Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 01, 2016

Haaretz anti-Zionist historian seems surprisingly ignorant of history - but has lots of hate

Haaretz keeps digging to new lows.

It published an essay by two anti-Zionist historians why they decided to become anti-Zionist.

The first few paragraphs from Hasia Diner, professor of American Jewish history at NYU, is nothing short of astonishing.

When I was asked to run as a delegate on the progressive Hatikva platform to the 2010 World Zionist Congress, I encountered my personal rubicon, the line I could not cross. I was required to sign the "Jerusalem Program." This statement of principles asked me to affirm that I believed in “the centrality of the State of Israel and Jerusalem as capital” for the Jewish people. It encouraged “Aliyah to Israel,” that is, the classic negation of the diaspora and as such the ending of Jewish life outside a homeland in Israel.

Maybe I'm not as smart as an NYU professor, but I don't read "encouraging Aliyah" as "ending Jewish life everywhere outside Israel." I don't think Israel is placing a gun to the head of Jews in Long Island to move to Tel Aviv, or else.

So the entire argument is a straw-man. But that's the least of the problems with Professor Diner's essay.

The death of vast numbers of Jewish communities as a result of Zionist activity has impoverished the Jewish people, robbing us of these many cultures that have fallen into the maw of Israeli homogenization. The ideal of a religiously neutral state worked amazingly well for the millions of Jews who came to America.

I wonder what vibrant Jewish communities Israel is responsible for destroying.

Could it be the Jewish communities of Egypt? Iraq? Syria? Yemen? Morocco? Maybe Sweden? Or perhaps she is blaming Zionism for the destruction of Polish and Hungarian Jewry? What happened to them, anyway?

The answers, which every schoolchild knows, call into question the credentials of a history professor who has seemingly no clue why all those Jewish communities don't exist or are nearly extinct, and who blames Israel for their disappearance. In fact, practically the only place that they are preserved is in Israel. (And if she blames Israel for the antisemitism that drove the Jews out of Arab countries, then she is truly hateful - and shallow.)

Diner doesn't give a crap about the survival of the Jewish people or about the "homogenization" of Jews into an Israeli melting pot. These remnants of these communities are here today largely because of Israel. Those Jews no longer have to suffer with massacres, with dhimmitude, with being humiliated daily. What a terrible loss.

On the other hand, gefilte fish may have never existed if there was no Diaspora. Yay, pogroms!

In fact, Diner herself, in one of her books, exploded the myth of the Lower East Side as a romantic incubator of the American Jewish experience. "Though largely populated by Jews from Eastern Europe, it was not ethnically or even religiously homogenous. The tenements, grinding poverty, sweatshops, and packs of roaming children were considered the stuff of social work, not nostalgia and romance," say a blurb from her book "Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place in America." Yet she apparently holds on to her own personal myths of a flourishing, romantic Diaspora in Europe and the Arab world - but only when she can blame Israel for its disappearance.

I was struck in Israel last month by synagogues that now mix customs of Ashkenazic Jews and those from Arab countries. On Shabbat, I went to a shul that prayed according to the Eastern European custom but used a Torah from Edot Hamizrach which affected how that part of the service was done. Another one I went to took on the custom of whoever happened to be the prayer leader for that particular service - Ashkenaz for mincha, Nusach Sefard for maariv, and some people saying kaddish in the Mizrahi Jewish manner. All at the same minyan.

This "homogenization" is not something to be scorned but to be celebrated - unless you are a clueless NYU professor for whom the Diaspora is the ultimate symbolism of what it means to be Jewish.

The entire reason Jews have different customs is because they were in an unnatural disapora state for so long. While some customs are quaint and beautiful, the diaspora itself was not. The good customs will remain, others will start, some will disappear. That's what happens in a dynamic, living society. But Professor Diner does not want a dynamic Judaism that has returned to its historic homeland. She wants the museum, fictional Judaism of Fiddler on the Roof.

To Diner, Zionism must be fought because it wants to create a world where Jews are united again and Jews have a nation again.

When one looks at it with a real historical perspective, one sees that Diner's whining has nothing to do with reality. She simply hates Israel and proud Jews. Diner is so bigoted, in fact, that she rails against Haredi Jews, whom she despises so much that she literally "abhors" visiting Israel because she doesn't want to see those damned Jews in their black hats and coats.

If Diner was honest, which of course she isn't, she would admit that her hate for Israel is irrational, and she is justifying it after the fact. There is no real difference between Diner and classic antisemites who also justify their hate with pseudo-moral arguments.

She is a bigot pretending to embrace liberal principals. But hate is what animates her, not a true liberal love for all peoples. What little mask she still has falls off when she reveals:

I feel a sense of repulsion when I enter a synagogue in front of which the congregation has planted a sign reading, “We Stand With Israel.”

Irish flags don't bother her on St. Patrick's day. Italians don't bother her when they march down Fifth Avenue on Columbus Day. West Indians and their costumes don't bother her when they dance down Brooklyn streets on their annual festival.

Only the Israeli flag repulses her.

This is not a rational person, This is a bigoted, despicable person who uses her academic standing as a mask to hide her true, ugly face of hatred.

Of course, she is perfect to write for Haaretz.

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Rampant Islamophobia in the Arab media (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

A recent MEMRI report establishes beyond all doubt that the Arab media are infested with rampant Islamophobia – at least by western standards of political correctness… But, speaking seriously, the lengthy report is absolutely worth reading in full. It consists of an introductory summary followed by excerpts (with commentary) of relevant articles authored by three Palestinian writers (two of them living in Britain), three Saudis, two Moroccans, one Jordanian and one Egyptian.

Much of what these columnists write would not be considered fit to print by highbrow western media outlets. Consider this quote from an article in the London daily Al-Hayat, published on July 17, 2016 in the wake of the devastating terror attack in Nice a few days earlier. The Palestinian writer and academic Khaled Al-Hroub writes:

“Is terrorism attributed to religion related to the religion itself? The answer is yes, because the religion – any religion – is nothing but [a sum of all] explanations and interpretations of sacred texts by clerics... Religious interpretations that can easily be understood to mean that martyrdom means a cheap suicide [inside] a café or club frequented by ‘infidels’ are very common in our religious, educational, and mosque culture, and must be dealt with... What view [can] we develop regarding non-Muslims if every week we hear thousands of preachers call on Allah to ‘not leave a trace of them’? Every day, our sons [and presumably daughters, too? PMB] read texts and books in schools that establish nothing but a patronizing and disrespectful view regarding non-Muslims.”

What I find most remarkable in this passage is that Hroub doesn’t try to diminish the problem, but emphasizes that there are “every week … thousands of preachers” who promote bigotry and hatred as piety. To be sure, relevant material documented by MEMRI would seem to indicate that “thousands of preachers” may still be a somewhat conservative estimate for the entire Muslim world. Reading this MEMRI report I was reminded that about a year ago that, I discovered that even though the Al-Aqsa mosque is usually considered as Islam’s “third-holiest” place, nobody (i.e. no Muslim) seems to be offended that there are apparently fairly regular rants by “preachers” – including perhaps self-appointed ones – who spout the vilest bigotry and hatred imaginable. As I noted in a related post, there seems to be something like a Muslim version of Speakers’ Corner inside the Al-Aqsa mosque, where anyone – meaning, of course, any man – who feels like delivering a hate-filled rant against the Jews and the West can do so freely at Islam’s “third holiest” site. Men and young boys mull around, some stop to listen; but the reaction of the audience shows clearly that no one considers it unusual to come to this supposedly very sacred place of worship and hear sermons demonizing non-Muslims and exalting Islam as destined for the bloody – and divinely ordained – subjugation of the non-Muslim world. And of course, western media have no interest whatsoever in covering any of this, even though such coverage could arguably contribute greatly to a better understanding of one of the media’s favorite topics: Israel and the hostility the Jewish state faces from the Palestinians and the wider Arab and Muslim world.

But in a sense, none of this is really news: whatever a low-ranking or self-appointed preacher at the Al-Aqsa mosque’s Speakers’ Corner may say, similarly hate-filled sermons and teachings have also been given by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential Muslim clerics with an audience of many millions of Muslims worldwide. As Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out in a 2011 Atlantic article with the fitting title “Sheikh Qaradawi Seeks Total War,” an analysis of Qaradawi’s “Fatwas on Palestine” by Mark Gardner and Dave Rich shows “that this putatively moderate Islamic cleric argues clearly and consistently that hatred of Israel and Jews is Islamically sanctioned, and that the destruction of Israel is mandated by God.”

Qaradawi has described the notorious hadith quoted in the Hamas Charter (i.e. “The last day will not come unless you fight Jews. A Jew will hide himself behind stones and trees and stones and trees will say, ‘O servant of Allah – or O Muslim - there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’”) as “one of the miracles of our Prophet,” and he has calmly explained:

“[W]e believe that the battle between us and the Jews is coming ... Such a battle is not driven by nationalistic causes or patriotic belonging; it is rather driven by religious incentives. This battle is not going to happen between Arabs and Zionists, or between Jews and Palestinians, or between Jews or anybody else. It is between Muslims and Jews as is clearly stated in the hadith. This battle will occur between the collective body of Muslims and the collective body of Jews i.e. all Muslims and all Jews.”

In the meantime, it has apparently dawned on some Arab-Muslim commentators that Qaradawi’s widely accepted militancy on all things to do with Jews is backfiring:

“Sheikh Al Qaradawi permitted the use of suicide bombing as a defensive tactic against Israel […] Practically speaking, though, the fatwa has had far wider consequences. It has been used by extension to justify suicide bombing against fellow Muslims. Of course, Al Qaeda and other extremists have no shortage of fatwas to vindicate their practices. But the danger of fatwas issued by otherwise moderate clerics is that they normalise suicide bombings, regardless of the circumstances.”

So even for Muslims it seems to be true that “[the] hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.”

Which brings me back to the MEMRI report that cites a Saudi (!) writer who thinks that terror groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) do have quite a bit to do with Islam:

“Today, it is more urgent than ever to renew the [Islamic] religious discourse in form, content, and goals... since Muslims have become confused, as many issues that were once considered uncontroversial principles are now banned in accordance to the norms set by the modern world, such as slavery for prisoners of war, offensive jihad, and so on.”

Among the “many issues that were once considered uncontroversial principles” is arguably also the Jew-hatred reflected in the notorious hadith that is quoted in the Hamas Charter, and that Qaradawi wants to uphold so faithfully. The problem is that this is a saying attributed to Muhammad himself, and given that Islam’s founder fought local Jewish tribes, it is perhaps all too easy to imagine that he projected his own troubles with the Jews to the end of history. This touches on what is arguably the fundamental problem of Islam: that it is a religion founded by a person whom Muslims revere as the most perfect man who ever lived – giving Muhammad in fact a Jesus-like status (minus the idea that he was God’s son) – but who was also a warlord who founded a rapidly expanding and immensely successful empire.

I expect that some of the related problems are addressed in Shadi Hamid’s new book on “Islamic Exceptionalism” – a book I’ve bought but not yet read; though on the basis of what I’ve read about it, I’m doubtful that I will agree with Hamid that “‘Islamic exceptionalism’is neither good nor bad. It just is.” I’m afraid that at least for our time, I can see plenty of evidence to support the conclusion that “Islamic exceptionalism” is pretty bad.

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08/01 Links Pt1: Abbas Sues History. Not a Parody; A Guide to the Palestinian Lexicon

From Ian:

Abbas Sues History. Not a Parody.

But there is more to this than just a diplomatic evasion. By focusing on Balfour and treating it as illegal, what the Palestinians are doing is rejecting the very legitimacy of the Jewish presence anywhere in the country. It is not for nothing that Abbas has often referred to pre-1967 Israel as being occupied territory rather than just the West Bank.
For years, those intent on pressuring Israel into making more territorial concessions to the Palestinians have tried to claim that “moderates” like Abbas truly want peace. But every peace negotiation or Israeli gesture such as Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal of every soldier, settler, and settlement from Gaza in 2005 hasn’t budged the Palestinians from the same intransigent position they’ve held since they rejected Balfour, the Mandate, and the 1947 UN partition plan.
So rather than merely a nonsensical diversion into fantasy, the Palestinian lawsuit illustrates the plain fact that their goal remains reversing the verdict of history altogether; not merely a demand for an Israeli pullout from the West Bank and Jerusalem. This reflects the state of Palestinian public opinion and the fact that their national identity has remained intrinsically tied to the century-old war against Zionism. Not until they give up this futile quest will peace be possible–something that the majority of Israelis already understand but which has eluded the U.S. government and many liberal American Jews.
As the Obama administration and the Europeans plot their next move to pressure Israel into making the same mistake in the West Bank that Sharon made in Gaza, they ought to be paying attention to the signals Abbas is sending to the world. So long as the Palestinians are still trying to erase Balfour, the idea that they are prepared to accept the state of Israel is the real joke.

Khaled Abu Toameh: A Guide to the Palestinian Lexicon

Many Palestinians refer to cities inside Israel proper as "occupied." Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, Ramle and Lod, for example, are often described in the Palestinian media as "Palestinian Cities" or "Occupied Cities." Jews living in these cities, as well as other parts of Israel, are sometimes referred to as "Settlers."
Many Palestinians have still not come to terms with Israel's right to exist. For them, this not only about the "occupation" of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The real "occupation", for them, began with the creation of Israel in 1948.
Non-Arabic speakers may find this assertion baseless, because what they hear and read from Palestinian representatives in English does not reflect the messages being relayed to Palestinians in Arabic.
It is no secret that Palestinian leaders have failed to prepare their people for peace with Israel, and deny its right to exist.

What the Arab League Meeting Reveals

The Arab League's precipitous decline in political clout was symbolically exposed by the failure of many key national leaders to attend the conference. The leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Tunisia did not attend. Only eight national leaders from the 22-member organization attended the conference.
However, the most significant aspect of this year's conference was the downgrading in significance of Palestinian issues on the agenda. Perhaps aware of this development, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas also decided not to attend. However, PA Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Maliki explained that Abbas could not attend due to the recent death of his brother. Later, Maliki, somewhat quixotically, called upon the Arab League to help sponsor a UN Resolution to initiate a lawsuit against the United Kingdom for having embraced the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which made it official London policy to support the creation of a national home for the Jewish People.
Nevertheless, when the representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hectored delegates that they no longer seem to treat the depressed state of the Palestinian people as the overriding issue that should unite all Arabs, his pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears. The PFLP gave public evidence of the Palestinian issue's fall from priority, stating on their website that "this year's resolutions are no more than a carbon copy of the resolutions of the Arab Summits made in previous years. It reflects the situation too of the Arab League which long ago lost the Arab peoples' confidence."
Hamas also ruefully expressed similar frustration with the Arab League delegates, saying the summit "reflects the status of decline which the Arabs are suffering, even at the official level."

The illegal EU settlements in Judea and Samaria (photos)

While we were in Israel, Mrs. Elder and I took a fascinating tour with the pro-Israel NGO Regavim to show where the EU was building "settlements" in Area C without Israel's permission.

Yes, illegal settlements in the West Bank.

They are illegal because Area C is legally fully under Israel's control. Indeed, even if you consider it "occupied territory," the occupier has the right to administer zoning laws and stop people from throwing up buildings anywhere they please, often stealing water and other services from neighboring, legal towns.

To build these structures without permission is illegal both under national and international law.

Here is a set of haphazard-looking buildings that were built in a valley near the Jewish town of Keidar. I stitched together three video screenshots. Click on it to see it full size; you should be able to discern about five separate clusters of buildings roughly in a straight line.

They are built this way in order to block any Jewish communities from being built. It is almost like a giant game of Go. These communities aren't viable on their own; their entire purpose is to create facts on the ground.

Afterwards, I looked on Google Earth to find how these buildings have sprung up over time. Here is an animated GIF showing how these illegal structures are being continuously built over the past several years, without the Israeli government doing anything about it.

This area was originally a training zone for the IDF, which is now unavailable because of the people who live there illegally.

Most or all of these structures are being built by the EU, which proudly puts its logos on the buildings, as this photo from another "settlement" shows (circled, click to enlarge):

Zooming in, under the EU flag is says "Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection."

These illegal villages are popping up all over:

This one had EU logos on a number of structures.

Regavim told me that these are not areas that Bedouin have been traditionally found. Many of the residents are not natives of Area C either; Europe is bringing in Arabs from Areas A and B in order to perform a land grab. Schools that they are building are busing in Arabs from Areas A and B as well.

The EU is not doing anything humanitarian, rather it is cynically using Palestinians. The residents of these communities are pawns.

And "international law" suddenly is not important to people who love to cite it when attacking Israel.

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Human Rights Watch has released a new anti-Israel report:

“The Israeli government is unlawfully incarcerating prisoners from Gaza inside Israel and then making it very hard for their families to visit them,” said Sari Bashi, Israel and Palestine director. “The government’s security concerns over having these families enter Israel for visits with their loved ones are of its own making.”

Israel holds most Palestinian prisoners who were apprehended in occupied territory inside Israel, in violation of international humanitarian law prohibitions against transferring residents from occupied territory. It then requires family members to obtain permits from the military to enter Israel to visit them. This means that family members must pass an Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) security screening to visit their imprisoned relatives.

The main point of the report is that Israel has placed too many restrictions on Gaza family visits to prisons in Israel, such as not allowing siblings of terrorists to visit if they are above 15. There are obvious security concerns with older siblings who are very often the first to become terrorists themselves, and Israel is quite within its rights under international law to prioritize security over family visits.

But a secondary theme of the report is that Israel is violating international law by incarcerating Gazans in prisons within Israel rather than within the "occupied territories." They get this from the Fourth Geneva Convention article 76, which states "Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein."

HRW, however, admits that part of the Geneva rules cannot apply to Gaza:

While holding these prisoners in Gaza is not practicable, because Israel ended its permanent ground troop presence in Gaza in 2005, Israel can and should transfer them to the West Bank, the other part of the occupied Palestinian territory, Human Rights Watch said. The prohibition against removing prisoners from the occupied territory is designed, in part, to allow them to maintain family ties, and the Israeli government should facilitate visits for family members from Gaza to the maximum extent possible.

Why is it not possible for Israel to hold the prisoners in Gaza? After all, isn't it occupied territory according to HRW? Geneva doesn't make a distinction between "occupied territory where the occupying army has actual control" and "occupied territory where the army has no possibility of maintaining the obligations of the Convention." HRW is making such a distinction, which has no basis.

Because Gaza isn't occupied by any reasonable definition of international law, and HRW knows it. The state of occupation in international law is binary, either it is or it isn't, based on whether the occupying army has "effective control." If the army cannot set up a prison within the territory, then by definition the territory isn't occupied.

Also, HRW's legal arguments end up supporting the fact that not only is Gaza not occupied - neither is Area A, another place where it would be "not practicable" to build new prisons. It is not under "effective control" of the IDF.

There is much more that is notable in HRW's attempts to force Israel to adhere to its interpretations of international law.

HRW suggests a convoluted solution where Israel should build prisons in the West Bank to help Gaza prisoners be more accessible by their families, under the idea that the West Bank and Gaza are pretty much the same. But the same security issues that they are complaining about for Gazans to visit Israeli prisons would apply for Gaza families to visit prisons in the West Bank, because they would be traversing Israeli territory anyway! It would not make an iota of difference - and, as we will see, it would probably be worse for the prisoners.

Moreover, even this HRW report admits that only 7% of Gaza prisoners have families in the West Bank, so very few of them would be able to see their families more often under this convoluted solution.

What about the bigger question of whether Israel should be building more prisons in the West Bank under HRW's interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, rather than place them in Israeli prisons? Is Israel violating international law?

This question has come up before the Israeli Supreme Court, most notably in its 2010 decision on Yesh Din vs. Minister of Defense. The Supreme Court ruled that the main driver for the Conventions is proper respect for the rights of the detainees, and that Israeli prisons are superior in that respect to any military detention facilities that Geneva seems to require:

We reiterate and reemphasize that in everything connected with conditions of detention and the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention and even of additional international laws regarding the holding of detainees, this Court determined clearly and unequivocally that Israel must respect the provisions of international law, and that every detainee is entitled to conditions of detention appropriate to his human self respect. This Court did not withhold criticism as to the determination of physical conditions and personal welfare needed by the detainee, and in this matter, as aforesaid, there has been considerable improvement, precisely because the detainees are held in Israel. As we noted, the provisions of the Convention must be interpreted as bearing on the special conditions of holding of the area in the hands of Israel, and in consideration of its principled initial point, as laid down in Article 27 of the Convention, which instructs as follows:

“Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity...
However, the Parties to the conflict may take such measures of control and security in regard to protected persons as may be necessary as a result of the war.”

In this the respondents are observing the relevant provisions of the Geneva Convention regarding conditions of of holding of detainees, In this matter, with adaptation, the words of Justice Bach in the Sajidia Case are good in that he felt that the Convention must be observed according to the proper interpretation, and he said: “It cannot be understood from these words that all the provisions included in the Convention, and relating to the detention of administrative detainees must be observed blindly; each provision must be examined according to its importance, vitality and appropriateness to the special circumstances of the detainees camp that is the subject of our discussion” (ibid, p.832)

The Court also notes that if Israel would build new prisons in the territories, that could cause other problems in international law, both for prisoners and for Palestinian Arabs.

In the circumstances created thought must be given to the practical implication of erecting new prison facilities in the area in the required scope after withdrawal of IDF forces from the cities in which were facilities in the past, erection in the course of which there may be harm to detainees from the viewpoint of conditions of holding and to the local residents on whose land the facilities will be built. In application of the provisions of the Geneva Convention they must be implemented in adaptation to the reality that was not foreseen by the drafters of the Convention; the geographic proximity of the area to Israel must also be taken into account and the fact that there is nothing in the holding of detainees in Israel to necessarily deprive them of family visits or legal aid. There must, therefore, be separation between the obligation to observe the humanitarian provisions of the Convention and the maintenance of conditions of detention of detainees and between the argumentation as to the location of detention; in consideration that the question of location of the detention was arranged years ago in enactments of the Knesset, and its legality was approved in verdict of this Court, and in consideration that the conditions of Israel’s holding of the area and the reality prevailing between Israel and the area, the holding in prison facilities in Israel does not strike at the essential provisions of international law.

A previous court ruling is what caused the Palestinian prisoners to go to prisons that are maintained by Israel's Prisons Authority rather than the army, because prisoner rights are maintained better by the IPA. In fact, the one prison in the territories, Ofer, is now run by the IPA because of the Supreme Court. The human rights of prisoners are a prime consideration in its rulings, unlike how HRW tries to characterize the Israeli justice system.

There are two sides to every story and HRW chooses the anti-Israel side, without discussing the context. This Yesh Din ruling shows that Israel indeed respects Geneva, and goes beyond Geneva to maintain its spirit when its actual words would be more detrimental to prisoners.

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NYT headline says Bibi is "crushing Israel's free press" - article itself proves otherwise

The headline in the New York Times says "How Benjamin Netanyahu Is Crushing Israel’s Free Press."

So how is Israel's free press being "crushed"?

The article gives exactly three examples:

1. The Israel Hayom newspaper is unabashedly (and embarrassingly) pro-Bibi. While it might chill any staffers on the paper from writing anything against the prime minister, that does not "crush" Israel's free press.

2. Walla News became more pro-Netanyahu when its parent company, the Bezeq communications company, benefited from some government legislation.

3. The government has tried to open up TV channels to more competition, which is regarded by the op-ed writer as a cynical ploy to kill networks that Bibi doesn't like.

So how is the Israeli press responding to being "crushed"?

Although for years the most widely read daily, Yediot Ahronot, and its owner took a decidedly anti-Netanyahu line, claims of left-wing bias fall flat these days, when most Israelis are getting their news from Israel Hayom or Walla News, and when the only remaining liberal bastion — Haaretz — struggles to stay afloat. And yet Mr. Netanyahu continues to present himself as a victim of a vindictive press.

But Yediot is still around. Haaretz is still around. No one is pressuring them to change their editorial line. The success of Israel Hayom and the poor performance of Haaretz have nothing to do with governmental policies, and everything to do with Israelis considering Haaretz to be way too far left and Israel Hayom being free.

There must be more evidence for this crushing of free press , right?

The only heartening thing in all this is that news outlets are pushing back to maintain their independence. Investigative “60 Minutes”-type programs like “Uvda” (“Fact”) and “Hamakor” (“The Source”) continue to delve into government corruption and to air in prime-time slots. “Despite the assault on the press, the Israeli media remains very critical, very aggressive, and has a lot of chutzpah. It’s a kind of basic instinct that’s part of our DNA,” Ms. Dayan, who hosts Uvda, told me.

OK. We determined that major TV and newspaper outlets are quite harsh on Bibi even after he's "crushed" the free press. But at least the article proved that Walla is firmly under Bibi's control, right?

Earlier this year, Walla News’ diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon wrote an article critical of Mr. Netanyahu’s response to the latest wave of Palestinian violence under the headline “Netanyahu’s Promises of Calm Replaced by Cheerleading.” Soon after the piece was published, Mr. Tibon was told that the prime minister’s office was pressuring editors to remove it from the website. Taking to Twitter, Mr. Tibon wrote of the prime minister’s “attempts to silence criticism.” Apparently as a result, his article remained in place. One thing did change, however: The word “Netanyahu” was removed from its headline.

Hold on - Walla published an anti-Netanyahu article? But I thought they were in his pocket! You know, the whole Bezeq thing?

I don't know why the headline was changed, but could it be that it was not accurate? Hell, I've prompted the New York Times to make changes in its articles - does that mean that I am crushing America's free press?

So, there you have it. Free speech is being "crushed" by Bibi while a vibrant, free press continues to attack him with no fear - and that free press is documented in the very article that claims the opposite.

Words have no meaning any more when dealing with Israel.

(h/t Yenta, Leo dam Hofshi)

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Reporter Ariel Kahane heard my talk in Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago, and wrote about it in Makor Rishon's magazine.

The atmosphere was reminiscent of an underground meeting in the pre-state days. Late at night, in a remote synagogue at the southern outskirts of Jerusalem, about two dozen people gathered. [I counted over 30 - EoZ] They came to hear a man whose name they do not know and whose picture they were not allowed to take. Not only Orthodox Jews were there, even a German government official took the trouble to come from one of the Arab countries in the region. Like the rest of those who came, she too has been following for years the man who lives in New Jersey but calls himself Elder of Ziyon, a US high-tech worker who has become a one-man hasbara machine.

"Elder," as he calls himself after the famous protocols, has for years run a free blog that is witty, tenacious and knowledgeable. On a daily basis he crushes Palestinian anti-Israel propaganda, and ridicules the hypocrisy of its liberal supports. You could say he's one of the few that does not succumb to political correctness and refutes it with intelligent and well reasoned arguments.

Here's a typical example from Tuesday. In this short but well-sourced article, Eldar established how the New York Times ignored the murder attacks on the 'Hyper-Cacher' market and the Jewish school in Toulouse in its reports on Islamic terrorism in France. "According to the New York Times and others Muslim attacks on non-Jews belong to a different, more outrageous, category than attacks on Jews. There's a kind of understanding for anti-Semitism" he says, touching the root of the matter.

His achievements include exposing the Nazi tendencies of a researcher at Human Rights Watch; discovering anti-Semitic teachers and anti-Semitic content at UNRWA's institutions in Gaza; the discovery that Omar Mashrawi, a Gazan child whose father works for the BBC, was killed by a Hamas rocket and not by IDF fire, and more.

This record may not cross the threshold of the mainstream media but it is certainly familiar with the insiders, both supporters of Israel and its opponents. Therefore, when Elder announced he was coming to Jerusalem and that he would give a lecture there, it was obvious that one should go hear it. In the overview he gave he turned a spotlight on the permanent anti-Semitism published daily in Arab media, and which isn't reported in Israel.

"One still has to say that European anti-Semitism was far worse," he said, "but the Arabs have permanent anti-Semitism, including Holocaust denial. In Egypt, Jordan, and by Mahmoud Abbas, of course. Anti-Semitism in the Arab world today is the worst it has ever been". Elder buttressed these arguments with clear-cut cartoons and quotes from Arab media.

His words were surprisingly reinforced by the German representative. "You talk about everything that appears in the Arab media for all to see, but it's nothing compared to what is said in mosques. I've been living in Arab countries for ten years. I was in Yemen, Jordan and other places. You have no idea about the things they say about you. For them you were and still are sons of monkeys and pigs". In a personal conversation with her later she was shocked to hear that most Israelis do not speak Arabic, so we do not know how our neighbors are talking about us.

For his part, Elder stressed that Arab anti-Semitism gets routinely ignored by the civilized world, "except for one situation. When the Israeli government shouts and calls attention to displays of anti-Semitism in the Arab world or the Palestinian Authority, the international media wakes up. When Israel is silent, the West is silent as well. But that's what needs to be done to combat the phenomenon, to expose them and shame them, and that's what I, with my dull resources, intend to continue doing.

"From the place I am today I would like to reveal myself, institutionalize my activity and immigrate to Israel. I'm happy each moment I'm here. I don't reveal myself because I still need to make a living" says the still anonymous blogger, hoping his words reach wealthy Israel supporters who are looking for new avenues for their donations.

If you are one of those wealthy Israel supporters....let's talk!

(h/t Yoel)

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07/31 Links: Fatah cartoon: Long-nosed Jew explodes Muslim world; Santana wows Israel

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah cartoon: Long-nosed Jew explodes Muslim world

Fatah posted a cartoon showing a long-nosed Jew with an Israeli flag on his arm lighting a fuse to blow up a bomb. Inside the bomb, a Shi'ite Muslim and a Sunni Muslim are lighting fuses to blow up each other.
The cartoon, which was posted on Fatah's Information and Culture Commission website, expresses the libel that Jews/Israel seek to destroy the Muslim world, and are possibly taking advantage of the internal Muslim fighting to do so. The cartoon is also critical of the Muslim world, which is depicted as so focused on killing each other that they do not see the Jews taking advantage of it to kill them.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented the PA libels that Israel/Jews are behind all conflicts in the world and that Israel/Jews are to blame for all bad in the world.

Netanyahu accuses France of funding anti-Israel groups

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said he ordered an investigation into French-funded organizations that he labeled anti-Israel, as Paris moved to limit the foreign financing of mosques.
After a spate of deadly jihadist attacks, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Saturday announced Paris was considering banning foreign funding of mosques.
“This sounds familiar to us. We are also disturbed by such donations to organizations that deny the State of Israel’s right to exist,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
A preliminary inquiry has revealed that several European countries, including France, directly support organizations that engage in anti-Israel incitement, call to boycott the country and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, Netanyahu said.
“We will discuss this with them because terror is terror everywhere and incitement is incitement which, apparently, encompasses the world, [and] governments must be as united as possible in dealing with them,” the prime minister said.
Netanyahu said the findings of the completed investigation would be submitted to the French government.

B'Tselem's Gaza war site lets you filter deaths by many criteria. Even though they tend to avoid labeling people as militants if they can, something interesting can be seen when you look at men between 20 and 30 killed during Protective Edge:

A total of 771 men in that age group were killed during the war, according to B'Tselem. Of those, the site says, only 184 did not participate in hostilities. About 3 out of 4 of all men killed in that category were terrorists.

Now, Gaza has about 200,000 men between 20 and 30. Perhaps 10% of those men are members of terror groups. So Israel did an excellent job in targeting terrorists in that age group - even though terrorists generally wouldn't wear uniforms during the war.

Some of the "civilians" in that age group appear to be miscategorized:

'Abd a-Rahman Muhammad 'Odeh Barrak. 24 years old, resident of Wadi a-Salqa, Deir al-Balah district. Killed on 19 Jul 2014, in Deir al-Balah, by gunfire. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Killed along with three other operatives in a military branch in the bombing of farmland in the east of the city of Deir al-Balah.

Some of the "civilians" were probably not so innocent, as B'Tselem's description of this man shows:

'Udai Rafiq Sa'id a-Sultan. 21 years old, resident of Beit Lahiya, North Gaza district. Killed on 10 Jul 2014, in Jabalya, North Gaza district, by missile fired from an aircraft, during the course of a targeted killing. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Killed along with two people he was driving in his car, one of them an operative in the Islamic Jihad's military branch.

If you are driving terrorists around during wartime, that pretty much makes you a combatant under international law.

Many others of the Gazans between 20-30 who were killed happened to be nearby when Israel targeted terrorists, such as this guy:

Saleh a-Zgheibi, 21 years old
Killed on 18 Jul 2014, in Rafah, by gunfire from a tank.
Saleh Suliman Muhammad a-Zgheibi. 21 years old, resident of Rafah. Killed on 18 Jul 2014, in Rafah, by gunfire from a tank. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Killed in the Bahraini neighborhood together with an operative in the military branch of Fatah.

While there are certainly some who cannot be identified as having done anything wrong, the statistics within that age group show very clearly that Israel was targeting only militants among a much larger population.

Which strongly indicates that the children and women and elderly who were killed were also the victims of Hamas' human shield policy far more than of any sort of carelessness on the IDF's part. It makes no sense to assert that Israel would be so efficient at targeting terrorists out of the young adult male group and at the same time randomly tossing bombs at houses filled with innocent people, as the NGOs are trying very hard to imply.

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I put subtitles on this video that has been going around. I'm not sure when it was originally shot.

It reveals the depths of immorality in parts of Palestinian Arab society as a father urges soldiers to kill his son, whom he is demanding to throw stones.

The father clearly wants his son to be killed on video, with his Palestinian flag. He wants to create another Mohammed Al Dura for his "cause."

This child abuse and desire to use children's lives for cynical public relations purposes is sickness that is simply not reported.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

UPDATE: The subtitles are a bit off in timing, apologies.

UPDATE 2: It was recorded from a different angle and posted top an Arab site on Facebook, where the "high five" that the boy gave the soldier was edited out while the caption says that the boy refused to shake the soldier's hand.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE 3: IBA asked Amnesty and Human Rights Watch to comment. They didn't.

Palestinian father urged IDF to shoot his child. @amnesty refused to comment. @hrw ignored requests for statement. pic.twitter.com/EaqB9M8Cg0
— Eylon Aslan-Levy (@EylonALevy) July 31, 2016

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Egypt's Sky News has an interview with Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki.

In a TV appearance, Zaki said that the purpose of the Balfour Declaration was for the West to place a Jewish state in a position where it would divide the Asian and North African Arab worlds. And that the US is now pursuing a policy to keep the Arabs fighting each other in order to ensure that Israel is the most powerful nation in the region.

The conspiracy theories don't stop there for this Fatah official. He also says that the purpose of Netanyahu's visit to African nations earlier this month was to threaten Egypt with cutting off the supply of water upstream of the Nile with the Renaissance Dam being constructed now in Ethiopia.

This is yet another example of how Palestinian officials can say outrageous things and the world media is silent, while every statement from every Israeli politician is examined in minute detail to look for evidence of anything unprofessional.

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The Hamas government closed 6 swimming pools in northern Gaza on Saturday, because the water was not being properly filtered.

This came after an expose by Palestine Today (Islamic Jihad) about numerous private swimming pools in Gaza that did not have adequate filtering or chlorination. Swimmers complain about itching after swimming in those pools.

In other news - Gaza seems to have quite a few swimming pools, even as the media and NGOs talk about their water shortages.

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07/30 Links: Israel fires back at US over criticism of settlement building; Douglas Murray - The Origins of Islamic Violence

From Ian:

Israel fires back at US over criticism of settlement building

The Israeli government on Friday fired back at the US State Department over its criticism a day earlier that Israeli construction over the Green Line is “provocative and counterproductive.”
In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected the US argument that recently announced plans to build in East Jerusalem were undermining the prospects for a two-state solution, calling that argument “factually baseless.”
On Wednesday, Israel announced the approval of 323 tenders for housing units in East Jerusalem, and plans to build 770 units in Gilo. While much of the international community considers Gilo a settlement, Israel considers it a neighborhood of annexed East Jerusalem and argues that it will be part of Israel in any negotiated peace agreement.
The international outcry, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Emanuel Nachshon on Friday according to Haaretz, “was done with the full knowledge that the neighborhood of Gilo in Jerusalem will be part of Israel in any conceivable agreement reached through negotiations. The argument that building in Gilo undermines the two-state solution is factually baseless and distracts from the real obstacle to peace — the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, under any borders.”

Golan Druze leader disputes UN statement on ‘hardship of Israeli occupation’

A leader of the Druze population of the Golan Heights disputed the assertion of a United Nations committee that accused Israel of imposing economic and social hardships on his community.
Dulan abu-Saleh, the mayor of Majdal Shams, the largest Druze town in the Golan, told Makor Rishon that the UN Economic and Social Council’s recent statement on the area was “a total joke,” the daily reported Friday.
Unlike other Druze populations in Israel who serve in the Israel Defense Forces, the Golan’s Druze population of some 20,000 has been careful not to align itself publicly with the Jewish state, which annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 after capturing it from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967.
The eruption in 2011 of a civil war in Syria changed that, causing a sharp increase in the number of Golan Druze who applied for Israeli citizenship, which has been available to them since 1981.
Abu-Saleh objected to the inclusion of his native area in the UN panel’s statement earlier this month, which said that “economic and social repercussions of the occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan.”

The UN Funds Repressive Regimes at the Expense of US Taxpayers

A new report shows how the U.S. contributes more money to the U.N. than it spends on shipbuilding for the Navy, yet there is a huge disparity in what it receives back compared to many repressive countries.
The United Nations recently released a report detailing the countries of registration of the recipient vendors of $17.6 billion the U.N. system spent on goods and services in 2015.
The report received some modest attention in the press. However, the general unfamiliarity with the U.N. can lead to misunderstandings about what information this report was actually providing. For instance, a Forbes article misinterpreted the report as one listing which countries contribute most to the U.N. system. This misinterpretation inspired this article piece to illustrate the difference.
Unfortunately, the U.N. system does not report its revenues as frequently as it does procurement. Analysis requires going back to 2013, which is the last year that both procurement and revenue data were published by the U.N. Chief Executives Board for Coordination.
In 2013, the U.N. system procured $16.38 billion in goods and services (the summary page for procurement of goods says $16.1 billion, but the dataset yields the higher number) and (after eliminating duplicate information for Aruba, the “State of Palestine,” the Republic of Korea, and the Holy See) $53.9 billion in revenues from governments in 2013. In other words, in 2013 the U.N. system spent about 30 percent of the revenues received from governments on goods and services.
Many nations benefit significantly from this system, receiving far more from the U.N. than they pay into the system in contributions. For instance, a Swiss news outlet observed, “Switzerland is the United Nation’s fourth-biggest supplier, behind only the United States, India, and the United Arab Emirates, providing almost 5 percent of all the world body’s goods and services in 2015.”

07/29 Links Pt2: Anti-Zionism: 21st Century Avatar of the Longest Hatred; How a Muslim also became a Zionist

From Ian:

Richard Landes: Anti-Zionism: 21st Century Avatar of the Longest Hatred

The supersessionism among progressives rests on a morally sadistic ‘secular’ replacement narrative: Israel has replaced the Nazis while the Palestinians have replaced the Holocaust-era Jews. As pleasing an historical irony as such moral inversions may seem to Nobel Prize winners, it would be dangerous to mistake it for the reality on the ground, where Israel does everything it can to avoid behaving like Nazis, while some of its enemies openly admire Nazis.
This replacement narrative offers not only freedom from Holocaust guilt; it also offers moral elevation, the chance to tower over Israel and judge her harshly. ‘Israel has lost all moral high ground,’ pronounced UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen in response to the Jenin ‘massacre,’ when in fact, he was looking at the lowest score for civilian casualty ratios in the history of urban warfare. Deep moral disorientation ensues: a mainstream news commentator claims that the picture of 12-year-old Muhammad al Durah, caught in a crossfire, ‘symbolically replaces, erases the image of the boy in the Warsaw Ghetto.’
From these heights, European moral superpowers like Sweden, and individuals like Jostein Gaarder, sit in judgment on Israel, despising these sovereign Jews, feeding their supersessionist fantasies at the price of becoming untethered from reality. It is a small step to transforming Holocaust Commemorations into platforms for attacking Israel as the new genocidal force on the planet.
The megaphone effect
‘Leftist’ anti-Zionism has allowed internet-empowered Jihadis to spread their memes and icons of hatred the world over. Activist journalists, post-colonial scholars, feminists, ASHamed Jews, NGO activists, all reaffirm and reinforce the narrative: Blame Israel; exculpate the Palestinian ‘resistance’; conversely do not exculpate Israel and do not blame Jihadi extremism. Indeed, the more sincere the Western anti-Zionism, the better is the cover under which the hatreds spread. Progressives introduce the campus to virulent ‘human-rights’ anti-Zionism and mobilise the ensuing indignation to make Israel an international pariah.
It is common wisdom on today’s global progressive left to consider anti-Zionism as unrelated to anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia as the new anti-Semitism. The evidence presented at the Bloomington conference suggested that this is a serious misreading. In the 21st century anti–Zionism plays, mutatis mutandis, the role that anti-Semitism played in early 20th century Europe. The papers delivered at Bloomington made clear that in this current climate, being a vocal anti-Zionist, laboring to see the global humiliation or elimination of Israel, means you put wind in the sails of real-live exterminationist Jew-haters, with people who harbor paranoid, genocidal fantasies. When Leftists chant ‘We are all Hezbollah, Now!’ or ‘Muqtada al Sadr – Anti-Imperialist Solidarity!’ they encourage and empower the real 21st century avatars of the Nazi delirium, namely the triumphalist Jihadis.

DNC Featured Denial of the Existence of Israel

It wouldn't be the DNC convention without an anti-Israel theme. And, in tune with the theme, it's thinly disguised as positivity.
The Democratic convention audience erupted in cheers Thursday night when the Rev. William Barber II urged them to love Jews and Palestinians equally.
"When we love the Jewish child and the Palestinian child ... we are reviving the heart of our democracy," said Barber, who is also the president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP.
"Jesus, a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew, called us to preach good news to the poor, the broken and the bruised and all those who are made to feel unaccepted," he said.
Barber denied the historical existence of Israel in typical PLO propaganda fashion. Jesus was not a Palestinian. He was a Judean.
Palestine was a Roman colonialist term and the term Palestine has no reference and no relevance to the current Muslim settlers and colonialists who call themselves "Palestinians". (h/t dabney)

RJC Ad Hammers ‘Today’s Democratic Party’ for Anti-Israel Displays

The Republican Jewish Coalition released an ad Friday charging that the Democratic Party of today is hardly the one of old when it comes to support for Israel.
Citing the Washington Free Beacon report that Rep. Hank Johnson (D., Ga.), a Hillary Clinton superdelegate, called Jewish settlers “termites” before an anti-Israeli group, the narrator said “anti-Israeli Democrats are on full display at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.” Johnson offered up a half-hearted apology for the comment, calling it a “poor choice of words.”
While Democrats waved the Palestinian flag at the convention, the Israeli flag was burned outside the arena while onlookers chanted in support of the intifada. The Clinton campaign condemned the burning.
However, the ad featured other activists around the convention in Philadelphia speaking out against Israel, including one woman who said the U.S. was acting like a “terrorist” by giving money to Israel and another making the oft-repeated slur against Israel as an “apartheid” state.
Secretary of State John Kerry used this slur in 2014, remarking his concern that Israel could become an apartheid state if a two-state solution was not reached soon.
“Radical Democrats. Stridently anti-Israel,” the narrator said. “Sadly, this isn’t the old Democratic Party. It’s today’s Democratic Party.”

Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, is the only sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court, on five counts of crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape.)

This week, the government of Mahmoud Abbas, in its weekly cabinet meeting, announced:

The Council welcomed the agreement between Mr. President, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir, on the establishment of a joint ministerial committee between the two countries. Four agreements were signed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs with Sudanese officials: a political consultation agreement, a convention on the Joint Ministerial Committee, a protocol of political consultation and the Convention on General Education and the Convention on Cultural and Academic Cooperation in the field of higher education between the two countries, stressing that these signed agreements will lead to the strengthening of relations and increasing cooperation between the two countries for the benefit of the two brotherly peoples.

For some reason this wasn't considered to be newsworthy.

Even the "human rights" NGOs who are agitating to have Bashir arrested have nothing bad to say about Mahmoud Abbas treating him like a respected head of state.

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