Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 18, 2016

UNESCO hypocrisy reaches new heights

Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General, called for new efforts to build trust, on the basis of respect and mutual understanding, following the 199th session of the Executive Board of UNESCO,that closed on 14 April, 2016.

The UNESCO Executive Board took decisions on issues relating to the Middle East, including to the World Heritage Site of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls‎. ‎

"Jerusalem is a Holy Land of the three monotheistic religions, a place of dialogue for all Jewish, Christian and Muslim people, nothing should be undertaken to alter its integrity and authenticity" said Irina Bokova. "It is a mosaic of cultures and peoples, whose history has shaped the history of all humanity. Only respect and dialogue can build the trust we need to move forward -- this is the strength of UNESCO, for the benefit of all."

"I believe Member States have a responsibility to UNESCO’s mandate, to move forward in ways that promote dialogue, tolerance and peace,” continued Irina Bokova. “This is especially important for young people, who should be nurtured and educated for peace.”

The Director-General has always appealed for dialogue and consensus so that UNESCO’s mandate of protecting World Heritage and promoting tolerance and mutual respect can be taken forward.

Respect? Dialogue? Tolerance?

This is the same organization that last week passed a resolution that completely denied any Jewish connection to its holiest site.

It renamed the area of the Kotel the "Al Buraq Plaza."

It accused Israel of planting fake Jewish graves and referred to bogus research that implied that most of the graves in the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery were also fake.

It claimed that ancient 2000 year old ritual baths that have been discovered around the perimeter of the Temple Mount were actually Jewish inventions meant to "convert"the Umayyad palaces that were built about a thousand years later.

It demanded that Jews be denied their rights to visit the Temple Mount.

According to UNESCO, "tolerance" and "respect" means that Jews must deny their own heritage and history in favor of a religion that has brazenly stolen its own culture and holy sites from them.

UNESCO has proven beyond any doubt that it has become a joke, an organization that now spends its time denying and destroying only one nation's history and culture. UNESCO's goal is no longer to protect culture and history; it is to pander to those who want to destroy and pervert culture and history for antisemitic ends.

Disgustingly, countries such as France, Spain and Sweden voted in favor of this resolution that denies Jewish history itself.

(h/t Bob Knot)

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From JPost:

The IDF discovered a deep Hamas cross-border tunnel in recent days, stretching from the southern Gaza Strip into Israel. The discovery of the tunnel was kept under a media ban until Monday morning.

The tunnel is 30 meters deep, and was likely dug after the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, according to IDF assessments, though this has not been fully verified.

A senior security source said a "systematic, intelligence-based, technological, engineering, and operational" approach resulted in the finding of the tunnel. "We have to turn this event, of finding a tunnel, into a technique, and find more tunnels," he added.

"The challenge is very big. The tunnels are very deep. We have capabilities that do not exist anywhere else in the world. We can detect, at depths of 30 to 40 meters," the source said. "It is a very complex process." He declined to discuss the technological detection techniques, which remain classified, saying only that "we have developed all sorts of capabilities in recent years, and they have reached the fruition stage." According to defense sources, prior to Operation Protective Edge, the defense establishment was able to find tunnels through randomly drilling holes next to each other along the Gaza border.

"This [the discovery] was not random, but the result of a pattern. It is a technique that identified their tunnel," the source added.

A second defense source said Israel is "in a different place" compared to where it was prior to the 2014 conflict when it came to finding tunnels.

The Israeli defense establishment assesses that Hamas is digging several additional attack tunnels, and that these have likely come to within a few meters of the border, but have not yet crossed it.

Other Israeli media reported that the tunnel extended 150-200 meters into Israel (Arabic media quoting Channel 10.)

Not wanting an escalation, Hamas is denying that this is a new tunnel. But its depth and the fact that it wasn't used in 2014 seems to show that they are lying.

Ma'an indicates that the tunnel was on the southern side of Gaza and that Israel destroyed it on both sides of the border in an incursion last week.

Hamas' reaction so far as been that Israel is going to use this as an excuse to deny cement into Gaza. This is likely to be the anti-Israel meme, that Israel is just looking for reasons to make Gazans suffer.

Although it would appear that such a tunnel is an act of war, Israeli authorities are downplaying that aspect, expressing confidence that their technology to detect tunnels is now light-years ahead of what it used to be and that any future tunnels in Israeli territory would be quickly discovered and "neutralized."

The screenshot image at the top of this post shows that Israel is using camera crawler technology from a UK firm that crawls inside pipes (and presumably small openings) to take video of these tunnels.

Will the BDSers now attack Mini-cam for selling such technology to Israel?

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Relevance and the Haggadah

JTA writes:

5 seder supplements to make your Passover relevant this year

We get it: Most Jewish families don’t yearn to make their Passover seders longer.

But there’s an entire world of seder upgrades and supplements out there providing myriad creative ways to freshen up the age-old tale of the Jews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and — perhaps more significantly — make it relevant to our complicated, modern world.

You don’t need to be a scholar. You don’t even need to be particularly resourceful or ambitious — all you need is Internet access. Dozens of Haggadah supplements put out by Jewish organizations in recent years have addressed a variety of present-day social justice issues such as civil rights, poverty, hunger and genocide.

The article lists several supplements to help with "relevance," such as refugee crises, human trafficking, sexual assault on campus and #BlackLivesMatter.

I find it very sad that no one is trying to make the Haggadah relevant to something else that has been in the news this year: the fact that Arabs have been attacking Jews with knives, cars and other makeshift weapons, simply because they are Jews.

And that Jews were targeted this past year in major Western European countries - simply for being Jewish.

Why is there not a #JewishLivesMatter Haggadah?

Luckily, the old fashioned Haggadah manages to tackle such new, relevant themes as antisemitism. Quite explicitly, in fact.

This is what has stood by our fathers and us!

For not just one alone has risen against us to destroy us,

but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us;

and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand!

There is nothing wrong with being concerned about social justice worldwide. But this holiday isn't about those other issues. There are plenty of other days throughout the year to tackle those.

Jew-hatred hasn't disappeared. It is with us, on the streets and on the Internet. It is a current event! And the venerable, original Haggadah discusses exactly that topic.

As Hillel said, אם אין אני לי, מי לי? If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? No one will care about protecting Jews when Jews don't care about each other.

Passover is not only an good time to relate to the themes of irrational hate against Jews and the miracle of redemption - it is the perfect time to do so.

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"Settlers in white uniforms storm Al Aqsa Mosque"

White shirts are apparently a "settler uniform" now, according to QPress, which puts up regular videos of Jews "storming Al Aqsa Mosque" and "attempting to perform Talmudic rituals."

Here was the white uniform scene:

Another recent visit that got some of the attention from the antisemitic bigots was this one where children visited the Temple Mount:

There are more than the usual hysterical articles about Jews visiting the Temple Mount this week because of the upcoming Passover holiday.

This morning, one man was arrested for expounding on a Biblical verse (Psalms 118:25) to a group of Jews on the Temple Mount. Arabic sites claimed that the efforts of the screaming Muslims on the scene prevented the awful spectre of Jewish prayer on Judaism's holiest site.

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04/17 Links: Netanyahu declares ‘Israel will never leave the Golan’; Paying the Jizya in Bethlehem

From Ian:

Amid Syria talks, Netanyahu declares ‘Israel will never leave the Golan Heights’

As UN-led peace talks on the future of Syria are being held in Geneva, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the Golan Heights Sunday and declared that Israel will never leave the strategic region.
“The time has come for the international community to recognize reality,” Netanyahu said at the opening of a special cabinet meeting held for the first time ever on the Golan Heights. “First, that whatever will be on the other side of the border, the border will not change.
“And secondly,” Netanyahu added, “the time has come after 40 years for the international community to finally recognize that the Golan Heights will remain forever under Israeli sovereignty.”
Israel took the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six Day War, and in 1981 extended Israeli law to the region, thereby de facto annexing it.
“I decided to hold this meeting on the Golan Heights to send a clear message,” he said. “The Golan Heights will always stay in Israeli hands, Israel will never leave the Golan Heights.”

Syrian official answers Netanyahu: We will use all available means to recapture the Golan

In a first reaction to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration that "Israel will never leave the Golan Heights," Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad said Sunday that Syria is prepared to use every possible means to recapture the area, including military means.
"The Syrian Golan is an occupied Arab land according to the UN Security Council's resolutions, and the presence of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces proves this," Miqad said in an interview with the Lebanon-based TV channel al-Mayadeen.
"We have never renounced the resistance and we are ready to recapture the Golan in all possible ways, including military ways. Israel wants to provoke us, but we will never surrender," Miqdad added.

I have recently been in touch with the gentleman, who is relatively new to the job, and I am not the least bit surprised that he has not responded. I did, after all, refer to his university as among the most racist in the country... which it clearly is.

In any case, I thought that I would share those notes with you guys:

Be strong. Fight back.

Dear Ollie,

Between the kid with the dreads and GUPS yelling and screaming at Jerusalem mayor Barkat, I do not envy you, nor Professor Astren, one little bit.

The truth, of course, as you know, is that Jewish kids on campuses across the country are getting defamed, or even physically attacked, if they stand up for rights of Jewish sovereignty and self-defense within the Jewish homeland, which is the State of Israel.

I am a PhD from Penn State who earned a Masters degree in American History from SFSU in 2000 and who has taught at Penn State, SFSU, and City College of SF.

I saw the hatred and contempt for the Jewish people and the Jewish state when I was there as a student.

I will never forget walking by the Malcolm X Student Plaza and seeing a bunch of students from an African-American student organization standing on a platform with a big American flag behind them with Stars of David replacing the normal five-pointed stars in the American flag.

It was surreal.

I suggest that you encourage the students of Hillel to take up a martial art.

Krav Maga would make good sense.

Jewish college students need to learn self-defense, both physically and in terms of the history of the Jewish State of Israel.

They need to know that the Jews are not the aggressors in this conflict.

Peace to you, please.

Michael Lumish, PhD

Editor, Israel Thrives

{By the way, I met my wife at SFSU.}

I have no reason to doubt the integrity of this gentleman and I have absolutely nothing against him.

In any case, I followed up a few days later with this:

No response?

Y'know, the truth is that these kids are not prepared to meet their enemies, but GUPS and Rabab Abdulhadi are prepared.

They are going to tell you straight to your face that Israeli Jews are land thieves.

They will tell you, without blinking, that Israel is a racist, imperialist, colonialist, militaristic, apartheid, racist country.

You and your kids need to have an immediate response.

Do you?

You have to stand up strong for the Jewish kids and I very much hope that you do so.

I can come and speak to them about social media, but I suspect that you will not like what I have to say.

Mr. Benn is fully aware that there is a problem on his campus. In response to the Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, fiasco - where the mayor was prevented from speaking by screeching crybullies with an authoritarian agenda - he writes in a note to friends of SFSU Hillel:

Following extensive communication and coordination, President Wong will meet this coming week with Jewish student leaders at SF State, and major Jewish community leaders from the Bay Area, to discuss how the University will ensure that events like last week do not happen again.

That is certainly a good place to start. He continues:

When President Wong meets with our students, he will hear how shaken they were by (1) the deprivation of their right to speak, listen and participate in a robust exchange of ideas; (2) being subjected to aggressive, hostile and vulgar abuse. He will hear their strong and justified questions about their place in the campus community.

Good!

Look, what I want from this guy, as a Jewish alumnus of the university, is strong leadership. Furthermore, I have no reason to believe that he will not provide such leadership. What he says in his letter is fair and it makes sense.

Our students who support Israel realized several years ago that aggressive confrontation on the quad (1) was not who they wanted to be as people; and (2) more fundamentally, was a completely ineffective strategy.

I am not, however, certain why Benn thinks that Jewish self-defense is ineffective. I am certainly not advocating that Jewish kids go onto the quad and beat the holy hell of out members of the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS). In fact, that's the whole point. Any kid who knows how to handle him or herself is far less likely to get into a fight than one who does not.

Any kid who knows Krav Maga or Kung Fu, for example, or just boxing, is not going to get bullied, because bullies only pick on the weak.

Since then, the students embarked on a sophisticated and impressive program of coalition building on campus. This goes beyond a superficial "come to our events and we'll come to yours" approach. Our students have built real substantive relationships based on shared values, and understand on a deep level what really matters to other groups.

And it has worked. We regularly see student government leaders, and members of the Black, Latino, LGBT and Women's Center student leadership at Shabbat. And we've also sent leaders of those groups to Israel, where they see for themselves that simple, one-sided narratives do not reflect the complicated, rich and amazing realities there.

I could not applaud this more.

Coalition building is tremendously important and I would also suggest to Mr. Benn that he encourage his students to join with other indigenous students on campus. The Jewish people are the indigenous people to the Land of Israel and thus should meet with other indigenous students in common cause to stand up for indigenous rights.

But support us.

And I don't just mean financially.

Really support us. Reply to me with a message I can pass on to our staff and students at tonight's Shabbat telling them how proud you are of all they're doing. And trust that, as the organization that invests day-in and day-out in student life, we have their interests at heart, and will create the best possible environment for them to thrive on campus.

My reputation on that campus is shot because I killed it myself.

And although hiring anti-Semitic anti-Zionists who want to partner with An-Najah university was just flat-out stupid, this does not mean that SFSU is hopelessly racist. Like any other sizable American university it is diverse and the average Jewish kid, who does not bother himself with pro-Israel / pro-Jewish politics, is not likely to receive a hard time.

I have no desire whatsoever to denigrate SFSU Hillel director Ollie Benn.

I just want him to be a strong leader for the kids and, if his letter is any indication, it looks to me like he may very well be.

I would encourage you guys to give the SFSU Hillel, and Mr. Benn, a positive shout out.

415 - 333 - 4922

info@Sfhillel.org

They deserve your support.

_____________________________________________________________________

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

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Rabbi Yousef

Several Jews refused to leave Yemen in the recent secret operation that extracted 17 Jews from the war-torn country.

Arab media reports that three of the few Jews remaining, including Rabbi Yahya Yousef, were arrested by the Houthis in Sanaa.

Arab media had been claiming, improbably, that the Houthis cooperated with Israel in allowing the 17 Jews to move to the Jewish state.

Now, some Arabic media is claiming that the Houthis arrested Rabbi Yousef at Israel's behest to pressure the remaining Jews to leave.

The Houthi slogan is "Allah is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews, Victory to Islam."

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The annual State Department report on human rights worldwide underplays the amount of antisemitism in the Arab world, but it does include some examples:

Egypt:

The country’s Jewish community is tiny and dwindling. Criticism of Israel frequently reached the level of blatant anti-Semitism in public discourse. State-owned and private media used anti-Semitic rhetoric, including by academics, cultural figures, and clerics, with cartoons demonizing Jews. There were multiple reports of imams using anti-Semitic rhetoric in their sermons. Societal anti-Semitism was widespread. On March 5, teenagers shouting epithets desecrated graves at the Basateen Jewish cemetery in the south of Cairo.

For the fifth consecutive year, authorities cancelled the Abu Hassira celebrations scheduled for January, preventing an annual Jewish pilgrimage, including many Israelis, to the shrine of 19th-century scholar Rabbi Yaakov Abu Hassira. The cancellation followed a December 2014 administrative court decision to ban the festival permanently, stating the festival was a “violation of public order and morals” and “incompatible with the solemnity and purity of religious sites.”

An appeal continued in the 2014 case of 37 Islamists sentenced to death and 492 others to life imprisonment whom a Minya criminal court described as “demons” who followed Jewish scripture. The court also described the men as “enemies of the nation” who used mosques to promote the teachings of “their holy book, the Talmud.”

Jordan:

Aside from foreigners, there was no resident Jewish community in the country. Anti-Semitism was present in the media. Editorial cartoons, articles, and opinion pieces sometimes negatively depicted Jews without government response. The national school curriculum, including materials on tolerance education, did not include mention of the Holocaust.

On November 17, Ro’ya, a private television station hosted a journalist drawing an editorial cartoon showing an anti-Semitic stereotype and stating that Jews were the “mother of terrorism.”

Algeria:

Jewish leaders reported that the Jewish community faced unofficial, religion-based obstacles to government employment and administrative difficulties when working with government bureaucracy.
In August opponents of the Minister of National Education and her proposal to teach primary schools in the local dialect instead of Arabic resulted in social media smear campaigns accusing her of having Jewish heritage.
On October 16, the presidential chief of staff and secretary general of the National Democratic Rally political party, Ahmed Ouyahia, accused Ferhat Mehenni, singer and leader of the Kabyle Independence Movement, of “selling Algeria to the Jews.”
In October several young Algerians published an online video entitled “Jews in the Streets of Algeria: What Will Happen?” The video depicted a young man wearing a kippah, pretending to be Jewish, and the numerous insults and harassment he received by people on the street of Algiers. The makers of the video concluded what they called a “social experiment” by stating, “Algerians do not want to smell the odor of Jews in their country.” Within a week the anti-Semitic video received more than 100,000 views, more than 1,000 likes, and several hundred dislikes.

Kuwait:

There were no known Jewish citizens and an estimated few dozen Jewish foreign resident workers. Negative commentary regarding Jews regularly appeared in the media. Anti-Semitic rhetoric often originated from self-proclaimed Islamists or conservative opinion writers. These columnists often conflated Israeli government actions with those of Jews more broadly. Reflecting the government’s nonrecognition of Israel, there are longstanding official instructions to teachers to expunge from English-language textbooks any references to Israel or the Holocaust. The law prohibits companies from conducting business with Israeli citizens, including transporting them on their commercial airlines.

Saudi Arabia:

Cases of government-employed imams using anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, or anti-Shia language in their sermons were rare and occurred without authorization by government authorities. The law requires government-employed imams to give all sermons delivered in mosques in the country. They must deliver sermons vetted and cleared by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. During the year the ministry issued periodic circulars to clerics and imams in mosques directing them to include messages on the principles of justice, equality, and tolerance and to encourage rejection of bigotry and all forms of racial discrimination in their sermons. According to the ministry, no imams publicly espoused intolerant views warranting dismissal during the year. Unauthorized imams continued to employ intolerant views in their sermons.
There were reports of anti-Semitic materials available at government-sponsored book fairs.
The government’s multi-year Tatweer project to revise textbooks, curricula, and teaching methods to promote tolerance and remove content disparaging religions other than Islam began in 2007. As of the end of 2013, the program had received more than 11 billion riyals ($2.9 billion) to revise the curriculum. As of the end of 2013, the government had also developed new curricula and textbooks for at least grades four through 10. Despite these efforts, some intolerant material remained in textbooks used in schools.
Editorial cartoons exhibited anti-Semitism characterized by stereotypical images of Jews along with Jewish symbols, particularly at times of heightened political tension with Israel. Anti-Semitic comments by journalists, academics, and clerics appeared in the media.

Qatar:

The country does not have an indigenous Jewish community. On occasion some of the privately owned Arabic-language newspapers carried cartoons with offensive caricatures of Jews and Jewish symbols. These occurred primarily in the daily newspapers al-Watan, al-Sharq, al-Arab, and al-Raya and drew no government response. In February a Saudi imam who had regularly lectured in Qatar delivered an anti-Semitic sermon from the Grand Mosque. Following the incident, authorities denied the imam future engagements.

Tunisia:

An estimated 1,500 Jews live in the country. In March in Tunis, vandals destroyed the grave of 18th century Jewish sage Rabbi Masseoud Elfassi. Media reported that motives for the vandalism were unknown but speculated it was the work of looters. After the incident, President Essebsi increased security around the cemetery and other Jewish sites, and promised a European rabbinical body he would firmly protect the Jewish community and its institutions.

Yemen:

Fewer than 150 Jews remained in the country, residing in two communities in Sana’a and Amran Governorate. Weak law enforcement put the Jewish community at risk, particularly following the Houthi takeover in Sana’a in September 2014, after which anti-Israeli rhetoric increased and blurred into anti-Semitic utterances. Prior to the outbreak of conflict, the transitional government continued to protect the Sa’ada Jewish community in Sana’a and provided secure housing and a living stipend. See the Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Report at www.state.gov/religiousfreedomreport/.
Anti-Semitic material was rare. Many Yemenis were proud to sustain a small Jewish community with some charities reportedly donating food and gifts during Jewish holidays, and media coverage of the country’s Jews was generally positive. The most prominent exception was the slogan of the Houthi movement, “Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews.”
Members of the Jewish community are not eligible to serve in the military or federal government. Authorities forbid them from carrying the ceremonial Yemeni dagger.

Essentially no antisemitism was reported in Lebanon, Bahrain, the UAE and Morocco.

In other Muslim countries:

Malaysia:

Estimates of the country’s Jewish population were between 100 and 200 persons. Anti-Semitism was a serious problem across the political spectrum and attracted wide support among segments of the population. Government-owned newspapers and statements by current and former political officeholders sometimes blamed civil society activity on “Jewish plots” or “Jewish conspiracies.”
In June a member of the cabinet and secretary-general of UMNO claimed an online independent news outlet was part of a Jewish conspiracy against his party.

Turkey:

Jewish residents continued to leave the country permanently because of anti-Semitism. According to the chief rabbinate in Istanbul, the number of Jews in the country dropped to 17,000 during the year, from 19,500 in 2005.
Incidents of anti-Semitism were common. Media and elected officials regularly spoke out against Israel and generalized their statements toward Jews more broadly. For example, a “documentary” film, Mastermind, that was broadcast repeatedly on a progovernment television station in March and was posted on progovernment websites, alleged the greatest threat to the Turkish nation was 3,500 years of Jewish world domination.
Despite anti-Semitic comments by some leaders and media and incidents of vandalism against the Jewish community, the government took a number of positive steps during the year. The country has commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27) since 2011. On March 26, the government’s five-year restoration of the Great Synagogue of Edirne concluded, and the synagogue was reopened.

Pakistan:

There is a very small Jewish population in Pakistan. Anti-Semitic sentiments were widespread in the vernacular press. Hate speech broadcast by traditional media and through social media derogatorily used terms such as “Jewish agent” and “Yahoodi” to attack individuals and groups.

Iran:

According to the Tehran Jewish Committee, approximately 9,000 Jews lived in the country, while media estimated there were between 18,000 and 20,000. The law recognizes Jews as a religious minority and provides representation in parliament. Samiak Moreh Sedgh is the only Jewish member of parliament.
Officials continued to question the history and uniqueness of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism remained a pervasive problem. A cultural institute organized a second international Holocaust cartoon contest in May (authorities held the first in 2005). The supreme leader issued a statement in September in which he questioned whether Israel would exist in 25 years.

There was no mention of Palestinian antisemitism at all.* The report, which put Israel and the territories together, merely said "The government often defined crimes targeting Jews as nationalistic crimes relating to the overall Palestinian-Israeli conflict rather than anti-Semitism."

*CORRECTION: There was a separate section on Palestinians:
Rhetoric by some Palestinians and Muslim religious leaders included expressions of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Anti-Israel sentiment was widespread and sometimes crossed the line into anti-Semitism in public discourse, including media commentary longing for a world without Israel and glorifying terror attacks on Israelis. Following a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israelis in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Israel, Palestinian press and social media widely circulated cartoons encouraging such attacks.

At times the PA failed to condemn incidents of anti-Semitic expression in official PA traditional and social media outlets.

In the Gaza Strip and West Bank there were instances in which media outlets, particularly outlets controlled by Hamas, published and broadcast material that included anti-Semitic content, sometimes amounting to incitement to violence.

(h/t Solomon2)

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April 17 is "Palestinian Prisoners Day."

For the occasion, PA Commission of Prisoners Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Club released a report saying that Israel has arrested about one million Palestinians since 1967.

This was widely reported in Arabic media, even beyond the Arab world to Sky News Arabia and elsewhere.

It is an easily provable lie.

Because the April 2015 report from the same groups said that the number of Palestinians arrested from 1967 to 2015 was 850,000.

150,000 arrests in one year?

In 2014, they said the number was 800,000.

That number had been pretty constant since 2006, when they claimed 700,000.

As I have shown in the past, these numbers are completely made up.

150,000 arrests in a year would mean over 400 a day and nearly 3000 arrests a week.

PCHR actually counts arrests. Last week's report listed about 80 arrests for the week which, annualized, would come to about 4,200 arrests a year.

Their annual reports from 2014 said 4,800 had been arrested that year, which was the year of the Gaza war and saw the highest number of arrests in a while; the previous two years had about 2500 and 1200 arrests respectively. Even Addameer, which also claims inflated numbers of arrests, counts several thousand a year.

That is a far cry from the 50,000-150,000 a year that the Palestinian Authority is now claiming.

These numbers are absurd and completely fictional. Yet previous versions of these lies have been quoted by mainstream media and the UN as if they are based on actual facts.

Because what reporter has the time or incentive to debunk official PA-sanctioned malarkey when it fits in with existing media bias?

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04/16 Links: 90% of Congress tells Obama: Reject anti-Israel UN Res; UNESCO denies Jewish link to Temple Mount

From Ian:

Congressman to Obama on UN Israel action: 'Read this letter very carefully'

At least 90 percent of the House of Representatives opposes "one-sided" action at the UN Security Council on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a letter endorsed by 394 members this week– a clear message to the Obama administration, according to one of its authors, Rep. Nita Lowey of New York.
Several congressmen worked on the letter, sent to the White House amid fresh Palestinian and European efforts to affect the conflict through international bodies.
Lowey, a Democrat and ranking member on the House Appropriations Subcommittee, told The Jerusalem Post on Friday that the administration had vetoed similar resolutions in the past– and that its reasoning for such vetoes "still applies today."
"I feel very confident– when just under 400 members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, express their position with great clarity– that the administration will read the letter," Lowey said. "Maybe they'll read this letter very carefully."

UNESCO adopts resolution ignoring Jewish ties to Temple Mount

UNESCO’s Executive Board in Paris on Friday adopted a resolution whose language ignored Jewish ties to the holy religious site of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall area in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The broad ranging resolution condemned Israeli actions in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. But the resolution focused in large part on Israeli actions with regard to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall Plaza.
All three major monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christian and Islam — consider the Temple Mount to be a holy site.
But the UNESCO resolution referred to the Temple Mount area solely as the Al-Aksa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif, except for two references to the Western Wall Plaza that were put in parenthesis.
The text also referred to the plaza area by the Western Wall as the Al-Buraq Plaza.

Lapid: 'UNESCO resolution on Temple Mount will lead to death of more innocents'

A prominent member of the Knesset on Saturday strongly criticized a resolution passed by UNESCO’s Executive Board the previous day, saying if the motion was not overturned it would "lead to the deaths of innocent people".
Yesh Atid chairmen MK Yair Lapid called on UNESCO's Director-General Irina Bokova to cancel a resolution passed by the international body Friday which fails to acknowledge the historical Jewish ties to the holy sites of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall
"This decision is a shameful attempt to rewrite history, rewrite reality as part of the ongoing political campaign against Israel and the Jewish people," Lapid stated in the letter.
"Palestinian incitement regarding the Temple Mount - which has been proven time and time again... has already cost the lives of dozens of Israelis. Your decision only serves to extend this current wave of terror and will only lead to the deaths of more innocent people You can not evade this responsibility," Lapid added.

04/15 Links Pt2: The BDS Movement: On The Inside; Pals Lost Credibility in Arab World By Staying Silent on Syria

From Ian:

Lebanese Journalist: Palestinians Lost Credibility in Arab World By Staying Silent on Syria

By failing to take a stand against the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Palestinian leaders have “lost the Arab depth, their credibility and their narrative,” Hanin Ghaddar, the editor of the Lebanese news site NOW, wrote in a commentary Thursday.
Ghaddar observed that Assad and Hezbollah, both of which are backed by Iran, have”relentlessly using ‘Palestine’ to justify their massacres and interference in Syria.” But Ghaddar noted that “we have rarely heard a word of sympathy toward the Syrian people from Palestinian political and public figures.” Even when the Palestinian refugee camp in Yarmouk came under siege, “no Palestinian figure came out to denounce the siege and destruction of the camp.”
She added:
Hezbollah has woven the cause of Palestine so assiduously into its propaganda, and because of that, the “Resistance” and “Palestine” have lost credibility among the people in the region. In addition to the severe internal divisions among the Palestinian leadership and factions, the Palestinians’ silence in the face of human rights violations and crimes in Syria has drastically changed the way people see Palestine.
When Hezbollah used the slogan “Road to Jerusalem” to justify its actions in Syria, Ghaddar wrote, “many expected a statement or a ‘Not in Our Name’ campaign by some Palestinian political or human rights group. Instead, silence ensued.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy: Taking Sides in the War Within Islam

We must also aid, encourage, and ideologically arm Muslims who reject the Islam of hate in favor of an Islam respectful of women, their faces, and their rights, as well as of human rights in general. Is that not what we did in the not-so-distant past with regard to the brave people we called dissidents in the Soviet world? And were we not right, at the time, to ignore those who told us that the dissidents were a minority who would never, ever, prevail against the granite ideology of communism?
That means protecting and defending Daoud (to take just one current example), a French-language writer of Muslim origin who suggested that those seeking sanctuary in Europe would do well to learn to appreciate European values. For that, Daoud has been saddled with a double fatwa: one from his “assassin brothers,” to borrow the Algerian-French journalist Mohamed Sifaoui’s phrase, and another from a handful of supposedly progressive and anti-racist French intellectuals who accused him of “recycling the most hackneyed clichés of Orientalism” when he urged Arab men to respect the dignity of women.
Genuine anti-racists, anti-imperialists, and believers in republican democracy must take the side of the Islam of moderation and peace in its war against the criminal Islam of the Salafists. It is a war that is ideological, theological, and political, a war that cuts across worlds, cultures, and what we are right to call civilizations, from the lost city neighborhoods of France to those areas – for example, Kurdistan, Morocco, Bosnia, and Bangladesh – where enlightened Islam remains alive and well. That, in broad strokes, is our urgent task. This is our war.

Inculcating Hatred and Violence for Israel in the Palestinian Educational System: The Rudolf Walther School in Deir al-Balah, as a Case Study*

Overview
1. At the end of March 2016 the Hamas-affiliated Shihab News Agency issued a video showing a Palestinian teacher indoctrinating school children with hatred for Israel and support for an armed struggle against it. The teacher used the letters of the Arabic alphabet as a didactic tool to teach them "the fundamental Palestinian national principles" even before they learn to read.
2. The name of the school is not mentioned in the video, but an ITIC examination (including a comparison between existing pictures and the picture in the video) indicated the video was apparently filmed in the Rudolf Walther School in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, which was constructed with money from a German donor. The school is a complex of three governmental schools under the jurisdiction of the ministry of education in the Gaza Strip, which is a branch of the Palestinian Authority (PA) ministry of education. The complex has an elementary school for boys, an elementary school for girls, and a high school for boys. According to the boys' elementary school Facebook page, its objectives are to educate for"correct values and to inculcate the awareness and concept of a flourishing Islamic homeland" (Facebook page of the Rudolf Walther Boys' Elementary School, March 31, 2016). Full Document in PDF Format

Technion's Breakdance High-Tech Video Haggadah

Technion comes out with an interesting high-tech Passover-themed video each year. Here's the atest:

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The triennial Organization of the Islamic Cooperation conference just ended in Turkey.

The final communique for the two day conference has 218 paragraphs and weighs in on tons of topics, including most of the first 15 condemning Israel.

There's a lot to unpack there, with resolutions on terrorism and Iran and other topics, but these two paragraphs were interesting to me:

163. The Conference stressed that culture must be used as a leverage for a sustainable and inclusive development, along with the Islamic values, and the most important action is to mainstream culture as a strategic tool for achieving OIC goals; Therefore, it commended the efforts of the OIC Secretary General for his initiatives aiming at promotion and defending unified position on issues of common interest, including the dialogue among civilizations and religions; promoting interfaith harmony, tolerance and non-discrimination; to safeguard historic and Islamic character of the holy places as well as Islamic cultural and civilizational heritages.

169. The Conference encouraged all Member States to promote inter-faith and inter-religious dialogues within the OIC Member States to raise awareness about religious interpretations and beliefs, and open space for further discussion about Islam and faith and to initiate relevant projects at the level of United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. In this regard, the Conference welcomed and commended the Government of the State of Qatar and its partners for regularly organizing an international interfaith dialogue conference which aims to promote and defend the image of Islam and the Muslim Ummah.

Culture and "inter-religious dialogue" are means to achieve political goals, and there is no interest in "dialogue" - just to use the Western concept of a free exchange of ideas to promote political Islam in the rest of the world.

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04/15 Links Pt1: Glick: Obama’s political legacy; Who Respects Israeli Democracy?

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: We Will Not Accept a Jewish Israel

The obsession with settlements is certain to divert attention from core issues, such as Palestinian recognition of a Jewish Israel. Many Palestinians continue to regard Israel as one big settlement that needs to be removed from the Middle East.
Even those who say they have accepted the two-state solution are not prepared to recognize any Jewish link to or history in the land.
In the view of Al-Husseini, Palestinians refuse to acknowledge a Jewish state because they believe this would grant legitimacy to "Jews' rights to the land of Palestine" and undermine the Palestinian demand for the "right of return" for millions of refugees into Israel.
Israeli Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by privileging the perceived interests of Palestinian Arabs, while Palestinian Arab leaders are betraying their constituencies by denying any link between Jews and the land. This stance makes peace a non-starter.

'The world doesn't care about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict'

Deputy Minister of Regional Cooperation Ayoub Kara (Likud) told Arutz Sheva on Thursday that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer the central focus of the international community.
Speaking from Paris, where he is currently visiting, Kara said that the war against radical Islam is an opportunity for cooperation between Israel and Arab countries.
“We are promoting an economic conference in France with all the anti-Iranian countries in an attempt to bring new tidings to the region,” he said, before noting that at the present time, no one seems to be interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“There is a split in the Arab countries between the Iranian camp, which controls Lebanon and Syria, and the Saudi coalition which sees Iran and ISIS as the enemy. So countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia now have common interests with Israel,” explained Kara.
“The Palestinian issue is no longer relevant in the world. I saw fit to involve the French in holding an economic conference in their country. We will deal in it with many joint projects, such as gas supply and technological cooperation. This opens up new hopes for Israel to get new allies,” he added.

Caroline Glick: Obama’s political legacy

The US presidential race is President Barack Obama’s political legacy. Depending on who succeeds him, that legacy will either fade or become the new normal.
To understand what he has wrought, a good place to start is with the man running to Obama’s left: Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The socialist from Vermont knows how to play to the crowd. Sanders knows that the people captivated by his tales of avaricious bankers aren’t too keen on Jews either.
And as a Jew, he’s cool with that.
Sanders’s courtship of Jew-haters in a staple of his campaign. The depth of his efforts was made clear at the end of a campaign event at the Apollo Theater in Harlem last Saturday when an audience member got up and began spewing anti-Jewish slanders.
In the event, the questioner rose and said, “As you know, the Zionist Jews – and I don’t mean to offend anybody – they run the Federal Reserve, they run Wall Street, they run every campaign.”
Weathering a chorus of boos from his fellow audience members, the questioner then asked Sanders, “What is your affiliation to your Jewish community?” Sanders could have told the questioner to take a long walk off a short pier. He could have told him he’d rather win without the support of bigots.
He could have used it as a teaching moment and told his audience that millions of Jews have been murdered because of the lies the questioner just repeated.
Instead, he called him “Brother” and told he needed to hide his hatred better.

In 2014, researchers started warning that there were tsunamis that hit the Israeli coast every couple hundred years and that Israel should be prepared.

In March, Israel started preparing emergency tsunami routes for safety should such an event occur. Earlier this month there was a national tsunami drill.

At first, Palestinian media almost relished the idea of a tsunami devastating Tel Aviv and Ashkelon. But then they realized that such a tsunami would also hit Gaza, and it would not be pretty.

Images such as these started being published in Palestinian media, fueling panic:

NB: Tsunamis do not look like this.

And then came the inevitable conspiracy theories, saying that Israel was planning a secret nuclear weapons test in the Mediterranean just to destroy Gaza with a tsunami. As evidence, they cited a previous rumor that France had once tested a bomb in the Mediterranean causing flooding in Algeria.

The tsunami rumors and fear spread quickly.

So over the past couple of days the Hamas government has been trying to calm down residents along the coast. The interior ministry on Friday called for calm and asked Gazans not to take rumors of a tsunami seriously, whether it be natural or "artificial."

I don't think that these reassurances will have the intended effect.

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