Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 03, 2017

Fatah terror group leader is also a politician

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs announced that two detainees, Jamal Abu Allel and Raed Fayez, have entered an open hunger strike today, protesting against the extension of their Administrative Detention in a punitive manner that includes all the Administrative detainees.
The commission declared that the Negev prison administration yesterday informed detainee Abu Allel that his administrative detention will be renewed to six months for the third time respectively.

Opponents of administrative detention claim that Israel gives no reason for detaining suspects. So why indeed is Israel detaining Jamal Abu Al-Leil?

A hint comes from this article from today.

The Al Aqsa Brigades of the Qalandiya camp plans to close a major road between Jerusalem and Ramallah next week for three days in support of Abu Al-Leil.

Guess what? Abu Al-Leil is their leader!

He was arrested a year ago because Israel linked him to the series of shooting attacks that was occurring during the "knife intifada" as terror groups tried to capitalize on the "lone wolf" attacks.

This terrorist leader Jamal Abu Al-Leil is also a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, the top legislative body of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah.

In summary, a terror group associated with Fatah will make the lives of Palestinians miserable by closing a road in support of their leader, who also happens to be a respected politician under Mahmoud Abbas.

Here are the members of the Fatah terror group in the Qalandiya camp showing support for Abu Al-Leil's hunger strike by shooting rifles in the air.

There is no line between the "political" and "military" wings even of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah. But good luck seeing that reported anywhere.

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Iraqi musician, praised by Electronic Intifada for his "resistance," says he'd gladly play in Israel (update)

In 2010, Electronic Intifada wrote a fawning profile of Iraqi musician Naseer Shamma and his "music of resistance.:" It quoted him as being strongly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel.

How things have changed.

Israel's UNESCO representative, Carmel Shama HaKohen, also of Iraqi origin, met with Naseer Shama at a UNESCO event.

After performing, HaKohen approached Naseer in front of the Iraqi minister, MPs and other Iraqi officials, congratulated the musician and wished him success in his mission to promote peace.

The Israeli representative noted that he shared the same surname and his parents came from Baghdad as well.

"Whatever the relationship between our countries, you as an artist for peace should come and perform with your talent and convey the message of peace in Israel, too - and I am sure that the community of Israel from Iraq would be happy to invite you," said Carmel Shama to the musician.

Carmel was sure that he would get brushed off, but instead Naseer gave him his business card and said, 'I'll gladly perform in Israel."

Here they are shaking hands in front of UNESCO head Irina Bokova.

It's one thing when a Radiohead or Aerosmith plays in Israel. But when a popular Iraqi musician says he would be happy to play, the BDSers must be going absolutely crazy.

Even if he never comes, this picture is enough to cause some sleepless nights among those who cannot even get Arabs to adhere to their demands of "no normalization."

UPDATE: Shama now claims that he did not know that the person he was speaking to was from Israel and he denies that he accepted any invitation, saying that he supports Palestinians unconditionally.

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03/02 Links Pt2: Collier: You think there is no Antisemitism? Take the anti-Zionist test; Hugging Antisemitism at the Labour Party Conference

From Ian:

David Collier: You think there is no Antisemitism? Take the anti-Zionist test

This is designed for people who think there is no antisemitism in the anti-Zionist, anti-Israel movements. If you know any, ask them to take the test.
Before you begin.
Imagine: Someone you are connected to continually posts racist memes and comments on Facebook. On his time stream are constant references to racial slurs, using words and phrases that are unacceptable in society. Viscous, vile, offensive posts that draw on awful stereotypes and link back to white supremacy websites. What would you do when you saw them? I hope, as an anti-racist, you would delete him from your friends list or at least confront them about their offensive views.
You may now begin the anti-Zionist test. When you have finished, please pass it on to your friends, or other anti-Israel protesters you know.
THE ANTI-ZIONIST TEST
A few days ago, I posted the result of an investigation into antisemitism inside Palestinian activism in the UK. Since its release, I have received abuse and threats. Some of the more measured criticism has been absurdly to throw the line that ‘anti-Zionism’ is nothing to do with antisemitism. So, I have designed a test to assist in measuring the level of ‘neo-Nazi’ antisemitism ‘IN YOUR ONLINE ENVIRONMENT’.
The test starts with an easy exercise in identifying blatant antisemitism.
Do you consider any of these comments to be antisemitic?
- The Jews were behind 9/11
- The holocaust is the biggest myth of our time
- Charlie Hebdo was a false flag carried out by Mossad to make Jews go to Israel
- Ashkenazi Jews are all fake Jews
- Kristallnacht was instigated by Jews to promote War against Germany
- Babylonian Talmud advocates sex with child age three
- Israel kills people to harvest their organs
The answer to this question is ‘all of the above’ and there is little ambiguity here. Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians has nothing to do with any of the above statements.

No Safe Space for Jews at KCL

Given what was to follow, this announcement was a kick in the teeth to any Israel supporters in the audience, including most of the Jewish students there (see below). The speakers simply assumed that Israel was The Great Satan and needed to be boycotted. There was simply no discussion of this and also no mention of Israeli casualties, eg those who have died in the stabbing and car ramming incidents in recent months and of those in Judea and Samaria who have been killed by Palestinians. No mention. Zilch.
The Chair was Rafeef Ziadah, a ‘Palestinian poet and human rights activist’ (she also seems to have a position at SOAS). She was on her best behaviour but it is not hard to find her extremist connections. She claims her family was ‘forced out’ of Haifa. The truth is that the Arabs who left Haifa in 1948 were not ‘forced out’ at all. And she has praised a terrorist member of Islamic Jihad, Khader Adnan. As Richard Millett commented at IAW five years ago, ‘when he is not on hunger strike he does a nice sideline in inciting the killing of Jews.’. Ziadah has also worked for War On Want (who sponsored the KCL meeting).
Aja Monet Farid is from Brooklyn. She began with a ‘statement’ which included the phrase ‘Zionists, racists and colonisers demean me’. She is a member of ‘Black Lives Matter’. She wants ‘Intersectionalism’ which is the theory that all the causes of the Left are connected, so for example ‘Black Lives Matter’ and anti-Israel activists need to work together. Her metaphor for the Israel/Palestinian conflict: “If you have a foot on your neck, what are you going to do to get it off?”. She is not a fan of ‘safe spaces’ either. “We need to stand for what’s right .. What does love look like as a political technology?” Pretty meaningless stuff so far …. Surprisingly little insights about (or even mentions of) Israel – just the assumption it’s the Great Satan.

Gerald M. Steinberg: Empty slogans and half truths

With the release of its 2016/2017 annual report, which was published with much fanfare a week ago, Amnesty International, the strongest international human rights organization, first decided to distribute it to a limited number of "friendly journalists" by conducting closed briefings designed to produce instant headlines, without affording enough time for these journalists to independently examine the report and analyze its findings.
The organization acted to gain sympathetic media coverage instead of allowing free access to all those reporters that might have actually asked questions and checked the data. Amnesty International's conduct was the embodiment of a political system seeking to control information.
An article on Amnesty's website presenting the report is full of empty slogans, claiming that "today's politics of demonization shamelessly peddles a dangerous idea that some people are less human than others," and quoting the organization's secretary general, Salil Shetty, as saying that "the need for all of us to stand up for the basic values of human dignity and equality everywhere has seldom been clearer." Ironic declarations, given the fact that Amnesty employees have been accused several times of employing anti-Semitic rhetoric and the organization even refused to add the war on anti-Semitism to its agenda.
The report's section titled "Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories" employs the same tone, shamelessly exploiting legal terms and hurling accusations such as the "excessive use of force" and "subject[ing] Palestinian detainees, including children, to torture," to attack the Israel Defense forces without providing any evidence or source.

I have a Jerusalem ritual.
Whenever we visit, before we leave, we go to visit the Kotel.
It doesn’t matter what time of day it is. The Kotel is always there, waiting.

The Kotel. A wall so important it needs no other name, besides: “The Wall.”

Cutting through the heart of Jerusalem, she stands.
Golden and patient.

She calls, beckoning silently:
“Come to me. You belong to me. I am your past, your present, your future.
I have remembered you for centuries. I am waiting for you now.”

There are always people at the Kotel; at 2:00 am. When it’s cold. When it’s hot. When it’s rainy.
Sometimes it is so packed you can hardly move. Sometimes there are only a few people.
There’s always someone: singing, dancing, praying, learning, teaching, sleeping, weeping, coming of age, alone, with friends, with brothers in arms... the Nation of Israel, in all her colors and variations.
And visiting friends – not of our Nation, but welcome just the same.

When I visit the Kotel I get dizzy.
Every time.

The closer I get, the louder I hear the throbbing in my veins.
And when I place my hands on the stones so many others have touched,
My head begins to ache.

Like blood pumping through clogged arteries,
A heart beating, strong and hard,
Blood trying to bring oxygen to every cell of the body -
Succeeding,
But with difficulty.

The Kotel is not the heart,
It stands between me and the heart.

It is the Temple, not the Kotel.
As the wall, next to where I park my car, outside my home is not the place that calms my heart.
My soul breathes easy after I walk inside.

Being almost there isn’t enough.

How long would you stand beside the wall that stands outside the home that was once yours?
How many times would you come back to it, just to be there?
To be close to the place where your heart rested easy?

Would you teach your children about the home of your heart?
And your children’s children?
And their children?

Stolen from you, destroyed, reused by other people,
Would you keep coming back to stand next to the wall,
To touch it, to speak the yearnings of your soul?
The only remaining part of the place where your heart belongs
Or, to be more accurate, the only place you can freely approach.

Year after year, generation after generation...
Would you remember?

After you had a new place to live, would you remember that it is only temporary?
Comfortable as it may be, that it is not your true home?
Would you remember?
For how long?

How many times a day would you speak of the place where your heart belongs?
How many times would you utter its name in your prayers?
How many times would you tell your children: “Next year we will be there and it will be rebuilt”?

Generation after generation, century after century,
Everywhere Jews have lived
No matter how easy or how hard their lives were,
In Europe or the Middle East,
Ethiopia,
Russia,
India,
America…

There was always Jerusalem
And in her heart,
The place where our hearts belong.

My Jerusalem ritual keeps calling me back to the Kotel.
Keeper of our memory,
Witness of our yearning.

I touch the wall and feel the weight of centuries.
Of my people,
And our longing.

Being almost there isn’t enough.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

It seems like every day brings a new anti-Jewish incident in the US. Journalists are harassed by anti-Jewish Twitter trolls, cemeteries are desecrated and Jewish organizations receive bomb threats. Of course it is not like Jew-hatred in France, where Jewish fingers are sawed off, but it is still shocking. People expect it in Europe, much of which agreed with Hitler that the Jews were the misfortune of the countries they lived in, but America since WWII has been the one place in the world other than Israel where a Jew could forget (most of the time) to watch his back.

The ADL and FBI maintain statistics on anti-Jewish acts. The FBI’s “hate crimes” numbers are available from 1996 to 2015, and show a steady decline in anti-Jewish crimes from over 1100 in 1996 to 664 in 2015. The ADL keeps track of “incidents” which may or may not be crimes, and statistics have been presented in annual “audits” since 1979. The recent trend is similar to the FBI statistics, although the numbers are somewhat higher (for example, they report 941 incidents in 2015). The peak year was 1994, in which the ADL reported 2,066 incidents, including 25 arsons, 10 attempted arsons, and a mass shooting in which one person was murdered (by a Lebanese immigrant as revenge for the Baruch Goldstein massacre). One of the changes over the years is an increasing number of incidents on college campuses, mostly on background of the Middle East conflict.

But with the 2016 presidential campaign, it seems as though there has been an explosion of Jew-hatred. Is this true? Who is responsible?

It seems to me that there are three kinds of perpetrators of anti-Jewish acts. First there are the organized neo-Nazis, skinheads, white supremacists, and so forth. Then there are anti-Israel “activists.” Finally, there is the kind of Jew-hatred that I remember from my childhood, ordinary people who express their dislike of Jews in the context of neighborhood disputes, teenage bullying, or petty crime.

Has there been a sudden increase in membership among neo-Nazi groups? I doubt it. And I think that the “ordinary people” category has been becoming smaller in recent years. On the other hand, anti-Israel activity, especially on campuses, has grown rapidly. Radical delegitimization of Israel in the alternative media (and even in the left-leaning segments of the mainstream media) has motivated and excused extremist activists to express themselves in anti-Jewish ways. It really doesn’t make sense to hate Israel and love Jews, as some suggest they do, and how better to support the Palestinian people than by drawing a swastika on someone’s door?

There is also a revival of traditional anti-Jewish attitudes on the Left, such as appeared in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which liked to talk about Jewish control of banks and media. And more recently, the Black Lives Matter movement’s “intersectional” embrace of the Palestinian movement has given impetus to already simmering black antisemitism.

But despite all this, the “explosion of Jew-hatred” associated with the election has been blamed on Trump and the Right.

In 2016 a very well-publicized anti-Jewish event occurred: Jewish journalists were harassed by thousands of hateful tweets. Interestingly, while they included the usual traditional memes (banks, Holocaust, media control, etc.) the most common subjects had to do with Zionism and Israel. The ADL’s analysis showed that 68% of some 20,000 anti-Jewish tweets directed at journalists came from only 1,600 Twitter accounts, illustrating the force-multiplier effect of social media. And since journalists were targeted, we were guaranteed to hear about it. Much of the activity could have been automated. We saw a technically similar (but far less vicious) phenomenon when Ron Paul ran for president in 2012, and online polls and website comments sections were inundated with pro-Paul material. A small group was able to have a disproportionally large effect.

The campaign against the Jewish journalists was related to the campaign of Donald Trump, both as a trigger (journalists who criticized him were targeted) and in content (anti-Jewish tweeters suggested that Trump was on their side). The tweeters were encouraged by white supremacist web sites, and it is clear that this element has adopted Trump as its champion. I don’t intend to try to analyze Trump’s thinking and motivations here, but I do not believe that he shares their ideology. And he definitely does not benefit from the association.

The public manifestation of Jew-hatred by white supremacists adds to the anti-Jewish signals coming from the pro-Palestinian Left. The fact that people now hear and see this stuff all the time legitimizes it and emphasizes it. Just as words can be said on television today that once were never heard at all in polite society, ideas that were considered too ugly to be expressed in public have become not just thinkable, but sayable. Many Americans have always held classically anti-Jewish beliefs (see Tuvia Tenenbom’s book The Lies they Tell), but the public expression of these ideas has always been socially unacceptable – at least until recently. This adds to the impression that Jew-hatred is at an all-time high.

Now we come to the latest manifestations of Jew-hatred in America, the bomb threat campaign in which at least 100 threats have been made against Jewish institutions in 5 waves (as of Wednesday), and the damaging of headstones in two Jewish cemeteries.

The bomb threat is one of the easiest and most inexpensive means to create chaos – and get media attention – imaginable. In about 10 seconds of googling, I found countless websites that offered services and applications to make anonymous phone calls. Some bragged that they don’t log IP addresses and some were outside of the US. Some offered text-to-speech conversion, so the perpetrator doesn’t even have to disguise his or her voice. The use of a VPN with such a site would make it doubly hard to track down the caller (although there are ways…).

Something which in the past was risky – I remember “bomb scares” at my middle school in which the perpetrators were caught the next day and expelled, sent to what was called “reform school” – is now trivial and safe. Any 14-year old can do it and not get caught, at least for a while. All 100 calls could easily have been made by one or two persons. It is not indicative of a wave of Jew-hatred.

The cemetery vandalism has also been given publicity far beyond its importance. Cemetery vandalism happens all the time, including to Jewish cemeteries. Sometimes it’s anti-Jewish and sometimes not. According to a blog written by Emily Ford, who owns a company that provides planning, maintenance, restoration and research services to cemeteries, there were 127 incidents of vandalism affecting “at least 1,811 individual markers … costing at least $488,000” in the US in 2016. And this is a conservative estimate, because much vandalism isn’t reported. Three Jewish cemeteries were among those hit last year, but so was a cemetery containing the graves of notable Confederate figures, which were tagged with “anti-racist” graffiti. “Vandalism is almost inevitable in any sparsely-staffed cemetery,” Ford writes. “If 2016’s data is any indicator, nobody should be shocked by cemetery vandalism.” Indeed, and normally it is not of interest to the media.

To summarize:

With the exception of certain highly publicized events, there are fewer anti-Jewish hate crimes and incidents than in the recent past.
Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are still around, but more and more of the Jew-hatred is coming from the pro-Palestinian extreme Left.
A smallish group of provocateurs was responsible for the massive anti-Jewish harassment of journalists on Twitter.
It has become more acceptable to publically express dislike or even hatred of Jews. But there’s no reason to think these attitudes have suddenly gotten stronger or more popular.
The bomb threat calls could have been made by one or two people and have no real significance as an indicator of a “spike” in Jew-hatred.
Cemetery vandalism is common. There is nothing out-of-the-ordinary in two Jewish cemeteries being vandalized, except the media attention. Usually it’s teenagers that knock down headstones.

So, should we just say “nothing to see here, move along?”

No, I don’t think so. It is probably true that the country is not becoming more anti-Jewish. There is not a real spike in anti-Jewish incidents or behavior. But there may be something else.

Trump has claimed that “the other side” is responsible for the bomb threats. Ha ha, that crazy narcissistic Trump. But what if he’s right? What if the tweets and bomb threats were part of a plan, a plan that may just be getting off the ground, to delegitimize him and destabilize his administration? What if the idea is to make it impossible for him to make appointments or to get congressional support for his initiatives? To build an increasingly numerous and vociferous group of protestors that won’t give him a moment’s rest?

Add to this the fabrications against Bannon and Gorka throughout liberal media. If it’s possible to tar Trump and his key people with the brush of antisemitism, it will go a long way toward destroying him.

They don’t need a complicated conspiracy. Just the ability to do a few simple dirty tricks and to use fortuitous events, perhaps like the cemetery vandalism, to amplify the effect. And a media “echo chamber.” Sound familiar?

I have no idea who “they” might be – his domestic opposition, people in the intelligence community, or even an international actor. Maybe I’m as hysterical as the rest, and there are no connections between events, just a few delinquent teenagers making sophisticated prank calls.

But if there is something to it, then – whatever you may think about Trump – it is one of the most profoundly anti-democratic maneuvers in American history

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03/02 Links Pt1: Israeli negotiator skewers Kerry for dooming talks; End the UNRWA Farce

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Where is the evidence that Donald Trump is an anti-Semite?

Several months ago, after his election victory, I asked for any proof that Donald Trump is – as some of his most mainstream critics were claiming – a vile homophobe. I thought it a perfectly reasonable question to ask, and the only evidence I was given in reply was one gay man in America who cried after the election. This did not satisfy my standards of evidence. But a related question now also needs asking. Where is the proof that Donald Trump is an anti-Semite?
I ask because in the last week there has been considerable, nay ecstatic, reporting of an accusation that the President of the USA is not only fuelling anti-Semitism but has installed anti-Semites at the heart of the American government and is himself a vile anti-Semite. This somewhat feverish-sounding claim has been reported in headlines around the world at venues including CNN, the Washington Post and at what remains of the Independent. Of course these sites – along with many others in the media – are all currently on the look-out for ‘fake news.’ To which an uncharitable person might say, ‘Physician heal thyself.’
All these stories rely on something calling itself the ‘Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect’ and the bold allegations about institutional anti-Semitism at the White House have been made by the Center’s director, one Steven Goldstein. He has spent his career as a Democrat party activist, with an especial interest in gay rights and if you watch his debate at CNN here one could even get the impression that Goldstein is a partisan shill rather than a legitimate bearer of the legacy of Anne Frank. In fact, looking into it, it appears that the ‘Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect’ was something of a shell organisation until Mr Goldstein and his colleague David Smith (who, like Goldstein, previously ran a gay rights group in New Jersey called ‘Garden State Equality’) took it over and decided to stand on a dead Jewish girl, the better to be able to holler over the crowd and attack a president they have their own reasons to dislike.

In politely devastating critique, Israeli negotiator skewers Kerry for dooming talks

The 2013-14 effort at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking was doomed to fail because of the unrealistic goals set by the United States at its inception, according to a new Israeli insider account. And the inevitable collapse was expedited by grave mistakes made during the negotiations by their American sponsors, and especially by secretary of state John Kerry, veteran Israeli peace negotiator Michael Herzog writes.
In a lengthy article published this week, Herzog says Jerusalem, Ramallah and Washington all contributed to the breakdown of negotiations in April 2014. “All parties made mistakes, each exacerbating the others’ and contributing to a negative dynamic.”
But he apportions devastating blame to Kerry, who initiated and headed the talks. He writes that Kerry “definitely does not deserve the slander directed at him by some Israelis,” but nonetheless highlights Kerry’s over-confidence and lack of sensitivity, says Kerry caused confusion from the start, cites instances where Kerry misrepresented Israel’s positions to the Palestinians, and suggests the US team led by the former secretary might have deliberately misled the parties.
After insistently launching negotiations with the unattainable goal of reaching a final-status agreement in less than a year, Kerry then mismanaged the talks as they proceeded, charges Herzog, who was a member of the Israeli negotiating team headed by then-justice minister Tzipi Livni. (Herzog, brother of Labor leader Isaac and son of former president Chaim, is a retired brigadier-general who formerly headed the IDF’s strategic planning division and served as chief of staff to the defense minister; he stresses that he has never been politically affiliated.)
Kerry failed to fully understand “the psychology of the parties or the delicate nuances of their relations,” writes Herzog, who has participated in most of Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians, Syrians, and Jordanians since 1993.
“At times he appeared more eager than they were, pushed them beyond their limits, set unrealistic goals and timeframes, and shouldered some burdens better left alone or to the parties — in the belief that his own powers of personal persuasion could overcome any obstacle.”

End the UNRWA Farce

After President Obama greased the wheels for the U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlements policy, President-elect Trump tweeted that “things will be different after January 20th.” I didn’t vote for Trump, but for the sake of restoring some sanity to America’s Middle East policies, I fervently hope he fulfills that promise.
To make a real difference, our next president needs to understand how the United Nations’ hostility to the Jewish state is rooted in perverse institutions that have been abetted by previous U.S. administrations. The most glaring example of this is the inaptly named United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). With its $1.3 billion budget (30 percent of which comes from U.S. taxpayers), this agency actually perpetuates the refugee problem it was created to solve, while promoting Palestinian rejectionism and Jew hatred. Trump will soon have the means to drain the UNRWA swamp. If he does so, he would increase the chances of peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
The United Nations created UNRWA with the noblest of intentions. By the time an armistice agreement ended the first Arab-Israeli war in 1949, roughly 700, 000 Palestinians had fled (or were driven) from the territories governed by the new state of Israel. The prevailing view at the time was that refugee problems produced by war were best solved through resettlement in the countries to which the refugees had fled. In the aftermath of World War II, 7 million ethnic Germans in Central and Eastern Europe were the victims of brutal ethnic cleansing campaigns approved by the victorious allied powers. On the Indian subcontinent another 3 million people were uprooted in the violent creation of India and Pakistan. These destitute refugees had to make do in their new host countries with virtually no outside aid. Yet, within a decade, there was no longer a refugee problem in Europe or Asia to trouble the international community.

On Monday I noted that Palestinian media were upset that an Israeli court, in ruling against an Arab woman who apparently pushed an Israeli MK at the Temple Mount, noted the self-evident fact that the site was holy to Jews.

Now the Arab League has issued a statement on the matter.

The Arab League said that calling Jerusalem and the Temple Mount "a holy place for the Jews" is a "serious development in Israeli policy toward the Islamic holy sites."

It said "the occupation authorities continue to implement their aggressive and systematic plans against the occupied city of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa Mosque, in an accelerated vigorous attempt to Judaize every inch of the holy city. "

It added that this decision "reveals a disregard for the rights of the Palestinian people and for international resolutions that set the Al Aqsa as being purely a place for Muslims."

I can't tell if the Arab League just rubber stamps whatever the Palestinians give them to say to get them off their backs, or if they actually believe this.

Then again, when they repeat lies long enough the world believes them. It's worked before.

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From Tablet's Elhanan Miller in the NYT:

As he stood next to President Trump at a news conference in Washington on Feb. 15, Mr. Netanyahu cited two prerequisites for achieving peace with the Palestinians: Under any deal, Israel must maintain full security control west of the Jordan River; and Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. But Mr. Abbas already made this recognition of Israel’s Jewish character — more than two decades ago.

In an interview with the London-based daily newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat in 1994, Mr. Abbas argued that the Jewish presence in Palestine was fundamentally different from any other Western colonization. Contradicting the Arab view of Jews as purely a religious group rather than also a national one, Mr. Abbas acknowledged that what motivated Jews to immigrate to Israel was a mixture of religious and national aspirations.

“Due to various causes, they have managed to establish a Jewish state in Palestine,” he said. “Most of its inhabitants were born in the state. This is a painful truth that many refuse to understand.”

Mr. Abbas’s loaded language of “national struggle” masks a surprising truth: He is the only Arab leader to publicly acknowledge Israel’s Jewish character and tacitly validate its claim to nationhood in a hostile political climate that generally likens Israeli Jews to Crusader invaders.

This sentence, “Due to various causes, they have managed to establish a Jewish state in Palestine,” is the thread that the entire article is hanging on.

And it is a very, very thin thread.

[T]hat landmark interview was printed in Ramallah as a booklet in 2011 and uploaded to the presidential website; he has never disavowed it.

Has anyone ever asked him? Ever?

And if uploading information to his website reveals Abbas' character, then his Holocaust denial book that was uploaded there would seem to be more indicative of his true character and opinions than a single sentence in an interview.

Some might say that Mr. Abbas accepts Israel’s Jewishness only as a fait accompli, not as a matter of historic right. But for the purposes of a peace deal, what difference does that make?

Again, a very strange question. Abbas has said scores of times that he will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. All more recently than this 1994 interview. And far more explicitly.

So the question is not what difference it makes whether Abbas' supposed acceptance of a Jewish state is made as a fait accompli or not. The question is what difference does it make that he said those words in an interview in 1994 when he has said the opposite so many times since, and so much more clearly?

Fears on the Israeli right that Palestinians would use a nonrecognition of the Jewish state to swamp Israel with Palestinian immigrants and change the demographic balance are unfounded. Not only is Israeli security built on maintaining control of its borders, but Mr. Abbas has explicitly ruled out such a strategy. In a 2012 Israeli TV interview, Mr. Abbas renounced the unlimited return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, himself included, to Israel proper.
“It’s my right to see it, but not to live there,” he said of his native city of Safed, which he left as a 13-year-old child during the war of 1948. Asked whether he considered Safed part of Palestine, Mr. Abbas replied that for him Palestine means the territory beyond the 1967 lines, including East Jerusalem, “now and forever.”

Miller is being dishonest here. Abbas followed up that interview, a day later, by saying "my talk about Safed was my personal position, but it does not mean a waiver of the right of return. No one can waive the right of return, all international texts and resolutions of Arab and Islamic states speak of 'a just and agreed solution on the issue of refugees in accordance with UN Resolution 194', and the words 'agreed' means the agreement must be made with the Israeli side."

And two years later he even changed his "personal position" by saying "[Israel] will not allow the return of refugees. There are six million refugees who wish to return, and by the way, I am one of them."

Miller then asks, "Since all this is so, why does Mr. Abbas now decline to restate his recognition of Israel as a Jewish state?"

He comes up with some answers that are pure conjecture. The actual answers are in a PLO memo revealed by the Palestine Papers on this very subject. Here is every reason given (not counting the political/talking points listed:)

Recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” has substantial implications for many permanent status issues. The most serious implications are:

Recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state” would likely be treated by Israel and third states as Palestinian recognition of Israel’s demographic objections to the right of return and, by extension, an implicit waiver of the right of return. This would undermine the legal rights of the refugees and make it practically even more difficult to negotiate a resolution of the refugee issue.

Recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state”, particularly in advance of agreeing to the final border between Israel and Palestine, could also strengthen Israel’s claims of sovereignty over all of Historic Palestine, including the OPT. Recognizing the Jewish state implies recognition of a Jewish people and recognition of its right to self-determination. Those who assert this right also assert that the territory historically associated with this right of self-determination (i.e., the self-determination unit) is all of Historic Palestine. Therefore, recognition of the Jewish people and their right of self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.

Recognizing Israel as a “Jewish State” would also give impetus to the view which is becoming increasingly popular that land swaps should be based on demographic considerations and include populations. Namely, the view that Palestinians living inside Israel would be swapped with Jewish settlers living in the occupied Palestinian territory. Therefore, if Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state the next demand at negotiations may be to accept inhabited land swaps and/or Israel may use this recognition to move toward denationalizing Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The PLO explicitly denies that there are a Jewish people, a manifestly antisemitic position and one that is at odds with Miller's assertion that Abbas implied that there were a Jewish people in 1994. Moreover, the "return" issue is so central to the PLO's position - again, contrary to Miller's assertions - that they are willing to deny basic facts of the history of a Jewish people to protect that claim.

Now let's pretend, despite the avalanche of evidence to the contrary that Miller ignores, that Miller is right: Abbas really recognizes Israel as a Jewish state deep down in his heart. How does this matter? It is still undeniable that Abbas has not prepared his people for peace with Israel in any way since Oslo. On the contrary, the PA still tells people of Palestinian descent worldwide as well as "refugees" inside their own territories that they will flood Israel with millions of Arabs and that this is their legal and moral right. No student in a PA or UNRWA school is being told that there might be a symbolic "return" in a peace deal of a small percentage of so-called "refugees" and that the rest will need to be integrated into Arab countries and perhaps compensated at best - all assumptions that you will simply never see discussed in Arab media.

Instead of preparing his people for a two-state solution, Abbas has been saying that Jews are poisoning wells (reluctantly retracted) and raising wild pigs and dogs to attack Palestinians.

Abbas is not a peace partner. It is true that the alternatives are even less so, but the issue is binary - are you interested in real peace with Israel or not? Abbas' words and actions have made it clear that he is not. Being less radical does not mean that Israel must rush to give even more concessions to him as a reward for his not explicitly calling to throw the Jews into the sea.

Altogether, this op-ed is based on a very tenuous premise that is irrelevant at best - and far more likely false to begin with.

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Official Palestinian media reports terrorist stabber as a victim of "settlers"

The truth from Times of Israel:

A Palestinian stabbed and lightly wounded a resident of the southern West Bank settlement outpost of Havat Mor inside his home on Wednesday, the army said.

The victim shot the alleged terrorist, who was pronounced dead on the scene by a local doctor, a spokesperson for the Magen David Adom ambulance service said.

The Palestinian man had broken into the West Bank outpost in the Hebron Hills, the army said.

The man was in his home when he heard a noise outside. Leaving his home to investigate, he saw a Palestinian man holding two knives, according to the Ynet news site.

The victim then ran back inside his house to get his pistol. The Palestinian followed him into the living room and stabbed the Israeli man in front of his wife and children, according to the report.

The Israeli eventually managed to take out and use his gun on the attacker.

How the official Palestinian Wafa "news" agency reported the incident:

Martyrdom of a citizen shot dead by settlers south of Hebron

Citizen Saad Muhammad Ali Qaysih (24 years) from the virtual town south of Hebron, was shot and killed by settlers Wednesday evening.

Witnesses said that the Qaysih was seriously wounded after a settler shot him under the pretext of his trying to stab him in an attack.

Witnesses said that the occupation forces arrived on the scene, but did not provide the injured Qaysih with medical treatment and he remained lying on the ground, even after he died.

Notice how so many of these stories include statements from "witnesses" that are complete fiction.

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Jews buillt a glass synagogue on Temple Mount, according to the Muslim leaders

From Turkey's Anadolu Agency:

Israel has begun partitioning East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque complex with a view to creating a prayer space for Jewish worshippers, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) warned Wednesday.

“The placement of a glass room inside the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex is a first step toward the spatial division of the mosque,” Ahmad al-Ruwaidhi, the OIC’s representative in Palestine, said at a Wednesday press conference.

The move, he asserted, “follows the imposition of a temporal division [by Israel] in the form of daily incursions [into Al-Aqsa] by Jewish settlers”.

What’s more, the move reveals “Israel’s intention to dedicate a place for Talmudic rituals inside the Al-Haram al-Sharif,” al-Ruwaidhi said, using the Arabic term for the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Dammit, no pictures! I'll have to go to Jerusalem to see it for myself!

And notice how "Talmudic rituals" sounds a lot more sinister than "prayer."

But wait - there's more!

The OIC representative also warned of the dangers posed by Israeli excavations that are reportedly being carried out under the holy site.

In light of these excavations, al-Ruwaidhi said, “we fear the Al-Aqsa Mosque could collapse in the event of a natural -- or artificial -- earthquake”.

Yes, Israel is weakening the foundations in order to create an artificial earthquake.

The question isn't why these people believe this. The question is why the rest of the world takes anything else they say seriously.

It would be so easy for a single Western leader to say, "These guys are nuts for claiming these things." It would embarrass them and shame them and it would do more to stop Arab and Muslim antisemitism than a hundred declarations at the UN.

But the fear of upsetting the Muslim leaders is far greater than the mere worry about direct incitement against Jews - incitement that still causes Arabs to stab, shoot at and run over Jews in Israel today.

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03/01 Links Pt2: Tenenbom: In the Land of the Free, the Brave Are Quiet; Phillips: Denial is a river in Londonistan

From Ian:

Tuvia Tenenbom: In the Land of the Free, the Brave Are Quiet (EXCERPT)

The following is an excerpt from theater director, author and journalist Tuvia Tenenbom’s newly released book, The Lies They Tell, an account of the Americans he encountered on a cross-country trip to meet with people from all walks of life: from ghettos to gated communities, from churches to Indian reservations, talking to skinheads and senators, soldiers and intellectuals — to get to the bottom of how they think, and why. In the passage below, he describes a New York experience.
What a show! Here I hear a lady, by the name of Suhad Babaa, who talks of “Palestinian boys killed in broad daylight by Israeli soldiers” as an example of the brutal and lawless Jews. The audience, liberal American Jews, applaud. Don’t ask me to explain.
Amira Hass, a Haaretz columnist, tells these American Jews: “Anybody who intends to emigrate to Israel is about to commit a crime.” The Jewish state, if you didn’t know, is a criminal state.
The Jews applaud.
Bridget Todd, a black lady who is associated with Black Lives Matter, shares the stage with Amira. What is she doing here? I can’t tell, but it’s definitely an effective visual tool to illustrate to Americans what the Jews are doing worldwide: murdering non-whites.
What else do I see here? Roger Waters is sitting in the front row of the main hall, being glorified by a Haaretz fellow who tells him how pleased he is to see such an important man at this conference. Roger, co-founder of the old favorite English rock band Pink Floyd, is still in the music business. But besides music, he has some other things on his mind, such as comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and engaging in endless activism against Israel.
The Jews here love him for that. And they applaud at the mere mention of his name.
This conference is called HaaretzQ, where the “Q” stands for question, but nobody is questioning anything. Everybody here has the answers, all the answers. And they talk. The forty-niners say, for example, that Jewish Voice for Peace, whose activists I met while in DC and by whom I was told that I’m a fat, filthy Jew, is an exemplary organization.
All in all, it is bizarre to watch. Every time someone says that the Jews are horrible, are criminals and thieves, one thousand American Jews applaud.

David Collier: Kings. Apartheid Week watch day two: Beauty and the beast

As I was doing my homework for the event at Kings, the information I received all pointed in one direction. All eyes were going to be on Farid Esack, a veteran anti-apartheid activist and Professor from South Africa.
Esack is a man who welcomed his “comrade” plane hijacker Leila Khaled, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, at a fund-raiser in 2015. He also said of the attack in Paris
“”I am not praying for Paris; I am not condemning anyone. Why the hell should I? I had nothing to do with it.. (Then).. I am sickened by the perpetual expectations to condemn. I walk away from your shitty racist and Islamophobic expectations that whenever your chickens come home to roost then I must feign horror.”
This man was on display at a London university. How could I resist?
Given the participants, Kings had apparently refused to permit this to take place on campus. It seems the Student Union stepped in to ‘save the day’.

Melanie Phillips: Denial is a river in Londonistan

Ever since 9/11, Whitehall has been dominated by those who want to take the path of least resistance over the problem of Islamic extremism. In 2014 Theresa May, now Prime Minister but who was then the Home Secretary, and Michael Gove, the then Education Secretary who commissioned the Clarke inquiry, spectacularly fell out over mutual accusations that the other had failed adequately to combat Islamist extremism. At the heart of that row lay the dominant Whitehall thinking, espoused by Mrs May but strongly opposed by Gove, that the problem was not extremist attitudes but merely extremist violence. Mrs May won that bout.
Since then, government thinking has shifted in the right direction. It now acknowledges that it’s not just violent extremism that’s the problem but non-violent extremism – the attitudes that create hatred and fanaticism and swell the seas in which violence swims.
But it still refuses to acknowledge that non-violent extremism is driven by Islamic religious fanaticism. As a result, the government’s anti-extremism policy is paralysed because it can’t agree what extremism is. There are other signs that Theresa May still doesn’t get it. The inquiry she set up into sharia courts, for example, has been designed merely to tinker with marginal improvements rather than address the fundamental problem of having a parallel legal system inimical to British values.
This refusal to acknowledge the religious driver of Islamist extremism was of course a signature motif of the Obama administration. So it is extremely troubling to read that the new National Security Adviser, General HR McMaster, has reportedly said that the term radical Islamic terrorism is “counter-productive” and even that Islamic terrorists are “unIslamic.”
If the people we entrust to protect us against the threat posed by religious fanaticism cannot even bring themselves to agree that it is indeed religious fanaticism, they will not protect us at all but will assist our enemies instead.

A month and a half in, all the gung ho Trump people are still maintaining that The Donald is God’s gift to the Jews and to Israel. But if you look at his rhetoric and that of his inner circle, it’s anything but clear. Take the issue of moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, for instance. Back on October 27, Trump could not have been clearer in his speech to AIPAC. “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.”

Donald Trump Promises To Move Embassy From Tel Aviv To Jerusalem from Now The End Begins on Vimeo.

But in January, after assuming office, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s too early,” he said.

And now? “I’m thinking about it. I’m learning the issue and we’ll see what happens. It’s not an easy decision. It’s been discussed for so many years. No one wants to make this decision, and I’m thinking about it seriously.”

Translation: he doesn’t want to make the decision. He’s thinking about it.

Then Friday night, Vice President Pence, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas seemed to distance the prospects of an American embassy in Jerusalem even further when he said that Trump’s administration is "reviewing additional steps to demonstrate America's support including assessing whether the American embassy in Israel should be relocated to Jerusalem."

Note the use of the word “whether.” We’ve gone from “We will move the embassy,” to debating “Whether we should move the embassy.”

In the language of the Talmud, this would be going from the vadai to the safek—from the certain to the questionable, which is an unnatural order for how things should be.

In examining the shift from electoral promise to placing the issue on the backburner, one cannot discount the idea that it is Jerusalem pouring cold water on the idea of moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Netanyahu has publicly said he wants the embassy moved to Jerusalem; that in fact, Israel’s policy is that all embassies should be in Jerusalem. And still, it is possible there is more to this picture than any of us know. We the people never know what is going on behind closed doors. And if it is Bibi who doesn’t want the embassy moved, it isn’t as though it would be politic for Trump to say so.

Then there’s this: could it be that the apparent change in policy proves Trump never really intended to go through with moving the embassy in the first place? This is, of course, more than possible. Every candidate makes promises. Every candidate breaks promises.

And finally, there is the matter of Trump’s alt right base. Trump has been reluctant to appear philosemitic on several occasions. Take his alteration of the Holocaust Day speech prepared for him by the State Department. The original speech made explicit mention of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But Trump (or one of his lackeys) changed the wording, omitting any reference to the Jewish people, to make the speech more “inclusive.”

Trump, it is said, is meanwhile thinking about cutting several special envoy positions, including one dedicated to battling antisemitism. Right at the time that antisemitic incidents are exploding all over the globe, including in the United States, where we have hundreds of gravestones overturned in Philly, swastikas sprayed on cars in Buffalo, and a wave of bomb scares hitting JCC’s all across the country. Allegations have been made that Trump said that the Jews themselves are behind these incidents. These allegations are anecdotal, however, and at least one of the parties taking umbrage, Steven Goldstein, of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect has a liberal axe to grind, hence a credibility problem.

In any event, the feeling is that Trump is not coming out sufficiently strong enough against these expressions of hatred. He had his press secretary make a statement: “The president continues to be deeply disappointed and concerned by the reports of further vandalism at Jewish cemeteries."

“Disappointment” just doesn’t cut it. Would Trump have expressed “disappointment” in Hitler (may his name and memory be erased) for gassing the 6 million? Or perhaps “deep concern?”

All this is a far cry from how Trump presented himself to the Jewish people in the run up to the election. Take, for instance, the way Trump allowed David Friedman to be his Jewish “face.” Friedman made a speech in October in which he came right out and called the State Department antisemitic for refusing to move the embassy.

"In 1995, Congress enacted a law that required the embassy of the United States to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem," said Friedman at the Jerusalem rally while stumping for Trump. "That's 21 years ago. Hasn't happened. Why? Because the law provides that the obligation to move the embassy to Jerusalem can be waived at the desire of the State Department, the same State Department that has been anti-Israel and anti-Semitic for the past 70 years."

"Now every president gets elected and he says to the State Department, 'what about this law? Should we move the embassy to Jerusalem,'" said Friedman. "The State Department says, 'absolutely not. Absolutely not.' The lifers in the State Department are absolutely, positively committed to never moving the embassy to Jerusalem. What's different about Donald Trump? You all know Donald Trump. If there's anybody in the world of politics who could stand up to the State Department, it is Donald Trump."

But Donald Trump is NOT standing up to the State Department. He is not moving the embassy. He’s not doing anything about the sudden burgeoning of antisemitism in the United States. To the contrary, he’s mulling over cutting the special antisemitism envoy’s position.

Donald has a Jewish daughter and grandchildren. He counts a number of right wing Jews among his closest advisers and confidantes. But Trump also has a very strong alt right base and he is reluctant to appear at odds with their ethos.

Embed from Getty Images

There is no question that this is a very bad thing. Egregious. It is absolutely imperative that he stand up when it counts and face these expressions of antisemitism. He must stand up to his alt right base and denounce antisemitism in no uncertain terms. Trump cannot continue to coast on the Jewish creds of his family and advisers, but must himself take the bull by the horns. Far from cutting the antisemitism envoy position, Trump should be creating a taskforce to deal with the current rise in Jew-hatred.

None of us should be giving Trump a pass, looking the other way, insisting he wouldn’t hurt Israel or the Jews because Ivanka and Jared. It doesn’t wash. It never did.

Trump must be judged not on campaign promises or by his relatives and associates but by his own actions and deeds post-election. Now is the time for Trump to step up to the plate and show his mettle.

The Jews are the canaries in the coal mine, the harbinger of larger dangers in the immediate environment. Trump would be wise to see the warning for what it is and deal with it in no uncertain terms. He should be moving that embassy today. He should be crushing that alt right base, he needs to decry and disavow them, shame them. He needs to let them know that he is NOT their man.

And if he doesn’t, if he won’t. Well then. He IS.

This piece has been updated for clarity.

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Smashed Mt. Of Olives Tombstones Getting In Way Of Haaretz Dancing On Graves (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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: By Neu Aloyse

Jerusalem, March 1 - Vandalism at this holy city's oldest active Jewish cemetery has impeded the customary dancing activities of Haaretz writers and editors, the paper's publisher lamented today.

Amos Schocken held a meeting today with senior editorial staff and columnists to discuss the ongoing difficulty in dancing on the graves of people buried on the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount, and to devise ways of maintaining the practice without compromising the efforts of local enthusiasts to continue smashing Jewish tombstones.

Schocken delineated the challenges involved in dancing on those Jewish graves, including potential liability for injuries Haaretz contributors might incur while engaged in that important journalistic activity. "Our mission, as I have defined it, aims to place only certain people or institutions in harm's way," he noted. "We remain very strict about confining harm to people who are religious Jews, the political right, IDF soldiers, police, and any positive sense of Jewishness. But we draw the line at letting our people come to harm. It would just be irresponsible."

"We must find a way to adhere to our mission of inviting, justifying, and celebrating harm to Jews," continued Schocken. "But prudence demands that we exercise good judgment when it comes to placing our writers in harm's way. For the time being, dancing on the graves of Jews buried on the Mount of Olives will be restricted to those few areas of the cemetery that have not been vandalized in such a way that would pose a hazard to our dancers."

Several editors and writers objected to the decision. "I get what you're saying, Amos, but with all due respect, which I of course would deny to anyone who thinks differently from me, I'm willing to assume that risk," insisted Gideon Levy. "What right did those Jews have to be buried there before the place fell into Jordanian hands in 1948? I'm willing to absolve Haaretz of any liability for my dancing on those graves, whether their tombstones are intact or smashed."

Schocken, for his part, praised Levy's willingness to risk injury in support of his beliefs, but put his foot down. "It's inspiring to see you actually volunteer to put yourself in danger of a sprained ankle, Gideon - and I'm not being sarcastic here," he answered. "I know it's not your custom to put yourself at risk while calling for Jewish settlers or the religious to suffer. But when we dance on those graves, we might also get in the way of the Palestinian patriots who are smashing the monuments. That's a possibility I'm sure you agree must be prevented."

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