Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Now the haters claim that Israeli Bible Marathon violates international law

From AP:

Israel on Thursday said the international marathon body was injecting politics into sports by excluding an Israeli race because it passes through West Bank territory, which the Palestinians and most of the world considers to be occupied.

The Israel Marathon Association said the Association of International Marathons and Distances Races had displayed a “discriminatory nature” against the Bible Marathon that “will certainly result in great anger” among runners around the world.

Next month’s Bible Marathon stretches from Rosh Ha’ayin in central Israel to the West Bank settlement of Shiloh, tracing a path described in the Book of Samuel. Organizers call the route the oldest recorded marathon in history.

The Greek-based organization said it had to exclude the Israeli marathon to comply with “international public law.”

The Israeli association asked it to reconsider, saying that its decision was “prompted by a campaign organized by political activists” and rested on false legal premises. It also noted that the organization has long recognized the Laayoune Marathon in the disputed Western Sahara region controlled by Morocco.

The history of the Bible Marathon is actually very interesting: the 42-km route was used by a runner way before the original marathon story:

“Then a man of Benjamin ran from the battle line the same day, and came to Shiloh with his clothes torn…”

One of the first runs recorded in human history—long before the “marathon” told of in Greek mythology—is mentioned in the Bible, in the beginning of the book of Samuel. At the end of the war between the Israelites and the Philistines, the “man of Benjamin” runs from the battlefield at Eben Ezer (modern day Rosh Ha’ayin) to Shiloh, city of the Tabernacle.

Many centuries later, the founder of the Maccabiah games, Yosef Yekutieli, set out to measure the length of the course from Rosh Ha’ayin to Shiloh, in the Benjamin region. He was amazed to find that the length of this historic path precisely matched that of the modern marathon – 42 kilometers (the official length of the Olympic running contest, determined in 1908 at the London Olympics).

The legend of the marathon, of course, is Greek and took place hundreds of years afterwards:

The name Marathon[n 1] comes from the legend of Philippides or Pheidippides, the Greek messenger. The legend states that he was sent from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon (in which he had just fought),[3] which took place in August or September, 490 BC.[4] It is said that he ran the entire distance without stopping and burst into the assembly, exclaiming νενικήκαμεν (nenikēkamen, "we have won!"), before collapsing and dying.

Indeed, the first recorded "marathon" in history happened in biblical Israel, not in Greece! (Maybe that is one reason the Greek-based Association of International Marathons and Distance Races decided to withdraw support - jealousy!)

Apparently, UNSC 2334 - the resolution that Barack Obama tacitly supported by refusing to veto it - is being used as the pretext for this decision.

A legal answer to this absurd decision was written by the Kohelet Policy Forum in this press release:

JERUSALEM (17/9/2017) The Bible Marathon, which traces the oldest recorded marathon route in history from Rosh Ha'ayin to Shiloh, has had its membership revoked by the Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS) after BDS activists claimed that its route violates international law. The organizers of the annual running event received notice from the President of AIMS rescinding their membership claiming that the race went beyond the boundaries of the State of Israel and therefore was a violation of UNSC resolution 2334. The Israeli Marathon Association promptly instructed Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Policy Forum to act on their behalf to legally resolve this issue, since there is no legal precedent for such actions.

Professor Eugene Kontorovich responded to the discriminatory AIMS decision in a formal letter to the organization’s president in which he clearly showed that holding a cultural or sports event was not only a violation of any law but rather the common practice worldwide.

The Professor of International Law at Northwestern University and Director of International Law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum explained: “There is no international law that prohibits running the route of the world’s oldest race because it finishes in Ancient Shiloh. You can’t have one international law for Israel and another for the rest of the world. By definition international law applies to everybody.”

Kontorovich cited multiple annual sporting events including marathons that are held in disputed or occupied territories:“Examples include the Internationale de l'Automobile, which sanctions Formula 1 races in Jerusalem; Fédération Western Sahara; the International Triathlon Union authorizes Moroccan events in Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) recognizes Moroccan teams in occupied occupied Western Sahara; and the International Trail Running Association approves races in Russian-occupied Crimea. In none of these cases have these actions been thought to be prohibited by international law.”

He went on to explain: “AIMS has for many years given full membership to the Laayoune Marathon, which takes place entirely in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Indeed, on the AIMS website and catalog, the event is described as being in “Morocco” despite the rejection of this characterization by the international community, which regards it as occupied.”

The letter ended: “We respectfully request that the Bible Marathon promptly be given AIMS membership as required by the association’s rules, and by its longstanding practice. Such a decision will in no way involve an expression of opinion on AIMS part on the underlying political dispute. Failing this, we will resist AIMS’s unjust and politicized denial of membership to the world’s oldest running event in every forum available to us.”

Thousands of runners from Israel and abroad are expected to participate in the October 6th Bible Marathon, in spite of the AIMS decision, which the organizers hope will be rectified by then.Thousands of Bible believing Jews and Christians are also expected to lodge formal complaints with AIMS, for discriminating against the race because of its unique Biblical roots.

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President Trump's Rosh Hashanah Message

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP
AND SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT JARED KUSHNER
ON A CALL TO JEWISH LEADERS

Via Teleconference

MR. KUSHNER: Welcome, everybody, and thank you for joining us here today. This is the most special time of the year for the Jewish people. This Wednesday evening begins Rosh Hashanah, the first of 10 days of repentance, that concludes with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

Since January 20, I have had the great honor of serving in President Trump's administration. Anyone that knows the President understands that he takes great pride in having a Jewish daughter and Jewish grandchildren. His love and respect for the Jewish people extends way beyond his family, and into the heart of Jewish American communities.

Under the President’s leadership, America's relationship with the State of Israel has never been stronger, and our country’s commitment to Israel’s security has never been greater.

It is my great honor to introduce the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, and thank you for joining this call.

To the many leaders, Rabbis, and Jewish friends who are on the line, I am delighted to speak with you and to wish you Shana Tova, a sweet New Year.

I send the Jewish community my warmest wishes as we approach the High Holy Days.

The Jewish tradition of making time and taking time each year to rededicate your lives to the sacred values you hold dear not only improves yourselves but strengthens our nation and inspires us all.

As we mark the beginning of the year 5,778 in the Jewish calendar, I want to express my deep admiration for the Jewish people. Throughout the centuries, the Jewish people have endured unthinkable persecution.

I know with us today on the call are several Holocaust survivors. We are honored beyond words by your presence. You have borne witness to evil beyond human comprehension, and your perseverance is a lasting inspiration to us all. By telling your stories, you help us to confront evil in our world and we are forever grateful.

I am proud to stand with the Jewish people and with our cherished friend and ally, the State of Israel. The Jewish State is a symbol of resilience in the face of oppression -- it has persevered in the face of hostility, championed democracy in the face of violence, and succeeded in the face of very, very tall odds. The United States will always support Israel not only because of the vital security partnership between our two nations, but because of the shared values between our two peoples. And I can tell you on a personal basis, and I just left Israel recently, I love Israel.

That is why my administration has successfully pressured the United Nations to withdraw the unfair and biased report against Israel -- that was a horrible thing that they did -- and to instead focus on real threats to our security, such as Iran, Hezbollah, and ISIS.

This next New Year also offers a new opportunity to seek peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, and I am very hopeful that we will see significant progress before the end of the year. Ambassador David Friedman, Jared, Jason, and the rest of my team are working very hard to achieve a peace agreement. I think it’s something that actually could happen.

I am grateful for the history, culture, and values the Jewish people have given to civilization. We forcefully condemn those who seek to incite anti-Semitism, or to spread any form of slander and hate -- and I will ensure we protect Jewish communities, and all communities, that face threats to their safety.

I want to thank each of you for the ways in which you contribute to our nation. America is stronger because of the many Jewish Americans who bring such life, hope, and resilience to our nation.

Melania and I wish everyone a sweet, healthy, and peaceful New Year. Thank you very much.
________________________________

It is a reasonable message. Even though it is obviously scripted (as were all of previous presidents' messages on similar topics) it directly goes after the stupid idea that Trump is an antisemite or supports antisemitism. There are plenty of things to complain about with the current president, but the Trump Derangement Syndrome has eclipsed that of Bush in the sheer amount of lies about him that the media says every day.

Of course, moving the embassy to Jerusalem would mean a lot more than statements.

Nevertheless, liberal Jewish leaders - many of whom said they would boycott the call - are upset that the ones who attended didn't get a chance to ask questions and that this call was much shorter than previous ones.

Comparing Trump to other presidents should be considered obviously absurd nowadays. He campaigned on being different. He thrives on it. He should be judged by what he says and does, period. If you want to compare him to an Obama who spent 45 minutes talking to the rabbis on the annual call, then you must also mention that Obama deliberately elevated J-Street specifically to split the Jewish community on Israel. He actively tried, and to an extent succeeded, in damaging the relationship between Israel and American Jews, and the rabbis who are grumbling now are the same type of rabbis who support that exact split.

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09/16 Links: With Strike on Syrian CW, Israel May Have ‘Done a Service to Humanity’; The Islamic State’s Fourth Attack in Britain in 2017

From Ian:

The Islamic State’s Fourth Attack in Britain in 2017

At 8:20 on 15 September 2017, a bomb detonated in a rear carriage of a tube train at Parsons Green station in London. The passengers on the packed, rush-hour train described a flash “fireball” that travelled down the train. Thirty people were injured, some horribly burned, but there were no fatalities and the main explosive clearly did not detonate.

The creation of a bomb is a more sophisticated operation than a stabbing or vehicle-ramming attack, but it is important to maintain perspective: the device used in this case was primitive. On examination, the crude device—a bucket containing the mixed chemicals and nails, left in a Lidl bag—proved to contain triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and to have been on a timer. For reasons unclear, it is likely that “only the initiator or a fraction of the main charge had exploded”, leaving the bucket intact.

TATP is sometimes said to be a “signature” of the Islamic State (IS), which is not quite right. TATP has shown up in a number of IS attacks in Europe and it is evidently a competency of theirs to handle this notoriously-volatile substance. Still, similar devices have been seen before.

The 21 July 2005 attempted follow-on attack to the 7 July massacre on the London transport system by al-Qaeda saw four TATP-based devices not unlike the Parsons Green one detonated on three tube trains and a bus with results akin to what happened yesterday. The wiring used to create the timer on the bomb appeared to include fairy lights, of the kind used on Christmas trees, and this was seen in the Boston bombing on 15 April 2013.

UK experts say London bomb didn’t detonate properly, could’ve left dozens dead

British counterterror specialists said the bomb detonated on the London Underground on Friday could have been more deadly than the explosives used in the 7/7 attack if it had detonated properly.

Despite the crude appearance of the bomb, which was placed in a bucket inside a shopping bag, a former counterterror investigator with the Metropolitan Police Service said the explosive device was in fact quite sophisticated.

“Whoever built this was not an amateur – it has many of the hallmarks of devices used by terror groups, but the use of the timer to set off the initial part of the device is something we have not seen before in the UK,” David Videcette said, adding, “Had it gone off successfully it would have caused a huge loss of life.”

In an opinion piece for The Independent, Videcette said the bomb’s failure to detonate was likely due to a lack of testing to ensure all the parts work and not a lack of expertise on the bomb maker’s part.

“This person has researched what they’re doing and possibly been taught by someone else. They have also been able to collect all the component parts of an explosive device, assemble it, and deliver it to its target without detection by police and Security services,” he said.

He also said the placement of the bomb in a shopping bag showed those behind the bomb had a clear understanding of how to handle explosives and that the use of the bag should not be viewed as primitive.

Man arrested in connection with London train bombing

British police arrested an 18-year-old man in the southern port of Dover on Saturday in a "significant" development in the hunt for the people behind a London commuter train bombing that injured 30 people a day earlier.

Prime Minister Theresa May put Britain on the highest security level of "critical" late on Friday, meaning an attack may be imminent, and soldiers and armed police deployed to secure strategic sites and hunt down the perpetrators.

The home-made bomb shot flames through a packed commuter train during the Friday morning rush hour in west London but apparently failed to detonate fully.

"We have made a significant arrest in our investigation this morning," said Neil Basu, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.

"Although we are pleased with the progress made, this investigation continues and the threat level remains at critical."

The arrest was made in the port area of Dover, where passenger ferries sail to France.

The blast on the London tube train at the Parsons Green underground station was the fifth major terrorism attack in Britain this year and was claimed by Islamic State.

On Battle of Britain Day: if German blitz on London were reported like Islamic terror attacks

Today is Battle of Britain day. With another terrorist attack in London today and the standard mainstream media and political response it is worth considering this ......

09/15 Links Pt2: Phillips: Britain’s alarming antisemitism problem; BDS vs. the iPhone X

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Britain’s alarming antisemitism problem

In 2002, on the BBC TV show Question Time, I was accused of dual loyalty in front of a jeering studio audience. My crime had been to defend Israel against demonization and double standards by both the audience and other members of the panel.

At that time I had visited Israel only twice in my life, two years previously. No matter. A British Jew defending Israel was – and is – immediately accused in some quarters of incipient treachery toward Britain, just as throughout history antisemites have accused Diaspora Jews of dual loyalty or treachery merely because they are Jews.

I thought of my own experience, of course, when I read the report on antisemitism in the UK published this week by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

There is currently much disquiet over the Labour Party’s conspicuous failure to address significant antisemitism within its ranks. But there has long been far wider concern among many British Jews about the antisemitic discourse, harassment and physical attacks which have become sickeningly commonplace in Britain over the past few years.

The report’s author, Daniel Staetsky, describes a situation which is complex.

Only around 5% of the population are out-and-out antisemites holding multiple anti-Jewish attitudes. Nevertheless, about 30% subscribe to some kind of antisemitic views.

The key is Staetsky’s distinction between antisemites and antisemitism. For while the number of antisemites is very small, the amount of antisemitism diffused throughout British society is much greater.

David Collier: Why you shouldn’t just shrug your shoulders at SOAS

So why is it important

It is important because it shouldn’t be happening anywhere. Just recently, Jonathan Arkush met with Baroness Amos. He described the meeting as ‘the worst of his life’. At the very top of SOAS, those in control have lost their way. Rather than bring the university in line, they have become protectors of the disintegrating environment. The Board of Deputies of British Jews is now considered a hostile element by a UK university and treated as such. A quick search will provide dozens of examples, of anti-Israel and Jewish rhetoric delivered at SOAS. Just one website, Richard Millett’s lists more than a dozen of his own personal experiences.

Yet SOAS is just an example of what can and will happen, wherever the perfect storm is created. Anti-Zionist activists, funding and the social and ethnic make-up of the students. Nobody has any interest in addressing the problem. At SOAS, Jews are not just a minority, they are a hunted minority. If you are Jewish with a soft spot for Israel you hide in the undergrowth or become prey. At a place like SOAS, which is so dependent on pacifying the mob, the Jews are left unprotected.

SOAS isn’t some regional town. It is a university. SOAS is like a local police station where the officers are all corrupt, were those arrested can have unfortunate accidents and local minorities live in fear of the authorities. SOAS is like a local council, where the Councillors prohibit Jews from certain professions unless they are willing to convert to the local church belief. This is an indication of a societal problem at an organised level. Not just a bad street, not just a bad town, but a bad Executive. A growing problem, developing at the very heart of our society. One that clearly threatens Jews.

Like a cancer it has to be rooted out. We need to identify what the problem is. Why Baroness Amos stands atop a rotten edifice, that betrays all of the core values it is meant to hold dear. We need to ask why is the lie unchallenged? Is it the demographics? Is there finance entering campus that is proving detrimental to Western society? What exactly is it that is developing in the academic undergrowth? Everyone who views SOAS with distaste should want to understand just which variables need to be in place to create an environment like this.

If you don’t want all universities to eventually look like SOAS looks today, you have to understand why this is happening. Why in London there is a university that threatens people who tell the truth. First there was one, now there are several of these pockets, spread across the country. A disease that is spreading. Which is why you cannot, must not, just shrug your shoulders.

Richard Millett: Jackie Walker brings her “lynching” to SOAS.

Then Walker was joined for a Q&A by three other anti-Israel activists: film director Ken Loach, author and journalist Victoria Brittain, and academic Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead.

The Q&A session basically turned into a full attack on the Jewish Chronicle and those writing for it who Walker called “proto-fascists”, The Jewish Labour Movement (Walker thinks the JLM should not give training sessions on anti-Semitism), the Israel Advocacy Movement who Walker accused of digging into her Facebook, the Labour Party compliance unit who Walker thinks is leaking everything to the Jewish Chronicle, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Community Security Trust who Walker said “churn out biased surveys all the time”, the so-called “weaponisation of antisemitism” (see above), the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of AntiSemitism which is being increasingly adopted by governments and councils, and, of course Israel.

These hard-left activists want the IHRA defintion changed because they only recognise the neo-Nazi type anti-Semitism as seen at Charlottsville. That means they, in their opinion, can never be considered anti-Semitic.

They don’t like the IHRA classifying “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” as anti-Semitism. That’s because they want the end of the only Jewish majority state.

Media screams about Israel's arms exports to Myanmar. Reality: It's minuscule.

From The Independent last week:

Israel is under fire from human rights groups for the continued sale of weaponry to the Burmese junta after intensified violence against the country's Rohingya Muslim minority.
More than 100 tanks, as well as boats and light weapons, have been sold to the Burmese government by Israeli arms companies, investigations by several rights watchdogs have found.
One company, TAR Ideal Concepts, has also trained Burmese special forces in northern Rakhine state, where much of the violence is taking place, posting pictures on their website of its staff teaching combat tactics and how to handle weapons.
An army crackdown triggered by an attack on 25 August by Rohingya insurgents on Burma security forces has triggered a major humanitarian crisis. At least 400 people have been killed and nearly 125,000 Rohingya have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh.

Similar articles in Haaretz and Middle East Eye make it sound like Israel has a huge trade with Myanmar/Burma and imply that Israel is it's major supplier of arms, especially arms being used against the Muslims there.

This is a all a lie.

Israel's arms sales to Myanmar are tiny compared to that country's total arms imports.

Here's the chart from SIPRI that details the amount, in millions (of dollars, I believe) for the past seven years.

Source: SIPRI Arms Transfers Database
Generated: 15 September 2017

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	Total
Belarus						6	51	57
China	5	277	254	190	65	185	190	1166
France					8	8		16
Germany (FRG)						4	4	8
India				6		27	12	45
Israel	20	1						21
Russia	44	380	144	55	28	12		663
Ukraine		7				4	4	14
Unknown supplier(s)		1						1

Total	68	667	398	251	101	245	261	1991

Israel provides about 1% of all arms to Myanmar since 2010, and nothing recorded since 2011! There are some reports of some more recent purchases than mentioned in this report, but they are small - a patrol boat, some specialized rifles.

Somehow, French and German arms dealers managed to sell arms to Myanmar far more recently, more than Israel did, and yet no one is reporting on that. And EU countries are officially banned from doing exactly that! Apparently, that is not very newsworthy.

I'm not justifying even Israel's tiny number of sales, of course. But while it may be true that Israeli arms manufacturers will sell weapons to unsavory nation-states (which is what every arms dealer in the world does subject to local laws) the emphasis on only Israel in reference to the current massacres there is proof not of Israel's evil but of the media's utter anti-Israel bias.

And those 100 tanks? Oh, they were sold in 2005!

The story isn't Israel's actions. The real story is why, yet again, Israel is singled out and its actions are amplified totally out of proportion to reality. The incredible bias by the media and NGOs to blow up Israel's role and ignore any context whatsoever is more shameful than Israel's actual actions - because by ignoring the actual sources of arms that are being used to murder the innocent, the media is exculpating them.

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09/15 Links Pt1: Abbas's appalling record; PA TV: Song - Israel is “the snake’s head”

From Ian:

Abbas's appalling record

Next week, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will once again stand at the rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, an American administration is begging Abbas to put on his “moderate” mask, and not to “exacerbate” the situation with an inflammatory speech or with extreme moves against Israel.

I say that this not a real test of presumed Palestinian moderation. The real question is: How far can Abbas go in opposing real negotiation and compromise, encouraging violence, venerating terrorists, and pushing the criminalization of Israel internationally – while still being considered a paragon of peace by the global community?

Consider: For almost two decades, Israelis have been told that Mahmoud Abbas was the most reasonable Palestinian leader they could hope for; that he was Israel’s best partner for peace; that he was the moderate with whom a grand compromise deal could be reached. Israelis wanted to believe this so very much.

But then came the Abbas who walked away from prime minister Ehud Olmert’s outrageously generous territorial offer in 2008; and the Abbas who refused peace talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even after Netanyahu froze settlement construction; and the Abbas who left US secretary of state John Kerry out in the cold in 2014.

Then there was the “PaliLeaks” opportunity to ready the Palestinian public for compromise with Israel. But Abbas ran away from that gateway, too, vigorously denying the hints of compromise with Israel (about refugees, Jerusalem, and borders) that were in the leaked documents.

Ever since then, Abbas has used every international forum to spew forth extremist vitriol against Israel and seek the criminalization of Israel. His record of speech-making at the UN General Assembly is particularly appalling.

PMW: Israel is “the snake’s head” in song on PA TV

A documentary broadcast on official Palestinian Authority TV called Tunisia in Palestinian Memories featured a song, which demonized Israel as "the snake's head":

Tunisian journalist Rashid Al-Buka'i:
"Oh Palestinians, [the Zionists] shot you with a rifle
The Zionists kill your doves at the holy sites."
Song writer Sheikh Imam:
"Oh Palestinians,
I want to go and be with you
With fire in my hands,
and together with you my hand
will strike the snake's head [Israel]."
[Official PA TV, "Tunisia in Palestinian Memories," Sept. 5, 2017]

The song was also performed at a Fatah event in 2011 in front of Mahmoud Abbas, and other senior PA and Fatah officials. It has been broadcast several times since by PA TV and PA TV Live, as documented by Palestinian Media Watch. Other versions of the song have been broadcast as well.

Portraying Israel as the enemy who is a "snake" is a repeating symbol in Palestinian imagery. In a terror promotion video during a Palestinian terror wave, a Fatah fighter demonstrated that he was able to eat a live snake, possibly symbolizing "the enemy":

This article from Iran's Mehr News has all the crazy in one spot:

TEHRAN, Sep. 15 (MNA) – Ayatollah Khatami said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has never allowed foreigners to gain access to confidential information of Iran and military sites will therefore remain top secret.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, who led the Friday Prayers today, referred to Myanmar disaster saying “nearly 400,000 people have been killed or become homeless; which marks a huge human catastrophe.”

“The Zionist regime undoubtedly plays a role in these movements as confirmed by the UN special envoy who said Israel was the main sponsor of Myanmar’s military,” underlined the official.

The interim leader of this week’s Tehran Friday prayers said the case of Myanmar was not merely a religious or tribal dispute since we are faced with a government who is slaughtering Muslims with all-out cruelty.

He recalled the leader of Myanmar was a Noble Peace Prize winner saying “as expected, head Noble Peace Foundation said the prize will not be taken back from Aung San Suu Kyi since the Foundation is Zionist in nature.”

The cleric stated that, once again, international communities and some Islamic countries were exercising silence in the face on these crimes adding “Muslims are being murdered in Yemen and, unfortunately, no appropriate action is being taken.”

He later added that ongoing crimes were signs of enemies fear from Islam which is advancing forward at a high pace.

Referring to the issue of referendum in the Iraqi Kurdistan, Ayatollah Khatami said global arrogance, for ages, has dreamed of forming an Israel in the region though the dream will never come true.

“The Israeli prime minister has publicly supported the referendum and leader of Iraqi Kurdistan needs to realize that his initiative merely works to favor of the Zionist regime and leads to destruction of Iraq.

Ayatollah Khatami, touching upon inspection of Iranian military centers, said IAEA Head Amano has stated that military and civilian sites are both included in inspections while neither in the Additional Protocol nor in the JCPOA are foreigners allowed to gain access to confidential information of the country.

“Military centers will remain as part of secrets and honors of a nation and neither the authorities nor the people will allow aliens to enter these sites,” he concluded.

They sound like reasonable people to partner with to gain stability in Syria and Iraq, don't they? It doesn't sound at all like Iran wants to create a Shiite crescent all the way to the Mediterranean, does it?

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Is the purpose of aid to help people become self-sufficient, or to ensure that they ossify and become more and more dependent?

The answer should be clear, but for UNRWA, it is the latter.

UNRWA's original intentions were noble - it was meant to be temporary until the Arabs displaced in 1948 could find homes and citizenship - but within only a few years it morphed into a welfare institution and no longer encouraged people to take responsibility for their lives.

The Arab recipients of UNRWA aid, for their part, thought of these extensive benefits - free medical services, free housing, free schooling that in many ways is better than that of surrounding Arab states - were their right. And over time, as UNRWA grew, they felt that employment was an additional right as well. Nearly all UNRWA employees are Palestinian Arab.

There was a protest in Gaza last week against UNRWA - because the fake refugees demand not that their own Hamas de facto government takes care of them, and not that the PA takes care of all their needs, but that the world should continue to bankroll everything they demand. For free.

You can see two of their demands in English:

The real question is - why are "refugee" numbers increasing annually? Because they aren't really refugees, on two counts: one because they are descendants of displaced persons, and two because they are living in the boundaries of British Mandate Palestine and refugees by definition live outside their land!

Free electricity! A new demand for the world to pay for.

People in need should get help. But not forever. UNRWA is 50 years past its usefulness, and it is way past time to do something about this, unless the world wants to bankroll never ending Palestinian grievances - forever.

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Two Hamas terrorists dead in two tunnel collapses. Pass the candy!

TOI reports:

Two Hamas fighters died in separate tunnel collapses in the Gaza Strip overnight, the Palestinian terror organization, which controls the territory, said on Friday.

Khalil al-Dimyati, 32, and Yusef Abu Abed, 22, were killed after two “resistance tunnels” collapsed, Hamas said, referring to tunnels used for military purposes.

It did not give details of the locations or causes of the collapses, but confirmed the two men were members of Hamas’s armed wing.

A security source said one collapse was in Gaza City, while the other was near the city of Khan Yunis.

The Al Qaasam Brigades website honors these "martyrs":

Their martyrdom came after the march of a great and honorable jihad, and after hard work and Jihad and sacrifice, we count them martyrs...
...The Mujahideen of the Qassam heroes do not know how to rest, their silence is a jihad and they prepare for as long as the battle bears fruit, from training to manufacturing to digging tunnels of pride and dignity for the homeland. ... bound by the promise of the Hereafter, which is inevitably coming on the day of our Mujahideen expel the faces of the Zionists, God willing,from the land...The blood of our martyrs will remain a shining light in the path of liberating Palestine and burning the occupiers until they are defeated from our land.

I don't know exactly how Muslims officially become "martyrs," but in general Hamas issued statements - sometimes even after fatal car accidents - declaring and praying that Allah accepts them as martyrs.

Two fatal tunnel collapses in one day is unusual, especially when in the summer (during heavy rains many tunnels collapse.)

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09/14 Links Pt2: Samantha Power’s Quest for Self-Absolution; Dershowitz: Berkeley must defend Ben Shapiro's right to speak

From Ian:

Samantha Power’s Quest for Self-Absolution

People who served in the Obama administration are raiding the repositories of Holocaust memory, seeking Syrian absolution.

Earlier this month came a Holocaust Museum computational “study” that purported to prove that it was “very difficult from the beginning for the U.S. government to take effective action to prevent atrocities in Syria, even compared with other challenging policy contexts.” The study concluded that a more forceful American intervention wouldn’t have improved the situation and might have made things worse.

The museum suspended the project and scrubbed the “findings” from its website following an exposé in Tablet. It wasn’t lost on anyone that this episode came after three Obama National Security Council alumni were appointed to the museum’s Memorial Council and two others joined its staff.

Now comes Samantha Power’s tribute to Elie Wiesel in the Forward. The essay is excerpted from the former U.N. envoy’s introduction to a new edition of Wiesel’s harrowing Holocaust memoir, Night. Hers is a far more sophisticated exercise in self-absolution than the Holocaust Museum’s algorithmic shenanigans. But it is self-absolution all the same. The giveaway is that Power makes no attempt at applying Wiesel’s lessons to recent events in Syria.

The theme of Power’s essay is moral witness. “It can be hard to imagine that there was a time when the prevailing wisdom was not to bear witness,” Power asserts. “But that is precisely what it was like when Elie was writing.” The word “witness” and the phrase “bearing witness” appear five times in Power’s brief piece. Wiesel spoke out, she writes, when others—publishers, journalists, even survivors—preferred to forget or remain silent.

This is an obvious, almost banal point. Of course Wiesel bore witness! But his witness to Nazi evil had a future-tense moral purpose: to help counter other mass murderers and totalitarians. Wiesel campaigned for refuseniks trapped behind the Iron Curtain. He implored Bill Clinton to act in Bosnia. And most recently, he compared the Syrian regime and its Iranian patrons with the Nazis, asking: “How is it that Assad is still in power?” Wiesel didn’t just remember historical crimes; he decried contemporary inaction.

Samantha Power, by contrast, legitimized inaction. Having built her journalistic reputation examining America’s failure to stop mass murder in the 20th century, Power ended up lending moral cover to the Obama administration’s bystander policy on Syria (“Bystanders to Genocide” was the title of Power’s career-making 2001 Atlantic magazine report on the Clinton administration’s response to Rwanda). At the U.N., Power denounced Bashar Assad and his backers in Moscow and Tehran. But she refused to do the one honorable thing that might have jolted the Obama administration out of its moral torpor: resign.

Alan Dershowitz: Berkeley must defend Ben Shapiro's right to speak

I vividly recall the famous "free speech" movement at Berkeley several decades ago. The hard left demanded the right to express radical, often obnoxious, views on campus. Some on the hard right sought to ban these hard left expressions. Free speech prevailed.

Now it is the hard right that is demanding the right to make provocative speeches on campus and it is elements of the hard left that are trying to censor them.

But there is no symmetry in the means used to silence opponents. Today's hard left, led by Antifa and other radical and anarchistic gangs, do not shrink from the threat or use of violence to silence speakers with whom they disagree. These unlawful tactics have prevailed and several right wing speakers were forced to cancel their scheduled appearances on the Berkeley campus. This time free speech is losing.

Now there is a test case: Ben Shapiro, a thoughtful conservative with whose views I often personally disagree, is not merely a provocateur, as some other extreme right speakers are. These provocateurs come to campuses not so much to educate as to provoke responses. Although deliberately provocative speech is as constitutionally protected as other kinds of offensive expression, it is easy to understand why some administrators, faculty and students object to being used as part of what they regard as staged political theater deliberately designed to create conflict.

Ben Shapiro is different. He has something substantively important to share with the Berkeley academic community. If I were on that campus, I would want to listen to what he has to say, despite my disagreement with many of his views.

Yet there are those on the hard left who would stop me and others from hearing him. They cannot be allowed to do that.

PALLYWOOD Lethal Media in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Professor Richard Landes speaks with World Jewish Congress about 'Pallywood,' fake news to paint Israel as a monster.

From the Petra News Agency, copied to the Jordanian embassy in Washington site, in an interview clearly meant for an American audience.

Jordan News Agency: Your Majesty, when it comes to the Palestinian issue, have there been genuine international efforts to bring the Palestinians and the Israelis back to the negotiating table?

King Abdullah: In my interactions with US President Trump and his administration, I have sensed a commitment to bolstering efforts aimed at reaching a solution that guarantees peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, which is positive and encouraging. I expect that we will see this commitment translated into action in the near future, based on the two-state solution, which is the only way to end the conflict.

Regional issues are interconnected. Reaching just and comprehensive peace that guarantees the emergence of an independent state for the Palestinians on their national soil with East Jerusalem as its capital will, in turn, achieve security and stability for the region and its peoples. In the same vein, failure to make progress in the peace process will fuel frustration and anger among the region’s peoples and serve the agenda of extremists, who exploit the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinians and the frequent violations against Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. We have witnessed this during the recent crisis in Jerusalem.

You will not read about this muted but definite praise for the Trump administration peacemaking efforts in the media.

But the second paragraph is more interesting, even if it is boilerplate.

Abdullah says that the lack of peace will embolden terrorists. This is trite, and false. After all, the Island of Peace massacre occurred after Israel and Jordan's peace treaty. Was this because of frustration at no peace - or frustration that Jewish girls can freely visit a place they couldn't go to before?

The entire "frustration" meme is an excuse to avoid looking at the core issue: Arabs refuse to accept Israel, even if some of them re forced to pretend they do for politicl reasons. But deep down, the vast, vast majority of Arabs look at Jewish sovereign presence in the Middle East as just as temporary as the Crusader control of Jerusalem. If they are patient, the Jews will eventually be forced out.

No one in Jordan's schools is being taught that peace with Israel is a wonderful thing and that Israel is a full member of the region. And this is the most "moderate" of Israel's neighbors, by far.

Moreover, if frustration over no peace leads to terror, then where are the Jewish terror attacks coming out of frustration? Israel doesn't have peace either, right?

Abdullah's lies don't end there. He says that Jewish visitors to Jewish holy places are "frequent violations" against holy sites.

He says that peace cannot occur without Palestinian control over "east" Jerusalem which includes the Old City. Presumably Jews would be allowed to visit in his conception of peace. But why cannot Israel control it and let Arabs visit? If one is not an impediment to peace, why is the other?

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.

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Ha’aretz is the oldest newspaper still in print in Israel. It began life in 1918 as an organ of the British military government, but was soon taken over by left-wing Zionists. The Schocken family bought the paper in 1935; Gershon Schocken was the editor and publisher from 1939 until he died in 1990, and his son Amos (72) has been the publisher since then. Some 40% of the ownership was sold during the past decade, but the Schocken family still solidly controls the paper.

According to a survey at the beginning of last year, the Hebrew print edition of Ha’aretz reaches about 4% of Israelis each weekday, compared to almost 38% for Israel Hayom and 35% for Yediot Aharonot. But its Hebrew and English websites – despite the fact that access to most content is not free – have 26,000 and 18,000 subscribers respectively. In a Financial Times interview last year, Amos Schocken claimed that the paper was “mildly profitable.”

The Ha’aretz editorial policy is strongly on the left. Its 4% reach corresponds roughly to the 4% of Israeli voters that voted for Meretz, the farthest-left of the Jewish parties in the Knesset.

Schocken calls himself a Zionist, but the paper’s editorials and many of its op-eds place it in the anti-Zionist, anti-Israel category. Although he believes in “Zionism [as] a viewpoint that sees the national home in the Land of Israel as a solution for the Jewish people in the framework of a democratic, Jewish state,” his understanding of “democratic” implies complete equality in almost every respect between the Jewish and non-Jewish populations. But this definition (I argue here at length) vitiates the Jewish nature of the state, and if implemented the way Schocken and his writers would like, would result in a state that was neither Jewish nor democratic.

Ha’aretz speaks for the small, even tiny, minority of Jewish Israelis that make up the extreme Left. But it has far greater influence than its circulation figures indicate. The Financial Times writer notes that

The paper and its business section, The Marker, are widely read in the Israeli elite — including by people who loathe its politics — and sets the agenda in many policy debates. Outside Israel, stories that appear online in Ha’aretz in the morning regularly work their way on to the agenda later in the day as talking points in Washington and Brussels.

Although it has a few regular columnists – Israel Harel and Moshe Arens come to mind – who could be called right wing, the paper employs such writers as the unspeakably vile Gideon Levy who accused Israeli pilots of war crimes, the Jewish Palestinian Amira Hass who believes that throwing stones at Jews is the “birthright” of Palestinians, and the anti-Zionist provocateur Rogel Alpher who advocates that Israeli Jews should emigrate, and called for a boycottof the “racist” Maccabiah Games.

Is this the image of Israel that we wish to present to decision-makers in Washington and Brussels?

Ha’aretz, particularly its English internet edition, plays a singular and important role in the international campaign to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state. It serves as an Israeli Jewish voice to validate the worst accusations. Is Israel an “apartheid state?” Ask Hass. Does the IDF deliberately target civilians, especially children? Here is some “evidence” in a piece by Levy. Is Israel turning into an undemocratic theocracy? Here is Ha’aretz editor Aluf Benn saying so.

“You see,” say the world’s Israel-haters and antisemites? “Even Israeli Jews, writers in Israel’s oldest and most respected newspaper, agree with us.”

Schocken pays these seditious saboteurs because they represent his own views. Last year, he called for international pressure to “end Israeli apartheid.” He believes that what he and his paper are doing is a moral enterprise to “make Israel better.”

It is true that Ha’aretz sometimes exposes abuses of members of minorities in Israel. But its moral failure is shown by its completely unbalanced coverage of terrorism and incitement among the Arabs of the PA and Israel, its total failure to understand the security implications of its recommendation to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, its consistent negation of the importance of maintaining the Jewish nature of the state, its disparagement of religious people and ideas, its hatred of “settlers,” and – above all – the pure contempt shown for the only Jewish state we have by the majority of its writers.

There is room for left-wing media in Israel, much as I disagree with their positions. But there is no room for a publication that masquerades as “Zionist” while tearing down the state that gives it life.

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.

09/14 Links Pt1: The State Department’s Palestinian Fantasies; Phillips: What red lines really mean. Israel gets it. US doesn't

From Ian:

Cheering for Illegal Settlers — as Long as They’re Not Jews

Some on the Jewish left, along with the United Nations and the international news media, have been telling us for years that illegal settlers in the “occupied territories” are the main obstacle to Middle East peace. So these groups should have rejoiced at this week’s news that a small number of settlers were evicted from their home.

What happened? Israel’s Supreme Court forced a group of settlers who had taken over an apartment in eastern Jerusalem that Israel took control of in 1967 — a place that is deemed “occupied Arab territory” by advocates for the Palestinians — to vacate the premises.

The court actually issued the eviction order back in 2013. But those die-hard settlers, no doubt backed by pro-settler money from abroad, managed to exploit the Israeli legal system and drag the proceedings out for more than four years. Finally, this past week, the settlers were compelled to leave the property that they had been illegally occupying.

So you would think Peace Now and its allies would be celebrating, right?

Instead, Peace Now issued a press release calling the eviction of the settlers “a dangerous trend that could threaten a future compromise in Jerusalem.”

But aren’t settlers the obstacle to peace? Wouldn’t their expulsion increase the chances for compromise and reconciliation?

No — because it turns out that the “settlers” were Palestinian Arabs. The rightful owners of the property are Jews. There’s the problem.

The State Department’s Palestinian Fantasies

In spite of recent polls indicating that ordinary Palestinians increasingly recognize that Israel is here to stay, the rejectionist Palestinian leadership remains the most formidable obstacle to a peace agreement with the Jewish state. But running a close second place is the US State Department, where unfounded faith in Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) remains unshaken.

The State Department’s Palestinian fantasies are on display in its congressionally-mandated annual report on international terrorism released in July. Abbas’s PA “continued its counterterrorism efforts in the West Bank where Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine remained present,” according to the report. Abbas is portrayed as a benign leader with an expressed “commitment to nonviolence, recognition of the State of Israel, and pursuit of an independent Palestinian state through peaceful means.”

The report applauds the PA for taking “significant steps during President Abbas’ tenure (2005 to date) to ensure that official institutions in the West Bank under its control do not create or disseminate content that incites violence.” And it asserts that “explicit calls for violence against Israelis, direct exhortations against Jews, and categorical denials by the PA of the possibility of peace with Israel are rare and the leadership does not generally tolerate it.”

So much is wrong with this incredible assessment of the PA’s 2016 activities that either the judgment or the competence of its authors must be questioned.

To begin, claiming that the PA doesn’t tolerate calls for violence requires overlooking the entire PA educational system, which exists to incite violence against Israelis. As then-Senator Hillary Clinton observed correctly in 2007, the PA’s textbooks “do not give Palestinian children an education; they give them an indoctrination...[which] profoundly poisons the[ir] minds.” When the school term ends, PA summer camps keep the children’s skills sharp.

Melanie Phillips: What red lines really mean. Israel gets it. US doesn't

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network about the still under-appreciated Iranian threat, how the US State Department under Rex Tillerson is getting just about everything wrong (as usual) and the significance of the assumed Israeli strike on Syria’s chemical weaponry arsenal.

From Al Monitor:

200,000 Jewish Kurds headed for Iraqi Kurdistan, howls Turkish press

Several Turkish media outlets reported Sept. 13 that Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani had reached a secret agreement with the Israeli government. The alleged deal involves the settlement of Jewish Israelis of Kurdish origin — a community of some 200,000 people — from Israel to the KRG after the independence referendum on Sept. 25.

Pro-government newspapers Yeni Akit and Aksam ran stories on their websites attributed to a magazine called “Israel-Kurd,” allegedly based in the KRG, that Israel will repatriate Kurds living in Israel to northern Iraq should Kurdistan become independent. The news website Internet Haber ran the news under the headline, “Barzani’s game revealed! Insidious Kurdistan plan.”

Another important pro-government outlet, Yeni Safak, commented that it may be Barzani, not Israel, who hopes to attract the 200,000 Jewish Kurds to Iraqi Kurdistan. Yeni Safak reported, “It is said that Massoud Barzani, who received support only from Israel during the referendum process, plans to strengthen his hand … with help from Kurds of Jewish origin who have prominent positions in Israel.”

The sensational if hard-to-believe story came amid another Turkish media blitz directed at Israel.

Even though the Al Monitor story makes it very clear that this report is ridiculous, Arab media picked it up anyway - from Al Monitor - and is saying it is true! The Iraq News Network twists the story as if the different Turkish media outlets all reporting the same absurd rumor is proof that it has been independently confirmed by multiple media reports. It also implies that the 200,000 Kurdish Jews will help the referendum on independence pass, since they will presumably all move to Kurdistan in the next week or so.

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.