Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 28, 2016

04/28 Links Pt1: Labour suspends Ken Livingstone for saying Hitler backed Zionism; Austria hosts Palestinian hijacker terrorist

From Ian:

In spiraling anti-Semitism row, Labour suspends Livingstone for saying Hitler backed Zionism

Britain’s opposition Labour Party on Thursday suspended a veteran and senior member, Ken Livingstone, after he claimed that Adolf Hitler was initially a supporter of Zionism “before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews,” and charged that for decades in the UK there has been a “well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticizes Israel policy as anti-Semitic.”
The comments by Livingstone, a veteran former London mayor who sits on Labour’s national executive and heads the opposition party’s international policy commission, prompted outraged calls, including by many of his colleagues, for his removal from the party, and intensified a crisis in Labour over anti-Semitism within its ranks.
“Ken Livingstone has been suspended by the Labour Party, pending an investigation, for bringing the Party into disrepute,” Labour announced.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Livingstone should be kicked out of Labour altogether. Board President Jonathan Arkush said: “Ken Livingston’s comments were abhorrent and beyond disgraceful. His latest comments combine Holocaust revisionism with anti-Semitism denial, when the evidence is there for all to see. He lacks any sense of decency. He must now be expelled from the Labour Party.”

Ken Livingstone's car crash Daily Politics interview

Labour’s Livingstone says Hitler was initially a Zionist; colleague calls him a ‘Nazi apologist’

The comments by Livingstone, a veteran far-left politician who sits on Labour’s national executive and heads the opposition party’s international policy commission, prompted outraged calls, including by many of his colleagues, for his removal from the party, and intensified a crisis in Labour over anti-Semitism within its ranks.
Sadiq Khan, Labour’s candidate in the current campaign for the London mayoralty, called Livingstone’s remarks “appalling and inexcusable.”
Labour colleague John Mann MP confronted Livingstone in an extraordinary face-off caught on video to call him “a Nazi apologist,” a “f__king disgrace,” and a “disgusting racist” who was rewriting history. Mann, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, told Livingstone he “should read ‘Mein Kampf'” and would learn that Hitler was opposed to a Jewish state, since he thought that it would create a Jewish power base. “I think you’ve lost it, Mr Livingstone,” stormed Mann. “What are you on at the moment?”
The controversy erupted a day after Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a bitter critic of Israel who has referred to Hamas and Hezbollah representatives as “friends,” reluctantly suspended an MP, Naz Shah, who had called for the dismantling of Israel and compared Israelis to Hitler.

PLO says Israel faked yesterday's terror attack

After yesterday's terror attack, the NAD-PLO tweeted:

Translation: "Do you believe that a mother of two who is five months pregnant would go with her brother to implement a terror attack? Erekat condemning Maryam and Ibrahim's execution."

Ma'an quotes "witnesses" saying that the pair had no knife and that the Israeli forces planted the two kitchen knives and switchblade afterwards. They further claim that the two were innocently walking in the car lanes at the checkpoint.

Haaretz reported the incident this way:

Before being shot, the two were ordered to stop several times but continued to approach officers and guards stationed at a drive-through checkpoint not intended for pedestrians.
According to the police, as the two approached, the woman's hand was buried inside her bag and his hand was behind his back. The two eventually heeded the police's call, stopping a short distance from the officers and turning away, but the woman then spun back around and pulled out the knife, throwing it directly at one of the officers. Police and security guards then shot the two.
The police found another knife identical to the one she was carrying, while a switchblade was found on the her brother's body.

It looks like the Palestinian consensus is to treat these terrorists as victims, not heroes.

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"When Arabs were freedom fighters for Israel" (Haaretz)

This is not yet behind the Haaretz paywall and it is very interesting. By Salman Mashala:

Tawfik Toubi

It may be hard to believe nowadays, but there was a time when leftist Arab leaders in this country could rightly be called “Israeli freedom fighters.” In those days, the Arab left fought for Israeli independence and was not averse to a “Jewish state.” Accounts from that time offer much food for thought.

In August 1948, before the reunification of Maki (the Israeli Communist Party), Arab communists held a meeting in Haifa. Emile Habibi, a founder of the National Liberation League in Palestine and later a Maki MK, delivered a speech there. Kol Ha’am, the Maki journal, quoted his remarks: “The league will fight so that the Arab masses in Israel will become a democratic element that, together with the Jewish democratic forces, will fight for complete fulfillment of the United Nations resolution. Peace and independence of the Jewish and Arab state depends upon Jewish-Arab understanding.” The term “Palestinian” was not commonly used back then.

The festive unification gathering took place in October 1948 at the May Cinema in Haifa. The Davar newspaper quoted Habibi, who called for “ousting the Iraqi occupation army from Eretz Israel” and declared that the party would fight for the establishment of the Arab state “to safeguard the independence of the State of Israel.”

At the time, “Israeli independence” was the chief focus of the left’s leaders, Jews and Arabs alike. In his speech, Meir Vilner, a signatory to Israel’s Declaration of Independence, stressed his comrades’ contributions: “The great majority of our comrades are fighting in the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces. Many of our finest comrades were killed and wounded in battle as they set an example of brave and honest freedom fighters.”

He also cited the party’s contribution in recruiting international aid “for the State of Israel’s War of Independence,” noting that “just as the Arab masses wish to see the State of Israeli triumph over the invaders, the Jewish masses wish to see thwarted the imperialist plot to add on the Arab portion of Eretz Israel across the Jordan River.”

The party members’ contribution to Israel’s independence is revealed in a parliamentary question from MK Vilner in 1949 addressed to Prime Minister and Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion following the issuing of restraining orders and detention orders by the military governor against two party members – Ramzi Khuri, the Maki secretary in the Western Galilee, and Nadim Musa. The Al Hamishmar daily reported that Vilner made sure to say in his parliamentary question that these two party members “stood at the head of the Western Galilee underground against the Kawkaji gangs.”

During a January 1950 Knesset debate over the Defense Service Law, Maki members made a big impression with their speeches, according to Ma’ariv: “Tawfik Toubi stood out for his harsh words this time,” said the newspaper. Toubi had railed against the return to the country of Nimr Hawari, who headed an organization that worked against Israel. Toubi reminded the other Knesset members about Hawari’s past, about the speech he gave in Gaza in which he addressed the mufti, saying: “Under your flag, Mufti, we shall enter Tel Aviv and toss the Jews into the sea.” MK Toubi called for Hawari to be tried as a “war criminal.”

Six months later, in June 1950, Toubi came under attack from Arabs in the “administered territories.” According to a report from the Government Press Office, this occurred after the military governor issued Toubi an entry permit for the Arab village of Tira. As Toubi toured the village, he “was attacked by a group of local residents who pelted him with tomatoes and splashed ink on him. A fist fight broke out between his supporters and opponents, and sticks and knives were brandished as well.” The report goes on to say that “Mr. Toubi found refuge in the home of the military governor, who assigned five police officers to guard him and escort him until he left the village.

Like they say – those were the days.

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Did you know that there is a shortage of Palestinian journalists who want to use their skills to help the "resistance"?

According to the UN, there is.

As part of a special information programme mandated by the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Department of Public Information - Strategic Communications Division - Palestine, Decolonization and Human Rights Section organizes an annual training programme for Palestinian media practitioners. The programme aims to provide hands-on skills training on different topics, as well as access to UN officials and diplomats. The participants are usually aged between 23 and 33.

Since it started in 1995, more than 150 journalists/trainees have benefited from the programme.

The United Nations will cover the costs of travel and accommodation.

They are now accepting applications for this year's batch.

If you look at previous year's trainees you see a theme emerging:

Mohammad Alazzaeh’s first photo was of a boy standing on the roof of his house, pointing a plastic gun at the Israeli soldiers attacking the refugee camp. ...He dedicates his time to teaching children in the camp photography skills so that they can learn a new form of resistance.

Osama [Awwad] ... admits that sometimes other journalists criticize him and accuse him of trying to divert attention from reality, but he believes what he is doing is a different form of resistance.

Sabreen Taha: "I believe that documenting and sharing the old architecture, culture and customs [of Jerusalem] is a form of resistance and respect.

If these so-called "journalists" consider their jobs to be "resistance," then they are not journalists - but anti-Israel activists.

The mandate of the UN Department of Public Information - Strategic Communications Division is to "formulate communications strategies on priority issues and carries out communications campaigns to support the substantive goals of the Organization." Which means that the UN's very mandate is to delegitimize Israel.

The UN is paying to train the next generation of anti-Israel activists under the guise of journalism. To put it another way, they are training UNjournalists.

And this is just one of the dozens programs in every nook and cranny of the UN dedicated against Israel.

This is just one of the many scoops that you simply cannot read in any other media. Please help support the creation of quality journalism like this at EoZ.

The myth of the moderate Palestinian took another blow yesterday when students voted for Hamas over Fatah in student elections at Bir Zeit University.

Such student elections are watched closely by Palestinian society as a bellwether for how the people at large are thinking, especially the intelligentsia.

Hamas won 25 seats, followed by Fatah which won 21 seats. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group came in third with five seats.

The Hamas party openly used its support for terror as a platform. At one point in the debates, the Hamas faction drew laughter and cheers by sending a bag of lemons to the Fatah side, making fun of a music video shown on PA TV last August that said that people should show their resistance to Israel by planting lemon trees.

Notably, the Fatah faction also attempted to buttress its terror credentials by calling itself the "Martyr Yasser Arafat bloc."

This is the second year in a row that Hamas has won the elections at Bir Zeit.

A few days ago student elections were also held at Polytechnic University in Hebron. In that case the Fatah and Hamas factions tied, while in the past Fatah had always won the elections there.

Hamas campaigns throughout the year by spending money on student materials and facilities in order to gain support, something Fatah does not do.

The most recent poll by PCPSR said that if an election were held today, Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh would defeat Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas by 11 percentage points.

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04/27 Links Pt2: UK Labour's disgusting anti-Semitism; Freedom House drinks anti-Israel Kool-Aid

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: What a week for integration Britain!

I say all this is a success for integration Britain, because every week brings up cases like this and nobody seems remotely willing to reflect on them. While people in senior jobs in public life turn out to be open and essentially unapologetic racists, we pretend that all that’s needed for our country’s future to be secure is to tweak the racism awareness lessons a bit more or make one more big push to ‘smash’ the fascists.
The mistake is far more basic. For decades, successive governments in Britain pretended that if you brought millions of people from other cultures into this country and gave them enough time plus all the provisions of the British state then before long they would be down the pub and failing to attend church like everyone else. For some time now it should have been clear that a great many people who come into our country have no such desire. They – and very often their children – have another set of ideas, a different attitude towards the purpose of life and an alternative view of what constitutes respected ‘authority’.
Of course as the ICM / Trevor Phillips poll the other week showed, a lot of Muslims in Britain like living in Britain. But the poll also showed they like it because they get the freedom to live the lives they want to live. Not British lives, but lives that are convenient for them. The question of how convenient or pleasant all this is for everyone else is naturally a question that is never asked.

Labour's disgusting anti-Semitism

The word is overused, but the details of Naz Shah’s Facebook postings are shocking. That anyone, in Britain in 2014, should gleefully spread material discussing the (presumably forcible) transportation of Jews from Israel is troubling enough. That the person concerned was only months later elected to the House of Commons is truly disturbing. Even today, her actions exposed to the public, the best Ms Shah can offer is that the repellent material concerned does not reflect her current view, a weasel-worded statement that all but confirms the she endorsed a quintessentially anti-Semitic position at the time.
Perhaps this story raises questions about Bradford, where Ms Shah won her seat for Labour in a bruising fight with George Galloway – himself an unpleasant demagogue who is no stranger to distasteful comments on the Middle East. What do her constituents make of the views expressed in her fateful post? Perhaps there are issues to explore relating to the British Pakistani community of which Ms Shah is a prominent member. Do all the people who live in this country accept that anti-Semitism is as unacceptable as any other racism?
But the most pressing questions are those facing Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, for this is just the latest in a string of cases to emerge under his leadership. Mr Corbyn himself is friendly towards hateful groups seeking Israel’s destruction. Is it any wonder then, that his party contains and – perhaps even attracts – anti-Semites? So far, Ms Shah has lost her job as an aide to John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, but remains a Labour member. That speaks volumes about Mr Corbyn’s disgustingly inadequate response to anti-Semitism in his party.

Naz Shah’s Warning

The Labour Party has taken something of a pasting in the Commons during PMQ’s and rightly so.
I heard that Jeremy Corbyn’s gave a personal warning to Naz Shah. Anyone got any thoughts on what that might have sounded like?
Perhaps something to the tune of;
“I know you meant well dear and clearly I and other members of the Party are behind you, but the Jewish lobby are baying for blood so do bear that in mind when you make further statements on how the Jews have stolen Palestinian land and are perpetrating a massacre against Palestinians.”

Cameron on Naz Shah

Don't call him an antisemite! (ElderToons)

It's insulting!

(This cartoon can of course be used with a large number of subjects, from many nations, and be perfectly accurate.)

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Livni's Expense Account Sees Uptick In Deodorant Purchases (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, April 27 - The Knesset Comptroller's Office has noticed an increase in the amount of deodorant bought by MK Tzipi Livni in the last two weeks, Knesset observers have reported.

The monthly deadline for submission of receipts to be covered by the per diem allotted to each MK passed yesterday; among the receipts was a spike in purchases by Livni of several new brands of antiperspirant and deodorant in quantities she had not previously recorded, an increase that began immediately after her trip to Harvard last week.

Accountants at the Comptroller's office provided the information under a Freedom of Information request filed by journalists. According to the records, the last two weeks saw a seven hundred percent increase in Livni's deodorant purchases, accounting for nearly half of her expenses for the period and bringing her total expenditures far outside the daily allowance provided to MKs. Livni has covered the excess from her own pocket, but has raised eyebrows at the Comptroller's office simply for the unusual nature of the receipts.

"It's not that there's anything here that smells wrong," said Deputy Director Roi Heshbon. "She's offsetting with her own funds whatever she spends beyond her allotted amount. That's fine. If she wants to use those monies to buy three or four cases each of Secret, Dove, Speed Stick, and some Polish brand no one has ever heard of, that's her business. She could eat the stuff, for all I care."

Aides to the HaTnua Party chairwoman and family members have also noticed their boss taking extra time in the shower during the same period. "Mom has been taking longer of late, that's for sure," observed her son Omri Spitzer. "Don't think Yuval and I haven't noticed. Especially after she laced into us for wasting water with our own showers. It's like she can't stick with an idea for very long."

During her recent trip to Boston, aides remarked that since her appearance at Harvard, the MK has taken to sniffing her armpits at short intervals. "It's not unusual to see Tzipi linger at the Duty Free shops to check out the perfumes, but this time was excessive," said staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I don't know what's come over her."

The same aide recalled that upon returning to her hotel room after the Harvard appearance, Livni appeared to take offense at the generous supply of free bars of soap provided to hotel guests in the bathroom, as if the hotel were implying there was an extra need for them in her case. She then pocketed all of them.

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Ma'an reports that Jordan's Ministry of Endowments announced today that it is recruiting 150 new "observers" in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

There are already 300 paid "observers" at the site.

It is assumed that these "observers" are meant to make up for the embarrassing episode where Jordan planned to install cameras on the site but Palestinians were upset over the plan that could prove that it is Arabs who instigate violence on the holy site, not Jews.

The "observers" would presumably never make such a mistake as the cameras would.

It will take several months before the logistics of who would be hired is worked out.

Rarely are there more than 30 Jews visiting the Temple Mount at any time, so the "observers" would outnumber the people they are meant to observe by a ratio of as much as 15-1.

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04/27 Links Pt1: The PA's Billion Dollar Fraud; Gaza kids put on play about stabbing, killing Israelis

From Ian:

PMW: The PA's Billion Dollar Fraud

The Palestinian Authority is deceiving Western donor countries, falsely claiming to have stopped paying salaries to terrorist prisoners, and reaping more than a billion dollars/year in return
This special report by Palestinian Media Watch reveals a major fraud by the Palestinian Authority, through which it is reaping more than a billion dollars in foreign aid yearly.
In 2014, the PA announced that in order to continue receiving more than a billion dollars in financial support annually, it was acceding to US and European donor countries' demands that the PA stop paying salaries to terrorist prisoners. The PA claimed the money for prisoners salaries would no longer be paid by the PA but instead by the PLO.
Even though PMW warned at the time that this was a "ploy," the US and EU countries accepted the PA's assurance, and continue to give the PA over a billion dollars in financial aid every year.
This PMW special report cites numerous official PA sources and statements by officials, showing that the PA is violating the trust of the US and EU donor countries. According to all these sources, the PA Ministry of Finance continues to make the decisions and remains the source of the money for paying salaries to terrorist prisoners.

Gaza kids put on play about stabbing, killing Israelis

Young Palestinian children participating in a festival in the Gaza Strip this week wore military fatigues, and brandished toy knives and machine guns as they performed a play simulating violence against Israelis.
The event was broadcast on a Hamas television channel dedicated to culture, available in Gaza and the West Bank, according to Channel 2 news.
One short clip of the play aired on Channel 2 on Tuesday shows a young girl armed with a knife attempting to free a Palestinian prisoner from Israeli jail by stabbing the guards. She is shot and falls to the ground amid cries and screams from the audience. Other little girls then approach and cry over her “body.”
“Do not be angry with her,” a voice on the loudspeaker says. “She is your blood, your flesh and your honor.”

Gaza kids put on play about stabbing, killing Israelis

Marc Lamont Hill is a political news host at the BET network, although I have a hard time taking anyone seriously as a supposed newscaster who chooses to do TV appearances wearing a T-shirt.

But he is a former frequent guest on Fox News and has also appeared numerous times on CNN.

Here he is proving that he is a fraud both as a supposed news host and willing to make claims out of ignorance as well.

Yes, this is another professor who wants to curtail academic freedom in the name of academic freedom.

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Poll: Palestinian youths love killing with knives - and multiple wives

The latest JMCC poll of Palestinian youth find yet again that a majority support stabbing Israelis:

In answer to the question "To what extent do you support or oppose the continuation of knife attacks against Israelis?" a majority, 58.2%, support while only 37.8% oppose.

This was slightly higher than the 56.2% of the general Palestinian population that support knife attacks according to their March survey.

As usual, there is no soul-searching in Palestinian media about how they could be raising a generation of people who support cold-blooded murder. In fact, the media and PA government is what is creating this generation by constantly praising the murderers and would-be murderers.

I found this other question interesting: "Do you support having multiple wives?"

Here is a great example of how pollsters can fudge the data to make the answer look the way they want it to look.

If we assume that nearly all of the women surveyed do not want to share their husbands with other women, that means that the number of men who support multiple wives is over 50%.

This wasn't the only question that showed that Palestinians are largely more Islamic than secular. 65.3% of those surveyed said they would refuse to shake hands with members of the opposite sex, and the vast majority cited religious reasons.

And a plurality would rather vote for fundamentalist Islamists than secular Palestinians:

This is quite different from how the media chooses to represent Palestinian society, as they mightily attempt to make them look as secular and Western as possible - a subtle but important message to get news consumers to identify with them.

Pointing out that the majority of Palestinian youths support Islam over modernism is not a narrative that the media wants the world to see.

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From YNet:

Two Palestinian terrorists Wednesday morning attempted to stab Border Policemen at Qalandiya checkpost north of Jerusalem before being shot and killed by security forces. No injuries were reported.

Two terrorists, one female and one male, attempted to walk through a passage intended for vehicle entry and began speeding up in the direction of Border policemen stationed at the scene. The female assailant was carrying a knife.

The police called upon them to stop several times. However they continued to quickly approach in their direction causing the police to neutralize them.

Here are apparently the identity papers of the woman, Maryam Saleh Abu-Ismail:

According to this, she is a 23-year old mother of two girls.

We'll probably never know if she decided to become a martyr because of incessant incitement in Palestinian media, or if she wanted to do it as an "honorable" way to commit suicide and escape an abusive marriage. Or both.

What we do know is that it takes a sick society to create a woman who would want to make her children orphans.

(It is also bizarre that the Hebrew identity papers identify her birthplace as "Al Quds," not Jerusalem.)

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While NGOs claim Israel violates laws of war, USA adopts IDF methods

From a video press conference with U.S. Air Force Major General Peter E. Gersten, deputy commander for operations and intelligence, Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve, speaking from Baghdad:

I would say, it -- we have to measure every weapon and every effect that we bring to the battle space. It doesn't change the way we operate; we've always had a very precise system that is highly vetted and highly precise as it engages the enemy anywhere it presents itself.

The enemy obviously is much easier to engage when it openly presents itself. Like, you bring up a good point. As we get into the highly congested environment of an urban operation, much like we had an urban operation in Ramadi, and we're now starting open operations in Fallujah, it's a great concern to us. But we make every effort -- now, if you would allow me, I'll give you an example.

We recently were engaging with some of the bulk cash storage facilities in order to go after counter finance. And we saw in this particular facility, which also had a finance amir in the southern section of Mosul, he was the major distributor of funds to Daesh fighters. We watched him come and go from his house, we watched his supplies, we watched the security that was involved in it.

And we also watched occasionally a female and her children in and out of the quarters.

We actually saturated that with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, RPAs, to get a pattern of life study. And then we formulated a plan to ensure that -- that that particular, women and children and the non-combatants were clear of that objective.

We went as far as actually to put a Hellfire on top of the building and air burst it so it wouldn't destroy the building, simply knock on the roof to ensure that she and the children were out of the building. And then we proceeded with our operations.

That's an example of exactly how we do this. But we have to understand that Daesh is into the fabric of the people. They are using the civilian force as human shields, and we will fight and do everything possible we can to keep those civilian casualties to an absolute, absolute minimum.

Q: A follow-up on two points very quickly. When you described this air burst over the building, did you see, then, the women and children with her, did you observe them run out of the building? This is a technique, I think, that the Israelis have used in the past.

MAJ. GEN. GERSTEN: That's very good, Barbara. That's exactly where we took the tactic, and technique and procedure from. It is called a knock operation, it is a (inaudible) operation, and we absolutely did see the woman and child leave.

And interestingly enough, the men that were in that building, multiple men, literally trampled over her to get out of that building. And we watched her and observed her leaving the building. And she cleared the building, and we began to process the strike.

It's a difficult situation, I would tell you, in this particular event, because it was -- it ended -- it ultimately ended up in a civilian casualty.

So, as much as we tried to do exactly what we wanted to do and minimize civilian casualties, post-weapons release, she actually ran back into the building. That's a -- we watched, very difficult for us to watch. And it was within the final seconds of the actual impact.

The good news, I guess, of all of that, was that we actually brought forth the CIVCAS event for review. We reviewed it with a very thorough process, the event, looked everything we could do to have mitigated that fact. And it was an unfortunality.

But it is a very congested environment we fight in, and we do everything we possibly can.

...Q: Can you go back on a couple of things? I think David asked you was this in fact the strike listed in your press release that resulted in one civilian casualty? Can you go back over the point you knew what room the money was in and you hit that room, I take it?

And third, since you have now adopted in one instance this technique that the Israelis have used in the past, can you tell us, did you get briefed by the Israelis on how to carry this out? Did you -- did the U.S. military sit down and discuss this technique with the Israelis, how to use it, how to employ it?

MAJ. GEN. GERSTEN: Barbara, to your first question, I was cut out I believe on the money. I said I wish I could share with you the intelligence that we had to the exact location of where that -- that money was being stored. Because if you watch the strike, where the weapon entered the facility was the exact location of where that money was being stored.

Now, as to whether we are working with the Israelis on this or did they teach us this, what you're looking at is a highly skilled military force that has spent personally 25 years across the spectrum of warfare. I've watched warfare being operated across the entire region. We did not work with them. We've certainly watched and observed their procedure.

As we formulated the way to get the civilians out of the house, this was brought forward from one of our experts as a (inaudible) built the technique. We employed the technique. We put leaflets down. Knock-offs were achieved. It was actually a very highly paced, precision event in order to mitigate CIVCAS. Across the entire region, we do that.

If the Israelis were violating the laws of war, why would the US study and mimic their methods when fighting an enemy that is itself mimicking Hamas?

It must be that HRW and Amnesty, when they self-righteously declare that Israel is guilty of war crimes, don't know what they are talking about.

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04/26 Links Pt2: The Anti-Israel Money Trail; Yet another anti-Semitic UK Labour MP; Obama's view of reality

From Ian:

Bret Stephens (WSJ): The Anti-Israel Money Trail

SJP’s self-declared goal is to end Israel’s “occupation and colonization of all Arab lands” while “promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.” That’s another way of saying destroying the Jewish state.
Yet as prominent as SJP and the wider BDS movement have become, less is known about the sources of their funding. That changed last week after testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee by Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Mr. Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official and terrorism-finance expert, notes in his testimony that a prominent backer of SJP and like-minded groups is an organization called American Muslims for Palestine, based in Palos Hills, Ill., and led by UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian, who also happens to be one of SJP’s founders. AMP claimed to have spent $100,000 on anti-Israel campus activities in 2014, including to SJP. An AMP conference that year at a Chicago Hyatt invited participants to “come and navigate the fine line between legal activism and material support for terrorism.”
FDD discovered that many of AMP’s leading members were previously active in some dubious former charities. The most prominent, the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation For Relief and Development, was shut down in 2001 by the federal government for providing millions in funds to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas; five Holy Land officials eventually were convicted to prison terms and two others fled the country.
Today, AMP’s leaders include at least three Holy Land alumni. One of them is Milwaukee furniture salesman Salah Sarsour, who last year told Al Jazeera that an AMP conference he chaired “aims to keep up with and support the Palestinian people’s continuous intifada.”

Obama's view of reality

Truth be told, Obama is living in a movie we all want a part in. In this movie of his everyone is the good guy, everyone loves one another, and most importantly everyone has really good health insurance. Obama's reality is precisely like the health insurance reforms he forced on Americans: In theory everything is wonderful, but in real life it's not all that great. Maybe this is why 83 senators asked to increase defense aid to Israel -- because the world isn't becoming a safer place, even if Attila the Hun isn't around anymore.
Obama has a tendency to build high hopes. Remember the hullabaloo over his Cairo speech? Remember what happened afterward? It's possible that Obama's words from Hannover on Monday managed to snap even Hosni Mubarak to his feet. Over 80 million Egyptians truly can't recall such tranquility.
The truth is that Obama is a president with exceptional capabilities. He has even managed to jar the mythically unflappable Brits. The American president's intervention in the country's internal politics, by calling on British citizens to vote against leaving the EU, has not only incensed the Brits but according to polls has increased the number of those who favor such an exit.
Some 400,000 Syrians have been slaughtered in their own country. Not since the Second World War has Europe been flooded with so many refugees and migrants. Also not since that war has the radical right in Europe posed such a challenge. The threat of terror has never been as tangible as the threat posed by Islamic State today. And the stagnation presently threatening European markets has never been worse.
But not to worry, although we may be on the precipice of the abyss in many places across the globe, next year, heaven forbid, we could take that large step forward -- among other things, because of Obama's legacy.

Don’t Protect Terror Sponsors

It is true that other countries might respond in kind to the United States, though most respectable countries would have far more to lose than gain from such actions, and the United States can afford to ignore less than respectable countries, think the Zimbabwes, Venezuelas, and North Koreas of the world. At the same time, it is worth considering the opposite: What is the cost of not holding to account those who perpetrated or facilitated an attack in the heart of New York City?
This was a conundrum at the heart of “Sovereignty Solution,” a book co-authored by Anna Simons, Joe McGraw, and Duane Lauchengco. They proposed generally that governments should be responsible for their citizens and note that sovereignty is both an honor and a responsibility. When a citizen of a country perpetrates an attack, then that country has a choice: shield its citizen or hold them to account. If a Belgian citizen sought to strike at the United States, Brussels would likely cooperate with the United States to bring that person to justice, even waiving diplomatic immunity if need be. When Iranian or Saudi elements sponsor terrorism, Tehran and Riyadh should have the same choice: Join with the United States to bring the perpetrators to account or shield them. If the latter, then the government of the country should assume responsibility. Sovereignty Solution is, of course, far more complicated but it really has been one of the most insightful and provocative books on statecraft of the decade
In the Supreme Court victory for victims of terrorism and their families over the Islamic Republic of Iran, the court deferred to Congress. Perhaps Congress and, more broadly, the White House should then work more to protect and advocate for American victims of terror rather than for those who shield the terrorists. If a country does not want to risk the consequences of its citizens attacking the United States, then it should damned sure put mechanisms in place to make sure that the money is expends on radicalism isn’t used for that purpose and that it doesn’t distribute diplomatic passports without recognition of the consequence of their recipients engaging in an act of war.
The United States should not treat Saudi Arabia unfairly, but if Saudi Arabia truly did wish to be an ally, it would recognize that it is their responsibility to bring to justice those of its employees or civil servants who contributed materially or in services to that fateful day.