Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Three new old Hamas "martyrs". Pass the candy!

Hamas announced three new "martyrs" over the past couple of days, all in the senior demographic.

The first one was this 70 year old Ahmad Aweidah, "who died of an incurable disease." from his photos, it sure seems like he joined Hamas late in life after his diagnosis, so his family can get the benefits of a dead Qassam Brigades martyr.

Also, 60-year old Jabr Musa Awad al-Harazin died of a heart attack, again prompting Hamas to announce that he is a "martyr" and therefore ready to enter Paradise.

Finally, senior Hamas leader Emad al-Alami, finally died from a gunshot wound to his head, that Hamas claims came from an accident while cleaning his gun three weeks ago. That story is suspicious, to say the least.

Emadi was 62.

May all Hamas members enter their paradise, this year. But paradise needs some younger blood, too.

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Bibi on Jerusalem at Davos (video)

Plain spoken truth that so many refuse to listen to.

"He did a great service for peace because peace can only be based on truth, on reality. And denying the simple fact that Israel's capital is Jerusalem is — pushes peace backward by creating an illusion, a fantasy. You can't build peace on fantasy," Netanyahu told CNN's Fareed Zakaria at Davos.
"The seat of government is in Jerusalem. This has been the case for the 70 years of Israel's existence that we're celebrating now. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people since the time of King David. That's only 3,000 years ago," he said.
"Under any peace agreement, you know that the capital of Israel will continue to be Jerusalem, and the seat of our government will continue to be in Jerusalem," he continued.

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01/29 Links Pt2: Dani Dayan: Anti-Zionism Is Just Anti-Semitism by Another Name; The role of propaganda in the Holocaust; The Dark Secret of Two-Faced Academics

From Ian:

Dani Dayan: Anti-Zionism Is Just Anti-Semitism by Another Name

The term anti-Semitism was created in the age of Enlightenment, when the pseudo-science of eugenics laid the seeds of Nazism. The unsubtle racism of neo-Nazis remains a lightning rod for mainstream outrage today, however religious and political hostilities against Jews are often unacknowledged for what they are.

The anti-Judaism of Islamic extremists both in the Middle East and migrant communities is a rising concern, as are the creeping tendencies in some European nations to restrict the rights of their remaining Jewish citizens.

However, it is the increasing acceptance and elevation of anti-Zionists across the world that is cause for particular concern. Those who deny the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people, the right to live in freedom and security in their homeland are routinely paraded as the picture of progressive politics.

When nations like Iran arm their bigotry with ballistic missile programs and powerful proxies like Hezbollah, they can expect acquiescence and appeasement from much of the world.

The inalienable right to self-determination is the one guarantee that Jews can never become victims to genocidal regimes again. Anti-Zionism is an ideology which perpetuates the political oppression of Jews, and by doing so legitimizes and encourages violence in Israel and the Diaspora.

It can be verboten in some circles to call out these activists or dictatorial regimes for their beliefs. Nevertheless, those who seek the political oppression of Jews must not be held to a lower standard of bigotry than their religious or racially motivated counterparts.

Fake News is old news to Jews. Today’s anti-Israel agenda, hailed from college classrooms to the voting chambers of the United Nations, regularly tells of a world in which Solomon’s Temple never stood, Jews were not in Israel and the Middle East for thousands of years, and that Zionists were complicit in the Holocaust.

A son of refuseniks chronicles the slow dissolve of Russia’s Jews

The numbers are telling, he said. There are now about 170,000 Jews in Russia, according to Mark Tolts, a Hebrew University demographer. That’s a tenth of the community’s size in 1989, as counted in the last Soviet census. Factors like an aging population, low birthrate and increased immigration to Israel make Shrayer wonder what the country will look like in 50 years.

“Jewish faces and Jewish names are starting to vanish from the Russian mainstream — from literature, the arts and the entertainment industry, but also from the achievement rolls of science, medicine and the humanities,” he writes.

Has Shrayer overcome his sense of divide with Jews who stay in Russia? As a result of his research, he is both more emotionally connected, but also, paradoxically, more disconnected.

“There’s a feeling of not quite mourning but certainly a feeling of deep sadness. It’s coming from a place that is somewhere deep inside,” he reflected.

It brings Shrayer back to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, whose galleries and exhibits shed light on the story of Jews in Russia.

“It’s a great museum,” he said. But in part, it’s a museum of those who stayed, for those who stayed – and for their countrymen. Among the museum’s exhibits, pictured on the jacket of his book, are life-size plaster casts of Jews in period garb — all as white as ghosts.

Shrayer learned recently that the audio recording on the No. 19 tram, as well as the sign on its stop, have been changed and riders now hear and see the full name of the museum. He’s not claiming it’s his doing — that would be extremely chutzpahdik, Shrayer said.

Nonetheless, he added, the correction suggests to him that the story of Russia’s Jews resists closure.

Sundance Movie Review: ‘The Oslo Diaries’

What this film shows, more than anything, is that the people in power on both sides of this long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict were able to come together to reach an agreement despite many obstacles. When the initial documents are signed, protests erupt, and it becomes clear that the battle is not between Israelis and Palestinians but rather between those who want peace and those who don’t, regardless of their national or religious identity. Watching Palestinians place olive branches on Israeli tanks to indicate their desire for peace is inspiring. Learning of the organization of a protest for peace is reminiscent of much of what we see today in American society: people marching for rights rather than against them. In his final interview for the film, Shimon Peres puts its best: “No war is ever finished unless it’s being replaced by peace.”

This film, sadly, is far from the end of the story. Watching Yitzhak Rabin sing the words to “Shir LaShalom” — “Song for Peace”— along with Peres just moments before he was assassinated is especially heartbreaking. Knowing that these events took place more than two decades ago and little has changed is disheartening, and this film serves more as a chronicle of history than any call to action since those involved know that there is no easy solution.

The Oslo Diaries is certainly less controversial than the last documentary filmmakers Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan brought to Sundance. Censored Voices featured recorded testimonies of Israeli soldiers lamenting their misdeeds during the Six Day War, something that, while seemingly true, was seen as easy fodder for critics of Israel to use to denounce it is an imperialist state with an illegal military. Loushy and Sivan seem determined to continue presenting stories that might not always be warmly received, like Sivan’s recent editing of the disturbing documentary Death in the Terminal, which explores the beating and killing of an innocent Eritrean refugee mistaken for a terrorist after an explosion at a bus station. Extensively featuring Bibi Netanyahu in archive footage in The Oslo Diaries railing against Rabin and then being elected prime minister after his death is far from a subtle message that they believe his government isn’t helping the peace process.

There are many stories to tell about Israel and the conflict in which it remains eternally engulfed, and this spotlight on an unlikely early step forward is an optimistic and detailed one, presented as a meeting of two sides in a middle that for so long couldn’t have existed. It’s informative, affirming, and positive while things are going well, and a reminder that there is a way to see the other side.

Martin Kramer: "You remember the filmmakers Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan, whose last production was “Censored Voices” (2015)? That was predicated on a lie: an allegation of Israeli military censorship. I exposed the manipulation in an internet article entitled “Who Censored the Six-Day War?” (now available, with notes, in my book “The War on Error,” pp. 225-42). Their new film, “The Oslo Diaries,” has now premiered at Sundance, and HBO just bought it. (I guess they needed something to fill the gap left by their last Israel project, a nixed film by Ari Shavit.) I haven’t seen the new offering, but the reviews make me suspect it’s something other than history. I’ll be watching." (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Did Israel force the PA to resume electricity to Gaza?

A very interesting portion of an article in Times of Israel by Avi Issacharoff:

Although Gazans tend to blame Israel for their situation, it is actually the Jewish state that seems to be trying to encourage improved economic conditions.

The Palestinian Authority recently decided to renew the electricity supply to Gaza by resuming payments for power generated by Israel (now providing power to homes for six hours, followed by 12 hours of darkness).

But the decision to renew the power supply was not due to a sudden stroke of generosity by the PA. According to sources, it was the result of an ultimatum by Israel: The Jewish state warned the PA that if it didn’t renew payments for the Gaza power bill, the Israeli government would cover the costs with PA tax money it collects. Ramallah understood the message and made a public show of renewing electricity payments.

If true, and this is plausible, it shows again that Israel is more interested in the well being of Gazans than Mahmoud Abbas is.

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Video and photos: Palestinians lynch and burn Trump and Pence in effigy

This weekend, Palestinian in the Aida camp held a "mock trial" of President Trump and Vice President Pence and sentenced them to hanging, and burning.

WATCH: The #Palestinian Authority "executed" President @realDonaldTrump and @VP Pence.

And then they complain that they are not getting money from the U.S. pic.twitter.com/i5dhM3j0R5
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) January 28, 2018

This is their concept of "dignity" - give us free money or else.

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01/29 Links Pt1: UNRWA: The UN Agency that Creates Palestinian Refugees; John Kerry Chamberlain, saving Israel from ifself...again

From Ian:

Pierre Rehov: UNRWA: The UN Agency that Creates Palestinian Refugees

According to the UN's own definition, the status of "refugee" cannot be passed from generation to generation -- as it conveniently has been for the Palestinians. A Palestinian with a European, American or Jordanian passport has no reason to be considered a refugee. Except by UNRWA.

"Since the UN took them over, the Palestinians started burying their dead at night, without declaring them, in order to share their rations. As a result, for nearly 20 years, the official death rate in the camps was close to zero. In addition, there was a lot of movement between the camps. But these displacements were rarely recorded, so that a Palestinian could appear in several camps at the same time..." — Said Aburish, Palestinian Refugee and biographer of the late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat.

UNRWA is not just a humanitarian agency. Its political stance is evident at all levels of the organization. A report from the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, says that the 2016-2017 curriculum for elementary schools in PA, partly funded by UNRWA, "teaches students to be martyrs, to demonize and deny the existence of Israel, and to focus on a 'return' to an exclusively Palestinian country."

John Kerry Chamberlain, saving Israel from ifself...again

During President Obama's second term in office, Secretary of State John Kerry, like his boss and other members of the same peapod (Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, etc.), liked to warn Israel about such things as its isolation and alienation if it did not agree to Arab demands to return to its pre-'67 war, '49 armistice lines (they were never borders) which made it an over-sized ghetto, 9-15 miles wide at its waist, where most of its population and infrastructure are located.

President George W. Bush commented that Texas had driveways larger than that. I don't know about driveways, but I also don't doubt the size of some Lone Star ranches. And I'm pretty sure Mrs. Obama had to travel farther than that for shopping trips to Target.

Others, like President Jimmy Carter, supposedly worried/worry (and even wrote books) about Israel's soul and looming "apartheid nature" if it insists on the more secure, defensible, real borders that UNSC Resolution 242 promised in the wake of the '67 fighting--a war Israel was forced to fight after being blockaded by Egypt (a casus belli), shelled by Jordan, abandoned by the UN Emergency Force placed in Sinai after the '56 war (largely fought over another blockade and acts of terror), and other hostile acts and constant threats of annihilation.

All of 242's architects (Lord Caradon, Eugene Rostow, etc.)--and Presidents Johnson, Reagan, and others (including George W. Bush in his letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon)--agreed that Israel would never return to those pre-'67 Auschwitz lines.

That, dear readers, is what the "settlement" issue is mostly all about...besides Jews having both modern, religious, and historical connections to Judea and Samaria (only since the 20th century, called the "West Bank") for over three thousand years.

East Jerusalem-based NGO dissolved for financing terrorism

The Jerusalem District Court on Sunday ordered the dissolution of a nongovernmental organization based in east Jerusalem that was used as a front by a Palestinian terrorist group.

The illicit activities of Lajnat al-Amal al-Zarai, or the Committee of Agricultural Work, were first exposed by Israel Hayom in October 2016.

The group allegedly funneled millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The Registrar of Associations in Israel initiated the NGO's liquidation process in the court, which ruled that the evidence presented supports the allegation that the organization was involved in donor fraud and terror financing.

The alleged donor fraud was uncovered by the International Legal Forum, a local advocacy group, in 2016. It found that the commmittee had defrauded foreign entities and individuals into thinking they were donating funds for humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza, but instead the funds were diverted to terrorist activities.

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.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

"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.