Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 17, 2017

Update regarding the hate fest scheduled for March 26th in Washington DC (YMikarov)

Further to my previous article, there have been a few noteworthy changes to the scheduled event.

One of the scheduled speakers, Rania Khalek, has backed out, citing the following reason: “I pulled out because I will not be in town and I'm sick of the backlash from Syria trolls. Had no idea Berlin was invited”.

Khalek claims she “won’t be in town” but also added that “she’s sick of the backlash from Syria trolls”. Not quite sure which excuse we should believe. She then goes on to say, “I had no idea Berlin was invited”. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Khalek is referring to Greta Berlin, notorious anti-Semite, co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement, and frequent boarder of “freedom flotillas” to Gaza. Berlin has even been criticized by Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada for posting Anti-Semitic propaganda. Imagine that. This week, she also invited our very own “Holohoax” white nationalist Jimmy Fry to her hate corner at the event. Jimmy of course accepted her invitation.

After exposure, an exchange on Twitter ensued. The @freegazaorg account [which Greta is said to be handling] sent a picture of a currency bill. The bill says “Palestine” on it in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Of course, being as ignorant as we are, we all believe that since it is emblazoned with the word Palestine, that must mean it was issued by the sovereign Arab Palestinian state in 1939. Unfortunately for Greta, she isn’t very detail-oriented. Had she noticed the signatures on the currency, she would have read Sir P. Ezechiel - Sir J. Caulutt – and H. Downie, all British members of the Palestine Currency Board for the British Mandate at the time. These names are a far cry from Al-Mohammed or Al-Husseini.

I explained that the bill was issued by the British Mandate and that it was in circulation until 1947. Prior to that, the currency was the Turkish Lira under Ottoman rule. The response? A pathetic “you’re paid by the Israeli government” and the usual block.

So it’s safe to assume that Khalek backed out because Berlin and other anti-Semites plan to attend the event. The backlash she receives daily for supporting Assad, as well as the talk cancelled by BDS earlier in the month, was enough to make her think twice. Equally interesting is that your usual “anti-Zionists” starting lashing out at the event organizer, Abbas Hamideh.

One of those is the one and only Gary Spedding, a proud supporter of BDS and anti-Zionist. The other is the notorious Noa Shaindlinger who supports Hamas and claimed to be affiliated with the terrorist organization PFLP.

She was even called a Zionist and “Controlled Opposition” by non-other than Hamideh sidekick and number one David Duke fan Jimmy Fry, who will also attend the event.

As for Hamideh, he has taken to Facebook to criticize the Al-Awda members who urged him to tone it down. He also referenced to the article I wrote and “congratulated” the traitors, saboteurs, and gatekeepers who have officially changed sides – and are now with AIPAC. Then Hamideh wrote another post claiming that anti-Semites and white nationalists will not be invited to the event. This of course is a lie.

As of this moment, here are some of the speakers and attendees of the event. Reach your own conclusions as to whether BDS is becoming a haven for rabid anti-Semitic activity.

Abbas Hemideh – Event Organizer

Refers to Jews as “Shlomos”.

Supports Hezbollah, Hamas and Assad.

Organized rally in Cleveland . Followers chanted, “Kaybar Kaybar Yahud” [Slaughter Jews].

Greta Berlin

Promotes anti-Semitic videos on social media.

Shunned by Electronic Intifada

Alison Weir

Promoter of “Jewish Power” and “Organ Harvesting” anti-Semitic blood libels.

Shunned by Max Blumenthal and JVP.

Anas Amireh - Event Organizer

Promotes car ramming attacks by terrorists.

Jimmy Fry

Holocaust denier – “Auschwitz Lies”.

Makes jokes about Jews making good lampshades.

In conclusion, and as I have stated repetitiously, BDS is in shambles in terms of its leading activists, who are not aligned with one another. Expect to continue seeing this type of mud-slinging on social media as more and more anti-Semites join the “peaceful movement” known as Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.

J.Mikarov

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For years, NGOs and the UN have railed against the supposed inhumanity of Israel's using administrative detention against various terrorist suspects.

Which makes this small comment by the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights earlier this month all the more interesting:

In the State of Palestine, my Office is also concerned that both the Palestinian Authority and the authorities in Gaza have increased use of administrative and arbitrary detention, with increasing allegations of torture and ill-treatment in both the West Bank and Gaza against political opponents, journalists and activists.

So where are the NGOs? Where are the hundred-page reports with interviews of the victims? Where are the calls for justice from the "pro-Palestinian" activists? Where are the conferences?

Apparently, no one really cares about human rights.

"Human rights" is simply an excuse to bash whoever your political opponent is. Actual or alleged victims of human rights abuses are useful when they are used to further your political agenda, otherwise, if you have been tortured or otherwise abused, don't bother wasting the time of these so-called "human rights" advocates.

There are more NGOs in the Palestinian-administered territories than anywhere else on Earth. But they get their money from those who only want to bash Israel, not to protect Palestinians from human rights abuses by their own people. So most of them take their EU funds and rehash the information they have to write yet another anti-Israel reports while actual victims of daily human rights abuses have nowhere safe to turn for help.

(h/t Irene)

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Richard Falk's report that calls Israel an "apartheid state", commissioned by UN ESCWA, relies heavily on Israel's defining itself as a Jewish state as proof that it is discriminatory against non-Jews.

So he writes:

Where a State’s constitutional law provides equal rights to the entire citizenry, it can provide an invaluable resource for people challenging discrimination at all levels of the society. However, if constitutional law defines the State as racial in character — as in Israel (as a Jewish State), and apartheid South Africa (as a white-Afrikaner State) — movements against racial discrimination not only lack this crucial legal resource but find themselves in the far more dangerous position of challenging the regime itself. Such a challenge will naturally be seen by regime authorities as an existential threat and be persecuted accordingly.

Falk is astonishingly dishonest in later quoting Israel's Declaration of Independence as proof that Israel defines itself as a Jewish state without noting that that same Declaration says that all citizens must have equal rights - and Israel's Basic Laws refer to the equal rights section of the Declaration, giving it the force of constitutional law.

The report by UN ESCWA believes that the "Jewish state" is inherently discriminatory, rejecting any objections to "the ethnic premise of Jewish statehood [as] illegitimate, because it violates international human rights law."

Yet how do ESCWA members define themselves?

Here is a chart showing how every ESCWA member defines themselves in their constitutions.

ESCWA member	How it defines itself
Bahrain	Bahrain is an independent, sovereign, Islamic Arab State
Egypt	Egypt is part of the Arab nation
Iraq	This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people.
Jordan	The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an independent sovereign Arab State. The people of Jordan form a part of the Arab Nation.
Kuwait	Kuwait is an Arab, independent, fully sovereign State.
Lebanon	Lebanon is Arab in its identity and in its affiliation.
Libya	Islam shall be its religion and Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.
Mauritania	Mauritania is an Islamic, indivisible, democratic, and social Republic.
Morocco	[Commits] To deepen the bonds of togetherness with the Arab and Islamist Ummah
Oman	The Sultanate of Oman is an Arab, Islamic, Independent State
Palestine	Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation.
Qatar	Qatar is an independent sovereign Arab State.
Saudi Arabia	The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion
Sudan	The Republic of the Sudan is an independent, sovereign State. It is a democratic, decentralized, multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual country where such diversities co-exist
Syria	The Syrian Arab Republic is a democratic state with full sovereignty, indivisible, and may not waive any part of its territory, and is part of the Arab homeland; The people of Syria are part of the Arab nation.
Tunisia	Tunisia is a free, independent, sovereign state; its religion is Islam, its language Arabic, and its system is republican.
United Arab Emirates	The Union shall be part of the Great Arab Nation, to which it is bound by the ties of religion, language, history and common destiny. The people of the Union shall be a single people, and shall be part of the Arab Nation.
Yemen	The Republic of Yemen is an Arab, Islamic and independent sovereign state

With the exception of Sudan (and to an extent Morocco) every member identifies as either an Arab state, an Islamic state or both, which - by Falk's logic - means that the nations that sponsored Falk's report to define Israel as an apartheid state are apartheid states themselves.

Yet no one ever accuses them of that, even though by any sane measure they discriminate against non-Arabs and/or non-Muslims in ways that are far more egregious than anything Israel can be accused of doing.

For example, in Bahrain non-Arabs are extremely limited in where they can lease land, while Arabs have no such restrictions and can buy land outright. Jordan and others have similar laws. Arab League states, which is the majority of ESCWA members, also discriminate against non Arabs in their citizenship laws.

This is only one example of how Falk's definition of "apartheid" for Israel would apply to many of not most other nations, including the US.

So if you accept that this report proves Israel is an "apartheid state" you must agree that so are many, many other states that also fall under that definition. By manipulating the facts to judge Israel guilty, Falk is not strengthening human rights - he is weakening the definition of apartheid to become meaningless and therefore useless.

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03/16 Links Pt2: Mayim Bialik: Feminism & Zionism; PMW: Fatah: Kill 37 Israelis, become a role model for Palestinian women

From Ian:

Mayim Bialik: Feminism & Zionism: Definitions and Exclusions

A recent series of articles about Palestinian-American political activist Linda Sarsour startled many in feminist and Jewish circles, me being one of them. In these articles, Sarsour states that feminism and Zionism are incompatible.
Sarsour said, “There is no country in this world that is immune to violating human rights. You can’t be a feminist in the United States and stand up for the rights of the American woman and then say that you don’t want to stand up for the rights of Palestinian women in Palestine.” (Check out this interview with Sarsour in The Nation.)
I don’t know that I am even the authority to speak to this on an international level, but here’s what I have on a personal level. Feelings.
Why am I upset?
Definitions
Zionism is the belief in the right of the Jewish people to have an autonomous state in Israel. I am a Zionist. Feminism is the belief that a woman-driven movement can bring about race, class and gender equality and that women deserve all of the rights and privileges afforded to men. I am a feminist. There are Zionists who are critical of certain Israeli policies and those who are not; there are Zionists who are anti-occupation and there are Zionists who are pro-settlement; and there are Zionists who fall between these extremes. The definitions of Zionism and feminism are not in conflict with each other. At all.

Alan Dershowitz: Why Must Women Choose between Feminism and Zionism, but Not Other "Isms"?

There are many countries and movements throughout the world that treat women as second-class citizens: Israel is not among them.... There is a word for applying a double standard to Jews. That word is anti-Semitism.
If Sarsour was concerned with addressing structural causes of all female oppression, she would mention the status of women in the PA-controlled West Bank where just a few months ago the names and photos of female candidates for the municipal elections were omitted, referring to the women instead as "wife of" or "sister of." Sarsour would also call out the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the police are a law unto themselves who act as judge, jury and executioner of those who speak out against their oppression and misogyny. She would condemn the tolerance, if not acceptance, by so many Muslim countries of the "honor killings" and genital mutilation of women. Instead the IWS platform exploits the feminist cause in order to delegitimize and demonize only one nation: that of the Jewish people.
The real choice to be made now by all those who care about the feminist cause is whether to allow Sarsour and her radical anti-Israel allies to hijack the movement in support of their own bigoted views. The alternative is to maintain feminism's focus on key issues that pertain to women and to call out countries and movements according to how seriously they violate women's rights, rather than singling out the one Jewish democracy – Israel.

PMW: Fatah: Kill 37 Israelis, become a role model for Palestinian women

Role model for Palestinian women is terrorist Dalal Mughrabi who led murder of 37, including 12 children
Secretary of Fatah Central Committee: “The women of Palestine draw from the giving and struggle of the first female Martyrs of Palestine, and prime among them Dalal Mughrabi and Laila Khaled”
Fatah Central Committee member: “[Mughrabi was] a daughter of the land who scattered her soul on the soil of the land of peace and constitutes for us a Palestinian school for the supreme love of the homeland”
“The lady of complete giving for the freedom of the land and man. May her soul rest in our skies, a true rainbow of freedom”
Fatah Central Committee member: “[Her operation] spread the spirit of victory in the hearts of the Palestinians and struck the Israeli occupation like lightning... [Her] “soul is constantly floating in the skies of Palestine”
PA National Security Forces: Mughrabi is “the bride of Jaffa”
Head of Palestinian Women’s Union on occasion of International Women’s Day: “She killed as many as she killed"

Head of Palestinian Women’s Union on Women’s Day: Terrorist who led murder of 37 was “a role model”

A Twitter deconstruction of Linda Sarsour (@AviMayer)

Avi Mayer, on Twitter, writes about Linda Sarsour's claim that one cannot be a Zionist and a feminist.

It is too good not to put in a short essay form.

Let's take a minute and pick apart Linda Sarsour's bizarre and twisted claim that one cannot be both a Zionist and a feminis t, shall we?

Per Sarsour, since feminism is about "the rights of all women," a feminist cannot support Israel, which "oppresses" Palestinian women.

There are several glaring problems with Sarsour's simplistic argument.

First, Sarsour herself goes on to say—in the same interview—that "there is no country... that is immune to violating human rights." Surely if all countries violate human rights, @lsarsour should condemn them all. But she aims her bile at supporters of only one: Israel.

Second, Sarsour discusses the plight of Palestinian women at length, but curiously ignores any hardship that cannot be blamed on Israel. Yet Palestinian women "face discrimination in law and in practice, and [are] inadequately protected against sexual and other violence." according to Amnesty.

"Honor killings"—murders of Palestinian women by male relatives seeking to protect "family honor"—have skyrocketed. wapo.st/2mG7Yza

Abortions are illegal under Palestinian law, forcing women to either endanger their lives – or seek help in Israel. atfp.co/1XJhdhA

How "Zionism" is to blame for these rampant violations of Palestinian women's rights within Palestinian society is for Linda Sarsour to answer.

Moreover, while Linda Sarsour professes deep concern for the rights of "all women," she has nothing to say about the rights of Israeli women. At no point does it occur to Sarsour to even pay lip service to Israeli women and their rights. They're entirely absent from her equation.

The mothers of the two Israeli students murdered by Rasmea Odeh, whom Sarsour has defended, do not appear to have rights worth protecting.

Most fundamentally, in rejecting and deriding Zionism, Linda Sarsour denies the basic right of Jewish women—and all Jews—to self-determination.

Sarsour also ignores Israel's admirable (if imperfect) record on women's rights, including having had women head every branch of government.

Finally, in declaring Zionism and feminism incompatible, @lsarsour seeks to erase the many, many women—and men—who identify with both.

Here are just a few of the women @lsarsour would no longer consider feminists due to their support of Jewish rights.

It seems that in Linda Sarsour's version of feminism, all women are equal, but some are more equal than others. Israeli women need not apply.

PS:

Oh, PS, @lsarsour: Israeli women receive 26 weeks of maternity leave, of which 14 are paid. Are you a Zionist now? https://t.co/cx9GBnRq74
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) March 16, 2017

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

If you’re not catching flak, then you’re not over the target. And one good way to know that we are scoring points is when our enemies start screaming bloody murder.

So back in 2002, when Israel started building its security barrier, the PLO and its fellow travelers had fits. They had lots of excuses – it was inconvenient for them, it was built on “their” land, it was an “apartheid wall,” it was ugly, and on and on; but the real reason was simple: by making it easier for us to stop terrorists on their way to our buses and restaurants, we took away their best weapon. I know: my son was in the police counter-terrorism unit at the time, and they were going 24/7 to intercept and stop the bombers who were trying to murder us on almost a daily basis. The barrier made their job much easier.

This applies in many areas, not just physical barriers and military tactics. For example, how the Israeli Left squealed in pain when the Knesset passed a law that demanded transparency for foreign-funded NGOs! Even though the law was a pale version of what had been originally proposed, the idea that our country would dare to protect its sovereignty against foreign subversion, subversion that was a meal ticket for hundreds of operatives that spent their days provoking security forces and filming the interactions, informing to the PA about Arabs who considered selling land to Jews, filing lawsuits against the government and the IDF, petitioning the Supreme Court to dismantle Jewish communities – the very idea made them furious. It was undemocratic to let people know that anti-Israel governments in Europe were paying them!

Or what about the recent anti-BDS law? Among others, it’s the progressive Jewish community in America whose ox is being gored this time: the ones like Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism, who love Israel so much that they want her to be better, which they are trying to achieve by boycotting products from “settlements” in order to force her to create another Hamastan next to Route 6, so terrorists can hit the airport and Kfar Saba with mortar shells. How undemocratic it is to say that non-residents of our country who are (either deliberately or because they are useful idiots) working to help destroy it may not sit on the beach in Tel Aviv!

But one of the best examples of the hypocrisy of the Arabs and their friends is their spluttering reaction to this recent remark posted by Avigdor Lieberman on his Facebook page (Hebrew, my tr.)

At the threshold of a new attempt to start up diplomatic negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, we must learn the lessons of the past, and the first lesson is: every attempt to solve the Palestinian issue on a land-for-peace basis is bound to fail.

The only way to a sustainable agreement is through the exchange of territory and population as part of a larger regional peace deal.

It is unthinkable that a homogeneous Palestinian state will be established without a single Jew – 100% Palestinian, and that despite this, Israel will be a bi-national state, with 22% Palestinians.

There is no reason for Sheikh Raed Salah, Ayman Oudeh, Basel Ghattas or Haneen Zoabi to continue to be Israeli citizens.

Lieberman has expressed similar ideas before. It’s essential to understand that he is not advocating that Arabs be expelled from their homes in Israel. His plan is that borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state should be drawn so that large Arab populations that today are in Israel – such as in the ‘triangle’ area near Umm al Fahm – would fall in Palestine, and Israelis today living across the Green Line will be in Israel. Such a trade would not require anyone to move, and would allow Arabs to live under Palestinian sovereignty and Jews under Israeli rule.

Leaving aside the legal complexities, one would think this would appeal to the Arabs. Don’t they want self-determination? Unsurprisingly they hate it, calling it “racist and fascist.”

MK Basel Ghattas, who is presently facing charges of smuggling cellular phones to imprisoned terrorists, did his best to prove Lieberman right, saying,

…there is no doubt that Lieberman, an immigrant from Moldova, doesn’t understand the meaning of a homeland or its native people.

Under any possible future settlement there will be neither room for any land-grabbing settlers in a Palestinian state nor any room for racists the likes of Ivet [Lieberman’s Russian name]. The Palestinians living today in Israel are the masters of the land, and Lieberman is just a passing guest.

According to Ghattas, Lieberman doesn’t understand that the land belongs exclusively to Arabs, that the descendants of Arabs who settled here in the 19^th and 20^th centuries are “natives,” while the Jews living in places mentioned in the Bible are “land-grabbing settlers.”

Ha’aretz, in an editorial, wrote,

The defense minister believes that hundreds of thousands of Israeli Arab citizens don’t really belong to the state and should be transferred from sovereign Israeli territory to another country because of their ethnic affiliation. Practically speaking, under the guise of seeking a “sustainable arrangement,” Lieberman wants to convey to the state’s Arab citizens that they aren’t wanted by the State of Israel and that their citizenship is temporary and conditional. …

Lieberman knows that the right of those born here to maintain Israeli citizenship is no less than that of a Jew who is naturalized by way of the Law of Return. It’s not only that the idea of creating an Israel “cleansed” of Arabs is warped, but that even raising it as an option is unacceptable.

The word “transfer,” which usually refers to forced resettlement, is inflammatory, but that is how the editors of Ha’aretz like it. Nevertheless, their argument is faulty. Ha’aretz and the Arabs both want a chunk of sovereign Israel to be torn off and given to the PLO. So if boundaries need to be drawn, is it not more reasonable to do it on the basis of the ethnicity of the population? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if Palestinians were ruled by Palestinians and Jews by Jews? Why are the 1949 armistice lines a better choice? Why is physical expulsion of Jews from their homes acceptable, but drawing the border to include Arabs in the Arab state not?

Ha’aretz thinks that Lieberman’s proposal is just a stunt to make the Arab citizens of Israel feel unwanted. I don’t support Lieberman’s idea myself, for various reasons, including that it really does insult Arab citizens of Israel, many of whom – with notable exceptions, as Lieberman made clear – are loyal and productive citizens of the state. But whether or not you think it should be implemented, it makes a very important point: it emphasizes the blatantly racist nature of the PLO demand for a Palestinian state without any Jews in it. What’s sauce for the goose, in other words, should also be sauce for the gander.

And let’s face it: why do the Arabs prefer to live under Jewish sovereignty? Of course the answer is that they know very well that despite the alleged “discrimination” and “racism” of Israel, they are and will continue to be far better off in almost every way as Israelis than under the kleptocratic, corrupt, unjust and violent regime of a PLO or a Hamas.

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