Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 18, 2016

UK officially says BDS movement "fuels anti-Semitism"

Here is the press release by the UK government saying that boycotting Israel by public institutions is illegal. They are simply highlighting existing laws and agreements that make all boycotts of countries under the WTO illegal.

Notably, the press release explicitly says that the boycotts pushed by the BDS movement are "fuelling anti-Semitism."

Note also that the same press release also reiterates support for labeling all goods from the territories:

Guidance published today makes clear that procurement boycotts by public authorities are inappropriate, outside where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the government.

Town hall boycotts undermine good community relations, poisoning and polarising debate, weakening integration and fuelling anti-Semitism.

Locally imposed boycotts can roll back integration as well as hinder Britain’s export trade and harm international relationship.

All contracting authorities will be impacted by this new guidance including central government, executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies, the wider public sector, local authorities and NHS bodies. Any public body found to be in breach of the regulations could be subject to severe penalties.

The World Trade Organisation Government Procurement Agreement – an international market access agreement – requires all those countries that have signed up to the Agreement to treat suppliers equally. This includes the EU and Israel. Any discrimination against Israeli suppliers involving procurements would therefore be in breach of the Agreement.

The guidance published today complements existing government guidance about trading or investing overseas (including with Israel), where we advise UK businesses to consider any potential legal and economic risks of doing so. It is also in line with the government’s existing policy of support for clear and transparent labelling of settlement products to ensure that individual consumers are able to make informed choices before they buy.

Cabinet Office Minister, Matthew Hancock said:

We need to challenge and prevent these divisive town hall boycotts. The new guidance on procurement combined with changes we are making to how pension pots can be invested will help prevent damaging and counter-productive local foreign policies undermining our national security.

We support UK local authorities, businesses and individual consumers alike in making informed choices about how they procure services and products from overseas.

Here are the actual guidelines that were issued, which do not mention Israel at all:

Procurement Policy Note: Ensuring compliance with wider international obligations when letting public contracts
Information Note 01/16 17th February 2016

Issue

1. This PPN sets out contracting authorities’ international obligations when letting public contracts. It makes clear that boycotts in public procurement are inappropriate, outside where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the UK Government.

Dissemination and Scope

2. This PPN is directly applicable to all contracting authorities, including Central Government, Executive Agencies, Non Departmental Public Bodies, wider public sector, local authorities and NHS bodies. Please circulate this document (for information) within your organisation, including where relevant to Executive Agencies and Non Departmental Public Bodies and other contracting authorities for which you are responsible, drawing it to the attention of those with a purchasing role.

Advice

3. The UK has a longstanding and widely accepted policy that applies to all public contracts, of ensuring value for money in public procurement, as set out in HMT's Managing Public Money. Value for money is defined as securing the best mix of quality and effectiveness for the least outlay over the period of use of the goods or services bought. That definition has recently been updated to make clearer that the key factor is whole life cost, not necessarily the lowest purchase price.

4. Further, wider policy objectives (such as economic or employment-related considerations) can be pursued through the procurement process where they are linked to the subject-matter of the contract. The new Public Contract Regulations (PCR) 2015 also provide flexibility for authorities to take account of wider matters in the procurement process, such as social and environmental factors. Contracting authorities may apply these flexibilities where relevant, ensuring always that all suppliers are treated equally and without discrimination.

5. The UK's regime of procurement rules (the PCR 2015), derives largely from the EU procurement directives and the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) - an international market access agreement. These rules impose a legal obligation on public authorities when awarding contracts above certain thresholds to treat EU and GPA 2 suppliers equally, and not discriminate by, amongst other things, favouring national suppliers. There are remedies available through the courts for breaches of these rules, such as damages, fines and ineffectiveness (contract cancellation). The European Commission can also bring legal proceedings against the UK Government for alleged breaches of EU law by a UK contracting authority. This can lead to formal action being required to rectify the breach, and substantial fines against the Government. The Government will always involve the relevant contracting authority in these proceedings.

6. Suppliers from "third countries" (which are neither part of the EU, nor the GPA or other international free-trade agreements with the EU) do not enjoy access to our remedies system if they are discriminated against. However, third country suppliers could, potentially, offer the best value for money outcome, so the UK Government expects that its authorities will deal with bids from such third countries in the same way as EU or GPA countries.

7. Public procurement should never be used as a tool to boycott tenders from suppliers based in other countries, except where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the UK Government. There are wider national and international consequences from imposing such local level boycotts. They can damage integration and community cohesion within the United Kingdom, hinder Britain’s export trade, and harm foreign relations to the detriment of Britain’s economic and international security. As highlighted earlier, it can also be unlawful and lead to severe penalties against the contracting authority and the Government.

Contact
8. Enquiries about this PPN should be directed to the Crown Commercial Service Helpdesk (telephone 0345 410 2222, email info@crowncommercial.gov.uk)

The PLO is furious, and is using the "peace process" that they oppose as a reason to boycott Israel:

“This policy puts the UK in the position of defending Israel’s occupation, expansion, racism and colonialism,” said Husam Zomlot, ambassador-at-large for the Palestinian leadership.

"It is a bullet at the heart of peacemaking because peace will only come when Israel is under pressure and feels consequences for its illegal actions."

That is the entire PLO foreign policy message in a single sentence. They have no responsibilities, only rights, including many that no one else has.

Peace-seeker Zomlot likes analogies to bullets, because he also told Financial Times "This is a bullet at the very heart of a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East and the very heart of democracy in Britain."

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Palestinian national football team is named "Fedayeen" - after terrorists who murdered hundreds

Yesterday, the Palestinian national soccer team defeated the Algerian team, 1-0, in front of a reported 75,000 fans. For those who are interested, here was the winning goal:

The name of the Palestinian team?

The Fedayeen.

The fedayeen were the terrorists who murdered hundreds of Jews in the 1950s and 1960s, and some groups under that category continued to kill Israelis through the second intifada.

Effectively, the PLO has named its national soccer team "the terrorists."

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EoZTV Livecast

Here's a video of the live broadcast of EoZTV. You can skip the first minute as I get things up and running.

This is the chatroom we used. I might keep it for next time.

Chat Software

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02/17 Link Pt2: Israel’s Legitimacy is not dependent on a Palestinian State, or NY Times

From Ian:

Israel’s Legitimacy is not dependent on a Palestinian State, or The NY Times

We hear from critics of Israel that Israel needs a two-state solution to be legitimate.
Without a Palestinian state, the argument goes, Israel will rule over millions of resentful Palestinians to whom it will have to deny their basic rights in order to maintain its Jewish nature. Or if Israel enfranchises the Palestinians, they could overwhelm the Jews with their votes and then Israel would cease to be a Jewish state. So the reasoning goes, without a separate Palestinian state, Israel will either cease being Jewish or democratic.
But there was already a separation achieved in 1993, with the signing of the Oslo Accords.
By the end of 1995 Israel had withdrawn from the major population areas in the West Bank, leaving over 90% of Palestinians under the political control of the Palestinian Authority. In 2005, Israel “disengaged” from Gaza ending the occupation of that territory.
On the political front, Yasser Arafat rejected a two state solution from then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In 2008 Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas rejected a peace deal from then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Two years ago, Abbas rejected a framework agreement that current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reluctantly agreed to.
So the problem isn’t the occupation but what the Palestinians have done or haven’t done with the opportunity.
By focusing strictly on Israel, the peace processors have absolved the Palestinians of any responsibility for their own plight. Worse, by making Israel responsible, they give the Palestinians the ability to determine Israel’s legitimacy.

Jewish star of Scandinavian BBC crime drama The Bridge reveals he quit the show because he was fed up with filming in 'anti-Semitic' Malmo

Danish actor Kim Bodnia has revealed that one of the reasons why he quit hit show The Bridge was because as a Jew he did not feel safe working in Sweden.
Bodnia played detective Martin Rohde in two seasons of the Scandi-crime show, but after first signing up for a third, he later dropped out.
The 50-year-old had previously cited issues with the script, but has now said his departure was also caused by of the rise of anti-Semitism in Sweden.
The Bridge is filmed on both sides of the Oresund - in Denmark and Sweden - and its first two seasons starred Bodnia as Rodhe, and Sofia Helin as the socially awkward Swedish detective Saga Noren.
Despite initially signing up to return as Rohde in season three, Bodnia later announced he was quitting the show in 2014.
Bodnia made the controversial comments during an interview for Israeli TV where he spoke about why he left The Bridge.
After initially explaining that the changes made to the script and lack of influence on it as an actor was the main reason, he is then asked about anti-Semitism in Scandinvia.
‘It [anti-Semitism] is growing, especially in Malmo where we shot the Bridge in Sweden,' he told Channel 10. (h/t Zvi)

The Ambassador From Hell?

Yet there were—and are—clearly other options. In A Problem From Hell, Power suggests that the United States “should set up safe areas to house refugees and civilians, and protect them with well-armed and robustly mandated peacekeepers, airpower, or both.” Lots of people did argue for a no-fly zone or buffer zone to protect Syrians fleeing from Assad’s killing machine. But the White House said no. Mighty Syrian air defenses were too much for the U.S. air force, said former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey.
There was a time when virtually all of Obama’s national security staff advocated arming the rebels to take down Assad. The president was against it. He derided the opposition. As he told Thomas Friedman in August 2014, “This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.” But the reality is that those doctors, farmers, and pharmacists are still out in the field, and might already have stopped the genocide against them on their own, if the president of the United States had been moved to help them help themselves.
Last week John Kerry blamed members of the anti-Assad opposition for walking away from the negotiating table at Geneva, even as Aleppo was being bombed by Russian planes. He told them to expect another three months of bombing, which, he said, would “decimate” them. When the opposition petitioned Kerry to do more, he replied: “Don’t blame me, go and blame your opposition.” Then he continued: “What do you want me to do? Go to war with Russia?” This represents something new in the history of American acquiescence to genocide, and something not even Power documented in her handbook—a U.S. official demanding pity from the victims of a genocide whose suffering he thinks can be alleviated by surrendering to the people who are killing them.
The entire White House, from the president on down, is complicit in the crimes that Power tweets about. As the person who quite literally wrote the book on how the American superpower must stop genocides when it has the power to do so, why hasn’t she resigned? Maybe genocide isn’t actually that important after all, when measured against things like a trade deal with Asia. Perhaps, like the predecessors she describes in her book, she “assumed that U.S. policy was immutable, that their concerns were already understood by their superiors, and that speaking (or walking) out would only reduce their capacity to improve the policy.” Power’s book was taken at the time of its publication as a powerful warning against the moral price that our country pays for such delusional rationalizations. It will be hard to read it the same way again.

Clifford D. May: Bystanders to genocide

One must wonder: Is Ambassador Power asking herself that question now that she's a key figure in an administration that for five years has been choosing to look away from the carnage in Syria and hardly mentioning -- much less taking steps to "mitigate and prevent" -- what history is likely to record as the genocide of Middle Easter Christians?
On the same day last week that the Syrian Center for Policy Research released its report on the death toll, American, Russian and other diplomats meeting in Munich agreed to a "cessation of hostilities" that is to begin within a week. Critics say it will allow Assad and his allies to consolidate their recent gains and prepare for further advances.
We should hope the critics are wrong. But by now we also should have learned that the Russians and Iranians do not see diplomacy as does Obama. They are not trying to "get to yes," find "win-win" compromises or achieve "conflict resolution." Sparing innocent lives is certainly not a priority. To them, diplomacy is war by other means, and wars are for winning.
As they see it, Americans in recent years have been defeated in one diplomatic battle after another -- by North Koreans, by Cubans, by Iran's revolutionary jihadis. They expect to build on this trend. A convincing argument that they're wrong would be challenging to mount.

"Apartheid?"poster - Makram Khoury

Latest in the series:

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"Got A Shoehorn? I Gotta Fit A Story Into The Anti-Israel Narrative" (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Got A Shoehorn? I Gotta Fit A Story Into The Anti-Israel Narrative

By Luke Baker, Reuters

I seem to have misplaced my shoehorn. That’s going to make it more difficult to force the story I have to report to fit the familiar assumptions of Israel-bad, Palestinians-good. Not impossible, mind you, but more difficult. Do you happen to have a shoehorn you can spare, just for an hour or so? I'll give it right back.

An eraser might do for some types of adjustment to fit the narrative, yes, but that risks leaving too many gaping holes in the story, and that would be simply unprofessional. A reporter of my credentials knows better than to make glaring omissions that only make the reader wonder whether more than meets the eye is going on, instead of accepting the framing of the event as yet another iteration of Israeli brutality and noble Palestinian victimhood. We cannot have that. It would undermine decades of careful adherence to that line. So please, have you got maybe a crowbar?

A chisel might do, as well, or a reasonably firm spatula. Just something to help wedge the facts into the comfortable confines of Israeli repression and honorable Palestinian resistance. Of Israeli censorship and beleaguered journalists putting up a brave fight to report the truth. Of sinister Israeli racism and liberal Palestinian values. Perhaps a hammer? I suppose it’s not strictly necessary to wedge the facts into the narrative – it might be possible to just keep smashing them into the form I want them. Crude, but effective.

Another possibility would be to use the right kind of industrial lubricant, and have the story slide more easily into the preconceived anti-Israel pattern. Some of the more reputable agencies do that, but with deadline pressures it's not always possible to achieve the proper results in time. With longer feature pieces, for example, a dose of fragrant essential oils, and you can massage that baby until it slides right into the existing prejudices.

Still, I prefer the simple elegance of a shoehorn, be it of the standard or longer variety. It makes the bias so much more subtle and deniable than the brute force of a hammer, but still provides a reasonable way to accomplish the distortion quickly enough to meet the pressures of a minute-to-minute breaking news cycle. So have you got one?

Oh, just a butcher's knife? No worries, Muhammad. That will do just fine. I'll give it right back to you when I'm finished. Then you can go on your way toward Damascus Gate.

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02/17 Link Pt1: Why the Palestinians Say Never; Nasrallah Threatens Haifa Chemical Facility

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Leaders: Who Are They Fooling?

For Abbas and the Palestinian leadership, the death of more than 170 Palestinians and 26 Israelis in the past five months occurred in the context of a "popular and peaceful uprising." One can only imagine what the uprising would have looked like had it not been "peaceful."
Abbas assured his people that those who die defending their holy sites would go straight to heaven. "Every drop of blood that is spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood," he stressed.
According to the Palestinian Authority, these youths are acting out of despair -- over settlements, checkpoints and lack of progress in the peace process. The attackers are in fact targeting Jews because they have been incited and brainwashed by the same leaders who are now denouncing Israel for protecting itself.
Not a single senior Palestinian official has condemned the targeting of innocent civilians in this "peaceful" uprising. They are too busy glorifying the assailants and naming streets after them.
The blood of the Palestinians who are being shot and killed while attacking Jews is on the hands of Abbas and his senior officials.

Why the Palestinians Say Never

While the PA has at times spoken of being willing to make peace but its leader Mahmoud Abbas has always made it clear that he will never recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. Moreover, the PA is locked in a deadly competition with Hamas, which is more open about its true intentions. Hamas regards all of Israel as “occupied territory” that must be liberated. As studies have illustrated, that is more in line with the opinions of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians. Most Palestinians share Hamas’s belief that the Jews have no right to a single inch of the country and believe all acts of terror against Jews — even the most heinous crimes against helpless innocents — are praiseworthy. For over 100 years, Palestinian nationalism has been inextricably linked to conflict with the Jews and, until a critical mass of them adopts some other approach to identity, peace isn’t possible.
What this adds up to is a situation that puts Abbas and any potential successor (he is currently serving the 11th year of the four-year-term to which he was elected in 2005) in the same boat that his predecessor Arafat claimed to be in Camp David in 2000. Neither Arafat nor Abbas believed they could ever sell a peace deal to their people — let alone their Hamas foes — if it meant ending the century-long war against Zionism.
So while the Palestinians say they will “never” go back to negotiations because they believe they can’t get a good deal, their real reason is just the opposite. If, as happened in 2000, 2001 and 2008, they engage in talks, their greatest fear is getting a very good deal that will give them statehood and independence. Their goal is to avoid negotiating because getting to yes with Israel would actually mean peace. And that is something they cannot do until a sea change in their political culture happens. Though when most people say the word never, they mean something very different, in this case, the Palestinian never may very well mean never.

Defiant Israeli Owner of Ohio Restaurant Attacked by Machete-Wielding Assailant Says He Will Now Wear Star of David

The owner of the Columbus, Ohio restaurant in which four people were wounded in a machete attack last week said he will not let the incident deter his support for Israel, The Washington Post reported.
Hany Baransi, a Christian Arab from Haifa, displays an Israeli flag in the window of his restaurant, Nazareth Mediterranean Cuisine, which has been open for 27 years. When asked if he would consider removing the flag as a precaution, Baransi rejected the idea.
“Actually I have another flag, and I am going to get a bigger flag, and I am going to get a Star of David necklace and put it on my chest, and I am going to get a tattoo,” he said. “Honest to God, I am not kidding. They don’t scare me. We are Israelis. We are Israelis. We are resilient, we fight back.”
Though authorities initially said they believed that the attacker, Somali immigrant Mohamed Barry, terrorized the restaurant randomly, new information has surfaced making it seem likely that it was targeted because of Baransi’s being Israeli, according to The Washington Post.
Baransi said that half an hour before the attack, the assailant asked a waiter where the owner was from, and she told him he was from Israel. The attacker, 30, then left the eatery after learning that Baransi was not on the premises. He returned 30 minutes later wielding a machete and slashing diners.

Google Knowledge Graph says Israeli journalist born in "State of Palestine"

A few years ago, Google started putting automated summary responses to queries on the margin of the search page, so for example autobiographical details of the person being searched for would appear without an additional click. Google calls these "Knowledge Graphs."

Google relies a lot on Wikipedia and similar sources to generate these Knowledge Graphs. But it looks like someone is gaming the system.

Look at the Google result for Israeli TV personality Yonit Levi:

Even if you believe that there is a "State of Palestine," and even if you believe that the French Hill neighborhood is part of it - which is absurd - there is no way you can say that she was born in the "State of Palestine" in 1977!

But her Wikipedia entry does not say this. None of the web pages about her refer to the "State of Palestine." So how did Google's algorithms decide this?

Either someone in Google is politicizing the results of search queries, or anti-Israel activists had a secret campaign to click on the "feedback" button and issue a fake "correction."

It appears that Google can be less reliable than Wikipedia itself in providing facts for researchers.

(h/t Russell)

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PA foreign ministry calls on the world to ban Jews from Temple Mount

The hate rhetoric continues, as the PA's foreign ministry has called on the international community and Arab world to go beyond condemnations and work to ban Jews from the Temple Mount.

In a statement released by the ministry, it says that "The foreign ministry condemns in the strongest terms incursions by Jewish extremists to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

"It is required more than ever for an Arab, Islamic and international position beyond condemnation and denunciation to establish a real and effective international protection for the Palestinian people and their sanctities, and included in their rights to freedom of movement and access to places of worship."

Which means the complete denial of Jewish rights to access places of worship in Jerusalem. Banning Jews from visiting the site, the PA says, is mandatory under "international law, international humanitarian law, and the Geneva Conventions."

Of course, not too many international "human rights" organizations are defending the right of Jews to worship on the Temple Mount.

Every day there are news articles in Arabic complaining about Jews visiting the holy site. On Sunday, as most days, Jews were accused of performing those famous "Talmudic rituals".

Here is the video of that horror:

Richard Landes has an interesting post tying the relatively new Muslim obsession with the Temple Mount with Bart Simpson using this 1954 photo of the weed-strewn site.

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"The Truth the Palestinians are Afraid to Tell You" (video) plus Bassam Eid speech (update)

This remarkable video was released by an organization called "Palestine Informer."

Here is how this organization describes itself on Facebook:

Our mission is to bring you accurate and uncensored information about the Palestinian Authority. Due to the suppression of freedom of expression in Palestine, which is frequently enforced by police brutality and summary executions, most Palestinians are reticent to talk about the truth. The painful truth is that the Palestinian leaders who are purporting to represent that interests of the Palestinian people, many times act with ulterior motives. We offer a forum whereby anyone can submit articles, video clips and news feeds, with complete anonymity for the protection of their lives and wellbeing. Our hope is that the freedom of expression guarantied on this site will ensure that accurate information reaches supporters of the Palestinian people both inside and outside of Palestine, until truth and justice prevails on their behalf.

They also have a website with very interesting articles about women's rights and torture under PA and Hamas controlled areas.

Human rights activist Bassem Eid was asked via email about whether they are legitimate, and he said that it rings true although it doesn't seem that he had heard of them before.

(UPDATE: A number of readers pointed out that the photo of the person on the right is Yahya Hassan, who is not likely to have been involved in this project. I don't know if the photo was meant to be illustrative or if this is a little less than honest.)

A speech by Eid with similar points was synopsized in Times of Israel yesterday. Excerpts:

We Palestinians still deserve a state through a two-state solution, but it now looks as if the Palestinians are demanding a three-state solution for two peoples. Hamas is fighting for its own Islamic Emirate in the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, including President Mahmoud Abbas, is fighting for its own empire in the West Bank. The Israelis and the Palestinian people are upset about the status quo, but the Palestinian leaders seem satisfied.

I do not believe that Fatah or Hamas really want reconciliation or unity. Disunity keeps Palestinian society weak in the face of any future peace talks or peace initiatives. If Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met Abbas tomorrow, the first question from Netanyahu would be, “Whom are you representing Mr. President? The Gaza Strip? The West Bank? The Palestinian diaspora?” In my opinion, Abbas right now represents only his two sons and his wife.

Palestinians do not support Abbas’ fight at the UN or at the International Criminal Court. If you ask ordinary Palestinians, “What are the three priorities you are seeking?” they would say, “a job to survive, an education system, and a health system for my children”. Nobody mentions the settlements, the security fence, or even the Palestinian State.

Most Palestinians are seeking dignity rather than identity. I have no problem with my identity, wherever I go, I say I am a Palestinian, and people understand that. But if I say I come from Abu Dhabi, people ask, “Is it far away from Turkey? Is that where the President is killing his people? Is it in Asia or in Africa?” Nobody knows where Abu Dhabi is, but everybody knows what it means to be Palestinian. So I do not have a problem with my identity. I have a problem with dignity.

Palestinians are anxious about their future. In my opinion, dignity can come only via economic prosperity. The international community should put aside political issues and peace negotiations. Ordinary Palestinians are fed up with that. It is time to start focussing much more on economic prosperity in the drive towards peace.

Economic prosperity can pave the way towards a lasting resolution for Israelis and Palestinians. Economic prosperity should not involve only Israelis and Palestinians. I would love to see Jordanians, Egyptians, and Saudis involved. They should all be involved in joint projects with the Palestinians and the Israelis. This could help us Palestinians reach a resolution with Israel within a few years.

..Both the international community and the Palestinians know that the Palestinian leadership is corrupt. Abbas is the Robert Mugabe of the Middle East. This is my fight right now. The Palestinians do not want an exit from the occupation. What they want is to get rid of their own leadership.

When I say to my fellow Palestinians, imagine that tomorrow morning you woke up and the IDF had left the West Bank, what would happen? People say, “Oh, my God, we would starve.” No one wants that.

Palestinians feel that they are alone. Nobody supports them. There is no benefit for Palestinians in a boycott of Israel. There are 92,000 Palestinian workers in the West Bank who carry Israeli work permits. Every day, in the early morning, they cross the checkpoints, going to work inside Israel. So when I see the 92,000 Palestinian workers entering Israel every day, it is clear why there is no Palestinian boycott of Israel. In the markets of Palestinian towns, the thousands of boxes and cartons of vegetables and fruits come from Israel.

Palestinian people want to survive. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS movement) benefits from the suffering of the Palestinians. Who authorised the BDS movement to speak on my behalf? I want to know. These people are trying to kill our economy.

(h/t Elchanan, Richard)

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Hasby Awards 2016 - Best Own Goal

The winner for Best Own Goal Hasby Award goes to...

02/16 Links Pt2: The Middle East's Conflicts Are About Religion; BDS is a moral failure

From Ian:

Vic Rosenthal: A world without Jews (2012)

Thanks to Facebook’s ‘memories’ feature, I was reminded of this post from four years ago. I liked it so much I am re-running it. No need to change a word.
Thought experiment time:
Perhaps one day, the Jews of the world will finally become fed up. Maybe they will build an enormous spaceship and take their arguments to another planet (we know Jews are smart, so they could do this).
What would happen on that planet might be interesting, but I won’t speculate, although it’s tempting to wonder what a Jewish planet would be like. Like Israel without the foreign workers, terrorism and reserve duty?
I’m more interested in what the Earth would be like. Imagine a Middle East without Jews (the Iranian regime does this all the time). Pity the ‘Palestinians’, whose culture would suddenly lose its raison d’être. After a few days of enjoying the nice cars and buildings the Jews left behind, they would have to create a real identity for themselves.
Suddenly there would be very little interest in supporting the ‘refugees’. Who would care about them? Not the Arab countries, who treat them like garbage now. I expect there would be fighting between various factions, some Islamist and some secular. Hizballah would take control of the North, Hamas the South, and Fatah the East. The UN would feed them, at least for a while. Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. would each supply its favored faction with weapons, and they would fight until most of the land was swallowed up by its neighbors or under control of various militias.

Anti-Israel activists hating on Bernie Sanders

Bernie must know about this potential problem on his far-left flank. From the get-go, Bernie has been targeted by far-left wing and anti-Zionist websites. In early May 2015, the anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website wrote:
Sanders is also getting points for opposing the Iraq War, which Hillary Clinton supported, and he supports the Iran deal. But I’ve seen no one apart from Juan Cole, in this excellent summary of Sanders’s Middle East views, point out his yeoman defense of Israel during its assault on Gaza last summer. In July Sanders formed part of the “unanimous consent” to a resolution to support Israel in its attack, a resolution Salon’s David Palumbo-Liu said at the time “does more than confirm U.S. Senate support for Israel. It pushes that statement beyond any rational or ethical or moral framework imaginable.”
In a famous encounter at a town hall meeting in Vermont near the end of the onslaught– video below–, Sanders got so angry at pro-Palestinian constituents who were obviously deeply upset by an assault that had killed 500 Palestinian children that he told them to “shut up.”
Similarly, recently a write at the anti-Israel Middle East Monitor framed the left-wing objection to Sanders as progressivism being incompatible with Zionism, Is Bernie Sanders a civil rights campaigner or a loyal supporter of Israel?
But it hasn’t only attacks from authors. Remember the woman who, in early August 2015, took over the stage at a Bernie rally in Seattle, then shouted at the top of her lungs just inches from the face of the person introducing Bernie?
It was a defining moment in the campaign, and it signaled the aggressive tactics that Black Lives Matter protesters would take at other events. While Hillary Clinton and some Republican candidates faced hecklers or mild disruption, that initial Bernie event was the most aggressive.
The woman who yelled at Bernie and took over the stage was anti-Israel Block The Boat activist Mara Willaford [who claims to be a palestinian and black].

Britain to prevent publicly funded bodies from boycotting Israeli goods

Publicly funded authorities in Britain will be prevented from boycotting Israeli goods under new government procurement guidelines.
The new regulations will be announced by Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock during an upcoming visit to Israel, the Guardian reported Monday.
According to the guidelines, such boycotts are considered by the government ministers to be “inappropriate, outside where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the government,” the Guardian reported.
Plans for the guidelines were first announced in October.
“We need to challenge and prevent these divisive town hall boycotts,” Hancock said, adding that the guidelines “will help prevent damaging and counterproductive local foreign policies undermining our national security.”
A spokesman for Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn told the Jewish Chronicle that the guideline plan is “an attack on local democracy.”

From the uber-left Channel 4: BDS: councils could face penalties over Israeli boycotts

NY Times compares Israel's brief detention of reporter with Iranian abduction

This morning, a Washington Post reporter was briefly detained in Jerusalem.

Times of Israel reports:

Booth and his cameraman were interviewing locals near the Damascus Gate next to the Old City of Jerusalem. An Arab woman told him that she could get some of the bystanders to demonstrate against the police if he paid them, police spokesperson Asi Aharoni tells The Times of Israel.

Someone who saw the scene unfolding contacted nearby Border Police officers. The officers approached Booth and his photographer and asked that they come with them, Aharoni says.

They were taken to a nearby police station to be briefly questioned and have already been released, the spokesperson says.

Here is how the original report about the incident was reported in the New York Times in the first minutes when reporters were tweeting that Booth was "arrested" (it has since changed):

The Israeli authorities briefly detained The Washington Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief, William Booth, on Tuesday while he was conducting interviews near the Damascus Gate, one of the entrances to the Old City, the newspaper Haaretz reported.

Mr. Booth and an employee of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel were reportedly accused of “incitement,” according to Haaretz, but were released after a brief detention.

Mr. Booth is a veteran correspondent for The Post, having served as a bureau chief in Mexico, Miami and Los Angeles, as a pop culture correspondent, and as a reporter covering conflicts on several continents.

Last month, The Post’s Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, was freed after being detained for nearly 18 months by the Iranian authorities.

Mr. Rezaian and three other Americans of Iranian ancestry were freed as part of a delicately negotiated swap with the United States, which released seven Iranians who had been held for sanctions violations.

What exactly is the relationship between a misunderstanding where a reporter is briefly detained and an 18 month abduction on trumped-up charges?

Four American journalists were arrested in Bahrain this past weekend. No one compared them to Jason Rezaian - certainly not the New York Times. Or the Washington Post.

A reporter was arrested in Turkey for alleged terror activities. No one compared him to Jason Rezaian.

Reporters have been arrested in Yemen in the past month. Again, no comparisons in the media to Rezaian.

So what relevance does Iran's abduction of a Jason Rezaian have to this story?

The NYT wants its readers to associate what Israeli police did with what Iranian dictators did. And that is not news that is fit to print.

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I've happened to stumble across an account of a public meeting that took place in Dundee (George Galloway's old stomping ground) in March 1893, deploring the persecution of the Jews of Tsarist Russia. Addressing the meeting, R. Scott Moncrieff, described as Commissioner of the Society for the Relief of Persecuted Jews, made some remarks regarding a visit he made to Ottoman Palestine in August 1891 that might be of interest :

"The question was often asked how many Jews there were in Palestine, and that question he had endeavoured to find an answer to. In Palestine he found after much inquiry ̶ although he had considerable difficulty in getting reliable facts ̶ that there were at least 75,000 Jews, young and old. The great bulk ̶ much more than half ̶ of the Jews were in Jerusalem. After inquiring at different Rabbis and at Christian residenters [sic; Scots for 'residents'], he was led to conclude that there must be at least 45,000 Jews in and around Jerusalem." (Dundee Advertiser, 31 March 1893.)

Later in 1893 an Arab Christian visited Britain to give a series of public lectures on the condition of Ottoman Palestine. Described a few years earlier, when he had made a similar visit, as "the Bible illustrator from the East" and "son of the sheikh of Ramallah' (Morpeth Herald, 12 January, 30 March 1889), he was Yusuf Audi, described in the South Wales Daily News (31 October 1893) as having "recently succeeded his father as chief of the Dahr Awad tribe" and as follows in the Western Mail (3 November 1893): 'The Arab sheikh, Joseph Audi, who is lecturing this week at Cardiff and Abercarn, is a lineal descendant of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, spoken of in the thirty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah. The largest section of his tribe still "dwell in tents and drink wine," as there recorded. '

Two days earlier the Western Mail carried an interview with him, headed "An Arab Chief in Cardiff":

'Mr Audi, the Arab chief who on Monday delivered the first of a course of lectures dealing with life in Palestine, was interviewed on Tuesday evening by a Western Mail reporter.

"This is your first visit to this country, is it not,?" said our representative, after introducing himself.

"Oh, no; I was in England about four years ago, and I have been already five months lecturing in London."

"Then you like England and the English?"

"Yes, I think it a grand place, and the people have always been most kind to me."

"What characteristics of the people have you been most impressed with?"

"Well, I can hardly say, but perhaps what has struck me more than anything is your inventive genius. The English are never content. That is the great difference between my own nation and yours. The Arabs are contented. Although they are taxed and oppressed by the Sultan, yet they do not complain, and are content to live and die as their fathers did, knowing little, but being peaceful and happy."

"What is their chief employment?"

"The cultivation of their land and the cultivation of their vines and olive trees. They have no manufactures whatever,"

"Are the people well-educated?"

"No; hardly anyone is able to read or write. Each tribe has a man, called a Gothern. who is specially employed in reading any letters which the people of the village may receive and writing answers for them. There are no newspapers. "

"No newspapers! However do you get on without them?"

"At different times of the year messengers are sent out from each tribe to Jaffa, Shechem, Jerusalem, and other large towns to collect all the news. On their return all the tribes assemble to hear them recount what they have heard."

"What religion do the majority of natives follow?"

"The Jews, who number 35,000, are in a majority, and all the remainder are either Mohammedans or Christians, there being about 20,000 of each."

"I suppose that the Arabs have not yet learned to play our English games?"

"No. Football would hardly suit the peaceful mind of an Arab," answered Mr Audi, with a smile, "but they amuse themselves by playing a game very similar to draughts. Shooting is also a favourite pastime among the Arabs, there being pheasants and gazelles in abundance. No, the English recreations have not spread to Palestine yet, but I remember once seeing a man upon a bicycle in Jerusalem."

"What a joke!"

"It wasn't for the man on the machine, for the people took him for a devil, and he had to seek refuge in a mosque."

Mr Audi, in conclusion, said that at the beginning of next week he would go to London to fulfil an engagement which will last till Christmas. Next year he hopes to visit Cardiff again, and also make a tour of South Wales."

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02/16 Links Pt1: Zoabi in Newsweek: Israelis Not Entitled to Self-Defense; Palestinian “Sign Language”

From Ian:

JCPA: Interpreting Palestinian “Sign Language”

The attempted terror attack at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate on February 14, 2016 signifies that the effort to turn the “popular intifada” into armed terror does not only stem from Hamas, which opposed the popular struggle approach from the beginning, but also from the Fatah movement in the West Bank. It now appears that apart from the desire to strike at Israel, there are those in Fatah who also seek to thwart the policy of the organization’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas. Especially worrisome is the fact that Palestinian Authority security personnel have taken part in Fatah’s attempt to turn the popular struggle into an armed conflict.
The graphics of Fatah sites devoted to the intifada (or the “habba” or buzz) provide clues to the direction the winds are blowing.

First, the graphic (above) from the al-Aqsa – Jerusalem – Intifada site shows a young demonstrator with the Palestinian national flag waving behind him, indicating a Fatah, rather than Hamas, affiliation. The dominant color is black, suggesting identification with the radical ISIS or al-Nusra. The kuffiya is replaced by a cap in the form of the Dome of the Rock, colored in the black of radical Islam and the yellow of Fatah. A black crescent ornaments the top of the dome or cap. The image of the slingshot still connotes a connection with the popular intifada rather than the armed one.
The message of this graphic is that Fatah still follows the rules of the popular intifada as represented by a slingshot, but in the future this could change in the direction of black-colored Islamic terror. The site too – Intifada rather than Habba – indicates unwillingness to being confined to the “minimal” form of struggle. The struggle is also known as the Al-Quds [Jerusalem] Intifada, apparently coming from the same Fatah elements. At this stage, these appear to be rogue elements who are mounting a challenge to official Fatah leadership, while seeking to turn Jerusalem into the location where the intifada will move from the “popular, spontaneous” stage to real terror.

The Illegal-Settlements Myth

This left open the question of the sovereign authority over the West Bank. The legal vacuum in which Israel operated in the West Bank after 1967 was exacerbated by Jordan’s subsequent stubborn refusal to engage in talks about the future of these territories. King Hussein was initially deterred from dealing with the issue by the three “no’s” of Khartoum. Soon enough, he was taught a real-world lesson by the Palestine Liberation Organization, which fomented a bloody civil war against him and his regime in 1970. With the open support of Israel, Hussein survived that threat to his throne, but his desire to reduce rather than enlarge the Palestinian population in his kingdom ultimately led him to disavow any further claim to the lands he had lost in 1967. Eventually, this stance was formalized on July 31, 1988.
Thus, if the charge that Israel’s hold on the territories is illegal is based on the charge of theft from its previous owners, Jordan’s own illegitimacy on matters of legal title and its subsequent withdrawal from the fray makes that legal case a losing one. Well before Jordan’s renunciation, Eugene Rostow, former dean of Yale Law School and undersecretary of state for political affairs in 1967 during the Six-Day War, argued that the West Bank should be considered “unallocated territory,” once part of the Ottoman Empire. From this perspective, Israel, rather than simply “a belligerent occupant,” had the status of a “claimant to the territory.”
To Rostow, “Jews have a right to settle in it under the Mandate,” a right he declared to be “unchallengeable as a matter of law.” In accord with these views, Israel has historically characterized the West Bank as “disputed territory” (although some senior government officials have more recently begun to use the term “occupied territory”).
Because neither Great Britain, as the former trustee under the League of Nations mandate, nor the since deceased Ottoman Empire—the former sovereigns prior to the Jordanians—is desirous or capable of standing up as the injured party to put Israel in the dock, we must therefore ask: On what points of law does the case against Israel stand? (h/t Dave4321)

Yisrael Medad: Just One Short Statement That Demolishes

I learned that The Palestinian Museum is set to open on…May 15, 2016. Yes, the day when Israel was created, proclaimed as state in accordance with the original intent of the League of Nations decision to reconstitute a Jewish national Home and the United Nations decision to recommend a Jewish state and in accordance with the British decision to leave the country.
For the Museum
The decision to open the Museum on the 15th of May is designed to underline the enduring importance of the Nakba to the Museum’s work.”
Nakba, of course, means the rollback of any Zionist-Jewish achievement. It is not about 1967 but 1948. The Museum is
dedicated to preserving and celebrating the culture, society and history of Palestine over the past two centuries.
Two centuries only?
What happened to all that ancient history, a la Saeb Erekat? Here:
“I am the son of Jericho. I am 10,000 years old … I am the proud son of the Netufians and the Canaanites. I’ve been there for 5,500 years before Joshua Bin Nun came and burned my hometown Jericho. I’m not going to change my narrative”