Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, March 26, 2018

Urban (Foreign) Policy (Divest This!)

Word has it that a municipality in my area (one with a habit of making official statements on foreign policy matters) will be visited by the boycott brigade next month requesting the city pass some sort of “Israel is guilty of everything” resolution.

As usual, this is being presented as a simple, straightforward human-rights question, one that will get turned into a “See, a major city agrees with us that Israel is an Apartheid state!!!!!!!” message through the BDS bullhorn if government leaders decide to hand the name and reputation of their city to a group of ruthless, single-issue partisans.

As most readers know, this kind of bait-and-switch is standard operating procedure for the Israel-disliking community, one predictable enough to boil down to a simple and straightforward playbook (part of a larger work that describes ways to defeat these predicable BDS tactics).

Before getting too worked up about the whole affair, keep in mind that even back in 2005 when some of us were dealing with an actual divestment resolution being debated in a neighboring city, we learned that the city where next month’s debate will take place had passed a couple of resolutions condemning Israel for this and that a decade earlier, resolutions no one could remember because they had zero impact outside the BDS bubble.

The lack of impact of such symbolic votes outside the city should not minimize the havoc caused within a community when BDS comes knocking and demands everyone take a side on their pet issue.

Back when divestment was roiling Somerville, I pointed out to city leaders that:

“It’s hard not to notice that, despite the troubles in the Middle East, the towns of Methuen, Springfield and Ipswich do not find their citizens at each other’s throats over the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nor are aldermen or town meeting members in Medford, Winchester or Malden sorting through hundreds of e-mails a day, trying to rapidly learn enough to officially come down on one side or the other.

The difference between Somerville and virtually every other community in America is that we have chosen to turn a conflict that has challenged and perplexed wise and committed men and women for generations into official city business.”

So, as with every debate instigated by anti-Israel propagandists ready to drag anyone and everyone in their vendetta by any means necessary, next month’s city hall debate will not be about the Middle East. Rather, it will be over whether city leaders are ready to harm the community they are pledged to serve by dragging it into one of the most vexing conflicts in history, just because a gang of single-issue fanatics insist that this is their only moral choice.

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.

03/26 Links Pt1: Two arrested over brutal killing of 85-year-old French Jewish Holocaust survivor; Stop Making Excuses for Louis Farrakhan’s Lunacy; John Bolton Is Right about the UN

From Ian:

Two arrested over brutal killing of 85-year-old French Jewish Holocaust survivor

Two men have been arrested over the killing of an 85-year-old Jewish woman, a Holocaust survivor, whose stabbed body was found after her Paris apartment was set ablaze, police sources said Monday.

An autopsy conducted on the woman, identified Monday as Mirelle Kanol, who lived alone, showed her charred body also had at least 11 stab wounds.

A forensic examination of the apartment showed that an arsonist started a fire in at least five distinct areas of that space, the report also said.

An anti-Semitism watchdog initially said the case was reminiscent of an alleged anti-Semitic hate crime, but later said there was no immediate evidence of anti-Semitism.

“A preliminary examination of the elements of the crime does not reveal an anti-Semitic characteristic, but this possibility has not been discounted as police investigate further,” said a spokesperson for the Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ), which works closely with the French police.

The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, wrote in a statement Sunday that the suspected murder “is reminiscent of the crime committed against Sarah Halimi,” a 66-year-old Jewish teacher and physician, whom prosecutors say was murdered by her Muslim neighbor in April partly in connection with her Jewish identity

The Paris prosecutor’s office said Sunday that it had not yet determined a motive, but “is not excluding any hypothesis.”

After brutal murder, French Jews hope authorities learn from mistakes

One year after the murder of a 65-year-old Jewish Parisian Sarah Halimi, France’s Jewish community is reeling again from the brutal murder of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll.

The 85-year-old was allegedly stabbed 11 times while at home on Friday, before her body was set on fire, in an attack which Jewish community leaders described as reminiscent of the murder of Halimi.

France's Foreign Minster Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the murder was "more than likely" antisemitic in nature.

"For now we cannot say for certain if the motive for the murder was antisemitism, but it's more than likely, it would not be surprising, and only strengthens the notion that this battle is not over and we will need to keep fighting it," he said during a meeting at the prime minister's residence.

“The inhumanity of this murder sends us back to that of Sarah Halimi just one year ago,” the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) said in a statement, which continued by mentioning that council President Francis Kalifat had spoken at length with the children of the victim.

“During his discussions with the prefect of police and the office of the president of the republic, the president of the CRIF expressed the emotion and the deep concern of the Jewish population of France,” the statement said.

Jewish community leaders as well as other public officials had strongly and vocally criticized the way Halimi’s case was handled, accusing the authorities and the French media of hiding the facts from the public. They also denounced the fact that it took five months to categorize the murder as an anti-Jewish hate crime, after French President Emmanuel Macron called for an investigation.

Stop Making Excuses for Louis Farrakhan’s Lunacy

And it’s not just Jews who are being asked to check their supposed “privilege” at the progressive door. Part of what’s amazing about this entire mess is that leaders of an outfit called “The Women’s March” are standing beside a man who yells at women for “knowing how to shake your behind but not how to rattle some eggs in a pan.” Gays and transgender people, duly name-checked by any good intersectional feminist, must take a back seat in order to make room for a guy who rails against “turning men into women and women into men” (a crime against nature perpetrated by, you guessed it, the Jews). Neither of these absurdities approach the most ridiculous part of this entire spectacle, however, which is that, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Farrakhan praised, and nearly endorsed, the very man upon whom resistance to which the entire Women’s March is predicated: Donald J. Trump.

There is no meaningful moral difference between Louis Farrakhan and Richard Spencer. Both are racist, anti-Semitic troglodytes claiming to represent the downtrodden of their respective race. You would not know it from the disproportionate press coverage afforded each man, however, but Farrakhan commands a much larger following and has actual political influence; no Republican congressman—never mind a future president—would be caught dead in the same room as Richard Spencer. Nor would any respectable journalist or politician or social movement leader make excuses and dissemble about Spencer in the Atlantic or The New York Times.

That there is even a debate to be had about Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam demonstrates the soft bigotry of low expectations many liberals continue to harbor with regard to their black countrymen. In reality, there is no debate. That the Nation of Islam may help keep order in some poor black neighborhoods is as good an argument for equivocating on Farrakhan as the crime-free streets of Little Italy justified Italian American pride in John Gotti. The late Meir Kahane indisputably defended Jews from violence and attracted legitimately devoted followers through his uncompromising stand for Jewish pride. He was also a racist vigilante — not a single mainstream Jewish public figure would appear alongside him — and his political party was banned in Israel. Louis Farrakhan should be similarly ostracized, and no one calling herself a “liberal” or “progressive” should ask for anything less.

Fatah spokesperson Osama al-Qawasmi said Monday that Israel was performing crimes against Islamic holy places, insulting the dignity of Arabs and Muslims and escalating violence against Arabs and Muslims, hurting the feelings of one and a half billion Muslims in the world, and all Arab and Muslim leaders.

That's just for starters.

Al-Qawasmi, saying that the Palestinians do not want to turn this into a religious conflict, says that Israel is planning to demolish the Al-Aqsa Mosque "in order to establish the alleged Temple."

These are usually the delusional statements of Hamas or religious clerics. But now the supposedly secular Fatah has officially adopted the lie that Israel is planning to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque.

And the obvious reason it pushes this lie is precisely to incite a religious conflict of (alleged) 1.5 billion Muslims against Israel.

It sounds like incitement to violence to me, but Human Rights Watch hasn't found this to be problematic, and they follow the Middle East very closely, so I must be mistaken.

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.

A Palestinian finds out he's Jewish (video)

Video is in Hebrew, interview is in English.

He explicitly says that he was taught to hate Jews growing up in UNRWA schools and in Kuwait.

(h/t Yoel)

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.

Turkish Muslims disrupt Jewish prayers at Tomb of Samuel - and it was no accident

Recently, a tour group of Turkish Muslims went to the synagogue that houses the tomb of Samuel the Prophet in Jerusalem and loudly interrupted Jewish prayers there as they recited Quranic verses.

The leader of the group acknowledged, and completely ignored, pleas to be quieter.

There is a much larger mosque above the site.

According to Jewish officials at the site, there have been Muslim visitors many times before to the synagogue where the actual tomb is, but they have always been quiet and respectful. However, this phenomenon of Turkish Muslims is new, and started after the riots over the metal detectors at the Temple Mount last summer.

The specific sect is made up of followers of Jubaili Ahmet Hodja, an anti-semitic Turkish cleric who is closely affiliated with the ruling political party of Erdogan.

The video is entitled in Turkish "The Jews go crazy." Observers of the situation say that Erdogan is attempting to provoke tension at every Jewish holy spot that Muslims claim in order to force the issue into the open in the Muslim world and create world pressure on Jews to give equal access to Muslims in synagogues in places like Samuel's Tomb, Rachel's Tomb, the Cave of Elijah and elsewhere.

Essentially, this is a plan to rid all Jewish holy spots of Jews by pretending to only ask for freedom of worship for Muslims. Of course, the idea that Jews can do the same at places like the Temple Mount results in the Muslims going crazy - and the Europeans accept the Muslim position no matter how inconsistent it is.

Which is also what Erdogan is counting on.

(h/t Yoel)

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.

The EoZ Haggadah is still free!

The Elder of Ziyon Haggadah, one of the very few English-language purely Zionist Haggadot with a selection of commentaries from a variety of religious Zionist sources, is still available and free.

You can download it here, and you can view it below.

UPDATE: Try this link if the other doesn't work.

Elder of Ziyon Haggadah 5769 by Eldad Tzioni on Scribd

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.

03/25 Links: Pipes: Why Palestinians Need an Israel Victory; Collier: Now the Labour party attack Jewish festivals, as Passover celebration is mutilated; Digital Warriors Gather in Jerusalem

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: Why Palestinians Need an Israel Victory

How to escape this 25-year dead end?

The study of history shows that wars typically conclude not through negotiations but through defeat and victory. According to the military historian Victor Hanson, "Conflicts throughout history become serial when an enemy is not utterly defeated and is not forced to submit to the political conditions of the victor." Defeat means giving up war ambitions. Victory means successfully imposing one's will on the enemy.

It's a simple, universal truth that Palestinians well understand. In July 2017, Fatah declared that the "campaign for Jerusalem has effectively begun and will not stop until a Palestinian victory and the release of the holy sites from Israeli occupation." Nor are they alone; thinkers and warriors in all eras concur on victory as the goal of warfare. For example, the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote "Let your great object be victory." U.S. general Douglas MacArthur stated that "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it." Victory is an intuitive human goal that only overly-sophisticated moderns could lose sight of.

Therefore, to gain Palestinian acceptance, Israel must return to its old policy of deterrence, of punishing Palestinians severely when they aggress. One example: When three family members were murdered in July 2017 while sitting down to Sabbath dinner in the Israeli West Bank town of Halamish, the Israeli response should have been to construct new buildings in Halamish and extend its boundaries.

That's deterrence; it's more than tough tactics, which Israeli governments already pursue; it means developing consistent policies to break rejectionism and encourage Palestinian acceptance of Israel. It implies a strategy to crush irredentist Palestinian ambitions so as finally to end the demonizing of Jews and Israel, recognize historic Jewish ties to Jerusalem, "normalize" relations with Israelis, close the suicide factories, and shutter the entire machinery of warfare. This process will be neither easy nor quick: it requires Palestinians to suffer the bitter crucible of defeat, with its attendant deprivation, destruction, and despair. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut.

A change of heart implies, not just a permanent absence of violence against Israelis but shutting down completely, everywhere from the United Nations to the university campus, the Palestinian-driven campaign of delegitimizing Israel.

If Palestinian defeat is good for Israel, it is ironically even better for Palestinians, who will finally be liberated from ugly ambitions, revolutionary rhetoric, and genocidal fantasies. An educated and skilled people can then improve its life by building its polity, economy, society, and culture. Think of this as a miniature version of post-1945 Germany. And if diplomacy is now premature, issues such as Jerusalem, borders, and resources can be fruitfully discussed after a Palestinian defeat. The two-state solution, an absurdity at present (it means asking Israel to strengthen its mortal enemy) will make good sense after a Palestinian defeat.

Inside Israel: Digital Warriors Gather in Jerusalem

T here is no such thing as an armchair warrior.”

That admonition — to get involved and not consign yourself to sitting and carping — was repeated over and over in different ways by participants at the first-of-its-kind #DigiTell18 Conference, hosted by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy. The aim of the conference, held at Jerusalem’s YMCA Hotel, was to bring together 60 activists from 15 countries on six continents, all of whom are on the front lines in the battle against anti-Israel bias and disinformation on the Internet.

Among the participants were some of the biggest names in Jewish digital media, including blogger “Elder of Zion,” who works anonymously — and intensively — on behalf of Israel; others represented global organizations like Stand With Us, a pro-Israel advocacy group. What united them all was a shared commitment to counter anti-Semitism and its contemporary version, anti-Zionism, on social media, and to protect Jews in Israel and the world over. The stories they shared served as proof that work in the digital room can bring about positive changes.

For instance, one participant related how he shamed a restaurant owner into dropping his anti-Israel business practices. When the restaurateur posted an “Israelis not served here” sign in his window, this digital warrior publicized the story, leading thousands of people to give this restaurant a one-star rating on its social media page. As a result, the restaurant’s ratings dropped from 5 to 1.5. After a local journalist picked up the story, the owner removed the sign, though he never apologized. In this way, thousands of people around the globe created change with their keyboards.

Another participant, a high-school student from Holland, described how he and his friends succeeded not only in preventing the appearance of Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh at a BDS-sponsored event in Amsterdam, but also at several other locations. Odeh, who is responsible for the murder of two Israeli students in 1969, served jail time in Israel, and then lied about it on her immigration application in the US. As a result, she was recently deported from the United States. The BDS movement is now using her as a featured speaker around the world to spread anti-Israel hate.

David Collier: Now the Labour party attack Jewish festivals, as Passover celebration is mutilated

An attack on the Jewish religion

What has any of this got to do with the religion? Isn’t JVL simply an ‘anti-Zionist’ movement? Firstly, it is important to remember a simple lesson. Never believe a word that JVL says. They claim they are not even anti-Zionist at all, except everyone there wants to see Zionism, and Israel, taken apart. To gain any acceptance by left leaning Jews at all, they spin lines about ‘having trouble with Israeli policy’. With the media they feign moderation. It is little more than a masking exercise, and this week they were unmasked again. This time not over Israel, but Judaism.

In six days Jewish people across the world will be sitting down to celebrate Passover. It is an important, ‘biblically derived‘ festival. It is one of the most important dates in the Hebrew calendar. Jews all over the world are currently engaging in a ‘spring clean’ in preparation, and on Friday night will read the story of the Exodus from Egypt in a text called the Haggadah.

A few days ago, Jewish Voice for Labour uploaded a replacement text onto their website. The entire version is available for download on the internet.

In total it is fourteen pages long and last night I went through it. It is an attack on Jewish tradition, Jewish prayer, Jewish culture and the Jewish religion. It makes a mockery of one of the most important dates in the Jewish calendar. This is reproduced for the masses by a group inside the Labour Party that claims it represents Jews. What has Zionism got to do with a Jewish festival? Why can’t Jews sit down as they have always done, and celebrate a religious festival like everyone else? Why is our basic identity under attack? These are the tags, that JVL chose to use to place it on their website

UN Women's Rights Commission as hateful as the rest of the UN

From UN Watch:

The UN’s 45-member Commission on the Status of Women, meeting in its 2017 annual session, singled out Israel as the only country in the world subjected to a condemnatory resolution on women’s rights. Britain changed its vote from an abstention last year to a No vote this year.

The Jewish state was harshly and repeatedly condemned in the resolution for allegedly being the “major obstacle” for Palestinian women “with regard to their advancement, self-reliance and integration in the development of their society.”

The resolution made no mention of how Palestinian women’s rights are impacted by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, or their patriarchal society, nor were Palestinian victims of honor killings mentioned.

The UN commission ended the session by ignoring the world’s major abusers of women’s rights, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and many others.

Worse, Saudi Arabia officially joined the CSW later that afternoon, joining Iran as a member.

The resolution that was passed is farcical. Perhaps the funniest part is this:

Urges the international community to continue to give special attention to the promotion and protection of the human rights of Palestinian women and girls and to intensify its measures to improve the difficult conditions being faced by Palestinian women and their families living under Israeli occupation;

By urging the world to give "special attention" to Palestinian women, they are saying that Palestinian women are more important than all the rest of the women in the world.

But only in terms of things that they can try to blame on Israel

What a joke.

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.

Palestinians claim Israel not treating sick prisoners in Ashkelon

It is almost comical how Palestinian officials will just make things up about Israel over and over again, hoping that some of their lies will stick.

But it often works.

The official Wafa news agency says that "The Committee for Prisoners' Affairs warned on Sunday of the deterioration of the health conditions of a number of prisoners held in Ashkelon prison due to deliberate medical negligence by the administration of Israeli prisons."

The evidence is based on three prisoners who are complaining - one of chest pain and nausea, one of foot pain. The third one is the most interesting:

Riad al-Amour, a 45-year-old resident of Bethlehem who is sentenced to life imprisonment, is considered to be one of the most serious cases in the Israeli occupation prisons. He suffers from many health problems, including:, the removal of part of the intestines, the part of his liver, the replacement of a heart valve, and his heart only works through a pacemaker, which needs to be replaced, which was given two years ago an open heart surgery..

Riad al Amour, a murderer, received multiple free surgeries courtesy of the Israeli taxpayer - and now the Palestinian Authority is complaining that he is not being taken care of medically.

Amour also participated in a hunger strike while ill a couple of years ago. But any medical condition is Israel's fault.

ــــــــــــ

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.

Arab media are reporting that the Gaza power plant was shut down Saturday night due to lack of fuel.

Fuel trucks that were supposed to come from Egypt never arrived. It is unclear whether this is because of Egyptian, PA or Hamas actions.

At the moment, Gaza is getting 100% of its power - 120 mW - from Israeli electricity lines. The smaller Egyptian lines seem to be down as well. Gazans are now on a schedule of 4 hours of power followed by a 16 hour shutoff.

Interestingly, the "side" entrance from Egypt to Gaza, the Saladin gate which bypasses Israeli security checks at Kerem Shalom, was opened yesterday and 147 trucks entered with materials including cement. No fuel trucks went through that entrance, however. It appears that Hamas managed to negotiate this with Egypt, bypassing the PA and avoiding paying PA taxes on imports that come through Rafah (while, presumably, Hamas imposes its own taxes at this crossing.)

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.

03/24 Links: JPost Editorial: Denying Jewish history; Glick: Checking the smart Abbas; Taylor Force Act Signed Into Law; Sohrab Ahmari: A Hawk Without Illusions

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Denying Jewish history

With statehood evading them – mostly due to their own intransigence – the Palestinians are continuing their efforts to hijack Israel’s and the Jewish people’s national history and treasures in a failed and misguided bid to advance their cause.

According to Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Palestinians are likely to use a meeting of UNESCO this summer to claim that the archeological site of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls found there decades ago actually belong to them.

The Palestinians apparently have a list of 13 sites they want to register under “Palestine” at UNESCO and have already had some success.

The World Heritage Committee ascribed to “Palestine” Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in 2012; the agricultural terraces of Battir, site of the ancient Jewish fortress at Betar, in 2014; and Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 2017. And there was of course, UNESCO’s infamous resolution last year that ignored any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

This all comes as another UN agency – the Human Rights Council – is considering a resolution to ban the sale of arms to Israel. As expected, the draft resolution was sponsored by members that are real beacons of peace and human rights – Bangladesh, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Jordan, Pakistan, Venezuela and the Palestinian Authority.

The sad fact that UN institutions are biased against Israel is well-known and is nothing new. This is a shame on the UN and many of its members. What the Palestinians are now doing – trying to steal the Jewish people’s national history – is something completely different that should make any self-respecting government question whether Mahmoud Abbas really is a proponent of peace as he claims.

Caroline Glick: Checking the smart Abbas

Monday’s speech was not Abbas’s first statement of this sort. In January, he bitterly attacked Friedman and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and called for Trump’s “house to be destroyed.”

In the same speech, he said Israel was hooking Palestinian youth on drugs, that Zionism is an imperialist plot cooked up by Oliver Cromwell and that the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel are dead.

Taken together, these two speeches make abundantly clear that Abbas has no interest whatsoever in any accord with Israel. Indeed, they show that Abbas remains the same antisemitic terrorist he was when he wrote his PhD dissertation and a bestselling book both proclaiming the Holocaust was a Zionist plot.

But unfortunately with everything having to do with Abbas, Saul Bellow’s famous quip, “A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep,” seems to obtain at the White House.

Trump’s chief negotiator Jason Greenblatt’s response to Abbas’s diatribe was a textbook case of willful ignorance.

“The time has come for President Abbas to choose between hateful rhetoric and concrete and practical efforts to improve the quality of life of his people, and lead them to peace and prosperity.

Notwithstanding his highly inappropriate insults against members of the Trump administration – the latest iteration being his insult of my good friend and colleague Ambassador Friedman – we are committed to the Palestinian people and to the changes that must be implemented for peaceful coexistence.”

Greenblatt added, “We are finalizing our plan for peace and we will advance it when circumstances are right.”

Greenblatt’s statement demonstrated that the Trump administration will not walk away from the conceptual framework the Clinton administration adopted in 1993. That framework places the PLO – and Israeli concessions to the PLO – at the center of US policy in the Middle East.

By saying that the US will present its plan “when circumstances are right,” Greenblatt said that there is no US ultimatum to the PLO. If Abbas doesn’t want a deal, they will wait him out and offer it to his successor, or his successor’s successor.

Taylor Force Act Signed Into Law As Part of Spending Bill

The Taylor Force Act was signed into law on Mar. 23, as it was included in the $1.3 trillion spending bill to fund the government.

President Trump officially signed the spending bill in a signing ceremony, stating that while he had multiple reservations about the overall bill, it needed to be signed for the defense spending.

When the bill passed the Senate on Mar. 22, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the authors of the Taylor Force Act, hailed the law as “one of the most significant pieces of legislation I’ve been involved with.”

“The powerful message from the Force family, along with effort from the pro-Israel community led by Sander Gerber, have made this possible,” Graham said.

The Taylor Force Act, named after the United States veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in March 2016, ends funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA) until they stop providing financial incentives for Palestinian to commit acts of terror against Jews.

“The Taylor Force Act was made possible in part due to the work of two of the IAC’s biggest supporters — Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson – representing both sides of the aisle to promote this important legislation,” the Israeli-American Coalition (IAC) for Action said in a statement. “Despite their political differences on some other issues, Mr. Saban and Mr. Adelson worked hand-in-hand to promote broad bipartisan support for this bill and prevent American taxpayer dollars from continuing to subsidize terror.”

Khamenei's hilarious tweet

Been meaning to point this out for a couple of days:

In our country, there exists freedom of thought, freedom of expression,& freedom of choice. No one with ideas & thoughts opposing the establishment is pressured, threatened, or persecuted by the establishment. However, freedom is observed within the framework of law and religion.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) March 21, 2018

I quickly translated it:

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.

03/23 Links Pt2: Aussie tax slayer, Is Australian foreign aid being used to incite terrorism?; Anti-Israel hate at an anti-racism rally in Scotland; If Corbyn wins, emigrating to Israel is my clear escape route

From Ian:

Aussie tax slayer Is Australian foreign aid being used to incite terrorism?

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website, Australia will contribute $43.8 million to the ‘Palestinian Territories’ in 2017-18. DFAT explains ‘Australia seeks to align its support with the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) objectives’.

Well, the PA’s objectives include providing incentive payments to terrorists who injure and kill innocent Israeli civilians. In the event that the terrorist is caught and convicted, there is a sliding scale based on the length of the jail term – the more serious the terror crime, the more money paid. Alternatively, if the terrorist dies during his/her act of terror or is subsequently killed by the Israeli Defense Force, police or by an armed civilian, then there is also a Palestinian Authority Martyrs’ Fund to pay a lifetime benefit to families of dead terrorists.

The programs have been labelled as ‘Slay for Pay’ by critics. The PA announced on March 5 that it would increase payments under these programs for terrorism from US$350 million in 2017 to US$403 million in 2018!

In 2017 the amount paid by the PA to terrorists and their families equated to about 50 per cent of total foreign aid received. The unit payments are relatively enormous. According Palestinian Media Watch, convicted terrorists in prison can receive 12,000 shekels per month plus bonuses of 300 shekels per wife, 50 shekels per child and extra for being resident in Israel and Jerusalem. This can amount to about US$3,500 per month. By contrast, a teacher employed by the PA receives roughly $615 per month.

There have been occasions when captured terrorists questioned by Israeli authorities have confirmed that their primary motive was to gain financial benefits to improve the lives of their families.When challenged, the PA repeatedly refuses to stop the provision of financial incentives for terrorism, calling it welfare.

CAMERA Op-Ed: The Palestinian Authority 'Pays to Slay' and the Media is M.I.A.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), the U.S.-backed, aid-dependent entity that rules the West Bank, pays salaries to terrorists and their families. Congress is currently considering legislation to prevent American tax dollars from being used for this purpose, which incentivizes Palestinian terrorism. Major media outlets, however, are failing to fully cover either the PA's policy or the possible legislation—called The Taylor Force Act—that seeks to prevent Americans from unwittingly financing terrorism.

The proposed law is named after a murdered U.S. veteran.

On March 9, 2016, a former U.S. Army officer named Taylor Force was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in Israel. Force, 28, had survived deployments in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, only to be murdered while being part of a tour group for Vanderbilt University, where he was an MBA student studying global entrepreneurship. Ten other people were stabbed before Israeli police killed the attacker.

As a reward for his deed, that family of Force's killer will now get lifetime payments doled out by the Palestinian Authority. The PA passed laws in 2004 and 2013 stipulating that convicted terrorists and their families will receive monthly “payments.” The 2004 law specifies that the money be for the “fighting sector,” which it referred to as an “integral part of the fabric of Palestinian society.”

What the Palestinian ‘fighting sector' makes

The Palestinian Authority pays significant sums for what it has chosen to prioritize legislatively and culturally. According to a Jan. 9, 2018 report by Israel's defense ministry, the PA paid terrorists and their families over $347 million dollars in 2017—$160 million for jailed and released prisoners and $190 for their families.

As Sander Gerber, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and Doug Feith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, have pointed out: The payments and benefits are predicated in part on the length of the sentence; the more people murdered or injured, the greater the payoff.

Toby Young: If Corbyn wins, emigrating to Israel is my clear escape route

I’m currently in Israel on a press trip organised by Bicom — the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Bicom does a good job of getting experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to give talks to journalists and I’ve attended a few in their London offices. But this is the first time I’ve been on one of their legendary excursions to the Holy Land, which they organise about six times a year. In essence, you’re given a whistle-stop tour of the country while being briefed at every turn by senior ministers and officials on both sides of the divide. It’s seventh heaven for foreign policy nerds, but I also have another reason for being here, which is to weigh up the pros and cons of emigrating to Israel.

Believe it or not, my entire family is eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return because Caroline’s father is Jewish. And the idea of moving here is genuinely appealing because I’ve been fanatically pro-Israel since falling in love with the place aged 17. I had just failed all my O-levels and was mooning about feeling like an outcast when my father decided to send me to a kibbutz. It turned out to be the perfect antidote to my adolescent funk.

I found everything about Israel, particularly its origins, deeply affecting, and in spite of not being Jewish I felt as if I’d discovered my people at last. I was inspired by the example of pioneering Zionists like Theodor Herzl to take control of my own destiny. I would return to England, retake my O-levels, go to a sixth form and, God help me, apply to Oxford. And when it all worked out, I felt as if Israel and the wonderful example of its founders had saved me and I swore an oath that I would always defend the country from its detractors. In the 37 years since, I have done my best to keep that promise and been back several times to renew my vows.

Many aspects of contemporary Israel make it an attractive place to live. It is a vibrant liberal democracy, the only truly democratic country in the Middle East. It has a first-rate higher education system, low unemployment and a booming economy. Sustained growth in GDP has transformed Tel Aviv into a sophisticated metropolis, with many of the same cultural amenities as London and New York, and the country is well equipped to withstand any major downturn in the global economy, being virtually self-sufficient in food production.

The UK's condescending press release to Israel

From the British Foreign Office:

Minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt MP said:

The conviction and sentencing of Ahed Tamimi is emblematic of how the unresolved conflict is blighting the lives of a new generation, who should be growing up together in peace, but continue to be divided.

The treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention remains a human rights priority for the UK. We will continue to call upon Israel to improve its practices in line with international law and obligations.

We have offered to help the Israeli authorities through expert-to-expert talks with UK officials. The offer still stands and we hope Israel will take us up on it. While we recognise that Israel has made some improvements, it needs to do much more to safeguard vulnerable people in its care.

What an unbelievably condescending statement. The UK, the paradigm of colonialism for centuries, is telling Israel that it can dispatch "experts" on human rights because how Israel treats prisoners under 18 is clearly a "human rights priority" for England.

I am reminded of what Menachem Begin said in 1981 to the US for its desire to "punish" Israel:
" Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don't behave properly, are slapped across the fingers?"

As I wrote in January after a similar statement from Ward:

The UK has more children under 18 in prison than Israel has in custody - 912, as of November, compared to about 300 in Israeli detention.
The UK's youth prisons are hotbeds of gang violence and makeshift weapons, and children are deprived of basic social services. One child dies in a UK prison every month!
The government is doing little to fix the problems.
Imagine the outcry if, say, France or Germany would publicly reproach the UK over its treatment of child prisoners. Imagine if Netanyahu issued a statement of concern over whether Great Britain is really doing everything it can to reduce the 11% of incarcerated youths who have attempted suicide.
No one blinks when Western nations chide Israel for its actions, but they would never say a word about any other Western nation's actions.

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.

Just another antisemitic article from Jordan

From Assawsana.com:

...In order to love Jordan and to belong to it and to defend the interests of its people, we are resuming the march of parents and grandparents and fighting the Jews inside. We have not changed loyalties. We will not deny the sacrifices of our great-grandfathers. Authentic Arab nationalism, and hostility to Israel

As a result of the attitudes we have taken against Jews at home and abroad, against corruption, against the approach of dependency and impoverishment of the country and the people, and of course against the Jordanian-Israeli treaty of 1994, we pay the price of oppression, deprivation and marginalization.

Today we are the weakest party in the equation. The ruling elite in the country no longer sees Israel as an enemy, and my father and his sons are no longer the solid internal wall on which the regime was based many days in the past.

Yes, there is a suspicious and semi-declared alliance between Jews inside and abroad, they are partners in the interests and privileges and plunder huge wealth, while the vast majority of our people pay a high price, which we are today, and does not need explanation.

Aw, come on, elaborate!

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.