Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Palestinian Declaration of Independence allows Jews to pray on the Temple Mount

Today, as we mentioned, Palestinian Arabs are celebrating their version of Independence Day, as it is the anniversary of when they issued a "Declaration of Independence" - in Algiers.

The official translation of the document includes references to freedom of religion, and the accompanying political communique that explains the document includes this:

With a view to putting this affirmation into practice, the Palestine National Council insists on the following:
....
(f) Assurance of freedom of worship and the practice of religious rites at the holy places in Palestine for adherents of all religions

There it is, in black and white: Jews are allowed to freely pray at their holy sites. Which include the right to worship at Joseph's Tomb without fear of being lynched or arrested, to visit the ancient synagogue in Jericho without restriction, and of course the right for Jews to visit and pray at their holiest spot on the Temple Mount.

However, in their 2003 Basic Law, perhaps realizing that this was a potential problem for them, they added a caveat:

Freedom of belief, worship and the performance of religious functions are guaranteed, provided public order or public morals are not violated.

Since anything Jews do is immoral and disruptive by definition, they have a reason to riot and attack Jews trying to pray.

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From Now Lebanon:

In its first-ever military parade on foreign soil, Lebanon’s Hezbollah flaunted a sizeable fleet of heavy weaponry in the Syrian city of Qusayr Friday, according to news reports and photos circulated by social media accounts close to the organization.

Among the arms and vehicles on display were Soviet-made T-72 tanks and KS-12A anti-aircraft cannons; Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles (mounted, in some cases, on quad bikes); dune buggy-mounted machine guns; and off-road motorbikes. Significantly, the parade also featured American-manufactured M113 armored personnel carriers (APCs).

Al Asharq al Awsat notes:

Member of the Syrian Coalition opposition, Michel Kilo told Asharq Al-Awsat that the party’s military parade in Syria proves that “Hezbollah” was not only a force fighting there, but also rather an occupation force. “The presence of Hezbollah in Syria is not an emergency and is not temporary anymore. The party wants to assert that its presence is part of the widespread Iranian presence that covers Syria entirely,” Kilo said.

He's right. A military parade only makes sense for those who claim sovereignty over the area the parade is being held. It is an assertion of power.

Of course, Hezbollah can only do this with Iranian support, and Iran's support comes in no small part because the US has allowed the world to resume pouring money into Iran in exchange for a temporary slowdown in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Legal scholars seem to have taken both sides on the question of whether the definition of military occupation includes occupation at the invitation of the host government. This parade indicates that the line has been crossed into an actual occupation; Syria's government has turned into a puppet of the forces that it is asking to help it and it can no longer say no even if it wanted to.

The proof? There was no Syrian involvement in the parade. If Hezbollah just wanted to show off how it was helping Syria fight off what they call "terrorists," then why not invite their benevolent hosts?

In addition, locals were not allowed to even view the parade.

Iran and its proxies control Syria, they are not acting on behalf of Syria.

Hezbollah is, of course, a designated terrorist organization. But it is also a foreign occupier as a proxy for Iran, whose goal is to inexorably take over the Middle East - from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Yemen.

While human rights activists are generally vocal about Syria, it is interesting how silent the human rights community is specifically about this occupation of Syrian territory.

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The anniversary of the "peaceful Palestinian state" scam

Last week, Mahmoud Abbas bragged yet again about his intransigence and refusal to make peace with Israel, daring anyone to find a single difference between the PLO positions today and those of 1988.

What happened in 1988?

On November 15, 1988, Yasir Arafat declared Palestinian "independence" - in a meeting in Algeria.

The media at the time hailed it as a breakthrough, because the "Declaration of Independence" mentioned - but did not accept - UNSC resolution 242, which implies recognition of Israel.

The document, which was crafted by poet Mahmoud Darwish, uses the word "peace" 8 times and its accompanying communique an additional 11 times. For example:

The State of Palestine, in declaring that it is a peace-loving State committed to the principles of peaceful coexistence, shall strive, together with all other States and peoples, for the achievement of a lasting peace based on justice and respect for rights...

In the context of its struggle to bring peace to a land of peace and love, the State of Palestine calls upon the United Nations, which bears a special responsibility towards the Palestinian Arab people and its homeland, and upon the peace-loving States and peoples of the world and those that cherish freedom to assist it in achieving its goals, in bringing the plight of its people to an end, in ensuring the safety and security of that people and in endeavouring to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

The State of Palestine further declares, in that connection, that it believes in the solution of international and regional problems by peaceful means in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the resolutions adopted by it, and that, without prejudice to its natural right to defend itself, it rejects the threat or use of force, violence and intimidation against its territorial integrity and political independence or those of any other State.

In the past 28 years we have seen the same PLO celebrate numerous terror attacks and turn terrorists into heroes.

This is because the accompanying communique justifies terror at the same time that it claims that it is against it:

The Palestine National Council renews its commitment to United Nations resolutions affirming the right of peoples to resist foreign occupation, colonialism and racial discrimination, and their right to struggle for their independence. It once again states its rejection of terrorism in all its forms, including State terrorism...

You cannot read this document without a glossary - because it defines murdering Jews as a human right and it defines Israel's defense against terrorism as terrorism itself.

This indeed has been the playbook for 28 years - to insist that the Palestinians are a peace-loving people while at the same time supporting all forms of terror against Israelis as a form of "justice" and a "human right."

The document might as well have been written in 1984. Language itself has become a weapon.

But the playbook has been remarkably successful, and Mahmoud Abbas has continued in its path by speaking of "peace" and "justice" while literally embracing unrepentant murderers.

Abbas is right - nothing has changed in 28 years. November 15, 1988 was the birth of a new strategy to pretend that the Palestinian leadership had turned from terror-supporters into peace-loving doves. One only has to glance at their own media, their schoolbooks, their jubilant celebrations at terror attacks to learn that nothing has changed, but the wishful-thinking West chooses to ignore the constant support of terror as the anomaly and the lies about "peace" as the truth.

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11/14 Links Pt2: Ending Aid to Terrorists; From Bataclan to Mike’s Place; The Star of David becomes a Swastika in Germany

From Ian:

Jewish Groups at Texas U Cancel Lecture by Author Caroline Glick for Fear of ‘Alienating’ Anti-Zionists on Campus

A program slated for Monday, featuring a lecture by renowned American-Israeli writer Caroline Glick — author, most recently, of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East — has caused Jewish and pro-Israel students at the University of Texas at Austin to fear that her message might anger anti-Zionists on campus, The Algemeiner has learned.
“Some people are concerned Glick may not be the best representative for what we are trying to accomplish — that is, promoting our message and advocating for Israel,” Eliav Turk, who sits on the board of both Texans for Israel and AIPAC on Campus, told The Algemeiner. “There are fears she may alienate student groups and minorities we are trying to attract, which have traditionally taken a non pro-Israel stance.”
The students who expressed displeasure with the program — funded by CEO of Davidsohn Global Technologies, Joseph Davidsohn — belong to groups such as Hillel, Texans for Israel and AIPAC on Campus.
Davidsohn called the push-back against Glick disgraceful. “She is being vilified because student groups believe she promotes a one-state solution — which means they clearly haven’t read her book,” he told The Algemeiner. “It is important that students hear her speak and learn an alternative narrative about Israel, not just the one put out by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine or Black Lives Matter.”

Ending Aid to Terrorists (WSJ $)

In his eulogy recently for Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, President Obama spoke of the “unfinished business” of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Now he or Donald Trump have an opportunity to advance the cause—by backing legislation to stop the flow of U.S. tax dollars to Palestinian terrorists.
Since the 1990s, as the U.S. and other countries have sent billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians, Palestinian leaders have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in rewards to those who carry out bombings, stabbings and other attacks in Israel. These payments, codified in Palestinian law, are an official incentive program for murder that in any other context would be recognized as state sponsorship of terror. But the U.S. and other Western states have looked the other way while continuing to send aid, giving Palestinian leaders no incentive to stop.
Senators Lindsey Graham,Dan Coats and Roy Blunt have introduced a bill to end U.S. economic aid unless Palestinian leaders stop rewarding terrorists. It’s called the Taylor Force Act, after the 28-year-old U.S. Army veteran stabbed to death in March by a Palestinian in the Israeli city of Jaffa. Other American victims of recent Palestinian terrorism include 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel and 18-year-old Ezra Schwartz.
“They will never achieve peace when you pay one of your young men to kill someone like Taylor Force. That’s inconsistent and it needs to stop,” Mr. Graham (R., S.C.) says. “We’re not going to invest in a group of people that have laws like this. It’s just not a good investment.” The same Palestinian laws guarantee civil-service employment to terrorists upon their release from prison—the bloodier their crime, the cushier their post.“If you’re in jail for five to six years, you come out with the civilian rank of department head or lieutenant in their security forces, you get to choose. If you’re in jail 25 to 30 years, you become a deputy minister or a major general,” Mr. Graham adds.
Mr. Coats (R., Ind.) notes that Congress tried to stop subsidizing terror payments in 2014, but Palestinian leaders dodged that law with a “shell game” that passed payments through the Palestine Liberation Organization, which technically isn’t a recipient of U.S. aid. When lawmakers raised this with the State Department they got only a “tepid” response, says Mr. Coats. One State Department report praised the payments as “an effort to reintegrate” released prisoners into society.
The truth is these payments are blood-soaked gifts from a Palestinian leadership still devoted more to destroying Israel than to building a Palestinian state. This has always been the chief impediment to peace. Mr. Obama is unlikely to act in his final days, but the Trump Administration and new Congress could send a powerful message by passing the Taylor Force Act. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

‘Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel’ (REVIEW)

Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel, by Cary Nelson, (MLA Members for Scholars’ Rights and Indiana University Press, 2016). ISBN 978-0-253-02516-6. 396 pp.
Cary Nelson — whose impressive credentials include being a longtime professor at the University of Illinois, author or editor of over 30 books and president of the American Association of University Professors from 2006-2012 — firmly cemented his reputation as an authority on academic boycotts with his 2015 anthology (co-edited with Gabriel Brahm), The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel.
His new book, which draws on the earlier one and also adapts material written by several other scholars, now offers everything its subtitle promises — and, as we’ll see, more. As such it is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested not merely in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also in its increasingly heated proxy conflict on campuses across the world.
Dreams Deferred aims (its publisher tells us) to “empower readers to be informed participants in conversations and debates,” providing “facts and arguments to assist all who seek justice for both Israelis and Palestinians and who believe the two-state solution can yet be realized.”

J-Street's website brags about how effective it was in lobbying for senators and members of Congress who supported the Iran deal.

They aren't telling you the truth.

In the Senate, J-Street's candidates did particularly poorly.

A trusted source who tallies these sorts of things tells me that:

- Of the 23 senators up for reelection who opposed the Iran deal, 21 of them (91%) were reelected.

- J-Street only won 4 of 14 competitive and open seat senate races (29%).

- J-Street PAC spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads to support former Senator Russ Feingold, who was way ahead in the polls before J-Street got involved and made the Iran deal an issue. he lost to Republican Ron Johnson, who became the first Republican Senator to win reelection in Wisconsin in a presidential year since 1956.

Even in the House, J-Street is looked upon as toxic.

- Among the 55 newly elected House members (28R, 27D), only 5 (9%) accepted an endorsement from J-Street.

- Out of 31 competitive congressional races that J-Street got involved in, its candidates won only 7.

I also looked at J-Street's poll of Jewish voters that make it look as if they overwhelmingly support the Iran deal. The questions they asked were the worst sort of leading questions.

For example:

As you may know, the United States reached an agreement last year with Britain, Germany, France, China, Russia, and Iran that places significant limits on Iran's nuclear program to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon in exchange for lifting economic sanctions on Iran. Details of the agreement include: putting international nuclear experts on the ground to inspect Iran's nuclear facilities, and capping the level at which Iran can enrich uranium to far below what is necessary to make a nuclear weapon. In exchange, Iran receives phased sanctions relief, including the unfreezing of up to $150 billion in Iranian assets as it complies with the terms of the agreement. Do you support or oppose this agreement?

The question doesn't say anything negative about the deal, so naturally the people surveyed said that they were somewhat supportive of the deal.

If the question would have added a simple "...and after 15 years, Iran will be free to pursue nuclear weapons without any significant obstacles" the numbers of people who would have said they supported it would have gone way down. If the question would have mentioned Iran's threats to destroy Israel, the results would have been much different. But -Street dishonestly frames the question to lead people to the answer they want to trumpet.

In short - don't trust a word J-Street says. They are trying to gaslight you.

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Iran starts to threaten a Shiite takeover of Mecca

The National Council of Resistance to Iran issued a remarkable press release on Sunday:

In his speech aired on state-run TV Ofogh, Mullah Mehdi Ta'eb, a clergy close to Khmenei, unveiled the Iranian regime's plots in the region and talked about occupation of Saudi and Mecca by the regime's mercenaries in Yemen. Ta'eb is the head of Ammar headquarters, the center for organizing the regime's plain-clothed agents who have a criminal role in suppression of popular protests and demonstrations, and torturing and execution of the regime's opponents.

"God has sent you a blessing named Yemen… Do you know where the Yemenis are going? They want to occupy House of God; they have one million combatants, none of whom will return from the front, they are steadfast; His excellency (Khamenei) praised their leader on Eid al-Fitr, and called him as the Yemenis' wise and courageous leader. The day Saudi attacked Yemen, Mr. Seyyed Abdulmalek said we shall hopefully set up prayer of victory near the House of God; which means he would proceed up to there. But you should know that the whole story of Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, … all depends on you (IRGC members)," said Ta'eb. (State TV Ofogh- November 7)

Earlier Ta'eb had also emphasized the regime's aggressive plans in the region and occupation of four Arab capitals, being Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa.

Remarks made by Khamenei's inner circle, and the actions of IRGC members and the regime's mercenaries show clearly as long as mullahs are in power, export of terrorism and crisis and warmongering will go on in this part of the world.

If this is true, and Khamenei-aligned Shiite clergy are openly threatening Saudi Arabia, this re-emphasizes the fact that Iran is trying to become the regional superpower. It has been working on that plan for many years, but to have a cleric brag that Iran now controls four capitals that only five years ago were Sunni is a sobering thought.

And in 15 years, they will have the ability to build a nuclear weapon, thanks to our outgoing president.

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11/14 Links Pt1: Col Kemp: Trump and International Security; U.S. Embassy: Next Year in Jerusalem?

From Ian:

BESA: Worse than a Crime: The Folly of Seeking an Imposed Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The attempt to impose a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is worse than a crime; it is a mistake. Even the whiff of coercion deludes the Palestinian leadership and feeds their hope that they can avoid the hard decisions that are necessary for compromise. It also stiffens resistance within Israel to concessions, undermines the legitimacy of any negotiated outcome, and makes implementation all but impossible.
The notion that an externally imposed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viable and ultimately in Israel’s best interest is sheer folly. It proceeds from a set of wrong assumptions: that the failure to achieve a breakthrough is entirely Israel's fault ("the settlements," etc.); that a short sharp shock is all that would be needed to make Israel "come to its senses;" and that the only reason a solution has not yet been imposed is that Israel has been shielded from the consequences of its policies by powerful friends (mainly in the US).
Each of these false assumptions leads to a false conclusion, and following their logic would be counterproductive. To begin with, while not all Israeli actions and positions over the past two decades have been strategically wise (the structure of the Oslo process comes to mind), much of the responsibility for their failure lies with the Palestinians. The Palestinians continue to glorify and reward violence and cling fervently to the hope that they can achieve statehood on their own terms, without conceding Israel's basic need for security, and without recognizing the reciprocal legitimacy of the two national movements.
The Palestinians’ refusal to accept Israel as the embodiment of the right of the Jewish people for national self-determination – indeed, their refusal to accept that there is a Jewish people – undermines what is certainly a basic requirement if peace agreements are to hold.

Col. Kemp: Trump and International Security

It is the EU, not Donald Trump, that threatens to undermine NATO and the security of the West. An EU defence union will present a direct threat to NATO, competing for funds, building in duplication and confusion, and setting up rival military structures.
"You can't say the past doesn't matter, the values we share don't matter, but instead try to get as much money out of NATO as possible and whether I can get a good deal out of it." — German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen.
This is breath-taking hypocrisy from the defence minister of Germany, which spends less than 1.2% of GDP on defence against an agreed NATO minimum target of 2%, while freeloading off the America's 73% contribution to NATO's overall defence spending.
European leaders would do well to recognize that they need the US more than the US needs them, and that real, concrete, committed defence from the world's greatest military power is more beneficial to them than a fantasy army that will have plenty of flags, headquarters and generals but no teeth.
Trump should also prioritize both practical and moral support to anti-Islamist regimes in the Middle East, such as Sisi's Egypt.
Rather than spreading fear and false propaganda about Donald Trump, they should be praying that he will provide the strength that is so desperately needed today, and working out how best they can support rather than attack him.

Seth Frantzman: Seven policy goals for the Trump administration

‘The world has been undergoing a huge change... it is compounded by the fact that for about a year now foreign policy has been on hold, in the sense that every country has been waiting for the result of the [US] election,” Henry Kissinger told BBC Newsnight last week. Kissinger, who is approaching 94 years old and has influenced policy with 10 US administrations, said that President elect Donald Trump deserves to be given a chance as he develops a foreign policy agenda.
For his part Trump spoke to The Wall Street Journal over the weekend about his agenda. “I’ve had an opposite view of many people regarding Syria,” he said.
He echoed views put forward in debates with Hillary Clinton, suggesting that the US Syria policy was a mess. Iran was “becoming powerful” and America has no idea “who these people are,” referring to the Syrian rebels it has supported. He urged a climbdown from possible conflict with Russia. Trump suggested an “ultimate deal” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Kissinger is one of the few visible foreign policy advisors whose insights Trump sought out during the campaign. Visiting him in May, the Republican candidate obviously impressed Kissinger, who seems to be assured Trump is not the fire starter he came across as during the campaign.
“In public he speaks with great assurance, but some of the proposals he has made most emphatically will encounter obstacles to implementation,” Kissinger told The Atlantic. The former secretary of state laid out some ideas for the problems Trump will face. The US is close to sacrificing its “core national beliefs,” and its reputation as a “shining city on the hill” has been tarnished, he said. “A society has to have a vision of its future, and it cannot be based on guilt primarily.” In a chaotic world the US needed to formulate a coherent policy “based on agreed-upon principles that are necessary for the operation of the entire system.”
So, what is to be done? Let’s look at key policy issues.

Haaretz reports:

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved on Sunday a bill prohibiting the use of loudspeakers at mosques during Muslim prayer services.
Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced support for the legislation. "Israel is committed to freedom of religion, but it must also protect citizens from the noise. This is how it is in European cities and I support similar enforcement and legislation in Israel," the prime minster said.
The bill would have to pass several readings in the Knesset to become law.

The law, while obviously aimed at mosques, is written to ban loudspeakers from all religious institutions.

Palestinians are livid about the possibility that the law would be enforced in parts of the territories, and they are threatening Israel should the law pass.

The PA threatened to go to the Security Council.

The head of Islamic Jihad said "the decision confirms the extent of arrogance of the occupation , which was based on criminality, murder and destruction and to provoke the feelings of Muslims. ...this decision excceds all red lines.

Hamas issued a statement saying it is "an outrageous provocation to the feelings of Muslims all over the world, and unacceptable interference in the worship and religious rites." It said it violates international laws and conventions.

The Resistance Committees said Israel is instigating a religious war aimed at Judaizing Jerusalem and obliterating Islamic identity.

The PA Minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs said that this law threatens the entire region with a religious war, through the violations of freedom of beliefs.

Perhaps the most honest evaluation came from an Al Aqsa imam who said that anyone who doesn't like the call to prayer blaring at 5 AM should simply move somewhere else. Which is indeed part of the reason it is done to begin with, far beyond the requirements or customs of Islam - it is not a simple call to prayer but an assertion of sovereignty.

Haaretz notes that even Egypt has tried to ban the calls to prayer, and notes that many Islamic scholars say there is no religious dimension to loudspeakers:

Arguments over mosques’ use of loudspeakers to broadcast the voice of the muezzin calling Muslims to prayer have arisen over the past several years in several countries, first and foremost in Egypt, which is not only the largest Arab state but is considered a role model and source of guidance since Cairo is home to Al-Azhar, the most prominent Sunni institution in the Arab and Muslim world.
A number of years ago the issue made headlines when Egypt’s then-Religious Endowments Minister, Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk, said loudspeakers were an invention that has nothing to do with Islamic law, and that they even constituted an undermining of Islam, which spread and expanded over hundreds of years without loudspeakers or other technology. Senior religious leaders, however, said that conveying the call of the muezzin is an Islamic principle, making the use of loudspeakers permitted and even vital to broadcast the call and convey it to all believers.
Nevertheless, there are senior figures in the Islamic world who agree that external loudspeakers should only be used to call people to prayer, and not to broadcast the prayers themselves, particularly the Friday prayers that include the traditional sermon. There are those who argue that amplification systems during prayer should only be used within the mosques themselves.

The hysterical reactions from the Palestinian leadership proves once again that this has nothing to do with religion but with Islamic attempts at hegemony in the region.

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No matter what happens with Trump, Obama's anti-Israel narrative will take a huge hit

I have no idea what is going to happen in a Trump administration, either domestically or in foreign policy. I don't know what his Israel policy will be.

But there will be one instant and long-lasting effect: the Obama narrative on the conflict will become hugely diminished.

In Obama's worldview, Israel is the only party with any agency and any responsibility. And the lack of peace is wholly Israel's fault.

In Obama's worldview, Palestinian terror is an unfortunate but understandable consequence of Israeli policies.

In Obama's worldview, Jews living in Judea and Samaria is the single biggest obstacle to peace.

In Obama's worldview, Netanyahu is an intransigent bully who has no desire for peace and whose policies will doom Israel unless the left saves the country in spite of him.

In Obama's worldview, supporting Iran is the only reliable path for a stable Middle East.

In Obama's worldview, American Zionists are part of the problem, and therefore an alternative movement that shares his viewpoint must be encouraged and propped up.

The President isn't only about policies and laws and bills and strategy: The White House has a huge influence on American public opinion and how Americans view the world.

Americans will inevitably view the Middle East differently because no one that shares the Obama worldview will remain in the White House.

It will be shocking to the world the first time President Trump opines on the Middle East. But chances are that he will look at it without the obscuring clouds of years of lies about "settlers" and "Likud intransigence". If there is anything Trump loves to do, it is to burst the bubble of conventional wisdom.

Maybe he'll ask, "If settlements are inexorably taking over the entire disputed areas, then why don't Palestinians rush to make peace and protect what they can?"

Maybe he'll ask, "Why, 23 years after Oslo, has the Palestinian Authority continued to teach hate on TV and in the classrooms?"

Maybe he'll ask, "If Palestinians want peace so much, why have they turned down every peace offer, and why did they respond to the Clinton plan with a war on Jewish civilians?"

Maybe he'll ask, "Why are people wanting to boycott the one country that does more for human rights than any other country in the entire Middle East"?

Maybe he'll ask, "What possible purpose does it serve to keep the US embassy out of the undisputed part of Jerusalem?" (The official answer, that the US still officially supports the part of the 1947 partition plan where all of Jerusalem was supposed to become an international city, is so stupid that it is a perfect thing for a Trumpian president to expose and ridicule to show that he is different from his predecessors.)

These types of obvious questions - obvious to anyone who is not caught up in the previous narrative, that is - will create more positive change than any number of conferences or bills passed. The media will not be able to ignore the plain truths that they have been studiously ignoring for many years.

The anti-Israel crowd is in a panic, and for good reason. It is not because Trump is necessarily pro-Israel. It is because Trump is not afraid to speak out loud what everyone knows deep down. And those truths are what scares the hell out of the people whose entire existence depends on maintaining their anti-Israel narratives in the media and on campus.

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I've discussed two outrageous parts of Abbas' speech on the anniversary of Arafat's death that were ignored by the media.

A third part, where he claims that he knows who murdered Arafat but couldn't release the information (although the answer will "amaze" everyone), was covered in Israeli media.

Here's another part of the speech, where Abbas is rushing to capitalize on UNESCO's saying that the Temple Mount is only Islamic. Even though it acknowledged that Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Abbas goes beyond UNESCO:

As you know, a while ago UNESCO has issued a resolution, and all hell broke loose. The resolution was about history and archaeological sites, and according to it, this area/region – Jerusalem – is an Islamic archaeological site.

Why are they (i.e. the Jews and others] are upset by this resolution? If we want to look back at history, in 1930 there was another resolution about the Al-Buraq Wall. These are international resolutions, and if we do not respect international resolutions, then whose resolutions are we going to respect?

He is referring to the infamous 1930 paper written in the wake of the 1929 riots that declared that the Kotel was Islamic property. The threat of more Muslim violence is what animated that conclusion, just as the desire to coddle Muslim public opinion is what drives UNESCO.

Now Abbas takes these political declarations under the guise of historic research and uses it as proof that Jews have no rights to their holiest spots that have been documented from many, many centuries before Islam.

The entire reason that the Palestinians wanted to join UNESCO is for exactly this purpose - so they can use the organization to deny Jewish rights. And Abbas is doing it, explicitly, today.

Too bad the media can't find a reason to bother translating what their moderate, peace loving hero says to his people, in public.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Antisemite and inciter Raed Salah starts a hunger strike

Sheikh Raed Salah, 58, head of the banned northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel, started a hunger strike on Sunday morning, to protest against his prison sentence and his solitary confinement.

He was sentenced to nine months in prison for incitement, and after a delay, started his sentence in May.

Salah has constantly incited violence by telling people that the Jews were about to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque. He has invoked the classic blood libel, says that 4000 Jews were told not to go to work in New York on 9/11, that a Jewish cabal were behind Monica Lewinsky and the JFK assassination.

All of which made Salah a wonderful choice to write a column for The Guardian.

Similarly, despite Salah's explicit support for murdering Jews that can be found on his Facebook page, Amnesty International condemned Israel's making his group illegal during the height of the knifing attacks late last year.

In other words, Salah is a sweetheart of the Left who have no problem with his antisemitism and support of murdering Jews.

Palestinians and leftists aren't protesting against Salah's hate - they are protesting to support it.

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Don't worry - it never happened.

From Ma'an:

An Israeli home in the illegal settlement of Beit El, located in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah and al-Bireh, was burned to the ground late Thursday night after a group of Palestinian youth threw Molotov cocktails into the settlement, according to Palestinian sources.

According to locals, several youths threw Molotov cocktails at the house, which was located on the outskirts of the settlement. The house then caught on fire and burned to the ground.

Israeli forces, firemen, and ambulances rushed to the area to put out the fire, while Israeli forces immediately began searching the area for suspects.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an she would look into reports on the incident.

The story isn't true. Yisrael Medad asked around and found that nothing of the sort happened.

But the story is important anyway - because it means that Palestinians are bragging about doing exactly what they continuously accuse Jews of doing to the Dawabsheh family.

The false reports say that the youths burned the house down late at night. This means that in their own telling of the story, the youths would have assumed that there was a Jewish family inside that they were trying to murder.

Of course, the entire population of Israel denounced any potential Jewish involvement in the incident in Duma. But this story is being reported in Arab media without any moral qualms about what they claim they did. Even as Palestinians continue to use Duma as a means to show the world how supposedly immoral "settlers" are, they go out of their way to brag to their media that they are burning Jews alive in their homes, or at least are trying to.

The difference in morality is stunning - but the news media won't point it out. It wouldn't be "evenhanded."

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11/13 Links: PA threatens revenge on US if embassy moves to Jerusalem; Dershowitz: What the US election tells us about the past, present and future

From Ian:

Dershowitz: What the US election tells us about the past, present and future

So Trump’s narrow victory doesn’t tell us much about the past or the present. Even if Trump had lost by a narrow margin, the fact that he got nearly 60 million votes would still be significant – as significant as his narrow victory – in telling us about the current mindset of the American people.
But the fact that Trump won tells us a great deal about the future, because a Trump presidency promises to be very different than a Clinton presidency would have been.
A Clinton presidency – coupled with a Republican Senate and House – would have been subject to the checks and balances of our constitutional system of separation of powers. A Trump presidency will not be subject to those constraints. There will be less gridlock, although the Senate filibuster may impose some constraints on President Trump’s expressed desire to pack the Supreme Court with “Scalias.”
Just as it was impossible to predict this election, it is impossible to predict the precise dimensions of the Trump presidency. If he is smart, he will reach across the aisle, as well as across genders, ethnicities and religions. A successful president must be different than a successful candidate. Only time will tell whether Trump acts on this historic truth.
In the meantime, the loyal opposition must remain both loyal and opposed to policies and appointments that are inconsistent with our values. We must cooperate when cooperation is warranted, but when it is not, we must use all available lawful options – political, judicial, media, academic and economic – to serve as checks and balances on a president who tries to exceed his authority. This is not the time for liberals or Democrats to become immobilized with despair, nor is it the time for violence or unlawful actions. It is a time to become energized and proactive.

Why US Election Coverage Is a Wake Up Call for Israel’s Supporters

Why This Matters for Israel’s Supporters
If you’re a long-time reader of HonestReporting, you won’t be surprised that the news industry is infected with groupthink, insularity, and is capable of skewing reality. It won’t shock you that reporters allowed themselves to become personally alienated and that the public discourse is now suffering for it.
You also know to be on the watch for the eight categories of media bias: misleading terminology, imbalanced reporting, opinions disguised as news, lack of context, selective omission, distortion of facts, lack of transparency and the use of true fact to reach false conclusions.
Noteworthy as mea culpas are, you’re also aware that the news industry doesn’t change overnight. It’s quite possible that, as Joshua Benton argues, “the forces that drove this election’s media failure are likely to get worse” (gulp!). We have to become more sophisticated news consumers. We must embrace the news literacy movement. (Learn more about it at the Poynter Institute, The News Literacy Project, and Stony Brook University’s Center for News Literacy.)
But it’s clear that there’s a bigger gap than we realized between the American public and nation’s leading papers. The Washington Post, for example, is now catching up on white, working class Americans who don’t live in big cities. These are people who are either indifferent to, or even mistrustful of the Post, the New York Times, or CNN. Does this mean Israel activists trying to reach “beyond the choir” should focus their efforts on local papers and web sites more trusted by red state small towns?
If none of this moves you, consider one last question.
With the news industry admitting it blew the biggest story of 2016, isn’t it just possible that journalists are just as capable of having botched other areas of coverage, be it Brexit, nuclear Iran, the Arab Spring, Russia’s rise, the war in Iraq, the economy, issues of race, gender, sexuality, or, of course, Israel and the Palestinians?

Headline Fail Over Israeli “Settlement Building Spree”

In the wake of Donald Trump’s US election victory, there have been many reactions concerning the consequences for Israeli policy. Israel’s science minister Ofir Akunis is quoted by Associated Press in many media outlets stating: “We need to think how we move forward now when the administration in Washington, the Trump administration and his advisers, are saying that there is no place for a Palestinian state.”
There has been no talk of any change in Israeli government policy. Yet, the comments by one minor Likud minister are taken by The Times of London to imply something far greater:
"Israel Plans Settlement Building Spree"
This is wholly disproportionate and a distortion of the facts. Instead of a headline attributing comments to a single political figure, The Times headline falsely states conjecture as fact even when the text of the story itself spends more time focused on a future Trump administration’s potential policies towards Israel.
HonestReporting has contacted The Times to ask for a headline change. Watch this space.

As I write these lines, anti-Trumpers are protesting and, in some cases, rioting, throughout America's largest cities. In Chicago two young black men beat the holy hell out of a 50-year old white guy because he allegedly voted for Trump.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is in big trouble and many of us are still quietly processing the gravity of the current political moment.

Much to my astonishment, the day after I went onto the Nothing Left radio show to discuss the meaning of Hillary's likely win, Donald Trump handed the Democratic Party a big can of whoop-ass.

My suspicion is that the Brexit Effect befuddled the pollsters, the majority of whom indicated the strong likelihood of a Clinton win.

The Brexit Effect

It is probable that many Trump voters, like many Brexit voters, were intimidated into believing that their political sensibilities represent the very worst of human failings and therefore they misled pollsters concerning their positions. These would have been among the very large numbers of people who represented Trump's soft base.

In the months leading into the election Trump-leaning voters were told - over and over again - that they are racist, sexist, homophobic, bigots. The victory of Hitler-cum-Trump, therefore, is said to reveal an American political-social consciousness rolling in the muck of barbarism, stupidity, and the unjust prejudices of earlier times.

And who gets the blame for this insidious state of affairs? Why, racist, sexist, homophobic, bigots who refused to support those who called them racist, sexist, homophobic, bigots, of course.

Many throughout Britain felt much the same way concerning Brexit voters. EU supporters, much like Hillary supporters, believed that the opposition was (or is) comprised of backward-looking, low-life Neanderthals who - when they aren't feeding the pigs or banging their heads against rust-belt walls - are out spreading hatred and racism toward people "of color" in order to gratuitously satisfy irrational anachronistic prejudices.

Therefore, because the "deplorables" were constantly told how deplorable they are, they sometimes lied about their true electoral intentions and thereby skewed the polls. In other words, both Trump and Brexit had the kind of quiet support that tends to hamstring pollsters, or so goes the theory.

Broken Glass in the Streets

Some of the angry are out in the streets breaking windows in American cities, today, because they believe that the United States is a horribly racist country and the conquest of The Deplorable Cheese Doodle (or is he a Cheetoh?) represents a confirmation of their worst fears.

They revel in the alleged ugliness of their fellow Americans because they have been encouraged to do so by much of the media, much of academia, and by politicians looking to divide the electorate for personal political gain.

Thus we end up with this surreal political moment wherein people are in the streets spitting hatred at haters for the purpose of ending hatred in America. It is apparently through breaking store-front windows and the bones of middle-aged white guys that Love Trumps Hate.

The Democratic Party assumption of anger or racial malevolence as a primary motivating factor for Trump voters points to a serious problem in the ways that we have come to see ourselves as a people and a country.

While the United States is a flawed democracy, it is nothing like the fascistic hell-hole that some make it out to be. From a human rights perspective, in fact, the US is one of the most decent countries on the entire planet and that is not going to change anytime soon, Trump or no Trump.

Furthermore, while the man can obviously be boorish, there is little to indicate racism in his policy propositions around issues of immigration.

Trump wants immigration into the United States to take place through a legal and tightly-controlled process which, during a period of rising Jihad, emphasizes security measures. Given the spread of Political Islam throughout the Middle East and Europe, and the unfortunate European experience with mass Muslim immigration, this is merely commonsense. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "race" hatred and everything to do with people who are eager to blow up the infidel in the name of Allah. It is not about skin color or ethnicity. It is about the spread of a theofascistic ideology that holds women in contempt and that encourages the throwing of Gay people off of tall buildings as an expression of religious justice.

It is one of the great ironies of recent western political history that the movement most associated with social justice and universal human rights, i.e., the progressive-left, is also the political movement least likely to stand up for the minority rights of hundreds of millions of people living under al-Sharia throughout the Muslim world.

America does not hate - and neither does the West, in general - but the world is not lacking for countries that do.

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.

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From Haaretz:

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said in Washington on Friday that if President-elect Donald Trump moves the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem the Palestinians would “make life miserable” for the United States at the United Nations.

“If people attack us by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, which is a violation of Security Council resolutions, it is a violation of resolution 181 of the UN general assembly that was drafted by the U.S. … it means they are showing belligerency towards us … If they do that nobody should blame us for unleashing all of the weapons that we have in the UN to defend ourselves and we have a lot of weapons in the UN,” Mansour said.

The official United States position on Jerusalem is indeed based on the idea, originally floated in UN General Assembly Resolution 181, that while Palestine should be partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state, Jerusalem and its surrounding areas would be a separate entity not under control of either state.

It is an absurd position by the US. While UNGA 181 was accepted by the Jews, it was rejected by the Arab world, including the Palestinian Arabs.

Indeed, Palestinians responded to the resolution by attacking Jewish civilians within hours of its passing.

UNGA 181 has no legal standing.

The US knows quite well that Jerusalem will never become an international city, but it continues to hold on to that fiction today in order to pressure its friend Israel into a peace agreement. There is no valid legal reason, under US law or any interpretation of international law, for embassies not to be relocated to Jerusalem west of the Green Line. (Even within the resolution, the status of Jerusalem was only to remain in that bizarre state until 1958.)

Now, the Palestinians are complaining that the resolution that they violently rejected, that has zero standing in international law, should be respected?

If that's the case, then that means that the Palestinians accept the concept of a Jewish state, since that's what the resolution says.

If that's the case, then that means that the Palestinians must renounce all their own claims to Jerusalem as being their capital, since that's what the resolution says.

If that's the case, then not only do the Palestinians lose any rights to Jerusalem, but also Bethlehem and many Arab villages between the two cities, since that's what the resolution says.

Why doesn't anyone ask Mr. Mansour if this is what he is saying?

Also, someone may want to ask him about how wise he is to threaten the President-elect just at the time he is making major decisions at to what his policies would be.

But this is Palestinian diplomacy - whining that life is unfair, and threats to make things more to their liking.

One other point - it proves that the Palestinian claims against Israel are not to gain Palestinian rights, but to destroy Jewish national rights.

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