Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, June 10, 2018

06/10 Links: Greenblatt: After four decades of Erekat, Palestinians deserve better; Giuliani: The PA is “not entitled to be a state”; Netanyahu bypasses the Ayatollahs - offers water tech to Iranians

From Ian:

Greenblatt: After four decades of Erekat, Palestinians deserve better

It is time for the Palestinians to be served by leaders other than Saeb Erekat, who for the last 40 years has voiced the same talking points and failed to deliver “anything close” to what the Palestinians want, US Mideast negotiator Jason Greenblatt wrote in an op-ed on Sunday.

Greenblatt, who on a number of occasions has been the target of Erekat’s angry rhetorical fusillades, took to the offensive in a Haaretz piece headlined, “Trump Mideast envoy: The Palestinians deserve so much more than Saeb Erekat.”
“Dr. Erekat – we have heard your voice for decades and it has not achieved anything close to Palestinian aspirations or anything close to a comprehensive peace agreement,” Greenblatt wrote. “Other Palestinian perspectives might help us finally achieve a comprehensive peace agreement where Palestinian and Israeli lives can be better.

“The time for leadership and responsibility is now,” he said. “The time for meeting after meeting of government officials repeating the same talking points is over. The Palestinian people want real action, and they need honest, realistic and decisive solutions.”

Greenblatt wrote that notions that Israel is going away, or that Jerusalem is not the country’s capital, or that the United States is not a critical interlocutor for Mideast peace are all simply “mirages.”

“The reality is that there is an opportunity for peace at hand, and that President Trump and his administration are working to help facilitate a peace that will open up the future of the Palestinian people, if they and their leadership have the courage to seize it,” he concluded.

The trigger for the piece was an article Erekat wrote on May 17, following the move of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the most violent day of rioting along the Gaza security fence, when 62 Palestinians were killed.

Erekat accused the US of “moral bankruptcy and complicity with Israel,” and accused Greenblatt and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman of becoming “nothing less than spokespeople for the Israeli occupation.”

Rudy Giuliani to PMW: The PA is “not entitled to be a state”

Palestinian Media Watch met with Rudy Giuliani, US President Donald Trump's lawyer, on Wednesday, and documented to him the many ways that the PA glorifies terror and terrorists.

PMW’s Director Itamar Marcus and head of Legal Strategies Maurice Hirsch showed the former mayor of New York City PMW’s reports on the PA's payment of salaries to terrorist prisoners, 31 PA schools named after terrorists as well as texts presenting terrorists as role models from PA schoolbooks.

Giuliani’s response was that these activities show the PA to be a “murder machine.” The PA’s response to terror including financial support and honor for terrorists makes them “a prime supporter of terrorism.”

Most significantly, Giuliani concluded that because of the PA’s terror support they are “therefore not entitled to be a state.”

In his statement to PMW, Giuliani focused on the PA’s policy of paying salaries to terrorists:
“The payment of money by the Palestinian Authority to terrorists who are convicted of terrorism is an absolute human rights outrage and a crime in and of itself. To give money to people who slaughter innocent human beings, including children and women and innocent people of all kinds, is a direct contribution to terrorism... The fact that the Palestinian Authority does this, carries this out on a massive scale, is yet another indication that the Palestinian Authority is a prime supporter of terrorism, and therefore not entitled to be a state.” [Giuliani recorded statement to PMW, June 6, 2018]

Giuliani believes that countries must cut off all funding to Palestinian Authority:
“The United States, for example, should not give the Palestinian Authority any money, and not just restrict the use of money, because money is fungible. So if they get money for one purpose, they just don’t use it for that purpose and they move it over to paying terrorists for killing Americans, because many of these terrorists have killed Americans as well as Israelis.”

Rudy Giuliani: The PA is a “murder machine” and “not entitled to be a state”

The New York Times had an article on Friday by Michael David Lukas, a writer who spent a lot of time looking at ancient Jewish cemeteries mostly in Muslim countries like Tunisia and Egypt.

He ends off the article this way:

It might be difficult to find the traces of Jewish history in Kolkata or Cairo or Baghdad or Fez. And it might be difficult to imagine that now-vanished world in which Jewish bakers lived side by side with Muslim doctors, Armenian tailors and Zoroastrian jewelers.

But that’s all the more reason to search out those places. In visiting these semi-abandoned cemeteries and synagogues, in seeking out the remnants of this mostly forgotten past, I’ve tried, in my own small way, to pay my respects to the dead and to remember that lost world in which they lived.

Not once in the article is the reader given any context as to why the Jews who had lived in these places for so long suddenly disappeared.

The taboo of mentioning the obvious fact of Muslim antisemitism - especially after Israel was reborn, but also throughout history - is simply too strong.

Instead of being ethnically cleansed, the Jews who attended these synagogues just magically disappeared.

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The Palestinian foreign ministry issued a statement warning about how Israel is lying to the world about any Jewish history in Jerusalem.

"This campaign includes various fields and areas, whether diplomatic, sports or cultural, and it uses any excuse to pass on its lies and its Judaic narrative about the Holy City and its many historical sites," the ministry said in a statement.

It warned that Israel is bringing international visitors to visit "occupied Jerusalem with an infusion of fabricated information and the falsification of the facts about occupation."

In a sane world, every enlightened nation that knows a modicum of history would condemn these antisemitic statements that deny Jewish history. But in the world we live in, a putative "nation" can spout out any lies it wants without any fear of a real nation (or major media outlet) standing up to it and saying that as long as the PA denies reality, it cannot expect and does not deserve any respect.

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From News.com.au:

A STUDENT newspaper in Sydney has been slammed for featuring a female suicide bomber who killed dozens of Israeli soldiers on its front page.

Honi Soit, which is produced by the University of Sydney’s student women’s collective, printed a large picture of Hamida al-Taher with a rifle in her hand on the cover of its women’s edition.

The issue, printed a fortnight ago, was dedicated to the struggle against “Israeli colonisation” and labelled al-Taher — who killed more than 50 people when she blew herself up in a notorious attack Southern Lebanon in 1985 — a “martyr”.

The pro-Palestine activist was a member of Syria’s Arab Socialist Ba’ath party.

Now, the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS) has hit back at the newspaper and called for a public apology over the front cover, and another front cover on April 16 which depicted a lit petrol bomb alongside words supporting a boycott of Israel.

“These editions of Honi Soit display a blatant disdain for Israeli victims of violence, an attitude that has left Jewish students feeling deeply alienated,” AUJS said in a statement.

“This attitude has no place at this university … AUJS calls on the teams who produced the special editions to issue a public apology and affirm their commitment to nonviolent paths to peace.”

The AUJS added the front pages were “deliberately alluding to and endorsing violence as a legitimate form of protest”. The organisation said it had raised a complaint with the University of Sydney.

However, Women’s officers Madeline Ward and Jessica Syed, who produced the al-Tahir cover, defended their actions in an online Honi Soit article.

“We were aware that Hamida al-Taher car-bombed an Israeli military encampment … (but) her actions occurred in the context of the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon, i.e.: a war,” they wrote.

“We believe in and support the right for people to resist occupation and oppression, and that Hamida’s actions are far less shocking than the fact Israel murdered over 58 peaceful Palestinian protesters, the youngest of which being an eight-month-old baby.”

The newspaper’s president Imogen Grant reacted by saying AUJS was trying to stifle free speech. Meanwhile, Jazzlyn Breen and Ray Prout, titled “Queer officers” at the student women’s collective, defended their molotov cocktail cover graphic, adding that AUJS took it the wrong way.

“The molotov cocktail was very obviously in relation to the violent history of the queer liberation movement against the continued oppression which has targeted queer identifying people throughout modern history,” they said in a combined statement for Honi Soit.

Campuses are getting worse and worse.

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06/09 Links: Iran Admits To Facilitating 9/11 Terror Attacks; Does Mueller have an Israel problem?; Virulent anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan loses his blue check; Kate Upton poses in Israel for Maxim's Hot 100

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Reframing the Middle East narrative my ten-point guide

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that those trying to defend Israel in the court of public opinion needed a strategic rethink.

Defending Israel against the calumnies being thrown at it is to concede defeat from the start by engaging upon ground defined by its enemies. Instead, Israel’s defenders need to go onto the front foot. They need to do to its enemies what is done to Israel: to paint them as extreme, unconscionable and a mortal threat to life and liberty. But with one key difference: that whereas Israel’s enemies do this through lies, bigotry and irrationality, its defenders should do it through truth, morality and reason.

They should do it by repeated use of high-level speeches, press conferences, videos and other platforms to take the attack to the enemy: proactively and aggressively to destroy the premises on which they base their attacks by redefining who is truly victim and victimiser in the Middle East; reclaiming the language from those who have hijacked it and inverted its meaning in order to twist the western mind; and proactively and aggressively to attack named governments and politicians, media, intellectuals and others for supporting the “Palestinians”’ unconscionable agenda, using their own values to hold their feet to the fire.

Here’s my handy, cut-out-and-keep ten-point guide to the essential messages that need to be got across by proactive, aggressive and repeatedly reinforced initiatives in order to reframe the narrative.

- Support indigenous people. The Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. While many others have lived there over the centuries, the Jews are the only people – as a people – for whom it was ever their national kingdom, and the only people still around today who had their homeland there taken away from them by force.
- Stop Arab colonialism. Historically, Arabs and Muslims were colonial invaders who occupied the land of Israel by force. The “Palestinians” are Arab colonialists who aim once again to occupy the land and wipe out the indigenous inhabitants, the Jewish people, from their own homeland.
- End the lie of Palestinian identity. There never was a Palestinian people. Palestine was the insulting name given to Judea by the Romans. The Arabs living there at the time of the Balfour Declaration identified themselves mainly as southern Syrians or else just as Arabs. Palestinian identity was invented solely to rewrite history and destroy the Jewish claim to the land of Israel. Anyone who supports the Palestinian cause is therefore an accessory to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish right of national self-determination.
- Denounce anti-Zionism as anti-Judaism. The Jews are a nation. Many fail to realise that because they think Judaism is merely a religion. The essence of Judaism, however, is the religious obligations of the Jewish nation within the land of Israel which is sanctified to that purpose. Denying the Jewish nation its own land is therefore a direct assault on Judaism itself.

Iran Admits To Facilitating 9/11 Terror Attacks

Iranian officials, in a first, have admitted to facilitating the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. by secretly aiding the free travel of al Qaeda operatives who eventually went on to fly commercial airliners into the Twin Towers in New York City, according to new remarks from a senior Iranian official.

Mohammad-Javad Larijani, an international affairs assistant in the Iran's judiciary, disclosed in Farsi-language remarks broadcast on Iran's state-controlled television that Iranian intelligence officials secretly helped provide the al Qaeda attackers with passage and gave them refuge in the Islamic Republic, according to an English translation published by Al Arabiya.

"Our government agreed not to stamp the passports of some of them because they were on transit flights for two hours, and they were resuming their flights without having their passports stamped. However their movements were under the complete supervision of the Iranian intelligence," Larijani was quoted as saying.

The remarks represent the first time senior Iranian officials have publicly admitted to aiding al Qaeda and playing a direct role in facilitating the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. government has long accused Iran of playing a role in the attacks and even fined the Islamic Republic billions as a result. The U.S. 9/11 Commission assembled to investigate the attacks concluded that Iran played a role in facilitating the al Qaeda terrorists. (h/t jzaik)

'Hamas failed twice'

Kamil Abu-Rukun, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said on Friday that Hamas had failed in its attempts to enflame the Gaza border area.

"Hamas failed twice - once because it invested money in terror instead of taking care of the needs of the population and again because the Gazans did not join the march,” he said.

"The time has come to say it: Hamas failed in everything related to the so-called 'March of Return.' In recent months, Hamas leaders have promised a mass crossing of the border fence, but this has not happened,” added Abu-Rukun.

Earlier on Friday, Abu-Rukun addressed Gaza residents directly via the Arabic-language page of COGAT, noting that the Hamas terror organization is exploiting and endangering them by encouraging them to take part in the violent border riots.

"The Hamas terrorist organization leads the march and sends you towards the border fence, thus endangering your lives, while its leaders are in a safe place following the events from a distance. Gaza residents - think for yourselves and do not blindly follow a leadership that takes advantage of you!” he wrote.

06/08 Links Pt2: Phillips: The lethal moral confusion of saying Kaddish for Hamas; Leftist groups accused of inciting Diaspora Jews against Israel

From Ian:

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Mired in delusions

Up until the Six Day War, Jordan ruled Judea and Samaria, strangling any attempt by its residents to develop nationalistic Palestinian sentiments independent of the Hashemite Kingdom. Liberating these territories from Jordanian occupation freed the Arab populace there from the fear of the Jordanian intelligence network. Israel allowed them to speak, write and publicize the idea of Palestinian nationalist aspirations, just as long as they did not act overtly against Israel. Paradoxically, the Six Day War allowed the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to invent the idea of a "Palestinian people" and develop it to the proportions it has reached, to the point where its spokesmen are able to convince the Argentinian soccer team to cancel their planned trip to Jerusalem to play a friendly game against Israel's team.

On the other hand, the entire idea of "Palestinian nationalism" has been falling apart in front of our eyes, ever since its main proponent – the PLO – signed a peace treaty with Israel in September 1993. The PLO even cooperates with Israel's security forces in order to stifle other organizations . Hamas destroyed the Palestinian nationalist idea when it carried out a coup in Gaza in June 2007. It seems that the idea was not any stronger than the nationalist Arab idea that was a victim of the Six Day War.

This rather bleak situation has Arabs, stuck on the front lines, running from one modern ideology imported from Europe – and destroyed in the Six Day War – to another, despite the fact that the only form of government that can work in the Arab world is the tribal situation created by the Middle Eastern culture of tribe and desert. The Gulf Emirates are the only success story in the region because each of them is based on one dominant tribe.

It is about time for the Arab world to awaken from its delusions, and put an end, with Western and Russian aid, to the artificial, failed states established in the region by colonial powers. On the physical and ideological ruins of those states the world could create successful, prosperous emirates ruled by the local families, like those in the Gulf.

Melanie Phillips: The lethal moral confusion of saying Kaddish for Hamas

The Hamas onslaught against Israel at the Gaza border fence has illustrated a danger for the Jewish people even more fundamental than the declared attempt to invade Israel and slaughter Jews.

This is the fallout among the Jews themselves.

In London, a group of young Jews assembled outside parliament to recite the kaddish prayer for the Hamas terrorists who were killed while attacking the fence in the most violent riots on May 15.

In the US, Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote: “It is a horrific tragedy that so many people have been killed and wounded at the Gaza border.”

Such sentiments produced a visceral reaction. The Jewish mourners-for-Hamas were variously described as disgusting little trolls, repulsive, scumbags, traitors and Kapos.

This reaction in turn produced remonstration from certain liberal Jews condemning such language and decrying the substitution of insult for civilized debate.

That point in itself is indeed important. Debate should always be reasoned and criticism should be free of gratuitous insults.

It was however, dispiriting that those condemning such insults voiced deep concern over the damage being done to the Jewish community – not by the mourners-for- Hamas, but only by those who were insulting them.

It was shocking and distressing to witness the Jewish mourners-for-Hamas endorsing the lies being used against Israel and lending succor to the enemies of the Jewish people.

Caroline Glick: If not now, then when?

Whereas the leadership of these massive movements of non-Orthodox American Jews may have decided to embrace antisemitism and antisemites, a significant portion of their membership have no interest in joining them. Now that the Reform and Conservative movements have embraced antisemitic voices and ideals, these committed Jews are increasingly recognizing that they have no place in the movements they have belonged to all of their lives.

They are and will, in ever increasing numbers, continue to look for a new way to express and live Jewish lives.

In an interview with Makor Rishon last week, Deputy Minister Michael Oren presented a proposal to bring ten thousand non-Orthodox American Jews to Israel on aliya every year. Oren recommends that Israel provide financial and other incentives to young non-Orthodox Jews to come to Israel. Aliya, he explains, is the surest way to prevent intermarriage and assimilation. “Someone who makes aliya settles here, marries and starts a family, [and] will most likely have Jewish kids.”

Oren noted that the Reform and Conservative movements “set a goal to preserve the Jewish people, number- wise and value-wise, in light of the challenge of the modern world,” a goal they are failing to meet.

Now that these movements have abandoned this goal in favor of the morass of “miscegenation” and a reinvention of Judaism as the anti-Judaism Chabon upholds and IfNotNow embraces, it is Israel’s duty to take it on.

There are a number of explanations for the Reform and Conservative movements’ decision to destroy themselves by embracing antisemitic Jews and their messages of hatred. But understanding their decision is not the most pressing challenge that Israel and the non-Orthodox Jews of America, who do not accept this decision, face. The most urgent order of business is to minimize the damage they can cause Israel and maximize the number of American Jews who will not go down with them.

06/08 Links Pt1: Pierre Rehov: Exposing the Truth About the Gaza Riots; PA Supreme Shari'a Judge: The Jews Have No Connection To Jerusalem; Giuliani: PA a 'renegade group' of 'terrorists and thieves'

From Ian:

Pierre Rehov: Exposing the Truth About the Gaza Riots

Islamist organizations attacking Israel have always had a propagandist’s keen sense of vocabulary in their communication with the Western world.

Rightly convinced that few of us are able or even interested in deciphering their original speeches — which reveal their true intentions — they have been flooding us for decades with erroneous concepts and false claims, all playing on our desperate desire to do “good” and fight for the oppressed. They try to use our own history and heartstrings to make us react in a way that will be favorable to them.

And over the years, their terminology has been accepted by everyone, including — it must be said — in Israel itself.

For weeks, Hamas and other terrorist organizations have undertaken what they want the world to believe is a peaceful and “pacifist” popular uprising.

Once again, their deceptive use of vocabulary is clever and manipulative. On one level, these “protests” are peaceful demonstrations, thereby serving as cover for multiple attempts to destroy the separation barrier between Gaza and Israel, kidnap soldiers, kill Israeli and Jewish civilians, and launch terrorist attacks.

Why are the Palestinians “protesting” at the fence? The true answer is to destroy and overrun the Jewish state. But according to Hamas, they are simply seeking a “right of return” for the descendants of “refugees.”

Buses chartered by Hamas and Islamic Jihad — decorated with giant keys and illuminated names of missing villages supposed to symbolize this “right of return” — show up every Friday in front of mosques and schools in Gaza. Hamas has created a manipulated population, ready to kill themselves for these cynical or obsolete words and ideas.

MEMRI: Palestinian Authority Supreme Shari'a Judge And Abbas' Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: The Jews Have No Connection To Jerusalem; This Is An Imperialist Myth And Distortion Of History

Mahmoud Al-Habbash, the PA Supreme Shari'a Judge and President Mahmoud 'Abbas's advisor for religious affairs, said at a June 4, 2018 conference that the struggle in Jerusalem is between the rightful owners of the city – the Muslims and Christians – and "some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil." He added that the state of Israel is an imperialist Western enterprise whose purpose is to weaken and divide the Arab world, and that the claim that the Jews have a historical connection to Jerusalem is nothing but a distortion of history.

The conference at which Al-Habbash spoke, organized by "the Muslim-Christian Council for the Salvation of Jerusalem and the Holy Places" and the Organization for Muslim Cooperation (OIC) under the title "The Monotheistic Religions against the Judaization of Jerusalem and Its Holy Places," was also attended by other PA officials, including the Palestinian Mufti, as well as other Christian and Muslim religious leaders, and ambassadors.

The following are translated excerpts fromn Al-Habbash's statements at the confrence:
"The battle for Jerusalem is not a religious one; it a political battle between the rightful owners [of the city] and the imperialists. This obligates us to raise the Arab and Muslim world's awareness of the Arab, Muslim and Christian identity of Jerusalem...

"We must be careful when using a particular term or word in connection with Jerusalem, for this is not a conflict with the Jews, but a struggle between the [real] residents and owners of Jerusalem, who are Muslim, Christian and Arab, and some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil. The catastrophe of Jerusalem did not begin in 1967 or 1948, or with the Balfour Declaration. It began much earlier, about 450 years ago, when imperialist calls began to be heard in the West.

"Palestine is not the [Jewish] Promised Land or the land of the [Jewish] forefathers – for if it is, why did they consider it as [only] one of several options when they started looking for a place for their state?...

There was an old man who used to sweep the area next to the Kotel, the Western Wall. When asked why he, such an old man, was working, doing menial labor he explained that in Auschwitz a Nazi pointed to the smoke billowing up from the crematorium and told him: “You see that smoke? That’s your family going up in ashes and soon you will also be there!” His response was to answer: “No. I will live and I will see Jerusalem.”

By a miracle he did live and to him sweeping the plaza and picking up other people’s trash was a glorious gift from heaven because he was blessed enough to do it at the Kotel, in the heart of Jerusalem.

For 3000 years Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish Nation. Even in exile, when the Jewish people lost sovereignty over Jerusalem, she was still the heart of the Nation.

Jerusalem was, and still is, the place Jews turn to in prayer, three times, every day. Jerusalem is upheld in every Jewish wedding as more important than the happiness of the union between bride and groom. The Passover Seder, marking the exodus of the Children of Israel from slavery, is complete only when we recite: “Next year in Jerusalem, rebuilt!” because THAT is the true end of the journey from slavery into freedom.

The Jews of Ethiopia dreamt of Jerusalem as did the Jews trapped in Soviet Russia. Jerusalem is the heart of Zion, always has been and always will be.

Interestingly this well-known fact is now being put forth as something that is debatable. The simple statement that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is “controversial.” Why?

For centuries the nations of the world have been ambivalent about the Jewish people. On one hand they enjoyed the benefits we brought to their lands (education, medicine, inventions) on the other hand they were disturbed by our “otherness,” the unwillingness to adopt their religions, worship their Gods, become like them.

The Jewish people rejected ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Christianity and Islam thus providing impetus to find fault with the Jewish people which quickly morphed into outright persecution. Modern Jew-hate is no different, that too is a reaction to a people who retain their “otherness”, sticking to their morals, values and nationhood when socialist/globalist influences imply that it is wrong to do so.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned / Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned."

The Jewish people began returning to Zion as soon as they could.

My grandmother grew up in British Mandate Palestine (a name given twice to this land in attempt to disconnect the Jews from Zion, a name that is now being used again, for the same reason). As a young girl she felt the cruel ambivalence of British soldiers who laughed as she, just 12 years old, was running for her life, trying to escape an Arab lynch mob. Instead of helping her, they took bets on the odds of the child being able to outrun the men chasing her with knives in their hands.

The day after the State of Israel was officially declared the Arabs of the land rose up in attempt to destroy the newly birthed country. Everyone was surprised when they did not succeed.

In 1967, Egypt, Jordan and Syria rose up in a coordinated attack, certain that together they could destroy the Jewish State. The world watched with baited breath, certain that there was no way the Jewish people could survive. Instead of being overrun, Israel stunned the world by, in just SIX days, not only beating back three combined armies but also recapturing the Jordanian occupied Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the biblical heartland of Israel – Judea and Samaria.

This week Hamas has planned large demonstrations (riots) in protest of Israel’s return to what is most sacred to the Nation of Israel (Jerusalem), to protest that Israel did not disappear in ’67 and actually regained what was stolen from us centuries before.

Or to put it more simply, they are protesting that they lost the battle to destroy Israel in ’67.

This is the same reason Hamas planned their “March of Return” which was supposed to culminate in an enormous riot that would overrun Israel’s borders and wreak havoc on the day America opened their embassy in Jerusalem – May 14^th, the date when the State of Israel was officially declared in 1948.

In other words, Hamas planned an enormous protest on the date Israel’s independence was declared, on the date America acknowledged that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

Or to put it even more simply, Hamas planned an enormous violent riot in protest of Israel’s existence and America’s acknowledgment of that existence.

Israel’s Prime Minister just returned from a trip visiting Germany, France and the UK.

French President Emmanuel Macron had the audacity to tell Netanyahu that moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem caused Gazans to die. This statement is very revealing.

Opening the American embassy in Jerusalem was a symbolic recognition of reality. It did not create reality, it did not change reality. What it did do was declare that the United States would no longer participate in the game of ambivalence about the existence of the Jewish people and the return to our ancestral homeland, sending the message: “Yes, we understand. The Jews are in Zion and they are not going anywhere.”

Macron’s statement means that the acknowledgement of the eternal Jewish bond to Jerusalem forced Arabs to riot and thus be killed. That it is wrong to accept as fact that Jews belong in Jerusalem, that Jerusalem has always been and always will be the capital of the Jewish State.

In his mind it is better to continue to play the game of ambivalence - on one hand saying that antisemitism is wrong, on the other hand stating that one must not acknowledge Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

Maybe the Jews will go away. Maybe that will appease the Arabs.

In the UK, Teresa May told Prime Minister Netanyahu that she “understands Israel’s right to defend herself but she is concerned about Gazan lives.”

There should no “but” in that sentence.

Israel would not have to defend herself if we weren’t under attack. And the Gazan lives Ms. May is concerned about? Is she unaware that Hamas is proudly claiming most of the dead as their own operatives? Not just members of the party but actual, professional militants?

With one little word Teresa May negated Israel’s sovereign right to protect the lives of her citizens and maintain her borders. “But” created an equation where terrorists hell bent on killing Israelis are the same as Israelis who want to live in peace in their homes without being murdered.

How is this different from the British soldiers laughing and taking bets on my grandmother’s life? They knew that to live the little girl needed to escape the lynch mob BUT they weren’t about to intervene, maybe the mob would catch the Jewish child and the soldiers would have their afternoon entertainment…

The American declaration did not cause violence. It did not “trigger” violence. What it did do is rip off the mask behind which Jew haters hide, denying the validity of excuses used to sustain the cruel ambivalence that, in its silence, encourages violence against the Nation of Israel.

It was a declaration that: “We aren’t playing that game anymore.” And THAT is what is forcing all other nations on earth to chose sides. Will they recognize that the Jewish people have returned to our ancestral homeland, never to leave again? Or will they continue to maintain their ambivalence, secretly hoping that the Jewish people will disappear?

The riots Israel is currently experiencing, the attempts to attack us from the ground and from the air are not a product of Israeli or American policy. They are a reaction to Israel’s existence, Arab frustration that the Nation of Israel is home to stay, that all of their efforts to make us disappear failed.

What fuels the violence is leaders like Macron and others who send the message that Arab violence is only to be expected because Arabs feel wronged by the existence of Israel and her eternal ties to Jerusalem.

This is not a pleasant picture but there is actually hope here. We must make it impossible to continue to deny reality. It is up to each and every one of us to openly declare that we will no longer play the game. There will be no more attempts to appease violence by not acknowledging Jewish connection to Jerusalem. There is no room for debate. No room for question. Zion is home to stay.

When it becomes no longer possible to deny reality, peace will become possible.

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A few Jews reportedly joined Iran's anti-Israel rallies

Iranian media is reporting that a group of Jews joined the annual Al Quds Day anti-Israel rallies today.

The Jewish member of the Islamic Shura Council, Dr. Siamak Moreh Sedgh, bragged that there were twice as many Jews rallying for Israel's destruction compared to last year.

It is possible that this means that the number increased from 2 to 4.

Sedgh said, "When there is an external threat against our country, we must all unite among ourselves and declare our attachment as followers to the leader of the revolution so that the enemy can not imagine that he can have the slightest chance of stirring internal differences."

In other words - Sedgh is practicing job security. Whether he believes anything he is saying is not the point: he has been given a role as the token Jew in Iran's government and he must be called upon to say the right words when called upon. Saying anything else would mean jail at best, being murdered at worst.

I didn't see any photos of the Jews supposedly demonstrating.

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Gazans claim Israel deliberately set "return" tents, tires on fire

Gaza media is quoting "witnesses"claiming that a fire that broke out at one of the sites of today's planned riots was deliberately set by an Israeli aircraft.

According to these claims, an Israeli drone fired on a tent and a pile of tires near the fence east of Rafah this morning, hours ahead of the planned riots.

The media says that the fire was large before Gaza firefighters could extinguish it.

Photos don't seem to show such a large fire.

It seems more likely that some Gazan accidentally set the fire and decided to blame Israel. Yet even if for some reason Israel decided to go after a single set of tents out of scores of such tents near the border, it is ironic to see Gazans complaining about someone deliberately setting fires, or complaining that Israel burned their tires before they had a chance to do it themselves.

Other news reports indicate that incendiary balloons and kites will be a major part of Friday's planned riots in Gaza - along with a play saying that Israelis are like Nazis.

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06/07 Links Pt2: Argentine FM: Threats to Soccer Team for Game in Israel Worse than Those from ISIS; No, Islamophobia is not the new anti‑Semitism; Lumish: Democratic Party Anti-Jewish Trends

From Ian:

Burning money: the urgent need to rethink UNRWA

Bureaucratic, badly managed, constantly overspending, UNRWA is almost always in a state of crisis and in the need of a bail out. And not only does it get one every year, but it receives its yearly lifeline without being obligated to restructure or reform. This is not to say that UNRWA does not do good work. It does plenty. Shelter, healthcare and education benefit millions not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but also in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. There’s also emergency relief, sanitation and psychological support for the 1948 Palestinian refugees (and to some extent 1967 refugees), and their descendants.

But here lies the problem. Instead of weaning refugees from dependency as was originally intended, over the course of decades Palestinians became reliant on UNRWA, whose operational definition of a ‘refugee’ includes the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the original refugees. In doing so, instead of encouraging the resettlement and rehabilitation of descendants of the original refugees, UNRWA, with the support of western nations, has perpetuated their misery.

And then there’s UNRWA’s less than savoury activities. During Israel’s 2014 war against Hamas in Gaza, for example, there were several cases of UNRWA facilities (schools or hospitals) being used by militants to hide missiles to be fired at civilians in Israeli towns. There have been cases of UNRWA summer camps being named after terrorists and numerous occasions of UNRWA teachers inciting anti-Semitic violence. This led the government of Canada’s then Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cease funding UNRWA, a policy reversed by his successor Justin Trudeau in 2016.

And here lies the dilemma. While UNRWA provides essential services to millions of Palestinians and the humanitarian consequences of ceasing such work would no doubt be dire, UNRWA is also an obstacle to peace as it perpetuates one of the most intractable aspects of the Arab-Israeli impasse, the Palestinian refugee problem. Not only is the institutional reform and restructuring of UNRWA essential, but so are its very aims and objectives. The international community should reappraise the role of UNRWA before other countries follow Trump and Harper and cut funding.

Michael Lumish: Democratic Party Anti-Jewish Trends

The Democratic Party and the progressive-left is becoming increasingly hostile toward the nation-state of the Jewish people.

This has been coming for decades.

If you look at this 2018 poll from the Pew Research Center you will see that currently, about 79 percent of Republicans favor Israel, while the great majority of Democrats do not. Only 27 percent of Democrats favor the Jews in the Middle East versus their racist, misogynistic, theocratic Islamist enemies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, if not the Palestinian Authority.

And we might keep in mind that many those same people are not just hostile toward Israel - for "social justice" reasons, no less - but toward the United States, as well.

In a recent Facebook comment, I referenced the fact that "it is definitely true that Republicans are more supportive of Israel than are Democrats. It's not even close." And I used the Pew Research Center image above as significant evidence of that fact.

Brendan O’Neill: No, Islamophobia is not the new anti‑Semitism

It is the definition of historical illiteracy to compare Islamophobia to anti-Semitism. And yet that is what is happening. People who feel put out by the discussion of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and possibly even envious of the attention that anti-Jewish prejudice is receiving in comparison with anti-Muslim prejudice, have taken to saying: ‘What about the cancer of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party? When are we talking about that?’ They fail to realise the fundamental difference between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: the former is one of the world’s oldest hatreds and has caused the deaths of millions of people; the latter is a word invented by the Runnymede Trust in 1997 to demonise criticism of Islam.

The speed with which public attention has been dragged from the serious problem of a new anti-Semitism in certain left-wing circles, and focused instead on what a Guardian writer describes as Britain’s ‘foundational corruption’ of Islamophobia, has been extraordinary. And telling. It speaks to a tendency among Muslim community leaders – not ordinary Muslims – to muscle in on Jewish suffering. Self-elected spokespeople for Britain’s Muslims have a tendency to bristle at any suggestion that hatred for Jews might be a specific, pronounced problem. So when Holocaust Memorial Day was set up in 2001, it was boycotted by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) on the basis that it wasn’t ‘inclusive’ – that is, it didn’t refer to Muslim suffering, such as at Srebrenica. And now the same MCB has responded to the public discussion of left anti-Semitism effectively by saying, ‘What about Islamophobia?’.

Any public focus on Jewish pain seems to invite from the MCB and other Muslim leaders the almost Pavlovian response of: ‘What about Muslim pain?’ It’s a creepy competitiveness, almost identitarian jealousy, that has the impact, intentional or not, of downplaying the problem of anti-Semitism. I mean, if you are going to balk even at the idea that the Holocaust was a uniquely horrific crime, the greatest crime of the 20th century, then you have signed up, whether wittingly or unwittingly, for an effort at least to relativise anti-Semitism.

Algerian Intellectual Rachid Benaïssa: The West Has No Alternative But Islam pic.twitter.com/8e0JuCcyHR
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 7, 2018

Saudi writer says Israel is subjecting Palestinians to a "Holocaust"

From Saudi Gazette, an op ed by Tariq A. Al-Maeena:

Every time I hear that leaders around the world gather at monuments to solemnly remember the Holocaust of the previous century, I want to scream about another Holocaust that has been going on before our eyes for the past 65 years and more.

This one is orchestrated by none other than the descendants of the first Holocaust, who today form the Israeli government. Israeli occupation forces have been systematically murdering and maiming the innocent in Palestine for over seven decades now.

The Free World could be forgiven during World War II for the crimes Hitler committed against various groups. News did not travel very fast in those days, and neither were there instantaneous broadcasts of live pictures and film illustrating the viciousness of the Nazi occupation.

However, today we should not forgive ourselves for keeping quiet. For we have been witnessing live some of the events as they have unfolded. Who can forget the tragic image of a father shielding his eight-year-old son, as Israeli forces callously shot him dead while the cameras were running? Or the image of Rachel Corrie, an American from Seattle who defiantly stood in the face of Israeli bulldozers, only to be violently crushed to death by the Caterpillar’s blades?

In the past three years, Saudi Arabia airstrikes have killed more civilians in Yemen (about 5000) than Israeli airstrikes have in Gaza in the past three wars.

Once again, the reason this article is newsworthy isn't because a clueless Arab newspaper chooses to publish the opinions of a hateful, ignorant columnist.

The reason this is newsworthy is because not a single Arab reader will publicly criticize Al-Maeena by telling him that his accusations are false and offensive to every human being. Not one will explain that comparing the Holocaust to anything Israel does is an insult to Jews, to Holocaust victims and to anyone who has a brain and knows seventh-grade level history. No one will point out to him that he would never compare the actions of any country, including Saudi Arabia, to the Holocaust - except Israel which is the only country in the region that actually tries to minimize civilian casualties.

It is the Arab world's silence in the face of such perverted and sickening accusations that damns the entire Arab world, which has killed and expelled more Palestinians alone - let alone hundreds of thousands of other Arabs - than Israel can ever be accused of.

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.

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

As you probably know, Gaza Arabs have been launching kites and helium balloons across the border with fiery payloads, and they have set huge blazes in nearby agricultural fields, nature reserves, and even the campus of Sapir College (just south of Sderot and 4.5 km from the border of the Gaza strip). Large areas have already burned, and new fires are being started all the time. Farmers have lost millions, and plant and animal life in the region will not recover for years. Nobody has died in the fires yet, but firefighters imperil themselves regularly trying to put them out.

There is a debate about how to stop these attacks. Shoot them, some say. Well, it seems that there is a legal problem. You can’t just shoot civilians for possession of a kite or a balloon. And after it is in the air, the terrorist that released it is a criminal that has to be apprehended, not summarily executed. So the only way you can shoot them is to catch them precisely at the moment that they are about to launch the incendiary device, so as to stop them from doing it. And best shoot at their legs. Good luck with this.

So the talk turns to technology. Drones to cut the kite strings and similar ideas. Some model airplane hobbyists already took down a few of them with fishhooks attached to their planes. But hundreds have still gotten through.

Recently Israel sent a shipment of Tamir interceptors, the projectiles used by the Iron Dome system, south to the Gaza envelope area. The Iron Dome not only intercepts the Hamas-produced Qassam rockets, but it can even take out a tiny mortar shell. The Tamirs are expensive (though it can be argued that the true marginal cost of a Tamir, after spreading the development costs over a large number of units, is more like $5,000 than the oft-quoted $50,000) and usually two are fired to intercept a Qassam, which costs Hamas a few hundred dollars to build. Mortar shells can be had for as little as $6 each!

All this has a familiar ring. As Bret Stephens said, “Why is nothing expected of Palestinians, and everything forgiven, while everything is expected of Israelis, and nothing forgiven?”

We have built a multi-tiered missile defense system which includes Iron Dome, but also several other components designed to intercept medium and long-range missiles. The complete system is fabulously expensive, but will provide a level of defense that no other country in the world can match. Of course we need this. Israel’s small size and concentrated population make it vulnerable to missile attacks, and our enemies know it and have invested heavily in this area.

That doesn’t mean that we can sit back and let our enemies throw everything they have at us. None of these systems promises 100% success, any defensive system that doesn’t involve science-fiction technology can be overwhelmed by a massive enough attack, and the economic imbalance inherent in using a Tamir – no matter how low we make the marginal cost – to kill a $6 mortar round becomes painful.

But there is another issue here, which is surfacing in connection with the incendiary kites, and in general with the “great march of return” and our response to it. Israel loves technology, because it makes it possible to win wars without hurting anyone. We love defensive technology that enables us to bat away enemy rockets, and we love offensive technology that allows us to precisely take out a military target with no collateral damage. Nothing is cooler than sending a missile through a window to kill a bunch of terrorists without upsetting their wives and children on the next floor.

This kind of warfare supposedly protects us in today’s hyper-litigious world where we are attacked by brigades of lawyers working for “human rights” NGOs, paid by our sophisticated European enemies – the descendants of the pogromists who murdered our ancestors, and now, in the name of humanity, try to prevent us from defending ourselves.

Except that it doesn’t protect us. The exquisite care with which the IDF repelled the popular invasion from Gaza did not prevent us from being accused of war crimes by the media and by the NGOs. If Hezbollah should launch its tens of thousands of rockets from South Lebanon, and we are forced to destroy the launchers embedded in civilian houses, all of our warnings and all of our precision strikes will not prevent the accusations and attempts to impose international sanctions against us.

There are two reasons for this. One is that the international deck is stacked against us, either because the players don’t think Jews should be sovereign anywhere in the Middle East (the position of most Muslim nations) or because – like French President Macron – they cynically pursue their economic or political interests, even if it should be obvious to them that their actions make war or even genocide more likely.

That isn’t news, and it isn’t likely to change. The other reason is that Israel’s policies over the last few years have taught our enemies that appeals to “morality” and international law (real or imagined) actually affect Israel’s behavior and limit our defensive responses, even to murderous attacks directed at us.

With our Iron Domes, our “roof knocks,” our exaggerated care when authorizing snipers to shoot at Arabs trying to breach our borders, our use of low-yield weapons in targeted killings, our tolerance for continued low-level terrorism like rock-throwing, and our bombing of empty military installations, we are training our enemies. We are teaching them one basic principle: it’s normal for you to try to kill Jews.

Do Gazans hate us? Let’s build them an artificial island. Could anything be crazier?

Oh, we’ll defend ourselves, either passively or with minimal offensive force. But we won’t get mad and really try to hurt you. These are not the Jews of Kishinev or of Hebron c. 1929. We will fight back if necessary. But we understand your need to kill us.

As a result of our restraint, demands are placed on us to restrain ourselves further. And as a result of the message of “understanding” that we send to our enemies, they keep devising and trying out new ways to kill us. Why shouldn’t they? In the Middle East, being good to your enemies is perceived as weakness, which invites attack.

The final answer to the kites won’t come from technology, because if we could push a button and bring them all down, Hamas would just come up with a new weapon, a new delivery system for their boundless hate.

No, the solution to this and other problems requires a fundamental change in our way of thinking. I believe that the present defensive mentality is based on cowardice and the internalization of the pervasive antisemitism of our enemies, both the “hot” ones in Gaza and the “cool” ones in Europe. To some extent, we ourselves believe that it is acceptable to shoot at Jews.

The question shouldn’t be “how can we stop incendiary kites?” Rather, we should ask “how we can hurt the Gazans – both the Hamas leadership and the people that support them and share their hatred – so badly, so disproportionally, that they will be very sorry that they tried to burn our country.

Deterrence doesn’t only come from threats, Mr. Lieberman. The enemy has to believe that you will carry them out. A truly brutal response to the kite attacks could be a place to start.

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.

06/07 Links Pt1: Palestine- failing the test of history; Hamas wants Gaza border protesters to die; Sohrab Ahmari: Anything for the Ayatollah; America’s Cash-for-Genocide Program in Syria

From Ian:

Palestine- failing the test of history

Merit is no qualification for freedom…. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour's occupying you is greater than the profit. -From a letter by T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a.”Lawrence of Arabia”) published July 22, 1920, in The Times of London setting out a case for the political independence for the Arabs in the Middle East.

Despite being written almost a century ago Lawrence’s diagnosis is still extremely pertinent in assessing the validity of the frequently aired view that "the Palestinians deserve a state of their own."

Indeed, such views have been explicitly expounded by US Administrations for well over a decade from George W. Bush to Barack Obama ,who both incorporated the idea into their "visions" for the Middle East.

Cannot condition national sovereignty on regime type
In the past, several pro-Israeli pundits have tried to dispute the widely accepted contention that "the Palestinians do indeed deserve a state" Some, like author Naomi Ragen, have warned of the unsavory nature that such a state would take – devoid of any semblance of law and order and due process, tolerance of religious diversity, right of political dissidence, freedom of expression, or regard for the status of women. Others, like former Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky, have argued that Palestinian statehood should be conditioned on the emergence of Palestinian democratization.

Regrettably, despite factual accuracy and moral validity, objections of this ilk cannot serve as a binding political criterion for national independence.

Sohrab Ahmari: Anything for the Ayatollah

The full history of the Obama administration’s nuclear dealings with Iran has yet to be written, not least because many of the details remain shrouded in secrecy. The bits of the story that do seep out into the public sphere invariably reinforce a single theme: that of Barack Obama’s utter abjection and pusillanimity before Tehran, and his corresponding contempt for the American people and their elected representatives.

Wednesday’s bombshell Associated Press scoop detailing the Obama administration’s secret effort to help Tehran gain access to the American financial system was a case study. In the months after Iran and the great powers led by the U.S. agreed on the nuclear deal, the Obama Treasury Department issued a special license that would have permitted the Tehran regime to convert some $6 billion in assets held in Omani rials into U.S. dollars before eventually trading them for euros. That middle step—the conversion from Omani to American currency—would have violated sanctions that remained in place even after the nuclear accord.

That’s according to the AP’s Josh Lederman and Matthew Lee, citing a newly released report from the GOP-led Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Lederman and Lee write: “The effort was unsuccessful because American banks—themselves afraid of running afoul of U.S. sanctions—declined to participate. The Obama administration approached two U.S. banks to facilitate the conversion . . . but both refused, citing the reputational risk of doing business with or for Iran.”

Put another way: The Obama administration pressed American banks to sidestep rules barring Iran from the U.S. financial system, and the only reason the transaction didn’t take place was because the banks had better legal and moral sense than the Obama Treasury.

America’s Cash-for-Genocide Program in Syria

Agents of Influence: Obama and his advisers, now seeking to shape his legacy, say they are proud they ditched the ‘Washington playbook’ and decided to stay out of the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East. Only they didn’t. They intervened on behalf of Iran.

Like the president he served, Ben Rhodes wanted to stop Bashar al-Assad from gassing little children. But it was complicated.

In an excerpt from his new book, The World As It Is, published in The Atlantic, Barack Obama’s former deputy national security adviser explains the decision-making that led Obama to choose against bombing Assad targets in late summer 2013. Among other issues, writes Rhodes, the White House didn’t know if it could trust the assessment coming from the American intelligence community claiming that Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people. U.S. spies got Iraq wrong. Obama was elected because he got Iraq right.

With that in mind, Obama told Rhodes that “it is too easy for a president to go to war.” Also, the White House could find no legal basis to strike Syria. The Europeans backed off at the last minute, and Senate Republicans like Marco Rubio, who talked a tough game, refused to vote for the authorization of military force.

Endowed with a tragic sense of life, Obama knew that in the end there was little he or anyone could do to stop the slaughter in Syria. As Rhodes writes: “I was also wrestling with my own creeping suspicion that Obama was right in his reluctance to intervene militarily in Syria. Maybe we couldn’t do much to direct events inside the Middle East; maybe U.S. military intervention in Syria would only make things worse.”

Obama himself has said that his decision not to bomb Assad was the moment that he broke with what he derisively called the “Washington playbook.”

It is all about Israel

As I was looking at articles in Argentina about the soccer controversy, I came across a pithy anecdote mentioned by a writer for La Nacion, Andrés Malamud:

"The problem in the Middle East is that Israel is a racist state." With the theater full, the phrase is received without ovations or whistles. After all, Portugal is "a country of gentle customs". Here they never shout much, neither in favor nor against. Ilan Pappé, an Israeli historian who is self-exiled in England for being a critic of his country, finishes the speech and begins the round of questions. I raise my hand before anyone else and inquire if there is any state in the Middle East that is not racist. His response deafened an audience that was already silent: "that's not the problem".

The problem is not racism. The problem is Israel. It is understood.

There you have the entire arena of double standards, delegitimization and demonization against Israel in a single sentence.

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.