Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 02, 2016

09/02 Links Pt2: MSNBC host accused of anti-Semitism after BDS post on Twitter;

From Ian:

With the academic year set to begin at universities throughout North America next week, Jewish students who care about Israel are going to face some daunting challenges.
As laid out in a widely disseminated column published in The Washington Post recently by McGill University junior Molly Harris, titled, “So you’re a Jew and you’re starting college? Prepare for anti-Zionism,” elements of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic overtones are common place on her campus in Montreal, and have also been reported on campuses throughout the US.
Last week, the atmosphere Harris described was also reported by Milan Chatterjee, a former UCLA student president, who informed the university that he would be leaving due to a “hostile and unsafe campus climate” created by pro-BDS organizations.
Chatterjee told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that he has been harassed and discriminated against because he “refused to support an anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist activity, organization and position while serving as president of the UCLA Graduate Student Association.”
Another worrisome aspect of North American campus life Harris described was the growing tendency to exclude Israel-friendly Jewish students from social justice campaigns and organizations.
That trend may intensify following the release of Black Lives Matter’s platform last month. The popular left-wing cause, which many US Jewish organizations and campus groups have vocally supported, outrageously called Israel an “apartheid state” and accused the United States of complicity in Israel’s “genocide” against the Palestinians.

The NY Times has Duranty's Syndrome on Islam

Pulitzer Prize winner, Bret Stephens, in the Wall Street Journal highlighted a gap in the investigative journalism of the New York Times:
“An Israeli heavyweight judoka named Or Sasson defeated an Egyptian opponent named Islam El Shehaby Friday in a first-round match at the Rio Olympics. The Egyptian refused to shake his opponent’s extended hand, earning boos from the crowd. Mr. Sasson went on to win a bronze medal. If you want the short answer for why the Arab world is sliding into the abyss, look no further than this little incident. It did itself in chiefly through its long-abiding and all-consuming hatred of Israel, and of Jews. That’s not a point you will find in a long article about the Arab crackup by Scott Anderson in last weekend’s New York Times magazine, where hatred of Israel is treated like sand in Arabia—a given of the landscape”.
David French in the National Review also explains that “the role of Islam is minimized by the New York Times”. Reading Anderson’s investigation, it seems that the recent history of the Middle East is only a succession of betrayed hopes, neo-colonialism, ethnic fault lines, migrations. No mention of radical Islam and its project of conquest.
The long essay by Anderson is just one example of what William McGowan, winner of a National Press Club Award, in a book titled “Gray Lady Down” (Encounter Books), called “the decline and fall of the New York Times”, the bible of liberal intelligentsia, the object of worship of American journalism.
The New York Times was immediately ready to back Obama’s efforts of a “rapprochement with the Islamic world”, by drawing attention to the speech in Cairo in June 2009 modeled on cultural relativism and political correctness. Not once has Obama spelled the words “Islamic extremism” or “jihadism”. Yet Obama’s speech on Islam was music to the ears of the Times, which in an editorial titled “The Cairo Speech” magnified the naiveté of Obama.

MSNBC host accused of anti-Semitism after BDS post on Twitter

A host on TV news network MSNBC was accused of anti-Semitism after he responded to a Twitter post about an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man as a "perfect time" to talk about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement against Israel.
On Wednesday, journalist Collier Meyerson complained on Twitter of being forced to move seats on an Air France flight after a "Hasidic man" refused to sit next to her.
MSNBC host Christopher Hayes, who is also editor of far-left magazine The Nation, responded to her post saying it was the "perfect time to start a good, frank BDS convo."
@collier perfect time to start a good, frank BDS convo.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) August 31, 2016
Meyerson, whose father is Jewish, shot back at Hayes' comment, saying that she "doesn't discriminate against Hasidic folk" and pointed out that the man may be from the Satmar Hasidic sect, which is anti-Zionist. His post garnered dozens of responses, most of the them perturbed by his connection between the actions of the Jewish man on the flight and a boycott of Israel. Several of the commentators said that making the link was anti-Semitic.
The Jerusalem Post's Op-Ed Editor Seth J. Frantzman responded to Hayes' comment, saying that "it's time to start a good frank discussion about [anti-Semitism]." In the same post, he asked why "every time Jews do something [you] attack Israel?!"

I found more historic Palestinians!

From The Jewish Quarterly Review, Volume VI, 1894:

These ancient Palestinians were engaged in Torah and Haftara readings every Sabbath!

While the word "Palestinian" isn't too hard to find in 19th century books (invariably referring to Jews in Palestine) the plural use of "Palestinians" is more difficult to find. This was one of them.

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09/02 Links Pt1: Phillips: Accomplices in hate; Glick: Obama’s greatest achievement

From Ian:

Details, details, details: Telegraph misleads on Israeli settlement claim

The Telegraph’s claim is extremely misleading.
As reports in Reuters, International Business Times and BBC made clear, Israel did not approve the construction of 463 new homes.
The number 463 includes the following:

30 new houses in Beit Arye
20 new homes in Givat Zeev
1 new 234-unit nursing home in Elkana
179 building permits which were issued retroactively, legalizing under Israeli law already existing housing units that were erected in the settlement of Ofarim
So, the number 463 includes only 50 new homes, 234 units in one new nursing home building and the legalization of 179 already existing homes.
Oh, those pesky details.

Melanie Phillips: Accomplices in hate

People in the West are beginning to wake up to the fact that they are inadvertently helping fund Islamic terrorism.
There was widespread shock last month when Israel arrested the director of the Gaza branch of the giant aid agency World Vision.
He was accused of using humanitarian donations by Western governments such as Britain and the US to fund Hamas terrorism.
In Britain, newspaper articles have begun to ask why taxpayers are helping fund Palestinian terrorism and incitement through EU payments to the Palestinian Authority, which pays terrorists’ families and brainwashes Arab children to hate and murder Jews and Israelis.
This growing awareness, however, only scratches the surface of the free world’s complicity with evil. Western governments are effectively subsidizing epidemic, global Jew-hatred through that holy of progressive holies, the UN.
A report published this week by the UN watchdog Human Rights Voices and the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust exposes the extent to which the UN sponsors Jew-hatred and incitement to violence through accredited nongovernmental organizations.

Caroline Glick: Obama’s greatest achievement

For Israel, the question of what to do about Iran now is far more urgent than it is for Americans.
Today more and more commentators are voicing concern over the prospect that Obama will support an anti-Israel resolution at the UN Security Council as a parting shot at Israel.
But any such resolution will be small potatoes in comparison to the strategic devastation his nuclear deal, which is his main foreign policy legacy, has caused.
The rapidity of Iran’s advance makes clear that there is no justification for waiting to act until Obama has left office. If it doesn’t act soon, Israel is on the fast track to waking up one morning and discovering it has no means of thwarting the threat.
Indeed, with each passing month, its options for action become more and more limited.
After Israel’s security leadership undermined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to attack Iran’s nuclear installations in 2010 and 2012, Netanyahu settled on a strategy of blocking Obama’s moves to appease Tehran.
That strategy of course failed last summer. Since then, Netanyahu has worked to build an anti-Iranian alliance with the Sunni Arab states. His efforts in this area have clearly met with some measure of success, as witnessed by public statements from prominent Saudis and others.
Whatever that success may be, and whatever the status of that burgeoning alliance of spurned US allies, the fact is that it’s time Israel and its new allies do something more than send signals. Time is a-wasting.
Last spring Brig.-Gen. Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, said, “Today the grounds for the annihilation and collapse of the Zionist regime are more present than ever before.”
Thanks to Obama, he may be right.
It is time for Israel to make him eat his words.

Leftist admits she wanted to make anti-Israel film but ended up praising Israel

From Haaretz:

“Forgiving? Give me a break. There are two terror attacks within my film, I was even caught up in one of them myself and kept filming,” says Nili Tal when I suggest that her film “Saving Nur,” which follows a Gazan girl in need of a liver and kidney transplant, takes an overly forgiving attitude toward the Israeli side.

“I went to Duma to meet the Dawabsheh family,” she continues. “Have you been to Duma? Have you ever seen a burned child? I saw him in Sheba [Medical Center, Tel Hashomer]. I made a true film, as I see life and see the people. Don’t forget that Nur and her parents received tremendous medical treatment here. Dr. Elhanan Nahum, director of the pediatric ICU at Schneider [Children’s Medical Center] didn’t go to sleep at home with his wife and children when Nur’s life was in danger. The surgeon, Dr. Michael Gurevich, rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night to operate on her for the sixth time. He had barely changed out of his pajamas. My film sketches a situation. Situations that I don’t control. Life controls them.”

[...]

Now for the first time, Tal has directed a very political movie with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at its center. “Saving Nur,” which will be shown tonight on Channel 1, follows a little girl from Gaza who is seriously ill and needs a life-saving kidney and liver transplant. Her young parents, who have little money, manage to raise a million and a half shekels through an online campaign that attracts donations from Palestinians, Israelis and people from other countries. The sum is raised in just four months, something of small miracle.

Adding to the miraculous atmosphere are Jewish volunteers from Israel, bereaved parents who are members of the Parents Circle – Families Forum, who drive children from Gaza to hospitals in Israel. In one of the film’s peak moments, Nur’s mother Maha Hajj says that if her daughter should die following the liver transplant surgery, she would want her organs to be donated to Israelis first. This statement seems almost subversive considering that it comes from a Palestinian mother who needs to obtain countless permits in order to leave Gaza to get medical help for her child.

“I wanted to make a totally left-wing, political movie,” says Tal. “Yuval Roth, whose brother Udi Roth was murdered in the territories by three Hamas militants, was supposed to be the hero of the film. Shortly after his brother’s murder, he founded an organization that transports sick Palestinian children from the checkpoints and borders to hospitals in Israel. And his wife, Yael, is a steadfast member of the Women in Black who stand at the Gan Shmuel junction, holding signs that say ‘Evacuate the Settlements’ and ‘Free the Territories.’ I said to myself: ‘This is it, the time has come. Here are perfect characters for a film against the occupation.’ But darn it, wouldn’t you know it – instead of a leftist film I ended up with a ‘right-wing’ film that shows how wonderful and kind we are, helping sick Palestinians and driving them back and forth too.”

Here is part of the film (Hebrew):

It is telling, but not surprising, that the filmmaker admits that she wanted to make an anti-Israel film to begin with.

(h/t Yoel)

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Hamas arrested investigative journalist Mohamed Othman last night.

Othman writes for Al Monitor and other publications, and he specializes in uncovering corruption.

Recently the Gaza Health Ministry banned him from entering any hospitals in Gaza after a report on "errors and irregularities" in Gaza health facilities.

Palestine Press Agency reports that Othman was working on a report that accuses Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh of stealing zakat (charity) funds. he is said to have found documentation of Haniyeh's office appropriating $25,000 of funds meant for charity.

Just another day in Gaza.

UPDATE: He was released.

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Palestine News Network and other Arab media have reported in mid-August:

This week PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi conducted separate meetings with diplomats at the PLO Headquarters in Ramallah.

Dr. Ashrawi received French Consul General Hervé Magro at her office today, and in the meeting, Consul General Magro informed Dr. Ashrawi that the French government has awarded her the distinguished French decoration, “Chevalier de la Légion D’honneur” (Knight of the Legion of Honor). Dr. Ashrawi expressed her deep appreciation to France for the honor. The official ceremony will take place next month in Ramallah.

Let's take a"> look down memory lane at Ashrawi's accomplishments that allow her to receive this honor:

- She has called any Jewish civilian living over the Green Line a legitimate target of Palestinian resistance."

- During the Oslo process, in 1999, Ashrawi said that any two-state solution would be temporary, asserting that a single state (where Jews would be the minority) would be the ultimate answer.

- She has blamed Israel for the lack of Arab democracy.

- She has accused Israel of "enslaving" Palestinian Arabs.

- Her Miftah organization has published the blood libel against Jews, accusing them of using Christian blood for matzah.

- Ashrawi's Miftah organization still, today, has articles praising mass-murdering Palestinian terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi and Ahlam Tamimi as feminist role models.

- Ashrawi claims that Palestinians who live under Palestinian rule are "refugees" but Jews who were born in and expelled from Arab lands and who live in Israel cannot be given that title.

- Ashrawi says that the idea of Jews having access to their holiest site is "a declaration of war against Islam."

- She said, in reference to the terror attacks in Nice, " “The Palestinian leadership and people stand in solidarity with France and remain committed to nonviolence; we are opposed to any acts of extremism or terror targeting innocent civilians.” Yet her own organization says "Resistance in all forms against the armed colonial settlers and the army of occupation is a legitimate form of the struggle for freedom...Suicide bombing is the ultimate cry of help...."

- She claims that defining Israel as a Jewish state is racist, but the Palestinian Basic Law that declares that it is an Arab state does not seem to bother her.

- Her Miftah organization explicitly denounces EU policy of supporting peaceful co-existence and cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian groups.

Besides her hypocrisy, lies, support for terror and denial of any Jewish national rights, what has she ever done that has contributed to peace in any real sense?

She hasn't. Instead, she has contributed to incitement, hate and terror.

Her PR team must be dancing over how they have fooled the Western world into thinking that Hanan Ashrawi supports peace with Israel.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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"Reporters for Al Quds" writes lies in HuffPo (Arabic)

Someone named Saleh Zaytoun, who heads an organization called "Reporters for Al Quds," wrote an op-ed in Huffington Post in Arabic where he showed that his organization is just another propaganda outfit - and that "reporters" in the Arab world are often nothing of the sort.

The article describes the horrible things Jews are supposedly doing to Jerusalem - like living there. But then he describes the burning of the 1969 Al Aqsa Mosque by a deranged Australian Christian in these terms:

All this paved the way for the creation of an extremist generation to demolish Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock in the person of the Australian settler, Michael Dennis Rohan, who carried out his crime on August 21 1969 ...

Sons of Al Quds tried to extinguish the fire and waited for Israeli firetrucks to reach the scene, but they did not come quickly, which confirms the complicity of the occupation with the attack. They also cut off water for the region surrounding the mosque on the same day the fire, prompting Jerusalemites to get firefighters from neighboring cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, to fight the fire and prevent the spread to all parts of the mosque.

Israel arrested the perpetrator, claimed that he was crazy, and deported him to Australia, where he still lives without any trace of insanity.

He actually stayed in an Israeli mental institution for five years, then transferred to one in Australia where he died in 1995. And he was quite insane.

Official PA media has repeated the lies about Israel supposedly cutting off the water supply and letting the mosque burn.

Today, 47 years after the crime the issue of Jerusalem is no longer ranked first on the agenda of the Arab and Islamic summits, the issue of Jerusalem no longer receives the media attention it requires in the midst of concerns of Arab infighting which gives Israel the golden opportunity to take over the holy land.

We in the "Reporters for Al Quds Initiative" are counting on the Arab media to give this issue the attention it deserves so the upcoming generations do not forget the importance of Jerusalem in the Arab and Muslim conscience, and we all hope that loyal journalists will contribute in traditional or in social media to confirm their steadfastness and their attachment to Jerusalem

In 2007, Islamist Sheikh Raed Salah also started an initiative called "Reporters for Al Quds" with a very similar mandate intended to get journalists to write lies like these. It is unclear if this is the same organization.

Does the Huffington Post care that it is publishing easily proven lies?

Has it ever?

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09/01 Links Pt2: Why the origins of the BDS movement matter; Burkini Bans and Jewish Democracy

From Ian:

Why the origins of the BDS movement matter

A recent film clip showing ex-Israeli academic Ilan Pappé has raised eyebrows. Asked whether it was Palestinians who launched the BDS campaign in 2005 Pappé conceded, “Not really, but yes. OK. For historical records, yes.” Both Israel supporters and Israel haters have been taken aback by this forthright statement, from a leading Israel hater, that Palestinians did not create this now iconic movement.
What are the BDS movement’s origins? The question is, at one level, an historical curiosity. The movement exists, it is forging ever-deeper links with the far left and the ‘progressive’ movement, and is a force to be reckoned with. At another level, however, the history of the BDS movement is emblematic of Palestinian political history, and the recent development global antisemitism, as a whole.
Two trends are immediately evident in the history of BDS, the role of Palestinian political factions and professional Palestinians from the diaspora, which have led Palestinians toward rejectionism.
It is easy to dismiss the movement’s own origins story, the 2005 call from Palestinian ‘civil society’ organizations. The call for boycotting Israel was in explicit opposition to the Palestinian Authority (which, indeed, rejected it) and may well have originated with a rejectionist PLO faction. Indeed, many of the ‘grassroots’ organizations that signed the document cannot be traced. They were likely organs of political factions or just fabrications.
The message was simple: the “representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.”

Norway, stick to polar bears

It was during the perusal of this usually apolitical source of news -- it is not uncommon for nine out of 10 headlines to include polar bears in some form or other -- that my husband jumped from his chair, pointing to the computer screen in horror. I looked at the headline, which said, "Boycott Israel!"
So there it was: the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement had made its way to the northernmost inhabited place on earth. The text was a letter to the editor, written last summer by a local priest, Leif Magne Helgesen, in which he was peddling the most outlandish claims, including that Israel is "a military regime" and encouraging his fellow Longyearbyen residents to boycott Israel. The priest had spent his summer vacation in a Palestinian Arab village and had returned a full-fledged BDS warrior, ready to go against Israel, which he continued throughout his lengthy diatribe to describe as a "regime."
There is something deeply ironic, tragicomically so, about a priest who does his business in the northernmost spot on earth, surrounded only by the Creator's beauty and the occasional scare from a polar bear, isolated from the rest of the world and certainly from the issues of the Middle East, venting his anti-Semitic fury and rage at a country that could not possibly be further removed from him than Israel. It is also telling that this man is, of all things, a priest.
Unfortunately, it should not surprise us. Svalbard belongs to Norway, which according to a recent report by watchdog group NGO Monitor, has recently joined Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands in contributing funds to an organization funding NGOs that promote a boycott of Israel. According to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry's website, 5 million Norwegian kroner (over $600,000) was allocated to the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (HR/IHL) Secretariat in the second half of 2016. According to the NGO Monitor report, the "HR/IHL Secretariat is an intermediary that distributes funds to nongovernmental organizations ... active in BDS ... campaigns and other forms of demonization against Israel. It is managed by the Institute of Law at Birzeit University (IoL-BZU) in Ramallah and the NIRAS consulting firm, based in Sweden."

We have previously looked at arguments made by BDSers that boycotts of Israel are considered protected free speech and any legislation against BDS is a violation of the Constitution. Both those assertions are very wrong.

I just came across a new paper that describes in much more detail why under US law, boycotting Israel is not protected by the First Amendment, as the boycotters keep claiming.

The most compelling part of the argument comes from an incident that occurred in the 1980s:

In International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO v Allied International, Inc., 17 a case that was decided little more than a month after oral arguments in Claiborne, the Supreme Court found that boycotts impeding United States commerce that are political protests intended to punish foreign nations for their offshore conduct may be limited by the government.

The Longshoremen case is illustrative as it includes two important and distinct legal elements: a federal law that prohibits boycott activity (which also exists in the case of BDS Movement boycotts, in the form of the Export Administration Act) and a determination of the permissibility of such prohibition under the First Amendment.

The Longshoremen case was couched in facts strikingly similar to that of the illegal BDS Movement boycotts of Israel.18 At the time, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. In response, the United States undertook a series of boycott and embargo actions including prohibitions on the sale of certain goods to the Soviet Union.19 As part of that embargo, however, the United States explicitly exempted certain goods, including those that were to be loaded and unloaded by the union in Longshoremen.

Notwithstanding the government’s directives on the scope of the embargo, the union unilaterally expanded the embargo and instituted a blanket boycott on the handling of any and all cargo from the Soviet Union.21 The president of the union, Thomas Gleason, explained that the union felt compelled to act in contravention of the government’s foreign relations policy because “[p]eople are upset and they refuse to continue the business as usual policy as long as the Russians insist on being international bully boys.”

As a result, the union refused to handle the cargo of a company that dealt in wood products from the Soviet Union (which products were explicitly exempted from the government’s embargo).23 The boycotted company registered a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the union was engaging in an unlawful boycott under section 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act24 and also filed suit against the union in federal court (the suit was filed under the Labor Management Relations Act, which provided for a private right of action for victims of unlawful boycotts).25 When the Supreme Court took up the case, it decided that the applicable provisions of the National Labor Relations Act did not infringe the union’s First Amendment rights. In so finding, the Court explained:

Application of [the prohibition on boycotts] to the [union’s] activity in this case will not infringe upon the First Amendment rights of the [union] and its members. We have consistently rejected the claim that secondary picketing by labor unions in violation of [the prohibition on boycotts] is protected activity under the First Amendment. It would seem even clearer that conduct designed not to communicate but to coerce merits still less consideration under the First Amendment. . . . There are many ways in which a union and its individual members may express their opposition to Russian foreign policy without infringing upon the rights of others.26

A boycott is not speech, it is coercion.

In Longshoremen, the Supreme Court had to determine whether federal law...could restrict boycott activity in the United States without violating the First Amendment rights of the actors. It is from this general legal question that an unambiguous rule emanates: where a federal law regulates boycott activity and the purpose of that law is a legitimate expression of national policy in the realm of foreign relations and commerce, and the law does not relate to the suppression of speech on substantive matters subject to constitutional protections, the First Amendment does not protect the boycott activity.

(h/t EK)

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

How do you characterize a population as a people? Most of us would say that a people has some combination of language, religion, culture, place of origin, and genetic makeup, and that its members identify with a historical narrative that describes how they came to be.

The Jewish people is a paradigmatic case of a people, with a unique language and religion, a definite origin, clearly distinguishable genetics, and a historical narrative spanning thousands of years that is probably the most powerful story in much of the civilized world. This is why it is so typically chutzpadik for Palestinians to argue that there is only a Jewish religion and not a Jewish people.

The Palestinians do not have a unique religion, language, genetic identity, or place of origin – unless you count having an ancestor who lived in Mandate Palestine for at least two years as establishing rootedness there. But they have a historical narrative with which they very strongly identify.

It is a relatively new narrative, having originated in the mid-20^th century as a reaction to the establishment of the Jewish state. It is to a great extent false – there is no long-term ‘Palestinian’ presence in the land of Israel (claims going back to biblical times are ludicrous, and few ‘Palestinians’ can trace their lineage in the land prior to about 1830; most are descended from 20^th century migrants). Their story about their dispossession by the Zionists is also to a great extent false and self-serving. But none of this matters.

What does matter is that virtually all Palestinians believe the narrative, and it is perfectly designed to combine with the features of the Arab and Muslim culture of the Palestinians in such a way as to create endless, insoluble conflict with the Jewish state.

The narrative tells of a proud culture rooted in the land, dispossessed by foreign invaders who have no connection with it. It tells about humiliation of the Palestinian people, their wealth and property taken from them. It tells about a Muslim land being ruled by infidels, or almost worse, by Jews, Mohammad’s historic enemies whose inferior role is demanded by the Qur’an. It tells about Arab manhood being insulted by repeated military defeats by the children of pigs and monkeys.

The narrative tells about an intolerable condition, and its collision with Arab culture and Islam can’t be resolved by a compromise which permits the continuation of Jewish sovereignty in any real sense. Any solution acceptable to the Palestinians must include the return of their ‘property’ – that is, the ‘return’ of the descendents of Arab refugees to ‘their homes’. For Muslims, there is also the fact that the entire land, having been ruled at one time by Muslims, is a part of dar al islam and must return to Muslim rule. And of course, no situation in which a Jew is superior to a Muslim in any way is acceptable.

Worse, Arab honor, which was stolen by military defeat and which continues to be taken by the daily humiliations of Israeli security measures, must be regained. This requires equal humiliation and violence against the Jews.

But why can’t the Jews make a similar argument on the grounds that the rights of the Jewish people were abrogated by the Arab conquest of the 7^th century? The Palestinians take this threat quite seriously, which is why they insist that there is a Jewish religion but no Jewish people. And it is why they make ridiculous statements like “Palestinians are descended from ancient Canaanites,” “There was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem,” or “Jesus was a Palestinian.” It is why they are working assiduously to get UNESCO to declare all Jewish historical sites to be Arab or Muslim.

As long as the Palestinian narrative is believed there will be no peaceful two-state solution or any other compromise that allows a Jewish state to continue existing. And as long as Arabs understand that their lost honor needs to be regained there will be no end to murderous outbursts of violence against Jews by Arabs.

These are not things that are in our power to change. There is no way we can educate the Arabs to stop believing their narrative and to start believing ours. No matter how kind we are, how conciliatory, how fair, how just, how many concessions we make, how much economic opportunity we provide, the fundamental problem remains. If you think I’m exaggerating, read this about Palestinians in general, and this about Arab citizens of Israel. If anything, as time goes by, the narrative gets embedded more firmly in the Palestinian psyche.

So does this imply that there is no hope?

Not exactly. There is no hope for a peaceful compromise, true. But there are other ways a conflict between peoples – yes, I think their narrative makes them a people, if not an ancient one – can end. One side or other can prevail, can overpower its enemy to the extent that it gives up the idea that it can win, and stops fighting.

The usual example of this is WWII in which the losers were crushed so badly that they gave up, accepted occupation, and even changed their ways of thinking so as to reject militarism and ultimately became allies of their erstwhile enemies. But there is another example that is much closer to home and might provide a model for a solution that requires somewhat less death and devastation than that wrought by the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima.

That is the example of the Arab citizens of Israel.

They are not any less committed to the Palestinian narrative. But most of them have come to understand that they are not capable of overthrowing the Jewish state. They lived under military rule from 1948-68, but since then have had the same rights (if not responsibilities) of Israel’s Jewish citizens. The combination of the perception of an overwhelming imbalance of power plus the availability of economic options has not canceled the Palestinian narrative, but has made it possible for them to live peacefully in a Jewish state. What other country in the world can say that it has a 20% Muslim minority that is not a source of violent instability?

The continued docility of our Arab citizens isn’t guaranteed. In order for it to continue, there are several things that are important: they must continue to understand that they will not obtain national rights in the Jewish state, either by violence or political means, although their civil rights will be protected. Israel will remain a Jewish state, not a binational one. The flag and national anthem will not be changed, and there will always be a Jewish right of return, and never an Arab one. The overwhelming imbalance of power must be maintained. But at the same time their rights to equal treatment under the law and their economic opportunities must not be foreclosed.

The same principles apply to the Arabs of the territories, although it is probably not a good idea to suddenly grant them citizenship and hope that they will behave like the Arab citizens from 1948. But we are presently far from establishing the necessary imbalance of power as long as the Fatah and Hamas organizations are operating. They and similar enemies of Israel must be defeated and destroyed as a first step. We wouldn’t tolerate Fatah operating in Tel Aviv, so we should not tolerate it in Ramallah either.

The strategic geography of the land of Israel implies that we cannot give up control of Judea and Samaria and still be capable of defending our nation. That in turn means that we have to deal somehow with its Arab inhabitants. Their dedication to the pernicious Palestinian narrative precludes a Western-style compromise, but if we can decisively end their ability to make war, then maybe their only remaining option – as in the case of the Arab citizens of Israel – will be to live in peace.

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09/01 Links Pt1: PA continue to glorify murderer of 3 on Jerusalem bus; How the Syria conflict divided the left

From Ian:

PMW: PA and Fatah continue to glorify murderer of 3 on Jerusalem bus

Fatah to terrorist Alyan: "Glory kneels before you"
Palestinian terrorists Baha Alyan and Bilal Ghanem boarded a bus in Jerusalem this past October with a gun and a knife and murdered Haviv Haim (78) and Alon Govberg (51), and Richard Lakin (76). Alyan was shot and killed by an Israeli security guard at the scene and Ghanem was captured and is serving 3 life sentences.
Early this morning Israel gave over the body of terrorist Alyan for burial. WAFA, the official PA news service, honored the terrorist writing that:
"Martyr Baha Alyan ascended to Heaven last Oct. 13 [2015], after he carried out a stabbing and shooting operation together with prisoner Bilal Ghanem on an Israeli bus." [WAFA, the official PA news agency, Sept. 1, 2016]
Significantly, the PA news agency assumes that stabbing Israeli civilians on a Jerusalem bus makes Alyan worthy of "ascending to Heaven."
Fatah posted on its Facebook page the picture of the terrorist, calling him a "heroic Martyr": "May Allah have mercy on Baha and all of our heroic Martyrs. Glory kneels before you." [Official Fatah Facebook page, Sept. 1, 2016]

PMW: Israeli Army closes Palestinian radio station that has been publicizing Hamas messages

Early this morning, the Israeli army closed Radio Sanabel, an independent Palestinian radio station in Hebron, due to its incitement.
Although the Israeli army did not specify the nature of the incitement, Palestinian Media Watch has examined the Radio Sanabel Facebook page which is still functioning and found the following:
Sanabel recently posted on its Facebook page a threat by Hamas, including a picture of two masked Hamas terrorists, who issued the following warning to Israelis:
“Al-Qassam Brigades (i.e., Hamas’ military wing) Spokesman Abu Ubeida: ‘We warn the enemy against continuing its tyrannical steps against our captives. It should know that its captives with us will receive the same treatment that our captives receive in its prisons.’” [Facebook page of Radio Sanabel, independent Palestinian station, Aug. 21, 2016]
A few days before, Radio Sanabel publicized another Hamas warning, implying that it will be kidnapping and holding Israelis as prisoners:

Seth J Frantzman: How the Syria conflict divided the left, pro-Palestinian voices and exposed a murderous support for Assad

The Syrian war has caused a crises in some circles, pitting regime supporters and apologists against former friends and colleagues. This happened in the 1930s as well when the Communist party began to persecute its own and those in the West such as George Orwell began to have a jaundiced and nuanced view of what was happening in the USSR. In some ways the Syrian war has burst a bubble in relation to the pro-Palestinian movement, separating those who primarily only care about Israel and Palestine, some of whom don’t even really support Palestine but merely dislike Israel, from those who support more global norms of human rights. It has separated those such as Judith Butler and their claims that Hezbollah is part of the “global left”, from a more authentic left that doesn’t see theocratic militias with their militarism and chauvinism as “left.”
The debates are still grounded in the old slanders of “imperialist” and “fascist” but the issue is confused by the question of who is really an imperialist and a fascist. Is Assad a kind of Nazi or the Jihadists? Is Russia the imperialist or America?
Some on the right relish in watching their ideological opponents fight eachother, just as they relish watching Shia militias hack to death Sunni groups. But their relish is misplaced because the war in Syria is not a positive thing. Their relish is misplaced because it’s not altogether clear that the extreme pro-Assad “left” is actually part of the left, and it may be that it is actually part of the right. When Iran champions the “war on terror” and the right champions the “war on terror” and both celebrate bombing, they are both on the right. But there is another part of the historical right in the West that is more liberal and libertarian and whose natural affinity is for global human rights, like those who oppose Assad.
In the question of ‘what is to be done’, that Lenin and Thomas Paine both asked, there is a universal value of human rights and the right to life, the right not to be barrel bombed. When the cynics and pragmatists say “work with Assad” and “we don’t want chaos,” one might ask what they would have said of the American Revolution or the French Revolution. Yes, there can be chaos, but it can also be good for human rights. On that, the pro-Assad voices have sold out humanity.

From Times of Israel:

Israel’s ambitious project to construct a canal linking the Red Sea to the shrinking Dead Sea will also see the transfer of 30 million cubic meters of water to the Palestinian Authority, under an agreement signed Wednesday at a global water conference in Stockholm.

The agreement, signed at the annual The World Water Week, was backed by Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, but sparked an angry outburst by the Palestinian representative against Israel’s water policies.

Likud MK Ayoub Kara, who represented Israel at the annual conference, said the transfer would begin within the next month.

“We brought up the creative idea for the transfer of 30 million cubic meters of water to the Palestinians next month within the framework of the canal project, and the initiative was praised by members of the council,” he told Israel Radio on Thursday.

“This praise for the initiative pressured the Palestinian representative, who took to the stage and was shouting like you’ve never seen, prompting security to remove him from the stage,” Kara added.

I cannot find confirmation of Palestinian water minister Mazen Ghoneim being removed, but his speech was a rant against Israel that did not seem to acknowledge Israel's actions.

The important part of the story is that the optics for Palestinian leadership had been extraordinarily bad lately in the Arab world.

The gap between how Arab states are praising this agreement and how Palestinians are responding to it is most telling. It is more evidence that the Arab world is sick of the Palestinian issue - and the reason is because the Palestinian leadership itself shows little interest in solving the problem, choosing instead to publicly bash Israel even when Israel is trying to help them.

In the same vein, air force pilots from the UAE and Pakistan participated in the annual Red Flag exercises in Nevada in August - together with Israel.

When there is more overt cooperation between Israel and major Muslim countries than with Palestinians, you know that the Palestinians are on the outs. Yet years of anti-Israel rhetoric has painted them in a corner of their own devising where they must keep their own cooperation with Israel as hidden as possible.

Local elections are coming up in the territories - elections that may show Hamas to be more popular than Fatah. Mahmoud Abbas is panicking. There are reports that Mahmoud Abbas is attempting to reconnect with his bitter rival, former Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan who now lives in exile, and who still remains popular.

The Palestinian Authority is being pressured by its own people, by Hamas, and by the Arab world. If it would have been preparing its people for peace with Israel instead of incitement it would be in much better shape. Now it is viewed as too intransigent for the Gulf states and too moderate for its own people.

Things will come to a head for the PA sooner rather than later.

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Human Rights Voices and the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust have released a major new report about a little-mentioned issue: NGOs, accredited by the UN, that violate its charter by promoting hate.

The introduction to the paper explains the importance of the matter:

The United Nations was founded as a global pact among states, but over the decades – in the name of transparency and openness, and in order to further the aim of globalization – the UN has opened its doors to non-governmental organizations. More than 6,150 NGOs have been invited to participate on a year round basis in UN activities, and have thus been handed a coveted global megaphone. An examination of these NGOs, however, reveals that both by design and gross negligence on the part of UN member states, the NGOs’ ranks include bigots, antisemites, and terrorist advocates who are now spreading hatred and inciting violence from the world stage.

Democratic states, led by the United States, control the purse strings of the United Nations either from within the UN bureaucracy or through domestic policy. Getting serious about combating the spread of intolerance and violent extremism means putting an immediate stop to the use and abuse of the United Nations to broadcast and support xenophobia and its lethal consequences.

In theory, the UN has processes for accreditation that share a common requirement: respect for the purposes and principles of the UN itself. In order to qualify for accreditation or association, NGOs must operate in conformity with, or promote, the UN Charter. They must affirm “faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.”

In practice, accredited non-governmental organizations have been allowed to flaunt the core of the UN mission by advocating terror and intolerance. At the same time, they have been permitted to draw closer to the world of international diplomacy and gain access to the international media platforms associated with it.

Most striking for an organization founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, the UN enables its accredited NGOs to play a central role in promoting modern antisemitism. Although the preamble of the UN Charter promises the equal rights of nations large and small, UN-accredited NGOs foster the destruction of the UN member state of Israel.

The benefits of UN accreditation for NGOs are tangible and significant. UN-accredited NGOs are able to secure meeting space within UN buildings to sponsor speakers, mount exhibits, and screen films, all within immediate proximity to the world’s press. Major media organizations from across the planet have in-house office space at UN headquarters in New York and Geneva. NGOs can speak at important UN meetings and have their words translated and broadcast globally via UN webcasts, which are then archived for the public, researchers, and students from elementary schools to college campuses. UN-accredited NGOs can submit written statements to UN bodies that are assigned official UN symbol numbers, posted on UN websites, and archived in searchable formats for the global community. More recently, UN websites have started linking directly to NGO websites, greatly enhancing traffic to the NGO websites and the promulgation of the NGOs’ messages. UN-accredited NGOs are also invited to attend negotiating sessions and decision-making forums, thereby gaining access to the world’s diplomatic corps, with the attendant opportunities for influence.

The links between UN-accredited NGOs and the promotion of terrorism and hatred – including, in particular, antisemitism – violates the terms and conditions of these NGOs’ accreditation. In some cases, these NGOs were originally accredited by UN bodies in spite of these links. In other cases, while these links may have developed after the original accreditation processes, UN bodies – despite conducting mandatory periodic review processes – permit such NGOs to retain their UN status while violating the fundamental principles of the institution.

Generally, UN accreditation or association is done either through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) or the Department of Public Information (DPI). In the case of Israeli-related matters, it can also be acquired through the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). The qualifier for UN-NGO accreditation is that “the aims and purposes of the organization shall be in conformity with the spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations” - in the case of ECOSOC accreditation; “support and respect the principles of the Charter of the United Nations” - in the case of DPI association; and “support the Charter of the United Nations” - in the case of accreditation by the CEIRPP.

There are thousands of UN-accredited NGOs and the report enumerates a large number of statements by these organizations that are antisemitic, incite to violence and hate:

“The media is under the control of Zionist organisations…My question is: which is stronger, is it the law or the Zionist project?” - from Meezaan Center for Human Rights, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC,

-from Islamic Human Rights Commission, Accredited with Special Consultative Status by ECOSOC and accredited by CEIRPP.

[T]here are certainly some aspects of Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians that bear a clear resemblance to the Nazis’ oppression…“Genocide” -- defined by the UN Convention as the intention “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group” -- most aptly describes Israel’s efforts, akin to the Nazis’, to erase an entire people. - from Women for Palestine - Australians for Palestine, Accredited by CEIRPP

“[T]he world that Zionists made, according to their ideal of Jewish sovereignty… is a world of segregation, with Jews on top.” from Friends of Al-Aqsa, Accredited by CEIRPP

- from Palestine Solidarity Campaign – Thailand, Accredited by CEIRPP

There are hundreds of such examples, and essentially any anti-Israel NGO can get accredited by the UN. Even NGOs that are acknowledged to be antisemitic by other NGOs, like "If Americans Knew", are accredited by the CEIRPP, and which has written “The Talmud states that...two contrary types of souls exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from the Satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness...”

This is a hugely important report that identifies how the UN is actively promoting terror, hate and antisemitism - and how it is violating its own principles and rules by doing so. The only way to stop this is for the US to withhold funding from the UN unless it revamps its NGO-accreditation system from scratch.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Arab news claiming former Lebanese porn star and Naftali Bennett are lovers

Mia Khalifa is the pseudonym for a recently retired Lebanese porn star. She attracted controversy and death threats when she wore a hijab in one of her adult movies while engaging in various NSFW acts.

Now, many Arab news sites (including Al Quds al Arabi) are claiming that:

Khalifa is coming to Israel...
...at the invitation of Naftali Bennett...
..the "minister of the economy...
...because they are having an affair."

All four of those are false. (Bennett is Education Minister, although he used to head the economy ministry.)

Other rumors connected her with the Mossad in order to help destroy Arab morals or claimed that she converted to Judaism.

Al Masdar, an Arabic site that was originally associated with The Israel Project, has fun demolishing all these rumors and making fun of Arab media for publishing and then embellishing the story.

Apparently, the source for the rumor of a link between Bennett and Khalifa came from a satirical website The Mideast Beast last year:

Naftali Bennett...has called for a search for a star in the Jewish State after pictures and tweets of Middle Eastern porn star Mia Khalifa, born in neighbouring Lebanon, briefly topped social media searches last week.

Speaking to The Mideast Beast a spokesman for Bennett’s office stated, “having seen this travesty the minister is well aware of the economic damage that could be caused by people thinking that the hottest chicks come from Lebanon. Everybody knows the sweetest bodies in the Levant are to be found in Israel, and that Tel Aviv is party central here in the region,” he continued.

In order to reinforce this message the minister is launching a search for an Israeli porn star to rival Khalifa. “We are looking for a young professional who can outdo, outstretch, out-everything, this poor Lebanese imitation,” the spokesman stated. “Ideally they will be in the IDF because chicks with guns are always hot. They should also be extremely flexible and have an all-over tan,” he added.

It is a stretch to get from that article to the current rumor, but there has been a long time for it to form and spread.

(h/t YM)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

08/31 Links Pt2: Bellerose: Why It’s So Easy To Hate Jews; Islam and Anti-Semitism in Malaysia

From Ian:

Anti-Semitism bred by ignorance... just look at our attitudes to Israel-Palestine

After misogyny it is arguably the world's oldest hatred and, as the late Conor Cruise O'Brien noted, anti-Semitism is a "light sleeper".
O'Brien contended that it is found barely beneath the surface even in literature from Shakespeare to Wilde; in public discourse even in societies with tiny or non-existent Jewish populations, and is infectious in its pervasive paranoia throughout the entire Arab and Islamic world.
The 'beast' also raises its head at times when it is least expected, as it did in west Belfast with the desecration of Jewish graves in the City Cemetery.
Politicians and religious leaders have united to condemn the vandalism, which some tried to portray as mindless drink and drug-fuelled behaviour - but now appears to have been something more organised, more targeted, more pointed. After all, the vandals used hammers and blocks to break up the headstones while a larger mob looked on encouraging their actions. There is clear evidence here of forward-planning; the graves targeted being exclusively Jewish, some dating back to the 1870s.
One theory knocking around is that the latest flare-up of anti-Semitism in Belfast is somehow related to the controversy over Celtic being fined by Uefa after their fans displayed Palestinian flags at Parkhead during a European Champions League qualifier this month against an Israeli side. Whatever the motivation, or even the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestine question, it is undoubtedly the case that the desecration was motivated by anti-Jew hatred.

UN Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): Inciting Hatred, Antisemitism and Violence from the World Stage

CLICK HERE FOR FULL REPORT
Our ground-breaking report exposes the shocking antisemitism and incitement to violence that is occurring at the United Nations by means of UN-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The UN is enabling groups to spread hatred, encourage terrorism, and promote the destruction of the Jewish state from the world stage.
Democratic states, led by the United States, control the purse strings of the United Nations either from within the UN bureaucracy or through domestic policy. Getting serious about combating gross intolerance and violent extremism means putting an immediate stop to the use and abuse of the United Nations to broadcast and support antisemitism, bigotry and their lethal consequences.

Ryan Bellerose: Why It’s So Easy To Hate Jews

I know right off the bat some of you were upset, and whether you understand it or not, that was the point.
You see the question I am most often asked is why do people hate Jews so much? Shortly followed by why do people hate Indians so much? The sad and funny part is that it’s exactly the same reason. Because it’s easy. But why is it so damn easy?
You see it is really easy to hate someone you don’t know, and it is even easier when they are different from you. I am fond of saying that it’s easy to hate an abstract concept, but it’s hard to hate a person. It is very easy to lie or believe lies about someone you know nothing about. If you have zero attachment at best you will not get involved at all; at worst you will actively get involved with demonizing and delegitimizing the “other.”
Jews have dealt with this a long time. Basically your very existence rubs a lot of people the wrong way because you remind them of things they want to forget. Nobody likes the idea that they or their ancestors were ever the bad guy, and no good guys ever woke up saying “Hey today I think I will try to kill all the Jews.” Therefore, for some people, their ancestors were in fact the bad guys.
Sometimes those who are on the pointy end of hate have a tough time understanding; they cannot see the forest for the trees. They try even harder to be liked, and the end result is they come off looking weak or conciliatory when that is the very last thing they need to appear. It is as if they are fighting the perception they are the “bad thing.”