Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Iran says Trump's declaration will hasten Israel's destruction. So shouldn't they be happy?

Iran’s minister of defense said the US administration’s provocative decision to recognize the city of al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the new capital of Israel is going to accelerate the demise of the Zionist regime.

The White House’s move to declare Quds the capital of the fake Zionist regime will bring closer the end of the Israeli regime and strengthen Muslim unity, Brigadier General Amir Hatami said in a gathering of Defense Ministry officials in Tehran on Monday.

Slamming the US president for his “provocative and unwise” decision about al-Quds, the general said the Israeli occupiers would never experience calm and have no way but to leave the Palestinian territories.

He further held the US and Israel accountable for the escalation of tensions and bloodshed in the region, saying the US president should accept responsibility for his “anti-security decision.”

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has described the US controversial move as a sign of “weakness and incompetence”, saying, “The Islamic world will definitely stand against this plot and the Zionists will receive a bigger blow.”

Hold on: Don't the Iranians want to hasten Israel's destruction?

Don't they want more Muslim unity?

Aren't they pining for more bloodshed?

Don't they like when the US makes stupid mistakes?

Why aren't they happy? They should be celebrating!

To increase their happiness at hastening Israel's demise, we should definitely have other Western nations move their embassies, too.

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Muslims threatening Jews with "Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yahud" all over the world

The expression "khaybar, khaybar ya yahud, jaish muhammad saya’ud," "Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, Mohammed’s army will return" is a thinly disguised call to murder Jews today, referring to a battle when Mohammed slaughtered scores of Jews.

And we are seeing it being chanted literally all over the world.

Algeria

Egypt (Many of them)

Jordan

Morocco

Sudan:

New York:

Antisemitic Chants, Calls for New Intifada at a Times Square Demonstration Protesting Trump's Jerusalem Declaration pic.twitter.com/HE3EXEHPpS
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) December 11, 2017

Sweden:

London:

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Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Israel sign MoU for East Med gas pipeline

This is a story that would be considered important in a sane world. It happened last week and was barely covered.

On December 5, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding for constructing an underwater gas pipeline from the Eastern Mediterranean region to Greece and Italy, which will allow the transportation of newly discovered Cypriot and Israeli gas reserves to mainland Europe.

At an energy summit in Nicosia, Cyprus’ Energy Minister Yiorgos Lakkotrypis and his Greek and Israeli counterparts Giorgos Stathakis and Yuval Steinitz as well Italian ambassador in Cyprus Andrea Cvallari, who represented Italy’s Energy Minister Carlo Calenda, signed the document for the promotion of the East Med pipeline in Cyprus on December 5.
...
For his part, Steinitz was quoted as saying that the East Med pipeline is “very realistic” and could help secure Europe’s energy future.

EastMed will connect Israel’s Leviathan and Cyprus’ Aphrodite gas fields to Greece and Italy. The initial estimate of the cost of the pipeline, which will be able to transport 12-16 billion cubic metres of gas per year, is around $6 billion.

The next step will be the signing of an intergovernmental agreement in Crete in the spring of 2018.

(h/t MB)

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12/11 Links Pt2: 100 years later, Allenby returns to Jerusalem; The Middle East 'Peace Process' meme: What peace process?

From Ian:

100 years later, Allenby returns to Jerusalem

British conquest was hailed by Jews as a Hanukkah miracle
The Old City's Tower of David Museum launches an exhibit in honor of the centennial of the capture of the Holy City from the Ottoman Turks by British forces
Viscount Henry J. H. Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe and John Benson are not typical Jerusalem tourists.

The great-great nephew of Field Marshal Edmund Allenby and the great-grandson of Major General John Shea, respectively, Allenby and Benson are currently in Israel to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the capture of the Holy City from the Ottoman Turks by British forces led by their military leader ancestors.

Benson and Lord Allenby, along with Lord Allenby’s mother Sara Viscountess Allenby, are in the capital at the invitation of The Tower of David Museum, which on Monday will stage a public reenactment of General Allenby’s proclamation delivered from the front of the ancient citadel inside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate on December 11, 1917.

The special guests received a preview on Sunday of the museum’s new exhibition, “A General and A Gentleman: Allenby at the Gates of Jerusalem,” which officially opens on Monday. The exhibition focuses on the events of three pivotal days in December 1917, from the the moment the Ottomans surrendered to Britain’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force on December 9 to Allenby’s proclamation of martial law on December 11.

The proclamation, issued in seven languages (English, French, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and Greek), promised protection for the holy places and assured freedom of religious practice for all the city’s inhabitants:
However, lest any of you should be alarmed by reason of your experiences at the hands of the enemy who has retired, I hereby inform you that it is my desire that every person should pursue his lawful business without fear of interruption…Therefore do I make known to you that every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest of customary place of prayer, of whatsoever form of the three religions, will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred.

Barry Shaw: December 11, 1917: The Liberation of Jerusalem

That door began to close by 1919 when Jew hating British administrators, brought up to Jerusalem from Egypt, reneged on their duty to carry out orders. In a treasonable act of defiance and anti-Semitism, they ignored official British policy.

General Money, the Chief Administrator, ordered that “The walled city of Jerusalem is placed out of orders to all Jewish soldiers from the 14th to the 22nd April inclusive.” It was no coincidence that this period was the pilgrim festival of Passover. This outraged Colonel John Patterson, the commanding officer of the Jewish Legion, who wrote, “I cannot conceive a greater act of provocation to Jewish soldiers, or a greater insult. Not since the days of Emperor Hadrian had such a humiliating decree been issued.”

The Balfour Declaration stipulated that His Majesty’s Government would use their “best endeavours to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Instead, in 1920, they defied British policy, ignored their duty to implement the terms of the Declaration, and duplicitously colluded with anti-Jewish Arab rabble-rousers, including Haj Amin al-Husseini, later to meet with Adolph Hitler to plan the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem in the Middle East, to incite violence against Jews. They chose the annual Nebi Musa festival to riot in the Old City while the British stood aside.

With cries of “Death to the Jews!” Jewish women were raped, men were killed, and Jewish property destroyed. This British and Arab anti-Semitic collusion and violence was the first major Palestinian act of terror attack against Jews.

With typical British “even-handedness,” Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who had been an officer in the British army, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for illegal possession of firearms, namely three rifles and two pistols, despite the fact that the Governor, Colonel Ronald Storrs, was aware that he possessed them. This was the same sentence imposed in absentia on Al-Husseini who had fled Palestine, following the Arab murder and rape of Jews and the destruction of Jewish property.

The rest is history.

As Jews evacuated from Aden bloodbath, a daring mission to rescue a Torah scroll

In June 1967, the fury of the Arab world at Israel’s lightning victory over its enemies hit Aden, a tiny British colony at the southwestern tip of today’s Yemen on the Arabian peninsula. The once-thriving Jewish community — already much depleted — was once again a target.

“I have never seen such hatred and deliberate destruction,” one survivor later recalled. “Even the young Arabs were screaming out that they wanted to kill us. It was terrible.”

Three Jews trapped in the Crater district of the port city were attacked by an armed mob; two were brutally murdered, the third was found alive but barely able to breathe.

For those old enough to remember, history appeared to be repeating itself.

Twenty years previously, in the wake of the UN vote to partition Palestine, Jewish businesses, stores, and homes had been attacked in Aden. Two Jewish schools were burned down. At the end of three days of violence in December 1947, more than 80 Jews were dead.

“There were not riots but murder,” Joseph Howard, a child at the time, later remembered.

A British commission of inquiry into the disturbances later found that “trigger happy” firing by soldiers of the Aden Protectorate Levies — an Arab military force trained and armed by the UK to protect its colony — were responsible for many of the Jewish deaths. These local forces, the inquiry concluded, were sympathetic to the rioters, and did not attempt to control them. The inquiry recommended British troops be permanently stationed in the colony.

An age-old Palestinian craft that goes all the way back to 1922 - when the British imported Armenian families

One of the examples given of Palestinian crafts is the creation of hand-made ceramic tiles.

If you look at Shop Palestine, you can see the description of the handmade ceramics they sell. But something about it is interesting:

Fakhoury Pottery and Karakashian Pottery in Hebron and Jerusalem respectively supply our beautiful handpainted ceramics. The Fakhoury’s come from a long line of potters and, in fact, the name Fakhoury even means “potter” in Arabic. Their shop is located in the old city of Hebron where Israeli soldiers and settlers routinely physically and verbally harass Palestinians. Despite the difficulties, the family is determined to keep their store open and their craft alive. The Karakashian studio in Jerusalem continues the family tradition that began in 1922 when Megerditch Karakashian came to Jerusalem to help renovate the Dome of the Rock.

You can read a bit more detail about the history of this craft from the webpage of Armenian Ceramics in Jerusalem, whose Balian family were the original partners of the Karakashians mentioned above.

The Balian Family of Jerusalem has been producing exclusive hand painted ceramic tiles and pottery since 1922.
This makes us one of the oldest-if not the oldest- business in existence in Jerusalem.
The studio is currently being run by Neshan Balian Jr, whose grandfather Neshan Balian Sr came to Jerusalem in 1919 from Kutahya, Turkey.
Neshan Balian Sr. and Megerditch Karakashian- a master potter and artist respectively- were brought over to Jerusalem by the British government and David Ohanessian , who was a ceramist, linguist and head of the Kutahya Ceramic Association, to renovate the ceramic tiles of The Dome of the Rock.
Before the arrival of the Three Armenian families to then Palestine, the production of decorative ceramic tiles and pottery in this region did not exist at all. It was Neshan Balian with his partner the Megerditch Karakashian and David Ohanessian,, who established this unique form of world famous art known presently as the Armenian Pottery of Jerusalem.

So there is no "Palestinian" tradition of decorative ceramics. It is an Armenian tradition.

And the Arabs were not the ones to import the Armenians to renovate the Dome of the Rock - the British colonialists were!

The very people who falsely claim that Jews are recent 20th century immigrants to the region wholeheartedly embrace a "Palestinian" three families who were also recent 20th century immigrants to the region.

Why? Because they aren't Jews!

(h/t Irene)

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Seven decades of fake NYT news about reforms in Saudi Arabia (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

A few weeks ago, the NYT published a widely criticized article by Thomas L. Friedman, who excitedly reported that the “most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia.”

I think it would be really wonderful if things turned out as glowingly rosy as Friedman presented them. But as countless critics have pointed out, that’s not very likely.

One of the most widely noted critiques came from Abdullah Al-Arian, who is not only an assistant professor of History at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, but also a regular Al Jazeera contributor – which is to say that he’s not exactly unbiased.

Take for example a column from last June, where Al-Arian complained bitterly: “For its perceived role in promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, hosting members of Hamas' political bureau, and taking a softer line on Iran, Qatar became a central target of the Saudi-Emirati-Israeli joint lobbying efforts.”

Another truly sickening example is a column Al-Arian penned just a few days after the murderous terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo’s staff in January 2015, where he blames the West for “Islamophobia” and a long list of other evils that all but explain Islamist terrorism.

And unsurprisingly, when it comes to Israel, it can’t be biased enough for Al-Arian: veteran Israel-haters and Hamas fans like Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal deliver the kind of news the Georgetown professor and Al Jazeera columnist wants everyone to read.

So while there’s no reason to trust Al-Arian, his response to Friedman’s NYT column is still worthwhile noting because he provided screenshots to support his claim that for almost 70 years, the NYT has been “describing #Saudi royals in the language of #reform.” Or, to put it differently: for about seven decades, the NYT has been getting the Saudis wrong.

The thread is long and a bit difficult to read because it also includes some responses to Al-Arian. He starts out quoting an article from 1953 that “describes King Saud as ‘more progressive and international-minded than his autocratic father.’” An article in 1960 asserted that “King Saud has increasingly assumed the role of liberal champion of constitutional reform.” In December 1963, the NYT reported on “Crown Prince Faisal’s ‘burst of social reform and economic development.’” A year later, the NYT described Faisal as “a man who has gained nearly absolute power without really wanting it.” Another article from the same year is entitled “Saudi Arabia: Major Changes Due;” Faisal was “described as ‘ascetic, with only one wife, who lives on grilled meat and boiled vegetables and makes a fetish of moderation.’” An obituary from 1975 presented Faisal as having “Led Saudis Into 20th Century,“ and a subsequent article described Faisal’s successor, King Khalid, as a “moderating force.”

After all this reform and moderation, NYT readers learned in 1982 that the new Saudi King Fahd “has been depicted as the leading figure in a progressive, modernizing faction within the tradition-minded monarchy.” A decade later, NYT readers were told that “King Fahd is following previous generations of Saudi rulers who had also moved toward modernization since King Abdelaziz united a vast territory populated by feuding tribal leaders into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 60 years ago.”

In 2000, the NYT described Crown Prince Abdullah as “an advocate of domestic reform;” five years later, the NYT wrote: “For Abdullah, who has fashioned himself as a reformer in a land where conforming to tradition is a virtue, the challenge now is to make good on longstanding promises for change.” In 2007, there was a piece entitled “Saudi King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert;” two years later, a NYT editorial saw “A Promise of Reform in Saudi Arabia.” Maureen Dowd opined in 2010 that “by the Saudi’s premodern standards, the 85 year-old King Abdullah, with a harem of wives, is a social revolutionary.”

In November 2013 – i.e. exactly four years before his recent column on Saudi reforms – Thomas Friedman asserted that Saudi King Abdullah was “in Gulf Arab terms … a real progressive;” Abdullah’s 2015 obituary describes him as “a cautious reformer amid great changes in the Middle East,” and by April 2016 the NYT editorial board saw “A Promising New Path for Saudi Arabia.”

At the end of his thread, Al-Arian denounced Friedman’s recent column as “a hagiographic ode to royal reform that represents seven decades of strategic policy objectives barely concealed beneath recycled cultural tropes.”

That’s of course rich coming from a regular contributor to a media company funded by the government of Qatar, but perhaps Al-Arian has never heard the proverbial warning that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Yet, while his quotes are obviously cherry-picked from articles that, in their entirety, may give a more nuanced picture, it is still unsettling to see that the NYT has felt for some seven decades that reform, moderation and modernization were somehow in the hot Saudi air.

It is interesting to note in this context that Friedman acknowledges in his column that “this virus of an antipluralistic, misogynistic Islam … came out of Saudi Arabia in 1979,” prompted by “the three big events of that year: the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Saudi puritanical extremists — who denounced the Saudi ruling family as corrupt, impious sellouts to Western values; the Iranian Islamic revolution; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.” The result was according to Friedman “a worldwide competition” between the Saudis and Iran’s ayatollahs “over who could export more fundamentalist Islam.”

You’ll note that none of these events has anything to do with Israel, which has been blamed so often for Muslim extremism and fanaticism.

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12/11 Links Pt1: Murray: President Trump: The Courage to Act; Red Crescent drives Arab rioters; Explosion Rocks Times Square

From Ian:

Explosion Rocks Major Manhattan Transport Hub, One Suspect in Custody

An explosion rocked New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, one of the city’s busiest commuter hubs, on Monday morning and police said one suspect was injured and in custody, with three other injuries reported.

Police were not yet identifying the device used. Local television channel WABC cited police sources as saying a possible pipe bomb detonated in a passageway below ground and WPIX cited sources as saying a man with a “possible second device” has been detained in the subway tunnel.

The fire department tweeted there were four injuries, all non-life threatening. One of the injured was a Port Authority police officer.

The bus terminal was temporarily closed, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a Twitter statement.

A large swathe of midtown Manhattan was closed to traffic, between 45th Street to 40th Street and 7th Avenue to 9th Avenue, police said. Subway trains were bypassing the Times Square station, the city’s busiest.

“There was a stampede up the stairs to get out,” said Diego Fernandez, one of the commuters at Port Authority. “Everybody was scared and running and shouting.”

Douglas Murray: President Trump: The Courage to Act

President Trump's announcement on the status of Jerusalem last week was both historic and commendable. Historic because it is the first time that an American president has not just acknowledged that the Israeli capital is Jerusalem but decided to act on that acknowledgement. Commendable for breaking a deceitful trend and accepting what will remain the reality on the ground in every imaginable future scenario. As many people have pointed out in recent days, there is not one prospective peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians in which Tel Aviv becomes the capital of the Jewish state.

Yet, the Palestinian leadership, much of the mainstream media, academia and the global diplomatic community take another view. They believe that the American president should have continued with the fairy tale and should never have said "That the United States recognises Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and that the United States Embassy to Israel will be relocated to Jerusalem as soon as practicable." They claim that this is not a simple recognition of reality and not simply the American President granting the State of Israel the same right every other nation on the planet has -- which is to have their capital where they like. Such forces claim that this is a "provocative" move. Amply demonstrating the illogic of this position, the first thing the Turkish Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan did after the American president made his announcement was to threaten a suspension of Turkish relations with Israel.

The reaction around the world in recent days has been a reminder of the one central truth of the whole conflict. Those who cannot accept that Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel tend to be exactly the same as those who cannot accept the State of Israel. Consider the expert whom the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Newsnight chose to bring on to receive soft-ball questions on this issue. Dr. Ghada Karmi, from the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, a notorious opponent of Israel, was inevitably given the sort of respectful interview style that Newsnight presenters generally reserve for when they are interviewing Madonna or some other mega-star they cannot believe their luck at having gotten to speak with.

Firebombing Jewish Children in Sweden

It is not just European Jewish leaders who, in such cases, feel driven to draw a sharp distinction between European Jews and the Jewish state. In an interview with Expressen, Jonas Ransgård, a member of the Gothenburg city council, lamented the fact that "Jews in Sweden are held responsible for what Israel thinks is right or wrong." Such remarks, of course, imply:
1. that Swedish Jews, being Swedes, are surely too sensible and humane to agree in any large numbers with Israeli (or pro-Israeli) policies or actions, and
2. that Israel, by virtue of its supposedly provocative behavior, is at least indirectly responsible for anti-Jewish attacks in Europe.

If the firebombing of the Gothenburg synagogue was motivated by Trump's decision on Jerusalem, it was not the only notable response to that decision in Sweden this weekend. On Friday night, an anti-Trump rally in Malmö drew about 200 people, many of whom shouted anti-Jewish remarks and threatened to "shoot the Jews." On Saturday, anti-Trump protesters marched in Stockholm and set fire to the Israeli flag. A search through the major Swedish online media did not yield any details about the ethnic or religious backgrounds of the participants in any of these incidents.

What, sadly, is hardly ever acknowledged by Europe's establishment media is that Jews -- and Israel, the only openly pluralistic country in the Middle East -- are under constant assault by Western European leaders, citizens, and (especially) so-called "new Europeans," as well as by the governments of no fewer than 21 Arab and Muslim countries in the Middle East.

The attack on the Gothenburg synagogue may have been immediately triggered by Trump's recognition of Israel's capital, but it is part of a pattern of persecution and savagery that has been in place, and that has been systematically ignored, denied or played down by the news media and public officials, ever since the Islamization of Western Europe began.

Red Crescent drives Arab rioters

The pantograph (shown above) is a centuries old mechanical device used to create enlarged images. When an artist uses a pen attached to one end of the pantograph to draw a sketch or illustration, the device automatically draws a larger version of the same image on another piece of paper.

A friend once noted how this ancient gadget reminded him of Israel’s relationship to the rest of the world. A curious observation, I thought, which he fleshed out by noticing that many of the tragedies we are dealing with today, including the mass murder of civilians across the Middle East, or the killing of Europeans for the crime of walking the streets or taking the subway, were first enacted (albeit on a slightly smaller scale) within the Jewish state.

This export of innovative methods of cruelty such as the suicide bomber from Israel to the rest of the planet is no accident. For tyrants or tyrannical wannabees have a habit of singling out the Jew (or, in today’s world, the Jewish State) in order to determine just how far humanity can be pushed to abandon its humane principles.

The threat of Europe’s fascists WAS ignored when their repression was limited to “merely” putting the full force of the state behind the suppression and eventual murder of its Jewish minority. It was only after the Nazis had sharpened their claws on the Jews that the world realized a nation steeped in such brutality was a threat to the entire planet and dealt with the problem at a cost of fifty million lives.

Today’s dictators have similarly used Israel as a staging area to determine just how far they can push a brutal agenda, hoping that the non-Jewish powers (i.e., the other 6+ billion people in the world) will avert their gaze until it is too late.

The suicide bomber, whether in London, Tel Aviv or Thailand, needs more than explosives to do his or her job. He or she also needs a culture that glorifies death (so long as it accompanies mass murder) to create the people willing to strap on the belt and push the button.

Most importantly, they need the intricate web of explanation, toleration and apologia that always manage to justify mass murder with that critical “but” (“Of course subway bombings in London were a crime, BUT shouldn’t they be expected given British actions in Iraq?” “9/11 was certainly awful, BUT didn’t America’s support for Israel make it a target?” “I condemn the ninety-ninth blowing up of an Israeli bus, BUT what else can the Palestinians do to ‘defend’ themselves in the face of Israeli might?”).

Such apologetics have only ramped up as the bombs started (and continue) to go off in the streets and subways far from the Levant (and as of today, show no signs of ending), trying to find “root causes” for turning worshipers, commuters and other “non-combatants” into ash. Yet if the leaders of nations now facing plagues of terror contributed anything to their own situations, it was in trying to put as much distance as they could between Israel’s plague of terror and the terror that afflicts the rest of the world. Not only are the two linked, but the former is the proving ground for the latter, the small pen on the pantograph.

The BDS movement is founded on the hope that they can twist the language of human rights and confuse the uninformed enough to get principled outsiders (preferably from respected institutions) to condemn the Jewish state for the “crime” of defending itself against murderous attack. Yet in trying to get others to join in condemning a victim for not allowing himself to meekly be killed, they are trying to justify the notion that no person, no group, no nation has the right to defend itself against indiscriminate terror. If that is the new rule written on tiny Israel by the small end of the pantograph, one does need to think hard to guess to whom the magnified version of such a rule will apply.

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Whenever there is a tempest in a teapot, the Arab and Muslim Jew-hate comes out

When things get stirred up in the Middle East, the (sometimes) latent antisemitism shows its ugly head.

Three examples, all prompted by the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Egypt's Al Masry al Youm has an article that pretends to argue that Israel isn't a state to begin with, but is akin to Al Qaeda - a "base" [Al-Qaeda's literal meaning] that exists only from US support but has no long term chances. But until that happens, the author says, "we can only boycott the political base of the American base Israel and its Jewish inhabitants."

No boycotting Israeli products, but only Israeli Jews.

An article in the pro-Erdogan Yeni Safak Turkish newspaper includes this section:

Zionism is a pathology that emerged from the special historical conditions of the relationship between Judaism and the West. This is what the social psychoanalysis of Judaism shows us. Here, political Judaism turns, along with a distorted Jewish faith, into a cursed organization, a utopia, a goal and ties. Efforts are made to solve the problem of pariahdom with domination formed around the awareness of supremacy. The historical and sociological grief, massacres, deprivations and grudges that come with pariahdom are tried to be overcome with the response of supremacy. This is the fantasy to turn Jews into masters who command the whole world. The ideology of eliminating enslavement through the enslavement of others. The obsession of solving enslavement by producing slavery. This is what Zionism is in the complete sense.

Of course, the intelligentsia would call this merely "anti-Zionism."

Finally, a bar association in Egypt decided to protest the Trump decision with a protest:

The lawyers who participated in the protest rejected the American decision and chanted, "Khyber Khyber, oh Jews .. Mohammed's army will come back."

A threat to eradicate the Jewish presence in the Middle East.

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From Times of Israel:

A delegation of religious figures from the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain arrived in Israel this week “in order to send a message of peace,” in an extremely rare instance of representatives from an Arab country without diplomatic relations visiting the Jewish state.

The trip seemed to signal a further warming of ties between Israel and Bahrain, which a report earlier this year said are on a path to normalizing diplomatic relations.

The delegation, which is made up of 24 members of the “This is Bahrain” group — which on its website heralds a commitment to a vision of “religious freedom and peaceful co-existence where we all live together in harmony in the spirit of mutual respect and love” — is in Israel for a four-day visit meant to send a message of religious tolerance and coexistence.

“The king sent us with a message of peace to the whole world,” a Shiite cleric on the trip told Hadashot TV news, which aired a report on Saturday about the group.

That's a big story in itself.

But just as big is that the Palestinian Authority is so anti-peace that they are arranging protests against the Bahrainis.

The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced its "absolute refusal to receive the Bahraini delegation coming from the Zionist entity in any of its schools and institutions of higher education affiliated with it" and instructed all schools under its control as well as UNRWA schools to snub any attempts by the Bahraini group to meet with them.

Palestinians gathered at the Erez crossing into Gaza, prepared to throw shoes and eggs at the delegation after rumors that they were going to visit there.

This was all reported approvingly at the Fatah Facebook page.

Reports also indicate that the delegation was blocked from visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by its guards.

This is how Palestinians treat fellow Arabs who make it clear that that they simply want peace.

This is about as clear an indication as you can find as to which side actually wants peace and which side wants to use the word "peace" as a synonym for never ending conflict.

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The Trump Nudge (Michael Lumish)

Perhaps Donald Trump gave the Arab-Israel conflict the nudge that it needs.

It is fascinating to see the various objections that many pro-Israel Jews have for United States recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Some people oppose the move primarily out of disdain for Trump or because they consider Trump so toxic that he will inevitably poison what otherwise might be a good move. Many Israelis, needless to say, find the whole thing insulting. They know where their own capital is, for chrissake, and they don't need anyone else to affirm it. And everyone, of course, is concerned about violence and one Palestinian-Arab has been killed as I write during this first "Day of Rage."

One of my favorite arguments, however, represented only by a deranged minority, actually considers Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as antisemitic. Imagine that. The idea is that Trump only made this move as a cynical gesture to the Christian Evangelical base. American Evangelicals - or so goes the story - merely appreciate Israel as a vehicle for some crazed eschatological, End-of-Days scenario wherein Jesus will return and show Adolph Hitler and the Catholic Church just how best to deal with the Jews.

It is pure nonsense, of course, but interesting to ponder in a warped kind of way.

And, finally, there is the prominent idea among the politicians and intelligentsia - and the EU and the PA and the UN and the Department of State and, say, Swedish people - that this will kill the "peace process." I do not know about you, but I increasingly have come to suspect that the purpose of the "peace process" is not so much about peace as it is about the "peace process."

We are coming on twenty-five years since Yitzhak Rabin foolishly shook the hand of that rotten old bastard, Yassir Arafat, and somehow it did not fall off.

In any case, the Arabs are going bonkers, as we are seeing in the streets of eastern Jerusalem and elsewhere, and people will be killed out of Koranically-based religious mania.

{And make no mistake, the entire conflict is grounded in Koranically-based religious mania. Does anyone believe for a single second that if somehow Israel was an Islamic country that the rest of the Islamic world would be so perpetually vexed at its existence? Of course, not.}

But, so long as the Arabs believe that they have a reasonable claim to the City of David they will never stop pushing and they will not stop sending their children into the streets with knives. So long as they believe that Jerusalem is up-for-grabs then they will consider the whole shebang up-for-grabs.

Two of the biggest mistakes that Israel made, historically, were giving up control of the Temple Mount to the Waqf and inviting Arafat back from Tunis for that insidious handshake. The stupidity on both counts was monumental.

Most Democrats and progressives now believe that the Arabs are fighting for "social justice."

They are not.

Jews lived as second and third-class non-citizens under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperial rule for thirteen centuries. It was never better than Jim crow was at its worst, but lasted far longer. And when Jewish people finally gained their freedom, the Arab world waged bloody war against Israel, in various forms, from 1948 to the present.

The Arabs are not fighting for social justice. They are not fighting for a Palestinian-Arab state.

They are seeking to repair the historical continuance of theocratic-imperial domination over the despised Jewish minority, who many believe murdered their prophet.

This is about religious bigotry, not land.

This is about the crudest form of Koranically-based race hatred imaginable and it has been ongoing since the time of Muhammad.

Arab-Muslim kids in the Middle East far too often receive fear and loathing toward Jews with their mother's milk.

Anti-Defamation League statistics on antisemitism in the Middle East show that the most liberal countries are hateful toward Jews into the 70th percentile, while in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority that number rises into the 90th percentile.

And what this means - as the Palestinian-Arabs never cease to remind us - is that we are facing an implacable foe with the very worst intentions and with what they believe is a divine calling to wrench Jewish control from historically Jewish land... and to do so even within living memory of the Holocaust.

Now, that is quite some brew.

Given the ugly truth above, I increasingly lean in the direction of Daniel Pipes on this question.

I believe it is necessary for Israel to decisively defeat their Palestinian-Arab enemies. And what that means is making it very clear to them that continued efforts to ruin Jewish lives will be met with very sincere consequences.

As for just what those consequences should be, I can only leave to the Israelis.

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Egypt's el Fagr reports that an Alexandria lawyer and coordinator of the Revolutionary Lawyers Movement, Sherif Jadallah, has filed a complaint with the Attar District Court demanding the banning of any Jew from entering the Great Synagogue in Alexandria and allowing Muslims to perform the five daily prayers inside the synagogue.

Jadallah says this has nothing to do with the US recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Instead, he claims it is a response to Israel banning Muslims from the Al aqsa Mosque for a few days earlier this year after three terrorists used it as a base to murder Jews.

"The Jewish religious intransigence and persecution of Muslims must be met with a clear popular legal response to the prohibition of Jewish religious rituals and to allow us to perform Islamic religious rites within their Jewish temples," Jadallah said, in accordance with what he laughably called a principle in international law called "reciprocity."

The lawyer is targeting December 29th to ban Jewish worship in the synagogue and allow Muslims to take it over.

Now that there are nearly no Jews in Egypt, the country has been spending money to restore their old synagogues - for tourists, but not for prayer.

I'm sure that Muslims who claim that they have nothing against Jews will write irate articles about this in the Arabic press.

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I laugh at their rage over Jerusalem (Forest Rain)

Incredulous, the France 24 commentator asked their Israel correspondent: “Don’t the Israelis care that the whole world is against the Jerusalem declaration?!”

His wide-eyed expression and astonished tone were so ridiculous, I burst out laughing.

On December 6^th, 2017, US President Donald J. Trump declared that the United States officially recognizes the fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and is preparing to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Most Israelis applauded President Trump for recognizing the ancient truth that Jerusalem is the heart of Zion, the capital of Israel. In my house we also cheered.

Like the Balfour Declaration 100 years ago, the statement Trump made does not grant the Jewish people right to what was always ours–it reaffirms the international understanding of the historic bond between the Nation of Israel and Jerusalem and the natural right of the Jewish people for self-determination in our ancestral homeland.

This statement sets the standard for all other nations on earth. It is up to each of them to choose sides. Either they recognize historical truth, current reality and assist in preparing for a peaceful future or they continue to prop up genocidal delusions based on the lies of Jew-hatred.

It really is that simple.

Those who object to Jerusalem being recognized as the capital of Israel do so because they actually have a problem with Jewish sovereignty anywhere in Israel.

Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people, the heart of Zion for 3000 years, not just the last 70.

The bond between the Nation of Israel and Jerusalem is unbreakable. It cannot be changed by any external force. This is the oldest love story ever documented. All others are fleeting.

Hamas / Fatah declared that, should Trump recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the gates of hell would open up. So far, we’ve seen some temper tantrums but, as far as I know, the gates of hell remain safely shut.

Personally, I am glad the current President of the United States does not change his policy according to the threats of terrorists.

After Trump’s declaration, Hamas / Fatah announced three days of rage. The thing is that they are so often enraged, it’s rather difficult to determine how these days differ from all other days.

It was no big surprise to see so many nations of the world rush to denounce America’s policy and declare that Trump’s statement would destabilize the Middle East and threaten the non-existent peace process. How dare the United States recognize Jewish right to determine where the capital of their own country is?! What a reckless thing to do!

That’s why I had to laugh at the commentator. “Don’t Israelis care that the whole world is against the Jerusalem declaration?!”

No. Absolutely not. Why should we?

If we lived according to the attitude the “whole world” has towards Jews and Israel in particular, we would have done them a favor and drowned ourselves in the sea long ago.

A different people might give up but we’re stubborn. That’s the thing our enemies don’t seem to be able to comprehend. Terrorism makes us stronger. Attack us and we unify and THAT is when miracles happen.

The day after Trump’s declaration a man yelling “Allahu akbar” attacked a Jewish restaurant, smashing the windows with a hammer.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5155695/Man-Palestine-flag-attacks-Jewish-venue-Amsterdam.html#v-2745726676810614929

The owner’s response was: “For what Trump did, he [the terrorist] can comes smash windows 10 more times.” When asked if he was afraid of further attacks, he laughed and said: “I grew up in neighborhood D in Be’ersheva [known for being a tough neighborhood]. I’m not afraid of anything. Jerusalem is our capital and that’s that.”

Hearing this, I laughed. This is what “Jerusalem, above all joys” means. Priorities.

When telling this story to American Jewish friends, I was startled by the difference in their reaction. I realize now that living in Israel has changed me.

There is a centuries old guideline for Jews living in the diaspora that basically means: “Don’t annoy the non-Jews.” The idea is to not stand out too much, to obey the laws of the land, be loyal to that country so that the non-Jews won’t decide to turn on their Jewish neighbors and slaughter them. Often this policy served Jews well. In other cases, Jews were slaughtered anyway. This is a policy for a people living at the mercy of others, a people with no one to turn to for protection, a people with no state in which they can claim sanctuary.

Israeli Jews are different.

The diaspora mentality is deeply ingrained and difficult to shake but life in Israel is enough to change most Jews. While we don’t enjoy being under attack, being denounced by the nations of the world, having to fight just to live another day but our stubbornness is stronger than the fear tactics of our enemies.

Israelis have a spirit of wild defiance that is incomprehensible to our enemies (and sadly also to many of our brothers and sisters still living in the diaspora). This is the defiance of freedom, of a people free to determine our own destiny.

The idea that Israelis would cringe at the disapproval of other nations is laughable. The idea that Israelis will be swayed by terrorism is just as ridiculous.

The consistent condemnation of Jews exercising sovereign rights in our ancestral homeland is proof enough of the desire that Jews simply disappear. Trump’s declaration did not “spark” Arab rage, it is the return of Jews to Zion and the miracle of the re-birth of Israel that caused their rage.

Admittedly, terrorism can be an effective tactic to drive colonialists out of occupied land. It doesn’t work when applied to people living in the only home they have. That’s why terrorism makes us stronger – being attacked for “occupying” our own home proves how imperative it is to defend ourselves and protect the land of Israel for the future of the Nation of Israel.

The nations of the world can shake their heads in disapproval. Fatah and Hamas can rage all they want.

I laugh at their rage. Israel has given me that power.

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