
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
humor, Preoccupied
Researchers studying the data related to both phenomena write in an article in the upcoming issue of Climate magazine that the steady rise in global average annual temperatures features eerie parallels with the advent of political Zionism and the efforts of the Arab population of the Holy Land to resist that movement.
Lead author Dr. Sheen Nuyakleem described in an interview the myriad links between the ongoing conflict and climate change. "It begins with the temperature changes matching the increasing intensity of the Arab-Israeli conflict, of course," he explained. "But we also found that if you massage the data just so, each time the pre-Israel Jewish community managed to defend itself, and each time the established state successfully thwarted attempts to wipe it off the map, the pace of temperature increase rose. It's almost as if this conflict really does lie at the core of every major problem facing civilization."
That assumption, which governs much of Europe's and the US's diplomatic policies, formed the basis of the research. "Science has some axioms, and this one has proved robust in the field of diplomacy, so we figured we'd adopt it as well," continued Dr. Nuyakleem. "Simplicity is always a goal in the scientific method, so reducing the problem of climate change to a function of Israel's continued existence and security provides an elegant solution to two messy challenges facing the world today."
Other scientists were quick to point out that the study did not suggest any specific remedies to be adopted in light of the new findings. "This was purely a research effort," insisted Professor Emeritus George Galloway of Bradford University, who was not involved in the study. "Policy decisions are the province of the politicians, and I am sure they will wait for duplication and confirmation of these conclusions in further studies before rushing to fix both problems once and for all with some drastic measure aimed at ending Israel's existence, no matter how compelling those solutions might seem."
'More than compelling," he mused. "Bloody obvious, come to think of it. Do you think any further study is actually necessary? I mean, this is rock-solid stuff. [Labour Party chief Jeremy] Corbyn might want to have a look at it. He's very science-minded, you know?"

From Ian:
Ben-Dror Yemini: A victory in self-deception
PMW: Abbas' Antisemitic advisor's duplicity
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Fatah Prepares for War with Israel
Ben-Dror Yemini: A victory in self-deception
The Palestinian ‘narrative’ has scored another victory, this time at UNESCO. But it’s not a victory; it’s actually a defeat. The addiction to lies does not change reality or solve any problem—it pushes away the chance for reconciliation or peace.
Dr. Omar Jaara of An-Najah University appeared on Palestinian television four years ago and said that Moses had led the Muslims out of Egypt and that the subsequent Israeli conquest of the land was “the first case of a Palestinian liberation through an armed struggle.” He attributed the battle between David and Goliath to the Palestinians as well.
For a moment, it seemed like a satire program, but it was completely serious. “This is our logic, and this is our culture,” Jaara explained in the interview, which was recorded by Palestinian Media Watch.
Four years have passed and the historian is celebrating. The Palestinian “narrative” has scored another victory, this time at UNESCO. Allegedly, this not just a victory but an overwhelming victory: Although Brazil and Mexico expressed reservations over the resolution on Tuesday, there was no new vote, and the decision remained unchanged. The Palestinians even managed to convince Christian countries, as Israeli diplomat George Deek tweeted, to adopt a resolution which means that “Jesus was a liar.”
There is no big surprise here. After all, we are living in the era of narratives, which is the post-factual era. It possible that in a year or two, UNESCO or another international organization will adopt a resolution confirming Jaara’s narrative about the Exodus from Egypt.
PMW: Abbas' Antisemitic advisor's duplicity
Abbas' Antisemitic advisor's duplicity: With Israeli President last week, he is for: "eradication of religious hatred"Abbas advisor: "Jerusalem... and the [Western Wall]... are all purely Islamic"
Yet to Palestinians he preaches religious hatred: Jews represent "evil," "falsehood," "the devils," and "the satans" and Israel is "Satan's project" [Official PA TV, Oct. 23, 2015]
Earlier this month, Israel's president Reuven Rivlin met with Mahmoud Abbas' Advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, at a meeting with Israeli rabbis and Palestinian religious leaders. [The New York Times, Oct. 13, 2016]
The meeting was "intended, according to organizers, to forge a joint effort against religious violence, and to promote peace and coexistence," the New York Times wrote, citing a statement released by the participants:
"We believe the deliberate killing of or attempt to kill innocents is terrorism, whether it is committed by Muslims, Jews or others. In this spirit, we encourage all our people to work for a just peace, mutual respect for human life and for the status quo on the holy sites, and the eradication of religious hatred." [The New York Times, Oct. 13, 2016]
This example of Al-Habbash participating in a "co-existence" event with Israelis and presenting himself as a peace-seeking moderate is typical of the Palestinian Authority leadership's duplicity. To his Palestinian audience, Al-Habbash does not ever try to "eradicate religious hatred," but just the opposite. He promotes religious hatred and even preached that according to Islam it's prohibited to recognize Israel's existence of even a millimeter of land.
In addition to being Abbas' advisor, Mahmoud Al-Habbash serves as the PA's Supreme Shari'ah Judge and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Fatah Prepares for War with Israel
"We have pledged to prepare an army of fighters by devoting our full abilities and energies to consolidate the option of armed struggle as the only means to liberate Palestine." — The armed wing of Fatah, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Martyr Nidal Al-Amoudi Division.
The international community continues to perceive Fatah as the "moderate" Palestinian party with whom Israel should make peace. Yet Fatah is far from a single united bloc; many groups within the faction continue to seek the "liberation of Palestine" through armed struggle. Moreover, neither Abbas nor any of his senior Fatah loyalists have repudiated the war-set Fatah militias. Crucially, many of these Fatah militiamen continue to receive salaries from the Palestinian Authority.
These Fatah gunmen who are preparing for war with Israel are indirectly receiving their salaries from Western donors, including the US and many EU countries, who fund the Palestinian Authority.
These groups believe that they represent the real Fatah, the one that never recognized Israel's right to exist and holds on to armed struggle as the only way to "liberate Palestine." They are not breakaway groups. That is why they continue to operate under the name of Fatah.
Fatah is a two-faced hydra; one face tells the English-speaking international community what it wants to hear, namely, that it supports a two-state solution and seeks a peaceful settlement to the conflict with Israel, while the other tells the truth: it is committed to an armed struggle and the "liberation of Palestine," and is even preparing for war with Israel.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Elder of Ziyon

And he has referred to the medieval blood libel as fact.
Leddawi has done it again, this time in the context of Sukkot rather than Passover.
He writes in a Libyan news site that while Jews celebrate and rejoice during the holiday, Palestinians are "tortured and persecuted."
Not only that, but Jewish joy during a holiday is dependent on making Palestinian lives miserable, according to Leddawi. The Jews "rejoice at their sorrows and dance on their wounds," he writes.
Muslims who object to Jewish celebrations, we are told, are either killed or arrested.
He concludes:
It is odd how glad these Jews are at the sorrows of others, and how they build their happiness on the misery of their neighbors, and how they accept for themselves joy while others are tortured and persecuted, and suffer and suffer - but this is not surprising. In history, while they were in Europe, they kidnapped Christian children and pierced them and gathered their blood in pots, and then made their holiday pie, to rejoice with their children, and eat the [Christians]. This is their joy on the blood of innocent children, and they are not strangers to building their happiness on the misery of others.

For the past few years, Max Blumenthal has worked hard to
establish himself as a leading anti-Israel activist who is rightly celebrated wherever
there are Jew-haters. But while Blumenthal’s “pro-Palestinian” fans could see
nothing wrong with his “journalism” as long as it served to demonize Israel,
they have come to reject the exact same kind of “journalism” as deeply
offensive hackery when Blumenthal turned his attention to Syria. Since many
people were hoping that Syria’s truly heroic rescuers known as “White Helmets” would get this
year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Blumenthal apparently felt an irresistible urge to show
off his journalistic brilliance by exposing the Syria Campaign – a group
supporting the White Helmets – as an evil tool of the West. Not deceived by “the
lofty rhetoric about solidarity and the images of heroic rescuers rushing in to
save lives,” Blumenthal triumphantly discovered “an agenda that aligns closely
with the forces from Riyadh to Washington clamoring for regime change.”
So brilliant and so obvious at the same time, isn’t it:
given Bashar al-Assad’s benevolent rule, no Syrian could possibly want “regime
change”…
The backlash against Blumenthal and his closest allies –
notably Ali Abunimah and some of his Electronic Intifada writers – was
quick and furious. Admittedly, it was a rather enjoyable spectacle, because a
lot of the harsh criticism now voiced by disappointed fans (who want to see
Israel gone as much as the likes of Blumenthal) could have been quoted from
posts I and other critics of his screeds have written: suddenly people were
ready to denounce
“Max’s fact-free delusions” and his “smear pieces;” my personal favorite was
perhaps when Blumenthal’s gonzo journalism was mocked in a tweet ridiculing
how he usually concocts the “evidence” to indict his targets: “This NGO took
money from a fund whose director once ate lunch in the same restaurant as an
employee of an Islamophobe.” Incidentally, this is also an excellent
description of the modus operandi regularly followed by Ali Abunimah and his Electronic
Intifada crew.
Abunimah was quick to complain
that this was a “coordinated smear campaign that’s been going on for months,”
and naturally, he had no doubt about the sinister forces behind it all: it was,
of course,
an “Israel-lobby inspired smear campaign.” Stalwart Abunimah fans like the
perpetually “Angry Arab” agreed:
it just couldn’t be a “coincidence that the campaign is being directed against
some of the bravest voices against Israel in the US.”
Abunimah reacted with a torrent of tweets hurling abuse
against his critics – and his bullying ultimately paid off: a blog post under
the title
“Palestinians decry Western Assad apologists” named only Max Blumenthal and
linked to a statement
signed by about 120 “Palestinian signatories” that denounced unnamed “Allies
We’re Not Proud Of.” The statement declared that the signatories “are
embarrassed by the ways in which some individuals known for their work on
Palestine have failed to account for some crucial context in their analysis of
Syria” and decried the “tendency to heroize those who advocate on behalf of the
Palestinian struggle,” vowing that the signatories would “no longer entertain
individuals who fail to acknowledge the immediate concerns of besieged Syrians
in their analysis.”
An Al Jazeera article
on the controversy also avoided naming names, though the author forcefully
condemned activists who regard the “Palestinian cause” merely as a convenient “platform
… to vent their selective anti-imperialist outrage.” Interestingly, this
article painted a rather dramatic picture of the controversy:
“The Palestine solidarity movement
is facing an unprecedented internal crisis, brought about not by the conflict
with Israel but by the war in Syria. The latter has caused divisions that are
arguably deeper and more damaging than those over how to realise Palestinian
rights and aspirations. While the effects of Palestinian political infighting
have remained largely domestic, the fissures over Syria have taken on a global
dimension, and created unparalleled hostility among supporters of the
Palestinian cause.”
There was indeed quite a bit of “hostility” on social media,
some of it helpfully documented by Ali Abunimah himself. One telling example is
archived here: Abunimah complained that
the “Syrian American Medical Assoc. launches incitement campaign against
me/others, claims we’re paid by Assad/Russia.” And apparently, Abunimah didn’t
like getting a taste of his own medicine: “This level of incitement – comparing
us to Hitler – is getting to dangerous levels.” Abunimah also took
offense when his dear friend Max Blumenthal got the Max Blumenthal treatment
from erstwhile fans.
Clearly, Abunimah feels that Nazi smears should only be
reserved for Israel.
The controversy also revealed a few interesting tidbits
showing “pro-Palestinian” stars like Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek in a
rather unflattering light. If Blumenthal really
“went to Gaza &burst into tears at a Hamas checkpoint,” the boundless
admiration he has expressed for Hamas perhaps also reflects some rather
unhealthy psychological dispositions: the more brutal the bully, the more
admiration Blumenthal will feel – which may well help to explain why Blumenthal
has so much despisement for Israel and the US, and so much respect for Hamas,
Assad, Russia and Iran.
But while I couldn’t find confirmation for the delightful
insider rumor about Hamas reducing Blumenthal to tears, I did manage to find
evidence for the accusation
that Electronic Intifada “associate editor” Rania Khalek is a
plagiarist: if you check out this 2008
post on “6 ‘Non-Lethal’ Weapons That’ll Make You Wish You Were Dead” and
scroll to the comments, you will find one posted on August 4th, 2011, which
says: “This article has recently been plagiarized by someone named Rania Khalek
for a website called Alternet. It’s not even subtle. […] The title of the
stolen article is ‘6 Creepy New Weapons the Police and Military Use To Subdue
Unarmed People’ and it was published August 1st 2011.” Sure enough, there is
such an Alternet article
by Khalek, which is marked as “updated” at the beginning and adorned with
an “EDITOR’S NOTE” at the end stating: “This article has been corrected since
its original publication for more accurate attribution to original sources.”
Isn’t this a delicate way to put it…
Khalek’s author archive at Alternet
shows that her regular contributions at the site ended a few months later
in January 2012, but resumed again after three years in January 2015 – and
amazingly enough, the plagiarized piece was promptly recycled under the exact
same title, without the “editor’s note” and without any hint that it had
been published years earlier. I suppose that’s Alternet quality
journalism …
Last but not least, the disappointment expressed by
erstwhile Blumenthal fans offered many more revealing glimpses at how truly
pathetic many supporters of the “Palestinian cause” are. One heartbroken
Blumenthal fan lamented:
“I regret writing a review of @MaxBlumenthal’s Gaza
book for @MuftahOrg http://muftah.org/a-review-of-max-blumenthals-the-51-day-war-ruin-and-resistance-in-gaza/ … I see that he’s fallen as low as Rania Khalek.”
Check out the linked review posted on July 29, 2015, and you’ll find the
highest praise for the “fearless integrity that fuels Blumenthal’s reporting.”
You’ll also find that this review is illustrated with an image of the aftermath
of a deadly “explosion … at a public garden near Shifa hospital in Gaza City on
July 28, 2014.” It’s hard to think of a better illustration for a review
praising Blumenthal, because Israel had immediately said that the carnage was
caused by Hamas rockets, and even Amnesty International ultimately conceded in the spring of 2015 that “the projectile was a
Palestinian rocket.” Ignoring this fact is really a good example of
Blumenthal-style “integrity”.
So here’s a lesson for erstwhile Blumenthal fan Joey
Husseini Ayoub and the likes of him: if you hail a hack like Blumenthal who
glorifies an Islamist terror group like Hamas for his “fearless integrity,” you
just look utterly pathetic when you denounce him for serving as an apologist
for Syria’s Assad: Hamas and Assad have pretty much the same concern for the
people under their rule. Just as the current carnage in Syria is due to Assad’s
determination to hold on to power, all the wars in Gaza in the last decade are
due to Hamas’ cynical efforts to polish their credentials as the “Islamic Resistance
Movement.”
But I suppose there’s really nothing more “pro-Palestinian” than
to quickly forget how Hamas threw
opponents from high-rises in Gaza, tortured them and dragged
their bodies through the streets, or executed them ISIS-style on public
squares – a spectacle that was actually defended
by Ali Abunimah. Maybe Max Blumenthal recalled atrocities like these when he
burst into tears at a Hamas checkpoint: it must be really scary to be at the
mercy of people who treat their own like this – even if you’re a “journalist”
who came to glorify those brutal bullies.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
We've discussed Marc Lamont Hill before for his anti-Israel activities.
He tweets:
Who is Ali Jiddah?
From the book "Song of the Caged Bird: Words as Resistance in Palestine:"
Ironically, he wants Israeli medical care after placing a bomb near a hospital.
Ali Jiddah was working as recently as April as an anti-Israel tour guide, when ISM wrote a loving article about him pretending that he injured 9 "Israeli soldiers."
No, they were civilians, and Ali Jiddah admits that. One of the reasons he felt he had to join a terror group is because Jews in 1968 would go to their newly-accessible holy places and sing and dance in happiness: "the way Israeli civilians used to behave with us - I remember that at that time, they used to come in groups on the streets of the Old City, dancing, singing in a very arrogant way. I felt I was losing my dignity, my personal dignity and my national dignity."
That is why he decided to bomb them.
Marc Lamont Hill considers raising money for terrorist Ali Jiddah to be a just cause.
(h/t E)
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.
He tweets:
Who is Ali Jiddah?
From the book "Song of the Caged Bird: Words as Resistance in Palestine:"
He is a terrorist. He is not a "Palestinian" in any real sense. And now he wants to raise money:
I am Ali Jiddah, an Afro Palestinian, born in the old city of Jerusalem at the African quarter. In 1968, I was sentenced to serve 20 years in person for being active in the Palestinian national struggle. My sentence: 20 years, of which I served 17 years.Terrorist Ali Jiddah is a deadbeat who made the conscious decision not to pay for Israeli medical insurance - and now he is whining that he has to suffer the consequences. He is raising money for other people to pay the insurance debt that he himself refused to pay for over 30 years.
Six years ago, I began to suffer from diabetes. One evening, while coming back from a lecture, I fell down and was totally paralyzed for 23 days. After passing a surgical operation, I managed to stand up on my feet. But today, I am disabled, largely unable to use my right side.
Since my liberation from prison, I have had a serious problem with the Israeli national insurance. After leaving prison, I said that I wouldn't pay a penny toward the occupation. 9 months ago, I was sent to a trial and was sentenced to 8 months imprisonment for not paying the debt. Some of my friends in France raised a campaign and donation. They also sent me some money so that my lawyer could negotiate with the Israeli government. He was able to extend my window for paying the debt.
As of this writing, I have 12 days left to pay the money I owe to the Israeli authorities. I have already paid 31k shekels ($8060). I still have to pay 37k ($9620) more.
In addition to imprisonment, I'm not allowed to get the medical treatment that I need until the money is paid. So I am calling you for solidarity and humanitarian air. Any humble donations will be deeply appreciated by me.
Ironically, he wants Israeli medical care after placing a bomb near a hospital.
Ali Jiddah was working as recently as April as an anti-Israel tour guide, when ISM wrote a loving article about him pretending that he injured 9 "Israeli soldiers."
No, they were civilians, and Ali Jiddah admits that. One of the reasons he felt he had to join a terror group is because Jews in 1968 would go to their newly-accessible holy places and sing and dance in happiness: "the way Israeli civilians used to behave with us - I remember that at that time, they used to come in groups on the streets of the Old City, dancing, singing in a very arrogant way. I felt I was losing my dignity, my personal dignity and my national dignity."
That is why he decided to bomb them.
Marc Lamont Hill considers raising money for terrorist Ali Jiddah to be a just cause.
(h/t E)

Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
Fatah lauded UNESCO's resolution pretending that there are no Jewish ties to the holiest site in Jerusalem on its official Facebook page.
But right before that, the Facebook page featured this photo with the caption, "We will proceed with [our] fighters until we achieve the Palestinian dream."
There's some native Palestinian Arab culture for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to celebrate.
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.
But right before that, the Facebook page featured this photo with the caption, "We will proceed with [our] fighters until we achieve the Palestinian dream."
There's some native Palestinian Arab culture for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to celebrate.

From Ian:
The Israeli Left Crosses a Line
Poll: Nearly 60% of Palestinians oppose state on 1967 borders
The Israeli Left Crosses a Line
It was business as usual at the United Nations on Friday as the Security Council devoted a session to criticizing Israel. Just to make sure that the argument was skewed the event was titled “Illegal Israeli Settlements: Obstacles to Peace and the Two-State Solution.” So rather than a debate about the legality of settlements or whether they (as opposed to Palestinian intransigence) are really the main obstacle to peace, what occurred was a Star Chamber proceeding with the one Jewish state in the dock. The usual suspects decried the presence of Jews in the West Bank, lamented the lack of a Palestinian state, and counseled that unless Israel changes its ways, it will face unspecified consequences.
But there was one thing that differentiated this day from all the Israel-bashing sessions that preceded it: the presence of two left-wing Jewish organizations to add their voices to the chorus of condemnation. Representatives from Americans for Peace Now and B’Tselem, an organization that bills itself as a human-rights group while working to undermine the efforts of the Israeli Defense Forces, showed up at the UN to join the gang tackle of the Jewish state.
The testimony provided by the two groups was correctly contradicted by Israel’s UN representative, who pointed out the conflict is driven by Palestinian hate rather than Israeli home-building. But their decision to appear raises a serious question about the ethics involved in taking an active part in an effort designed to delegitimize Israel on the international stage. It’s fair to ask whether it is appropriate for any organization that identifies as either Jewish or Israeli to assist a world body that is riddled with anti-Semitism in conducting a kangaroo-court procedure in which the Jewish state is judged guilty beforehand.
The most egregious aspect of the presence of these two groups is the assertion made by Peace Now’s Lara Friedman that her participation at the meeting was due to what she said was the “harsh climate” in Israel for human-rights groups. Their work was, she said, too important to be “silenced.” But no one is silencing Peace Now or B’Tselem in Israel.
Poll: Nearly 60% of Palestinians oppose state on 1967 borders
Almost 60% of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip oppose a future Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict., a survey conducted last week by An-Najah University in Nablus found.
The survey, which questioned 1,362 people in the two areas, found that 59.4% oppose the idea as a solution to the conflict.
It also found that 61.5% of Palestinians do not believe it is possible to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders because of the current situation. Some 65.4% of Palestinians in Gaza hold this view, compared with 59.3% in Judea and Samaria.
Asked if Palestinians must continue with the Oslo Accords, even though Israel had stopped supporting them (according to the survey question), 74% answered that they must stop, while 18.2% answered they must continue.
Some 48.7% oppose non-violent resistance, while 45.7% said they support such resistance. Asked about an armed intifada, 55.7% oppose this while 38% support it. Support for violent resistance is higher in Gaza than in the West Bank: 52% of Gazans support an armed intifada and 36% oppose it, while in Judea and Samaria, 29.8% support an armed intifada.
In Gaza, 17.8% oppose resistance, armed or unarmed, and say it does not help the Palestinian struggle. In the West Bank, 35.4% feel the same way.
The idea of a Jordanian federation based on two sovereign states won the support of 46.1% of respondents, while 41.3% were against it.

Sunday, October 16, 2016
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
Another week, another holiday!
One of these sukkot seems problematic...
Wishing all my readers a Chag Kosher v'Sameach. I will not be blogging until Tuesday night or Wednesday. (And then next week we get to do it again!)
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.
One of these sukkot seems problematic...
Wishing all my readers a Chag Kosher v'Sameach. I will not be blogging until Tuesday night or Wednesday. (And then next week we get to do it again!)

Sunday, October 16, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
I just read the speech by B'Tselem head Hagai El-Ad at the UN Security Council on Friday.
Some points:
"For the past 49 years – and counting – the injustice known as the occupation of Palestine, and Israeli control of Palestinian lives in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, has become part of the international order. "
In 1968, no one called it the occupation of "Palestine." When in fact did that occupation start? And indeed, on what date was the land no longer considered occupied Jordan? And why wasn't it called "occupied Palestine" when Jordan occupied it?
I've never seen a good timeline for this "occupation," perhaps because in reality it started out as a border dispute in 1949 and it remained so between two sovereign states until Jordan decided to withdraw its claim in 1988.
In a normal world, that would have given Israel full rights to the land.
Even though people hate to admit it, belligerent occupation is by definition the occupation of the land of a state, and practically no nation recognized Jordanian claims on the land and even fewer declared it "Palestinian."
El-Ad almost addresses this:
"Almost all aspects of this reality are considered legal by Israel. Israel’s control of Palestinian lives is unique in the careful attention the occupying power gives to the letter of the law, while strangling its very spirit. The occupation has so perfected the art of watering down International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law as to render them virtually meaningless. Once military lawyers, State Attorneys and Supreme Court justices are done masterfully chiseling out legal opinions, all that remains is raw injustice."
Once you remove the rhetoric, this is B'Tselem admitting that it does not have a legal leg to stand on.
The fact is that this is not about human rights of Palestinian Arabs, as B'Tselem and most of the world wants to pretend. This is about competing human rights between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The great ignored fact is that the rights of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria, their ancestral homeland, is a human right at least as much as the rights of Palestinians.
And Israel does indeed try to walk the line between the competing sets of rights, not like B'Tselem which forced out an Arab human rights advocate, Bassem Eid, for caring about the rights of Jews.
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.
Some points:
"For the past 49 years – and counting – the injustice known as the occupation of Palestine, and Israeli control of Palestinian lives in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, has become part of the international order. "
In 1968, no one called it the occupation of "Palestine." When in fact did that occupation start? And indeed, on what date was the land no longer considered occupied Jordan? And why wasn't it called "occupied Palestine" when Jordan occupied it?
I've never seen a good timeline for this "occupation," perhaps because in reality it started out as a border dispute in 1949 and it remained so between two sovereign states until Jordan decided to withdraw its claim in 1988.
In a normal world, that would have given Israel full rights to the land.
Even though people hate to admit it, belligerent occupation is by definition the occupation of the land of a state, and practically no nation recognized Jordanian claims on the land and even fewer declared it "Palestinian."
El-Ad almost addresses this:
"Almost all aspects of this reality are considered legal by Israel. Israel’s control of Palestinian lives is unique in the careful attention the occupying power gives to the letter of the law, while strangling its very spirit. The occupation has so perfected the art of watering down International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law as to render them virtually meaningless. Once military lawyers, State Attorneys and Supreme Court justices are done masterfully chiseling out legal opinions, all that remains is raw injustice."
Once you remove the rhetoric, this is B'Tselem admitting that it does not have a legal leg to stand on.
The fact is that this is not about human rights of Palestinian Arabs, as B'Tselem and most of the world wants to pretend. This is about competing human rights between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The great ignored fact is that the rights of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria, their ancestral homeland, is a human right at least as much as the rights of Palestinians.
And Israel does indeed try to walk the line between the competing sets of rights, not like B'Tselem which forced out an Arab human rights advocate, Bassem Eid, for caring about the rights of Jews.

From Ian:
The success story of US state legislatures steadily hammering away at BDS
Divest This: Like Romans – BDS and War
The success story of US state legislatures steadily hammering away at BDS
However, Clemmons recalls that a real breakthrough came “later on that trip when we had the opportunity to meet Prof. [Eugene] Kontorovich during a dinner at a winery.
“Here was one of the bright minds in the world... on addressing BDS under the US Constitution,” he explained.
By June 2015, South Carolina was leading the way with legislation targeting BDS, along with Illinois. Following South Carolina’s lead, Alabama, Arizona and other states discussed the same or similar proposals.
In total, as of now, 12 laws or executive orders (New York’s governor issued an order instead of passing a state law) have gone into effect. Though they deal with BDS along similar lines, there are some differences.
Describing the South Carolina version, Clemmons stated that “the law is broader.
It does not mention Israel. It prohibits those who engage against trade based on national origin, against our allies and against the state of South Carolina.” Those who interfere with trade in such ways are barred from getting government contracts.
Clemmons, who himself was already chairman of the South Carolina House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, returned home with 13 supportive legislators.
This was a strong group of allies, but he said that the rest of the legislature did not need to be lobbied as most of them “see Israel as South Carolina’s best friend.”
Divest This: Like Romans – BDS and War
As promised, I’ve pulled together the material written for Algemeiner over the last few months into an essay on how the language of war can help us to best understand and defeat the BDS “movement.” Consider comprehension of the chosen title (“Like Romans”) as an prize/Easter Egg for those who make it through the whole thing.The Soviet-Palestinian Lie
You can download a PDF version of the work here, or visit the Divest This publications page for links to all the longer works that have been published on this site. I’ve also uploaded the book to Scribd which allows you to more easily share it with your friends and allies.
I’ve also put together a Kindle version of the book that is currently going through testing. If any adventurous Kindle users want to try it on their device and give me feedback, you can request a copy via the Contact Page.
While this work is targeted towards fellow hard core activists trying to think through the best options for winning the BDS propaganda wars, I’m hoping anyone confused about or interested in contributing to the struggle will learn something from it.
Now back to the front!
"The PLO was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for 'liberation' organizations." — Ion Mihai Pacepa, former chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Romania.Morocco tipped off Israeli intelligence, ‘helped Israel win Six Day War’
"First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat's birth in Cairo, and replaced them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth." — Ion Mihai Pacepa.
"[T]he Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep... We had only to keep repeating our themes -- that the United States and Israel were 'fascist, imperial-Zionist countries' bankrolled by rich Jews." — Yuri Andropov, former KGB chairman.
As early as 1965, the USSR had formally proposed in the UN a resolution that would condemn Zionism as colonialism and racism. Although the Soviets did not succeed in their first attempt, the UN turned out to be an overwhelmingly grateful recipient of Soviet bigotry and propaganda; in November 1975, Resolution 3379 condemning Zionism as "a form of racism and racial discrimination" was finally passed.
Israel largely has Morocco to thank for its victory over its Arab enemies in the 1967 Six Day War, according to revelations by a former Israeli military intelligence chief.
In 1965, King Hassan ll passed recordings to Israel of a key meeting between Arab leaders held to discuss whether they were prepared for war against Israel.
That meeting not only revealed that Arab ranks were split — heated arguments broke out, for example, between Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Jordan’s king Hussein — but that the Arab nations were ill prepared for war, Maj. Gen. Shlomo Gazit told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper over the weekend.
On the basis of these recordings, as well as other intelligence information gathered in the years leading up to the war, Israel launched a preemptive strike on the morning of June 5, 1967, bombing Egyptian airfields and destroying nearly every Egyptian fighter plane.
During the war, which ended on June 10, Israel captured the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.


Whatever anyone might say about Horowitz he definitely does not pull punches. I always think of the guy as a general marshalling his troops and setting them forth to ideological warfare. But I feel reasonably certain that he, himself, would agree with that assessment.
The editors at FrontPage tell us:
Last night, the David Horowitz Freedom Center brought its Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus poster campaign to San Francisco State University, a campus that is notorious for its glorification of anti-Israel terrorism and anti-Semitism...The posters are part of a larger Freedom Center campaign titled Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus which seeks to confront the agents of campus anti-Semitism and expose the financial and organizational relationship between the terror group Hamas and Hamas support groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine. As part of the campaign, the Freedom Center has placed posters on several campuses including San Diego State University, the University of California-Irvine and the University of California-Los Angeles. The campaign also recently released a report on the “Top Ten Schools Supporting Terrorists” which may be found on the campaign website, www.StoptheJewHatredonCampus.org. San Francisco State University is among the campuses listed in the Top Ten report.
I do not know what effect this kind of "guerrilla politics" will have on the way people think about either the rise of Political Islam or the Arab-Israel conflict, although it may get a few people talking on that campus... either that or they will ignore the whole thing entirely.
One or the other.
My guess is that many Jewish students at SFSU will roll their eyes and turn away. Some will want to keep their head down out of fear for their social standing. Others will feel a degree of relief in recognizing that at least some people genuinely are pro-Israel and pro-Jewish, even if it does come from the much berated American right-wing. And maybe there will even be a few other Jewish students inspired to stand up and organize on behalf of their own people.
We shall see.
I feel a strong connection to this story in part because I am an alumnus. It is also because the university put up a mural of Edward Said, one of the most prominent anti-Semites working in academia in the United States during the twentieth-century.
There should be two caveats in discussing SFSU anti-Semitism, however..
The first is that Jewish parents who send their kids to that university should know that if their kids keep their heads down they'll be just fine. When I was there at the end of the 1990s, I honestly did not care that much about Israel and I had a terrific university experience at SFSU.
Of course, there was the day where I witnessed a bunch of black students holding up a poster with an American flag wherein the stars were replaced by 50 little Stars of David. That was a sort-of "wake up call" but all it elicited from me was a strongly worded letter to the editor. As I recall, the letter was not so much about condemning the poster itself, as it was about its potential for alienating Jewish students from left-leaning coalitions.
The second caveat is that this is obviously not a distinct SFSU problem. Sure, SFSU is prominent among American universities in its advancement of hatred toward the Jewish State of Israel - and thus inevitably toward Jews, in general - but it is hardly alone.
The current ongoing kerfuffle around SFSU is primarily about the rise of an anti-Israel / anti-Jewish political culture on that campus nurtured by, among others, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, faculty advisor to the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) and Associate Professor of "Race and Resistance Studies."
The development of these interrelated stories was organic. I wrote about it. Dusty at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers wrote about it. And, most significantly, both Cinnamon Stillwell (West Coast Representative for the Middle East Forum's Campus Watch) and Tammi Benjamin (AMCHA Initiative founder and UC Santa Cruz instructor) covered the stories, as well.
Most recently even Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Studies Forum has written about SFSU anti-Semitism, so the broader story appears to have legs.

If you are reading this it is fairly likely that this face may look familiar. Mr. Hammad posted the photo above on his Tumblr page with this message:
I seriously can not get over how much I love this blade. It is the sharpest thing I own and cuts through everything like butter and just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier…
That was the moment that I got hooked on the story, mainly out of well-founded concern that the university - while expelling an advocate for outright murder in Mr. Hammad - nonetheless continues to support GUPS even as members of GUPS call for Intifada which is nothing less than a call for the genocide of the Jews in the Middle East.
This is what must be understood by university administrators around the country. When students cry out for Intifada they are crying out specifically for Jewish blood and university administrators from around the country (and Europe, and Australia) need to account for why they are just dandy with student calls for genocide.
Someone like Jerusalem mayor, Nir Barkat, must have an amazingly strong stomach to endure hate-filled students screaming in his face for his own murder as we saw last spring when he was invited by the local Hillel to speak on campus.
The man got ambushed.
Then, of course, we have Abdhuladi's attempt to normalize anti-Jewish hatred on university campuses though her successful efforts to partner SFSU with that "greenhouse" for Jihadis, An-Najah University in Nablus.
And finally - for the moment - there was the Edward Said mural festivities that featured GUPS members, and others, holding aloft signs calling for the murder of "colonizers." I do not know about you, but when Arab or Muslim students from organizations like GUPS - or, say, the Muslim Student Association, or, say, Students for Justice in Palestine - hold aloft signs calling for the killing of "colonizers" my guess is that they are not referring to the Polish. On the contrary, I get the sneaking feeling that they may be discussing my friends and relatives in places like Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.
In any case, stay tuned because as long as the President of San Francisco State University can say, as President Wong did not so long ago, that "GUPS is the very purpose of this great university" then Jewish people associated with that campus, if they care about Israel and their fellow Jews, have a fight on their hands whether they like it or not.
My first recommendation is to encourage Jewish SFSU donors to divert their generous offers to AMCHA or Campus Watch, rather than to an openly anti-Semitic university.
My next recommendation is to keep a close eye on the writings and investigations of:
And, indeed, I will have my say, as well.
I don't think that any of us are much in the mood to allow this virulent hatred of Israel and Jews - based on lies, misinformation, and propaganda - to continue without response.
What we need, however, is for the mainstream press to pick up the larger story of the camouflaging of campus anti-Semitism under a veil of anti-Zionism and drive it home to the peoples of North America, Europe, and Australia.
That and a little Krav Maga for your kids might be good.
Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

Sunday, October 16, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
The Fatah Facebook page published a series of cartoons drawn by Palestinian Arab children.
Palestinian Media Watch reports that the cartoons are being labeled "innocent drawings" that "express the feelings of children of #Palestine,"
In fact, these cartoons show that the teachers have been indoctrinating the children to hate Israel.
A few years ago, there was a traveling exhibit of what was purportedly Palestinian children's art, which was a combination of art drawn by adults in a primitive style to mimic children's art and actual children's drawings that mimicked already existing cartoons and motifs that the teachers gave them. Anti-Israel groups used this fake art exhibit to great effect.
So Fatah is doing the same.
While the drawings in this exhibit do seem to be actually drawn by children for the most part, and most are even signed, the motifs and symbolism are astonishingly sophisticated for children.
Some themes are so pervasive that it is impossible to believe that the teachers didn't encourage them:
A direct copy of:
This set of pictures doesn't prove that Palestinian children are innocently and spontaneously drawing anti-Israel and antisemitic cartoons. It proves that they are being brainwashed to hate.
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.
Palestinian Media Watch reports that the cartoons are being labeled "innocent drawings" that "express the feelings of children of #Palestine,"
In fact, these cartoons show that the teachers have been indoctrinating the children to hate Israel.
A few years ago, there was a traveling exhibit of what was purportedly Palestinian children's art, which was a combination of art drawn by adults in a primitive style to mimic children's art and actual children's drawings that mimicked already existing cartoons and motifs that the teachers gave them. Anti-Israel groups used this fake art exhibit to great effect.
So Fatah is doing the same.
While the drawings in this exhibit do seem to be actually drawn by children for the most part, and most are even signed, the motifs and symbolism are astonishingly sophisticated for children.
![]() |
Notice anything missing? |
Some themes are so pervasive that it is impossible to believe that the teachers didn't encourage them:
This example shows that this "art" is meant to be eventually shown to Western audience, like the previous exhibit:
More examples of children's "art" that were clearly prompted by the antisemitic teachers and modeled after existing adult-drawn cartoons:
Similar to:
And:
A direct copy of:
This set of pictures doesn't prove that Palestinian children are innocently and spontaneously drawing anti-Israel and antisemitic cartoons. It proves that they are being brainwashed to hate.

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