Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 15, 2016

Hamas terror training video shows how "crowded" Gaza is

Here is the latest propaganda video from Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

Notice that you can barely find any towns in any of the scenes. Hamas has plenty of room in "the most crowded place on Earth" for military training exercises.

But beyond that is that Hamas doesn't ever fight the IDF in the open - but in the crowded cities of Gaza, hiding in their extensive networks of tunnels and bunkers as well as hiding in residential houses and buildings, where they use the population as human shields.

So this is propaganda on two levels - one to show off their supposed military might to their people, but also to pretend to the same people that they are defending them, rather than using them for military advantage.

NGOs like HRW and Amnesty bend over backwards not to accuse Hamas of endangering the population, but they try to find excuses by claiming that Hamas doesn't have a choice but to fight in urban areas.

This video is exhibit A that this is a lie.

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Masralarabia.com is one of the most popular news sites in Egypt, ranked #23 for that country (for comparison, in the US MSN.com is #23 and the New York Times website is ranked #24.).

On Saturday, Masralarabia published video and text of interview with "Israel affairs expert" Dr. Ahmad Hammad, a professor of Hebrew at Ain Shams University.

In that interview Dr. Hammad claimed that Nazi gas chambers were a myth, saying that the only reason the Europeans go along with the "fairy tale" is because they are afraid of being labeled antisemitic. He said that it made no economic sense for Germany to build gas chambers to kill Jews and they would have been far less efficient than simply shooting Jews. At any rate, Nazi Germany didn't single out Jews but all minorities for persecution.

Hammad claimed that Hitler only wanted to expel Jews from Europe, not murder them, and he colluded with Zionists on that mission.

Surprisingly, he said that the concept for "greater Israel" had nothing to do with a Zionist state between the Nile and the Euphrates, but instead refers to something far more insidious: "economic colonization" and "colonization of minds" of Arab states which he says he has warned about for decades.

According to Hammas, the Arab media is sometimes more Zionist than Zionists are. As an example, he derided Arab media for referring to Israel as the Jewish state, claiming that the people in Israel have nothing to do with actual Jews.

Despite the closer ties between Israel and Egypt, antisemitism in Egypt remains embedded in the fabric of that society, and antisemitic articles like this can be found weekly in major Arab media.

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Another Olympic-sized lie

Mondoweiss pretends to do some reporting:

Last month we interviewed Mary al Atrash, a 22-year-old swimmer from Beit Sahour in the West Bank who was part of the largest delegation Palestine has ever sent to the Olympic Games.

She told us about her difficulties to train in a swimming pool that does not match the Olympic standards, and explained that although she technically lives close to Jerusalem, where such swimming pools, exist, she could not go there to train.

After our story was published, a controversy started: Israeli authorities explained that Mary never applied for a permit to train in Jerusalem.

After COGAT –the Israeli Ministry of Defense organization coordinating civil affairs between Palestinians and Israelis in the Palestinian territories- published a statement saying Mary al Atrash never applied for a permit to train in Jerusalem, we contacted Mary and the organizations that supervise her training such as the Palestinian Swimming Federation and the Palestine Olympic Committee.

Indeed, it seems that Mary never applied for a permit, and neither did a lot of other Palestinian athletes. They explain this situation by emphasizing their movement restrictions. They say they can be stopped at any point while going from one place to another and therefore don’t feel safe moving from one city to another. They also mention that roads or checkpoints are sometimes closed which implies a chance of wasting time that they could use to train.

The Palestinian Swimming Federation stressed “the difficulties, that all the athletes face, to enter Jerusalem for training” and that “permits are for a limited time” and that athletes still have to go “through checkpoints” even if they have a permit to train in Jerusalem which makes their situation unstable and puts them at risk of wasting their training time.

So that is the new narrative - that Palestinian athletes all decided that it is too risky to train in Israel because of the chance that they will be delayed?

Somehow, tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs manage to enter Israel every day, work for an average of 7 hours, and go home. But if you are to believe this article, Palestinian Olympic hopefuls don't have the same drive to succeed as the average construction worker.

Too bad that Mondoweiss didn't bother reading, or actively ignored, the tweet from Reuters' Luke Baker where he said explicitly that Palestinian (leaders) oppose letting athletes train in Israel.

I would point to the tweet itself, but it has been deleted. Apparently the narrative of the Palestinians as only victims and without any responsibility for their own destinies was too strong for a Reuters reporter to admit otherwise, even though that admission was to defend a story that implied that Israel had banned the al-Atrash, not her own people.

However, looking at the Palsport.com webpage for all Palestinian sports news, one can see that the idea of "normalization" with Israel is a very big taboo. For example, this article rails against any attempts by Israeli sports federations to work together with Palestinians. There are no articles that argue that Palestinian athletes should cooperate with Israelis in any form.

Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, has said himself that "there will be no normalization - will not normalize with Israel because we are under occupation and the Israelis do not recognize the Palestinian sports entity ....We defend our national cause and will not relent...The occupation is the enemy number one of Palestinian sport....the occupation seeks to besiege our people including by preventing movement of the athletes..."

How can Rajoub keep saying that if Israel allows his athletes to train in Israel? Much easier to ban his athletes from training and then blaming Israel for it!

To Rajoub, Mondoweiss is a reliable propaganda outlet that will parrot, without any skepticism, the idea that Israel is the reason why Palestinians cannot train in Israel. It is simply not true. Reuters knows it, Rajoub knows it, and Mary al Atrash knows it. But that narrative simply doesn't fit the agenda of Reuters, the PLO and Mondoweiss.

The deleted Reuters tweet also says volumes about how Reuters prefers narratives to truth.

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For those who think Neturei Karta represent Judaism because they dress in black...

This video is going around of a couple of Chassidim, probably Israeli, who are so angered by the anti-Israel chants and signs from two Neturei Karta protesters that they take two signs from them.

It looks like this happened in New York.

A lot of people who hate Israel love to point to Neturei Karta idiots and, since they dress in traditional Jewish garb, pretend that they must somehow be more authentic Jews than other Jews are. NK actively supports this lie with their literature. Yet NK represents only a tiny part of even the haredi ("ultra-Orthodox") Jewish community; most of the other religious Jews consider them sick impostors.

And here, a couple of them prove it.

By the way, remember that Neturei Karta has in the past (and possibly today) been paid by the Palestinian leadership to pretend that they are somehow more legitimate than the hundreds of thousands of religious Jews who consider them anathema.

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08/14 Links: Soros Leaked Files Show Millions Contributed to Anti-Israel Causes; 'Nasrallah hides in a bunker while Israeli children play outside'

From Ian:

DC Leaks Publishes George Soros’ Files Showing Millions Contributed to Anti-Israel Causes

Jewish Hungarian-American business magnate George Soros, whose company files were hacked by the same outfit that in June hacked the DNC computers, was a major contributor to anti-Israel and anti-Zionist causes, as appears from an archive of leaked documents of the DC Leaks website.
Soros, one of the 30 richest people in the world, is known as “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England” in 1992 with his short sale of $10 billion in British pounds, which made him a profit of $1 billion and brought Black Wednesday upon the UK currency, has a special spot for groups that fight Israel and Israelis on multiple levels.
The list of groups hostile to Zionism and to the Jewish State that received funds from Soros is very long:
Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, received a $400,000 grant in 2014-15 and 14 additional grants since 2001 totaling $2,688,561. The recently released document under the banner of the Movement for Black Lives, labeling Israel as an “apartheid state” and accusing Israel of committing “genocide” against Arabs, is the handiwork of Nadia Ben-Youssef, Adalah’s US representative, which the document lists as an “author and contributor.”
Incidentally, according to NGO Monitor, Adalah’s promotion of BDS directly contravenes the stated policies of its funder, the New Israel Fund (NIF). NIF’s position on BDS states that it “will not fund global BDS activities against Israel nor support organizations that have global BDS programs.” Nevertheless, from 2008-2015, NIF donated $1,975,826 to Adalah.
And, lo and behold, NIF is also listed as a recipient of Soros’ support, 9 grants totaling $837,500 since 2009. One of these grants, for $60,000, was given in 2015 to the Herman Schwartz Human Rights Law Fellowship, to “strengthen the capacities of young Palestinian legal professionals in legal advocacy by undertaking an LL.M. degree in human rights law in the US along with internships opportunities in Israel.”
Talk about Tikkun Olam…

Douglas Murray: Islamic Islamophobia: When Muslims Are Not Muslim Enough, What Does It Promise for the Rest of Us?

Of course, if Mr Shah's murderer had been a non-Muslim, there would be a concerted effort by the entirety of the media and political class to find out what inspirations and associations the murderer had. Specifically, they would want to know if there was anybody -- especially any figure of authority -- who had ever, for instance, called for the murder of Muslim shopkeepers. Yet when a British Muslim kills another British Muslim for alleged "apostasy," and local religious authorities are found to have praised or mourned the killers of people accused of "apostasy," the same people cannot bother to stir themselves. There is talk of being "taken out of context" or there are warnings not to "generalise" or be "Islamophobic" or any number of other fatuous get-out clauses.
What happened this week in court when Tanveer Ahmed was found guilty and sentenced for the murder of Asad Shah was even more revealing. After the judge read out the sentence, Tanveer Ahmed raised his fist and started shouting in Arabic "There is only one prophet." Supporters, who made up around half the people in the public gallery, joined in with his cries. All of which made it understandable that the family of Mr Shah had been too terrified to turn up in court during the trial of their relative's murderer, and are apparently planning to leave Scotland.
Then, outside the court, a news reporter from LBC Radio confronted some of the murderer's family members. The video is worth watching. "Did Asad Shah deserve to die?" he asks the killer's family as they head to their car. They refuse to comment.
When another supporter is asked whether he thinks it was "respectful" for the killer to do the chanting he did in the dock, he becomes threatening and says, "Yeah, he's respecting his prophet. He's saying 'I love my prophet'. What's wrong with that?" Asked if he thinks the sentence was fair, the man replies "No." Asked in what way, he replies, "No comment."
It is, of course, a good thing that the criminal justice system has done its job and done it swiftly. Asad Shah's murderer has been brought to justice and been given a suitably long sentence. But this case should have provided a learning moment for politicians, the media and wider society to finally understand the full threat to our society that this type of fanaticism poses, as well as a realistic awareness of how widespread that fanaticism actually is. Instead, on glimpsing for a moment how deeply this problem goes, it seems that the UK has decided once again to turn away and avert its gaze, for fear of what it might otherwise find out.

Palestinian woman attempts to stab IDF soldiers in northern West Bank

A Palestinian assailant was arrested Sunday evening after she stabbed and lightly injured a female soldier at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank, Israeli officials said.
The Palestinian woman emerged from a car at a checkpoint near the settlement of Shaked, west of Jenin, then pulled a knife out and lunged at the soldiers, the army said.
The troops at the scene subdued the attacker and placed her under arrest, without the use of force. The wounded soldier, who suffered a very mild injury to the shoulder, was treated at the scene.
The assailant was taken for questioning by security forces.

The Muslim world was still upset over the Egyptian judoka loss to an Israeli on Friday, where Islam El Shahaby refused to shake hands with Israeli Or Sasson after his defeat.

So they have made up a story of Olympic revenge to restore Muslim honor.

Egyptian, Palestinian and other Arabic media are reporting that the Muslim world exacted revenge on Israel for this loss by inflicting a humiliating defeat on another Israeli judoka. 112th ranked Mathews Punza defeated 6th ranked Israeli judoka Golan Pollack in a huge upset (video), and Pollack could not believe that he lost, cradling his head in his arms afterwards.

Two problems with this story of supposed revenge.

The first one is that the Pollack/Punza match occurred five days before the Sasson/Shahaby match.

The second is that I have no evidence that Punza is a Muslim. Zambia is an overwhelmingly Christian country, and a name like "Mathews" sounds more Christian than Muslim. While it is possible that Punza is Muslim, it seems unlikely.

Once again, it is all about honor, and the narrative of a Muslim humiliating a Jew as revenge is not only an irresistible story for Arabs, but a necessary one because they simply couldn't live with themselves otherwise. They had no other opportunity for vengeance and the idea of being a good sport about losing to a Jew is simply impossible for them to accept.

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I was going to name this piece "The Death of American Politics" but American politics has been dying since it was born.

That is, American politics has been so partisan and so toxic for so long that it has become virtually impossible to separate fair assessments of truth from media-driven propagandistic bullshit which, today, almost always favors the Democratic Party.

The gang rape of Donald Trump makes for an interesting case in point.

It no longer matters much what Donald Trump says because even if he says "boo" the media will clobber him on behalf of the Clinton campaign, which is to say, on behalf of the dysfunctional Democratic Party status-quo.

No matter what Trump says the progressive-left and the Democratic Party will defame him as a racist and a sexist.

The great irony, of course, is that the progressive-left is the most racist political movement in the West today, outside of political Islam, and a great enemy, along with political Islam, of the Jewish people. Even as progressives and many Democrats decry the lone, sole Jewish state as a racist, colonialist, imperialist, militaristic monstrosity - despite its democracy and liberalism and general decency compared with so much of the rest of the world - they perpetually whitewash and make excuses for the very worst aspects of political Islam.

A Muslim slaughters 49 people in a Gay nightclub in Orlando in the name of the Islamic State?

Blame the Republicans or blame Trump or blame generalized American bigotry and homophobia or some alleged violent American "gun culture." But whatever you do, do not blame political Islam because that would make you a "racist." The progressive-left and the Democratic Party consider "people of color" to be something akin to little children that must be protected from the foreseeable consequences of their own behavior. It is the twenty-first century version of "White Man's Burden."

And it is the most prominent form of bigotry today among westerners.

This form of bigotry - otherwise known as humanitarian racism - like all prominent forms of bigotry, has wide-ranging consequences. Because white western "liberals" consider non-white-westerners to be naturally inferior and, therefore, in need of protection, they refuse to criticize political Islam. This means that the hard-core boys in the Islamist organizations (like ISIS and Hamas and Boko Haram and on and on and on) flourish, while the true Muslim moderates and secularists are shunted aside by the West even as under physical threat from their Islamist brothers.

{They embrace Islamists like Tariq Ramadan as they spit hatred toward reformers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.}

It means that Arab and Muslim homophobia, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and generalized anti-non-Muslim bigotry and persecution, are given a pass because to do otherwise opens oneself to charges of racism and, therefore, to social ostracism (among the political and intellectual sectors) and potential loss of employment.

It means that ISIS gets a pass even as it buries Yazidi kids alive in mass graves and beheads Christian Copts by the dozens and blows priceless antiquities (the very birthright of humanity) to smithereens.

Donald Trump is not a racist for wanting to hold back Islamic immigration until we develop effective screening methods. Political Islam - like Nazism or Soviet Communism - is an ideologically violent political movement and we know that a certain percentage of emigres will be Jihadis. Thus any normal functioning intelligence would conclude that holding back Arab and Muslim immigration into the United States is merely common sense. This does not mean that we keep a Muslim grandmother from Manchester from seeing her grandkids in Michigan. Nor does it mean that we prevent a Muslim physician from Toronto from traveling to Manhattan to perform a surgery.

What it means is necessary due diligence so that San Francisco does not start looking like Paris with blood running in the streets.

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

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08/13 Links: A Growing Trend: Brave Muslim Zionists; Freelance jihad; Reporter SLAMS State Department: 'Am I Not Speaking English?'

From Ian:

A Growing Trend: Brave Muslim Zionists

Muslims and Arabs who openly identify as Zionists are growing in number – powered by the freer flow of information and ideas made possible by social media and the search for answers in the wake of the Arab Spring and Islamist terror.
A new Facebook page for Arab supporters of Israel has attracted about 20,000 visitors. The page, which shares content in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, was founded by a religious Jewish woman and an Arab man. It posts examples of Israel treating Arabs and Muslims with kindness and shares surprising Arab support for Israel from across the Middle East, including Tunisians who created an Israeli flag after being unable to buy one, and who have faced threats for their views.
Muhammad Zoabi entered the spotlight as a proud Arab, Muslim Zionist in the summer of 2014. Just 17 at the time, Zoabi began to advocate for Israel in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. He posted a video demanding that Hamas release three Israeli teens who had been kidnapped a few weeks before Operation Protective Edge. Death threats soon forced Zoabi into hiding, and he found shelter with Kay Wilson, who had survived a brutal 2010 terrorist stabbing attack.
Zoabi became so popular that he reached his maximum friend limit (5,000) on Facebook, where there is even a page calling for him to be prime minister of Israel. Zoabi's Zionism is hardly surprising, given his upbringing. His mother, Sarah Zoabi, revealed her Israeli patriotism on national television. She introduced herself on the popular Israeli show "Master Chef" as an "Arab, Muslim, Israeli, proud Zionist" from the northern city of Nazareth. "I believe in the right of the Jewish people to have their own country, which is the state of Israel, the Holy Land.... I want to say to all the Arabs of Israel to wake up," she continued. "We live in paradise. Compared to other countries, to Arab countries – we live in paradise."
Zoabi's family also includes some fierce Israel haters, like his cousin Haneen Zoabi, who is a member of Israel's parliament but regularly uses her position to defame Israel and side with its enemies.

Douglas Murray: Why the Prevent strategy isn’t the problem

All this is, in any case, woeful buck-passing. If you had to call for anything in the wake of the news from Syria I would think a much better thing to call for would be an investigation into how people who should take some responsibility for the radicalisation of such young people consistently evade any and all such responsibility.
For instance, after the three Bethnal Green schoolgirls went to Syria, the father of one of them – Abase Hussen – was all over the media looking teary, hugging a teddy bear and berating the police for not stopping his daughter from going to Syria. How might she have imbibed her radical ideas, he was asked. ‘Total mystery’ was the gist of his reply each time. Mr Hussen soon appeared in front of Keith Vaz’s media-hungry Home Affairs Select Committee and used the opportunity to blame the police again. Soon the police were hauled before the same committee and given a very tough time of it. Why didn’t they know what Mr Hussen claimed not to know about the girl sleeping in the next door room to him? One might at this stage point out that one of the criticisms of Prevent is ‘spying’ yet each time the authorities miss something they are asked why they don’t spy more than anyone possibly could. But ‘police failure’ is always such an easy thing to grandstand over.
But what was this? A couple of weeks later and a video emerged of sweet old teddy-cuddling Mr Hussen at a demonstration outside the American Embassy in London in 2012. Led by Anjem Choudary and standing alongside one of the killers of Lee Rigby (and this time without his teddy) the video of the demo shows a shrieking Mr Hussen next to a burning American flag while standing behind a banner that reads, ‘The followers of Mohammed will conquer America’.
Anyone wondering how extremist ideas might infiltrate into the mind of a young girl could do with looking into what people like Mr Hussen actually believe, where in the community they get their ideas from and what can be done to stop the spread of the same. It might also ask how people like Mr Hussen are able to so constantly fool decent liberal-minded societies into believing that everything to do with radical Islam is the fault of our liberal societies rather than the fault of the people whole espouse and believe radical Islamic teachings. But as I say, too few people want to do that. Instead the Muslim community and almost every elected and unelected representative uses every opportunity to attack Prevent and slip any and all personal or communal responsibility for a problem they more than anyone know is there.

Freelance jihad

If we reject the term "lone wolves," some asked, what shall we call them? In a succinct message, Daniel Pipes offered a wonderful replacement: "freelancers."
Likewise, the Palestinian jihad against Israel was once dominated by organizations like the PLO, PIJ, Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and others. During the deadliest period of the "second intifada," the proliferation of organizations meant that recruiters, handlers and dispatchers were ubiquitous, and freelancers were rare. And while those organizations show no signs of going away, the current so-called "Knife Intifada" has brought about a tactical shift. Kitchen knives and even screwdrivers are the tools of freelance jihad in Israel. When these are unavailable, an opportunistic freelancer can always deploy cars, trucks even bulldozers as weapons
In the late 20th century, jihad terrorism was conducted primarily by organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and al Qaeda. The attacks were meticulously planned over the course of months and even years. In the 21st century, it is beginning to look like jihad terrorism might become dominated by freelancers whose attacks may be near-spontaneous strikes requiring little planning.
The term "freelancer" captures precisely the entrepreneurial spirit of today's jihadist who works without ties to an organizational hierarchy but follows the same pattern concerning targets, tactics and goals. Economically, freelancers represent the cheapest form of jihad. Operationally, they are less likely than "members" to attract the attention of law enforcement officials. "Training" can be conducted online.
Even if they have "no direct links" to an organization's leadership and have never set foot in Syria or Iraq, American and European Muslims who conduct attacks in the name of the Islamic State or al Qaeda, or "in defense of Muslims," are just as much a part of the movement as anyone fighting in Aleppo or Sana'a.
They are not lone wolves and their motives are not unknowable. They are freelancers in the global jihad.

08/12 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: Black Lives Matter must rescind anti-Israel declaration; Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver – From Israel-Hater To Zionist

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Black Lives Matter must rescind anti-Israel declaration

To give Black Lives Matter a pass on its anti-Jewish bigotry would be to engage in racism. Black anti-Semitism is as inexcusable as white anti-Semitism or white racism. There can be no double standard when it comes to bigotry.
I write this column both in sorrow and in anger. In sorrow because I support the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement — I have long been involved in efforts to expose and prevent police abuses — and worry that this obnoxious and divisionary platform plank may destroy its credibility with regard to police abuse in America by promoting deliberate lies about Israel. It is also alienating Jewish and other supporters who could help them achieve their goals here at home — as many such individuals have historically done in actively supporting all aspects of the civil rights movement.
I write it in anger because there is never an excuse for bigotry and for promoting blood libels against the Jewish people and their state. It must stop. And those who engage in it must be called out for condemnation.
Black Lives Matter should rescind the portions of the platform that falsely accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid. If it does not, it risks ending in the dustbin of history, along with other discredited bigoted groups.
It would be sad if the good work done by Black Lives Matter were now to be sidetracked by the mendacious and irrelevant accusation of “genocide” and “apartheid” against one foreign democracy — Israel. (h/t Max Mendelbaum)

Research Report: #BlackLivesMatter more about radical social upheaval than “Black Lives”

Using Black Lives Matter movement to redefine the American experience into anti-Capitalist upheaval
If you think the Black Lives Matter movement is just or even primarily about “Black Lives,” then you don’t understand the movement.
A new research report, based on detailed interviews with those active in the movement, demonstrates that the organized movement is a vehicle for a radical leftist anti-Capitalist agenda, using “Black Lives” as the hook.
The research is by Anne Sorock of The Frontier Lab using a “deep values” methodology. Several years ago Anne was a regular contributor to Legal Insurrection, but that has fallen off as she devoted herself The Frontier Lab.
Deep values research is something pioneered by Dr. Brian Wansink at the Food & Brand Lab at Cornell University. Anne received her MBA at Cornell and worked with that group. Deep values research seeks to understand not just what consumers like or want, but what deeply held values lead to such decisions.

IsraellyCool: Know Your History: Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver – From Israel-Hater To Zionist

With the Black Lives Matters movement being co-opted by Israel haters and antisemites, now seems like a good time to look at Eldridge Cleaver, a prominent activist of the Black Panther Party, who began as a rabid Israel hater.
For instance, this from the New York Times, July 23, 1969:

We’ve heard this all before, and certainly echoes the kinds of things we are hearing now – from within the Black Lives Matters movements, and from without.
There’s also this photo of Cleaver (right) holding hands with arch terrorist Yasser Arafat.
But then something interesting happened. During his trip to Algeria, he saw how the Arabs enslaved Africans, and had an epiphany. From then on, he became an ardent Zionist.
The following articles give insight into this part of his transformation.

Why Anti-Israel Activists in Black Lives Matter Are Trying to Turn ‘Genocide’ on the Jews

Yet it seems unlikely that the Movement for Black Lives would agree to such a labeling. It identifies with anti-Zionist movements in the Middle East; it would object strenuously to being deemed complicit in a genocidal project. Their reticence, in turn, calls into question whether they seriously believe in the new definition they’re forwarding—will they apply it to friend as well as foe? I was talking the other day to the executive director of a prominent Middle Eastern Jewish organization who was incensed about the MBL platform and (especially) the demands by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace that all Jews endorse it without reservation (On JVP: “They completely ignored us for over a decade and now they want to speak on our behalf?”). It’s not that her group wants to call what happened to Jews like her a “genocide” (though they have used “ethnic cleansing”); but she is well aware that this discursive reframing is not done on her behalf and is not being made available to her.
We could push the argument further—groups like Hamas call for a genocide of Jews in a very “traditional” sense, but even some of the purportedly progressive anti-Zionist organizations operating in MBL’s circle who would abhor such exterminationist desires nonetheless campaign for a Middle East where there is no longer a sovereign and independent space of Jewish life capable of self-creation and self-determination. Is that project properly termed “genocidal”? Are they willing to cop to the legitimacy of that label? Discriminatory application of the new persuasive definition is an identifiable wrong, and one that is worth calling out. It suggests that the term is not being used as part of a genuine egalitarian political program, but as a “ticket good for this ride only.”
But there is a deeper problem here worth interrogating. The term genocide, as many of the MBL platform defenders do recognize, has a special significance and sensitivity to the Jewish community. Its significance to the Jewish community, in turn, has been the subject of considerable frustration to those who frequently find themselves at odds with the mainstream Jewish community. Often, they treat the Holocaust as a sort of unearned advantage for Jews—a chip or a card that Jews can use to tilt the discursive game in our favor, as when Naomi Klein accused Jews of thinking “we get one get-away-with-genocide-free-card.” The contemporary Jew, they seem to think, is downright lucky that his or her relatives perished in the camps—look at the bounty it’s gotten us! How fortunate we are, to have this talisman of the Shoah that we can wave around to ward off all criticism going forward! They treat the Holocaust not as a source of trauma but as a source of privilege, and an unjust privilege at that.

By now, everyone has read about the Egyptian judoka who refused to shake hands with his Israeli opponent after his loss in Rio

Israeli judoka Or Sasson defeated Egyptian rival Islam El Shahaby in the first round of the men’s over-100kg competition at the Rio Games on Friday, and was left standing when his opponent refused to shake his hand at the end of the match.

In judo it is customary to both bow to opponents — a sign of respect in Japan — and shake hands after a bout is over.

El Shehaby had been well beaten but stood impassively and then backed away as Sasson tried to shake his hand.

As he left the mat area, El Shehaby was called back to the center by the referee to bow.

But he was then loudly jeered out of the arena by angry supporters.

He later announced he was quitting judo.

There was lots of pressure on El Shehaby not to compete with an Israeli to begin with. It is possible that El Shehaby was trying to make everyone happy, which was a very big mistake - the story is all over mainstream media now.

Perhaps most surprising is that The Egyptian Olympic Committee is not standing by El Shehaby:

The Egyptian Olympic committee said judoka Islam El-Shehaby should have upheld sportsmanship values after he refused to shake hands with an Israeli opponent following a game which he lost the Rio Games on Friday.

"El-Shehaby was instructed to conform to the principles and standards of sportsmanship during his game against the Israeli judoka," the committee said in a statement.

"It's just a judo game in a global showpiece. What happened after the match was only an individual action from the Egyptian judoka."

Last year an Egyptian judo champion beat his Israeli opponent, and also refused to shake his hand. Perhaps El Shehaby thought that he could do the same in front of a world audience.

A poll ahead of the match at Arabic RT asked readers if El Shehaby should forfeit reather than go against the Israeli. 63% said no.

Any way you look at it, this is a stunning defeat for Arabs who are against any sort of normalization with Israel.

UPDATE: The same thing happened in 2011.

UPDATE: The letter from the Egyptian Olympic Committee:

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Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, occurs tomorrow but will be marked on Sunday. It is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, marking the destruction of both Temples and various other catastrophes that occurred on that day.

Surprisingly, it appears that it is marked by some Christians as well, although in an unrecognizable way.

The 19th century book The Rest of the Words of Baruch: A Christian Apocalypse of the Year 136 A.D states:

Nor were they without some' encouragement to this belief from the actual event. One of the things written across Jewish history was the fatality connected with the 10th of Ab. [sic] We may get some idea of the import of this day by recalling the language of Josephus concerning it: "the fated round of times was come, the tenth day of tho month Lous, on which aforetime' the city had been burnt by the Babylonians" (Bell. Jud. VI. 4. 5). He does not hesitate to say that the time had been calculated by God: "one might rightly marvel at the accuracy of the cycle; for it was the very same month and day on which the city was formerly burnt by the Babylonians" (Bell. Jud. VI. 4. 8).

So deeply was this day marked with black in their calendar that there is reason to suspect that from that day to this it has been kept as a day of mourning both by Jews and Christians. With the Jews, of course, this is obvious: but tho following considerations suggest that the Christian Church also shared this mourning with them. The Greek Church keeps a special memorial of the fall of the city on the 4th of November, and reads on that day, as we shall see, a portion of the very Apocalypse which we are engaged upon. But the question naturally arises as to was how a memorial designed for the Fall of the City came to be read on this date. The answer is that Ab, which is the eleventh month of the Hebrew Calendar, has been replaced by November, the eleventh in the Julian year, while some reason not known to us has displaced the day from the tenth to the fourth. We may, therefore, suspect that Christians as well as Jews concerned themselves to note the fatal day.

Sure enough, if one looks at the Greek Orthodox Book of Saints (in Greek, naturally), one sees that among the list of saints commemorated on November 4th comes "Narration in the Lamentations of Prophet Jeremiah on Jerusalem."

(The Rest of the Words of Baruch is also related to Tisha B'Av, as it includes the text of Lamentations but also some text called 4 Baruch that supposedly includes parts of Jeremiah that were not included in the canon. It also includes an early Rip Van Winkle story.)

I will not be posting anything until Sunday afternoon. (But there is no reason for Ian not to post the normal linkdumps in the meanwhile if he wants to.)

Previous Tisha B'Av posts:

2005: A sad anniversary
2006: A reason to keep mourning on Tisha B'Av
2007: Tisha B'Av, 1948
2008: Weeping over the ruins of Jerusalem
2009: The Kotel, 1912
2010: A reason to cry
2011: Judaism's holiest site is being desecrated today
2012: Documentary on Israel's disengagement of Gaza
2013: The Churban underneath the Mount
2014: 2000 years of mourning for the Temple

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The other Olympic sport that "Palestinians" have qualified for

The Reuters article we've been discussing about Mary al-Atrash, the Palestinian Olympics swimmer, had a subtext.

The impression that the reader was supposed to get upon reading the story was that she, and by extension the entire Palestinian Olympics team, had unusual hurdles on the way to Rio. From this and other mainstream media stories we get the impression that Israel is applying arbitrary rules just to make their lives difficult, that they cannot get proper equipment to train, and in general they live in an area where even getting to the Olympics is a story of perseverance way beyond ordinary Olympics athletes.

Christian Zimmermann, "Palestinian"

But there is another sport that will see a Palestinian entry.

Equestrian dressage.

Even with the richest of all sports, for Palestinians there is still a political angle as this Middle East Eye report says:

A German entrepreneur in his 50s is hoping to go for gold at the Rio Olympics on Thursday as the first person to represent Palestine in the equestrian competition.

Christian Zimmermann, a descendant of German composer Robert Schumann who holds dual German and Palestinian citizenship, finished 12th out of 60 after the first day of a two-day event that began on Wednesday.

Zimmermann, now 54, abandoned competitive dressage aged 26 to enter the business world, ending up as the CEO of an international communications company.

However, he re-entered the sport on an international level a decade ago, and was persuaded to represent Palestine by a Russian-Palestinian diplomatic family who are also involved in dressage, the al-Shaers.

“The decision was certainly not a whim,” said Zimmermann, who began representing Palestine in 2012 and took part in the 2014 World Equestrian Games under the Palestinian flag.

Zimmermann has said he will be careful not to do anything “inappropriate” when he meets members of the Israeli delegation.

The Lebanese delegation was in hot water earlier last week after athletes reportedly refused to allow Israeli counterparts to travel in the same bus to the opening ceremony.

“It’s true that my second nationality gives me more choice over where and when to compete internationally,” Zimmermann told German news site Berliner Zeitung this week.

However, he said, he chose to compete under the Palestinian flag to make a political point about Germany’s relationship with Israel.

“We as Germans carry a special responsibility for the Jewish people and for Israel,” he told the paper.

“But this responsibility also means that we must push for peace in the Middle East conflict, as difficult as that may be.

“On top of that you can be critical of the development of Israeli policy in recent years. So finally I decided to ride for Palestine, as a gesture towards the Palestinian people.

“If, by competing in the Olympics, I can contribute in some small way to giving the region and its inhabitants a bigger voice, I have been successful."

This is all garbage.

Haaretz notes that it is unclear how or if he became a Palestinian citizen, and his decision to represent "Palestine" was more opportunism than any desire for peace:

It took until 2013 for him to change his national allegiance because of the rules of the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (known by its French acronym, FEI). His choice of Palestine derived in part from his search for a way to qualify for the Olympics. As a German rider he was not particularly successful in making the cut, but as a Palestinian he has virtually no competition, which has enabled him to reach the Games, as the German tabloid Bild has suggested.
In addition to Zimmermann, only five other Palestinian equestrians are registered, along with two horses, as members of FEI, according to that organization. The PA holds no international equestrian competitions either, so the question still stands: Why Palestine, and not, for example, some small, undeveloped African nation?
Zimmermann explains that at a competition in which he participated at the end of the last decade, he met a family of Russian diplomats of Palestinian origin. That marked the beginning of a special friendship, which later led to his decision to represent Palestine. It was not a spontaneous decision, he adds; he took his time before deciding to ride for Palestine.
While he mentions the political aspect of this move, he also hints that there is also a practical dimension to it. Specifically, he notes, such decisions will naturally influence a person on a personal, sporting and political level. But pragmatically, he also realized he would have a great deal more freedom competing on behalf of Palestine than if he tried to fit into the German organizational structure.

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08/12 Links Pt1: Where Palestinian Aid Really Goes; Turning Suicidal Teens into Killers

From Ian:

Where Palestinian Aid Really Goes

Why does Palestinian corruption get a pass? Because their status as alleged victims of the Jews seems to give them priority over every other group in the world.
How can we be all that shocked when individuals divert money and material intended to alleviate the plight of ordinary Palestinians to terrorism when that is precisely what both Hamas and Fatah do on a regular basis and on a much larger scale? That is especially true for Mahmoud Abbas’s faction, whose leaders have grown wealthy while the world continues to picture Palestinians as indigent. A group that pays pensions to imprisoned terrorists and to the survivors of those who died while trying to kill Jews (and boasts on Facebook that it has killed 11,000 Israelis) ought not to be in any position to cry poverty, but that is exactly what it does.
The supposedly more puritanical Islamists of Hamas are guilty of many of the same offenses. Few homes have been rebuilt there since the 2014 war but somehow the Hamas tunnel network—which serves as a point of attack for terror raids into Israel and strongholds to shelter Palestinian armaments, fighters, and leaders while the population has no bomb shelters—has been reconstituted and strengthened.
The UN and World Vision and all those who contribute to other Palestinian charities should spare us their expressions of shock or denials about these scandals. While the Palestinians have genuine needs, anyone who gives money to them should do so in the knowledge that they are just as likely to be financing a terrorist’s pension, a terror tunnel, or a Hamas bunker than they are to feed a child or build a home.

Turning Suicidal Teens into Killers

The Los Angeles Times published an eye-popping report this week: According to Kadoura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, roughly one-fifth of all Palestinian attacks on Israelis in recent months have been attempts to commit “suicide by cop.” Even if that estimate were exaggerated, Israeli security officials concur that there have been many such cases, which begs an obvious question: Given that suicides are usually interested mainly in killing themselves, why do so many suicidal Palestinians try to kill others in the process? And Fares is quite upfront about the answer: “In our culture, suicide for no reason isn’t honorable,” he said. “If they try to confront a soldier, however, it’s looked on with more respect.’’
Or to put it more bluntly, Palestinians have created a culture where mass murder is the quickest, easiest and surest path to glory. What distressed Palestinians are told by their society is roughly the following: “Do you feel like a failure? No problem. All you have to do is murder a Jew, and you’ll be an instant hero. You’ll be lionized on radio and television programs; schools and soccer tournaments will be named after you; politicians will sing your praises. And as a bonus, you’ll also earn the respect that goes with being a breadwinner: If you live, the government will pay you an above-market salary while you’re in prison, and if you die, it will pay your family.” For a distraught youngster, such a prospect of instant redemption is enormously tempting.
This, clearly, is a form of society-wide child abuse: Instead of being encouraged to seek help, distressed young people are encouraged to commit murder, thereby ensuring they will either be killed by security personnel or sentenced to years in jail. That this practice is ignored by all the myriad “human rights” groups active in the West Bank is ample proof that they care as little about Palestinians’ human rights as they do about those of Israelis.

One On One With Alan Dershowitz - Aug. 11, 2016 w/ Col Kemp

Earlier this week I reported that an Israeli plan to give special rewards to Arab schools in Jerusalem to adopt the Israeli curriculum, which would allow students to more easily go to Israeli universities, was slammed by the PA Minister of Education as "racist." It is a strictly voluntary program.

The Palestinian Authority Cabinet discussed this at their weekly meeting, and they agreed that Israel giving money to some Arab schools is truly evil.

The Council condemned the requirement of the occupation authorities to provide funds for the restoration of Jerusalem schools by adopting the Israeli curriculum, rather than the Palestinian curriculum. It stressed that the practices and procedures of Israel against Palestinian schools and education in the holy city is a flagrant violation of human rights under international law... The Council demanded not to pass this plan, and the need to defend education and schools in the holy city, and to defend our language, our culture and the Palestinian Arab identity, calling on all relevant international organizations for urgent action to stop this grave Israeli violation.

The same do-nothing cabinet also praised terrorists, or in their words "paid tribute to the heroes of our prisoners languishing in Israeli jails."

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Somehow, Gazans get help via "normalization" - and without flotillas

One of the fundamental principles of the BDS movement, which we are constantly told reflects the will of "Palestinian civil society," is that any interaction with Israel or Israelis is forbidden.

This is, of course, for the good of the Palestinian Arabs who need to live with these rules.

But two stories came out today from Muslim nations who are ignoring these artificial rules.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mouloud Jawish Ihsanoglu announced an aid ship to Gaza next month, ahead of the Eid al Adha holiday. But it isn't going to break the legal Israeli naval blockade - it will go to Ashdod and the goods will be transferred to Gaza from there.

He stressed that Turkish aid will continue increasingly in the next phase, according to an agreement with Israel, especially in health and education and the banking industry.

Egypt has made similar announcements of aid to Gaza in recent weeks - but the aid again goes through Kerem Shalom.

This photo of kids playing in front of
Gaza's power plant doesn't look staged at all

In a much more ambitious announcement, Qatar's Gaza liaison Mohammed Al Emadi announced that Israel has approved a massive 100 megawatt solar power station for Gaza which will go a long way towards providing power needs for Gazans. There is a long way to go - they don't have a site picked out yet - but this also came about through negotiations with the hated Zionist enemy.

All without a single flotilla!

Not that the flotilla idiots are deterred. The next "peace boat" is scheduled to sail in September, and already the participants are happily lying:

Green Party MP Marama Davidson will be joining a women’s peace boat in late September which will highlight the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the Green Party said today.

“I am participating in the Women’s Boats to Gaza flotilla to highlight the crucial role of women in keeping their communities afloat, particularly in post-conflict situations,” said Green Party human rights spokesperson Marama Davidson.

“The people of Gaza are still living with the terrible impact of the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, which resulted in the death of 2,300 civilians and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes, schools and hospitals.

If 2,300 civilians were killed, that means that Israel somehow managed to miss every single militant in Gaza!

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