Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 03, 2016

Katharine Graham's Legacy and the Washington Post's Bias Problem (Judean Rose)

Katharine Graham would turn over in her grave were she to read the Washington Post of today. This is what I've thought to myself every day for the last two weeks since I finished reading Graham's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography, Personal History. Graham was forced to take the helm of the Washington Post after her bipolar Wapo editor husband Phil Graham committed suicide. She'd never done any serious or meaningful work in her life up until that time, but she rolled up her sleeves and got to work and did a mighty fine job of it, too.

It was Graham who presided over the Washington Post during the leaking of the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the Washington Post's pressmen's strike. And she was a woman of principle. Under her stewardship, the Washington Post did not endorse presidential candidates. Opinion posts and editorials were clearly marked as such. There was an effort to avoid bias and spin.

If Graham could see the horrific spin and bias of her baby she'd die a thousand deaths, which is why it is probably good she is dead and buried. She, like me, may not have liked either presidential candidate, but she would have recoiled from spin like this: "Her use of a private email server as secretary was a mistake, not a high crime; but her slow, grudging explanations of it worsened the damage and insulted the voters."

Let's get this straight: HRC's use of a private server to handle state secrets as secretary of state was most definitely a high crime (no matter what Comey said that made him the darling of the Dems back in July). Which is the reason she, Hillary, lied about it. When journalists take objective facts and insert subjective opinion into the mix in order to distort facts and bring readers to an illogical conclusion, this is not news.

It's spin and bias.

Katharine Graham would have known that. She would have known that in a robust democracy the media's job is to provide access to information, free of spin, so the people can vote for the government that best represents them. In a democracy, where freedom of the press is a value, journalists are expected to uphold ethical standards. Organizations such as the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) were formed for the express purpose of developing and enforcing such media standards. The preamble to the SPJ Code of Ethics lays this out neatly:

...public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.

Here's something else you should know about Katharine Graham: her father, who purchased the Washington Post and eventually ceded control of the paper to his son in-law, was Jewish. Katharine Graham was quite sensitive to Jew-hatred and experienced antisemitism on more than one occasion, even though according to Jewish law, as the daughter of a non-Jewish woman, she herself was not Jewish.

Katharine Graham would have known that whenever William Booth and Ruth Eglash take to their desks to pen a story for Wapo about Israel, it's always going to be a Jew-hate festival, big time. Take the story they wrote yesterday on the trial of Elor Azaria. Look at the caption on the Reuter's feature photo: "The father of Elor Azaria, who is charged with manslaughter for shooting a wounded Palestinian assailant, kisses his head in a military court in March."

The only reason to use the word "assailant" is to distort the facts and suck the wind out of the terrorist's deed. The wounded Arab was a terrorist. Now he is a dead terrorist.

The body of the article repeats the distortion, using the word "assailant" in the body of the text, instead of the more accurate word, "terrorist."

This is because they, William Booth and Ruth Eglash, want you to see Elor Azaria, the Jew, as the bad guy in this story. He shot a wounded terrorist. Which obviously looks a lot worse than shooting a wounded "assailant."

The article itself speaks of Azaria "killing" the assailant, rather than "shooting" him. Because killing him obviously looks a lot worse than shooting him. And of course, Booth and Eglash give the readers a very vivid description of how that "killing" was accomplished, but with precious little about the terror attack: "Elor Azaria fired a single bullet at close range into the skull of a Palestinian assailant as he lay wounded, sprawled on his back, on a street in Hebron in the West Bank minutes after lunging at soldiers with a knife." Thirty-five words for how the terrorist got dead, six words alone for terror, for the act of stabbing a Jew because he is a Jew.

The main thrust of this article is that Israeli society is divided over the trial because some feel the terrorist needed to die, and some think Elor Azaria overstepped the boundaries of decency and morality to commit murder. Booth and Eglash serve up the heavily edited and muted B'Tselem video of the shooting, within the article with this caption:

"A graphic video from March shows a wounded Palestinian assailant who is lying on the ground being casually shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier. The Washington Post edited the video for time and graphic content. (Emad abu-Shamsiyah, B'Tselem)"

There's that word "assailant" again. Not to mention the characterization of the shooting of the terrorist as "casually shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier."

Get it? Israeli=Jews=Evil/Palestinians=Innocent victims

Yes. Wapo certainly did edit that video. They made it look even more damning than it looked to begin with. Furthermore, they shared only the B'Tselem video and not the video that came out the very next day in which you can hear a panicked medic calling out to the effect that the terrorist is getting ready to blow himself up. Note that the terrorist is wearing a heavy jacket on an unseasonably warm Middle Eastern day.

You know why Booth and Eglash show you the B'Tselem clip, and don't even mention the existence of this other clip? It means they're using the time-tested media bias tool of selective omission. Readers will see that edited B'Tselem clip and come to the conclusion that the facts are as Booth and Eglash suggest: Azaria casually murdered an innocent "assailant" cum victim out of malice.

That's the difference between Booth and Eglash and someone like Katharine Graham, who would have served up the facts and allowed the readers to decide the case on the facts alone, or at least let you know when you're reading opinion as opposed to fact. That's the difference between Booth and Eglash and someone like me. I too wrote about Azaria, making sure to include both videos.

The reason Booth and Eglash must resort to spin and bias by selective omission is that the story isn't as they represent it unless you add spin and omit the context. Whether Azaria made the right choice or not may be in dispute, but he did not shoot that terrorist either casually or out of malice. He shot that terrorist because there was a medic freaking out that the terrorist was going to blow them all up to smithereens.

And they, Booth and Eglash, don't want you to know that. Just like B'Tselem doesn't want you to know that. Booth, Eglash, and B'Tselem don't want you to know what really happened here. Because they want you to think that Jews are bad and Arabs are good.

Yes, indeed. Katharine Graham would have fired these two, Booth and Eglash, on the spot. They would never have gotten in the front door of Wapo, while she drew breath. Alternatively, she would have made them show the other video, and take out all the adjectives, labels, and spin.

She would have known what they were up to from the get go.

And so should you.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

The latest battle in Israel’s ongoing struggle to define itself is being fought over the way Supreme Court justices are selected. The 15 justices are appointed by a judicial selection committee of 9 members:

The Minister of Justice, who chairs the committee,
One additional cabinet minister, chosen by the cabinet (i.e., the government),
Two Knesset members, one from the coalition and one from the opposition,
Two members of the Bar Association, selected by the association, and
Three current justices of the Supreme Court, including the President of the Court (Chief Justice).

Presently, a super-majority of 7 committee members is required to approve a candidate. This gives the existing court justices a veto power, and – since the Court and the Bar Association lean leftward – gives left-of-center candidates a significant advantage. It also means that the Court is self-selecting and unaccountable.

The Israeli Supreme Court has far more power than the US Supreme Court. Rules about justiciability (what matters are in the purview of the Court) and standing (who can petition the court) are far looser than in other democracies; any citizen can petition the Court about any action of the government. It can throw out a law passed by the Knesset even if there’s no litigation about it. Or it can let it be known before a bill is passed that it will not approve it in its present form, and thereby force changes.

The Court greatly expanded its role and its power as a result of the activities of Aharon Barak, who was a justice from 1978-95, and its President from 1995-2006. The American jurist Richard Posner explains just how much power Barak placed in the hands of the Court (his hands!) in a review of one of Barak’s books. It is eye-opening.

Many Israelis feel that that it is unacceptable that in a democratic country so much power is held by an institution that is almost entirely not accountable to the people or its elected representatives. On the other hand, there is great respect for the Court and for the importance of having an independent judiciary and a rule of law.

The present Minister of Justice, Ayelet Shaked, has submitted a bill to the Knesset to change the rules so that only a simple majority of 5 members will be required. This would eliminate the veto power held by the current justices.

I used the expressions ‘right’ and ‘left’ above, but that isn’t the whole story. The disagreement is about much more than the desire of politicians to have a court that will take their side about issues like the development of Israel’s gas reserves, drafting Haredim, or the settlement enterprise. It is about the most basic principle of all: what kind of state will we have? Most will say that it is a Jewish and democratic state, but ideas of what this means in practice diverge widely.

Israel doesn’t have a constitution; instead it has a number of Basic Laws that partially define the nature of the state. There has been a great deal of discussion about what constitutes the Jewish aspect of the state, and recently there was a controversial attempt to introduce a Basic Law that would specify its precise meaning. The Supreme Court was a silent partner in all discussions about the law, because it was clear to all parties that the court would immediately test it – and probably find any non-vacuous version inconsistent with the existing Basic Laws. Various versions of the law were discussed, but so far nothing has been passed. If such a law does pass, chances are that it will be less ambitious than the earlier versions.

Is it an appropriate role for a court to judge the state’s self-definition? Or is this something that should be left to the representatives of the people?

The Amona settlement decision is another situation in which the ideological bent of the Court may have played a role. The settlement of Amona was declared to have encroached on land which was owned by Palestinians, and ordered by a court (and the order approved by the Supreme Court) to be demolished. The Knesset, looking for a compromise, proposed that the Palestinians be compensated and the buildings allowed to remain. But the Attorney General indicated that the Court would find such a solution “unconstitutional.”

The case was very complicated, as are all land ownership issues in Israel. The settlement had been there for several years and the Palestinians had not worked the land in question. The case was brought by a left-wing, foreign-funded NGO (“Yesh Din”) on their behalf. Could there really be no option other than destroying the settlement?

Something is backwards here. In a democracy, the power to govern ultimately resides with the people. In a modern state they express their will through their elected representatives. It is important that the rights of minorities be respected, but it is the majority that decides. But in Israel, the Supreme Court is not selected or even confirmed by the representatives of the people. There are no checks and balances – there is no way the Knesset can appeal or override a court decision. It is both totally independent and all-powerful.

And unfortunately, it leans in one direction. It values a European vision of democracy, universalism over nationalism, a “state of its citizens” over the more conservative, Zionist idea of a state that belongs to the Jewish people. When the Court believes that Zionism and minority rights conflict, it chooses minority rights.

Today there is a struggle between the remnants of the secular, Ashkenazi, universalist, dovish, elite that once ran the country, and the more religious, more Mizrachi, nationalist and hawkish population that is now the majority, and which elects right-wing candidates to the Knesset. It is being played out in the arena of arts and culture, where Miri Regev is challenging the old establishment; it is also happening in the academic world, where Naftali Bennett as Minister of Education is trying to rein in the excesses of the professorate. In the last few days we’ve seen yet another cultural struggle, this one over the new Public Broadcasting Corporation, which Likud politicians say has been co-opted by the left-wing journalists that overwhelmingly dominate the media.

All of these elites have maintained their control of these realms because they are self-selecting. They complain about “political interference” and “undemocratic” actions by the ministers that are trying to change them, but in reality it is the politics of today’s Israel that is trying to “interfere” with institutions that are run according to the politics of the 1960s.

The Supreme Court is the most important and powerful institution in the state that is still firmly in the hands of the old left-wing elite. Even if you think it is a benevolent despot, it is still a despot. Shaked’s bill to end its incestuous means of reproduction is a good start to bringing it in line with the rest of the nation.

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11/03 Links Pt1: Balfour 100; J-Street Makes Best Pro Trump Israel Video Ever

From Ian:

Balfour 100 - Website

May I offer you our heartiest thanks - I am sure that when the history of this time will be written it will be justifiably said that the name of the greatest House in Jewry was associated with the granting of the Magna Carta of Jewish liberties.
Balfour 100 is the official tribute of the British Jewish community marking the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, issued on November 2nd, 1917.
Balfour 100 was initiated by Lord Jacob Rothschild and is managed by a Steering Committee representing Jewish communal organisations.
The Balfour 100 tribute is a comprehensive set of activities including a range of digital resources, educational programmes, communal events, and the Balfour 100 Tribute Lecture by Professor Simon Schama.
Balfour 100 acknowledges with gratitude the foresight of Lord Arthur Balfour and the British government of Lloyd George. In the midst of the Great War, they looked to the future and chose to recognise the longing of the Jewish people to re-establish its national homeland in the land of Israel. We express our deep appreciation to all those British leaders in the subsequent one hundred years, who have shared in their vision.

Red tape, blunders keep Balfour Declaration away from the homeland it promised

It took decades to bring the Balfour Declaration, which enshrined London’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, to fruition. Bringing the actual document to Israel for a second visit may take even longer.
Plans to bring the Balfour Declaration to Tel Aviv for its second-ever display in Israel were announced by the Israeli government six and a half years ago, but they are held up in a dust of renovation rubble and bureaucratic misunderstandings, with no horizon for getting it to Tel Aviv for at least another year.
The document, which was issued exactly 99 years ago Wednesday, is now expected to arrive in Israel in 2018. That is just in time for the country’s 70th anniversary — but one year after the declaration’s centennial in 2017.
Originally, the Israeli government expected to host the document in 2015 on the occasion of the grand opening of the renovated Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, where it was supposed to be displayed together with Lord Arthur Balfour’s desk.
In a press release issued in April 2013, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that then-cabinet secretary Tzvi Hauser “received agreement in principle from the British Library for the original copy of the Balfour Declaration.”
The British Library, however, insists that no such agreement was ever granted. Indeed, Israel never formally asked for a loan, according to library spokesperson Ben Sanderson.
“We received an initial enquiry from the Israeli government, as to the conditions that need to be met to enable a loan of the item,” Sanderson wrote in an email to The Times of Israel. “The Library responded to this request, outlining our loans policy and indicating the issues that need to be considered in order to facilitate the loan of the Declaration. We have yet to receive a formal loan request. Any decision on a loan of the item will ultimately be made by the British Library Board.”
Once a formal loan request is made, Sanderson added, “we’ll be able to give proper consideration to whether the institution making the request is able to fulfill the requirements of our loans policy.”

Apologizing for the Balfour Declaration Won't Achieve a Two-State Solution

If love means never having to say you are sorry, then the renewed push for the U.K. to “atone” for the 1917 Balfour Declaration is yet another reminder of the bad blood between Israelis and Palestinians—and of how elusive peace remains.
Today, on 99th anniversary of the letter, which endorsed “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, has published an op-ed urging Britain to apologize for the document, which was incorporated into the British Mandate for Palestine.
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“In order to build a future of peace between Israel, Palestine and the rest of the world, justice must be honored,” Erekat argues. “The United Kingdom cannot continue to avoid its historic responsibility in Palestine.” President Mahmoud Abbas also raised the issue at U.N. General Assembly in September. “This is the least Britain can do,” he said.
In the U.K. last week, a 2013 campaign supporting this plea was relaunched at the House of Lords. “Britain’s legacy in Palestine marked an historical breach against the aspirations of the people of Palestine and shattered its hopes for freedom and self-determination,” the campaigners from the Palestine Return Centre argue. “Our mission is to seek an official apology from the British government for issuing the catastrophic Balfour Declaration.”

What Is The State Department’s Position On The Balfour Declaration?

It runs on into more yakety-yak about Jews building homes. Here’s a full transcript (which starts before where I cut the video to start). You can see the whole thing starting around 14:30 on the State Dept website:
QUESTION: And finally, I want to ask you, today marked the 99th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. I am sure you’re aware of the Balfour Declaration.
MR KIRBY: I am. I studied history in college.
QUESTION: Which basically launched this thing into – began this whole process and so on.
MR KIRBY: Yeah.
QUESTION: And I wonder, the Palestinians are going to sort of demand that Britain apologizes for the Balfour Declaration. Will you support them in that effort? Will you support the Palestinians if they go to the UN to say that Britain must apologize for that and must do everything that it can to rectify the wrongs that have been inflicted on the Palestinians as a result?
MR KIRBY: This is the first I’ve heard that there’s an interest in doing that at the UN, Said, so I’m not going to get ahead of proclamations or announcements or proposals that haven’t been made yet at the UN. Look, I’ll tell you, not that I’m saying history is not important. Believe me, as a history major and still a lover of history, I get the importance of history. But I’ll tell you where we’re focused is on the future here. And this gets back to your first question about settlement activity. We want to see a path forward to a two-state solution, and the Secretary still believes that that path can be found. But it requires leadership and it requires a forward vision in the leadership there.
So we are very much wanting to look forward here to a meaningful two-state solution, and I think we’re a little less interested in proclamations about the past. Not that I’m saying the past isn’t important or that we’re not a product of history. I am not at all suggesting that. I’m just saying that we are more focused on moving forward.
QUESTION: So okay, recognizing that —
MR KIRBY: I knew something was coming.
QUESTION: — does the Administration have a position on the Balfour Declaration – good, bad, indifferent?
MR KIRBY: I don’t know.

Balfour Declaration Q State Daily Press Briefing November 2 2016

Will this store be boycotted?

This week, the BDSers started publicizing a campaign to boycott Hewlett-Packard, which they claim helps Israel's "occupation" more than other companies.

HP's stock price has gone up about 25% so far this year. The boycotters have not affected the company in the slightest.

So it must be hard to buy HP equipment in Ramallah, right?

Well, don't tell that to Safad Engineering and Electronics, which is an authorized HP dealer, one of at least three in the territories.

Will they be boycotted?

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This morning, residents of Pisgat Ze'ev went to the house of Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat and woke him up with a loud recording of the Muslim call to prayer, amplified to approximate what they have to hear every morning:

For years, many residents in various neighborhoods of the city, including Gilo, French Hill, Pisgat Ze'ev and others, have complained that the municipality does not enforce the noise ordinances.

Last night, after he heard about the planned demonstration, Barkat instructed his Director General to formulate, in cooperation with the police, an action plan for regulating the noise levels from the call of the muezzin. He asked the commander of the Jerusalem district police, Yoram Halevy, to help reach a solution.

Ikrima Sabri, head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, is very upset over this, claiming that obnoxious calls to prayer is part of Muslim tradition and Palestinians have "the legitimate right" to amplify calls to prayer, saying that today's amplified calls are similar to the ones done by the first Jerusalem muezzin Bilal bin Rabah in the seventh century.

I didnt know Muslim science was that advanced in the early days of Islam.

Sabri even said that limits on amplification are a violation of Palestinian freedom of worship, which is another wonderful innovation that only applies to Palestinians. Muslim countries themselves have imposed limits or debated about the volume and number of muezzin calls that bother everyone who lives nearby.

But only when Israel tries to enforce laws against disturbing the peace do people get upset.

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A dead man still leads the Palestinian Arabs

In the weeks before the 12th anniversary of Yasir Arafat's death, his face is all over the Palestinian Arab news.

The Fatah Facebook page is literally filled with images of Arafat. It has hundreds, and scores have been posted in the past month before this minor anniversary.

More interestingly, Mahmoud Abbas is relegated to a minor role in the Fatah Facebook page, with only occasional stories about him. He is lost in the glare of Arafat worship.

So Abbas does what he has to do - he tries to get some of Arafat's popularity reflected on him.

Abbas' Fatah rival, Mahmoud Dahlan, is meanwhile releasing his own photos and videos showing how tight he was with the old terrorist.

This is not simply marking an anniversary. This is worship..

But it also shows that since Arafat died, Palestinians have no direction, no original ideas, nothing to look forward to. Their glory is in the past when Arafat called all the shots. There is nostalgia for the good old days of terror attacks under Arafat's rule.

And really, since the syphilitic murderer finally died, what has the Palestinian Authority or Fatah done on their own? Essentially nothing., Arafat set their strategy of using the peace process as a Trojan horse to destroy Israel in stages, and they are following it slavishly.

So they are stuck in the past, with their unceasing obsession with anniversaries (of Arafat's death, the Balfour Declaration, the UN Partition Plan, - and that is just this month.)

While Israelis are building and creating and innovating, Palestinians cannot move beyond the Arafat era.

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11/02 Links Pt2: UCL Riot Leader's History of Antisemitic Tweets; BDS spurs anti-Semitism on campuses

From Ian:

UK Watchdog: Police Investigating Antisemitic Tweets Posted by Ringleader of Violent Anti-Israel Protest at London University

British police are actively investigating antisemitic social media postings of a student believed to be the ringleader of last week’s violent anti-Israel protest at University College London (UCL), a spokesman from a watchdog group told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.
According to the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), the Metropolitan Police Service is “currently reviewing evidence” it provided on tweets written by Yahya Abu Seido, president of the UCLU Friends of Palestine Society.
Though Abu Seido’s Twitter account is set to “private,” the CAA said in a statement that it obtained numerous tweets that violate the International Definition of Antisemitism.
In one instance, the CAA said, Abu Seido invoked the classical trope of Jewish control, writing: “Zionists own the economy,” and the media is “Zionist.”
In a tweet from July 2015, Abu Seido compared Israel to the Nazi regime.
That same month, he wrote that “ISIS serves Israel.”
The CAA said it also found video footage of Abu Seido at the UCL protest telling pro-Israel attendees, “I hope you guys will think twice now next time you think about coming here.”
As reported by The Algemeiner, police were called in to intervene at the UCL gathering — hosted by CAMERA on Campus and the Friends of Israel student group — after protesters stormed the premises.

‘Kill a Jew’ Spray-Painted on Wall of South African University Building Two Weeks After Kippah-Wearing Student Verbally Assaulted on Campus

Violent antisemitic graffiti was found on Monday at the campus of South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), a mere two weeks after a Jewish student was verbally assaulted by an angry mob of protesters.
According to a statement by the South African Union of Jewish Students Countrywide (SAUJS), “Kill a Jew” and “F**k the Jews” — were spray-painted on a wall of a school building.
The SAUJS “unequivocally” condemned the “hateful, ignorant and offensive” expression of antisemitism.
“SAUJS maintains that every student on campus should be free from intimidation, regardless of their race, religion, gender of self-identification. Jewish students are no exception,” the group said.
The national Jewish union called on the Wits administration “to condemn this blatant antisemitism in the strongest possible terms.”
The appearance of the graffiti at Wits comes on the heels of an incident last month, in which a kippah-wearing student was called, among other epithets, a “Motherf**king Jew” by fellow students during a campus protest.
SAUJS said, “This kind of hate speech…unfortunately is not new to Wits University.”

Combating Israel-bashing at the 2016 Göteborg Book Fair

Gothenburg is the second largest city in Sweden. The city’s largest cultural event of the year is held each September in one of the largest exhibition spaces in town. This year the theme was “Freedom of Speech.” Over a period of four days, close to 100,000 people from across Sweden paid a visit to the fair.
A special part of the Göteborg Book Fair is “The International Square” – “a network of NGOs, publishers, trade unions, businesses and agencies working with international issues and development and co-operation.” The goal is “to spread qualified information about global development issues to the many visitors – from Sweden and elsewhere.” The Swedish international aid and development agency (SIDA) supports the International Square, among other things by paying the salary of an organizer from a private adult-education agency.
As the director of the Sderot Media Center and the Jerusalem Discovery photography and multimedia show, I was invited by the Sweden-Israel Friendship Association (SIFA) to share my personal audio-visual narrative: From Rockets to Rainbows. This was the second year that SIFA set up a booth to counterbalance the well-funded anti-Israel booths in the International Square.
Upon arrival, I set up our books of photography for display in the booth and hung up colorful posters from my photo exhibits to draw attention to the booth.
On my first break, I walked around the complex to get a feel for the atmosphere of the International Square – and for what and who are we up against here.
There were at least seven anti-Israel booths and assemblies.

The Qatari official who works closely with Israel

Here is an example of "normalization" between an Arab country and Israel that no one says anything bad about.

Qatar's ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, Mohamed al-Emadi, entered Gaza yesterday.

He came through the Erez crossing, which means that he went through Israel to do it.

And it isn't the first time. He has visited a number of times before, each time coordinating with Israel.

Qatar has given about a billion dollars to help Gaza, far more than any other Arab country, and it is a very hands-on procedure. Qatar chooses who gets the money and for what projects - in coordination with Israel.

He meets with Israeli generals and other officials. This NPR article from last year notes:

Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of research for Israel's military intelligence, says that there's one good reason Israel is helping Qatar help Gaza.

"Nobody else is ready to help but Qatar," he says.

Kuperwasser says that because Hamas is not only a militia but also the de facto government, improving life in Gaza could deter Hamas from war.

"We believe that better conditions in Gaza would lessen the incentive of Hamas and the population to go again to a war," he says. "So in a way, it is helping the deterrence. But the purpose is to improve the conditions of the people of Gaza and enable them to live a respectable life."

Emadi also meets with Hamas as well.

Last year Emadi even praised Israel and slammed Arab countries over helping Gaza rebuild, a move that alarmed Mahmoud Abbas.

As the NPR article concludes with this quote from Kuperwasser: ""Life is full of contradictions and strange things."

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Man Accused Of Leaking Disputation Questions To Nachmanides (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Barcelona, November 2 - In the aftermath of Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman's success in his disputation with an apostate Jew before the king of Aragon, ecclesiastical figures are claiming that one of their number provided some of the debate questions to the Rabbi ahead of time, giving him an unfair advantage in the showdown.

Friar Miguel Dominguez stands accused of sneaking a copy of several disputation points to the Rabbi, also known as Nachmanides, in the confrontation with Pablo Christiani, who converted to Roman Catholicism from Judaism. Nachmanides demolished the claims of his opponent, who set out to prove not merely that Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, but that even the sages of the Talmud could be shown to have acknowledged it. In thorough fashion, the rabbi demonstrated the logical inconsistencies, distortions, and outright falsehoods inherent in Christiani's premises and arguments, to the point that King James I awarded Nachmanides a substantial monetary sum and gave an address in a Barcelona synagogue, an unprecedented move in Europe.

"There is no way the Jew should have won," explained Father José Miro, a Church representative who was present at the disputation. "Under normal circumstances these disputations have clear rules that forbid a Jew from uttering anything objectionable to the Church, which guarantees the desired outcome. But in this case, for some unknown reason the king granted the rabbi freedom of speech. That was a problem, but not an insurmountable one - my colleagues and I believe the outcome was prejudiced by Friar Miguel, who was known to have handled some of the preparation but whose absence the night before the event remains unaccounted for." Dominguez maintains his innocence, and that he had taken ill and was resting in his quarters that evening.

"It's all rather suspicious," seconded Bishop Javier Vega. "The rabbi knew exactly what points of Christian doctrine to attack, as if someone had gone through the Bible for him and marked the passages that undermine the faith. The existence of someone who gains knowledge and understanding of Scripture without Church supervision is anomalous in this society - someone must have helped him from the inside." The bishop declined to offer his assessment of whether Dominguez is the culprit, merely insisting that whoever is proved guilty face an appropriate penalty.

Anti-Jewish violence has threatened to erupt in the wake of the disputation, but the clergy was forced to call off a planned riot and burning of Talmud manuscripts when the Jews received an anonymous tip of the impending attack and spirited their copies out of harm's way.

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11/02 Links Pt1: Jews Die, Turks Celebrate; The rise and fall of Ari Shavit; Hamas bids to join PLO

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah glorifies PA Police officer-turned-terrorist: "Heroic Martyr"

Emphasizing his position with the Palestinian Authority Police, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Movement glorified the perpetrator of yesterday's terror attack as a “heroic Martyr” and “the Martyr police officer”. Terrorist Muhammad Turkeman shot and wounded 3 Israeli soldiers.
In two posts on Facebook, Fatah specifically stressed that terrorist Turkeman was an “officer in the [PA] Palestinian police special forces”, using several hashtags to underscore this point:
“#The_Martyr_police_officer
#Palestinian_Authority_[Security_]Forces_member”
“#The_police_officer_Martyr
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Oct. 31, 2016]
Fatah included photos of terrorist Turkeman in posts that praised him for carrying out the "shooting operation”. In one he poses with an assault rifle, and in another he is shown wearing his PA Police uniform with a Kalashnikov assault rifle next to him.

MEMRI: Palestinian Social Media Reacts To Shooting Attack At Beit El Carried Out By Palestinian Policeman: Praise For Attacker, Calls For Other Palestinian Security Personnel To Carry Out Further Attacks

On October 31, 2016, Muhammad 'Abd Al-Khaleq Turkman, a 25-year-old Palestinian policeman, carried out a shooting attack at a checkpoint in Beit El, wounding three Israeli soldiers, one of them seriously. Turkman's brother Rabi'a, who was killed in 2011, was an official in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the Popular Resistance Committees, and was active in confrontations with Israel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.[1]
Following the attack, Palestinian social media users posted images and banners praising Turkman and his attack. Such posts also appeared on the Facebook pages of Fatah offices in the West Bank, and even on Fatah's official Facebook page, which referred to Turkman as "the hero martyr."
Facebook pages associated with Hamas featured calls for Palestinian security forces personnel to carry out similar attacks as part of the current Al-Quds Intifada that began in October 2015. Social networks also saw use of the hashtags "The Resisting Policeman" and "The Martyr Policeman."

JCPA: Have Some of the Palestinian Security Forces Gone Rogue?

On October 31, 2016, another attack was carried out by a Palestinian Security Services officer at an IDF checkpoint. Three IDF soldiers were wounded; the Palestinian officer Muhammed Turkman was killed.
Previous attacks occurred at the Hizma checkpoint adjacent to Jerusalem. The latest attack took place at the Ramallah District Coordination Office (DCO) checkpoint, a passage that oversees a road that is the Palestinian Authority’s Muqata (headquarters) lifeline. This checkpoint is the only one that serves senior PA officials and foreign diplomats as a gateway to and from Ramallah. The other checkpoints in the area (such as Qalandia and Beitunia) suffer from congestion and are off limits to PA officials. Practically, this means that the DCO checkpoint’s closure will amount to the disconnecting of the Muqata from the outside world, which may be the specific intention of those who perpetrated the attack.
The Palestinian Authority encourages incitement against cooperation with Israel while simultaneously stating that it is interested in continuing security cooperation. The PA cannot have its cake and eat it too.
Palestinian Security forces officers are portrayed in Palestinian Authority’s social media and by Fatah as traitors. It is only natural that these uniformed men try to regain their lost honor through terrorist attacks.

A year of terror attacks, in charts

The information on these charts comes from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

While the number of attacks went down significantly over the summer, they have resumed.

"Stabbings" includes attempted stabbings.

Here is a chart of the total attacks by type, excluding stone throwing.

Here you can see the trends by attack type.

There is a new trend that has not been reported much in the media: roadside bombs/grenades, which have been increasing from zero to ten per month.

The number of shootings sharply increased in October.

Here are the stone throwing attacks by themselves, now worse than even last year.

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The only place where police are praised for attempted murder

The official Fatah Facebook page praises Muhammad Turkeman, the PA police officer who shot and wounded three Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on Sunday, calling him a "hero martyr."

In normal countries, police officers are praised for saving lives, not attempted murder.

And Turkeman (whose ancestors are from Turkmenistan*, not the area around Palestine) is not even the first police officer to shoot at Israelis at a checkpoint near Beit El. Amjad Sukkari performed a nearly identical attack in January, also wounding three Israelis.

And he was praised too.

Making police officers into heroes for terrorism? Only in the "moderate, peace loving" PA.

*Correction: I originally wrote Turkey.

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A Jewish demonstration against the White Paper, 1939

On this 99th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Arabs are starting a major campaign to force Great Britain to apologize for issuing it.

This is absurd, of course, for a number of reasons. The The Balfour Declaration was incorporated into the San Remo Resolution and became international law that set aside the entire area of Palestine to become a Jewish national home. This law is still effective today. The campaign is really an effort to deny Jews their right to self-determination.

But there is one document that the British really should apologize for.

The 1939 White Paper severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine at the very moment that the Jews of Europe faced death.

The British who wrote it pretended that it was all fair and proper, of course:

If immigration has an adverse effect on the economic position in the country, it should clearly be restricted; and equally, if it has a seriously damaging effect on the political position in the country, that is a factor that should not be ignored. Although it is not difficult to contend that the large number of Jewish immigrants who have been admitted so far have been absorbed economically, the fear of the Arabs that this influx will continue indefinitely until the Jewish population is in a position to dominate them has produced consequences which are extremely grave for Jews and Arabs alike and for the peace and prosperity of Palestine. The lamentable disturbances of the past three years are only the latest and most sustained manifestation of this intense Arab apprehension. The methods employed by Arab terrorists against fellow Arabs and Jews alike must receive unqualified condemnation. But it cannot be denied that fear of indefinite Jewish immigration is widespread amongst the Arab population and that this fear has made possible disturbances which have given a serious setback to economic progress, depleted the Palestine exchequer, rendered life and property insecure, and produced a bitterness between the Arab and Jewish populations which is deplorable between citizens of the same country. If in these circumstances immigration is continued up to the economic absorptive capacity of the country, regardless of all other considerations, a fatal enmity between the two peoples will be perpetuated, and the situation in Palestine may become a permanent source of friction amongst all peoples in the Near and Middle East. His Majesty's Government cannot take the view that either their obligations under the Mandate, or considerations of common sense and justice, require that they should ignore these circumstances in framing immigration policy.

In short, the British gave Arab terrorists veto power over allowing Jews to enter the country because of feat of more terror.

...The alternatives before His Majesty's Government are either (i) to seek to expand the Jewish National Home indefinitely by immigration, against the strongly expressed will of the Arab people of the country; or (ii) to permit further expansion of the Jewish National Home by immigration only if the Arabs are prepared to acquiesce in it. The former policy means rule by force....Moreover, the relations between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine must be based sooner or later on mutual tolerance and goodwill; the peace, security and progress of the Jewish National Home itself requires this. Therefore His Majesty's Government, after earnest consideration, and taking into account the extent to which the growth of the Jewish National Home has been facilitated over the last twenty years, have decided that the time has come to adopt in principle the second of the alternatives referred to above.

More Jews mean the Arabs get more upset, and more upset Arabs mean that the Jewish national home cannot survive. How's that for logic to justify the imminent deaths of millions of Jews?

Oh, but the authors pretended to care about the European Jews. Or at least a few of them.

...His Majesty's Government are conscious of the present unhappy plight of large numbers of Jews who seek refuge from certain European countries, and they believe that Palestine can and should make a further contribution to the solution of this pressing world problem. In all these circumstances, they believe that they will be acting consistently with their Mandatory obligations to both Arabs and Jews, and in the manner best calculated to serve the interests of the whole people of Palestine, by adopting the following proposals regarding immigration:

...[T]he admission, as from the beginning of April this year, of some 75,000 immigrants over the next five years. These immigrants would, subject to the criterion of economic absorptive capacity, be admitted as follows:

For each of the next five years a quota of 10,000 Jewish immigrants will be allowed on the understanding that a shortage one year may be added to the quotas for subsequent years, within the five year period, if economic absorptive capacity permits.

In addition, as a contribution towards the solution of the Jewish refugee problem, 25,000 refugees will be admitted as soon as the High Commissioner is satisfied that adequate provision for their maintenance is ensured, special consideration being given to refugee children and dependents.

The existing machinery for ascertaining economic absorptive capacity will be retained, and the High Commissioner will have the ultimate responsibility for deciding the limits of economic capacity. Before each periodic decision is taken, Jewish and Arab representatives will be consulted.

After the period of five years, no further Jewish immigration will be permitted unless the Arabs of Palestine are prepared to acquiesce in it.

His Majesty's Government are determined to check illegal immigration, and further preventive measures are being adopted. The numbers of any Jewish illegal immigrants who, despite these measures, may succeed in coming into the country and cannot be deported will be deducted from the yearly quotas.

His Majesty's Government are satisfied that, when the immigration over five years which is now contemplated has taken place, they will not be justified in facilitating, nor will they be under any obligation to facilitate, the further development of the Jewish National Home by immigration regardless of the wishes of the Arab population.

The White Paper also stated, explicitly, that Jews cannot purchase land in much of Palestine from Arabs. making antisemitism official British government policy.

The authors of the paper knew very well every Jew they barred from immigrating to Palestine was likely to be murdered. Liberal MP James Rothschild stated during the parliamentary debate that "for the majority of the Jews who go to Palestine it is a question of migration or of physical extinction".

Even the "League of Nations commission held that the White Paper was in conflict with the terms of the Mandate."

In the end, the British didn't even admit the full 75,000 Jews that the White Paper allowed.

Six million were murdered. Tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, would have been saved if it wasn't for the British White Paper. The disgusting policy of appeasement of what the paper paper literally called "Arab terrorists" - led to the deaths of untold numbers of Jews.

If anyone is going to ask for apologies from the British, it should be the Jewish people for the immoral policy that sentenced so many of our relatives to death.

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Did the Mossad thwart a major Iranian terror attack in Azerbaijan in 2012?

In 2012, a major terror threat against Jewish targets was foiled in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Times of Israel reported at the time:

Piece by piece, the tools for an alleged Iranian-directed murder team were smuggled into Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea. A sniper rifle with silencer. Pistols. Sixteen pieces of plastic explosives and detonators.
Finally came a dossier with photos, names and exacting details — down to workplace drawings — for Israeli targets in the capital of Azerbaijan.
Each step, according to authorities in Baku, was overseen by Iran’s intelligence services for what could have been a stunning attack weeks before the suspected shadow war between Jerusalem and Tehran flared in Azerbaijan’s neighbor Georgia and the megacities New Delhi and Bangkok.
Azeri police arrested an undisclosed number of people on Tuesday for suspected links to Tehran and Hezbollah who were plotting terrorist attacks, AFP reported according to Al Arabiya News.
The individuals in question amassed an arsenal of firearms and explosives and had carried out surveillance of targets in Baku, officials said.

Now Jewish MP from Azerbaijan, Yevda Abramov, says that the Mossad is who foiled the plot:

Member of the Milli Majlis (Azerbaijani Parliament) Yevda Abramov revealed the sensational facts about the involvement of Israeli intelligence services in anti-terrorist operations in the territory of Azerbaijan. In an interview to Modern.az the MP noted that Mossad intelligence service's operatives had been participating in the protection of objects during the European Games in Baku.

'During the Eurovision song contest in Baku, Mossad divers neutralised in the sea a group of terrorists, who arrived from Iran to Azerbaijan. In the European games 2015 Mossad participated in the protection of the main objects in Baku,' said Yevda Abramov.

Azerbaijani MP also noted that relations between Azerbaijan and Israel were at a high level.

I found what I think is the original interview, but I could not decipher any part that said that the Mossad is what foiled the attack, although he definitely emphasized that the Mossad works closely with Azerbaijan intelligence and that Avigdor Lieberman is a great friend of the country.

In addition, Abramov said that the local media parrots the most ridiculous anti-Israel stories, like saying that Israel was responsible for creating a sandstorm that occurred when Shimon Peres visited, foiling a plot against him with the storm.

He blames the anti-Israel stories on Iranian connections and outreach to Azerbaijani journalists.

There are reports that Netanyahu is planning to visit Azerbaijan, which is a Muslim-majority country, in December.

(h/t Yigal B)

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11/01 Links Pt2: Ben-Dror Yemini: World is silent, except when it comes to Israel

From Ian:

Assad Regime’s Grotesque PR Conference in Damascus Uses ‘New York Times,’ ‘Washington Post,’ NPR, and ‘New Yorker’ Reporters to Whitewash War Crimes

Bashar al-Assad’s regime has pulled off a grotesque PR coup by corralling a number of prominent American journalists from outlets like The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker to participate in a conference designed to legitimize the rule of Syria’s genocidal head of state. The conference held Sunday and Monday in Damascus, was organized by the British Syrian Society, a “foundation” chaired by Assad’s father-in-law, the London-based physician Fawaz Ahkras. The larger purpose of the conference appears to be raising money for the regime and its war effort, in part by relieving sanctions against major regime figures.
Many of the participants (here is a partial list of attendees) are British journalists, like Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times, and other UK figures drawn from Akhras’ London contacts. Indeed, the conference is meant to have something of a British ambiance, which is why it’s being conducted according to “Chatham House rules”—a phrase that misleadingly (and hilariously) suggests that the British foreign office is convening the panels. It seems unlikely that the Syrian intelligence officers speaking at the event, like Col. Samer, know Chatham House Rules from Hama Rules, nor do they care. The point is to legitimize the regime’s message with a vague atmosphere of Western ideas and methods—which is why having Western journalists in the audience, and even on panels, is important to the regime. Attending a conference that features at least four Syrian regime officials who are currently sanctioned for their role in Assad’s war crimes, are, among others, the New York Times’ Beirut correspondent Anne Barnard, NPR’s Alison Meuse, and Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker.
The stated purpose of the Damascus conference is to “facilitate a better understanding of a very complicated crisis.” And presumably journalists in attendance have rationalized their participation to their editors along those exact lines: Since we’re covering the other side of a war, they’re no doubt explaining, it’s a good thing to hear the Assad regime’s side of the story. And since we can’t get into Damascus safely otherwise, it’s fine if we go under the protection of the regime. How else could we get in there?
There’s a simple test for whether such excuses are valid: Will the Assad government provide access to non-regime figures, like the citizens that Assad and his allies have starved in the town of Madaya? Will the regime provide them access to the countless opposition figures, including peaceful activists, the regime has put in prison and tortured? The answers are “of course not” and “under no circumstances.” (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Ben-Dror Yemini: World is silent, except when it comes to Israel

The massacre in Mosul and its surroundings has already begun. Everyone is killing and massacring everyone. Not just ISIS. The world is watching. The world knows. And the world is keeping quiet. Only several weeks ago, it happened in Aleppo in Syria. The big hospital was ruined. The world knows, watches and keeps silent.
The world’s greatest power has decided not to intervene. A few observers. Some air support. Nothing more. This was legitimized by US President Barack Obama. He had promised to intervene if Syria were to use chemical weapons. There was a short-term illusion regarding an agreement. The use of chemical weapons continues. The massacre has only expanded.
Every mass slaughter requires every human being, definitely a Jew, to think about the world’s silence in the 1940s. There is a double lesson from the Holocaust, both national and human. The national lesson has been learned. Israel can defend itself. The human, universal lesson has never been learned.
It didn’t start today. Since World War II, 86 million people have been killed, and mainly slaughtered. According to a study of the American Public Health Association, the figure is 190 million. Five million in Congo. And the world kept quiet. A million during the Russian invasion and control of Afghanistan. And the world kept quiet. Three million in Bangladesh’s war of independence. And the world kept quiet. About half a million in Algeria’s war of independence. And the world kept quiet. Millions of children, refugees and hungry people in Nigeria and Somalia, because of jihad, and the world kept quiet. Most of these wars included similar—and even more serious—massacres than the one taking place in Syria. And the world kept quiet.
Just to put things in proportions, 80,000 to 120,000 people have been killed in all of Israel’s wars against Arab countries, and about 12,000 were killed as part of Israel’s control over the Palestinians. A majority of the people killed in the world are innocent. An absolute majority of those killed in Israel’s wars against the Palestinians are either fighters or terrorists.

Hillary’s Two Official Favors To Morocco Resulted In $28 Million For Clinton Foundation

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who is vice-chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and a vocal critic of the Clinton Foundation, agreed with Ross, saying “these facts seem to reveal the possibility of more pay-to-play activities at the Clinton Foundation.”
“It would be especially troubling if the Clinton Foundation was working with the EPA to suppress the American phosphate industry in favor of Morocco. The EPA and Clinton Foundation should be forthcoming about their dealings with the Moroccan government and the American phosphate industry.”
Clinton’s 2012 support of a rider on the U.S. foreign aid bill permitting foreign aid to be sent to the Western Sahara arguably legitimized Moroccan occupation of territory and depopulated the Sahrawi Arabs. Native Moroccans were sent into the country by the government to extract the minerals.
The rider approved by Clinton said that U.S. foreign aid funds “may be used in regions and territories administered by Morocco,” meaning, the Western Sahara. The Western Sahara is classified a “Non-Self-Governing Territory” under international law.
“Previously, United States excluded Western Sahara from bilateral assistance to avoid seeming to endorse Moroccan control,” said Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at Northwestern University School of Law, in a legal review of occupied territories around the world.
Hans Corell, the U.N. Security Council’s Under-Secretary for Legal Affairs, said in January 2002 that “if further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the international law principles applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories.”