Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, February 11, 2017

02/11 Links: When they attack the Jewish warriors of World War II; Arab world unfazed by Regulation Law

From Ian:

When they attack the Jewish warriors of World War II

The lie about Jews that the power of the IDF never failed to shed was that we’re incapable of fighting, that we manipulate others into doing our fighting for us and that we’re constantly pretending to be victims in order to gain undeserved sympathy from those around us.
As if to prove that point the one time Labour Party political candidate for Witham in Essex in the 2015 general election spent a long time both attacking Jews for killing too many people once they had a state and for not killing enough people before Israel was founded;
It’s unfortunate that this was posted in 2012 and yet still Clarke was able to run as the Labour Party political candidate for his constituency but the way the Labour Party is today I’m not sure that holding such views didn’t actually help him. But his accusation about Jews fighting in World War II hits a particular nerve with me and should with Jews everywhere. From the USA to the former Soviet Union and all around the world Jews fought, shed blood and died in the name of freedom. Their children and grandchildren shouldn’t now, decades later, be forced into proving it. Yet here we are.
Apparently John Clarke has never heard of Major General Maurice Rose who was killed in Germany while leading his division from the front. Rose’s father and grandfather were rabbis but he was always determined to become a soldier. Major General Rose was the highest ranking US officer to be killed by enemy fire in the European theater of operations. He ran his division from the front line and he earned every promotion he got by advancing against the enemy.
I imagine that Clarke has never heard of Raymond Zussman, Isadore Jachman and Ben Salomon three Jewish boys who awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour, the highest decoration for bravery in the US military for their courage fighting in World War II. Jachman was awarded the medal for attacking two German tanks with a bazooka that he retrieved while under fire. Zussman, Jachman and Salomon account for just three of the 26,000 medals and citations awarded to Jews in the US Armed Forces during World War II. Another three Jewish soldiers were awarded the Victoria Cross, the UKs highest award for gallantry during the war while serving in the British armed forces.
Over 550,000 American Jews served in the US armed forces during world war II. An estimated 500,000 more Jews wore the uniform of the Red Army (including at least nine generals). One of whom was called Yakov Kreizer. He was awarded Russia’s highest award for bravery and promoted to the rank of Field Marshal in the Russian Army after war. 100,000 wore the uniform of the Polish Army and 30,000 the British, including privates Jack Goldberg and Jack Fisher, my grandfathers. One of whom lost his entire unit, killed by a bomb hitting their ship while it was docked in St Nazaire at the start of the war. From Arnhem to the Battle of Britain to the Deserts of North Africa Jews fought, killed and died during World War II. Even as far away as India and Burma where my Great Uncle served with the RAF. Many of them returned home only to have to carry on fighting against the same racism Clarke so stubbornly, so contemptibly perpetuates.

Dershowitz would defend Israel in The Hague over outpost law

American law professor and prominent pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz said that he is opposed to the newly passed outpost bill, but would defend Israel in an international court if necessary over the controversial legislation.
The Knesset late Monday passed the so-called Regulation Law, which enables the appropriation of private Palestinian land for Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank, in a move the Palestinians condemned as a means to “legalize theft.”
UN envoy for the Middle East peace process Nickolay Mladenov called the bill a “very dangerous precedent” and raised the possibility the law could open Israel up to potential prosecution at the International Criminal Court, a risk the Israel’s attorney general has warned of, as has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite his support of the bill.
“I’m opposed to the statute, I think it is a very bad idea,” Dershowitz said in an interview broadcast Saturday on Israel Radio.
But Dershowitz said the court in the Hague was not the proper venue for such a case.
“The International Criminal Court was set up to deal with genocide, with mass murderers, not to deal with property disputes,” Dershowitz said. “So I think it would be utterly improper for the International Criminal Court to set up an investigation based on a dispute over land.”
Dershowitz acknowledged Israel could still find itself there, due to “bias against Israel in international tribunals.”

Netanyahu: Imagine if the Middle East Looked More Like Tel Aviv

In a new video posted to social media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the diversity of Israeli society and the Jewish state’s advancement of equal opportunities for the country’s Arab citizens.
“I hope more states in our troubled region begin to emulate Israel and treat minorities with dignity and respect, the dignity and respect that all human beings deserve,” Netanyahu stated. “Just imagine, imagine if the Middle East looked a bit more like Tel Aviv and a bit less like Aleppo.”

Haaretz has a fascinating story:

Israeli lawmaker Tzipi Livni may soon be appointed to a senior role in the United Nations. Over the weekend, Livni (Hatnua-Zionist Union) received a phone call from UN Chief Antonio Guterres, who offered her the position of deputy secretary-general.

The UN chief has many deputies, and if Livni accepts the offer, she'll become the first Israeli to serve in that position. The appointment ultimately depends on the UN Security Council's approval.

Officials in the UN see the offer as a deal: The U.S. will take back its opposition to the pick of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as head of the UN mission to Libya, and in return Livni's appointment will be greenlit.

This would be a fantastic deal, and the operative word here is "deal."

Here's some background from Foreign Policy:

In the days leading up to Friday’s surprise decision by the Trump administration to block the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a top U.N. job, senior U.S. officials in Washington and New York assured U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres and other diplomats that they would accept him for the job, according to diplomatic sources.

That made late Friday’s abrupt about face — with the Trump administration suddenly vetoing Fayyad’s appointment to lead the U.N. mission in Libya — all the more shocking for U.S. partners on the Security Council and some career U.S. diplomats, according to those diplomatic sources.

The U.S. action, the officials said, created an unnecessary public confrontation with the U.N. chief, who would not have selected the well-regarded former Palestinian leader without the consent of the United States and other key Security Council members. The diplomatic dustup exposed a degree of chaos in U.S. decision making, these diplomats say, that makes it hard to anticipate where U.S. policy is headed.

If there is a pattern emerging from the Trump administration, it is to mess with people's expectations and then wrangle benefit from what appears to be concessions, when nothing is really conceded. he did it with China by scaring them with Taiwan, he is doing it with settlements where he is allowing Israel to do exactly what is has been demonized for and made it appear like he is cracking down, and he may be doing it at the UN.

The message from the White House seems to be that if the US is going to green-light a UN move, it should get something back,

In this case, there is really no downside for a former PA prime minister who was by all accounts the most competent and honest politician in Palestinian history - and who is now on the outs with Abbas - to lead a mission to Libya, far away from Palestinian issues. But for Livni to gain a major role in the UN, where she would defend Israel (although only half-heartedly on settlements) is a major gain.

And even if Guterres planned to offer the job to Livni anyway, as the Haaretz article seems to say, now the opposition from UN members would fade away because it is a deal where they get Fayyad in Libya, where they otherwise wouldn't have.

All this is a win-win for everyone while the US gives up nothing.

There is a lot to be wary of in this new administration, but if this went down the way it appears, "the art of the deal" shows great potential.

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02/10 Links Pt2: Why the British Left has come to revile Israel; McGill Student Leader: 'Punch A Zionist Today'

From Ian:

Why the British Left has come to revile Israel

The morning of July 4, 1976 – the day of the Entebbe raid – is one of my earliest memories.
Growing up in Uganda, that day left two big impressions on my five-year-old mind.
First was that feeling of elation – all too short-lived – in the adults around me that at last the tyrant Idi Amin might at last have met his match. Second, I saw the Israelis as the good guys. Unequivocally.
Back in Britain 40 years later, that last view is not one everybody seems to share. Entebbe proved to be the last time Israel could count on broad sympathy across the political spectrum. The British Left had already abandoned its longstanding support for Israel after its stunning victory in the Six Day War. Within a few years of Entebbe, it had decisively turned against Israel.
Left-wing contempt for Israel is now pervasive. From the trades unions to the universities, the Guardianista media to the Labour Party, it’s taken as read that Israel is in the wrong. In an era when the British Left has never been more divided, anti-Zionism seems to be the great unifier.
But why has the British Left come to revile Israel? Is it because kibbutz-style socialism has given way to modern capitalism? Or because Israel is no longer the plucky underdog? Or perhaps because Israeli voters have the chutzpah to keep electing rightwing governments? What’s clear to me is that much of the hostility to Israel has nothing to do with the ostensible reasons given. The issue of settlements or Palestinian statehood, it seems, has become a stick with which to beat the Jewish state.
Far from trying to prevent further conflict, the leftist coalition of boycott backers and Hamas apologists are actively promoting it.

UN Watch: Khader Awad, Teacher At UNRWA, Calls For The Murder Of Jews

Following is one of the 40 perpetrators identified in UN Watch’s 130-page report entitled “Poisoning Palestinian Children: A Report on UNRWA Teachers’ Incitement to Jihadist Terrorism & Antisemitism.”
Khader Awad, who identifies himself on his Facebook profile as an UNRWA teacher, features on his public Facebook page an image of a Jew with three guns and a knife trained on his head; the Hebrew caption reads “Blood = Blood. #KillThem.” In Arabic, it says “Kill the settlers.”
A second photo, which Mr. Awad made as his cover photo, shows a Hamas terrorist in front of a scene of destruction in Israel, with the words in Hebrew and Arabic “We are waiting.”
These posts supporting the murder of Jews and Hamas terrorism grossly violate the duty of neutrality applicable to all UNRWA employees.

UN Watch: Ghanem Naim Ghoneim, Teacher at UNRWA, Venerates “Wonderful” Hitler

Ghanem Naim Ghoneim, who identifies himself on his Facebook profile as a teacher at UNRWA, has two photos posted in his public Facebook page of Adolph Hitler, Image 1 and Image 2, whom he calls “our beloved,” and “Hitler the great.”
The UNRWA teacher notes that Hitler was close with Palestinian Arab leader Amin al-Husseini, and then adds, “God bless Hitler.”
Commenting on one of his Hitler photos, seen in Comments 1 and Comments 2 two of Mr. Ghoneim’s apparent UNRWA students praise the post, with one saying “God bless you, teacher!” and the other saying “Nice one, teacher.” Their profiles can be viewed by clicking on Student Profile 1, Student Profile 2 and Student Profile 3.
In Image 3 The UNRWA teacher also celebrates Hamas rocket fire on Tel Aviv, to hit “the Jews.”
The pro-Hamas post grossly violates UNRWA employees’ duty of neutrality, and the antisemitic posts violate their duty to reject racism in all its forms.

02/10 Links Pt1: The Islamic Jihad and Peace with Jews; Int. Legal Expert: Criticism of Knesset's Settlement Law Is Unwarranted

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Beautiful friendship

Less than a week after he was inaugurated into office, President Donald Trump announced that he had repaired the US’s fractured ties with Israel. “It got repaired as soon as I took the oath of office,” he said.
Not only does Israel now enjoy warm relations with the White House. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in the US capital next week, he will be greeted by the most supportive political climate Israel has ever seen in Washington.
It is true that dangers to Israel’s ties with America lurk in the background. The radical Left is taking control of the Democratic Party.
But the forces now hijacking the party on a whole host of issues have yet to transform their hatred of Israel into the position of most Democratic lawmakers in Congress.
Democrats in both houses of Congress joined with their Republican counterparts in condemning UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that criminalized Israel. A significant number of Democratic lawmakers support Trump’s decision to slap new sanctions on Iran.
Similarly, radical Jewish groups have been unsuccessful in rallying the more moderate leftist Jewish leadership to their cause. Case in point is the widespread support Trump’s appointment of David Friedman to serve as his ambassador to Israel is receiving from the community.
Whereas J Street and T’ruah are circulating a petition calling for people to oppose his Senate confirmation, sources close to the issue in Washington say that AIPAC supports it.

'I won't condemn Israel, it's been through enough'

In exclusive interview with Israel Hayom, U.S. President Donald Trump says he understands and respects Israel greatly • Trump stresses he would like to see peace in the Middle East and beyond, says he looks forward to meeting with PM Netanyahu next week
"I understand Israel very well and I respect Israel. ... I would like to see peace [between Israel and the Palestinians] and beyond," U.S. President Donald Trump told Israel Hayom in an exclusive interview Thursday -- the first interview the 45th president of the United States has given Israeli media since taking office on Jan. 20.
Q: On multiple occasions we spoke of your views on Israel and your determination to be Israel's friend. Can you share your general plan for improving Israeli-American relations after the past eight years?
"Well, I think we are going to have a better relationship. The deal with Iran was a disaster for Israel. Inconceivable that it was made. It was poorly negotiated and executed. Everything about that deal was something. ... You know, as a deal person, I understand all sides of deals. I understand good deals and bad deals, but this deal is not even comprehensible. Beyond comprehension. And you see the way Iran has reacted; unlike reacting as they should, which is being thankful for President [Barack] Obama for making such a deal, which was so much to their advantage. They felt emboldened even before he left office. It is too bad a deal like that was made."

PMW: PA TV criticizes Palestinian newspaper for using term “Wailing Wall” and not "Al-Buraq Wall" - as instructed by PA Ministry of Information (Feb. 10, 2017)

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information issued a book instructing Palestinians which words to use to instead of "the Israeli and American dissemination of poisoned terms." In 2012, Palestinian Media Watch exposed this guide and the terms the ministry instructs Palestinians to use.
Among the "Israeli and American poisoned terms" that should be rejected are these terms relating to Jewish history and tradition:
Recently, a host on a PA TV program criticized a Palestinian daily that did not follow these guidelines. The paper had used the term "the Wailing Wall" instead of the term "the Al-Buraq Wall" recommended by the PA Ministry of Information, and which Palestinians and Muslims in general use.
Official PA TV host: "[The Palestinian daily] Al-Ayyam from this morning: 'The Israeli Ministry of Transportation announced it yesterday. The project for extending the high-speed Tel Aviv-Jerusalem train line up to the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall) in the Old City of Jerusalem, has entered the stage of a feasibility study.' I don't know how Al-Ayyam can write 'Wailing Wall' on its front page, and not even put quotation marks."
[Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, Jan. 26, 2017]

From MEMRI:

In a conference titled "On [Religious] Awakening and Dialogue," held in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on February 6, 2017, Sudanese oppositionist and cleric Yousuf Al-Koda, a former member of the Sudan Scholar Organization and currently the head of the Islamic Wasat Party, gave a talk on "The Relations with Israel – Religious Aspects." In his talk he called on Sudan to declare a truce with Israel and establish diplomatic relations with it, saying that there is no religious prohibition to prevent this. As evidence he mentioned the Hudaibiya agreement that the Prophet Muhammad signed with his infidel rivals.

Al-Koda added that boycotting Israel does not hurt Israel but rather Sudan, and that other countries in the region, such as Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt and even the Palestinian Authority, maintain ties with Israel. He noted further that Sudan holds ties even with certain countries that occupy Sudanese land, without naming these countries.

He was also quoted as saying: "The boycott has not harmed Israel but rather Sudan, and despite all the time that has passed [since its imposition] there has been no discussion of the boycott, as though it is an end in itself or a religious duty." He wondered: "Why shouldn’t we propose reassessing this position and adopting a different one in its place?"

Even for an opposition cleric, this would have been unthinkable only a short while ago.

While most sub-Saharan African states recognize Israel, Algeria, Libya, Somalia and Sudan do not. They are all members of the Arab League.

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A quick Tu B'Shvat review of how Arabs have treated trees planted by Jews

Tomorrow is Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for Trees.

From reading the media one would think that Arabs are the ones who venerate trees and Jews are the ones who uproot them.

But as history shows, the truth is quite the opposite.

Only a few examples:

June 7, 1936:

September 22, 1936:

November, 1936:

July, 1939:

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Trump with interviewer Boaz Bismuth

Israel Hayom published a brief section from an exclusive interview with President Trump today. The full interview will be published Sunday.

When asked about the embassy move to Jerusalem, at first Trump sidestepped the issue: "I want Israel to behave sensibly in the peace process, and it should come after so many years. And there might even be a possibility for peace beyond an Israeli-Palestinian peace. I want both sides to behave in a reasonable manner, and then we have a good chance of that."

The interviewer asked again, and this time Trump answered, "I think about it. I am studying the issue and see what happens. It's not an easy decision. It has been discussed for many years. No one wanted to make this decision, and I think about it very seriously."

Trump also reiterated his opposition to Israel creating new settlements, saying I'm not one who believes that moving forward with settlements is good for peace, but we are exploring all sorts of options."

He also praised Netanyahu and said that he would not condemn Israel during his presidency.

As far as a final peace deal, he said ""Yes, of course [Palestinians will have to make concessions.] A deal is not good if it is not good for all parties. We have now been in the process for a long time, decades. Many smart people argue that it is impossible to reach an agreement. I do not agree with them. I think we can reach an agreement, and we need to reach an agreement. "

Jordanian media give King Abdullah credit for convincing Trump to be more reticent about the embassy move and settlement activity than he had earlier indicated. Al Monitor reports:

According to the Palestinian source, when the Palestinians discovered that Abdullah was scheduled to meet Trump in Washington during the traditional National Prayer Breakfast event, Abbas made a special trip to Amman. There he asked the king to pass on a message of reconciliation to Trump. “At the time, King Abdullah was not certain that he would meet with the president. But in any case, he was asked to pass on a message to the new US president if it became possible to do so. The message to Trump was a plea to take action as soon as possible to stop Netanyahu’s crazy settlement enterprise before it would be too late,” the source said.
On Feb. 2, Abdullah met with Trump and transmitted the message faithfully: Abbas is committed to doing everything he can to give the US administration all tools possible for opening a Palestinian dialogue with Israel, and that one-sided actions on Israel’s part would undermine these attempts. According to the source, “In the short time he had before the Hilton event, in his pleasant manner, and with well-reasoned explanations, King Abdullah reviewed with Trump the dangers of Israel’s unrestrained [settlement] policy. Abdullah explained that this policy is likely to lead to unwelcome flare-ups [in the region].”
Abdullah also told Trump in their short conversation that instability and violence in the territories is likely to cause the strengthening of extremist forces in the Middle East. In addition, he explained that if Israel’s settlement wave will continue at this rate, Abbas will not be able to conduct any kind of dialogue with Israel and that the two-state solution — which the United States officially supports — will never be realized.

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02/09 Links Pt2: UNRWA Teachers Promote Nazis, Antisemitism, Anti-Gay Hate; Why do peace organizations rely on ‘alternative facts’?

From Ian:

UNRWA Teachers Promote Nazis, Antisemitism, Anti-Gay Hate

UNRWA's funders—the U.S., the EU, the UK, Sweden, France—need to to urgently investigate why UNRWA teachers praise Hitler and the Nazis and incite antisemitism and anti-gay hatred. Urge them to create a commission of inquiry now into UNRWA

Why do peace organizations rely on ‘alternative facts’?

A prime example features in Breaking the Silence’s tour of the Southern Hebron hills region. In Susiya, tourists are taken to a well opening in the ground, roughly a meter square. As I stood there, the guide explained that the IDF had pushed an entire vehicle into the well. “Here, if you look, there’s a Subaru car deep inside,” he claimed. “They pushed it inside in order to poison the well.” A detached white car door lies on the ground adjacent to the hole.
It sounds dreadful. Initially, I was shocked. There’s just one problem: As anyone who’s been there can attest, no car is actually visible. That’s because there isn’t one in there at all. The aforementioned door is nothing but a devious, strategically positioned prop. And after taking a moment to think about it, I realised the sheer impossibility of ramming a whole car through a one meter square opening. But how many people simply accept the story unquestioningly?
Another time, Breaking the Silence uploaded a story to its Hebrew Facebook page, claiming that a Palestinian family was instructed to leave home eight times in one year so that the army could perform drills nearby. At the time, I was part of My Truth, an organisation that had refuted a number of Breaking the Silence’s lies. Although I had already developed a deep mistrust of the organisation by this point, this claim was too strong to ignore. I was concerned by the possibility that the IDF could acts so callously.
Anxious to verify the details, I relayed concern to my boss that we should tread carefully in case the army had indeed marked out this family’s land as a firing zone. I advised that it would be prudent to examine the case further. And so we did. We obtained aerial photographs of the area from 1999 and from 2016. In so doing, My Truth uncovered what really happened there: Whereas the 2016 photograph clearly showed homes, the image from 1999 showed uninhabited land. When the area was declared a closed military zone that year, no Palestinian village existed there. The family then deliberately chose to live in a military firing range, in defiance of both the law and common sense. Put simply, Breaking the Silence’s claim that the army was cynically embarking on a training exercise and using this as a cover to evict a family was a barefaced lie.

PMW success in US Congress
Representatives Ted Budd and Mark Sanford introduce the No Bonuses for Terrorist Act of 2017 (Feb. 9, 2017)

A new bill introduced by U.S. Representatives Ted Budd (R-NC) and Mark Sanford (R-SC) aims to ensure that American taxpayer dollars will not be used to reward Palestinian terrorists. Palestinian Media Watch first revealed to the international community in 2011 that the Palestinian Authority pays significant monetary rewards to terrorists. Since then, PMW has documented the PA’s continued practice of using foreign aid money to reward terrorism in a series of follow up reports:
The PA's Billion Dollar Fraud (April 27, 2016)
Is the PA Lying to Western Donors? (May 18, 2015)
Compilation of PMW Reports on PA Salaries to Terrorist Prisoners (Feb. 13, 2013)
The No Bonuses for Terrorist Act of 2017 (H.R. 789), if passed, will require the US Secretary of State to certify that the PA and PLO have terminated all financial rewards to terrorists and their families. In describing the new bill, Representative Ted Budd showed his familiarity with PMW’s findings in The PA’s Billion Dollar Fraud, which exposed last year that the PA has funneled its salary payments to terrorists through the PLO in order to deceive donors:
“Although our current law allows reductions in aid to the Palestinian Authority based on the amount of payments they make to terrorists and their families, they’ve found a way around this by giving to third party organizations - like the Palestinian Liberation Organization.”
- Representative Ted Budd [Feb. 1, 2017]
The No Bonuses for Terrorist Act is designed to close all loopholes. If the US Secretary of State is unable to certify to Congress that the PA and the PLO have ceased payment of financial rewards for terror, the aid money designated for the PA will be redirected towards funding Israel’s Iron Dome program.

PMW report prompts Wiesenthal Center's condemnation of German-Palestinian sports agreement

Following Palestinian Media Watch's disclosure this week that Germany signed a sports agreement with one of the Palestinian Authority's most outspoken terror promoters, Jibril Rajoub, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging Chancellor Angela Merkel to "suspend this unthinkable agreement until the Palestinian Authority removes all names of terrorists from all sectors of Palestinian sport and their acts of terror be publicly condemned by Ramallah." [Simon Wiesenthal Center website, Feb. 7, 2017]
The Wiesenthal Center suggested that Germany instead encourage joint football matches between Israelis and Palestinians. PMW has documented that Rajoub, in his capacity as head of the PA's Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs and the Palestinian Football Association, has described such peacebuilding matches as "a crime against humanity." He has similarly announced, "I won't allow and won't agree to any joint game between Arabs and Israel." [Official PA TV, July 1, 2013]
PMW has documented that it is PA policy to present terrorists as role models. Naming sporting events after terrorists is one of the many ways the PA glorifies and honors terrorists.

From Al Jazeera on February 4:

Jordan said late on Saturday that its warplanes bombed positions held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in southern Syria, two years after one of its pilots was captured and killed by the armed group.

Friday's strikes came on the second anniversary of ISIL's release of video showing pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh being burned alive in a cage after his aircraft crashed in Syria in December 2014.

"Jordanian Air Force planes, in memory of our martyrs who have fallen in our war against terrorism, on Friday evening targeted various positions of the terrorist gang Daesh in southern Syria," the military said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.

I find it remarkable that a modern army, using drones and precision-guided bombs, chooses the date and time for an attack not for tactical advantage - but to coincide with the anniversary of an event.

This is a peripheral consequence of the honor/shame dynamic. Jordan's army was humiliated by ISIS burning its pilot alive, and the way to best cleanse this shame is to do a revenge attack that is explicitly tied to the humiliating event.

The army released this statement linking the two both to give a message to ISIS and, more importantly, to Jordanians so they could erase the shame they felt for the past two years.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I opened my newspaper this morning (Wednesday) and was greeted with the headline: the White House has no comment on the regularization law that was passed yesterday, and will talk about it when PM Netanyahu visits Washington to meet with President Trump next week.

Imagine my relief. I mean, why should the White House have an opinion about something which is really an internal Israeli affair? I am amused – well, pretty irritated, actually – by the way Ha’aretz and my social media friends have decided to call it the “land grab law,” when it actually goes farther to compensate owners of land than customary common law would. As Eugene Kontorovich explains,

Israel’s proposed “Regulations Bill” has attracted broad international criticism, including from the U.S. State Department and the European Union, as well as from opposition Israeli politicians and some government lawyers. The bill seeks to solve a situation in which, over several decades, over one thousand Israeli homes in West Bank settlements have been built in open areas to which Palestinians subsequently asserted property claims, typically based on broad give-aways of state land by the King of Jordan during the Hashemite occupation (1949-67). The homes are in communities built with some level of government involvement. Thus the bill provides the government would compensate the landowners 125% of the value of the land, in order to allow the communities that have been built there to remain.

The plots are generally open, uncultivated fields. The frequently used characterization of “private Palestinian lands” is misleading. In the overwhelming majority of cases, no individual Palestinians have come forward to claim the lands. Indeed, in most cases, no property claimants asserted their interests for decades after houses were built, a situation that in common law would certainly warrant the application of adverse possession doctrines, under which long-term possession of property unprotested by owners can change legal title, exactly to prevent these kinds of conflict between long-term users and owners who slept on their rights . Under Jordanian law, rules of prescription, which would turn the land over to its existing inhabitants, would apply. In cases like the community of Amona, which inspired but are not covered by the law, the Court made its determination without any fact-finding, and the lands claimed by the Palestinian petitioners only slightly overlap with those on which the Israeli homes stand.

It’s not really a big deal, is it? No Palestinians are being exploited, and the residents of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are just getting the same kind of protection for their investment as people in the rest of Israel, the US and many other developed countries have. Better, since the state is willing to pick up the tab for compensation.

Of course the world leaders in virtue and morality, the EU and the governments of Germany and France, are dead set against the law. The folks whose wisdom brought us two world wars and a Holocaust have “lost confidence” that we are serious about the “two-state solution” that they hope will slice our country into indefensibility.

Later today I listened on the radio to the reactions of the European representatives in Israel. You would think that the Knesset had passed a law demanding that the Palestinians must throw all their male children into the sea, and not one that simply makes it possible to compensate people in return for taking property that they may not even have clear title to, and haven’t used for years, if ever. I am becoming more and more convinced that after Iran, Europe is our greatest enemy, and the Palestinians their weapon.

Well, Amona is rubble, its residents are homeless, and the cabal made up of the Civil Administration (the military entity that rules Area C, where almost all Jewish settlements are and few Arabs live), the left-leaning legal establishment, and the subversive European-paid NGOs are smacking their lips over how they will do the same to numerous other Jewish communities, just as soon as the Supreme Court voids the new law.

Because, after all, who cares what the democratically elected Knesset and government decide? Don’t we understand who really runs the country and knows what’s good for us? Those religious settler fanatics are an obstacle to peace! Just ask the talking heads on Israeli radio and TV.

Which brings me to the next headline: Channel 2 reports that Netanyahu told the police that have been investigating him nonstop for who knows how long, that he didn’t know about bottles of champagne and other gifts received by his wife from a businessman friend, and he didn’t check the value of cigars that he himself was given. He just smoked them! Not only that, but he told the police that he bought plenty of cigars with his own money.

So, just some random thoughts on this “scandal:” Channel 2 has been selectively dribbling out information about Netanyahu’s supposedly confidential police investigations for months. Where do they get it, and why is it OK for them to release out-of-context snippets of interrogations in a country where the names and faces of people accused of crimes are routinely redacted from news reports?

The investigation itself is on the same level as one of the previous ones, in which Mrs. Netanyahu was accused of returning deposit bottles that had been used at official functions, and keeping the money. Yes, she did it; yes, the small amount of money was returned; and yes, the silliness of creating a scandal about deposit bottles was duly noted.

The fact is that the same media people that deliberately mischaracterize the regularization law and also gleefully bash Netanyahu on every occasion, are running a long-term project to make him look like a crook. How much of the evening news is devoted to his non-scandals, almost every day? How many hours has he wasted, answering police questions and trying to deal with the fallout from these frivolous investigations? He’s the Prime Minister of the strongest country in the region, economically and militarily, the one and only Jewish state – which half the world hates and wants to destroy – and you are busting his balls about some cigars?

This isn’t really funny. Netanyahu has said that he believes there is a media campaign to force the Attorney General to indict him. And if he is indicted, he could be forced to resign.

The story on page 11 of the newspaper reminds me that not everything is frivolous or political. It is about Trump and Iran trading barbs over the Iranian missile development program. Now that Obama is gone, it may be possible for the US and Israel to develop an effective policy to prevent their common enemy, Iran, from producing and deploying nuclear weapons.

I devoutly hope that this will be the main subject for discussion between Netanyahu and Trump, rather than Judean real estate law. Or cigars.

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02/09 Links Pt1: Unlike Obama, Trump isn’t obsessed with where Israel’s Jews live; Iron Dome intercepts three rockets from Sinai headed for Eilat

From Ian:

Unlike Obama, Trump isn’t obsessed with where Israel’s Jews live

It takes a curious derangement to conclude from this that all would be well in the Middle East if only Israel would stop enlarging Jewish neighborhoods. Yet that is the mindset of the UN and much of the international community. It was also the mindset of the Obama administration, which rarely missed an opportunity to condemn Israeli settlements — going so far as to facilitate a Security Council resolution declaring even East Jerusalem, with its storied Jewish Quarter, “occupied Palestinian territory.”
To its credit, the Trump administration rejects that paradigm. The Republican platform adopted last summer made no reference to the “two-state” unicorn, and Trump’s ambassador to Israel firmly backs the expansion of Jewish communities in the historic Jewish heartland. Last week the White House spokesman, while advising caution toward the construction of new settlements, made a point of emphasizing that the new president and his foreign-policy team “don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace.”
Bizarrely, those words were spun in the media as a sign that Trump had come to embrace Obama’s way of thinking about Israel and the Palestinians.
That interpretation struck me as wrong-headed on its face. When Trump warmly welcomes Netanyahu to Washington next week, I expect it to seem even more outlandish.
Anything can change, of course, especially given Trump’s volatility. But on the evidence so far, Obama’s frostiness toward Israel is anathema to the new administration. Palestinian rejectionism has always been the insurmountable impediment to Middle East peace — not Jewish housing. Obama could never bring himself to acknowledge that elementary truth. I’m guessing Trump won’t have that problem.

At least 5 lightly wounded in Petah Tikva shooting, stabbing attack

At least five people were lightly wounded after a Palestinian man opened fire at a bus and stabbed someone near an outdoor market in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva on Thursday evening, officials said.
Police officers arrested the West Bank man, who was still in possession of the gun used in the attack, a police spokesperson said.
The suspected terrorist is 18 years old, a resident of the northern West Bank, according to police.
Just before 5:00 p.m., the gunman opened fire at a bus near the Petah Tikva market on HaBaron Hirsch Street, hitting a man and a woman in their 50s. Another woman, approximately 30 years old, was also injured by shrapnel.
They all suffered wounds to their legs, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.
He continued on foot before he was cornered by a group of civilians outside a sewing machine repair shop, according to police officer Ami Ben-David.

On February 25, there will be a "Conference for Palestinians Abroad" in Istanbul. It is mean to attract Palestinians outside the Arab world.

The goals are:

Affirming our right of liberation and self determination and the role of Palestinian abroad in achieving it.
Affirming the right of return for refugees and working on achieving it.
Taking Political actions to claim civil and human rights of our people.
Building and strengthening the unity of the political stance of the Palestinian people abroad.

Significantly, the organizers don't seem interested in obtaining human rights for their fellow Palestinians in Lebanon or Syria or Egypt or Saudi Arabia, but only by "returning" to a country most of them have never set foot in.

These goals are largely consistent with what the PLO says it wants as well. But the PLO is not happy and has criticized this conference.

The PLO's Expatriate Affairs Department has denounced the conference because the PLO pretends to be the sole representative of the Palestinian people and they weren't invited.

Probably because the PLO does nothing for these people they claim to represent.

The vehemence of the PLO objections reveals something that most Western observers don't realize: the PLO wants to make it look like all Palestinians share their opinions on everything, because they (rightly) understand that a single unified message is far more effective when presented to the world than varying points of view.

When the PLO claims that "Palestinians want X" they do not want to be contradicted by other groups, or opinion polls. They want to be considered as if they truly represent all Palestinians, not as the self-appointed and unelected leaders they really are.

So any outside group that does anything without PLO control is considered a danger because any divergence of their messages is considered a weakening of their political position. For their part, nearly all Palestinians understand this message, and they will give a unified front to any Western reporters or NGOs with rare exceptions when they know that there will be no consequences to their differing opinions.

In a society where dissent is so strongly discouraged, Palestinians aren't free to express what they truly want. And that is exactly what the PLO is trying so hard to perpetuate.

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As a followup to my post about UNRWA and defining refugees, it looks like the reality is a bit simpler than I thought.

I asked an international legal scholar about UNRWA's definition of refugees, and he responded simply "There is only one treaty that defines refugees – the 1951 convention."

Reading the Refugee Convention more carefully, this is in fact the case. It doesn't say that Palestinians are or aren't refugees; it merely says that they are not eligible for protection under the Refugee Convention because UNRWA already existed. Their refugee status is simply not addressed in the Convention - because there is only one definition.

Any person who...owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

The first article of the Convention then lists people for whom the Convention doesn't apply, for example those who are guilty of war crimes or those who become citizens of another country. And Palestinian Arabs are excluded as well. This was done at the request of Arab countries. Since UNRWA was considered temporary, the Convention says that Palestinian Arabs will fall under the provisions of the Convention as soon as UNRWA no longer can be responsible for them. Then they would only be considered refugees if they fit under the Refugee Convention definition and not under the rest of its exclusions.

Likewise, in their carefully written policy documents, UNRWA doesn't define the people registered with UNRWA as "refugees." They refer to them almost invariably as "Palestine Refugees." sometimes with the word "refugees" capitalized, but that is nomenclature, not descriptive.

UNRWA also takes pains to say that they are using the term only for the purposes of determining who is eligible for services, not as a legal term. It is a working definition.

UNRWA is not trying to define the term "refugee," because it cannot do that: the Refugee Convention is the only place the term can be defined. All UNRWA can do is decide who they want to provide services to, and the main (but not only) category of those people is what they name "Palestine Refugees." It doesn't mean that they are real refugees any more than the UN calling Gaza "Occupied Palestinian Territory" means that Gaza is legally occupied - something the UN essentially admitted.

It is simply a word game.

Let's look again at UNRWA's definition in its "Consolidated Eligibility and Registration Instructions" with this in mind:

Persons who meet UNRWA’s Palestine Refugee criteria

These are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict. Palestine Refugees, and descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are eligible to register for UNRWA services. The Agency accepts new applications from persons who wish to be registered as Palestine Refugees. Once they are registered with UNRWA, persons in this category are referred to as Registered Refugees or as Registered Palestine Refugees.

Notice how UNRWA capitalizes "Palestine Refugees" but doesn't capitalize the "r" in "descendants of Palestine refugee males." This is because the descendants are also "Palestine Refugees" but they are not real refugees.

On UNRWA's website, capitalizing the R in refugees is not standard - but the phrase "Palestine refugees" is ubiquitous. Only rarely do they refer to "refugees" without a qualifier of "Palestine refugees" or "registered refugees." Once you are aware of that fact, it is honestly irritating to read their literature. They are trying hard to make the causal reader think that "Palestine refugees" are refugees, but as my lawyer friend points out, they cannot.

So for example this 2010 document that attempts to show the difference between UNRWA and UNHRC consistently says that UNHRC takes care of "refugees" while UNRWA takes care of "Palestine refugees" with the word "Palestine" italicized throughout. Once you understand that "Palestine refugees" is simply a phrase that has no legal meaning these paragraphs suddenly make much more sense.

Palestine Refugees as Defined by UNRWA

Anyone whose normal place of residence was in Mandate Palestine during the period from 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war qualifies as a Palestine refugee, as defined by UNRWA, and is eligible for UNRWA registration. Hence the reference to Palestine refugees, not Palestinian refugees, in UNRWA’s name and official documents.

Here they say explicitly that UNRWA defines what a "Palestine refugee" is but in no way are they saying that they are actual refugees - because only the Refugee Convention can do that.

On the other hand, when the same document refers to "Palestinian refugees" it refers to Palestinians who are real refugees under the Refugee Convention, and therefore (if they are outside UNRWA areas) they are eligible for UNHCR protection. Typically these are refugees from Syria or Iraq who happen to be of Palestinian descent.

UNHCR has a world-wide mandate to protect, assist, and seek durable solutions for refugees as well as for other people in need of international protection. UNHCR’s mandate covers Palestinians who are refugees within the meaning of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which could include Palestine refugees as defined by UNRWA. UNHCR normally takes up the case of Palestinian refugees only when they are outside UNRWA’s area of operations.

Notice how the document distinguishes between "refugees within the meaning of the 1951 Refugee Convention" and "Palestine refugees as defined by UNRWA." Only the former are real refugees under international law, because only the 1951 Refugee Convention defines what a refugee is. Only real refugees can apply for asylum in other countries, not "Palestine refugees" (again, unless they are fleeing persecution for other reasons.) UNRWA merely defines who is eligible for their services and, for most of them, they call the "Palestine refugees." They could call them Blurpies - it would be just as meaningful.

Other UN agencies will not be so particular and will mix up "Palestine refugees" with real refugees. Sadly, even UNHCR - which has an interest in inflating the number of refugees worldwide - will count UNRWA's "Palestine refugees" as real refugees in their annual reports and ignore the definitions in the Refugee Convention. Over the decades, the UN has happily pushed the myth of a growing number of Palestinian refugees - but UNRWA knows better by insisting on calling them "Palestine refugees." The media, of course, is often complicit with this.

The term "Palestine refugees" is meant to deceive. And UNRWA has done a brilliant job in doing exactly that.

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Meet the happy female terrorist supporters at Palestinian universities

These are photos from the Facebook page of a women's student group at Al Quds University that is associated with Fatah:

The name of the group?

"Sisters of Martyr Dalal Mughrabi."

Mughrabi was the terrorist responsible for the 1978 murders of 38 Israelis including 13 children.

There are Fatah-aligned groups with the same name at BirZeit University, Al Azhar University, An-Najah University and various places beyond universities.

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Fake news: Turkish "news" agency calls a road accident a "vehicular attack by settler"

Suleiman Salah Hammad, 85 (or 81), was riding his donkey along a highway south of Bethlehem when he was accidentally hit by a car driven by a Jew.

Hammad and his donkey were tragically killed.

The car sustained severe damage.

Israeli ambulances and emergency personnel helped as best they could and opened an investigation.

Now here is how the Turkish Anadolu Agency reported this story:

The story, and a followup story with video that Getty Images archived, repeats the lie that this was a deliberate attack.

Fake news of this type can be seen every day in certain media outlets.

(h/t Bob Knot)

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