Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

03/08 Links Pt1: The endlessly collapsing Palestinian Auth.; Where Has All The PA Money Gone?

From Ian:

The endlessly collapsing Palestinian Authority

On the other side of the coin many Israel supporters and commentators claim that the PA is the source of much of the “incitement” that encourages terrorism against Israel. Mort Klein and Daniel Mandel of the Zionist Organization of America wrote in The Jewish Press in 2012 that the PA has not fulfilled its Oslo “obligations to dismantle terrorist groups and to end incitement to hatred and murder against Israel in its schools.” Israeli political leaders from Likud regularly note that the existence of incitement means Abbas is no partner for peace.
Can all of this be true at the same time? The PA is both collapsing and Israel needs to divorce itself completely from many parts of the West Bank. The PA is both a source of collaboration with Israel that ensures security and a source of widespread incitement against Israel that encourages terrorism. The irony is that yes, all of this is true. The one thing that is not possible is that Israel can play any role in reworking the Palestinian education system or that increased Israeli rule in the West Bank can somehow reverse the trends of incitement or hatred of Israel.
With Israel’s military control of the West Bank set to pass the 50-year mark in 2017, the idea that somehow Israel can change the perceptions of Palestinians is a fantasy. Israel’s almost 50-year rule in Jerusalem proves that. Is there any evidence that Palestinians living in Isawiya or Jebl Mukaber like Israel more than Palestinians in Ramallah? Israel has been administering those annexed areas for generations, and succeeded only in alienating people. The real evidence is that many Arab citizens of Israel resent and hate the country and dream of its demise one day. Israel can’t manage to administer its own laws in the Negev or deal with its own Arab citizens who lack basic infrastructure and planning. The idea that Israel can expand its role in the West Bank and meet anything but anger and opposition is a fantasy. Consider the two Israeli soldiers who drove into Kalandiya and were almost killed, in a scene similar to the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in 2000. And someone thinks that Israel can just go set up shop in Kalandiya and “stop the incitement”? The incitement is never going to stop. The photos of martyrs are never going to come down. Withdrawing doesn’t decrease them, and expanding doesn’t decrease them. The PA has many institutions that mitigate its coming collapse, whether it is American- trained security forces or its various bureaucracies.
There are a lot of parties with an interest in not having it fall into chaos, not the least of which are economic interests. People must accept the Janus-like contradictions inherent in this future. The two-state solution may be “dying,” but it is the only solution that exists.
The thing about bureaucracies like the PA is that once they are created, they don’t vote themselves out of existence. Israel should plan for increased chaos in the West Bank. It should not consider any plan that envisions expanding its control over Palestinian people, and it should be wary of plans that envision stripping Palestinians, like those in Jerusalem, of their residency rights, without asking them. At the very least, someone should accept that the Palestinians themselves also have rights to decide what they want.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Have The Donors Finally Woken Up?

Western donors want to see a list of the names of Palestinians who are on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the PA is not happy about it.
What is driving this demand? Thousands of Palestinian school teachers in the West Bank are striking for better conditions. The Palestinian leadership, in response, has ordered a security crackdown on the strikers.
To justify the crackdown, PA officials have claimed that the strike was organized by Hamas as part of a conspiracy to embarrass and undermine the regime of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
What is really happening is that the teachers are blowing the whistle on PA corruption. They have accused the PA Ministry of Education of wasting donors' funds and deceiving them by inflating the number of teachers. They claim that the list of employees (about 56,000) ostensibly hired by the ministry contains many fictitious names. These include teachers and administrative workers of the ministry.
The teachers also accuse the PA of lying to the donors about their salaries. The information provided by the PA to donors claimed that the PA pays higher salaries to the teachers than the teachers actually receive.
In other words, the striking teachers are exposing the PA as playing Western donors for suckers.
The PA's Finance Ministry has yet to publish the general budget for the years 2015 and 2016. The last time the budget appeared on the ministry's official website was in 2014. The striking teachers and other Palestinians say there is something fishy about the Finance Ministry's failure to make public the annual budget for 2015 and 2016. They call this a lack of transparency.

Where Has All The Money Gone?

Where Has All The Money Gone? For the last 25 years, a significant amount of money has gone to lining the pockets of corrupt Palestinian leaders, and has enouraged hate and violence within Palestinian society. Where are the playgrounds and schools? Infrastructure? Homes?

PMW: US and Israel spreading sex, pornography, and drugs in Arab world, says PA TV teacher of Islam

A Palestinian Authority TV host of a program who teaches Islam, Imad Hamato, explained in a recent TV interview that the US and Israel share the goal of destroying the morals and values of the Arab world and are trying to do this by spreading pornography and sex. It started with former US President Bush, Hamato claimed, quoting Bush as having said: "We will enter Iraq and bring in pornography and we will teach them the American civilization and culture.'' [Official PA TV, Feb. 29, 2016]
The issues with Israel go back even further, Hamato taught last year, because the Jews, according to the Quran, are inherently lacking in values:
"Those Jews, as it is said in the Quran, believe only in the body, not in the spirit.... In their eyes, everything physical is valuable, and thus 'you see that they are the people who strive more than anyone else to stay alive.' We won't say 'alive' definitively, but rather just life, no matter what life - life in the dumps, a life of cowardice. The main thing is to stay alive."[Official PA TV, June 12, 2015]

PA TV teacher of Islam: America intentionally spreads pornography in Arab world

From JPost:

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon demanded that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon revise a report disseminated by his office ahead of International Women’s Day and in which Israel is blamed for the situation of Palestinian women.

The report, issued for the 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women to be held March 14-24, highlights the situation of Palestinian women for the period from October 1st 2014 to September 30th 2015.

According to the document, Israeli occupation is to blame for domestic violence against Palestinian women.

Actually, it's worse.

First of all, out the 13 documents issued by the UN in advance of this meeting, only one deals with women from a specific "nation." That is of course E/CN.6/2016/6 The situation of, and assistance to, Palestinian women. Report of the Secretary-General.
Here is the paragraph that offended Israel:

Refugee camps in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are among the most densely populated urban environments in the world and the conditions in these camps have deteriorated over decades, in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Specifically for women and girls, this overcrowding limits their mobility, privacy and access to recreational spaces. Overcrowded living conditions and a lack of privacy cause psychological distress among camp residents and strain family and social relations. Residents frequently note that gender-based violence, including domestic violence, is a manifestation of such stress, combined with the strain caused by the unstable political and security situation and discriminatory gender stereotypes and norms.4

The basic question of why "refugee" camps exist in the territory under Palestinian rule is not mentioned. If the existence of these crowded camps inherently causes all these domestic problems including abuse of women, then why does the UN keep funding them? Shouldn't they be dismantled and replaced with new villages and towns where all Palestinians could be treated equally?

The unspoken truth is that the "refugee" camps exist for only one reason - to make their residents' lives miserable for photo ops that blame Israel for not allowing them to "return" to homes that no longer exist even though they live in "Palestine."

Remember, Israel tried to give Palestinians in camps decent housing, and the UN condemned them for it. If anyone is to blame for the camps, it is the UN itself. UN resolution 34/52 section F says that "measures to resettle Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip away from their homes and property from which they were displaced constitute a violation of their inalienable right to return... Calls once more upon Israel to desist from removal and resettlement of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and from destruction of their shelters."

The report throws in a section about Israeli settlements that has nothing to do with women and doesn't say exactly how Jews building homes impacts Palestinians at all, let alone women.

The Israeli Government has come under increasing pressure from settler groups to resume the planning and tendering of settlements, which have been in a lull since the fall of 2014. In July 2015, following the demolition of two buildings in the settlement of Beit El, the Government announced the construction of 300 new residential units there, as well as around 500 more in East Jerusalem settlements.

I guess after all these years of incitement it is obvious to the reader that Jews building houses is so inherently evil that there is no reason to describe why.

Israel's killing terrorists - who are mostly male - also is terrible for women:

According to data collected by UN-Women and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, it is estimated that a round 700 women were widowed as a result of the conflict in Gaza in 2014.

The vast majority of these men were of course fighters. Yet Israel needs to be more mindful of killing Hamas terrorists - because some of them have wives!

Gender-based violence continues to be a key protection concern for women in
the State of Palestine, and the situation is particularly acute in the Gaza Strip. A
2011 survey showed that 51 per cent of women in Gaza had been victims of genderbased
violence.17 A rapid assessment by UNFPA conducted after the 2014 conflict
revealed that the protracted crisis and related displacement, lack of privacy and lack
of basic services had exacerbated people’s sense of vulnerability, leading to violence
against women.18

But the UN can never blame the men who are abusing them! No, it is because of the lack of privacy and basic services which is, of course, Israel's fault!

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Number of attacks continues to decrease

The Shin Bet released their figures on terror attacks for February.

While three Israelis were killed, the number of attacks decreased from 169 in January to 155. 117 of those were firebombs.

The number of attacks in Jerusalem went up slightly, from 39 to 42, and within the Green Line the number of attacks increased from one to four.

Here is a chart showing the trends since October:

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Today is International Women's Day. I don't think it is coincidental that at least two knife attacks today were done by women.

Police officers shot and killed an Arab woman as she attempted to stab them in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday, officials said.

No officers were injured in the attack. The assailant died of wounds suffered from gunfire, police said.

The 50-year-old woman had approached the officers who were standing on Hagai street, which runs from the Damascus Gate to the Western Wall. As she got closer, she took a knife out of her bag and attempted to stab them, police said.

In Qalandiya, Border Police officers arrested a Palestinian woman who had a knife hidden in her bag, police said.

The Palestinian woman told interrogators that she had planned to carry out a stabbing attack with the knife, according to police.

I'm not the only one making the connection between Women's Day and the attack; Palestinian media are saying the same, although since the women weren't successful they are reporting it ironically as if Israeli security are choosing to kill innocent women to mark the occasion..

However, there is a long tradition where Palestinian groups use this day to celebrate women terrorism,

The Palestine Poster Project has a number of posters that celebrate International Women's Day dating back to the 1970s. Many of them celebrate women's "resistance," meaning terrorism.

For example, here are three such posters from the 1980s:

Here is a more recent example from 2012, captioned "Palestine: was and Will Always Be:"

It is sad that in a place where women are in danger of being murderer for "honor" reasons so much of the focus on International Women's Day is the aptitude of women to become martyrs instead of mothers - or metalworkers.

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03/07 Links Pt2: Oxford students laughed at attacks on Parisian Jews; Holding Disruptors Accountable

From Ian:

Report: Oxford students laughed at attacks on Parisian Jews

Members of a prominent Oxford University student group affiliated with the British Labor Party laughed at Jewish victims of terrorism and made fun of the Holocaust, the Sunday Times reported.
According to the British weekly, club members called Jewish students “Zios,” dubbed the Auschwitz death camp “a cash cow,” sang about rockets being fired at Tel Aviv and expressed approval for both attacks on Parisian synagogues in 2014 and the shooting of four Jews in a Paris supermarket the following year.
A number of students belonging to the club spoke to the newspaper following the failure of the group’s national leadership to publish the results of an internal investigation more than a week after its completion.
The Labor Club first came under fire last month due to the resignation of Oxford co-chairman Alex Chalmers, who alleged that “the attitudes of certain members of the club towards certain disadvantaged groups was becoming poisonous.”
“Whether it be members of the Executive throwing around the term ‘Zio’ (a term for Jews usually confined to websites run by the Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon, senior members of the club expressing their ‘solidarity’ with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians, or a former co-chair claiming that ‘most accusations of anti-Semitism are just the Zionists crying wolf,’ a large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews,” Chalmers lamented on Facebook.

UN Can be Curse for Refugees

For all the billions of dollars in donations it receives and for all its glossy brochures and self-congratulatory speeches its officials deliver, the United Nations might very well be the worst thing that ever happened to refugees. Certainly, the World Food Program and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have done good and, indeed, life-saving work over the years but their accomplishments are increasingly overshadowed by the political, diplomatic, and bureaucratic compromises successive UN Secretaries-General have done.
In the wake of World War II, a conflict that generated tens of millions of refugees, the United Nations founded the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration which two years later became the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The IRO had a terminal mandate; it closed its doors in 1952. UNHCR, founded in 1951, had no such end date associated with it; perpetuation of its existence and bureaucratic empire-building became just as important to its leadership as relieving the difficulties faced by refugees. The UNHCR, however, is a bureaucratic saint next to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), founded in 1949 to assist Palestinian refugees. Initially, UNRWA was also supposed to be finite in its operations. In 1951, it outlined a plan to resettle Palestinian refugees within three years and then close its doors. Why it did not was a story of bureaucratic self-interest, diplomatic venality, and a broad desire by Arab states to use Palestinian refugees as a wedge. Long story short, six decades later UNRWA still exists and Arab states, with the exception of Jordan, continue to refuse their integration. The human potential — let alone the lives lost — in subsequent decades of conflict should be a permanent shame to UNRWA and the United Nations more broadly. If the United Nations were serious in its concern for refugees, it would end UNRWA, apply the same definition of refugee to all peoples regardless of their nationality, and fold the cases of those who remain refugees into the UNHCR framework.

Why the Jews Are Indigenous to Israel
Ryan Bellerose, indigenous rights activist, on what it means to be indigenous, as the Jews are to the land of Israel.

If you needed more proof that the Joint Arab List MKs are extremists....

Yesterday I reported that Iranian media listed out the major opponents to the GCC's decision to declare Hizballah a terrorist group:

Iran
Algeria
Syria
The Houthis
Islamic Jihad

Not exactly a list of moderates.

Now we can add one more group to the list of those who are against labeling Hizballah to be terrorist:

Two Arab-Israeli factions that make up the Joint List announced Monday that they condemn the decision of the Gulf states to define Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The hardline Balad faction said in a statement that "Hezbollah fights against the Israeli offensive against Lebanon, and this decision [to define it as a terrorist organization] serves Israel and the United States."

Balad argued that "no criticism on Hezbollah's involvement in Syria justifies this dangerous decision, which serves Israel and her allies who do not hide their colonialist aspirations in Palestine, Lebanon and the rest of the Arabic homeland."

Hadash, led by Joint List head Ayman Odeh, also condemned the decision, attacking Saudi Arabia for spearheading the effort to blacklist Hezbollah.

"After Saudi Arabia failed in its attempt to harness Lebanese society and political forces against Hezbollah by halting its military aid to Lebanon and after the Syrian people have succeeded in keeping Syria united, comes the decision to label Hezbollah as a terrorist organization that proves that Gulf States are totally loyal to neo-colonialist and Zionist forces, the enemies of Arabs," he said.

Keep in mind that Ayman Odeh is considered a moderate. He was greeted at the HaaretzQ conference as a "rock star" in Haaretz' own words.

And he explicitly supports Hizballah terror against Israel.

I am pretty close to an absolutist for freedom of speech, but Knesset members who actively support groups whose entire purpose is to destroy Israel are not practicing free speech - they are practicing treason.

Will any of the left-wing American Jews who cheered so loudly for Odeh last December stand up and condemn him now? Will the New York Times and other media report on this after they wrote a fawning article about him a few months ago?

Not too likely. Once the media creates a meme, in this case of a pragmatic and moderate Arab politician who wants peace above all, they will be very reluctant to report anything that contradicts their initial reporting, because it makes them look like fools.

Yet here is Odeh, explicitly supporting a US-designated terror group whose goal is the destruction of Israel..

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This visit to Temple Mount upset Arabs even more than usual

Every day in the Arab media there are breathless stories about how a few dozen Jews had the audacity to ascend to their holiest site, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

But today the Arab media is claiming that a Jew managed to perform a wedding on the Temple Mount!

Fatah spokesman Raafat Alian warned that "the presence of settlers' feet for the wedding of their children inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a dangerous phenomenon that threatens to escalate tensions on the Mosque."

Alian said in a press release Monday that such a move is considered a new violation to be added to a series of violations of occupation against the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Other Palestinian officials are tripping over each other to condemn the "wedding."

What really happened?

Last Tuesday, Elyashiv Gopstein visited the Har HaBayit before his scheduled wedding that evening.

He is the son of Bentzi Gopstein, an activist for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount.

That's all that happened.

The Palestinians are so anxious to create crises over the Temple Mount that they take non-events and blow them up to become huge "violations".

You can watch the video of the visit: nothing happened. The only singing and dancing occurred after they left the holy spot.

Dozens of Arab media outlets are reporting on this "wedding." Do not be surprised when Jordan and the Arab League issue condemnations.

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03/07 Links Pt1: Palestinian incitement watchdog back on YouTube; '73 plot to assassinate Golda Meir

From Ian:

How the US foiled a Black September plot to assassinate Golda Meir

The Black September terrorist organization hatched a plot to assassinate then-prime minister Golda Meir during a visit to New York, a former National Security Analyst told a radio talk show on Sunday.
In 2009, news reports revealed that the plot by the group, an offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was uncovered by the NSA.
James J. Welsh, who was an NSA analyst of Palestinian communications, told weekend US talk show host and Breitbart Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein that Black September built three car bombs that it planned to detonate in three separate New York locations during Meir's trip to the city on March 4, 1973.
According to Welsh, one of the bombs was placed in El Al's cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport. The other bombs were placed at locations in Manhattan.
“That could have been a really terrible situation had Golda Meir’s motorcade been passing by one of the vehicles parked alongside outside the airport,” Welsh told Klein.
“And then of course if she had visited over there in downtown New York, where those could have been detonated if the first bomb hadn’t succeeded.”
Welsh told Klein that it was "another intelligence agency that the US works with" – and not the NSA – that intercepted messages "from the Iraqi United Nations office to the Iraqi embassy in Washington."
These messages contained very specific details about the plot, including the precise locations of the bombs.

Carlos the Jackal says Switzerland protected the PLO

Carlos the Jackal, the Marxist guerrilla who became a symbol of Cold War anti-imperialism, has told a newspaper that he moved freely through Switzerland in the 1970s under a "non-aggression pact" between the government and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
He felt so safe that he flew to Zurich rather than Vienna airport on his way to neighboring Austria for his most spectacular coup: the kidnapping of oil ministers at OPEC headquarters in 1975, he told the Neue Zuercher Zeitung (NZZ) in a telephone interview from his prison in France.
His comments, published on Monday, seem sure to inflame a debate about whether Swiss authorities secretly agreed to turn a blind eye to PLO activity in the 1970s and give it diplomatic support in exchange for an end to attacks on Swiss targets.

Palestinian incitement watchdog back on YouTube

Less than a day after it was summarily kicked off YouTube, an Israeli media watchdog that reports on Palestinian incitement was back on the video platform on Monday.
The account of Palestinian Media Watch was closed on Sunday for violating YouTube’s terms of service, which include a prohibition on hate speech.
On Thursday, the organization posted a video showing a Palestinian girl reading a poem on official Palestinian Authority TV calling for “war that will smash the oppressor and destroy the Zionist’s soul.”
“I want to personally thank everyone who reached out to PMW and to YouTube,” the organization’s director, Itamar Marcus, said in a statement Monday, adding that “the cumulative effect of individual actions can make a difference.”
PMW said Sunday that the closure of its account was “a blow to the war on terror,” claiming “PMW’s exposure of Palestinian incitement and hate speech is recognized and used by parliaments and governments around the world.”

Songs promoting violence on PA TV: “Where is the Arab rage?” “I'm coming towards you, my enemy"

Editor of Arabic translation of "Protocols" delighted to see book at Cairo Airport shop

Mansour Abdelhakim, an author and editor of an edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (and the Masonic schemes of the Islamic world), was delighted when he spied his book being sold at a shop in the Cairo International Airport.

This is the new 8th edition of the book, introduced at the Cairo Book Fair last month:

Yes, we all know that the book is popular in the Arab world, but it is still jarring to see it - with its antisemitic motifs - on display prominently at an airport.

And still, people claim that antisemitism has nothing to do with Arab anti-Zionism.

(h/t Shawarma News)

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UNRWA school holds ceremony supporting stabbing Jews (updates)

On October 20, as Israelis were being stabbed and run over daily by Palestinians, the UNRWA Gaza City camp school "A" held a ceremony supporting the stabbings and car rammings.

Remember, even though the West characterizes the terror attacks as being prompted by general frustration at the "occupation," the Palestinian narrative has always been that the terror spree was purely meant to defend the Al Aqsa mosque from Jewish infiltration. The timing of this ceremony was specifically to support the wave of terror that was then reaching its height.

Here are some of the signs that the UNRWA students were proudly holding:

“We will live like flying hawks, and we will die like steadfast lions, and all of us for the Palestinian homeland”

“We heed your call, oh Al-Aqsa, our blood and souls we will sacrifice for you, oh Al-Aqsa”

“Jerusalem is our honor and glory, let us sacrifice for her our souls and all that is dear to us”

“My soul is a sacrifice for you, oh Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem is in our hearts, Al-Aqsa is in danger, everybody rise in order to save Jerusalem, let us join hands in order to liberate and save Jerusalem”

“Our eyes are on Jerusalem, we will perish and it will never be worthless”

“We heed your call, oh Al-Aqsa, our blood and souls we will sacrifice for you, oh Al-Aqsa”

“(We) are masters and not slaves, we are the ones from among whom a shahid is born everyday”

“If the Jews are the wind, the revolution is tornadoes”

[Left poster] “How can the light appear, if our blood would not be its fuel, and how could we regain Al-Aqsa if we would not be its soldiers”

This is not UNRWA teachers expressing their support for terror on Facebook, as bad as that is. This is UNRWA itself teaching its students to support stabbing Jews - and encouraging them to die in the process.

This is beyond disgusting. It is proof positive that despite UNRWA's denials, its schools are being used as a platform to teach hate and violence.

There is no oversight, there are no checks and balances, and the only reason we know about it is because all members of this particular school - principals, teachers and staff - were proud enough of teaching hate that they held a public ceremony celebrating and encouraging terror and putting it on Facebook. If this is what some UNRWA schools publish publicly, who knows what kinds of hate and antisemitism are being taught behind closed doors?

UNRWA pretends that it takes reports about abuses like this seriously. Its commissioner general said this last week, referring to me specifically. if that is true, then we should expect UNRWA to publicly denounce this ceremony and make a pledge to its donors to take specific, audited steps to ensure that things like this can never recur.

But history shows that this will never happen. The pages will be silently removed (I have made copies on public Internet archives) and UNRWA will stay silent. I have already shown institutional antisemitism at UNRWA schools and the organization has simply removed the evidence without admitting any wrongdoing.

UNRWA head Pierre Krähenbühl might claim to take these reports seriously, but all that means is that he will do everything possible to cover it up.

That is, unless the public, the media and the donors demand answers.

The pattern is clear. UNRWA employs anti-semites and terror supporters. Its schools teach hate. It shows no interest in solving the problem, only in covering them up. The time has come to demand that UNRWA face consequences for supporting and encouraging its students to commit terror acts.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: Matt Lee of AP asked the State Department spox to comment. They will check out this story and get back to him.

UPDATE 2: This was not an isolated case. UNRWA schools in Lebanon also held ceremonies to support the terror spree at the same time, officially and unofficially.

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Houthis force Jewish children to fight in Yemen, one killed

On Friday, Jewish 17-year old Aaron Albouha was killed in fighting with the Houthis against Saudi Arabian forces in Yemen. He was killed in the southern region of Najran.

Albouha's family, which had managed to escape Yemen for the US, were shocked to learn of his death, Arab media is reporting.

According to reports, the Houthis are forcing the few remaining Jews in Yemen, even children, to fight with them - and they are placing them on the front lines as cannon fodder.

Albouha is not the first Jew to be killed while being forced to fight for the Houthis. Jacob Ahamim was killed about a week ago at the Yemen/Saudi Arabia border.

The Iranian-backed Houthi slogan and logo says "God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews, Power to Islam."

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FULL VICTORY: McGraw-Hill rules politics textbook is wrong, will destroy all copies and issue refunds

Last week I exposed a college textbook, "Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World", that included The Map That Lies anti-Israel propaganda picture.

A number of people wrote to complain to the publisher, McGraw Hill, and to its credit, within a day the company said that they put all sales on hold pending review.

That review has apparently been completed over the weekend, and the book is being pulled from distribution and existing copies destroyed.. Mark Jacobs received this reply from the company on Sunday evening:

Thank you for your query about the map in Global Politics: Engaging a Complex World. As soon as we learned about the concerns with it, we placed sales of the book on hold and immediately initiated an academic review. The review determined that the map did not meet our academic standards. We have informed the authors and we are no longer selling the book. All existing inventory will be destroyed. We apologize and will refund payment to anyone who returns the book.

Kind Regards,
Paula O | Customer Service Representative | Customer Service
School Education, Higher Education, Professional
McGraw-Hill Education | 860 Taylor Station Road Blacklick, OH 43004

At the moment, the book is still on sale at many textbook and bookseller sites, although it was pulled immediately from the McGraw-Hill website. But I assume that is an issue of logistics.

Kudos to McGraw-Hill for working to resolve this quickly and professionally. They took this very seriously and really went above and beyond to reach an accurate conclusion and make this decision - on a weekend!

Send your thanks to McGraw-Hill customer service hep_customer-service@mheducation.com and to their Twitter account @mhhighered and @mheducation.

I am very happy that this blog was able to make a difference. If only all media would be as responsive as McGraw-Hill has been to being shown that they are disseminating inaccurate anti-Israel information.

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Ahmad Raissouni, vice president of International Union of Muslim Scholars, says Moroccan Jews who chose to emigrate to Israel are "traitors" and "criminals."

Raissouni, in an article on his official website, said that the Moroccan Jews who have left their country of Morocco and immigrated to Israel have taken part of their national homeland with them and had "betrayed their country of origin." If I am understanding correctly, he also accused them of making Israel look lik it is kind to them, another unforgivable crime.

Moreover, Raissouni said that Moroccan Jews in Israel had "betrayed the pro-Palestinian cause of the Moroccan people."

Raissouni praised the Moroccan Jews who have not left Morocco. He also said that it was possible that some of the Jews who moved to Israel were deceived by Zionists about the facts, and they would be welcome back to Morocco.

After he called them traitors.

One media outlet covering the story helpfully added that some of the Moroccan Jews in Israel carry weapons in order to kill Palestinians.

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The fallout in Iranian media after the Gulf Cooperation Council declared Hizballah a terrorist organization is fascinating.

Their only weapon is to call the Saudi-led group "Zionist." And that insult just doesn't do what it used to do:

A senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says allies of the Zionists have dubbed Lebanon’s resistance movement, Hezbollah, a terrorist organization.

“Those who have created a crisis in Syria and stood by the Zionists as their allies in different wars name Lebanon’s Hezbollah [a] terrorist [organization],” senior adviser to Leader’s representative to the IRGC, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, said on Saturday.

On Wednesday, the six-nation [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council issued a statement labeling Hezbollah a terrorist organization. The bloc, comprising Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait, however, did not provide any evidence for its allegations.

Javani said the Arab bloc’s groundless accusation against the resistance group is a self-harming act and a strategic mistake that would discredit the council.

He emphasized that Hezbollah is a popular movement which has been formed to confront the Israeli regime, defend Lebanon’s territorial integrity and protect rights of Muslim nations.

The IRGC commander said the [P]GCC move to declare Hezbollah a terrorist body clearly shows that the Arab bloc is following in the footsteps of the Zionists, adding that their act is in line with fulfilling the demands of the United States.

They try to make it look like most of the Arab world objects to the GCC declaration, and fail big time:

Algeria refused to classify the movement as a terrorist organization. Palestinian resistance movement, Islamic Jihad, also praised Hezbollah as a resistance movement which has a history in the struggle against the Zionist entity as well as in supporting the Palestinian cause. Iran, Syria and Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement have also slammed the move by the [P]GCC.

There were also condemnations of the move by Hizballah's second in command by from Iran's foreign minister Zarif.

When the average Arab who opposes Iranian meddling in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq reads these over the top reactions, they probably think that being Zionist isn't such a bad thing compared to being a supporter of Iran,

(Iranian media is also reporting that "unnamed American officials" are warning Hizballah that Israel is planning to attack Lebanon.)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

03/06 Links: PMW YouTube acc "terminated" for exposing PA hate; Confronting Tamimi at Berkeley

From Ian:

PMW YouTube account "terminated" for exposing PA hate speech

Dear PMW subscribers,
Following Palestinian Media Watch's release of a video on Thursday in which a Palestinian girl read a poem on official PA TV calling for "war that will smash the oppressor and destroy the Zionist's soul," YouTube "terminated" PMW's account for violating their "terms of service," which includes hate speech. The terminated account, https://www.youtube.com/user/palwatch/, contains nearly all of PMW's videos.
We urge anyone with contacts at Google or YouTube to contact them and request that PMW's account be reinstated. Others can send a message to YouTube by clicking the "Send feedback" link at the bottom of YouTube's homepage.
It is outrageous that YouTube closed PMW's account, which is a blow to the war on terror. This is particularly dangerous now while Israel is fighting a war against Palestinian terror. PMW documentation on PMW's YouTube account shows the PA and Fatah leaders' support and promotion of the terror.
PMW's exposure of Palestinian incitement and hate speech is recognized and used by parliaments and governments around the world. On Friday, a 25-minute debate took place in Swedish Parliament in which the PA's support for the current terror was discussed, and the proof was based entirely on PMW documentation - most of which is no longer accessible on PMW's YouTube account.
PMW is urging YouTube to immediately reinstate PMW's account and all PMW videos, and is calling to our subscribers to help put pressure on Google.

Confronting Bassem Tamimi at UC Berkeley

Some Jews, apparently are tired of being a "model minority".
Bassem Tamini, an anti-Israel activist from Nabi Saleh may be best known as the man who takes his young children to anti-Israel riots, in hopes of creating a viral photo op. He's the dad of the notorious pre-pubescent "Shirley Temper", budding star of ubiquitous Pallywood productions.
Tamimi took his dog and pony show on the road last autumn, promoted widely by the usual suspects. He had several Bay area appearances, soliciting donations. (only cash- no checks)
On Oct 2 Tamimi spoke in small classroom in UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall, sparsely attended by several dozen people.
Showing astonishing bravery, a young man entered the classroom and confronted Tamini about his history of terror, antisemitism and even murder. It was a move straight from the playbook of the Israel haters. (h/t Bob Knot)

How Israel will win the public diplomacy war

It is rare for a newspaper column to read as a “how to” manual. But in this case, I have no choice – frustration has reached an all-time high.
We know that if Israel laid down its arms it would be destroyed, while if Hamas would drop its arms, and the Palestinian Authority would stop the incitement, there would be peace in Israel. We know that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East, and the only country in the region that provides equal rights for all people regardless of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation.
And yet, despite this, data presented to me at a recent meeting with one of the top polling companies in the United States shows that we are failing to convey this reality.
In the poll conducted just two weeks ago, only 39 percent of US college students said that they believe that Israel is a civilized, Western country; only 31% of them believe Israel is a democratic country; and as a result of not telling our story properly, a mere 28% of college students believe that the United States should side with Israel in the current conflict.
This is an all-time low.
But it gets worse: 21% believe that the US should side with the Palestinians! Furthermore, among a category of people labeled as “opinion elite” in the US, 38% believe that Israel is a racist country, 48% say that Israel is responsible for human rights abuses, and 45% believe Israel is practicing apartheid on Palestinian land.
Only 67% of those “opinion elite” in the US believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. (In Canada that number drops to 43% and in the United Kingdom it’s 36%); 46% believe that Israeli “occupation” results in more terrorism in the US; and 19% believe that boycotts against Israel are justified.
And finally, given all of the above, it is not surprising to learn that 17% of Jewish college students refuse to advocate for Israel.