Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Book review: The Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower

Yaakov Katz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, and Amir Bohbot of Walla, have published a fascinating history of Israel's modern military, entitled The Weapon Wizards.

The book is divided up into chapters that could each stand alone as excellent magazine articles. It starts off with an overview of how necessity was the mother of invention, specifically a secret bullet manufacturing facility under the noses of the British becoming Israel Military Industries and a brief description of the beginnings of Israel's air force.

The following chapters each concentrate on the history of specific technologies that Israel is now a leader in: drones, adaptive armor (as well as the Merkava tank), spy satellites, anti-missile systems like Iron Dome, intelligence capabilities, and cyber-warfare. These are followed with a chapter about how Israel's arms exports have helped Israel diplomatically.

The Weapon Wizards sticks to one major theme throughout: Israel's innovation is the result of decisions taken early in the state's history to concentrate on qualitative advantages on the battlefield, meaning creativity and decentralized decision-making at war as well as the desire not to be dependent on anyone else for Israel's security. Entire sections of the army are dedicated to nurturing the brightest people to come up with brilliant solutions to problems that most nations haven't had to deal with - yet. And the army itself allows and encourages independent thinking and challenging ones superiors.

In may ways, this book is a mirror-image of the now classic Start-Up Nation, just concentrating on how the army produces people that help the IDF innovate, beyond those who use their knowledge to become successful entrepreneurs. But the IDF isn't an island, and in cyberwarfare it is partnering with Israel's cutting edge cybersecurity private sector as well.

I would have loved if the book had spent more time on future innovations, a topic barely touched on in its concluding chapter. It mentions unmanned warplanes and patrol vehicles, and a couple of other things that most students of Israeli weapons technologies already know about.

As a whole, The Weapon Wizards is a fascinating and ultimately exhilarating celebration of Israeli innovation, creativity, smarts and chutzpah in defending herself.

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Now, Fatah is FORCING prisoners to join hunger strike! (CORRECTION - WRONG)

Back in the 1940s, Arabs in British Mandate Palestine started a boycott of Jewish businesses.

It failed. The Jews opened up new trade markets in Europe and Arab shopkeepers lost lots of money.

Many Arab shopkeepers ignored the boycott in order to keep their livelihoods.

So Arab leaders, zealous to enforce their boycott, started bombing their own people who didn't participate.

The only people hurt by this action were the Arabs themselves, and their wounded pride at the ineffectiveness of their grand plan to hurt Jews caused them to double-down and hurt their own people even more.

That self-defeating mentality of Palestinian Arabs is still here.

~~The Fatah is demanding that all Fatah prisoners in Israel join the hunger strike this Saturday - or else they will be punished.~~

The Office of Mobilization and Organization of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement issued instructions to all its members in Israeli jails to join the open hunger strike immediately or else face consequences, with the exception of sick prisoners and those under 18.

It is not clear what the consequences would be for not joining the hunger strike. The only leverage they have are the salaries that the PLO pays prisoners. It would be richly ironic that prisoners who decide not to join the boycott would be the only ones that the PLO stops rewarding for terror.

Forcing prisoners to act in a certain way doesn't add to the legitimacy of the hunger strike, it makes it into even more of a joke than it already is. It also shows that there is a level of desperation from Palestinian leaders who thought that this stunt would be more effective than their many other stunts. The hunger strike has not generated any real interest from the world media.

We know what will happen. The prisoners will pretend to join, they will sneak candy bars like Marwan Barghouti, the PLO will claim that they now have 5000 hunger strikers while the real number will hover at 10% of that figure, and nothing will change.

CORRECTION: It doesn't happen often but I completely misunderstood the story. Fatah is denying rumors that it will force prisoners to go on hunger strike, I apologize. (h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Today is World Keffiyeh Day to show support for terrorists who cover their faces!

Today is, according to some Facebook event, World Keffiyeh Day:

While people pretend that keffiyehs are simply symbols of solidarity with Palestinian Arabs, their "activists" admit that the keffiyeh is a symbol of violent "resistance" and terror.

Rasmea Odeh, terrorist

Interestingly, the Israel haters like to mainstream the keffiyeh by pretending that "resistance" includes lots of things outside of blowing up Jews, but they clearly include the blowing up Jews part as being "heroic."

.

Palestinians themselves aren't as confused, happily teaching their kids that the entire point of keffiyehs is to cover their faces when they grow up to murder Jews.

And when others use a similar pattern in clothing, Palestinians freak out about "cultural appropriation" - watering down a symbol of Palestinian terrorism is a worse crime than the terrorism itself, from their crazed reactions.

The people who bitterly complain about the keffiyeh being "appropriated" never, and I mean never, complain about it being "appropriated" by terrorists for terror attacks. To them, terror attacks are the essence of Palestinian existence. Which is all the proof you need to know that the keffiyeh is in fact a terrorist symbol, not just an innocuous garment symbolizing peoplehood.

However, there is an appropriate use for keffiyehs: to be worn by dogs. No one seems to mind; dogs with keffiyehs have been seen at anti-Israel rallies. I certainly don't mind dogs with keffiyehs. Dog keffiyehs are highly appropriate, especially for people who regard "dog" as an insult.

Feel free to tweet these images for World Keffiyeh Day under the hashtag #OnlyDogsWearKeffiyehs (and keep the #KeffiyehDay hashtag as well.)

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Democracy, Palestinian-style

Since there is no such thing as democracy for the Arabs in the territories, student elections take up a lot of media attention as a bellwether to how each party would do if there ever was another real election.

Last month Fatah won the student council election at An Najah University in Nablus.

But Wednesday, Hamas won the elections at Bir Zeit University, winning 25 seats to Fatah's 22.

Political observers across the country closely watch the Birzeit student elections. The university is a hub of political activism, and the student vote is considered a reflection of the Palestinian political climate. Many Palestinian political and community leaders have graduated from Birzeit.

Bir Zeit is in Ramallah, the center of the Fatah-dominated government.

Even though most polls show Fatah with a lead in theoretical elections, it is not so clear that Hamas wouldn't win the way they did in 2006.

The third place party with 4 seats was the student arm of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

For some reason, no Western media outlet bothers to note that every single party to gain seats in these elections also happens to be a terrorist group that openly advocates "armed resistance."

Every single one.

Palestinian democracy, such as it is, is giving the people the choice of one terror group over another.

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05/10 Links Pt2: FIFA Postpones anti-Israel move; Trevor Noah to host Islamic Relief fundraiser

From Ian:

FIFA delays decision on Israeli settlement soccer clubs

FIFA said on Tuesday it was “premature” to take any final decision on the controversial issue of Israeli clubs in the West Bank, according to a statement.
The communique came after a five-hour long FIFA Council meeting in Bahrain, ahead of the issue being scheduled for discussion by its annual Congress, which takes place in Manama on May 11.
“Following the report by chairman of the Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine, Tokyo Sexwale, the FIFA Council considered that at this stage it is premature for the FIFA Congress to take any decision,” read the statement.
It is not clear after the statement whether the issue will remain on the Congress’ agenda.
The Palestine Football Association argues that the presence of six Israeli soccer clubs playing inside settlements in the West Bank are in breach of FIFA statutes.
These statutes forbid another member association playing on another territory without permission.
Israel argues that FIFA rules are unenforceable as there is no permanent border. (h/t Yenta Press)

President of Daniel Pearl Foundation Calls on BDS Advocate Linda Sarsour to ‘Disinvite Herself’ From CUNY Ceremony

The father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, has added his voice to the condemnation of the City University of New York (CUNY) over its decision to honor Linda Sarsour, a prominent advocate of the BDS campaign targeting Israel.
In an interview with The Algemeiner on Tuesday, Judea Pearl – a Chancellor’s Professor at UCLA and the president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which promotes cross-cultural understanding – expressed dismay that Sarsour would be giving the commencement speech at the graduation ceremony for CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health on June 1.
Pearl described Sarsour as a “Zionophobe,” a form of prejudice he argued shares common features with Islamophobia.
“A Zionophobe is someone who has an irrational fear of Zionism and coexistence in the Middle East,” Pearl said. “Like Islamophobes, Zionophobes have no respect for other communities’ symbols of identity.”

Sarsour's Anti-Semitism Campaign Minimizes Anti-Semitism

Sarsour also tries to shut down those who cite her record of celebrating terrorists and advocating radical positions by calling the critics Islamophobes. "Linda Sarsour is a Palestinian Muslim American woman in a hijab and she has the audacity to be prominent in this country, the audacity to resonate with communities outside her community," she said, speaking in the third person in the SiriusXM interview. "How dare I do that? How dare I defy every stereotype that Islamophobes have of me."
Yet, she's nakedly intolerant of beliefs other than her own.
Sarsour famously tweeted, "Nothing is creepier than Zionism." That's not a statement critical of the Israeli government or of settlement building in the West Bank. Instead, Sarsour believes the entire concept of a homeland for the Jewish people is flawed, is "creepy."
And Sarsour wants nothing to do with you if you believe in and support the state of Israel. That goes for Jews who might try to stand in solidarity against anti-Muslim bigotry. In her worldview, Zionism and feminism are mutually exclusive. "You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none," Sarsour told The Nation. "There's just no way around it."
"But insisting that Jews need not apply if they subscribe to the belief in a Jewish homeland in Israel is an anti-Semitic double standard," StandWithUs researcher Lauren Post wrote in the Forward. "Too many leftists already ignore anti-Semitism unless it's rhetorically convenient, so perhaps it's unsurprising that Sarsour's brand of feminism demands that we give up our liberation movement for some nebulous greater good."

This one was just too much fun. Especially after a day in which we were told that Trump is definitely not moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv and that it's because Israel asked him not to--only to be told an hour or so later that it's not true and Bibi knows nothing about it.

Same old, same old. *yawn*

But then the Daily Freier came out with this awesome Build your own Sarah Tuttle-Singer article! generator. You click "start survey" and there are five entries, the first four of which you have to fill in the blanks with multiple choice phrases supplied by the author. It's kind of like Mad Libs (remember those?).

The fifth entry is where you can get creative and make up your own stuff--that's the part where she'd normally trash Donald, because no STS article would be worth its salt without some solid Trump-trashing.

And, ha ha, STS herself was forced to be a good sport about it.

The best part? On Friday they say they're going to publish the best stories using the most popular answers. YESH!

My only complaint is that the choices offered are a little too tame. There's no f word, no s word. But you can understand it. They don't really want to emulate the writer's saltier side. Why be like her?

It's enough to suggest she's formulaic and silly. It kind of makes you despair of the human race when you see one of her pieces go viral only because she's used "rabbi" and well, something that shouldn't be in the same title with "rabbi" in it.

Otherwise, no complaints whatsoever.

Sheer pleasure.

Check it out HERE.

UPDATE: The Daily Freier has the winning articles (1st, 2nd, runner-up) HERE. They say almost 800 people played. Awesomeness.

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IDF Bulldozer Demolishes 'Breaking The Silence' Claims Of War Crimes (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, May 10 - The Israeli military deployed a D-9 armored bulldozer this afternoon to destroy spurious charges leveled by self-proclaimed whistleblower group Breaking the Silence that the Israel Defense Forces have systematically mistreated Palestinians under military rule.

The Caterpillar-produced machine dispatched the flimsy structure within minutes, following a brief confrontation during which a Breaking the Silence activist spouted distortions and falsehoods regarding his behavior toward Palestinians when he served in the IDF.

Armored bulldozers have seen frequent use by the Israeli military, most notably during operations against Palestinian militants, but also when standard heavy equipment proves inadequate or unsafe to deploy during the destruction of convicted terrorists' homes. The use of a D-9 to demolish fabricated claims of Israeli misconduct against Palestinians is less frequent, as under most circumstances the willful distortions collapse under their own weight after a short period.

Engineering unit commander Col. Dahpor Meshurian told reporters that in this case, an armored D-9 was selected for the task even though the claims made against the IDF were no more robust than the usual Breaking the Silence and B'tselem accusations. "Other equipment was busy performing other tasks such as helping to construct an underground barrier to Hamas tunnels from Gaza," he explained. "We had both D-9s and D-10s available, but chose the smaller model because it was overkill already."

Human Rights groups were quick to condemn Israel for the move. "That was a disproportionate response," asserted Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch. "Breaking the Silence have a basic right to their narrative, which is that Israel is an unmitigated evil whose presence in the Middle East must be eliminated because it makes Arabs and Muslims feel inadequate, which is a cardinal sin in human rights. Crushing that narrative with blunt wielding of facts and corroborated eyewitness testimony runs roughshod over the feelings of the patriots who want to compromise their fellow citizens' safety and security in order to make a moral or political point, and of course to feel virtuous and persecuted."

Palestinian diplomats urged their allies in the United Nations to call an emergency session of the Security Council to discuss the latest Israeli violation of international norms with the demolition. The prospects of any resolution condemning Israel appear murky at this stage, given declared US support for Israel and American veto power on the Council. According to aides, US Ambassador Nikki Haley is exploring the possibility of bringing a similar bulldozer to the UN for purposes of demolishing hypocritical anti-Israel measures put forth by UNSC member states

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05/10 Links Pt1: While Abbas met with Trump, Fatah honored 12 terrorists; Zionism: Yielding Territory Since 1919

From Ian:

PMW: While Abbas met with Trump, Fatah honored 12 terrorists responsible for murdering 95 people

As Palestinian Authority and Fatah Chairman Abbas met with President Trump last week, the two institutions he heads were busy glorifying murderers and planners of suicide bombings and shooting attacks in which 95 people were murdered.
Fatah posted the photo above of 12 imprisoned terrorist murderers on Facebook and sent "blessings" to the "heroic prisoners":
Posted text: "All blessings to our heroic prisoners carrying out the [hunger] strike of dignity: Karim Younes, Marwan Barghouti, Nael Barghouti, Ahmad Sa'adat, Abbas Al-Sayid, Hassan Salameh, Zaid Bassisi, Bassem Al-Khandaqji, Wajdi Joudeh, Maher Younes, Fuad Al-Shubaki, Wael Al-Jaghoub."
[Official Fatah Facebook page, May 3, 2017]
These are the crimes of Fatah's "heroes":
Hassan Salameh - Serving 46 life sentences for planning suicide bombings that murdered 46.
Abbas Al-Sayid - Serving 35 life sentences for planning suicide bombings that murdered 35.
Marwan Barghouti - Serving 5 life sentences for planning 3 shooting attacks that murdered murdering 5.
Bassem Al-Khandaqji - Serving 3 life sentences for involvement in a suicide bombing that murdered 3.
Zaid Bassisi - Serving a life sentence plus an additional 55 years for planning a car bombing that wounded 8.
Karim and Maher Younes - Each is serving a 40-year sentence for kidnapping and murdering 1.
Nael and Fakhri Barghouti - Each was serving a life sentence for murdering 1. Both were released in the Shalit prisoner exchange deal. Nael Barghouti was rearrested for violating the terms of his release and is serving a life sentence plus an additional 18 years.
Wael Al-Jaghoub - Serving a life sentence for establishing PFLP terror cells and carrying out terror attacks. PMW was unable to verify the details of his crimes.
Ahmad Sa'adat - Serving a 30 year sentence for heading the PFLP terror organization.
Wajdi Joudeh - Serving a 25 year sentence for involvement in a suicide bombing that murdered 4 and wounded 24.
Fuad Al-Shubaki - Serving a 20 year sentence for planning attempt to smuggle 50 tons of illegal weapons to the Palestinian Authority

MEMRI: The Positions And Statements Of Hamas's New Political Bureau Head Isma'il Haniya

On May 6, 2017, Hamas announced that its senior official Isma'il Haniya had been elected as head of its political bureau, in place of Khaled Mash'al, who had held this position since 1996. Haniya, who had been Khaled's deputy, was elected in a movement-internal procedure that took place simultaneously in Gaza and the West Bank via video conference. Haniya previously served as Hamas's leader and prime minister in Gaza.
Over the years, MEMRI has presented Haniya's views and positions on various issues. In his statements Haniya reiterated his movement's commitment to the values of jihad and martyrdom, stressing that jihad is a religious duty that must never be subject to negotiations and that Palestinians are "a people who love death as much as [their] enemies love life." He emphasized that armed resistance is a Palestinian right and a "strategic option" which Hamas will pursue and intensify until the final liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea." He also emphasized that Hamas regards it as its mission to develop increasingly sophisticated means of warfare, from rockets to attack tunnels, and to train the next generation of fighters in their effective use. Accordingly, he praised terrorists who had carried out attacks on Israelis, including on civilians, calling them heroes. He also emphasized that Hamas would never recognize Israel, under any circumstances.
Haniya's rhetoric has been consistently anti-American, for instance when he condemned the U.S. for killing "the mujahid" bin Laden, calling this an expression of America's "policy of oppression," and when he hoped that Allah would "declare war" on the U.S.

David Singer: United Nations Web of Deceit snares International Court of Justice

The United Nations publication The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988 (“Study”) has falsely misrepresented that the Mandate for Palestine was a class A Mandate – deceiving the International Court of Justice and many other reputable sources.
The Study has been published by the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations Secretariat for, and under the guidance of, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
The Study falsely asserts without substantiation:
“All the mandates over Arab countries, including Palestine, were treated as class 'A' Mandates, applicable to territories whose independence had been provisionally recognized in the Covenant of the League of Nations”.
The Study then erroneously concludes:
“Only in the case of Palestine did the Mandate, with its inherent contradictions, lead not to the independence provisionally recognized in the Covenant, but towards conflict that was to continue six decades later.”
However the 1937 Peel Commission Report comprehensively debunks the Study’s concocted claims:

Major Egyptian news site says the Rothschilds are Khazars who control the world to help Israel

Here are the most popular Internet sites in Egypt:

Google (Egyptian and worldwide)
YouTube
Facebook
Youm7 newspaper
Al Bawabh News

Al Bawabh News just published a long article that is a regurgitation of the standard antisemitic slanders, centered around the supposed influence of the Rothschild family who somehow never manage to make it to the top of the list of Forbes richest people.

The first paragraph says it all:

The Rothschild family is the oldest and largest Jewish family of the Jewish Khazars of German origin, owning 80% of the world's wealth. The family is responsible for the creation of all economic crises, as well as political revolutions across the world in collaboration with Rockefeller and Morgan families as it is almost dominated all the central banks of each countries of the world with the exception of a few.

Each paragraph gets more absurd:

These three families have killed a number of American presidents, including President Abraham Lincoln and President William McKinney and President James Garfield and President John F. Kennedy and many members of Congress and the owners of the banks, to the degree that enabled them to provide the largest bribe in history in return for obtaining a sinister promise later named the Balfour Declaration! And all those who stand against these families are killed without pity or mercy.

The video that accompanies the story is narrated in Arabic but it is filled with graphics made by Internet antisemites making up bizarre stories like Adolf Hitler was the grandson of a Rothschild and quotes like this one:

This is what Egyptians are reading every day in their mainstream media.

And there is essentially nothing in their media that ever says otherwise.

But let's talk some more about Islamophobia, because that is more "systemic."

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Eve Spangler is an associate professor of sociology at Boston University. Her "scholarly interests" include "Inequality and Intersectionality; Classical Sociological Theory; Health, Human Rights and Social Justice in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; Work Organization: Health and Safety in the Global Economy."

Spangler wrote a book called "Understanding Israel/Palestine: Race, Nation, and Human Rights in the Conflict" that purports to make the Palestinian issue easy to understand. She writes that the book "will be useful for classes in Middle East studies, peace and conflict studies, Middle East history, sociology of race, and political science. It can be helpful for church groups, labor groups, or other grass roots organizations committed to social justice, and for all readers who wish to be informed about this important topic."

This supposed academic claims that Israeli settlers raise and release wild pigs just to irritate Palestinians.

But she has a footnote! Where is her scholarly source?

It's Mondoweiss. But Mondoweiss didn't even write the article, it was excerpted from the absurd anti-Israel propaganda site IMEMC.

Palestinian farmers in the Salfit district appealed all to Palestinian and international bodies to stop the continued destruction of their crops, caused by the Israeli pigs in the district.Farmers said, ‘We have encountered heavy losses in our wheat and barley crops, where the pigs destroyed them completely.’

They added, ‘We tried to get rid of the pigs with all available ways but we have failed’, pointing out that the only way is to shoot them; which is difficult due to the miltary’s monitoring towers and checkpoints in the area.

Furthermore, according to Al Ray, Palestinian researcher Khaled Maali explained that the settlers found launching wild pigs toward the Palestinian farmlands was the best effective way to fight the Palestinian farmers without significant cost.

Maali pointed out that the occupation prevents the Palestinians from shooting the pigs, whereas it permits settlers to kill the pigs when they reach their colonial settlements.

Even this story is internally inconsistent, claiming that settlers raise pigs (against Jewish law)for no other reason but to release them in Palestinian farms, yet they also shoot the pigs that somehow make their way back to where they were raised.

And even if the story was true, Spangler should have sourced it correctly instead of referring to a secondary source, showing that even as a lying academic, she fails as an academic.

The idea that Jews raise and release wild boars (which have lived in the region since Biblical times) is laughable to anyone with the ability to think - but not to a Boston University PhD who specializes in "Inequality and Intersectionality".

Oh, Spangler also writes in her book as fact that Israel engages in "pink-washing" - that any human rights it gives to LGBT community is really an attempt to divert attention from its crimes, an equally laughable slander.

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Palestine Today quotes Dr. Munir Bursh, the pharmacy director at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, saying that the Palestinian Authority has stopped supplying medicines and baby formula to Gaza altogether.

"90% of the treatment of cancer patients in the Gaza Strip has stopped due to the lack of the supply of drugs," he said.

Bursh added, "This is reprehensible and very strange, threatening a major health disaster up to the collapse of the health situation in Gaza, because the Ramallah government has been responsible for supplying medicine to Gaza, despite the deficit in the previous years."

"Whoever made this decision is killing the entire people, and punishing the entire people."

He said that the PA supplies the Gaza Strip with medicines every two months, but it did not send any medicines for three months now.

Hospitals in Gaza are also worried about the closure of the Gaza power plant due to the spat between Hamas and Fatah, saying that they cannot desalinate the water needed for every day purposes.

The PA denies the story of stopping medicines to Gaza, although it has publicly threatened to stop pretty much everything they pay for that goes to Gaza in recent weeks in an attempt to get angry Gazans to rise up against Hamas.

Of course, the Western media is all over this story, because the lives and well-being of Gazans are so important to them and the people being blamed for their predicament is not at all a factor in how the story of Gaza suffering gets reported to the world.

Oh, sorry, I was delirious for a minute there. The stories of both how Israel has refused to stop electricity to Gaza despite the PA's refusal to pay, and this story, have been completely ignored by Western media, NGOs and so-called "pro-Palestinian" activists, because if Israel cannot be blamed, the suffering of Gazans is simply not newsworthy.

Which proves yet again that the reporting and NGO reports from Gaza are not motivated by human rights or morality, but a desire by NGOs and reporters to bash Israel.

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05/09 Links Pt2: Hungry Hungry Hypocrite; Ayaan Hirsi Ali: 'Anti-Semitism Is Back. Because Of Islam'

From Ian:

Hungry Hungry Hypocrite

Marwan Barghouti is hungry no more.
Last month, the Palestinian terrorist currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in planning three attacks that claimed the lives of five civilians, took to the pages of The New York Times to tell the world that he will join with many of his fellow incarcerated terrorists and starve himself in protest for what he described as “Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation.”
Like so much of Palestinian nationalism, however, Barghouti’s protest turned out to be just a piece of bad theater, lacking any candor, courage, and conviction. Yesterday, Israel’s prison authority released videos that clearly show the allegedly suffering Barghouti enjoying cookies and candy bars in the privacy of his own cell. Talk about a hungry, hungry hypocrite: as soon as he’s done wolfing down the treat, Barghouti rushes to the toilet and flushes away the evidence, like a furtive smoker in an airplane bathroom.
Having gone on a prolonged hunger strike myself some decades ago, I know what forgoing food does to your mind and your body. I know how hard it can be, which is why I’m not at all surprised to learn that Barghouti just didn’t have what it takes to transcend. Men who have no qualms about murdering innocents are not and can never be resilient leaders, just as national movements focused on advertising and exaggerating their victimhood are not and can never be committed to true reconciliation. Barghouti, poetically, is the perfect embodiment of Palestinian officialdom: speaking of virtue to a gullible international audience before retiring to a corner and indulging in vice. Bon appetite, Marwan, and if you’d like some more snacks, Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation will be happy to provide.

Ben-Dror Yemini: It’s Israel’s duty to expose Barghouti as a crook

Perhaps one day, Marwan Barghouti will lead the Palestinians to a historic compromise. In the meantime, however, he is a Hamas collaborator and an enemy of the possibility to renew the peace process. Weakening him, under the current circumstances, is the right thing to do.
We want peace. We fight for peace. But in the meantime we must remember that we are in a state of war. Not one war, but two wars. One is taking place on the battlefield. Hamas drags us there every few years. This war is being waged on a lower key, both through the knifing and stone-throwing terror attacks and through different other measures targeting Israel nonstop.
The second war is a war on the collective consciousness. A war of demonization. A war that seeks to present Israel as a monster. This war has had quite a lot of achievements.
The jailed terrorists, from Fatah and Hamas, have become full partners in both wars. Some of them try to launch and plan terror attacks from prison. Others try to present themselves as martyrs fighting for “an end to the occupation” or for “liberation.” Every other prisoner tries to present himself as a freedom fighter, and every other prisoner is actually Nelson Mandela. It’s true that they murdered civilians and babies and women and elderly people. And it’s true that when they say “an end to the occupation,” they are referring to Tel Aviv as well. And it’s true that their liberation is sort of like the Islamic State is liberating Iraq and Hamas is liberating Gaza. But in the war on the collective consciousness, they are winning.

Gerald M. Steinberg: Media 'misleading' on Palestinian prisoners

Allegations regarding Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners- a group that includes many convicted terrorists guilty of murder, bombings of buses and cafes, and other atrocities- gain international visibility through hunger strikes.
The current hunger strike follows in that tradition, with the participation of members of terrorist organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Islamic Jihad, and Fatah terror groups.
As in previous years, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) joined the public relations campaign, promoting the hunger strikers while failing to acknowledge the reasons for their jail sentences- conviction for violent crimes.
The NGOs leading this media campaign also support discriminatory BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel, and have alleged ties to terror groups.

This article from Iran's Abna is notable for its value as short fiction. It certainly fails as propaganda.

It is the trembling curse that hits the Zionist soldiers who are chosen to serve in the occupied Lebanese Kfarshouba Heights and Shebaa Farms.

... Zionist soldiers deployed in the Shebaa Farms live a permanent state of war, considering themselves the loser party at all times due to previous confrontations in the area, which were in favor of the resistance. The Israeli forces know that when resistance fighters decide to attack any post or patrol, or to plant an explosive device anywhere inside the so-called “secure” depth, they succeed most of the times, and the Israeli reaction comes later after counting the casualties and losses.

There is no doubt that such an impression will influence the psychological abilities and the initiative of the occupation forces. Something that the Israeli army has been trying to divert attention from, through raising the dose of its drills, exaggerating the show of force in operating Merkavas and shelling when any doubts emerge that a breach has happened in some place in the occupied farms. Besides, the occupation army has been preceding the shifting and routine movements of its forces by combing the overlooking sites towards the routes that the vehicles shall pass over with medium and heavy submachine guns. This all happens in parallel with unstopping deployment of spy drones and sometimes helicopters, depending on the importance of the moving convoy.

Moreover, Shepherds, who walk with their herds to some areas along the blue line in Shebaa Farms and Kfarshouba Hills, expose a source of concern for the Israeli forces serving in the sites spread along the confrontation line.

The Zionists consider that the shepherds aren’t but monitoring devices for the resistance, no matter whether they are young or old. Therefore, the plan to set ambushes for shepherds is one of the Zionist army’s priorities. And recently the occupation army has intensified its attempts to detain shepherds and kidnap their herds even if this required breaching the blue line, and that what always happens in the Saddaneh, Berket al-Naqqar, Bustra and Jabal al-Shahl. However, the occupation forces often fail to capture the shepherds due to the latter’s experience in escaping after successive Israeli attempts. Occupation soldiers, hence, take revenge by retaining numbers of the cattle to extort the Lebanese side and demand to drive the shepherds away.

As for the dawn and morning fog on the heights and highlands occupied by the Israeli enemy, there is another story. First of which is the nightmare of the resistance men’s ghosts behind the trees and the rocks. The Zionist soldiers protecting their spots chase those ghosts with heavy fire, under a complete curfew all over the occupied territory! Not to mention, they spend hard times with the breakdown of tracking and thermal monitoring devices, as well as lack of vision of cameras, something that prompts the artillery to shell all forests and areas surrounding their spots and military routes until the nightmare is over, to be followed with a nightmare of waiting. It is because the fog would have carried some “undesired guests”!!

The scene repeats almost on a daily basis in the high occupied mountains overlooking the Arkoub villages...

Until the last Zionist soldier is moved out of a land whose people seek to clean it up from the occupation with all possible means, occupation soldiers who desecrate this land will remain a legitimate target, and they will remain terrified, concerned and horrified.

You (Zionist soldiers) shall be waiting for the angels of Rudwan* whenever wind blows… whenever fog reigns… You shall be waiting, until you see their ghosts behind every rock and behind every tree.

*: Rudwan is the nom de guerre of Hezbollah’s senior military commander, Hajj Imad Mughniyeh.

*Who is, of course, dead.

The entire article is a laughable attempt at psy-ops. The only level is succeeds in is how bad it is. Bu tit might be a warning that Hezbollah is up to something.

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A piece of paper with writing on it brought the complexities of my grandfather’s personality, rushing back to me, from beyond the grave. I don’t believe he placed much importance on what he wrote. How could he know that his words, so clearly would make him vivid to me, once more?

I can see him standing, quietly leaning on the window ledge. Looking at his expression, few would be able to conceive the depths of his thoughts. How many.

I always thought of my grandfather, my Saba, as having the soul of a scientist.

Read his words and you will see the soul of a poet.

“From a balcony on the northern edge of Jerusalem, Israel’s Memorial Day begins like many others, the sun splashing on ice-blue sky with improbable color as it thrusts through the haze over the Judean Hills. The traffic in the street below is desultory; today it moves between flag-draped buildings to stop, at a distant signal, for the moment when Israel recalls her dead with quiet mourning and her life with quiet joy.

In the playground of the school across the street the soccer balls and other games are put away for now. A file of children, dressed in their best, unfurl small flags and are marshalled for a ceremony of their own. A loudspeaker reviews the purpose of the day, and the children pace, to music, around the familiar field in unfamiliar dignity.

Fifteen children with fifteen flags:

The moving circle of flags is answer to Hitler, to Mussolini, to Horthy and Petain and Mosley; to all of those who said to their momentary masters, here are the Jews, take them; to the Mufti, Haj Amin el Husseini, to John Glubb’s Arab Legion, and to all the dark legion of others who denied, denied, denied.

Fifteen children with fifteen flags in a very un-military march, circling in the Jerusalem sun: what kind of answer can they be to a world convulsed before they were born? They are an answer, some of them by being born at all, all of them by making their circle where it is, in a world which – too often – still denies them. They are an answer because they are an affirmation.

The children disperse, and now their circle cannot be seen. But it is still there.”

He knew the secret. “It is still there.”

My grandfather was extraordinary. Here was a man who chose the Jewish people - not because he was born into the Nation of Israel, nor out of religious conviction. He did it because he believed in the “American way”. He believed in truth and justice. He believed that the strong should protect the weaker and that freedom means everything.

The conviction that “Jewish blood was worth more than Arab oil” is what brought him to my grandmother and changed his life forever.

He did it for love.

Now it is his “circle” that can no longer been seen. But it is still there.

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05/09 Links Pt1: Jerusalem is holy to Jews, not Muslims; Erdogan calls for Muslims to flood Temple Mount

From Ian:

Jerusalem is holy to Jews, not Muslims

No matter UNESCO, no matter the Islamic world, Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people.
Jerusalem is the only city in the world in which Jews have formed a majority since the 1880s. Today, Jerusalem, in addition to being home to Judaism’s greatest sanctuaries, is the seat of Israel’s government, the Knesset, the Supreme Court, the National Library and the Hebrew University. Its population is two-thirds Jewish.
It is only under unified Israeli rule since 1967 that the city as a whole has been revitalized, enjoyed stunning growth and also, at last, full freedom of religion for its mosaic of faiths ––precisely what would be threatened by its redivision, as is already obvious in the Christian exodus from Palestinian-controlled Gaza and Bethlehem.
Whatever form a final peace settlement might one day take, there is no morally just or legally sound reason inflate or fabricate Muslim claims while denying Jerusalem’s Jewish primacy and history.
The Trump Administration rightly condemned the UNESCO resolution. It should now defund UN bodies that practice this form of delegitimizing political warfare, starting with UNESCO.
Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dr. Daniel Mandel is Director of the ZOA’ s Center for Middle East Policy and author of H.V. Evatt & the Establisment of Israel (Routledge, London, 2004).

Reuters chief slams US Ambassador for desecrating 'Nakba Day'

Newly-appointed US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is set to arrive in Israel next Monday, beginning his service in the Jewish state a week ahead of President Trump’s first visit to Israel since taking office in January.
On Tuesday, a Twitter account in Friedman’s name confirmed that he would be heading to Israel on May 15th.
“I am arriving in Israel on May 15 to represent the United States as Ambassador to Israel. I hope to work out of Jerusalem very soon!”
The post, which was retweeted by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, appears to be fraudulent and the account fake.
The faux Friedman announcement drew consternation, from at least one senior journalist, who criticized the timing of Friedman’s departure for Israel.
Luke Baker, Israel bureau chief for Reuters, expressed disapproval that Friedman would be beginning his service in the US Embassy in Israel on May 15th, coinciding with “Nakba Day”.

Palestinians Use Deception for Greater Acceptance

While the Fatah-affiliated PA likes to present itself as more moderate than Hamas, its rejection of Israel is essentially the same. "The Fatah Movement never demanded that Hamas recognize Israel," said Fatah Central Committee member and Commissioner of Treasury and Economy Muhammad Shtayyeh, on official Palestinian Authority TV last March. "To this moment, Fatah does not recognize Israel. The topic of recognition of Israel has not been raised in any of Fatah's conferences."
Abbas also didn't let truth get in the way of his breathtakingly false statement, made before Trump and the U.S. media, that the Palestinians "are the only remaining people in the world that still live under occupation." The Tibetans, Kurds, and Cypriots are just a few of the many groups who would disagree.
Trump "raised concerns about the payments to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who have committed acts of terror," said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. But a senior PA official rejected the idea as "insane," claiming that PA payments to imprisoned terrorists are like salaries paid to IDF soldiers. Just days before Abbas met Trump, senior Fatah leader Rawhi Fattouh even argued that donor countries should welcome PA payments to terrorists because this practice promotes peace by keeping the Palestinian terrorists from joining "ISIS or any other extremist party."
A few weeks before the Trump-Abbas meeting, the Palestinian Information Center called Tel-Aviv a "settlement" in a tweet, implying that even Israel's commercial capital – considered well within Israel proper by international consensus – should be part of a future Palestine. Josh Block, head of The Israel Project, uncovered the tweet, which was released on Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Palestinian Information Center tweet referred to the "so-called Holocaust."