Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 07, 2017

It's true love: Kim Jong Un thanks Mahmoud Abbas

Last month, Palestinian president wished North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "health and happiness" in honor of Korea's "Liberation Day." In the message he praised the "historic friendship" with North Korea and wished the country's people "stability and prosperity."

Today, the lovefest continued. The official PA news agency Wafa reports:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received on Thursday a cable of thanks from the Secretary-General of the Korean Workers' Party, First Commander of the National Defense Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Commander-in-Chief Kim Jong-un, in response to his congratulations on the liberation day.

Last year, Abbas sent Kim Jong Un a basket of flowers for the occasion of "The Day of the Shining Star," Kim Jong Il's birthday.

Also last year Abbas sent flowers for the "Day of the Sun," Kim Il Sung's birthday.

Another floral arrangement was lovingly hand-delivered last September for the DPRK's founding anniversary and yet another flower basket for New Year's Day this year. And last year's Liberation Day was accompanied by yet more flowers.

Yes, in one year Mahmoud Abbas sent Kim Jong Il five separate flower baskets.

Despots really look after each other, don't they?

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One of the most appealing things about Menachem Begin was his austere lifestyle. He owned a two-room apartment in Tel Aviv, which he refused to leave, until he became Prime Minister. After his resignation in 1983, he returned to live out the rest of his life there. Ben-Gurion had a nice house in Tel Aviv, but spent the last 10 years of his life in a small so-called “hut” on Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev. There was one area in which Begin spent more than Ben-Gurion – in keeping with the philosophy of hadar propounded by his mentor, Jabotinsky – his necktie budget.

Some other Prime Ministers were less appealing in this regard. Ehud Barak was born a kibbutznik, served 35 years in the IDF and then held various political positions. In 2012 he sold a Tel Aviv apartment for about $7 million. He told an interviewer in 2015 that his net worth was close to $10-$15 million, saying that he had made good investments. I’m sure an IDF Chief of Staff is well-paid, but it’s very hard to explain his degree of success convincingly.

Today the news in Israel is full of political-financial scandal. There are at least three police investigations of PM Netanyahu going on, and it is almost certain that Sara, his wife, will be indicted for misusing funds related to the management of the PM’s official residence. A number of important officials and prior officials are being investigated for bribery in connection with the purchase of submarines and other vessels from Germany, including the former commander of Israel’s Navy. Today (Wednesday) the name of an officer that has been arrested in the affair was released, the decorated former commander of the elite Shayetet 13 unit.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who once served 22 months of a three-year sentence for bribery, is presently being investigated by police for real estate transgressions. And of course former PM Ehud Olmert was recently released from prison after serving 16 months of a 19-month sentence for various corruption and bribery offenses.

Israel is in the Middle East, and we can blame it on that. Or perhaps we are just doing a better job of arresting and punishing corrupt politicians than some other countries. It’s hard to tell.

PM Netanyahu has maintained that the left-leaning media and legal establishment have been persecuting him, and wish to overthrow the results of a democratic election by legal maneuvers. “They won’t find anything because there isn’t anything,” he has been fond of saying. The Left insists that he deserves to be in jail and soon will be. The truth is probably somewhere in between. It will take some time before we know precisely where, in a process that is matched in its tediousness only by coalition negotiations. Personally, I think that anything he did will turn out to be small potatoes, compared to Olmert for example.

Regardless of the outcome of the investigations, I think the Israeli public is tired of Netanyahu, who has been PM since March 2009. The other day I heard a man explaining to his small child that they shouldn’t cross the street on a red light because “we are not Bibi. Bibi always crosses on red” (the child responded “who’s Bibi?”). The Right believes that he is not aggressive enough toward Hamas and Iran and that he has given in too many times to US pressure against construction in Judea and Samaria. The Left believes that he is “anti-peace,” by which they mean that he hasn’t given in enough to US pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians. Both sides are tired of his personality.

Could the corruption investigations force him out as the left-wing media hope? I doubt it. Even if the PM is indicted as a result of one or more of the investigations against him, he is not required by law to resign. And why should he? Despite the investigations, his party is rising in the polls.

Even a corrupt PM can make good decisions (consider Olmert’s bombing the Syrian nuclear reactor precisely 10 years ago). And Bibi has made a lot of good decisions, resulting in a relatively peaceful tenure, an expanding economy, and diplomatic gains. But the main thing that has kept him in power through the last couple of elections is that he is thought to be competent in matters of economics and matters of security – and his competition is not.

I think, and many Israelis agree with me, that with the war in Syria winding up, and the strengthening of Iran and its proxies – a result of the removal of sanctions and cash infusions from the nuclear deal – the chance of war involving Israel has been greatly increased. The feeling that conflict could be around the corner is widespread.

People want an experienced hand on the tiller. And security challenges tend to push people to the right. Neither Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid or Yitzhak Herzog of the Zionist Union have “security credentials.” Moshe Ya’alon, who does, launched a trial balloon to create a new party back in March, which went nowhere. Naftali Bennett, who is bound by the limited appeal of his mostly-religious party, would join a coalition with Bibi. So if a new election were called soon, the Likud and its right-wing coalition partners would probably gain seats, rather than lose them.

This isn’t a perfect world, and we don’t have a perfect Prime Minister (although he is a lot better than his opponents give him credit for).

But he may still be the best person for the job.

09/07 Links Pt1: Hijacking the Holocaust for Obama; Alleged Israeli Strike Destroys Syrian Chemical Weapons Facility

From Ian:

Hijacking the Holocaust for Obama

It was this attack that compelled Barack Obama to finally take seriously his year-old, self-set “red line” for action in Syria. In early September of that year, the president addressed the American public in prime time and made a compelling case as to why America must intervene to prevent more crimes against humanity and the erosion of the norm prohibiting the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. Yet in that same bizarre address, the president informed America that this urgent global crisis could wait for a vote of support from a skeptical Congress. Moreover, he added, Moscow had intervened diplomatically, and no intervention was likely necessary.
The speech was a Frankenstein’s monster of last minute attempts to absolve Barack Obama from his responsibilities as president, and he’s been struggling to clarify his motives ever since. “I’m very proud of this moment,” Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, unconvincingly, almost exactly one year before the massacre at Khan Sheikhoun. “[T]he fact that I was able to pull back from the immediate pressures and think through in my own mind what was in America’s interest, not only with respect to Syria but also with respect to our democracy, was as tough a decision as I’ve made—and I believe ultimately it was the right decision to make.”
If history was inclined to provide Obama absolution for his inaction in the face of war crimes, you might think his team would be content to allow history to run its course. They’re not.
Tablet’s Armin Rosen provided an alarming window into the Obama administration’s efforts to hijack ostensibly responsible institutions and compel them to whitewash the effects of Obama’s equivocations. As a result of Tablet’s reporting, a study of the Obama administration’s Syria policy sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has been scuttled at the last minute due to the number of eyebrows it raised. “Using computational modeling and game theory methods,” Rosen reported, the study dubiously concluded that executing strikes on the Assad regime would not have led to fewer attacks on civilians. Indeed, there might have been more as a result.
This report’s conclusion was a mystery, but the motive behind it wasn’t. The Holocaust Museum’s Memorial Council members at the time of this report’s composition included Obama administration officials who are deeply invested in ensuring history comes to that same conclusion. Among them were former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and several Obama-era National Security Council members.
Donald Trump did not address the nation when he executed 59 retaliatory cruise missile strikes on a Syrian airfield. Barack Obama already gave that speech. It wasn’t Obama’s lofty rhetoric but his apprehension that emboldened Assad to exacerbate the worst humanitarian and refugee crisis of the century. That’s a legacy that needs polishing. Apparently, Team Obama isn’t above hijacking the moral authority of Holocaust memorials in the pursuit of that objective.

The Ben Shapiro Show Ep. 377 - Circular Firing Squad

34:30 Obama and the Syrian Genocide
38:45 Linda Sarsour's black face

PreOccupiedTerritory: Staffer: Obama Didn’t Intervene In Syria Genocide B/c Victims Wouldn’t Vote Democrat Anyway (satire)

The former White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, disclosed the considerations mooted by the Obama team throughout the course of the Syrian Civil War, which has so far claimed close to half a million Syrian lives and displaced millions more – most of them at the hands of the Assad regime and allied forces. In addition to the president’s prioritization of the Iran nuclear deal over all other issues, the official explained, domestic political considerations carried significant weight in the administration’s decision-making.
“Of course it was important not to oppose Iran’s ambitions in the Levant so as not to give them an excuse to back out of the impending deal,” she recalled. “But the idea wasn’t so much to empower Iran and legalize its path to a nuclear arsenal as it was to enable someone – it happened to be Iran and Russia – to step into the power vacuum the president knew would arise after deliberate retrenchment of American influence in the Middle East. But it wasn’t that the retrenchment was the goal – rather, the president was aiming to focus only on domestic affairs, such as health care and politicizing the intelligence community. Syrian civilians just aren’t an important voting demographic, so they got the shaft.”
“It was actually rather responsible of him,” remarked another former adviser who sat on the Holocaust Museum board that whitewashed Obama’s record. “I mean, he could have just not invited another power to exert hegemony over the whole region, but no. He actually took the time to enable the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism to establish a corridor to the Mediterranean and threaten American allies in the Persian Gulf and beyond, to prevent some other chaotic scenario. He didn’t have to do that – he could have simply made explicit that Syrians don’t vote in US elections and are therefore of no use to him. You have to give him serious credit.”
Former members of the campaign teams of the now-minority Democratic members of Congress and of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton were unavailable for comment.

Abbas plans to ask UN to draw "Palestine"'s borders

Mahmoud Abbas plans to ask the United Nations to draw the borders of the Palestinian state in his speech to the UN this month.

Fatah Central Committee member Dalal Salama said in an interview that Fatah's central committee will hold a meeting next Tuesday where they will discuss his UN speech.

"These borders, which are referred to by the resolutions of international legitimacy, are already known, but we look forward to a clear UN resolution which may include more specificity, to confront settlement policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as to confront the occupation plans to separate the Gaza Strip. We want to define the borders of our independent state, " she said.

It's funny because the last time the UN created borders for a Palestinian Arab state, the Arabs rejected them. They want the UN to keep trying until they are happy. (Which incidentally is the entire Palestinian strategy - reject every peace plan by well-meaning Westerners until they get so desperate for "peace" that they offer up all of Israel.)

Salama also spoke about the Palestinian support for the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Of course, Fatah doesn't support CEDAW in order to improve the lives of Palestinian women, but to use it to accuse Israel of oppressing them.

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SJP literally calls for violence against Zionists on campus

Students for Justice in Palestine are one of the groups that held a "smash Fascism" rally at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign’ on Tuesday.

SJP, in its announcements for the rally, explicitly equated fascism and white supremacism with Zionism, and Jewish and Zionist groups raised concerns that a "smashing fascism" rally implied advocating violence against them.

SJP responded to the criticisms by saying, yes, Zionists should be attacked on campus and everywhere else.

Here is their statement:

We, the collective organizers of the “Smashing Fascism: Radical Resistance to White Supremacy” rally, are disgusted with the preemptive backlash our event has received. This opposition highlights the unholy union of American fascists, white supremacists, and Zionists which seeks to weaken and destroy intersectional movements for mass liberation. While we know these criticisms are destructive or rhetorical, we find it necessary to address them and center our narrative.

We are told that all people deserve a right to freedom of speech and expression. We are told that all have equal say in our society. This, obviously, is not the case. The white liberal establishment barely bats an eye when anti-fascist protesters are attacked by Nazis and white supremacists. The establishment is silent when it comes to the murder of black, brown, and Indigenous folks--especially queers of color, women, and femmes. The suppression and blacklisting of Palestinian voices and activism are inevitable results of the pro-Israel status quo in the West. But just as oppressed and marginalized voices are made oppressed and marginalized by unjust systems of governance and societal organization, so too do these forces seek to protect the rights and speech of literal Nazis, of white supremacists all along the political spectrum, and those who seek to implement and continue all manner of ethnic cleansing or indigenous genocide. This speech is not just expression but violence. If given the opportunity, American fascists and white supremacists would complete the settler-colonial project which enabled the founding of this country centuries ago.

We have been attacked for “advocating violence”. Apparently the language of “smashing fascism” has connotations too severe for those who believe that being nice to Nazis may curry their favor. We do not believe there is any other option when it comes to dealing with fascists and white supremacists. Granting them any platform will only lead to further normalization of their violent ideologies. Granted, violent resistance is not always the best option. Nonviolence and peaceful civil disobedience have their places and have achieved great change throughout history. However, violent resistance--whether it is a black bloc or full-scale armed conflict--also has its place. The struggle for liberation must exist on multiple levels and scales--it cannot, and will not, be confined.

...Pro-Israel campus groups have maintained contact with and may have requested an increased presence of campus and area police. This was not at the request of rally organizers and in reality runs counter to our ideals. The police, at all levels, represent white supremacy and the preservation of a racist, classist, and sexist society. Increased levels of policing at events like this present a clear danger to black, brown, poor, and queer and trans members of our community. Such actions show that Zionist campus groups do not have a commitment to fighting for justice and have no problem siding with and introducing oppressive forces within radical spaces.

We will continue to defend our communities and fight for our liberation. Our struggles are linked through shared histories and experiences of oppression. Today’s rally is not a culmination of our activism, but a beginning. We will continue to resist injustices which surround us, whether it be at the hands of the US government or this University. We will fight and we will win, by any means necessary.
In solidarity,

The Co-Organizers and Sponsors of “Smashing Fascism: Radical Resistance to White Supremacy

This is literally a call to attack anyone who is "Zionist" (which, of course, means anyone publicly identifying as a Jew, despite their protestations that they are against anti-semitism.)

This one press release should prompt every campus in the US to ban SJP as well as the other groups that sponsored this event. The alternative is condoning violence against most Jews on campus, wrapped in a robe of righteousness.

Far more coverage at Legal Insurrection and Campus Reform.

I'll leave the last word to a student at Vassar, Jesser Horowitz, who writes:

The left wants to call out other people’s anti-Semitism to make their own movement look better while ignoring their own bigotry. And although I acknowledge that the right is just as guilty, they at least do not have the gall to do so under guise of inclusivity.

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From the O'Dwyer public relations news site:

Qatar has hired Stonington Strategies to a $50K a month contract to strengthen its relationship with the US and build bridges to the Jewish community.

Nick Muzin, a doctor, lawyer and Republican strategist who is active in Jewish affairs, heads Stonington.

He was the driving force behind a coalition of more than 50 groups, including tea party, evangelical and Jewish organizations, to oppose the Iran nuclear deal.

"Engagement with Qatar can only be in the best interests of the United States and the Jewish community, as we cannot allow Qatar to be ostracized by its neighbors and pushed into Iran’s sphere of influence,” said Muzin.

So Qatar figures the best way to influence Arab states to drop their boycott of the Qataris is to influence Americans to pressure them to ease up, and the best way to influence Americans is to reach out to American Jews.

Isn't that interesting?

And the initial argument is that by Gulf states spurning Qatar, they are pushing Qatar into Iran's orbit.

But if Qatar doesn't want to be ostracized by the Gulf states, all it needs to do it distance itself from Iran. Instead, Qatar wants to spend $600K a year to keep its relationships with Iran intact through reaching out to those Jews, with all their control of America and the world.

Muzin is perfect for the job from Qatar's perspective: he's an Orthodox Jew, went to yeshivas in Toronto and Philadelphia and then to Yeshiva University, he's a lawyer and a doctor, and he has worked with the Trump campaign and transition team as well as with Ted Cruz' campaign and other prominent Republicans.

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Sarsour: The Poster

Before putting on her hijab, Linda Sarsour admits she was white. Now she claims to be a "person of color." Neat trick! @lsarsour pic.twitter.com/4km7rs0sjj
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) September 4, 2017

My tweet with the video of Linda Sarsour saying that she was an "ordinary white girl" before putting on her hijab has gone viral, with over 2,200 retweets and 3,700 "likes." According to Twitter Analytics, the tweet has been viewed over 350,000 times.

The story was picked up by two news sites, the Daily Wire and the Washington Standard.

So for no good reason, I decided to make a poster for the formerly white girl who thinks an article of clothing makes her a spokesperson for people of color.

.

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09/06 Links Pt2: UN “human rights defender”, AJ “Pal supermom” claims Jews drink Arab blood

From Ian:

Palestinian ‘Supermom’ Claims That Jews Drink Arab Blood

The United Nations has crowned her a “human rights defender,” while Al Jazeera hails her as a “Palestinian supermom.” But Manal Tamimi’s links to violence — and tweets accusing Jews of “drinking Palestinian blood” — are prompting some of her backers to reconsider their support.
Tamimi, a 45-year-old mother of four, is a leader of the Popular Resistance Organizing Committee in the town of Nabi Saleh, near the Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled city of Ramallah.
Nearly every Friday for the past seven-and-a-half years, Tamimi and her colleagues have marched to the nearby Jewish community of Halamish to demand its expulsion. Halamish is the village where — on July 21 — a Palestinian terrorist stabbed to death three members of the Salomon family at their Shabbat dinner table.
During the weekly Friday protests, many of the marchers have hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers who guard the town; the soldiers have responded with tear gas or rubber bullets. Tamimi, her husband Bilal and their children have attracted international attention by posting videos of the Israeli soldiers on the internet. The Tamimis contend that the soldiers’ arrests of rock throwers constitutes persecution of the residents of Nabi Saleh.
Tamimi was included in a list of “human rights defenders” in a recent report by S. Michael Lynk, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the disputed territories.
In response, NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based organization that tracks the activities and funding of self-described human rights groups, informed the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that Tamimi has authored tweets such as: “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day [written on Yom Kippur] by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.”

How Ted Kennedy fathered BDS and Linda Sarsour

We were talking about the crisis in Tel Aviv, where thousands of infiltrators have taken over parts of the town, when my friend said it’s just as bad here in the United States, except that these invaders were brought here legally. “There’s more than one Linda Sarsour,” he said. “Thousands. Maybe millions.”
For him – and for many others – it’s personal. Marv has two kids going back to college in a few weeks and he fears for their safety.
“In my day,” he said, “the college years were the best of times.”
Not so in our day. His two kids aren’t saying much about it, choosing a brave front, but he knows they’re glum about campus life gone so terribly wrong.
Because going back to school now means going back to BDS.
That means facing the taunts, slurs and anti-Semitic Beer Hall tactics that are a specialty of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement peopled largely by “students” who came over from Arab countries…courtesy of Ted Kennedy and the Immigration Act of 1965.
“Our kids are being intimidated, harassed and threatened by them,” says Marv. “They make life miserable. It’s the biggest domestic alarm facing America today.”
He added, “It’s about time you wrote something about this.”

Can't We Talk About This - Theo Van Gogh's last words

Can’t We Talk About This? The Islamic Jihad Against Free Speech, a shocking new film and follow-up video series detailing the concerted effort by international organizations to compel the U.S. and other Western countries to curtail the freedom of speech and criminalize criticism of Islam.
Featuring exclusive new interviews with Pamela Geller, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders, Mark Steyn, Douglas Murray, Ezra Levant, Lars Vilks, Garland Muhammad cartoon contest winner Bosch Fawstin, and many other heroes of freedom, this web series will be the first ever to expose the war on free speech. It is certain to shock the American public and awaken many. These interviews reveal events at Garland and its aftermath that have never before been made public, and demonstrate how far advanced the war on free speech really is.

I have a little game I like to play. I like to see if I can guess by the title of a piece if it's a Times of Israel piece. Ian's Linkdumps, here at Elder of Ziyon, serve me well for this purpose.

Here's where I'm going to confess that these linkdumps are my go-to source for Israel news and commentary. I scroll through Ian's links and if I see something interesting, I'll open it in a new tab and share it on Facebook with a pull quote. I'd rather not, however, give page views to publications I deem harmful to Israel. That means I'd rather not click a title I suspect is from the Times of Israel.

Instead, I'll hover over the hyperlinked title with my mouse, so that the full URL appears in the taskbar. That way I can then see with what publication a given link is associated. And if it's a Times of Israel article, I give it a miss.

The thing is, I've gotten so good at spotting Times of Israel titles that it's almost creepy. Basically, Times of Israel articles fall into three categories: A) Articles that show Israel in a negative light, B) Holocaust articles, and C) articles about old guys having bar mitzvahs and other dying Jewish things.

Here's an example from a September 3 linkdump: "Palestinian suspect shot by IDF said to die of wounds."

Implied IDF Cruelty

I knew right away this was going to be a Times of Israel piece, because the emphasis is on the implied cruelty of the IDF as opposed to the suspect's misdeeds. The phrase "shot by IDF" makes it sound as if the guy had been shot with malice and forethought. "Said to die of wounds" implies suspicion that the IDF is not being truthful, that the army is hiding something here; some terrible act that should be investigated, but probably will not be, because ISRAEL (sarcasm).

I didn't need to read Ian's pull quote to confirm my suspicions. I just knew it was the Times of Israel from the title. The piece falls into the first of the three categories outlined above: it makes Israel look bad. But just to show I know my stuff, I took my mouse and hovered over the title. Bingo! A Times of Israel link.

I win. Yay me. Now that was even more fun than the other game I play—the one where I see if I can put away all the clean dishes in the two minutes it takes to heat a mug of water in the microwave. Man, I lead an exciting life!

To clarify, there is no doubt there's a lot more to the story than this Times of Israel headline. The IDF is a moral army: an army deserving of admiration and respect. IDF soldiers don't just go shooting people dead without cause. Yet this is how the Times of Israel chose to present this story.

To prove the point, I found the back story in this headline from Israel National News: "Terrorist dies a month after being shot." The dead guy was a terrorist, but you wouldn't know that from a quick glance at the Times of Israel headline. Why not? Because it's not in the interests of the Times of Israel to disseminate the facts in a headline. It's apparently in the interests of the Times of Israel to demonize Israel.

There is no other way to understand that headline.

Three Flavors

As I said, Times of Israel articles generally come in three flavors. I went to google to dig up an example of old guys having bar mitzvahs for the purpose of this column. I typed: "Times of Israel septuagenarian bar mitzvah" and laughed out loud when the first result was "70 years on, Holocaust survivors get bar mitzvahs." Why did I laugh? Because first of all, the piece appeared only two days ago at the time of this writing (way to prove a point). And also: this piece actually combines categories two and three (old guys having bar mitzvahs AND the Holocaust).

How perfect is that?

Let's analyze this briefly (because longer will make me upchuck.) Articles depicting Israel in a negative light can be taken straight up: The Times of Israel hates Israel and sees it as an entity that rules over another people by force. The only way Israel can expiate this sin is to give the Arabs everything they demand which means that Israel will then no longer exist and the world will live happily ever after. Then they, the staff of the Times of Israel, at least those among them who are Jews, will be GOOD Jews, unlike the, ahem, callous unfeeling settlers and cruel IDF soldiers (more sarcasm). The Times of Israel helps this process along by making Israel look really, really bad at every possible opportunity, thus making Israel the focus of world enmity. Not to mention supplying the Arabs fodder for their propaganda machine.

As in our earlier example above, it's easier to see how this is done when you compare a Times of Israel title to one from a pro-Israel publication. Here is a Times of Israel title from September 5: "Palestinian Family Evicted from East Jerusalem." Compare this headline to that of the Israel National News piece on the same subject: "Arab squatters evicted from Jewish property in Jerusalem"

The Times of Israel piece focuses on the cruelty of Israeli courts in throwing a family out of its home. There are photos of mighty Israeli policemen, a sad Arab dad peeking out of a graffiti-stained door, and a crying Arab mama accompanying the piece.

One can almost hear the simmering undercurrent of umbrage: Where is Israel's mercy? A family evicted! Does it matter whether this is a Jewish or an Arab family??? Is this how Jews should act?? TIKUN OLAM!!!!

But if you are smart enough not to take your news from a single news outlet, you might read the INN piece, which gives you several good reasons the court ruled as it did, including the facts that this is a Jewish property and that the illegal tenants damaged that property:

Police evicted an Arab family from a Jewish-owned home in the Shimon Hatzaddik neighborhood (Sheikh Jarrah) in eastern Jerusalem Tuesday morning, returning the property to Jewish hands.

The home, which had been built and inhabited by Jews prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948, was seized by Jordan during the occupation of eastern Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967.

Despite the liberation of the area in 1967, for the past 50 years the home has been occupied by local Arabs.

While the law enables Jewish landowners who were deprived of their property during the Jordanian occupation to sue for its return, the legal process can take decades, especially if there are people living in the home.

Police were ordered to evict the family Tuesday after a court declared them illegal squatters, following their refusal to pay the Jewish owners rent, as well as causing damage to the property.

Officers closed the entrances to the Shimon Hatzaddik neighborhood (Sheikh Jarrah) ahead of the evacuation before forcibly removing the squatters after they refused to comply with the eviction orders.

A small group of Arabs and left-wing activists protested the squatters’ eviction.

The last sentence is especially telling. The Times of Israel made a big hoo-hah over this story. Such a hoo-hah that the story got picked up by a bunch of mainstream media outlets including ABC and the BBC. That doesn't mean those outlets got the story from the Times of Israel, but the Times of Israel coverage of the story does certainly help spread the word—especially via that headline! Meantime, the event was no big deal here in Israel. Only a small group of protesters showed up. No. Big. Deal.

This is how a small story is distorted and blown up out of proportion to damn Israel. And in my opinion, it's pure antisemitism. It's done simply to generate hate against Israel and the Jews. This story was a nothing burger and remains a nothing burger, except for the way in which it is slanted and abused to hurt Israel.

As for the second category, the heavy focus on Holocaust stories, this is the Times of Israel underscoring the idea that Obama so loved: that Jews think they have a right to Israel only because of the legacy of the Holocaust and that it's not the Arabs' fault that Jews were murdered, so why should they have to suffer the consequences?

Playing up the Holocaust is about covering up any prior history that proves the Jewish people are indigenous to Israel. It's the Times of Israel saying, "Yes. We know we suffered in the Holocaust. And that is real. But it doesn't give us the right to lord it over another people. In fact, having gone through the Holocaust we should not be making these poor Arab people suffer as we did."

As if there is anything comparable in Israel's treatment of a belligerent minority to the systematic gassing and burning of the six million (shakes head).

Judaism: Quaint and Outdated

That leaves us with our third category of Times of Israel articles: old guys' bar mitzvahs. This is about showing the world how modern they are at TOI. And how quaint and outdated is the Judaism of our ancestors. The Judaism of old is corned beef and matzoh ball soup and old guys having bar mitzvahs. The new Judaism is voting for Hillary and giving money to Linda Sarsour. Judaism is now whatever we want it to be (and not what God wants it to be). It is giving money to Slutwalk Chicago while eating shrimp! It is the far left.

In other words, there is no religious reason, no VALID reason, for Jews to be in Israel. Because Judaism has EVOLVED. There is no longer any reason to hold onto the idea of Israel as the land of the Chosen People, or even to see that people as "chosen." These are all outmoded ideas that belong on the garbage heap of history along with delis, Allan Sherman (who?), and old people with Russian "hecksents."

The Times of Israel wants you to remember that old Judaism with nostalgia and fondness, but not to take it seriously. They want you to move on (and out of Israel). Unless, of course, you're ready for your Jewish children to mix with Arab children until there is one people, one culture, one nation. A nation that is neither Jewish nor Arab but a joyous amalgamation of the two.

Which can only begin with the destruction of the Jewish State.

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In Next Conflict, IDF To Spray Marijuana Smoke Over Hamas, Hezbollah (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Kibbutz Zikkim, September 6 - Defense officials came to this community abutting the border with the Gaza Strip today to oversee a groundbreaking ceremony for large fans that will blow marijuana smoke onto enemy positions and compromise the opponent's desire to fight.

More than six hundred powerful windmill-like devices will be deployed by spring 2019, according to plans unveiled today, along the security barrier that separates Israel from the Hamas-run coastal territory. Similar units are already under construction along the border with Lebanon to the north, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization has threatened to invade Israel, and not merely fire rockets. The fan installation marks the first of a two-phase project, the second part of which will see weed-processing units attached to the fans to feed the air stream with the smoke - smoke that contains THC, the chemical component of marijuana that has been shown to reduce aggression and make a robust military operation by the militant group less tenable.

In anticipation of another outbreak of war with Hamas - there have been three in the last ten years - Israel has taken numerous preventive steps to improve its tactical and strategic situation. The marijuana fans represent only a part of a revamped preventive strategic approach, where deterrence alone once played the most prominent role. Iron Dome protects most of the country's population from incoming missiles, while a new underground wall aims to remove the threat of infiltration by armed militants via tunnels. Marine units have trained extensively and deployed new equipment to combat possible infiltration by sea, and the marijuana installations will ease combat conditions for the IDF if it becomes necessary to enter the Gaza Strip to neutralize further threats. The fans will operate mostly when winds are calm, to allow the smoke to spread only over enemy positions. Several local residents voiced disappointment with that policy, but acknowledged the advantages of precision targeting.

"This is a poetic moment," declared Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman. "THC was first isolated by Israeli scientists decades ago. Today, we combine generations of Israeli know-how and innovation in the defense of our communities from evil. I salute the engineers who made this day possible, and acknowledge the project could have reached this stage sooner if not for a persistent leak in the system that released smoke into the testing facility that for some reason the personnel there were not inclined to repair in a timely manner."

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09/06 Links Pt1: In a Reversal of Roles, Israel Sends Aid to American Jews; Phillips: The tumult continues

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: In a Reversal of Roles, Israel Sends Aid to American Jews

It was bound to happen, sooner or later.
With the rapid increase over the years in Israel's GDP and in its population, Israel is no longer a poor country that needs the philanthropy of American Jews to survive. And the balance between the American Jewish population and the Israeli Jewish population has shifted as well. Depending on exactly how you count, there are more Jews in Israel today than in the United States--or if not, there will be soon.
The terrible damage wreaked by Hurricane Harvey affected, among other communities in Houston, the Jewish community there and its physical establishments, such as schools and synagogues. And now, as the Jerusalem Post reports, Israel is giving foreign aid to this American Jewish community. Here is part of the article:
Diaspora Affairs Minister Bennett has pledged $1 million in relief aid for the Jewish community of Houston, saying, “The Jewish state is measured by its response when our brothers around the world are in crisis.”
According to a statement released by the ministry, this aid will be transferred through the Israeli Consulate in Texas, and will be used to help repair and restore the communal infrastructure – schools, synagogues and JCC – which are not funded or supported by the state.
The Jerusalem Post calls this a "rare move," but I'd bet it will be less rare over time. It is logical to expect Israel to show, in ways such as this, that it is steadily becoming the largest and most important Jewish community in the world. Once upon a time, the center of world Jewish life was in Israel; then it moved to Europe; then to the United States; and now it is moving back to where it all began.

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Forgotten Palestinians

Ayman Qawasmeh and Issa Amro would have been better off being arrested by Israeli authorities. Had that happened, their stories would have made it to the pages of major Western newspapers. CNN or NBC might have dedicated an entire program to their ordeal. Without a way for the Western media outlets to implicate Israel, however, their tale remains buried -- along with their freedom.
The group also points out that it has documented some 472 cases of deaths consequent to torture in Syrian detention centers and prisons over the past few years.
Would anyone like to know about the true apartheid laws applied to Palestinians in different Arab countries? The information is readily available: all that needs to happen is for the Western media and the rest of the international community to reconsider their obsession with Israel and to start paying attention to the real Palestinian victims -- those living in the Arab countries.

Melanie Phillips: The tumult continues

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network my new occasional feature Loony Lefty libels, America’s cultural civil war between the left and the far-right, and whether new revelations suggest that the inquiry into the Hillary Clinton email scandal was fixed to exonerate her even before the investigation was completed.

Don't cry over these kids. They would have died anyway.

From Tablet:

A major United States Holocaust Memorial Museum study of the Obama Administration’s Syria policy was put on hold last night after portions of the study given to Tablet were greeted with shock and harsh criticism by prominent Jewish communal leaders and thinkers.

According to a publicity email sent by the Museum, the study was set to be launched at an event at the US Institute for Peace in Washington, DC on September 11th and was overseen by former Obama NSC and intelligence officer Cameron Hudson, now director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. The paper argued that “a variety of factors, which were more or less fixed, made it very difficult from the beginning for the US government to take effective action to prevent atrocities in Syria, even compared with other challenging policy contexts.” Using computational modeling and game theory methods, as well as interviews with experts and policymakers, the report asserted that greater support for the anti-Assad rebels and US strikes on the Assad regime after the August 2013 Ghouta chemical weapons attack would not have reduced atrocities in the country, and might conceivably have contributed to them.

The intervention of the Holocaust Museum in a hot-button political dispute—and the apparent excuse of official US government inaction in the face of large-scale mass murder, complete with the gassing of civilians and government-run crematoria—alarmed many Jewish communal figures. “The first thing I have to say is: Shame on the Holocaust Museum,” said Leon Wieseltier, the literary critic and fellow at the Brookings Institution, who slammed the Museum for “releasing an allegedly scientific study that justifies bystanderism.”

The Museum’s exercise in counter-factual history, he suggested, was inherently absurd. “If I had the time I would gin up a parody version of this that will give us the computational-modeling algorithmic counterfactual analysis of John J McCloy’s decision not to bomb the Auschwitz ovens in 1944. I’m sure we could concoct the fucking algorithms for that, too.”...

So what gives? Well, besides the former Obama staffer overseeing the study, we have:

At least one of the architects of the Obama administration policy in Syria, former deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, was appointed to the museum’s Memorial Council during the closing days of the Obama administration. The Council also includes Obama NSC alumni Grant Harris and Daniel Benjamin. Other Obama NSC alumni, including Hudson and Anna Cave, have joined the Museum’s staff.

And;

Some Jewish communal leaders suggested both privately to Tablet, and in conversations with board members and staff at the Holocaust Museum, that the Museum’s moral authority had been hijacked for a partisan re-writing of recent history, and alleged that the museum had absolved the Obama administration of any moral or political error in its response to mass atrocities in Syria.

It sure looks like it, doesn't it?

To have the Holocaust Memorial Museum issue a study that justifies inaction in the face of mass atrocities is mind-boggling. This is outrageous politicization of the purpose of the memorial. Wieseltier summed it up perfectly - anyone can make an algorithm to put a pseudo-scientific cloak on a political issue. (Amnesty has an entire website dedicated to demonizing Israel with slick algorithms and disproven data, and stands by it.)

If indeed the former Obama officials have been heavily involved in conceiving and writing this, they should be fired from the Museum. They have done more damage to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's reputation than anyone can imagine and there is only one way to get it back.

(h/t Ian)

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The ICRC did the exact opposite of what was needed in Gaza in its meeting with Hamas

The New York Times eagerly reported in 2015:

GAZA CITY — A new training regimen for fighters in Hamas’s armed wing employs slide presentations and a whiteboard rather than Kalashnikov rifles and grenades. The young men wear polo shirts instead of fatigues and black masks. They do not chant anti-Israel slogans, but discuss how the Geneva Conventions governing armed conflict dovetail with Islamic principles.

The three-day workshop, conducted last month by the International Committee of the Red Cross, followed numerous human-rights reports accusing both Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, of war crimes in their devastating battle last summer, and came as the International Criminal Court prosecutor conducts a preliminary inquiry into that conflict.

The Red Cross developed its program in conjunction with Islamic scholars several years ago, but ramped it up after last summer’s deadly battle. So far this year, it has conducted six sessions for a total of 210 fighters from Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades and two other Gaza armed groups. Another workshop is scheduled for this week.

...Red Cross leaders say they have seen an increasing commitment from Hamas leaders and linemen alike, if only because they now consider their international image a critical component of their struggle.

Mamadou Sow, who heads Red Cross operations in Gaza, said that in April he presented a critique of Hamas’s conduct during the 2014 hostilities to its top political and military leaders, and that they “welcomed it” and “indicated that they are a learning organization.”

“For the first time,” said Jacques de Maio, director of the Red Cross delegation in Israel and the Palestinian territories, “Hamas is actually, in a private, protected space, expressing a readiness to look critically at a number of things that have an impact on their level of respect for international humanitarian law.”

He added, “Whether this will translate into something concrete, time will tell.”

Hamas' actions are predictable, but only to those who understand the honor/shame mentality.

Hamas isn't interested in adhering to international law because it is the right thing to do.Hamas is interested in appearing to adhere to the minimal standards of international law to avoid being shamed.

Which brings us up to yesterday:

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Tuesday discussed the fate of two Israeli civilians and the remains of two Israeli soldiers believed to be held by Hamas in a meeting with the leader of the Islamic militant group.

Officials on both sides said the status of the missing Israelis was one of a host of issues discussed in the meeting between ICRC President Peter Maurer and Yehiyeh Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza.

A Hamas official said that Maurer "heard the movement's firm position" Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

Sinwar has said Hamas will not release any information about the missing Israelis until Israel frees 54 Palestinian prisoners who were re-arrested after being released in a 2011 prisoner swap.

Hamas has successfully learned the lessons taught by the ICRC. It is using the language of international law to insist that its prisons adhere to some sort of standard, but of course it will not allow the Red Cross to visit any actual Israeli prisoners.

The fundamental issue that Hamas has managed to obfuscate is that these "prisoners" are not prisoners - but hostages. The reason Hamas didn't allow Maurer to speak with the Israelis who for whatever reason ended up in Gaza is because it wants to use them as bargaining chips to get Israel to release terrorists and achieve other goals, and even the promise of showing proof of life is something that Hamas sees as something to be bartered..

Hostage-taking, of course, is a grave violation of international law. But Maurer, as far as we can tell, never uttered the word "hostage" to Hamas - but Hamas pretends that these Israelis are prisoners of war, or criminals.

If Maurer would have spoken out loud, ahead of the meeting, about how these Israelis are hostages and hwo the very act of demanding something for their return is illegal under international law, he could have made a difference - because Hamas would have been shamed and it seeks to avoid shame. But instead Maurer treated Hamas with respect (=honor) and Hamas now has less incentive to adhere to international law.

For Hamas and other members of the shame culture, it is all about appearances, not ethics. Maurer's meeting with Sinwar enhanced Hamas' standing in its eyes - photos of the meeting are featured in Hamas' website - but the issues are only meant to be manipulated to Hamas' advantage, not to be taken seriously.

For Hamas to change, it has to be shamed. The ICRC did the opposite, making Sinwar look like a world leader while getting nothing in return.

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A Palestinian columnist named Hesham Manour has a new twist on a popular Arab conspiracy theory.

He says that Israel is behind the wave of terror attacks across Europe. That's not new. What's new is the reasons.

Since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising against the occupation called "the uprising of knives" and then the spread of the operations of ramming cars into people, the occupying entity has been surprised and astonished at the indifference of Western and European specifically in condemning what it calls "Palestinian terrorism." The sympathy elicited from the old continent was not sufficient from the point of view of the entity of occupation, And [Israel] found no way to push the world to empathize with it first, ..so it managed and facilitated terrorist operations against civilians in Europe, and to attach them to Daesh to secure European and international sympathy later against the Palestinian resistance operations aimed at soldiers and herds of settlers on the occupied territory in Palestine.

...The European operations always result in the execution of the attackers and not their arrest, in an attempt to obliterate the facts and to obstruct investigations. The real purpose of the entity of the occupation is the desire for European governments not to engage in confrontation with the occupation entity, and reveal its fingers in these operations - and later to be accused of Anti-Semitism.

How can Daesh succeed in its terrorist operations without a strong intelligence service behind the facilitation of its logistical operations, such as Mossad, and the elimination of the attackers is a sign of the desire of European governments to conceal the Israeli security breaches.

It is most appropriate that Hesham Manour's last name is a homophone to his writings.

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09/05 Links Pt2: Phillips: 'Has truth lost all meaning' For Israel-haters, yes; The accidental Zionist

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: 'Has truth lost all meaning' For Israel-haters, yes

Thomas Suarez is an Israel-hater. He is about to embark on a tour of America. He recently concluded a tour of Scotland. He has spoken at universities in the United Kingdom. A book he wrote, published last year, which vilifies and defames the state of Israel and which references and has been endorsed by other Israel-haters, was honoured with a launch inside a meeting room in the House of Lords.
Two indefatigable fighters against anti-Jewish bigotry, David Collier and Jonathan Hoffman, have written a detailed analysis of this book’s methodology and its claim to be a serious work of, ahem, scholarship. They retraced the author’s primary sources, examined dozens of files at the National Archives in Kew, bought and analysed several of the key writings that are cited and made contact with academics and historians who specialise in the subject matter. They write:
“The distortion created within the book’s argument is drawn from every level of error imaginable. The author made basic historical research mistakes, such as an over-reliance on, and disproportionate inclusion of, ideologically selected material. In addition – and more worryingly – the source material for the most part contradicts the author’s writing. And finally, there are several clear examples of such total distortion and inversion of meaning that it is difficult to conclude anything other than deliberate intent. The book is dripping with racial hatred against Jews.
“We conclude that in our opinion, this book is an antisemitic fraud. We do not use that phrase lightly… This raises important questions that must be addressed. How is it that such a badly put together distortion, riddled with historical inaccuracy, misquotes and racial hatred, is being welcomed by any part of our society? Just a rudimentary check brought to light unacceptable errors that warranted further investigation. The additional factcheck uncovered an unsupportable pyramid of fictions.
“Has truth lost all meaning? How can a university professor endorse such a book? We are sure that the sheer scale of the shoddy research and blatant manipulations described in this report will shock those who read it. Perhaps almost as much as it shocked those who uncovered it.”

President to dedicate memorial to Munich massacre victims

President Reuven Rivlin will take part in a ceremony to dedicate a memorial to the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics on Wednesday. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had invited Rivlin to participate in the ceremony.
Before departing for Munich on Tuesday, Rivlin said the memorial would serve as a "silent testimony of the cruel consequences of terrorism and the promise that we will exact a price from those who carry out and encourage acts of terror throughout the entire free world."
On Wednesday, Steinmeier, together with Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehofer, will accompany Rivlin at the dedication of the memorial as well as a memorial center in honor of the athletes and coaches murdered in the Munich massacre. Representatives from the bereaved families will also take part in the ceremony.
Following the dedication ceremony, Rivlin will visit the Dachau concentration camp. He will then fly to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Munich Olympics terror attack haunts Israeli widow

On September 5, 1972, Palestinian militants from the Black September group jumped over the fences at the Olympic Village, entered one of the apartments of the Israeli team and took 11 Israeli athletes hostage who were later killed in a botched rescue operation. The militants wanted the release of more than 200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Ankie Spitzer lost her husband, Andre, in the attack. He was the coach for the Israeli fencing team and killed during the rescue attempt. Spitzer and relatives of the other victims spent decades asking the Olympic Committee for a formal acknowledgement and a ceremony for the victims inside the Olympic village. Although there is a commemorative plague outside the apartment where the hostages were held, and a sculpture in the Olympic Park, it is only now, 45 years after attack, that a permanent memorial and a museum will be opened in memory of the victims.
It took 45 years for the German authorities to finally build this memorial and a museum in Munich. How do you feel about that?
We wanted some place that reminded the world about what happened at the Olympic village. In 1978, Ilana Romano (widow of weightlifter Yossi Romano) and I asked then Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher if the building where it happened could be turned into a small museum. And they said no, it is private property. This went on for many years. We wanted the history to be told, the biographies to be shown and we wanted also an educational part so that young people can learn about it. For us the opening will be a mixture of emotions, on the one hand we're very grateful that it will finally open, on the other hand very sad because we know what happened there.
Why do you think took it so long for German authorities to go ahead with the memorial?
It should have been the most simple and basic thing. But I am sure at that time, after the attack in 1972, we were facing officials who were totally uninterested. I saw it also as antisemitism. But today, the new generation of leaders in Germany have a different mindset and don't carry the burden of the history, of the Nazi-past and they understood why it is necessary to do it.
Right after the attack, the German authorities had a very hostile and humiliating attitude towards us. One of the German officials told me after the attack: 'You Israelis, you brought terrorism on German soil. You brought your war to Germany.' For 20 years we asked for the ballistic reports, for the pathological reports. We wanted to know what happened to our husbands. For 20 years they told us, we don't have those files. Until 1992, when the German authorities had to admit that they had all the files.