Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

British MPs slam "illegal EU settlements" built in Area C with their tax dollars

Brazen: The EU flag flies above an unauthorised building erected for Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank (Daily Mail caption)

It's about time someone noticed this.

From The Daily Mail:

The EU is claiming diplomatic immunity after using taxpayers' money to build unauthorised settlements and roads on Israeli parts of the West Bank, MailOnline can reveal.

An Israeli NGO launched legal action after photographing EU flags flying above buildings on land placed under Israeli jurisdiction by the Oslo Accords, to which the EU is a signatory. EU bureaucrats are avoiding court by citing diplomatic rules.

The buildings, which are given to Palestinians, are intended to 'pave the way' for more land to be brought under Palestinian control, according to official EU papers. Many are bulldozed by Israel only for the EU to repeatedly rebuild them, generating more costs for the taxpayer.

Leaked documents obtained by MailOnline show that the EU – which receives £350million per week from Britain – is using diplomatic rules to place officials above the law, foiling attempts to hold bureaucrats accountable.

MPs have expressed outrage that the EU is using aid money to 'meddle' in a foreign territorial dispute, and branded its actions 'dodgy'.
'It is deeply concerning that the EU falls back on diplomatic immunity after breaking planning regulations,' Jacob Rees-Mogg MP told MailOnline. 'The UK Government would take a very dim view of a friendly state doing that to us.

'Diplomatic immunity is there to protect envoys from unjust treatment, not to protect the high-handed behaviour of arrogant bureaucracies.'

He added: 'The EU maintains that it is based on fundamental principles of rule of law and support for democracy. But when this clashes with its bureaucratic bungling, neither rule of law nor democracy seem important.'

The projects come at a cost of tens of millions of Euros in aid money, a proportion of which comes from the British taxpayer. Construction is also funded by international charities, including Oxfam.

EU flags are mounted on the buildings, leading them to become known locally as the 'EU settlements'.

'The EU should comply with the law. It should not be meddling in the Middle East, then hiding behind some dodgy use of diplomatic immunity,' Andrew Percy MP told MailOnline.

'This is a gross waste of taxpayers' money. It's another example of money given to the EU over which Parliament has no real oversight.

'The British electorate is contributing to this but we are completely unaware of how it's being spent. We don't know who is spending this, and we can't vote them out.'

He added: 'No wonder the EU think they're above the law. They are untouchable.'

Mr Percy also expressed serious concerns that the EU is 'undermining the Oslo Accords' and 'damaging attempts at peace' in the Middle East. 'Not only is it a waste of taxpayers' money, it is morally questionable,' he said.

This month, the EU approved a further £193million of aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, an international lawyer from the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, said: ‘There’s no question, the EU is openly in violation of international law.'

But an EU spokeswoman argued that the construction was legal 'in accordance with the humanitarian imperative', and said the EU believed that Area C would be 'part of any viable future Palestinian state'.

She would not say whether or not the EU's actions breached the Oslo Accords.

So the EU is justifying violating the fundamental basis of the Oslo Accords - which are legal instruments - by saying that their own idea of a "humanitarian imperative" is more important.

But what humanitarian imperative is it to move people into buildings that are going to be demolished within months?

The answer is that the EU wants video of Israel demolishing illegal structures to be shown. They want the UN to issue reports counting how many structures were destroyed and how many people who had other places to live only shortly beforehand are now "homeless." Especially children. They make great video.

In other words, the EU's "humanitarian imperative" is to demonize Israel, not to help Palestinians.

And as this article shows, they literally hold themselves above the law. A systematic and illegal campaign to violate written agreements, vilify Israel and pre-judge the outcome of negotiations is protected as "diplomatic immunity."

No wonder the Palestinians don't want to negotiate with Israel. The EU already is supporting their claims with its willingness to spend hundreds of millions of Euros without any concessions towards peace on their part.

The EU could work together with Israel to improve the existing Arab villages in Area C. It can lobby Israel to loosen up zoning laws to help the existing Arab population in those areas build easier. But to swoop in, violate international law by illegal building and then claim that they are untouchable is immoral, illegal and arrogant.

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Jokes about Jews from before 1900, part 3

From Fun for all, a novel collection of jokes and jests for all readers, 1880:

"Did you know," said the cunning Yankee to a Jew, "that they hang Jews and donkeys together in Poland?"

"Indeed! then it is well that you and I are not there," retorted the Jew.

03/14 Links Pt2: Oren: Obama has selective memory on Middle East; Acts of War by Any Other Name

From Ian:

Col Kemp: The West’s fight against terrorism is anemic

Arguing for the authorization of airstrikes on Syria in the British House of Commons recently, British Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn — a life-long campaigner against war — noted succinctly that we know this about Islamic State: They are fascists, and we have to defeat them.
Experience makes plain that when terrorist movements control territory where they can organize and train, the threat increases exponentially. The United States, the United Kingdom and our coalition partners must intensify our anemic action to destroy the Islamic State.
Coalition airstrikes alone will not defeat the Islamic State, nor end Syria’s brutal civil war. Ground forces will be necessary to take back and hold territory in urban centers in Syria and Iraq. We cannot predict the ultimate makeup of such forces. But we can be certain that they will face an unconventional enemy that will act with utmost brutality and pay no heed to the rules of warfare.
This is the fundamental challenge our democracies face.
We are confronted by ruthless Islamist death cults that pervert the rules of war to achieve victory and have no respect for basic humanity.

The Slipperiest Slope of Them All

President Obama came into office promising to turn the page on a chapter of American history defined by two wars in the greater Middle East. His consistency in delivering on that promise is admirable, as is the focus with which he has learned from and sought to avoid his predecessor’s mistakes regarding the use of American force abroad.
Ironically, however, Obama’s fixation on closing one chapter led him to decisions that opened a new one that reads very similarly. This new war on ISIS—Obama’s war—which began in August 2014, can be traced to two errors of judgment. Jeffrey Goldberg’s article on “The Obama Doctrine” reveals that these errors were driven by the president's determination to keep his promises to the American people and to avoid the mistakes of the past.
The first mistake was Obama’s retreat from Iraq—the withdrawal not just of U.S. forces, but even more so of diplomatic energy and leverage, which, successfully deployed, might have mitigated the collapse of the Iraqi political experiment and thus blunted the rise of ISIS. After Iraq held its (pre-American withdrawal) elections in 2010, the Obama administration took a hands-off approach to Iraqi domestic politics, and it failed to replace the American military presence with a robust set of civilian, economic, and other partnerships to sustain American influence. In 2011, my last of about two years working on Middle East policy in Obama’s State Department, we were planning for sharp cuts in civilian programs for Iraq alongside the military drawdown—and over the next two years, U.S. economic aid to Iraq dropped nearly 50 percent. The administration had ample warning about the damage Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian and power-hungry behavior was having on Iraqi security and stability. But the president and Vice President Biden, who managed the Iraq portfolio on Obama’s behalf, chose to do very little to constrain Maliki as he began to unravel the tentative political bargains between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds within federal Iraq.

Americans don't always know everything

The root of the problem for many American administrations, including the current one, is the American tendency to assess the Middle East through the prism of American concepts, as if the people living in the region are American citizens who adhere to an American logic, worldview and political culture. It turns out, however, that protestors in the streets of Arab cities are not necessarily social activists; Islamic movements don't exactly champion equality and human rights; and local tyrants, like Bashar Assad and the spiritual leader of Iran, neither resemble American political adversaries on the campaign trail nor common street thugs acting violently on the streets of American cities.
It comes as no surprise that an administration that views the crime-filled streets of Chicago and violence in the Middle East through the same lenses has sought to appease the region's thugs through restraint and patience, not to mention weakness, and has responded in similar fashion to the world's current mafioso-of-the-moment, Vladimir Putin. In actuality, however, Obama has not secured the goodwill of his adversaries and enemies in the region. Quite the opposite -- from the moment they smelled weakness they rose up in a manner of defiance they had never before dreamed possible. At the same time, the Americans squandered the trust of their allies, who felt abandoned and under threat.
Obama's approach to the Middle East has included two crucial aspects that together had far-reaching and disastrous consequences, not only for America's status in the region but for its inhabitants. On the one hand, Obama naively sees the Middle East through rose-tinted glasses, befitting his belief that the region and its people seek modernity and democracy, and that the basis for tensions between them and the U.S. is America's belligerent behavior, highlighted by George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. On the other hand, Obama's approach also comes with the cynicism of a cold and calculating businessman trying to cut his losses by selling depreciating stock. In other words, when the reality of the region blew up in his face, he chose to disengage from it while leaving Washington's friends and allies to fend for themselves.
One cannot deny that a policy of inaction can be beneficial on occasion and can prevent volatile situations from escalating. But the result of Obama's policies -- or lack thereof to be more precise -- is that on his watch the Middle East has not only become far less stable but is now a more dangerous place where far more lives have been lost to war than at any time during Bush's presidency, when American soldiers were sent to fight in the region.
If Obama would have listened to Israel, he could have learned from its firsthand experiences -- that while you can disengage from Gaza and Lebanon, those places will not disengage from you and will continue chasing you to your doorstep.

The Hezbollah scorecard (updated)

I tweeted this yesterday (updated 3/18)

I assumed that all Arab League countries who have not publicly objected to the decision to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group agree to it.

Russia's actions are implicit support for Hezbollah although I am not aware of any public pronouncements. The support of the rest of the entities on the right are explicit.

Palestinians - and Arab Israelis - are virtually alone in the Sunni world for supporting Hezbollah. And this is one rare issue where there is unanimity in support among the PA, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

From Al Ahram:

Egypt’s Justice Minister Ahmed El-Zend was fired on Sunday little less than a year in office in the wake of widespread criticism of comments he made regarding the Muslim Prophet Muhammed that were considered to be blasphemous.

The decision was taken by Egypt's Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, state-run news agency MENA said. However, Ismail's cabinet is yet to reveal the reasons for sacking El-Zend.
Last week, in response to a TV host's question on whether he would jail journalists, El-Zend said, "Even if he was a prophet, peace and blessings be upon him."

The 70-year-old then briefly uttered Islamic words of repentance before adding that "the culprit, whatever his description is... I am not talking about jailing a journalist or jailing a teacher, I am saying jailing a defendant."

El-Zend, who is infamous for making controversial media statements, has been facing a wave of criticism on social media after his comments went viral and were largely interpreted as an insult to the Prophet Muhammad, the most sacred figure among Muslims and whose sayings comprise a prime source of Islamic jurisprudence.

"The thing that a Muslim or a non-Muslim is held culpable for is what is done willfully," El-Zend said when he called in to a TV show on Saturday, stressing that it was a slip of the tongue.

"I ask God Almighty for forgiveness over and over and over again... I know my apology will be accepted [by Prophet Muhammad]."

Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islamic learning, issued a statement on Sunday warning against blasphemous comments regarding the Prophet, even those made unintentionally.

An Arabic Twitter hashtag calling for his trial went viral in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with numerous Muslim users expressing anger over his comment and heaping scorn on him even after his apology.

No one in Egypt seems upset that that El-Zend just advocated jailing journalists.

And he is not talking about terrorists - reports say that he was answering a question about whether he would jail journalists who defame him.

Israel is being widely criticized by journalist groups for shutting down an office of a TV station that is directly and openly run by the Islamic Jihad terror group and that directly incites violence, but when the Egyptian minister of justice says he would jail any journalist who insults him, these groups are silent.

03/14 Links Pt1: Funding the Palestinians — and Thus Condoning Terrorism — Is Not in America’s Interest

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Laughing Their Heads Off

As in any comedy, there is a clown, and Biden was played for a fool by a Palestinian Authority leadership that finds that it pays to point its finger at Israel.
Here is a dirty little secret: the Palestinian attackers were not driven to murder Jews because of "settlements" and "checkpoints."
Check their Facebook accounts: what fueled their hatred were the lies they had been fed for the past few years by President Abbas and other Palestinian leaders. Palestinian media outlets and spokesmen vomit poison against Israel.
And so the curtain rises on another act of the ceremonial, make-believe theater of the Middle East. In Abbas's sneaky script, it is about settlements. In reality, it is about the refusal of the Americans to read, speak or even translate Arabic.

The Moral Vacuum at the Heart of Palestine

The wave of random killings by Palestinians, male and female terrorists, began last October with a typically hysterical falsehood that Israel planned to bar Muslims from the sacred Temple Mount. It was another demonstration of how the Palestinians are trapped by their own history, by the heritage – and daily practice – of incitement against Jews. The virulence of their indiscriminate hostility has a clear line to Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the mandated territory of Palestine. He was, of course, the grand mufti of Jerusalem from 1921 to 1937 and the ally of Adolf Hitler and his gang through World War II and the Holocaust. Even before the United Nations voted for Israeli independence, he polluted the well of Arab nationalism with the poison of anti-Semitism. In a 1943 speech, al-Husseini said: “It is the duty of [Muslims] in general and Arabs in particular ... to drive all Jews from Arab and Muhammadan countries. ... Germany ... has very clearly recognized the Jews for what they are and resolved to find a definitive solution for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that the Jews represent in the world.” A definitive – or final – solution: those are the words of the Holocaust and there is the image of the peddler into the Middle East of fascist anti-Semitism, paying homage to Hitler.
The collaboration has proved tragic for the Palestinian people. They could now be living peacefully and prosperously in their own state, alongside Israel, had they not absorbed the paranoia and refused to accept the right of the Jews to worship and live in Israel. Instead, Palestinians live miserably under occupation on the West Bank (by Israelis) and in Gaza (by Hamas), theoretically governed by an inept President Abbas whose four year term was supposed to end in 2009. The Canadian Muslim scholar Salim Mansur has bravely written that too many of his fellow Muslims “refuse to take responsibility for our role in history, [leading] to a pathological proclivity to blame others – especially the Jews – for misfortunes that are really of our own making.”
But the Palestinians have been betrayed, too, by a small group of Western academics who have carelessly fomented the genocidal anti-Semitic narrative of radical Islam. This malign influence on the Palestinian people, impressionable students and trendy leftist opinion, exemplified by the malevolent distortions of the so-called boycott and discrimination campaign, is well documented in “Global Anti-Semitism: A Crisis of Modernity” by Charles Asher Small, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy. He was the Koret Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, which in this regard gave shame to the anti-Semitic aura of Yale University and the imbecilic posturing and intimidation increasingly evident on the anti-Semitic left on campuses across America and which has left a shameful stain on the humanitarian vision behind the founding of the City University of New York.
The American people have consistently shown more common sense than the pseudo-intellectuals. Gallup reports that over the past 15 years Americans have become more sympathetic to the Israelis than the Palestinians. A poll released on February 29 reports that 62 percent of Americans say their sympathies lie with the Israelis and 15 percent with the Palestinians. From the poll, it seems that all the Palestinians have been able to achieve by random murder and rockets from Gaza is to reduce American support for an independent Palestinian state. The 58 percent who favored that in 2004 have shrunk to 44 percent in February 2016; in 2004, 22 percent were opposed. Now that number is 37 percent opposed.

New York Liberal Paper: “Obama Has Done Enough Damage to Israel Already”

As Obama begins a campaign against Israel in support of the Islamic terrorists running the West Bank by pushing his own terms through the UN, notes of protest are coming from unexpected sources. Like the New York Daily News. The News is a liberal tabloid notorious for its obnoxious front page rants about gun control or Republicans, but it endorsed Romney in ’12.
And it has some strong words for Obama on Israel.
“He must not go further down this path of ego, hubris and vengeance. He will not validate the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to him in 2009 and never earned. Undercutting the Jewish state, he will only make negotiations more impossible than they already are,” the News Editorial states.
“As just one example, Obama broke his predecessor George W. Bush’s commitment that any final agreement would include major Israeli housing settlements and the Jewish parts of Jerusalem within the Israeli borders. Instead, Obama demanded a deep settlement freeze, without imposing similar conditions on the Palestinians.”
“As a result, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas felt no pressure to come to the table. He could rail against Israel — and gain points with his people — without taking risks for peace.”
“Should Obama ask the United Nations to vote on a resolution endorsing similar terms — or any terms — he will enshrine the Palestinians as holding a moral high ground from which they would claim justification for shooting rockets into Israel.”
The editorial concludes, “Unconscionably, Obama would also tie the hand of his successor, who will have to labor to repair relations with Israel and rebalance the region’s expectations.”

Saudi prince slams Obama for calling them "free riders"

The New York Times reported last week:

President Obama believes that Saudi Arabia, one of America’s most important allies in the Middle East, needs to learn how to “share” the region with its archenemy, Iran, and that both countries are guilty of fueling proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

In a series of interviews with The Atlantic magazine published Thursday, Mr. Obama said a number of American allies in the Persian Gulf — as well as in Europe — were “free riders,” eager to drag the United States into grinding sectarian conflicts that sometimes had little to do with American interests. He showed little sympathy for the Saudis, who have been threatened by the nuclear deal Mr. Obama reached with Iran.

The Saudis, Mr. Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine’s national correspondent, “need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace.” Reflexively backing them against Iran, the president said, “would mean that we have to start coming in and using our military power to settle scores. And that would be in the interest neither of the United States nor of the Middle East.”

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal responded forcefully in Arab News:

No, Mr. Obama. We are not “free riders.” We shared with you our intelligence that prevented deadly terrorist attacks on America.

We initiated the meetings that led to the coalition that is fighting Fahish (ISIL), and we train and fund the Syrian freedom fighters, who fight the biggest terrorist, Bashar Assad and the other terrorists, Al-Nusrah and Fahish (ISIL). We offered boots on the ground to make that coalition more effective in eliminating the terrorists.

We initiated the support — military, political and humanitarian — that is helping the Yemeni people reclaim their country from the murderous militia, the Houthis, who, with the support of the Iranian leadership, tried to occupy Yemen; without calling for American forces. We established a coalition of more than thirty Muslim countries to fight all shades of terrorism in the world.

We are the biggest contributors to the humanitarian relief efforts to help refugees from Syria, Yemen and Iraq. We combat extremist ideology that attempts to hijack our religion, on all levels. We are the sole funders of the United Nations Counter-terrorism Center, which pools intelligence, political, economic, and human resources, worldwide. We buy US treasury bonds, with small interest returns, that help your country’s economy.

We send thousands of our students to your universities, at enormous expense, to acquire knowledge and knowhow. We host over 30,000 American citizens and pay them top dollar in our businesses and industry for their skills. Your secretaries of state and defense have often publicly praised the level of cooperation between our two countries.

Your treasury department officials have publicly praised Saudi Arabia’s measures to curtail any financing that might reach terrorists. Our King Salman met with you, last September, and accepted your assurances that the nuclear deal you struck with the Iranian leadership will prevent their acquiring nuclear weapons for the duration of the deal. You noted “the Kingdom’s leadership role in the Arab and Islamic world.”

The two of you affirmed the “need, in particular, to counter Iran’s destabilizing activities.” Now, you throw us a curve ball. You accuse us of fomenting sectarian strife in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. You add insult to injury by telling us to share our world with Iran, a country that you describe as a supporter of terrorism and which you promised our king to counter its “destabilizing activities.”

Could it be that you are petulant about the Kingdom’s efforts to support the Egyptian people when they rose against the Muslim Brothers’ government and you supported it? Or is it the late King Abdullah’s (God rest his soul) bang on the table when he last met you and told you “No more red lines, Mr. President.”

Or is it because you have pivoted to Iran so much that you equate the Kingdom’s 80 years of constant friendship with America to an Iranian leadership that continues to describe America as the biggest enemy, that continues to arm, fund and support sectarian militias in the Arab and Muslim world, that continues to harbor and host Al-Qaeda leaders, that continues to prevent the election of a Lebanese president through Hezbollah, which is identified by your government as a terrorist organization, that continues to kill the Syrian Arab people in league with Bashar Assad?

No, Mr. Obama. We are not the “free riders” that to whom you refer. We lead from the front and we accept our mistakes and rectify them. We will continue to hold the American people as our ally and don’t forget that when the chips were down, and George Herbert Walker Bush sent American soldiers to repel with our troops Saddam’s aggression against Kuwait, soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers. Mr. Obama, that is who we are.

Other American allies have reacted strongly to how dismissive President Obama has been to them, and specifically in this interview. But for al of its many faults, Saudi concerns over the US pivoting to a nation that daily supports the message "Death to America" are on target.

US visa website won't identify the nation that Tel Aviv or Jerusalem are in (UPDATE)

The official U.S. Visa Service for foreign citizens website, to help them travel to the United States, is surprisingly not part of a government Internet domain. Apparently this service has been outsourced by the US government to another firm, possible Computer Sciences Corporation.

It really is the official US visa site, though, and a number of US embassy and consulate webpages point there. This one says explicitly that it is "the ONLY authorized website for the payment of visa fees."

The reason this is interesting is the page from this official visa site that offers individuals to choose which country they are from:

Three of the entries don't have flags associated with them.

Two aren't even a country, but two cities without any apparent link to any country.

It is offensive enough to have the US not identify Jerusalem - any of Jerusalem - as being inside Israel.

But Tel Aviv?

Are they that afraid of offending Arabs and Israel-haters that they cannot even mention the name Israel?

When you click through to either the Tel Aviv or Jerusalem links, both take you to the same page - a page that again cannot say the word "Israel."

It is true that the US consulate in Jerusalem is mainly concerned with Palestinian Arab affairs. But it is more offensive to eliminate Israel altogether than it would be for the site to say "Israel and the Palestinian territories."

But if Israel would be mentioned, then Palestinian Arabs would be far more upset than Israelis would be for pretending Israel doesn't exist. So this site used by the US embassies and consulates worldwide decided it is better to offend Israelis by pretending it doesn't exist than to offend Palestinians by saying Israel does exist.

This is also apparently the logic behind not putting a flag for Cyprus. Sure it offends Cypriots, but when Turkish people get upset, they get far more upset. Better to eliminate the flag rather than risk the wrath of the Turks.

This website is a perfect example of Western dhimmitude - so sensitive to the possibility of upsetting Muslims that it pro-actively offends non-Muslims to head off even the slightest chance of ugliness.

(h/t sshender)

UPDATE: The Blaze asked the State Department about this:

The site is presented as “the official U.S. Visa Service for foreign citizens travel to the United States” where applicants can get information on the visa application process and pay the application fees.

Though U.S. embassies refer applicants to the site and link to it on their websites, the site is outsourced to a private company, and is not run by the State Department, the Department confirmed Tuesday afternoon.

The State Department emailed TheBlaze a response to a request for comment, which read in part, “The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, outsources many of our non-governmental visa processing services, including general information, appointment scheduling, fee collection, and document delivery services.”

The statement went on to say that the website “is run by a private company on behalf of the U.S. Government” and that “graphics on these sites are not designed to represent U.S. policy toward any individual country or population, rather they are provided to visually guide customers toward relevant visa information.”

From AP:

A Palestinian primary school teacher who grew up in a refugee camp and educates her students about non-violence won a $1 million prize for teaching excellence on Sunday, beating out 8,000 other applicants from around the world.

Hanan al-Hroub, a primary school teacher in the West Bank city of al-Bireh just outside Ramallah, was awarded the second annual Global Teacher Prize during a ceremony in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was on-hand to present the prize to al-Hroub, however her name was announced by Pope Francis in a video message after he talked about the importance of education and teachers, especially for children who grow up amid war.

In her acceptance speech, she reiterated her mantra of "No to violence" and stressed the importance of dialogue.

"The Palestinian teacher can talk to the world now. Hand in hand we can affect change and provide a safe education to provide peace," she told the AP.

It is great that a Palestinian teacher who advocates non-violence wins this award and can influence her society. But something interesting happened at the ceremony:

As al-Hroub accepted her award, Palestinians in the audience waved their country's flag and some chanted, fists pumping in the air, "With our souls, our blood, we sacrifice for you Palestine."

That is a war chant. Variants are used throughout the Middle East to incite violence Violent demonstrations accompanying the current shooting and knifing spree feature "With our souls and blood we sacrifice to you, Al Aqsa." Syrian soldiers chant " "With our souls and blood we sacrifice to you, Bashar."

Palestinians' natural reaction to having someone win a prize for teaching non-violence was to shout war slogans.

Ironically, the teacher's surname al-Hroub means "war."

A further irony - the Islamic Jihad terror group congratulated al-Hroub.

Jokes about Jews from before 1900, part 2

This "joke," from am 1854 British joke book, is illuminating on two levels.

One is that is was considered funny to begin with:

The other is that this is apparently a true story!

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.

Hasby Award voting: Best Celebrity Tweeter for Israel

The Hasby Award for Best Celebrity Tweeter will be decided by popular vote only; I will not pick a winner.

During the week I hope to knock off most of the other categories as well. it is March, after all...

The nominees are:

Roseanne Barr
Josh Malina

Jenna Jameson

Mayim Bialik

Jon Voight

Here is where you can vote.

...

Who was the best celebrity pro-Israel tweeter in 2015?

Voting will end on Saturday night.

03/13 Links: Abbas: Killed terrorist “Watered the Pure Earth of Palestine with Her Blood”

From Ian:

New Year's Day terrorist planned to attack Tel Aviv daycares

Terrorist Nashat Milhem had planned an attack on kindergartens in Tel Aviv, Police said Sunday, as they released their findings of an investigation into the attacks on New Year’s Day in Tel Aviv.
News of the Milhem’s plan to attack daycare centers was included in a 6-part Police report sent by power point to reporters on Sunday, which was compiled in cooperation with the Shin Bet. The report covered a series of controversial aspects of the week-long manhunt for Milhem, including police failure to put out a picture of Milhem until 36 hours after the attack, the shortage of clear messages to the public from the senior police leadership, and news that the police failed to properly heed a 100 dispatch call from witnesses who stated they saw Milhem heading north on a bus to Wadi Ara shortly after the killing.
Police said in their findings that they did determine there were deficiencies in how the 100 dispatch center handled calls by two sisters hours after the attack who said they saw Milhem heading north to Wadi Ara on a bus, but that it didn’t negatively affect the investigation. According to a senior police official, by then police were already searching for Milhem and his accomplices in his Wadi Ara village of Ar’ara. That said, he did admit that they were only able to actually confirm he was there on Tuesday, meaning that it was only five days after the 100 calls were placed that they were able to prove he was in the village.
The report added that they learned that there were failures in how the 100 dispatch centers from different areas share information, and that they need to improve their technology in order to make the system more effective.
The police report said they did insufficiently inform the public about the ongoing manhunt and how they should conduct themselves, but said it was only a matter of hours, not days. On the day of the shooting, no police briefing was given by a senior officer at the scene of the attack until hours later, which police admitted Sunday was problematic.

Abbas: Attempted Killer of IDF Soldier “Watered the Pure Earth of Palestine with Her Blood”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas hailed a Palestinian who attempted to kill an Israeli soldier with her car as a “martyr.”
“We see in her a martyr who watered the pure earth of Palestine with her blood,” Abbas wrote in a letter to the parents of Amani Husni Sabatin, who was shot after she rammed her vehicle into a soldier in the Gush Etzion Junction near Jerusalem on March 4. Her funeral in the town of Husan near Bethlehem was reportedly attended by hundreds of Palestinians.
A similar condolence letter sent in 2014 by Abbas to the family of Mu’taz Hijazi, the Palestinian suspected in the attempted assassination of Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick, described Hijazi as a “martyr” who died “while he was defending the rights of our people and our holy places.”
Leading PA officials, including Abbas, have often been accused of inciting violence and glorifying Palestinians who carry out attacks against Israelis. Abbas consoled families of terrorists—including the relatives of a man who hacked a Jerusalem rabbi to death in October—during two separate meetings last month, calling the attackers “martyrs.” The first meeting took place hours after three Palestinian men gunned down an Israeli policewoman in Jerusalem. Fatah, the party led by Abbas, praised the shooters as “role models.”

PA official to terrorists: "You are heroes, crown on our head"

Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee, Jibril Rajoub:‎ "I say to the Israelis first of all: You sons of bitches, we will not accept less than a ‎Palestinian state. We are the owners of the land, and we are the residents of the land ‎and you are strangers in the land... Our relations with the occupation need to be first of ‎all on a basis of clashes – until a Palestinian state is established. Do not believe in ‎‎[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu, he is a liar and a scoundrel, and he’s a Fascist and ‎represents the new Nazism... From here we say to the 145 Martyrs (Palestinians killed ‎in the Oct. 2015 - Jan. 2016 terror wave, most during terror attacks –Ed.) – You are ‎heroes and we bless you and strengthen your families, and say to you: You are a ‎crown on our heads.‎" [Official PA TV, Jan. 6, 2016‎]

Lapid blasts foreign press support for terror-linked TV station

Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid has called on a global press union to apologize for censuring Israel over the closure of a West Bank TV station.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on Friday condemned Israel’s closure a day earlier of Palestine al-Yawm (Palestine Today), a station Israeli officials say is linked to the Islamic Jihad terror group and incited against Israelis.
The Brussels-based IFJ, which claims to be the largest organization of its kind, slammed what it called “the brutal attack against free press” and asked the UN for an “immediate reaction to the escalation of attacks against the press in the occupied territories.”
IFJ President Jim Boumelha said “We cannot tolerate these continuous attacks from Israeli authorities to muzzle Palestinian press. Incitement of terror is a dangerous accusation to make against a media and a decision to close it down cannot occur without due process.”
In a letter to Boumelha on Saturday, Lapid wrote: “Yesterday, after the channel was closed down members of the military wing of Islamic Jihad held a rally protesting the closure. Islamic Jihad used Palestine Today to incite against Israel and encourage others to carry out attacks. The manager of station has been convicted of being a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The connection is so patently obvious that it calls into question your motives in condemning Israel’s actions.”

Qatari educational software teaches Arabs to hate Jews (MEMRI)

I've seen all kinds of Arab antisemitism, but I admit that this shocked even me.

Any "pro-Palestinian" activist who claims to be against antisemitism but who doesn't condemn this is a hypocrite.

Go ahead - ask them.

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This is the Children's Intifada.

"Knife Intifada" or "Stabbing Intifada" does not cut it.

This is the Children's Intifada.

It is, perhaps, the most insidious thing that I have seen in my lifetime. Outside of the various fun-filled activities of, say, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s, I can think of no more vile political movement than the Jihad, as expressed within organizations like ISIS or Hamas or Hezbolah, and the never-ending effort to screw around with the Jews of the Middle East and Europe by Jihadi Muslims for religious reasons... and coming, I suspect that you know, to an American theater near you.

I know that it makes me a "racist" to oppose being targeted for death... but I suppose I can live with it, at least for awhile.

Meanwhile, Palestinian-Arab society, via its media, is actually encouraging their children to chase after Jews with knives or scissors or hand-axes in the hope of killing those Jews or dying as beloved "martyrs" with the blessings of Allah. Meanwhile their allies throughout the West honestly want Jewish kids to believe that we are the source of the violence against us.

Throughout western college campuses and the western media, elite progressive intellectuals and activists tell one another just what the Nazis told one another: the Jews are bad. Of course, they're not actually brave enough or honest enough - within living memory of the Holocaust - to blame Jews directly, so instead they use the Jewish state as a stand-in for the Jewish people or they conjure up Zionism as some sort-of essential evil that is responsible for everything from global warming to the misery and violent pathologies of the Arab world. Some Arabs even believe, as EOZ readers are undoubtedly aware, that Israel has created Zionist sharks and terrorist Zionist puffer fish and crazed Zionist squirrel spies, or whatever.

The Elder of Ziyon actually put together a referenced list that includes heinous Zionist eagles, Zionist rock hyraxes, Zionist boars, Zionist storks, Zionist super-rhinos... "super-rhinos"? - Zionist vultures, European Zionist bee-eaters, Zionist puffer fish, Zionist dogs, Zionist jellyfish, Zionist sharks, Zionist cows, Zionist wolves, Zionist lions, rats, sheep and squirrels.

I have to say, if I actually thought that the Jews were so capable of making alliances with so much of the animal kingdom, I might be inclined to think that we must be doing something right!

Worse, yet, young impressionable Jewish teenagers believe the libels and slanders against their own people because they are told that those who are doing the libeling and slandering to be humanitarians who want nothing so much as peace and social justice. They may be sophisticated enough not to believe in Zionist attack jelly fish, but they are definitely gullible enough to believe that Israel is a racist, colonialist, imperialist, militaristic, settler-apartheid, racist country that wants nothing so much as to brutally oppress, for no particular reason, the largely innocent, bunny-like, indigenous Palestinians who merely want to tend their Sacred Olive Groves in peace.

And that is perhaps what is most insidious about this series of efforts against Jewish well-being, including BDS, the Children's Intifada, and the ongoing international effort to delegitimize Israel for the purpose of robbing Jewish people of self-determination and self-defense. The Arab governments and many of the Arab people have convinced well-meaning, but uneducated, westerners in the universities, through the work of people such as Rabab Abdulhadi at SFSU, that the Jews of Israel are a violent and terrible people who deserve whatever beating the Arabs care to dish out.

If the Arabs of Israel send their kids out with knives to kill Jews, or if the sweet-hearted humanitarians of Hamas shoot Qassams and Katyushas into southern Israel thereby giving the children of S'derot and Ashkelon Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), it is because those Jews have it coming for supporting the "Occupation"... with the Big O. The Arabs and their western allies do not believe that Israel is conducting an occupation of native land. No. What they believe is that Israel is conducting The Occupation of native land. In other words, Jews building housing for themselves in Judea and Samaria, on land that was bought and paid for - on land that Jews have lived upon for something close to four thousand years - is not a mere occupation, but the Big Occupation. It is the Mother of all Occupations and the very source of human misery not only throughout that part of the world, but throughout much of the world, in general.

If an Arab rapes and murders a Swede, this is because of The Occupation. If a cop shoots a criminal dead in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, this too - we are to believe - is related to the criminal Occupation of Jews on Jewish land. In fact, we are even to believe that racist, fascistic Zionist-Jew cops in Israel are teaching their racist, fascist American counterparts how to be particularly brutal to anyone who is not of the white persuasion.

And it all relates back to the Children's Intifada.

It all relates back to mellennia of Koranically-based Arab-Muslim hatred for Jews due to that Mohammad fellow.

As I have said before, if Israel were exactly as it is now in terms of human rights, but if it were the 23rd Muslim country, it would be considered a light unto the nations.

Instead what our friends and family get is contempt by those who think of themselves as our moral superiors.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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It took a week, but the Electronic Intifada hate site finally found out about the McGraw-Hill textbook story and went nuts.

Rania Khalek, a self-styled "journalist" whose Twitter autobiography used to say "objectivity is bullshit," uses the usual EI playbook to paint anyone who is pro-Israel as ethnic cleansers, racists and - in my case - even worse.

Here is what they said about the publications that republished my scoop:

The first criticisms of the textbook came from the virulently anti-Palestinian and pro-settlement blogger Elder of Ziyon.

Within hours, the post was republished by The Tower, a self-styled Israel and Middle East-focused magazine and website run by The Israel Project.

TIP is a right-wing pro-Israel lobbying outfit that specializes in crafting and supplying anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim propaganda to journalists and policy makers.

TIP receives funding from major bankrollers of the Islamophobia industry and is headed by Josh Block, former spokesperson for the powerful Israel lobby group AIPAC.

Many of the EI articles I've seen - no matter who the writer - spends an inordinate amount of time attacking any pro-Israel voices by whom they have associated with, accepted funding from, partnered with, spoke at the same conference as, or whatever they can throw to distract from the actual things that these people say. Because EI knows it is intellectually bankrupt and its only tool is the smear tactic.

So how did Rania attempt to smear me?

Inspired by anti-Muslim hate group leaders like Robert Spencer, Elder of Ziyon is dedicated to demonizing Palestinians and Muslims, and even argued that the paranoid manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik is “not all crazy sounding - it is scary how sane much of the document seems to be.”

“Some of [Breivik’s] political analysis is actually on target,” Elder of Ziyon stated after Breivik massacred 77 people in Norway, supposedly in an attempt to rescue Europe from what he viewed as the dark forces of Islam and Marxism.

Breivik drew inspiration for his violent ideology from the US Islamophobia industry of which Elder of Ziyon is a part.

She actually attempts to link me with a mass murderer, by referring to an article (which she knows her readers won't bother to read) where I condemn him in no uncertain terms!

Khalek even retweeted Max Blumenthal's description of me as having praised the disgusting mass murderer:

She knows very well I did no such thing. I said that the fact that his manifesto has some correct information is what makes it so scary - how any ideology, including right-wing, can be twisted into unimaginable evil.

I was saying that the devil can quote Scripture for his purposes. Khalek's logic is that this is simply proof that the Pope must be a Satan-worshiper.

Why do Rania Khalek and Electronic Intifada spend so much time trying to smear their ideological opponents? Because they have no facts on their side!

Khalek pretends that there is no possible logical reason for McGraw Hill (and, last year, MSNBC) to denounce the maps as false propaganda.

Her conclusion is very revealing:

Asked who carried out the review of the book, [McGraw-Hill's] Mathis told The Electronic Intifada that it “was conducted by independent academics who determined that the maps were not accurate.”

Mathis did not respond to a follow-up query seeking more details about who carried out the review and how they reached such a conclusion.

As for who pressured McGraw-Hill about the maps, Mathis would only say, “We heard about this from multiple sources.”

Given the highly politicized nature of all discussion related to Palestine in the United States, the definition of who is an “independent academic” would vary widely depending on the perspective of who is making the assessment. And if the “experts” are indeed independent, they should be willing to provide an explanation of how and why they deemed the maps to be inaccurate.

The only way that McGraw-Hill’s credibility can be assessed is with some transparency about the groups or “experts” who made this recommendation.

Otherwise, we are left to assume that McGraw-Hill is effectively burning books to placate the censorship demands of right-wing anti-Palestinian bigots.

But the propaganda Map The Lies has been thoroughly debunked by many people, myself included, even within my original post about the textbook. There is no reason for McGraw-Hill to explain itself further to a group of people who defend lies.

Here is a very abridged debunking:

Khalek and her mud-throwing, hateful pals do not attempt to defend the maps based on actual criticism - because they have no defense. Instead, they use misdirection by saying (in this case) that since McGraw Hill didn't answer their insipid questions, then this major textbook publisher must be controlled by me and my fellow pro-Israel bloggers.

Think about this for a second. The idea that MSNBC and McGraw Hill, two media giants, saw very quickly that the maps have no factual basis does not - and cannot - enter the discussion. Rania Khalek and Electronic Intifada and the thousands of haters know that they are an effective propaganda tool for their lies and they must do everything they can to minimize the possibility that their cherished propaganda is debunked. But they cannot argue against the debunkings - because of those pesky things known as "facts." And, after all, in Khalek's world, objectivity is bullshit and lying propaganda is the truth. Hand waving, misdirection, labeling their opponents as evil incarnate is their stock in trade, but the truth must be avoided at all costs.

So the only alternative explanation that the haters can accept as and tell each other to explain why media companies retract the maps is that there is a shadowy group of ~~Jews~~ Zionists who effectively control the media and textbook industries.

Elder of Ziyon is, according to Rania Khalek, one of the real Elders of Zion.

Thanks, Rania, for thinking that I have so much power. You must be very frightened of me.

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