Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, November 26, 2016

11/26 Links: Dozens arrested for arson; Terrorists and their supporters mourn loss of ‘comrade’ Castro

From Ian:

Israeli Firefighter Recounts Battling Fierce Flames in Haifa: It Was Like a Movie

“It was like a movie,” an Israeli firefighter who battled the blazes that swept through the northern city of Haifa on Thursday told The Algemeiner as he recounted his experiences a day later during a rare moment of rest.
“Every moment we were called to help in another place,” Yair Cohen — of the Carmiel fire station in the Galilee region — said. “There were so many apartments on fire and crazy traffic as people were escaping with their kids and whatever else they could take.”
Cohen is one of the hundreds of firefighters who have worked day and night over the past week in an effort to contain the dozens of wildfires that have popped up across northern and central Israel.
“We’re doing our best to save forests, homes, property and pets,” he said. “It’s really sad to think about all the people who’ve lost all their possessions. Yesterday, we saw one woman who was too scared to go see what had happened to her house. It’s heart-wrenching.”
On Thursday, Cohen was dispatched to Haifa’s Romema neighborhood, the scene of some of the worst fires that broke out in Israel’s third-largest city.
“We were at one home where the roof began to collapse and we were trying to put the fire out from both the outside and the inside,” he said. “It’s been a tough and tiring week. It’s nuts, I can’t comprehend it.”

US supertanker among 29 aircraft battling blazes across Israel

The newly arrived US supertanker, considered the largest firefighting aircraft in the world, was among 29 planes operating across Israel to battle blazes on Saturday, the fifth day of a wave of massive nationwide fires, according to authorities.
The supertanker launched its first operation in the Jerusalem hills Saturday where fires have been raging since Tuesday and where residents were evacuated on Friday. On Saturday afternoon, residents of the Jerusalem hills village of Nataf were allowed to return to assess the damage. At least a dozen homes were consumed by the fire in the area, as was the famed Nataf restaurant Rama’s Kitchen.
The main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Route 1, was shut briefly on Saturday afternoon between the Sha’ar Hagai and Horesh interchanges, as the massive plane went into action.
Earlier, six firefighting teams battled a fresh blaze in the Druze village of Daliyat al-Karmel, near the northern Israeli city of Haifa, bringing the fire under control.

Firefighters batlle Nataf fire

Hundreds have been injured, dozens of homes burned, tens of thousands were evacuated in the raging fires across Israel in the past few days. Watch the brave firefighters as they battle against the rising flames in the village of Nataf, located on the Judean hills in central Israel.

Anti-Israel and Arabic sites are publishing antisemite Gilad Atzmon's comment on the fires in Israel, where he blames the fires on, who else, Jews. Specifically, he blames the pine trees that the JNF planted:

Israel’s rural landscape is saturated with pine trees. These trees are new to the region. The pine trees were introduced to the Palestinians landscape in the early 1930s by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in an attempt to ‘reclaim the land’ . By 1935, JNF had planted 1.7 million trees over a total area of 1,750 acres. Over fifty years, the JNF planted over 260 million trees largely on confiscated Palestinian land. It did it all in a desperate attempt to hide the ruins of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages and their history.

Along the years the JNF performed a crude attempt to eliminate Palestinian civilisation and past but it also tried to make Palestine look like Europe. The Palestinian natural forest was eradicated. Similarly the olive trees were uprooted. The pine trees took their place. On the southern part of mount Carmel the Israelis named an area as ‘Little Switzerland’. By now, there is no much left of “Little Switzerland.”

...In spite of its nuclear ability, its criminal army, the occupation, the Mossad and its lobbies all over the world, Israel seems to be vulnerable. It is devastatingly alienated from the land it claims to own and care for. Like the pine tree, Zionism, Israel and the Israeli are foreign to the region.

The pine tree that the JNF has been planting for so many years is the Aleppo pine, pinus halepensis (known in Israel as the Jerusalem pine.) It is found throughout the Mediterranean, from Morocco to Syria. The JNF did not choose the tree to make Israel look like Europe, a lie repeated by Mondoweiss. Native Aleppo pine forests exist in the Carmel and Galilee regions.

Moreover, pine trees were observed in Palestine by travelers in the 19th century. From The Popular Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, 1856:

The tall cypress only exists in Palestine, as cultivated by man in gardens, and in cemeteries, and other open places of towns. But as the spontaneous growth of the country, we find upon the heights and swelling hills, the walnut-tree, the strawberry-tree, the laurel-tree, &c.; while on the formerly wooded heights, various kinds of pine-trees, large and small, still maintain their ground.

As far as Mount Carmel is concerned specifically, the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1907 says it is "covered with helm-oaks and pine trees."

So in one sense, Atzmon is correct. Jews are just as native to the region as the Aleppo pine.

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11/25 Links Pt2: Glick: The ADL’s new bedfellows; Phillips: American Jews get it wrong

From Ian:

Blaze in Jerusalem hills spreads and gathers force into Friday night

A major forest fire that broke out in the mountains outside Jerusalem on Friday afternoon spread and gathered force into the night.
Multiple teams of firefighters were battling the blaze in the Ma’ale Hahamisha and Nataf areas on Friday afternoon and into the night, and more were being deployed. At least 20 planes were said to be operating in the area, tackling the flames from the skies.
The fire expanded and progressed through the afternoon and evening. Initially none of the homes in Ma’ale Hahamisha or Nataf were thought to be in danger, police said, but in mid-afternoon they ordered the evacuation of Nataf, and said homes were under threat.
Some Nataf residents were taking refuge in the community center at the nearby Arab town of Abu Ghosh on Friday night.
Rama’s Kitchen, a famed Nataf restaurant, was destroyed, and much of the owner’s home was destroyed in the flames as well. A wedding was taking place at the restaurant when firefighters ordered an urgent evacuation.
By Friday evening, the nearby West Bank settlement of Mevo Horon was also in danger.
Channel 2 reported that initial suspicions were that the blaze was started by a petrol bomb thrown from the nearby Palestinian village of Katana. This report was not confirmed.

Caroline Glick: The ADL’s new bedfellows

Given the stakes, then, it makes perfect sense that the Arab American groups oppose Trump.
It also makes sense that Arab regimes threatened by the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran support Trump and eagerly await his inauguration.
And it clearly makes sense for Israel to welcome Trump’s election.
The only thing that makes no sense is the American Jewish campaign to demonize Trump. The ADL’s leadership of the campaign to smear Trump and his advisers while legitimizing BDS and supporting Israel-bashers is antithetical to the interests of the American Jewish community.
In adopting these positions, Greenblatt and the ADL along with their allies in J Street, Jewish Voices for Peace, If Not Now, The Forward, other far-left groups and mainstream groups that have lost their way show through their actions that they have conflated their Judaism with their support for the Left.
To the extent that the interests of the Jews of America contradict the positions of the Left, the Jews of America are behaving in an “antisemitic” way.
It is the responsibility of the segment of the community that understands “Jewish” is not a synonym of “leftist” to oppose the ADL and its backers. If they fail to do so, they will contribute to the descent of the community into powerlessness and irrelevance, not only in the era of Trump, but into the future.

Caroline Glick: Israel must 'seize the opportunity'

Jerusalem Post managing editor Caroline Glick told Arutz Sheva that she had a visceral feeling that Donald Trump would win the election but she was confused by the polls.
Glick feels it is an opportune moment to restore relations with the US which, during Obama's term, have reached their lowest nadir since the establishment of Israel.
She expressed the hope that the Trump administration will really move the US embassy to Jerusalem as the president-elect promised, an unprecedented move by the US
"This administration also endorses Israel's right to build wherever it wishes in Judea and Samaria and if we do build this could help push housing prices down which will enable young couples to buy homes," she noted.
However, she warned that all indications show that Obama intends to use his remaining months in office to damage Israel in the UN Security Council and "we must be aware of this."

.@NYTimes' @diaahadid thinks Arab arson is new, but Jewish arson is endemic

From Diaa Hadid in the NYT:

If Palestinians set some of the fires, it would be a new and potentially disruptive tactic in a long-simmering conflict.

...
In the past, Jewish extremists have used fires in the West Bank to torment Palestinians, setting olive fields and vehicles ablaze. In the worst such episode, in July 2015, a baby was killed and his parents later died of their injuries after arsonists set their home ablaze in Duma, a West Bank village.

I already showed that Arabs had been using systematic arson against Jewish forests and fields as early as the 1930s. But they continued that tactic for decades afterwards. The ICT describes the tactic as it was used during the first intifada :

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, arson comprised about one-third of all forest fires in Israel, which is a very large proportion. Some of the sources of this arson were identified as the work of criminals, whose sole aim was to collect the insurance money. However, many instances of arson in the late 1980s were directly related to the Palestinian uprising (the first Intifada). Palestinians have used arson in the past as an insurgency method, as early as the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, but in the 1980s it was adopted as a highly visible action against Israel. Arson was found to be easy to execute: all one had to do was cross the old border between the West Bank and Israel, which was unguarded and open to all, start a fire in one of the many forests in the hilly areas near the border, and then disappear. According to the International Forest Fire News (IFFN), between 1988 and 1991 the number of fires attributed to arson rose to over 30%, which was explained by an increase in politically motivated arson associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[7]

There were frequent occurrences of forest fires in areas adjacent to the old "Green Line" border between Israel and the West Bank, during the years 1988-1990. Between 288 and 388 forest fires were caused by arson, which occurred in areas near the old pre-1967 border.[8] In some of the fires, which occurred in northern Israel, Israeli Arab Palestinians were found to be responsible. These fires were extraordinary, given the fact that in 1988, there was a great deal of rain and, as a result, the vegetation was highly combustible.

The Intifada militants also began to systematically burn Israeli fields, orchards and forests, and whilst no lives were lost, considerable damage was caused.[9] Interviews conducted in 1988 with local Fatah leaders from the Tulkarem region, revealed that forests were regarded as the Israel government's property and were therefore a symbol deserving of arson.[10] Setting fires was employed as a tactic, politically motivated, aimed at damaging Israel's economy and exhausting its resources. The Palestinian propaganda increased the perception that forests were used intensively by the State of Israel as a “political tool”, to mark its presence on the ground along the “Green Line”, in order to underline its existing borders after the 1948 war and the creation of the State of Israel, which the Palestinians totally rejected (until the Oslo Accords in 1993).

During the initial Intifada period, Palestinians started dozens of Israeli forest fires, some quite extensive, intentionally as acts of arson for political reasons.[11] The evidence is overwhelming that these were deliberate acts of political sabotage and Palestinian arsonists have been apprehended as a result.[12] The Israeli police have apprehended Palestinians and Israeli Arabs in the act of setting fires, while others confessed to arson after their arrest.[13]

Some fires followed specific calls by underground Palestinian terror organizations to torch forests, and cause economic damage to Israel and its symbols. Incidents of arson proliferated during the period of the first Intifada, the inciting rhetoric was often disseminated in the leaflets, praising arson and call upon Palestinians to burn the land from underneath the Jews.

Some fires followed specific calls by underground Palestinian terror groups. The instances of arson carried out by the Palestinians were in accordance with the instructions issued by the underground leadership,”The Unified National Command of the Uprising ”(Al- Qiyada Al- Wataniyya Al- Muwahada lil-Intifada-Arabic)[14] which published leaflets providing information and instructions to the population. Typewritten leaflets were distributed across the West Bank and Gaza with instructions for action to be taken against Israel.

Moreover, even though Diaa Hadid is vastly exaggerating the number of times Jews have actually used arson in the West Bank, if she is going to expand the definition beyond setting fields on fire and include torching buildings, surely she cannot be unaware that there are over 100 firebombs hurled at Israelis and their property every single month.

This is more than sloppy reporting. This is an attempt to whitewash the truth.

(h/t kweansmom, Yoel)

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An Egyptian actress known as Sherihan tweeted with the Arabic hashtag "Israel Burns" a Quranic verse that claims that Jews say that God's hands are tied and He can't help them.

{و قالت اليهود يد الله مغلولة، غلت أيديهم و لعنوا بما قالوا}. صدق الله العظيم .. لا إله إلا أنت سبحانك إني كنت من الظالمين. #اسرائيل_تحترق
— Sherihan (@Sherihan) November 24, 2016

I found a fatwa page where someone asked the imam that he has a friend who is Jewish and he says that all of the things that the Quran says about Jews is simply not true, including this verse:

A Jewish person is asking me about the Qur’an and saying: “We do not believe that ‘Uzayr [Ezra] the Prophet of God is the son of God, and there is no text that says that. We do not say that the hand of God is tied up, and we do not say that we are the sons of God or His loved ones.” And he does not believe in the Qur’an for this reason. I hope that you could please resolve this confusion. He is demanding proofs and says that these are mere fabricated claims against them.

The answer is long and convoluted, but most of it can be summed up by this brilliant introduction:

If that Jewish person were to give a little thought to the matters that he is confused about, he would realise that his problem stems from his arrogance and from his ignorance of his own religion and history, and his ignorance of the laws of God, may He be exalted. If what Allah, may He be exalted, said about his Jewish forefathers was not true, then those forefathers would have been quick to disbelieve the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) and to criticise the Qur’an for saying things that were not true about the beliefs and views of his Jewish forefathers. But that did not happen. This is indicative of the ignorance of this objector, and shows that he is simply speaking of something of which he has no knowledge. His forefathers would not have wasted this precious opportunity, if Allah, may He be exalted, had said something about them that was not part of their views and beliefs!

Of course, the Jews did object to Mohammed. An elderly Jewish poet wrote a stinging verse insulting Mohammed - and Mohammed had him assassinated. Other Jews objected to Mohammed's changing the Torah, saying for example that Abraham bound Ishmael and that he built the Kaaba in Mecca. Mohammed, insulted,created pretexts to kill those Jews. All this is in Islamic teachings themselves.

But if they want to claim that the lack of objections is considered proof of belief, then by that standard the entire Muslim world fully supports terrorism against Jewish women and children, since they do not object when it happens. And, by that same Islamic standard, all Muslims must pay for their obvious support of violence.

See how easy that is?

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11/25 Links Pt1: Israel on fire — what we know, and what we don’t; They burn, we build

From Ian:

David Horovitz: Israel on fire — what we know, and what we don’t

Since Tuesday, Israel’s firefighters have been battling an escalating wave of wildfires.
Such fires are not uncommon at this time of year, at the end of the long, dry summer, and with seasonal winds capable of quickly whipping up a casually thrown cigarette or a bonfire into a full-scale blaze. But as the number of fires multiplied on Wednesday and Thursday, allegations spread that many of the blazes were being deliberately set. Those claims were confirmed by Israel’s police chief Roni Alsheich, who said on Thursday afternoon that some, though by no means all, of the fires were the result of arson, presumably with a “nationalistic” motivation, he said.
Tellingly, while there were dozens of blazes across Israel on Thursday, in what some experts said was an unprecedented eruption of fire, there were few reports of fires in Jordan, the West Bank or Gaza, where weather conditions are similar.
By Thursday evening, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan was declaring that the situation nationwide was “under control,” but not long after, there were reports of a blaze flaring afresh in the Shaar Hagai area outside Jerusalem, and more fires in the north of the country — underlining that the danger was far from over.
Reports said up to eight people were arrested as suspected arsonists throughout Israel.

They burn, we build

Our land is burning not just because of accidents (and some of the fires were indeed caused by negligence), but also because of the behavior of arsonists who have adopted the wrongful belief: "Let it be neither ours nor yours."
We've had enough of your sweet talk, Joint Arab List Chairman Ayman Odeh. Even now, you continue to say that you are the original natives of this land, and so there is no chance that Arabs would set fire to the country: "The Carmel [Forest] is ours, this is my homeland."
What we see in between the lines of your comments is that we are only guests here. "This is my place; this is my forest; I am the one who is hurt here, not you." Like the thorn bush in the parable of Yotam, you tried to calm things down, but instead added thorns to the fire. Open a Bible and you will find the Carmel Forest starring. Some 1,500 years before the Muslim occupation arrived, it was already the Jewish homeland.
Whether by water, forest fires, the sword of the stabbing attackers; whether by strangulation or stoning or varying, strange terrorist attacks -- we have come to know all of the methods since returning home to Zion. In the Judgment of Solomon, the king ordered the baby be cut in two and shared between the fighting women. Let us remember the words of the fake mother: "Let him be neither mine nor yours, but divide him" (1 Kings 3:26).
But we are not only well-versed in disasters; we know well how to rise from the ashes and from the dust. They burn and we build, that is, after all, the fixed historical contract. Haifa and the Carmel Forest will be rehabilitated; the same is true for Nataf in the Jerusalem Hills and for Talmon in the Judean Hills, as well as for other places. The good land will flourish once again, despite those who rise up against it.

The calling of a firefighter

This is the essence of a firefighter's job. It is no ordinary job -- it is a calling. Being a firefighter means knowing that at any given moment, whether you are on a shift or at home, you may be called up. Being a firefighter means working nights, weekends and holidays -- when the whole country is at home. Being a firefighter means running into places that other people are escaping from. Running into the unknown. Being a firefighter means seeing tough sights, hearing screams from people who are trapped, smelling the scent of death.
But being a firefighter, more than anything, is knowing that people's lives depend only on you, that there is no one else who will do the job.
My firefighter friends have spent the last three days at a wide range of fires and other incidents. We fought to save lives. We fought to save property, and we are still fighting to save the nature and beauty of the land of Israel. For three days in a row, with almost no rest, we have been going from fire to fire, answering every call, even when we are tired, even when we have already finished our shifts, even when it seems near impossible to stop the fire due to strong winds. We do not give up. And despite the force and the danger of the fire, we win battle after battle, because we know that our loss would mean lives cut short and property burned.
And you citizens of Israel, it is important for you to know that we are here for you. Whenever you call -- we will come. Whenever you scream for help -- we will hear. We are here all year, even when we are not in the headlines, even when there are no major fires. We are here to save a baby from a burning building, or to rescue a passenger trapped by a car accident. We understand the great responsibility, and we will try not to disappoint you.

Another historic Palestinian Arab leader who admired Hitler

Awni Bey Abdel-Hadi was a major Palestinian Arab leader in the 1930s. He famously told the Peel Commission, "There is no such country [as Palestine].... Palestine is a term the Zionists invented.... Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

He was involved in the 1936-39 Arab riots in Palestine and because of that the British apparently locked him up at the Sarafand camp (later known as Tzrifin.)

From the Palestine Post, February 8, 1937.

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The PLO's '"Committee to Communicate with Israeli Society"

Part of the Fatah platform from its previous conference in 2009 calls for:

Restoring our direct and strong relations with the Israeli peace camp, and revitalizing our joint action for a just peace, without mingling it with normalization with Israel, which is rejected while occupation continues.

In other words, trying to divide Israeli society.

Fatah actually acted on this plan. The PLO created a "Committee to Communicate with Israeli Society," in 2012, headed by Muhammad al-Madani.

The committee caused some controversy because it was viewed as being a type of normalization. The PLO responds by saying that this is purely political. One official said that the committee is meant to "change this Israeli perception of the Palestinians, and try to exploit the political differences" within Israel and to "change the opinion of the Israeli voter" in any future elections. It is very much against any joint cultural or sports programs with Israelis - it is purely a one-way propaganda outfit, not a call for dialogue.

The committee has had limited success. This week, the committee arranged a meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and some unnamed leftist Israelis of Iraqi descent. Abbas said that as people who understand Arab culture, they could be key in bringing peace to the region.
.

It seems likely that one of those Iraqi Jews is Dr. Shmuel Moreh, a professor emeritus for Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University and a recipient of the Israel Prize in Middle Eastern studies in 1999. He has met previously with Abbas, as recently as April, along with a delegation of Iraqi Jews. He wrote about it in an Arab newspaper.

There can't be that many leftist Israeli Iraqi Jews so chances are the Committee is recycling whoever they can find.

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Fatah realizes that celebrating fires looks really bad

Fatah issued a statement yesterday warning Palestinians not to celebrate the fires on social media.

Munir Aljagub, head of Fatah's media committee, says that it is irresponsible to give the impression that Palestinians are "dancing on the flames."

Which is of course exactly what they are doing.

After all, the statement says, the trees and stones that are burning are "Palestinian." And Netanyahu is well aware of the sanctity of the land to Palestinians as he accuses them of setting some of the fires, according to Aljagub. It is him that is politicizing the fires, not the Arabs who set some of them or the thousands of Arabs who have publicly celebrated the destruction.

The statement called on Palestinian Arabs to show "historical responsibility" and not to use language and terminology that could expose them to accusations of not loving the land they are celebrating is being destroyed.

I can show them a bit about historical responsibility.

Arabs clearly didn't get the memo. For example, prominent Arab singer Ahlam al Shamsi - with over 7 million followers on Twitter - tweeted joy for the fires, hoping that that the flames "rip to shreds" the Israelis and showing dancing emojis.

She's one of many Arab celebrities who celebrated the fires.

Or this tweet, shared nearly a thousand times, celebrating a distraught Israeli woman who wants to run into her house that is aflame because her dog is inside.

#اسراييل_تحترق
اللهم نار لا تخمد ولا تنطفئ حتى تأكل أخضرهم
واليابس،ولا تبقِ منهم أحداً ولا تذر..#الكيان_الصهيوني_يحترق #إسرائيل_تحترق pic.twitter.com/3E9t4T8Yca
— العراب (@al3raabq8q8) November 24, 2016

Notice that Fatah is not saying that it is wrong to celebrate the misfortunes of Israelis because it is immoral to be happy at the tragedies of others. The spokesman is simply saying that it looks bad to the world to publicly cheer the fires.

By the way, a two year old Arab child died in a house fire near Ramallah today. No one in Israel is celebrating.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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David Shambadal's poem responding to Arabs burning forests, right before Arabs murdered him in 1936

David Shambadal was an electrician who went to a cafe in Jaffa to fix the lights on April 19, 1936.

He was hacked to pieces by a group of Arabs upon arrival.

Right before he was murdered, Shambadal left a message for us, today.

A few hours before his death, Shambadal wrote a stirring poem. His poem was a response to Arabs setting forests on fire and uprooting trees.

From the Bnai Brith Messenger, August 14, 1936:

But April 1936 was only the beginning of Arabs using fire as a weapon against Jews.

Arab terrorists didn't just come up with the idea of setting fires. They've been doing it a long time. But the biggest spree of arson occurred in 1936.

From JTA, April 29, 1936:

From JTA, May 6, 1936:

Palcor news agency, May 29, 1936:

Palestine Post, May 31, 1936:

Palestine Post, July 1, 1936:

Now, who loves the land - and who wants to burn it?

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11/24 Links Pt2: Why Are Palestinian Refugees Different From All Others?; Hezbollah Turkeys for Thanksgiving?

From Ian:

Shurat Hadin: International Criminal Court is useless

Shurat Hadin president Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who is active in defending Israel from international charges of war crimes and has taken the initiative in successfully suing Arab sponsors of terror that affected US citizens,, responded to the Palestinian complaint to the Hague International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the Gaza blockade.
The ICC accepted the Palestinian Authority, calling it "Palestine" although its members are supposed to be independent countries. Israel and six other countries never ratified the founding treaty of the court, but Israel responded that if the so-called country of "Palestine" could sue Israel now that it is an ICC member, Israel could sue the PA for human rights violations as well.
Darshan-Leitner said that "It's outrageous and cynical that the Palestinians have filed complaints against Israel in the international criminal court. The Palestinians fired thousands of deadly rockets into Israeli civilian neighborhoods trying to murder innocent Jews, and now they run to the Hague pretending that they are victims of war crimes.
"This proves how dangerous and useless the International criminal court really is.
"Recently Russia and several African countries announced that they are withdrawing their ICC membership because they saw how ineffective the court really is. The court is another failed European initiative and should be dismantled.

Thanksgiving: Butterball Turkey Shareholder Investigated for Ties to Hezbollah

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating a Kansas-based international food company that owns a 50 percent stake in Butterball, one of the largest turkey producers in the United States, for alleged ties to Shiite Iran’s narco-terrorist proxy Hezbollah, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has learned.
In central Africa, a subsidiary of the U.S. company Seaboard Corporation has reportedly done millions of dollars of business with a company linked to the Tajideen family from Lebanon, which has been accused of providing substantial financial support to the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah.
WSJ explains:
The Justice Department, as part of a broad criminal probe, is investigating whether Kansas-based Seaboard Corp. tried to mask wheat-flour sales to firms linked to a Lebanese businessman and his family in the years after he and two brothers were put on the government’s terror blacklist in 2009 and 2010.
The brothers have allegedly given tens of millions of dollars to Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group backed by Iran, U.S. officials said. Penalties for companies working with anyone on the list range from fines to prison under laws intended to starve terror groups of cash to carry out attacks.
The Lebanese businessman has been identified as 61-year-old Kassim Tajideen. He has been added to the U.S. terror list since the spring of 2009. At the time, Kassim and his brothers operated “cover companies” for Hezbollah in Africa and provided the terrorist group with financial support.

Why Are Palestinian Refugees Different From All Others?

The answer lies in the 1979 Resolution itself. The Resolution states that “measures to resettle Palestinian refugees away from their homes and property from which they were displaced constitute a violation of their inalienable right of return.”
The “right of return” is the Palestinians’ claim that they have the right to return to their pre-1948 abodes. It is a highly debatable “right” — not least because it is based on a UN resolution that the Arabs rejected. And why did everyone criticize Israel 40 years ago? Because if the Palestinian refugees would settle in comfortable living quarters, then they may not want to return to their original villages. In the eyes of the “supporters” of the Palestinians at the UN, the Palestinians have the right of return to their original homes, but are forbidden to move anywhere else.
This absurd resolution cuts to the heart of how Palestinian refugees are different from all other refugees in the world. In the case of the latter, the focus of international organizations is humanitarian and social; the statute of the UNHCR, the UN body that deals with all refugees, explicitly states that its goals are not political. But with the Palestinians, the social and humanitarian needs of refugees and their children are of secondary importance, with the political goals being more important. If helping improve Palestinians’ lives harms the claim of a “right of return” and weakens the Palestinians’ claims against Israel — then the political goals win, and Palestinians must stay in camps for decades.
It is their goal for there to be more and more Palestinian refugees each year. For other refugees, wealthy Arab countries can offer generous amounts of money to alleviate the situation. And because the Palestinians’ refugee status has become politicized, there is no incentive for countries to do the very simple task of building permanent homes for them.
To this day, Western media will report on the squalid conditions of the Palestinian refugee camps — and indeed the conditions that many Palestinians experience in these camps are terrible. But November 23 is the time to remember why their situation has not improved. Arab leaders have always treated Palestinian refugees as a political, rather than a humanitarian issue, and have placed political attacks against Israel above the welfare of the Palestinian people.

Will Majed Faraj become Mahmoud Abbas' heir apparent?

Next week is the Seventh Fatah Conference, which many assume will be where 82-year old Mahmoud Abbas will finally choose a vice president and heir apparent.

Among the names being bandied about, like Saeb Erekat and the jailed terrorist Marwan Barghouti, is Majid Faraj, head of Palestinian General Intelligence Services, who is a frontrunner, according to some articles.

The best backgrounder on Faraj comes from Grant Rumley in this 2014 article when he was first touted as a possible Abbas successor:

Faraj’s rise has been nothing short of meteoric. Upon assuming the mantle of head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Services in 2009, he quickly gained Abbas’s trust and confidence. During John Kerry’s latest peace talks, this manifested itself in a more diplomatic form. In October of last year, Mohammad Shtayyeh, the first Palestinian to meet the Israelis at Madrid in 1991 and a perennial negotiator, resigned from the two-man negotiations team with Saeb Erekat. In his place, Abbas replaced Shtayyeh with his intelligence chief. From all accounts, Faraj was a pragmatic negotiator, earning the respect of the Israelis and Americans at the meetings.

Faraj maintains his mystique by refusing to speak with many reporters and journalists. But those around him are less media-shy. According to Amir Tibon and Ben Birnbaum, who penned the tell-all exposé of the latest talks, there might not be another official with as much of Abbas’s trust than Faraj. This type of relationship lends itself naturally to rumors that Abbas is grooming Faraj to succeed him.

Faraj has the credentials to hang with the big boys. Born and raised in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, Faraj has been a tried-and-true member of Fatah since childhood. He rose in the youth movement of the party during his time in university, where he cut his teeth as an organizer at Al Quds Open University. A prominent fixture in the Fatah youth shabiba movement, Faraj is often credited as one of the local leaders of the first intifada, a position that has had him imprisoned multiple times by Israel. At the onset of the Oslo Process, Faraj entered the Palestinian Preventive Security Services, eventually climbing through the ranks to become the Bethlehem division head in the heady days of the second intifada. By 2009, he was tapped to head the entire intelligence bureau.

The intelligence field has traditionally been a launch pad into the Palestinian political arena. ...

A man like Faraj, with the trust of Mahmoud Abbas, the respect of the Americans and Israelis, and the benefit of having a disproportionate amount of information on almost every political player in the West Bank, could position himself very well in the future.

Faraj made headlines when he agreed to be interviewed earlier this year by Defense News, and he said that his intelligence services foiled 200 terror attacks against Israel.

Maj. Gen. Majid Faraj is the powerful head of Abbas’ Mukhabarat, or General Intelligence Service. Born in the Dehaishe refugee camp to – in his words – “a very basic family,” Faraj rose through the ranks as a soldier in the shadows, first in the Tanzim, the armed wing of the PLO and then in the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security Organization (PSO) formed in the aftermath of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Unlike Erekat, Faraj is not media-savvy. He doesn’t grant on-the-record interviews; this is a first, he says.

You’ll find no Wikipedia pages on the man who, by his account, “spent many years in Israeli jails like my brothers” before becoming a PSO commander of the Bethlehem district and then head of military intelligence.

Faraj's father was killed by Israeli forces in 2002, at the age of 62, in an operation triggered by a spate of suicide bombings throughout Israel. “He was shot in Bethlehem when he went to buy milk and bread,” Faraj recounted. “They thought he was carrying a bomb.”

Faraj, too, warns that creeping religious extremism poses a clear and present danger, not only to the PA, but to Jordan and ultimately Israel. According to Faraj’s assessment, more than 90 percent of Palestinians reject the extremism of Daesh, al-Qaida and the Nusra Front; a rejection he attributes in large part to Abbas.

“Now the number of Palestinians supporting them is very marginal, and this is a success of Abu Mazen. He changed the culture,” Faraj says. “But if Daesh or other extremist groups decide to fight Israel, they will find sympathy in the Arab street.”

As the PA’s man responsible for interlocution with American, European, regional and global intelligence and security leaders, Faraj is closely tracking the spread of regional radicalization. “Daesh is on our border; they are here with their ideology; and they are looking to find a suitable platform to establish their base. Therefore, we must prevent a collapse here, because the alternative is anarchy, violence and terrorism,” he warns.

“We, together with our counterparts in the Israeli security establishment, with the Americans and others, are all trying to prevent that collapse. The experts all know that in case of collapse, everybody will get hurt ... They’re already in Iraq, Syria, Sinai, Lebanon and Jordan, but Ramallah, Amman and Tel Aviv must remain immune from them.”

Faraj, like Erekat, insists the PA is acting in its own interests and is not doing Israel any favors by its adherence to nonviolent resistance. “We are sure that violence, radicalization and terrorism will hurt us. It won’t bring us closer to achieving our dream of a Palestinian state,” says Faraj.

Aside from the immediate threat of Hamas and other extremist groups opposed to the PLO-controlled PA policies, Faraj views security coordination as a bridge that can sustain a decent atmosphere until the politicians go back to serious talks.

He insists that since October, PA intelligence and security forces have prevented 200 attacks against Israelis, confiscated weapons and arrested about 100 Palestinians – claims that were not rejected out of hand, but could not be confirmed by the Israeli military.

But unlike Erekat, who questions the continued benefit of security coordination and fears it is serving merely as a cover for continued occupation, Faraj is a self-described fighter.

“We fought for many decades in a different way; and now we are fighting for peace … So I will continue fighting to keep this bridge against radicalization and violence that should lead us to our independence,” Faraj says.

That interview caused an uproar by Palestinians upset that the intelligence service was stopping youth from murdering Israelis, and some analysts felt that it might hurt his chances to advance his career.

It is far from certain that Abbas will anoint Faraj, but you may be hearing a lot more about him in the next couple of weeks.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Some years ago I was in New York for my brother’s wedding. On Shabbat we went to a convenient synagogue (a Chabad shul), and the rabbi held a little study session before the service. The subject was parashat ki tetse, and in particular he talked about the part that explains what you should do when you take a beautiful woman captive in war.

In the context of a world where enslavement and rape of captive women was standard operating procedure, the Torah (Deut. 10.10 – 10.14) demands  a  different form of behavior. Before having relations with her, her captor is required to take her into his house for a month, and not before the end of that time, marry her. She is to cut her nails and hair (presumably to reduce her superficial attractiveness) and is given time to mourn relatives that were killed in the battle. If he decides that he doesn’t want to marry her, he must set her free; he is not permitted to enslave or sell her.

Possibly this is not a 21^st century feminist position, but it was extraordinarily progressive in biblical times. It clearly prevents the use of rape as a weapon, which is unfortunately quite common today in conflicts around the world.

I admit that I don’t remember exactly what the Chabad rabbi said that day, but I’m sure he did not say that the Torah condones rape in wartime, as Rabbi Eyal Karim, the nominee for the post of Chief Rabbi of the IDF has been accused of saying.

Rabbi Karim was asked in 2002 (Hebrew link) whether it was acceptable to rape a non-Jewish woman in wartime. The question clearly referred to “rape” and asked whether the opinion of “some sages” that one could skip the month-long procedure found in the Torah was correct.  The question was clear, but unfortunately Karim’s answer was not. He explained the reasons that war was a special situation, and gave examples of things that were permitted during war – consuming non-kosher food or wine – that were normally forbidden. He continued that relations with non-Jewish women were in this category, under the conditions that they are allowed.

The problem is, what conditions are these? Did he mean the month-long waiting period as prescribed by the Torah? Was he saying that the special situation of wartime was such that a soldier could have relations with a non-Jewish woman – normally forbidden – if he took her home and married her a month later? Or did he mean that the “some sages” who said the waiting period could be skipped were correct? He did not elucidate.

I want to note at this point, that he did not say that a woman could be raped to satisfy the soldiers’ evil inclination, as his statement was maliciously mistranslated by Ynet.

After reading and rereading the question and his answer numerous times, I concluded that his answer was either a boilerplate response that did not speak to the actual question, or a deliberately vague answer to evade a question whose direct answer he knew would be politically unpalatable.

Ten years later (2012), after his remarks were noted and created a furor, he issued a clarification (Hebrew link), in which he at last said unequivocally that rape in battle was forbidden, and referred to the month-long procedure described in the Torah.

Although in the context of the original question, I would have to interpret his initial answer as suggesting that rape in war is in fact permissible, the clarification establishes that either he did not intend this at first, or that does not believe it now.

I must also note that even if he had not issued the clarification, there are other mitigating arguments in his favor. For one, many of the harsh pronouncements in the Torah have been canceled by the rabbis throughout the years; who stones a disobedient son or tortures a woman suspected of adultery today? And there is a difference between biblical exegesis and practical advice: soldiers do not take prisoners of war home and marry them.

Fast forward to July 2016, when Rabbi Karim was selected to become the new Chief Rabbi of the IDF. Objections were raised to his appointment on the basis of this and other statements he made that were deemed misogynistic or biased against sexual-preference or gender minorities. But Karim satisfied (the secular) Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot that his opinions on these subjects were acceptable for an IDF rabbi, and the Defense Minister agreed. After all, we are talking about an Orthodox rabbi, not a social activist.

But that wasn’t enough for the anti-religious Left, as personified by the Meretz party. They petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to stop Karim from being sworn in on Wednesday, and the court agreed and issued an unprecedented injunction delaying his appointment “pending an affidavit from Karim on his past and current views on wartime rape and the role of women in the military.” The Court actually believes it has the right to define and enforce correct thought – in a rabbi no less!

The army acquiesced and canceled the swearing-in ceremony.

The Court, which in essence appoints its own justices and is not accountable to any other body, accepts no limits on what it can adjudicate. It does not require a petitioner to have standing (that is, he or she doesn’t have to be directly affected by the case). In short, anyone, any time, can ask the Court to take action about almost anything. And the Court isn’t shy about taking action.

The Left, having been emasculated at the ballot box, now uses the Court to achieve its aims. Recently it controversially stuck its nose into diverse issues like the proposal to develop offshore natural gas resources, a law to regulate foreign-funded NGOs, and a proposed law to compensate Arabs with claims to land on which parts of Jewish settlements stand. In every case it leaned leftward.

But interfering with the appointment of an IDF rabbi on the basis of his opinions is something new entirely.

Nobody wants to directly challenge the Supreme Court and appear to be opposed to the rule of law and the independent  judiciary, two pillars of democracy. But the Left and their legal allies may have gone too far this time. If the court can interfere in the appointment of a rabbi by the Chief of Staff, what else can it interfere in? Should it have a veto over other military appointments? Next it will decide to replace the Prime Minister!

The State Attorney’s Office said on Tuesday that the Court has no ground on which to intervene in this appointment. But there are no rules except the ones the Court makes for itself.

What is needed is a Basic Law that defines the functions and powers of the Court. Such a law should specify a way of selecting the justices so that they will represent more than one narrow ideological segment of Israeli society. It must include appropriate checks and balances so that the Court can’t become a dictator in the name of democracy.

This should happen soon, because our system is already suffering from Court-induced paralysis.

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11/24 Links Pt1: The United Nations’ Palestinian refugee industry; A Proper Contempt for the UN

From Ian:

Asaf Romirowsky and Alexander Joffe: The United Nations’ Palestinian refugee industry

This naïveté regarding “universal values of tolerance and respect” is both disturbing and far-fetched, given the kind of Hamas-style education administered in UNRWA schools, which celebrate jihadism and Islamism. More to the point, nothing has changed over the past six years to suggest that the UNRWA education system has changed even a little. UNRWA schools have long been a primary mechanism for teaching the Palestinian narrative of displacement, resentment and resistance against Israel.
What was true six years ago is still true today: accountability and transparency are hard to come by at UNRWA, given its monopoly over Palestinians. If Palestinian statehood is a real goal, then the creation of institutions that foster civil society and democratization should be a priority. UNRWA acts in direct opposition to Palestinian statehood and to the Palestinian Authority.
It is worth highlighting just how unprecedented the situation really is. On the one hand, a United Nations organization created in 1949 for refugee relief is providing an ever-increasing range of services to the third- or fourth-generation descendants some 68 years later. This is utterly unprecedented. And on the other, those descendants still demand to be regarded as refugees and supported by the international community, while still being forbidden to resettle in the Arab countries where they have lived for decades (except for Jordan). All this is expected to continue until the Palestinians’ preferred resolution to the conflict is realized — namely, the end of Israel and their return to a world that no longer exists.
If the Canadian government is truly concerned about the vitality of Palestinian society and its future, it should seriously reconsider its contribution to UNRWA. It is past time to remove UNRWA from the scene and give the Palestinians the freedom — and the responsibility — to build their own society. Western tax dollars would be better spent promoting independent Palestinian organizations and private-sector growth.

France on the Verge of Total Collapse

France did not perceive it at the time, but it placed itself in a trap, and the trap is now closing.
In the 1970s, the Palestinians began to use international terrorism, and France chose to accept this terrorism so long as France was not affected. At the same time, France welcomed mass-immigration from the Arab-Muslim world, evidently as part of a Muslim wish to expand Islam. France's Muslim population has since grown in numbers while failing to assimilate.
Polls show that one-third of French Muslims want the full application of Islamic sharia law. They also show that the overwhelming majority of French Muslims support jihad, and especially jihad against Israel, a country they would like to see erased from the face of earth.
"It is better to leave than flee." -- Sammy Ghozlan, President of the National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism. He was later mugged, and his car was torched. He left.
Villiers also mentions the presence in "no-go zones" of thousands of weapons of war. He adds that weapons will probably not even have to be used; the Islamists have already won.
Originally, France's dreams might have been of displacing America as a world power, accessing inexpensive oil, business deals with oil-rich Islamic states, and the prayer of no domestic terrorism.

Daniel Pipes: Israel's relationship with Muslim countries

Ezra Levant of TheRebel.media asks Middle East Forum founder about Israel's relationships with its Muslim neighbours.

The Palestinians sure love J-Street's support for Arabs who steal land

J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami visited the illegal Palestinian outpost of Susya, and was touched by how much they loved him.

I want to share with you another emotion that permeated our visit – gratitude.
Gratitude to J Street specifically.
They told us how much it means to have people from the other side of the world drawing attention to their village and their plight. They’d seen our demonstrations of solidarity – in particular the work of J Street U on campuses to draw attention to their plight – and they were deeply touched.

Here are the residents presenting him with a plaque, and the plaque itself, with the Palestinian Authority logo.

J-Street is showing support for an illegal Arab settlement.

There was no ancient Arab village of Susya. No one lived there until relatively recently. Most of the people who live there are illegal squatters who own homes in the neighboring village of Yatta and simply set up these tents in order to steal land. The Nawaja family, whom J-Street spoke to, wasn't evicted from anywhere to move to Susya as J-Street claims - they live in Yatta and their activities in Susya are nothing but an attempt to steal land. The ancient site of Sussiya was a Jewish village between the 4th and 9th centuries, whose ruins gave the name to the area.

Just because some Arabs decide to put up some ramshackle huts in Area C doesn't automatically mean that the land is theirs. And if you consider Area C occupied, then Israel has every right to uphold previous laws on land registration and zoning. Under international law, Israel is completely within its rights to demolish illegal structures.

J-Street can argue that Israel should offer more building permits, but that isn't what they are doing. They are arguing that illegal building and squatting is to be lauded and upholding the law is to be derided. They are rewarding illegal squatters with publicity and brainwashing college students to believe one side of the story and ignore anything Israel has to say on the subject. You sure won't see anything balancing the false narrative of righteous Arabs in Susya on the supposedly balanced J-Street site.

And J-Street still claims to be pro-Israel.

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