Tuesday, April 12, 2016




John Lloyd Stephens (1805-52) was an American explorer, writer, and diplomat. He travelled in the Middle East during 1834-36. In this extract from volume two of the third edition his Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petraea and the Holy Land, published in 1839, we encounter a very moving tale of his literally overnight bonding with the Jews of Hebron and of a moving incident concerning Hebron’s octogenarian chief rabbi, who I believe was Ḥayyim ha-Levi Polacco. I’ve also included brief snippets from the author’s impressions of Jerusalem, which he visited next.

Wrote Stephens:
The Bedouins and Fellahs about Hebron are regarded as the worst, most turbulent, and desperate Arabs under the government of the pacha [sic; Pasha].… We turned a point pf the mountain to the left; and at the extreme end of the valley, on the side of a hill, bounding it, stands the little city of Hebron, the ancient capital of the kingdom of David. But it bears no traces of the glory of its Jewish king…. [A] small town of white houses, compactly built on the side of the mountain, a mosque and two minarets, are all that mark the ancient city of Hebron.
…. I had no wish to stop at Hebron, though the first city in the Holy Land … The glory of the house of David had for ever departed. ,,, I had an indefinable longing to sleep my first night in the Holy land in [Bethlehem]. But the governor positively refused to let me go that afternoon; he said that it was a bad road, and that a Jew had been robbed a few days before on his way to Bethlehem… Seeing there was no hope for me, I made the best of it, and asked him to furnish me with a place to lodge that night….
… I followed the janizary [sic; janissary] … I had no idea where he was taking me; but … their peculiar costume and physiognomies told me I was among the unhappy remnant of a fallen people, the persecuted and despised Israelites. They were removed from the Turkish quarter, as if the slightest contact with this once-favoured people would contaminate the bigoted follower of the Prophet. The governor, in the haughty spirit of a Turk, probably thought that the house of a Jew was a fit place of repose for a Christian; and, following the janizary through a low range of narrow, dark, and filthy lanes, mountings and turnings, of which it is impossible to give any idea, with the whole Jewish population turning out to review us … I was conducted to the house of the chief Rabbi of Hebron.
If I had had my choice, these were the very persons I would have selected for my first acquaintances in the Holy Land. The descendants of Israel were fit persons to welcome a stranger to the ancient city of their fathers; and if they had been then sitting under the shadow of the throne of David, they could not have given me a warmer reception. It may be that, standing in the same relation to the Turks, alike the victims of persecution and contempt, they … felt only a sympathy for the object of mutual oppression. But, whatever the cause, I shall never forget the kindness with which, as a stranger and a Christian, I was received by the Jews in the capital of their ancient kingdom …
[My own friends] would have smiled to see me that night, with a Syrian dress and long beard, sitting cross-legged on a divan, with the chief rabbi of the Jews at Hebron, and half the synagogue around us, talking of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as of old and mutual friends.
With the few moments of daylight that remained, my Jewish friends conducted me around their miserable quarter. They … took me to their synagogue, in which an old white-bearded Israelite was teaching some prattling children to read the laws of Moses in the language of their fathers; and when the sun was setting in the west, and the Muezzin from the top of the minaret was calling the sons of the faithful to evening prayers, the old rabbi and myself, a Jew and a Christian, were sitting on the roof of the little synagogue, looking out as if by stealth upon the sacred mosque containing the hallowed ashes of their patriarch fathers. The Turk guards the door, and the Jew and the Christian are not permitted to enter; and the old rabbi was pointing to the different parts of the mosque, where, as he told me, under tombs adorned with carpets of silk and gold, rested the mortal remains of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
…. Hebron, one of the oldest cities of Canaan, is now a small Arab town, containing seven or eight hundred Arab families. The present inhabitants are the wildest, most lawless, and most desperate people in the Holy land …. A petty Turk now wields the sceptre of the son of Jesse, and a small remnant of a despised and persecuted people still hover round the graves of their fathers; and though degraded and trampled underfoot, from the very dust in which they lie are still looking to the restoration of their temporal kingdom.
Accompanied by my Jewish friends, I visited the few spots which tradition marks as connected with the scenes of Biblical History. Passing through the bazars at the extreme end, and descending a few steps, we entered a vault containing a large monument, intended in memory of Abner, the greatest captain of his age, the favoured and for a long time trusted officer of David, who, as the Jews told me, was killed in battle near Hebron, and his body brought here and buried. The great mosque, the walls of which, the Jews say, are built with the ruins of the temple of Solomon, according to the belief of the Mussulmans and the better authority of the Jews, covers the site of the Cave of Machpelah, which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite; and within its sacred precincts are the supposed tombs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The doors were guarded with jealous care by the bigoted Mussulmans; and when, with my Jewish companion, I stopped for a moment to look up at the long marble staircase leading to the tomb of Abraham, a Turk came out from the bazars, and, with furious gesticulations, gathered a crowd around us; and a Jew and a Christian were driven with contempt from the sepulchre of the patriarch whom they both revered. A special firman from the pacha, or perhaps a large bribe to the governor, might have procured me a private admission; but death or the Koran would have been the penalty required by the bigoted people of Hebron.
On a rising ground a little beyond the mosque is a large fountain or reservoir, supported by marble pillars, where my companion told me that Sarah had washed the clothes of Abraham and Isaac. Leaving this, I went once more to the two pools outside the walls, and after examining them as the so-called works of Solomon, I had seen all a stranger could see in Hebron.
…. I had spent a long evening with my Jewish friends. The old rabbi talked to me of their prospects and condition, and how he had left his country in Europe many years before, and come with his wife and children to lay their bones in the Holy Land. He was now eighty years old; and for thirty years, he said, he had lived with the sword suspended over his head; had been reviled, buffeted, and spit upon; and though sometimes enjoying a respite from persecution; he never knew at what moment the bloodhounds might not be let loose upon him; that since the country had been wrested from the sultan by the Pasha of Egypt, they had been comparatively safe and tranquil; though some idea may be formed of this comparative security from the fact that during the revolution two years before, when Ibrahim Pacha, after having been pent up several months in Jerusalem, burst out like a roaring lion, the first place upon which his wrath descended was the unhappy Hebron; and … the unhappy Jews, never offending but always suffering, received the full weight of Arab vengeance. Their houses were ransacked and plundered; their gold and silver, and all things valuable, carried away; and their wives and daughters violated before their eyes by a brutal soldiery.
…. He told me that he had lately had occasion to regret exceedingly the loss of a paper, which would now be of great use to him; that he was a Jew of Venice (I can vouch for it that he was no Shylock), and thirty years before had left his native city and come to Hebron with a regular passport; that for many years a European passport was no protection, and, indeed, it had been rather an object with him to … identify himself with the Asiatics; that in consequence he had been careless with his passport, and had lost it; but that now, since the conquest by Mohammed Aly and the government of Ibrahim Pacha, a European passport was respected, and saved its holder and his family from Turkish impositions. He mourned bitterly over his loss … for his children and grandchildren, whom his carelessness had deprived of the evidence of their birthright and the protection of their country.
I was interested in the old man’s story … and drawing upon … my legal knowledge, I told him that the loss of his passport had not deprived him of his right to the protection of his country, and that. If he could establish the fact of his being a native of Venice, he might still sit down under the wings of the double-headed eagle of Austria… Learning tjhat there were in Hebron some of his very old acquaintances, who could testify to the fact of his nativity, I told him to bring them to me; and I would take my affadavits, and, on my arrival at Beyroot, would represent the matter to the Austrian consul there; and I thought that with such evidence the consul would not refuse him another passport.
He thanked me very warmly, and the next morning early, while I was waiting for my departure, he brought in his witnesses…. I swore the white-bearded old men upon … a Hebrew copy of the Old Testament. I then dictated an affidavit for the rabbi himself, and was about administering the oath as before, when the old man rose, and taking the paper in his hand, and telling me to follow him, led the way through a range of narrow lanes and streets, and a crowd of people, to the little synagogue, where, opening the holy of holies, and laying his hand upon the sacred scroll, he read over the affidavit and solemnly swore to its truth. It did not need this additional act of solemnity to convince me of his truth; and when he gave me back the paper, and I saw the earnestness and deep interest depicted in the faces of the crowd that had followed us, I again resolved that I would use my best exertions to gladden once more the old man’s heart before he died. I added to the several affidavits a brief statement of the circumstances under which they had been taken, and, putting the paper in my pocket, returned to the house of the rabbi; and [subsequently] … at Beyroot I called upon the Austrian consul, and before I left had the satisfaction of receiving from him the assurance that the passport would be made out forthwith, and delivered to the agent whom the old rabbi had named to me.
I had nothing now to detain me in Hebron; my mules and a kervash provided by the governor were waiting for me, and I bade farewell to my Jewish friends…. I passed through the dark and narrow lanes of the Jewish Quarter, the inhabitants being all arranged before their houses; and all along, even from the lips of maidens, a farewell salutation fell upon my ears…. With the last of their kind greetings still lingering in my ears, I emerged from the Jewish Quarter, and it was with a warm feeling of thankfulness I felt, that if yesterday I had an Arab’s curse, today I had a Jewish blessing.
…. [A] few days after my arrival, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, the high priest of the Jews in the city of their ancient kings, called upon me, accompanied by a Gibraltar Jew who spoke English, and told me that they had come at the request of my friend in Hebron, to receive and welcome me in the city of their fathers. I had already seen a great deal of the Jews. I had seen them in the cities of Italy, everywhere more or less oppressed; at Rome, shut up at night in their miserable quarters as if they were noxious beasts; in Turkey, persecuted and oppressed; along the shores of the Black Sea and in the heart of Russia, looked down upon by the serfs of the great empire of vassalage; and, for the climax of misery, I had seen them contemned [sic] and spit upon even by the ignorant and enslaved boors of Poland. I had seen them scattered abroad among all nations, as it had been foretold they would be, everywhere a separate and peculiar people, and everywhere, under all poverty, wretchedness, and oppression, waiting for, and anxiously expecting, the coming of a Messiah, to call together their scattered tribes, and restore them to the kingdom of their fathers; and all this the better fitted me for the more challenging spectacle of the Jews in the holy city. In all changes and revolutions, from the days when the kingdom of Solomon passed into the hands of strangers, under the Assyrian, the Roman, the Arab, and the Turk, a remnant of that once-favoured people has always hovered around the holy city; and now, as in the days of David, old men may be seen at the foot of Mount Zion, teaching their children to read from that mysterious book on which they have ever fondly built their hopes of a temporal and eternal kingdom.
The friends made for me by the rabbi at Hebron were the very friends above all others whom I would have selected for myself. … [O]ne of the first offers of kindness they made me, was an invitation to wait and partake of [Pesach/Passover] with them. The rabbi was an old man, nearly seventy, with a long white beard, and Aaron himself would not have been ashamed of such a representative. …
The Jews are the best topographers in Jerusalem … That same morning they took me to what they call a part of the wall of Solomon’s temple. It forms part of the southern wall of the mosque of Omar, and is evidently older than the rest, the stones being much larger, measuring nine or ten feet long; and I saw that day, as other travellers may still see every Friday in the year, all the Jews in Jerusalem clothed in their best raiment, winding through the narrow streets of their quarter; and under the hallowed wall, with the sacred volume in their hands, singing, in the language in which they were written, the Songs of Solomon and the Psalms of David. White-bearded old men and smooth-cheeked boys were leaning over the same book; and Jewish maidens, in their long white robes, were standing with their faces against the wall, and praying through cracks and crevices….[A]nd now, as the Mussulman lords it over the place where the temple stood, and the Jews are not permitted to enter, they endeavour to insinuate their prayers through the crevices in the wall, that thus they may rise from the Throne of Grace. The tradition is consistent, and serves to illustrate the consistency with which the Israelites adhere to the externals of their faith.
…. At about nine o’clock the next morning I was with [the Gibraltar Jew, the richest Israelite in Jerusalem”], and in a few moments we were sitting in the highest seats in the synagogue, at the foot of Mount Zion. My old friend the rabbi was in the desk, reading to a small remnant to the Israelites the same law which had been read to their fathers on the same spot ever since their fathers came out of the land of Egypt. And there they sat, where their fathers had sat before them … the feeble remnant of a mighty people; there was sternness in their faces, but in their hearts a spirit of patient endurance, and a firm and settled resolution to die and be buried under the shadow of their fallen temple.
…. [As] I could not understand the words of exhortation which fell from the lips of the preacher it was not altogether unnatural that I should turn from the rough-bearded sons of Abraham to the smooth faces of their wives and daughters. Since I left Europe, I had not been in an apartment where the women sat with their faces uncovered; and … I saw many a dark-eyed Jewess who appeared well worthy of my gaze…
The service over, we stopped for a moment to look at the synagogue, which was a new building, with nothing about it that was peculiar or interesting. It had no gold or silver ornaments; and the sacred scroll, the table of the Law, contained in the holy of holies, was all that the pride of the Jew could show. My friend, however, did not put his own light under a bushel; for, telling me the amount he had himself contributed to the building, he conducted me on to a room bought at his own expense in the schoolroom, with a stone in the front wall recording his name and generosity.
We then returned to his home [for dinner]… He was a man about fifty-five, born in Gibraltar to the same abject poverty which is the lot of most of his nation. In his youth he had been fortunate in his little dealings, and had been … an enterprising man; for he had twice made a voyage to England, and was so successful and liked the country so much that he always called himself an Englishman. Having … become very rich, he gratified the darling wish of his heart by coming to Jerusalem, to die and be buried with his fathers in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. But this holy purpose did not make him undervalue the importance of life, and the advantages of being a great man now….
It was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. The command to do no work on the Sabbath day … at first gave me some uneasiness about my dinner; but my host, with great self-complacency, relieved me from all apprehensions, by describing the admirable contrivance he had invented for reconciling appetite and duty – an oven, heated the night before to such a degree that the process of cooking was continued during the night, and the dishes were ready when wanted the next day…
…. I set out for Jaffa, the ancient Joppa…. About three hours from Jerusalem we came to the village of Abougos, the chief of the most powerful families of Fellahs in the Holy Land. Nearly all his life he had been in arms against the government, and his name was known among all the Christians in the East as the robber of the pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre….

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From Ian:

Israel issues pre-Passover travel warnings, stressing Turkey
Israel again instructed its citizens to avoid visiting Turkey and “to get out of there as quickly as possible” on Tuesday, in light of the approaching travel season.
On Friday, Israel issued a dramatic announcement, raising the threat level for Turkey to the highest possible level, which designates a large, concrete threat.
Israelis should “avoid visiting [Turkey] and get out of there as quickly as possible,” the Counter-Terrorism Bureau said in a statement.
Speaking to journalists Tuesday, a senior counter-terrorism official in the Israeli government reviewed the travel warnings for countries around the world ahead of Passover and the spring season, when many Israelis take advantage of the holidays to go abroad.
US court to hear PA appeal against $656 m. terror judgment
The Second Circuit US federal appeals court on Tuesday is due to hear the Palestinian Authority’s appeal against a historic $655.5 million civil wrongful death judgment against it for involvement in six terror attacks during the Second Intafada.
The judgment, handed down by a Manhattan jury in US federal district court in February 2015, was the first massive judgment ever against the PA in the US and one of the first major anti-terror judgments, along with the September 2014 judgment against Arab Bank for terror financing.
Many observers have said that together the judgments could change the playing field in making it easier to successfully sue in US courts groups which finance or indirectly support terror.
The PA’s appeal and representation have been led by Gassan A. Baloul and Mitchell R. Berger of Squire Patton Boggs LLP.
The plaintiffs, represented by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center and Kent Yalowitz of Arnold & Porter, central narrative at trial was that a large volume of PA employees, including numerous policemen and commanders, have been arrested and convicted by Israel as having organized, planned and perpetrated suicide bombings and shootings against Americans in Israel, including the six attacks from 2001-2004 in the case during the Second Intifada. In those attacks, 33 were killed with hundreds injured.
Fatah Spokesman Osama Qawasmeh: The West Sponsors Islamic Extremism; 9/11 Was No Coincidence


  • Tuesday, April 12, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
Gaza officials have said that 14,194 babies were born in the sector in the first three months of the year.

1,153 people died in the same timeframe, according to these officials, which - if true - would make the ratio of births to deaths of 12.3-1 the second highest in the world, barely behind the UAE with 13.1-1 and way ahead of everyone else.

Back in the 1930s  the reason give against Jews immigrating to British Mandate Palestine was that the land did not have enough "absorptive capacity" to handle Jewish immigration - at a time that the population of the entire Mandate was barely one million.

Yet when there are 1.8 million people in Gaza alone, less than two percent of the area of the Mandate, no one is saying that perhaps Gazans should be a little more careful about population control.

Instead, the UN blames the Jews for people committing suicide in Gaza, with no blame for their leaders, their demographic policies or their decisions to divert increasingly scarce resources to terrorist infrastructure.


Can you even imagine NGOs to promote birth control in Gaza?

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Salon's main writer about Israel and the Palestinians is David Palumbo-Liu, an obsessive Israel-hater and BDS supporter who is a professor of comparative literature at Stanford.

His latest screed is the easily debunkable "Brutal, ugly & illegal: 9 things you need to know about the Israeli occupation of Palestine." I won't bother fisking the entire thing, because it is time consuming, but I'll just comment on the first paragraph of the first "fact"he thinks "you need to know:"

1. The Occupation is illegal.

What do we mean by the “Israeli Occupation”? In 1967 Israel seized what is now termed the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) in an act of war. The United Nations condemned this action, and expressed that condemnation in Resolution 242 (November 1967), which emphasizes “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security.” The UN document sets forth principles calling for “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; termination of all claims or state of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” This is a precise statement that insists on the inviolable right of the Palestinians to a state.

First of all, even if you say that Israel occupies the entire West Bank, military occupations are not illegal. Period.

Resolution 242 did not condemn Israel. The word "condemn" is not part of it and in fact Israel agrees with 242.

The phrase "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" is in the preamble, and is not a declaration that Israel did anything illegal. In fact, Jordan attacked Israel first and it is nonsensical to say that land gained in a defensive war must be given back; otherwise there is no disincentive for countries to wage war knowing that the UN would force any land losses to be returned to them.

242 does not call for Israel to return all of the lands, and this is clear by the fact that it demands withdrawal from "territories occupied" and not "the territories occupied." It was deliberate wording. Israel has already fulfilled the terms of 242 by returning the Sinai to Egypt.

242 does not mention Palestinians and gives them no rights. No one called for a Palestinian state in the territories in 1967. Even the PLO did not ask for sovereignty those areas in its 1964 charter.


That's a lot of things to get completely wrong in a single paragraph.

Anyway, Palumbo-Liu seems frustrated that BDS is losing steam so quickly, so in addition to throwing lies at Salon readers, he is now erasing any shreds of pretense of integrity and fairness and he is telling readers to turn into anti-Israel activists like he is:

Here’s what you can do:
  • Find out more on your own from multiple sources—do not rely solely on the US mainstream media for your information. Look at Mondoweiss, the Jewish Voice for Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, Electronic Intifada, If Americans Knew. Read United Nations documents, and those of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Middle East Children’s Alliance, B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and other human rights groups.
  • Tell your representatives in Congress you object and don’t want your taxes going to pay for the Occupation any more.
  • Learn about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and if you are an academic or cultural worker learn about the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, whose endorsers include Bishop Desmond Tutu, Angela Davis, Patrice Cullors of Black Lives Matter, Barbara Ehrenreich, Naomi Kline, and hundreds of others.
  • Talk about it with your friends.

Mondoweiss (which partners with Salon!) is a hate site that has published classic antisemitic tropes over the years.

If Americans Knew is run by Alison Weir, who is so toxic in her behavior (and willingness to cozy up with white supremacists) that even other anti-Israel organizations are treating her like she has the plague.

Electronic Intifada is headed by someone who openly supports and encourages terrorism against Jews. 

So Salon's resident anti-Israel writer not only lies. He not only tries to change Salon  from a news site into an anti-Israel activism site.

He is now telling Salon readers to get their information on Israel from sites that are indistinguishable from antisemitic hate sites.

Good to know.


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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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Monday, April 11, 2016

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.”

  • Monday, April 11, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
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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  • Monday, April 11, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
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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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.

  • Monday, April 11, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
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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  • Monday, April 11, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
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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  • Monday, April 11, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
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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Sunday, April 10, 2016

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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  • Sunday, April 10, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
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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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.

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