Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 25, 2018

01/25 Links Pt2: Ben Shapiro: Partisan Divide over Israel; Glenn Simpson, Conspiracy Theorist, Finds a Place for the Jews in his Trump-Russia Fantasia

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: Partisan Divide over Israel

That deeper element is worldview, exposed by 9/11 and exacerbated over time by increasing partisan bickering over Islamic terrorism. From 1978 through the Oslo Accord, support for Israelis declined while support for the Palestinians stayed approximately even. About as many Americans said they supported “neither party” or “both” as said they supported the Israelis. That’s because the United States faced virtually no threat from Islamic radicalism. After Oslo, support for Israel jumped, particularly as Israel was hit by wave after wave of Palestinian terrorism.

Then, after 9/11, support for Israelis jumped among Republicans and never stopped growing. Conservative Americans, who had been more likely to draw a moral equation between Israel and her enemies, identified with the Israelis — they saw Israel as an outpost of Western civilization in a region rife with Islamic terrorism. They saw Palestinians handing out candies as the World Trade Center towers fell, and they knew that Israelis had been facing down the same threat. The real, meaningful conflict between Islamist barbarism and Western liberalism was thrown into sharp relief.

Democrats, too, initially responded to 9/11 with more support for Israel. But as the war on terror progressed, Democrats began to see Western civilization as the provocative agent. Too many on the left saw Islamic terrorism as a response to Western cruelty — cruelty to which Israel was supposedly a party. Nowhere was this clearer than in the media coverage of the Gaza War, which glorified Hamas at the expense of Israel, even as Israel tried to avoid civilian casualties and Hamas tried to inflict them. The Obama administration reflected that viewpoint, which is why it pursued Iranian regional growth with alacrity. The West, Obama and the Democrats thought, had to withdraw from the Middle East in order to empower dispossessed Islamists (hence State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf’s asinine suggestion that ISIS be given jobs to help them avoid terrorism).

Unfortunately, the gap yawns ever greater. Republicans live in a post-9/11 world; Democrats live in a pre-9/11 world. That has dramatic, unfortunate implications for Israel: In a polarized political environment, the historic bipartisan support for the Jewish state is quickly eroding. That’s not a bipartisan problem. That’s a specifically Democratic problem, and one that should encourage Jews to examine whether the Democratic Party ought to re-evaluate its moral worldview in the Middle East.

Glenn Simpson, Conspiracy Theorist, Finds a Place for the Jews in his Trump-Russia Fantasia

In April 2017, Politico published “The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin.” How are they connected? Well, Putin is close to several Chabad supporters, as well as Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, Russia’s chief rabbi. Trump worked with some Russian emigres who are active in Chabad, including a convicted felon, Felix Sater. In Florida, Trump hosted the wedding of the daughter of a Chabad supporter he knows to an associate of one of the Chabad supporters who is close to Putin.

What does all this tell us about the alleged relationship between Trump and Putin?

“Their respective ambitions led the two men,” writes Politico, “to build a set of close, overlapping relationships in a small world that intersects on Chabad, an international Hasidic movement most people have never heard of.”

You see—they’re furtive. Almost no one has heard of them. The only people who appear to understand Chabad’s role in the secret Trump-Putin collusion conspiracy are the author of the story and Glenn Simpson, who came back to this insane theory again in his testimony before Congress. Yet this lunacy was evidently plausible enough to the editorial staff at Politico, whose headline is the only thing that actually connects Trump and Putin in a story insinuating a secret Jewish plot to undermine American democracy.

In the past, it was Russian intelligence that trafficked in disinformation operations tagging Jews as the engine of instability in Western countries. The most famous specimen was The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And previously, the ethics and institutional structures of the mainstream American press prevented conspiracy theories from polluting the country’s public sphere. Today, by contrast, American journalists congratulating themselves for their ever-vigilant stance against Russian encroachment on our democratic institutions willingly usher in updated versions of the Protocols. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Making peace with Israel

In all my discussions with the high-ups of the Pakistani security establishment, politicians and diplomats there is a high acceptance and willingness to engage with Israel. The problem is that nobody wants to take the lead and responsibility fearing a backlash from the right-wing religious hawks that wrongly put it as a religious issue. The result is that Pakistan’s foreign policy has continued to suffer due to its shortsighted and spineless leadership that fears mullah more than Allah.

Pakistan’s stale Israel policy reflects a deeper level rot in its governance, inability to change and non-strategic personalised foreign policy. Take for instance Pakistan’s bi-relations with Saudi Arabia. It’s more of a House of Saud and House of Sharif relation than a state-to-state level relation. The US-Pak relations are in reality Pakistan military and US relations. Same is the case with Pakistan’s relations with Turkey, Iran and the UK. Essentially, the ruling elite in Pakistan have used the state to garner and develop its personal interests at the expense of national interests — a tragedy that inhibits Pakistan from any real policy change.

Make no mistake; Pakistan’s Israel policy is not driven by any grandiose ideas of human rights or Muslim solidarity, and especially not out of any national interest. The senseless policy on Israel continues to exist because the elite don’t see any personal or institutional benefit in the relation. The day our leadership sees a personal financial or military benefit, no fear of mullah or Allah can stop. Until then, Pakistan will continue with its senseless policy expecting a different result in its global standing. (h/t Solomon2)

Palestinian Authority Jerusalem propaganda videos

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information has been producing videos, seen by practically nobody, to make their case for Jerusalem.

For example, this video thanking the countries of the world for voting against ("rebuking") the US at the UN:

This one, a truly awfully produced video, denies any Jewish connection to the city as it says that "Biblical and Quranic verses are craved [sic] on its ancient walls."

This one claims that there is more that 5000 years of Arab Palestinian history archaeologically proven in Jerusalem.

It also gives various blurbs about Jerusalem in various languages. In Hebrew, however, it doesn't use the word Jerusalem but Al Quds.

Because the PA knows very well that Jerusalem is associated with Jews, first and foremost.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I am trying to understand Yehonatan Geffen.

Geffen is an icon of Israeli culture. The nephew of Moshe Dayan, he is a poet, playwright, author, performer and journalist. He wrote the children’s song, “The prettiest girl in the kindergarten,” which remains enormously popular with Israelis of all ages (listen to it here). His music is heard regularly on the radio. I find it pleasant and peaceful.

Like most Israelis in art, literature, media and performing arts, Geffen is politically left-wing. Some people say that this is because the artistic/literary/performing establishment is not kind to those with divergent views, and there is some truth to this.

Anyway, I expect it and am not surprised when an artist or writer denounces “the occupation” or thinks that Netanyahu is a fascist dictator who prefers war to peace or that “settlers” are not human. That’s normal these days.

But Geffen has gone far beyond normal. In a poem posted on his Instagram account, Geffen wrote,

A pretty girl of 17 did an awful thing
And when a proud Israeli officer
Invaded her home again
She gave him a slap.
She was born for this and in that slap
Were fifty years of occupation and humiliation.
And on the day that they tell the story of the struggle
You, Ahed Tamimi,
Red-haired,
Like David who slapped Goliath,
You will be on the same page as
Joan of Arc, Hannah Senesh and Anne Frank. (my translation)

Ahed Tamimi lives in the village of Nabi Saleh, about 20 km north of Ramallah. Since 2009, Nabi Saleh has been the scene of weekly demonstrations (sometimes riots) by townspeople and activists, against a nearby Jewish community that they claim has appropriated land belonging to Nabi Saleh. The Tamimi family – the father Bassem, mother Nariman, Ahed and her brothers, sisters and cousins all take part. Ahed’s specialty is cursing, hitting, kicking, and biting Israeli soldiers while the cameras of the international media carefully focus on the fracas, in hopes that a soldier will lose his temper or even raise his hand to defend himself, at which point the (carefully edited) video will be proof of IDF brutality (of course, if the soldiers do nothing, it’s proof of their cowardice).

Ahed has been doing this for almost a decade, earning the nickname “Shirley Temper.” It’s part of the information war, the campaign of cognitive warfare against the Jewish state to delegitimize and demonize Israel in order to make her ultimate physical destruction easier. The Tamimis are soldiers in this war.

The family’s activism ranges from propaganda to mass murder. Although Ahed has never seriously harmed anyone (yet), her Uncle Nizar and Aunt Ahlam have both been convicted of murdering Israelis. Ahlam masterminded and participated in the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem in 2001, in which 15 people (7 of them children) were murdered. Although she received 16 life sentences, she was released in 2011 as part of the ransom for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. She now lives in Jordan with Nizar (a second cousin, also released from prison in the Shalit deal) where she has a career as a TV personality. She is currently the subject of an extradition request by the US, since several of her victims were American citizens.

Ahed has been allowed to curse, slap, punch, kick and bite to her heart’s content for years, but apparently Israeli officials finally had enough. This month, after the famous slap, she was arrested and indicted for “aggravated assault, hindering a soldier in the line of duty, incitement, threatening a soldier's life and stone-throwing.” Naturally, this immediately gave rise to a massive worldwide campaign to “free Ahed Tamimi.” One wonders what would happen if a 17-year old in any other country, including the US or Canada, behaved like her.

Ahed has enlisted herself (or been enlisted by her parents) as a soldier for the Palestinian Cause, which is to put an end to the Jewish state and drive the Jews out of the land of Israel. This is not a noble cause. Like the Nazi cause that took the lives of Hannah Senesh and Anne Frank, it aspires to the destruction of a people, which is objectively evil. There is no similarity between the Zionist aspiration for a Jewish state where the civil rights of non-Jews will be respected, and the Palestinian aspiration to kill and disperse the Jews from Israel.

But Yehonatan Geffen goes even farther than the usual left-wing trope of a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. By comparing Ahed Tamimi to Hannah Senesh and Anne Frank, he is – quite explicitly – saying that Israel is comparable to the Nazi regime. By comparing her to Joan of Arc he is suggesting that the arrest of a juvenile delinquent is comparable to burning a woman at the stake.

This isn’t merely leftist politics, it’s pathological hatred for a country that, by the way, has been very kind to Geffen and made it possible for him to live, and live well, as a poet and a dissident.

Geffen’s hatred for his country boils over into expression that is more pungent than that of our physical enemies. We expect what we get from Hamas – after all, they launch rockets to kill us, too – but it is always a shock to hear from a Jew that we are Nazis. It’s impossible to get used to. How can he not know that he is inverting reality?

I don’t understand how a person who could write beautiful songs for children and even a touching poem about a street cat(Hebrew video link) could be so cruel to his own people – and how he could join the demonization campaign led by our enemies, the true heirs of the Nazis.

I don’t have a good answer, but here are a couple of theories. Possibly artists who have a powerful ability to empathize – with kindergartners and cats, for example – can too easily be overwhelmed by emotion. The political and the personal can come together. Their feelings overflow and they lose their common sense – common sense that should tell them that while they wish we were not occupying Judea and Samaria, we are not doing it in order to commit Nazi-like genocide on the Palestinians.

It is also true that as creative people they are used to creating alternate realities. What else does a poet or playwright do? Then perhaps they can become confused about which one is the real world. And of course they live in the parallel universe of the intellectual and artistic class in which everything they hear from their friends and read in Ha’aretz competes to present the most extreme picture.

Whatever. But it would be best for him to retire from public life now. He can spend his spare time helping the Russian ladies who feed the street cats.

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01/25 Links Pt1: Trump: No more aid unless Palestinians accept that Jerusalem is ‘off the table’; Abbas buys $50 million private jet; The Big Palestine Lie

From Ian:

Trump: No more aid unless Palestinians accept that Jerusalem is ‘off the table’

In a freewheeling press availability on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said the US would no longer transfer monetary aid to the Palestinians unless they entered peace negotiations with Israel, and excoriated the Palestinian leadership’s reaction to his decision last month to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“That money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace, because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace, and they’re going to have to want to make peace, too, or we’re going to have nothing to do with it any longer,” he said.

Sitting alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before their bilateral meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump called Palestinian Authority officials’ unwillingness to meet with members of his administration — including US Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the region last week — “disrespectful.”

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has also recently sought to have European powers replace the United States as the primary mediator in Middle East peace talks.

“If you look back at the various peace proposals, and they are endless, and I spoke to some of the people involved. And I said, ‘Did you ever talk about the vast amount of funds, money that we give to the Palestinians? You know, we give hundreds of millions of dollars.’ And they said, ‘We never talk about it,'” Trump said. “Well, we do talk about it. When they disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great vice president to see them, and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and support, tremendous numbers, numbers that nobody understands, that money is on the table.” (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Full text: Netanyahu-Trump meeting in Davos

Washington said reexamining entirety of US aid to Palestinians

The US leadership is looking beyond its recent cuts to the the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, with the State Department reexamining the entirety of its aid budget to the Palestinian Authority, Hadashot news reported Wednesday.

According to the TV station, which indicated the report was based on US sources, the $100 million cut to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) earlier this month may well only be the start, as the crisis between Washington and Ramallah deepens.

A top proponent of further cuts is said to be US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who reportedly wants the Palestinian leadership to pay for its attitude towards the US government and President Donald Trump. Other officials are said to oppose further cuts.

There was no confirmation of the TV report.

.@nikkihaley: "President Abbas declared the landmark Oslo Peace Accords dead. He rejected any American role in peace talks. He insulted the American president. He called for suspending recognition of Israel." pic.twitter.com/5BaU4nRtY8
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 25, 2018

Amid funding cut fears, PA purchases $50 million private jet for Abbas — report

Even as the Palestinian Authority faces major funding cuts from the US, it has purchased a new luxurious $50 million private jet to be used by President Mahmoud Abbas, Hadashot news reported Wednesday.

The report, which did not provide sourcing, said the plane was set to be delivered to Amman within weeks, and will be stationed there for use by the PA chief.

Funding for the plane was said to have been provided both from the PA budget ($20 million) and from the Palestinian National Fund ($30 million).

The report comes amid deep cuts to US aid to the Palestinians, and reports that further cuts may be coming.

When US President Donald Trump originally threatened to cut aid earlier this month, top PLO official Saeb Erekat said it would lead to starvation among Palestinian refugee children.

“Now, he is threatening to starve Palestinian children in refugee camps and deny their natural rights to health and education, if we don’t endorse his terms and dictations,” Erekat said, referring to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

From The National:

In pursuit of the perfect pout, a dozen camels have been disqualified from a camel beauty pageant in Saudi Arabia for receiving Botox injections.

What distinguishes a beautiful camel is not just its height, shape and the placement of its hump. A full, droopy lip and large features are essential to achieving camel celebrity-status in the multi-million dollar industry of camel pageantry.

“They use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,” said Ali Al Mazrouei, 31, a regular attendee at Gulf festivals and son of a top Emirati breeder. “It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it’s like, ‘Oh look at how big is that head is. It has big lips, a big nose’.”

Beauty season is in full swing and 30,000 camels have gathered for the second annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, the largest pageant in the Gulf. It takes place in Al Dhana, 120 kilometres from Riyadh, and runs through January following Abu Dhabi's Al Dhafra Festival.

Prize money at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival totals US$57 million (Dhs209.3 million), with more than US$31.8 million for pageantry alone. About 300,000 visitors have attended the festival since it began on January 1, up a third from last year.

Days before it started, Saudi media reported that a veterinarian was caught red-handed performing plastic surgery on camels. At his clinic, camels were not only given botox but went under the knife to reduce the size of their ears. Delicate ears are a winning attribute on some Saudi breeds.

Cheaters are creative, said Ali Obaid, a camel owner and pageant guide from Medinat Zayed. “For example they start to pull the lips of the camel, they pull it by hand like this every day to make it longer. Secondly, they use hormones to make it more muscular and Botox makes the head bigger and bigger. Everyone wants to be a winner.”

I really don't have anything to add.

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The Neturei Karta seem to have helped write the Al Azhar declaration on Jerusalem

The text of the Al Azhar World Declaration to Support Jerusalem, the result of the conference last week that Mahmoud Abbas attended, has 13 paragraphs of declarations and recommendations.

Paragraph 10 is interesting:

The conference urges the wise people of the Jews themselves to take into consideration history, which witnessed their persecution in every place yet they were tolerated only under the Muslim civilization, and to expose Zionist practices contrary to the teachings of Moses, peace be upon him, (including) violation of the sanctity and the theft of the land and the looting of our sanctities .

There were a couple of Neturei Karta members in attendance, and Arabic language media widely reported on them.

It sounds like they were invited to add their own paragraph (or at least to edit it).

The document also claims that Arabs have controlled Jerusalem for 5000 years.

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Some recent items of interest in Muslim and Israeli media

Here are some things I've noticed in the past couple of days from browsing around.

Haaretz reached yet new frontiers of absurdity by saying "only the Arab MKs truly oppose the occupation and seek peace."

Iran's Tasnim News started off an article with "Israel, which has failed to achieve the dream of a Zionist state from the Nile to the Euphrates, is a constant nuisance for the national security of all countries..."

Al Hayat al Jadida illustrated a story about Zionism with these obvious Zionists:

Literally every day there are headlines about Jews "deliberately desecrating Al Aqsa" by walking on the Temple Mount.

A relatively thoughtful piece in Arab21 about how Israel's relationship with India could help it achieve the ultimate crime - other Arab states "normalizing" relations. It says that flights between Israel and India may soon be allowed to travel over Saudi airspace, which would of course be a disaster. He goes on to describe other horrible Israeli attempts to make friends in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

In a followup to this story, where there was talk in Morocco of withdrawing citizenship of Moroccan Jews who moved to Israel across the Green Line, the party that was claimed to have been pushing the law has denied it, saying it was only rumors.

Ammon News in English quotes King Abdullah in Davos as saying Jerusalem is "eternal to Jews, Christians and Muslims." In Arabic it doesn't mention that; instead it says that Israel's supposed one state solution "will be a racist state against Arabs, Muslims and Christians."

Yoel has been sending me videos of this interesting and different Israeli singer on TV competition shows, Neta Barzilai:

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Here's one of the more bizarre articles by Palestinians about how Israelis have "stolen" their supposed heritage.

Usually these articles stick with falafel, but this guy - Dr. Fayez Rashid - goes all out.

In Al Quds al Arabi, he quotes a Palestinian researcher called Nabil ‘Alqam. 'Alqam who mentioned a statistic, which was taken from a book called “Orientalism, Zionism, and Popular Folklore”, by Mun’im Haddad, a professor at Haifa University.

According to Haddad, out of 18,500 stories that are purportedly from the Israeli heritage/folklore that Haddad recorded, 11,944 are really from Arab folklore, told by Jews from Arab and Islamic countries, and out of those, 215 are Palestinian stories.

So specific! It must be true! (Although I'm surprised that there are over 18,000 Israeli folklore stories. Unless he means "Jewish.")

Rashid also complains that Israel donated plants and flowers to China for a botanical garden set up during the 2008 Olympics that were really "Palestinian." And that Israelis received awards for Arab dishes in international competitions. And that Israelis love to steal Palestinian songs and dances like the Dabka.

Rashid goes on to say that in the 1950s, Israel (presumably the government) set up committees to steal Palestinian heritage.

That must have been where all those wooden camels that tourists in the 1960s brought back from Israel came from!

Rashid goes on to say that there is no Israeli culture which is why they are forced to steal the culture from others, and implies that Jews have been doing that for centuries.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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01/24 Links Pt2: How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine; Saving the Syrian Jewish Brides; Why Do Western Gays Abandon Their Islamic Brothers?

From Ian:

NYTs: How Arafat Eluded Israel’s Assassination Machine

The choice facing Ivry on that day in October 1982 was only one example of a dilemma that has confronted many Israeli authorities over the course of the nation’s brief history — the violent and sometimes irreconcilable clash between the fundamental principles of democracy and a nation’s instinct to defend itself.

As a reporter in Israel, I have interviewed hundreds of people in its intelligence and defense establishments and studied thousands of classified documents that revealed a hidden history, surprising even in the context of Israel’s already fierce reputation. Many of the people I spoke to, in explaining why they did what they did, would simply cite the Babylonian Talmud: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” In my reporting, I found that since World War II, Israel has used assassination and targeted-killing more than any other country in the West, in many cases endangering the lives of civilians. But I also discovered a long history of profound — and often rancorous — internal debates over how the state should be preserved. Can a nation use the methods of terrorism? Can it harm innocent civilians in the process? What are the costs? Where is the line?

Increasingly, people want to talk. It was during a conversation in 2011 with a senior officer in a North Tel Aviv cafe that I heard for the first time about how Sharon had ordered that transport plane carrying Arafat to be shot down in 1982. He described everything in detail but set a stiff condition for publication of the story — another person had to describe the event on the record as well. Only by doing that could I publish the story. I went to see that person, knowing how difficult it would be to get him to speak about the episode. I approached in a roundabout manner before I touched on the relevant point. The man looked at me with his steely gaze, but then a softer and slightly sad expression came over his face. “For more than 30 years,” he said, “I have been waiting for someone to come and ask me about this story.”

No target thwarted, vexed and bedeviled the Israeli assassination apparatus more than Yasir Arafat, the charismatic P.L.O. leader who died in 2004. Sometimes he would simply escape, and sometimes the officials overseeing an effort would call it off because the target could not be confirmed or because the price in civilian lives was deemed too high. Time and again, the desire to kill Arafat placed Israel at the center of the ongoing debate about what a nation can and cannot do to survive. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

David Collier: Uni of Warwick – false accusations of aggressive & misogynistic behaviour

And it is important to remember that the issues mentioned are serious, but localised. After I released the last report, some press articles lost both perspective and context, painting Jewish existence at Warwick as an image of constant peril. Little could be further from the truth. As someone who constantly seeks context rather than headlines, and in support of Jewish students at Warwick, I need to address some of this here.

As a result of the exaggerated threat, Jewish students on Warwick released a statement that is worth reading. These students firmly believe that Warwick is one of the ‘greatest campuses’ in the UK for Jewish students. They remain proud of the growth and activity of the Warwick Jewish Israeli Society.

The facts speak in their favour. They firmly defeated the BDS motion, and passed a ‘Warwick Against Antisemitism’ motion in the students union, organising a ‘whole week celebrating the diversity in Israel and hosting holocaust survivors’. It was the BDS defeat that led to the small group of Faculty founding ‘Warwick for Justice in Palestine’ in the first place.

They accept they have issues with university support and individuals within the Student Union, but are insistent this does not reflect on their experience of Warwick as a whole. For them, most of the Faculty, and most of the student body are on-side and supportive. Anti-Israel activism is in general seen for what it is. Remember, only 10-15 students turned up for the event last Wednesday. On a campus that holds thousands.

This small group of activists are an issue, and whilst holding the greater picture in focus we must be allowed to deal with it. In context, and bearing in mind the real-life issues of the students. I am absolutely certain many of the Faculty on Warwick are appalled by the actions of the few. I am also certain over-exaggeration, confuses the issue, complicates life for all students on Warwick, and in many cases can be self -defeating.

What everyone deserves, is for the university to recognise the problem that does exist, and deal with it. The only question is – do they have the guts?

Abbas, May, Trump

Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the implications of Mahmoud Abbas ripping off his mask, as well as the pressure building for Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May to go and the May/Trump fiasco.

The first inkling I had that fear would inform at least part of my visit to the States came while waiting to board the first leg of my journey, Tel Aviv to Paris. I was on my way to visit my mother in Pittsburgh, who was about to celebrate her 91^st birthday. An Arab sat down beside me and began to read a book entitled L'Or d'Al-Qaida.

As it turns out, the book is a thriller. But I didn’t know that, and the spotty wifi at the airport didn’t allow me the luxury of Google. I knew it was probably nothing to worry about, but I couldn’t take the chance of doing nothing. I decided I’d better tell a representative of the airline, Air France, of my concerns.

The representative waved off my concerns, telling me not to worry, without even bothering to get the details or look at the man reading the book. I was just some Jew worry wart, my report not worth serious attention.

And since I’d now given up my seat to tell someone, anyone about the possible security issue, I was now forced to stand until boarding, no empty seats now in sight.

But once that small concern came to me over a dumb thriller, I was unable to shake the feeling, my entire trip, that it might be dangerous for people to know where I live. I wavered between fear of discovery, and wanting to tell people the truth about Israel, wanting to inform, to fill in where there were gaps of knowledge because the real story is not being covered by the mainstream media.

Or because people are being fed lies.

At times, it wasn’t so much fear of discovery, as it was unpleasant to discover how people feel about Israel and Israelis. There was, for instance, the Air France representative in Paris, who asked to see my passport. I showed her my Israeli passport and she blanched. “This is a problem,” she said, and began asking me about visas and things.

I pulled out my American passport and asked, “Does this help?”

“Much better,” she said.

I was left wondering about the real meaning behind her consternation. Was it visas that concerned her, or the fact that I come from Israel? Did she see me as an oppressor, someone who colonizes Arab land, a Zionazi, a sh*tty little Jew??

Or was I imagining all that?

Understand, please, that I live in a small town over the green line with an all-Jewish population. It is rare for me to see people from other cultures within Efrat, though I see plenty of Arabs at the supermarket and in Jerusalem. For me to be in Charles De Gaulle Airport, however, was to mix with European gentiles, and of course, Muslims of all stripes.

In this space, I was a minority. One that is reviled.

European and Muslim hate of Israel and antisemitism are not foreign to me as concepts, because of my reading and writing. So I believe my paranoia was well founded. Still, I was glad to get to the United States, where, I think, most people have a warm spot for Israel.

And still, I couldn’t quite shake off that fear.

When asked to register for the store’s card at Macy’s or JC Penney’s, I would say, “No thanks. I’m just visiting.”

They’d say, “It’s good everywhere,” and I’d have to reply, “I live abroad.”

Even in America, I found, I was afraid to say the “I” word--to say I live in Israel.

Because Pittsburgh, my hometown, is a friendly place, it got easier. Asked where I lived, I no longer had any choice but to speak the truth, “Israel,” I’d say, and wait, a bit worried, for the reaction.

I shouldn’t have worried. Almost every time I told salespeople and others where I lived, they’d be fascinated and want to know what it’s like, why I live there.

A longer conversation happened with Linda. My mother can no longer drive, or walk unassisted. She has Linda to take her around.

Once upon a time, Linda was a single, black mom, trying to get through college. My mom was typing papers to bring in some extra cash, having been widowed young, and possessing excellent typing skills. Linda saw my mom’s typing ad on Chatham's bulletin board and my mom began typing all her papers.

Some instinct told my mother that Linda needed a bit of mentoring. Her English writing skills were poor. My mother, at a certain point, not only typed, but edited Linda’s papers. Linda struggled to pay her bills and couldn’t always afford to pay my mom. My mom helped her anyway.

Linda told me, “I wouldn’t have gotten through college without your mother.”

I told my mom what she said and my mom said, “That’s true.”

I’d heard about Linda for years, but somehow we’d never met. Now was my opportunity, since Linda was the means by which my mom and I could go places together. While we were driving places, Linda and I were getting to know one another. She had a lot of questions about Israel.

Here are five things that Linda did not know about Israel:

1. Linda did not know that jailed Arab terrorists receive stipends and their families, financial assistance for killing Jews (pay to slay).

2. Linda did not know that Israel expelled 11,000 Jews from Gaza and Samaria to give Gaza to the Arabs asking nothing in return. She did not know we destroyed all those lovely Jewish homes, since the Arabs did not want them. She had never heard of Disengagement.

3. Linda did not know that Israel has a housing crisis because every time there are “peace” negotiations, the Arab side, via the U.S., forces us to freeze the building of homes in our ancestral territories, Judea and Samaria.

4. Linda did not know that in Israel, phone recordings and food labels are often in at least four languages: Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and Amharic. She didn’t know there’d been a mass immigration of black Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

5. Linda did not know that Martin Luther King was pro-Israel.

Linda did not know these things because the media is doing a poor job of informing people about Israel. It is clear that people are hungry for information, and fascinated by what I had to tell them. I told Linda, for instance, how my grandson Shmuel had his first haircut at Samuel’s tomb, and I think she grasped what a big deal that was to me as a God-fearing person.

Linda asked me what made me want to live in Israel. I explained that no matter whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew, you know that the Jews are the Children of Israel. That I had always had a yearning to live in Israel. That I believed that it was where every Jew should live. How today it is so easy to get to Israel, to have a real life in Israel, that there is no excuse not to live in Israel.

Once I told Linda about Israel, it became easier to tell the shopkeepers and salespeople, and whoever else wanted to know. People are just curious. They want to know about a life that differs from their own. At least that is the case in Pittsburgh.

I became ill on the second leg of my journey and as a result, required wheelchair assistance during my layovers there and back. While my wheelchair helpers on the way to Pittsburgh were Arabs, on the way back to Tel Aviv, they were not. In Pittsburgh, my wheelchair guy told me how he dreams of coming to Israel because as a Catholic, he wants to “walk in the footsteps of Jesus.”

His wife won’t go with him. Too terrified of terror attacks. But she has given him her blessing for him to go it alone.

I told him I live quite close to Bethlehem. He said, “I know that Jews don’t accept Jesus as their lord and savior, but most Jews think that Jesus was a great prophet.”

I held my tongue. The truth is, no Jew I know thinks Jesus was a great or any other kind of prophet, but rather a naughty little Jewish boy who caused untold trouble and bloodshed for his people. But I wasn’t about to say that to him. Let him believe whatever he likes. No skin off my teeth.

A lovely Ethiopian Christian woman helped me in Atlanta. When she saw my boarding pass, she was delighted to tell me about her dream of visiting the church in Jerusalem.

She told me her entire life story, how every time she prayed for something, it came true: the three beautiful boys she birthed, the new job, a way out of her troubles. We just had this wonderful rapport of one woman, one believer, to another (though our beliefs differed in the details). On parting ways, we agreed we’d see each other in Jerusalem someday. We thought this might really happen.

My travels accomplished their mission which was for me to spend quality time with my mother. I think I also learned that while it’s not safe to trumpet my country of origin to Europeans, it’s really nice to talk to Americans about Israel. They seem to want to know more, and their mainstream media is utterly failing them.

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Hamas Fighter Drawn To Bright Light In Tunnel, Not Realizing He's Dead (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Rafah, January 24 - Confusion reigned in the subterranean passages that snake through and out of the Gaza Strip today after a terrorist killed in a collapsing section remained unaware of his situation because his immediate post-death experience of being drawn toward an inviting light at the end of a tunnel differed in no way from his situation a moment before.

Faqhin al-Aghal, 22, met his demise (today) Wednesday afternoon when a portion of the concrete ceiling in the tunnel in which he was training failed, resulting in several tons of rocky debris crushing him to death. The speed of the collapse and fatality was such that al-Aghal had no chance to notice it happening. Owing to the similarity between his environment and what the consciousness sees in the moments following death, the Khan Yunis refugee camp native did not realize he had perished, and his consciousness continued to move along the remaining section of tunnel toward an illuminated target.

"It might take him a few more moments for reality to hit him," predicted one observer. "Soon he'll notice the sense of detachment, perhaps even bliss, that often accompanies this experience, and that will give him pause. He will stop, look around, and realize he's not embodied. He might even notice the presence of ancestors, deceased loved ones, or others clearly out of place in a tunnel intended for use in combat against Israel, and then it will hit him, so to speak."

"Of course there's also the chance that the realization will involve anxiety and fear, rather than bliss," remarked another. "Up to one fifth of dead or dying people experience that. There's no telling until it happens."

"Right now he might be seeing his life pass before his eyes," continued the first. "But given the stress of his situation before he was fatally crushed, that might not seem so inappropriate, so it won't clue him in that he's kicked the bucket. The incongruity of the other elements of the experience, I think, will make the difference, and he'll probably want to go back to look at his body to make sure."

The prospect of al-Aghal witnessing the condition of his mutilated corpse will most likely be a source of agony, surmised a third source. "His reaction might be different if he were embarking on a suicide bombing, not engaging in a routine training exercise," explained the source. "In such a case he would expect, even feel gratified, to see his body dismembered. I can't see that being the case here. Time will tell."

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01/24 Links Pt1: Note Who Curses America, and Who Blesses It; Col Kemp: We must end this appeasement and ban Hezbollah; Have Republicans Tried to Redefine “Pro-Israel?”

From Ian:

Trump in the Middle East: Note Who Curses America, and Who Blesses It

President Donald Trump has promised that in the Middle East under his presidency, “there are many things that can happen now that would never have happened before.” Two speeches of the last ten days offer dramatic confirmation of the emerging reconfiguration of America’s relationship with Israel and the Middle East under his leadership.

In a two-hour speech before the Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) last week, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, denounced the British, Dutch, French, and Americans for having conspired, ever since the 1650s, to create a Jewish colonial outpost that would “erase the Palestinians from Palestine.” As Abbas tells it, all this reached a climax on the eve of World War I, when the West realized that it was on the verge of collapse and that the Islamic world was “poised to inherit European civilization.” To put an end to this threat, the Western nations went about carving up the Muslim world so that it would be forever “divided, backward, and engulfed in infighting.” As for the United States, it has been “playing games” of this sort ever since then, importing, for example, the disastrous Arab Spring into Middle East.

Abbas summed up by demanding an apology and reparations from Britain for the Balfour Declaration and denying that the United States can serve as a mediator in the Mideast. Finally, he went to the trouble of cursing both President Trump and the U.S. Congress: Yehrab beitak (“May your house be razed”), he said.

I have been following the speeches of the PLO and its supporters in the Arab world for 30 years. Nothing here is new. These are the same things that Yasser Arafat, Abbas, and the mainline PLO leadership have always believed. It is a worldview that reflects an abiding hatred for the West, blaming Christians and Jews not only for the founding of Israel but for every calamity that has befallen the Muslim and Arab world for centuries.

Col Kemp: We must end this appeasement and ban Hezbollah

Hezbollah is the most powerful terrorist organisation in the world. Yet Britain has proscribed only part of it: its military wing. This Thursday the MP Joan Ryan will lead a parliamentary debate aimed at designating the whole organisation, as the US, Canada and the Netherlands already do. Her chances are slim. The film Darkest Hour has reminded us of British ministers’ penchant for appeasement and, like Churchill, that is what she’s up against.

Hezbollah, the creation of Iran, emerged onto the world stage in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 US Marines and 58 French paratroopers in the most devastating terrorist attack before 9/11. Since then it has attacked in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East and planned strikes from Cyprus to Singapore. Last summer US authorities charged two Hezbollah terrorists with planning attacks in New York and Panama. Hezbollah is fighting to keep Assad in power in Syria and maintains an arsenal of 100,000 rockets in Lebanon, pointed at Israel.

During the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hezbollah was involved in Iranian-directed bombings that killed well over 1,000 British and US servicemen. Despite this, in Britain and elsewhere in Europe Hezbollah can freely raise funds for terrorism. Its supporters flaunt their assault rifle-emblazoned flags on our streets. They maintain sleeper cells in this country: planning, preparing and lying in wait for orders to attack.

When I worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee I monitored Hezbollah’s activities. I knew there was no division into peaceful and warlike elements. The regional states don’t buy it either; the Arab League designates the entire organisation. Even Hezbollah’s leaders don’t make any such pretence. In 2009 its deputy secretary-general confirmed that it was one unified organisation.

One Raid Shows All You Need to Know About Israel’s Current Predicament

You wouldn’t think that one isolated Israeli counter-terror raid could explode every major myth about Israel’s conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. But last week’s raid in Jenin came pretty close to doing just that.

Overnight on January 17, Israeli commandos entered the city of Jenin in search of two particular Arab terrorists. When the operation was over a few hours later, the Israeli forces withdrew

Wait — the Israelis withdrew? But isn’t Israel “occupying” the Palestinians? That’s what J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace are always telling us. Just this week, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote that Israel is “ruling over millions of Palestinians.”

I guess that Rabbi Jacobs hasn’t been to Jenin lately. In fact, I would imagine that he hasn’t been there since at least 1995. That was the year when Israel withdrew all of its forces from the city (and the other areas where 98 percent of Palestinians reside), and a new power took over: the Palestinian Authority (PA). Counter-terror raids like the one in Jenin are the only occasions when Israeli forces enter PA-ruled cities.

Today's UNRWA irony

UNRWA is going on a new fundraising drive to allow future generations of Palestinian Arabs to remain stateless, disenfranchised, dependent on outside charity, and victims of discrimination in the entire Arab world because of their artificial designation as "refugees," a designation that they cannot escape according to UNRWA rules.

The name of this initiative? "Dignity Is Priceless."

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It appears that Palestinians who are still absurdly labeled as "refugees" are victims of apartheid - by their own people.

All the documents I'm seeing about whether they can vote in municipal and national PA elections are contradictory. But no one is saying that they have full voting rights.

Passia in 2003 writes:

The camps in the Palestinian Territories have become symbols of territorial illegitimacy because of two processes, one from above and one from below. From above, the camps are invisible in the Oslo process. The new regime of control by Israel divides the Palestinian Territories into Areas A, B and C, while the PNA divides the land according to refugee and non-refugee areas. It excludes the refugee camps from any urban or infrastructural project. From below, the camps as heterotopic places, in the Foucauldian sense, disconnected from the social and urban tissues in their neighboring areas. To an extent this disconnection has happened gradually, and has been expedited by the local elections, which excluded the refugee camp dwellers from voting.

Badil, 2005, says:

Refugees outside the camps are illegible [sic]to vote in national legislative council and municipal elections, but refugees in the camps only participate in the national election

It appears that some of the reason that the "refugees" can't vote is because their (self-appointed) camp leaders don't want their people to vote, and claim that they are making that decision for their own good:

Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 29, 2004
“The Supreme National Committee for the Protection of the Right of Return, announced yesterday that it opposes the participation of the refugee camps in the local elections that are expected to take place in the Palestinian territories. The committee justified its objection as protecting the unique status of the refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, considering them testimony to the crime that the occupation state made against our nation for 56 years. The committee warned of the dangers of integrating the refugee camps into the urban housing units.”

Forced Migration also says this was a decision of the camp leaders:

In the late 1990s when the PNA began to consider holding municipal elections Palestinian refugees decided that those living in camps would not participate in order to avoid the impression that the camps were no different from West Bank and Gaza Strip towns and villages i.e. that the refugees were settled and no longer required a durable solution.

The most recent article I found was from Ma'an last year:

Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA -- the UN agency responsible for providing services to some five million Palestinian refugees -- and residing in refugee camps across the West Bank are also barred from voting in elections. According to Palestinian rights group Badil, Palestinian refugees residing outside refugee camps are permitted to vote in national legislative council and municipal elections, while those residing in the camps are only allowed to participate in national elections.

Two things are clear: Palestinian "refugees" do not have full voting rights - and the hundreds of Western reporters and think-tanks who are so fast to warn about any potential erosion of Israeli democracy show zero interest in the fact that Palestinians treat their own so-called "refugees" with contempt.

No one is calling this "apartheid."

But it is.

And even worse: the so-called "refugees" are kept in that status specifically as cannon fodder against Israel.

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From The Jerusalem Post:

While the White House confirms that since the "Jerusalem Declaration" there has been a complete disconnect between the Palestinian Authority and the Trump administration, it turns out that the previous administration actually maintains contact with PA officials. Ma'ariv reported that former US Secretary of State John Kerry met in London with a close associate of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hussein Agha, for a long and open conversation about a variety of topics. Agha apparently reported details of the conversation to senior PA officials in Ramallah. A senior PA official confirmed to Ma'ariv that the meeting took place.

During the conversation, according to the report, Kerry asked Agha to convey a message to Abbas and ask him to "hold on and be strong." Tell him, he told Agha, "that he should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President Trump's demands." According to Kerry, Trump will not remain in office for a long time. It was reported that within a year there was a good chance that Trump would not be in the White House.

Kerry offered his help to the Palestinians in an effort to advance the peace process and recommended that Abbas present his own peace plan. "Maybe it is time for the Palestinians to define their peace principles and present a positive plan," Kerry suggested. He promised to use all his contacts and all his abilities to get support for such a plan. He asked Abbas, through Agha, not to attack the US or the Trump administration, but to concentrate on personal attacks on Trump himself, whom Kerry says is solely and directly responsible for the situation.

According to the report, referring to the president, Kerry used derogatory terms and even worse. Kerry offered to help create an alternative peace initiative and promised to help garner international support, among others, of Europeans, Arab states and the international community. Kerry hinted that many in the American establishment, as well as in American intelligence, are dissatisfied with Trump's performance and the way he leads America. He surprised his interlocutor by saying he was seriously considering running for president in 2020. When asked about his advanced age, he said he was not much older than Trump and would not have an age problem.

In a report on the conversation, Agha said that Kerry appears to be "crazy about things," very energetic, and someone who is yearning to help realize the dream of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Kerry explained, according to the report, that even in the Republican Party they do not know what to do with Trump and are very dissatisfied with him and that patience and breathing time are needed to get through this difficult period.

Trump's Middle East decisions are arguably the best and most effective moves he has made since becoming President. But they are dependent on forcing the Palestinians to recognize reality, and to stop their fantasies that they can achieve a state without negotiations and without Israeli cooperation.

John Kerry is acting to undermine his president and US national interests, apparently in a delusional effort set himself up for another presidential run. He is giving support for Abbas' intransigence.

Kerry actually believes that he is the messiah who can bring peace, and he is willing to undercut his own country's diplomatic efforts to do so.

This is even though his efforts in the past showed that Abbas is the one who is not interested in peace. Kerry knows this as well as anyone. Yet now we know that Kerry is actually encouraging Abbas to be intransigent, to act against the wishes of not only the US but much of the Arab world, and to continue to hold his own people hostage in order to avoid negotiations and compromises for peace.

People say, for good reason, that Trump often appears to set aside US interests for his own ego. John Kerry is doing exactly that, today. But he won't be criticized for it.

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