Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

07/19 Link Pt2: UNESCO is an Immoral, Anti-Semitic Organization; Linda Sarsour: The crybaby terrorist supporter

From Ian:

UN Watch: Report on U.N. Social Media Posts Accusing Israel of ‘Apartheid’

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres just swore in a new head of ESCWA, the UN regional agency for the Middle East that is composed of 18 Arab states, and based in Beirut. Israel has been excluded from the time the agency was founded four decades ago.
In March, Mr. Guterres rightly took action to remove ESCWA’s unauthorized publication of a politicized report—co-authored by Richard Falk, a discredited former UN official who was condemned by Ban Ki-moon for promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories—that demonized Israel as an “Apartheid” state.
As stated by Mr. Guterres, the Executive Secretary of ESCWA is “a representative of the Secretary-General.” As such, Mr. Guterres is obliged to uphold UN discipline regarding posts that single out a member states in contravention of the UN Charter.
ESCWA Speeches and Posts Demonizing Israel
Despite Mr. Guterres’ clear and unequivocal stand in March, numerous ESCWA webpages, Facebook posts, and tweets continue to display this same “Israel Apartheid” slur.
For example, on 6 March, Mr. Guterres’ then-representative Rima Khalaf abused the occasion of International Women’s Day at UN House in Beirut—with Mr. Guterres’ photo on display, and right after his message was read—to attack “the Israeli apartheid regime.” A room full of UN officials heard it, yet failed to object. Ms. Khalaf is gone, yet her obscene remarks are still online on the UN site.

UNESCO is an Immoral, Anti-Semitic Organization

Although Europe claims to respect human rights and the rights of peoples, it has been a party to violating the most essential right of the Jewish people: the recognition of its existence for more than 3,000 years, and the anchoring of this existence to its sacred monuments. Worse, Europe does so in the name of a people fictitiously invented less than 50 years ago. No serious scholar can find any trace of a "Palestinian people" before the 1960s. Europe has apparently been all too happy to accept lies.
While claiming to fight terrorism, Europe complies with the demands of a terrorist movement that does not even bother to hide its terrorist nature. When Mahmoud Abbas speaks Arabic, he continually incites the murder of Jews. He recently repeated that he would not stop paying tried, convicted and imprisoned murderers of Jews, and still calls these murderers heroic "martyrs". On all maps used by the Palestinian Authority and in Palestinian textbooks, Israel does not exist; it is called Palestine.
Europeans, imbued with a generic sense of guilt, began attributing all that is wrong in the world to Western civilization. Because they had colonized parts of the Muslim world, they failed to note that Muslim culture had, in fact, colonized Persia, the Byzantine Empire, the Middle East, Greece, Cyprus, the Balkans, North Africa, Southern Spain, and, more recently, northern Cyprus.

Operation Good Neighbor: Israel’s massive humanitarian aid to Syria revealed

The Israeli military on Wednesday unveiled the scope of its humanitarian assistance in Syria that has dramatically mushroomed over the last year to include treating chronically ill children who have no access to hospitals, building clinics in Syria and supplying hundreds of tons of food, medicines and clothes to war-ravaged villages across the border.
Since Syria disintegrated in to a brutal civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced, Israel has struggled with how to deal with the humanitarian disaster taking place just across the border, a dilemma made even more complicated by the fact that Israel and Syria remain officially at war.
Israel initially responded by providing medical treatment to Syrians wounded in the war, treating more than 3,000 people in field hospitals on the border and in public hospitals, mostly in northern Israel since 2013.
But on Wednesday the army revealed that since June 2016 it has quietly been working on Operation Good Neighbor, a massive multi-faceted humanitarian relief operation to keep starvation away from the thousands of Syrians who live along the border and provide basic medical treatment to those who cannot access it in Syria because of the war.
In the year since the operation was launched, over 600 Syrian children, accompanied by their mothers, have come to Israel for treatment. Hundreds of tons of food, medical equipment and clothing have also been sent across the border to Syria, clearly bearing Hebrew labels from Israeli companies.

Operation Good Neighbor

Operation Good Neighbor is a mission of compassion for those in need and of hope for a better, more secure border between Israel and Syria. Over the past six years, we’ve seen war destroy the lives of Syrian civilians. We couldn’t stand by and watch. While carrying out Operation Good Neighbor, we’ve had the honor of meeting our neighbors and hearing their stories.

My friends Jerry and Leora Hyman take advantage of the Waqf-free environment to visit the Temple Mount

The word Islam has been referred to, most famously by Barack Obama, as the religion of peace. That's because the word "Islam" is derived from the same three-letter root as the word "salaam," which is similar to the Hebrew "shalom." "Salaam" means "peace."

But "Islam" does not mean "peace." It means "submission."

What is peace to a Muslim? It is submission. To Allah, to jizya, to the sword, to other Muslims. When others submit, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, there is peace and quiet. After all, if you slaughter people, they no longer make noise or fight back. They're DEAD.

And that is why jihadists go around killing people. In this way, they're fulfilling their religion the easy way, spreading the religion of peace through submission to the sword.

So it's an interesting thing that now the shoe is on the other foot.

Since the terror attack on the Temple Mount on Friday, Israel has forced the Muslim Waqf into submission. First, the police kicked all Muslims out of the Temple Mount so they could run their investigation into the attack. Then, Israel decided to put metal detectors on the Temple Mount.

The Waqf protested and said they would not submit to metal detectors, and so, as a protest, they've mostly stopped going to the Temple Mount. They have voluntarily given up their control over the Temple Mount. They've submitted to the Jews.

They've as much as admitted it. Israel National News reported that the Islamic Waqf Authority made an announcement to that effect. The headline of this story is "Waqf: We have lost control over the Temple Mount."

They've even told Muslim worshippers to stay home—that their prayers are invalid if they've gone through the metal detectors.

What does this mean? It means that the Jews have won peace through Arab submission. The Arabs have been forced to either comply with Israeli security measures or stay off the Mount, so they're staying off. This means that not only can Jews go up to the Mount without being harassed, spat upon, and treated like criminals, they can actually PRAY.

And it's not just Jews celebrating, but at least one God-fearing Christian woman, "Jerusalem Jane" Jane Kiel, as well.

As hopeful as this all seems, it will not last. It's inevitable: Israel gains the upper hand, then allows the Arabs to play the victor. Why this should be, I have no idea. It's sickening and sad.

How do I know this will happen? Prime Minister Netanyahu held a question and answer session at the Knesset on Monday. MK Shuli Moalem Rafaeli asked a three-part question about Temple Mount rights and Bibi expressed his commitment to the status quo.

Thanks to Einat Hashman's translation of this transaction between the prime minister and MK Moalem, my readers can all be privy to Bibi's in depth expressed opinion on the Temple Mount and Jewish rights:

Shuli Mualem: Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing my daughter Nitzan Moalem marry, and I accompanied her to the entrance gate to the Temple Mount. I would like to ask you a three part question about the Temple Mount.

The first part is why the Waqf personnel are allowed to accompany and disturb most of the time, Jews visiting the Mount? From where does the Waqf derive the authority to do this? It is illegal. It creates a lot of friction. I should think an [Israeli] police escort would suffice.

The second part [of my question], if I may, why has it been decided that only one group of Jews will be allowed in at the time, even in contrast with allowances granted to tourists? There is the impression that we [Jews] do not even have the rights of every average traveler or tourist from Honolulu.

Bibi: Excuse me, what was the second question? I did not understand.

Moalem: At any given time on the Temple Mount, there is only one Jewish group of eight to ten Jewish visitors.

The third part relates to the opening hours of the Temple Mount to Jewish visitors. These hours are very, very limited and do not allow Jews to visit, not on Saturdays or in the afternoons when people finish their day's work and seek to ascend to the holiest place.
Bibi: MK Moalem, I will start with the third part of your question. Opening hours have not changed. They have been fixed for many years and I do not intend to change them; because there is a principle that I am trying to uphold, and that is the "status quo" principle.

I do not want to change it, not regarding visiting hours for Jews, [and] not regarding prayer times and prayer arrangements for Arabs. [The status quo] was decided after the Six-Day War. It has undergone a few changes, but it has been with us for many years.

Now since then, I know that you have certainly noticed we are witnessing religious wars on a global scale, with attempts to incite hundreds of millions of Muslims in general, and against Israel in particular, and the focus of incitement, we see clearly, has been and remains the Temple Mount. There are stories going around that we are going to break the status quo, that we are going to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque, that we will change the order of prayer, the order of visits, and so forth. That's why I set a policy. I stick to it. I think it's correct, to prevent any changes in the existing arrangements. This is regarding the hours.

We do not prevent... I did request to prevent Jewish and Arab Knesset members alike, Jews and Muslims alike, from visiting the Mount, because of my assessment—based on experience as well as on information and intelligence warnings—or intelligence assessments. I wanted to disallow entry to the Temple Mount [for members of Knesset], at least at this stage, in order to prevent that incitement. I see no reason to think otherwise at this point. This does not mean that the restriction will not change in the future, but at the moment, despite our best intentions, we do not believe that the time has come.

Regarding the escorting of groups, the role of the Waqf, as has been agreed upon with the State of Israel, is to protect the arrangements that the Waqf is obligated to, including supervising the various parties operating there—not necessarily us—and we asked that the Waqf be fortified.

In the context of our contacts with the Jordanian government, we asked that the Waqf will act responsibly, that there will be support forces backing the Waqf regarding things on which we see eye-to-eye with the Jordanian government, and I hope things will happen accordingly. I do not know of any harassment [of Jews by the Waqf], and if there is such harassment, we will make sure that it will not happen. (emphasis added)

Well, Bibi, the status quo seriously SUCKS, as you'd know if you knew anything about the goings on at the Temple Mount. It's unsustainable. What we need is peace. Real peace.

The kind of peace that can only be had through Arab submission to Israel.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this piece the "status quo" has once again been imposed at the expense of Jewish freedom of religion in the Holy Land. Jewish visitors have been barred from the Temple Mount because the police kept catching them in prayer, which the police are calling a "violation of visitation rules."

07/19 Link Pt1: Phillips: The day of deranged inversion; Huge increase in PA terror funding in 2017

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The day of deranged inversion

The Israelis’ real crime, in the Arabs’ eyes, is to assert control of any kind on Temple Mount. The Arabs have threatened to unleash world war if Jews were ever to have free access to it or in any way alter the status quo. That status quo means Jews have their access to Temple Mount heavily restricted and are not even allowed to pray on it.
This despite the fact that, as the site of the original Jewish Temple, it is the holiest place of all for religious Jews. The Arab and Muslim belligerency over Temple Mount is not just an attack on Israel but on Judaism itself.
The most frightening thing of all about this, the one thing that the secular west just cannot begin to grasp, is that the murderously-incited Arabs really do believe the lie that Temple Mount (and all of Jerusalem, and all of Israel) belong only to them rather than to the Jews – the only people for whom this land was ever their national kingdom.
Back in 2014, the distinguished medievalist (and originator of the term “Pallywood”) Professor Richard Landes wrote a fine piece explaining the cultural dynamic behind this otherwise baffling inversion of reality by the Arab and Muslim world. This is the key passage:
So, alongside the nakba (catastrophe) that struck hundreds of thousands of the Arab inhabitants of the former British Mandate Palestine, we find yet another, much greater psychological catastrophe that struck the entire Arab world and especially its leaders: a humiliation so immense that Arab political culture and discourse could not absorb it. Initially, the refugees used the term nakba to reproach the Arab leaders who started and lost the war that so hurt them. In a culture less obsessed by honor and more open to self-criticism, this might have led to the replacement of political elites with leaders more inclined to move ahead with positive-sum games of the global politics of the United Nations and the Marshall Plan. But when appearances matter above all, any public criticism shames the nation, the people, and the leaders.
Instead, in a state of intense humiliation and impotence on the world stage, the Arab leadership chose denial—the Jews did not, could not, have not won. The war was not—could never—be over until victory. If the refugees from this Zionist aggression disappeared, absorbed by their brethren in the lands to which they fled, this would acknowledge the intolerable: that Israel had won. And so, driven by rage and denial, the Arab honor group redoubled the catastrophe of its own refugees: They made them suffer in camps, frozen in time at the moment of the humiliation, waiting and fighting to reverse that Zionist victory that could not be acknowledged. The continued suffering of these sacrificial victims on the altar of Arab pride called out to the Arab world for vengeance against the Jews. In the meantime, wherever Muslims held power, they drove their Jews out as a preliminary act of revenge.
The Arab leadership’s interpretation of honor had them responding to the loss of their own hard zero-sum game—we’re going to massacre them—by adopting a negative-sum strategy. Damaging the Israeli “other” became paramount, no matter how much that effort might hurt Arabs, especially Palestinians. “No recognition, no negotiations, no peace.” No Israel. Sooner leave millions of Muslims under Jewish rule than negotiate a solution. Sooner die than live humiliated. Sooner commit suicide to kill Jews than make peace with them.
Please think about this when you read about the violence taking place against Israelis – then, now and in the future.

David Horovitz: On Temple Mount, Israel long since made its fundamental compromise

No concession, agreed by Israel in negotiations to resolve the current standoff, could come close to matching that most dramatic of compromises half a century ago, in which the revived Jewish nation, having defeated its enemies in a war foisted upon it and liberated the most sacred place in its religious heritage, promptly relinquished its religious rights there to the representatives of its vanquished enemies.
And no compromise agreed to by Israel today could compare in its repercussions to the impact of that agreement 50 years ago, which has empowered a Palestinian and wider Muslim false narrative that asserts the Jews actually have no connection to the Mount, no history there, no legitimacy there — and by extension no sovereign legitimacy in Israel either. Why did defense minister Moshe Dayan’s concession on June 10, 1967, fuel that false narrative? Because, the way it was perceived in much of the Muslim world, the Jews could not and would not have relinquished their authority over the site if it truly constituted the most sacred physical focal point of their faith. Israel’s restraint, its religious realpolitik, in other words, has come to be regarded as proof of our illegitimacy. And of our duplicity. We were not the returning liberators; we were interlopers, who could and would be resisted until we returned to whence we ostensibly came.
Why get into all that decades-old history again now? Why focus on Israeli forbearance half a century ago, and decades of Muslim delegitimization, when we’re grappling with immediate dangers swirling around the Temple Mount? Because that’s what all of this is really about. Israel made its big-picture choice 50 years ago. It opted not to insist on religious freedom for Jews at the Temple Mount. Indeed, it opted not to insist on religious freedom at the Temple Mount, period. Israel deferred to Muslim sensitivities because of its perceived wider interests in working to normalize its very sovereign presence in the hostile Middle East.
Was that a historic mistake? Well, maybe it was, or maybe it was a vital, nation-saving imperative. It’s emphatically a question worth exploring. But the fact is that, today, right now, despite endless false assertions in the Muslim world to the contrary, there is no indication that the Netanyahu government intends to revisit that fundamental decision, no sign that it intends to reassert Israel’s fleeting full sovereignty at the Temple Mount.
In which case, it has less than three days, at most, to find an arrangement both sides can live with — to add one more tweak to that most dramatic of concessions from 50 years ago.

PMW: PMW exclusive: Huge increase in PA terror funding in 2017

PA increases spending by 13% for salaries to terrorist prisoners and by 4% for payments to families of terrorist "Martyrs"
Direct terror funding expenditures by the PA now reach 1.237 billion shekels or $355 million in 2017
Below, for your convenience, are two PMW charts depicting PA terror funding in 2017
The PA has publicized its budget for 2017, which includes how much it will be spending on salaries to terrorist prisoners and to families of terrorist "Martyrs." Ignoring demands to stop rewarding terror by the United States, EU countries, Israel and many others, the PA in 2017 is actually increasing significantly these outlays. The PA expenditure for salaries to terrorist prisoners has risen by a huge 13%, from 488 million shekels ($135 million) in 2016 to 550 million shekels ($158 million), and the expenditure for payments to families of "Martyrs" has gone up by 4% from 660 million shekels ($183 million) to 687 million shekels ($197 million). In 2017, the PA's total expenditure for directly funding terror is 1.237 billion shekels or $355 million.

Funniest video I've seen in a while

Mustafa Barghouti, the lying Palestinian official we mentioned yesterday, was the star of this video taken in 2015 that is a must-see.

He says, “They started shooting at us, also with tear gas, but they will never succeed to scare us. We are staying here, steadfast, fighting. Tear gas is coming here… I salute all the young men and women… This will not scare us. We will stay steadfast..”

Then see how steadfast he and his rioting friends are.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Some thoughts about (another) "Day of Rage" and honor/shame

Fatah declared today, Wednesday to be a "Day of Rage."

This is supposed to instill fear in the hearts of the dhimmis, who presumably forgot that the last "Days of Rage" were only a couple of months ago. Almost every Friday in May was a "day of rage" in support of the prisoner hunger strike, an issue that faded so quickly it seems hard to remember how important Palestinians pretended it was.

Just like metal detectors on the Temple Mount.

It is important to realize that "Days of Rage" are not responses to events. To the contrary.

Palestinians are completely defined by honor and shame. They cannot communicate except in those terms. Arabic media is filled with words like "humiliation." They are walking bundles of shame waiting for events to attach these "Days of Rage" to - because they want excuses to turn their shame into honor.

Their sense of self-worth is so pathetically poor that they look for excuses to start riots and to display rage to the world. They believe that by starting riots and causing Israeli security forces to deploy, they have achieved a tiny degree of honor. They are not as irrelevant as they fear - they have caused mighty Israel to notice them. They matter.

Rage is the only reliable product Palestinians have.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad can hold a rally with tens of thousands of people for any reason. Fatah's followers are not quite as fanatic, but give them an excuse to fight their shame, to show their rage, and they will come.

This is why this was never about metal detectors. Palestinians look at any Israeli display of control as evidence of their irrelevance, and there is nothing more shameful than being unimportant and impotent.

The reaction to such an affront is violence. Violent people are not impotent, they are doing something that makes it into newspapers and gets noticed by the world media.

The Fatah Facebook page has these posters:

# The Rage of Jerusalem

The world must know that we here are the owners of this land, and that we won't prostrate, and that we are returning

Indeed it is a revolution until victory... until victory
The Rage of Jerusalem

The rage of Jerusalem

The intifada is continuing... the revolution is continuing until (it reaches) Jerusalem

They are using these hashtags to push this "Day of Rage."

#إغضب - Get angry!

أبواب_ الأقصى _مغلقة - Aqsa doors closed

#الأقصى _بلا _مصلين - Aqsa no worshipers

#إغلاق _الاقصى - Closing of Al aqsa

Of course, Al Aqsa is open to Muslims. If anyone is closing it, it is the Waqf.

So why aren't any Muslims walking through the metal detectors to pray?

Because these daily, violent protests are really picket lines, and any Arab who dares to cross the picket line would be in danger!

Anyone defying the desire of the PA and the Waqf shows how irrelevant those groups are. Pretending to be important is a more important value to Palestinians than prayer at their supposedly holiest site in the region.

Palestinians are actively blocking Muslims from praying at their own holy site - and blaming Israel.

While on Sunday there were some Muslims who went through the metal detectors, since then I have not heard of any. Is it because, of the thousands that visit the site every day, not one thinks it is important enough to go to now?

Yet I cannot find any criticism of the Waqf and PA policy to intimidate every Muslim from going to the site.

This is not because 100% of all Israeli and Palestinian Muslims have decided to follow the Waqf instructions. It is because they are afraid of what could happen to them and their families if they even say they don't agree.

Solidarity is a very important part of the shame culture, and if anyone breaks ranks that is a source of shame. People must self-censor out of fear.

Westerners don't get how much that fear colors the interviews and even polls of Palestinians. They repeat what they think they are supposed to say; independent thinking is kept within.

When it is convenient to say that the Al Aqsa Mosque is a hugely important place for prayer, that is what is said. When it is convenient to say that it is not nearly as important as not allowing Jews to put up meta detectors, which means that it was never that important to begin with, then that becomes the story they say.

Can you imagine for a moment that religious Jews in the 1930s would boycott the Kotel because the British didn't allow them to blow the shofar there?

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Artists for Palestine released this:

Film writer and director Mike Leigh has criticised Thom Yorke and Radiohead for ignoring Palestinian suffering, two days ahead of their controversial Israel gig.
Last week Radiohead front-man Yorke defended the band’s decision to play in Israel and ignore the Palestinian picket-line, arguing that music was about ‘crossing borders’ and ‘shared humanity’.
Today, Oscar nominated Leigh, who is in production for his forthcoming feature film ‘Peterloo’, issued the following statement via Artists for Palestine UK –

‘On Wednesday Radiohead will perform in a Tel Aviv stadium built over the ruins of the Palestinian village of Jarisha. It is a sad fact that Radiohead have failed to engage with Palestinians who have called for them not to play, and that Thom Yorke’s comments are devoid of any reference to Palestinians at all.As the lights go out in Gaza and Palestinian cancer patients die because they are denied travel permits by Israel, while a Palestinian poet in Israel lives under house arrest for a poem she wrote on Facebook, while a young circus performer from the West Bank languishes in administrative detention without charge or trial – Thom Yorke speaks loftily about ‘crossing borders’ and ‘freedom of expression’. One has to ask, freedom for whom exactly?’

Ah, another moral force for good and against Israel.

Except, as Sussex Friends for Israel noted, every single one of Leigh's films created after the BDS movement was started has been released in Israel.

Vera Drake, released in Israel on 3 February 2005.
Happy-Go-Lucky, released in Israel 19 June 2008.
Another Year, released in Israel 9 December 2010 under the title Od Shana.
Mr. Turner, released in Israel 11 December 2014 under the title Mar Turner.

This follows Ken Loach's similar hypocrisy as he scrambles to claim that his films being released in Israel over the years were all a mistake.

We reject the allegation that any of us have exempted ourselves from the cultural boycott. Our film I Daniel Blake was sold to Israel by our sales agent, and is showing there now.
We are in regular contact with the BDS movement and the issue of our films being shown there has never been raised. We will speak to them again now and seek their advice. We will guarantee that every penny from the sale of I Daniel Blake that comes to Sixteen Films or the sales company from the Israeli distributors will go to grassroots Palestinian organisations fighting oppression, after consultation with the BDS movement.

Suddenly, the BDS Movement has thrown out its own principles and ruled to their fanboy Loach that making money in Israel is OK - as long as the BDS Movement and other "grassroots" Palestinian organizations gain financially.

So Loach is no more hypocritical than the BDS Movement itself is!

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

07/18 Links Pt2: Kontorovich: Canada corrects its ‘Made in Israel’ policy; There was no massacre at Deir Yassin

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Canada corrects its ‘Made in Israel’ policy. Now it is time for the U.S. to do the same.

What makes the CFIA reversal significant is it explicitly says that if the product can be considered Israeli for customs purposes, it is not misleading to the consumer to label it as such. This is somewhat consistent with the EU position — which denies both Israel customs and labeling status to West Bank products and gives both Moroccan customs and labeling status to Western Saharan products.
It is, however, inconsistent with U.S. labeling policy. Under a 1996 piece of trade legislation, the president is authorized to give Israeli products from the West Bank Israeli customs treatment, which President Clinton immediately did. Since then, such goods are considered “articles of Israel” for trade purposes. It certainly cannot be misleading to label them “Made in Israel” if they are legally called “articles of Israel.”
An independent voice on law and public policy.
Yet soon after, the Customs Service issued a notice that such products must be labeled “Made in the West Bank.” This is particularly strange because the labeling of goods does not imply any sovereignty recognition — as evident by the fact that Customs had instructed such products to be labeled “Made in Israel” for decades before that, without any suggestion that this amounted to a recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza.
This Customs guidance has gone entirely unenforced for decades, but it was reissued — perhaps to keep it from desuetude — by the Obama administration in its final years.
The Customs directive flies in the face of the 1996 Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act and other laws. The Clinton/Obama regulations were a mistake, which helps explain why they have never been enforced (though they do have a chilling effect on importers). Yet they may be used by future administrations. Similarly, anti-Israel activists in Canada are already planning lawsuits over the revised directive.
Ottawa’s quick realization that products with Israeli customs status can and should be labeled “Made in Israel” is a wake-up call to the Trump administration to quickly revise the Clinton/Obama policies, which can be done through a simple executive action. Congress could also exercise its Foreign Commerce power to make clear in law that such goods can be labeled “Made in Israel.”
Certainly it would be incongruous for the Trump administration to find itself with a less pro-Israel policy than the Trudeau government has.

Shmuley Boteach: Canada attacks Israeli wines while exploiting occupied Tibet

For example, Canadian mining giant Hunter Dickinson sold Continental Mineral Processing, and with it the rights to its Tibetan mine, for almost half a billion dollars – the largest asset sale in its 30 years of operation.
Far worse than being complicit in theft from the Tibetan people, Canadian mining companies caused irreversible, often deadly, damage.
In 2011, the Chinese minister of land and resources warned that the ecology of the Tibetan plateau is “extremely fragile.” His warnings, however, were ignored by Canadian and Chinese companies alike, with tragic consequences. In March of 2013, a landslide at the Jiama copper and gold mine killed 83 miners. That mine was controlled by China Gold International Resources, another Canadian-based company.
This mine, it should also be mentioned, is in the Gyama valley – which the Tibetan people revere as one of their most sacred sites. They have tried, in the past, to protest the desecration and devastation caused to these sacred lands by Canadian mining companies, with similarly tragic consequences.
In 2010, four Tibetans were murdered and 30 others hurt when Chinese mining officials opened fire on crowds protesting the expansion of mine operations in their sacred homeland. In 2013, further protests saw another Tibetan activist shot to death by police.
And that’s not the end of Canadian involvement in the exploitation of Tibet; the creation of these mines was only made possible in 2006 with the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Rail Line, which allowed for the import of mining materials and machinery into Tibet. That rail line was made possible largely through the Bombardier Sifang Power Transportation company, a joint venture of three entities – two of which are Canadian.
Canadian companies seem knee-deep in some pretty serious exploitation of an occupied territory in the world today.
Yet, Canada didn’t seem nearly as worried about that as with checking the labels on Israeli wine.
While they might have failed this time around, those behind this bizarre action are likely to be back.

'There was no massacre at Deir Yassin'

In his new book, Deir Yassin: The End of the Myth, Prof. Eliezer Tauber, head of the Institute for the Study of Underground Movements at Bar-Ilan University and former Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies at the University, examines the events of that day in April 1948 when the Arab village of Deir Yassin was attacked by Lehi and Etzel (Irgun or IZL) fighters, and reveals step by step the origin of the myth that a massacre was committed against the villagers.
Prof. Tauber opened his recent interview with Arutz Sheva by highlighting the central conclusion of his book.
"Basically there was no massacre in Deir Yassin."
In explaining what led him to that conclusion, Tauber noted that, since the Israeli-Arab conflict by definition consists of both Israelis and Arabs, it is not possible to reach real conclusions regarding the issues related to it without carefully examining the claims of both sides. This is in contrast to previous writers who examined the Deir Yassin affair by investigating only one side of those involved in the incident.
To write his book, Tauber thus turned to both Jewish and Arab sources, to the testimonies of Etzel (Irgun) and Lehi fighters, and to the testimonies of the Arabs at the scene. Not surprisingly, he said, the testimonies sound similar and express the same conclusion: There was no massacre at Deir Yassin.
The data collection process for the book included locating documents and recorded interviews conducted by the parties over the years, as well as interviews with some of those involved in the affair who are still alive.

3 minutes on the Temple Mount (Arab video)

This video, done by an Arab filmmaker in late 2015, is very well done - and reveals interesting things.

At the beginning, the videographer runs through one of the gates to the Temple Mount - with camera equipment - without any guards giving him a second look.

Non-Muslims must wait in line, sometimes for hours, to go up. And Jews are checked for such contraband as prayer books. (When I went up I had to leave most of my video equipment behind.)

The videographer is running at top speed through the "holy site." That's what makes the video so dramatic. But it does appear that at least some of the people featured are acting.

Kids playing soccer on the platform of the Dome of the Rock (at 1:05) is considered perfectly acceptable.

Altogether, it appear to be more a park than a holy site.

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There is a dirty little secret the pro-Israel lobby doesn’t want you to know. It’s not really a secret, it’s out there for anyone to see but they distract from the issue, hoping to “maintain the peace.” Of course, this doesn’t work. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist will not make it go away, in fact it makes things worse.

There is apartheid in Israel.

Apartheid refers to the system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1991. These laws segregated blacks and whites in public facilities and social events, and dictated different sets of housing and employment opportunities, according to race.

Apartheid laws are a systematic way to separate, dominate and oppress a segment of society, like the laws discriminating against Jews in Nazi Germany.

Ironically, Apartheid exists in one place in Israel. The laws of separation and discrimination are blatant in the holiest place on earth for the Jewish people, in the heart of capital of the Jewish State – the Temple Mount.

And this evil is perpetrated not against Arabs or Muslims as the anti-Israel lobby would have you believe but against JEWS.

I repeat:

· There is apartheid in Israel.

· Apartheid is evil.

· Apartheid in Israel discriminates against JEWS on the Temple Mount.

There are two sets of laws on the Temple Mount: one for Muslims and one for Jews.

The laws deny Jews freedom of worship and freedom of movement on the Temple Mount and they are enforced by the Israeli Police.

While Muslims can ascend to the Temple Mount any time they please, Jews cannot.

Jews are permitted to ascend to the Temple Mount only during the specified times.

Visiting Hours for Monday through Thursday:

Winter: 7:30 am – 10:30 am and 12:30pm – 1:30 pm

Summer: 8:30am – 11:30am and 1:30pm – 2:30pm

The Temple Mount is closed to non-Muslims on Friday and Saturday. Sometimes the entrance to the site is closed without notice, even when it’s scheduled to be open.

The holiest place in the world for Jews is JUDENREIN on Friday and Saturday and can be “cleaned” of Jews without notice.

In order to enter, both men and women need to be dressed modestly. At the entrance Jews must pass through metal detectors and submit to being searched for sacred Jewish objects. Israeli police lecture Jews not to pray, not to be seen doing anything that could be construed as praying, not to rip clothing or show any other signs of mourning for the lost Jewish Temple.

When I went with my family the police instructed the boys to remove the kippot from their heads that they had been wearing to approach the Kotel. All visitors at the Kotel are requested to cover their heads in a sign of respect for the holiness of the site but the Kotel is only holy due to its connection to the Temple Mount. Walking in to the holiest place in the world, we were told to REMOVE the kippot that showed respect for the site. I was sternly warned to keep them in my bag and not to take them out at any time.

We complied in silent horror (had we been religious Jews that wore head-coverings at all times we would not have been asked to do so but we would have been watched more closely during our time on the Temple Mount). Our offense at these restrictions paled in comparison to the sickening feeling of seeing the piles of riot gear sitting next to the police checkpoint at the entrance to the Temple Mount.

Most cultures see holy sites as a sanctuary, a place of peace and certainly not a place to carry weapons but due to the frequent rioting against Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount and a few times, attacks on Jews praying below at the Kotel, it is necessary for Israeli police to bear arms within this holy compound.

The Dome of the Rock is the golden domed mosque on the Temple Mount. It is important to understand that this is NOT the Al-Aqsa mosque, that is a second mosque also located on the Temple Mount. The rock the golden dome covers is the Foundation Stone, the stone which, according to Jewish tradition God used as the foundation for creating the universe. This is where the holy of holies of the ancient Jewish Temple was, the place where the Ark of the Covenant stood. This is the source of the holiness of Jerusalem, the reason why Jerusalem is sometimes called “the navel of the world”.

And Jews are not allowed to enter. No, non-Muslim is.

While Jews are subjected to multiple restrictions on the Temple Mount, Muslims are free to come and go as they please. Until yesterday they entered the Temple Mount with no security check at all.

This is the dirty little secret the pro-Israel lobby pretends doesn’t exist – the State of Israel is not sovereign in the heart of her own capital. The Jewish State applies apartheid laws on the Jewish people in the holiest site in Judaism. Like a pitiful, cowering slave, the State oppresses its own in hopes of appeasing all those who wish the State of Israel would disappear.

On July 14^th the absurdity of this situation was blown open for everyone to see. Three Israeli Arabs attacked Israel in her most sensitive and weakest point – the Temple Mount – murdering two Israeli policemen and wounding others.

It is no surprise that the terrorists had guns on the Temple Mount. They did not have to submit to security checks to enter.

One must question their concept of holiness and sanctity as they obviously had no issue with spilling blood in this holy site.

Ironically the policemen murdered were not Jewish but Israeli Arab Druze. One of the wounded policemen is a Muslim. This underscores the fact that the lines of good and bad, righteous and evil do not divide according to race or religion. They do divide according to content of character.

These Israeli Druze policemen were murdered because they represent the Jewish State. The fact that Druze are Arabs did not matter to the terrorists that murdered them. That doesn't matter to Israeli society that mourns their death the same as the death of Jews. What matters is that these men, as is traditionally done amongst Israeli Druze, chose to honor and serve their country while the Israeli Arab terrorists made the opposite choice.

Now, under the instigation of the Waqf Authority, many Israeli Muslims are trying to create the optics of religious oppression by the State of Israel. Instead of denouncing the murder on the Temple Mount and applauding the decision to include Muslims in security checks before entry, they are refusing to pass through the newly placed metal detectors. Instead demonstrating and praying on the streets, as if they are barred from their place of worship. They are also attacking the few Muslims that dared comply with the security guidelines implemented by the State and pass through the metal detectors.

They could declare themselves to be peaceful people with nothing to hide and no intention of committing violence. Instead they declare Israel the oppressor and cause of all violence.

How many people in Europe, America and other places around the world will fall for this inversion of reality?

The facts are simple:

When Israel manages holy sites, all people are granted access.

When Israel hands over her holy sites to the management of foreign powers, be it the Waqf or the Palestinian Authority, apartheid laws are implemented.

When this happens, it is no surprise that many around the world find it easy to believe that Jews have no connection to their holy and historical sites. What nation in the world give up that which is most precious to them?

This is what the pro-Israel lobby wants to pretend doesn’t exist - Israel’s extreme weakness in the place that matters most.

This is the source of hope for all those who wish for Israel’s destruction. They believe, if they push hard enough, Israel will just leave.

Now is the time to stand up, to right what is wrong and declare:

Israel is here for eternity.

It is our duty to control our holy sites. It is our duty to ensure that all people enjoy freedom of worship and movement in our land. Apartheid is evil. No appeasement will ever bring peace.

Peace is the desire of our heart and that is why we will stop appeasing and start implementing the conditions that will create real peace.

And the first step is – sovereignty.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

07/18 Links Pt1: PA: "Our child Martyrs, are birds in Paradise”; Saudi King: Metal Detectors ‘Routine’ at Holy Places

From Ian:

PMW: PA official glorifies Martyrdom: "Our child Martyrs, Allah willing, are birds in Paradise”

PA official Laila Ghannam, the District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh, praised the "Martyrdom-death" of a 17-year-old terrorist who was shot and killed while throwing Molotov cocktails at Jewish civilians.
With a play on words, she emphasized that rather than obtaining his matriculation certificate ("shahada") this summer, the terrorist "achieved the highest Martyrdom" ("shahada".) [Donia Al-Watan, independent Palestinian news agency, July 12, 2017; Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 13, 2017]
She gave the terrorist's family a statuette of a bird, symbolizing her wish that:
"Our child Martyrs, Allah willing, are birds in Paradise."
Ghannam’s reference is to the Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad, the Hadith, which teaches that Martyrs in Paradise reside inside the bodies of green birds:
“Narrated Ka'b bin Malik: From his father that the Messenger of Allah said: 'The souls of the martyrs are in green birds, suspended from the fruit of Paradise, or the trees of Paradise.' [Jami'at-Tirmidhi 1641]

King of Saudi Arabia Personally Intervenes in Temple Mount Crisis, Says Metal Detectors ‘Routine’ at Holy Places

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman of Saudi Arabia personally intervened in the Temple Mount crisis via the United States, according to a report posted Tuesday by the Arabic-language Elaph website, based in London.
The decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Israeli security officials late Saturday night to reopen the holy site to Muslim worshipers, visitors and tourists allegedly came after receiving a message from the Saudi monarch via the White House.
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Moreover, the Saudi king expressed no reservations about Israel’s decision to upgrade security by installing metal detectors at the entrances to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in the wake of the terror attack last Friday that left two Israeli policemen dead and others wounded.
“The issue of metal detection machines, said the source, is a matter that has become routine in the holy places because of terrorism, which strikes without discrimination and in most places regardless of the sanctity of the different religions,” reported Elaph.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein, warned followers that their prayers would not be accepted in Heaven if they pass through the metal detectors to enter the Temple Mount for prayers in Al Aqsa Mosque — the third holiest site in Islam.
Given that King Salman is the Custodian of the Two Mosques, Islam’s two holiest sites, one might consider his authority to overrule that of the Mufti in spiritual matters such as effect of metal detectors on the human body and its ability to convey prayer to heaven.

Article is 5 years old but....Explosives detectors to be installed at gates of Mecca's Holy Mosque https://t.co/pxnzda9OO9
— Michele Chabin (@MicheleChabin1) July 18, 2017

The first medic to respond to the Temple Mount terror attack was Muslim. Here’s his story

When Nedal Sader first heard the crackle of automatic weapon fire Friday morning, he couldn’t believe it was coming from the Temple Mount.
As a Muslim, he regarded the complex just outside his apartment as a sacred and peaceful place. He prayed there nearly every week.
But as a seasoned first responder, he knew what gunshots sounded like echoing off the stones of the Old City. He finished dressing, threw on his medic’s jacket and raced to the scene.
Sader, a 37-year-old nurse and father of five, was the first medical professional to arrive at the Temple Mount following the attack in which two Israeli Druze police officers were shot dead. The three Arab-Israeli gunmen were then killed by police on the scene.
Amid the carnage at the politically and religiously fraught complex, Sader said he simply tried to save whomever he could.
“It doesn’t matter who the person is,” said Sader, a Muslim volunteer with United Hatzalah, the Orthodox Jewish-run ambulance service. “Whoever needs help most gets help first.”

Yesterday, Jordanian soldier First Sgt. Ma’arik al-Tawayha, was found guilty in a Jordanian court for the murder of 3 American soldiers, and sentenced to life in prison.

First Sgt. Ma’arik al-Tawayha being led out of court.
Credit: Khalil Mazraawi / AFP - Getty Images

His victims, Staff Sgt. Matthew Lewellen, Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe, and Staff Sgt. James Moriarty were killed on November 4, 2016. Though the attack took place at an airbase less than 37 miles from Ma’an, known for its support for ISIS, the motive for the attack remains unknown. Al-Tawayha has no known ties to extremist groups and blamed the attack on a breach of protocol by the American soldiers -- despite the fact that was disproved by a video of the attack.

But this is not an isolated attack on American soldiers in Jordan.

The previous year, in November 2015, a Jordanian policeman opened fire at a police center, killing two Americans, a South African and two Jordanians. He also wounded two other Americans and two Jordanians, before he himself was killed.

According to the US Army, to date, 7 US military personnel have been killed in the Middle East since President Obama announced the anti-ISIS mission in September 2014, and 5 of them were murdered inside Jordan.

In addition to support for ISIS itself inside Jordan, the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood is also active there and has become a force to be reckoned with as well.

After severing ties with the West Bank in 1988, Jordan held general elections for the first time since 1967, leading to King Hussein reinstating the Parliament in 1989 -- and to the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood, in opposition to the the king.

Over the years, the Brotherhood has become popular for its network of charitable organizations, hospitals and mosques, and has won supporters in urban slums and Palestinian refugee camps.

The Brotherhood also funds Jordanian Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist behind the 2001 Sbarro massacre in Israel, who recently lost her financial support from the Palestinian Authority.

Screenshot from the 2007 film Hot House by Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan.
Credit: Legal Insurrection

Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki was one of those murdered, has noted that Tamimi

is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood...The king is very, very respectful and careful of the Muslim Brotherhood. They haven’t been banned. They haven’t been shut down. There is a background here and it’s not legal, it’s political survival.

What now links together the murderer of the 3 Green Berets and the mastermind of the Sbarro Massacre is a letter written by James Moriarty, the father of one of the 3 murdered Green Berets, to Dina Kawar, the Jordanian ambassador to the US.

In the letter, Moriarty writes that the conviction of al-Tawayha is only the first step. In addition, Moriarty requests:

o That Tamimi be extradited to the US within 30 days to face trial for the murder of Malki Roth and Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, who was 5 months pregnant at the time
o That charges be filed against the Jordanians who stood idly by, enabling al-Tawayha to murder the 3 American soldiers
o That the FBI be allowed to interview al-Tawayha in order to see if he is ready to admit to why he murdered the soldiers
o That the video that captured the events of the murder of the soldiers be released to the families immediately
o That following the fulfillment of all of the preceding preconditions, restitution to the families of the soldiers be discussed

The key to the extradition of the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi is that despite Jordan's claim that the extradition treaty between Jordan and the US was never approved by the Jordanian parliament, the treaty has already been used in 1995 to extradite a different terrorist to the US.

Ma’arik al-Tawayha has been successfully prosecuted for murder.
It remains to be seen whether Ahlam Tamimi will finally face justice as well.

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The UN's anti-Israel kangaroo court

Quick: Name every UN committee whose name begins with "UN Special Committee to Investigate...."

You are correct! There is only one, which is the "UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories."

Yesterday, they issued a report from their latest "investigation."

What, exactly, is involved with their "investigations?"

A United Nations committee* has heard serious concerns about Israel’s human rights record, including the deteriorating situation in Gaza, inadequate protection for detained children and increasing obstacles being faced by human rights defenders and journalists.
Members of the Committee also heard testimony on the expansion of settlements, the ongoing use of administrative detention, excessive use of force and possible extrajudicial killings, and lack of accountability.
During its annual mission to Amman, Jordan, the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, established by General Assembly Resolution 2443 in 1968, heard from civil society organizations, UN representatives and Palestinian officials.
Based on this testimony, the Committee clearly observed that the Israeli authorities continue with policies and practices that negatively impact the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, compounded by the ongoing electricity crisis, was repeatedly raised as one of the most pressing issues.

They gather a bunch of people who hate Israel and those people "testify." Surprise, surprise: the "investigation" finds everything everyone says to be credible and accurate.

The committee whose entire purpose is to investigate Israel - the only such committee in the UN - doesn't even investigate Israel. It just regurgitates anti-Israel propaganda, and there is no shortage of people willing to "testify" on that score, since they know that no one will actually do any fact-checking.

So for example, some unnamed "journalists" testified that they were "targeted" by Israel while covering protests. Were they, perhaps, also participants? The UN doesn't care.

Even though Israel doesn't cooperate with this farce, that is not reason to rubber stamp any anti-Israel statement that is made without a modicum of checking newspaper accounts or official Israeli press releases. Or the veracity of the "testifiers."

This committee was created in 1968. That's Which means that there has been 49 years of obvious vilification of Israel at the UN.

But when it was created, it had a different name. The UNGA resolution that created this committee, 2443, called it the "Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories."

Because in 1968, no one - not even the UN - ever heard of the "Palestinian people."

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Here is one of those throwaway stories that shine a lot of light over how Palestinian leaders think and act.

It starts off as a routine-sounding denunciation of Israel's closing the Temple Mount last Friday, but the details are more enlightening:

Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, called on all Arab and Islamic states to impose immediate sanctions against Israel and its government in response to its unprecedented practices towards the first Qiblah and the third holiest shrine, Al-Aqsa Mosque and against the city of Jerusalem and its people the Palestinians.

Bsrghouti is a former leader of the Palestinian Communist party. Suddenly, this staunch secular Palestinian cares about the "first Qiblah."

Barghouthi said Netanyahu with his ministers are hatching dangerous schemes to divide and Judaize the Al-Aqsa Mosque and if it succeeded to close Al Aqsa in the old city of Jerusalem without consequences, it would not hesitate to repeat this crime and the escalation of incursions of settlers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to divide it, as it did to the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

He added that after fifty years of occupation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the seventy years of the Nakba, and after the majority of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are prevented from visiting, it is high time to deal with what Israel is doing, which began which the Palestinian people, but aims to devour the whole region and impose its hegemony on them.

I never understood how a nation that is so hell-bent on expansionism and hegemony has given away the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon and much of the West Bank - far more than half the territory it once controlled.

But it is all part of the evil plan.

A Palestinian official can make statements like this without the slightest fear that any newspaper or politician will make fun of him for saying such inanities. On the contrary, if anyone would criticize Barghouti, they would be the ones who would be criticized and ostracized by mainstream Palestinian opinion!

It cannot be emphasized enough: truth is not a Palestinian value.

At the meeting I attended last week hosted by Phyllis Chesler, author Tuvia Tenenbom said that he once heard a Palestinian official talk about the "10,000 year history of Palestinians" in the region. Tenenbom (pretending to be a non-Jewish sympathizer) acted offended and said, "How dare you say that! It is a 30,000 year history!" The official agreed, of course, it was 30,000 years, he was sorry he misspoke.

How can one make peace with people who have literally no idea of what truth even means?

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