Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Feminists who are against strong, trailblazing women - because, you know, Israel

At a feminist blog called Feministing, a writer named Mahroh Jahangiri is incensed over Wonder Woman:

James Cameron did as white people so often do this week: he opened his mouth to share an unsolicited opinion when he could have as easily kept his mouth shut. In an interview with The Guardian on Thursday, the director called the first superhero movie directed by a woman and starring a female lead a “step backwards” for women. I agree – but for different reasons.

“All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided,” Cameron said about the film. “She’s an objectified icon, and it’s just male Hollywood doing the same old thing! I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie but, to me, it’s a step backwards.” Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins fired back on Twitter Thursday night, saying female characters don’t need to always be “hard, tough, and troubled to be strong.” Jenkins added: “There is no right or wrong kind of powerful woman […and the film’s female audience] can surely choose and judge their own icons of progress.” Feminist twittersphere ripped into Cameron and gave Jenkins a standing ovation for her clapback.

Cameron wasn’t totally off-base in his comment: Wonder Woman — and lead actress Gal Gadot — are super sexualized; and the film’s success is undoubtedly tied to Gadot meeting gross beauty standards. There is a reason Jezebel asked this week if Gadot — but not a fat, disabled, or Muslim woman for example — could be cast as the next James Bond. But Cameron’s arrogance in thinking his opinion was relevant, reports of his own extremely controlling behavior around women, and the general lack of nuance in his comment makes him sound like a total buffoon. And I’m not mad about the internet going after buffoons.

What does piss me off though are the droves of feminists cheerleading Gadot in response. Women whose response to shitty old white dudes is to celebrate women who champion occupation and genocide. Women who think that experiencing sexism (or simply being a woman) is somehow sufficient for becoming an icon of progress. Jenkins assertion — that there is no right or wrong kind of powerful woman — is woefully oblivious and/or more likely, reveals a cruel disregard for the violence people of color experience at the hands of white women. There are certainly wrong ways to be a powerful woman; advocating for occupation, genocide, and colonialism, for example, fall squarely into that bucket. It is absurd to suggest otherwise.

I could care less about what James Cameron thinks of Wonder Woman’s attractiveness. But I do care about self-proclaimed feminists throwing their weight time and time again behind women who stand for state violence. IDGAF if Wonder Woman was a blockbuster directed by a woman. If its lead actress champions genocide and opposes Palestinian liberation, Wonder Woman is a step backwards for all women.

Hen Mazzig was quite upset at this article and tweeted:

@feministing editor @mahrohj attacks 2 women in white-male-dominated Hollywood industry and claims to be feminist. What I can't understand is why Jahangiri fights against the women that made it- in a movie about important women. Jahangiri does it in most bigoted way- saying Gadot has no rights because of her nationality. Yes. She's an Israeli Jew so apparently she has no rights. Fake @mahrohj has the chutzpah to call herself a civil rights fighter while judging a woman because of her ethnicity, nationality and religion. Using the same standards of phony feminism she herself should be fought against because of her country's misconduct. But @mahrohj is so fake, it's easier for her to type BS about Middle Eastern woman from a Starbucks in DC, sipping almond latte. IN DC!!!

You need to celebrate a feminist-movie by @PattyJenks, a successful female director in male-dominated Hollywood, and @GalGadot a Middle East woman who made it. Instead bigotry blinds you, fills you with hate that you attack two women that made a successful movie about a powerful woman - and claim "feminism"....Seriously?

There are a number of virulently anti-Israel articles at Feministing. I couldn't find a single one that decried Palestinian (or Hamas) attitudes towards women, but a number of articles on why feminists must be anti-Israel.

The most ironic article was from this same Mahroh Jahangiri where she argues that feminists shouldn't talk about Muslim violence towards their women, only white oppression to Muslims:

Violence against Muslim women — domestically or abroad — has not been entirely ignored by white feminists. In many ways, it’s been obsessed over. FGM, honor killings, acid attacks, sexual violence within insular Muslim communities are recognized, discussed, and fetishized. Much has been written on the problematic ways in which this obsession happens. How this discourse is instrumentalized by colonial and imperial projects. How it strips Muslim women of their contexts and intricacies. How it projects white egos onto brown and black women’s bodies.

What I want to comment on here though is not the ways in which white feminists obsess over us, but the moments in which they don’t. Hypervisibility has an insidious counterpart: “the singular obsession with private violence against ‘oppressed’ women by their ‘patriarchal’ husbands often excuses public violence perpetrated by others motivated by both Islamophobia and sexism,” explains Barbara Perry at the University of Ontario. ...

Why do white feminists only discuss violence against Muslim women when it is perpetrated by Muslim men?

So it is clear that Jahangiri is no feminist. She is a Muslim apologist who uses feminism as a cloak for her true feelings.

From what I can tell, the entire Feministing site pretty much buys into the idea that Israel is evil and Arabs/Muslims can do little wrong, with some exceptions. The idea that Israel is a liberal country where women have more opportunities is simply never mentioned in this pseudo feminist site.

And from what I can tell, Feministing's hypocrisy is representative of feminist sites, not anomalous to them.

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08/26 Links: Sarah Halimi: Beaten, tortured and killed — yet France turned a blind eye; Abbas: I'll pay terrorists' salaries until my dying day

From Ian:

Sarah Halimi: Beaten, tortured and killed — yet France turned a blind eye

The behaviour of the police was strange enough throughout this tragic night. Further questions were soon to be raised about the handling of the case. First, while the murder and its circumstances were reported almost instantly within the Jewish community and by the press agency AFP, the mainstream media didn’t mention it at all for two days until BFMTV, a 24-hour news channel, quoted at least one AFP dispatch on April 6 on its website.
Likewise, very little was shown or said about a protest march by 1,000 people in the Vaucouleurs Street neighbourhood on April 9. Considering the enormity of the crime, the reporting remained bafflingly low-key.
Things changed only after Sarah Halimi’s relatives and their lawyers convened a press conference on May 22 with the support of Jewish community leaders.
On June 1, 17 prominent French intellectuals, from philosophers Alain Finkielkraut, Marcel Gauchet, and Michel Onfray, to historians Jacques Julliard and Georges Bensoussan, to demographer Michèle Tribalat and sociologist Jean-Pierre Le Goff, called for “full light” in the Halimi case — the very words President Macron would later use — in a collective statement published by Le Figaro. From then on, the mainstream media devoted more space to the case, and, ironically, wondered why they had not paid it more attention earlier.
Axel Roux, a journalist for Le Journal du Dimanche, a widely read Sunday paper, admitted on June 4 that when he started investigating the case, he was “stunned” by the paucity of the media archives and the “minimalist” approach taken by his profession.
No less disturbing was the public officials’ silence. French members of the cabinet or government officials usually react to such crimes ex officio. Some may even take a more personal stand.
For instance, President Macron tweeted on August 14 his concern for the victims and their relatives just a few hours after a car ran into a pizzeria and killed a 13-year-old girl.
No such reactions occurred after Sarah Halimi’s murder, even though the Minister of the Interior granted an emergency audience to the leaders of the Jewish community. Neither did the political class comment publicly, except for the then National Front presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, who made an indirect statement on April 11.
Third, there is the legal angle. The issue of the attacker’s sanity, and thus of his penal responsibility, was left undecided for more than four months, and is still pending. Dr Daniel Zagury, the noted psychiatric expert commissioned to deal with the case, is due to submit his report by the end of August.
Kobili Traore was first sent to two psychiatric hospitals. It was only on July 11 that he was formally indicted for murder and kidnapping and transferred to the Fresnes prison.

Anti-Semitism in Europe: New Official Report

To some of us, it is hardly a secret that anti-Semitic violence is on the rise in Europe, or that the chief perpetrators are Muslims. But many politicians and news media have been so indefatigable in their efforts to obscure this uncomfortable fact that one is always grateful for official -- or, at least, semi-official -- confirmation of what everyone already knows.
It is a pleasure, then, to report that a new study, Antisemitic Violence in Europe, 2005-2015 -- written by Johannes Due Enstad of the Oslo-based Center for Studies of the Holocaust and the University of Oslo, and jointly published by both institutions -- is refreshingly, even startlingly, honest about its subject. Enstad notes that while anti-Semitic violence has declined in the U.S. since 1994, it has been on the rise worldwide. That, of course, includes Europe -- most of it, anyway.
Examining statistics from France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Russia, Enstad points out that one of these seven countries "clearly stands out with a very low number" of anti-Semitic incidents despite its "relatively large Jewish population"; the country in question, he adds, "is also the only case in which there is little to indicate that Jews avoid displaying their identity in public." In addition, it is the only one of the six countries in which the majority of perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence are not Muslims. Which country is Enstad referring to? Russia.
That Russia is relatively free of anti-Semitic violence may sound surprising to anyone familiar with the words Cossack and refusenik, but it actually makes sense. Would-be Jew-bashers in Russia know that if they're arrested for committing acts of violence, the consequences won't be pretty. In western Europe, by contrast, the courts are lenient, the terms of confinement short, and the prisons extremely comfortable. And while Muslims know that they are a protected class in Western Europe, able to commit all kinds of transgressions with near-impunity, that is far from being the case in Putin's Russia.

Clifford D. May: Supremacists and revanchists

Immediately after last week's terrorist attack in Barcelona, a pro-Islamic State website ?posted a video from the scene along with a message in Arabic saying, "Terror is ?filling the hearts of the Crusader in the land of Andalusia."?
Let's unpack that. "Crusader" is a term jihadists use, pejoratively, for ?Christians. More specifically, of course, it refers to the Christian soldiers who ?fought a series of wars, beginning in 1095, to recover Jerusalem and other ?parts of the Holy Land from the Muslim armies that had burst out of Arabia ?four centuries earlier. ?
Andalusia indicates the territories of the Iberian Peninsula that were conquered ?by Muslim armies from North Africa beginning in 711. The Reconquista, a war ?waged by Christians to recover those territories, ended in 1492. ?
Here's the larger point: To those discomfited by theological or even ideological ?explanations for most modern terrorism, one alternative explanation is this: ?The killers are revanchists. Their motivation is to reverse territorial losses. ?
They have suffered such losses, they believe, in Europe, the Middle East and ?Asia. The want to fill "the hearts" of the "others" now living in such lands with ?terror in order to drive them out or at least relegate them to inferior status. In ?other words, these revanchists also are supremacists.?
In the longer term, their goal is grander. Finland, which also suffered a terrorist ?attack last week, was never part of a caliphate or Islamic empire. ?Islamic State publishes an online magazine called Rumiyah, Arabic for Rome, ?which they believe must be conquered by Muslims, as was the Christian ?capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul). But priority goes to formerly Muslim ?lands.?

08/25 Links Pt2: Shapiro: Antifa, Nazism and the opportunistic politics that divide us; Why Is the SPLC Targeting Liberals?

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: Antifa, Nazism and the opportunistic politics that divide us

Yet many on the left have justified their behavior as a necessary counter to the white supremacists and alt-righters. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) justified the violence by appealing to the evils of the neo-Nazis. Professor N.D.B. Connolly of Johns Hopkins University wrote in the pages of The Washington Post that the time for nonviolence had ended — that it was time to “throw rocks.” Dartmouth University historian Mark Bray defended antifa by stating that the group makes an “ethically consistent, historically informed argument for fighting Nazis before it’s too late.”
This is appalling stuff unless the Nazis are actually getting violent. Words aren’t violence. A free society relies on that distinction to function properly — as Max Weber stated, the purpose of civilization is to hand over the role of protection of rights to a state that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Breaking that pact destroys the social fabric.
Now, most liberals — as opposed to leftists — don’t support antifa. Even Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) denounced antifa’s tactics in Berkeley, for example. But in response to some on the left’s defense of antifa and their attempt to broaden the Nazi label to include large swaths of conservatives, too many people on the right have fallen into the trap of defending bad behavior of its own. Instead of disassociating clearly and universally from President Trump’s comments, the right has glommed onto the grain of truth embedded in them — that antifa is violent — in order to shrug at the whole.
The result of all of this: the unanimity that existed regarding racism and violence has been shattered. And all so that political figures can make hay by castigating large groups of people who hate Nazism and violence.
Let’s restore the unanimity. Nazism is bad and unjustifiable. Violence against those who are not acting violently is bad and unjustifiable. That’s not whataboutism. That’s truth.
If we can’t agree on those basic principles, we’re not going to be able to share a country.

Introducing: A New Column From The Forward

Think the ZOA is just as bad as Hezbollah? Believe The New York Times secretly harbors white supremacists? We have just the column for you.
Here are 19 people Jews should actually be more worried about than Linda Sarsour… Morton Klein; Ayatollah Khamanei (The Forward, August 3, 2017)
During the course of my conversations with several senior ayatollahs and prominent political and government officials, it became clear that there is high-placed dissent to the official line against Israel. No one had anything warm to say about the Jewish state. But pressed as to whether it was Israel’s policies or its very existence to which they objected, several were adamant: It’s Israel’s policies. (The Forward, August 12, 2015)
There is no shortage of think pieces these days — many from Jews — accusing the left of divisiveness and hate. Bari Weiss’ “When Progressives Embrace Hate” and Ann Lewis’ “I Did Not March for Hate” are two of the latest examples of white Jewish leaders employing the same talking points the white nationalist movement uses to attack Palestinian Muslims and Black people. (The Forward, August 22, 2017)
Richard Spencer Might Be The Worst Person In America. But He Might Also Be Right About Israel. (The Forward, August 17, 2017)
Introducing the latest column from The Forward, by Hannah Virtuestein, New York’s most woke social diarist. She can be reached here:
Javad Zarif is an honorary Jew in my book. Such a Mensch. Even with his busy schedule he agreed to come all the way out to Brooklyn to address our chapter of Iranian Centrifuges Matter. He’s right too. Netanyahu and the Likud in Israel are just a bunch of Chazars. That’s right. Iran’s foreign minister speaks Yiddish. I wish Bubbe was still alive, She’d like him.
Here’s my dilemma. I want to invite Linda Sarsour to our social justice Shabbaton at B’nai Ramallah, but the community can’t agree to separate seating by gender. I argued that we can support our Muslim sisters and still hold the line on gender equality. Rebecca Cohen-Shabazz and Running Deer Goldmanberg told me I was being problematic and Islamophobic. Double whammy! I wish I had more Muslim friends to dialogue with on this.
I wish more blue checkmarks on twitter would get behind my petition to require incoming Brandeis students to take a course on the Muslim Brotherhood, Queer Liberation and Climate Change in the Era of Netanyahu.

08/25 Links Pt1: Israel has nothing to learn from Europe in fighting terror; Western Women are Islamists’ target of choice

From Ian:

Why Israel has nothing to learn from Europe in fighting terror

In November 2015, the European Union issued guidelines for labeling products made on land Europe considers occupied by Israel. This included products made in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Israel, naturally, claimed that the move was discriminatory and denounced it as a political move aimed at pressuring the country into making concessions to the Palestinian Authority. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the decision “hypocritical and a double standard.”
A few months later, I happened to meet the European Union’s Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen and asked him a simple question. Let’s assume, I said, that labeling products in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is understandable. Those are territories in dispute between Israel and the Palestinians and their status will need to wait to be resolved in a comprehensive peace agreement between the sides.
“But what about the Golan,” I asked. “Who exactly does the EU want Israel to give it back to?” My question referred to the ongoing civil war in Syria, which erupted in 2011 and has seen the rise of ISIS, and al-Qaida as well as the entrance of Iran and Hezbollah into the country, now the focus of Netanyahu’s most recent diplomatic efforts. I did not receive an answer but the question lingers still today as just one example of how Europe lacks a clear understanding of the Middle East.
I mention this story since on Tuesday, in a final briefing to the press before leaving the country after four years as the EU envoy, Faaborg-Andersen said that Israel can learn from Europe how to effectively combat terrorism.
“Fighting terrorism,” he said, “is an endeavor that requires the whole tool box of instruments.” One of those tools, he went on to explain, is a “strong security dimension,” which Israel uses effectively. But, he added, there are other aspects involved as well, including “de-radicalization,” working with social services, and education.
Now that is an interesting idea considering how many of the terrorist attacks perpetrated in Europe are carried out by citizens, some born and bred in their respective countries. In Israel, a small percentage of the attacks - like the recent one at the Temple Mount - are carried out by Israeli Arabs. Most are perpetrated by Palestinians.
Looking at the numbers this is an even stranger idea. According to EUROPOL, the EU agency for law enforcement cooperation, 142 people were killed in terrorist attacks in EU member states in 2016. In Israel, on the other hand, 17 people were killed. While 2017 is not yet over, the discrepancy is stark. In Israel 12 people have been killed, nine of them soldiers and policemen, while in EU member states there are already nearly 60 people who have been killed in Islamic terrorist attacks.
While the numbers don’t tell the full story, they are definitely part of it. So what exactly was Faaborg-Andersen referring to? Richard Kemp, the former British military officer and staunch defender of Israel, called Faaborg-Andersen’s statements “chutzpah,” citing the numerical discrepancy. “Not only does Israel have nothing to learn from the EU,” Kemp said, “but the EU is guilty of encouraging terrorism in Israel.”

Col Kemp: Brexit Terror Study

Letter to the editor of The Times, published 24 August 2017. © Richard Kemp
The leaked Home Office report (Aug 23) warning of an increased terrorist risk to the UK after Brexit is pure fiction. The opposite is true: Britain will be safer after Brexit.
No longer will we have to allow known terrorist suspects who are EU citizens to enter the UK as we do now. We should not forget that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian ringleader of the November 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed, travelled freely to Britain beforehand despite being known to be involved in extremism. Such is the EU’s security regime that he boasted in Islamic State propaganda of being able to travel unnoticed into and around Europe.
The report says that security co-operation would be ‘less effective or slower’ once Britain left the EU. Why should it be? The UK has the most effective counter-terrorism operational capability in Europe with the most extensive liaison relationships in countries from where the greatest Islamic terrorist threats emanate.
Our intelligence services have prevented numerous terrorist attacks in the UK and elsewhere in the EU in recent years. In the fight against terrorism the EU needs us far more than we need them.
Colonel Richard Kemp
Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan

Vox: Israeli-Arab Conflict One of World's "Most Violent" Disputes

According to Vox, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is one of the "most violent" in the world.
Vox gained notoriety when it reported that Israel limits traffic on the bridge connecting the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In fact, Israel doesn't limit traffic on the bridge because the bridge doesn't exist.
In this week's story about Palestinian infighting, journalist Shira Rubin writes that the battle between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas "has major stakes for one of the world’s longest-running, and most violent, political disputes."
Is that a fair characterization? A recent Reuters overview shows that, even during the he bloodiest year of Arab-Israeli fighting in decades, 2014, the number of casualties in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank paled in comparison to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, Pakistan, Sudan, Ukraine, Somalia, Central African Republic, and Libya. The 2014 Gaza conflict accounted for about 2,000 of 100,000 battle-related deaths worldwide that year. (The graphic along the left margin, by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), shows the fatalities from Arab-Israeli fighting in the context of 2014's conflicts worldwide.)
And again, 2014 was an an outlier. A year earlier, in 2013, fewer than 50 people were killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting, less than 0.1 percent of the 70,000 killed in the rest of the world's conflicts. In 2015, there were roughly 150 killed as a result of violence in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and 100,000 fatalities from conflict worldwide. You can check out PRIO's graphic of 2016's most deadly conflicts on page three of this document. Can Vox find Israel on the chart?

By "progressive" logic, they themselves are neo-Nazis

Anti-Israel commentators and self-styled "progressives" have seized white supremacist Richard Spencer's ridiculous assertion that he regards his movement as a type of "white Zionism" as proof that Zionism is akin to white supremacy.

This absurdity has been published not only in Electronic Intifada and by idiots like Ben Norton but also in The Forward (by a "Jewish Voice for Peace" leader).

So if a neo-Nazi says they support a movement, that means that the movement is neo-Nazi?

From Kentucky.com:

[

Matthew] Heimbach, a 26-year-old Indiana resident, is an emerging leader of the white nationalist movement in the United States. He has appeared with and supported the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Terror Network and a variety of Nazi organizations, according to news articles and reports from the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Heimbach was involved in the planning for a 2013 Nazi rally in Kansas City to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht occurred on the night of Nov. 9, 1938, when paramilitary civilians associated with the Nazi Party rampaged through German streets, destroying and ransacking Jewish homes, synagogues, schools and businesses.

In 2014, Heimbach was a keynote speaker at Stormfront’s “Death to America” meeting in the Smoky Mountains. In that speech, Heimbach repeated tired old theories about a Jewish control of the federal government and international banking. But he went even further, arguing that the United States was created as part of Jewish/Freemason conspiracy.

Heimbach also allied his group with the Aryan National Alliance. At a joint meeting in Salem, Ohio, Heimbach said, “We must support the creation of an ethno-state.”

In 2014 he said: “When the Jews are strong, the Jewish people engage their supposed foes with cold-blooded cruelty. This is why we must understand a unity between those who struggle against the Zionist State and International Jewry here in the West and those on the streets of Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. We face the exact same enemy, one who doesn’t care if they kill our women, children, and elderly. We are facing a truly Satanic enemy, one that cannot be understood except through the lens of Christianity and Christian prophecy.”

Like Abunimah, Heimbach supports Palestinians in Gaza! Like Max Blumenthal, Heimbach supports Bashar Assad! Heimbach supports Hezbollah, whose fans have described it as "progressive!"

It seems very clear - according to the "logic" of these so-called "progressives" - that they are linked to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

And I haven't heard any of them denounce the words of Matthew Heimbach. QED.

So since the anti-Israel "progressive" left is neo-Nazi, by their own thinking, then it is legitimate to engage in physical violence against them.

In other words, they should commit suicide.

If they are to be intellectually consistent, that is.

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It's official: J-Street doesn't want peace

I found these two stories interesting. From Haaretz:

Left-wing Jewish group J Street attacked the Trump administration on Thursday for refusing to endorse a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In a statement sent by email, with the headline "Trump Admin becoming Obstacle to Middle East Peace," the group's president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said that by taking up such a stance, the administration was hurting its own efforts to reach peace.
Ben-Ami's statement came after a spokeswoman for the State Department, Heather Nauert, said on Wednesday that the administration is not endorsing any specific formulas for ending the conflict, because that could create "bias towards one side or the other." Nauert was responding to a question about the two-state solution during her daily press briefing.
The State Department's spokeswoman "displayed dangerous ignorance about the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what it will take to end it," Ben-Ami said.
He added that, "The Trump administration has spoken often of its desire to broker a comprehensive and transformative peace agreement in the Middle East. Early steps taken by the special envoy and others suggested a real interest in constructing a viable approach to achieving that objective. But there is no way to accomplish that goal without a two-state solution."

Also from Haaretz:

"We very much appreciate the efforts of President Trump, who announced from the beginning that he will work to reach a historic peace deal and has repeated this more than once during the meetings we held in Washington, Riyadh and Bethlehem," Abbas said before his meeting with Kushner.
"I want to stress that the American delegations is working for peace and we will work with them to reach what Trump calls a peace deal. We know things are hard and complicated, but nothing is impossible if you put in an honest effort," he said.

"Pro-peace" J-Street is saying that peace is impossible with the Trump administration refusing to say the magic words "two state solution" - but Abbas says it is possible.

Obviously both parties are being driven by political considerations, not reality. J-Street looks for any opportunity to insult Trump and Abbas is not willing to publicly go against him. (In this case Abbas is like Netanyahu who received criticism for not directly condemning Charlottesville neo-Nazis; apparently Abbas is far more immune to criticism for wanting to stay in Trump's good graces than Bibi is.)

J-Street apparently wants Abbas to angrily slam the door in Kushner's face until he says the magic words. Because Jeremy Ben-Ami's hubris overrides any desire for real peace.

The more important question to J-Street is: What progress, exactly, towards peace did the Obama administration accomplish in eight years of pressuring Israel and adopting the Palestinian talking points? Ben-Ami is so sure that an American push towards a pre-defined solution is a prerequisite for peace, but how much closer was that goal in 2016 compared to 2008 with a president whom J-Street supported to the hilt?

The fact is that despite the Trump administration's many problems, it has done more for Middle East peace than Obama ever could. Obama's vision was bilateral peace with Abbas having veto power over any Israeli position; Trump is pushing for a regional solution that involves Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in a more comprehensive solution. This makes perfect sense because Israel can help Arab states in many ways, from technology to coordinating a strategy against Iran, and Arab states host hundreds of thousands of people who have Palestinian ancestry that they refuse to give citizenship to. They must be involved. Indeed, Trump's strategy for peace is one of the smarter things we've seen out of the White House, and Arab leaders are making decisions that are good for the entire region, not just narrow Palestinian interests where Abbas can continue to just say no to everything as he has done consistently.

J-Street wants to continue to give Abbas the right to be a rejectionist, something that he did even more during the "two-state" Obama administration. That is not pro-peace - that is anti-Israel and, indeed, anti-peace.

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Iran's PressTV analyst implies Jews control Trump

Kevin Barrett is one of the stable of Iran's PressTV "experts" who spout out bizarre, often antisemitic conspiracy theories while official Iranian media can claim that they are only quoting Western experts, and not directly pushing antisemitism.

His latest piece says that Donald Trump is under control of the "Deep State" - which means, at least in part, the Joooooz:

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were not planned and directed from Afghanistan, as US President Donald Trump has claimed; rather, they were orchestrated by certain elements in Washington, DC and Tel Aviv, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003.
“[The] Zionist coup d'etat of 9/11 was done by the combination of Israelis and neo-conservative Americans along with hard-line right-wingers in the American military and the intelligence establishment who pulled off this coup d'etat in America,” Dr. Barrett said.
...Now Donald Trump, who has expressed skepticism about [9/11] in the past, and who drove (Jeb) Bush out of the presidential nomination by attacking (George W.) Bush, his brother, as the likely culprit or at least someone who is responsible for 9/11—now Trump who we all hoped might be an ‘irresponsible’ truth teller, that is, someone who would tell the incredibly subversive truth about what has really happened to America since the false flag attack of September 11th—all those hopes are now dashed,” he noted.
Dr. Barrett said now “Trump is clearly under the control of the elements of the Deep State that murdered three thousand Americans in an act of high treason on September 11, 2001.”

If the "Zionists" were behind 9/11 and Trump is now controlled by those same people then Jews have managed to control Donald Trump.

Which is actually pretty remarkable.

Barrett is of course correct. In fact, we control him as well. And Iran's PressTV, which can only be read over the Zionist Internet.

Yes, we control it all, but, somehow, it isn't enough.

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08/24 Links Pt2: Terrorists and tiaras; Where Soros Puts His Money; Maajid Nawaz: Muslim cry-bullies

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Terrorists and tiaras

It is hard to feel sorry for Lebanese-Swede Amanda Hanna, who was stripped ‎of her Miss Lebanon Emigrant 2017 title this week -- some nine days after ‎being crowned in the annual expat beauty pageant -- when it was discovered ‎that she had visited Israel last year as part of an academic tour.‎
Hanna, who expressed her gratitude on Facebook at having won the August 12 ‎finals, was declared unfit to fill the role of best-looking Lebanese expat in a ‎statement released by the organizers of the event, held in Dhour El Choueir. ‎‎"After communicating our decision with Lebanon's minister of tourism," the ‎communique read, "he decided that Hanna should be stripped of her title ‎because her visit to Israel violates our country's laws." ‎
Hanna should have known this was going to happen, and not only because ‎Lebanon is the Jewish state's sworn enemy. Indeed, had she done her ‎homework, she would have learned that any contact with Israelis in Lebanon is ‎punishable by imprisonment. She also might have discovered that the movie ‎‎"Wonder Woman" was banned from its theaters because it stars Israeli actress ‎Gal Gadot. A simple Google search, too, would have revealed that Miss ‎Lebanon Saly Greige came under heavy fire two and half years ago for ‎appearing in a selfie with Miss Israel, Doron Matalon, during the Miss ‎Universe pageant in Miami. After Matalon posted the photo (of herself with ‎Miss Slovenia, Miss Japan and Greige) on Instagram, Greige was criticized ‎widely in her country for being a traitor. To defend herself against the ‎accusations, Greige said that she had been taking a photo with Miss Slovenia ‎and Miss Japan, when suddenly "Miss Israel jumped in." ‎

Soros Claims To Be A Liberal. Here’s Where He Puts His Money

Soros put $26.5 million in the Climate Policy Initiative, a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to achieving “low-carbon growth.”
But Soros’ other investments fly in the face of environmental advocates who insist fossil fuels are creating the problem of man-made global warming. Soros, for example, has a $4.4 million stake in Peabody Energy, the largest private sector coal company in the world, which generates 10 percent of U.S. electricity.
He also invested $5.9 million in Key Energy Services, $12.9 million in Plains GP Holdings, and $5.4 million in California Resources, all involved in oil and natural gas extraction.
There are also carbon investments Soros made with Quantum, his “family” investment firm. In 2011, the billionaire removed all outside investors from Quantum and converted it into a family company specifically to avoid reporting requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act, which was passed by the Obama administration.
Quantum invests in San Leon Energy, an oil and natural gas company with two licenses to drill for oil in the Western Sahara, a territory Morocco has occupied since Spain abandoned it as a colony in the 1970s.
A U.N. Security Council legal advisor concluded in 2002 that Morocco had no energy and mineral exploration rights in the Western Sahara and that its extractive ores should be solely “for the benefit of the peoples of those territories, on their behalf or in consultation with their representatives.”
Eugene Kontorovich, an international legal authority, concluded in a Columbia University report, “Morocco’s presence in the territory is in violation of a (1975) Security Council demand for a withdrawal.”
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Erik Hagen, a board member of the Western Sahara Resource Watch, a human rights group in the region, told TheDCNF of his meeting with Quantum executives in which he raised their investment in the Western Sahara. “I’ve been working on investor contact for 16 years, and I’ve never had a more unpleasant investor meeting than with Quantum,” he said.

Maajid Nawaz: We Muslims are totally self-unaware cry-bullies in the school playground

These land disputes also take on religious significance, just as they do with Jerusalem – where I too have visited on pilgrimage.
Every year, thousands of Indian Sikh pilgrims arrive in Pakistan’s Lahore to participate in religious and cultural rituals marking the birth anniversary of their most important saint, Baba Guru Nanak Dev Jee who was born in what is now Pakistani Lahore.
There, an old Sikh temple still stands next to the Badshahi Mosque, two other sights that are well worth seeing.
Many Sikhs never truly overcame the loss of control over their holy sites, sparking a Khalistan independence movement, and in one case leading to the assassination of India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguard.
And yet, there are no calls to boycott Pakistan by the far-left and their Islamist fellow-travellers.
No fashionable movement exists to shame musicians who choose to perform there, no blockade of speakers at universities and no protests decrying the ‘historic injustices’ of the Punjabis.
The truth is, there is absolutely nothing that can be said of Israel, that cannot be said of Pakistan.
This incessant focus by us Muslims on the state of Israel – even as jihadists burn everything around us – is the perennial ‘whatabout’ excuse used to distract us from considering self-scrutiny and introspection.
It is precisely this lack of internal criticism that is allowing Muslim-majority societies to fall apart at the seams while we insist that everyone else is worse than us.
We Muslims have become the totally self-unaware cry-bully in the school playground.
That child who everyone is scared of upsetting, but no-one really likes.

Hamas very upset over Sudanese minister seeking ties with Israel: "Racist"

A Sudanese minister has said that he wants to see ties between Sudan and Israel.

Sudan's minister of investment inspired controversy on Sunday when he called on Khartoum to normalise relations with Israel.

Mubarak al-Fadil al-Mahdi made the comments on national television, while also accusing the Palestinian people of "selling out".

"They sold their land [to Israelis]," he said.

"One can agree with the Israelis or disagree with them, but they have a democratic regime," he added.

According to Mahdi, his words were representative of his contemporaries in the ruling elite. The minister claimed there had been a shift in political opinion with regards to normalising relations with Israel since January.
"The issue was discussed during the Sudan National Dialogue Conference," the minister said, adding that a number of ministers voted to change foreign policy towards Israel.

The feelings of the Hamas terror group were hurt:

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) Wednesday has expressed deep regret over statements by Sudan’s Investment Minister Mubarak al-Fadil al-Mahdi in which he called to normalize Sudan’s relations with Israel.

Mubarak al-Fadil (ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/Getty Images)

In a press release on Wednesday, Hamas expressed deep regret over what it described as “proactive and racist remarks” by al-Mahdi, saying his statements are “against the Palestinian people, Hamas and our valiant resistance”.

Hamas pointed out that al-Mahdi’s statements are not in line with the “values, principles and authenticity of the Sudanese people who love Palestine and support the resistance”.

It called on the Sudanese government, people and political parties to denounce these statements which contradict with Sudan’s “honourable stances towards the Palestinian issue and the legitimate rights of our people”.

Wanting peace is racist? Well, about as much as Hamas is a legitimate group.

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If you are an Israeli, do you feel smug that the neurotic politics of political correctness and victimology that lately are so prevalent in the USA are rare in Israel? Are you pleased to think that most Israelis are not obsessed with race the way Americans are?

If so, you will be sorry to hear that the folks that hijacked the Women of Wall and other internal Israeli controversies in order to depict Israel as undemocratic or worse have decided to bring the socio-political pathology of the US to our country.

The Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), created and primarily funded by the American Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) has proudly announced the establishment of a “Racism Crisis Center” in Israel.

Did you know there was a crisis of racism here? I didn’t, and in fact it seems to me that racially-based conflict is much lower here than in the US and many other places.

You may be shocked by that statement. Isn’t Israel the conflict capital of the world? Yes and no.

Yes, the Palestinian Arabs led by Hamas and Fatah want to kill us and take our land. But this is ideologically and religiously-based racism on the Arab side. it’s remarkable how well Jewish Israelis get along with the Arabs that they come into contact with who do not espouse this ideology.

Of course there are exceptions. And one can say that given the violent expressions of hatred by the Palestinian Arabs, it is surprising that there aren’t more. There are issues of resource allocation to Arab municipalities, but there are also reasons for this having to do with their own municipal governance. In some areas – higher education, for example – Arab citizens arguably get preferential treatment. And of course Muslims are not required to do military service (they are permitted to volunteer). How many countries in the world can maintain a population that is 20% Muslim without violent civil conflict? Probably only Israel.

And yes, it is true that the police have behaved improperly toward Ethiopian immigrants. But unlike the persistent black underclass in the US, the Ethiopian Jews – who were brought to Israel to save them from famine and persecution rather than as slaves – have been undergoing the usual processes of acculturation of immigrants, and each generation is economically better off and has members in higher and higher status positions. Discrimination against them because of skin color exists to some extent, but is getting rarer every day. There is not and never has been anything that remotely resembles the discrimination against blacks in either the North or South of the US.

Other immigrants, like Mizrachim and Russians, have had and in some cases are still having problems integrating into the society. But these are normal immigrant problems which will be solved by the passage of time, not examples of endemic racism. These groups are well-represented in the Knesset and government, and more and more getting their share of the economic and social status pie.

Nevertheless, the director of IRAC, Anat Hoffman, thinks there is a crisis that needs to solved – by the introduction to Israel of the hierarchy of victimization that has so greatly increased the divisions in American society. In an email to supporters, she writes,

The Racism Crisis Center is modeled after the Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Alabama. Like the SPLC, IRAC will use litigation to protect the rights of minorities in Israel by elevating the voices of victims of racism and discrimination.

The Racism Crisis Center will provide support in cases of discrimination, hate speech, and hate crimes against minority populations, and collect data on the growing phenomenon of racism in Israel. The center provides support to victims of all backgrounds: Arab, Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, Mizrahi Jews, asylum seekers and migrant workers, and provides services in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Amharic and English.

Perhaps Hoffman is not aware of the criticism that has been leveled against the SPLC for its bias – it seems to see “hate groups” only on the right – its inflation of the number of “hate groups,” its use of lawsuits for intimidation of impecunious opponents, or for its shameless pursuit of cash. Or perhaps she is aware, and she sees all of these things as worth emulating.

One wonders if she will create a list of “hate groups” like that of the SPLC, and if it will include Hamas, Fatah, the Islamic Movement, and similar organizations? Will it list MK Haneen Zouabi as an extremist? Ayman Odeh?

The website of the “crisis center” provides an emergency hotline telephone number and an online form for reporting “hate crimes” and other incidents of racism. In addition to making it possible for someone to blacken the reputation of any individual or group instantaneously, it will provide a rich source for incidents that can be used by IRAC to impress its overseas donors, to produce “documentation” of its charge that Israel is being inundated by a “tide of bigotry” (Hoffman’s phrase), and maybe even – as is the case with the SPLC in the US – to be used to shut down right-wing voices. Will the Israeli branch of PayPal close the accounts of right-wing groups like Im Tirtzu as happened to the Jihad Watch website in the US?

Israel’s social problems can’t be solved by trying to fit them into a conceptual scheme that was developed in a different society in a different environment with totally different problems – and which failed miserably there, arguably making social divisions and conflicts worse. Non-Americans often look at the US with wonderment, unable to understand the obsession with race, the accusations of racism flying in all directions, the “litigizing” of every imaginable dispute, “intersectionality” and the creation of a hierarchy of victimization, and the excesses of political correctness. And this is precisely what Anat Hoffman and her bosses at the URJ want to introduce to Israel!

The URJ’s interests are not necessarily aligned with those of the Jewish state. It has consistently sided with the Left on the issue of the “peace process,” in spite of a total lack of understanding of the security situation here. It is closely associated with the Democratic Party in the US, and indeed couldn’t even bring itself to oppose Obama’s Iran deal. Many Reform rabbis are members of J Street, the phony “pro-Israel” organization that is supported by George Soros and even elements associated with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The head of the URJ, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, was a member of J Street’s Rabbinic Cabinet and a board member of the New Israel Fund before taking over the URJ. These are not the people we need to help save Israel from herself, either in our dealings with the Palestinians or our own social issues.

Despite her American education and connections, Anat Hoffman was born in Israel and lived most of her life here, so she should know better. But apparently she is being paid not to.

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08/24 Links Pt1: PA spends more on terrorists' stipends than on welfare benefits; The peace process farce

From Ian:

PA spends more on terrorists' stipends than on welfare benefits, report finds

The payments made by the Palestinian Authority to jailed terrorists and to terrorists' families are much higher than the welfare payments it provides to Palestinians in need, a new report by the Middle East Media Research Institute revealed Wednesday.
The Palestinian Authority spends millions of dollars annually on these stipends, which in 2016 amounted to 1.15 billion shekels ($319 million) -- 7% of the PA's total budget for salaries and about 20% of the foreign aid it received.
The Palestinian Authority's extensive support for prisoners and terrorists' families prompted the United States to halt the transfer of $221 million to Ramallah earlier this year. The Palestinians claimed that the so-called "martyr" payments -- monthly stipends paid to terrorists and terrorists' families -- were equal to the welfare benefits provided to needy families, arguing that in both cases, the family had lost its primary breadwinner.
But according to the MEMRI report, stipends to prisoners and terrorists' families, appearing in the PA 2017 budget book under a section titled "The Plan for Protection and Care for the Prisoners and Their Families and Support and Training for Released Prisoners," are defined as a "monthly salary" while the welfare payments are only made once every three months (quarterly). A review of the figures showed that the terrorist stipends are sometimes 20 times higher than the welfare benefits provided to needy families.

Isi Leibler: The peace process farce

Unless the U.S. is willing to confront Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the latest peace mission headed by presidential adviser Jared Kushner and negotiator Jason ‎Greenblatt may well prove highly counterproductive, causing more harm than good.
As he approaches the end of his reign, Abbas is determined to shape his legacy into that of an embattled ‎‎"freedom fighter" whose objective was the restoration of Arab hegemony from the Jordan River ‎to the Mediterranean Sea. ‎
Until now, he has ignored U.S. President Donald Trump's requests and demands. Incitement reached a record ‎high as he whipped up religious hysteria on the false assertion that Jews were desecrating ‎Al-Aqsa mosque, triggering riots and encouraging terrorism. Meanwhile, Palestinian children are being brainwashed into ‎regarding Jews as subhuman in propaganda replicated from Nazi sources.‎
The PA and its leaders continue honoring mass murderers by dedicating mosques, city squares, and ‎schools in their names. ‎
Despite American demands, Abbas has vowed that he will never close the Palestine National ‎Fund, which provides massive financial awards to imprisoned terrorists and to families of deceased terrorists. Incarcerated murderers receive monthly payments of 11,000 shekels (more than ‎‎$3,000), with a grant of $25,000 upon release from jail. This year, the fund has ‎distributed $345 million -- a sum equivalent to half the foreign aid received by the PA. Thus, the U.S. ‎and Europe have indirectly been incentivizing Palestinians to murder Israelis. ‎

PMW: Special Report: FIFA Must Correct Its Double Standard

FIFA moves quickly and forcefully to punish all acts of discrimination and racism throughout world football, yet it ignores Palestinian football's institutionalized discrimination, glorification of terror and terror promotion.
This special report contrasts FIFA's inaction on PMW's complaint against the Palestinian Football Association's serious violations of fundamental FIFA statutes with FIFA's swift and forceful punishments, even for relatively minor violations, by other teams or their fans.
Click here to read as a PDF
In April 2017, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) submitted a complaint to both the Disciplinary Committee and the Ethics Committee of FIFA against the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) and its president Jibril Rajoub. The full complaint documents the repeated violations by the PFA and Rajoub, which include explicit encouragement of terror, glorifying terrorist murderers of civilians, sponsoring sporting events named after killers, referring to Jews as "satans" and "Zionist sons of bitches," and much more.
PMW's complaint documented that the PFA is in violation of at least Articles 3 and 4 of the FIFA Statutes and Articles 53 and 58 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code, and the potential punishments include "suspension or expulsion," and a minimum fine of 30,000 Swiss Francs. Although PMW received notification that our complaint was received and was being reviewed, and despite a number of follow-up inquiries, until today, PMW has not been invited to give testimony and no disciplinary action has been taken against the PFA or Jibril Rajoub.

My grandmother was alone in the house. Not really alone, her two small babies were there and the accountant that would be useless in a fight was there too. Her husband (first husband, not my grandfather) Haim Natanzon was away guarding the territory they had been assigned to protect. She didn’t know how far away he was. She did know that he had taken their only horse and the only gun they had.

It was before the re-establishment of the State of Israel, when the land was called Palestine. My grandmother and her husband belonged to an organization called the “Shomer”, the Watchman, founded in 1909. The organization was responsible for guarding Jewish settlements, freeing Jewish communities from dependence on foreign consulates and Arab watchmen for their security. My grandmother had been given a house to live in on a piece of land bought by the Jewish National Fund (near Netanya). Their task was to guard the land, to be present and ensure that Bedouin did not come and settle on the land intended for Jewish settlement.

That day was the test.

Alone, she saw to her horror, a Bedouin tribe, moving on to the land. What was she supposed to do?! If she hid in the house, by the time her husband came back, it would be too late. The Bedouin would claim that the land had been empty and they had the right to be there. Or they would claim that they had always been there. If she confronted them, with no weapon and two babies in the house, they could very easily kill her and take the land anyway.

Not on her watch.

She told the accountant to watch the babies, grabbed a box of matches and stormed out of the house.

They paused in shock to see a woman, alone, with fire in her eyes, fly at them. Standing in their midst, she held up the matches and announced: “This is MY land. If you don’t leave NOW, I will burn down your tents.”

Not wanting to lose all of their worldly possessions, they began folding up the encampment. Why didn’t they just kill her? They could have but they did not. They believed her. The land was not empty. It had been claimed by a Jew. It was very clear who belonged and who did not.

As a conciliatory gesture, my grandmother gave them permission to settle on the land bordering hers. Access to water was from her territory and could be done with her consent.

Since that moment they lived side by side, in peace. No violence was necessary, a steadfast Jewish presence was enough.

Today we are approaching the 70^th Independence Day of the State of Israel. We have our own government, clear laws, police, military and courts of law. Israel is a high-tech superpower and, in many ways, a military superpower and yet, we are facing some of the same issues that the Jewish community faced pre-re-establishment.

The politically correct call it “agricultural crime”. Israel’s farmers, especially herders, ranchers are under attack. Marauders steal their equipment and their animals. They sometimes demand “protection money” and when it is not paid farmers find themselves beaten, livestock slaughtered, their barns and fields burned.

The police and court system are incapable or unwilling to put an end to these problems. They are unwilling to admit that these crimes are really agricultural terrorism. Often the damage goes beyond stealing for financial gain, it is to instill fear, to break the will of the farmers, to make them leave. The victims are Jews and the perpetrators Arabs, Israeli citizens - Arabs living in villages near the farmers in Israel’s north, in the south Bedouin.

When Jewish farmers abandon their land because they can no longer keep up the fight for it, the land does not remain empty. The perpetrators move in and claim the land as their own.

The goal is to remove Jews from the land.

Obviously, this is illegal but the State does not have the tools or willpower to deal with the problem.

When Haim Zilberman told his family that they were bankrupt and had to give up the family holding his son Yoel decided that he would not let this happen.

At first Yoel thought he could do it on his own. He knew that the Shomer had guarded and protected the land for the Jewish communities before the State had been re-established. It had been done before, it could be done again.

It quickly became clear that he could not do it alone – but he didn’t have to. Friends and neighbors began showing up, volunteering to help. They announced with their presence: “I am my brother’s keeper. When my brother needs me, I will be there!”

That is how the Shomer Hachadash, the New Shomer, was born.

When the government is not capable of fixing problems, the people of Israel are. This is the spirit of Israel, what founded the country and made her great. This is what Zionism looks like – individuals, banded together, to protect their brothers and sisters, to hold and defend the land that is theirs. This is a love story between a people and their land, a land and her people.

In any love story, it is necessary to be present. To live and breathe together, to touch and be one. This is true of Israel and her people as well.

The Shomer Hachadash began as a way to defend individual farmers and ranchers. It is swiftly becoming a movement for the return to our roots. Israelis feel called to volunteer to help guard farmers and ranchers. Young Israelis feel drawn to the leadership programs the New Shomer has developed.

There is something about touching the land, working the land, sweating and teaching others what they can achieve if they too remember their land, that awakens the heart of our people.

And this is just the beginning.

This is a love story, between a people and their land, between a land and her people. As long as we declare: “I am my brother’s keeper!” NOTHING has the power to rip us apart.

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.

Last month, President Trump praised Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri and Lebanon as a partner in the war on terror. Improbably, he claimed that Lebanon was also fighting against Hezbollah.

Now, Hariri has made his positions clear when he was visited by Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari in Beirut.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri says the Israeli regime and terrorism are the two dangers currently threatening Lebanon and the entire Middle East.

“Two dangers, namely the Zionist regime of Israel and terrorism, are threatening Lebanon and the region,” Hariri said in a Tuesday meeting with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari in Beirut.
He also conveyed his greetings to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as well as First Vice-President Es’haq Jahangiri and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and expressed the hope that the two countries would further boost mutual ties.
Jaberi Ansari, for his part, echoed Hariri’s remarks concerning the two dangers (Israel and terrorism), and noted, “These two threats can serve as common ground for promotion of Iran-Lebanon ties as well as regional cooperation.”

Hariri's positions are identical to Iran's. There is really no substantive difference between the two countries any more - Lebanon is Western Iran, just with more of a nightlife.

It is actually surprising that with the Arab world turning its back on Qatar for its ties to Iran, we have not seen a similar action against Lebanon which has been effectively an Iranian satellite for years.

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The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) issued this statement this week:

Muslims are marking the 48th anniversary of the sad burning of the holy mosque of Al-Aqsa, the first Qibla (prayer direction) of Muslims and the third holiest site in Islam, amid mounting extremist settles’ violations and assault, condoned by the Israeli occupation forces, against the Al-Aqsa.

Muslim media is claiming, as usual, that Israeli "occupation forces" were responsible for the fire set by a deranged Christian.

The policy of judaization and ethnic cleansing practiced by the Israeli occupying power in the city of Al-Quds, against its population and sanctities, is such that it constitutes a breach of the Muslim Ummah’s indelible religious rights and heritage. More than a source of provocation to the feelings of Muslims, an offense to the freedom of worship and a desecration of the sacred places of Islam, these policies and practices are a downright affront to the international law and the relevant international legitimacy resolutions.

Isn't it cute when Muslims invoke international law to protect freedom of worship that they deny everyone else who doesn't submit as second-class citizens?

The OIC's respect for other religions is so huge that they cannot bring themselves to capitalize "judaization."

On this sad occasion, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation reaffirms the central religious and spiritual character of Al-Quds and the place of importance the holy Mosque of Al-Aqsa holds amongst the Muslim community worldwide, stressing that the integrity and sanctity of this city’s holy places can only be maintained if peace and security are established throughout the entire region.

It's equally cute when people who support terrorism against Jews and infidels talk about their vision of peace throughout the region.

The OIC holds Israel, the occupying power, fully responsible for the safety of all the holy places falling under its unjust occupation, pointing out that the international covenants and agreements, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibit aggression by the occupying power on houses of worship and provide that free access to these places should be ensured. These international instruments also prevent the occupying power to take such measures as may alter the geographic and demographic status of historical and holy places.

The Fourth Geneva Conventions are very clear that the "occupying power" can do essentially anything necessary to ensure security. Security concerns are of paramount concern. Read them.

... The OIC also calls for a cessation of the ongoing Israeli violations and judaization plans, especially Israel’s attempts to harm the Islamic and Christian holy places in Al-Quds, on top of which is the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque.

And by "harm" they mean "allowing Jews to quietly and respectfully visit."

This statement shows how Muslims have adopted the language of human rights to urge the exact opposite. But most Western observers are too frightened to point this out since, if you accuse Muslim leaders of being anything less than liberal, they might threaten to kill you.

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.

08/23 Links Pt2: Phillips: The Canaan falsehood; BBC claims Israel ‘carved out of Palestinian land’; What’s the Matter With Chicago?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Canaan falsehood

In the “Palestinians’” attempt to rewrite history and claim falsely that they and not the Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel, they have taken to claiming they have descended from the Canaanites. Since the Canaanites preceded the ancient Jews’ conquest of the land, that would make the Palestinians the rightful inheritors.
Problem with this claim is that it is utterly ridiculous from all points of view. First off, it means the Palestinians aren’t Arabs. Which they are, by their own lights. Arabs, though, came from Arabia and most certainly were not around in the Biblical land of Israel.
Second, there’s not a shred of evidence that the “Palestinians” were descended from the Canaanites. Nor is there any evidence they descended from any other unified people or tribe, for the simple reason they did not. The immediate forefathers of today’s “Palestinians” either considered themselves southern Syrians or just part of the Arab nation; many others immigrated to pre-Israel Palestine in the first half of the last century from a variety of non-Arab countries. And of course, since the invading Romans tried to erase the Jews’ claim to the land by giving Judea/Israel the meaningless name Palestina, there was never any such people as “the Palestinians”.
The whole Canaanite heritage claim is merely another lie being propagated in order to rewrite the Jews out of their own history and conceal the fact that the Jews are the ONLY people for whom the land of Israel was ever their national kingdom. As Pinchas Inbari says in his JCPA paper Who Are the Palestinians:
“When one looks into what the Palestinians say about themselves, how each family describes its lineage, there is no trace of a ‘Canaanite’ ancestry. Most of the families find their origins in Arab tribes, some of them with Kurdish or Egyptian background, and there are even – by word of mouth – widespread stories of Jewish or Samaritan ancestry. Although one might have expected some effort to adduce a Philistine ancestry, there is almost no such phenomenon.

Evelyn Gordon: A New Book Tries, and Fails, to Understand the West Bank’s Jews

In City on a Hilltop, Sara Yael Hirschhorn seeks to explain Israel’s settler movement, rejecting the common misconception that its members are fanatics uniformly motivated by religious zeal and ferocious nationalism. Nonetheless, writes Evelyn Gordon, Hirschhorn fails to look past her own political assumptions:
[R]eaders emerge from [the book] with no clear understanding of what drives the settlement movement. This isn’t surprising, since Hirschhorn admits in her conclusion that she herself has no such understanding: “After discussions with dozens of Jewish-American immigrants in the occupied territories, I still struggled to understand how they saw themselves and their role within the Israeli settlement enterprise.”
Consequently, she’s produced an entire book about settlers that virtually ignores the twin beliefs at the heart of their enterprise: Israel has a right to be in the territories, whether based on religious and historical ties, international law, or both, and Israel has a need to be there, whether for religious and historical reasons, security ones, or both.
This glaring omission seems to stem largely from her inability to take such beliefs seriously. In one noteworthy example, she writes, “While their religio-historical claims to the Gush Etzion area are highly contentious, many settler activists over the past 50 years have asserted Biblical ties to the region.” But what exactly is contentious about that assertion? No serious person would deny that many significant events in the Bible took place in what is now called the West Bank. . . . One could argue that this doesn’t justify Jews living there today, but if you can’t acknowledge that this area is Judaism’s religious and historical heartland, and that many Jews consequently believe that giving it up would tear the heart out of the Jewish state, you can’t understand a major driver of the settlement movement.

What’s the Matter With Chicago?

Chicago has long been home to one of America’s largest and most thriving Jewish communities, a vibrant and nurturing setting that gave the nation everyone from Saul Bellow to Julius Rosenwald, the founder of Sears.
For the city’s thriving progressive and LGBT Jewish community, Chicago has as much been that cherished home as it has a sheltered harbor offering the freedom to proudly express spirituality right alongside an individual’s political, sexual, or gender identity. Reform synagogues have seen a continual membership growth, which even includes a migration of Conservative Jews.
Yet, over the past 18 months, the city has made headlines for a series of ugly snubs targeting Jewish organizations and individuals, leading many—the city’s Jews first and foremost—to wonder just what’s going on.
The first sign of trouble came on January 22, 2016, at the National LGBTQ Taskforce’s Creating Change Conference. Held at the downtown Chicago Hilton, the event, bringing together gay rights activists of all stripes, included a Shabbat service and reception, held by the Jewish LGBT advocacy organization A Wider Bridge (AWB). To its participants’ shock, the quiet reception turned into a riot both in the corridor outside and in the meeting room when two anti-Zionist activists stormed the stage and chanted slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” denying Israel’s right to exist.