Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

05/18 Links Pt2: Why does UNESCO Insist On Rewriting Israel’s History?; Palestinian Museum of Non-History

From Ian:

Alan M. Dershowitz: A Visit to the Old and New Hells of Europe Provides a Reminder of Israel's Importance

I just returned from a week-long journey through Hell! It began with a visit to the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps in Poland, as a participant of the March of the Living, following a conference commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Laws and the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials. My week was consumed with recurring evidence of the worst crime ever perpetrated by human beings on other human beings – the Holocaust.
I traveled from the death camps to several small Polish towns from which my grandparents emigrated well before the Holocaust, leaving behind relatives and friends. During the course of my travels, I discovered the fate of two of my relatives. Hanna Deresiewicz (an original spelling of my family name) was a 16-year-old girl living in the small town of Pilzno when the Nazis arrived; she was separated from her siblings and parents. "The soldiers took several of the most beautiful Jewish girls for sex, and then killed them. [Among those] taken [was] Hanna Deresiewicz, 16."
Another relative named Polek Dereshowitz, served as an "orderly" to the Commandant of Auschwitz when he was 15. He was suspended "from the ringbolts in his office because a flea had been found on one of his dogs." He was later gassed.
This is not the first time I have visited Nazi death camps. I was fully familiar with the statistical evidence of how six million Jews were systematically murdered. I was also familiar with how the Nazi death machine searched out Jews in the furthest corners of Nazi occupied Europe, even as far as the island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea, and transported them to Auschwitz to gas them. I also knew that this was the only time in human history when people were brought from far distances to camps designed for one purpose only – to kill every possible Jew they could, find no matter where they lived. And I knew that because this was part of a planned genocide of the Jewish People, it was most important to kill every child, woman and man capable of producing future Jews.

Phyllis Chesler: Israel--not Apartheid; Islam--Nothing but Apartheid

Israel has long been accused of being an apartheid nation state--and a state involved in "ethnic cleansing."
Pure propaganda! This is a brazen Big Lie.
The largest practitioner of both gender and religious apartheid in the world is Islam or Islamism.
Religious apartheid exists when the dominant state religion allows no other religion to exist and flourish. For example, Muslim countries do not allow churches to be built, Christian insignia to be displayed; Muslim mobs and governments destroy existing churches or convert them into mosques.
Today, living Christians are persecuted, tortured and murdered in the name of Islam all across the Muslim world. Oddly, on April 16th of this year, (for the second time) the Pope offered no solace and no asylum to persecuted Christian; he publicly offered to take in a symbolic number of Muslim refugees into the Vatican.

The Mottle Wolfe Show [Podcast]: Palestinian Museum of Non-History

The new $24 million Palestinian Museum of Art History and Culture opened today in Israel. Like the subject matter of the Museum, the space is completely empty of exhibitions. Also an Election 2016 update, Trump starting to trounce Hillary.

Saeb Erekat keeps showing his hypocrisy

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat writes in Wafa:

It is time for Israelis to confront reality: when the Zionists came to Palestine, there were another people living here. Over 100 years ago, a Zionist mission was sent to Palestine and their report acknowledged this fact: "The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man." And this: soon plans to displace Palestine's population were unveiled.

The "bride is beautiful" quote is fiction.

And where were these supposed plans to forcibly displace Arabs in Zionist writings?

"Palestinians are Arabs who immigrated to Israel. We Jews fended off the attacks by seven Arab armies in self-defense." These declarations deny the very existence of the Palestinian people, continue to justify the atrocities committed against us, and deny Palestinian refugees' legitimate right of return.

Well, they are also true (actually five armies.) I'm not clear how the fact that Arab armies invaded Israel denies the existence of the Palestinian people. But the fact that there was no distinctive Palestinian people before 1948 is tough to deny. I've looked for evidence of distinctive customs, cuisines and other artifacts for years and have found nothing; the closest was some goods like Nablus soap or Bethlehem costumes that were not "Palestinian" but local specialties.

The hypocrisy is that while Erekat says that Israel denies the existence of the Palestinian people today - which is certainly does not - Erekat denies the existence of the Jewish people. The basic anti-Zionist argument is that Jews are not a people, but merely a religion, which flies in the face of thousands of years of history. Yet Erekat and the PLO explicitly deny this fact.

Pot, meet kettle.

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France Delays Mideast Peace Conference Amid Double Standard Shortage (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Paris, May 18 - French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault announced today that his country would postpone the Middle East peace conference originally scheduled for the end of this month, to allow for the manufacture and delivery of a sufficient quantity of double standards to apply to Israel.

Ayrault told reporters at a press conference this morning that the conference would take place not beginning May 30, as originally planned, but several weeks later, a delay that would give producers enough time to supply the European, American, and Arab participant nations with the number of double standards they are accustomed to applying to Israel, but of which inventories had been running low. The depletion of the double standards, said the minister, occurred because of improper oversight of double standard stockpiles, a factor that allowed almost anyone to seize and apply double standards with little or no oversight.

"We have had media outlets and international organizations making profligate use of double standards for Israel, seemingly without regard for the quantity of such resources available to the rest of us," he explained. "On top of the everyday bias against Israel's legitimacy or concerns, we had UNESCO denying Jewish history, the EU funding illegal Palestinian construction in areas under Israeli control as per Oslo - while condemning Israel for building homes - the hypocritical singling out of Israel as practicing torture - and that was just over the last couple of weeks. Add to that tendentious media coverage and the ongoing use of a unique, cynical, inhumane definition of 'refugee' only for Palestinians, and it's no wonder we're running low."

Additionally, say experts, the divergent treatment of terrorism targeting Europeans and terrorism targeting Israelis and Jews has strained the double standards inventory in Western Europe, and the bodies that normally produce the double standards have been focused more recently on dusting off and refurbishing old double standards for reuse, while stocks of more up-to-date double standards continued to be depleted by human rights organizations spilling ink and paper over alleged Israeli violations while making more sparing mention of far more horrific abuses among Israel's neighbors and adversaries.

"We said we were delaying the conference to enable Secretary Kerry to participate," said Ayrault. "That is because Mr. Kerry has promised to bring with him a new shipment of double standards, but he needed more than a couple of weeks to put it together. I'm especially excited to see what he can provide in terms of accusing Netanyahu of meddling in US politics, while funding efforts to oust Netanyahu's party from power.

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05/18 Links Pt1: The Anti-Israel Poisoning Starts Young; The ‘peace process’ did not fail — the Palestinian Authority did

From Ian:

Victory, not 'disaster'

When the Palestinians speak about the "Nakba" and present themselves as victims and the Jewish Independence War as "ethnic cleansing," it's important to remember these facts. There is no doubt that they experienced a disaster. Losing a war is a disaster. When it is an all-out war, the disaster of losing is experienced in kind. But they are 100 percent responsible for their disaster, and they have only themselves to blame, just as the Germans cannot go and complain to the countries that defeated them in World War II.
There is nothing more repugnant than the "Nakbaism" in our midst, among Jews and Israelis. This attitude can be clearly seen at the Nakba festivals that take place at Israeli universities, though its most extreme expression was the pilgrimage to Nesher made by Joint Arab List Knesset members to visit the grave of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. Qassam preached the destruction of the Jewish yishuv in Israel and set up gangs that took part in the Arab revolt from 1936-1939. It is no coincidence that Hamas' military wing -- which carries out suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israeli citizens -- was named after him. It is no coincidence that the very rockets fired by Hamas in its war crimes against Israel were named after him. There is no mistaking the essence of expressing solidarity with him on this day.
May 15, 1948, the day that is increasingly becoming known as "Nakba Day," is one of the greatest days in the history of humanity -- the day that the greatest injustice in history was ended; the day of the great victory of justice. It is not a day of disaster. It is not a day of injustice. And there is no room for the feelings of guilt that some among us seek to cultivate.

NO2BDS: Almost a million people lost everything when Israel declared independence

Micah Lakin Avni: The Anti-Israel Poisoning Starts Young

Wall Street Journal - May 17, 2016
My father, Richard Lakin, a 76-year-old retired elementary-school principal from Connecticut, was on a bus in Jerusalem last October when two young Palestinian men boarded and began shooting and stabbing passengers indiscriminately. Two passengers were killed that awful day and 16 injured, including my father. Despite the efforts of first responders and the nurses and doctors at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, my father died two weeks later. He had been shot in the head and stabbed multiple times in the head, face, chest and stomach.
Over the past seven months I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand what would cause two educated Palestinian men in their early 20s to board a public bus and butcher a group of innocent civilians, many of them senior citizens. I’m sorry to report that the Palestinian reaction to the attack has led me to believe that the “peace process” is more one-sided than ever.
My father grew up a fighter for civil rights in America. He took those values with him in 1984 when he emigrated to Jerusalem, where he taught English to Arabs and Jews. He was a kind, gentle-hearted man who dedicated his life to education and promoting peaceful coexistence.
Yet Palestinian newspapers praised Baha Alyan, one of the terrorists who murdered my father, as a “martyr and intellectual.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has met with the families of the attackers and praised them as “martyrs.” A Palestinian scout leader said Baha Alyan, who was shot and killed by a security guard before he could kill more innocent passengers, was “an example for every scout.”
Muhammad Alyan, the father of Baha Alyan, has been invited to speak at Palestinian schools and universities about his son the “martyr.” He recently spoke to children at Jabel Mukaber Elementary School in East Jerusalem, about a half a mile from where my father lived. Tragically, many Palestinian children, perhaps most, are still taught to honor terrorists and fight for the destruction of Israel.
All of this would break my father’s heart. In 2007 he published a book called “Teaching as an Act of Love” summarizing his life’s work and educational philosophy. The message of his book is that every child is a miracle that should be nurtured with love. After Baha Alyan’s father visited Jabel Mukaber Elementary School, I asked school officials if I could come and share my father’s message of peace and coexistence. My offer was rejected.

Helping Palestinians But Not Peace

The tragic plight of the Palestinians is a staple of modern journalism and, to some extent, the attention paid to the subject is justified. The Palestinians are caught in a century-old conflict in which their national beliefs seem to have left them no option but to carry in with a self-destructive struggle. But though their position is far from ideal, they are the beneficiaries of the sort of international attention that the poor and/or downtrodden caught in equally difficult circumstances might envy. That attention — driven in no small measure by antagonism against Israel and the Jews — has resulted in endless billions being poured into the West Bank and Gaza by foreign donors. But what is generally not known is how much help the Palestinians get by the people so many of them revile: Jews.
As the New York Times reported on Sunday, much the funds for a new project to bring solar polar to Palestinian farmers in the West Bank comes from American Jews. But the Palestinians were very clear about the kind of aid they would accept. They’d accept money from the Jews but only as long as they could prove all those involved in the project had no ties to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. That means that the Jewish National Fund wasn’t welcome to participate even if it was itself a primary funder of an Israeli organization that is also helping the solar project.
Confused? So are those involved if they think their efforts will do much to resolve the conflict, so long as they are catering to Arab sensitivities about which Jews are worthy of helping their struggling communities.
The project is providing $100,000 worth of solar panels that are being provided to 45 farm families in the Jordan Valley village of Auja. Reportedly, this is the first time that a substantial project is being funded by Jews and Muslims in the United States and is being implemented by Israeli and Palestinian members of a technical team. Given the demonstrated inability of the Palestinian Authority that governs Auja to provide services to its people, it is much needed. It’s also being lauded as an example of how such efforts can build a spirit of coexistence between Arabs and Jews that can serve as a foundation for peace.

The official Fatah Facebook page has a tribute to the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre, where three members of the Japanese Red Army recruited by the PFLP-EO attacked Lod airport, killing 26 people and injuring 80 others.

Their post says "44 years since the Lod Airport operation (26 dead and 80 wounded) .. a thousand greetings to the Japanese warrior comrade Kozo Okamoto, champion of the Lod Airport operation."

Okamoto was released in a prisoner swap and now lives in Lebanon.

While Fatah often mentions terror attacks around their anniversaries, usually they are Fatah terror attacks. In this case they are not celebrating their own murderous history, but all terror attacks as long as Israelis were the targets.

Again, Fatah is led by that moderate terrorist supporter, Mahmoud Abbas.

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Orange Telecom, Nissan, Uber, Marriott sponsoring antisemitic Lebanese singer

I mentioned that Majida el-Roumy, the popular Lebanese singer who openly expresses antisemitic views, is no longer the Goodwill Ambassador for the UN's FAO.

But her concert this week is sponsored by some brands that might not want to be associated with Jew-hatred.

Orange's CEO famously expressed his desire to get out of the Israeli market, and soon after did exactly that, and although they still maintain investments in Israel they do not use the Orange name, apparently out of fear of Arab boycotts.

People might want to email or tweet to Nissan, Orange, Marriott and Uber and ask them why they are sponsoring someone who publicly claims that Jews are plotting world domination.

The Egyptian Tourism Ministry is also a sponsor.

(h/t Shawarma News)

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Video of Jews dancing in Morocco's airport goes viral

From Morocco World News:

In a scene that speaks volumes of Morocco’s openness, tolerance, cross-cultural understanding and peace in face of difference, a group of Jews arrive at Casablanca Mohammed VI airport singing and dancing their ritualistic Talmudic dance as an expression of their gratitude for Morocco.

The scene, which can rarely happen across the Middle East and North Africa except in Morocco, features a group of Jews at the airport’s checkpoint dancing and singing in very apparent joy, some wearing Moroccan traditional clothes but many others wearing their full Jewish attire such as the kippah, the black hat and suit, etc.

What was remarkably interesting on the faces of Morocco’s guests is the sense of security and comfort they expressed through dancing and through their smiling faces while being checked. Morocco has admitted its cultural diversity including its Jewish influence in the 2011 constitution.

The full story of who they were and what they went to see in Morocco is at Yeshiva World News.

While it looks like no one at the airport was terribly concerned over these "Talmudic rituals," Arabic media called the behavior "provocative."

I'm not sure how wise it was for them to make a scene at the airport either, especially at the security, making the jobs of the workers a little harder. For the most part I have not yet seen Moroccans being too insulted by this.

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05/17 Links Pt2: Glick: Hillel’s moment of truth; Methodist Church Rejects BDS #BDSfail

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Hillel’s moment of truth

Two wars today are being waged against Jewish students on American university campuses. One is substantive, the other is institutional. The plight of the Jews at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island is emblematic of both.
The purpose of the substantive war is to deny Jews their freedom as Jews. As the guarantor of Jewish freedom, Israel is the subject of a systematic, multidimensional assault, carried out everywhere on campuses.
On a growing number of campuses in the United States, the only Jews who can safely express their views on Israel are those who champion Israel’s destruction.
Those who support Israel are subjected to continuous harassment by their fellow students.
The substantive battle is being led by Students for Justice in Palestine. SJP is a phantom organization with no national organization. As Jonathan Schanzer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified before the US Congress last month, it is directed by former officials from non-profits including the Holy Foundation, KindHearts and the Islamic Association for Palestine that were forced to shut down after they were implicated in financing terrorist groups including Hamas and al-Qaida.
At Brown, SJP seeks to make it impossible for Jewish students to organize as Jews.
For instance, in late January, Brown Hillel hosted a discussion of Jewish identity featuring actor Michael Douglas and Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky.
SJP protested the event arguing that since both men supported Israel, the event stood in opposition to “social justice.”
As Ira Stoll reported in the New York Sun, during the event, protesters outside the hall calling for Israel’s destruction made it hard for the audience of several hundred people to hear what Sharansky and Douglas were saying.

Fred Maroun: Robert Cohen in wonderland: the fanciful world of anti-Zionist Jews

A British Jewish anti-Zionist named Robert A. H. Cohen took it upon himself to respond to my Letter from an Arab to a Jew who supports BDS. Cohen is apparently a former Senior Broadcast Journalist at BBC Radio Five Live and is regularly published at Mondoweiss, Tikkun Daily, and Jews for Justice for Palestinians.
Cohen’s response is largely predictable, with the usual boilerplate accusations against Israel that one would expect from any run-of-the-mill anti-Zionist, Jewish or not. There is an immense body of work (including articles that I have written) proving each of these accusations to be lies, wildly exaggerated, or misleading. Consequently, I will not bore my readers with this here.
The more interesting part of Cohen’s response however is that it offers a window into the weird and wonderful world of anti-Zionist Jews.
In Robert Cohen’s world, Arabs have never committed any wrongs towards the Jews of Israel, especially not a centuries-old Arab campaign to deny the Jews the most basic human right of all, the right to exist.

Richard Landes: The Failures of Journalism in the 21st Century

I am finally composing my long promised book, They’re So Smart cause We’re so Stupid: A Medievalist Guide to the Jihadi Cogwar of the 21st Century. It begins with a list of the “Astoundingly Stupid Statements of the 21st Century” (#ASSO21C). I’ll be posting material from the book as I compose it. Part I introduces the key Players: Triumphalist Muslims, the Global Progressive Left (GPL), and the lethal own-goal, journalists. The following is the opening to the third chapter:
Lethal, Own-Goal, Dhimmi, Journalists: The Bane of the West in the 21st century
The Failures of Journalism in the 21st Century
Towards the end of 2000, a professional failure of epic proportions took place among Western journalists. This failure began among Middle East correspondents reporting on the conflict, which broke out anew in late September 2000, between Israel and her Arab (triumphalist) neighbors. In this phase of “lethal journalism” Western reporters, almost as a pack, systematically reported Palestinian accusations against Israel – lethal narratives – as if they were eminently credible, indeed as if they actually happened, in other words as news. These reports had their desired effect in the conflict, supporting the “underdog” and “leveling the playing field,” prolonging the war, protecting the Palestinians from Israeli efforts to prevent their terror attacks, and severely damaging Israel’s global image.
The impact, however, went far beyond what these reporters imagined. They had an electric effect on Muslims the world over, including the West. Given overwhelming proof – the Western media reported it – of the victimization of Muslims in Palestine, many a triumphalist Muslim awoke to the siren call of Jihad. Demonstrations in the West made ample room for a newly aggressive Muslim Street, and recruiting for Jihad made great headway in the heart of the enemy. In particular, Europe’s largely unassimilated Muslim population radicalized significantly.
Indeed, lethal journalists, in their cognitive disorientation, didn’t realize that, in purveying Palestinian propaganda as news, they greatly amplified not Palestinian “nationalist” efforts to get their “self-determination,” but instead they mainstreamed Jihadi war propaganda that targeted their own societies as much as Israeli – all kufar to be either converted, dhimmified, or eliminated. In so acting, they engaged in an unprecedented form of war journalism, not the traditional patriotic version of lying for your own side, but own-goal war journalism, where the journalists lied for their side’s enemies.

I received this response to my inquiry from the UN FAO about Majida el-Roumi, their singer who harbors antisemitic opinions:

Dear Elder,

Thank you for contacting us.

Please note that, as of July 2015, Mrs El Roumi is no longer an FAO Goodwill Ambassador and her comments do not reflect FAO’s values and principles.

Regards,

FAO Goodwill Ambassadors team

This may or may not be true; I cannot find any more recent mention of her on the FAO website.

But her biography on her personal website still proudly says that she is the goodwill ambassador for FAO.

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Playwright Samah

As I reported on my own blog on 7 April (http://daphneanson.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/in-australia-schoolkids-study.html) “the play City by the Sea, by poet, writer and activist Samah Sabawi, a Gaza-born (1967) Australian/Canadian, is now on the 2016 playlist for school students taking the Victorian Certificate of Education [the school-leaving certificate in the Australian state of Victoria]. It means that students in years 11 and 12 will be attending performances of the play at La Mama Theatre in Melbourne in May….”

I quoted at some length from an official document by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) which says, inter alia, teachers should be aware that in some instances sensitivity might be needed where particular issues or themes that are explored may be challenging for students. Teachers are advised to familiarise themselves with the treatment of these issues and themes within the context and world of the play prior to students viewing the play and/or studying the playscript. This might involve reading the playscript, talking with the theatre company, researching the playscript, the work of the playwright, director and/or company, attending a preview performance and/or discussing the matter with the school administration. Information provided in this notice about themes and/or language used in specific plays is a guide only. In some plays, suggestive and potentially offensive words and phrases are used. This language may invite adverse comment from some areas of the community”.

I quoted a report in the Sydney Morning Herald that notes “A longtime vocal advocate for Palestinian rights, Sabawi recently made headlines when she was taken off the panel at an Israel-Palestine debate at the Wheeler Centre, only to be promptly reinstated four hours later. At the time, Sabawi said that she thought her ejection from the panel was due to pressure from those who object to her support for the BDS [Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions] movement against Israel” and continues “The City and the Sea is undeniably political …”and from a review in The Age of Melbourne that remarks “This gripping play is an act of resistance that implores its audience to take heed.” And I observed: “Tailor-made, wouldn't you say, for teachers who may be left-wing anti-Zionists, and indeed any teacher who relies for information about the Middle East on such biased sources as the Fairfax Press (The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald), the ABC and SBS, wittingly or unwittingly to poison young minds?”

I went on to cite the jubilation of those connected with the play: “Congratulations to all of us! Palestinian play highlighting challenges of life in Gaza during the war of 2008-2009 has been selected for the 2016 Victorian Certificate of Education Drama list. The play Tales of a City by the Sea by Palestinian Australian playwright Samah Sabawi was one of 16 of more than 50 submissions selected for the 3 VCE Playlists. As a result, it will be seen and studied by hundreds of year 11 & 12 Theatre students in Victoria and it will be published by Currency Press and disseminated among these students.”

And when I realised that nobody in the Australian Jewish communal leadership seemed to be aware of the play, much less its inclusion on this year’s curriculum in Victoria, I (and perhaps others) alerted Dr Dvir Abramovich, an academic who chairs the Anti-Defamation League, and is one of the most effective and dedicated figures on the Australian Jewish communal leadership scene today. Having read the transcript of the play he has roundly condemned it, declaring on the Special Broadcasting Station (SBS), an ethnic minorities’ and foreign-language public broadcaster not known for any great sympathy for Israel: “This is one of the most disturbing and cleverly conceived cases of anti-Israel propaganda and delegitimization masquerading as art that I’ve seen. I think it's very troubling that this skewed play is now part of the VCE curriculum and it will certainly poison the minds of impressionable young people.”

To quote The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/vce-play-accused-of-being-antiisrael-propaganda-20160509-gopz96.html ): ‘The play is one of six selected for year 12 students studying VCE drama. Students will watch the performance and study the text throughout the year. Dr Dvir Abramovich, chair of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, a body raising awareness about anti-Semitism and hate speech, said the play portrays Israel as a "blood-thirsty, evil war-machine", without any explanation for the bombings, or the violence perpetrated by the Palestinian camp. He took aim at the authority for including the "unabashedly one-sided" play in the curriculum, claiming the content was "anti-Israel propaganda". "Nowhere to be found is the Israeli perspective ... the suicide bombings inside Israel, the deaths of more than 160 children who were forced to dig tunnels by Hamas, the offers of peace by Israel, the thousands of rockets fired at Israel from Gaza," he said. "What this play does, amongst other things, is to create a tremendously hostile climate in which any Jewish student who will see the play with their classmates … will be ashamed and worried about expressing any support for Israel or even admit that they have a link with the Jewish state."’

The Australian (behind a pay wall) has quoted Dr Abramovich as saying “I am genuinely concerned for any Jewish-Australian pupils who will have to deal with the outrage and visceral contempt of their classmates at school.”

And the ABC reports (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-10/'anti-israel'-play-in-vce-curriculum-government-questioned/7402176) the Opposition Liberal Party ‘has used a budget hearing to attack the Government over the inclusion of a play in the VCE curriculum that has been labelled anti-Israel…. Jewish groups have said the play is a one-sided depiction of the conflict, and conservative MPs seized on the issue during a budget hearing today. Liberal Tim Smith questioned why the play had been included in the curriculum… "I want to know why you've got clearly an anti-Israel play being taught to our children. This is a real concern from the Jewish community about clearly a play that is anti-Israel, that has been authored by an anti-Israeli activist. Why is this being taught in our schools that would give rise to an anti-Israel view coming out of our schools?" …. Education Minister James Merlino said it was not up to politicians to set the curriculum. He said the Government was not in the business of banning books. "Decisions regarding what is included in the curriculum ... those decisions quite rightly are made by the VCAA," Mr Merlino said. "Not the minister, not the Government. It's not the place of politicians to decide what books are to be placed on the reading list, what plays are to be delivered as part of the drama program. And that's how it should be."… But Liberal Party MP David Morris questioned whether the text would be allowed to remain if it attacked a different group, such as the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Intersex community. "This is a one-sided portrayal of what is undoubtedly a complex conflict," he said. "Surely when there's a play selected for study that's one sided, that's divisive, that will undoubtedly make students of Jewish background at the least feel extremely uncomfortable and potentially feel that they're at risk of persecution, surely then as the Minister there is a responsibility on your part to intervene?" Mr Merlino said he trusted teachers would focus on the dramatic elements of the play and explain the political context.’

Tellingly, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network has described the play as “an important opportunity to glimpse what life is like behind the wire. Israel’s military attacks on Gaza and the blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt has cost thousands of innocent lives. The play also reports on the internal repression of the Palestinian political factions in the Strip….”

Tellingly, too, a hard core member of the leftist frequently Israel-demonising non-mainstream Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDC) has professed on Facebook to raise “a digit finger raised to Dvir Abromwich [sic] of the pro-defamation Anti-Defamation Commission”, while another AJDS stalwart (whose repugnant views regarding BDS can be read here http://www.ajds.org.au/2013/06/jewishpalestiniansolidarity/) declares: "It is vitally important that young people, including those who are Israeli or Jewish, are able to access these stories, and hear them articulated from a Palestinian perspective. Having this play on the VCE syllabus will help to open people's minds, not close them off."

On 11 May, beneath a report of the furore over the play here (http://www.jwire.com.au/not-education-propoganda/), a commenter called James Crafti declared: “I am Jewish and worked on the play. I was one of the first people Samah had review the script when she did a first draft in 2011. I also worked as the assistant stage manager on this remount of the play. It is a fantastic play and people should really see it. People should come and see it with an open mind”.

Ah, but Mr Crafti is not your common or garden member of the Aussie Jewish community. He’s a hard leftist, a relentless critic and campaigner against Israel, about whom further information can be had here (https://redflag.org.au/author/james-crafti ) and here https://electronicintifada.net/content/victory-australias-boycott-campaign-charges-blockading-chocolate-store-dropped/11535), where with regard to a boycott of the Max Brenner franchise he’s quoted as saying “while we were arrested for daring to stand up for Palestinian human rights, the Israeli state continues to carry out war crimes and human rights abuses against the Palestinian people and are not held to account for their occupation and apartheid practices.”

Here (https://talesofacitybythesea.com/tag/james-crafti/) we learn that “James Crafti is excited to be working on Tales of a City by the Sea as it combines two of his passions: theatre and Palestine. On the former James has directed a variety of plays such as … Seven Jewish Children…. James has also been an organiser with Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid, Australians for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Jews Against Israeli Apartheid”.

Needless to say, choosing (or not) to see the play at the theatre is one thing. Having it thrust at impressionable young people via their school curriculum, quite another: it is unconscionable. Unconscionable too that no consultation with Jewish leaders in Victoria seems to have taken place, so that they had no input into the matter until it was a fait accompli. The Jewish communities of the other states should be on their guard and not let this play or anything comparable pass under the radar.

I don’t agree with all this left-leaning Australian Jew quoted below has said on social media, but he is absolutely correct in condemning the play creeping into the purview of school students and the attempted justification of such by elements in the Jewish Left: ‘The Palestinians are already winning the propaganda war against Israel by a mile in Western Leftist circles. We all know their suffering is real, and some of this suffering is no doubt caused by the excesses of the present hard-line, right-wing Israeli government. What is not true is that Israel is the only cause of their suffering. The main cause is the corrupt, duplicitous and divided Palestinian leadership, which uses aid money to enrich themselves and the materials that come into Gaza to build tunnels to attack Israel instead of building housing for their own people. They use their people as human shields and cannon fodder. They teach hate in their schools and Hamas still have a charter which calls for the complete destruction of Israel and the killing of every Jew. And let's not forget the complicity of the Arab countries, which could have re-settled the Palestinians long ago, but they chose to instead use them as pawns to show how evil Israel is.”

And again: ‘A love story it may be … but, according to an article by the education reporter of The Age, ‘Characters in the play describe Israeli rule as "tyrannical". One accuses Israel of leading a "massacre" of the Palestinian people, questioning: "What Holy Scripture gave the command 'Thou shall wipe out their villages and scorch their land?' ….The play was written by an anti-Israel Palestinian activist who supports the BDS movement. I guess you have to be someone who knows the history of the Middle East, and of the centuries of persecution of the Jews both there and in Europe to read between the lines and to appreciate the skewed emphasis here.’

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05/17 Links Pt1: The French peace initiative is doomed to fail; Iran's Soft War Against America

From Ian:

Time to Leave UNESCO - Again

UNESCO's poisonous, fraudulent resolution is not only biased: it is negationist. All traces of Jewish presence in Jerusalem and Judea in ancient times are eliminated at the stroke of a pen.
Only six countries voted to reject the resolution: the United States, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. France, Spain, Sweden, Slovenia accepted the text and voted yes. The resolution was presented with the support of several Muslim countries -- some often described as "moderate": Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.
UNESCO is a branch of the United Nations, and the UN is an organization where democracies are in the minority, surrounded by a huge majority of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes imbued with hatred toward the West. Israel is virtually the only country designated as guilty of violating human rights by the so-called Human Rights Council, and where, in 2009, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was welcomed as a hero.

Ben-Dror Yemini: The French peace initiative is doomed to fail

The French peace initiative was born in sin. It did not begin as an initiative, it began as a threat: If Israel doesn’t accept the diktat to recognize a Palestinian state, without negotiations and without the Palestinians having to recognize Israel, France will support Palestinian demands. The initiative includes demands made of Israel, like halting settlement construction beyond the Green Line—both in the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem and in the main settlement blocs that will undoubtedly stay part of Israel in any future accord. But there are no demands made of the Palestinians—not on the "right of return," not on stopping incitement, nothing. This isn't serious.
The Israeli anger—which is entirely justified—led to a certain change in tone. The French are no longer promising the Palestinians that they would recognize a Palestinian state if the talks fail, and they've ambiguously dropped their other preconditions. The Israeli anger increased following the French support of the Arab resolution passed by UNESCO, which in practice rejects any connection between Israel and Jerusalem. When something like this is coming out of Tehran, we can mock it. But not so, when it's coming out of Paris?
The French realize they've made a mistake. They condemned their own vote in favor of the resolution. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault visited Israel on Sunday. Next week, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls—a serious and brave man—will visit Israel as well. They're trying to convince Israel to get on board with their peace initiative.
All peace initiatives so far have failed. Even the dream team of Yossi Beilin, Shlomo Ben-Ami and the late Yossi Sarid couldn't deliver the goods. The Palestinians, again and again, have insisted on the right of return. Not a partial right or return or a symbolic one—a mass one. Not that Netanyahu would've agreed to what Beilin proposed, but Abbas said "no" to Beilin.
Experience proves that it doesn't matter what the Palestinians are offered, it doesn't matter what the initiative entails. It's clear, even before the fact, that Abbas will say no. Even the French, despite Israel's anger at them, won't offer the Palestinians the right of return, and any proposal that does not include the right of return will receive the already-known answer. So, despite the pro-Palestinian bias, the result is known in advance.

Fred Maroun: The French Peace Initiative: From de Gaulle to Haaretz

France's peace initiative is French President François Hollande's equivalent of de Gaulle's betrayal of Israel.
France has already announced that if the peace initiative fails, France will recognize a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rightly concluded that "this ensures that a conference will fail."
France knows that the peace initiative is pointless, but it is using it for theatrical value to embarrass Israel's government and curry favor with Arab regimes.
Those who claim to support peace, but who in fact work to undermine it, are partly responsible for the anti-Semitic campaign against Israel. They should be prominently named and exposed for collaborating with bigots, anti-Semites, and terrorists.

From Tunisie Numerique:

Security reinforcements arrived Monday in Djerba, in anticipation of the annual [Jewish Lag B'Omer] pilgrimage to the Djerba which runs from May 25 to 26.

Extensive security arrangements have been made to the main point of access to the island and on different roads leading to the tourist area and the Jewish quarter and synagogue. The same protections were extended to the city of Zarsis.

Furthermore, and for two weeks, several security campaigns were conducted resulting in several arrests and dismantling of cells suspected of terrorist activities.

It was decided this year to strengthen the security apparatus ensuring the smooth running of the annual pilgrimage to Djerba amid security tensions related to recent attacks.

About 2000 Jews, including 150 from Israel, are expected to attend.

Israel issued a travel warning about the pilgrimage last week:

Israelis should stay away from the annual Lag B’Omer pilgrimage to the Tunisian island of Djerba because of concrete terrorist threats, the PMO’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau warned on Monday.

In advance of the Lag B’Omer celebration on May 25-26, the bureau issued a travel advisory saying that terrorist elements, specifically global Jihadists, “continue to operate in Tunisia and carry out attacks.”

The concrete threat level against Jewish sites is high, the bureau said, reiterating its standing advisory to “refrain from visiting” the area.

A similar warning was issued last year.

The synagogue was the site of an attack in 1985, when three people were killed.

In 2002, al Qaida claimed responsibility for a truck full of explosives that exploded near the synagogue, killing 21 people.

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From Al Arabiya:

Mounis Hammouda and Hisham Shaban were stranded in Honduras, penniless after being ripped off by a smuggler who was supposed to get them to Mexico so that they could arrive at their final destination, the United States.

The Palestinian men had traveled across the world to escape bloodshed and torture in their homeland, and desperately phoned a friend in Canada to wire them money so they could finish their trek.

When they showed up at the U.S.-Mexico border in November 2014, Hammouda remembers seeing the American flag, and feeling relieved.

“I know that America is a country of freedom. It’s a country of opportunity. It’s a country of democracy. Everybody knows that America is a country that helps the world,” he said.

They presented themselves at the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales, Arizona, claiming asylum. The FBI cleared the men and said they didn’t pose a threat, and they were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

After spending over a year in a detention center, Hammouda posted bail with the help of a fundraiser and Shaban remains.

“Thank God things are good. I finished with the detention and I have freedom,” Hammouda said.

From which homeland were they escaping bloodshed and torture?

Hammouda, 30, said he fled Gaza in 2011 after members of Hamas, the Islamic political party, tortured his father because he worked for Fatah, a rival organization. He said his family was targeted.

He said he had to drop out of college and quit his pursuit of a law degree. He was blacklisted and couldn’t find work.

Relatives helped him find money and a visa to leave Gaza in 2011.

The US accepted him as a refugee because of the danger of his returning to his home - Hamas-controlled Gaza. He is a true refugee.

His friend did not flee because of fear of Hamas persecution, and the US is trying to deport him as a result:

Shaban, 32 also grew up in Gaza. He said his family lived next door to a Hamas operative who was the target of a bombing that left Shaban’s family home destroyed. None of his relatives was injured, but he said he felt unsafe.

After two years of studying social work, Shaban saved up money and left in 2010. He lived in a government-funded apartment before losing funding and moving to the camp in Kofinou, in the Greek-controlled part of Cyprus, he said.

He met Hammouda there, where the men bonded over being unable to work as the economy tanked and their government aid shrunk. There was no work for the men and nothing for them to do, they said.

While Hammouda has been released, Shaban has been denied asylum and has been ordered removed from the country, but the government hasn’t found a place to send him because Palestine is not an officially recognized state.

ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe said the agency is still working with Saudi Arabia, where Shaban was born, to obtain travel documents. But Shaban said that the country won’t accept him because he is not a citizen.

Shaban was born in Saudi Arabia, but Arab nations do not allow Palestinians born on their territory to become citizens.

You can learn a lot from reading these stories carefully. The official UN definition of a refugee is someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." This definition is what the US used when choosing to extend refugee status to Hammouda and not to Shaban.

And it is a definition that doesn't apply to millions of fake Palestinian "refugees" who are stateless because of policies like Saudi Arabia's - policies of clear discrimination against them.

The real Palestinian refugee in this story, the refugee from Hamastan, shows the stark difference between the million of real refugees worldwide and the millions of fake Palestinian "refugees."

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Spot the difference

Arutz-7:

Dozens of leading rabbis on Sunday evening took part in a special "Emergency Conference for the Security of the Nation of Israel in the Holy Land," where they spoke about the scourge of the current Arab terror wave that has claimed 34 victims' lives since last September.

"Every Arab terrorist who goes out from his home with an intention to harm Jews loses the right to exist, and they should be shot without any superfluous considerations," declared the rabbis.

Gulf Eyes, quoting Shabiba News (and other Arab media):

Rabbis calling to kill Palestinians indiscriminately

The Arab newspapers helpfully published an illustration of "rabbis".

Meanwhile, another rumor had started in the Arab media about a supposed rabbinical fatwa.

According to stories published last week, rabbis issued a ruling encouraging Jewish women to breastfeed their babies on the Temple Mount. A PA official then issued a "warning" about this terrible escalation.

Israeli PM spokesperson Ofir Gendelman denied such a call. In fact, a woman asked a female rabbi on Facebook if she would be permitted to breastfeed her baby if necessary on the holy site and the answer was that it was allowed as long as it was done modestly.

Last year a Jewish woman was expelled from the Temple Mount when she quietly and privately started breastfeeding her screaming baby.

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05/16 Links Pt2: Phyllis Chesler: "Anti-racists" and feminists demonize only Israel; Greens’ anti-Israel propaganda funded by taxpayers

From Ian:

David Collier: Antisemitism and terrorism supported by the NUT

The first story to tell is that I had trouble getting in to an event and was eventually evicted. As someone who does nothing but *REPORT* on events, I find this truly disturbing. It is something that needs to be addressed urgently by both the PSC and the National Union of Teachers (NUT). I was a Jew who was simply thrown of the NUT HQ.
As anyone who attends functions on the Israel / Arab conflict knows, security measures are required in only one direction. Any event run by a pro-Israeli group needs to be concerned about safety, and the larger and more publicised the event, the more of a problem this becomes. Just as Jewish schools are patrolled and synagogues have heavy security details, taking pride in your Jewish identity places you at risk.
The same is not true the other way around. I have been to scores of anti-Israeli events and have never seen a single policeman, never been checked at the door and never seen any violence. It is worth remembering this fact when trying to understand the source of the violence in the conflict itself.
I made it until after lunch, when two of the PSC organisers asked me to leave. I did protest, as I couldn’t fathom why my presence was such an issue. I never cause trouble and they know it. I was told it was a private party. I was told I was not welcome. I reminded them it was a publicly advertised event that placed no condition on entry. I told them I had already paid and was accepted into the event. I asked what they want to hide, what is it that I am not allowed to see? It made no difference. My day at the event was done.
The event itself was organised by PSC, but according to the website, it was ‘supported by the NUT’ and the venue was Hamilton House, the Headquarters of the National Union of Teachers, near Euston in London.
The program involved a couple of panels, a few individual speakers and 4 workshops, on BDS, media, education and refugees. The workshop on education was my choice, given a clear PSC / NUT strategy to ‘poison the well’, and infest our curriculum with the antisemitic venom. The poison which remains the central pillar of the false Arab narrative. I was never to get to see that particular workshop, by the time it started I had been evicted.

Phyllis Chesler: "Anti-racists" and feminists demonize only Israel

Interview with Phyllis Chesler about those who demonize Israel. "Most Western thinkers do not know that Islam has a long history of slavery, anti-black racism, religious apartheid, gender apartheid, colonialism, and conversion via the sword. "
“It is important to understand that it is not only feminists who demonize Israel. They are merely part of a global phenomenon in which the world media, academics, government leaders and human rights organizations drive this madness.”
Prof. Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies. She lives in New York City. She is the best-selling author of 16 books including "The New Anti-Semitism" (2003, 2015), "The Death of Feminism” (2005) and “American Bride in Kabul” (2013) which won a National Jewish Book Award. Her latest book is “Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews, 2003-2015” (2016).
“In 2003, after a rather successful lecture about a feminist topic to an African-American feminist audience at a free-standing conference at Barnard, I was asked --completely off-topic-- where I stood on the issue of the women of ‘Palestine.’ I responded: ‘I think you are asking me where I stand on the issue of apartheid and I oppose it. Islam is the largest practitioner of gender and religious apartheid in the world.’

‘Jews invented the Temple Mount lie’

The Association of Palestinian Scholars and Preachers praised the controversial decision of UNESCO, which recently denied Jewish history at the Temple Mount and referred to the area only as the religious Islamic sites "Al-Haram Al-Sharif" and “Al-Aqsa Mosque."
The Association declared this decision a victory for the religious and historical legitimacy of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is built on the Mount - the holiest site in Judaism.
The Association further declared that the term Temple Mount is an "historical lie" invented by Jews, and that history is not allowed to be established on “lies," in an ironic statement given that the First and Second Temples stood at the site, as has been repeatedly proven by archaeology.
Furthermore, according to the Association, the expression "Al-Aqsa" is the religiously, historically and politically correct word which points to the Muslims right from 1,500 years ago, indicating a period a full 1,000 years give or take after the destruction of the First Temple when Islam was created. (h/t Elder of Lobby)