Thursday, February 25, 2016

Mixed-sex bowling leagues - in Saudi Arabia!

I saw this photo and article in the Arab News (Saudi Arabia):

JEDDAH: As if its near-perfect grand slam feat last week was not enough Saudia Ice Cream became the first to repeat as Team of the Week during the 6th session in the FTBJ-ICBL 36th Conference bowling tournament at the Bowling City here.

A mixed-sex bowling league in Jeddah? And the women not wearing headcoverings? What is going on?

It turns out that this minor story points to a way to show how even the most repressive Arab governments can be pressured to bend their own rules when it is in their self-interest.

FTBJ stands for the Filipino Tenpin Bowlers of Jeddah. All the people in that league are Filipino. Filipinos love bowling.

And Saudi Arabia is heavily dependent on Filipino labor.

There are as many as 1.8 million Filipinos living and working in Saudi Arabia. They needed an infrastructure and the Phillipines government pressured Saudi Arabia into allowing them to have their own schools and social organizations.

Suddenly, the problems of uncovered women are not as important.

Knowing that, what would Saudi Arabia do if a female diplomat refuses to cover her hair? While there is an element of respect involved, that should be a decision made freely by the diplomat, not under coercion. And it is past time that people stop worrying about offending their Arab hosts. (In many cases the female diplomats indeed do not cover their hair.)

The Saudis might demand respect, but when they need the services of others they understand quite well.

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Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Recently, Palestinian human rights activist (really) Bassem Eid was threatened by anti-Israel demonstrators, and had to have a police escort out of a talk he gave at the University of Chicago. Caroline Glick noted this incident as more evidence that the goal of the supposedly pro-Palestinian movement is not to help Palestinians but rather to hurt Israel.

Eid was a researcher for B’Tselem, and founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHMRG). PHMRG has criticized Israel sharply on occasion. But it also attacks the PA and Hamas for human rights abuses of Palestinians, such as murder and torture of prisoners, executions of ‘collaborators’, suppression of journalists, and so forth.

Glick also mentioned that Eid was challenged by ‘Emily’, a Jewish member of J Street (probably the tamest of the Jewish anti-Israel organizations), who thought his message should have been about “occupation and settlements.”

None of this is new or surprising. But it made me ask this question: why are there so few Bassem Eids in the world and so many Emilys, especially in America?

One reason there aren’t more Eids is the very behavior of the Palestinian leadership that he opposes. In areas under the control of the PA or Hamas, dissidents to the official line are afraid for their lives and those of their families. Even in Arab towns inside the Green line, the influence of radicals makes it dangerous to speak out.

But in the US and other places where it is relatively safe, it is a rare – not unheard of, but rare – Palestinian, Arab or other Muslim who will admit that Israel bears anything less than full responsibility for the conflict. While I am convinced that they base their opinions on false history, made up facts and deliberate blindness, I admire their solidarity.

And I wonder what is wrong with so many Jews, who could cite true history and real facts to support a pro-Israel position if they wish, but who prefer to spit in the face of their own people.

They will tell you that it is because they are on the side of justice. But how did they decide where justice lies? The Arab narrative is not the only one that they are exposed to. The Jewish/Israeli one is accessible to them as well. They had to make a choice, and they chose to believe the Arab story and to align themselves with the Arab side, despite the fact that their liberal sensitivities ought to be outraged by the corruption, racism, sexism, homophobia and brutality that characterizes the Palestinian Arab culture.

In a recent essay, Richard Landes proposes a surprising answer. The motivator is shame.

Landes makes an analogy between the shame that makes an Arab father murder his own daughter in order to clear a stain on the family honor, and the shame felt by a progressive Jew when his family member, Israel, is believed by his community – the “global progressive Left” – to have sinned against progressive values:

The feelings stem not because of what Israel has (often enough not) done, and certainly not in comparison with the behavior of our neighbors, but because of “how it looks” to outsiders. Shame comes from looking bad – awful – in the eyes of people whose opinion matters. When it comes to the emotion, it matters little what actually happened. In the most toxic of honor-shame communities, men kill their daughters and sisters not because they did something shameful, but because others think it, true or not.

And the source of “how it looks” is what  he calls the “ferociously negative depiction of Israel in the global public sphere” today, the well-documented tendency of the media to distort news of the conflict to portray Israel as the villain in every incident, and in many cases, as being motivated by racism and hatred for innocent Palestinians.

But Landes doesn’t explain how it came about that progressive American Jews, the very antitheses of the honor killers of the Mideast, exhibit honor-shame behavior. In other words, why do they care so much about how they look to others in this respect? To understand this, we must consider the history of the European Jews that are the ancestors of most of those paradigms of modernity.

Those Jews lived in communities where they were at the mercy of the gentile rulers and majority populations. They faced periodic pogroms, expulsions and expropriations of their property. Those that didn’t try to assimilate – a choice that wasn’t even available in most cases until the 19^th Century – learned to get along, to appease, to buy off, to flatter. What they didn’t do was directly confront Jew-haters, because that would most likely have gotten them killed.

This  situation was recognized as both unsustainable and dishonorable by Herzl and other early Zionists. But the non-Zionists and anti-Zionists chose to continue the policy of appeasement. From the beginning of the Zionist movement, a sharp line was drawn between the fighters – the Zionists – and the appeasers.

These are the folks that supported Roosevelt’s policy of inaction during the Holocaust, and vilified the Zionists of the Bergson Group who tried to change that policy. And their grandchildren created J Street, which supports Barack Obama’s policy of forcing Israel into indefensible borders and preventing her from actively defending herself.

At the same time, these Jews grew up in America and have absorbed the American ethos of self-reliance and self-defense.

To this type of Jew, nothing is more embarrassing than the Jew that fights back, because they are still afraid that assertive behavior endangers the Jewish community, while at the same time they are ashamed of themselves for not  fighting back.

This is the source of the shame that drives the irrational and highly emotional hatred of Israel – the Israeli being the paradigm case of ‘the Jew that fights back’ – that characterizes the progressive Jews active in J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine.

If this is correct, then there isn’t much that Zionists can say to these shame-obsessed Jews. We are not only supporters of the country they are ashamed of, but ourselves objects of shame. No wonder they are so angry at us!

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02/25 Links Pt1: Jerusalem Mayor: E.Jerusalem better off now than under UK; Hamas: tunnels are defensive

From Ian:

Barkat slams Cameron: East Jerusalem better off now than under UK

Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat on Thursday slammed comments by British Prime Minister David Cameron in which he criticized conditions in East Jerusalem, questioning Cameron’s knowledge of the region and pointing a finger at the UK for its policies during the pre-state British Mandate.
On Wednesday, Cameron told Britain’s Parliament that Israeli construction in East Jerusalem was “genuinely shocking,” even as he insisted that he was a “great friend of Israel” and defined Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
“I am well known for being a strong friend of Israel, but I have to say the first time I visited Jerusalem and had a proper tour around that wonderful city and saw what had happened with the effective encirclement of East Jerusalem, occupied East Jerusalem, it is genuinely shocking,” Cameron said during a weekly question-and-answer session.
Barkat said Cameron’s statements were “incorrect, based on a lack of awareness of facts and the reality on the ground,” in a statement released by the Jerusalem municipality.
The mayor rhetorically asked what it was that specifically shocked Cameron, highlighting investment in schools, infrastructure and community centers in East Jerusalem.

New video shows off-duty soldier’s fatal fight with Palestinian terrorists

A video released Wednesday evening documents the moments in which an Israeli off-duty soldier was stabbed to death last week while shopping in a supermarket near his West Bank home.
Security camera footage broadcast by Channel 2 News shows the attack in which 21-year-old Tuvia Yanai Weissman was fatally injured last Thursday in the Sha’ar Binyamin Industrial Zone, southeast of Ramallah.
In the video, Weissman can be seen running toward two Palestinian attackers who were stabbing another victim. As he sprints out of a shopping aisle, one of the terrorists surprises him from the side and stabs him in the neck.
The two wrestle for a few moments before Weissman falls behind a shopping trolley. An armed shopper then shoots the attacker, who also falls to the floor.
Weissman was unarmed. On a week’s leave from the IDF, he had asked to take his gun home with him, but was refused. Since his killing, the IDF has reversed that regulation, and ordered soldiers to take their guns with them when they head home from their bases for leave.

Netanyahu: World must condemn Iran for paying terrorists’ families

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday urged the world to condemn Iran for providing financial support to the families of Palestinian terrorists.
The prime minister also called on the international community to denounce Palestinian incitement, which he said is the “number one cause of terrorism.”
“Our fight against terrorism, which comes with the assistance and agitation of states and regimes, does not exist in a vacuum. Yesterday Iran announced that it will finance the families of the terrorists and murderers; this shows that Iran, even after the nuclear agreement, is continuing to aid terrorism, including Palestinian terrorism, Hezbollah terrorism and its assistance to Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
“This is something that the nations of the world must confront and condemn and assist Israel – and other countries, of course – in repelling,” he added.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fateh Ali, said Wednesday that Tehran would give $7,000 to the families of each Palestinian terrorist killed while attacking Israelis. Iran will also give $30,000 to Palestinian families whose homes have been destroyed by Israel because a family member carried out a terror attack, he told a news conference in Beirut.

Last week, Israeli police briefly detained Washington Post journalist William Booth - and the journalist community went nuts with articles about how Israel had no respect for freedom of the press, with the New York Times even comparing it to Iran's arrest and imprisonment of a reporter for 18 months.

Here's what Reuters reporter Luke Baker tweeted about it (among other tweets):

Now released, but the brief detention and questioning still seems wholly unacceptable https://t.co/16tYWcl8Ba
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 16, 2016

Today, Hamas detained Baker himself. Instead of saying that it was "wholly unacceptable," though, Baker seemed to enjoy the experience:

Briefly taken in for polite questions by Hamas security forces in #Gaza today. Interesting placard on the wall pic.twitter.com/Ducf05b5Mt
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

On questioning in #Gaza -- I was not reporting. Was called to one side while walking on the street and taken into a small headquarters 1/3
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

I was not escorted by anyone with guns. A major from the security services introduced himself by name and asked me a series of questions 2/3
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

I was never accused of anything. Was given coffee and then tea. All questions about what I was doing in Gaza and what I do for work, etc
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) February 25, 2016

Excuse me. Hamas could have given Baker a full day at a spa it wouldn't matter - a government detaining a journalist for no reason is a form of intimidation. Unless Baker could have freely refused to be questioned, he was being given a message that his actions in Gaza were being watched and that he should be careful not to upset the authorities.

In this case, there is no danger that Baker would ever say anything that would upset his Hamas buddies, and both Hamas and Baker know it. So he enjoyed his tea and chatted freely.

And no reporter's rights organization will say anything about this. If Baker didn't mind being given a clear message from Hamas to toe the line, why should anyone else?

Yes, Baker has double standards. In this case, it is clear that Baker sympathizes more with Hamas authorities who torture and murder people who they disagree with than he does with Israel which had a real reason to detain a reporter.

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List of things that shock David Cameron: Terrorism, air crashes, Jews building houses

Here is a brief list of things that British PM David Cameron has been shocked about over the past couple of years:

1. Malaysian air disaster, 239 killed
2. Peshawar school massacre, 141 killed
3. Nepal earthquake, 9000 killed
4. Tunisia terror attacks, 38 killed (31 British)
5. Paris terror attacks, 130 killed
6. Jews building houses in their historic capital.

Actually, his words about Jews building houses were even stronger than those of the other events, because that was the only one he termed "genuinely shocking."

Do you get the impression that world leaders, including those who call themselves Israel's friends, have a fairly twisted sense of priorities?

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We have noted the writings of Abdulateef Al-Mulhim in Arab News before, where he says things that are actually sane.

He has written another article about how Israel is being reported on in Arab media which is worth reading:

Does anyone in the Arab world know what is happening in Israel? Do we know what weapons systems their defense forces are acquiring or developing? Do we know who is who in the Israeli policymaking circles?

The answer to the above questions is: We don’t know. Yes, we really don’t because at present, we don’t see or hear much about Israel in the Arab media. Israel has almost disappeared from headlines and many people no longer consider Israel as a threat. This is a reality that we have to learn to live with.

The day the so-called Arab Spring erupted, Israel became invisible in the Arab media. Arabs are too preoccupied with so many issues plaguing their own lands. Today, we don’t read much about Israel in the newspapers or see any reports about the Middle Eastern country in the electronic media. This is not a case of sudden disappearance. From referring to Israel as the Zionist enemy, the Arab media changed the tone by calling it the Israeli enemy, then we became aware of the term “hostile Israel” and then it was referred to as state of Israel and now Israel has simply vanished from the Arab media. It appears to be no longer on our radar.

It is true that the Arab world has its hands full with other issues but there could be another reason for that. Simply put, some of the Arab leaders used the Palestinian issue just to portray themselves as heroes. Ironically, Israel is the one that invented many fake heroes and dictators in the Arab world. Just look at Lebanon’s Hassan Nasrallah who hijacked and destroyed Lebanon initially using anti-Israel propaganda. Similarly, we have seen Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria’s Hafez Assad and many others who became instant heroes because they showed hostility toward Israel. They also (mis)used the Palestinian misery and in due process they simply forgot to build their countries and neglected improving the living standards of their people.

Now the Arab media is drawing comparisons between the devastation caused during wars with Israel and the current regional scenario particularly the events taking place in Syria — a country whose own people are bent on its destruction. People are asking as to why during full-scale wars with Israel, we never saw destruction of archeological, historical or religious sites. In the past, we talked about Palestinian refugees, now we are dealing with a new wave of refugees emanating from Syria and other parts of the region. The Arab media now has no time or space to talk about Israel and to raise the issue of Palestine or Palestinians.

Instead of reading about Israel, Arabs want to discuss ways to promote better education, improved health-care facilities, social equality and better infrastructure.

At the end of the day, no matter what we write about Israel, the Israelis don’t care. They know we are busy.

I think he is understating the case - I don't believe that the lack of coverage is due solely to being busy with other topics, but because the Arab world is really sick and tired of the Palestinian issue which has been shown to be trivial compared to the real issues happening.

There is a reason that the Arab world routinely pledges hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian causes and then pays only a fraction of that money. (I've documented this phenomenon since at least 2008.) The leaders, still fearing a popular backlash, want to appear to care about the Palestinian cause but they don't want to actually put their money where their mouths are.

Things are definitely changing. Antisemitism will never allow full normalization with Israel, but it is entirely possible that the Arab states can be used to pressure Palestinians to be serious about concessions for peace.

Too bad that the West has not caught up with this reality.

(h/t Arnold)

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Artists tell Oscar nominees to #TaketheTrip to Israel

Today, the LA Times published a full page ad by Jewish Voice for Peace and another anti-Israel group urging Hollywood stars to not accept the free $55,000 trip to Israel that was being offered as part of an (unofficial) Oscar nominee "swag bag," claiming that Israel is an "apartheid state." It uses the hashtag "#SkiptheTrip.

Creative Community for Peace issued their own response:

The two messages cannot be clearer. The JVP wants the stars to get all of their opinions on Israel from people whose lives are consumed with hate for the Jewish state, while the real artists from CCFP treat Hollywood stars like adults who can make up their own minds and not slavishly believe what the haters say.

The bags are being offered to the nominees for best actor/actress, best supporting actor/actress, best director plus host Chris Rock.

Feel free to tweet this post/poster to the nominees. A directed campaign on Twitter and Facebook would get to the same stars, for a lot less money!

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EoZTV Live about the Gaza girl who died because of the PA

EoZTV live now up.

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02/24 Links Pt2: Schama: Anti-Semitism Causes Anti-Zionism; The hypocrisy of the foreign media

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Britain's New Mainstream Racists?

The British Labour party is currently led by a man, Jeremy Corbyn, who has described Hamas and Hezbollah as "friends" and has spent his years in the political wilderness with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semites, terrorist-sympathisers and all manner of other undesirables. Now that he is the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, he has tried to present himself as a more moderate force by stressing that he has spent his life fighting racism and anti-Semitism. In fact, he appears to have spent his life being remarkably content with exponents of both.
His Shadow Chancellor spent the same period in similar company, but with an even more fervent devotion to the terrorists of the Irish Republican Army.
The communications chief of this whole disastrous enterprise is one Seamus Milne, who devoted his career at The Guardian to keeping the scent around Joseph Stalin rosier than it ever ought to have been. If a fish, as the saying goes, rots from the top, who can be surprised if there is rot also from the tail up?
Last week it was the turn of the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) to throw their wares open for public view. Thanks to the unusually principled resignation of the co-chair of the organization, Alex Chalmers, we now know that apparently a large proportion of the youth branch of the party also has "problems with Jews." Indeed, it appears that anti-Semitism has moved from the margins to the very centre of University Labour life.
According to Chalmers, among the delights of the organization from which he resigned was that the OULC decided to endorse Israel Apartheid Week. This is the annual anti-Semitic hate-fest that takes place across university campuses in the West. Racist students build fake security walls, stage "die-ins" and pretend that murderers who carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis are instead the suffering victims of gratuitous aggression.

Why Mandela Would Be Run Out of Ramallah Today

I’m scratching my head over The Guardian.
How can the same people who blew up innocent civilians in cafes and buses have the gall to claim Nelson Mandela’s legacy?
As the Christian Science Monitor aptly pointed out, the Palestinians embrace of Mandela’s mantle is very, very limited.
But much of Palestinians’ praise is for how Mandela pushed back against an apartheid regime, rather than on how he embraced the language, literature, and leaders of that regime in a search for national reconciliation.
After the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Mandela famously donned Springbok gear to present a trophy to the Afrikaaner team. South Africans still talk about it as a big moment in national reconciliation.
In contrast, just getting Israelis and Palestinians onto the same soccer field today means overcoming the powerful Palestinian anti–normalization campaign.
Reconciliation? Mandela would’ve been run out of Ramallah for using that dirty word.

Renowned British Historian: Anti-Semitism Causes Anti-Zionism

The antipathy displayed by many on the Left towards Israel is not an example of anti-Zionism morphing into anti-Semitism, but a sign that anti-Zionism is caused by anti-Semitism, the distinguished British historian Simon Schama argued in the Financial Times Friday.
Schama noted the escalation of anti-Israel events in the UK in recent months. Most notably, former Israeli intelligence chief Ami Ayalon’s speech at the Kings College London Israel Society was “violently interrupted by a chair-hurling, window-smashing crowd.” The resulting atmosphere of intolerance towards Israel prompted Alex Chalmers to resign as co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club, saying that the student Left “have some kind of problem with Jews.”
Schama observed that some on the Left, such as Guardian columnist Owen Jones, have made efforts to “confront this demon head on.” However, “criticism of Israeli policies has mutated into a rejection of Israel’s right to exist.”
He cited a number of examples. French Jews can’t walk outside wearing a yarmulke without fear of assault; Holocaust memorial posters have been defaced; Former MP George Galloway declared in 2014 that his district was “an Israel-free zone.” These incidents exemplify what the professor Alan Johnson called “anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.”
Schama observed that the terrorist who killed four Jews in a Paris supermarket last year didn’t ask if their victims supported the Israeli government, “because in the attacker’s poisoned mind all Jews are indivisibly incriminated” as oppressors of the Palestinians. The international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement disregards any Israeli claim of self-defense and singles out Israel for its outrage. But they remain silent about the Russian destruction of Syria.

One day, Israel and Sudan might not be enemies!

Sudanese newspaper Al Nilin warns of the dangers of unsuspecting Arab youth becoming friends with Israelis on social media.

Arab experts note that Israel puts effort into fighting delegitimization efforts online, but from their perspective it means that Israel is trying to change the minds of susceptible Arab youth about Israel.

This is, we are told, a new war that Israel is waging - social media is a fifth generation weapon against the Arab world as it tries to weaken the resolve of Arab youth to unconditionally hate Israel.

The article describes how advanced Israel is in Internet technologies, both by having major research centers for Google and Yahoo but also with its Unit 8200 in the IDF. All of these are being used in order to insidiously become friends with unsuspecting Arab youth.

The author is not warning that Israel is using the Internet to spy on these youth. He is warning that youth might change their minds about Israel.

The author concludes, "Since we in Sudan are suffering from a massive explosion in dealing with this new media that has invaded our lives, there is no doubt that our families and our lives and our attitudes and our thoughts and our policies and management of political and economic affairs are vulnerable, and we must act with caution..!"

It takes a special kind of hate that considers any threat to the hate itself to be a danger.

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Openly Homophobic Mideast States Glad They Dodged 'Pinkwashing' Slur (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Riyadh, February 24 - Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond that persecute and kill gays voiced relief this week that unlike Israel, they do not face accusations that they treat homosexuals well merely to distract from problematic policies toward the Palestinians.

Officials in the Saudi capital shared a rare moment of agreement with their counterparts in Tehran, where high-ranking deputies of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said they were gratified at avoiding the charges of 'pinkwashing' constantly directed at the Zionist Entity. The leaders of those countries as well as Iraq, Syria, Malaysia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and several Persian Gulf states relayed similar sentiments expressing satisfaction that by denying LGBTQ people human and civil rights, they eliminate the public relations problem that Israel faces in that arena.

"I sure am glad we dodged that diplomatic and political bullet," admitted Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. "Can you imagine how awkward it would be if instead of hanging homosexuals publicly from cranes, we respected their humanity, individuality, dignity, and privacy, and how much explaining we''d have to do as a result? That would be a fine mess. It's a good thing we don't have to square how well we treat anyone with the moral cesspool the rest of our policies reflect."

A representative of the parts of Iraq and Syria currently under control of the Islamic State had a congruent view. "It's clear from the way the world reacts that it's better to throw gays off rooftops, as we do, than to treat them as humans worthy of respect and life," said Ayamnatta Gayman, head of a forum of regional tribal officials. "If we stop killing people for their sexual orientation, that would mean creating expectations of enlightened behavior in other realms, as well, and our refusal to do so would only create inconsistencies and problems. This is a headache I'm glad the Zionists have and we don't."

Human rights groups praised those states for their efforts to maintain consistency on the rights of their citizens. "It's jarring and incoherent when we, as a human rights monitoring organization, encounter what we see as dissonant kinds of treatment," said Ken Roth, the chief of Human Rights Watch. "It is much easier for us to accept these societies and policies when they practice the same kind of murderous bigotry across the board than when we identify positive elements and negative elements in one place. When that happens, it just pisses us off, and we can't help but hate such a country as never before."

"Not that I'm naming names," he added.

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02/24 Links Pt1: Iran rewards 'intifada martyrs'; Hillary: Palestinians Should Emulate Arafat’s ‘Peace of the Brave’

From Ian:

Hillary Emails: Palestinians Should Emulate Terrorism Pioneer Arafat’s ‘Peace of the Brave’

Correspondence contained in the latest batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails released by the State Department on Friday and reviewed by Breitbart Jerusalem may provide a window into the Obama administration’s thinking when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The email recommends that the Palestinians return to the “peace of the brave” rhetoric utilized by PLO Leader Yasser Arafat. The staunch militant, who helped pioneer terrorism as a political tactic, was famous for referencing the “peace of the brave” to foreign audiences while supporting the destruction of Israel in Arabic and allowing his various militias to carry out terrorist attacks against the Jewish state.
The September 23, 2012 email was sent to Clinton from her then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, who currently serves as the top foreign policy advisor to Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The dispatch provides a summary of a 14-point Israeli-Palestinian peace plan devised by a “Dennis,” presumably a misspelling of Denis McDonough, President Obama’s then-Deputy National Security Advisor. McDonough is currently White House Chief of Staff.

Iran offers financial reward for families of potential Palestinian 'intifada martyrs'

The Islamic Republic of Iran announced on Wednesday its support for the "Jerusalem intifada" that Israel has been witnessing for the past five months, declaring that it would give financial rewards to families of Palestinian terrorists.
Speaking at a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday, with the participation of several leaders of Palestinian factions, Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fathali, said: "Continuing Iran's support for the oppressed Palestinian people, Iran announces the provision of financial aid to families of Palestinian martyrs who were killed in the "Jerusalem intifada."
According to the ambassador, every family of a martyr will receive $7,000, while a family whose home was demolished by the IDF will receive $30,000. The aid will be conveyed through the Palestinian branch of the Shahid Institution, which was established in Iran in 1992.
Fathali called on the Arab Muslim nation to unite around the central Palestinian issue and said that "the martyrs' blood will release the entire Palestine, from the river to the sea."

Arab League chief calls on Palestinians to engage in civil disobedience against Israel

Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby called on Palestinians to "think out of the box" and engage in civil disobedience against Israel in order to put an end the "Israeli occupation," Egyptian media reported on Tuesday.
Speaking at a meeting of the Yasser Arafat Foundation at the headquarters of the Arab League on Tuesday, Elaraby claimed that "Israel is trying to break the will of the Palestinian people" amid the great challenges the Arab world is facing.
In addition, Elaraby said that "we must not forget that the indiscriminate killing of civilians the world is witnessing today started in the Middle East with the terror exerted by the Jewish clandestine organization which blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, indiscriminately killing about 90 people."
Relating to the deadlock in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, Elaraby emphasized the importance of supporting the BDS movement, claiming that it might put an end to Israeli settlement activities. He also said: "We must think out of the box and consider the option of civil disobedience, used by Gandhi to put an end to the British colonialism in India.”
Although sounding these anti-Israeli statements, Elaraby was accused of collaborating with Israel after declaring on Monday that the Russian aerial campaign does not violate international law since it is based on a request from the Syrian government.

There is always an anti-Israel angle.

Arab media reported this morning that Israel closed off some streets in the area around Herod's Gate in Jerusalem, preventing people from approaching.

The articles grudgingly admitted that the evil Israelis used a "pretext" of an alleged suspicious object as the reason to make their lives miserable.

Israeli media explain what happened with a bit more context:

Israel Police caught two East Jerusalem men with pipe bombs and ammunition hidden in their kiosk outside of Herod’s Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on Wednesday.

A police sapper was called in to disarm the home-made explosive devices, which were found in a food stand. The suspects were in their 40s and have been brought in for questioning, a spokesperson said.

Ah, so the evil Zionists cleared the area in order to pretend to care about the safety of the Arabs there!

See what lengths they go to in order to make life difficult for Palestinians?

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The DFLP terror group has been busy

Yesterday, Khaled Abu Toameh tweeted this:

Gaza City: DFLP-sponsored operetta entitled 'Knife Intifada.' pic.twitter.com/CUpcI5MNLS
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) February 23, 2016

An operetta! With Nazi salutes!

This month, the DFLP has been spending a lot of time celebrating its 47th anniversary. It lit a torch in a camp in Gaza:

And it performed military exercises, with the full knowledge and blessings of Hamas which covered this in their media:

These military exercises aren't only for show. They are on the record as wanting the current attacks to be escalated to full scale "global intifada" against both Israel and the PA. Their statement about the issue includes the assertion that "the development of the uprising and its transformation into an Intifada open true horizons vis-à-vis the solutions of international law." See, they support murder because it supports their view of international law!

The DFLP is just another terror group, like Islamic Jihad, that Hamas partners with to allow Hamas to straddle the line between pretending to be a moderating force and allowing Gazans to openly support terrorism. There is a tacit understanding that these groups are not to launch rockets now. Hamas has no interest in dismantling them because they are no threat but they are available when the situation changes enough that openly attacking Israel becomes attractive again.

Meanwhile, they are staging operettas. And building tunnels.

Speaking of Hamas, they are making music videos celebrating building tunnels for war:

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Gaza girl dies as a result of Palestinian infighting, Israel blamed

Palestinian media and social media all had variants of this story last week:

Marah Diab, born & died (today) undersigned in Gaza b/c israel refused to let her out to get proper renal treatment. pic.twitter.com/lfjd6HsFTr
— Abbs Winston (@AbbsWinston) February 17, 2016

What really happened?

JPost has the story:

Diab had been waiting for life-saving treatment abroad or in Israel ever since her kidney transplant surgery in Gaza failed. Her family hoped that she could leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing after Egypt announced its three-day opening on February 13. However, the girl did not make it and the Egyptian authorities closed the border crossing way, leaving her behind, helpless.

In an interview to Al-Jazeera, the girl's father claimed that the family had contacted a Jenin resident who was ready to donate a kidney for the girl, but the move was prohibited by international law. Thus, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas decided that the girl should be transferred to Israel to get a kidney transplant.

However, according to Diab's father, Palestinian Authority Health Minister, Dr. Jawad Awaad, opposed Abbas's decision. As a result, the family blames Awaad for their daughter's death, claiming that he "killed her when he refused their request to transfer the girl to a hospital in Israel in order to get a kidney transplant."

PIC adds:

The father held the Health Minister, Jawad Awad, and the head of the External Medical Treatment Department, Amira al-Hindi, responsible for the death of his daughter. “We’d got a permission to transfer Marah to 1948 Occupied Palestine for treatment and for urgent kidney transplantation but the two officials turned blind eyes to Marah’s case, in a flagrant violation of all ethics, social norms, and humanitarian laws,” the father said.

Israel gave permission for Marah to get treated in Israeli hospitals, as it has treated hundreds of other Gazans. She was prevented from going by her own people.

And Egypt refused to give her permission to cross its border.

And Israel gets blamed.

(h/t Spotlighting)

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