Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 15, 2016

02/15 Links Pt1: No neo-colonialism for Gaza Strip; Damascus Gate shooter was PA policeman

From Ian:

The received wisdom about Gaza and Hamas is always a fascinating tour of illogic.
Why do the people who want to “help” Gaza have so little interest in the input from the people there? In the old days they relied on the “strongman” Dahlan, even as they claimed Hamas benefited electorally from allegations that Fatah was corrupt. The one thing you will never hear from a Gaza “saver” is the concept that perhaps Gazans supported Hamas because of its religious and extremist chauvinist militarist appeal. It’s always because it was “progressive” and “built hospitals” and was part of the global Left, or even because it was supposedly founded and supported by Israel. If it was founded by Israel and it is part of the global Left, then isn’t Israel part of the global left too? No, of course not.
People want to rewrite history so that Israel “gave” Gaza to Hamas. No one wants to remember the war between Hamas and Fatah, the people thrown off buildings, or dragged to death behind motorcycles.
The answer to Gaza’s problems are always some sort of ill-conceived colonization of the place, as if Israel hasn’t done enough for the Strip in that regard.
The fact is Gaza cannot be saved. Its people cannot be turned into something they are not. Hamas is not a progressive movement, it is an extremist, right-wing fundamentalist religious movement. The Strip is caught in a brutal cycle of war with Israel, and Hamas’ relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has isolated it further. All of this is a tragedy for civilian life in Gaza.
Why aren’t Gaza’s friends in the Gulf suggesting the Strip look more like their societies? Because they want to use it against Israel? Good-natured “saving” of the Strip won’t help, it has to be confronted as an adult, not an object, and a way must be found to present it with alternatives for the future. Involving Turkey or the Gulf in that discussion would be good. But pretending it’s run by the socialist party and needs re-colonization is not a path forward. It’s not Singapore. It’s Gaza. Get used to it.

Ben-Dror Yemini: The new Palestinian people

MK Anat Berko says there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, and MK Azmi Bishara calls Palestinian nationality 'a colonial invention'. It may be historically true that there once was no such thing as a Palestinian people, but that doesn't mean there isn't one now.
Needless to say, a Palestinian state was not established. Why? There was no occupation. King Hussein of Jordan made it clear during those years that “Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan," and that “Jordan in its two parts is the homeland of all the Palestinians."
Actually, the Six Day War and the Israeli conquest were the biggest catalysts for the development of a separate Palestinian national identity. The fact that there was no Palestinian people in the past does not mean that there is no Palestinian people today. Indeed, it is not clear what the difference is between Jordanians, Palestinians and the Syrians themselves. They have same language, religion, culture, and often shared tribal or familial kinship. But identity is a flexible matter sometimes. In any case, it is self-defined.
Logic says there is no need for a separate Palestinian state. Jordan already exists. And the one-state solution is unworthy of Jews and Palestinians. It is worthy of both banks of the Jordan River, east and west. Palestinian leaders, even the last two decades, have made every effort to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. So Berko is right about the past. At present there is no need to deny Palestinian nationalism, because whoever denies it now will find themselves in a binational state in the future.

PMW: How to properly beat your wife, according to the PA Mufti in Gaza

During a weekly Palestinian Authority TV program on social issues, the Mufti of Gaza Hassan Al-Laham discussed divorce in Islam. He explained that Allah directed men to take four steps to resolve conflicts with one's wife before resorting to divorce:
"Allah said: Warn them [the wives], and separate from them, and hit them, and bring an arbitrator from his family and an arbitrator from her family." [Official PA TV, Feb. 8, 2016]
His essential message is that while "she became your wife, and she is under your command," nonetheless, hitting is to be used only after warning her and separating from her "in the bedroom" has failed to achieve the desired result. And then, when hitting is being used at the proper time, it should not be a severe beating:
"Not hitting that will bring the police, and break her hand and cause bleeding, or hitting that makes the face ugly."
Indeed, the hitting should "be like a joke," even reinforcing "the love and friendship" between the couple:
"This hitting is a kind of reminder that the love and friendship that Allah commanded, is still found between us (i.e., the couple)."

PA Mufti of Gaza explains how to hit your wife: "Not hitting that will bring the police

The Palestinian leadership just said that there will be no negotiations with Israel. And no one will castigate them.

In a striking rejection of relentless international efforts to broker new talks, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Monday that the Palestinians will “never” return to direct negotiations with Israel.

Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 and since then, the situation has deteriorated, with the prospects of fresh dialogue appearing more remote than ever. But Malki said that one-on-one talks with Israel were out of the question.

“We will never go back and sit again in a direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations,” Malki told a press conference. He is visiting Japan with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was due to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe later Monday.

Malki stressed that a multilateral framework to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is needed and he praised an initiative discussed late last month by France to revive plans for an international conference to end the conflict.

Just imagine the international reaction if an Israeli official says that they have no intention to negotiate again, ever, with Palestinians. And compare it with the utter silence that this assertion gets.

Thanks to years of coddling, the Palestinians now insist that the world impose a solution where they do not have to make any concessions. They just keep saying "no" - and launch a violent uprising every decade or so - because that strategy has helped them reach a better political position than actual pesky negotiations that involve a give and take.

But in case the world needs more of a push, Malki adds a little threat:

And he warned that without international involvement, a vacuum will be left that may end up being filled by the Islamic State jihadist group.

“If Daesh take advantage of lack of any brokers… then of course, they might come and try to fill it,” he said, referring to Islamic State.

“This is very dangerous,” he added.

“If the Americans are giving up and the Europeans don’t have the courage to do anything and Arabs are really worried about their own problems, what do you expect? Extremists around might take over.”

If anyone takes the time to actually think about this threat that a lack of brokers will lead to a takeover of the territories by ISIL, they would realize that this is the best argument to maintain Israel's military presence in those areas!

Malki is also admitting that his people are susceptible to radicalization, meaning that the school curricula and official PA media is doing nothing to combat radical Islam. In fact, they are instrumental in encouraging extremism, because in Arabic the message is all about Al Aqsa and fire and blood.

But clueless reporters and politicians will not think too hard about this and simply accept that Arabs become radical Islamists naturally.

Malki then moves onto the other myth that the media has been feeding:

Malki said the new surge in violence has its roots in the Palestinians’ humiliation and desperation after decades of occupation.

I've debunked this before. In Arabic, there have been only two reasons given for the violence: Jews on the Temple Mount and Jews killing those who try to kill them. That's it. The "humiliation" and "frustration" excuses are only given to gullible Westerners.

Malki pointed to the ongoing Israeli control of the West Bank, which began in 1967, saying Palestinians born under it have seen nothing “but humiliation, soldiers’ check-points, deaths and killing.”

And the establishment of 14 universities, where none existed before 1967.

And a life expectancy rate being raised from 48 to 72.

And the adult literacy rate going up from 88% to 94%, with the youth literacy rate at nearly 100%.

And an infant mortality rate plummeting from 60/1000 to about 15/1000.

And virtually everyone joining the electrical grid.

And the establishment of a "state" recognized by most countries.

And an independent police force.

And an Olympic team.

And international awards for films and art.

But for the purposes of speaking to the Western media, they have had nothing since 1967 besides death and humiliation.

These guys will keep lying and threatening and trying to blackmail the West as long as the West doesn't push back and call them out to be liars. Which will never happen, because you never know how violently they would react when they really are humiliated.

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Last night I met someone who met Josef Mengele

Last night my wife and and I went to a wedding and we took an elderly lady with us who needed a ride. I'll call her Edna.

On the way home she told me a story.

There is a special prayer said on the Sabbath before a new moon, asking for health and peace for the upcoming month. Edna's father (she reflexively says "alav hashalom," may he rest in peace after mentioning him) always told his family that it was very important to go to shul on the last Sabbath of the month in order to make this blessing, saying that the blessing protects them for the coming month. If the prayer is not said, no one knows what will happen.

Hungarian Jews arriving in Auschwitz three days after this story

In May 1944, when Edna was 14, the Jews of her town in Hungary were rounded up and placed in a temporary ghetto. On Saturday, May 20, they were herded out to the courtyard of the synagogue. There were no prayers that day. Instead, they were chased from that courtyard to cattle cars.

Edna said that of course there were no seat in the cattle cars, everyone had to lie on the floor. There were two holes to use as toilets but no privacy.

Three days later they arrived at Auschwitz.

First the males were separated from the females, and then there was the "selection." Edna and her younger sister were holding their mother's hand.

Mengele

Edna says an SS officer, a good looking blonde man, told her to go one way while her mother would go the other. She said she didn't want to leave her mother, and the man - Josef Mengele - used his baton to hit her hand that she was using to hold her mother's hand, and she was forced to let go out of pain. Then she was separated from her mother and sister (her older sister had already been separated.)

That was the last that Edna saw of her mother. Both her parents were murdered on May 23, 1944, the first day of the new month of Sivan.

Edna still associates their deaths with not being able to pray to God for a safe new month the Sabbath beforehand when she was herded from the ghetto.

Edna is one one the few people left alive who had seen pure evil, face to face.

(Edna only told me that her parents were killed on Rosh Chodesh Sivan. I looked up the dates based on that and the history of the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Mengele was known to use a baton to signal which prisoners would be put to death and which would get a reprieve, as described in Elie Wiesel's Night.)

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It is well known that most international reporters in Israel do not understand Hebrew or Arabic, and as a result most of them lazily copy stories from their favorite English-language local news sources - mostly Haaretz from the Israeli side and Ma'an from the Palestinian side.

Ma'an has a story in both English and Arabic about how Egypt opened up the Rafah border crossings over the weekend.

The English story mostly mirrors the Arabic one which was written first, although it adds some color:

Egyptian Authorities will extended the opening of Rafah crossing for a third day on Monday, the department of borders and crossings in Gaza Strip said.

Egyptian authorities exceptionally opened the crossing Saturday, after 70 consecutive days of closure.

This is the first time Egyptian authorities opened the crossing this year, a rare move given that Egypt has upheld an for the majority of the past three years an Israeli military blockade on the Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, Gaza’s Ministry of Interior spokesman Iyad al-Bazam urged Egypt to extend the opening of the Rafah crossing for a few more days to ease the crisis in Gaza, where more than 25,000 people with urgent needs -- including around 3,500 medical cases -- are registered and waiting to cross.

The ministry said that more than 700 Palestinians were allowed to go through the Rafah crossing on Saturday, and more than 700 others were allowed to come in from Egypt, after being stuck in the country for more than 70 days since the last time the crossing was opened.

Ma'an English added the highlighted part above, tying the Egyptian closure to Gaza with Israel, even though Israel has nothing to do with it.

And it then adds, again in English:

The nine-year Israeli blockade has plunged the Gaza Strip’s more than 1.8 million Palestinians into poverty. The destruction from three Israeli offensives over the past six years and slow reconstruction due to the blockade led the UN in September to warn that Gaza could be “uninhabitable” by 2020.

Ma'an knows that its audience is Westerners, and especially Western reporters. So in English it makes sure to somehow tie Egypt's decision to severely limit Gazan travel and trade to Israel.

Gazans know the truth and they rgularly and bitterly complain about Egypt's treatment of them. But that is muted in English reporting because the meme of Israeli "occupation" and control of Gaza is paramount, and must be emphasized every time Egypt and Gaza are mentioned.

And this propaganda method happens to work quite well. Sure enough, UPI's story about the Rafah crossings adds this:

Gaza is home to about 1.8 million Palestinians blocked from leaving the region due to strict blockades by Israel.

The implication is what the Arabs want the world to believe: that Israel makes the decision and Egypt implements it. Yet it is Egypt that controls that border and Egypt that is blocking Gazans from leaving the region.

There was one other fact about this weekend's opening of Rafah that the Western media didn't mention because it also contradicts the meme of Israeli control. Al Ahram, which is an Egyptian site and therefore not monitored by Western reporters in Israel, mentions "Twenty-four trucks transporting 2,265 tonnes of cement needed for Gaza’s reconstruction crossed the border from Egypt on Saturday."

Really? So Egypt can be a source of construction material for Gaza as well? Is Israel somehow responsible for aid coming from Egypt too? Why won't the Western media say that Egypt can provide building materials to Gaza - and decides not to except for these exceptional and symbolic occasions?

But Western media would have to upend their meme about pure Israeli control of Gaza.. Ma'an won't mention it, so why should Reuters or AP?

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Historians against history and the dogma of anti-Israelism

Yaacov Lozowick, head of Israel's archives, writes:

Last week I was e-mailing back and forth with Prof. Donna Robinson Divine of Smith College about an upcoming academic event. Along the way we detoured into a discussion of the sorts of things one can hear these days at academic conferences. Prof. Divine has given me permission to post the relevant segments of our correspondence for public consumption:

DRD:
The panel on Israeli Archives at the American Historical Association meetings placed a great deal of emphasis on Yishuv period and on the War of Independence with one panelist actually stating that if she and others had access to the documents, they might be able to show that policymakers planned the displacement of Palestinians. Then, she added that if they could prove that a so-called policy of elimination [of the indigenous read Palestinians], they could secure the return of all the refugees in accordance with international law.
YL:
Whoever the panelist was, she was not adhering to the truth. By and large, the documentation of that period is open. All she needs to do is come and use it. And if there's a specific file which has been sealed – here and there, there are such files – she should request of the State Archivist that he look into the matter so as to open it.
The documentation shows very clearly that there was no such policy. Since that's the case, she's reverting to falsehoods. In essence what she's saying is that although the record shows that what she wishes were historically true isn't historically true, she's claiming that the record must be wrong; and the reason the record must be wrong is that the evil Zionists are falsifying it.
DRD:
...From my reading of the field of Middle East Politics [US, England, Canada] the people who embrace this kind of so-called intellectual perspective are the ones gaining tenure and academic prestige. It is probably worse for the academy than for Israel but I am committed to do what I can try to reverse the course.
So, to summarize: it is now acceptable for a panelist at a prestigious academic conference to claim that the lack of documentation of Israeli crimes proves not only that Israel committed the crimes, but that it's being devious and hiding the documentation. This, at a time when the archives are open, the documents in them have been searched exhaustively, and they do not support the thesis the academics wish they would support.

Update: Dr. Divine sends in a comment on the aftermath of her encounter with researchers who blame Israel in spite of, or even because, there isn't any evidence for their thesis. It gets even worse:

DRD: After completing the Archives Panel, I turned to finish another of the panels I developed on the topic of the 'settler colonialist perspective'. I asked some of the very people who embrace this view of Israel--and who charge Israel with denying them or those adopting this view access to relevant archives--to participate in a panel that would interrogate this approach. In fact, with one particular person, I pointed out that there would be archivists at the conference holding out the possibility of determining whether or not Israeli archives are indeed 'open'. The academician who already has charged Israel with denying access to those challenging the country's legitimacy refused my offer because of a strong commitment to the boycott movement. Charge Israel with denying access and then prove it by ever refusing to gain access. Wonderful!

It is one thing if some fringe conspiracy theorists claim that Israel is hiding information in its archives. But these are professional historians whose entire careers are supposedly dedicated to using archives like these to uncover the truth.

Yet their hate is so deep that they choose their facts first and then fit all evidence - or supposed lack of evidence - to fit their bias.

The entire field of historical research is sullied because of these historians who are, quite literally, anti-history. This should be a scandal within the community of historians, but as far as I can tell, this dedication to being against research is not hurting anybody.

Of course, the deranged hate that people have for the Jewish state doesn't stop with the conspiracy theory that any evidence that doesn't support a pre-ordained result must be evidence of a coverup. The charge of "pinkwashing" - also supported by supposedly respected academics - says that evidence that contradicts their thesis of Israeli depravity in fact supports their thesis of such depravity!

At this point, Israel-hate (what I like to call misoziony) has gone way beyond any logic and even any pseudo-logic. It has crossed the line into dogma, where facts simply are not as important than feelings, and feelings of irrational hate for Israel are assumed to be true simply because they are so strong.

It does sound a lot like traditional antisemitism, doesn't it?

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JVP: "The occupation is responsible for climate change"

From the "Jewish Voice for Peace" Boston webpage:

Actually, note the subtle cynicism: they aren't saying directly that Israel is responsible for climate change - they are saying that they made that absurd connection during a "Tu B'shevat seder" so that the idiots that attend their events would draw that conclusion.

Because if climate change - like racism, homophobia, and genocide - is bad, then the Jewish state must be blamed for it!

And it is more cynical that that. This one paragraph proves that to the haters at "Jewish Voice for Peace," Jewish ritual - indeed, Judaism itself - is meaningless except as an excuse to attack the Jewish state.

(h/t Daniel Gordis via Pro Israel Bay Bloggers)

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02/14 Links: The schizophrenia of Palestinian NGO’s; Three Myths About Israel, Exposed

From Ian:

David Collier: The schizophrenia of Palestinian NGO’s

These days, barely an hour goes by without a piece of news about the brutal ‘Israeli occupation’. 1000’s of outlets, whether NGOs, reputable media sources or random blogs, have their output disseminated on social media by an active group of people who simply hate Israel.
With this crowd displaying an insatiable thirst for the gruesome and inhumane, market pressures result in a spiral towards higher quantity and lower quality. With Israel already guilty in their minds, little of the readership care about the veracity of the individual claims. So bad has this become, that any article that fails to hit the ‘high note’ in claims about ‘Israeli war crimes’, does not even get passed around. If you want to make the grade as a writer on the conflict these days, the only way you will get ‘shares’ or ‘retweets’ is by casting aside any worries about accuracy and striving for the ever-more shocking.
As the permanently hungry anti-Israeli crowd swallowed any brutal occupation story they could find, the Palestinian groups that deliver the stories soon realised nobody was questioning their output. Whatever they say, whatever they claim, becomes news, and the tastier the story, the more chance it has of going viral. It has become a virtual feeding frenzy of stories that are for the most part, simply full of lies.
The NGOs operating in Palestinian areas face a particularly complex situation. These aid agencies are in a constant competition for attention, driven by the clamour for donations and funding. In essence the situation has to be dire for them to justify existence, and a failure to continually convince people of the urgency of their cause would result in financial disaster. ‘Palestinians’ have to stay on the front pages.
In the real world, for 68 years, the humanitarian aid agencies have perpetuated the Palestinian suffering. Firstly, by acquiescing to the Arab regimes refusal to push the refugees towards a permanent solution, then by accommodating the ‘no-to-normalisation’ banner. For the last 30 years it has got progressively worse, and almost all of these organisations have become politically active on the Palestinian’s behalf. Staffed on the ground almost exclusively by Palestinians and with nobody worrying about the veracity of the output, many of these NGOs have simply become another mouthpiece for highly politicised and ever-increasingly dubious claims.

PEN Canada ignores Max Blumenthal’s antisemitism and support for terrorism

Under the title “Embattled Truths: Reporting on Gaza with Max Blumenthal,” PEN Canada recently announced on Facebook that on February 24, they will host “acclaimed US journalist Max Blumenthal, author of The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza on the challenges of sifting truth from propaganda when reporting on conflict in the Gaza Strip.”
The announcement further asserts: “Searching for truth within the fog of war is particularly consequential in dispatches from Israel’s occupied territories. Depending on where we get our news, Gaza is either a terrorist haven and a legitimate military target, or a zone of unjustified violence against a captive civilian population.”
So PEN Canada isn’t quite sure what to think of Gaza, but they are apparently sure that Max Blumenthal is the right person to help with “searching for truth.” In an additional post, PEN Canada responded to some critical reactions to their decision to host Blumenthal: “As an organization that advocates for free speech, we are committed to open dialogue. Max Blumenthal has been invited to speak due to his extensive experience as a journalist in Gaza with articles appearing in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, and Al Jazeera English.”
It seems PEN Canada could use some help in their search for truth – and since I have extensively documented Max Blumenthal’s antisemitism and support for terrorism in the past few years, I will try to help out with a short summary of relevant information and links.

Suspect in restaurant machete attack was on FBI’s radar

Police have identified the suspect who was shot and killed following a violent machete attack at a northeast Columbus restaurant.
Police say Mohamed Barry, 30, walked into the Nazareth Restaurant and Deli on North Hamilton Road and attacked four people using a machete. He then fled the scene in a white vehicle.
A police helicopter located the vehicle, and officers were then able to maneuver the suspect off the road. Sgt. Rich Weiner said Barry then attempted to get out of the passenger side of the vehicle, and an officer Tased him with no effect.
When Barry lunged at an officer with a machete and a knife in his hand, Columbus Police Officer John Johnson, a 25-year veteran of the force, fired two shots from his duty weapon, striking and killing Barry.
Law enforcement officials say the FBI was looking at Barry for expressing radical Islamic views four years ago. For an unknown reason, the FBI moved on from him in their investigation.

Jewish woman throwing a grenade

in the Israeli War of Independence

The long Arab-Muslim war against the Jewish people goes on and on... but the Jews are winning.

We need to acknowledge that the conflict is an ongoing expression of Arab-Muslim religious hatred toward Jews as manifested since the time of Muhammad and embedded within the Koran and the Hadiths. Further, it is promoted and prolonged by western-progressive hostility toward Israel, and thus toward Jews, more generally, veiled within profoundly hypocritical notions of social justice and universal human rights.

Some will speak of a semi-historical / semi-mythological Islamic "Golden Age" wherein ascending Islam led the world in science and was amicable toward non-Muslims, including the Jewish minority.

This is false.

Islam, historically, has most often not been friendly toward non-Muslims and their scientific contributions, aside from the advancement of Algebra, have been negligible for many centuries.

The truth is that long before the rise of the Western Enlightenment - long before Galileo pointed his little refracting telescope at Venus and proved the heliocentric view of the solar system - the Islamic world was a civilizational leader.

It conquered vast territories from Christians and Jews and others throughout the Middle East, suppressed those around them, and made a few scientific advances during a period of human stupidity, backwardness, and blindness.

Islam, however, seems to have nowhere to go but down and one major reason for this is the ongoing and violent hatred toward the Jewish minority and all other infidels or apostates or "wrong" kinds of Muslims. Islam, after all, beats on nobody so much as it beats on its own.

What I would argue is that if Islam, in general, and the Islamic states, in particular, would stop harping on the fact that the Jewish people have independence on the small historic Jewish homeland, perhaps Middle Eastern Arabs could begin the process of moving into the modern world. They could - in my fondest imagination - give up old hatreds in favor of cultivating interest in the sciences and arts, building businesses and advancing local economies, bolstering the well-being of the world rather than seeking to tear it down through the Jihad.

{That would be nice.}

But the fact of the matter is that the Jews have basically won the Long Arab War.

The Long Arab War Against the Jews in the Middle East has taken the following phases in its contemporary iteration.

The Phases of the Long Arab War:

Phase 1, 1920 - 1947: Riots and Massacres

Phase 2, November 1947 - April 1948: The Civil War in Palestine

Phase 3, 1948 - 1973: Conventional Warfare

Phase 4, 1964 - Present: The Terror War

Phase 5, 1975 - Present: The Delegitimization Effort

Given the fact that the Jews in that part of the world represent a tiny minority and their Arab-Muslim enemies represent a far larger majority - and given the fact that the EU, the UN, and the United States, under the Obama administration, is hostile to that small minority - it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that the Jewish people are losing the Long War.

The fact of the matter, however, is that the Jews have survived all their historical enemies and the Arab-Muslim world, while a far larger demographic in the Middle East, is a mess. The Muslims of the Middle East suppressed and abused the Jewish minority there, not to mention the beleaguered Christians, from the time of Muhammad until the fall of the Ottoman Empire early in the twentieth-century following World War I. They conquered the Jews and they conquered the entirety of eastern Christendom and now honestly believe that such imperial conquests give them moral rights to the land that they plundered and continue to occupy and harass indigenous populations throughout the area.

However, from that moment until this the indigenous Jews have consolidated their position economically, scientifically, diplomatically, and militarily. Furthermore, they did so while under constant violent pressure from their inhospitable neighbors and while enduring the snide contempt of the European states who generally side with the Arabs against the Jews.

This is a remarkable accomplishment and it should be celebrated.

As has often been remarked, if you were to go back in time and tell a Jew in 1916 that by 2016 a reconstituted Israel would be among the most powerful nations on the planet he would certainly have thought you bonkers.

This is, of course, not to suggest that the long war is over because the Jews have defeated our enemies. We have not, and we will not any time soon, for the simple reason that our numbers are far too few and our enemies are far too many.

Nonetheless, when looking at contemporary Arab-Muslim hostility toward the Jewish people we need to teach them that they are beat.

The sooner that they realize this the better for everyone.

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.

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Somehow, Gaza received enough concrete build a huge auditorium and more

UNRWA brags:

On 4 February 2016, under the supervision of the UNRWA Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Programme (ICIP), the casting work of the cement raft foundation of the two major buildings (Auditorium Building and Faculty of Arts& Human Sciences building) at the new Al-Azhar University campus in Gaza city started. The concrete raft is the largest ever constructed in Gaza to date. 4,600 cubic meters of concrete were used in the casting of the foundation of the auditorium, and another 2,700 cubic metres of concrete for the casting of the foundation of the Arts building; over 180 skilled and unskilled labourers were involved in the casting. A total of six concrete pumps were active simultaneously to make the casting possible, and the casting work lasted for 35 consecutive hours for the Auditorium Building and for 24 consecutive hours for the Faculty of Arts & Human Sciences building. The ICIP engineers took into consideration the expected stormy weather where the rainfall might affect the quality of the concrete. Four teams of engineers from the UNRWA ICIP were constantly monitoring the concrete pouring and the pumps, taking samples of concrete and monitoring the process of mixing concrete in the factories. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD), generously contributed US$24.1 million for the construction of these two buildings. Given its technical expertise, UNRWA is fulfilling a supervisory role throughout the construction which began in September 2015.

700 tons of steel were also used.

Here's another building at Al Azhar:

(h/t Irene)

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Times of Israel reports:

Palestinian teenager opened fire at IDF soldiers in the northern West Bank Sunday morning and was shot dead along with a second teenager in an ensuing firefight, the army said.

The troops shot the two after coming under fire while patrolling outside the Israeli settlement of Hinanit, near Jenin. The soldiers arrived in the area in response to reports of a rock throwing incident, the army said in a statement. There were no injuries on the Israeli side.

“Earlier this morning two Palestinians armed with a rifle attacked IDF soldiers,” the statement said. “The perpetrators hurled rocks at passing vehicles west of Jenin. When forces arrived at the scene an assailant opened fire at the soldiers. The force responded to the shooting and fired toward the attackers, resulting in their deaths.”

The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that two teenagers had been killed near the village age of al-‘Arqa in Jenin. They were identified by the Health Ministry as Nihad Raed Muhammad Waked and Fouad Marwan Khaled Waked, both 15 years old. Unconfirmed reports said they were cousins.

The meme that the mainstream media has pushed is that the new wave of terrorists are "frustrated from nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation."

Let's glance at Nihad Raed's Facebook page.

It is not atypical of the pages of any Palestinian Arab youth. And what it shows is that Nihad (who had just turned 16) had a love of billiards....

󾮗󾠎
Posted by Nihad Waked on Friday, January 29, 2016

Soccer....

BOoM!! بمنتصف الجبهى
Posted by Nihad Waked on Wednesday, March 4, 2015

And violence. (He seems to have created this video.)

Posted by Nihad Waked on Friday, September 18, 2015

He seems to have posed with an automatic weapon:

Nihad doesn't look like he was ever interested in non-violent solutions, as this cartoon of the iconic Palestinian symbol shows:

"This is my childhood, take it from me as a present... And only give me a gun"

But there are plenty of photos of him with his friends, smiling as they hang out. He captions some with their names. And he had a couple photos of the Temple Mount.

His last post, from last night, says "Oh Lord, you know my state the best, grant me what I wish." In retrospect, it means going to Paradise as a martyr, as two of his friends posted after his death.

Did Nihad telegraph his intentions beforehand?

Perhaps. A month ago he wrote a poem of sorts that said:

Don't be sad when an injustice was done to you, Allah has promised to grant victory to those who have been wronged. "I swear by His Holy Being (i.e. Allah), by my honor and glory, I will grant you victory, even if after a while" And for this/therefore??? I will not be sad when I see the oppressor shaking. [I'll write] a new line"

This wasn't "frustration." This was brainwashing, a constant diet of incitement in media that showed that death for the sake of Allah was the most desirable thing and terrorists are romanticized.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: Frighteningly, he seems to have gone to Israel last August, checking in from Acre.

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Lebanon: "Israel abused our goats"

From The Daily Star Lebanon:

Israeli forces Thursday returned 134 goats to south Lebanon in “bad condition”, but are still holding another 91, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The NNA said that residents of the villages of Halta, Kfar Shuba and the Shebaa farms set tires ablaze outside a UNIFIL office in Kfar Shuba, demanding the remaining goats seized by the Israeli forces be released.

The report said that the protesters were also angered that the goats which were returned were in "bad condition". It was unclear if that meant they were harmed.

UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said peacekeepers are “working in close coordination with all parties, including the Lebanese army, to facilitate the return of the goats and avoid an escalation of the situation on the border.”

An Israeli army patrol had reportedly crossed into Lebanon Wednesday and took the herd of goats belonging to Wissam Abdulal.

Lebanese lawmaker Qassem Hashem said Wednesday that contacts were underway with the Lebanese Army and other states to “hasten the release of the goats.”

The IDF is stealing goats and returning them in bad condition!

I couldn't find any stories in Israeli media about this absurd story, but it sure looks like somehow Israel ended up with some Lebanese goats. So what happened?

I emailed the IDF and didn't get a response (dudes, you have a New Media desk, why don't you answer?) but a hint comes from the previous day's Daily Star article:

The NNA reported that an Israeli army patrol took the herd of goats belonging to Wissam Abdulal after they allegedly crossed into the occupied Shebaa Farms.

So the goats crossed into Israeli territory, as the Shebaa Farms were declared by the UN to be on the Israeli side of the Blue Line.

(h/t Daniel - and the article was republished by Arab American News)

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Last September:

Two elderly Holocaust survivors have been savagely beaten in a sickening robbery and anti-Semitic attack in the Netherlands.

Dutch police have launched an investigation after two armed men claiming to be police officers forced their way into the Amsterdam home of Shmuel Blog, 87 and his wife Diana, 86.

The criminals called the elderly couple 'dirty Jews' and demanded they hand over valuables before the savage attack, which left Mr Blog blind and confined to a wheelchair for life after breaking his thigh. Mrs Blog is also expected to spend the rest of her life in a chair suffering from 'extreme pains'.

The Blogs told Dutch police officers that two men dressed entirely in black knocked on their front door and identified themselves as police officers on August 4, according to the Times of Israel.

When Mr Blog answered the door the pair burst in, pointing their guns and hitting and kicking the elderly couple as they demanded jewelry and other valuables.

Severely injured, the elderly couple were then tied up and stripped of the rings and other jewelry they were wearing.

'They called us "dirty Jews" and said: "You don't need your jewelry anymore. You've been wearing it for too long. Now it's all ours",' Mrs Blog told Ynet.

'They wanted to chop off my finger because the rings didn't come off fast enough,' she added.

There was a crowdfunding campaign to help out the Blogs that started this week, with a modest goal of €15,000. They reached that goal within hours. At the moment some €23,562 has been raised.

(h/t Chris)

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02/13 Links: Palestinian official takes time off from glorifying terrorists; Winning an unconventional war

From Ian:

CAMERA: Palestinian official takes time off from glorifying terrorists

H.E. Shukry Bishara, a finance minister for the Palestinian Authority (PA), omits much while claiming that “Aid to Palestine promotes peace and prosperity” (February 9)—perhaps omissions and distortions are essential to his fallacious argument.
Bishara claims that “Palestine” is “a dedicated partner for peace.” Yet, the PA has continued to celebrate terrorists who murder Jews. Five days before Bishara’s commentary was published in The Hill, PA President Mahmoud Abbas—currently in the tenth year of a single elected five-year term—hosted 11 families of terrorists in his office. Palestinian leaders rewarding terror is the rule, rather than the exception.
On Oct. 13, 2015, the PA Ministry of Education announced that it would plant olive trees and place signs with the names of Palestinian terrorists killed while attacking Israelis, among them Muhannad Shafeq Halabi, who murdered two Israelis and stabbed a two-year old child in what official PA media celebrated as a “martyrdom operation.” Halabi was also posthumously awarded a law degree and soil from the al-Aqsa mosque was brought to his grave by Abbas.
Besides offering praise, memorial degrees and tributes, the PA has incited terror attacks against Israelis. In a Sep. 16, 2015 speech that preceded the current “stabbing intifada,” Abbas said, “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.” This exhortation, played on official PA TV and featured on the PA’s Web site, can hardly be considered the words of a “partner for peace.”
When not glorifying or inciting terrorists, the PA is paying them.

CAMERA Letter Refutes False Commentary by Hill Contributor

Josh Ruebner offers to give Sen. Tom Cotton a geography lesson because the Arkansas Republican opposes discriminatory labeling of imports from Israeli settlements (“The West Bank and Gaza Strip are not Israel, Sen. Cotton,” February 8). It's Ruebner who needs a vocabulary lesson.
Ruebner, of the “U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation,” refers to “the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank (including East Jerusalem)….” But he also says “the ultimate disposition of these Palestinians lands can only be determined through bilateral negotiations.” If they're “Palestinian lands,” their disposition's already been determined. If their “ultimate disposition … can only be determined through bilateral negotiations,” then the territories in question are disputed, not Palestinian.
Ruebner notes that “in 1967, the United States played a seminal role in getting the United Nations to adopt Security Council Resolution 242, calling on Israel to withdraw ‘from territories occupied' in that year's war, which include the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” Resolution 242 does more than call on Israel to withdraw from some but not necessarily all territories it won in self-defense in 1967. It calls for “secure and recognized boundaries,” which Israel's pre-'67 armistice lines with Jordan on the West Bank and Egypt in the Gaza Strip manifestly were not. Israeli withdrawal, whatever its degree,is envisioned as the result of successful negotiations deciding the disposition of the territories, not something required prior.
Meanwhile, the resolution's co-author, U.S. Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow, noted Jews as well as Arabs have claims in the territories. As for “the illegality of Israeli settlements,” as Ruebner puts it, the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, Article 6, calls for “close Jewish settlement” on the land west of the Jordan River. The mandate, including Article 6, is upheld by the U.N. Charter, Chapter XII, Article 80. The United States long ago endorsed Great Britain's exercise of mandatory powers, including Article 6 (Anglo-American Convention, 1924). Claims to the contrary, whether made by Ruebner, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, or even U.S. administrations may be propagandistic, diplomatic, or political, but not legal.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Perpetuating the conflict

If a member of France's National Assembly had dared visit the Sint-Jans-Molenbeek neighborhood in Brussels, the home of some of the November 13 Paris terror attack perpetrators, and observe a minute of silence with the families of the murderers, he would have had to flee directly to Syria. He'd only be able to return to France in handcuffs. Excuses like "you have to understand the cultural context" would have been rejected out of hand. But MK Ayman Odeh dares complain about Israeli democracy. He's got some nerve.
The outrage at the three Balad MKs was not about their humanitarian mission to return the bodies of the terrorists and comfort bereaved families. The outrage exploded because of their show of solidarity with the families of the murderers, which was also expressed in a minute of silence in their memory. Odeh, by the way, claims there was no minute of silence. Really? Jamal Zahalka told Danny Kushmaro: "There was a minute of silence, as is the Palestinian custom."
MK Haneen Zoabi explained after the visit that the important thing was the struggle against the occupation. Indeed. Like her party members, she is talking about the 1948 occupation, not the 1967 one. She rejects the Jews' right to have a state of their own. She doesn't just support the "resistance," she also encourages it. And she, the so-called secular woman, also called to "put religious ceremonies and religious institutions in the center of the struggle," as well as "to cancel the security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and replace it with resistance."
And to those who insist on not getting it, "the resistance" ("al-Muqawamah") is also, and perhaps mostly, terrorism against Jews. And according to Zoabi, "there is no such thing as Palestinian terrorism." Not even the murder of the three yeshiva students. There's only a "legitimate struggle" and "resistance." It's no wonder Hamas views her as a heroine. Zoabi and her friends insist on perpetuating the conflict and perpetuating terrorism, they've been the Palestinians' catastrophe for the past 100 years of conflict. They're leading them from one disaster to the next, and they insist on carrying on.

02/12 Links Pt2: 10 Basic Questions for Ban Ki-moon; Healthy Institutions Don’t Boycott Israel

From Ian:

Hillel Neuer: 10 Basic Questions for Ban Ki-moon as He Visits Canada

As UN chief Ban Ki-moon continues his high-profile visit to Canada today with an address at McGill University, my alma mater, I hope students will ask Mr. Ban 10 basic questions concerning U.N. actions over the past year, which new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to ask yesterday:
5: If the UN Charter promises equality, why does the UNGA condemn Israel 20 times a year, with 3 times for the rest of the world combined?
4: Why was an Algerian dipomat who notoriously campaigned to muzzle UN rights experts just now himself elected a UN rights expert?
3: After the deadly Islamist terror attacks in Paris, why did UN expert Alfred de Zayas try to blame France and the West?
2. Why on Feb. 25th is the UN planning to reelect Syria to a leadership post on the Decolonization Committee, which aims to end the “subjugation of peoples”?
1: Why did the UN recently elect Saudi Arabia to behead of a UN Human Rights Council panel that names human rights experts?

10 Questions for UN Chief Ban Ki-moon

Anne Bayefsky: The UN's 'violent extremism' scam: What to say when 'radical Islamic terror' is too scary

There is a dangerous scam gaining traction at the United Nations, backstopped by the White House. It’s called “violent extremism.” Given the U.N.’s long and undistinguished history of being unable to define terrorism, and an American president who chokes on the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” pledges to combat “violent extremism” have become all the rage.
It turns out that the terminological fast one is a lethal diplomatic dance that needs to be deconstructed, and quickly.
In 1999, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) adopted an “anti-terrorism” treaty stating that “armed struggle against foreign occupation, aggression, colonialism and hegemony, aimed at liberation and self-determination…shall not be considered a terrorist crime.”
In practice, that means it is open season on all Israelis, as well as Americans and Europeans who get in the way. Each of the 56 Islamic states, and what the UN labels the “State of Palestine,” is a party to this treaty.
The September 11 terror attacks then launched a growth industry in U.N. counter-terrorism chit-chat and paraphernalia.

White House: Obama Will Sign Trade Bill Begrudgingly, Hates Anti-BDS Part

The White House has announced it is partially unhappy with the new bipartisan bill, Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. They like the bill in general, they say, as the W.H. Press Secretary put it in a statement: “We are pleased the Senate passed the bipartisan Customs conference report because it will provide additional tools to help crack down on unfair competition by trading partners and foreign companies that put our workers and businesses at a disadvantage.” However, there’s this one portion they really dislike:
“…there are provisions in this bill that we do not support, including a provision that contravenes longstanding US policy towards Israel and the occupied territories, including with regard to Israeli settlement activity.”
Here’s what the new trade bill has to say about that last, unpleasant Jewish settlements part (abbreviated, because it’s Friday and you need to go shopping for Shabbat). But if you’re really in a hurry, the part Obama et al loath the most is hidden way down there, in item (b) (7), which declares that Congress
“supports efforts to prevent investigations or prosecutions by governments or international organizations of United States persons solely on the basis of such persons doing business with Israel, with Israeli entities, or in any territory controlled by Israel.”