Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 29, 2018

BDS, Fail, Repeat (Divest This!)

It recently dawned on me that those behind the aptly named BDS “movement” must have gotten their hands on that computer Wile E Coyote used in To Hare is Human.

Fellow Bugs Bunny fans will remember that episode as the one in which the aforementioned villain decides to supplement his “super genius” with a build-it-yourself, cave-sized, UNIVAC electronic brain, complete with my favorite cartoon interface of all time: a mammoth keyboard in which each key features one word in the English language (including contractions), allowing him to give commands such as:

ROCK + FALLING + WHAT’LL + I + DO?

Given the consequences of following the machine’s suggestions, it occurred to me that our buddies in BDS-land might be falling victim to the same technology.

For example, they could have typed the following command into UNIVAC earlier this month to hatch their latest self-detonating scheme:

NEW + ORLEANS + CITY + COUNCIL + TRICK + INTO + SUPPORT + BDS

One would think that the failure of the BDSers to gin up any enthusiasm for municipal divestment since Somerville kicked them down the stairs in 2004 might have sent them the message that cities and towns are not interested in participating in their poisonous, propaganda project. But perhaps this long drought just gave the boycotters time to let a new generation of representatives come to power with no memory of the tricks that had been played on municipal leaders over a decade ago.

The BDS playbook has been put into practice so often and so routinely that I was recently able to boil it down to a simple set of endlessly repeated steps, but the New Orleans version can be summed up as: (1) find a progressive organization concerned over, but not hugely informed about, international affairs; (2) ask the group to pass a generic divestment proposal that claims to support general human rights, without mentioning BDS (or even Israel) specifically; and (3) once said generic proposal passes, take to the airwaves declaring that the institution is now fully aboard the BDS “Israel = Apartheid” bandwagon.

This is exactly what happened in New Orleans in early January and, as with similar debates in the past, local leaders who had been duped were not amused that anti-Israel activists were blanketing the world with anti-Israel propaganda, claiming support of city leaders. So, within days of being passed, New Orleans’ divestment declaration was rescinded – leaving the boycotters with soot-covered punims as their latest self-made roadrunner trap detonated in their collective face.

Or how about Ohio State University, a school where divestment has been rejected by both student government and the student body in the past?

But by plugging the following into UNIVAC, a new scheme emerged:

GET + STUDENT + GOVERNMENT + TO + PASS + ANYTHING + REMOTELY + RESEMBLING + BDS + AND + DECLARE + VICTORY

You may have seen dueling stories regarding the latest vote at Ohio State, one which claims victory for BDS the other declaring that anti-Israel divestment was defeated. The reason for this confusion is that the boycotters agreed to a measure that said nothing specific about Israel; leaving them to peddle the generic human rights initiative they had just helped to pass as actually a successful BDS vote they knew had never taken place.

But if the boycotters are free to spin this non-BDS vote as a victory for them, what is to prevent someone else from spinning it as the boycotters’ latest humiliating defeat? In fact, what’s to prevent anyone from declaring that the vote was really Students for Justice in Palestine finally showing concern for non-Palestinian human rights, including the rights of those suffering under the racist, sexist, homophobic, reactionary dictatorships that represent every government in the Middle East, save Israel? After all, if they can pretend a vote means whatever they want it to mean, why can’t the rest of us?

In general, I am in agreement with Ben Cohen that defeat of BDS is best left to folks at ground level, rather than making humiliating the boycotters a priority for national governments. And if it turns out they are falling prey to the same mischievous “one working part” that powered Wile E.’s UNIVAC electronic brain, why should we stand in the way of their racking up the next set of self-inflicted fiascos?

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Palestinians keep on cutting off their noses to spite their faces

What do you do when your people suffer from an economic crisis?

You exacerbate it, of course!

When Vice President Pence visited Israel, Palestinian factions called for a general strike. Not only did they bully all shopkeepers to close their stores, depriving them of revenue as they often do when calling for these strikes, but they blockaded roads to stop their fellow Arabs from going to work in Israel, depriving them of a day of their salary.

What percentage of the Palestinian GDP is affected by these strikes that happen multiple times a year? Does the World Bank ever put that into their calculations when blaming Israel alone for Palestinian economic woes?

Today, UNRWA workers in Gaza went on strike to protest the US reduction in aid to the agency. All UNRWA offices and schools are closed today. Instead of working together to try to serve their population better, they are denying their own people services to accomplish - what, exactly?

Similarly, the Palestinian Youth Movement in the West Bank has demanded that UNRWA somehow get the money it wants to avoid reducing services, or they will start to picket UNRWA offices and stop them from doing their jobs as well.

Even more bizarre, the private companies that import goods to Gaza through Israel have decided to also go on strike - and to stop any imports tomorrow:

Private sector institutions in the Gaza Strip have decided to stop coordinating the entry of all types of goods into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing on Tuesday, February 6.
Maher al-Tabaa, director of public relations and information at the Chamber of Commerce, told Ma'an that the decision was due to the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip and that Gaza was in a state of clinical death, pointing out that the decision came in the wake of private sector meetings.
He pointed out that there are many steps that will be taken, including trade strikes, sit-ins and many events and press conferences.
He explained that all these steps come under the slogan "we want to live" and that Gaza has the right to live in dignity.
The private sector announced a one-day trade strike on Monday to warn against the deterioration of living conditions and the difficulty of continuing its work.

Is it more dignified to work together to serve the people with fewer resources, or to deny your own people access to basic services?

Can you imagine US women in World War II refusing to work in factories and going on strike to protest the war? Because that is the Palestinian mentality - we don't have to work through adversity, we just have to strike and whine and complain louder and eventually the world will provide us with what we want for free, anyway.

I mean, it's worked until now, hasn't it?

Meanwhile, a Gaza hospital has closed due to lack of fuel to keep the generators going. It isn't Israel that is blocking fuel deliveries - it is simply a shortage of cash. And this has nothing to do with UNRWA, meaning that the shortage of cash comes from the Palestinian Authority choosing to pay salaries of terrorists instead of fuel for hospitals. And NGOs aren't raising money for hospitals, because their money goes into demonizing Israel, not in helping Gazans.

And that works as well, since Palestinians simply cannot complain to the media and other Westerners for fear of appearing to break the unified position of blaming Israel (and now Trump) for all their problems.

It is a self-feeding crisis, but few are brave enough to point it out.

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Apparently, Hamas is more feminist than Scarlett Johansson

These two stories show how large parts of the feminist movement has completely lost the plot. From January 20:

Palestinian-American groups have pulled out of Saturday's Women's March Los Angeles over the inclusion of actress Scarlett Johansson as a guest speaker, in protest of what they call Johansson's support of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"The Women's March mission says, 'We believe that women's rights are human rights and human rights are women's rights. Apparently that does not extend to Palestinian human rights, during the WMLA" said Sana Ibrahim, past president of the Palestinian American Women's Association.

PAWA responded to an online petition issued Wednesday night by Women for Palestine L.A., which similarly criticized Johansson's role in the Los Angeles event.

Other groups endorsing the petition included Jewish Voice for Peace LA, and Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

Other groups that boycotted the event include the socialist International Action Center and Workers World Party.

Since then, this happened in Gaza:

NUSEIRAT, Palestinian Territories: Police blocked dozens of women from attending a football match Sunday in the Gaza Strip, in what activists said they hoped would have been the first such permission under Hamas’s rule.
Authorities in the Palestinian enclave run by the Hamas movement told the women they had orders not to allow them into the stadium at Nuseirat refugee camp south of Gaza City.
Some of the women instead watched the match between Al-Nuseirat and Al-Jalaa by standing outside the fence, an AFP journalist reported.
“We came here to encourage the team and youths in Nuseirat and watch the game, but we were surprised by the presence of Hamas security guards who closed the gates in our faces and did not allow us to go inside to cheer,” Ayat Othman, one of the women who tried to attend, told AFP.
They were to be seated separately from men in the stadium.

As far as I know, in the entire world, only Saudi Arabia and Iran bar women from sporting events, and even Saudi Arabia is changing that rule. Iran bans women from most sporting events but it grudgingly allows them when international games are played and such a ban violates the rules.

Hamas has wonderful company.

No one - and I mean no one - in the West protests Hamas discrimination against women. I had not even seen this reported before this AFP report - hundreds of reporters in Gaza never thought that this was a story worth covering over the years.

But as these "liberals" give Hamas and Islamist countries a pass so-called "feminists" protest Scarlett Johansson.

Who actually is a feminist.

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Two messages for Michelle Goldberg @michelleinbklyn, @NYTimes writer

Recently, Bill Maher had on his program defended Donald Trump's acceptance of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. A freewheeling discussion followed, and Maher's main detractor was Michelle Goldberg, a writer for the New York Times.

Here is one part:

BILL MAHER, HBO: Okay, while we're near the Middle East let me ask about a big story that happened while we were off in December. Donald Trump: 'Today we finally acknowledge the obvious that Jerusalem is Israel's capital.' He said that Israel is a sovereign nation with the right like any other sovereign nation to determine its own capital.

I hate to agree with Donald Trump, but it doesn't happen often, but I do. I don't know why Israel -- it has been their capital since 1949, it is where their government is. They've won all the wars thrown against them. I don't understand why they don't get to have their capital where they want.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG, NEW YORK TIMES: Really, you don't understand that?

MAHER: I understand there are repercussions.

GOLDBERG: First of all, when you win a war you don't get to take the other side's land.

RICK WILSON: Actually, you do.

MAHER: Actually, you do.

GOLDBERG: Under international law, you can't.

MAHER: Especially because they were attacked.

Maher is mostly correct. Professor Eugene Konotorovich has looked at international law manuals written before 1967 and found that at least half of them said that acquisition of territory in a defensive war is legal.

The idea is logical - if it was illegal to acquire territory in self-defense, then attackers who don't care about international law have no disincentive to attack another nation again and again until they defeat them. Especially a nation that has no defensive depth to speak of.

While Goldberg might be able to find a legal interpretation that says that it is illegal, she would have a hard time finding places where such a law has actually been applied.

GOLDBERG: You're a rich person, you should go see what life in the West Bank is like. Go to Hebron. Like, no, go see it.
MAHER: First of all, you don't have to go to understand this. I'm not a moron.
GOLDBERG: No, but you do. I feel like it's hard to really get your head around how bad it is unless you see it with your own eyes.

Goldberg is referring to a single street in Hebron, Shuhada Street, that all journalists and "peace tourists" get shown when they visit. It is a tiny part of Hebron showing boarded up shops that Israel shut down because of major terror attacks against Jews.

Hebron itself is a large, vibrant city that few Western reporters bothers to visit.

Goldberg herself clearly has not visited the rest of Hebron, because if she did, she would have seen scenes like these:

Hebron82

Bank of Palestine in Hebron83

Hebron Plaza Shopping Center84

The City Center complex in Hebron85

Manara Square in Hebron86

Hussain Ben Ali Stadium, Hebron87

Near Sakha Square in Hebron88

Hebron University entrance89

Goldberg's knowledge of the facts is not based on first hand knowledge, but on anti-Israel propaganda that she uses to choose her facts.

Which is pretty much how the New York Times works to begin with.

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01/28 Links: Amnesty International shows its anti-Israel bias yet again; The UN’s horrid Holocaust hypocrisy

From Ian:

NY Post Editorial: Amnesty International shows its anti-Israel bias yet again

The official excuse: Because Amnesty supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, “it would be inappropriate [for us] to host an event by those actively supporting” West Bank Jewish settlements.

By which AI specifically meant the watchdog group UN Watch — whose extremely effective executive director, Hillel Neuer, was to take part in the debate with a pro-UN advocate.

Worse, Amnesty suddenly claimed that allowing Neuer to appear at its building would put the work of its people “on the ground . . . at risk.”

By which it probably meant that some of its well-heeled supporters had raised objections. Or maybe the group simply got cold feet over the potential embarrassment of hosting a debate in which Neuer was sure to prevail.

None of this comes as any surprise: Amnesty International has a long record of opposing Israeli policies — but, worse still, of holding the Jewish state to an unfair double standard that would qualify AI for membership on that same Israel-bashing UN Human Rights Council.

Amnesty, like the rest of the left, has an obsessive and unbalanced interest in Israel. It routinely publishes reports denouncing Israeli actions while ignoring the Palestinian terror attacks — including missile fire — that provoke them.

It has demanded that Israel — but not Hamas — be prosecuted for war crimes. And its “people on the ground” have included at least one person who served as a “human shield” against Israeli troops.

Amnesty International has long failed to live up to its own media hype. Maybe its officials should reschedule that debate — and then stay to watch it.

PMW: PA attacks PMW for "wild incitement campaign" against PA radio

The Palestinian Authority has reopened its verbal attacks on Palestinian Media Watch. This follows PMW's repeated exposure of incitement to violence on official PA radio, including the broadcast of a recent song calling for Martyrdom for Jerusalem.

A few days after PMW reported that The Voice of Palestine station had broadcast a song encouraging Palestinians to "redeem" Jerusalem "with your life and blood", the station's Director-General Bassam Daghlas, accused PMW of "waging an incitement campaign" against the station.

"Director-General of [the official PA radio station] The Voice of Palestine Bassam Daghlas said that 'The incitement campaign that the Israeli center Palestinian Media Watch is waging against The Voice of Palestine radio station is not the first case, as it has been subject to similar attacks in the past.' ...
He also emphasized that 'Our media message is clear and will not change, and if they consider playing national songs incitement, they can think what they want."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 25, 2018]

The PA Ministry of Information also attacked PMW, claiming PMW is waging a "wild incitement campaign" against The Voice of Palestine, and that PMW reports are "part of the deceptive Zionist discourse":

"The [PA] Ministry of Information believes that the wild incitement campaign that the Israeli center called Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) is waging against [the official PA] radio station The Voice of Palestine projects on the other... what happens within its own entity [Israel], and that it [PMW] already waged other attacks against the Palestinian, Arab, and international media... The ministry said that the repeated claims of the Israeli center [PMW] are part of the deceptive Zionist discourse - that is full of incitement and that is the sole sponsor of terror and the ugly racism."
[PA Ministry of Information website, Jan, 24, 2018, emphasis added]

The PA has attacked PMW for exposing PA incitement to hate and terror numerous times. Last year, PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi counted PMW among the "toxic organizations," accusing PMW of just waiting "to attack":

The UN’s horrid Holocaust hypocrisy

Thirteen years ago, the United Nations General Assembly designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an occasion for its member nations to commemorate Nazi Germany’s murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others. The UN also urged nations to use the occasion to educate their citizens about the horrors of the Holocaust to help prevent future acts of genocide.

Yet in the intervening years, across Europe and worldwide, we have seen the rise of extremist politics, from the National Front Party in France to extremist electoral gains in Austria, Greece, Hungary and the Netherlands, much of it fueled by anti-immigration rhetoric and intolerance, but also by neo-Nazism and the very same anti-Semitic language and tropes that gave rise to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

During the French elections last year, for example, National Front leader and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen denied France was responsible for the infamous 1942 roundup and deportation of 13,000 French Jews, reopening old wounds. In Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, who is increasingly allying with Iran, said that “Israel doesn’t kill in error, it kills in horror.”

Meanwhile, the European Forum on Anti-Semitism, a watchdog group founded in 2008, reported 767 anti-Semitic incidents across the continent in the first half of 2017, a 30% rise from the previous year and the highest number it has since recorded . In Caracas, Venezuela, Foreign Policy magazine reported increasing instances of graffiti with phrases like “be patriotic: kill a Jew.”

Many have raised their voices about this threat — but not the UN. The organization I founded 35 years ago, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has seen first-hand the impact of a resurgence in anti-Semitism.

A poster in my neighborhood

As many of you know, Reem's bakery at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California - the very spot where Oscar Grant was famously shot dead by police in the early hours of New Year's Day, 2009, touching off local riots - continues to display a mural of Rasmea Odeh, one of the murderers of college students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner in Jerusalem in 1969.

On Sunday, January 28, 2018 - perhaps as you read this - a few pro-Israel / pro-Jewish people will stand outside of this anti-Israel / anti-Jewish politicized bakery that all Jewish people must pass by if we wish to get onto the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) on our way into San Francisco or anywhere around the Bay Area.

Whenever I pass through those turnstiles, which is fairly often, it puts my mind to nothing so much as 1930s Berlin.

Can you imagine what it is like for any Jewish person in the SF Bay Area to have to walk past a restaurant that publicly celebrates the murder of your own people if you simply wish to take public transportation? And what is even worse is that, in this part of the political universe, if you so much as dare to object you are smeared as a racist and an Islamophobe and a sexist and a transphobe and God Knows What All.

I recently received this note in an email from friends:

COME TO THE VIGIL: Reems Bakery: Sunday, January 28, Reems Bakery Will be Hosting a Book Signing Promoting Academic Boycotts Against Israel. - San Francisco Voice For Israel

ACTION: Please come and join our vigil against this book signing.

In one of the most egregious examples in recent memory of the normalization of anti-Semitism and violence in our community, Reem Assil has decorated her Oakland bakery with a floor to ceiling mural honoring convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who murdered 2 and wounded 9 others when a bomb she placed in a Jerusalem grocery store exploded. On Sunday January 28, the bakery will be hosting a book signing promoting academic boycotts against Israel.

In response, there will be a vigil in front of the bakery, exposing the hate and intolerance, not only of the BDS movement, but of Reem's Bakery.

We'll be gathering at 3:30, Sunday January 28 3301 E 12th St #133, Oakland. Reem's bakery is steps away from Fruitvale BART. Please consider joining us, and pass this information on to any one you think might be interested in coming

Obviously, I am not expecting you guys to leap from your chairs and run down to Fruitvale BART.

I am just letting you know that there are still a few people who give a damn.

StandWithUs did, in fact, stand with us.

But where are the synagogues and other local pro-Jewish / pro-Israel organizations?

And how is it that the city of Oakland does not seem to care one way or the other?

I feel reasonably sure that if Reem's was "Ariel Sharon's Joint and Whiskey Bar" and featured a worshipful mural of Baruch Goldstein the people of Oakland would have arisen as one and shut that place down in a New York Minute with the full support of city government.

As always, it is the blatant hypocrisy that is too much to take.

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The Polish Holocaust story and Palestinian Christians

The Washington Post summarizes the story that has dominated Israeli media this weekend of Holocaust Memorial Day:

A diplomatic crisis between Israel and Poland appeared to be deepening on Sunday as Poland’s deputy chief of mission, Piotr Kozłowski, was summoned to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem over a law approved by the Polish parliament making it a criminal offence to mention Polish complicity in crimes committed during the Holocaust.

Polish lawmakers voted Friday for a bill that would fine or jail people who blame Poland or Poles for Nazi atrocities committed on its soil during World War II, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The law still needs final approval from the Polish Senate and the country’s president.

The Polish law is beyond offensive. The Poles were notoriously antisemitic.

Even the few Poles who saved Jews - and that includes members of my family - prove the point. These heroes had to go to extreme measures to ensure that their neighbors didn't know they were hiding Jews, not only the Nazis. The entire automated factories of death could not have been built without the complicity of the Polish people as a whole. The Jews who had lived there for hundreds of years were not considered Poles by their neighbors.

But beyond the Polish antisemitism is another dimension. The vast majority of Poles are Roman Catholic, and most of the rest are also Catholics as well. And Catholicism was doctrinally antisemitic.

In a 1965 article on Vatican II, Commentary magazine summarized how the Church looked at Jews for most of its existence:

According to [Catholic] tradition God chose the Jewish people in the time of Abraham to serve as a preparatory stage for the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, His Son, and the establishment of the Catholic Church. Once Christ came, all that was valuable and effective for human salvation was transferred from Judaism to the new Church. The Ancient Alliance between God and Israel was voided and replaced by the New Alliance between the Church and God. The Jews, as the original Chosen People, should have been the first Christians, but they elected instead to repudiate Christ. They did not accept his doctrine; they opposed him during his lifetime; they instigated his arrest; they clamored for his execution; they acquiesced in his crucifixion. For these sins they were punished in three ways by God: they ceased to be the Chosen People; they were blinded so that they could not see the truth of Christianity; they were dispersed among the nations, never to be reunited until the end of time when Christ will return to this world to judge the living and the dead. At the end of time, they will be converted as a group, but until that day they will remain blinded, dispersed, and persecuted as a sign that God has entrusted salvation to the Church alone, and that He punishes obduracy.

Roman Catholic believers drew a whole range of practical conclusions from these premises. The Jews as a people—not only the Jews of Christ's time but Jews of all time—were guilty of having killed Christ, the God-man: theologically speaking, they were deicides. Second, because they were cursed by God to remain dispersed among the nations until the end of time, the very existence of a Jewish state must be against God's will, and Israel must therefore be doomed to extinction after a short while. Third, the sufferings of the Jews were to be understood as part of their punishment for the crime of having rejected Christ and their original destiny. Fourth, Judaism was a useless thing, an invalid ethic, an invalid way of life, an invalid method of worship, which had been rendered pointless by the advent of Christ. And in the long history of Jewish-Christian relations more phantasmagoric conclusions still were frequently drawn. The Jews were allied with the devil, they were always entering into conspiracies—with Freemasons, with Communists, with atheists, with secularists—for the sole purpose of destroying the Church and wiping Christianity off the face of the earth.

It is hard to visualize today how antisemitic the mainstream church was only 70 years ago. And it wasn't a reflection of the antisemitism of the members of the Church - it caused the antisemitism of the members of the Church. Jew-hatred was part of the Church's teaching.

So while the Polish people deserve to be publicly shamed for their complicity in the Holocaust, it isn't only because they were Poles. It is because they were following Church teachings.

Vatican II changed that. as summarized here:

Nostra Aetate was indeed a revolution, particularly with reference to Jews and Judaism. First of all, it moved from a theology of a dead, outdated and superseded Judaism to a theology of a living Judaism. Second, it rejected the idea that all forms of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism could, in any way, be founded on Christian or scriptural teaching. And, most important, the church came to understand that in the words of Paul the Apostle, God’s covenant with the Jewish people is irrevocable, and that Jews continue to be “the chosen people.”

Nowadays, Palestinian Arabs have two distinct sources for their antisemitism.

For Muslims, it is animated by their view of Jews as historically weak and their intense shame at having been defeated by these Jews who are supposed to be second class citizens in a Muslim-dominated area.

But for Palestinian Christians, who are mostly Catholic as well, Vatican II didn't apply to them. They still subscribe to the supercessionist thinking of the historic Catholic church. In many ways, they are more antisemitic that the Muslims are because it is part of their religious belief system. In my opinion they influenced and intensified Muslim antisemitism since modern Zionism began.

It is important to realize, especially when articles are written about Palestinian Christians, that they have two reasons to show hatred towards Israel. The obvious one is their dhimmi status so as not to say anything that would upset their Muslim neighbors who can and do make their lives miserable. But even more important is : their religious teachings themselves. They have never purged official Church antisemitism from their doctrines, and that is something that the West continues to ignore.

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"I forget - is this the 392nd Day of Rage, or the 393rd?"

The Fatah party, of which Mahmoud Abbas is the leader, has declared this coming Friday to be a "Day of Rage." It is also calling for Israeli Arabs to have demonstrations on Tuesday.

Their press release includes lots of references to martyrs and blood, although they can claim that they don't directly call for violence. But they sure sound like they want violence!

In the name of Allah the Most Gracious the Most Merciful ....

O rebellious rebels in the face of the occupiers in all parts of the occupied land, angered in the face of the occupiers and gangs of settlers and we do not have pity on them until we have defeated them from the land of Isra and resisters . Fatah is the owner of the first bullet, which was fired for the sake of Jerusalem and the return of the refugees with the unforgettable blood of martyrs and the wounded and the victim, a thorn in the throat of all the losers since its inception, because its goal is the liberation and the establishment of the state of Palestine .

The Fatah Movement has consistently rejected any violation of the rights of our people baptized by massive sacrifices based on the resolutions of international legitimacy and international law, foremost of which is the right of return of refugees, the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and its rejection of the American position against the rights of our people, The eternal right of our independent Palestinian state or an attempt to violate the right of sacred return through the rumors about the resettlement and the severance of aid funds for UNRWA the witness to uprooting our people from their homes and cities They were defeated by Zionist gangs and deported to exile.

The Fatah movement also affirms that the recent statements by US President Trump is the continuation of his declared war against our people and the promotion of the possibility of launching the so-called deal of the century, which represents the liquidation of our national cause and an insult to the Palestinian people and its leadership and historical rights...we refuse to exchange material support for these rights .

- Tuesday 30/1/2018 will be a day of solidarity with the Palestinian people within the territories occupied in 1948, which will involve marches in all towns and cities and points of contact with the occupation .

- Friday February 2, 2018 is a day of popular anger in all the occupied territories and in the refugee camps and Diaspora and Arab and Islamic capitals and capitals of the world to emphasize that Jerusalem will be only the eternal capital of the independent state of Palestine .

...It is a revolution until victory

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01/27 Links: Through Jerusalem, Trump has changed the world; Bill Maher Defends Trump's Jerusalem Decision; World remembers Holocaust amid signs of rising hatred

From Ian:

Through Jerusalem, Trump has changed the world

We don’t know what world leaders whisper about him, but love him or hate him, they know that President Trump has returned America to its standing as the world’s colossus.

At the economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump faces what are known as the elites, who never liked him much. But in Trump they’ll be facing the Lion in the room.

America once again strides the global stage and It started Wednesday, December 6, 2017, when from the White House, Trump announced the following: “I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Since that moment, that big shining moment, nothing has been the same.

In reaction to those words – sweetness to lovers of Liberty and Zion, bitterness to the others -- tyrannies (like North Korea and Iran) trembled, alliances (between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority) were shattered, and more of our enemies went scattering for refuge among think-alike regimes, or anyone who would take them in from the cold.

They did not believe he would do it…but he did…with no thought to their “feelings.” They’d gotten so used to Obama, that imposter from Kenya, a weakling, a Quisling, that it came as a shock to find that here was a man. Here was a man who kept his word. Here was a man of action. Here was a man of honor. Here was a man who could not be played.

If he could do something so courageous to some, so outrageous to others – what else would he do, and to whom?

Trump’s Jerusalem bequest upended thousands of years of global politics. No wonder they were scared.

'Trump burst the Palestinians' bubble'

President Donald Trump “burst the Palestinian Arabs' bubble”, Middle East expert and regular Arutz Sheva contributor Dr. Mordechai Kedar said on Thursday.

“The Palestinians are very disappointed because they built an entire house of cards by claiming they will get a Palestinian state. Who will give them such a thing? Nobody. They dream about the 'return' of the 'Palestinian refugees' not to 'Palestine' but to the same villages in which they lived in Tel Aviv, in Netanya. These are all pipe dreams, and now Trump came and took out the Jerusalem card from the building, as well as card with the issue of the refugees which they kept alive for 70 years, and now the whole thing is shattered to pieces,” said Kedar.

“They've lost all direction, they have no idea what to do now, because they have no agenda. Everything in which they believed turned out to be nothing.”

“This frustration,” he opined, “will bring about the end of the Palestinian Authority.”

Asked if the current situation could cause Palestinian Arabs to carry out more terrorist attacks, Kedar said, “Terrorists never need another reason [to carry out attacks]. The mere fact that we Jews have a state made us a target. They don't really need Trump to encourage them to wage terror against us. We suffered terror during the 1990s and during the 2000s without Trump. Trump is only a fig leaf to cover the real motivation to wipe us all out from this country.”

“I support the move of not only the American embassy but of all embassies to Jerusalem because this will contribute to peace. When our neighbors – Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims – understand that they've lost the fight against us, peace will come,” Kedar declared.

Melanie Phillips: Trump, Brexit and diaspora Jews

Britain is the historic crucible of political freedom and tolerance; America is the greatest champion of those values in the world. Only by loving Britain and America will their people love Israel, the nation whose ancient culture gave Britain and America their foundational values.

Anti-Semitism never goes away. All such extremism erupts, however, not when people feel confident in their shared culture but when they feel it’s being taken away from them. That’s why Britain and Europe are witnessing the emergence of rampant anti-Semitism and the rise of some truly neo-fascist groups. And of course, the EU itself is deeply hostile to Israel.

The left’s animus against Israel goes hand-in-hand with its disdain for the idea of the nation. This is surely at root why Orthodox Jews support Trump: because Orthodox Jews identify as a nation.

As a result, they not only love Israel, but they also love America. They realize that both are under attack from the left, and they realize that Trump offers perhaps the only chance America has of surviving as recognizably itself.

British Jews labor under a different difficulty: their knowledge that British society thinks identifying as a Jewish nation is incompatible with loyalty to Britain.

Britain’s failure to grasp its deep connection to the Jewish people is one reason why the U.K. is in such deep civilizational trouble. Trump, by contrast, has joined up the dots and reaffirmed the spiritual bond between America and the Jews.

That’s the only way the West will be saved—and illustrates why, despite his manifold failings, Trump is probably the only person who can do it.

01/26 Links Pt2: Pres Rivlin: Israel ‘not compensation for Holocaust’; Hidden 2005 Photo of Obama With Farrakhan; Jerusalem belongs to the Jews: Islam says so

From Ian:

President Rivlin to foreign envoys: Israel ‘not compensation for Holocaust’

President Reuven Rivlin is not a lone voice in the wilderness when he insists the creation of the State of Israel was not compensation for the Holocaust.

He is supported in this belief by Prof. Dina Porat, the chief historian at Yad Vashem.

Rivlin was speaking on Thursday to foreign diplomats who braved the inclement weather to attend the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day event for the diplomatic corps at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Rivlin noted that his own family came to the Land of Israel well over a century before the Holocaust and said other Jewish families were already living here long before the arrival of his own ancestors. “The State of Israel is not a colonial project, and not compensation for the Holocaust,” he declared. “The State of Israel came into being from the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in its own homeland.”

Porat, in a video presentation, explained how Holocaust denial can be manipulated to delegitimize Israel’s existence. She said former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust ever happened as a pretext for saying if there was no Holocaust there was no legitimacy for the State of Israel.

Then, endorsing Rivlin’s contention, Porat stated: “The State of Israel did not come out of the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad ignores the fact that the State of Israel came out of Zionism that was there 70 years before the Holocaust.”

UK Parliament Passes Resolution Deeming Hezbollah in Its Entirety a Terrorist Organization

Members of Parliament on Thursday supported a non-binding resolution in the House of Commons to proscribe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization under UK terrorism legislation.

There was widespread support for the move to proscribe the political wing of Hezbollah. Currently, only the military wing is defined as a terrorist organization in UK law. The full text of the resolution said: “This House believes that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation driven by an antisemitic ideology that seeks the destruction of Israel; notes that Hezbollah declares itself to be one organisation without distinguishable political or military wings; is concerned that the military wing of that organisation is proscribed, but its political wing is not; and calls on the Government to include Hezbollah in its entirety on the list of proscribed organisations.”

During the debate, Labour MP Joan Ryan, who proposed the motion, said: “Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, driven by antisemitic ideology, which seeks the destruction of Israel. It has wreaked death and destruction throughout the middle east, aiding and abetting the Assad regime’s butchery in Syria and helping to drive Iran’s expansionism throughout the region. It makes no distinction between its political and military wings, and nor should the British Government.”

Ahead of the debate, the Labour Party sent a briefing note to Labour MPs urging them to oppose the motion, claiming it would hinder peace talks in the Middle East. The briefing made no mention of Hezbollah’s involvement in the ongoing conflict in Syria or its long history of carrying out terrorist attacks. The briefing said: “There is a balance between making absolutely clear our abhorrence of using violence to achieve political ends and at the same time encouraging organisations down an effective democratic path.”

The Photo That Never Saw The Light of Day: Obama With Farrakhan In 2005

A journalist announced last week that he will publish a photograph of then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D) and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that he took in 2005 at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting, but did not make public because he believed it would have “made a difference” to Obama’s political future.

The photographer, Askia Muhammad, told the Trice Edney News Wire that he “gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy.”

“But after the nomination was secured and all the way up until the inauguration; then for eight years after he was President, it was kept under cover,” Muhammad said.

Asked whether he thought the photo’s release would have affected Obama’s presidential campaign, Muhammad said, “I insist. It absolutely would have made a difference.”

Reached by TPM on Thursday, Muhammad said a “staff member” for the CBC contacted him “sort of in a panic” after he took the photo at a caucus meeting in 2005. TPM has published the photo above with Muhammad’s permission.

“I sort of understood what was going on,” Muhammad told TPM. “I promised and made arrangements to give the picture to Leonard Farrakhan,” the minister’s son-in-law and chief of staff.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Holocaust Memorial Day Statement Leaves Out the Jews

Last January, Donald Trump infamously omitted mention of the Jews from his Holocaust Memorial Day statement, provoking a national scandal and withering criticism from liberals. Today, Jeremy Corbyn, the leftist leader of the U.K. Labour party, released his Holocaust Memorial Day statement—and did the exact same thing.

As has been widely reported, Labour under Corbyn has been rocked by escalating anti-Semitism scandals, leading to the suspension of dozens of officials, and extending all the way up to Corbyn himself. Before the 2017 U.K. election, just 13 percent of British Jews said they would vote for Corbyn’s Labour, the same as the percentage of Muslims who voted for Donald Trump. This Holocaust statement, then, offered Corbyn an easy opportunity to mend some fences with British Jews and show that he takes their concerns into account.

Instead, he managed to erase Jews from the story of their own genocide. Here is Corbyn’s statement in its entirety:

We should never forget the Holocaust: The millions who died, the millions displaced and cruel hurt their descendants have suffered.
We should understand the way fascism arose in Germany and the circumstances that gave space for the Nazis to grow.
At this, and at all other times, we should reflect and make sure succeeding generations understand the power of words.
Their power to do immense good and inspire; and their power to promote hate and division.
Let us use their power to educate to inspire but above all to build values of trust and respect.

Corbyn was seemingly unaware of the irony of calling for people to be circumspect in using their “power of words” while utterly effacing the Holocaust’s primary victims from his account of their murder. The Times columnist Hugo Rifkind, among others, expressed his disbelief: (h/t Elder of Lobby)

The Palestinian zero-sum mentality, now proven by a poll

The joint Israeli-Palestinian poll I referred to earlier had a most interesting question:

In the Israeli–Palestinian conflict nothing can be done that’s good for both sides, whatever is
good for one side is bad for the other side: agree or disagree?

72% of Palestinians agreed that peace is a zero-sum game. If it is good for Israel - meaning, peace and having normal relations with the Arab world - then it must be bad for Palestinians.

Surprisingly, presumably after years of seeing how Palestinians act, slightly more than half of Israelis (both Jews and Arabs) agreed with that statement as well.

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01/26 Links Pt1: Amb. Haley: Hate-Filled Speech by Abbas Shows He’s Not Ready to Make Peace; Caroline Glick: Pence and Pew, present and future; Hezbollah’s Man in London?

From Ian:

Amb. Haley Says Hate-Filled Speech by Abbas Shows He’s Not Ready to Make Peace

Referring to a recent “hate-filled” speech given by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which he declared the Oslo Accords dead, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council Thursday, “A speech that indulges in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace.”

Haley, who was addressing the Security Council during its monthly meeting to address the Middle East, said that she would “set aside her usual practice” of highlighting the Iranian threat to the Middle East and instead address what she called the “important element” of making peace, specifically “leaders who have the will to do what’s needed to achieve peace.”

Haley cited the example of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who addressed Israel’s Knesset and told Israel, “You want to live with us in this part of the world. In all sincerity, I tell you, we welcome you among us, with full security and safety.” The words, Haley said, made “Israel understand that it had a partner with whom it could make those painful compromises” that were necessary for a peace deal with Egypt.

In contrast, in his recent speech to the Palestinian Liberation Organization Central Committee, 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. He invoked an ugly and fictional past, reaching back to the 17th century to paint Israel as a colonialist project engineered by European powers.”

“A speech that indulges in outrageous and discredited conspiracy theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to seek peace,” Haley observed. And while she said that the United States “remains fully prepared and eager to pursue peace,” which would require compromise, but “hate-filled speeches and end-runs around negotiations take us nowhere.”

Nikki Haley to U.N. Security Council: Where is the Palestinian Anwar Sadat?

Nikki Haley to the Security Council: Where is the Palestinian Anwar Sadat? - Full Transcript

Trump: Money Will Be Cut Off to Palestinians if Leaders Don’t Engage in Peace Negotiations

Trump addressed the United Nations vote from December to condemn the planned embassy move in which only a handful of countries voted in favor of the U.S. decision. He noted that the United States was "out in the wilderness by ourselves."

"We give billions of dollars away every year to countries and in many cases those countries don't even support us, they don't support the United States," Trump said. "Israel has always supported the United States, and so what I did with Jerusalem was my honor, and hopefully we can do something with peace."

Trump went on to say that the Palestinians, who received hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aide and support, disrespected Vice President Mike Pence when their leaders said they would not meet with him during a recent visit to the Middle East.

"That money is on the table and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace," Trump said beside Netanyahu. "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."

Prior to Trump's remarks, Netanyahu also commented on the historic nature of the administration's commitment to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Pence announced on Monday the move is planned for 2019.

"I want to say, this is a historic decision that will forever be etched in the hearts of our people for generations to come," Netanyahu said of Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. "People say that this pushes peace backward; I say it pushes peace forward because it recognizes history, it recognizes present reality. And peace can only be built on the basis of truth."

The prime minister also said the Israeli people support Trump completely, especially regarding his stance on backing out of the nuclear deal with Iran if "fatal flaws are not fixed."

Arab American Jew-hater claims he plans a "USS Liberty" memorial in Israel

From the conspiracy site American Free Press ("America's last real newspaper"):

Ibrahim “Abe” Ayad, a Dearborn, Mich. born and raised American patriot, has decided to convert a parcel of land in Israel, which his family has owned for decades, into a living memorial to the 34 Americans needlessly slaughtered and 174 wounded, while serving aboard the USS Liberty (AGTR-5), by Israeli air and naval forces on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War.

The article goes on to give an outlandish story of how his grandmother acquired the land in Beit Hanina and how the ADL (!) has been trying to take it away from him. The story has enough holes to fill the Albert Hall:

“When [my dad, a US army soldier] got wounded [in Italy in WWII], he was lost for three days at a MASH unit during the air war,” said Ayad. “So the Army, in its infinite wisdom, had sent my grandmother a letter telling her he was dead. My grandmother couldn’t read English, so she took it to the village elder [who] told her, ‘Your son is dead.’ And she said, ‘He’s not dead. If he was dead I’d believe it.’ ”

Refusing to believe her only child was dead, she prepared for his return from the war.

“She was working as a nurse at a local hospital and they were trying to trick an old lady whose son they thought had died. They’d come and they’d pawn their land to her,” said Ayad, “and she’d buy it and put it in his name.”

When Ayad’s father eventually returned home, “everybody thought he was a ghost.” As his grandmother had accumulated a significant amount of land, the illegal occupation government of Israel began to make moves on it. [What happened between 1945 and 1967 is a bit unclear since the land was in Beit Hanina....]

“All of a sudden Israel starts confiscating this land, doing all kinds of stuff to it,” said Ayad. It “was illegally confiscated even according to Israeli law, because it’s occupied territory. It can’t be taxed, and they confiscated it for tax purposes.”

Ayad tried to fight them, but Israel sicced its U.S.-based public relations firm on him.

“I’ve been fighting the Anti-Defamation League for 20 years,” he said, “and they wielded their influence over the [U.S.] Department of Justice. Even James Comey came down personally to oversee their raid against me. They robbed me of over $3 million—and this is my own government, who I pay taxes for, doing all this to me.”

Abe Ayad had a gas station in Cleveland that was raided by the FBI a couple of years ago. His son and nephew, both of whom had criminal records, were arrested on gun charges. His gas station was famous for regularly posting antisemitic and anti-Israel signs and murals.

He sold the site in 2016.

He isn't exactly the most trustworthy person.

But possibly the most outlandish part of the absurd story is that he claims that Israel is anti-American:

Ayad then discussed his plans for the Liberty memorial, which he first started thinking about five or six years ago.
“I don’t see any memorials in Israel: not for World War I, not for World War II,” he explained. “[Israel owes] the United States so much from two world wars, not counting all the financial and military hardware [it’s] getting from America. I would love to see a USS Liberty Memorial Hospital for all the victims of the Liberty, her crew, and all the victims that suffered after and all the victims that have suffered in two world wars and since. And it’s about time they honor America.”

Israel has memorials for World War I. It has a memorial for John F. Kennedy. It has a memorial for 9/11. It has an entire Liberty Bell Park honoring America.

I don't see any of those in "Palestine" or in any Arab country.

Obviously, Ayad is lying about building anything in Israel (although it is fascinating that he considers Beit Hanina to be part of Israel.) He is a bitter man who has nothing but hate to animate him, and this website is the perfect place for him to spout his crackpot Jew-hatred.

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A joint poll by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research (TSC), Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) shows that Palestinians are against any possible solution to the conflict.

Their press release doesn't say it, but the poll itself does.

A series of options are given to Palestinians:

Mutual recognition of Palestine and Israel as the homelands of their respective peoples. The
agreement will mark the end of conflict, Israel will fight terror against Palestinians, and no further
claims will be made by either side. 56.9% oppose.

The independent Palestinian state which will be established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

will be demilitarized (no heavy weaponry) 77.4% oppose

A multinational force will be established and deployed in the Palestinian state to ensure the

security and safety of both sides. Support or oppose? 60.5% oppose

The Palestinian state will have sovereignty over its air space, its land, and its water resources, but

Israel will maintain two early warning stations in the West Bank for 15 years. Support or oppose? 67.2% oppose

The Palestinian state will be established in the entirety of West Bank and the Gaza strip, except
for several blocs of settlement which will be annexed to Israel in a territorial exchange. Israel will

evacuate all other settlements. 62.7% oppose

The territories Palestinians will receive in exchange will be similar to the size of the settlement

blocs that will be annexed to Israel. Support or oppose? 70.6% oppose

East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state and West Jerusalem the capital of the

Israel. Support or oppose? 71.6% oppose

In the Old City of Jerusalem, the Muslim and Christian quarters and al Haram al Sharif will
come under Palestinian sovereignty and the Jewish quarter and the Wailing Wall will come under

Israeli sovereignty. Support or oppose? 71.4% oppose

The only provision they supported was "right of return":

Palestinian refugees will have the right of return to their homeland whereby the Palestinian state
will settle all refugees wishing to live in it. Israel will allow the return of about 100,000 Palestinians as part of a of family unification program. All other refugees will be compensated. Support or oppose? 52.4% supported

For the majority that opposed a package deal of "demilitarization of the Palestinian state, equal territorial exchange, the family unification in Israel of 100,000 Palestinian refugees, East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine and West Jerusalem the capital of Israel, and the end of the conflict," they were asked if any futher sweetening of the deal would change their minds:

If in addition to the above items of the permanent settlement package, Israel agreed to accept the
Arab peace initiative and in return all Arab countries supported this peace treaty? Support or oppose? 69.9% oppose.

The agreement states that the state of Palestine will have a democratic political system based on

rule of law, periodic elections, free press, strong parliament, independent judiciary and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities as well as strong anti-corruption measures. 58.6% oppose.

The agreement includes formal guarantees by the US, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who will create a

joint commission to ensure proper implementation on both sides. 68.1% oppose.

The agreement states that Palestinians, including refugees, are allowed, if they wish, to live as

permanent residents inside Israel while maintaining their Palestinian citizenship, as long as they are law

abiding 70.4% oppose

The agreement allows the current Palestinian National Security Force to become an army with

light weapons but without heavy weapons 80.8% oppose

The agreement states that Israel recognizes the Nakba and the suffering of refugees, and

provides compensation to refugees? 58.1% oppose

Also, when given a choice of options (status quo, armed resistance, unarmed resistance, peace treaty) a plurality of Palestinians preferred armed resistance over peace, 38% to 26%.

The only thing that Palestinians agree on is that they do not want peace.

The poll didn't ask the obvious question, because the people behind it don't want the world to know the answer, but the real question should have been: Do you hope to see Israel destroyed and replaced by Palestine?

Other questions that would illuminate how Palestinians feel might include "would you support an Iranian nuclear attack against Tel Aviv, even if it would kill thousands of Arabs in Jaffa?"

These polls dance around the real feelings of the Palestinians because the answers would far more explicitly show that they have no desire for a real, permanent peace with Israel. Yet one only has to look at these (unpublicized) results from the poll to see that this is exactly what they feel.

Don't expect the media to notice, though.

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The crime of stealing another's culture and history (ElderToons, poster)

Remember, Jews eating falafel is cultural genocide.

Idea taken from a discussion in the comments by Norman F, Max and cbusa.

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