Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 09, 2016

09/09 Links Pt2: The last acceptable hatred; How the Left is propagating Anti-Semitism without knowing it

From Ian:

All the major Swedish news outlets reported this week that the city of Malmo is investing in a comprehensive educational effort, initiated by the Jewish community, aimed at countering the rise in anti-Semitism that has plagued the city for many years. As part of this effort, 288 teachers are receiving specific education on the topic of anti-Semitism, and newly produced educational materials in the form of books and movies will be handed out to the pupils to "facilitate a conversation" and teach them about the issue of Jew-hatred historically and currently.
More anti-Semitic hate crimes are reported in Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, than in any other city in the country, and the Jews who live there have become used to constant harassment, having eggs thrown at them and being yelled at, degraded and even physically assaulted on a regular basis. The Chabad rabbi of Malmo, Shneur Kesselman, reported 80 anti-Semitic attacks between 2004 and 2010, and although there are no official numbers since then, it can be assumed that things have not improved.
After World War II, the Jewish population of Malmo reached a high of 4,000. In recent years, because of the city's failing economy and the rise in anti-Semitic incidents by the influx of Muslims, the city has been losing its Jewish population. Today the city's organized Jewish community has only 550 members, with more leaving for Stockholm, the United States or Israel each year.
Any effort to lessen the anti-Semitic hate crimes in Malmo is a good thing, but I am saddened that children and adults need to be specifically educated not to hate and attack Jews and, perhaps even more so, that after all these years of persecution the initiative for this comes from the Jews themselves, rather than from the political establishment.

An Inherited Culture of Hate

"I hate Christians and Jews. I don't know why. I don't have any apparent reason to hate them but I always hear my mom talking badly about them. She hates them too, and this is why I hate them, I guess. Mom has always told me that Muslims are Allah's favorite people," — F., a 15-year-old Tunisian girl.
"They said that non-Muslims deserve to die; we should have no pity for them. They will burn in hell, anyway." — M., a 16-year-old Tunisian boy.
People who do not read tend to fear things they do not know, and this fear can turn into suspicion, aggression and hate. These people need to fill the void, to remove the discomfort, so they turn to terrorism to create a goal in their lives: defending Islam.
As most Tunisians do not read, they watch TV a lot. "After watching 'The Sultan's Harem,' I wanted to be one of the Sultan's concubines, to live in the Ottoman Empire era; I wanted to be like them," said S., a 14-year-old Tunisian girl.

World’s Oldest Working Journalist, 90-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Noah Klieger, Fears Nazi Genocide Will Be Forgotten in 50 Years

One of Israel’s best-known Holocaust survivors told a packed audience in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening about his genuine fear that the Nazi genocide will not be remembered 50 years from now.
Noah Klieger expressed this concern at an event that doubled as the release of a documentary film about his having staved off the gas chambers at Auschwitz by lying to the SS about being a professional boxer and a celebration of his 90th birthday.
Klieger, who is still on the staff of the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot — making him the oldest non-retired journalist in the world — described a bleak view of the future.
“Young people don’t know about the Bar Kochba revolt, so I’m worried the Holocaust won’t be remembered either,” Klieger said, referring to the second century Judean war against the Romans. “But as an optimist — something I’d have to be to have survived what I did and be standing here today — I hope I’m wrong.”
The biographical film, which Klieger said he was seeing for the first time with the hundreds of people gathered in his honor — among them members of the Israeli government, the media, ambassadors, rabbinical leaders, fellow survivors, IDF brass and soldiers — gave a moving overview of the trials and tribulations of a Strasbourg-born Jewish boy robbed of his youth by Hitler and his henchman.

Pro-BDS briefing - on Capitol Hill

The "US Campaign to End the Occupation" has scheduled a meeting of pro-BDS organizers - in one of the congressional buildings in Washington, the Rayburn building, next Friday at noon.

I imagine that one needs a congressperson to help arrange such a thing, but none is mentioned on their site.

They hope to attract members of Congress to their anti-Israel propaganda.

I am very interested in finding out how one goes about getting a room in a congressional building.

They have every right to meet wherever they find a venue. But whoever attends must know that they are lying, such as when they say that boycotting Israel is constitutionally protected.

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Newsweek Middle East pushes The Map That Lies, and other Palestinian propaganda

Newsweek Middle East, which is based in Dubai, just published a video to go along with a ridiculous story written a couple of weeks ago by Israel hater Ben White.

Where is Palestine? More: https://t.co/TM4AlhS6zv pic.twitter.com/3tFmpt855v
— Newsweek Middle East (@NewsweekME) September 6, 2016

The video is simply Palestinian propaganda based on the stupid argument that since there was a place called Palestine on old maps and coins, it proves that an independent Arab state of Palestine existed before 1948.

I debunked the argument most memorably here, where I humorously pointed out that the only people who proudly called themselves Palestinians before 1948 were Jews, and that essentially all institutions that used the word Palestine in their title were in fact run by Zionists.

More recently, I showed that a map of Palestine proudly published on the PLO NAD webpage was in fact a map of Jewish control of the land in the time of King Saul. Embarrassed, the PLO removed the map from their webpage.

In short, there is no relationship between what people call "Palestine" today and what people meant when they used the word before 1948.

Worse, the Newsweek video shows a particularly absurd version of The Map That Lies:

This has been debunked so thoroughly that textbooks and news networks that showed it apologized afterwards because they didn't want to be associated with such a blatant twisting of the truth. This version is even worse than most by calling the area that the UN proposed as "The Arab State" "Palestine" as well as the areas that were under Jordanian and Egyptian control before 1967, as obvious a falsification of history as can be imagined.

Yet Newsweek is happy to associate its name with fact-free anti-Israel propaganda.

The Newsweek and NewsweekME Twitter accounts, not to mention their email addresses, should be flooded with outraged comments on how they not only crossed but obliterated the line between journalism and pure lying propaganda.

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09/09 Links Pt1: Bibi: Palestinians seek ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Jews; Glick: Mahmoud Abbas and other Soviet ghosts;

From Ian:

PM: World silent as Palestinians seek ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Jews in West Bank

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday accused the Palestinians of advocating ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population in the West Bank, and decried what he said was the world’s silence on the issue.
Speaking in English in a video message posted on his Facebook page, Netanyahu asked whether people in other parts of the world would accept such demands in their own countries.
It’s “outrageous that the world doesn’t find it outrageous,” Netanyahu said, urging viewers to ask themselves whether they would accept “a territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks” in their nation.
“Since when is bigotry a foundation for peace?” he asked.
“At this moment, Jewish schoolchildren in Judea [and] Samaria are playing in sandboxes with their friends,” he said, referring to the West Bank by its biblical Hebrew name. “Does their presence make peace impossible? I don’t think so.”
He said he envisioned a Middle East “where young Arabs and young Jews learn together, work together, live together side by side in peace.”

Caroline Glick: Mahmoud Abbas and other Soviet ghosts

This then brings us back to KGB agent Abbas and his target, Israel.
Against great odds, and at a steep price, over the past 10 years Israeli society stopped listening to the voices on the Left parroting Abbas’s lies that Israel was born in sin, as a Western colonialist implant. Given the stakes, most Israelis today also have come to realize that our national self-confidence is a vital component of our long-term survival.
This understanding, along with a clear-eyed assessment of what drives our interlocutors in Moscow, Paris, New York and Brussels, must inform our foreign policy in the coming years.
When faced with foreign governments whose societies lack long-term prospects, Israel needs to put aside its yearning for long-term peace and stability and focus on short-term cooperative ties. It must also recognize that our partners’ interests are subject to change at a moment’s notice.
The revelation of Abbas’s KGB service requires us to recognize that the Soviets’ long game of subversion continues on today. Whether or not Western societies persevere and reject the Soviets’ central contention that they are unworthy of survival is not for Israel to decide. So, too, Israel will not convince the Russians to embrace a future based on freedom and the sanctity of life.
All we can do is wish them the best and play the short-term game with them – while keeping our long-term interests front and center in our minds.

'In Moscow, in the 1980s, you didn't go to university for free'

Former Shin Bet security agency director MK Avi Dichter (Likud), who now chairs the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, on Thursday addressed the report alleging that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a KGB agent in the 1980s, saying that at the time getting higher education in the Soviet Union came "with a price."
"[Abbas] went to university in the former Soviet Union," Dichter told fellow committee members. "We need to remember that in those years, going to Moscow and to university, certainly if you were Palestinian, came with a price of sorts."
Dichter added: "In Arabic there is a saying that 'only being blind and deaf is free.' In Moscow, you didn't go to university for free.
With that, he cautioned, "We need to be careful. I saw the reports that [Abbas] had a code name. Having a code name does not necessarily mean you are an agent. There are code names given for procedural reasons, and even if he provided information it doesn't mean he was an agent."
Meanwhile, the former Shin Bet chief rejected Palestinian claims that Israel's political leadership was behind the publication, calling the accusations "nonsense."
"This information came from untainted academic research and sources who acquired these documents. It's embarrassing for the Palestinians to say such things," Dichter said.

UNGA president says he is against antisemitism - BUT

From UN Watch:

When Israel, the U.S. and Canada hosted a forum on anti-Semitism at the U.N, the General Assembly president, former Danish foreign minister Mogens Lykketoft, spoke of Israeli “oppression” of the Palestinians:

“We the United Nations gave an enormous responsibility to go up against all expressions of prejudice and incitement… But we have also to be extremely careful and precise in what is and what is not antisemitism. It’s not anti-Semitic to call for an end of the occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and to demand an end to illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.”
If this were a forum on discrimination against blacks, women, or gays, do you think the top U.N. official would lecture delegates on what statements are not discriminatory?

Do you think there would be any “But”?

Beyond that, it might be interesting to ask Mr. Lykketoft exactly what his definition of antisemitism is.

Is saying that Jews are not a people antisemitic?

Is saying that they have no right to self-determination antisemitic?

How about declaring that your state would expel all Jews from its boundaries - is that antisemitic?

How about demanding that Jews, and only Jews who lived in their homes for decades must be expelled (for "peace"?)

Is comparing the Jewish state, and only the Jewish state, to Nazis, antisemitic?

Is directing boycotts at only the Jewish state antisemitic?

Is endemic Jew-hatred done by Arabs antisemitic, or is it only Jew-hatred on the right?

Is expelling hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries antisemitic?

I mean, once he is drawing lines, it would be great to hear exactly where he draws his. Since he is an arbiter of morality, you know.

Mr. Lykketoft also appears to be a fervent believer in linkage, telling the UN last year without a hint of embarrassment, "with conflicts in Syria and Yemen, a major refugee crisis and violent extremism combining to create growing instability across the region, the question of Palestine [takes] on even greater significance." He also visited the PA areas without visiting Israel in 2014, blaming a scheduling conflict.

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Last year, on a TV show in South Africa, Haaretz writer Amira Hass refused to condemn the wave of Palestinian terror attacks occurring that the time.

She gives two reasons for her refusal to condemn, neither of which make any logical sense.

The first is that Israel doesn't condemn its soldiers for killing civilians. The flaws in that analogy are obvious: as the Israeli ambasssador noted, Israelis don't celebrate dead Arabs. The IDF is not targeting civilians, as Palestinians target Jewish civilians. And in the specific example that Hass gives, of the Samouni family in 2009, the family happened to include members of Islamic Jihad.

The Hass makes another argument against condemnation, saying that the source of all violence is the "occupation." Even when IDF soldiers aren't hurting anyone, they are the source of violence. When the ambassador noted that this does not justify Palestinian terror, she demurred, but didn't explain the relevance of the "occupation" to the terrorism if not as a justification for the acts of terror.

We've seen her say these sorts of things in print, but hearing exactly how immoral she is from her own mouth is far more striking.

(h/t Spotlighting)

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New paper indicates that settlement activity is not a violation of Geneva Conventions

Professor Eugene Kontorovich has just published an incredibly-well researched paper that looks at the legality of settlement activity in occupied territories from a completely new angle.

The paper takes an exhaustive look at every known example of belligerent occupation in modern times, and finds that for any occupation of more than a few years, settlement activity is a part of the occupation. Kontorovich summarizes his paper this way:

First, the migration of people into occupied territory is a near-ubiquitous feature of extended belligerent occupations. Second, no occupying power has ever taken any measures to discourage or prevent such settlement activity, nor has any occupying power ever expressed opinio juris suggesting that it is bound to do so. Third, and perhaps most strikingly, in none of these situations have the international community or international organizations described the migration of persons into the occupied territory as a violation of Art. 49(6). Even in the rare cases in which such policies have met with international criticism, it has not been in legal terms. This suggests that the level of direct state involvement in “transfer” required to constitute an Art. 49(6) violation may be significantly greater than previously thought. Finally, neither international political bodies nor the new governments of previously occupied territories have ever embraced the removal of illegally transferred civilian settlers as an appropriate remedy.

He looks at examples of settlement activity in East Timor, Western Sahara, Northern Cyprus, Syria/Lebanon, Vietnam/Cambodia, Armenia/Azerbaijan, Russia/Georgia, Russia/Crimea, and the Baltic states.

For example,

Under Russian occupation, Abkhaz authorities have embarked on an explicit settlement enterprise, designed specifically to bolster the proportion of ethnic Abkhazians in territory, at the expense of Georgians, and thus cement the split from Georgia.316 Such an enterprise faces inherent challenges, as the entire Caucuses region experiences net population outflow due to economic conditions.

The occupation authorities have established an official government entity, the State Committee on Repatriation, which encourages ethnic Abkhaz from the diaspora to move to the occupied territory. It actively recruits such individuals, and organizes their flights and transportation. The authorities also provide them with free housing, subsidies, and other assistance. Significant sums are invested in construction for the settlers.

This is not anomalous.

Yet Kontorovich is not establishing merely that Israel is subject to double standards. That part is obvious, but it doesn't prove that Israel isn't violating international law.

His argument is far deeper. The nearly complete absence of any criticism of these actions by the international community - even when the same international community is listing other violations of international law by the belligerent side in these conflicts - means that outside of Israel, none of these activities are considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions' prohibition of "transfer." The bar to violate Geneva is much higher, and appears to be the forced transfer of a population, not the passive or active encouragement of such population movements. (I don't think Kontorovich says this last point explicitly, but in light of his findings, I believe that this is accurate.)

Moreover, the lack of international response to these activities in itself implies that they are legal. Kontorovich quotes a major figure in international law, Malcolm Shaw:

Generally, where states are seen to acquiesce in the behavior of other states without protesting against them, the assumption must be made that such behavior is accepted as legitimate…This means actual protests are called for to the break the legitimizing process [when a new rule is being established by affirmative conduct].

Kontorovich expands on this:

In the situations studied in this Article, the failure to raise legal objections is consistent and general, and extends to international organizations and groups (the U.N.UN Human Rights Commission, the ICRC, and humanitarian NGOs like HRW), whose work it is to systematically point out violations of these norms.

Numerous other circumstances give added weigh to this silence.402 For one, the situations here are not ones that escaped international political condemnation and legal scrutiny. In most of these contexts, the international community has condemned the underlying occupation or aggression, and in most if not all cases, it has criticized the occupying power for violations of IHL and human rights norms. Thus the UN, the EU Parliament, PACE, and other bodies have been asked to denounce these activities as illegal, and have refused.

Such omission speaks loudly. Indeed, in various contexts (e.g. Cyprus, Georgia) the occupying power has been criticized by the international community for the transfer out of protected people (Art. 49(1)), but nothing was said about Art. 49(6). Finally, when some of the settlement activities were criticized by the international community (Vietnam, Armenia), they were not branded illegal. In these cases, we are not dealing with pure silence, but rather with the kind of silence that suggests the underlying conduct is either legal or not clearly illegal.

Crucially, the paper shows that in none of these other cases of occupation are the settlers demanded to be removed as part of any peace plan. That is wholly unique to Israel. (I personally believe that such a forced removal would be a clear violation of international law, as the main parts of article 49 of the Geneva Conventions explicitly deal with the violation of human rights accompanied by the forced removal of populations against their will.)

Kontorovich also makes this devastating point:

Doubtless some will attempt to dismiss the findings of this Article by saying the treatment of settlers in these other contexts was merely politics, rather than law. To be sure, geopolitics is always a presence in international law. That is why scholars must study an issue across all possible geopolitical contexts. Consistency of treatment across different geopolitical contexts suggests a legal rather than a political explanation. Moreover, the situations discussed here are not marked by an international fear of condemning the occupying power – they often are condemned, just not for illegal settlement activity.

Once one admits possible political explanations for how Art. 49(6) is applied, one would have to consider the possibility that maybe it is the exceptional treatment afforded to the Israeli case that is the political one. To put it differently, the point of looking at the broadest set of data is to help exclude alternative hypotheses like “politics.” With a data set of one, one cannot determine whether observed reactions are political or not. Expanding the sample to eight other cases raises a sharp question: what is more likely to be political – the international community’s consistent treatment of settlements across eight vastly different geopolitical situations – or its anomalous treatment of the single notoriously politicized and emotional case of Israel?

It isn't just double standards. It is that the international community has created an artificial international law to apply only to Israel, even though that law simply doesn't exist in other contexts. Not that it exists and is ignored - it doesn't exist. When legal critics give their laundry lists of violations of international law by belligerent occupiers, they simply do not consider settlement activity to be illegal.

This is an extraordinarily important paper that not only reveals much about international law, but also about how much of what people call international law in context of Israel is simply a lie.

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An Israeli leftist slams Brian Eno for his BDS stance

The Guardian reported:

The composer and producer Brian Eno has denied permission for one of Israel’s most critically acclaimed dance companies to continue using his music for a series of performances in Italy after he discovered that the Israeli embassy was sponsoring the event.

Eno, 68, who started his career with Roxy Music but has latterly become known for his ambient music compositions, said he had not been aware his music was being used in a piece by the Batsheva dance company.

Eno, a prominent supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign aimed at Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, wrote to the dance company last month to deny them permission to use his music.

The Batsheva Dance Company posted this response:

"I am willing to give my own house for peace," says Ohad Naharin, who says that Eno's actions are "useless" towards bringing peace.

(h/t Yigal)

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09/08 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism, Brought to You by the UN; ‘BDS doesn’t want a better Israel — it wants no Israel’

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: World Vision Finances in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza

On August 4, 2016, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced that Mohammed El-Halabi, manager of the Gaza operations of the international humanitarian non-governmental organization (NGO) World Vision, funneled 60% of the World Vision Gaza budget to the terrorist group Hamas. The Israeli indictment and media reported that these funds were used in the construction of Hamas tunnels, military installations, and other terrorist activities.
World Vision International (WVI) disputes these allegations, arguing that the budget for Gaza operations was smaller than the amount of funds the Shin Bet states were diverted. In a press release, WVI claimed that, “World Vision’s cumulative operating budget in Gaza for the past ten years was approximately $22.5 million, which makes the alleged amount of up to $50 million being diverted hard to reconcile.”
NGO Monitor research demonstrates the obstacles to independent verification of World Vision’s financial claims regarding operations in Gaza. World Vision operates an official Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza office (JWB). In addition, according to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits, there is an Israeli World Vision entity, with offices in Jerusalem. The relationship between the entity registered in Israel and the JWG office is entirely unclear.

Anne Bayefsky: Anti-Semitism, Brought to You by the United Nations

The U.N. gives a platform to many NGOs that actively encourage violence against Jews and the destruction of Israel.
The United Nations was founded as a global pact among states, but over the decades in the name of transparency and to further the aim of globalization, it has opened its doors to more than 6,150 non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While governments wring their hands over incitement to terror and dangerous uses of social media, they ignore the alarming focal point within arms’ reach: the United Nations. An examination of U.N. NGOs reveals that the U.N. has handed a global megaphone to groups spreading hatred and inciting terror from the world stage. In short, the so-called representatives of “civil society” aren’t so civil after all.
In theory, the U.N. has processes for accreditation that share a common requirement: respect for the purposes and principles of the organization. In order to qualify for accreditation, NGOs must operate in conformity with, or promote, the U.N 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, NGOs have been welcomed into the world of international diplomacy and have gained access to international media platforms while they are simultaneously betraying the core U.N mission by advocating terror and intolerance.
Most striking for an organization founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, the U.N. has accredited NGOs that play a central role in promoting modern anti-Semitism and encouraging the destruction of the Jewish state.

How the UN Pitched the Media on Antisemitism Event: Don't Worry, Israel-bashing is OK

According to a UN summary provided to news media of a conference on antisemitism held at the UN on September 7, 2016, antisemitism is bad, but condemning Israel is fine. The summary was published on UNifeed, a UN website which provides videos and information about UN events to broadcast news providers. In the words of the UNifeed summary:
"UN / GLOBAL ANTISEMITISM (2:38)
At a high level forum on Global anti-Semitism, General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft said the UN has 'an enormous responsibility to go up against all expressions of prejudice and incitement,' but noted that 'it's not anti-Semitic to call for an end of the occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine and to demand an end to illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.' UNIFEED-UNTV"

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

On Monday morning, an underground parking lot being constructed in Tel Aviv collapsed into itself, killing at least three workers and injuring some 20-odd others. As I write (Wednesday) there are still several workers unaccounted for, probably buried underneath piles of concrete and steel.

Since the collapse, literally hundreds of rescuers – Homefront Command soldiers, firefighters, MDA and Hatzalah workers, special rescue teams with dogs and high-tech equipment to seek weak signals from mobile phones, and others have been working nonstop to try to get to the remaining trapped workers. Some have been pulled out of the rubble, but as time passes it becomes less likely that they will come out alive. Rescue workers say they will not stop until everyone is accounted for. The Prime Minister and the IDF Chief of Staff have visited the scene.

Most construction workers in Israel are Arabs – Israeli citizens or from the territories – or foreign workers. One still missing is Mohammad Dawabshe, a member of the extended family from Duma in Samaria that was a victim of a murderous arson that has been controversially blamed on Jewish extremists.

So what can we say about this?

I don’t mind saying that Israelis care about human life, including non-Jewish human life. You might not believe this if you get your knowledge about us from the subversive, lying Ha’aretz newspaper or the biased foreign press, but they do.

We went to Haiti, to Turkey, to Nepal and to other scenes of natural disasters in order to save lives, which we did, even though Ha’aretz will say that we were just trying to hide the fact that we are committing ‘genocide’ against the Palestinians. We have been systematically providing care for Syrians wounded in the civil war that is taking place next door. Sick Gazans are able to come to Israel for treatment (the obstacles in their way are primarily placed by Hamas, despite what is written in Ha’aretz). Even relatives of Hamas and PLO leaders are treated in hospitals in Israel.

Our army really does try to avoid hurting non-combatants when we defend ourselves against murderous attacks. International military experts say so, despite the flood of propaganda from anti-Israel sources.

Every day Amira Hass writes in Ha’aretz that Israeli security forces and ‘settlers’ practice deliberate cruelty against Arabs. But every day Amira Hass puts on her one-way glasses, the ones that block Arab terrorism and Jew hatred, and magnify accusations against Israel. This is how a conflict looks when you see only one side. And the more ‘information’ that you get that comes through filters like Hass, the more you become incapable of seeing things differently.

Although the PLO and Hamas are obsessed with death, there are Arabs that care about life too. An example of a real-life situation here was the murder of Rabbi Miki Mark in June. The car in which he was travelling with his wife and several of his children was riddled with bullets by Hamas terrorists. Rabbi Mark was killed, his wife seriously wounded and two children also injured. But the first car that stopped to help was occupied by an Arab man and his doctor wife, who got them out of the car and provided first aid. It becomes still more complicated when you note that these Arabs protected them from other passers-by who were not so benign, and that one of the rescuers lost his job because of the incident. Because he saved the lives of Jews.

But to return to the construction site, isn’t it the case that safety rules and practices in the construction industry are outrageously lax, and many workers are killed every year in avoidable accidents? And isn’t this because the workers are non-Jews and we don’t care about them?

The answer to these questions are ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Construction in the US is much safer. More money and time is invested in worker safety. But the lack of attention to safety in Israel does not only affect non-Jewish workers. As I found in my years working on two kibbutzim and in my army service, there are cultural attitudes that express themselves as carelessness, attitudes that are shared to a great extent by both Jews and Arabs. My wife says it’s a Middle Eastern macho thing: we don’t need no stinkin’ hard hats, ear plugs, or dust masks.

In this incident, as in the collapse of the “Versailles” wedding hall 15 years ago when 23 lost their lives and 380 were injured, it’s obvious that there was negligence, and heads will probably roll. There has already been one person placed under house arrest by the police in connection with this incident.

As always, after a particularly bad accident or terror attack everyone says “well, now things will have to be different.” But most of the time they go back to being more or less the way they were. The Versailles disaster was much worse and changes were made, but apparently the procedures for ensuring that sound design and construction practices are followed still need improvement.

It’s hard to change deeply embedded cultural attitudes, and the Israeli attitude is to distrust rules and regulations and improvise as the situation demands. As I have been told countless times in this country, “don’t worry, it will be OK.”

But not everything can be flown by the seat of your pants or fixed in the field with duct tape. The air force learned this a long time ago, and the army learned it from the Second Lebanon War. Maybe it’s time the construction industry learned it too.

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09/08 Links Pt1: Abbas was KGB Agent in Syria in 1980s; Palestinian court postpones local elections

From Ian:

PMW: Murderer of 6 is Fatah’s candidate for Hebron City Council

In the approaching Palestinian local municipal elections, Fatah has chosen a special candidate to run for election to Hebron’s City Council: a convicted murderer.
On Facebook, Fatah praised its candidate Tayseer Abu Sneineh and took pride in his participation in the murder of 6 Israelis in 1980:
Posted text: "The number 2 candidate on the Fatah Movement list in the Hebron City Council elections - hero of the Daboya operation (i.e., Beit Hadassah terror attack, 6 murdered) Tayseer Abu Sneineh - one of the heroes of the Daboya operation on May 2, 1980.”
Tayseer Abu Sneineh was one of four Palestinian terrorists who attacked a group of Israelis on May 2, 1980, in Hebron, near Beit Hadassah - the only building in Hebron in which Jews lived at the time. They murdered 6 Israeli young men and wounded 20. All four terrorists were sentenced to life in prison, but were released in various prisoner exchange deals in the 1980s.
Fatah’s post announcing Abu Sneineh’s candidacy went on to describe the terror attack as “one of the most important battles and acts of bravery of the Fatah Movement” and “one of the most courageous self-sacrifice operations.” Fatah furthermore praised the killers as “heroes” and men “of delicate emotions”:
“Four young people met on one of the cold days of March 1980 in a cave in the Hebron hills... on that very day the four were unknown...
After a few months, the four carried out one of the most courageous self-sacrifice operations in the occupied areas, if not the most courageous, and it is the attack against the Jewish settlers in Hebron...
The four heroes were not murderers, who feel a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction from the sight of blood, but rather [men] of delicate emotions, who the extremist Zionist occupiers denied the rights of their Palestinian people, and they did not find any other means besides weapons in order to restore them [the rights]...”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Aug. 27, 2016]
Abu Sneineh is not the only murderer who is being considered a respectable figure in Palestinian politics.

Analysis: Abbas, the KGB and the world of Middle East espionage

The revelation that the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, also known as 'Abu Mazen,’ was a KGB agent, should not surprise historians and researchers of the PLO movement and the methods of the Soviet Union.
Since its creation in 1959, the Fatah group, and later the PLO, were influenced, penetrated and supported by various Arab intelligence communities, the KGB and its satellite security services in the communist bloc. More than ideological bonding it was a marriage of convenience.
The PLO needed financial support, military training and weapons. The Soviet Union, entangled in the Cold War with the West, wanted to increase its influence in the Middle East. The Soviet Union and its client states in Eastern Europe supported “progressive” movements and groups around the globe, including those who were involved in terror and violence.
While the Soviet Union tried to keep its hands “clean,” it instructed the security services of its client states to do the dirty work. The East German Stasi, and also the Hungarian and the Bulgarian agencies, trained PLO officers, gave them weapons, documents and hosted notorious terrorists such as Abu Nidal, Carlos and Wadi Haddad. The Black September terrorists who killed the 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics traveled via East Berlin.
Yasser Arafat himself was photographed by “Securității” the Romanian security service in an intimate position in his hotel room in the company of his body guards while visiting Bucharest. (h/t Yenta Press)

JCPA: Israel’s Rights in the Territories under International Law
Amb. Alan Baker: International Law Expert: Israel Is Not an “Occupier”

I just joined Patreon, a crowdfunding site that allows you to give money every month for those who create content that you love (videos, blogs, art, games...) Patrons get rewards based on their level of giving.

Some sites are getting tens thousands of dollars a month. I see one idiotic anti-Israel blogger manages to get $1200 a month!

If you are a fan of EoZ, you know that I work hard to bring you news that you wont see elsewhere. I also want to give more to the columnists and others who contribute to the blog.

More than that, I would love to do this full-time and build EoZ (or an offshoot, probably with a different name) into an entire organization that goes way beyond the blog to actual newsletters to distribute to pro-Israel churches and synagogues, lesson plans to help teach students about the issues before they go to college, more formalized review of textbooks for anti-Israel bias, and many more initiatives. Some of the ideas I have are listed on my Patreon page.

Why should you become a patron? Well, let me show you:

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Palestinian textbook teaches how to pray

I reported on Monday that Palestinians were complaining that their new textbooks, released with much fanfare late last month, included many mistakes on maps and implied that Ramallah was the capital of "Palestine."

The Palestinian Education Ministry responded by claiming that Israel created these textbooks and somehow infiltrated them into Palestinian schools!

The Palestinian ministry of education Wednesday condemned the issuing of fake Palestinian history school books that contained false information on Palestine.

The ministry said in a statement that Israel issued school books that resembled official Palestinian school books, but included false information such as Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, adding that the move was an attempt to distort the Palestinian national identity.

However, it was unclear if there was a specific Israeli company that was behind the publishing of the books.

The ministry warned against using the Israeli-issued copies of the Palestinian school books, while calling on all schools in Jerusalem, teachers, parents, and students to be aware of the falsified school books.

So those nefarious Jews spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars to create fake Palestinian textbooks!

What makes this even more interesting is that the minister of education, Tharwat Zaid, originally blamed the mistakes on editing and printing errors, and said that the same thing happens in other countries, and that it would be corrected. But as the complaints piled up, he apparently decided that saying that Israel was behind the problem is a better response.

The ministry of education did teach an important lesson to its students: when faced with a major embarrassing mistake, blame the Jews.

The new curriculum is not only being criticized for its allegedly Zionist content, but also because it is misogynist:

Women are depicted in first- and second-grade Islamic Education textbooks as witches and sorceresses -- and this is really catching flak.

One image features a witch under the Quran verse that reads: "I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed." Another image of a witch is accompanied by a verse from the Quran that refers to the "evil of malignant witchcraft."

Critics say that associating women with witchcraft is extremely disrespectful and offensive towards Palestinian women.

"Children in grades 1 and 2 are being taught that women are witches or hags," they protested. "The lesson they are being taught is that the first half of society is Muslim, while the second half is infidel."

It is unclear whether this is being blamed on Israel as well.

It is also worth emphasizing that the Palestinian Arab curriculum mandates "Islamic education" in public schools, and UNRWA teaches Islam in its schools when it uses this curriculum, violating its own UN standards by hiring Islamic studies teachers and teaching Islam.

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In Nazareth Illit, three Muslim women beat a Christian woman in their building because her son serves in the Border Police.

The Muslims, who are sisters, have also abused the Christian in other ways. They poured acid on the boy's uniform while it was hanging outside, emptied trash by the door of their apartment and cursed the mother repeatedly.

Two weeks ago the mother filed a complaint with the police after the three sisters entered her house and started beating her.

The lawyer for the Christian woman, Eyal Peltak, says that other Christians who decide to serve their country have also suffered from abuse from their Muslim neighbors. There have been inquiries and recommendations made but nothing has been done.

In 2014, there were some 300 Christians in the IDF, 1500 Christians in the police and over 100 in the Border Police. Increasing numbers of Christians have been choosing to serve even though they are not obligated to under the law. Christian and Muslim Israelis who join the police or military are subjected to intense pressure and insults from many of their Muslim neighbors as well as from Palestinian Arabs who regard them as traitors.

(h/t Yoel)

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Israeli police reward rioters by forbidding Jewish prayer in Muslim Quarter

Arutz-7 reports:

A ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount has been extended to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, police officials say, justifying the series of recent arrests of Jews praying outside of entrances to the Temple Mount.

After a number of arrests of Jews praying outside of the gates of the Temple Mount, police justified the arrests during a court hearing on Monday, claiming that the ban on Jewish prayer is not limited to the Temple Mount, but extends to the areas around the entrances to the holy site and even to the Muslim Quarter as a whole.

Police representatives Safi Sarahan and Roei Avrahami explained the ban in court, following questioning by an attorney from the Honenu organization representing several girls arrested for praying in the vicinity of the Temple Mount.

The officers revealed that prayer by Jews anywhere near the Temple Mount or even in the Muslim Quarter was considered “disturbing the peace”, except where coordinated with the police in advance.

“Prayer is permissible anywhere in the Jewish Quarter, but the moment you come without permission and pray in the Muslim Quarter, that causes a public disturbance. Inside the Muslim Quarters and the entrances it is forbidden to pray.”

When pressed by the Honenu attorney to cite the law which prohibited Jewish prayer in the Muslim Quarter, the police represents said the matter was within the discretion of the police, under their general responsibility for “keeping the peace”.

NRG broke the story, and followed up,. Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel said it is a discriminatory policy by the police. "If a Jew prays, it can anger the Muslims, then they will breach the public peace, that makes a riot, they run wild, so Jews are not allowed to pray. Everything is upside down. After all, somewhere in Tel Aviv, if a Muslim wants to pray, he has no problem, he takes the prayer mat in the middle of Tel Aviv, the middle of Safed, the middle of each location in Israel - there is no one to bother him about it. We respected him. Would one of us dare to raise a hand against him?! To mock him ?! No, he is respected."

Effectively, Muslims are being rewarded for antisemitism and rioting. By the police in the Jewish state. The police are agreeing with the Muslims that prayers are "provocative" and violence in response to those so-called provocations are fine.

Will Jews need special permission to pray at the Kotel HaKatan, or the Ohel Yitzchak synagogue, both of which are in the Muslim quarter?

All Muslims have to do to rid the quarter of Jews is to start riots, and the police will do what the Muslims want accomplished.

Amnesty and HRW have a dilemma. Do they support the Jews who want to exercise their human right of freedom of worship, or do they support the Israeli police? I think that these brave "human rights" workers will stay out of this issue because they can't support either side.

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