The article he linked to is from Wafa, the official PA news agency:
Settlers set fire to farming land south of Nablus
NABLUS, November 24, 2016 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers from Yitzhar Thursday set fire to farming land in the town of Huwwara, south of Nablus, according to Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settler activities in the north of the West Bank.
He said residents saw dozens of settlers setting fire to the land and watched from the hills celebrating as the fire raged in the area.
Fire gutted olive trees in the area, he said, as fire fighters and residents were trying to contain it before it spreads to other areas.
Weather conditions and high wind cause fires to spread fast as officials have warned against starting fire anywhere.
However, officials said the settlers took advantage of the bad weather conditions to destroy as much as possible of the Palestinian agricultural land knowing very well that the fire is going to spread fast.
As I have reported, Ghassan Daghlas is literally paid by the Palestinian Authority to lie about Israel. I've exposed his lies many times.
Shouldn't the Reuters bureau chief who has been in the region for years know this?
True, he is not reporting it as fact. He's merely trying to show a possible other side of the story. But by any measure, this Reuters bureau chief is giving credence to a proven liar being reported by an official media outlet that has no journalistic integrity whatsoever.
Baker is reporting unproven propaganda as something worthy of consideration to his audience without telling them that the source he is using is not only worthless, but proven to make things up for political purposes.
A real reporter would do a modicum of fact checking not only of the story but also of the source. Luke Baker prefers to spread the false propaganda rather than to even make a half-hearted attempt to verify or debunk it.
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The fires that have burned across Israel since Tuesday raged on Thursday with new areas threatened by flames as other blazes have come under control. Fifty percent of these fires were caused by repeated arson, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Army Radio Thursday morning.
Also on Army Radio, Shimon Ben Ner, a senior Haifa firefighter, said "I know for a fact that they tried to set fire to the department's station in Haifa deliberately to cause the Haifa fire department to be paralyzed."
Palestinians, and Arabs altogether, are celebrating the fires with the hashtag "Israel burns" in Arabic. At the moment, there are new posts with that hashtag every few seconds on Twitter.
Among the celebrations are people are saying that this is divine retribution for the pending Israeli law to limit loudspeakers for the Muslim call to prayer.
Interestingly, Hamas' leader said explicitly that the law means that Israel is "playing with fire."
Finally, there are gleeful references to the Holocaust:
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Sarah Zoabi is the mother of Mohammed Zoabi and is herself an ardent Zionist. Here is a video she made recently - at the Western Wall.
She notes that she can visit, with her hijab, this sacred Jewish spot without any objection from the Jews in the area.
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Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the favorite to take over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, campaigned in 2009 for a Libya-born activist who once called on Palestinians to embrace “the jihad way” in order to get free of Israeli control. The activist, Esam Omeish, a former candidate for Virginia state delegate, has also praised one of the founders of Hamas and commended the work of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Omeish’s positions had been publicized when Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, headlined the July 2009 fundraiser for Omeish, who served as president from 2004 to 2008 of the Muslim American Society, a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group.
“The very fact that you have ran a honorable campaign in this heated primary shows victory. Don’t stop working, lay it all on the line,” Ellison said at the event, according to Omeish’s campaign website.
Ellison, according to The Wall Street Journal, “has won the backing of the self-described progressive wing of the party, including Mr. Sanders. The fact that Mr. Ellison is a Muslim African-American adds to his appeal to Democrats who want to showcase their party’s embrace of diversity.” Unfortunately, Ellison hasn’t always embraced diversity. He has admitted that he worked with the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam cult for 18 months and he even defended leader Louis Farrakhan from accusations of anti-Semitism in the University of Minnesota’s student newspaper while he was a law student there.
After receiving criticism for his stance during a 2006 campaign, Ellison finally repudiated Farrakhan and other NOI leaders: “They were and are anti-Semitic, and I should have come to that conclusion earlier than I did.”
Case closed? Not exactly. To this day Ellison continues to propagate the anti-Semitic trope that Israel is an apartheid state. He has also publicly compared the Bush administration’s actions following 9/11 to Adolph Hitler’s actions to consolidate power after the notorious Reichstag fire, in what seemed like an attempt to absolve the radical jihadists who killed thousands of Americans from blame.
Over at Commentary Magazine, Noah Rothman has a good run-down of Ellison’s noxious views on Israel: He has accused Israel of being an apartheid state and advocated that Israel provide security concessions to Hamas, the terrorist organization that uses the Gaza Strip and its people as leverage in a perpetual war against Israel. Ellison has also voted against funding Israel’s Iron Dome, which has saved countless lives from the perpetual threat of rocket assault from Gaza. He contended that Israel’s ability to shield its civilians from Hamas terror prevents dialogue and, in the case of the Gaza War of 2014, a swift ceasefire.
Are these the accepted views of the progressive left?
Israel builds a wall to protect civilians from Palestinian extremists. The mainstream media and the UN go nuts. Now Lebanon builds a wall to protect civilians from Palestinian extremists. The mainstream media and the UN just shrug. Why the difference?
Israel's wall was damned: At a special meeting to mark the 10th anniversary of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory ruling declaring illegal Israel’s construction of a separation wall in the West Bank, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today called for a halt to the current violence between Israelis and Palestinians, while also the need all Member States to comply with international law...
On 09 July 2004, the Advisory Opinion called on Israel to cease the construction of the Wall, bring down the parts that had already been built, and halt the severe restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians living in the West Bank.
But Lebanon's wall? The Lebanese military has started building a tall cement wall and watchtowers around parts of the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, near the southern city of Sidon, inspiring popular protest on social media...
The wall and watchtowers come as a part of an agreement between the military and the Palestinian factions in the camp and will take 15 months to complete.. Munir al-Maqdah, the head of the Joint Palestinian Security Forces, told Sky News Arabia that ... “the wall and [watchtowers] are being built for security concerns, which we accepted.”
There's an odd piece of news making the rounds right now. It seems that people were upset at CNN over the wording of a chyron, a type of banner or caption that appears at the bottom of a video segment. The chyron said, "Alt-Right Founder Questions If Jews Are People."
The alt-right founder was, so a CNN host claimed, Richard Spencer, a Trump supporter and white supremacist who actually coined the term "alt-right."
The twitterverse busted a gut over this chyron. So much so that CNN apologized. “It was poor judgment and we very much regret it and apologize.”
Pro tip @CNN - if they ask "are Jews people" then you can stop calling them "alt-right" and start calling them Nazis.
Jake Tapper, who would have hosted the segment, but was away, also felt the need to apologize. “I’m off this week and I’m furious about that chyron and my staff has heard from me. Unacceptable,” wrote Tapper on Twitter. “The chyron was abhorrent and I am trying to deal with it. Obviously I take responsibility but my being off is not irrelevant.”
And finally, the guy who filled in for Tapper, Jim Sciutto, tweeted, "I agree with @jaketapper fully however that the banner - which we don't write from the chair - was out of line."
So I'm reading all this stuff, the tweets, the umbrage, the apologies, and there's something I'm not quite getting. CNN wasn't questioning whether Jews are people, but reporting that some jerk white supremacist had done so. Why wouldn't it be acceptable for CNN to report this fact—and to share the substance of this jerk white-supremacist's thoughts?
That's what I couldn't figure out. For some reason, people think that CNN should have phrased the chyron differently, disavowed the sentiments expressed thereon, or not given them a platform, and I have no idea why. I can quote someone without agreeing with that person. Why does anyone think this chyron represents tacit approval to questioning whether Jews are human?? Why does anyone think the chyron says something about CNN at all?
The fact that the chyron clearly states that this is the founder of the alt-right movement who said this thing, proves the opposite is true. In putting the affiliations of the guy who said this out there for the viewers in black and white, CNN is saying, "Hey. This guy's loony tunes."
And anyway, we should know what crazy people, those with power, even limited power, are saying. That CNN reported on this story at all, is to me, a good thing.
Except, things got weirder still when I began looking for a copy of Spencer's speech. That's when I discovered that he never said this thing in the first place. And it's when I realized I'd stumbled over a case of really bad journalism. (starts at 2:32)
Sciutto completely misrepresented what Spencer said. Spencer, though a Jew-hater through and through, and a vile person, never said that he questions whether Jews are people. Or at least not in his address to the 200 attendees of the National Policy Institute conference on Saturday.
Did Sciutto even listen to Spencer's speech? Sciutto wouldn't have had to listen to the entire half hour speech to hear the relevant two paragraphs, though that would have been appropriate, if he were really meant to cover the story. Spencer said what he said, which wasn't what Sciutto said he said, only two and a half minutes into his speech.
Here is what Spencer actually said, referring to media coverage of the recent election (profanity warning):
“This was the year when random shitlords on Twitter, anonymous podcast hosts, and dissidents working deep within the beltway right proved that they objectively understood politics better than the Republican strategists and the political consultants snarking at us every night on NBC.
“It’s not just that they are leftists and cucks. It’s not just that many are genuinely stupid. Indeed one wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem animated by some dark power to repeat whatever talking point John Oliver stated the night before.”
See? He was talking about the media. He wasn't talking about Jews. At least not this time.
Spencer was saying that the media are robots that regurgitate a television comedian's political monologue from the previous evening. And you know what? He's right about that. At least if we're talking about the level of what we're seeing, the quality of the news.
Because a lot of the news we're getting is substandard, as is this CNN report that gets the facts way wrong, and skewed, as in the election coverage.
The fact that people are going nuts to screen out what they don't want to hear and see, such as, for instance, this chyron, may in fact be the reason the media is so screwed up. So filled with bias. The media is trying to give people the news they want, rather than the news that is.
Which is really messed up.
But it's even worse than that here, because Sciutto didn't actually listen to or read the transcript of Spencer's speech and then went on to completely misrepresent what Spencer said.
So what CNN is really guilty of here, is poor journalism and the spreading of false information. As opposed to being guilty of tacit approval for an idea that was never voiced.
If, however, Spencer had said that, had said that he questions whether Jews are people, I personally would have wanted to know that. I would have wanted that splashed across my television screen. I would have wanted to work up a proper fury toward the person who voiced such sentiments (and not toward CNN, who would only be the messenger, had Spencer actually said that).
So, here's what I want to say to the twitterverse, to all those people who got really, really angry when CNN tried to report the news (if badly): if you can't handle the news, don't listen to the news and don't be surprised when you're completely caught off guard by events because you haven't been following things. But don't yell at the media when they, in fact, report the news! Don't you dare do that. Instead, support them. Thank them for providing you with facts.
The news, you see, isn't all about fluffy white bunnies, rainbows, and firemen rescuing kittens from high-up tree branches. It's a harsh and nasty world out there. Spencer probably DOES question whether Jews are people, even if he didn't do so in this particular speech. )And that would be something we should know about, should want to know about.)
Just as we should have been fully informed of Hitler's Final Solution.
The not knowing, you see, was what prevented us from fighting the evil coming at us. Instead of blaring the minutiae of the genocide of the Jews across the front page of the paper, the New York Times buried the details of the Holocaust somewhere so deep into the paper we never found it. If you stumbled on it while wrapping fish, you might have thought, "Oh, this can't be a big deal, or the editor would have put it on the front page."
We need to learn a lesson from that. It's something all of us need to come to terms with and absorb: you can't do battle with what you do not know.
Stop a moment and think what this whole business with the chyron will mean going forward. The next time CNN is sitting on a story about Richard Spencer, the antisemitism of the alt-right, or a National Policy Institute conference, how will this purveyor of the news deal with the story? Will the editors give the story a smaller platform so as not to disturb the viewers, the twitterverse? Or perhaps the news conglomerate might simply fail to report the story at all?
Here is another possibility: that CNN will worry so much about the framing of the story that the real story will be buried under a thick layer of hearts and flowers hail.
Is that what you want? You want your news hid from you?
I do not. I want my news served straight. I don't want it all gussied up and prettified. I want to know what is going on in the world.
And you should, too.
If, however, you find you can't handle it, there's always this:
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Rosh HaAyin, November 23 - Examination of recent legislation to limit the amplification on the Muslim call to prayer during early morning hours has revealed that nowhere in the language of the proposed law is there treatment of the alarm clock of your neighbor who lets the goddamn thing ring over and over again each morning before finally getting out of bed and deactivating it, and that is totally f'ed up.
Legal experts conducting a review of multiple versions of the bill concluded that it contains no reference to that low-life and his inconsiderate practice, and the experts noted that given the douchebag mentality that underlies the alarm clock phenomenon, they are at a loss to explain how none of the people drafting the legislation even thought to include it.
"It's a goddamn whopper of an oversight," declared Shayna May-Aynei, a jurist from Bar-Ilan University who is overseeing the research. "What, do they not hear the same beep-beep-beep-beep every morning at five-#$&*ing-thirty? What kind of monster does such a thing, and what kind of miscreant condones it? This has to change."
May-Aynei lays partial blame at the feet of the legislators themselves, who tend to live in more spacious accommodations and hear less of the goings-on in neighbors' homes. "You won't hear that jerkwad's alarm from the next building over, through the trees," she seethed. "But let me tell you, for those of us living cheek-by-jowl in certain neighborhoods, this is vastly more urgent than the muezzin."
Some proponents of the so-called muezzin law argue that the use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer is primarily a vehicle for asserting cultural dominance over other religions, and therefore a separate issue from the question of that meathead neglecting the needs of everyone else within earshot, but not everyone accepts the distinction. "It's actually the same phenomenon," contended Aza Ka, a community activist. "Don't think for a minute that this douchebucket with the alarm clock is unaware of the impact of his behavior on everyone around him. He knows. He simply doesn't care. What's more, he's probably enjoying the fact that he can have such an impact on your life, literally by not lifting a finger. It's a power thing. It's exactly the same as the muezzin, just without 1,400 years of religious subjugation of non-Muslims in the background."
At press time the landlord of the residence where the alarm clock has been going off finally signed a contract to rent out the place, which has been vacant for two months. The alarm clock belonged to a previous tenant, who had forgotten to remove it.
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It now appears that the Obama Administration's failed policies in the Middle East have increased the Iranians' appetite, such that they are convinced that they can expand their influence to the Palestinians as well.
Iran has one goal only: to eliminate the "Zionist entity" and undermine moderate and progressive Arabs and Muslims.
"Relations between Iran and Hamas are currently undergoing revitalization, and are moving in the right direction," announced Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official. He went on to explain that "moving in the right direction" means that Iran would "continue to support the resistance" against Israel.
Hamas and Iran have no meaningful ideological or strategic differences. Both share a common desire to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic empire. Iran expects results: Hamas is to use the financial and military support to resume attacks on Israel and "liberate all of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea." As far as Iran is concerned, there is nothing better than having two proxy terror organizations on Israel's borders -- Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south. The biggest losers, once again, will be President Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Israel's presence in the West Bank has thus far thwarted Iran's repeated attempts to establish bases of power there.
Official PA TV host: "We want to know who killed our late leader [Yasser Arafat]. Certainly it is the occupation, but we need proof in order to present the facts to the world.... [In 2002], the Israeli occupation entered every area of the West Bank and tried to kill many. It killed many of our [Palestinian] people... They killed Yasser Arafat, because until his final breath he defended the children of his people in war and in peace, diplomatically and also with a rifle, with a weapon..." Boy chants Arafat's slogans: "In spirit and blood we will redeem you Al-Aqsa! In spirit and blood we will redeem you Al-Aqsa!
Millions of Martyrs are marching towards Jerusalem!
Millions of Martyrs are marching towards Jerusalem!"
Official PA TV host: "We will follow Yasser Arafat’s path and his promise, and also [follow] the path of our current president, leader Mahmoud Abbas, because he wants all of us to be the future of Palestine, and through all of us, he wants to struggle against the occupation’s army and Israel, whose strength is military while our strength is our creativity and our minds. We will fight them before the entire world. Allah willing they will soon leave Palestine, defeated." [Official PA TV, The Best Home, Nov. 11, 2016]
Fatah official: Israel poisoned and killed Arafat, discussed assassination plans with US
Official PA TV program State of Politics, hosting Fatah Advisory Council member Ahmed Abd Al-Rahman
Fatah Advisory Council member, Ahmed Abd Al-Rahman: "Regarding the fate of Yasser Arafat, it was after they [the Israelis] were unable to control him politically, in other words to cause him to make concessions and to submit. They did not find a solution other than eliminating him in this way... I say that they put poison into his ear a year earlier. A slow poison. And it began to work gradually and Yasser Arafat’s health deteriorated... [Former Israeli Prime Minister] Sharon said to [former US President] Bush: 'My brother, let us get rid of him and kill him' - about Arafat.
[Bush] told him: ‘Leave it to God.’
Sharon responded: 'But God needs helpers on earth.'
There was a journalist with Sharon who wrote a biography on Sharon,
and this is what he noted (there are no records of such a conversation –Ed.)."
[Official PA TV, State of Politics, Nov. 15, 2016]
Nobody knows when exactly conspiracy theories first appeared, or why they were born and what caused their creation, but it is widely believed that there is a direct connection between the appearance of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which exposed the Global Freemasonry’s plan to promote their rule over the world on the one hand and conspiracy theories on the other hand, after most of what was written in this mysterious book - that is withdrawn from markets after each print in a suspicious way - has become reality.
It reached the point where the Wikipedia entry for the Protocols attempts to stress that the Protocols are a forgery. This is what Abd Al-Wahab Al-Masiri pointed out in the past in an amazing way, and how long is the hand of those who rule the world now, whether we like it or not. It is in keeping with the conspiracy theory that it got to the point where a war was declared against a TV series which exposed this Jewish Zionist plan, as it happened with Muhammad Subhi in the “A Knight Without a Horse” TV series. We all remember the happenings of that war.
A quick look at some of the contents of the Protocols confirms it is a fact as bright as the sun, and its content demonstrates a lot of what happened in the past or in modern history, including the Arab Spring, which adheres to the first Protocol entitled "Chaos and libertarian revolutions and wars," he stresses the need to exhaust states with internal tremors and civil wars ....to control the world economy.
After many similar "proofs," the author concludes:
These are only some samples from the Zionist Protocols that disappear each time they are printed, and which expose dozens of ruths which were realized or are in the process of becoming reality despite the attempts to deny this. A quick look at our local reality and global reality exposes that this matter (i.e. the Protocols) are not an invention or forgery. Maybe now we will believe that actually there is a council that runs and rules the world, led by a Zionist that we have never known and never will know.
(That's me!)
I've discussed this before, but I am still amazed at how many Arabs so eagerly seek out conspiracy theories that give them less responsibility for their actions.
Blaming, of course, the Jews.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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Al-Aqsa Mosque Address Following Trump's Victory: We Should Take Matters into Our Hands, Use Pakistani Nukes to Destroy Jewish State pic.twitter.com/TiYpSJoYL2
In an address dedicated to the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections, delivered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian cleric Sheikh 'Abd Al-Salam Abu Al-'Izz said that Muslims should not wait for Trump to start a nuclear war, but rather toss all Muslim rulers "into the garbage bin of history" and "take the Pakistani nuclear weapons from those criminals and use them in the service of Islam." He further said: "We should take these armies in order and eliminate the state of the Jews in one or two strikes.” The address was posted on the Internet on November 16, 2016.
At least he recognizes Israel as the "State of the Jews." Which makes him more liberal in that respect than Mahmoud Abbas.
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South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a rising Republican star and daughter of Indian immigrants, has accepted President-elect Donald Trump’s offer to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the coming administration, according to a person familiar with the selection process.
She looks like a good choice from Israel's perspective.
The bill makes no mention of Israel directly, but prevents public entities from contracting with businesses engaging in the “boycott of a person or an entity based in or doing business with a jurisdiction with whom South Carolina can enjoy open trade.” The premise of the law is that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, colloquially known as BDS, discriminates against the people of Israel and weakens the economy of South Carolina. “Boycott,” for the purposes of the law, is defined as the effort by companies to “blacklist, divest from or otherwise refuse to deal with a person or firm when the action is based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin of the targeted person or entity,” according to the text.
And in her Republican response to to Obama's last State of the Union address in January, she said:, "If we held the White House....“We would make international agreements that were celebrated in Israel and protested in Iran, not the other way around."
That one sentence upset the Arab Daily News, whose Ray Hanania wrote an article attacking her, mentioning twice that she has "ultra-White teeth" - capitalizing white to minimize her parents' Indian heritage and paint her as a bigot.
There is little reason for a South Carolina governor to pander to Jewish votes. These positions are clearly made for the right reasons.
It looks like Haley is a good choice to go to the UN and be a friend to Israel.
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I cannot believe how much the ADL has betrayed its original mission.
They just released this statement on Twitter:
Ellison is an ally in the fight against antisemitism and supports Israel?
This Tablet article describes how Ellison organized a rally where Khalid Abdul Muhammad said “if words were swords, the chests of Jews, gays and whites would be pierced.”
The man poised to head the Democratic Party [Ellison] was a spokesman for the Nation of Islam well into his 30’s who publicly spewed anti-Semitism and later in life as a Congressional candidate knowingly accepted $50,000 in campaign contributions given and raised by Islamic radicals who openly supported Islamic terrorism and were leaders of front groups for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
And once in office as a Congressman, Keith Ellison more than hinted that 9/11 was an inside job carried out to create pretext for war against Muslims – a trope often pushed by anti-Semites who claim Israeli or “Mossad” complicity – by comparing 9/11 to the Reichstag Fire, the infamous 1933 arson of the German Parliament building, which the Nazis pinned on Communists and thus used to gain majority control of the government and establish Nazi Germany.
In February 1990, Ellison participated in sponsoring Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael) to speak at his law school on the subject, “Zionism: Imperialism, White Supremacy, or Both?”—a speech that proved to be deeply anti-Semitic.
And the ADL supports this person who goes against everything the ADL used to stand for?
Some have recently noted that Jonathan Greenblatt had previously worked at the far-left, George Soros-funded Aspen Institute.
If you would shoot a spitball randomly in a Congressional session, chances are excellent you would hit someone with less hate than Keith Ellison. The ADL support for Ellison is nothing short of a betrayal of its original mission to fight antisemitism.
UPDATE: Some have pointed out that this is not an endorsement. The context is Greenblatt's tweet, where he writes "Many asked us about Rep. Ellison. Here's our thoughts:" To me, this is a response to "What do you think about Ellison as the DNC chair?" since that is what people are asking. The response is "he's a man of good character." Yes, it isn't an endorsement, but by whitewashing Ellison's record and saying that he is a great guy, the ADL is saying that they are fine with him in that position.
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The US must cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority if it continues to pay monetary rewards to terrorists and their families, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. “This pay-to-slay scheme has got to stop,” Republican Congressman Ed Royce of California said in remarks at the Zionist Organization of America’s annual awards gala in New York City.
With this goal in mind — as reported by The Algemeiner — three Republican senators (Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Dan Coats of Indiana and Roy Blunt of Missouri) introduced the “Taylor Force Act” earlier this year, which was named after the 28-year-old West Point graduate who was stabbed to death on the Tel Aviv beach promenade by a Palestinian terrorist in March.
Another speaker at Sunday’s ZOA dinner — which was the subject of controversy after it was announced last week that senior Donald Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, who has faced allegations of antisemitism, would be in attendance (he ultimately did not show up) — was internationally renowned legal expert Alan Dershowitz.
“The Left in Europe and the United States is moving more left, and the Right is moving more right,” Dershowitz said. “I think these trends are troubling…Israel and Jews have historically always thrived at the center. We’ve always suffered between the extremes of right and left…between the black of fascism and the red of communism.”
Through all these declarations, Power, along with Secretary of State John Kerry, was in negotiations with Iran and made not a single public demand that it stop promising a second Holocaust. The Iranian incitement to genocide is in direct violation of the UN’s own 1948 Anti-Genocide convention. Still, Power remained silent. Perhaps she believed that President Barack Obama’s deal was actually good for Israel. Still, she could have given one speech at the UN Security Council demanding that Iran stop promising to kill all the Jews.
She did not.
Beyond supporting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Samantha has further made excuses for Iran’s ballistic missile tests and violations of the nuclear agreement. Even as evidence of Iran’s cheating have been publicized Power has claimed its compliance has been “strong.” When the International Atomic Energy Agency accused Iran of violating the agreement in its latest report, Power was silent while her State Department gave an Orwellian explanation for why Iran’s behavior was not problematic. Jews are only threatened with slaughter. But Power has not forcefully raised her voice while people are being murdered every day in the Middle East and North Africa. Shi’ites and Sunnis kill each other on a daily basis throughout the Middle East, while thousands die in Sudan, Nigeria, Libya and Yemen.
Christian communities that have existed for centuries in the Middle East are being decimated as many men, women and children are killed or forced to flee. Power, to be worthy of Elie Wiesel, should be saying so much more.
In October 2015, during a battle for the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, U.S. forces accidentally bombed a hospital belonging to Doctors Without Borders. The French NGO immediately accused the U.S. of committing a “war crime,” and the U.S. military launched an internal investigation that resulted in disciplinary measures for 16 personnel. Fast forward to today. Bashar Assad’s and Vladimir Putin’s air forces are deliberately–not accidentally–targeting hospitals in Aleppo so as to make the rebel-held parts of the city uninhabitable.
“Bombs launched by the Syrian government over the past three days seriously damaged two general hospitals that were providing trauma care in the war zone and hit the only children’s hospital, according to doctors, nurses, and residents,” the New York Times reported. “The destruction left more than a quarter-million people in eastern Aleppo without hospital care, the W.H.O. said.”
This is only the latest atrocity carried out by the regime and its foreign enablers–Russia and Iran. They not only bomb hospitals, they routinely bomb civilian neighborhoods and impose sieges which make it impossible to get food or medicine to civilians trapped in the fighting. The Assad regime is responsible for the vast majority of deaths in the Syrian civil war, which may have claimed as many as 500,000 lives to say nothing of the far larger number injured and turned into refugees.
This article, from The New Arab, drips with irony:
The first blocks of an isolation wall were erected around the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon this week, as a plan to build 'security' cordons and watchtowers around Ain al-Hilweh came into effect.
The security wall forms part of an agreement between Palestinian factions and the authorities in Lebanon in attempt to contain recent confrontations between Palestinians inside the camp and the Lebanese army, Lebanese and Palestinian officials claim.
The isolation wall is set to be completed within the next 15 months, according to a report by Lebanon-based al-Modon news site.
"Four towers will be constructed," Ain al-Hilweh's Hamas official Abu Ahmad Faysal earlier this month told Lebanon's Daily Star.
Despite being approved by Palestinian leadership in Ain al-Hilweh, located southeast of the port city of Sidon, for thousands living in the overcrowded camp life will only worsen.
Angry Palestinians took to social media to voice their frustration, dubbing the watchtower "the wall of shame" and comparing it to similar Israeli measures.
Those residing in the southern edge of the camp voiced complaints as the wall expected to sit a mere 3 metres away from their homes, according to reports on the construction plans.
They are literally building an open-air prison. The residents will not be able to leave without specific permission. Already Lebanese Palestinians are suffering from state-sanctioned discrimination, and now things will get worse.
But no one can blame Israel, so this is simply not news.
The Daily Star (Lebanon) shows that nothing has changed for Palestinians for over 65 years - their so-called "leaders" cut their own deals to help themselves and then claim that the people support them:
Following a meeting between the Army and Palestinian factions last Tuesday, a joint statement was issued by the head of the camp’s factions – the first of its kind concerning the proposed wall.
According to the statement, head of the Palestinian National Security Forces in Lebanon Gen. Sobhi Abu Arab confirmed that the people of Ain al-Hilweh would stand with the Army as construction works begin.
Following the meetings officials made it clear that there were no objections to the establishment of the wall.
Democratic Front Official Fouad Othman stressed that cooperation was ongoing in all aspects of the construction. “There is no Palestinian objection on the wall,” he told The Daily Star. “There are notes we had on portions of the wall, which we are working out in cooperation with the Army command.”
The lies are laughable, but they are enough to convince NGOs that there is nothing to see here - even as residents complain bitterly.
(h/t Mark)
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Why is
it that, although terrorism and war are not infrequent in Israel, the number of
IDF soldiers suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is actually amongst the lowest in militaries
around the world?
In
2013 the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps Mental Health Department released
a study on PTSD with staggering statistics. For example, following the 2006
Second Lebanon War, 1.5 percent of Israeli soldiers in mandatory service and in
the reserves were diagnosed with PTSD. Some 2.9% of the IDF servicemen who took
part in the military campaign sought psychological help after the war, but were
not diagnosed as suffering from PTSD. In contrast, a U.S. Army Medical Corps
study done in approximately the same time period, found that about 8% of U.S.
soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan had been diagnosed as suffering
from PTSD.
According to the
IDF study, PTSD diagnoses in other militaries worldwide ranged from 2% to 17%
of troops who participated in combat.
How
can this be? Is it special training received in the IDF? Or is it something
else?
Israel
has developed world class expertise in the treatment of trauma but it is not
some special prevention regimen that makes the difference. It isn’t something different in Israeli
soldiers. Our soldiers are people from all backgrounds, from countries around
the world. Yes, their training is not the same as in other armies but much of
it is very similar and the differences are not enough to account for the
statistics.
Israeli
soldiers aren’t different. It is Israel itself that is different.
1)Experience
Unlike
in the US, there is no person in Israel who is untouched by terrorism or war
and soldiers are an integral part of Israeli society.
The
IDF is a citizens’ army, consisting of our fathers, brothers, husbands,
friends, sisters and daughters. Almost every household has a soldier, if not a
number of soldiers, many of whom have fought in multiple wars. Those who don’t
have a soldier in their own family live next to a household with a soldier. Virtually
every person does reserve duty and /or has colleagues who take leave from work
to go to reserve duty. Israelis pass soldiers on the bus, in the train and in
the store. Even those portions of society that do not enlist (such as Orthodox
Jews) have seen soldiers and had interactions with soldiers. This means that
many Israelis who have not themselves been on a battlefield have secondary
experience with those that have – they have dealt with injuries and death of
friends and family, brothers and sisters.
The
prevalence of terrorism means that there is little separation between the
soldier on the battlefield and the mother in her home, the child walking to
school or the father driving to work. Many Israeli civilians have found
themselves under attack by terrorists with rocks, knives, guns and suicide
bombs. Others have witnessed attacks or seen their aftermath. Others are
related or connected with those who have been in these situations.
The
average Israeli knows or can imagine what a soldier or a victim of terrorism
has experienced. Personal experience creates understanding and compassion for
the pain of others.
2)History
Israel’s
current generation of 40 to 60 year-olds grew up with Holocaust survivors. They
didn’t understand the survivors or their sometimes-strange behaviors. Some
survivors picked up half-eaten sandwiches that other people had thrown away and
put them in their pockets, just in case. Others were terrified of dogs. Some
clung to their children. Others almost never touched their children. Some were
perfectly normal in the day but screamed in their sleep.
It
took many years for people to understand that these behaviors developed as a
result of the extreme trauma the survivors had experienced. Later on, it was
discovered that trauma could be passed on - that the second generation, the
children of the survivors had developed their own form of trauma related
behaviors.
The
average Israeli knows that terrible experiences alter the psyche and effect
behavior.
3)Attitude
“What
doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”
Israelis
have developed an attitude of “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” Although
this expression is often said jokingly, regarding small uncomfortable
situations like going to the dentist or telling a child to do something he or
she doesn’t don’t like, it is indicative of a societal mindset. Israeli’s experiences as individuals and as a
nation have taught that terrible things will happen. Some people will die as a
result but those who survive will be stronger because of it. This is the
mindset of resilience.
“Maybe
it’s because of something he experienced.”
A
lawyer I once met was obviously brilliant but also obsessive and prone to
temperamental fits. I was told about him: “Oh yeah, he’s nuts. But maybe it’s
because of something he went through [as a soldier]”. In a single breath, there
was a swift judgement, forgiveness and understanding.
Generally
Israeli society is willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and forgive
unpleasant behaviors if and when they are a result of previously experienced
trauma.
4)It’s
different when you are fighting for your home
One of
the reasons traumatic events can be scarring is that they often seem completely
random, creating a feeling of helplessness. The soldier may question why his
friend was killed and not him, after all, seconds before, he was standing
exactly where his friend stood when the bomb exploded. The person riding the
earlier bus might question why she left the house earlier that day and wasn’t
on the bus that was blown up in the terror attack – the bus she normally rides
to work. The lack of control over traumatic events that occurred or could occur
in the future is frightening. In Israel, this is tempered with a collective
purpose. Everyone goes to the army for the same reason. Everyone suffers from
terror attacks for the same reason. The individual cannot control what is
happening but at least they know why it’s happening.
It’s one thing to be a soldier fighting in a far-off land because your
government decided it’s necessary. It’s very different when you can stand on a
hill and see the homes of the people you are defending, possibly even your own
home. This doesn’t make the traumatic experience easier but it gives the psyche
a way to process it. There is a goal and a purpose, it’s not random - it’s
personal.
5)Love
While
Americans might honor or respect their soldiers, Israelis love their soldiers
passionately. Honor is something you do from far away. Love is up close and
personal.
To
Israelis, soldiers aren’t heroic figures you throw parades for and give medals.
Soldiers are our boys, our girls, our family. You feed them, make sure they are
warm and comfortable. You let them sleep on your shoulder if they fall asleep
next to you on the bus. It doesn’t matter if you never saw them before and
don’t know their name. It doesn’t matter if they come from a different
background than you or have a personality you don’t like. The minute they put
on the uniform they belong to you and you belong to them. Each soldier could be
anyone’s soldier so you do for someone else’s son or daughter exactly what you
would hope someone would do for yours. Our heroes are soldiers that go home and
their mother tells them to take out the trash. No one calls them “Sir.” Rarely
will anyone thank them for their service but everyone will love them.
Relevant
to people everywhere…
My
grandmother always said: “You can learn from anyone. From some you learn what
to do, from others you learn what not to do.” I’m writing this because the
Israeli example is relevant to people everywhere. From it, I hope that others
will learn how to empower themselves.
Today, with the rise in terrorism
worldwide, there is added impetus to understand trauma and PTSD. While one
might be more likely to discover PTSD in soldiers, security forces or rescue
workers, anyone who has been exposed to highly traumatic situations (such as a
terror attack) could also be afflicted with PTSD. Just ask the people who
worked next to the Twin Towers, the children of Beslan, the Bastille Day
revelers in Nice, or pretty much any Israeli citizen.
We don’t have to go even as far as
terrorism and war. Sexual abuse survivors for example, also belong in this
category.
Not everyone who experiences trauma, even
extreme trauma, will later be afflicted with PTSD. In fact, most people will
not. Even so it behooves us all, no matter what our station in life, position
or nationality, to have at least some understanding of trauma and PTSD. Sadly,
this information could suddenly become very relevant.
The
magic words
What can you do to help someone suffering
from trauma or PTSD? You don’t have to have any special qualifications to help.
Amazingly there are magic words that you can say that, if you mean them, can
work wonders. Can you guess what they are?
Trauma manifests itself differently in
different people. One of the most insidious ways that traumatic experiences can
affect the psyche is in alienating the individual from those who care about him
or her. The feeling that “no one can understand me” (which is often true
because only those who have had similar experiences can really understand)
leads to the feeling that “I am alone”.
A person who is suffering needs to find a
way to release their pain. This needs to be done in a way that suites that
individual and needs to happen in a way that they don’t feel judged. Often
times successful therapeutic methods have to do with activities and/or with
animals (who don’t demand explanations). There are many effective methods, as a
bystander you can help someone suffering find the method that suites them but
otherwise that healing is their private journey.
Here’s what you can do:
Address the lie of, “I am alone.” This
thought is poison to the soul and can lead even the strongest individuals on a
downward spiral. The key to the prison this thought creates is astonishingly
simple. All you have to do is mean it.
Use the magic words: “You are not alone.”
Understanding, being there without judging, love… these don’t fix the
problem but they go a long way to making it less severe.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
The notion that the creation of a state of Palestine will herald everlasting peace is naïve in the extreme. After 50 years of a two-state failure, the French and other diplomats, in their duplicitously-named "peace initiative," have no other idea for how to settle the Palestinian problem, except to behave like parched men trudging across a burning desert toward a distant mirage that they think is an oasis paradise. It is not, and the same diplomats will take no responsibility for cleaning up the dangerous outcome of such a disaster.
The international community is pressuring Israel to make wholesale concessions in territory and security, risking social and political upheaval, to grant the so-called Palestinians a state of their own.
The sole criterion for making this happen is for the international community to accept the Palestinian precondition of forcing Israel withdraw to pre-1967 lines, which are the 1949 armistice lines and not a defined border. Whenever I approach a European diplomat with the following questions, none of them can give me an answer: 1) What happens when a new emboldened Palestinian government continues calls for the liberation of the "rest of Palestine"?
They call Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and the Galilee -- in fact, all of Israel -- "occupied Palestinian land". Just look at any Palestinian map: it is identical to Israel.
It is little known that members of the Palestinian Authority call Israeli Arabs "Palestinians of the Interior."
They also call Israeli Arabs the "Palestinians of '48." They have been joined in this by Arab Knesset Members, who also would not object to the eventual displacement of Jews by Arabs in Israel. According to their ambition, these Israeli Arabs will be "liberated" by a new Palestine.
Following the initial High Court ruling, Yesh Din decided to take matters a step further. Based on the ruling it filed a separate civil suit against Israel’s military administration for damages in the name of the purported owners.
Yehuda Yifrach reported Friday in Makor Rishon that once the suit was filed, the Jerusalem District Court acted to ascertain the actual scope of the ownership rights under question. It was determined that a mere half-acre of Amona was built on lands to which the Palestinians made claim. The rest of their claims pertained to land outside of the community altogether.
In other words, once the actual claims of ownership were examined it worked out that a mere fraction of the community was built on privately owned land. It further worked out that the precise areas that were owned by claimants are non-contiguous and indiscernible, but all were generally located on smidgens of plots on the southern side of the community.
Others have disputed Yifrach’s findings. But that is part of the problem of ascertaining the validity of ownership claims. At any rate, as Yifrach noted, rather than say that the owners would be compensated for the half acre, whose specific locations were unclear, the Attorney General’s office decided that all the plots that included privately owned land had to be destroyed. Thus the Attorney General’s lawyers magically transformed a half acre into 15 acres, covering the entire southern part of Amona.
The government then decided it would raze only the homes located on those 15 acres and move the families to new homes in Amona on undisputed plots in the northern half of the community.
The Supreme Court would have none of that, however. The justices insisted that their initial decision that all 60 acres be razed to the ground still stands.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Thursday, November 24, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
