Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Abbas to address UN Security Council with "new peace plan": "Give us everything we demand for free"

Wafa reports:

President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to present the United Nations Security Council during his keynote speech later Tuesday a Palestinian peace initiative and plan, according to Foreign Minister Riyad Malki

Cool! What's the plan?

He told Voice of Palestine radio that the speech will propose ideas to counter the American aggression, mainly US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the US embassy to the occupied city, closing the Palestinian delegation office in Washington and cutting aid to the Palestinians, specifically to the UN refugee agency, UNRWA.

That sounds like a series of complaints, not a plan. Maybe the next paragraph will explain.

The president will also speak about Israeli oppressive measures in the occupied territories, foremost its settlement policy and activities and racist and discriminatory laws issued by the right-wing dominated government and parliament.

OK, more complaints. Where's the plan? Oh, here it comes:

Malki said the new Palestinian peace plan calls for ending unilateral Israeli measures including settlements, annulling the Trump decision on Jerusalem and preparing for a broad international conference that would come up with terms of reference for negotiations and commitment to the two-state solution based on the establishment of the independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

He said the thoughts and ideas that President Abbas has raised in his latest speeches and meetings with world leaders were translated into a Palestinian peace plan that will be presented to the Security Council and then to the world at large with a hope that it will lead to serious discourse on a proper mechanism that would allow for return to negotiations.

In English: Give us a state for free on the borders we demand and don't expect us to compromise on any of our demands, ever. Use the reliably anti-Israel UN to force Israel to do what we demand. No bilateral negotiations with Israel, ever.

Abbas is also expected to say that giving a state to people who openly support terrorism will reduce terrorism. And the UNSC members will nod at his sagacity.

His speech is set for 10 AM EST.

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Fatah continues to glorify terrorists on Facebook - but PalArabs complain they need to incite far more

Times of Israel reports:

Palestinian activists and journalists on Monday launched a campaign to protest against Facebook after the social media giant removed dozens of pages in recent weeks, saying they incited and glorified terrorism.

“Facebook is waging war on the Palestinians,” the activists and journalists complained in a statement as they launched a Twitter hashtag entitled “#FBfightsPalestine” to protest the Facebook measures.

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According to the Palestinians, the Facebook crackdown intensified after the killing of Ahmed Jarrar, the Hamas terrorist who was part of a cell that killed Rabbi Raziel Shevach in the northern West Bank last month.

Israeli security forces killed Jarrar in a shootout on February 6 in the village of al Yamoun, near Jenin.

Since then, the Palestinians said, Facebook has temporarily suspended or permanently removed more than 50 private and public pages and posts, most of which were dedicated to glorifying Jarrar. One of the deleted pages belonged to the Jarrar clan in Jenin.

That's interesting, because there are more Palestinian pages glorifying terrorists than there is time in the day to remove them.

Here is a post from Fatah earlier this week kicking off what will probably be a month long celebration of the anniversary of the Coastal Road Massacre. The poster shows all the Fatah members involved in the murders of some 38 Israelis, featuring Dalal Mughrabi.

And the poster is not about "martyrs" because two of the terrorists were not killed but captured.

113,000 people follow this official Fatah Facebook page. 113,000 people celebrate terror when Fatah celebrates terror.

And Mahmoud Abbas, who pretends to be against violence, is the leader of Fatah.

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Fatah appears to oppose Qatar giving aid to Gaza

The Hamas/Fatah infighting reached a new bizarre level on Monday.

Qatari Prince Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani sent $9 million worth of medicines, medical supplies, foodstuffs and fuel for the operation of hospital generators in the Gaza Strip. Qatari ambassador Mohammed Al-Emadi held a press conference to announce the grant.

What could be wrong with that?

Apparently, the janitorial staff that is on strike for non payment of their salaries protested Al Emadi's visit and besieged his car.

Apparently they were upset that he didn't address their plight in his speech. He responded that only the PA is responsible for their salaries.

It is weird enough, although common, for Palestinian Arabs to protest the very people who are helping them.They protest UNRWA and the Red Cross regularly, often shutting down offices that help their own people.

But even weirder is that Fatah was proud of this protest, putting it up on their Facebook page, twice. As best as I can tell, any protest that appears to be against Hamas is worth publicizing - even if the entire reason the protesters aren't getting paid is because the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority refuses to.

At any rate, Fatah is supporting protesting those giving their own people millions.

It is a special kind of sickness.

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02/19 Links Pt2: “Everyone Agrees”: Second Draft on the MSNM’s Contribution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict; No Hate of Halimi? The French Won’t See Antisemitism for What It Is

From Ian:

“Everyone Agrees”: Second Draft on the MSNM’s Contribution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict

I have, over the past year, slowly put together a video using my archive of recordings of BBC Global and CNN International’s news broadcasts. It portrays a mindset among journalism that has them “in the name of the ‘whole world’,” misinforming the whole world by reciting Palestinian war propaganda as news. “Everybody knows it’s Israel’s fault” that there’s no peace settlement.

Among other violations of journalistic principles of presenting the relevant evidence, I indict the MSTVNM (mainstream TV news media) for not letting their audiences know what Palestinian leaders – both PA and Hamas – say in Arabic, thus compounding the misdirection involved in highlighting and affirming what Palestinian spokespeople say in English. I therefore include footage generously provided by both Palestinian Media Watch and the Center for Near East Policy Research.

Given the strong claims that I make, I also post two items:
the links to the sources that I used in the video other than BBC and CNN.
my source, that is the logging and transcription of much of the footage from which I drew my material, which includes time stamps.

Anyone who thinks I have unfairly “cherry-picked” my passages is welcome to review the body of material from which I drew them. I think research will confirm that I left out many more examples that strengthen my case (too long or too complicated, so repetitive), and that any counter-examples of the MSTVNM presenting the Israeli side offer neither the open endorsement of the journalists (that so often accompanies their presentation of the Palestinian position), nor at any point, their repetition in the journalists own words.

Everyone Agrees: The BBC and CNN on UNSC Resolution #2334 and Kerry’s Speech

No Hate of Halimi? The French Won’t See Antisemitism for What It Is

In taking stock of this monstrous event, the French authorities focused primarily on Traore’s psychological state, allowing reports of his supposed mental frailties to seep into the press. Irritatingly, they never addressed the question of how someone who was allegedly stoned and in a state of hysteria still had the presence of mind to climb from one building to another.

Certainly, the psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Zagury, who interviewed Traore, concluded that he had indeed engaged in an antisemitic attack while under the influence of drugs. At the same time, he emphasized that Traore was not sufficiently intoxicated to be unaware that he was inflicting torture and then murder on a defenseless woman. Moreover, Zagury pointed out the Islamist-inflected antisemitism embedded in Traore’s labeling of Halimi as “Satan,” noting that the idea that “the Jew is on the side of evil, of the evil one” is a common antisemitic theme.

But Zagury also observed that by going through the process of a trial, Traore was at risk of a “delusional relapse.” That was enough for the magistrate, Ihuellou, to remove the charge of an aggravated hate crime.

As things stand, Traore will not be tried for murdering Halimi because she belonged, as her brother William Attal put it, “to the Jewish people.”

Sarah Halimi’s Jewish affiliation will be, at most, a subsidiary element in a trial that will become a cautionary tale about drug use, rather than the antisemitic hatred that has established itself as an integral part of the culture of France’s Muslim immigrant communities. If the French judiciary continues refusing to see what the executive branch — all the way up to President Macron — sees all too clearly, future grandiose assurances that antisemitism is fundamentally alien to French values won’t be worth the paper they’re written on.

The British activist who went from radical Islam to staunch Israel ally

In the summer of 2001 Maajid Nawaz traveled to Jerusalem for the first time to visit the Al Aqsa mosque. He journeyed via Jordan, so desperate was he not to set foot in what he considered “Israel proper.”

“I pretty much would describe my views as typically anti-Semitic and typically anti-Israel,” he recalls. “I denied the legitimacy of the State of Israel and believed that it had no right to exist and that the caliphate would one day come to… liberate the land and return it to Muslim dominion.”

Still only in his early 20s, Nawaz, the child of a middle-class British home, was a university student and rising star activist in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a revolutionary Islamist organization founded in Jerusalem in 1953.

But shortly after arriving in Alexandria to continue his studies, his activities on behalf of the group — which seeks to resurrect and recreate the caliphate in Muslim-majority countries and impose its strict interpretation of Sharia law — landed him in an Egyptian jail. Nawaz would spend five years as a political prisoner before being released and returned to the UK in 2006.

In Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s grim prisons — notorious for their widespread torture and mistreatment of inmates — Nawaz began a journey which would radically change his views and his life.

Muslim political party in Tunisia nominates a Jew for municipal elections

The Ennahdha Party is one of the few political parties in Tunisia that has an explicitly Islamic orientation. it is said to have been inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian revolution when it was started.

Since then, it has sought to make itself look more moderate and democratic, and it has been part of the ruling coalition of Tunisia since 2011.

Analysts are confused whether Ennahda is truly moderate or an more extreme Islamist party. Wikipedia captures parts of the problematic and fuzzy parts of its political positions:

On 13 November 2011, the party's secretary-general Hamadi Jebali held a joint rally in Sousse together with a parliamentary deputy of the Palestinian Hamas party. Jebali referred to the occasion as "a divine moment in a new state, and in, hopefully, a 6th caliphate," and that "the liberation of Tunisia will, God willing, bring about the liberation of Jerusalem." While the tone was said do be sharply in contrast to official statements of the party,[73] Jebali was appointed Prime Minister of Tunisia a mere month later.
When in January 2012, Hamas leadership arrived for another visit to Tunisia, people at the airport were heard shouting "Kill the Jews." Tunisian Jews said Ennahdha leadership was slow to condemn the shouting.[74]
Ahmed Ibrahim of the Tunisian Pole Democratique Moderniste political bloc complained to a foreign journalist that Ennahdha appears "soft" on television, "but in the mosques, it is completely different. Some of them are calling for jihad".[30] The general manager of Al Arabiya wrote an editorial expressing the opinion that Ennahdha is fundamentally a conservative Islamist party with a moderate leadership.[75] Ennahdha has been described as a mixed bag with moderate top layers and a base defined by "a distinctly fundamentalist tilt".[76]

Now Ennahda is surprising people again by working to nominate a Jew for an upcoming municipal election. Simon Salama will be an Ennahda candidate, in a move that the party says "reflects the openness of Ennahda and its civilization."

Critics assert that this is a "political maneuver" to win the support of more voters in the next municipal election.

There are over 7000 municipal seats up for grabs in the next election.

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From The Guardian:

Iceland is poised to become the first European country to outlaw male circumcision amid signs that the ritual common to both Judaism and Islam may be a new battleground over religious freedom.

A bill currently before the Icelandic parliament proposes a penalty of up to six years in prison for anyone carrying out a circumcision other than for medical reasons. Critics say the move, which has sparked alarm among religious leaders across Europe, would make life for Jews and Muslims in Iceland unsustainable.

One in three men globally is thought to be circumcised, the vast majority for religious or cultural reasons. Many Jews and Muslims fear the issue of circumcision could become a proxy for antisemitism and Islamophobia, pointing to similar tensions over religious dress and the ritual slaughter of animals for meat.

The Icelandic bill says the circumcision of young boys violates their rights and is incompatible with the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. It draws a parallel with female genital mutilation, already outlawed in most European countries.

The bill says circumcisions are performed without anaesthesia, and claims the procedure is often carried out “in homes that are not sterile, and not by doctors but by religious leaders. There is a high risk of infections under such conditions that may lead to death.”

This is antisemitic and Islamophobic. The Icelanders aren't concerned with medical complications from the minor procedure.

And it is easy to prove.

Because in Israel, the complication rate for circumcisions is an astoundingly low 0.34% in 2001. A very high percentage of Israelis have the circumcisions done by mohels in their homes, not hospitals.

Given the tiny number of Jews in Iceland, I would be very surprised if there was a single case of complications from a Jewish circumcision in the past decade.

(I cannot speak to the percentage of complications from Muslim circumcision.)

Now, let's compare this with another minor, elective surgical procedure that parents often have their kids go through without medical expertise: body piercings, specifically ear piercings. One study showed up to 35% of people with ear piercings experience complications like infections, tearing and allergic reactions - a 10000% higher chance of complications than circumcisions.

But there are plenty of non-medical piercing and tattoo shops in Iceland. (Tattoos, incidentally, have a 3% infection rate and there are other complications, making them 10 times as likely as circumcision to get infected. )

As far as I can tell, parents are allowed to give their children ear piercings in Iceland, just as they are pretty much everywhere else.

Obviously the people pushing the bill aren't interested in any sort of public health issue. Nor do they really care about children's rights. The bill is pure hate for religion.

Every act of hate hides behind a moral front. This is no exception.

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02/19 Links Pt1: The Gaza Escalation: A Message from Iran; Gaza Health Crisis: WHO’s to Blame?; Are Russia and Israel on a Collision Course Over Syria?

From Ian:

JCPA: The Gaza Escalation: A Message from Iran

Is Iran Involved in the Recent Clash with Gaza?

Because Iran is behind this escalation, things might deteriorate in the future. What we know is that the Iranians, actually General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who is in charge of the terror activities of Iran in the Middle East, is in direct contact with the leaders of the military wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He is trying to escalate the situation in order to send a message to Israel not to carry out any further attacks on Syria.

Is This a Severe Escalation with Gaza or Simply a Temporary Threat?

The message Iran is sending is that if Israel continues to hit Syrian targets, it will find itself fighting on a new front, in Gaza. This way, Israel will find itself fighting on two fronts at the same time, in both Gaza and Syria. This is the message of the Iranians, and their intention is to continue and escalate the situation, especially because President Trump is planning in the future to publish his new peace plan for the Middle East. The Iranians, together with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are working together to sabotage this peace plan by terror activities from the borders of Gaza and Syria. So, Israel has to watch the borders very carefully and be ready to retaliate whenever a new attack is planned because the intention is to escalate and not to calm things down.

Gaza Health Crisis: WHO’s to Blame?

Fifty four Palestinians died in Gaza while awaiting a medical travel permit from Israel.

This is according to a joint statement issued last week by several NGOs (non-governmental organizations): Human Rights Watch (HRW), Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), that slams Israel for a 54% decrease in medical travel permits to residents of Gaza.

Except on closer examination, it appears that in most cases relevant to this 54% decrease, Israel didn’t deny the permits: the Palestinian Authority did.
Joint statement

The joint statement statement purports to be based on a report by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO).

The NGOs (including the WHO) placed blame primarily on Israel, as in the following statement from HRW:
Israeli authorities approved permits for medical appointments for only 54 percent of those who applied in 2017, the lowest rate since the World Health Organization (WHO) began collecting figures in 2008. WHO reported that 54 Palestinians, 46 of whom had cancer, died in 2017 following denial or delay of their permits.

Yet what the statement leaves out is that the WHO numbers are actually related to permit denials by the Palestinian government.

The New York Times Says Gaza Poverty Causes War With Israel. Sorry, That Doesn’t Make Sense.

One of the ways the New York Times demonstrates bias in news reports from the Middle East is with unstated, and unquestioned, assumptions.

In two recent articles, the assumption is that if economic conditions worsen in the Gaza Strip, the result will be attacks on Israel.

An example comes in this paragraph from a Times dispatch over the weekend:

Already beleaguered by Israel’s decade-old blockade of the strip, Gazans were made to suffer even more last year when the Palestinian Authority, run by Fatah, imposed harsh new restrictions in a power struggle with Hamas, its archrival. An attempt at reconciliation between the two last fall has since bogged down, and a standoff over salaries and revenue has sent the territory’s economy into free-fall, with many expecting a war with Israel as a result.

A front page Times report from earlier this month, also under the byline of the Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief, David Halbfinger, sounded some similar notes. It appeared under the print headline, “Gaza Is Near Financial Collapse, Prompting Fears of Violence”:
whether out of bluster or desperation, Gazans both in and out of power have begun talking openly about confronting Israel over its blockade in the kind of mass action that could easily lead to casualties and escalation…

One way or the other, “an explosion’s coming,” said Mr. Abu Shaaban, the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority pensioner. “We have only Israel to explode against. Should we explode against each other?”

The barely unstated assumption here is that economic difficulties in Gaza cause war with Israel.

Yet there are at least two big holes in this logic that the Times might discover if it probed more skeptically.

I noted yesterday that the official government run Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa liked to use the term "Talmudic" to describe anything that they didn't like that Jews were doing, as a dog whistle to incite Jw-hatred among their people.

Going through the archives of Wafa, I see over 150 mentions of "Talmudic" over the years, some quite absurd. Besides the "Talmudic clothing" mentioned yesterday (which they have done before,) we can find:

Temple Mount visitors performing "silent Talmudic rituals."

Reference to Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot as "Talmudic holidays"

A replica of the menorah in the Temple as a "Talmudic candlestick"

An archaeological park near the Temple Mount referred repeatedly as a "Talmudic park" or "Talmudic gardens."

Visitors to the Mount referred to as "students at Talmudic seminaries."

Israel lighting up the walls of Jerusalem with "Talmudic pictures"

Nearly all of these articles have the word "Talmudic" in the headline.They regularly get picked up and reprinted, verbatim, in Palestinian and other Arab media.

The implication is that anything "Talmudic" is sinister and satanic. Yet all of normative Judaism is to some extent "Talmudic" from Chanukah and Purim to how to blow a shofar and the entire Passover Seder text.

This is pure, official antisemitism on the part of Israel's supposed peace partner, the "moderate" PA.

Those who have suddenly become hyper-aware of right-wing antisemitism continue to be silent on official Arab antisemitism.

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From Russia's TASS news agency:

Russia condemns Tehran’s remarks that Israel should be wiped off the map and also believes that solving any regional problems should not be viewed through the prism of a conflict with Iran, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

Tensions between Israel and Iran are escalating and there are historical reasons for that, Lavrov said at the opening of the Valdai International Discussion Club’s conference "Russia in the Middle East: Playing on All Fields."

"We have stated many times that we won’t accept the statements that Israel, as a Zionist state, should be destroyed and wiped off the map. I believe this is an absolutely wrong way to advance one’s own interests," Lavrov stressed.

Russia has previously criticized Turkish president Erdogan's stance on Israel as well.

Certainly, Russia wants to be seen as an honest broker and power player in the Middle East - the name of the conference "Russia in the Middle East: Playing on All Fields." makes that clear.

But for those of us who remember the attacks against Israel by the Soviet Union - which was instrumental in passing the infamous "Zionism is Racism" resolution at the UN - it is still jarring to hear Russia criticize anyone for anti-Israel statements.

Part of the credit for this must go to Netanyahu, who has been in close contact with Vladimir Putin for years now.

Lavrov did try to be even-handed in his criticism:

"By the same token, we oppose attempts to view any regional problem through the prism of fighting Iran," he noted. This is happening in Syria, Yemen and even the latest developments around the Palestinian issue, including Washington’s announcement of its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, are largely motivated by this anti-Iranian stance," Lavrov emphasized.

It is pretty clear, though, that Iran is indeed attempting to create a Shiite Muslim "crescent" from the Gulf to the Mediterranean, even if Russia doesn't like seeing people frame things that way.

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Reports: Erdogan trying to topple Israel

The Shin Bet issued a press release last week:

On 1 January 2018, a Turkish citizen, Cemil Tekeli, a lecturer in law, was arrested on suspicion of aiding Hamas terrorists in Turkey. On 21 January, Dara'am Jabarin, an Israeli citizen and resident of Umm al-Fahm was also arrested.

During the investigation it was learned that the two had been recruited in Turkey by senior Hamas terrorist Zaher Jabarin, who was released in the Shalit deal. He is responsible for Hamas' budget and promotes ramified terrorist operations in Judea and Samaria on instruction from Salah Aruri, who serves as the deputy chairman of the organization and head of its operations in the West Bank.

In Tekeli's investigation, it was learned that Turkey contributes to the military strengthening of Hamas via – inter alia – the SADAT company that was established at the behest of Adnan Basha, an adviser who is close to Turkish administration officials. The company was founded to assist – with funds and war materiel – the creation of the 'Palestine Army', the goal of which is to fight Israel. One of its employees even helped senior Hamas officials to visit a 2015 weapons show in Turkey, during which they expressed interest in UAVs.

During the investigation It became clear that Hamas is in direct contact with Turkish authorities via Jihad Ya'amur, a terrorist who was involved in the abduction of IDF soldier Nahshon Waxman and was released in the Shalit deal.

The investigation showed that, in 2012, Tekeli was asked to help Hamas terrorists who had gone to Turkey become personally and economically established. Most of the terrorists in question had been released in the Shalit deal and were involved in attacks that claimed Israeli lives. Tekeli assisted them in obtaining visas that allowed them to stay in Turkey, in purchasing and renting commercial and residential properties, in purchasing luxury vehicles and in becoming established in business via the registration of companies in their names.

The founder of SADAT, Adnan Taniverdi is not only "close to Turkish authorities." He is a senior military advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

And Cemil Tekeli is close to Taniverdi, as this photo from the SADAT website itself shows them next to each other (the two on the right.)

Makor Rishon, which uncovered the photo, says that Sadat is no longer just a security consulting company. Beyond its Islamist agenda, it is considered one of the centers of power in Turkey. Erdogan's opponents treat it as his private militia.

Now the Shin Bet has exposed that it appears that Hamas is also an integral part of its activity.

Makor Rishon reports:

Tekeli revealed in his interrogation that Hamas was operating in Turkey with close ties to the top echelon of the regime. He revealed that senior officials in the Turkish government are contributing to Hamas' military buildup through SADAT, which is helping funds and weapons to establish a "Palestinian army" to fight Israel.

The Sadat Company (SADAT) was established five years ago by General Adnan Taniverdi, former head of the special forces of the Turkish army, inspired by Erdogan. The Islamist Taniverdi, who was ousted in 1997 from the Turkish army because of his Islamist activities, later became one of Erdogan's closest advisers. The two have since had a deep ideological affinity and mutual trust.

Taniverdi knew exactly what he wanted. ...From the start the company was much more than a defense consulting company - it had a mission. In a manifesto on the company's website, Taniverdi wrote that "Sadat was established to help the Muslim world reach heights that match its status and realize its destiny among the great powers." At the core of this mission is a struggle against the State of Israel and the Taniverdi manifesto includes a detailed plan "How to conquer Israel in ten days." The program is based on the military and political cooperation of the Islamic countries. "The Islamic countries must give the Palestinians bases in their territory, from which they can demonstrate military power against Israel and produce a sea corridor to Gaza and an air corridor to Ramallah through Islamic geography."

A reader of the manifesto may erroneously think that it is an Islamist fervor, and that any connection between it and reality is strictly coincidental. This is not the case. In recent years, the company has operated in accordance with its principles. Including Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Now, it turns out, Hamas too.

Turkey is actively working to topple Israel through its ties with Hamas.

(h/t Yoel)

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Hezbollah threatens Israeli gas fields

Iran's Abul Bayt News Agency reports:

Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered on Friday a speech in which he tackled various regional and local topics.

Sayyed Nasrallah viewed that Lebanon must speak today from a strong position and away from any weakness. "We are strong and we must negotiate from this strong position. We are able to threaten "Israel" as it threatens us. If the American warns that "Israel" will attack us, tell him to accept our demands or Hezbollah will respond," he said.

"The Lebanese must not allow the devils to sow discord among them, and by devils I mean the Americans," Sayyed Nasrallah warned.

His Eminence went on to say: "Today the oil resources that are present in the south and across Lebanon are for all Lebanese. The Lebanese people that are suffering from a debt that might reach $100 billion and their only hope might be in the oil and gas that is present in the coast and land."

"Does Block 9 belong only to the South? No, it is that for all Lebanon," he added.

In a sounding message to the apartheid "Israeli" entity, the Resistance Leader said: "Lebanon is strong and "let us try". If the Lebanese Defense Council took a decides that the "Israeli" oil extraction positions must stop working, we [Hezbollah] are ready to stop it within couple of hours."

Background from Oil and Gas Journal, February 9:

Adding to the company’s Mediterranean operations in Cyprus and Egypt, Total SA has signed exploration and production agreements for Blocks 4 and 9 offshore Lebanon. The consortium includes Total as operator (40%), Eni SPA (40%), OAO Novatek (20%).

Lebanon’s Cabinet approved both licenses in December (OGJ Online, Dec. 19, 2018).

Despite several false starts, Lebanon’s offshore looks poised to enter the country’s long-awaited exploration phase, however, Block 9 continues in controversy due to an ongoing maritime border dispute with neighboring Israel.

Just last week, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman referred to Labanon’s Block 9 award as “challenging and provocative conduct.” Israel claims part of Block 9 and both blocks awarded are on trend with deepwater gas discoveries off Israel

Here is a map of the different blocks, showing the area of dispute between Israel and Lebanon:

In an excellent Jerusalem Post backgrounder, a salient fact is mentioned for the disputed Block 9:

Israel reminded all involved third parties, i.e., apart from Lebanon itself, that any activity "that would violate Israel's sovereign rights or otherwise involve them in non-consensual or unauthorized economic activity in this maritime area…would expose them to significant liability." On February 9, 2018, Total announced that it and its partners are aware of the conflict and therefore would not operate within 25 km of the disputed area.

Israel is not unilaterally drilling on its side of Block 9, so Nasrallah's warning is either complete hot air or it is an indication that Hezbollah might be pushing Lebanon to claim a much larger area that would include existing Israeli gas fields.

This is something that must be watched closely.

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Safa reports:

The Education Sector in the Palestinian NGO Network and the Palestinian Educational Coalition warned of the deterioration of the educational situation in public schools in the Gaza Strip due to the lack of an operating budget for 397 schools.

A joint statement by the two institutions said on Sunday that the lack of such a budget for schools would negatively affect the quality of educational services provided to more than 250,000 students and the possibility of increased dropout rates.

The statement called on all Palestinian parties to exclude the educational process from any conflicts as a result of political division. He called on the Ministry of Education to find effective mechanisms to ensure the necessary financial and logistical support for the continuation of the educational process in all public schools in the sector.

We already knew that the PA hasn't been paying custodial workers for hospitals. And they have been limiting medicines to Gaza. And that while they cut payments for electricity to Gaza last year, they didn't resume it because of an agreement with Hamas but because Israel threatened them.

The story of how the Palestinian Authority has been systematically blocking basic services to Gaza - even after supposed reconciliation with Hamas last year - has not been reported by anyone.

Compare the huge worldwide outcry to the US reducing aid to UNRWA with the complete silence to the Palestinian Authority cutting medical and educational services to the exact same population in Gaza.

There is no upper limit to hypocrisy when it comes to Palestinian Arabs.

(h/t Irene)

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02/18 Links: PM threatens direct military action against Iran; 4 IDF soldiers wounded after IED detonated near Gaza border; Polish Jews stunned, scared by eruption of anti-Semitism

From Ian:

Waving piece of downed drone, PM threatens direct military action against Iran

Brandishing a fragment of an Iranian drone downed over northern Israel a week ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned that Israel could strike the Islamic Republic directly and cautioned Tehran not to “test Israel’s resolve.”

“Mr. Zarif, do you recognize this? You should, it’s yours. You can take back with you a message to the tyrants of Tehran — do not test Israel’s resolve!” proclaimed Netanyahu at the Munich Security Conference, which was also attended by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

The Iranian drone, which entered northern Israel from Syria near the Jordan border last Saturday, was shot down by an Israeli attack helicopter. In response to the drone incursion, Israeli jets attacked the mobile command center from which it was operated, the army said last week.

During the reprisal raid, one of the eight Israeli F-16 fighter jets that took part in the operation was apparently hit by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile and crashed. The Israeli Air Force then conducted a second round of airstrikes, destroying between a third and half of Syria’s air defenses, according to IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.

The flareup on the northern border marked the first direct confrontation between the Israeli air force and the Iranian regime on Israeli territory. Israel has warned of growing Iranian entrenchment in neighboring Syria and has said it will not abide an Iranian military presence on its borders.

“Through its proxies — Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza — Iran is devouring huge swaths of the Middle East,” said Netanyahu.

“Israel will not allow Iran’s regime to put a noose of terror around our neck,” he added. “We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves. And we will act if necessary not just against Iran’s proxies that are attacking us, but against Iran itself.”

US Calls for Action to Halt Iran’s Growing ‘Network of Proxies’

US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster called on Saturday for more forceful action to halt Iran’s development of what he said was an increasingly powerful network of proxy armies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

McMaster accused Iran of escalating a campaign to increase its influence in the Middle East by building and arming “Hezbollah-style” proxy armies in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere as it has done in Lebanon.

The goal was to weaken Arab governments and turn the proxy forces against those states if they pursued policies that ran counter to Tehran’s interests, he said.

“So the time is now, we think, to act against Iran,” he told the Munich Security Conference, calling on US allies to halt trade that was helping underwrite the expansion of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful military and economic force in the Islamic Republic.

The United States deems Lebanon’s Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

“What’s particularly concerning is that this network of proxies is becoming more and more capable,” he said.

Iran has denied accusations that it meddles in the affairs of its Middle East neighbours and has dismissed suggestions it stop supporting groups such as Hezbollah.

Iranian foreign minister: Israel's 'myth of invincibility' has crumbled

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday the shooting down of an Israeli jet after bombing an Iranian site in Syria had shattered Israel's "so-called invincibility", reacting to a critical speech delivered earlier by Israel's premier.

"Israel uses aggression as a policy against its neighbours," Zarif told the Munich Security Conference, accusing Israel of "mass reprisals against its neighbours and daily incursions into Syria, Lebanon."

"Once the Syrians have the guts to down one of its planes it's as if a disaster has happened," Zarif said.

He was responding to Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the conference hours before, in which the Israeli prime minister, holding a piece of what he said was an Iranian drone, accused Iran of trying to impose an "empire" across the Middle East.

Zarif described Netanyahu's address to the conference as a "cartoonish circus."

"The entire speech was trying to evade the issue... What has happened in the past several days is the so-called invincibility [of Israel] has crumbled," he said of the February 10 downing of an Israeli jet.

Last week, it was widely reported that Iran accused the West of spying on Iran with special lizards:

Western spies used lizards which can 'attract atomic waves' to spy on Iran's nuclear programme, the former chief-of-staff of the nation's armed forces has claimed.

Hassan Firuzabadi, senior military advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said he did not know the details of the cases, but that the West had often used tourists, scientists and environmentalists to spy on Iran.

Firuzabadi was responding to questions from local media on the recent arrest of environmentalists.

'Several years ago, some individuals came to Iran to collect aid for Palestine,' he said.

'We were suspicious of the route they chose. In their possessions were a variety of reptile desert species like lizards.

'We found out that their skin attracts atomic waves and that they were nuclear spies who wanted to find out where inside the Islamic republic of Iran we have uranium mines and where we are engaged in atomic activities,' he added.

LiveScience actually took the time to debunk this, which i think is pretty cool:

Though "atomic waves" are not a real thing, perhaps Firuzabadi was referring to gamma radiation — the waves with the smallest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum — that would be emitted from radioactive isotopes during uranium mining.

Regardless, it turns out that the bizarre claim is ridiculous, two reptile experts told Live Science.

"This is pure and simple BUNK," Eric Pianka, a zoology professor at the University of Texas at Austin (who sometimes goes by the name The Lizard Man), wrote in an email to Live Science.

The idea that lizards could somehow attract "atomic" waves doesn’t make sense, because lizard skin is made of the exact same proteins as human skin: keratin, Pianka said. The scutes, or scales that cover lizards are made up of two types of keratin proteins: keratin A and B. Neither has any special ability to detect uranium or other radioactive materials.

But what about other spying techniques? Perhaps the lizards somehow sense radioactivity found in uranium mines and are drawn to it?

Again, nope: The idea that lizards could be drawn to uranium mines flies in the face of all logical data, said Barry Sinervo, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Caifornia, Santa Cruz, who goes by the name of Dr. Lizardo.

For one, lizards, which are cold-blooded and seek warm spots to hang out, would have no incentive to venture deep into cold uranium mines, Sinervo told Live Science in an email. Sinervo's past research has shown that lizards learn the location of toasty spots and then seek them out — the opposite of uranium-mine seeking.

As for one of the specific types of lizards mentioned by Firuzabadi, chameleons (which are lizards in the family called Chamaeleonidae) live in trees and therefore have no incentive to leave their home base on twigs to go crawling around on rocks in a uranium mine, Sinervo said.

"So, the claim, based on what we know about lizard learning and motivation, is absurd," Sinervo said.

Of course, this is no proof. Those Zionists could have bred special spy chameleons, just like they have bred wild board that only attack Palestinian crops and they train sharks and birds and pufferfish and cows and sheep....

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Dog-whistle antisemitism in the official Palestinian Authority news agency

When is the world going to wake up to the fact that the official Palestinian Authority news agency is using the word "Talmudic" as a means to incite hatred by their people against religious Jews?

This pure, unadulterated antisemitism is published weekly in official Palestinian media. And today that hate reached new heights of absurdity with this article:

105 settlers, most of them wearing traditional Talmudic clothes, stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, during the period of morning incursions on Sunday, through the Moroccan gate while guarded by special forces of the occupation.

Here are the photos I could find that seem to have been taken today of these "Jews in Talmudic clothes:"

Do I have to mention that the Jews in Talmudic times didn't wear anything that looked like this?

The Palestinian Arabs know that saying that they are against "Jews" contradicts their message of tolerance that they want to tell the world, and themselves. But being against Jews who perform "Talmudic rituals" in "Talmudic clothes" - meaning, any Jew who does anything Jewish -is OK.

Here is a glaring example of the worst kind of dog-whistle politics, where everyone knows what the official Palestinian position is towards Jews - but no one wants to say it out loud.

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