Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

These Greens Are Poisonous (Daphne Anson)

We all want to save this planet, we all want a life that’s free

So we voted for the Greens, ‘cause they stood for equality.

But as soon as they got power, it went right to their head,

Now they’re not supporting freedom, but racism instead.

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, you ain’t what you were at the start,

Greens, greens, your paint’s peeling off, revealing your racist heart.

There are human rights abuses in most countries you could name

But there’s just one tiny country that the Greens would like to blame,

A country known as Israel where citizens walk free,

Muslims, Jews and Christians – the region’s lone democracy.

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, you ain’t what you were at the start,

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, revealing your racist heart.

Israel’s fought in seven wars, not one did it start,

Rockets launched each day from Gaza still tear children’s lives apart.

But to the Greens they’re the aggressors, not entitled to their views –

How dare Israel defend itself, those stubborn bloody Jews.

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, you ain’t what you were at the start,

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, revealing your racist heart.

Sure, Israel isn’t perfect, and it’s always in the news,

But would you fare any better, standing in their shoes?

If you call a country racist, while ignoring the great wealth

Of far greater wrongs around it, you’re just racist yourself.

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, you ain’t what you were at the start,

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, revealing your racist heart.

Greens, Greens, your paint’s peeling off, you ain’t what you were, that’s for sure.

Greens, Greens we now see who you are, and we won’t vote for you anymore.

That catchy ditty entitled “Racist Heart” whose words I decided to reproduce since they don’t seem to appear all together anywhere on the internet (to hear them go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHPe04ZrVGY) is the work of a New South Wales singer-songwriter inspired by the utter hypocrisy, bigotry and double standards displayed by the New South Wales Greens in 2011 when they committed the council of Marrickville in Sydney to BDS, a mean and divisive move that outraged both Jews and non-Jews and has since been overturned.

For a party that was founded with the welfare of the environment and ecological issues in mind, the Greens in Australia, like the Greens elsewhere, have a disproportionate fixation with “Israel Palestine” and appear to have passed more “party resolutions” pertaining to that corner of the world than to any other foreign policy issue. Here’s their most recent resolution, one that allows no consideration of the pre-Six Day War 1949 ceasefire lines as they affect Israel’s security and which offers everything to the Palestinian Arabs on a platter, despite their decades-old rejectionism and with no responsibility on their part towards negotiation with Israel:

Resolution on Palestine, November 2015

That the Australian Greens National Conference:

1. Notes:

a) The state of Palestine is currently recognised by 136 states, representing 70.5% of the 193 member states and two non-member states of the United Nations;

b) The importance of recognition of the state of Palestine, alongside the state of Israel, as a contribution to securing a negotiated two state solution, based on 4 June 1967 boundaries with both states sharing Jerusalem as their capital;

2. Formally recognises the State of Palestine.

Motion passed by consensus

Since, as made clear by Greens politician Adam Bandt the other day (see below) they support the “right of return” for “Palestinian refugees” they are, quite obviously, unconscionably hostile to Israel.

Here’s a brief glimpse of their obnoxious attitude. In 2013 the New South Wales Greens, apparently spearheaded by David Shoebridge, member of the state Legislative Council and co-convenor of the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, announced support for the “Gaza’s Ark” project, “which will challenge the blockade by rebuilding a boat in Gaza using Palestinian shipbuilders, load the vessel with Palestinian goods and products, and sail to international waters with both Palestinians and internationals on board,” the aim being “ to challenge the ongoing, illegal Israeli blockade and focus worldwide attention on Gaza and the complicity of the governments that support it or look the other way.” This, despite the fact that in 2011 an inquiry under UN auspices declared Israel “fully within its rights to impose [the blockade] in order to prevent the import of weapons which will be turned against it.” To the ire of the then federal Greens’ leader Senator Christine Milne when she found out, a staffer in Shoebridge’s office invited notorious German-born South Australian Holocaust denier Dr Fredrick Töben to the “Gaza’s Ark” fundraiser (a cruise around Sydney Harbour), leading Shoebridge to have the invitation withdrawn.

That same year NSW Young Greens posted on Facebook a poll that asked whether respondents believed in “the rights and sovereignty of Palestine” or supported “the creation and continuance of the state of Israel”. Although the poll was later removed owing to pressure by the then party leadership, those who administered that Facebook page remained defiant in their outlook, leading the executive director of the Executive Council for Australian Jewry to observe: “Regardless of their personal views, their activities and rhetoric have time and again been magnets for gross expressions of antisemitism, both online and in public forums. The Greens … have a choice to make … They can speak and act as a party with mainstream voter appeal, or they can pander to the radical fringe of politics.”

Federal Senator Lee Rhiannon (born Lee Brown to hard left parents, and of part-Jewish extraction through her mother) is arguably the most infamous of the anti-Israel Greens. Her attitude can be discerned in a speech she made two and a half years ago in the Senate, in which she said, inter alia:

“There is a strongly growing case for the Australian government to adopt the Greens’ policy of no military cooperation and trade with Israel. This policy change is needed to ensure that Australia no longer supports crimes committed by the Israeli government…. Jake Lynch, Director of Sydney University's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, has pointed out that Israel is the only country which is guilty of the following four major transgressions. The first transgression is that it is illegally occupying foreign territory. The evidence for this is UN Security Council resolution 242 which calls on Israel to reinstate the 1967 borders. This violation is now in its 46th year. The second transgression is that Israel is the subject of well-founded allegations of war crimes, most recently the 2009 UN Goldstone Report into Operation Cast Lead. A third transgression is that it is a nuclear armed state yet has refused to admit this or join the non-proliferation treaty. This is surely one of the biggest obstacles to a peaceful and stable Middle East. The fourth transgression is that it is the subject of well-founded allegations of apartheid crimes, violating the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid….”

Last month Senator Rhiannon, as readers of David Singer’s posts on my blog will be aware, authorised Israel-demonising leaflets, including that ubiquitous set of mendacious maps and other misleading material, to be issued by her office at public expense.

Senator Christine Milne’s successor as federal Greens’ leader, Dr Richard Di Natale, was praised by Jewish communal leaders in May 2015 when, was asked in an interview with the AJN “whether Abbas should recognise Israel’s existence as a Jewish state” he replied “Of course. How can you have a two-state solution when you refuse to acknowledge the right of one state to exist? It’s patently nonsense.” The ensuing furore in his party caused Dr Di Natale to backtrack. A fortnight after the interview was published, the AJN (4 June 2015) reported:

‘Ignoring the fact that the Jewish State has existed for almost 70 years and is recognised in international law, Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale this week earned the ire of community leaders for declaring “absolutely” that he does not support the establishment of a Jewish state and does not believe it would be conducive to a two-state solution…. The backlash [from Greens regarding the answer he gave in the interview] prompted a clarification, in which his executive assistant stated that Di Natale was “concerned about the way in which his comments were reported” and that while he supports a two-state solution, “the establishment of a ‘Jewish state’ (as opposed to an ‘Israeli state’) is not conducive to that outcome”. When The AJN contacted Di Natale’s office, a spokesperson said they didn’t mean to imply there had been “an error in reporting”, explaining “it was just a misunderstanding”….

Di Natale this week reiterated his position in correspondence with the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ)…. “My comments in the AJN piece were intended to reflect that view and that view alone. I have never believed that the establishment of a ‘Jewish state’ (as opposed to an ‘Israeli state’) is conducive to this outcome and I absolutely do not support that goal.” …. Labelling Di Natale’s “about turn” as “profoundly disquieting”, Zionist Federation of Australia president Danny Lamm … noted the UN and Israel’s Declaration of Independence, as well as statements by US President Barack Obama as supporting its existence as the Jewish State. He added, “Senator Di Natale’s revised position on Israel should also be assessed in the light of Articles One and Four of the Palestinian Basic Law (2003) that respectively declare: ‘the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation’; and ‘the principles of Islamic sharia shall be the principal source of legislation’. “It would be useful to ask whether Senator Di Natale’s objection to national ethno-religious identity applies solely to a Jewish Israel, or extends to an Arab/Muslim Palestine as well?”….’

The words of the “Racist Heart” song above are so pertinent to the despicable, discriminatory attitude of the Green Party in Australia towards Israel, and even, as recent events in the state of Victoria have reminded us, towards Jews. The latest whiff of Greens’ poison has emerged during the current federal election campaign, and it involves Greens candidate Steph Hodgins-May, who is hoping to wrest the seat of Melbourne Posts from the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP’s) Michael Danby, who has represented the seat in federal Parliament in Canberra since 1998. Mr Danby, who is Jewish, is and always has been a stalwart champion of Israel, and from his university days has been instrumental in building up support for Israel among trades unionists and others on the right of the party. On 22 June Mr Danby’s two main rivals, Liberal Party candidate Owen Guest and the Greens’ Ms Hodgins-May, were due to join him in a pre-election debate on issues raised by Jewish constituents (who comprise a not insignificant proportion part of the seat’s electorate). But as a result of Ms Hodgins-May’s sudden withdrawal, the debate will be between just Danby and Guest.

The debate, to be chaired by Australian Jewish News editor-in-chief Zeddy Lawrence, was first proposed to the three candidates on 26 May, and Ms Hodgin-May’s office that same day confirmed her participation. On 30 May Mr Lawrence emailed her to inform her that the event would be co-sponsored with the AJN by Zionism Victoria. On 7 June she told an enquiring journalist on Twitter that she was unaware of the involvement of Zionism Victoria, and on 8 June her office informed the AJN by email: “At the time of Steph accepting AJN’s invitation to participate in the candidate forum, it was our understanding that it was being independently hosted by your newspaper. Since the circumstances of the forum have changed, Steph won’t be participating.” That same day she informed the paper, in two separate conversations: “I’m not comfortable participating in a forum that is co-hosted by an organisation that isn’t an independent newspaper, so that’s my reason for withdrawal” and that she felt it was not “appropriate and right to speak at an event co-organised by a politically active organisation”.

On 9 June the AJN pointed out to her that the Greens member for Melbourne and former deputy leader of the party Adam Bandt would be speaking at an Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) (see, by the way, Bandt’s response to an APAN questionnaire (https://apan.org.au/party-positions-on-the-question-of-palestine/adam-bandt-mp-greens-member-for-melbourne/). Thus cornered, she offered this excuse: “I was unaware when I accepted that it was also being co-hosted by an organisation that holds strong political views, including in relation to the United Nations. As someone who worked at the UN and holds their work in high regard, I have chosen not to participate in the now co-hosted forum.” Yet, as the AJN notes, the description a “nuisance and a sham organisation,” which Hodgins-May attributes on her website to Zionism Victoria, emanated from the Zionist Federation of Victoria.

See Bandt’s shameful response when confronted at the APAN forum with this issue by David Schulberg: (http://jmedia.online/2016/06/14/australian-palestinian-advocacy-network-event/ )

Here is Bandt’s speech at the APAN forum, where he makes clear that the Australian Greens support the “Palestinian Right of Return” (something that, if effected, would spell the end of Israel):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp81WxOOQnY

Ms Hodgins-May has behaved disgracefully, treating a section of her potential electorate with contempt. As excoriating articles in the current AJN make clear, she has caused deep offence and hurt to Jews in the constituency she hopes to represent. Not long ago she tweeted a photo of herself holding a loaf of challah on a Friday afternoon, together with appreciative comments. But elections are not won by bread and blarney and photo opportunities alone. The Greens are poisonous.

Editorialises the AJN:

“As a newspaper – albeit a Jewish, Zionist one – we don’t as a rule presume to tell our readers who to vote for. We may encourage them in a certain direction, but on the whole we present relevant information and allow them to make up their own minds. In this instance, however, we feel we have no choice. We not only opened our pages to Steph Hodgins-May, we invited her to take part in our panel. In turn, she has shown considerable disrespect towards our community. And that being the case, we would urge you not to give her your vote.”

Michael Danby goes further: “Approximately 71 per cent of Australian Jewish residents of Melbourne Ports have family in Israel. If she doesn’t want to represent our local Jewish community, or even speak to them, she cannot be their local member. Greens Leader Di Natale must sack her.” Excellent point.

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06/21 Links Pt1: EU thinks 'feeding Israel to the crocs means they will be eaten last'; Glick: Explaining the Israeli Left

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Explaining the Israeli Left

Haaretz and other leading leftist voices admitted openly that endangering the country by surrendering Gaza, along with Gaza’s border with Egypt, to terrorists was a small price to pay for destroying the religious Zionist movement.
A month before the August 2005 expulsions, Haaretz published an editorial, which explained that it really didn’t matter whether Israel’s security was damaged by the withdrawal.
The real question,” the paper argued, “is not how many mortar shells will fall, or who will guard the Philadelphi Route [between Gaza and Egypt], or whether the Palestinians will dance on the roofs of [the destroyed communities].
“The real question is who sets the national agenda. The disengagement of Israeli policy from its religious fuel is the real disengagement currently on the agenda. On the day after the disengagement, religious Zionism’s status will be different.”
Israel has fought three wars with the Palestinians and one with Hezbollah since that withdrawal. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians have been killed. Thousands have been wounded.
Whereas 25,000 Israelis lived within range of Palestinian mortars and rockets from Gaza in July 2005, today Hamas’s missiles have a range covering nearly all of Israel.
Today we are subjected to daily claims by Leftist politicians, activists and their media partners that Israelis are tired of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. His days in power are over. The “public” now sees that the Left is the only side that brings hope so it behooves the government to listen to the “public” and let the Left rule for a change.
But to the dismay of the Left, the public won’t go along for another ride with them, no matter how much hysteria they promote.
Despite the best efforts of Herzog, Newman, and their allies in the media echo chamber, the public has taken their measure. The public is not interested in electing parties that subvert the national interest to advance their political fortunes. The public is not interested in being led by men and women driven by an irrational and dangerous hatred of their fellow Israelis.

EU thinks 'feeding Israel to the crocs means they will be eaten last'

The event was the initiative of the Israel Allies Foundation, the umbrella organization of pro-Israel caucuses in 35 parliaments around the world, and I Like Israel, an umbrella organization of pro-Israel groups in Germany.
“This conference is taking place under the shadow of a damaging peace initiative that aims to pressure Israel to make irrational concessions and force Israel to give up its sovereignty in the name of a false peace,” Israel Allies Foundation Executive Vice President Josh Reinstein told attendees.
“They believe by feeding Israel to the crocodiles they will be eaten last. This conference is our answer to that initiative.”
Yisrael Beytenu faction chairman Robert Ilatov, who heads the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, attributed the French initiative and its support in Europe to historic anti-Semitism that has deep roots on the continent.
“We don’t understand why our friends in Western Europe create double-standards for Israel,” Ilatov told the crowd. “We don’t understand why they are attacking Israel and not countries in the Middle East that do not protect human rights and protect religious freedom.”

The Israel Narrative Is Wrong

The answer, of course, is that the narrative is simply wrong on every count. Diplomatically speaking, as I’ve noted before, this government is actually one of the more left-wing in Israel’s history: Though Netanyahu doesn’t consider a two-state solution achievable right now, he does accept the idea in principle; in contrast, during Israel’s first 45 years of existence, all governments from both left and right considered a Palestinian state anathema. And Netanyahu’s policy of restraining settlement construction – which, contrary to his “cowardly” image, he has maintained despite considerable opposition from parts of his base – is consistent with his stated commitment to a two-state solution.
Moreover, as the examples above show, his past three governments have actually been among the most progressive in Israel’s history in terms of their practical efforts to improve Arab integration. And unlike his settlement policy, his efforts to advance Arab equality have sparked no significant opposition from either his cabinet or his electorate, even though Israeli Arabs overwhelmingly vote for his political opponents. The reason is simple: Any government which considers Israeli-Palestinian peace unachievable in the foreseeable future has no choice but to invest in Israel’s internal development, in order to ensure that the country is strong enough to survive without peace. And improving Arab integration is crucial to the country’s internal development because Israeli Arabs, currently underrepresented in both higher education and the work force, represent one of the main potential sources of future economic growth.
But proponents of the “far-right-extremism” narrative seem utterly impervious to the facts. So they can only scratch their heads in puzzlement over why Israel’s “most right-wing government ever” is precisely the one that’s taking far-reaching steps to improve the lot of Israeli Arabs.

Giving "The Map That Lies" to middle school students

From a Mondoweiss post by Nada Elia:

I recently spoke to middle school children in the school district where I live about Al Nakba. I took two handouts with me. One was the map of North America, showing the tribes and the territories they inhabited prior to Europe’s conquest of this continent. The other was the “Palestinian loss of land” postcard, showing the respective Jewish and non-Jewish populations of historic Palestine, from 1946 to 2011.

The response was very revealing. Students looked at the map of North America with curiosity, interest, but also with no guilt, no accountability. It felt “safe” to them to read the names of the tribes that lived where they, the descendants of immigrants, now do. Many had a one-word comment: “Cool.” They liked that map, not recognizing it was a visual representation of devastation, even genocide.

With the “Loss of Palestinian land” postcard, there was … silence. I prodded the students for some response, some feedback, and it became clear the silence was not because they had nothing to say, but rather because they were shocked at what the postcard depicted. One seventh grade Social Studies teacher kept looking at the map, and asking out loud “How could this happen? What were they thinking? The United Nations did this? What were they thinking?” And again, like a broken record, “what were they thinking?”

The point of the exercise was to teach kids that the US is as immoral as Israel is, responsible for genocide of native people.

The secondary point is to teach kids lies about Israel based on "The Map That Lies," the thoroughly debunked anti-Israel propaganda graphic that MSNBC and McGraw-Hill have both apologized for promoting and have specifically said was false. No respected media or educational institution has stood behind this piece of agitprop.

American school students are being lied to and their clueless social studies teachers don't know enough basic Middle East history to argue. The Israel haters are methodically indoctrinating American students - and their teachers - with lies, and they are starting propagandizing them when they are very young.

As far as I can tell, no Zionist organization is even thinking about lesson plans for elementary and middle school students that can support teachers telling the truth.

(h/t Alyssa Kaplan)

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"If we don't get East Jerusalem, we'll make sure there is no peace in the region"

Here is the Wikipedia definition of extortion:

Extortion is a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from an institution, through coercion. It is sometimes euphemistically referred to as a "protection racket" since the racketeers often phrase their demands as payment for "protection" from (real or hypothetical) threats from unspecified other parties. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense.

Now explain how this does not fit that definition:

In response to EU support for French initiative to pressure Israel to make yet more concessions for "peace," Mahmoud Abbas is planning to make a speech sometime within the next 48 hours.

His spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said, "We welcome this European stance and call for the US administration to support these efforts that lead to real peace, and to exert pressure on the Israeli government to bow to the international will and the international consensus and international legitimacy and the Arab peace initiative. The only way to stability and peace in the region is a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. Without it, the region and the world will remain in a state of imbalance and instability."

This is a threat, and a threat that has been made countless times before. It is a Mafia-style protection racket being employed daily to every nation on the planet. "Do what we say and no one gets hurt."

If you follow the logic through, it means that the Palestinians say that if they don't get what they demand, even if that demand - Jerusalem - has no basis in history or international law, they will make sure that the world will suffer the consequences.

There isn't an iota of evidence that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem will result in less Middle East bloodshed than a Palestinian state without Jerusalem. Jerusalem is an arbitrary demand - one of many that Abbas has made, including "return" and prisoners being released and no Jews allowed on their holiest spot. It has nothing to do with statehood, nothing to do with peace, nothing to do with stability.

It has everything to do with erasing the Jewish connection to the land.

The world is being extorted, yet the world is happy to accede to the blackmail that is being practiced openly every day by the "President of the State of Palestine."

Why isn't the world outraged at being threatened every day by a two-bit, terror supporting, Holocaust denying criminal?

Because the only ones that have to pay the extortion price is Israel and the Jewish people.

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As mentioned, the Palestinians and UNRWA try very hard to pretend that a significant number of worldwide refugees are Palestinian.

But when you dig only a little bit beneath the surface, you see that no one really believes it, and the only reason that Palestinian "refugees" are recognized as refugees by anyone is because the UN insists that they are.

Exhibit A, from a statement on World Refugee Day by the EU:

We call on all partners to strengthen the international framework for refugee protection and resettlement through global responsibility-sharing and solidarity.

Resettlement? No one is calling for Palestinians to be resettled! But if they are refugees, shouldn't they be included in the massive worldwide push to resettle refugees? Why aren't they?

Exhibit B, from the UNHCR annual report (which tries hard to include the pretense that Palestinians under UNRWA's definition of refugee are real):

True, this is a list of people under UNHCR's mandate; But look at the categories and how they apply to "Palestine":

They would claim to have about 2.5 million "refugees." But how many are seeking asylum? The question doesn't even make sense for Palestinians under PA control, it is only relevant to real refugees.

In fact, UNCHR says there are some 3.2 million refugees seeking asylum elsewhere. But virtually none of them are Palestinian, and the very few who do seek asylum are refugees from Syria or Gaza, escaping death from ISIS or Assad or Hamas - real refugees, not the fake ones who claim to be refugees from pre-1948 Palestine.

The very definition of asylum is "the protection granted by a nation to someone who has left their native country as a political refugee."

Refugees naturally want to seek asylum, right? But Palestinian "refugees" don't! So why are there essentially no UNRWA "refugees" seeking asylum elsewhere?

In fact, European countries would never consider "refugees" under UNRWA's definition to be eligible for asylum. Their rules for accepting asylum are specific and apply only to those who are real refugees, e.g., those who have "a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group." - in other words, not Palestinians.

World Refugee Day is a wonderful occasion to highlight how bogus the "refugee" status of Palestinians really is.

(h/t Irene)

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06/20 Links Pt2: Shame on the world’s anti-Semitic media; A School of Anti-Semitism?; Twitter and Hamas

From Ian:

A Dynamic Duo of Duplicity Hits Jerusalem

David Sheen, whose tweets about Jews and Judaism frequently resemble those of neo-Nazis and who once produced a video in which Judaism is said to “hate humans,” and Dan Cohen, who engaged in pro-Hamas propaganda from Gaza while in the territory with the terrorist group’s approval, did participate in this year’s Jerusalem Day march – in order to defame its participants.
Together they’ve produced a video for the hate site Mondoweiss entitled “Worship God by Nakba,” the supposed translation of a Hebrew chant shouted by teens during the march. Sheen and Cohen write that the chant calls for “the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
Unfortunately for Sheen and Cohen, however, some of their less credulous viewers understand Hebrew.
The teens in the video (10:15) are actually shouting “Worship God with rabak,” (עבדו את השם בראבק) a slang word that roughly means “great enthusiasm.” It is a take on Psalm 100:2, “Worship God with joy; come before Him with exultation,” which the teens are seen singing immediately afterward.
Sheen and Cohen portray this as a “call for ethnic cleansing.” That is, of course, a lie. (The pronunciation of בראבק. ba-rabak, leaves little question as to what they’re saying. בנכבה, be-Nakba, would both sound different and make no sense grammatically.)
In fact, the video is riddled with made-up translations.

JPost Editorial: Twitter and Hamas

If Osama bin Laden were alive today, would he have a Twitter account? There is a good chance he would, judging from the sorts of folks permitted to remain active on the online social networking service.
News of the horrific massacre of innocent restaurant- goers at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market had barely broken when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh took to Twitter to praise the murderers.
“One of the #TelAviv bomber heroes, mercy and light on the kindness of your soul,” the former Hamas prime minister tweeted in Arabic at 10:45 p.m. on June 8, alongside a picture of one of the attackers, “shot in the street.”
Haniyeh’s Twitter account has been active since March 2012, and has 314,000 followers.
And Haniyeh is not alone. Khaled Mashaal, Hamas’s leader, has had an account active since May 2015, now with 45,800 followers. The main Hamas Twitter page, active since October 2010, has 239,000 followers. It even has an English-language account to helpfully convey the organization’s support of shooting innocents at a shopping center, dubbing it “a natural response to Israeli crimes.”
Twitter has already taken significant steps to remove the Twitter accounts of Islamic State supporters. A study commissioned by Google Ideas and published by the Brookings Institution’s Project of US Relations with the Islamic World found that in 2014 and 2015, Twitter banned hundreds of accounts used by the most active IS supporters.

Google, Facebook must be held accountable for criminal content – justice minister

Large internet companies and content providers such as Facebook, Google and Twitter should be held accountable for criminal activity on their platforms, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said at a conference in Tel Aviv on Monday.
“We need to acknowledge the fact that some very severe crimes are being conducted and incited through those platforms — such that there should be some measure of accountability” regarding the illegal activities and content that is published through their services, declared Shaked, who said these large internet companies were an “area of focus” for her ministry.
The Justice Ministry is working on draft legislation “to order a removal” of certain content from websites that incite to terrorism, and other legislation to curb specific content, like the distribution of child pornography, for example, she said. “In each case we are talking about content and websites that reach a particularly high threshold of criminal severity,” she added.

Al Soava is a set of sandy hills right outside Rafah that residents have turned into a recreation area. Kids fly kites and run up and down the dunes as families picnic.

Vendors go around selling toys, snacks and drinks for the people taking a break. It is apparently the only open space easily accessible to residents of Rafah.

Hamas has started to flatten the dunes in order to give the land to its employees who haven't been paid for three years.

One Gazan complained bitterly, saying "Al Soava is park that dozens of families flock to a day. It is an escape from their homes, as most of them are poor, who cannot afford to go to the expensive beachfront chalets and cafeterias. These golden sands is the only place for fun and happiness for their children. "

That Gazan refused to give his name for fear of being arrested by Hamas.

Hamas is naming the new neighborhood "Attar," after Raed Attar, a top-ranking terrorist who was killed by Israel in August 2014.

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Sarah Leah Whitson is the Executive Director, Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. Sari Bashi is HRW's Israel/Palestine Director.

Today they met with Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO.

According to Ashrawi, they spoke about supposed Israeli violations of human rights. She praised HRW for "its ongoing work to expose Israel's deliberate violations of international humanitarian and international law."

The three discussed how best to gather evidence of Israeli crimes that would stand up to scrutiny at the International Criminal Court. They went on to talk about how they could cooperate in the future.

Ashrawi also told HRW that Palestinians are committed to human rights.

The PLO jails and exiles political opponents, it does not provide adequate protection for gays or Christians, it prosecutes people who eat in public on Ramadan, and it considers Jewish freedom of worship to be criminal.

There is no shortage of snarky tweets on the timelines of HRW employees cutting down such statements by politicians that are clearly lies. But the timelines of Whitson and Bashi are barren of any criticism of the Palestinian leadership. More telling, they did not mention a word about this meeting with Ashrawi, who was exposed only a couple of years ago as heading an NGO that said Jews drink Christian blood and that praised terrorists.

HRW's bias against Israel is well-documented by its own statements. But we also need to see what it doesn't say. It's silence about Palestinian violations of human rights, and its willingness to secretly collude with human rights violators just to gather more dirt (real or imagined) on Israel, shows exactly how little HRW really cares about human rights and how it is merely an NGO facade for a political group.

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06/20 Links Pt1: PA TV: Islam prohibits Israel’s right to exist; "Selling a House to a Jew is a Betrayal of Allah"

From Ian:

PMW: Palestinian Authority espouses Hamas’ religious war ideology

The Palestinian Authority is teaching its population that the conflict with Israel is based on a religious ruling which is identical to a significant religious ruling of Hamas. This Islamic religious ruling holds that all the land of the State of Israel is an inalienable religious endowment - a waqf - of which it is "forbidden to relinquish a single grain of soil." This means that Palestinians are prohibited from accepting Israel's existence in any borders as that is violating the waqf.
This week, PA TV's daily Ramadan program Palestine in the Quran taught:
Head of the Waqf's Al-Aqsa Academy of Heritage and Antiquities Najeh Bakirat: "Every grain of soil in Palestine is ours. The status of Hebron is part of the status of Palestine, as it is an integral part of the Palestinian land, like the status of Nazareth in our eyes, and Haifa, and Jaffa, and Acre (i.e., all are cities in Israel). Every grain of soil in Palestine is part of the blessed Palestine, and holy Palestine which is a waqf (i.e., an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law). Therefore it is forbidden to relinquish a single grain of its soil." [Official PA TV, Palestine in the Quran, June 11, 2016]

PA TV Ramadan lesson teaches that Islam prohibits Israel’s right to exist

Khaled Abu Toameh: "Selling a House to a Jew is a Betrayal of Allah"

The renewed campaign against Palestinians suspected of selling real estate to Jews is also part of the belief that the entire land is Muslim-owned, and no Muslim is entitled to give up even one inch of it to a non-Muslim. In other words, it is forbidden for a Muslim to sell his home or land to a Jew or Christian. This would be the nail in the coffin of any Palestinian leader who attempts to make any territorial compromise as part of a peace agreement with Israel.
This campaign has raised fears that Palestinians may resume extrajudicial executions of suspected land dealers.
"The land dealers should know that they would not be able to avoid earthly and life punishment. Not only will they not be buried in Islamic cemeteries, but their entire families will also be punished and it would be forbidden to marry or to deal in any way with their family members." — Palestinian National Work Commission in Jerusalem.
This campaign undermines Palestinians' long-standing claim that Jews "illegally seize" Arab-owned houses and land in Jerusalem. It seems that rather than illegal seizure, Jews have been paying willing Arabs cold hard cash for the properties.

Yair Lapid: The United Nations has lost it

The following is an edited version of a speech delivered by Yair Lapid to the Israel Law Center conference in Jerusalem.
The United Nation has lost it. When it comes to Israel the UN has lost credibility, lost common sense, and more than anything lost its most important asset – its integrity.
At the end of March, I stood in Geneva, with hundreds of protesters, wrapped in Israeli flags. We stood beneath the Broken Chair Monument which stands opposite the United Nations Human Rights Council. Inside, in the elegant hall, there was a debate, another debate, about Israel.
The UN Human Rights Council’s treatment of Israel strayed from the boundaries of legitimate criticism long ago. In the past decade the council has voted for 61 resolutions condemning human rights abuses across the world and 67 resolutions which condemned Israel.
Let me repeat that — The council has condemned Israel, a democratic country which upholds international law, more times than the rest of the world combined.
Israel is the only country on earth which warrants its own agenda item in the UN Human Rights Council. Agenda item 7 dictates that every time the council meets there will be a ‘discussion of the human rights situation in Israel’. This discussion happens irrespective of whether or not there have been reports of human rights violations. It happens without a factual examination of the complaints lodged by Palestinians, usually allies or members of the various terror organizations that are sworn to destroy Israel.

The absurdity continues: 41% of Palestinians in Palestinian territory are "refugees" from Palestine (update)

Today is World Refugee Day, and as they do every year, the fake Palestinian "refugees" are pretending to be real refugees.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released figures for the occasion. Out of all residents in the West Bank and Gaza, 41.6% are considered "refugees."

No one blinks at such absurdity.

If they are Palestinian and live in what the UN and their leaders call the State of Palestine, where exactly are they refugees from?

Moreover, the PCBS says that some 40% of all "refugees" live in Jordan.But the vast majority of them are full Jordanian citizens. So why are they considered "refugees"?

This is all before the question of why, alone among all "refugee" populations, Palestinians are the only ones whose refugee status is automatically renewed every generation.

There is no way under UNRWA's definition for Palestinians to lose their refugee status. Even if a peace plan would suddenly appear and the Palestinian leaders agree to stop insisting on the fake "right to return", UNRWA would have no means to take them off the roles.

The "refugee" status is permanently bestowed upon all Palestinians until they somehow all cram back into their alleged ancestral homes, in the same villages. Because if you say that they can move to a neighboring village in Israel and no longer be considered refugees, then why can they not live as citizens of "Palestine" in Nablus as non-refugees?

The refugee issue is a thinly veiled attempt to destroy the Jewish state. It has nothing to do with real refugeehood and calling Palestinians refugees is an insult to the millions of real refugees who are truly suffering today. And UNRWA is fighting to get as much of the world's refugee relief budget as it can, causing real refugees to be even worse off.

Happy World Refugee Day.

UPDATE: The PLO Negotiations Affairs Department tweeted this:

I responded:

Only if you assume a bizarre definition of "refugee" @nadplo
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) June 20, 2016

They then blocked me.

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From the Hamas site Palestine Times:

A girl was shot at dawn on Monday while in her home west of the Tal al- Sultan area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

According to our correspondent the 13 year-old was critically injured, after suffering a gunshot wound in her chest area, while sitting in her home.

She was transferred to the European Hospital east of Khan Yunis.

Security sources suggested that the source of the gunfire that hit the girl was from Egyptian territory, as there was heavy fire on the Egyptian - Palestinian border.

Heavy fire on the border between Egypt and Gaza?

Al Quds adds that there are regularly police actions in Egyptian Rafah where Gazans hear gunfire and explosions, and more than once shells have landed on the Gaza side.

Just another aspect of the Middle East that no one hears about because Israel is not involved.

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Blood libel published in Turkish American News and many other places

This story has been published in dozens of Arab sites, and has spilled over into English sites as well:

An Israeli Rabbi, Shlomo Mlmad, the chairman of the so-called Council of Rabbis in West Bank settlements, had reportedly called on Israeli settlers to poison Palestinians through their water supply.

According to Israeli anti-occupation organization “Breaking the Silence”, the call for poisoning Palestinian water aim to push the Palestinians to leave their villages and pave the way for Israeli settlers to take over their lands.Israeli rabbis

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has denounced the move as an incitment against Palestinian people.

“This is an incitement and a call for killing the Palestinians,” Wasil Abu Youssef, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told Anadolu Agency on Sunday.

He said such opinions by Jewish rabbis “prove that Israel is not a real peace partner”.

“Dozens of similar orders were made by rabbis that called for killing Palestinians, robbing their lands and farmlands and destroying their property,” he said.

This is complete fiction. There is no "Rabbi Shlomo Mlmad" and no "Council of Rabbis in West Bank Settlements."

The story appears to have started from a video published in NRG last week that allegedly shows Breaking the Silence's Yehuda Shaul telling a group two years ago, in English, that Jewish settlers poison the wells of Palestinians.

(Video below, sorry I couldn't stop it playing automatically.)

That blood libel by a supposedly Zionist Jew is bad enough, but he said nothing about a rabbinical decree.

The earliest mention of such a decree comes from the PLO itself. Not Hamas, not Iran, not even Fatah - but Israel's supposedly moderate peace partner.

Last Wednesday, the PLO's National Bureau for the Defense of the Land and to Resist the Settlements first reported this story, quoting this fictional Rabbi Mlmad from an alleged Channel 10 story a year ago.

If such a story was broadcast, it would have been all over the place.

So the source of the blood libel is the PLO itself, and then its Palestinian Authority subsidiary is now condemning a fiction that Mahmoud Abbas' people made up to begin with.

There is no moral difference between the PLO creating a blood libel of Jews poisoning wells and medieval antisemites claiming the same thing. Except now the rumors spread much more quickly. The news stories include photos of black-clad Jews as proxies for this imaginary 'rabbi."

Western governments and NGOs must pressure the PLO to retract and apologize for their overt and explicit antisemitism. Unfortunately, the West hardly ever even acknowledges it.

UPDATE: The EU-funded Ma'an published this as well.

Saeb Erekat's PLO Negotiations Dept refers to massacre of Jews in 1929 as a "revolt"

From the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department Twitter account:

The "Palestinian Revolt of 1929" is the heroic term that the current Palestinian leadership - including CNN darling Saeb Erekat, who heads the PLO-NAD - gives to the massacre of over 100 Jews throughout the land of Israel in 1929.

Even according to Palestinian histories, the worst crime they can accuse the Jews of was putting up a temporary screen at the Kotel between male and female worshipers on Yom Kippur of 1928, something which had been done in previous years. So, of course, they had to start stabbing Jews to death in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed and elsewhere in 1929.

In Arabic, it was never called the "Palestinian Revolt" because the Arabs who rioted did not call themselves Palestinians. Instead, it was known as the "Buraq Revolution," Buraq being the name they give the Western Wall over the past century. So besides glorifying the murders of Jews as a heroic revolt, the PLO is renaming the massacre to make it sound like it was a "Palestinian" issue.

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Moderate PA arrests people for "violating the sanctity of Ramadan"

In Nablus, two men were arrested and sentenced to a month in jail for drinking alcohol while driving a car.

But they were not arrested for drunk driving.

They were arrested and sentenced for "publicly breaking the Ramadan fast."

The Magistrate's Court of Nablus, in handing down the sentence, stressed "the obligation to pursue violators of the sanctity of the holy month" and recommended that judicial authorities be vigilant both about violations of the law as well as about "assault on the sensibilities of Muslim fasters."

Also in Nablus, three people were arrested for eating and smoking behind a vegetable market. Police caught them red-handed and arrested them on charges of breaking the fast publicly.

The Nablus police chief warned all citizens against violating the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan, warning that anyone who breaks the fast before sundown will go to prisom.

In Tulkarem, another man was arrested for smoking in public during the day. That case is being referred to the public prosecutor in that town.

The police in Tulkarem issued a statement saying that they will not allow anyone to violate the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan, saying they have taken security measures to ensure the right of all citizens to maintain a spiritual atmosphere during the month.

Imagine the outcry if Israel would enforce similar laws during Jewish fast days, like the one coming up July 24, which is similar to Ramadan in the sense that it is from dawn to nighttime. If Israel would arrest people for eating in public it would be widely derided as a theocratic state with no respect for the human rights of non-Jews or non-religious Jews.

But when the Palestinian Authority does it, it is merely that that they are protecting the venerable traditions of their people and the alleged human rights of the religious Muslims not to be offended.

Amazing how in both cases, human rights are invoked to realize opposite results.

Equally amazing is that the hypocrites who hold these contradictory positions have no qualms about it.

If Jews tried to eat a meal at that spot, it would cause an international outcry about their "desecration."

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