Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Islamic State declares control of Yarmouk camp, "pro-Palestinians" silent

Yesterday, the Islamic State declared that it had seized control of the Palestinian Arab "refugee" camp in Yarmouk, Syria.

While you will sometimes see the "pro-Palestinian" crowd say how terrible things are in Yarmouk, the amount of attention given to it by them - and as a result, by the media - is tiny compared to how they report anything Israel does.

The Action Group for Palestinians in Syria reports that five people of Palestinian origin have been killed in Yarmouk this month, and 1,247 have been killed in the camp alone so far during Syria's civil war.

Yarmouk is yet more proof that most groups that claim to be "pro-Palestinian" are simply anti-Israel - and don't give a damn about Palestinians who are truly suffering anywhere else.

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04/11 Links Pt2: For Third Time in Week, Sanders Inflates Gaza Civilian Death Toll; Clinton: Hamas is provocateur, Israel has right to self-defense

From Ian:

For Third Time in Week, Sanders Inflates Gaza Civilian Death Toll; Accuses Israel of Using ‘Disproportionate’ Force (VIDEO)

For the third time in under a week, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has exaggerated the number of civilians killed in Israel’s 50-day conflict with terror-group Hamas in Gaza in the summer of 2014.
Confronted in an interview by CNN‘s Jake Tapper on Sunday morning, Sanders defended his earlier inflated figure of “over 10,000 innocent people” killed in Gaza as an inaccurate recollection in the course of a conversation with The New York Daily News that was quickly corrected after an on-the-spot Google search.
“What I said is, I, am I right on that? I didn’t know what the number was, and the gentleman there… the fellow who was conducting the meeting said let me check it, he looked, Googled it up and the number was I think 2100,” Sanders said. He added that he believes Israel’s use of force in Gaza was “disproportionate.”

Clinton: Hamas is provocateur, Israel has right to self-defense

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton on Sunday took a differing stance on Israel to fellow presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, saying that the Jewish state was entitled to protect itself against Gaza’s terror group ruler, Hamas.
“Hamas provokes Israel. They often pretend to have people in civilian garb acting as though they are civilians who are Hamas fighters,” Clinton told CNN’s “State of the Union” talk show on Sunday, according to Politico.
“When your soldiers are under attack, you have to respond,” Clinton said.
“It’s a very different undertaking for Israel to target those who are targeting them. And I think Israel has had to defend itself, has a right to defend itself.”

I noted last week that Peter Beinart insultingly described the deadly 1929 pogroms against Jews as a "mistake" by "Palestinian nationalists."

Here is an account from 1929 about the events that led to the murderous rampage that shows that both those assertions are false.

From "What happened in Palestine; the events of August, 1929, their background and their significance" by Maurice Samuel, 1929:

I run the risk of being called partisan when I assert that the Arabs of Palestine do not constitute a nationality; but it is simple truth to state that Arabo-Palestinian nationalism does not exist. Egypt with its thirteen million Arabs is perhaps beginning to sense that corporate impulse, that feeling of a common spiritual destiny, which we understand under the name of nationalism. But in Egypt the process began nearly a century ago with Mehemet Ali, and it is difficult to judge whether even there it has reached an authentic stage. The day when Arabo- Palestinianism, as a nationality, will emerge into existence, will be a happy one for Jews and Arabs : for then the attention of the Arab people will be drawn to questions in which an understanding is easiest. They will not be at the mercy of chance cur- rents of passion, and of the men who trade on them. The present trouble in Palestine illustrates this truth. For years a number of city Arabs tried to rouse a political resentment against the building of the Jewish homeland. They did not succeed because the Arabo-Palestinian nationalism which they banked on did not exist; and they banked on it falsely because if it existed — as it will some day — it would find strength in an alliance with the Jews. The superior success of the last riots was due to a switching of tactics. Unable to waken a political revolt, Arab agitators turned to religious possibilities.

The game came into the open a year ago, with the Jewish High Holidays — the New Year and the Day of Atonement ( Yom Kippur) . On the New Year the Jews brought into the Wailing Wall Place a portable linen screen, in a wooden frame, to divide off the male from the female worshipers. The division of the sexes during worship is one of the features of the orthodox services, but it was irregularly observed in the Wailing Wall Place, since there is no structure on the ground. A screen of this kind was used during the Turkish regime, and was used occasionally until six or seven years ago. For some time the practice had lapsed. On the two days of the New Year, 1928, it was revived. After the New Year services the screen was removed. It was not introduced again until the ten days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement had passed. On the eve of the Day of Atonement it was brought in again. It is not my business to judge of the value or the importance of the practice, since I have no feeling for it. But it does seem to me to have been an incident of the most trivial significance to anyone but a Jew. Yet the quick cunning of a few Arabs, and the curious behavior of at least one high British official created a "situation."

Mr. Keith-Roach, Governor of Jerusalem (his official title is: Deputy District Commissioner of Jerusalem), was visited by excited Arabs, who asserted that the Jews had launched an assault on Arab rights, and had upset the status quo of the Wailing Wall Place, by the introduction of a portable screen. They informed Mr. Keith-Roach that unless he would have it removed, a couple of hundred Arabs would go down and remove it. Mr. Keith-Roach, instead of advising the excited Arabs that he would not tolerate interference with Jewish worship on the most sacred day of the Jewish year, undertook to have the profanation officially committed. At the Neilah or closing service of the Day of Atonement he asked that the screen be removed. The beadle properly refused to do this until the Day of Atonement was over. Mr. Keith-Roach then sent an English police officer and some men to remove the screen by force.

The English police officer was neither intelligent nor reasonable, but one does not look for acumen and sensitiveness in police officers. He went down, broke into the midst of the worship, and removed the portable screen with much unnecessary violence.

I have been told who the ecstatic pietist was who suddenly decided that hitherto Jews had sinned at the Wailing Wall by not introducing a portable screen, but I have not bothered to record his name.

I repeat that when the Jews were told they should not have done it, they replied there and then that they would not do it again, but they would not brook the interference of police in the midst of their services. It seems to me that any administrator of intelligence and level-headedness would have calmed the Arabs by telling them that the matter would be rectified the next day: that the Jews would be specifically forbidden to put up screens again; that it was a stupid thing to ask for police interference on such a trifling matter; and that if they were going to make themselves obstreperous by their behavior, they would be promptly and firmly dealt with.

It is told on very high authority that a similar sort of threat was levelled once against Lord Plumer when he was High Commissioner of Palestine. The regimental colors of the Jewish troops who, as part of the British forces, had operated in Palestine during the war, were to be deposited with the appropriate ceremonies in the synagogue of the Hurva. Some Arabs called upon the High Commissioner, and advised him gravely that if the procession and demonstration were permitted, they, the Arabs, would not be responsible for the peace of Jerusalem. Lord Plumer's reply was: "No one asked you to be responsible for the peace of Jerusalem. As the High Commissioner I am responsible for it." And that ended the protest.

Mr, Keith-Roach dealt with the protest in the clumsy way I have recorded, and here the Wailing Wall "situation" was created. The whole of Palestinian as well as world Jewry, was shocked by the inept behavior of the Governor of Jerusalem. And suddenly the business of the building of a Jewish homeland seemed to center on this problem of whether or not Jews could introduce a portable screen into the Wailing Wall Place. The behavior of Mr. Keith-Roach dropped out of the picture. The gross misbehavior of the British police officer (he has since been transferred out of the country) also dropped out of the picture. And instead Arabs concentrated on raising a religious issue in the hope that they would fare better with it than with the political issue.

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BDSers might say to boycott HP, but Fatah terrorists don't

Hewlett Packard is one of the companies always targeted by Israel-haters, because it does business in Israel and for the IDF.

But one group definitely hasn't joined the boycott: the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah.

In a new video showing off their high-tech military skills, masked Fatah terrorists are seen in a room using HP laptops.

So what do self-respecting BDSers do when they find out that their freedom fighters are using the equipment that they demand everyone to boycott?

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04/11 Links Pt1: Terrorists or freedom fighters?; Islam is Colonialism, 'Palestine' is Colonialism

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Terrorists or freedom fighters?

As Jonah Goldberg noted in his book The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas, claiming one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter “stream rolls through a fallacious comparison, confusing ends and means, in order to celebrate relativism and nihilism and elevate moral cowardice as an intellectual principle.”
Palestinians who use violence to end the “occupation” are terrorists because they are fighting to deny another people – the Jews – the right to self-determination while struggling to create yet another Arab state that denies basic human rights and equality to non-Muslims and women, and rejects freedom of expression and religion. Hamas is a terrorist organization not just because it systematically targets civilians, but because its goals are to destroy an internationally recognized state and create in its place a caliphate run in accordance with medieval Islamic law. Therefore, when Hamas or self-appointed Palestinian “freedom fighters” attack IDF soldiers they are engaging in terrorism.
Jews who fought against the British Mandate, in contrast, were not terrorists, because they were seeking to create a democratic national homeland for Jews that would incorporate a large Arab minority, alongside a Palestinian state.
The state they fought to create would uphold human rights and enable men such as Bahloul to be elected to the Knesset. On occasion, organizations such as the Irgun or the Stern Group committed acts of terrorism against Palestinian civilians. But those were desperate times: European Jewry was being destroyed and the British prevented European Jewry’s escape by blocking entry to Palestine.
Even then, terrorist tactics were strongly criticized by the majority of Jews living in Palestine.

Netanyahu: Israeli actions beyond northern border kept Hezbollah from 'game-changing' arms

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged on Monday that Israel has taken action dozens of times beyond the northern border to prevent Hezbollah from attaining “game-changing” weaponry.”
Netanyahu's comments came during a visit to Golan Height to observe a large scale maneuver of reservists in the Paratroopers Battalion.
“We are proud that in the stormy and volatile Middle East, we were able to maintain relative calm and relative safety in Israel. We act when we should act, including here, across the border, in dozens of attacks, to prevent Hezbollah from getting game-changing weaponry,” the premier said.
Netanyahu said that Israel was acting on other fronts as well, “nearby and far away, but are doing it in an intelligent manner.” He said Israel was facing Islamic State and Hezbollah in the north, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and the Islamic State and global Jihadists in Sinai.
“If we are required to go into battle, and that is a possibility that lies ahead, which is why you are here, it is because we were unable to prevent the dangers to Israel through other means,” he said.

Islam is Colonialism, 'Palestine' is Colonialism

At Israeli Apartheid Week, campus haters claim to be fighting “colonialism” by fighting Jews. Columbia University’s Center for 'Palestine' Studies, dedicated to a country that doesn’t exist and which has produced nothing worth studying except terrorism, features diatribes such as 'Palestine' Re-Covered: Reading a Settler Colonial Landscape”. This word salad is a toxic stew of historical revisionism being used to justify the Muslim settler colonization of the indigenous Jewish population.
You can’t colonize 'Palestine' because you can't colonize colonizers. The Muslim population in Israel is a foreign colonist population. The indigenous Jewish population can resettle its own country, but it can’t colonize it.
Muslims invaded, conquered and settled Israel. They forced their language and laws on the population. That's the definition of colonialism. You can't colonize and then complain that you're being colonized when the natives take back the power that you stole from them.
There are Muslims in Israel for the same reason that there are Muslims in India. They are the remnants of a Muslim colonial regime that displaced and oppressed the indigenous non-Muslim population.
There are no serious historical arguments to be made against any of this.

Dan Perry

Dan Perry of AP wrote an article about the prospects for Egyptian democracy:

A new-old idea is rattling around the Middle East five years after the Arab Spring stirred democratic ambition: that restoring stability, especially if accompanied by some economic and political improvements, should be reform enough for the moment.

This discourse appears to be taking front and center these days, most obviously in Egypt — the region's most populous country and the one that raised the highest hopes for democracy advocates when the military in 2011 removed longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak as millions rallied against him and his Western support collapsed.

The current government is aggrieved to find itself facing possibly harsher international criticism than Mubarak ever did, mostly over questions of human rights. It argues that democracy does not require tolerance of chaos in the streets, and that unfettered freedoms can destabilize a brittle society facing illiteracy, poverty, weak democratic traditions and a jihadi insurgency.

In meetings with U.S. Congressional delegations this week, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi argued that "democracy is an ongoing process and cannot be realized overnight," elaborating that Egypt is committed to "striking the balance between enhancing security and stability and upholding rights and freedoms," according to a statement from his office.

There is nothing wrong with this analysis....until the very last paragraph where Perry goes out of his way to insult Israel:

But the government's defenders cast the criticism on human rights as unfair since other countries in the region are worse. In this way Egypt finds itself in an ironically similar situation to neighbor and former enemy Israel. Israel's Declaration of Independence promises full equality and that the Jewish state will be a "light unto the nations." With expectations so high, its supporters now struggle to defend the Jewish state's half-century occupation over millions of stateless Palestinians on the grounds that other situations around the world are even worse.

The linkage to Israel is less than tenuous. Worse, the assertion is a flat out lie.

Israel's supporters don't justify any actions by the state "on the grounds that other situations around the world are even worse." They justify it on legal and security grounds. The reason that they ever compare Israel to its surrounding nations is not to justify abuse but to point out the hypocrisy of people obsessing over supposed Israeli crimes when far worse things are happening in the region - including to Palestinians - and these so-called human rights defenders are silent.

That is not the case for Egypt. Egypt does get criticized by some NGOs for its human rights record but is hardly the target of obsessive, single-issue activists - people who pretend to care about international law or human rights but in fact only want the entire nation to be done away with.

That honor is reserved for Israel. And Dan Perry seems to be leaning towards that camp to throw in an unjustified insult in an unrelated article.

(h/t Ronald)

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From Aseel Ghaben in the Jordan Times:

Anne Frank House from a Palestinian perspective

I took a trip to the Netherlands. A trip to Amsterdam, where culture and history are rich, and people are nice and open cannot be complete without a visit to Anne Frank House, the hiding place of the German Jewish girl who was one of the million victims of Nazi persecution.

...At the end of the tour, there was a short documentary with famous people commenting on their visit to the Anne Frank House, including Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president. Peres said: “Her innocent, truthful voice will sing all over the world by many generations to come, so to understand the difference between being human and being satanic.”

When I heard his speech, all the grief in my heart turned to rage. I wanted to stand up and shout so all the tourists there could also hear my voice. I imagined myself making this speech: “This man is such a hypocrite. His people were once subjected to racism, but his country is still doing the same thing to us. We, Palestinians, are the victims of a racist Zionist ideology. We have thousands of Anne Frank houses. Any tourist is welcome to visit.

“Our equivalent for this house are refugee camps located in Palestine and also in many neighbouring countries. The main difference is that visiting them could endanger one’s safety."

People were still watching the documentary while I was sitting with tears in my eyes. They have to know that Palestinian refugees are still waiting. They have been waiting for 67 years. They were not sent to concentration camps to be burned, but instead to refugee camps were [sic] death is very slow and the right to return is a dream. They often live in the worst conditions, have no citizenship, no fundamental rights and few life essentials.

...To paraphrase Peres’ quote, I could say that our innocent, truthful voices will keep resisting until the world can understand the difference between being human and being a Zionist.

The creation of Israel is “Palestine Holocaust Day” and the Palestinian people were subjected to the worst holocaust in history,” said Yasser Arafat.

This sensitive student at the University of Jordan has more in common with the Nazis than she realizes.

To write an essay that claims that there are thousands of Palestinians who are in more dire circumstances than Anne Frank is to be an antisemite.

And calling Zionist Jews inhuman is a nice touch. Maybe she should have called them Untermenschen.

The Jordan Times - which is apparently still government-owned - felt that this bigot's voice needs to be heard.

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Times of Israel reports:

At least two members of the Hamas terror group were killed and several injured in a tunnel collapse in the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening.

Conflicting reports in Palestinian media outlets say between two and five people were killed when the tunnel collapsed beneath the city of Rafah in the southern end of the coastal territory, along the border with Egypt.

At least two were said to have been injured and one person may still be missing.

One report said unseasonable rains had caused the collapse, while another outlet reported that the Egyptian army had detonated the end of the tunnel that entered its territory, and flooded the remainder.

The collapsed tunnel was the 12th reported incident of its kind since the beginning of the year.

Palestinian media are not confirming the deaths. But what they are saying is interesting.

Palestine Press Agency reports Hamas has imposed a media blackout on the event and the al-Qassam Brigades cordoned off a large area around the tunnel, saying according to their sources eight people were retrieved safely.

Hamas has been having meetings with Egyptian officials to smooth over their differences after Egypt accused Hamas of aiding the Islamic State forces in the Sinai. Egypt has also been working to destroy tunnels along the Rafah border, and perhaps one such action yesterday caused this collapse.

Arabic media reports that the meetings have been fruitful and that all fundamental differences between Egypt and Hamas have been addressed.

But this tunnel is clearly a Hamas military tunnel, not a private tunnel for consumer goods.

Egypt might not be pleased that Hamas is still building tunnels that Egypt considers a major security risk.

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BDS leader Omar Barghouti knowingly lies about second Duma fire

The story blaming Jews was widely reported; the exoneration - not so much.

On April 1, BDS leader Omar Barghouti wrote:

Settlers who have torched to death Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabsheh and his parents last year and later celebrated their gruesome acts of terror have yet to be sentenced for the murders. This has naturally encouraged other settlers to torch the house of the remaining eyewitness to the crime, Ali's uncle.

Yet the torching of the uncle's house on March 20 had already been determined not to have been done by Jews a week earlier.

Times of Israel, March 23:

On Sunday, the home of the sole alleged witness to the attack of Ahmed’s home, Ibrahim Dawabsha, caught fire in what local residents described as a deliberate attack. But the Israel Police and Shin Bet, in a joint statement Sunday night, said mounting evidence indicated that Sunday’s fire was not a nationalistic attack.

Israel Hayom, March 30:

The fire that broke out at the home of Duma village resident Ibrahim Dawabsheh a week and a half ago appears to have started from inside the house, Judea and Samaria police and fire authorities reported on Tuesday.

The report also said that in contrast to the claims made by Dawabsheh, a relative and neighbor of the Dawabsheh family who were murdered in an arson attack in their home nine months ago, no Molotov cocktail had been thrown at his house.

From the start, the evidence did not align with the claim that the fire had been the result of a hate crime.

The fact that no accelerant was found at the scene and that the fire burned slowly led to the conclusion that it was not caused by arson. The house was also locked while the fire burned and no windows were broken, contradicting the claim that the fire had been caused by a Molotov cocktail.

Ibrahaim Dawabsheh and his family were summoned for questioning, but denied the police claims. The police investigation is heading in several directions, including the possibility that the family wanted to frame settlers, was trying to commit insurance fraud, or was trying to drum up sympathy to secure money or donations.

The Judea and Samaria Police said in a statement that "the investigation into the recent events has raised a suspicion that the complainants are making false reports and trying to present the fire as a hate crime, and in doing so are disrupting the fragile balance of life by pressing on a complex security period."

Is it surprising at all that Barghouti lies as easily as he breathes?

(h/t SpotlightingSA)

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G4S denies its pulling out of Israel is because of BDS

The BDS crowd has been claiming that the security firm G4S has been forced to leave Israel through their efforts.

G4S disagrees, to the extent that they are placing ads in newspapers to deny it.

The reason? Because some clients are threatening to drop them if they caved to BDSers!

From an ad in today's Sun-Sentinel (South Florida):

(h/t MB)

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04/10 Links: Clinton takes Sanders to task over Gaza; Today's Anti-Semitic Tweet From UK Labour

From Ian:

Clinton takes Sanders to task over Gaza comments

Hillary Clinton blasts fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders over comments he made saying Israel reacted with disproportionate force during its military campaign in the Gaza Strip in 2014.
“Hamas provokes Israel. They often pretend to have people in civilian garb acting as though they are civilians who are Hamas fighters,” she tells CNN’s State of the Union, according to Politico. “It’s a very different undertaking for Israel to target those who are targeting them. And I think Israel has had to defend itself, has a right to defend itself.”
Sanders came under fire last week from Israeli officials and the ADL after he suggested in an interview with the New York Daily News that Israel had killed 10,000 innocents in Gaza in 2014. The former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren, now a Knesset lawmaker with Kulanu, even accused him of spreading a “blood libel.”
Sanders, for his part, doubles down on the contention that Israel reacted disproportionately in Gaza, after acknowledging over the weekend that he got the death toll wrong.

Bernie Sanders Was Asked an Anti-Semitic Question. Here’s How He Should Have Answered.

“As you know,” opened the questioner, “the Zionist Jews–and I don’t mean to offend anybody–they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign.” As this unfolded, Sanders began wagging his finger in dissent, and interjected to deem “Zionist Jews” a “bad phrase.” His interlocutor, pressed to articulate a question, concluded by saying, “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community? That’s all I’m asking.”
“No, no, no, that’s not what you’re asking,” Sanders quickly replied, in a nod to the question’s underlying prejudice. “I am proud to be Jewish,” he declared, to cheers from the audience. But then Sanders did something odd. Rather than using the question as a teaching moment to address and rebuke its anti-Semitic underpinnings, Sanders instead immediately pivoted to his stump speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Talking about Zionism and Israel,” he said, “I am a strong defender of Israel, but I also believe that we have got to pay attention to the needs of the Palestinian people.” He never challenged the actual contents of the question, let alone labeled it anti-Semitic.
Needless to say, Sanders has mustered far more outrage for Wall Street, systemic racism, and Islamophobia, than he did when confronted with anti-Jewish prejudice. His reserved response to the anti-Semitic questioner stands in stark contrast to his powerful rebuke of anti-Islamic prejudice back in October, when he movingly embraced a Muslim student on stage.
...
All that said, as understandable as Sanders’ response may have been in the moment, it still represents a missed opportunity. Sanders had the chance to educate a young progressive audience about the perils of anti-Jewish prejudice, and he didn’t quite rise to the occasion as he has when coming to the defense of other minorities, or when railing against millionaires and billionaires.

San Francisco State University is among the most racist and anti-Semitic universities in the United States, which is why it is partnering with An-Najah University in Nablus, which is among the most racist universities in the world. This is only fitting. Birds of a feather, and so forth.

San Francisco State University racism takes the forms of progressive-left racism, more generally. That is, the delicate snowflakes at SFSU practice humanitarian racism toward people "of color" while promoting a highly aggressive and vicious form of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.

Humanitarian racism, of course, is the type of racism that views ethnic minorities (with the sole exception of Jews) as little children who have no agency and, thus, can never be held responsible for their behavior. The quintessential form of humanitarian racism is directed at the Arabs of Israel who are considered the World Champions of Victim-hood. Israeli Jews are considered so horrible that no matter what the Arabs do to them, they are worthy of it. For the humanitarian racist, Arabs have every right to kill Jews as a matter of righteous resistance to The Occupation, with the Big O.

For the precious snowflakes at SFSU the mere presence of Jewish people on traditionally Jewish land is an outrage to the native, indigenous "Palestinians" who are said to have lived on that land since long before the creation of the Earth, itself. As we all know, of course, Adam and Eve were the original Arab-Muslims. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all Arab-Muslims. Moses was an Arab-Muslim. And Jesus was the first "Palestinian" shaheed.

Or, so Palestinian-Arab spokesmen have told us.

Anti-Semitism at SFSU, on the other hand, takes the form of a truly virulent and toxic form of anti-Zionism that transfers classic anti-Semitic themes, such as the blood libel, from Jews, as individuals, to the collective Jew, the State of Israel. So, instead of claiming that Jews enjoy killing Christian babies for the purpose of baking their blood into matzoh, the snowflakes tell one another that the collective Jew enjoys killing Arab children for no reason whatsoever. The Israelis are just brutes. Fascists. A subhuman species of semi-human beings that deserves whatever punishment the Arab world wishes to dish out. If Arabs wish to train their children to Jew Hatred and then send them out into the streets of Israel with hand-axes for the purpose of murdering random Jews, who can blame them?

The snowflakes sit in their "safe spaces" and tell one another that Israel is a racist, colonialist, imperialist, militaristic, apartheid, genocidal, racist state and then march forth to yell and scream and moan and cry and wave around their little "Palestinian" flags - which is really just the flag of Jordan with the star removed - when the mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, drops by for an open discussion at the invitation of SFSU Hillel.

According to Jordan Vale, writing in the Golden Gate Xpress:

“The Middle East, Israel in particular, have always been hot topics for this campus,” Assistant Director to San Francisco Hillel Rachel Nilson said before introducing Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat for an open dialogue with SF State students and community members. Her statement turned out to be prophetic when, minutes after Barkat started his opening speech, members of the General Union of Palestine Students stormed Seven Hills Conference Center demanding Barkat’s expulsion from the campus.

“We don’t want you on our campus!” they shouted. “Get the hell off our campus!”

GUPS was joined by members of the Black Student Union, the League of Filipino Students, and Defend and Advance Ethnic Studies. The crowd of about 40 students quickly took up chants, clapping, waving Palestinian flags and thrusting their fists in the air.

“Free, free, free Palestine!” one of the lead protesters chanted, which the crowd behind her echoed.

Snowflakes like their "safe spaces" where they can peacefully gaze at one another's navels even as they spread hatred toward out-groups like the Jews of Israel or, say, white Evangelicals, and whoever else they have deemed worthy of violent hatred. None of this, of course, is the least bit negotiable. They are not interested in dialogue or the free expression of ideas, for if they were, they would not have used bully-boy tactics to prevent the mayor of Jerusalem from being heard.

By all accounts, Barkat endured the yelling and screaming and whining and moaning for about an hour before he excused himself and left campus. The question that many people are currently asking themselves is why the university did not dispatch the campus police to remove the protesters so that the people who came to listen and speak with Barkat could do so in a civilized manner. There was just one cop on hand who, according to reports, did nothing. Barkat had a body guard to protect himself, but the body guard certainly had no authority to try to roust students. All he could do was prevent the snowflakes from attacking the mayor.

Needless to say, it must be acknowledged that the great majority of students on that campus, like the great majority of students throughout the country, are not running around spitting hatred at anyone. Most SFSU students, like most people, in general, simply want to be left alone in order to pursue their particular interests. However, one must ask oneself just why it is that SFSU funds a student organization like GUPS that calls for the murder of Jewish people?

Every time the snowflakes gather at Malcolm X Plaza shouting "Intifada! Intifada! Long live the intifada" they are calling, quite specifically, for the murder of Jewish people and the university gives them money to organize such activities.

When it comes to supporting hatred, few campuses in the United States do a finer job than San Francisco State University.

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Maariv reports that Rabbi Yaakov Nagen, a dean in the Yeshiva of Otniel, visited a Muslim teacher at Al Azhar University in Cairo.

Al Azhar is the most important Sunni Muslim institution in the world.

He went there together with with Rebecca Abramson, a Haredi peace activist, and Professor Joseph Ringel. They went to visit Sheikh Dr. Omar Salem, whom Nagan describes as a friend, and who also promotes dialogue with Jews.

Rabbi Nagen and his wife

Nagen and Abramson disguised themselves as religious Muslims, with Nagan putting on a large white skullcap and Abramson covering herself completely except for her eyes.

"We had a fascinating meeting with Dr. Bakr Zaki Awad, dean of the school of al-Azhar religious law," Nagen told Maariv."His field is comparing the Koran to the Torah and the New Testament. All his life he learns Torah yet he never met a Jew. Suddenly he had a chance to ask all the questions he had accumulated over all these years.

"We went into his office, a huge room full of students and professors, and we had a difficult conversation.

"One of the professors posed a long list of difficult questions about Judaism, we had answers to many of them but we felt that just responding would not allow the positive atmosphere we sought. Instead, I told the professor: these are powerful questions you are raising, much of my life I have been grappling for answers, but I try never to let these questions undermine my knowledge of the essence of the Torah the same way I never let questions I have on the Koran undermine my knowledge of what is the essence of the Koran.
"So I changed the conversation to a language that gives positive energy . I showed them how the Mishna and the fifth Sura of the Koran have virtually identical statement: 'Anyone who saves one life saves the entire world,' that is the essence of the sanctity of life which is also in the Koran and the Torah."

The three Israelis went to visit the Central Synagogue of Cairo, still dressed as Muslims, taking photos and video. People thought that they were performing surveillance for a terror attack and the police detained them until they showed them their (American) passports.

They had one terrifying experience when they went to meet with a professor from the University of the Fayum, the birthplace of Rabbi Saadia Gaon. The soldiers that protect tourists there noticed that they were Jews and started shouting, one asking if they prayed for Palestinian children who are killed. Nagan answered that he did, and asked him if he prayed for Jewish children killed. They were taken to the police and their passports taken away, but in the end they were released.

On Facebook, Rabbi Nagen says "I will end with the powerful story told to us by one of the Al-Azhar professors after hearing that we are Jews: One day someone came and knocked on the gate of the palace identifying himself as the brother of the Caliph. The visitor is ushered in, but the Caliph isn't able to recognize his brother. The Caliph asks "are you my brother through my mother?" "No" is the reply.

"Are you my brother through my father"?
Again the answer in negative.

The caliph continues to think and finally asks again "are you my brother in Islam"?

The visitor answers "I am not a Muslim"

"So how are you my brother?"

"I am your brother as all of us are children of Adam and Eve."

The caliph responds: "you are right, I will treat as my brother to demonstrate this to the world".

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Elder gets results! US Visa site now includes Israel and its flag

Last month I noted that the official US visa website took pains not to mention the name "Israel", mentioning that they have offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but without saying the name of the country those cities were in nor showing its flag.

The information reached the State Department where they said that the site was outsourced to a private company and did not reflect official policy. But of course no outsourcer should put something on a website that the US would not agree with.

The site has now been modified to include the word "Israel" and the Israeli flag instead of "Tel Aviv,"

But Jerusalem is still not a part of Israel on this page but the State Department has never accepted that it is.

All three entries point to the same web pages.

(h/t Bob Knot)

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PLO official calls on the world to treat "settlers" as terrorists, war criminals

At a speech in Bloemfontien, South Africa for "Israel Apartheid Week" in March, PLO ambassador Hashem Dajani outlined a number of initiatives to pressure Israel diplomatically.

These initiatives were, for the most part, things we have heard from the PLO for years - recognize them as a state, pressure Israel to stop any building for Jews in "east" Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, unconditional release of all Palestinian terrorists from prison, end the "illegal blockade" on Gaza, and to stop Jews from visiting the Temple Mount ("violations against holy places.")

But it looks like Dajani floated a new idea as well, which is almost certainly part of a strategy by the PLO.

Reading from a prepared text, Dajani demanded, "Terrorist settlers must be considered as war criminals, and should be prevented from entering all countries of the world." He then added, "I think that, at a minimum, friendly countries who support Palestinian rights of self-determination or who recognize the state of Palestine...can help us with this issue. Just put more pressure on the Israeli government not to allow these criminals to enter their states, just because they are criminals."

There is no basis in international law to consider Jews who move to Judea and Samaria to be committing a crime. The usual basis given to describe the settlements as illegal comes from a purposeful misreading of the Geneva Conventions, but even that cannot be interpreted as saying that the "settlers" themselves are doing anything illegal.

Expect to see this idea floated in other forums. The PLO knows that no Western government at this time wants to appear to be "pro-settlement" and therefore they are unlikely to push back against a call for illegal discrimination against Israeli Jews (and only Jews!) based on where they choose to live.

The entire speech can be seen here. It was not reported anywhere as far as I can tell.

(h/t SpotlightingSA)

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