Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

01/05 Links Pt2: Let's boycott dictatorships, not Israel; Doctors Without Borders’ Anti-Israel Crusade

From Ian:

The Tragic Failure of the Arab World, and Why It's Bad for Israel

The 21st century is becoming increasingly characterized by Arab states coming apart at the seams or even completely crumbling, while jihadists are gaining footholds throughout Arab lands.
To compete with more developed nations, Arabs needed to address four challenges:
1. To create sovereign states with functioning national institutions that depend upon cooperative citizens.
2. To develop the capacity to produce technology, which would secure them a competitive position in the world economy.
3. To handle Islam in a way that would instill values to bring society together - like common identity and solidarity - but also neutralize the violent elements that look to restore the ways of the past.
4. To shake off the neocolonialist influence and involvement of superpowers, and act independently in the international arena.
In the West, the thinking tends to be that the toppling of an authoritarian regime might lead to the establishment of a democracy. However, bitter experience has shown that overthrowing the rulers prompts the whole system to collapse, and then the alternative is chaos. It turned out that while it's possible to topple a dictator, the proper foundations for fostering democracy in the aftermath - both conceptually and institutionally - were lacking.
The dizzying growth of the global economy is based primarily on knowledge. In most Arab countries, the level of scientific and technological know-how does not meet the levels required to support advanced, innovative means of production. Knowledge in the Arab world is not up to par because their schools and universities place too great an emphasis on memorization and rote learning.
In 2000, Islamist groups were small, underground factions with limited capabilities; by 2015, they had become large forces with military capabilities and cutting-edge weaponry, and were firmly established throughout Arab lands. The last 15 years have seen a series of mega-terrorist attacks throughout the world. During the last five years alone, there has been a stark increase in the number of casualties from Islamic terrorism.

Analysis: Doctors Without Borders’ Anti-Israel Crusade

The international medical organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF-Doctors Without Borders) prides itself on its neutrality, claiming to provide emergency assistance to people around the world regardless of their “race, religion, gender or political affiliation.” In practice, however, MSF consistently abuses its status as a humanitarian organization to launch venomous anti-Israel political campaigns. These attacks are entirely divorced from medical and health related issues, raising questions as to what its priorities and goals are.
The most recent manifestation of this phenomenon can be credited to MSF-France. The French branch of the organization recently launched an exhibition titled “In Between Wars,” serving as a mouthpiece for Palestinian propaganda. In it, MSF parrots the “Nakba” narrative that views the founding of the State of Israel as a catastrophe, thus delegitimizing the very existence of the Jewish state. Moreover, MSF romanticizes Palestinian violence by referring to images of “armed soldiers face[ing] young stone throwers or Molotov cocktails” as “icons symbolizing the struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation.”
Similarly, the exhibition portrays the living room of Palestinian homes as a place to pay tribute to “martyrs”—a term that whitewashes the murderous terror attacks many carried out against innocent civilians.
In response, Roger Cukierman, head of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, condemned the display as “an apology for terrorism…that could inflame antisemitic violence.”

HRC Op-Ed Published in Kingston Whig-Standard: “Deir Yassin ‘Misunderstood’”

In war, the saying goes, the first casualty is the truth. Referring to the battle to capture Deir Yassin during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, Louis Delvoie, a fellow in the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University, claimed in a recent column (“Terrorists and their causes,” Dec. 12) that Jewish militias committed “one of the most murderous terrorist attacks in the history of the modern Middle East” by intentionally killing “some 250 unarmed civilians, men, women and children, and threw their bodies into a well.” Importantly, there’s no evidence to confirm the veracity of Delvoie’s allegations.
Respected Middle East historian Mitchell Bard has observed that Deir Yassin “remains one of the most infamous, yet misunderstood, incidents in the history of Israel. During the battle, launched by the Irgun, approximately 100 Arabs were killed.”
As Steven Plaut, professor at the Graduate School of the Business Administration at the University of Haifa, noted: “Deir Yassin was a not-at-all-innocent Arab village sitting near the only road into Jerusalem in 1948. In the previous December, the UN had voted to partition what was left of Mandatory Palestine into two states, one a Jewish state and the other an Arab state to be named Palestine, of approximately equal sizes. The Jews of Israel accepted the plan, while the Arab states and the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected it. Had they accepted it, a Palestinian state would have arisen peacefully in 1948. In response to the UN resolution, Arabs launched attacks against Jews everywhere in the country and in particular placed the city of Jerusalem under siege. The Jewish population of Jerusalem was quite literally starving. The only road into the city passed through the area of Deir Yassin, and the Arab militiamen in the town were stopping all convoys from passing through.”
Israel’s path towards statehood, independence and the Jewish people’s right to self-determination was always hoped to be procured through diplomacy, not war. Israel, contrary to Delvoie’s assertions, did not “resort to terrorism in the fight for the creation” of the Jewish state.

Today's examples of Israel Derangement Syndrome

From Tasnim News Agency:

An American human rights activist believes Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was aimed at guaranteeing Israel’s security and Western economic plans in the region.

“As with Sheikh Zakzaky in Nigeria, Sheikh Nimr campaigned against the Saudi Wahhabi distortion of Islam and engineered division of the Muslim world along sectarian lines that did not exist prior to the Saudi propaganda, inflamed and fuelled by the West intent on partitioning the region to best serve Israel's security and Western economic and resource agendas,” Vanessa Beeley, with Syrian Solidarity Movement, told Tasnim on Monday.

A brief look at Beeley's Facebook and Twitter pages shows that she really loves these sorts of conspiracy theories.

For example, the CIA and Mossad are behind HRW and Amnesty:

And some group called the White Helmets (which may be this group of apparent Syrian search and rescue members) are highly connected to everyone:

It's in a picture so it must be true!

Beeley is joined in her pro-Iran, anti Sunni Israel-deranged rhetoric by a Shiite group in Kashmir:

A rally was taken out in Budgam town Monday which culminated in Imam Bara where pro-Islam, pro-Muslim unity, anti-Israel and anti-Saudi slogans were shouted. The rally was led by MLA Budgam and opposition National Conference leader, Aga Syed Rohullah.

"The imperialistic powers and Zionist lobbies are not only taking our advantage but are making every attempt to inflame this fire so that the Muslims get eliminated within. The entire Ummah has caught up in such a dark tunnel where no evidence of any light is seen," veteran Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani said.

There's always an Israeli angle.

(h/t Yenta)

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“Europe needs more inward migration, even though we don’t think we do – we’re an ageing, and shrinking, population. Somehow, peace will return to Syria, and it will be a just peace. Isis will, in the end, collapse. Europe will learn to welcome its refugees, and the land will be tilled again, and crops will grow, and the hungry will be fed and the poor will be lifted up.” So blogged London-based Canon Giles Goddard (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/6974) an Anglican vicar critical of the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England.

And again (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/1541) ‘Yesterday I was in France, and came back through the Eurotunnel terminal from Calais… I was shocked … by how different the terminal is from when I was last there a year ago. High fences topped with barbed wire are now all round the site, and it feels as if you are entering a fortress when you drive through to board the train… I remind you that we are making a collection for those in Calais this Sunday: Tricia says "we are asking specifically for men’s things: jeans, jumpers, training shoes, Bibles, games (scrabble, chess), toiletries etc., but I am sure a few women’s and children’s things wouldn’t go amiss" so do bring anything you have to church.’

This is the same well-meaning but naïve clergyman who earlier in the year that’s just ended caused uproar in the Church of England by contravening canon law with a full Muslim prayer service (an idiosyncratic, unrepresentative one at that: http://anglicanmainstream.org/inclusive-mosque-meets-to-pray-in-waterloo-church/ ) in his church and during proceedings asked his congregation to praise “the God that we love, Allah”. His pronouncements regarding the “refugees” ignore what is effectively an Islamic invasion of the European continent and a menace to Judeo-Christian values, and he appears to disregard the fact that according to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees an “asylum seeker” should apply for sanctuary in the first “safe country” he/she arrives in; manifestly, the hordes of mainly young males milling around Calais attempting to smuggle themselves into Britain have not complied with that expectation. The fact that they are young and male, with all that implies for the demographic future of Europe should ring alarm bells. As for those Bibles so earnestly solicited, I’d hazard a guess that there are unlikely to be many grateful takers.

In his admirably lucid and much-recommended book The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom, the Australian scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie, himself an Anglican clergyman, notes that “Classical Islamic law did not allow non-Muslims who lived in an Islamic state to gain a deep understanding of Islam … Today there can be considerable pressure upon non-Muslims not to investigate the primary sources of Islam for themselves, but to refer all their questions about Islam to a Muslim expert. Interfaith dialogue is an increasingly important forum for exploring Islam in Western countries, and these forums tend to follow principles of mutual respect, listening attentively to the other party and accepting their interpretations of their own faith. While this is a common-sense approach to sustaining productive and mutually satisfying relationships between people, it does however tend to have the same impact as traditional Sharia restrictions, inhibiting non-Muslims from studying about [sic] Islam for themselves … One very good reason why Christians should study Islam for themselves is that Islam defines its spiritual identity, not merely in terms of Muslims’ standing before Allah, but in opposition and contrast to Jews and Christians. This self-definition includes a deep rejection of Christianity and Judaism. It is a sad fact that incitement against non-Muslims, and specifically followers of Biblical faiths, is an integral part of Islam, being hard-wired into the Quran and Sunna.”

Such knowledge would empower non-Muslim congregations when listening to addresses like this at Canon Goddard’s church (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/1516) and this ill-conceived fiasco (http://jewsdownunder.com/2014/06/21/melbourne-jewish-temples-interfaith-deception/) at Australia’s largest Progressive Jewish synagogue, for example.

Back to the “refugee” issue. It might be natural for Jews, mindful of their own tragic history, to side with people fleeing persecution. As a perusal of the Jewish Chronicle shows, among the British Jews vocally championing the argument that Britain should strive strenuously to accommodate those displaced by the current upheaval in the Middle East are Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Sir Mick Davis, who heads the (unelected) Jewish Leadership Council. But for every genuine refugee family there are single males, mainly young ones, trying to take advantage of porous borders for their own ends.

An article every bit as naïve as Canon Goddard’s, and disturbingly tendentious, appeared a few months ago in Britain’s odious Israel-baiting Guardian newspaper (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jewish-people-calais-migrants-kindertransport-children-nazis). Its author, Rabbi Laura Janner Klausner, daughter of a Labour life peer, did not speak for all Jews, though she gave the impression she did: ‘For the Jewish people, for thousands of years a dispersed nation without guaranteed safety, the sight of the Calais “jungle” camp on our doorstep is especially painful. We remember with gratitude the great deeds of the Kindertransport, and with hurt the rejection we have also known. What is the Jewish response to hearing that thousands are living in squalor just a few miles away? When we look across the English Channel, we see ourselves.’

No, Laura, not so; rather, some of us know a ruse and a threat when we see one. The present situation at Calais, where young economic migrants determined to get to Britain cluster and try to hide aboard cross-Channel transport, is not analogous to the plight of Jews desperate to escape the Reich. Nor will there be any supportable analogy between them and those refugees if and when they manage to penetrate Britain’s coasts. We align ourselves with the welfare of the British Isles.

As Daniel Greenfield observes (http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261127/lefts-muslim-replacement-theology-jews-daniel-greenfield) there’s grave danger in too nice a naïveté:

"Muslims are the new Jews. You can find this offensive claim repeated everywhere in the media. The Jews, a small ethnic minority of millions that was stateless for thousands of years, are a terrible analogy for a global Muslim population of 1.6 billion and around 50 countries that do not comprise a single ethnicity or race… The only thing the Muslims and the Jews have ever had in common is that the former conquered, persecuted and enslaved the latter. Any religious similarities are the product of Muslim cultural appropriation of Jewish beliefs and any cultural similarities are the result of Muslim colonization... In this twisted historical revisionism, the Jews, a beleaguered minority hanging on to a country slightly bigger than Fiji, who have spent the last 40 years cutting pieces off their small slice of the world to hand over to the region’s massive Muslim majority in the hopes of being left alone, are the new Nazis... The constant claims that Muslims are the new Jews carry with them a whiff of progressive replacement theology. The old Jews have been found wanting. Setting up a country and defending it against Muslim terrorism made them bad victims. The Muslims are superior replacement victims. They have the right to Israel and to Jewish history...."

Naïve well-meaning Jews, and Christians, would do well to heed his words.

01/05 Links Pt1: PA and Fatah: Israel steals organs of dead terrorists; Fight Ideology — Not Terrorism

From Ian:

PMW: PA and Fatah: Israel steals organs of dead terrorists

As the Palestinian wave of terror attacks against Israelis continues and more terrorists are killed while attempting to murder Israelis, the PA and Fatah have revived an old libel, often documented by Palestinian Media Watch, which claims that Israel steals body parts from the dead terrorists before handing them over to the PA.
Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Muhaisen stated on PA TV that Israel's takes whatever organs it needs:
Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Muhaisen: "There are Israeli testimonies acknowledging that organs are being taken from the bodies of young Martyrs. While the body is with the Israelis, organs are taken according to Israel's needs, and afterwards they hand over the body [to the PA] with conditions... including not allowing the body to be autopsied, in order to cover it up."[Official PA TV, Dec. 27, 2015]
The Palestinian ambassador to Bahrain Khaled Aref added to the allegations, saying Israel trades in the stolen organs: Israel "steals the Martyrs' organs, and sells them," he said. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2015]

Fatah official: Israel steals organs from “Martyrs” and forbids Palestinians to do autopsies

Caroline Glick: The return of the rule of law

Last October, as the Palestinians began their latest round of terrorist war against Israel, lawmakers from the Joint Arab List participated in mass anti-Israel rallies in major Arab towns. One such rally in Nazareth in mid-October attracted some 2,500 participants. After it ended, some demonstrators started throwing rocks at Jews.
The next day, MK Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint Arab List stood on a street in Nazareth and gave a live interview to Channel 2 news.
Just as the camera began filming, Nazareth Mayor Ali Salam drove down the street. Seeing Odeh, Salam stopped his car and began bellowing, “Get out of here! Enough of your interviews. Go ruin things somewhere else!” Odeh tried lamely to get the camera to stop filming. But Salam continued shouting.
“You guys ruined the city. I’m the mayor… there wasn’t even one Jew here today. Not even one! What are you being interviewed about? What are you doing to us?... You had a march, you guys torched the world. Shut up! Leave! Move it!” Salam’s outburst did not come out of nowhere. He was voicing the frustration that most Israeli Arabs feel towards their Knesset representatives who spend far more time demonizing Israel than advancing the interests of Arab Israelis inside of Israel.
According to the latest detailed survey of Arab Israelis published in November by Prof. Sami Smooha, 60 percent of Israeli Arabs do not trust their representatives in the Knesset. Two thirds of Israeli Arabs say that their Knesset representatives are not advancing their interests.
A full 80% of Israeli Arabs believe that it is the job of the Arab members of Knesset to advance their communal interests rather than concentrate on political war against Israel.

Jews and Palestinians — The difference between us and them

The survey, which was carried out by Dr. Khalil Shikaki among a random sampling of some 1,270 Palestinians adults, firmly puts to rest the assertion that only a small fraction of our foes support violence and terrorism against innocent civilians.
The numbers speak for themselves: A whopping 67 percent of Palestinians – two out of every three! – support stabbing attacks against Israelis.
Think about that for a moment. It means that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians see absolutely nothing wrong with the act of picking up a knife and plunging it into another human being simply because he or she is an Israeli Jew.
This is not a matter of moral cowardice, it is a collective descent into depravity.
Of course, every society has its fringes, those who embrace immoral or destructive behavior. But when such immorality becomes the norm, when tormenting the innocent is considered a socially acceptable path, then how can one possibly even consider making peace with such people? The study also revealed that 60% of Palestinians support a return to an armed intifada and that 66% believe that such a violent uprising would “serve Palestinian national interests.”
This data indicates the extent to which carnage and bloodshed are viewed as being legitimate tools of political expression by Palestinian society.

NYT article on Haifa still employs historical revisionism

The New York Times published a story by Diaa Hadid about how liberal Arabs are thriving in Haifa, able to live lifestyles that are literally impossible for Arabs anywhere else in the region.
“If you are in an Arab neighborhood, you have a community. If you live in a Jewish neighborhood, you are a stranger, and that gives you freedom as an Arab woman,” said Fidaa Hammoud, 32. “There are many de facto couples, and older women living alone without having to hear gossip.”

Ms. Hammoud moved to Haifa in 2011 after studying speech therapy for four years in Barcelona, Spain. She and her partner live together in a Jewish neighborhood where they run a Palestinian cafe called Rai. “I couldn’t do this anywhere else,” she said.

Already the haters are upset because the article is not 100% anti-Israel. They are saying that this article is "pinkwashing" and the reporter "censored" most of the interviews with one person, which is what reporters do with nearly every interview they ever make.

Whatever.

But the article includes this paragraph:

For some, the blossoming Palestinian scene in Haifa is reminiscent of the city during British rule, when a lively Arab cultural life flourished. Much of that ended in 1948 with the war in which Israel was established, when Arabs fled, or were forced to leave, their homes in many cities, including in Haifa, said Mustafa Kabha, a lecturer in Palestinian history at the Open University of Israel.

As far as I know, no Arabs were forced to leave Haifa in 1948. But Arab leaders explicitly instructed Haifa's Arabs to leave while Jewish leaders pleaded for them to stay.

As historian Benny Morris has written:

It is true, as Erskine Childers pointed out long ago, that there were no Arab radio broadcasts urging the Arabs to flee en masse; indeed, there were broadcasts by several Arab radio stations urging them to stay put. But, on the local level, in dozens of localities around Palestine, Arab leaders advised or ordered the evacuation of women and children or whole communities, as occurred in Haifa in late April, 1948. And Haifa's Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levy, did, on April 22nd, plead with them to stay, to no avail.

Tens of thousands of Haifa Arabs voluntarily left because their leaders refused to abide by the demands of a truce after the fighting. From the Palestine Post, April 23, 1948:

Note the terms that Arab leaders felt were so onerous. essentially, they said that if they don't have the right to kill Jews, they would rather force their entire community to leave.

And here is a remarkable article from the Palestine Post from May 9, 1948, that describes the life of a Haifa Arab family that decided to stay despite the pressure:

The NYT piece had one other interesting tidbit:

Haifa in the 1930s and ’40s, he said, “had clubs, cafes, hotels, theaters and newspapers” for Arabs, including the Sham Cafe, where Syrian and Lebanese workers met, and the Port Cafe, for workers from the city’s busy port.

The descendants of those "Syrian and Lebanese workers" are now considered "Palestinian refugees" according to UNRWA's definition: “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict” - and their descendants.

Thousands of the Arabs who fled British Mandate Palestine at the beginning of the war in December 1947 fled precisely because they were from elsewhere, especially the Lebanese but also Egyptians and Syrians. But if they were working in a Haifa port, for example, then they are now part of the pseudo-nation of "Palestinians."

(h/t Ahron Shapiro)

PLO delegate to US: Israel using "new type of lethal bullets"

From the Twitter account of Maen Areikat, PLO delegate to the US:

Oooh, a new type of lethal bullets! Clearly regular bullets aren't lethal enough for the bloodthirsty Zionists. Are they made out of depleted uranium? Or sprinkled with magic Zionist fairy dust? Perhaps coated in lard, causing extra spiritual pain?

Reuters' Dan Williams acted the way a reporter should:

Please expand on your method for determining that 85% figure. Also, what is the new ammunition to which you refer? https://t.co/zKnSF93mct
— Dan Williams (@DanWilliams) January 4, 2016

Areikat responded:

@DanWilliams : I will be more than happy to provide that information to you shortly. Thanks
— Amb Maen Areikat (@Amb_Areikat) January 4, 2016

This was yesterday. We are all still waiting for the information.

Now, if Areikat fails to respond, or responds with similar gibberish, will Dan Williams write the story about how PLO officials make things up? I would be very surprised if Reuters publishes something like this, even if Williams did write it up.

(h/t Ian)

Facebook takes down anti-Palestinian page, allows IDENTICAL anti-Jewish page

A must see video of the The Great Facebook Experiment, by Shurat HaDin.

The "Stop Israelis" page is still up although it appears that the specific post against Jews has been taken down. But that happened after this was publicized.

(h/t Yenta)

01/04 Links Pt2: Defending Israel to Diaspora Jews at Limmud; The Truth is Not Enough

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: The Middle East’s 30 Years’ War just took a turn for the worse

In January 2014, Douglas Murray explained in The Spectator how relations in the Middle East were becoming increasingly tense. With Saudi Arabia having now cut diplomatic relations with Iran, Douglas’s insight seems prescient.
Syria has fallen apart. Major cities in Iraq have fallen to al-Qa’eda. Egypt may have stabilised slightly after a counter-coup. But Lebanon is starting once again to fragment. Beneath all these facts — beneath all the explosions, exhortations and blood — certain themes are emerging.
Some years ago, before the Arab ‘Spring’ ever sprung, I remember asking one top security official about the region. What, I wondered, was their single biggest fear? The answer was striking and precise: ‘That the region will clarify.’ That is a fear which now appears to be coming true.
The Middle East is not simply falling apart. It is taking a different shape, along very clear lines — far older ones than those the western powers rudely imposed on the region nearly a century ago. Across the whole continent those borders are in the process of cracking and breaking. But while that happens the region’s two most ambitious centres of power — the house of Saud and the Ayatollahs in Iran — find themselves fighting each other not just for influence but even, perhaps, for survival.
The way in which what is going on in the Middle East has become a religious war has long been obvious. Just take this radio exchange, caught at the ground level earlier this month, between two foreign fighters in Syria, the first from al-Qa’eda’s Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS], the second from the Free Syrian army [FSA]. ‘You apostate infidels,’ says the first. ‘We’ve declared you to be “apostates”, you heretics. You don’t know Allah or His Prophet, you creature. What kind of Islam do you follow?’ To which the FSA fighter responds, ‘Why did you come here? Go fight Israel, brother.’ Only to be told, ‘Fighting apostates like you people takes precedence over fighting the Jews and the Christians. All imams concur on that.’

Honest Reporting: The Truth is Not Enough

First, and most importantly, we must turn uninterested parties into interested parties. Public education on all aspects of Israel, including those utterly unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is one of the best ways to foster emotional and intellectual connections to Israel. Even better, BDS protests against such efforts to raise awareness about Israel are utterly ineffective. First, they reveal how very petulant the BDS movement is. For example, at Columbia University, where I am a student, pro-boycott groups flyered the campus in protest of an effort to raise awareness of Israel’s humanitarian efforts abroad. Even an uninterested and uneducated party can see how utterly ridiculous such “protests” are. Second, the response of anyone intrigued by public debate or “controversy” over Israel is to Google “Israel.” Here, the truth once more becomes important, and HonestReporting’s efforts pay the greatest dividends. Our hypothetical Googler will undoubtedly stumble across many different articles on Israel, and it is crucial that he or she finds facts, not bias.
Of course, there are some people who will never be reached by educational efforts, but they too can be swayed. Since we can’t bring Israel to the foreground for these people, we must instead bring it into the background, to make it so normal and pedestrian that boycotting or demonizing it becomes outlandish, rather than the default position. Put another way, no store owner would give the time of day to anyone asking for a boycott of say, Portuguese products, no matter how loud the boycotters were. Uninterested parties must see Israel as just a normal highly-developed Western country, before BDS starts its aggressive demonization efforts. BDS wants to make Israel “special;” we must work to keep Israel normal. This is a subtle and difficult effort, which can range from ensuring the widespread availability of products with the “Made in Israel” label, to things as subtle as making sure Hebrew, or an Israeli flag, is featured in any display of flags or languages. As silly and odd as it may sound, this sort of background messaging is perhaps the only way to keep uninterested parties from being swayed by loud lies.
Neither of these two efforts detracts from the fact that, as mentioned before, the truth about Israel is incredibly important. Honesty, accuracy, and fairness in discussions about Israel are essential in protecting the country from the pernicious and persistent efforts to slander and destroy its image, and without the truth, no amount of effort can protect Israel from its enemies. Equally, however, the truth on its own is not enough in a world that largely doesn’t care about a tiny country with a small population. Only by combining the truth with education and normalization can friends of Israel arrest the tide of demonization and slander against the Jewish state.

Defending Israel to Diaspora Jews at Limmud

I spent the last days of 2015 meeting with British Jews in Birmingham. Along with many presenters from different countries and professional fields, I had been invited to participate in a Limmud conference, a multi-annual — and by now multi-continental — Jewish happening.
The topics on my agenda were ostensibly varied: the viability of a two-state solution; flaws in the Israeli political system; Israel-US relations in the wake of the Iran deal; the cause and effect of the knife intifada; and whether antisemitism is sufficient impetus for immigration to Israel. Still, they all came down to basically the same debate — the extent of Israeli culpability in local and global affairs.
The Paris attacks were still fresh in everyone’s mind, and the heightened security in other European capitals was so palpable that it made Israel’s pale in comparison — as reports on the cancellation of public New Year’s Eve celebrations indicated. Nevertheless, the atmosphere at Limmud was upbeat. Attendees spent good money to live in not-so-luxurious conditions at a hotel repurposed to house the dozens of simultaneous lectures, classes, singles’ events and entertainment for both adults and children. This was a crowd of some 2,500 Jews who could have spent the week after Christmas doing anything they chose. And they opted to spend it reinforcing their sense of community and dedication. Impressive doesn’t begin to describe it.
So far so good. Except for the sad specific reason that I and a handful of like-minded people from Israel and abroad were brought there by one of the members of the organizing committee: to serve as the only voice not singing in the predominantly left-wing choir. (h/t Jewess)

B'Tselem volunteers seem to be somewhat less than credible

Commenter Bob Knot looked a little deeper into my story this morning about a Hebron girl who tripped and hurt her mouth, and her father who claimed that she was being chased by a Jewish settler who did nothing to her after she tripped.

He discovered that the father was a B'Tselem volunteer. Here he is with a B'Tselem issued camera, and he has provided B'Tselem with many stories of Hebron.

On Friday, I reported about a B'Tselem volunteer who made wild claims about how Israelis are humiliating Palestinians at checkpoints, but the accompanying video shows no such abuse.

A year ago we showed how a B'Tselem worker who made up facts about an incident he "witnessed" and was proven to be an avid supporter of violence and terror.

And, of course, in 2014 a B'Tselem worker was caught on video denying the Holocaust.

It sounds like B'Tselem doesn't vet its volunteers to ensure that they adhere to the truth-telling and peace-loving standards of the organization.

Or perhaps B'Tselem actively seeks Israel-hating liars to fill its reports and justify its existence to the EU funders who love to throw money at anything that is anti-Israel.

Here are the best original EoZ posts of 2015, according to commenters (especially AlexandreM.).

As a dry run for the Hasby Awards categories that I will allow people to vote on, here is a poll that you can vote for the best posts.

Vote for your favorite!

feedback surveys

UPDATE: AlexandreM had one other post which he nominated too late for this survey, but which I will post here for posterity:

Time chooses Jerusalem as a top city - despite the desires of the US, UN, EU, Arab League...

01/04 Links Pt1: Toameh: Palestinian Leaders Promise a New Year of Violence and Death

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Leaders Promise a New Year of Violence and Death

Instead of wishing Palestinians a happy and prosperous New Year, both Fatah and Hamas are asking their people to prepare for increased violence and "resistance," including suicide bombings, against Israelis.
Fatah's armed wing used the occasion to issue yet another threat: "We will continue in the path of the martyrs until the liberation of all of Palestine."
Masked Palestinians in Bethlehem attacked several restaurants and halls where New Year's Eve parties were supposed to take place. The assailants, eyewitnesses reported, were affiliated with Abbas's Fatah faction, not Hamas.
Hamas banned Gazans from celebrating New Year's Eve, saying such parties are "in violation of Islamic teachings." Hamas does not want young Palestinians enjoying their time in restaurants and cafes. Instead, Hamas wants them to join its forces, armed and dressed in military fatigues, preparing for jihad against Israel.

PMW: PA TV: Europe created Israel to "get rid of" the corrupt, scheming Jews

As part of this month's 51th anniversary celebrations of the Fatah movement, PA TV rebroadcast a documentary on the history of Fatah. The film entitled "Fatah: Revolution until Victory," includes a section showing a fundamental aspect of Palestinian Authority Antisemitism. The film was previously broadcast on PA TV in 2013 and 2014.
The Fatah film opens with classic demonization of Jews:
"[Europe] suffered a tragedy by providing refuge for the Jews... Faced with the Jews' schemes, Europe could not bear their character traits, monopolies, corruption, and their control and climbing up positions in government." [PA TV, Dec. 31, 201]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that a basic component of PA historical revision is to deny there was any Jewish history in the Land of Israel. To explain why millions of Jews would immigrate to the Israel without a historical connection the PA claims that Zionism was not a Jewish idea but rather a European idea. And it was created by Europeans, not to return Jews to their homeland, but to get rid of the scheming and corrupt Jews who, according to PA ideology, caused Europe so much suffering.
The film explains that England, France, Germany, Austria, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Spain and Italy, all expelled Jews because they suffered from the Jews' presence. Finally, when the Balfour Declaration facilitated the establishment of "a national homeland" for the Jews, Europe supported it because it "saw it as an ideal solution to get rid of them."

PMW: Antisemitic hate speech on PA TV

Mahmoud Abbas' official Palestinian Authority TV continues to disseminate Antisemitic hate speech. Recently, PA TV broadcast a young girl reciting a story which taught that treachery is an inherent part of the nature of the Jews. The girl recited that Jews and Arabs used to be friends but that "the foreigners came to expel us." She then added that this was not surprising because "treachery has been their nature from the days of Moses until today":
“This home was our father’s home, and the foreigners came to expel us. Long ago we were dear friends. Yona [the Jew] helped Fatima [the Arab] with the laundry and Fatima boiled milk for her, and lit the fire for her on the Sabbath. It does not surprise us [that they expelled us]. Treachery has been their nature from the days of Moses until today. May Allah turn back every oppressor’s scheme. Say Amen with me.” [Official PA TV, Dec. 24, 2015]
Palestinian Media Watch has reported frequently on PA sponsored Antisemitism even coming right from top of PA leadership. Abbas’ advisor taught in a sermon, televised on PA TV, that Jews represent "evil", and that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is "Allah's project vs. Satan's project."

Palestine Press Agency reports that 70 Gazans are being diagnosed with cancer every month. West Bank Arabs are also getting more cancer, with an increase of 40% in cancer diagnoses between 2010 and 2014.

While the article mentions that things like the high rate of smoking among Palestinians (22% of all adults) and the use of chemical pesticides in farms may account for some of this increase, it spends three paragraphs saying that Israel could be to blame for much of it.

Because Israel is accused of using depleted uranium in the recent wars in Gaza.

In 2009, the IAEA said that it would investigate claims that Israel used DU in the first Gaza war. Israel said it would cooperate with the investigation. I cannot find any results.

One NGO claimed to have found evidence of a ridiculous 75,000 kg of DU dropped in Gaza. That study was released by the impartial sounding "Action of Citizens for the total Dismantling of Nukes" and paid for by the Arab Commission on Human Rights. The study itself is a joke and provides no evidence at all. Which tells you a lot more about how NGOs can create whatever they are asked for rather than a reflection of any facts.

I've also investigated a report that Israel used DU in a Syria airstrike, and found that the claims were simply made up.

Yet Arabs keep making the accusation, and over time it gains currency among the usual haters and no one actually does any investigations.

Why Israel's alleged use of DU in Gaza would increase cancer among Arabs in the West Bank is just one of those mysteries that another NGO will need to find a reason for. Perhaps they will discover that Jews are poisoning the wells.

Hold the presses! An Arab girl tripped and fell! Jews to blame!

The most read story in English at Ma'an comes from last Tuesday, with the headline "7-year-old chased by notorious Israeli settler in Hebron."

A Palestinian father living in Hebron’s Old City told Ma’an that his 7-year-old daughter was injured while being chased by notorious Israeli extremist Baruch Marzel on Monday.

Raed Abu Irmeileh said that he had to take his daughter, Dana, to the Hebron Governmental Hospital “after she had fallen to the ground while being chased by Baruch Marzel near the Ibrahimi mosque.”

Irmeileh told Ma’an that Israeli forces present in the area did not stop Marzel from chasing his children, and assaulted his 10-year-old son Hutasem as well as two brothers Nabil, 14, and Farhat Nader al-Rajabi, 10.

An Israeli army spokesperson did not have immediate information on the incidents.

Ma'an Arabic had a follow up on the horrible details of the story. Dana and her sister were shopping when Marzel allegedly screamed at them. Dana, frightened, ran away and tripped and fell. Her father Raed heard her screams and ran out of his house to see her on the ground, her lip bloodied, surrounded by Israeli soldiers and Marzel.

The father took the girl to an ambulance which whisked her to the hospital, where her injuries are detailed:

Dr. Khalil Pope, specialist in Ear Nose and Throat surgery, described the status of the girl child as moderate and said that the wound caused by the assault led to a simple cut between the her upper gum and upper lip. The area needs to be treated for a period of ten days and there should be follow-up visits for the next two months.

The followup story does not mention anything about her brothers who were supposedly "assaulted" by Marzel.

If Marzel was chasing her, why didn't he do anything once he caught her?

So, here is what seems to have really happened: A girl fell down in Hebron and hurt her mouth. Soldiers and one Jew went over to see why she was screaming. Her father (or maybe she) made up a story about being chased by the scary Jew. The father, knowing that there are ambulances every few meters in Hebron just waiting to whisk away any injured Palestinian, grabs her and sends her to the hospital for an injury that school nurses handle thousands of times every day.

And this is an international incident because it happened in Hebron..

Here are Dana's injuries immediately after the incident:

Here is the girl getting lots of attention for the incident:

And here she is, several hours later, with her sister who witnessed the traumatic event but didn't run:

Ma'an isn't the only news outlet to cover this important story. Tanzim news agency also had an exclusive picture of the girl in the ambulance:

A Norwegian newspaper featured the article. Mondoweiss did, too.

Americans for Peace Now were so moved by this story that they published it in their daily news bulletin.

Now Dana has learned a lesson: If you hurt yourself, nothing fun happens. But if you blame Jews for getting a small cut, you get rewarded with international attention and newspaper articles written about you. Photographers ask you to pose for photos and you become famous.

This isn't a story about Jewish abuses in Hebron. It is a story about how anything that can be blamed on Jews will be magnified and distorted beyond recognition in pursuit of the narrative of Palestinian victimhood.

On at least ten occasions since 2007, PA president Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to dismantle the Palestinian Authority if Israel did not accede to various demands.

In virtually every case, the threat was delivered to a Western media outlet, and it caused headlines about how terrible it would be for Israel and therefore Israel should do everything Abbas demands in order to forestall such a terrible situation.

During Abbas' December 31 speech on the 51st anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack, however, Abbas made clear that he never had any intention to dismantle the PA.

Towards the end of the speech, he said "For those who are betting on the collapse of the Authority, it is not on the table. [The PA] is one of the gains and achievements of our people on the road to rebuilding our national institutions based on the rule of law, national identity, and independence."

In other words, Abbas has proven what we knew all along: he uses threats to try to get what he wants rather than by negotiating like an actual leader.

Abbas proved his inability to lead in another section of the speech as well.

He cemented his desire to ensure that there would never be any territorial compromise with Israel. Instead of saying that the government might have to make painful decisions for peace, as every Israeli leader has admitted, Abbas gave his people veto power over any agreement, saying that "all crucial decisions concerning the future of our land and our people, the permanent national rights in our land and our Christian and Islamic holy spaces, will be subject to a referendum, as well as a vote by the National Council, because our people who have given enormous sacrifices are the owners of the state and the source of authority."

This would mean, for example, that any peace plan that allows Jews to remain in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem or that gives Jews rights over the Western Wall would be subject to veto by people who have been taught since birth (by the Palestinian leadership) that Jews have no history or rights in the land.

Abbas further praised the "innocent martyrs" of the current wave of attacks against Jews in his speech on the terror anniversary.

This speech was virtually unreported in the West. It was not translated by the official PA news agency into English. Al Jazeera featured it in its Arabic edition but not in English.

Abbas' intransigence has once again been swept under the rug because the truth just doesn't jive with the carefully constructed meme of him as a man of peace. While Netanyahu's words are parsed and dissected endlessly by Israeli and Western media to prove their assumption that he is a racist warmonger, Abbas' words ensuring that there can never be peace with Israel and praising terrorists are simply ignored by the media, by "peace" NGOs - and by every government in the world save one.

Jordanians still struggling to figure out how to ban land sales to Jews

All of Jordan seems to be obsessed with the idea that Jews might buy land in Petra.

Here are auto-translated Arabic headlines from three different news articles from Sunday.

Assabeel:

Watan:

Ammon News:

Not "Zionists." Not Israelis. They want to make sure that they can ban Jews from buying the land, but they don't want the law to say "Jews" so they are trying various formulations like not selling to "non-Arabs."

As we've mentioned, they fear that Jews are going to buy the land and then claim it as part of the ancient Jewish homeland (which indeed, it is, but no one I am aware of is serious about claiming it.)