say that the pigs are a threat to their lives and to their crops, besides the fear of the spread of swine flu.

They appealed to human rights organizations to stop the supposed Israeli practices of herding wild boars through the gate.

Many other Palestinian media outlets picked up this story.

Previously, Mahmoud Abbas himself had made the same accusations, along with the charge that Israeli residents raise wild dogs just to attack Palestinians. No reporter has ever asked him about this, just like reporters don't ask him a lot of questions that they would ask any Western politician who would say and do what Abbas does.

In the past, Palestinians have also accused Jews of not only releasing these boars but of actually raising them for no other purpose except to attack Palestinians. (The Talmud explicitly forbids Jews from raising swine, beyond all other non-kosher animals.)

The wild boar story, which has been around for many years, shows how the Palestinian media - especially its official media - have no regard for facts, and are dedicated to blaming all of their problems on the Jews.

Windsurfing officials incensed that Israel was effectively banned from Malaysian competition

From SurferToday:

Two Israeli windsurfers were refused immigration visas and were unable to compete in the 45th Youth Sailing World Championships in Langkawi, Malaysia.

Yoav Omer and Noy Drihan had won the Men's Under 19 and Women's Under 17 and Under 19 divisions at the RS:X Youth World Championships, in July 2015, but the Malaysian Government decided they were not welcome in the country.

Malaysia considers that Israeli has illegally occupied Palestine, and the diplomatic connections between both nations are inexistent. However, and according to the rules of World Sailing - the world's governing body for the sport of sailing - the organising host must ensure that all national sailing authorities can send their teams to participate on equal terms.

"We will raise this matter in World Sailing Committees and Council to ensure that World Sailing can and will enforce necessary actions in time, so we can hold the organising host of World Sailing Events responsible to the terms under which they were appointed," stated Hans Natorp, president of the Danish Sailing Association.

"It is furthermore our recommendation to the World Sailing Executive Committee to recognise that the participation at the 2015 ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship is non-representative and, therefore, consider, if the events status as an official world championship should be revoked."

As a result, Omer and Drihan were not able to defend their leading ranking positions. A healthy rivalry has censored for political reasons.

"We have three concerns. The first is for our sport. US Sailing believes that sailors of all nations are entitled to equal opportunity to compete. Our second concern is for all athletes. US Sailing feels strongly that sports and politics should not mix, and that athletes should not be used for political gain," adds Bruce J. Burton, president of US Sailing.

"Our third concern is for regattas going forward, specifically the ones that our athletes will participate in and those we host in the U.S. World Sailing must ensure that similar MNA breakdowns will not occur for every scheduled event on the World Sailing schedule."

SurferToday has decided not to publish the overall results of the 45th Youth Sailing World Championships, held in Langkawi, Malaysia. SurferToday believes that sport and politics don't mix - athletes of all regions of the world should never be banned from competition.

Sail World, another magazine, and New Zealand's sailing association are also incensed:

Sail World editor Richard Gladwell says the decision is outdated.

"They've used the tactics that we saw in the apartheid era to keep the All Blacks or the Maori out of rugby teams by basically putting visa restrictions on them."

Malaysia [drew] up a list of conditions for the Israelis to be considered for visas. It included no flying of the Israeli flag, no national emblem on their sails and no playing of the Israeli national anthem if they won a medal.

"Of course these conditions haven't been put on any other countries," Gladwell said.

"Imagine the uproar if New Zealand had these sorts of conditions and we had to go there as honorary Australians or something like that. It's just a completely unacceptable situation."

Yachting New Zealand's chief executive David Abercrombie said the Kiwi sailing organisation wanted to take action against the discrimination.

"I really believe that World Sailing have to step in here and make a stance because Malaysia or Lankawai haven't adhered to the rules set by World Sailing for holding an event of this nature."

Now Malaysia is also causing problems for Israel's table tennis team:

The next storm involving Israel, Malaysia and sport is already brewing, with the blue-and-white table tennis squad still waiting to receive visas for the World Table Tennis Championships to be held in Kuala Lumpur in February.

The Israeli association has been working with its Malaysian equivalent over recent months to solve the matter, but the issue has yet to be resolved.

When an opposition politicians in Malaysia criticized the decision to ban the athletes, the response was...interesting:

Veteran opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the Democratic Action Party (DAP) intends to sue a "senior political leader" for claiming it was offered RM1.2 billion (S$393.5 million) by Israel in exchange for building a naval base in Malaysia for use by Tel Aviv, should it win the general election.

The claim was made last week by Mr Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki, research director at an institute owned by Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS). The accusation of ties between the Chinese-based DAP and Israel, which has no diplomatic ties with Muslim-majority Malaysia, comes at a sensitive time for the party.

Last week, a DAP Perak leader was widely chided for condemning the government after it denied visas to two Israeli athletes due to take part in an international sailing event in Langkawi.

If you want to see real life examples of Israel Derangement Syndrome, Malaysia is a perfect place to start.

(h/t Charles)

The West Should Stop Apologizing for the Middle East

Review: Efraim Karsh, ‘The Tail Wags the Dog: International Politics and the Middle East’
If there is one proposition on which there is a consensus among Middle East experts—from academia to the media, and to politicians who echo them both—it is that the “root cause” of present problems in the region are the Western imperialists who imposed their will on its hapless indigenous peoples. According to this narrative, Western powers had been nibbling at the margins of the Ottoman Empire and seized on the opportunity offered by its siding with Germany in World War I. Secret agreements between imperialist powers determined new political boundaries without regard to the needs or interests of those who lived in the region, or to any promises made in the past.
As he did in his 1999 Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in Middle East (written with his wife Inari), Efraim Karsh, professor emeritus of Middle East Studies at Kings College, London and currently professor at Bar Ilan University, again turns the conventional wisdom on its head. He writes that Britain, France, and Russia begged the Ottoman Empire to stay out of World War I, promising to ensure the Empire’s survival if it did. Moreover, Karsh insists “the depiction of Muslims as hapless victims of the aggressive encroachments of others, too dim to be accountable for their own fate, is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth.”
The Western powers did play an important role, but the process “was nothing like the caricature portrayed by the standard historiography,” where Europeans and Americans sat at a table creating states. Rather, as the book’s title indicates, the tail often wagged the dog, with the resultant map and rulers, “the aggregate outcome of intense pushing and shoving … in which the local actors, despite their marked inferiority to the great powers, often had the upper hand.”

Tel Aviv shooting suspect identified as Nashat Milhem

Police on Saturday identified the suspected gunman in Friday’s shooting attack in Tel Aviv as Nashat Milhem, a 29-year-old resident of Arara, a village in Wadi Ara in northern Israel.
Security forces have known the identity of the suspect since Friday, but a gag order had prevented him from being named until Saturday evening.
Milhem, an Israeli Arab who was jailed for five years for a 2007 attack on a soldier, is suspected of shooting and killing two people and wounding seven more in Friday’s attack in central Tel Aviv. He was still on the loose on Saturday evening.
Haaretz reported an internal conflict within the security establishment over the decision to release Milhem’s name. While police pushed for its publication, believing revealing the suspect’s name and an up-to-date photo could help efforts to apprehend him, the Shin Bet internal security service prefered to continue working in a clandestine manner. Eventually it was decided to go forward with the publication.

Condition of 2 critically injured in TA attack improves

The condition of two victims critically injured in Friday’s deadly shooting attack in Tel Aviv slightly improved Saturday after one underwent emergency surgery for a bullet wound to the head, and the other for stomach injuries sustained in the incident. Two Israelis were killed in the attack.
One of the injured individuals, Ido Lazan, was treated at the Ichilov Hospital and, though still in serious condition, his life was no longer considered to be in danger. The second injured man, whose name was not published, remained hospitalized in Ichilov as well.
Five others were wounded in the attack, three in moderate condition and two with light injuries. The three people who sustained moderate wounds were taken to Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan, Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva and Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. All were said to have improved late Friday. The two who were lightly injured were released from the hospital by Saturday evening.
Two Israelis, Alon Bakal, 26, who was the manager of the Simta Bar targeted in the attack and Shimon Raimi, 30, from Ofakim, were killed in the attack.

01/01 Links Pt2: IDF reservists to sue Breaking the Silence for slander; Meet Brazil’s Settlers

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: No Lie Shall Prosper

How are you gonna fight the most common anti-Israel tropes, such as the oft repeated, “Israel is an Apartheid state?”
Let me tell you how: you go to the source. You go to people who actually lived under Apartheid, the brutal separation policy imposed on the blacks of South Africa from 1948-1994. That’s as opposed to people like Noam Chomsky, a white, privileged Jewish academic who likes to say that Israel is actually worse than South Africa under the Apartheid regime. Or Bradley Burston who is just bursting at the seams to lie about Israel in that Palestinian rag, Haaretz.
And you certainly wouldn’t go to the last white president of South Africa, de Klerk, who is looking for a way to make somebody, anybody worse than South Africa. Or Neve Gordon, one of those Jews who is just chomping at the bit to slander and smear his own people. Who does this leave?
It leaves Olga Meshoe, the founder and CEO of DEISI (pronounced “Daisy”) a group whose acronym stands for Defend, Embrace, Invest, Support Israel. It leaves her father, Reverend Kenneth Meshoe of the ACDP (African Christian Democratic Party), a South African political party that holds 3 seats in Parliament. It leaves Nongcebo Andile Cebe, a researcher at Greater Good, SA, and Tikvah Magadzi a former model, now of Hope, SA, a religious organization.

Israel and South African Apartheid

Israeli Settlers, Meet Brazil’s Settlers

Brazil says it will not confirm the Israeli ambassador-designate to the South American nation, Dani Dayan, because it does not want to “show support for the settlement enterprise,” for which Dayan has been an activist. But anyone familiar with Brazilian history knows that it has an extensive “settler” history of its own.
The Portuguese settler leader Pedro Alvares Cabral is said to have “discovered” Brazil in the year 1500, although the indigenous tribes living there since time immemorial no doubt saw things differently. The natives numbered at least several million people — divided among an estimated 2,000 tribes — but they were no match for European settlers carrying rifles and tuberculosis. Centuries of persecution, slavery, and exploitation of natural resources became the hallmarks of the Portuguese occupation regime. Before long, more than 90 percent of the natives had been wiped out.
As the years passed, a colorful array of additional Portuguese settlers duly arrived — traders, slave-dealers, Jesuit missionaries and more. The discovery of gold in the Minas Gerais region in 1693 was a cause for considerable excitement — except, that is, among the locals, who soon found their native lands overrun by hordes of speculator-settlers and all the unpleasantries that accompany a rapacious gold rush. The occupiers were not inclined to give the tribesmen a vote on any of that, of course.
Brazil’s surviving indigenous tribes today number only about 800,000, in a nation of more than 200 million settler-descendants. Sadly, the legacy of settler violence persists. Just last month, Amnesty International sent a letter to Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff — she’s the one said who she doesn’t want to “show support for the [Israeli] settlement enterprise” — charging her with mistreating the Guarani-Kaiowá indigenous people.

France’s Jewish Problems Are Not New

In other words, the long-standing claim that the puppet government in Vichy collaborated but occupied France resisted is untrue.
Neither was the Nazi-era just a moment of anti-Semitism in an otherwise good relationship . To the contrary, anti-Semitism is the norm in France, so much so that Susan Warner has written at the Gatestone Institute about “France’s Thousand Year War Against the Jews.”
The Dreyfus Affair arguably kicked off modern Zionism. In 1894, the French, Jewish artilleryman Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of handing military secrets to the German embassy in Paris. Amid a hysteria of explicit anti-Semitism, he was convicted in one of the great historical miscarriages of justice. He was later given a new trial and acquitted, then served honorably through WWI. The Dreyfus Affair was long considered Theodore Herzl’s instigation for reviving dreams of a Jewish return to Jerusalem, though some now dispute it.
As we will learn in greater detail once the recently released trove is incorporated into the historical record, Vichy and “occupied” France alike collaborated in the destruction of French Jewry in WWII.
Revelation of the scope and horrors of the holocaust dampened explicit anti-Semitism in France as in most of Europe in the post-War period, but the hiatus did not last long.

Caroline Glick: Obama’s constitutional overreach… and Israel

And yet now, as Iran daily humiliates Obama with its unbridled aggression, that senior administration officials chose to brag to Wall Street Journal reporters about how they spied on Israel in breach of Obama’s pledge not to spy on leaders of US allied nations. It is now, when Obama’s opening to Iran is a self-evident failure, that they chose to share how they broke US law by spying on US citizens and abused the president’s constitutional authority by spying on US lawmakers.
Hours after the Journal article was published, Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, announced that his committee will review how the NSA handled its intercepts of congressional communications with Israeli officials.
Certainly, the Intelligence Committee should aggressively pursue the issue. For the fact is that the administration’s arguably unconstitutional moves to block Congress from exercising oversight over Obama’s foreign policy is not limited to his nuclear outreach to Iran.
Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry said the climate change deal the US and the world powers concluded in Paris was drafted in a way that would deny Congress oversight power over the deal. In other words, a common thread linking the administration’s policies from the Middle East to the ozone layer is its desire to disempower Congress.
Israelis reasonably concentrate their attention on how stories affect them. So most of the discussion in Israel following the Journal’s report on Wednesday revolved around what the story means for the prospects of better relations with the administration in its final year in power.
But in truth, the story wasn’t really about Israel. It was about an administration so contemptuous of US lawmakers and citizens that its senior officials have no compunction about admitting that they are breaking the law. They brazenly admit that they are undertaking unlawful spying operations against private citizens and lawmakers and in so doing conducting a massive abuse of presidential powers while trampling the spirit and arguably the letter of the US Constitution.
And they expect that no one will call them to task for it.

The "Official Fateh 1965" Facebook page has been taken down. Ironically, it happened on the anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack.

It was taken down just like the one before it.

However, Fatah's Denmark Facebook pages are still up. They are advertising an event in Copenhagen on January 23 to celebrate the anniversary of their first terror attack.

Some Arab newspaper antisemitism for the new year

Algerian newspaper El Massa has what looks like a typical "Jews desecrating the Al Aqsa Mosque" article, but it manages to go further.

It claims that Binyamin Netanyahu said "The Jews are superior to any other race."

I must have missed that. Somehow, so did Haaretz and Mondoweiss, although they might now source it to this blog post.

He looks great for a 90-year old!

Meanwhile, Jordan's Assabeel says that the reason that Israel assassinated Samir Kuntar is because Jews were commanded to kill all their enemies - in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

In fact, a few years ago (we are told) Israel kidnapped Adolf Eichmann, an elderly 90-year old man, from Argentina, and executed him without a trial. Just following the Protocols.

Amazing what you can learn from the Arab news media.

01/01 Links Pt1: 2 killed, 7 wounded in TA shooting; US State Dept. Rep. defends stabbing Jews

From Ian:

2 killed, 7 wounded in Tel Aviv shooting attack; gunman on loose

Two people were killed and two others seriously wounded in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv just before 3 p.m. Friday. Five others were wounded — three in moderate condition and two with light injuries. Hours later, the killer was still on the loose.
Witnesses said some 15 shots were fired in the attack, apparently in semiautomatic bursts from a Carl Gustav submachine gun.
The shots were fired at locations near the city’s well-known Dizengoff Center Mall, an area that is crowded on Friday afternoons.
Eyewitnesses said the gunman fired into at least three establishments in the area — a bar, a restaurant and a cafe, and then fled. One of the cafe staffers said several people chased after him “but he disappeared” into a side-street.

ToI Live Blog: Massive hunt for gunman who opened fire in central Tel Aviv

David Horovitz: Who is the calm Tel Aviv killer, and why did he open fire?

As darkness fell, there were also reports of another man found with gunshot wounds in Tel Aviv. Police were not able to immediately say whether his injuries were connected to the Dizengoff area shootings.
Commentators noted that Hamas and Hezbollah have both threatened attacks against Israelis in recent days. But they also highlighted a handful of incidents in recent years of shooting attacks that were not Palestinian terrorism.
Security officials said footage of the attacks showed that the gunman could have killed more people if he had chosen to do so. On occasion, he halted his fire in mid-magazine, they noted. Was the gunfire deliberate or indiscriminate, therefore?
Eyewitness were adamant that the man one witness called “the smiling gunman” had fired indiscriminately. But as with many other aspects of the ongoing incident, the police were saying nothing definitive.

MEMRI: Michigan Activist Lina Allan Lambasts People who Prohibit Stabbing of Jews by Palestinians: It's Like Defending Animal Rights at Best

Dina Allen, a Palestinian-Jordanian activist who lives in Michigan, published a video in which she attempted to rebut the position of people who prohibit the stabbing of Jews by Palestinians. Allan called on these people to not talk about something they don't understand and to "go back to watching Turkish soap operas" instead. She added that objecting to the stabbing of Jews is like defending animal rights "at best." In 2011, Allan co-founded the Jordanian "Step & Mile" NGO, and in 2012, she represented the State Department's U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) in the Jameed Festival in Jordan, according to an interview she gave to the Jordanian Roya TV.

Egypt has returned the body of the disturbed Gazan, Ishaq Khalil Hassan, who was shot dead on video after he took off his clothes and waded into Egyptian territory last week.

Egypt's ambassador to the PA, Wael Nasr al-Din, blames Hamas for the incident.

He says that Hamas was responsible for patrolling the border and ensuring that no Gazans escape.

Al-Din said that shortly after this incident, Hamas stopped a family from Deir al Balah from trying to infiltrate Israel. He wondered ruefully which were Hamas' priorities, "the security of the Occupying Power or the security and sovereignty of an Arab state?"

He further claimed, in contradiction to the video, that the Egyptian patrols followed international law in their actions, first warning the victim verbally, and they by firing warning shots in the air, and then trying to shoot him in the legs but accidentally hitting him since it was difficult to shoot his legs while he was in the water. This is obviously not true, as the video clearly shows numerous gunshots hitting the water beyond Hassan.

The ambassador also complained about the camera that caught the Egyptian actions, saying that cameras aren't allowed in the area in the first place.

Hassan was upset over not being able to go to Egypt for treatment of leg injuries that occurred when he was shot during the Fatah/Hamas intrafada in 2007.

Egypt only allowed limited people to cross the Rafah border for 21 days in all of 2015.

Ma'an reports:

Hebron resident Suzan Jabir, who volunteers with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, told Ma’an that military checkpoints around the Ibrahimi mosque, the old marketplace and Jabir quarter have become site to more degrading treatment than had existed previously.

“Israeli occupation forces inspect every child, woman and young man” twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Suzan said.

“I have been inspected several times by Israeli soldiers, and when I requested that they bring a female soldier to inspect women, they refused and threatened to shoot me if I don’t comply with their orders,” Suzan told Ma’an.

While a sign in Arabic before each checkpoint reads “stop for inspection,” Suzan told Ma’an that Israeli forces stop people for hours and force them to face a wall motionlessly.

Suzan said that the forces “humiliate, kill and detain men, women, children and elderly people...the only pretext is the security obsession and alleged fear from stabbing attacks.”

Ma'an helpfully provides a video of three women being subjected to these "humiliating inspections" from male IDF soldiers.

And the video contradicts every one of Jabir's accusations and insinuations.

Each inspection takes less than a minute.
The women being inspected do not seem traumatized or even very inconvenienced.
There is no need for a woman inspector, because there is no physical contact at all.

Of course, the fact that so many stabbing attacks have occurred and some thwarted in Hebron belies her claim that the fear of terror is merely a "pretext" for "degrading treatment."

I have gone through equally humiliating treatment at concerts - being inspected with a metal detector wand and having my bag inspected.

This shows how trustworthy B'Tselem workers are.

As Putin wishes Netanyahu a happy new year; North Korea congratulates Abbas

JPost reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of 32 international leaders who was singled out to receive a holiday greeting this week from Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with the leaders of the United States, China, Japan, India, Brazil, Germany, Kazakhstan, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and others.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not make the list of those receiving Christmas and New Year’s greetings. In addition, neither the leader of Iran, nor any Arab country, was on the list put out by the Kremlin on Wednesday.

But don't cry for Mahmoud Abbas for not being greeted. He made up for it with a message of support for the 51st anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack, from "First Secretary of the National Defense Commission, the First President of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Supreme Commander of the People's Army, Marshal Kim Jong Nam."

That wasn't the only nation to publicly congratulate Mahmoud Abbas on the terror anniversary. Iraqi Vice President Iyad Allawi also sent Abbas a congratulatory note.

12/31 Links Pt2: When BDS Infiltrates Social Causes That Have Nothing to Do With Israel

From Ian:

This Is What Happens When BDS Infiltrates Social Causes That Have Nothing to Do With Israel

If intersectionality, as applied to Israel, sounds like a contrived excuse to blame the Jewish state for everything under the sun, that’s because it is. Anti-Israel circles understand that their cause isn’t even on the radar of the average college student. By hitching their wagon to issues with greater popular appeal, pro-Palestinian activists seek to expand their tent and build a coalition larger than the handful of students fanatic enough to spend their college years slandering Israel.
Ironically, this disturbing phenomenon is hardest not on conservative-leaning Jewish students, but on left-wing Jewish activists who don’t support BDS. Social justice work is increasingly seen as a “package,” and one cannot be for racial justice, gender equality or humanitarianism without also swearing allegiance to the cult of Israel-despisers.
Left-wing Jews hew to the same social vision as the progressive community – but Israel and BDS are thorns for those who still believe in Zionism. An anecdote is instructive. At Brown, where this author is a freshman, student groups organized several events around the Syrian refugee crisis. One of the events was to take place at Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream store, but had to be moved to a new venue after a member of Students for Justice in Palestine circulated a report accusing the ice-cream company of doing business in Israeli settlements. Jewish activists found it particularly uncomfortable being invested in this sundry activist cause while at the same time weathering the rising tide of anti-Israelism.
This discomfort is particularly dangerous because left-leaning young Jews are a weak link in the American-Jewish community’s relationship with Israel. As any exit poll can tell you, American-Jews do not, on the whole, vote based on Israel. American Jews vote for candidates who share their liberal social values. Thus, liberalism trumps pro-Israelism for most secular Jews. What will be when liberal Jewish students are forced to choose between their allegiance to Israel and their commitment to social justice? What will happen when not supporting BDS is seen as a fatal tribal weakness? The answer should frighten anybody concerned with the future of the Diaspora’s relationship with Israel.

The stench of imperialism

If anyone is still unsure that Europeans have difficulty coming to terms with the fact that Israel, as a sovereign nation, will not let the European Union meddle in its internal affairs, the debacle ‎over the NGO bill should remove all doubts.‎
Army Radio reported on Sunday that the EU furiously protested the ‎proposed legislation. According to the report, based on what Army Radio said was a leaked ‎internal EU document, EU Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen met with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked several weeks ‎ago. He called upon Israel to refrain from taking actions that will "make more complicated" the ‎space in which Israeli nongovernmental organizations operate, claiming that this would impinge on freedom of expression ‎and association. According to the report, the ambassador said that while the request for ‎transparency was legitimate, the draft law is aimed at organizations critical of the government. ‎‎
"This will have a negative impact on Israel's image and on Europe's relating to it as an open and ‎democratic society," he was quoted as saying. Faaborg-Andersen also reportedly said that placing ‎restraints on civil society is something "we see mostly in tyrannical regimes. We call on Israel to ‎remain in the family of democratic states and not to join this worrying trend."
Naturally, the EU is very unhappy with having its meddling in the internal affairs of Israel limited ‎in any way, especially since it has been able to do so with impunity up until now. However, to ‎claim that Israel would be breaching any human rights, such as freedom of expression or ‎association, by implementing the NGO bill is taking the hyperbole beyond all red lines.

UN Watch: The Top 10 Biggest UN Watch Moments in 2015

10. Head of Gaza Inquiry forced to resign
On the same day that the UN appointed William Schabas to head its Gaza probe, UN Watch released videos of his anti-Israel statements—and led a 6-month campaign demanding his removal. “I have opinions like everybody else about the situation in Israel,” Schabas insisted to the media, only “they may not be the same as Hillel Neuer’s or Benjamin Netanyahu’s, that’s all.” Yet by February 2015——after his paid legal work for the PLO was exposed—Schabas resigned in disgrace.
3. Under pressure, UNRWA suspends employees for incitement.
In an unprecedented acknowledgment of wrongdoing, UNRWA was recently forced to suspend several employees, after UN Watch published three reports documenting how UNRWA teachers regularly incite to racial hatred, anti-Semitism and terrorism on social media. UN Watch identified more than 30 perpetrators, and organized petitions to pressure key governments.
2. Top commanders refute UN Gaza Inquiry
When the UN inquiry into the 2014 Gaza war presented its biased report in June, UN Watch was there to respond with a counter-report, and gave a UN platform to top military experts. Major General Mike Jones and Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn from the U.S. military, and British Colonel Richard Kemp, all took the floor in the UN debate. The distorted findings of the UN probe—falsely accusing Israel of war crimes—were contrasted with those of the experienced military officers, who explained how Israel acted in self-defense, and to minimize casualties.