Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 04, 2017

Israel Breaks Own Record For Number Of Days Into New Year Without Sex Scandal Erupting (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Jerusalem, January 4 - A new mark has been set for Israel's political system now that it has gone a full four days into 2017 without word of a new sex scandal involving parliamentarians, ministers, senior officials in government agencies or offices, or other high-ranking public figures.

By going ninety-six hours into the new year without reportage of sexual harassment, illicit liaisons, or various forms of non-consensual sex involving one or more such public officials, Israeli politics broke the previous record of eighty-nine hours, set in 1991 and again in 2000. Typically, a new sex scandal emerges in Israeli politics every seventeen minutes, according to data from the Central bureau of Statistics.

Experts caution that the record applies only to sex scandals, whereas other forms of alleged misconduct occur daily. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu himself underwent three hours of police questioning as part of an investigation into possible corruption on his part.

"The new record actually outperforms most OECD countries, but it holds only in reference to sex scandals per se," observed Kol Israel Radio political analyst Hanan Krystal. "In terms of overall political shenanigans, we're pretty bad. But we can feel good about this achievement, even if it only means politicians have been getting better at covering up or destroying evidence of their illicit sexual exploits." He also stressed that a lack of reporting of a sex scandal does not necessarily indicate no knowledge among the media of such phenomena - editors and journalists might have decided to delay or suppress the story for political or other considerations.

Bureau records indicate that the longest consecutive period in Israeli history for which data are available with a complete lack of sexual scandals reported occurred during the First Gulf War in 1991. At the time, the country went eleven days with not a single sexual accusation against a prominent public official published in the media. Such records have been kept since 1966.

Technically, Krystal pointed out, the sex-scandal-story-free period began last Friday, meaning the full length of the record-breaking period is six days. "The first day of the year was Sunday, but Israeli politics was already without reports of a sex scandal for two days already by that point," he explained. "The last time that happened was the first couple of times corruption allegations against Netanyahu were bandied about, back in 2009. Editors realized that the officials being accused of rape and harassment weren't from Bibi's end of the political spectrum, so publishing those stories would distract from, rather than amplify, the overarching need to bring the man down. I'd consider this one a fluke until it gets into double digits."

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01/04 Links Pt1: Skirmishes in the cognitive war; Iran Will Keep Supporting Anti-Israel Terrorism

From Ian:

Vic Rosenthal: Skirmishes in the cognitive war

Their goal is to weaken us bit by bit, to obtain concessions in territory and our responses to terrorism, to weaken our society and our army, to undermine trust in our leadership, to prevent us from preempting military buildups on our borders or the acquisition of game-changing weapons by our enemies, and to paralyze us and ultimately prevent the full deployment of our military capability when it is necessary to defend the country against attack. Ultimately, when the time is ripe, traditional military force will be used to finally achieve their long-term goal of eliminating the Jewish state.
Here are some of the examples of our enemies’ accomplishments:

The Oslo Accords, which reintroduced the murderous PLO into our country and as a diplomatic factor, which allowed Arafat to implement his “education for murder” system to turn the population of the territories into a hostile force.

The retreat from South Lebanon, which allowed Hezbollah to gain influence and set the stage for the Second Lebanon War.

The withdrawal from Gaza, which created a new permanent front for war against Israel, and at the same time gave rise to a multiplicity of diplomatic, legal and propaganda opportunities for our enemies.

The diplomatic failure after the Second Lebanon War that allowed Hezbollah to build the infrastructure for the next war with little interference, and Israel’s failure to preempt the threat.

Israel’s allowing the rise of the subversive European-funded NGO system, which has acted and is acting in countless ways to delegitimize the IDF and the state; which has turned our own legal system into a tool to weaken the nation; and which is so well-entrenched now as to have blunted efforts in the Knesset to rein it in.

The successes of the anti-Israel movement in almost totally taking over the discourse in the academic world in the West – including Israel – both among students and faculty.

The empowerment of the suicidal Israeli Left in media and the arts.

Most of these are examples of cognitive pressure causing Israel to act against its own interests.
In some areas there is little to be done. We can repudiate the Oslo Accords, but we can’t easily undo the damage done in the PA areas by Arafat’s educational system. On the other hand, we can push back against the pernicious memes that our enemies have introduced into our own culture.
This is a Jewish state, the state of the Jewish people. It isn’t “undemocratic” to believe this. We don’t need to feel guilty about it. The Arabs tried to kill us and prevent the establishment of our state. They failed. This was their nakba. They did it to themselves. The Arab nations screwed them, and are still screwing them. Why do we blame ourselves?

Palestinians Hate Blue Israel Too

For the mainstream media, explaining Israeli politics is difficult work. A country where the poor and disenfranchised immigrants from the Middle East have traditionally supported the party of the right (Likud) while the wealthy and the upper middle-class of largely European origin are the last strongholds of the political left does not translate easily into American political context. In the United States, political culture is rooted in very different concerns than those of the average Israeli, where security issues and attitudes toward the Arab world still dominate. The temptation to make flawed analogies, it seems, is still irresistible. That led to the New York Times’s attempt to ascribe reactions in Israel to Secretary of State John Kerry’s astonishing attack on the Jewish state last week to a divide between “red state” and “blue state” Israeli voters. The piece not only failed to effectively analyze the Israeli response to the Obama administration but also the reason why the Middle East conflict hasn’t been solved.
New Times Jerusalem bureau chief Peter Baker isn’t entirely wrong when he says that there is a stark divide between left and right in Israel. For some who live in secular and liberal Tel Aviv, what goes in Jerusalem and even along the border with Gaza–let alone West Bank settlements–has sometimes been of little interest. I can recall conversing with Tel Aviv residents about a visit to Sderot in the south eight years ago, which at the time was besieged by Palestinian missile fire, in which they reacted as if I was speaking of what was happening in Afghanistan. The disconnect between the minority who blame their own country for the lack of peace and the majority who correctly see the problem as the function of Palestinian intransigence is great, even if Hamas’s 2014 missile attacks on the secular metropolis erased some of the left’s complacency.
Yet the left-wing establishment that once dominated Israeli politics and society was effectively marginalized by the collapse of the peace process in the carnage of the second intifada. In the wake of the Palestinians’ refusal of an offer of statehood from the last Labor-led government in 2000, the even split between left and right that had characterized Israeli politics since the 1970s was transformed into a new reality in which power rested with a dominant right and an ever-changing roster of centrist parties. The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now serving his third consecutive term in power and that the only viable alternative comes from Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid Party speaks volumes about how little influence leftist organs like Haaretz have, even as it continues to support attacks on the Jewish state from foreign critics like Kerry.
Even Baker had to acknowledge his red state/blue state analogy falls short because of the decline of the left. Many liberal Israelis took umbrage at Kerry’s speech just as they were appalled by Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009. The one-sided, anti-Israel bias of both speeches, as well as the way Kerry and Obama have worked hard to treat Jewish Jerusalem as being as much of an illegal settlement as the most remote West Bank hilltop settlement, discredited the administration in the eyes of many Israelis. That, and Obama’s appeasement of Iran, only strengthened Netanyahu’s continued hold on power.

Henry Jackson Society: Alan Mendoza Discussing UN Resolution on Israeli Settlement Building with Breitbart

Lebanese TV apologizes for saying murdering Jews in a club is terrorism

The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation televised a backgrounder after the Istanbul nightclub terror attack, mentioning other terror attacks around the world that targeted dance clubs.

It mentioned incidents like the Pulse attack in Orlando, and the Bataclan attack in Paris.

It also listed the Dolphinarium massacre in Tel Aviv in 2001 that killed 21. And the suicide bombing attack against a gaming club in Rishon LeTzion in May 2002 that killed 16.

Hamas immediately complained against LBC, saying that it is immoral to compare the coldblooded massacre of teenagers in a club by Islamic extremists with the coldblooded massacre of teenagers in a club by Islamic extremists in Israel.

One is terror, the other is "legitimate resistance."

LBC wasted little time to cave and apologize to the terror group, saying that Hamas actions are legitimate under the Hague Conventions and that everything Hamas does is to fight the "occupying state." (Needless to say, they aren't.)

LBC added that "Israel was and will remain an enemy state."

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Visualizing the main "obstacle to peace"

Here is a map showing every location of Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria, showing how the "settlements" are spread throughout the entire area and how difficult it would be to remove them:

It sure looks like there is no chance for a two-state solution, doesn't it?

Except that this is a map from 1993, when the Oslo process was just starting!

Here is a map from 2015 that shows the same thing:

If you superimpose the new map over the 1993 map, you see that not much has physically changed in the last 20 years: (In fact, the 1993 map includes communities not shown in the newer map!)

If the settlements weren't an "obstacle to peace" in 1993, when the peace process started....

And if they weren't an "obstacle to peace" when Israel offered the Palestinians a state in 2000, 2001 and 2008...

What has changed?

Clearly in any two-state peace plan some of these communities would have to be dismantled. It would have been necessary then and it would be necessary now (unless Palestinians decide to give Jews the right to stay in their own homes in their state, which they have repeatedly said they would not.)

The myth of "expanding settlements" is the single biggest lie in conflict, and it is one that is repeated ad nauseam by top US, European and UN officials as settled fact. That's why they always use population figures instead of amount of hectares of space taken up by Jewish communities - because those actual numbers don't fit the narrative of Israel destroying the chances for peace.

If peace was possible in 1993, it is now. If it wasn't then, it isn't now. Nothing fundamental has changed - except the amount of demonization of Israel by her supposed "friends."

The people who blame Jewish settlements for the lack of peace - while ignoring the Second Intifada, and the "knife intifada," and constant incitement to murder Jews, and every PA map that erases the Jewish state - are hypocrites and liars. And that includes Barack Obama, John Kerry, and nearly every Western world leader.
_______________________________

If you have patience, here are two B'Tselem maps, one from 2002 - right after the Clinton parameters that Arafat rejected - and one from 2011. See how much these Jewish communities have supposedly grown. Graphics design experts may want to show the actual differences in the size of Jewish communities over the time period. (I wish I had the skill to do that.)

In actuality, the answer is very little. The communities took about 2% of the land over the Green Line then and they still do.

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PA: Any reporting that makes Palestinians look bad is "anti-Arab incitement and racism"

The official Wafa news agency of the Palestinian Authority has a biweekly feature where they claim to monitor instances of anti-Arab incitement and racism in Israeli media.

Here are some examples that they give of "incitement":

- An article in Israel Hayom (similar articles were in Arutz-7) talked about sexual harassment and assault by Arabs against Jewish women in mixed Arab-Jewish towns. Women who were interviewed were frightened to walk at night anywhere alone for fear of being raped. Police consider many of these attacks to be "nationalistic" (i.e., terror.)

- Nadav Shragai had an article also in Israel Hayom that said that UNSC resolution 2334 should be thrown in the garbage, and he reminded readers that Arabs had put toilets right on the Kotel in years past and flushed their sewage in the holy site. (It is certainly true that Israeli soldiers saw a toilet attached to the Kotel in 1967.)

- Yediot Aharonot published an op-ed saying that Israeli Arabs should be forced into doing national service instead of joining the army, and Israel should groom a new generation of Arab leadership that is not supporting terror, like the "fifth column" of Hanin Zoabi and and Bassil Ghattas.

In all the examples of "incitement" there was not a single example of actual incitement - no one praising people who kill Arabs, no one calling for to stab or run over Arabs, no claiming that IDF soldiers who killed Arab civilians are heroes. According to the Palestinian Authority, "incitement" is anything that makes Arabs look bad, and the truth is irrelevant.

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01/03 Links Pt2: Hikers find Second Temple period engravings of menorah in Judean Shephelah cistern; Catholic bishop turned PLO gun runner, dies

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Gaming the Hebron Soldier Trial: Human Rights Watch Tries to Score Cheap Points

Today, January 2, 2017, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a press statement promoting the false claim that senior Israeli security officials support a policy of illegal killings of Palestinian terror suspects. This campaign is another example of HRW’s long-established biased, disproportionate obsession with Israel and systematic prejudice, stated Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor.
As NGO Monitor research has shown, HRW has a consistent history of hiring supporters of a one-state framework that advocate for BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) for key positions relating to Israel, including their hiring of an anti-Israel activist as “Israel and Palestine Country Director.”
Publications such as today’s media statement reveal a pattern that patronizingly minimizes Palestinian crimes, while artificially inflating alleged “violations” committed by Israeli government and security personnel in response to such crimes.
According to Prof. Gerald Steinberg, President of NGO Monitor: “The fact that an IDF soldier is currently on trial for allegedly shooting a Palestinian terrorist who had already been neutralized gives the lie to this latest HRW campaign. Indeed, the trial of Elor Azaria has not been stopped despite public criticism and claims that the trial undermines IDF morale.
As reflected in this latest publication, HRW continues to demonize Israelis and to single out Israel for attack by cherry picking a few outdated and emotional statements made by Israelis in the turmoil of Palestinian murder and incitement. In contrast to the distorted headline, buried in the middle of the text is the fact that senior officials including the Defense Minister, the IDF Chief of Staff, and Prime Minister Netanyahu all condemned illegal uses of force.

Hilarion Capucci, Catholic bishop turned PLO gun runner, dies

Hilarion Capucci, the Catholic bishop once imprisoned by Israel for his support of the Palestinian Liberation Army, died Sunday at the age of 94, the Times of Israel reports.
Capucci was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1922. Ordained at the age of 25, he was made a bishop less than 20 years later, in 1965. He didn’t made international headlines until 1974, when he was arrested by Israeli forces for smuggling weapons into the West Bank. The weapons were intended for the Palestinian Liberation Army.
Although Capucci was sentenced to 12 years in prison, the Vatican ultimately arranged his release after just four years. Before than, in 1975 and 1976, Capucci’s release was demanded by terrorists in two separate hostage crises. He later played a roll in another hostage crisis, the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, attempting to obtain the bodies of American soldiers who died during a botched rescue mission.
Capucci remained an activist for Palestinians causes all his life. In 2010, he was a passenger on the MV Mavi Marmara, the flotilla that attempted to break the Gaza blockade, resulting in the death of 10 by Israeli forces and a major diplomatic crisis between Israel and Turkey.

Dershowitz: I'll leave Democratic Party if Ellison becomes DNC chair

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said Friday he'll leave the Democratic Party if Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) is appointed the next chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
“I’m going to tell you right here on this show, and this is news – if they appoint Keith Ellison to be chairman of the Democratic Party, I will resign my membership to the Democratic Party after 50 years of being a loyal Democrat,” Dershowitz told the Fox Business Network.
Dershowitz criticized Secretary of State John Kerry for his tough position on Israel and predicted that the appointment of Ellison will make others leave the Democratic Party.
"If they now appoint Keith Ellison, who worked with [Nation of Islam leader Louis] Farrakhan, to be chairman of the DNC, you’re going to see a lot of people leave,” he said.
Ellison has been vocal about his support for Israel after CNN reported recently on comments he made several years ago defending the Nation of Islam leader.

Report: Thousands of Turkey's Jews seeking to move to Portugal

A report in Turkish news outlet Todays' Zaman, quoted in Arabic media, says that thousands of Turkish Jews, fearful of their future in that country, are applying to become citizens of Portugal.

Portugal passed a law in 2015 allowing descendants of Jews expelled from that country in 1497 to become citizens, and many of Turkey's Sephardic community qualify. (Turkey's Jewish community is predominantly made up of descendants of Jews who fled from Spain and Portugal.) About 150 became citizens soon after the law was changed.

The Portuguese Embassy in Ankara has a description on how Turkish Jews can apply for citizenship:

I. Who can request the Portuguese nationality?According to the recent amendment to the Regulation of Portuguese Nationality (Decree-law n.º 30 - A/2015), published in the Official Journal on February 27th 2015, the Portuguese Government may grant Portuguese nationality by naturalization to the descendants of Sephardic Portuguese Jews through the attestation of their links to Sephardic communities of Portuguese origin, namely, surnames, family speaking language and direct or indirect descent.
Each candidate may also meet the following criteria:

being of majority age or emancipated, under Portuguese law (18 years old);

having not been convicted, with a sentence transited in rem judicatum (closed case), for a crime liable to a prison sentence of three years or more, in accordance with Portuguese law.

The report says that dozens of British Jews are also applying to take advantage of the law.

The Portuguese city of Porto has become a hub for Jews who are moving to Portugal, as JTA reported last year. Tablet also had an interesting article on the phenomenon.

Spain passed a similar law previously to welcome back Jews from families who were expelled in 1492.

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Tel Aviv, British Mandate Palestine:

Heart pounding, a 12 year old girl Jewish girl runs down the street. Her legs pumping as fast as they can go. She looks behind her. Fear gripping her stomach, she sees that the gang of Arab men is gaining on her, their knives flashing in the sunlight.

If they catch her they will kill her.

To them it is a game. Sport. She knows that what’s at stake is her life.

She hears laughter from above. Looking up, she sees British soldiers on the rooftops.

For a fleeting moment, she thinks they will help her. They could stop the men. They could save her!

To her horror, she realizes that the British soldiers are laughing at HER. They were taking wagers, betting on the chances of the Jewish girl escaping death.

Hope fades as quickly as it had been ignited.

She runs till she feels her heart is about to burst, her little legs collapse beneath her. Then, suddenly, a door opens. A hand stretches out and grabs her, pulling her inside.

An Arab woman was bending over her, gesturing for the Jewish girl to be quiet. Urgently she pulled the girl to the back of her house.

What did this woman want from her? It took the girl a moment to understand that the woman was ushering her out the back door of the house. The Arab woman was providing an escape route, offering the girl life.

I am alive today because that Arab woman saved my grandmother’s life.

The 12 year old girl grew up to be my grandmother. My Jewish Palestinian grandmother had an Israeli daughter. The Arab woman was also a Palestinian. At the time the term referred to Jews and Arabs who lived in the land of Zion. The land was renamed by the foreign occupying power to diminish its legacy as the home of the Jewish people but at the same time the Jews of Europe were being told to “go home to Palestine.” Everyone knew that Palestine was Zion, the land of Israel, home of the Jewish people.

The Arab woman who saved my grandmother was a hero. She, not the British soldiers, rescued my grandmother from the lynch mob of Arab men. She saw the danger, understood how terrible the consequences would be and acted morally – at her own personal risk. The soldiers also saw the danger, they also understood the consequences. Their reaction was to laugh.

Oh, so civilized…

Fast forward to 2016, the UN Security Council. The representatives of the world vote, declaring biblical Israel, Judea and Samaria, the Golan and Jewish Jerusalem occupied Palestinian land. Jewish presence is, they declare, illegal. Israeli towns, holy sites including the Western Wall and the Temple Mount in the heart of Jerusalem are “illegal settlements.” Suddenly, everything that tied Jews to Zion for thousands of years, the places that served as inspiration for the world, have nothing to do with Jews and Israelis have no right to be there.

One after another the representatives of the world vote to wipe Israel’s legacy off the books of history, knowing what this will mean for Israel’s present and future.

Israel’s eyes lifted to the American representative. America has a history of standing for right when the rest of the world is wrong. America, the land whose founders declared it the New Zion wouldn’t let the rest of the world declare that Zion never existed… would she?

The wars against Israel, fought and lost could not disconnect the Jews from Zion.

The terror tactics meant to push Jews off the land only made the Jewish people cling harder to their only homeland.

Now, in the comfort of a room half way around the world, the nations of the world declared victory for those who wish to remove Israel from Zion.

And they laughed. The crowd of spectators applauding, gleefully. History doesn’t matter, scientific proof doesn’t matter, international law doesn’t matter. “Getting the Jews” is fun. Sport. A reason to cheer.

How civilized.

And then there are the Egyptians. At first, they were convinced that submitting the UN resolution was a good idea. Realizing the damage it would do to Israel, they pulled the resolution.

Then the Americans found a different way to make sure the resolution was submitted and passed. The Egyptians were privy to the American betrayal of Israel and wanted to no part in it.

Even though Israel decided to hold back the details of the American plot, the Egyptians rushed to release the information, signaling to Israel: “We want peace, not your destruction. We want to help, not create damage.”

Watching these events unfold I am left to wonder, who is civilized and who is the savage?

We may have advanced but the world hasn’t changed. Sometimes the most “civilized” people or nations are the most vicious and to this day, many consider “getting the Jew” good sport.

The Jewish people must never be beholden to the mercy of the “civilized.” There is no one we can count on for security – but ourselves.

It is actions that count, not words. Content of character is all that matters – moral clarity, not titles or declarations of friendship. Sometimes true friends are found in unexpected places. Sometimes they are the ones that pull us out of the jaws of death. Or at least they try.

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01/03 Links Pt1: Hamas's Fatah and the No-State Solution; The PLO’s zero-sum game

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The PLO’s zero-sum game

This is important for Israel to understand because the clock is ticking. Obama’s onslaught has made clear that the Democratic Party no longer supports Israel. Like the PLO, Obama and his advisers view the PLO’s conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game and they have cast their lots with the terrorists against the Jewish state.
It is to be expected that under the leadership of former president Obama and Ellison the Democrats will expand the openness of their hostility to Israel.
Under these circumstance, Israel has but two years – until the mid-term congressional elections when the Democrats may be empowered in Congress – to decide what it wants to do with Judea and Samaria.
Last week the government signaled that its first step will be to apply Israeli law to Ma’ale Adumim. A bill to this effect is expected to be brought before the government shortly after Obama leaves office.
While a good first move, our leaders must recognize that it needs to be quickly followed up by additional administrative changes. The goal of those additional steps is to dismantle the military government which administers Area C – 60% of Judea and Samaria – by 2019 and transfer full administrative responsibility for the area, which includes Israel’s border with Jordan and all the Israeli communities of Judea and Samaria, to the government.
The time has come for the government to move ahead boldly. In their post-Obama, post-2334 state, the Israeli Left and its American Jewish supporters are in no position to stop the government from doing what needs to be done. But, if the government fails to act now, when the Democrats return in two or four years, the opportunity now upon us may be lost forever as the PLO comes back to win its zerosum game against Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas's Fatah and the No-State Solution

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared that 2017 will be the "year of international recognition of the State of Palestine."
The melee in Gaza exposes as the lie that it is Abbas's repeated claim of a unified Fatah able to lead the Palestinians towards statehood. Incredibly, Abbas seeks global recognition of a Palestinian state at a time when the flames in his own backyard are set to engulf him and his questionable regime.
More bad news from the poll: if presidential elections were to be held today, Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the terrorist group Hamas, would beat Abbas by 49% to 45%.
Palestinians are now openly talking about two different Fatah factions. After Abbas's decision to strip the legislators of their parliamentary immunity, six Fatah PLC members participated in a Hamas-sponsored meeting of the PLC in the Gaza Strip. This was the first time since 2007 that such a move had been made.
Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip, unlike their colleagues in the West Bank, are de facto recognizing the Hamas rule over the Gaza Strip. This is wonderful news for Hamas, whose leader, Ismail Haniyeh is likely to defeat Abbas in a presidential election.
The Fatah gunmen who marched in the Gaza Strip courtesy of Hamas are not supporters of Abbas. Instead, they represent the "other face" of Fatah -- the one that does not believe in any peace process with Israel and shares Hamas's ambition of destroying Israel.

JCPA: What does the December 23, 2016 UN Security Council Resolution contribute to the peace process?

The UN Security Council resolution tries to establish whether the settlements are legal or not. Its major reference point is the 1949 4th Geneva Convention, adopted in the aftermath of the Second World War when the Axis powers, particularly the German army, were seizing territories, throwing out the populations that lived there, and bringing in German citizens to live in those areas. But is Israel forcibly throwing the Arab population out of the West Bank? No.
Where the principles of the 4th Geneva Convention are very much relevant and where are they not being applied is in Syria where the army of President Assad and its Iranian and Russian allies are engaged in mass expulsions of the Sunni Arab population. They are also bringing in Shiite population to settle in Syria from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, altering the demographic balance inside Syria. So the UN is ignoring the real violators of the 4th Geneva Convention who are changing the demographic makeup of the Syrian state to serve the interests of expansionist Iran.

Al Madayeen, a pan-Arab satellite channel based out of Lebanon, will broadcast a three-part documentary about the "hero" Samir Kuntar starting January 8.

Here is the trailer, with dramatic music, for the film, "Thus lived Kuntar....who never died."

Here's the summary of the monster who is such a hero to the Arab world:

In the cover of darkness on April 22, 1979, Kuntar, then 16, led a Palestinian Liberation Front attack that brutally murdered a family in the northern town of Nahariya and an Israeli police officer. From southern Lebanon, Kuntar and his accomplices snuck into Israel via the sea, and then broke into a family's apartment. There, they kidnapped a young father, Danny Haran, and his 4-year-old daughter Einat.

Kuntar took the father and his young daughter to the nearby beach. There, he shot the father, and had the daughter, Einat, watch as he drowned her father underwater to ensure he was completely dead. Then, he smashed the young girl's head against a nearby rock with the butt of his gun.

As Kuntar was kidnapping the father and daughter, the mother, Smadar, grabbed their 2-year old baby, Yael, and hid from the men who breached her home. As Samadar tried to keep her baby quiet to keep them from being found, her daughter suffocated in her arms.

The documentary's first part concentrates on Kuntar's "famous operation in Nahariya." The second concentrates on his years in Israeli prison, and the final part is about his activities for Hezbollah between his release and his way overdue assassination.

As usual, the outrage isn't merely that Arabs are lionizing the most disgusting and depraved people are heroes. The outrage is that there is no pushback, no complaints, no disgust in Arab media that they consider such a person a hero to begin with.

When you cannot find a single person among 350 million citizens of Arab countries to publicly object to such pro-terror propaganda, you have a much bigger problem than just a documentary making a monster into a hero.

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.

Human Rights Watch released another anti-Israel report, saying that Israeli officials who call to "shoot to kill" attackers are "proliferating" and implying that they are influencing police and soldiers to break their own rules of engagement.

Even the examples they give are misleading. Here's one:

In October 2015, a radio interviewer asked Israeli Police Minister Gilad Erdan if he agreed with a statement by a lawmaker from an opposition party that “if a terrorist has a knife or screwdriver in his hand, you should shoot to kill him without thinking twice.”

Erdan said yes: “Definitely. The question of course depends on the circumstances. There are clear instructions to the Israeli police. As soon as a police officer feels danger to himself or any other citizen, he needs to shoot according to the regulations. It’s clear. We don’t want to endanger any citizen or police officer. And also, every attacker who sets out to inflict harm should know that he will likely not survive the attack.”

Erdan is not saying to shoot to kill automatically. He's saying to go according to regulations, but the terrorist should be forewarned that he will very possibly be killed. His words were meant to dissuade terrorist, not to give instructions to violate rules of engagement.

Similarly, some Israeli officials will talk tough for the media when innocent people are being attacked, but there is no indication that the rules of engagement have changed at all since the wave of knife attacks last year.

HRW is making up an issue where there is none.

The latter part of the HRW report gets into much more sinister territory:

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who holds the state-funded, statutory position of Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi, said in a March 12, 2016 sermon, partly in response to Eisenkot’s admonition to limit the use of lethal force, that the Bible authorizes a shoot-to-kill policy: “‘Whoever comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.’ … let them afterward take you to the High Court of Justice or bring some military chief of staff who will say something else … As soon as an attacker knows that if he comes with a knife, he won’t return alive, it will deter them. That’s why it’s a religious commandment to kill him.”

The Sephardic Chief Rabbi does not command police or soldiers, but he heads the Supreme Rabbinical Tribunal and is tasked with advising on the interpretation of religious law. He is chosen by a committee composed of public officials and more junior state-appointed rabbis and is the state-appointed authority on religious law for the roughly half of Jewish Israelis of Arab or Eastern descent. Netanyahu did not publicly repudiate Yosef’s statement.

In July, [army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Gadi] Eisenkot reaffirmed his support for the incoming Chief Military Rabbi, Eyal Karim, after records came to light showing that, in 2003, Karim told religious followers that “suicide attackers who have been injured, should be killed.” Eisenkot distanced himself from that statement and others considered contrary to the military’s policy but confirmed that he would still give Karim the army’s top religious post. In August, female lawmakers from the left-wing Meretz party petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to block the appointment, citing Karim’s statements against integrating women in the army and negative comments he made about the LGBT community and non-Jewish soldiers. The petition was withdrawn after Karim articulated more moderate positions consistent with IDF policy on the above-mentioned issues. He did not address or repudiate his statements about killing “attackers who have been injured”. On December 2, 2016, he was sworn in as the Chief Military Rabbi.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, about half of Jewish Israelis define themselves as religious or traditional, not including ultra-Orthodox Jews, who usually do not serve in the army. Conscription for non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish men is universal. Most soldiers are in their teens or early 20s, and after a few months of basic training, they can be sent to serve in the occupied West Bank.

That last paragraph implies that half of Israelis would listen to rabbis and violate official orders on how to deal with terrorists.

HRW is trying to paint Israelis as bloodthirsty religious fanatics who would disregard the law - and risk court martial - because of a statement a rabbi made.

This is pretty close to full-blown antisemitism. And it is a lie - far less than half of IDF soldiers and police are religious Jews and the vast majority of those religious Jews them would follow orders. And nearly every rabbi in Israel would instruct them to do exactly that.

HRW is falsely slandering Judaism and religious Jews by making its readers believe that Jewish soldiers will violate orders to kill Arabs for little reason. The organization doesn't bother to research the topic; it takes some Haaretz quotes as all the proof it needs to create a fantasy that fits in with antisemitic conspiracy theories, and not at all with reality.

Since the very beginning of the mini-intifada in October 2015, after the murder of the Henkins, HRW has not once condemned the wave of knife and car ramming attacks against Israelis by Palestinians. It has not once said a word against the incitement to stab Jews on Palestinian media. It has not once said anything about the Palestinian Authority's and Fatah's openly treating the worst terrorist murderers as heroes. HRW never said a word against the explicit and open incitement to kill Jews coming in weekly sermons.

If you get your human rights news from HRW, you simply wouldn't know these facts. All you would think is that Israelis are trigger happy religious fanatics who would murder Palestinians for sport and are in no real danger from attack. HRW believes that Israeli leaders are inciting to murder Palestinian Arabs, and it doesn't deign to mention that they are whitewashing the real incitement - incitement that directly leads to murder.

As the expression goes, if HRW didn't have double standards, it would have no standards at all.

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"Progressives" romanticizing Hamas terror rockets at film festivals

Filmmaker Martin Ginestié made a film in 2015 called "In Defense of the Rocket." And that is literally what it is - a film that defends and romanticizes Palestinian terror rocket fire towards Israeli civilians.

It was just released to the world on Vimeo:

In Defense of the Rocket - dir. Martin Ginestié (2015) from Martin Ginestie on Vimeo.

The film is offensive on two levels.

One is that it pretends that Israel bombs Gaza for no reason, and that rockets are a natural reaction to the failure of the peace process that Israel's random attacks have killed. It doesn't show any rockets themselves until after it shows bombed-out Gaza buildings. The viewer would have no idea that Hamas rockets are aimed towards civilians and that thousands of them, shot after Israel withdrew from Gaza, preceded any military action.

The second reason it is offensive is that it is simply a poor film. It literally looks like it was made in Microsoft Movie and Martin Ginestié couldn't even sync up the photos with the music in several instances.

The poorly made piece of pro-Palestinian terror propaganda "In Defense of the Rocket" was shown at these film festivals:

- International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) - Netherlands - 2015
- 9180 Shortfest - India - 2015
- True / False - USA - 2016
- Internationale Kurzfilmwoche Regensburg - Germany - 2016
- Athens International Film + Video Festival - USA - 2016
- cellu l'art - Germany - 2016
- Leiden International Short Film Experience - Netherlands - 2016
- Hot Docs - Canada - 2016
- Festival Internacional De Cine De Huesca - Spain - 2016
- Sarajevo Film Festival - Bosnia Herzegovina - 2016
- off-courts Trouville - France - 2016
- Fantoche International Animation Film Festival Baden - Switzerland - 2016
- Milan Film Festival - Italy - 2016
- Camden International Film Festival - USA - 2016
- Riga International Film Festival 2ANNAS - Latvia 2016
- The Living Art - Italy - 2016
- Sapporo International Short Film Festival - Japan - 2016
- DEPO2015 - Czech Republic - 2016
- DocsDF - Mexico - 2016
- Croydon IFF - UK - 2016
- Jogja-NETPAC - Indonesia - 2016
- Istanbul International Short Film Festival - Turkey - 2106 [sic]

It is proudly promoted by the British Film Council.

Ginestié spoke to Electronic Intifada (which naturally supports the terrorism romanticized in the film) :

“At festivals, I’ve definitely got people being offended by the title,” Ginestie said. “But that was the purpose.”

“The moment of inspiration for the film was the bombing of Gaza in 2014, because I was just trying to find something positive from that event,” Ginestie added. “It was very hard to find anything positive.”

“The ambition of the film was to provoke Western liberals – at the time there was a lot of sympathy for Palestinians but very little sympathy for armed resistance,” Ginestie added. “That was kind of a red line. I wanted to provoke people, not to support armed resistance – it’s not for us to decide how Palestinians resist colonization – but to get people to reframe the Western debate about the use of violence.”

“I wanted to make a film that retraced the past 20 years of Palestinian politics and give some kind of historical logic for what the Palestinian resistance was doing,” Ginestie said.

Anyone who frames Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, Israeli citizens being bombarded by rockets and Israel finally fighting back after years of inaction as "colonization" is an imbecile.

And anyone who says that Palestinians have the right to murder Jews in the name of "resisting colonization" if they choose but Israelis don't have the right to defend themselves is a hypocrite.

Yet a score of film festivals think that a poorly made piece of pro-terror propaganda is worth showing - because supporting terror against Jews is now considered "provocative" "art."

The final frame of the film, showing an animation of a wonderful "resistance rocket" soaring in the sky above what the viewer would believe was a devastated Gaza, is actually taken from a photo of a Jordanian refugee camp in 1949 near the Dead Sea.

Today that camp is still there, under Palestinian Authority rule. No documentary filmmakers are asking why Palestinians keep their own people in "refugee camps" in territory that has been under their control for over two decades.

There is no market for such films.

(h/t SpotlightingSA)

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01/02 Links Pt2: Assad's Palestinian mercenaries; European diplomats meet with Hamas, express 'positive position'

From Ian:

Black Lives Matter offshoot embraces anti-Semitism, engages with terrorists

Over the Christmas weekend, Chicago surpassed the 750-murder mark for 2016. But as blacks lay dying on the streets of Chicago’s South and West Sides, a Black Lives Matter offshoot is more interested in traveling overseas to learn “resistance” from terrorists.
The Dream Defenders bills itself as “an uprising of communities in struggle, shifting culture through transformational organizing.” But an investigation conducted by the Haym Salomon Center reveals the group’s embrace of anti-Semitism and collaboration with a State Department-designated terror group.
In August, Black Lives Matter singled out Israel for condemnation, declaring it an “apartheid” state engaged in “genocide.” These accusations angered Jewish leaders, many of whom had steadfastly supported the BLM cause. Nonetheless, despite what can only be described as a total lack of relevance to its own agenda, BLM did not back down.
Just like BLM, Dream Defenders proclaims solidarity with Palestinians. DD claims that the black community in America, together with Palestinians in the “occupied” territories of Israel, are all victims of state-sanctioned violence. As such, the two causes are related and should learn “resistance” from each other. After leaders from BLM and DD made their first trip to Palestinian territories in January 2015, BLM’s anti-Israel advocacy remained steady, mostly lashing out at the Jewish state at rallies and protests. DD stepped up their disdain for Israel, engaging in what the U.S. government defines as anti-Semitism.
Dream Defenders’ website dedicates an entire page to Palestinian solidarity. While accusing Israel of existing on “stolen land,” there is no mention of Palestinian terrorism, including the targeting of civilians. (h/t Jewess)

Assad's Palestinian mercenaries

Over the past century, various Palestinian leaders have fostered alliances that were either unsuccessful or not particularly useful to them.
Take the alliance formed by the grand mufti of Jerusalem during the British mandate period, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who during World War II supported Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Al-Husseini hoped the Germans would win the war and Hitler would become fuhrer of the Middle East. After the Nazis lost the war, however, the West did not forgive al-Husseini, which severely damaged the Palestinian cause for over two decades.
Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat erred in 1990 when he supported Iraq in its invasion of Kuwait. Palestinian public support for the invasion led to a great deal of suffering for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians then living in Kuwait and the Persian Gulf, who paid the price for Arafat's support of the tyrannical Saddam Hussein.
Today, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is maintaining ambiguity regarding the Syrian war, taking pains to avoid denouncing or supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. It appears Abbas has learned from history. However, tens of thousands of Palestinians are apparently fighting on behalf of the Syrian dictator, even sacrificing their lives for him. These Palestinians, who went to live in Syria in recent decades, are helping slaughter the Syrian people fighting for their freedom. The guest has turned murderer.
Among the Palestinians, the most fervent Assad supporters belong to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine's General Command, led by Ahmed Jibril. The organization is headquartered in Damascus and consists of thousands of fighters; Jibril's loyalty to the Assad regime has never wavered. His fighters are taking part in the war effort, even against their own people, their own flesh and blood. In one example, when Assad's army laid siege to the Yarmouk refugee camp, it was Jibril's fighters who provided the regime with intelligence information and ground support. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

The wisdom of the Kiwi foreign minister

New Zealand was one of the four countries which sponsored the biased and unhelpful Resolution 2334 at the UN Security Council last week. The main proponent of the Kiwi initiative was Murray McCully, the Foreign Minister.
Thanks to the excellent online publication Shalom.Kiwi we can be privy to Mr McCully’s insights into the geopolitics of the Middle East, offered at a meeting on 18 May 2016 in an address to the Auckland Jewish Community.
When asked about the role of Palestinian terror in the current stalemate, McCully declined to distinguish between Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and the Israeli response to such attacks. When pushed, he refused to call the current wave of stabbings, shootings, car-rammings and suicide bombings “terrorism”, snapping: “You can call it what you like ….. you choose your words, I’ll choose mine.”
In relation to the terrorist group Hamas, McCully conceded that it had “stopped short of formally accepting the Quartet Principles” – an observation that ‘provoked astonished laughter from a shocked audience’.
‘The Quartet Principles include recognising Israel, abiding by diplomatic agreements and renouncing violence. As one audience member responded, this was rather a generous comment to make about an organisation whose statements, charter and purposes are the annihilation of Israel, not in order to make a Palestinian state, but because of a religious objection to Jewish sovereignty in any part of that land’.

Over the summer Mrs. Elder and I had the opportunity to meet and interview Manfred Gerstenfeld, perhaps the leading expert on antisemitism today.

His book The War of A Million Cuts is an incredible and frightening read. Of course I read articles all day about antisemitism but to see everything described thematically and in context is an almost overwhelming experience.

Gerstenfeld first shows how antisemitism and anti-Israelism is intertwined. He categorizes different types of antisemitism and gives copious examples of each. Finally, Gerstenfeld puts together a plan to combat the "world's oldest hatred."

The book is now available for download for free from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. i

Get it. It is very worth your time.

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Who wants to be a Palestinian? (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

When the Israeli journalist Noga Tarnopolsky posted a tweet announcing the heartbreaking news that a young Israeli woman was among the victims of the New Year’s eve terror attack in Istanbul, Haaretz World News Editor Asaf Ronel insisted that the victim should be described as “Palestinian.”

Tarnopolsky responded by pointing out that not all of Israel’s Arab citizens identify as Palestinians; indeed, a relevant recent poll she posted showed that only 12% chose “Palestinian” as their preferred identity, while 24% chose Arab, 25% Israeli, and 29% preferred to be identified by religion, i.e. Muslim, Christian or Druze. Tarnopolsky also noted correctly that irrespective of the victim’s preferred identity, Israeli authorities would provide the family with the same assistance that every Israeli family receives in these terrible circumstances.

However, in the course of the exchange it quickly turned out that Ronel couldn’t care less about how Israel’s Arab citizens prefer to be identified. He insisted that designating the victim as Palestinian was “more accurate since it’s factual.” Preposterously, he even insisted that if the victim’s family preferred to identify as Israeli Arabs, “they are Palestinians w Israeli citizenship that define themselves as Israeli-Arabs.”

So we know now that it’s progressive and politically correct to ignore the wishes of Israeli Arabs who don’t want to be described as Palestinian.

I’m not sure if this should perhaps have implications for Article 1 of the Palestinian Constitution, which declares: “Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation.” After all, this clearly implies that being Palestinian is a subcategory of being Arab, similar to being Bavarian is a subcategory of being German. Does Ronel approve of this or would he prefer the Palestinians to forget about feeling “part of the large Arab World” and “part of the Arab Nation”? And what about the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, that proclaims: “The State of Palestine shall be an Arab State and shall be an integral part of the Arab nation”?

In this context it’s interesting to consider the poll posted by Tarnopolsky in some more detail. It is taken from the 2016 Israeli Democracy Index, published two weeks ago by the highly respected Israel Democracy Institute (IDI). The relevant poll is on page 78 of the report, and IDI notes [emphasis added]:

“Arab respondents were given the following options to choose from as their primary identity: Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, and religious (Muslim/Christian/Druze). As the figure below indicates, the strongest identity among Arab respondents is religious, followed by Israeli and Arab. Palestinian identity was selected as primary by the smallest share of respondents, bolstering the argument that the Arab population is undergoing a process of Israelization and, at least seemingly, countering the widespread claim that a major process of Palestinization has taken place, or is taking place, in Arab Israeli society.”

IDI explains further:

“A breakdown of the Arab sample by religion yielded interesting results. The responses of Muslim interviewees when asked about their primary identity can be summarized as follows: religious identity, as chosen by the largest share, followed by Arab and Israeli identity, with Palestinian identity trailing far behind. […] We learned further that among Christian Arabs, Arab identity takes precedence, followed after a sizeable gap by Israeli and religious identities. Here too, Palestinian identity is at the bottom of the list. Among the Druze, religious identity is dominant, followed by Israeli identity, while Arab identity is weak and Palestinian identity is negligible.”

But it’s perhaps only fitting that the Haaretz World News Editor would insist that imposing the preference of a tiny minority on everyone is somehow “more accurate since it’s factual.”

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