Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, October 08, 2016

10/08 Links: The Deadly Israeli House; Prominent Holocaust survivor slams Syria analogies

From Ian:

Netanyahu Spokesman Rebuts Atlantic Columnist’s Criticism: Jeffrey Goldberg, Not the Prime Minister, Is the Real Pessimist

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a “staunch optimist” who remains “fully committed” to seeking peace with the Palestinians, a spokesman for the premier wrote this week in a strong rebuttal of an Atlantic op-ed that harshly criticized the leader of the Jewish state.
On Thursday, Atlantic columnist Jeffrey Goldberg published a message he had received from David Keyes — Netanyahu’s foreign media spokesman — in response to an article Goldberg wrote last week following the funeral of the late Shimon Peres that was titled, “The Unbearable Smallness of Benjamin Netanyahu.” Keyes’ response, titled “The Unbearable Misunderstanding of Goldberg,” said that none of the accusations the veteran American Jewish columnist made against Netanyahu — including “stymieing peace, paralyzing pessimism, alienating Americans, scapegoating Arabs, misplaying Iran and fetishizing fear” were true.
“Implicit in Goldberg’s piece is the assumption that the Israeli people must be stupid or naive,” Keyes wrote. “Why else would they keep voting for someone Goldberg considers such a short-sighted fear-monger? Prime Minister Netanyahu has been elected to four terms because Israelis trust him to navigate the stormy seas that surround Israel and to keep them safe and prosperous.”
Regarding the peace process with the Palestinians, Keyes noted that Netanyahu has “consistently offered and genuinely hopes to begin peace talks with the Palestinians immediately and without preconditions.” The prime minister, Keyes said, still envisions a peace agreement “based on two states for two peoples where a demilitarized Palestinian state finally recognizes the Jewish State of Israel.”
Keyes also took issue with Goldberg’s assertion that Netanyahu mishandled the Iran nuclear issue. “History will judge Netanyahu differently — boldly taking Israel’s case to the American people and Congress to highlight the existential threat of the world’s worst state sponsor of terror seeking atomic bombs,” Keyes wrote. “Netanyahu’s determination over the years to prevent a nuclear armed Iran was a leading force that helped galvanize sanctions against Iran in the first place. Without Israel’s steadfastness, Iran would have had nuclear weapons long ago.”
Concluding his response, Keyes wrote, “Israel’s future has never been brighter. The real pessimist here is not Prime Minister Netanyahu — it’s Jeffrey Goldberg.”

The Deadly Israeli House

There are few weapons as deadly as the Israeli house. When its bricks and mortar are combined together, the house, whether it is one of those modest one story hilltop affairs or a five floor apartment building complete with hot and cold running water, becomes far more dangerous than anything green and glowing that comes out of the Iranian centrifuges.
Forget the cluster bomb and the mine, the poison gas shell and even tailored viruses. Iran can keep its nuclear bombs. They don't impress anyone in Europe or in Washington D.C. Who can even think about genocide in Africa in the presence of the fearsome weapon of terror that is an Israeli family of four moving into a new apartment.
Sudan may have built a small mountain of African corpses, but it can't expect to command the full and undivided attention of the world until it does something truly outrageous like building a house and filling it with Jews. Since the Sudanese Jews are as gone as the Jews of Egypt, Iraq, Syria and good old Afghanistan, the chances of Bashir the Butcher pulling off that trick are rather slim.
Due to the Muslim world's shortsightedness in driving out its Jews from Cairo, Aleppo and Baghdad to Jerusalem, the ultimate weapon in international affairs is entirely controlled by the Jewish State. The Jewish State's stockpile of Jews should worry the international community far more than its hypothetical stockpiles of nuclear weapons. No one besides Israel, and possibly Saudi Arabia, cares much about the Iranian bomb. But when Israel builds a house, then the international community tears its clothes, wails, threatens to recall its ambassadors and boycott Israeli peaches.

Christian ecumenical organization confesses Israel's sins

In a few days, Jews will gather in synagogues around the world to ‎atone for their sins on the holiday of Yom Kippur. They will fast for 25 ‎hours, pray, and hope that by the time they sit down to end their fast in a ‎celebratory meal, they will have been purified of their sins and brought to the level of ‎angels.‎
This year, any Jews having difficulty identifying the sins for which they need to ‎atone can consult the website of the World Council of Churches, one of the ‎many Christian organizations that gather stories and images of Jews behaving ‎badly in the Holy Land and then broadcast these stories and images to their ‎Christian supporters around the world.‎
The WCC does this work in a stated effort to promote peace between ‎Israelis and Palestinians, but officials at the council won't mind a bit if Jews in ‎Israel and the rest of the world use their materials for purposes of self-‎flagellation. It would make them happy -- really happy -- to see Jews join in ‎the chorus of condemnations against the Jewish state.‎
One place to look on the WCC's website is the section promoting its World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel, which takes place every ‎September.‎

10/07 Links Pt2: MDA Heroes Talk About 365 Days of Terror; Matisyahu delivers sobering anti-BDS message in new single

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: The Problem With Using the Tax Code to Punish Israeli Settlements

J Street and like-minded progressives are campaigning to eliminate U.S. tax exemptions for charitable groups that provide support to Jewish communities in the West Bank. The reason: the communities’ existence contradicts the views of President Obama. J Street’s campaign violates the law and the Constitution, and it also suggests an alarming trend in which critics of Israel get a free pass from the Left’s overall strong commitment to civil liberties and distrust of authoritarian government.
While J Street claims that its demand is justified on the grounds that private Americans’ support for settlements contravenes “established public policy,” J Street is calling for the administration to do something unprecedented and clearly unconstitutional. To put it simply, J Street et al are asking that some non-profits be denied tax exemptions because they disagree with the President on diplomatic matters. That’s what going against ”public policy” means here—not violating any statutes, but pursuing goals at odds with the foreign policy of the President.
J Street hides its effort behind language in Treasury regulations restricting the tax-exempt status of groups that act “contrary to clearly defined and established public policy.” But what J Street fails to mention is that groups only act “contrary to clearly defined and established public policy” when they contravene a policy established by law and the Constitution. According to the IRS itself, the public policy exception applies only to one context: racial discrimination. The public policy exception provides no basis for the idea that the IRS can revoke tax exemptions for groups that favor policies disfavored by the White House or State Department.
Unlike presidential disdain for Israeli settlements, the legal background of combating racial discrimination is enshrined in several Constitutional Amendments, numerous statutes, and countless Supreme Court precedents. The legal pedigree of combating racial discrimination is vital to the legal validity of applying IRS exception, as the Supreme Court stressed in narrowly upholding the racial discrimination exception several years ago. J Street makes a mockery of the law and the nation’s long struggle for equality when it attempts to assimilate the “crime” of donating ambulances to communities living in Shilo or the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City into what the Supreme Court justly called the unique “stress and anguish” of racial discrimination in the nation’s law and history.
To get an idea how shocking J Street’s suggestion is, consider its potential scope. During the Bush Administration, it was the firm policy of the U.S.—repeatedly endorsed by Congress and the President—to fight a global war on terror and detain suspected terrorists in Guantanamo. Under J Street’s rule, anti-war groups or civil rights groups protesting Gitmo could have their tax exempt status revoked. After all, protest groups are often explicitly at odds with government policy.

Magen David Adom MDA Heroes Talk About 365 Days of Terror

Jerusalem-based paramedics recount their experiences saving lives over the past year, when Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis skyrocketed.
The current wave of Palestinian terror began on the eve of Rosh Hashana – the Jewish New Year – exactly a year ago, and continued in full intensity.
Listen to the heroic paramedics of Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency medical service, discuss 365 days of saving lives while working under constant threat.
They talk about the victims – real people, not mere statistics.
This video presents the stories of the MDA teams in the Jerusalem region, where the largest number of terror attacks occurred.

Yom Kippur War: This day in 1973 Arab armies invaded and almost destroyed Israel

October 6, 1973, was Yom Kippur (in the Hebrew calendar). As most Israeli Jews were attending services or otherwise observing the most holy day in Judaism, there was a surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian armed forces.
As I related in an earlier post:
There are certain events when you just remember exactly where you were when you heard the news.
I was on stage for a third-grade practice of a school play when a teacher walked into the room (the gym, which also was the school theater and lunch room) and told everyone that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed. We were sent home early.
I was at my desk using AOL to access the internet (!) when early reports came in of a “small plane” hitting the World Trade Center. And you know the rest.
And on October 6, 1973, I woke up expecting to go to Temple for the Yom Kippur holiday. I turned on my clock radio, the old style that had the metal flaps that flipped to change the time. And I heard that Israel had been invaded in what would become known as the Yom Kippur War. The rest of the day is a blur, I don’t even remember if we went to Temple. I remember the feeling of helplessness, and the near panic in the community because there was nothing we could do.
The situation was dire at the start, and there were fierce battles along the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights. I recounted some of that history along the Golan Heights after I visited two of the sites of some of the largest tank battles ever, Tel Saki and the Valley of Tears:

Arutz-7 reports:

The Ministry of Interior reports that the most common names of the past year (5775) were Tamar and Mohammad.

The two most common names after Mohammad were Yosef and David.

The two most common female names after Tamar were Adelle and Miriam.

Solely in the Jewish sector, the most popular male names were Uri, David and Ariel and the most popular girl’s names were Tamar, Avigail and Adelle.

Here are the lists:

Most popular girl names in Israel
Tamar
Adele
Miriam
Sarah
Avigail
Noa
Shira
Talia
Yael
Leah

Most popular girl names in Israel amongst the Jewish sector
Tamar
Avigail
Adele
Noa
Shira
Talia
Yael
Sarah
Leah
Roni

Most popular boy names in Israel
Mohammed
Yosef/Yusef
David
Daniel
Uri/Ori
Omer
Eitan
Ariel
Noam
Adam

Most popular boy names in Israel amongst the Jewish sector
Uri/Ori
David
Ariel
Noam
Eitan
Yosef/Yusef
Itai
Daniel
Yehonatan
Moshe

Whenever Mohammed is named one of the most popular names in a country, people tend to freak out. But all it means is that Muslims are far, far more likely to name their boys "Mohammed" than any other name, while non-Muslims spread their names around more.

It is interesting that Muslims are naming their children Yusef/Yosef and Daweed/David so often as to push those numbers among all Israelis to be #2 and #3. It would be interesting to compare Israeli Arabs with Palestinians; it is possible that some Israeli Arabs give their children names that could help their kids integrate better into Israeli society (they are spelled the same way in Hebrew.) Same goes for Miriam/Maryam and Sarah.

Also interesting is that "Daniel" is the fourth most popular boy's name but only the eighth most popular Jewish name. I've never heard of Muslims using that name, so it must be immensely popular among Israeli Christians.

But I am completely mystified as to how Eitan is more popular than Ariel among Israelis as a whole but less popular than Ariel amongst Jews.

Adele? I wonder if that particular name is popular not only because of the singer but also as a pun on the Yiddish "Eidel" אֵײדֶעל , meaning "gentle."

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10/07 Links Pt1: Glick: Obama’s hostile eulogy; Flotilla became ‘ship of fools’; Toameh: Abbas "The Jew"

From Ian:

PMW: PA daily: Israel controls the US which controls the world

Palestinian Media Watch has long documented that the Palestinian Authority spreads classic Antisemitic hate, claiming that the Jews and Israel control the world.
This libel was given a new rendering this week in the official PA daily, which ran a cartoon that portrays Israel as controlling the United States and telling it what to do with the world.
In the cartoon, a small soldier with a Star of David on his helmet is seen giving orders to a taller man with blank eyes, representing the US. The large man's hat is made of the American flag but with a six-pointed Star of David replacing the five-pointed star. The "US" is holding a basketball that resembles a globe, and "Israel" is directing the "US" to shoot the globe-shaped basketball into a basket which is also shaped of a Star of David.
The cartoon's message is that while America controls the world, it is Israel who orders America what to do with the world.
In a different version of this libel, the PA regularly claims that Israel indirectly controls world events and is responsible for all the civil wars, the creation of the Islamic State and even the radical Muslim terror attacks in Europe.

Caroline Glick: Obama’s hostile eulogy

US President Barack Obama’s eulogy of Shimon Peres at Mount Herzl last Friday was a thinly disguised assault on Israel. And he barely bothered to hide it.
Throughout his remarks, Obama wielded Peres’s record like a baseball bat. He used it to club the Israeli public and its elected leaders over and over again.
Peres, Obama intimated, was a prophet. But the suspicious, tribal people of Israel were too stiff necked to follow him.
In what was perhaps the low point of a low performance, Obama used Peres’s words to slander his domestic critics as racist oppressors.
“Shimon,” he began harmlessly enough, “believed that Israel’s exceptionalism was rooted not only in fidelity to the Jewish people, but to the moral and ethical vision, the precepts of his Jewish faith.”
You could say that about every Israeli leader since the dawn of modern Zionism.
But then Obama went for the jugular.
In a startling non sequitur he continued, “‘The Jewish people weren’t born to rule another people,’ he [Peres] would say. ‘From the very first day we were against slaves and masters.’” We don’t know the context in which Peres made that statement. But what is clear enough is that Obama used his words to accuse the majority of Israelis who do not share Peres’s vision for peace – including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who was sitting in the front row listening to him – of supporting slavery.
This libelous assault on Israel was probably the most unhinged remark ever directed at the Jewish state by an American president. What does the fact that Obama said this at Peres’s funeral tell us about Obama? What does it tell us about Peres? Obama was not merely wrong when he accused Peres’s detractors of support for slavery, he was maliciously wrong.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas "The Jew"

The unprecedented outcry over Abbas's participation in the funeral of an Israeli leader is further proof of the degree to which Palestinians have been radicalized.
This is what happens when you unleash a tidal wave of hate against Israel and its leaders in the media, mosques and public rhetoric. In light of this brainwashing, how do you expect your people to respond when you, in any way, associate with an Israeli leader?
If attending the funeral of an Israeli leader, especially one who devoted the past two decades of his life to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, draws such condemnation, it is easy to imagine the result of a Palestinian leader making a peace overture to Israel.
Even if the current condemnation eventually dies down, it will have sent a message to future Palestinian leaders: "No peace with Israel, not in our time, and not in any time."

Laughable screaming headline in South Africa about flotidiots

From the front page of today's Star (South Africa):

How long was this activist incarcerated?

Less time than it took to prepare the front page of this newspaper.

The article is just as absurd.

It is believed the intervention of Israeli human rights legal firms Adalah and Gaby Lansky Attorneys helped secure Naidoo’s release and that of the other activists on Thursday night.

Sources close to the WBG campaign in Joburg said the Israeli lawyers had worked “tirelessly” as volunteers on the matter over the past few days.

Naidoo’s release was also attributed to the interventions of South African ambassador to Israel, Sisa Ngombane.

Nelson Kgwete of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco) said on Thursday that Ngombane had worked with the Israeli foreign ministry on the matter.

Everyone wants to take credit for working tirelessly to get Israel to release people it never had any intention to hold.

In fact, the official Women's Boat for Gaza page has a completely different reason for the quick release:, citing the "negative media attention" Israel was getting, and crediting - get this - Pink Floyd.

Israel-haters are trying so hard to squeeze every ounce of publicity from a failed publicity stunt. And the South Africa media is complicit in that quest.

(h/t Spotlighting SA)

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From The Sun (UK):

BRITAIN is suspending millions of pounds-worth of aid payments to the Palestinian Authority amid staggering claims taxpayers cash is ending up in the hands of terrorists.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel has ordered a freeze pending an investigation.

Earlier this summer furious MPs demanded action after revelations UK aid supposedly paying for civil servants in Gaza was being transferred to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

One Hamas master bomber was alleged to have been given £100,000 by the PLO.

Other ‘salaries’ is said to have gone to families of suicide bombers and teenagers attacking Israel.

One Hamas master bomber was alleged to have been given £100,000 of the cash, by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation

Dfid has previously admitted the PLO makes “social welfare” provisions for prisoners’ families but ruled out the idea UK cash is being diverted in this way.

Government sources yesterday conceded that many of the civil servants were doing other jobs while pocketing UK taxpayers’ cash.

The decision by the Department for International Development means £25 million in cash is being withheld this year – a third of the total aid sent to Palestine. The majority goes to charities in the region.

This is phenomenal.

Now why can't the US do the same?

Congress tried in 2014, but the PA and the State Department got around it:

Thanks to public exposure of the “pay-to-slay” program, Congress passed legislation in 2014 requiring the US to deduct from its development assistance to the PA an amount equal to the PA payment of blood money for terrorism. Then Abbas circumvented this law by transferring the responsibility for subsidizing terrorism from the PA to the PLO to create the appearance that the PA wasn’t involved. The US State Department willingly bought into this fiction. Western dollars for terrorism continue to flow.

Indiana Republican Senator Dan Coates has introduced new legislation to counter this Palestinian ruse and cut US aid to the Palestinians “by an amount… equivalent to the amount expended by the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization and any successor or affiliated organizations, as payments for acts of terrorism.” If this legislation is passed, it will be up to the State Department to implement it.

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From Pink Floyd's Facebook page:

Roger Waters, realizing that his anti-Israel statements hardly register in the world media any more, guessed that announcing a Pink Floyd "reunion" to bash Israel would get some serious publicity.

This happened 24 hours ago, and it was barely noticed. (The Guardian just picked up on it, though - after the non-event.) Roger Waters' attempt to gain headlines was an utter failure, and the band has now been tarnished by being associated with his own hate.

The hundreds of comments to the post are generally quite negative.

Daniel Prosko why won't you reunite and stand with people of Syria or Yazidi people, who massacred by IS?

LikeReply534Yesterday at 4:19am

76 Replies13 mins

Michael Kornau I knew Waters was an idiot, but i´m disappointed to hear that about Gilmour and Mason.

LikeReply436Yesterday at 4:20am

58 Replies5 mins

Mari Marti I love u until you begin to act like you're a political movement. Yeah, you're not that. Please, do not begin to write down like that or i'll stop following this page...

LikeReply503Yesterday at 4:17am

View previous replies

Jian Rong Ooi You must be new to PF. Pigs from 1977 and The Final Cut album in 1981 were political and anti-Thatcher, yet you choose their pro-Gaza stance in 2016 to say "I dont wanna know about their political opinions". Youre 40 years too late.

LikeReply285Yesterday at 4:25am

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Hannah Ver What do you think would happen, if they demonstrate in Gaza for the rights of muslim women? Hamas would hang them on a crane! Free Gaza from Hamas!!

LikeReply300Yesterday at 4:33am

19 Replies26 mins

Cal Bradley What????
Israel was established 3500 years ago....it's the Muslim horde that is the occupiers..
Get your flippen history straight!

LikeReply26714 hrsEdited

90 Replies26 mins

Richard Evans Pink Floyd stick to your music. You seem to have little idea of the issues relating to the Israel-Palestine problems.Self publicity I think ! I thought David Gilmour and Nick Mason were above this.It doesn't suprise me that the idiot Roger Waters wants to be controversial just for the sake of it.Perhaps you would all be better off channelling your 'efforts' to addressiing the situation in Syria !

LikeReply22623 hrs

16 Replies26 mins

Matan Emmanuel Asher this is a disgrace. basically it means that Pink Floyd supports Hamas.
Shame on you David Gilmour who joins antisemitic acts by Roger Waters

LikeReply17919 hrs

What about the band's point that Israel illegally arrested the women?

The answer is that the band knows as little about international law as one would expect an irrelevant group of aging rockers to know.

And the UN agrees, as described in the Palmer Report:

73. The Panel now turns to consider whether the other components of a lawful blockade under international law are met. Traditionally, naval blockades have most commonly been imposed in situations where there is an international armed conflict. While it is uncontested that there has been protracted violence taking the form of armed conflict between Israel and armed groups in Hamas-controlled Gaza, the characterization of this conflict as international is disputed. The conclusion of the Panel in this regard rests upon the facts as they exist on the ground. The specific circumstances of Gaza are unique and are not replicated anywhere in the world. Nor are they likely to be. Gaza and Israel are both distinct territorial and political areas. Hamas is the de facto political and administrative authority in Gaza and to a large extent has control over events on the ground there. It is Hamas that is firing the projectiles in Israel or is permitting others to do so. The Panel considers the conflict should be treated as an international one for the purposes of the law of blockade. This takes foremost into account Israel’s right to self-defence against armed attacks from outside territory. In this context, the debate on Gaza’s status, in particular its relationship to Israel, should not obscure the realities. The law does not operate in a political vacuum and it is implausible to deny that the nature of the armed violence between Israel and Hamas goes beyond purely domestic matters. In fact, it has all the trappings of an international armed conflict. ...

74. Israel was entitled to take reasonable steps to prevent the influx of weapons into Gaza. With that objective, Israel established a series of restrictions on vessels entering the waters of Gaza. These measures culminated in the declaration of the naval blockade on 3 January 2009. There were a number of reasons why the previous restrictions were inadequate, primary among them being the need for the measures to be legally watertight.
75. As required, the naval blockade was declared and notified. The Israeli authorities issued a “Notice to Mariners” through the appropriate channels, setting out the imposition of the blockade and the coordinates of the blockaded area. In addition, the notice was broadcast twice a day on an emergency radio channel for maritime communications. There is no contest about this. The suggestion that because the blockade was stated to be imposed “until further notice” means that the notification’s content is insufficient and the blockade thus invalid does not seem to us to be persuasive. The notice does specify a duration. Given the uncertainties of a continuing conflict, nothing more was required. Likewise, a limitation to certain groups of prohibited items in the blockade’s notification was not necessary. It lies in the nature of a blockade that it affects all maritime traffic, given that its aim is to prevent any access to and from a blockaded area.
76. There is nothing before the Panel that would suggest that Israel did not maintain an effective and impartial blockade. Ever since its imposition on 3 January 2009, Israeli authorities have stopped any vessel attempting to enter the blockaded area. At the same time, there is no suggestion that Israel has hindered free access to the coasts and ports of other countries neutral to the conflict.

Israel has no choice under international law but to intercept every boat en route to Gaza or else the naval blockade loses its effectiveness from a legal perspective.

This gimmick didn't add any positive publicity to the pro-Hamas groups that are trying to destroy Israel, and it hurt Pink Floyd's reputation immeasurably.

Great move, Roger!

(h/t Slava)

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Saudi paper "warns" that JASTA bill will show world that Jews were behind 9/11

Al Riyadh has an article against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) with a novel approach.

It says that Americans are warning that the bill could "open up the gates of hell." (That phrase actually came from a different Saudi newspaper in May, and was reported by US media.)

The bill would force a re-opening of the investigation into 9/11, and then all of the suppressed evidence will reveal that the Jews are the ones who blew up the twin towers, not Arabs.

It quotes from a 9/11 "truther" organization, AE911Truth, where over 2000 engineers and architects supposedly signed a petition asking to review the evidence for 9/11.

The article also quotes Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, claiming that thousands of Jews were sent text messages warning them not to go to work in Lower Manhattan that day.

Moreover, the site claims that a 1996 movie "The Long Kiss Goodnight" predicted 9/11 since the protagonist said he would kill 4000 people and blame Muslims while referencing the 1993 WTC bombing. (In reality, the false flag attack planned in the movie was a chemical weapon attack against downtown Niagara Falls.)

Anyway, if the Saudis are so positive that Arabs had nothing to do with 9/11, then they should welcome the chance to prove their thesis in court, shouldn't they? JASTA will be great for them!

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