Tuesday, January 19, 2016

01/19 Links Pt1: Shapiro’s Delegitimization Speech; Father of terrorist murderer 'proud' of his son

From Ian:

Ambassador Shapiro’s Delegitimization Speech

Like the other speakers at the conference, Shapiro condemned the above. Briefly, that is, until getting to the real purpose of his talk: to chastise Israel. Naturally, he did this in perfect Obama pitch, professing his country’s great friendship and alliance with Israel, while calling on the Jewish state to stop causing all the trouble.
These were not his exact words. Shapiro is a professional diplomat, after all. But the language he did use was bad enough.
“Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities; too much vigilantism goes unchecked; and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians,” he said, while also condemning “barbaric acts of terrorism” against Israelis.
And then he said his administration is “concerned and perplexed” by Israel’s settlement policy, which raises “honest questions about Israel’s long-term intentions” where a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians is concerned.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to call Shapiro’s comments “incorrect and unacceptable,” but his response was insufficient. Because what Shapiro did was first to equate Palestinian and Israeli violence, and then to fault “settlement policy” for the daily assault on Israel’s very right to exist. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement could not have made a better case for delegitimization.
To be fair, Shapiro is not an independent agent. He is an envoy sent to Israel to iterate the official positions of the Obama administration — a government that just signed off on its final capitulation to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This dangerous act, involving the lifting of sanctions and the transfer of billions of dollars to the mullah-led regime in Tehran, took place after the Iranian navy seized and held captive 10 U.S. sailors; demanded an apology from Washington upon their release; received a hearty “thank you” from Kerry; and then boasted about having caused the American servicemen (and one woman) to weep.
Is it any wonder, then, that the United States, who was treated throughout the negotiations with Iran like a pariah on the one hand and a wimp on the other, would expect Israel to roll over and play dead with the Palestinian Authority?
The answer is no. It is also the reason that Israel must pray for a Republican victory in this year’s U.S. presidential election. If and when that happens, we might be treated to a book by Shapiro, in which he reveals the lies he was forced to spew during his term as ambassador.

Caroline Glick: Israel and the Russian challenge

Obama was undoubtedly relishing the moment as he declared diplomatic victory over his political opponents, but even if he was unhappy about Iran’s behavior he couldn’t have done anything about it.
Obama brags that he was able to reach a nuclear deal where all his predecessors failed. But this hides the main distinction between him and those who came before him.
None of Obama’s predecessors concluded a nuclear deal with Iran because unlike Obama, none of his predecessors were willing to abandon US interests – including the interest of preventing the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism from acquiring nuclear weapons – in order to get a deal. Obama cannot attack Iran’s aggression on the high seas without calling into question the wisdom of his nuclear diplomacy.
He cannot take action against Russia without calling into question his belief that US power in the Middle East is the chief cause of all the region’s problems.
Israel’s military and political leaders are right to be concerned about the implications of Russia’s return to Syria. And it is far from clear that there is a way to credibly minimize the dangers. But, since we’re not going anywhere, we will have to make the best of a bad situation.
Whatever we do, we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that unless the next US president rejects Obama’s entire Middle East policy and shepherds the military and financial resources to abandon it, on Russia, Iran and beyond, Israel will have to fend for itself for the foreseeable future.

Obama’s Make-Believe Peace With Iran Ushers in a Wild 2016 in the Middle East

It’s hardly surprising that during his State of the Union address last week, President Barack Obama made no mention of American sailors detained by the naval command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Sure, the president didn’t want a major speech about his achievements at home and abroad overshadowed by some episode the White House believed would be soon resolved by diplomacy. But there’s another reason—no matter what the occasion, the Obama White House systematically looks the other way whenever Iran does something intended to provoke the United States.
In the last several months alone, Iran has at least twice tested ballistic missiles, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Its military also fired rockets within 1,500 yards of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Straits of Hormuz. It sentenced, in a secret trial, American journalist Jason Rezaian and imprisoned another Iranian-American national. A few days into the new year, the regime directed Iranian mobs to set fire to two diplomatic missions belonging to longtime U.S. regional partner Saudi Arabia. That was before they ritually humiliated America by taking its sailors into custody, photographing them kneeling on deck with their hands on their heads, and then broadcasting those images throughout the Middle East.
Yet from the White House’s perspective, appearances can be deceiving. Despite photographs showing how the Iranians paraded the U.S. seamen on Iranian TV like circus animals, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “All our indications suggest our sailors were well taken care of.” After the clerical regime directed mobs to attack two of Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic missions in Iran, the administration’s first move was not to condemn Iran but to chastise Riyadh for provoking Iran by executing a Saudi citizen whom Tehran regarded as a protégé. When the Obama Administration moved to sanction Iran for its ballistic missile tests, the Iranians protested, and the administration shelved sanctions, indefinitely.

From the Sudan Tribune:

Members of the Foreign Relations Committee of Sudan’s national dialogue conference have reacted differently to a proposal calling for normalizing ties with Israel.

The national dialogue initiated by president Omer Hassan al-Bashir last year has officially started in Khartoum last October amid boycott by main opposition parties and armed rebel groups.

Last November, the head of the little-known Independent party and member of the dialogue conference made a request for normalization with Israel arguing that there was no justification for hostility towards Israel. He pointed out that this stance took a toll on the country politically and economically.

In press statements Monday, the committee member Ibrahim Suleiman said views on normalizing relations with Israel have varied between those calling for full normalization and those who reject the idea categorically, saying few members indicated the proposal could be adopted under specific conditions.

He described the voices which rejected the normalization proposal as “weak”, saying they don’t rule out the final recommendations of the conference could include the normalization proposal.

“If the proposal was approved, it would be incorporated into the constitution”, he said.

Suleiman described the position of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) towards the normalization proposal as “unclear”, saying the view which the latter presented at the conference calls for establishing good relations with all nations.

It is worth to mention that the NCP’s head of political sector, Mustafa Osman Ismail, had earlier said the decision to normalize relations with Israel must be made by the committees of dialogue conference.

Also, Sudan’s foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour said his country wouldn’t mind considering the possibility of normalizing ties with Israel, underlining that Sudan doesn’t establish relations with one country at the expense of another country.

Suleiman added that those who support the idea of normalizing ties with Israel think the move would help achieve Sudan’s interests.

“The United States and Israel are two sides of the same coin and if the government underscores the importance to establish relation with America, why does it not establish ties with Israel?”

It is interesting that the only reason given for normalization with Israel is to cozy up with the US.

Even so, this is quite a turnaround for a country whose passports said until recently that they were valid for “All Countries Except Israel”.

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Yesterday, Mahmoud Abbas marked Armenian Christmas yesterday with another speech that, if delivered by any other prominent leader, would be mercilessly denounced by the media and world governments.

From the official translation by Wafa news agency:

We, Palestinians, have gone through similar experiences with the Armenians; both of us have been repressed, terrorized and banished. As the Armenian people emigrated from their country to ours and then to another place, we are experiencing the same struggle; we emigrated in the 1948 and the refugees in Syria are migrating to the sea, into exile and to places only God knows about.

...We continue to suffer a lot because of the daily killing and slaughter; we are against murder and spelling the blood of any human being, regardless of the gender, race or religion. We value every drop of blood that comes out of any human being.

Therefore we tell our brothers and our families that we are in a state of despair and hopelessness. We realize the doors remain unlocked and the Israeli leadership is trying to shut open doors, but our resistance shall always remain peaceful and we shall not call for anything other than that. Every day we lose three or four martyrs without a single reason or justification, but we will remain patient and stand fast on our land.

Well, he has one thing right: Palestinians do value every drop of blood that comes out of Jews who are murdered - as this poster celebrating the murder of Dafna Meir shows.

Abbas definitely values Palestinian blood as well. After all, he is the one who said in September, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”
This is how much Abbas values blood.

Moreover, to compare Palestinian suffering to the Armenian genocide is reprehensible.

Here was another section of Abbas' speech that shows hypocrisy of the highest order:

When some individuals say it is imperative to get rid of the Christians and especially Armenians, we tell them to eat their hearts out, because Armenians will always remain in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem. Christians will always be the salt of this earth and will remain on their land and in their country. Whoever wants them to leave must do that instead.

Does that same logic apply to those who say it is imperative to get rid of the Jews?

Bizarrely, The Jerusalem Post and i24News reported on this speech as if the main point was that Abbas was condemning the murder of Dafna Meir. He didn't mention her and didn't reference the attack. Apparently, even the Israeli media is so beholden to the idea of Abbas as a "moderate" that they hear what they want to hear and become deaf to anything that shows the opposite.

What will it take for the world to wake up to Abbas' outrageous immorality? His words are clear, but no one wants to listen.

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The newest Human Rights Watch hit job on Israel is massive - over 51,000 words - , and I don't have enough hours to fisk it all. But the first few paragraphs should do:

Almost immediately after Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank in June 1967, the Israeli government began establishing settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. From the outset, private businesses have been involved in Israel’s settlement policies, benefiting from and contributing to them. This report details the ways in which Israeli and international businesses have helped to build, finance, service, and market settlement communities. In many cases, businesses are “settlers” themselves, drawn to settlements in part by low rents, favorable tax rates, government subsidies, and access to cheap Palestinian labor.[1]

In fact, the physical footprint of Israeli business activity in the West Bank is larger than that of residential settlements. In addition to commercial centers inside of settlements, there are approximately 20 Israeli-administered industrial zones in the West Bank covering about 1,365 hectares, and Israeli settlers oversee the cultivation of 9,300 hectares of agricultural land. In comparison, the built-up area of residential settlements covers 6,000 hectares (although their municipal borders encompass a much larger area).

If this is true, then we can do the math on how massive Israel's settlement enterprise is.

The West Bank is 5655 km2, which is 565500 hectares. According to HRW, Israel's fast growing settlements including businesses and farms take up 2.9% of the West Bank.

Over 49 years.

At that rate, Israel will complete its takeover of the entire West Bank in the year 3705.

Time is running out!

This explains why HRW writes numbers without context. They don't want anyone to do the math.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate the laws of occupation. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring its citizens into the territory it occupies and from transferring or displacing the population of an occupied territory within or outside the territory. The Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, establishes the court’s jurisdiction over war crimes including the crimes of transfer of parts of the civilian population of an occupying power into an occupied territory, and the forcible transfer of the population of an occupied territory. The ICC has jurisdiction over crimes committed in or from the territory of the State of Palestine, now an ICC member, beginning in June 13, 2014, the date designated by Palestine in a declaration accompanying its accession.

And HRW cannot explain exactly how individual Jews or Jewish-owned businesses are violating the Geneva Accords by voluntarily moving to the territories. Allowing citizens to move is not "transfer." HRW is using proof by assertion, and this document is filled with examples like this.

Israel’s confiscation of land, water, and other natural resources for the benefit of settlements and residents of Israel also violate the Hague Regulations of 1907, which prohibit an occupying power from expropriating the resources of occupied territory for its own benefit. In addition, Israel’s settlement project violates international human rights law, in particular, Israel’s discriminatory policies against Palestinians that govern virtually every aspect of life in the area of the West Bank under Israel’s exclusive control, known as Area C, and that forcibly displace Palestinians while encouraging the growth of Jewish settlements.

Since over 95% of Palestinians live in Areas A and B, some specific statistics of how many have been "forcibly displaced" from area C would be very useful here. But HRW doesn't want you to know statistics that undermine the point they want to make. Once again, actual numbers will not be offered when they show that the issue is much smaller than what HRW wants its readers to know. (Many of the "displaced" in Area C are Bedouin who built homes recently and illegally. Some illegal communities have been dismantled many times. But how many were forced to move out of Area C? How many had other homes when they built these illegal ones? HRW doesn't want you to know.)

Following international standards articulated in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses are expected to undertake human rights due diligence to identify and mitigate contributions to human rights violations of not only their own activities but also activities to which they are directly linked by their business relationships. They are also expected to take effective steps to avoid or mitigate potential human rights harms—and to consider ending business activity where severe negative human rights consequences cannot be avoided or mitigated.

Based on the findings of this report, it is Human Rights Watch's view that any adequate due diligence would show that business activities taking place in or in contract with Israeli settlements or settlement businesses contribute to rights abuses, and that businesses cannot mitigate or avoid contributing to these abuses so long as they engage in such activities. In Human Rights Watch’s view, the context of human rights abuse to which settlement business activity contributes is so pervasive and severe that businesses should cease carrying out activities inside or for the benefit of settlements, such as building housing units or infrastructure, or providing waste removal and landfill services. They should also stop financing, administering, trading with or otherwise supporting settlements or settlement-related activities and infrastructure.

HRW says that Jewish-owned businesses are exploiting Palestinians by paying them lower than Israel's minimum wage. That is against Israeli law, by the way, but some unscrupulous businesses do indeed try to skirt the law by paying an Arab middleman to contract employees and pay them a lower wage that is still above the standard Palestinian wage.

A lot of the report attempts to show how Jewish businesses abuse their Palestinian workers. Only one problem.

As we have previously shown, Israeli companies pay over double PA wages. Palestinians who work for Israelis also work fewer hours than then those who work for fellow Palestinians.

But if a Jewish-run business is offering better working conditions and wages and fewer hours than the Palestinian Arab businesses are, and the Jewish business owners are guilty of violating human rights of the workers, then you must conclude that most Palestinian businesses are far worse violators of human rights! Human rights are absolute, not relative - it might be unfair for there to be wage discrimination but an Arab being paid better and treated better than his neighbor cannot be said to be a victim of human rights abuse while his neighbor isn't.

Which human rights organization can we call to fix the pervasive human rights abuses that must be occurring at Palestinian Arab businesses? Which "human rights" organization will call to boycott Palestinian businesses because of how they exploit their workers?

I know one "human rights" organization that won't do anything about it. Because that organization is based on double standards, and this report is yet another example of that.

(h/t Yenta)

UPDATE: See also here to see why HRW's legal arguments are without basis.

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EoZTV - Video roundup 1/18/16

Thanks for the comments for the video roundup I posted yesterday of Mrs. Elder and me discussing various blog topics. I was able to improve the sound and added some initial graphics so we came up with a new edition for today.

But it is not likely to become a daily show.

Put any questions you want us to answer and suggestions in the comments. (The "mailbag" idea is a good one!)

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01/18 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Exposing the enemy within; Israel, superpower for women

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Exposing the enemy within

I 've been reading with particular interest about the row over Tuvia Tenenbom's exclusion from a Limmud panel. I myself have spoken at Limmud, although I haven't attended for several years. I have met Tenenbom and admire his work. By reporting what people say in unguarded moments (an activity once known as journalism) he has been steadily exposing the appalling Israel-bashing and Jew-hatred among Germans, Palestinian Arabs and, increasingly, Jews themselves.
Jews tend to be neuralgically averse to acknowledging this treachery among their own. This occurs particularly on the left, which in its mind-bending way screams "racism" at anyone who condemns those promoting murderous bigotry against Israel or the west. So I wasn't surprised to read that the largely right-on Limmud audience reacted with hostility to Tenenbom's observations about Jew-hatred in Germany. Whether or not these findings were true was, of course, irrelevant. Tenenbom, whose instincts for fighting bigotry seem bred in the bone, did not take the abuse lying down. The reaction he provoked, however, caused his abrupt removal from a Limmud discussion in which he was booked to participate.
The person who dropped him was Keith Kahn-Harris. Some years ago, Kahn-Harris approached me to take part in a series of dinners he was organising. He was concerned that the UK Jewish community was becoming divided over Israel. Jews were demonising fellow-Jews. The increasing bitterness, he said, was destructive of debate. Would I therefore take part in a "safe space" dinner discussion to open up a dialogue? The safe space turned out to be a group of folk on the left who wanted to have a go (in the most delicate and exquisitely pained way, of course) at the one presumed right-winger present (me). That experience illustrated two things. First, that those not of the left are regarded axiomatically as the people making dialogue impossible through their outlandish views. Second, there was no way those round that table could acknowledge closed minds were on their own side.
The left cannot ever admit that it demonises opponents and shuts down debate because it stands for tolerance, rationality and conscience. Doesn't it? (h/t Jewess)

David Collier: A silence worth breaking, the reservists fight back

For anyone living outside of Israel and opposed to the delegitimization of Zionism, it is difficult not to be aware of the movement called Breaking the Silence (BTS). The boycott movement against Israel frequently use their material, the anti-Zionist groups on campus show their video clips on a loop and left wing political Zionist groups cling on to their skirt tails and refer to them as heroes.
For some time, most Zionists have considered Breaking the Silence to have crossed too many lines to be deemed legitimate. They have been accused of distortion, of deliberately exaggerating events, and of removing the all-important context from their statements. It is claimed that they receive much of their funding from groups hostile to Israel. Much of their effort seems to be directed towards an international audience. The suggestion that they were simply lying for political gain was never far from the surface. Yet as BTS accusations are invariably anonymous, how do you attack a claim that removes all identifying features from public view?
Recently a group of reservists from the Israeli army, decided to do exactly that. With vast experience of IDF procedure and ethics, these officers were convinced that Breaking the Silence were spinning lies, and by searching out those that served with publicly known members of the group, they began to piece together a real picture of the events that occurred.
With BTS implying that the actions of some of these Israeli soldiers made them war criminals, this movement, ‘Reservists at the Front’, announced they had started proceedings to sue the movement Breaking the Silence for libel in the Israeli courts. Just recently, they met the Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to seek support for their action.
On Sunday, 17/01/15, I caught up with Amit Deri, founder of Reservists at the Front and managed to ask him a few questions. Below is an English transcript of the interview.

Legal Insurrection: Fighting The Hate: When Does Anti-Israel Become Anti-Semitic?

Last week I drove out to Rochester, NY to give a talk titled ‘Fighting the Hate: When Does Anti-Israel Become Anti-Semitic?’.
Sponsored by ROC4Israel, a new pro-Israel organization that we featured in a post back in October, my lecture centered on how legitimate criticism of Israel can be distinguished from criticism that crosses the line into anti-Semitic hate speech.
A video of my 60 minute lecture, which also captures its accompanying PowerPoint slide show, is now available on YouTube (full embed lower in post).
Below I highlight the main themes. I break the hour-long lecture into segments so that readers can click on to those parts of the talk that are of most interest.
I then summarize a series of post-lecture discussion exercises that I led with the nearly 100 audience members who attended my January 7, 2016 event.

Don't worry, be happy about Iranian nukes (NYT flashback edition)

New York Times, January 17, 2016

A Safer World, Thanks to the Iran Deal

New York Times, May 7, 1992

North Korea Defuses Nuclear Fear

This is a moment many thought would never come: Iran has delivered on its commitment under a 2015 agreement with the United States and other major powers to curb or eliminate the most dangerous elements of its nuclear program. The world is now safer for this.

The International Atomic Energy Agency verified on Saturday that Iran has shipped over 8.5 tons of enriched uranium to Russia so Iran can’t use that in bomb-making, disabled more than 12,000 centrifuges and poured concrete into the core of a reactor at Arak designed to produce plutonium.

On Sunday, President Obama hailed these steps as having “cut off every single path Iran could have used to build a bomb” and noted that engagement with Iran has created a “window to try to resolve important issues.” Most important of all, he said, “We’ve achieved this historic progress through diplomacy, without resorting to another war in the Middle East.”

Still, there are daunting challenges ahead, including ensuring the deal is strictly adhered to, an obligation for the United States, Russia, China and Europe. Cheating should be much harder, given that Iran will be subjected to continuous and intrusive monitoring by the I.A.E.A. of its nuclear enrichment facilities, centrifuge production and uranium mines. And even if the Iranians were to attempt to produce enough nuclear fuel for a bomb, it will now take them more than a year to do so. Before the agreement, that breakout time was two to three months.

The deal is a testament to patient diplomacy and President Obama’s visionary determination to pursue a negotiated solution to the nuclear threat, despite relentless attempts by his political opponents to sabotage the initiative. After more than 30 years of hostility between the two countries, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who took office in 2013, pursued the nuclear deal and its implementation with a pragmatic and constructive attitude.

North Korea has lifted the veil from its nuclear programs, thereby lifting hopes that it is renouncing any ambitions to develop nuclear arms. Long considered a potential nuclear renegade, North Korea has now provided the International Atomic Energy Agency with key details of its nuclear facilities, including a suspected reprocessing plant at Yongbyon. That will permit early inspections of the sites. Improved trade and diplomatic ties with the U.S., South Korea and Japan will surely follow, satisfying North Korea's needs.

Under a nuclear safeguards agreement with the I.A.E.A. that went into effect last month, Pyongyang is obliged to open all its nuclear sites to inspectors. To facilitate those inspections it is supposed to provide design data for all sites that handle uranium or plutonium, including those under construction or planned. It has now done so.

The sites include a laboratory at Yongbyon "designed for research on the separation of uranium and plutonium." This is believed to be the worrisome reprocessing plant, which some believe has the potential to turn out weapons-grade nuclear material in substantial quantities. That facility will be inspected by the I.A.E.A. in coming weeks. Under an agreement with South Korea, the North will then have to dismantle it.

Both North and South Korea now need to agree to carry out their own mutual inspections of suspect nuclear sites, going even beyond I.A.E.A. inspections in dispelling nuclear fears.

Should the inspections proceed without a hitch, they would convince even the skeptics that all of Korea is nuclear-free. That would vindicate those in the Bush Administration, in Seoul and in Tokyo who sought to resolve the nuclear issue diplomatically.

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UN plan to combat "violent extremism" doesn't mention Islam

From the UN:

On 15 January 2016 the Secretary-General presented his Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism to the General Assembly.

In recent years, terrorist groups such as ISIL, Al-Qaida and Boko Haram have shaped our image of violent extremism and the debate about how to address this threat. Their message of intolerance – religious, cultural, social – has had drastic consequences for many regions of the world. Holding territory and using social media for real-time communication of their atrocious crimes, they seek to challenge our shared values of peace, justice and human dignity.

In the Plan, the Secretary-General calls for a comprehensive approach encompassing not only essential security-based counter-terrorism measures but also systematic preventive steps to address the underlying conditions that drive individuals to radicalize and join violent extremist groups.

The plan itself does not mention Islam at all, except in reference to the "Islamic State."

Here is the UN's overview of its plan.

You can see that according to the leading world experts, Islamic terror doesn't exist. Terrorists are simply people who are disadvantaged and who suffer from lack of socio-economic opportunities and poor governance. (The "unresolved conflict" part seems to be aimed to justify Palestinian terror.) This is what drives them to "extremism. "

The UN provides the framework to solve a problem that they refuse to define.

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01/18 Links Pt1: Remembering Dafna Meir together; Pregnant Israeli woman stabbed in terror attack

From Ian:

Remembering Dafna Meir together

I’m sitting alone by my computer, reading about a woman I will never get to meet. Before social media, Dafna Meir would have remained a name on a list for most of us. But the internet brings her own words, and the words of the people who loved her, into our separate homes. Tonight we are holding an improvised online wake for a woman few of us knew. And as we mourn Dafna Meir together, we are no longer truly alone.
Dafna Meir was many things for many people. She was a dedicated nurse. She taught women about fertility and contraception, sexuality and health, from a holistic point of view. She shared her medical and religious knowledge with other women, through her blog (in Hebrew) and in private conversations.
For five and a half years, Dafna answered anonymous medical and halachik questions through Kolech, helping women balance modern life, Jewish law and medical concerns. “I tried to enter the head of the person asking the question,” she wrote in a touching Facebook post in 2013, when she passed the mantle to new volunteers. “I tried to check what’s the central issue that requires an answer, what’s the question’s essence, so that I could answer the details and clauses in a way that would enable the woman who asked the question to find the answers within herself.”
Dafna didn’t stop sharing her knowledge when she stopped volunteering for Kolech: Many women consulted her, online and in real life. They recall, tonight, how she always made time to answer them thoroughly, and with what we call in Hebrew “maor panim“: a welcoming, lit face.
Dafna was also a wife and a mother. She gave birth to four children and became a foster mother to two others as well. This evening, as the night descended on the hills around their home, these children watched Dafna bleed to death on her own doorstep, after a terrorist stabbed her and ran.

Pregnant Israeli woman stabbed, wounded in Tekoa terror attack

A pregnant Israeli woman in her 30s was stabbed and moderately-to-seriously wounded in the settlement of Tekoa in the West Bank on Monday.
The victim wounded in the stabbing attack was later identified as Michal Froman, the daughter-in-law of late renowned peace advocate Rabbi Menachem Froman.
The terrorist who carried out the attack was shot and wounded.
Magen David Adom paramedics provided initial medical treatment, before evacuating the woman to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Paramedics then added that she was in moderate and stable condition, suffering from one stab wound to her upper body
According to the IDF, the stabbing took place in a clothing warehouse in the Tekoa industrial zone.
The IDF said the terrorist was in critical condition, on a ventilator and sedated.

New Israeli video shows PA's incitement

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office on Sunday released a new video showing the constant incitement by Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and media against Israel.
Israeli officials have warned that this incitement is the root cause for the current wave of terrorism against Israelis, but Western countries insist that PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas is a “peace partner” for Israel.
The release of the video coincided with Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Minister Gilad Erdan presenting ministers at Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting with the index of incitement in the PA.
The findings of the index indicate a rise in incitement in the PA, sponsored by the leadership and religious figures, in the institutions of formal education and massive exposure of the culture of incitement to the international community.
Ministers were presented with examples from children's and youth programs on the official Palestinian Authority television channel featuring – inter alia – children calling for the murder of Jews, incitement by Abbas himself encouraging terrorism, and incitement in new media.
Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Ministry Director General Sima Vaknin noted that approximately 37% of terrorists are under 20, 39% are 21-25 and the remaining 24% are over 26.

Incitement and Education for Hatred in the PA

Palestinians celebrate murder of Dafna Meir

QudsN, a Palestinian news site, celebrated the murder of Dafna Meir of Otniel with this graphic featuring the name of the town:

Their Facebook post with this graphic has dozens of comments praising the murder, hoping that the murderer isn't found and wishing that the victim burns in hell.

(h/t Yenta)

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The UN mightily tries to pretend Israel doesn't exist

Israel's existence in the center of the Middle East remains a thorn in the UN's side.

The UN has five economic regional councils:

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE)
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)

One would naturally think that Israel would be part of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, because that is where it is located. Of course, Arab nations don't want Israel to exist, so Israel was forced to join the ECE instead.

But Israel's physical presence is still a problem when ESCWA wants to issue infographics that include maps:

I'm not quite sure why Egypt isn't on the map, but we know very well why Israel isn't mentioned. (Israel's has 3.54 million tourists in 2013, which would place it at #3, ahead of Jordan.)

ESCWA cannot completely ignore Israel by calling the area the "Middle East" or "MENA" or something like that, so the UN came up with another way to describe the Middle East while excluding Israel:

They call it the "Arab Region."

Because they know that when they issue statements on the problems of forced migration or women's rights in the region, they don't want to keep adding "...except for Israel." By doing that they would highlight how much better off Israelis, including Arab Israelis, are than their neighbors.

And that is a message that must not be mainstreamed.

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Dafna Meir z"l

Yesterday, an Arab terrorist entered the home of Dafna Meir and stabbed her repeatedly in front of her children, murdering her.

Today, a teenage Arab terrorist repeatedly stabbed a pregnant Jewish woman as she was working in a clothing warehouse, She was seriously wounded.

It appears that yesterday's attack energized the Palestinian youth to start a new trend - to attack women.

But as with all other trends, soon the people who justify all Palestinian atrocities will come up with reasons why these women are legitimate targets. They'll even try to say it is legal under international law. And others will eagerly share their bizarre reasons to justify their own hate.

In the end, it is simply Jew-hatred. But just as the people who persecuted Jews from Egyptian bondage through the Middle Ages through the Holocaust justified their Jew-hate as a noble cause, so do today's Jew-haters.

I recently saw a book that pretended to justify Palestinian suicide bombings - using psychological language. You can read portions here, as the author - a Palestinian - disregards all facts and logic in his zeal to justify the most horrible crimes.

In short, according to these modern supporters of genocide, feeling oppressed justifies mass murder.. But when you add lots of footnotes, antisemites think that they now have a solid academic basis for their hate.

It is only a matter of time before we see justifications for targeting Jewish women.

Video roundup of the week

Mrs. Elder and I have been talking about doing a podcast or similar for a few months, and on Sunday night she said that we should just try to do something in real time and see how it comes out.

Here it is - a completely unedited, unrehearsed review of some of my posts of the week.

Let me know if you think that something like this (presumably a more polished version) would be of interest.

Other possibilities are live broadcasts and interactive broadcasts, all of which are not too hard to do nowadays. Or maybe make shorter videos with a single story for each one.

Any feedback and ideas welcome! This is only a beta test!

Vote for Best Video Hasby Award

The nominations for the Best Pro-Israel Video Hasby Awards are:

BEST PRO-ISRAEL VIDEO

"Why do you hate Israel?"

Israel: The world's most moral army

Lucy Aharish on the stabbing intifada

A special kind of hate (Pat Condell)

Top Ten Reasons Why Every Liberal Should Support Israel
Beyond Deception Strategy - Pierre Rehov
War Crimes in Gaza - Pierre Rehov

Bill Whittle: Terrorist Nation
Israel's Legal Founding - Alan Dershowitz
Who is Guilty of War Crimes in the Gaza War? - JCPA
KillStarter – Crowdfunding Iranian Terror (Shurat HaDin)
This Is how the Palestinians Raise their Children
Anti Israel Media Bias Much?

survey solution

The poll will close on Wednesday night.

Another potentially massive gas field found in Israeli waters

Haaretz reports:

An Israeli exploration group reported on Sunday it has discovered another large natural gas field off Israel's Mediterranean coast.

The group, led by Isramco Negev and Modiin Energy, said that a resource report showed there could be an estimated total of 8.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas at the Daniel east and west fields.

Here is where the new field is:

Egypt has recently discovered a massive gas field off its shores, so the race is on to develop and export this gas. If the estimates on this field are true, then Israel's total gas reserves are close to Egypt's.

TOI had a decent backgrounder on the entire controversy over natural gas in Israel.