Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 22, 2018

06/22 Links Pt1: Israel then and now shows power of a good defense and a strong wall; Two months of burning kites from Gaza; Jordan Baulks at Replacing PLO in Negotiations with Israel on Trump Plan

From Ian:

Israel then and now shows power of a good defense and a strong wall

What impressed me on this visit was the confidence of the Israeli people. The security was much less oppressive. I barely saw a handful of weapons out in the open during 10 days in the country.

The Israeli military wasn’t present in heavy numbers in the border towns, at least not out in the open. Ashkelon and Sderot were thriving, expanding, growing, with families and lots of children everywhere. No one was concerned about Palestinian terrorists. The walls were working, keeping the killers away from the Israeli people.

I had lunch with a journalist colleague who lives in Jerusalem. He laid out for me the altered facts on the ground in the region over the years and how an effective security wall can rewrite the strategic balance of power.

“The Palestinians are screwed,” he started off. “They have tried suicide vests, car bombs, stabbings, tunnels, rockets, etc. Nothing has worked. They have been opposed by Israeli might at every turn. What do they do now?” he asked.

While standing on the top of a yeshiva in Sderot a few days before I left, I looked out at the Gaza border. This time there were several large plumes of smoke. “Now Hamas is reduced to flying flaming kites to burn Israeli grassland. They are defeated,” my friend said.

Israel will survive this phase of the conflict as well and come out even stronger. In fact, her people will continue to thrive. With President Trump in the White House, the U.S. is once again unambiguously on her side — as it should be.

Take it from one who has just been there: For all the media hand-wringing and pro-Palestinian forces at the U.N. and in Europe, Israel is stronger than ever.

Two months of burning kites from Gaza

The official PA news agency Wafa "reports":

A group of Jewish fanatics harassed on Thursday Palestinian Muslim women worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City as Israeli police, who usually escort the fanatics during their provocative tour of the Muslim holy compound, stood by watching.

A video broadcast on the social media showed the Jewish fanatics sitting near the women in a provocative manner as police stood by.

Normally police would not allow any Palestinian, including security personnel of Al-Aqsa Mosque, from getting close to the fanatics or to follow them when they make their provocative tour of the compound during official visit hours for non-Muslims.

However, this time police allowed the Jewish extremists to closely provoke the Muslim women worshippers, a step that has been seen as an escalation in Jewish provocations in one of Islam's holiest sites.

Can you tell the nature of the "harassment" from the article?

Yes, Jews had the audacity to sit near Muslim women!

The article doesn't claim that the Jews spoke to them, or chanted towards them, or threatened them, or screamed at them, or touched them. Only that they sat - provocatively.

They even have video of the "harassment" - and the Jews are just sitting there. (At one point I see one gesture in a reaction, but in no way can I see anything that can remotely be called "harassment.")

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What the Palestinians call "incitement"

When the Government of Israel shows the world examples of Palestinian incitement, they have thousands of examples of explicit calls to violence against Israelis from Palestinian leaders and officials.

The PLO tries to pretend that Israel is just as bad.

Here are some of their examples of "incitement" from May:

Israeli Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan (Ynet, May 14, 2018)
“It is not about demonstrators, but saboteurs of a terrorist organization that threaten the security of the citizens of Israel. There is no country that allows a terrorist organization to send terrorists to infiltrate its territory, and all responsibility for their blood lies with the Hamas leadership, which, inspired by Nazism, sheds blood to distract people from its failure to run the Strip.”

Is there any threat against civilians there?

Avigdor Liberman (Twitter, May 15, 2018):
“Yesterday, tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in the Rabin Square for a music show. In Gaza, however, thousands gathered to infiltrate into Israel for terrorist acts. This is the difference between Israel's life culture and the death culture in Gaza.”

Is this inciting Israelis to attack Gazans? Is it inaccurate?

These are things that Hamas is proud of! And the PA says far worse things about Hamas...

Apparently, whenever an Israeli says something that the PLO doesn't like, it is "incitement." Even if the statements are against the UNHRC:

Prime Minister Netanyahu's Spokesperson, Ofir Gendelman (Twitter, May 18, 2018 )
“PM Netanyahu: There is nothing new under the sun. An organization that calls itself a Human Rights Council once again proved that it is hypocritical and biased and that its goal is to harm Israel and to support terrorism. But is has mostly proven that it is irrelevant.”

Where, exactly, is the incitement?

Ofir Gendelman (Twitter, May 19, 2018 )
“Hamas, the Palestinian ISIS and an internationally recognized terror org, now thanks the UNHRC, its commissioner & voting countries for their resolution.
When a terror org whose goal is to destroy a UN member state THANKS a UN body, you know that this UN body is morally bankrupt

I guess that Israel is inciting against the UN Human Rights Council.

The entire reason that the Negotiations Affairs Department of the PLO has this section of their website is to pretend that Israeli incitement is just like Arab antisemitic incitement. The content doesn't matter; they just point to it and say, "see?" and their fans believe it without question.

But look at the stuff in official PA television and other media every day, based on Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI reports, and you can see what real incitement is.

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Anti-Israel COSATU illustrates "Palestinian refugees" with picture of Jewish refugees

Here's a photo of Jewish refugees in an Israeli absorption camp in 1950. About 80% of the residents of these camps were Jews who were forced to flee from Arab countries.

The picture symbolizes how Israel took in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees and integrated them into Israeli society as full citizens.

This is in marked contrast with how Arab nations treated Arab refugees and other Arabs who fled Palestine in 1947 and 1948. Those people were not welcomed, not integrated into their host countries, and are to this day used as political pawns.

Wednesday was World Refugee Day. The viciously anti-Israel Congress of South African Trade Unions, posted on Twitter the photo of the Jews who are no longer refugees to illustrate the fate of Arabs who the world still calls refugees - still using them as pawns for political purposes:

Dozens of people pointed out to COSATU that the photo was not of Palestinian Arabs. They didn't care, because to the people who hate Israel, the truth is not important - the propaganda is.

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06/21 Links Pt2: UK defends calling Jerusalem Old City part of 'palestine'; Africa’s Largest Trade Union (And BDS Proponent) Mixes up Their Refugees; Progressives Justify Muslim Violence Against Women

From Ian:

UK defends calling Jerusalem Old City part of ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’

The British ambassador to Israel on Thursday defended describing Jerusalem’s Old City as being part of the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” in the itinerary for Prince William’s upcoming visit to Israel and the West Bank.

“All the terminology that was used in the program was consistent with years of practice by British governments. It’s consistent with British government policy,” David Quarrey said.

The royal itinerary, published last week by Kensington Palace, raised some eyebrows in Israel, as it indicates that the palace considers the Old City to be Palestinian territory occupied by the Jewish state.

According to the itinerary for the June 24-28 regional visit, William — also known as the Duke of Cambridge — will travel first to Jordan, followed by Israel on June 25-27.

On June 27, “the program will shift to its next leg – the Occupied Palestinian Territories” and on June 28 Prince William — the second-in-line to the throne — will receive a “short briefing on the history and geography of Jerusalem’s Old City from a viewing point at the Mount of Olives,” Kensington Palace said.

“There’s no political message in this,” Quarrey insisted. “The Duke is not a political figure. He’ll be here to see a little bit of the country and to get to meet some of the people here. And also to get a flavor of Israel, to see what’s happening here, some of the extraordinary successes in technology, some of the great culture here. And he really wants to get under the skin of the country.”

Douglas Murray: Pressured, the Southern Poverty Law Center Admits It Was Wrong

Any free society must expect that a certain number of chancers, hucksters, and shake-down artists will prosper among them. But rarely have they come in so grossly endowed and shameless a guise as the “Southern Poverty Law Center.”

The SPLC was founded in the 1970s, and back then it did some respectable campaigning work to target and shut down — through legal means — actually racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. All well and good, and the SPLC can still be applauded for this work. And yet students of non-profits and charities worldwide will be familiar with a certain tendency in this field, which is that such organizations rarely shut themselves down. Or, to put it another way, a charity set up to cure a disease may find a cure for that disease and yet strangely also find some reasons to continue. For of course salaries and pensions are at stake. Comfortable halos have been created. Who would want to divest themselves of the gold and glory that comes from such a sinecure? And so the charity will become, for instance, a charity to help people who once suffered from the disease that has now been cured.

So it is — though in far worse form — with the KKK and the SPLC. Of course as the KKK dwindled to an all but negligible fringe, the SPLC could not afford to bask in its victories. There was still cash to collect. Indeed more cash than ever. And who but a fool, or an honest man, would leave tens of millions of dollars on the table? So it is that in recent years the SPLC reoriented itself. It became an organization that looked into all those things that were not racist but that might be deemed right of center. It decided to look into not terrorism and racism but “extremism.” It decided, in particular, that it should become the self-appointed arbiter of what is acceptable in American life and what is unacceptable. For years the mainstream press, lazy on its memories of the SPLC’s past manifestation, indulged it in its new self-definition. Indeed for a few years the words “whom the SPLC has described as” wormed their way into some of America’s — and the world’s — most otherwise respectable and usually fact-reliant publications.

Yet the SPLC has repeatedly shown itself to be woefully unfit to perform its self-assigned task. For instance in 2015 it “designated” (as though this should have had any standing anywhere other than in the minds of the SPLC’s employees) Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson as an “extremist.” So within the space of only a few decades the SPLC moved from targeting the KKK to targeting a black conservative. Elsewhere it has attempted to anathematize multiple mainstream scholars of a conservative persuasion, including Charles Murray (no relation). About the radical Left it has shown a strange lack of interest.

Ben Shapiro: Trump Opponents Keep Comparing Trump Immigration Policy To Nazi Policy. Read A Damn Book, You Idiots.

In the latest in a spate of nutty posts linking an Obama-era Ninth Circuit court decision to Nazism, former CNN host Soledad O’Brien tweeted that America is on the brink of a Nazi takeover:

Welp, I guess we've put to rest the question: "Nazi Germany: Could it happen here in America?"
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) June 20, 2018

O’Brien isn’t alone with this sort of rhetoric. NPR anchor Maria Hinojosa compared the Trump policy to Nazi policy; so did Melania Trump’s former immigration lawyer; General Michael Hayden tweeted out a picture of Auschwitz; Jimmy Kimmel compared Trump’s policy to Sophie’s Choice.

To all these people I say: read a damn book once in awhile.

The policy of separating children from illegal immigrant parents who are detained criminally is the law. It was ruled upon by the Ninth Circuit in 2016, and overturned an Obama-era policy of keeping children with their parents in custody. And to argue that this law is in any way akin to Nazi policy isn’t just stupid, it’s disgusting. The Nazis weren’t particularly concerned with temporarily separating children from parents in order to supposedly protect children from the abuses of detainment (this was the Ninth Circuit’s rationale). Nor was the Nazi policy to keep children with parents in order to alleviate their suffering (the Trump administration’s newly-stated executive policy). The Nazi policy was to murder children and parents.

From Iran's Tasmin News Agency:

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami ridiculed the remarks by the “fool” prime minister of the Zionist regime who has offered help for Iran in water management, saying people have still not forgotten Israel’s enmities and crimes against the Iranian nation.

In comments at a cultural ceremony in Tehran on Wednesday, the Iranian defense minister said “fools like Netanyahu say things that make everybody laugh”, pointing to the Israeli premier’s offer of help for Iran in addressing water problems.

Enumerating the cases of hostile Zionist measures against Iran, including the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and support for Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi war on Iran in the 1980s, General Hatami said people of Iran will “give Israel a hard slap in the mouth” in the nearest demonstrations.

In a video on June 10, Netanyahu said he wants to help the Iranian people solve their water crisis.

Remember, the nation that offers help is the aggressor and the one that threatens is the victim.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

It’s impossible to write about anything except the fires.

Foreign media are concerned with other things, but in Israel only the arrest of a former government minister charged with spying for Iran has come close to dislodging the fires from the forefront of our consciousness.

The Arabs of Gaza, with the encouragement of Hamas and the other terrorist factions, are burning our country. They are doing with impunity, launching kites and helium balloons carrying flaming payloads, from far enough back from the border that they are difficult to stop with nonlethal means. Naturally they are doing it from civilian areas in the company of children, so that the IDF believes that the casualties from attacking them from the air would be unacceptable. Various countermeasures using drones have been tried, but they have only been partially effective.

For Israel it is an economic, environmental, and even spiritual catastrophe. Thousands of acres of farmland and nature preserves, crops, plants, and animals have gone up in smoke. Dozens of new fires are set every day, faster than firefighters can put them out. The area is choked from the smoke of the fires and the burning tires that the Arabs ignite in order to hide the operatives who approach the border fence to plant explosives or try to cut through it. It will take decades for the land to return to its previous condition. Some of the wildlife may be gone forever.

Israelis love agriculture and they love nature. These loves are deeply embedded in our culture; look at Israeli music, art, and poetry if you doubt it. Perhaps the only thing we love more is our children. To burn the land is to thrust a dagger into our hearts (something that Palestinians also do regularly in a more literal sense). The damage done by the fires is greater than the cost of the crops that are being destroyed, and even more than the irreparable environmental damage. It is a prolonged assault on the soul of the Jewish state, its reason for being – the love of the land.

The enemy knows this. That’s why they do it. The burning of southern Israel has zero strategic significance, but it is a massive psychological blow. It’s a tribute to their understanding of us and also to their endless hatred that they chose this tactic. Frustrated by their minimal success in killing Jews with rockets and mortars, and unable to overrun the border fence, they have been wildly successful with this low-tech weapon.

The IDF fears the legal consequences of taking serious action against the “civilians” launching kites and balloons, and so far has retaliated by bombing military targets belonging to Hamas. I haven’t heard of any casualties from these attacks, so it’s reasonable to assume that they are being evacuated each night. This seems to be fine with the army, which thinks it can pressure Hamas into stopping the incendiary attacks this way, but does not want to be drawn into a wider confrontation. This tactic was met with a barrage of 45 rockets and mortar shells fired at us from Gaza last night, so it may need rethinking.

Israel’s decision-makers are considering the economic and strategic costs, not the spiritual damage and psychological cost. They know that a wider war would be expensive, and would take our attention away from the objectively greater danger from Hezbollah and Iran in Lebanon and Syria. They don’t want to be accused of fighting another war without intending to win, but they also don’t want to conquer Gaza and become responsible for it. So they do nothing and look for a technological answer.

But if you always ignore provocations, if you allow them to turn into attrition, if you time and time repress your natural desire to retaliate, if you allow the enemy to take greater and greater liberties, eventually you find that you have allowed your honor, and more practically, your deterrence, to dribble away. Sometimes restraint is not a viable option.

This is one of those times. We should not be afraid to admit that they have wounded us. But on the other hand, we must not – we can’t afford to – allow them to deepen the wound.

So here is what we do. We issue an ultimatum to Hamas that the arson attacks must stop within 24 hours, or we will destroy every Hamas installation, we will turn their tunnel city into an inferno with bunker busters, and we’ll personally target their leadership and as many officials as we have Hellfire missiles for. For good measure, we’ll do the same to Islamic Jihad and any other terrorist faction there.

At the same time, we send a copy to the UN and the European Union. We explain to them that we will not allow the Gaza Arabs to burn any more of our country. We explain that we recognize that the UN and EU have made major investments – directly and via UNRWA – in creating and nurturing an entity that will hate and oppose the Jewish state, and that therefore we expect that they will be able to influence it to change its behavior. But if not, and if we have to crush it, we expect that the UN and EU will pick up the pieces, because we certainly won’t.

We publicize our offer in multiple languages, throughout the world. We emphasize that the outcome is up to Hamas, and the responsibility for casualties if they don’t comply is entirely theirs.

Would they take our offer? I have no idea.

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06/21 Links Pt1: Glick: The Road to Peace Does Not Run Through Ramallah; The PA’s Policy of Denormalization; Hamas paid parents to lie about Gaza baby's death

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Road to Peace Does Not Run Through Ramallah

Last week, hundreds of Palestinians in PA-controlled Ramallah took to the streets to demand that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas end his economic war against Gaza. Rather than bow to the public’s demand, Abbas declared the protests illegal. His security forces attacked protesters with truncheons and tear gas.

To date, then, not only has the PA done nothing to help the people of Gaza, but the same regime that also uses every international stage to condemn Israel for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has taken active measures to deepen the suffering and poverty of the population.

Monday, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman released a statement responding to the Trump administration’s reported plan to help the people of Hamas-controlled Gaza. Promising that the Kushner-Greenblatt regional tour would end in abject failure, the PA spokesman insisted that the U.S. is trying to “divide the Gaza Strip from the West Bank under humanitarian pretexts.”

His statement also accused the U.S. of using the cause of “humanitarian aid or rehabilitation” as a means to defeat the Palestinian war against Israel by transforming the suffering of the people of Gaza into a “humanitarian issue rather than a political one.”

In other words, as far as the PA is concerned, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is not something that is supposed to be dealt with on a practical level. No one is actually supposed to improve the lot of the residents of the Hamas-controlled enclave. Rather, Gaza is nothing more than a launching pad for human cannon fodder in the war against Israel. The purpose of the Palestinians’ existence in Gaza is to suffer and die to advance the cause of Israel’s annihilation. Anyone who treats the people of Gaza as human beings is harming the Palestinian cause.

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinian Authority’s Policy of Denormalization

Conclusion
The Palestinian leadership and its NGO partners and supporters have distracted the international focus from addressing Palestinian economic development, liberalization, and infrastructural development. Instead, they have focused international attention on boycott and denormalization campaigns against Israel. Unlike much of the developing world, which has sought stronger economic relations in an age of technology, globalization, and economic integration, the Palestinian leadership has refused to develop its economy in conjunction with its economically thriving Israeli neighbor, who is potentially the prospective Palestinian state’s strongest trading partner.

Following the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians had the unique advantage of receiving aid from Israel, unlike other newly formed states. However, under the pretext of refusing to bolster Israel’s “occupation economy,” the Palestinian leadership has publicly declined to cooperate on joint projects with the Israeli government or the Israeli private sector that would benefit both economies.

Instead, the Palestinian leadership has been complicit in its own economic stagnation, due to questionable business ventures and investments that have largely failed to benefit the Palestinian people, and instead have denormalized relations with Israel.

The BDS movement and the Palestinian and foreign NGOs that subscribe to its destructive doctrine have also worsened the economic situation for Palestinian workers, by limiting access to Israel, the largest labor market for Palestinians. Instead of allowing its own people to find well-paying jobs, including salaries that could be taxed by the Palestinian Authority, and encouraging disposable incomes that could be reinvested in Palestinian services, the Palestinian leadership has operated not as a developing state, but a corrupt and even failing regime. This fact has long been evident to large sectors of Palestinian society. They recognize that the Palestinian leadership’s failure on the economic and political fronts has resulted in their attempts to refocus the debate on attacking Israel as an illegitimate, apartheid, colonial implant that is the source of all Palestinian ills.

Nikki Haley Blames Human Rights Orgs for Undermining Efforts to Reform U.N. Human Rights Council

The New York Times reports that Haley criticized the groups for opposing her efforts to garner support in the U.N. to reform the council. One of the groups Haley sent the letter to, Human Rights Watch, opposed Haley's push for a U.N. General Assembly vote on the reforms.

"The risk was that it would have opened a Pandora’s box of even worse problems," Human Rights Watch U.N. director Louis Charbonneau said.

Haley told the groups that they have aligned themselves on the side of Russia and China, which possess a murky record on human rights.

"You put yourself on the side of Russia and China, and opposite the United States, on a key human rights issue," she wrote. "You should know that your efforts to block negotiations and thwart reform were a contributing factor in the U.S. decision to withdraw from the council."

The Times reports that Haley grew frustrated with the groups after they sent a joint letter to member states of the U.N., asking them to oppose Haley's resolution.

Palestinians who want the IDF to kill them

From the Washington Post:

Fathi Harb wanted to commit suicide by soldier. So he went to a protest this spring along Gaza’s border, hoping Israeli snipers would shoot him, his grandfather recalled. When they didn’t, Harb, 22, tried again, returning to another protest soon after, and again he survived.

Then, last month, he set himself on fire on a busy street in Gaza City, later succumbing to his injuries.

“He called his father right before he did it and told him of his plans,” his grandfather Saeed said.

Harb had been chronically jobless. He shared a single apartment with 12 family members, including his pregnant wife. It was too hard, he told his father, explaining his wish to die.

The WaPo is still spinning this as if Gazans who want to commit suicide is Israel's fault, rather than the responsiblity of the terror group that runs their lives and of the other terror group in Ramallah that actively denies them fuel, medical supplies and electricity.

Notice that Harb didn't succeed in getting the IDF to shoot him, which must be a remarkable thing to read when the media makes it sound like Israel is randomly shooting protesters.

So think about the next example in the story:

By the time Israeli forces killed 14-year-old Mohammad Ayyoub at a protest in Gaza this April, the sprightly but troubled youth had lived through three wars. They had left him deeply traumatized. He was treated for anxiety and a violent temper, his parents said.

Upset over the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem, which Israelis and Palestinians both claim as their capital, Mohammad told his mother he would be willing to give his life for the city. On April 20, he slipped away to a demonstration on the Israel-Gaza border, where an Israeli sniper shot him through the head.

Now, see how a "witness" described Ayyoub's death:

A Palestinian photographer who took the picture of Ayoub after he was killed said the incident happened a fair distance from the fence.

Abed Alhakeem Abu Rish on Saturday told The Associated Press he saw the teen standing about 150 meters (164 yards) from the fence. He says Ayyoub was about to take cover behind a low sand berm when he was shot and fell to the ground.

Abu Rish’s photographs show Ayoub as he collapses head first and then lies motionless in the same spot.

In fact he had already passed through the inside barbed wire fence and was headed towards the border fence. The IDF says that Ayyoub was actually trying to damage the fence when he was shot.

Now that we know that Ayyoub went to the riots specifically to get killed, can you believe that he was about to take cover when he was shot and that he was so far away? The number of people killed by the IDF who were not members of terror groups is quite small; Ayyoub must have been acting quite aggressively to attract sniper fire to kill him.

We have seen "suicide by IDF" before, and the "martyr" families are guaranteed large payments. Yet the media does not automatically ask whether these "victims" wanted to be killed and provoked their own deaths.

(h/t Irene)

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Tonight at 8 PM Israel time, there will be a ceremony dedicating a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) to be used at the Ma'arat HaMachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs where tradition says Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives are buried.

It is the second holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount.

The ceremony will include a concert. The money raised for the event is being used to provide vacations to families of children with cancer in Israel.

In response, Palestinian Arabs are now claiming that the site is the fourth holiest in Islam, and saying that the idea of Jews dedicating a Torah to a synagogue is a desecration of the site.

They are threatening violence.

The Hebron Waqf said in a press release: "Some Hebrew sites published a promotional video stating that the settlers will present at 8 pm on Thursday a Torah scroll to the Haram al-Ibrahimi Mosque with a concert.

"This attack is a grave violation of the sanctity of the Haram al-Ibrahimi Mosque and a dangerous precedent, and it affects the feelings of Muslims," the statement said.

The Waqf said that "the occupation government has full responsibility for the visits of the settlers and their desecration of the Haram al-Ibrahimi Mosque, the change in its Arab Islamic features, and the imposition of punitive measures against it."

The organization called on all international and human rights institutions, especially UNESCO, to shoulder their responsibilities towards the holy place, and to stop this "grave violation."

In a veiled threat, the Waqf said "the occupation government bears full responsibility for what happens as a result." Meaning that Muslims will riot.

The Palestinian Authority issued a very similar statement denouncing the event.

Ma'an published this video of a large tourist group visiting the holy site, whom they call "settlers," in order to inflame Arabs to stop large numbers of respectful Jews and non-Jews from visiting the holy site.

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Israel Hayom (Hebrew) reports that Hamas paid 8000 shekels to the parents of Leila al-Ghandour, the baby who died during the Gaza protests, to tell the media that she dies of tear gas inhalation and not of a blood disease.

A 20 year old cousin of Ghandour, Mohammad Omar, who is a member of Hamas, was captured by the IDF. In the course of his interrogation he admitted that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar gave the baby's family 8000 shekels specifically to make it appear that Israel was involved in war crimes.

Omar had cut through the Gaza fence and attempted to set an IDF guard post on fire, which is when he was presumably captured.

Omar knew that Leila's older brother Salim had died in 2016 or 2017, at a similar age, from a similar or identical blood disease. The family falsely told the media that Salim had died by choking on breast milk.

8000 shekels is a bargain for the anti-Israel publicity Hamas received, as media worldwide blared headlines of Israel murdering a baby for several hours before a brave Gaza doctor disputed the claim.

(h/t Yenta Press)

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06/20 Links Pt2: How Did ‘Syria Palaestina’ Come Back to Life 1,800 Years Later?; Israel creates Hate Net map of BDS groups, linking activists to terrorists

From Ian:

How Did ‘Syria Palaestina’ Come Back to Life 1,800 Years Later?

In reporting on the trial in Berlin of a man who attacked an individual wearing a yarmulke, where the accused confessed to the court that he had committed the assault and then apologized to his victim, JTA also reported that the assailant was “identified as a 19-year-old Syrian Palestinian living in Germany since 2015,” reviving a term that hasn’t been in use for close to two millennia.

But JTA probably did not suggest that the world’s geopolitical order has been changed overnight, even in the turbulent Middle East, and so they probably referred to a Palestinian who was born in Syria. Which is testimony to a serious problem in geopolitical thinking over at the last news providers still using the telegraph.

Most Arab refugees fled to Syria in 1948 from Safad, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, and Nazareth. By the summer of 1948, there were about 85,000 refugees in Syria, the majority concentrated along the border area with Israel. Now, since the Berlin assailant is 19, it is safe to assume that he was born in Syria and that his parents were likewise born in Syria. Regardless of whether or not his grandparents, who probably came from south of the border, are alive, our 19-year-old assailant is Syrian for all intents and purposes.

But he’s not. Because of the Casablanca Protocol.

The September 11, 1965 Protocol for the Treatment of Palestinians in Arab States, a.k.a the Casablanca Protocol, determines, “on the basis of the Charter of the League of Arab States and its special annex pertaining to Palestine,” a set of rights accorded these refugees who would otherwise are prevented from attaining the nationality of the countries where they reside and were born!

Syria, despite the promises to the contrary of the Casablanca Protocol, keeps a separate set of rules for its “Palestinians” – who were born and raised in Syria – who, for instance, unlike Syrian nationals, may not own more than one home or purchase arable land.

It's offensive and inaccurate to compare the current US border tragedy to the Holocaust

Michael Hayden, who previously served as director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency, waded into this issue when he tweeted a picture of Auschwitz and wrote, “Other governments have separated mothers and children.”

The CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer discussed the reactions to the tweet with Hayden, who had explained that he “felt a warning flare was necessary” and was trying to describe “what is happening to us as a people.”

It’s easy to understand why Hayden was disturbed and concerned about the ways American officials are acting. The images of children in cages, the act of separating children from parents, the detention centres with their cramped quarters and barrack-like interiors.

But comparisons to Auschwitz are ludicrous and offensive. Blitzer explained to Hayden why so many people were outraged by his tweet.

“I speak with some authority on this,” Blitzer said. “My grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz. My dad survived, but two of his brothers and two of his sisters were killed at Auschwitz. They weren’t separated to go to some other facility. They were separated to die.”

What’s going on at the border is a tragedy. But critics of the administration’s actions should be honest, articulate, and accurate. They should refrain from comparisons that will only serve to highlight how Trump and his policies are not quite as bad as they could be.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Treblinka Inmates Slap Foreheads, Realize Mistake: Not Being Mexican Children To Get Liberal Sympathy (satire)

Members of this death camp’s Sonderkommando, tasked with disposing of the corpses of fellow Jews from the gas chamber and cleaning it out for its next use, expressed embarrassment today at understanding where they erred in trying to attract the attention of left-wing activists in the US. Instead of being Jews condemned to starvation, beatings, disease, and death, they now realize, in order to generate the proper sentiments they should instead have been children of Mexicans who illegally crossed the border into the US and are being held in facilities separately from their parents, where they do receive sufficient food, clothing, and medical care.

Inmates at this facility in the forest northeast of Warsaw slapped their foreheads in sudden recognition of their mistake.

“God damn it, I should have known,” grumbled Szlama Grubinski, 20, as he moved a corpse onto a litter for removal to a mass grave. “If our suffering isn’t enough to engender political action by those people, we should have realized much sooner it was stupid to be here instead of in a detention facility at the Texas border.”

Josef Kohn, 22, agreed. “It’s an unpleasant feeling, suddenly becoming aware of this truth,” he remarked as he scrubbed down a railroad cattle car from the bodily fluids and other debris of the hundreds of Jews who had been crammed inside for days without food, water, or toilet facilities on their way to extermination at the camp. “All of this could have been different if we’d only known. And I can’t shake the sense that I actually knew it all along.”

Roseanne Barr called George Soros a Nazi and then apologized. Some of us wish she hadn’t. It was one of those times when Roseanne shot her mouth off and we actually agreed with her; reveled in the bluntness of one of her politically incorrect pronouncements.

We understood why she apologized, of course. She’s already under fire, what with the tweet about Valerie Jarrett, and losing her show. (Talk about a bad day for freedom of speech.)

@therealroseanne OMG! You said something the thought police didn't like and they canceled your show???? Unfricking real!! :-(
— (((Varda Epstein))) (@epavard) May 30, 2018

But once Roseanne referred to George Soros as a Nazi, things went from really bad to worse.

Sorry to have tweeted incorrect info about you!I Please forgive me! By the way, George Soros is a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth-were you aware of that? But, we all make mistakes, right Chelsea?
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) May 29, 2018

The media rushed to excoriate Roseanne and “correct” the record on Soros. They bent over backward to whitewash the relevant history. But the thing is, there’s a clip—a 60 Minutes clip from 1998, to be exact—in which George Soros outright admits what he did during the Holocaust to his fellow Jews.

In the clip, moreover, Soros says he feels not a shred of remorse for what he did.

Here’s a transcript of the relevant part of the interview:

60 Minutes: [You] went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.

Soros: Yes. That’s right. Yes.

60 Minutes: I mean, that’s—that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

Soros: Not—not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t—you don’t see the connection. But it was—it created no—no problem at all.

60 Minutes: No feeling of guilt?

Soros: No.

But don’t take my word for it. Watch the clip.

Seems pretty cut and dried, right? He helped confiscate Jewish property. He doesn’t feel remorse.

But the media must try to spin it, because Soros is their guy.

Vox, for instance, tells you that Soros seems confused by the questions:

Even in that 60 Minutes interview that is pasted across the internet as conclusive evidence of Soros’s Nazi ties, Soros says that he was “only a spectator” to the confiscation of property (though he does say initially that he did help but seems confused by the question).

He didn’t look confused to me. Not in the least. There was no hesitation, no stumbling over words, and no pause. He understood the questions. He answered them. Period.

As to the claim that he was “only” 13, this is utterly meaningless. Think back to when you were 13. Were you that clueless? Would you have helped someone confiscate the property of your neighbors, your people?

There are some things you just don’t do. Even on pain of death. Even at 13.

It is, after all, the age that a Jew becomes a man: becomes bar mitzvah. Old enough to know right from wrong. Old enough to be responsible.

Roseanne was right the first time. Soros was a Nazi collaborator who stole property from his own people. And he doesn’t even feel bad about it.

He was a bad person then and he’s a bad person now and none of us should be afraid to say so.

Here’s to better times, when someone like Roseanne Barr is free to speak her mind without awful consequences and the media doesn’t spin the truth to protect a very wealthy, very bad man who climbed and continues to climb up the ladder on the backs of his own people.

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Israeli Supreme Court to rule in landmark children's bedtime case (PreOccupied Territory)

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Jerusalem, June 20 - Continued absence of a law defining the role of Israel's most senior judicial body has resulted in the court assuming jurisdiction over an increasing swath of the society's conflicts, with the most recent instance occurring when it agreed to conduct deliberations on whether a Ramat Gan child has the right to a bedtime no earlier than the latest he can discover among his friends.

The court agreed in a unanimous vote to hear arguments in Silber v Silber, dismissing the contention of the senior Silbers' attorneys that such a determination must remain the province of authority figures within a household or family, and not be subject to outside bodies such as the courts or law enforcement. A justice's note to the decision to accept explained that once the court had arrogated to itself the review of any legislation or government action, along with the power to annul such government actions, there exists no reasonable limit on the extent to which the court may assert that authority.

Ten-year-old Tal Silber's attorneys petitioned the High Court to rule on the legality of a 9 PM lights-out policy in the Silber household for children, of whom Tal is the oldest. The fifth-grader contends that "all of his friends" enjoy a bedtime of 9:30 on school nights and no curfew at all on weekends, in addition to being allowed to eat all the junk food they want.

In the petition to hear the case, lawyers for the plaintiff argue that the court, having assigned itself supreme authority to gauge the legality of any action, even those ostensibly in the purview of a different branch of government, must step in to decide on the proper bedtime for their client. That extension of authority includes all organs of administration, such as the household. Tal's parents, Shir and Tomer Silber, countered through their attorneys that barring threats to a child's health, safety, or welfare, or to others as a result, constitute the limits of authorities outside the home to override the decisions of a legal guardian. The court sided with the plaintiff, and will hear arguments as to the extent of parental capacity to impose a bedtime, beginning September.

"We are gratified at the Court's acceptance of our petition," stated the younger Silber's lead counsel, Pearl Clutching. "The tyranny of parents has seldom been given proper attention, and we look forward to striking a blow for the autonomy of ten-year-olds all over the country who bristle under unjust restrictions on their freedom."

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06/20 Links Pt1: US quits the UN’s Human Rights Council, citing its ‘chronic bias against Israel’; 45 rockets, mortars fired toward Israel; IDF retaliates with 25 airstrikes

From Ian:

Pompeo, Haley Announces United States Leaving UN Human Rights Council

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced on Tuesday that U.S. would leave the UN Human Rights Council.

Citing the organization as being broken and filled with hypocrisy, Pompeo and Haley mentioned how they tried to work with other council members in order to reform the body, however, they were met with resistance.

"The Trump administration is committed to protecting and promoting the God-given dignity and freedom of every human being. Every individual has rights that are inherent and enviable," Pompeo said. "They are given by God and not by government. Because of that, no government must take them away."

"For decades, the United States has led global efforts to promote human rights, often through multilateral institutions. While we have seen improvements in certain human rights situations, for far too long we have waited while that progress comes too slowly or in some cases, never comes," Pompeo said. "Too many commitments have gone unfulfilled. President Trump wants to move the ball forward. From Day One he has called out institutions or countries who say one thing and do another, and that's precisely the problem at the Human Rights Council. As President Trump said at the UN General Assembly, it is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the Human Rights Council."

Pompeo mentioned the organization's bias against Israel as being an example of the council's misplaced priorities.

"Today we need to be honest. The Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights. Worse than that, the Human Rights Council has become an exercise in shameless hypocrisy with many of the world's worst human rights abuses going ignored and some of the world's most serious offenders sitting on the Council itself," Pompeo said. "The only thing worse than a council that does almost nothing to protect human rights is a council that covers for human rights abuses and is therefore an obstacle to progress and an impediment to change. The Human Rights Council enables abuses by absolving wrongdoers through silence and falsely condemning those who have committed no offense."

Israel welcomes ‘courageous’ US pullout from UN Human Rights Council

Israel on Tuesday night welcomed an announcement that the United States will withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council, praising the move as a “courageous decision against the hypocrisy and the lies” of the international body that UN ambassador Nikki Haley said harbors bias against the Jewish state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the US move, branding the council “a biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization that has betrayed its mission of protecting human rights.”

“For years, the UNHRC has proven to be a biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization that has betrayed its mission of protecting human rights. Instead of dealing with regimes that systematically violate human rights, the UNHRC obsessively focuses on Israel, the one genuine democracy in the Middle East,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office also read. “The US decision to leave this prejudiced body is an unequivocal statement that enough is enough.”

The PMO said that “Israel thanks President Trump, Secretary Pompeo and Ambassador Haley for their courageous decision against the hypocrisy and the lies of the so-called UN Human Rights Council.”

The statement followed Haley’s announcement that the US will leave the UNHRC, condemning the “hypocrisy” of its members and its alleged “unrelenting bias” against Israel.

Haley announced the decision alongside President Donald Trump’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Both insisted the United States would remain a leading champion of human rights.