Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, June 24, 2018

EoZ Speech: Jerusalem - Sometimes the World is Wrong (video)

Here is my speech on Sunday to Temple Emanu-El Men's Club, with an enthusiastic crowd.

I spoke about the Jerusalem embassy move and the threats that the Arab world routinely make to scare the west to do their will.

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According to a White House statement, Trump is meeting Jordan's King Abdullah:

President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will welcome Their Majesties King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan to the White House on June 25, 2018. President Trump looks forward to reaffirming the strong bonds of friendship between the United States and Jordan. The leaders will discuss issues of mutual concern, including terrorism, the threat from Iran and the crisis in Syria, and working towards a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. [emphasis added]

This follows a Friday meeting, Secretary of State Pompeo met with Jordan's King Abdullah for lunch.

King Abdullah and Secretary of State Pompeo

The US and Jordan are supposed to be allies - in fact, Jordan is arguably our second strongest ally in the Middle East after Israel. No wonder talking about cooperation against terrorism is on the agenda.

The website of the Jordanian embassy to the US makes clear the relationship between the two countries:

JORDAN-US RELATIONS OVERVIEW

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations more than six decades ago, Jordan and the United States have enjoyed strong relations based on common goals and mutual respect. The relationship has endured the complexities and volatilities of the Middle East and has demonstrated that the two countries can rely on each other as allies and partners.

...Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Jordan stood with the U.S. in its effort to combat the common threat of terrorism and radical ideology. The two sides have worked together and with the international community to rid the world of the scourge of terrorism and end the threat posed to the national security of both countries.

This close relationship between Jordan and the US combined with Jordan's self-proclaimed dedication to fighting terrorism leads to the obvious question:

Why does Jordan refuse to extradite the Hamas terrorist that murdered 3 American citizens to the US?

The Background

On Aug. 9, 2001, Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian woman transported suicide bomber Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, a member of Hamas military wing Iz a Din al-Kassam, to the Sbarro restaurant. Fifteen people were killed, including 8 children and a pregnant women. Over 120 were injured. Three of those killed were US citizens. Tamimi was later captured and sentenced to 16 life terms in prison. She never expressed any remorse. On the contrary, in a video interview, she smiled and expressed satisfaction with the number of murders she accomplished.

Here, she explains how she did more than just transport the suicide bomber -- Ahlam Tamimi masterminded the Sbarro massacre:

From The Palestinian Media Watch translation:

Israeli interviewer: "Who chose Sbarro [restaurant, as the target of the attack]?"

Tamimi: "I did. For nine days I examined the place very carefully and chose it after seeing the large number of patrons at the Sbarro restaurant. I didn't want to blow [myself] up, I didn't want to carry out a Martyrdom-seeking operation (i.e., a suicide attack). My mission was just to choose the place and to bring the Martyrdom-seeker (i.e., the suicide bomber). [I made] the general plan of the operation, but carrying it out was entrusted to the Martyrdom-seeker. ... I told him to enter the restaurant, eat a meal, and then after 15 minutes carry out the Martyrdom-seeking operation. During the quarter of an hour, I would return the same way that I had arrived. Then I bade him farewell.

In October 2011, as part of the deal to free Hamas hostage Gilad Shalit, Ahlam Tamimi was one of those released. She returned to her native Jordan where she lived all her life, until about two years before she carried out the terrorist attack. Tamimi is now a celebrity throughout the Arab world, and was a host on a weekly show on the Hamas satellite TV station, Al Quds, where she extolled the virtues of "martyrdom attacks" against Jews and celebrated what she did. Only recently did she stop hosting the broadcasts, apparently in response to the extradition request, waiting for the situation to calm things down.

Last year, the US unsealed an indictment for the extradition of Ahlam Tamimi to the US to stand trial for the murder of the 3 American citizens murdered in the suicide bombing she masterminded.

Jordan refused.

Wanted Poster for Ahlam Ahmad Al-Tamimi

The State Department's Rewards For Justice program posted a $5 million reward for "information that brings to justice" Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi.

Jordan's Extradition Treaty With The US

Jordan's extradition treaty with the US goes back to 1995.

On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb containing 1,336 pounds of urea nitrate–hydrogen was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The detonation was intended to murder tens of thousands of people. Though the plot failed, it did kill six people and injured over a thousand. Four men were convicted. Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the bombing fled to Pakistan and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb, escaped to Jordan.

Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck in the World Trade Center Bombing

In order to extradite Ismoil from Jordan, the US and Jordan signed an extradition treaty. Based on that treaty, US agents were allowed to go onto Jordanian soil where the Jordanians handed Islmoil over, to be brought back to the US for trial. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life.

The Argument Against Extradition: Jordan Does Not Extradite Nationals

One of the reasons given for Jordan's refusal to extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the US to stand trial for the murder of 2 Americans is the claim that Jordan does not extradite Jordanian nationals, citizens of Jordan. In 2015, Arutz Sheva quoted an unnamed Jordanian source who told AFP that

Jordan does not usually extradite its citizens to other countries, even in the case of an extradition agreement. In such a case, they are generally tried in specialized Jordanian courts.

Al Jazeera has reported that "Jordanian courts have said their constitution does not allow for the extradition of Jordanian nationals."

Not true.

First, there is nothing in the Jordanian Constitution that forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals. According to Article 21:

(i) Political refugees shall not be extradited on account of their political beliefs or for their defence of liberty.

(ii) Extradition of ordinary criminals shall be regulated by international agreements and laws.

Extradition is excluded as a possibility in the case of political refugees on account of their political beliefs, which does not apply in this case -- though Stephen Flatow, whose own daughter was murdered by Palestinian terrorists, accuses the Jordanian government of a cynical interpretation:

Get it? If the Jordanian government is claiming that its constitution forbids extraditing Tamimi, it has to claim that the Sbarro massacre was a “political” crime. That’s outrageous."

More to the point, the second point in Article 21 states that extradition is regulated by international agreements and laws.

On the issue of nationality, the extradition treaty is very clear:

Article 3

Nationality

If all conditions in this Treaty relating to extradition are met, extradition shall not be refused based on the nationality of the person sought.

The Argument Against Extradition: Double Jeopardy

Last year, when the indictment was unsealed, the Associated Press reported that Ahlam Tamimi claimed 'double jeopardy':

She said the U.S. has no right to charge her, arguing that she was already tried and sentenced in Israel. "How come I should be returned to jail again for the same charge," she said Tuesday.

Former federal prosecutor and Washington lawyer Nathan Lewin counters arguments against the extradition - including this one:

Nor could Jordan or any other requested country invoke the bar against double jeopardy that appears in many extradition treaties to prevent second punishment after a criminal prosecution for the extraditable offense has been conducted and fully carried out. That provision obviously does not prevent extradition of a fugitive who flees a country where he has been convicted in order to avoid imprisonment. It also should not prevent extradition if, by some other unlawful means such as Hamas’ extortionate demand, the criminal process is aborted.

In addition, the US charge against Tamimi is not the same as the one she faced in Israel:

A criminal complaint was unsealed today charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, also known as “Khalti” and “Halati,” a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death.

The Argument Against Extradition: Jordanian Parliament Never Ratified The 1995 Extradition Treaty

The Jordanian Court of Cassation ruled that the original extradition treaty was never ratified by the Jordanian parliament. This argument appears the strongest, if also the oddest. The treaty was the foundation of the extradition of Jordanian national Eyad Ismoil, with US agents arriving in Jordan to pick him up. How could that happen if there was no treaty?

In his book Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists, Samuel M. Katz claims that enforcing the treaty was too much for Jordan to put up with:

The handover of Eyad Mahmoud Ismoil Najim was a political hand grenade in Jordan. The first extraditions ever of a Jordanian national accused of a terrorist crime against the United States would also be the last. A week after the extra Eyad Mahmoud Ismoil Najim to the United States, the Jordanian Parliament scrapped the treaty.

There needs to be further investigation into the validity of this claim, especially in light of the Vienna Convention which seems to directly address Jordan's claim -- and rejects it:

Article 46
Provisions of internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties

1. A State may not invoke the fact that its consent to be bound by a treaty has been expressed in violation of a provision of its internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties as invalidating its consent unless that violation was manifest and concerned a rule of its internal law of fundamental importance.

2. A violation is manifest if it would be objectively evident to any State conducting itself in the matter in accordance with normal practice and in good faith.

In addition, last year Michelle Munneke, an assistant district attorney, wrote Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements, arguing that Jordan's refusal to honor the treaty contravenes the "principles of international comity," analyzing the legal justifications given for refusing to extradite Tamimi -- and disproving them.

She concludes:

This analysis means the United States should not give up on attempting to extradite Al-Tamimi. If other countries place enough pressure on Jordan due to concerns of Al-Tamimi’s danger and susceptibility to planning another attack, Jordan may change its position. Al-Tamimi is above all else, a significant danger that Jordan should take seriously—if not for the world, for Jordan’s own citizens that live amongst Al-Tamimi.

An additional issue is the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, to which Jordan is a signatory.

Even if we take at face value Jordan's claim that there is no extradition treaty, that does not leave Jordan off the hook for harboring an admitted Hamas terrorist.

According to Article 2:

Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out:

(a) An act which constitutes an offence within the scope of and as defined in one of the treaties listed in the annex; or

(b) Any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act. [emphasis added]

The Convention goes on to describe extradition:

Article 11.2:

When a State Party which makes extradition conditional on the existence of a treaty receives a request for extradition from another State Party with which it has no extradition treaty, the requested State Party may, at its option, consider this Convention as a legal basis for extradition in respect of the offences set forth in article 2. Extradition shall be subject to the other conditions provided by the law of the requested State. [emphasis added]

Article 12.1:

States Parties shall afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with criminal investigations or criminal or extradition proceedings in respect of the offences set forth in article 2, including assistance in obtaining evidence in their possession necessary for the proceedings. [emphasis added]

Now, Jordan did enter reservations about what it found unacceptable about the Convention:

The Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan does not consider acts of national armed struggle and fighting foreign occupation in the exercise of people’s right to self-determation as terrorist acts within the context of paragraph 1(b) of article 2 of the Convention.

Looks like Stephen Flatow's suspicion of Jordan's cynical approach to fighting terrorism was correct.

If so, it is time for Jordan to clearly state that it is defending Tamimi and preventing her facing justice is based on Jordan's considering Tamimi's terrorist attack on the Sbarro pizzeria to be a heroic act of national armed struggle.

In any case, this makes the Jordanian claim that an extradition treaty that was used in the past is suddenly non-existent suspicious, to say the least.

Conclusion

While King Abdullah II of Jordan likes to talk about trust and confidence, the king is going out of his way to avoid building it with his refusal to fulfill his obligations under the US-Jordanian extradition treaty and handing over Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the US. His actions, or in this case - inaction, speaks louder than the convenient statements of friendship and alliance. When we add Jordan's reliance on the US for the financial assistance required to maintain his kingdom, this sense of obligation only increases. The US government has made clear that it is serious about prosecuting Ahlam Tamimi. It remains for King Abdullah to demonstrate that he really is serious when he claims to be an ally in fighting terrorism.

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06/24 Link: US freezes Palestinian aid budget; Brendan O’Neill: Trump’s critics have destroyed the memory of the Holocaust; BBC admits its commentator misled viewers on Gaza deaths

From Ian:

US freezes Palestinian aid budget

The United States has quietly frozen its aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) pending review, i24NEWS has learned. The move comes two months after Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which aimed to force the PA to terminate its “pay-for-slay” policies of paying stipends to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails and to the families of dead terrorists.

The act orders that US assistance to the West Bank and Gaza “that directly benefits the PA” be suspended unless the Secretary of State certifies that the Palestinian Authority has met four conditions: terminating these payments to terrorists, revoking laws authorizing this compensation, taking “credible steps” to end Palestinian terrorism, and “publicly condemning” and investigating such acts of violence.

The Taylor Force Act was passed as part of an omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill on 23 March 2018. It was named for the US army veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Jaffa in March 2016, in an attack that injured eleven people.

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee aide told i24NEWS, “Our understanding is that US funding to the West Bank and Gaza is on hold pending an administration review.”

Separately, i24NEWS understands that the West Bank and Gaza office of USAID -- the American international development agency -- has not received its budget for the upcoming fiscal year and therefore has not been able to put its projects out to tender.

Brendan O’Neill: Trump’s critics have destroyed the memory of the Holocaust

Comparing Trump’s policies to the Holocaust is a species of Holocaust denial.

This week, with the controversy over Trump’s separation of families arriving illegally from Mexico, has represented a turning point in their popularisation of the Hitler comparisons they once chided. They refer to the places in which the children of illegal migrants are being housed as ‘concentration camps’. The former director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, tweeted a photo of Auschwitz with the words, ‘Other governments have separated mothers and children’. Pre-empting the suspension of Godwin’s Law, a writer for the New Statesman said: ‘Stop talking about Godwin’s Law – real Nazis are back.’ Twitter buzzes with Trump-as-Hitler talk. ‘This is how the Holocaust started’, they all say.

This is how the Holocaust started. This is wrong in itself: the Holocaust started with racial laws forbidding Jewish and Gentile inter-marriage and severely restricting Jews’ rights to work, move and speak. Trump’s America has passed no law that bears the remotest resemblance to these hateful racial edicts. But perhaps this claim that Trump’s behaviour echoes the start of the Holocaust represents a tiny pang of conscience among those who are exploiting the horrors of the mid-20th-century to signal their disgust with Trump. Perhaps they know, at some level, that it is mad – not to mention immoral – to compare Trump’s policies to the Holocaust itself. To compare the temporary removal of children from their parents to the shoving of children into ovens. Actual ovens. The vast majority of children who were sent to Auschwitz were put in an oven and gassed to death and then their bodies were burnt, leading to their ashes raining down on their parents who had only been enslaved rather than gassed. They were gassed later.

That is what happened at Auschwitz. Does Michael Hayden know this? Do the thousands of people who retweeted his Auschwitz-Trump comparison know this? If they do, then their commentary on Trump’s child-migrant policy is more foul than the policy itself, because it renders Auschwitz mundane. It diminishes the horrors of that death camp through comparing them to some temporary, excessively harsh migrant controls at the Mexican border. To speak of the gassing to death of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children in the same breath as the temporary removal of scores of Mexican children from their parents insults those dead Jewish children. It relativises their suffering. It says it wasn’t that bad; it was merely on a spectrum with the largely ordinary stuff that happens in politics today.

Students Try To Ban Ben Shapiro

Students at the University of British Columbia are trying to get conservative author Ben Shapiro banned from campus, according to The Ubyssey.

Fifth-year UBC arts student Reid Marcus wants the school to cancel the event, saying “Shapiro is neither a scholar nor an activist.” Ahhh so because Ben isn’t involved in either the production or distribution of BS indoctrination, his opinion is invalid. I see. Marcus cited Shapiro’s views on Islam, by which he probably means his refutation of what he calls the “myth of the tiny radical Muslim minority.” He also cites Ben’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and gender identity.

Angelo tells me his club has hosted Jordan Peterson 5 times with no protesters. “Yet the moment we invite a pro-Israel speaker like Ben Shapiro, it’s chaos. Jewish students feel completely silenced by the campus culture and this campaign to shut down the event is proof of this. The opposition is comprised [of] SJWs who hate any opinion that isn’t their own, and raging anti-Semites who openly talk about violence towards Israeli Jews.”

from Eventbrite:

Men’s Club proudly presents Elder of Ziyon, the anonymous, most popular and respected pro-Israel blogger, who has been quoted in many media outlets. The Elder of Ziyon will speak at Temple Emanu-El Sunday, June 24 at 10:00 AM in the Social Hall. $10.00 at the door (CASH ONLY) including the “Famous Men’s Club Breakfast”!
Men's Club events are open to everyone. You don't have to be a man to attend. Breakfast is Kosher.

Sun, June 24, 2018
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT
LOCATION
Congregation Temple Emanu-El
984 Post Ave
Staten Island, New York 10302

Hope to see many of you there!

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A tweet from Euronews showing Jews of Iranian origin cheering Iran in the World Cup:

🎥 اسرائیلی‌های ایرانی تبار روز بازی #ایران و #اسپانیا در اورشلیم (بیت المقدس) دور هم جمع شدند و تیم ملی ایران را تشویق کردند
◀️ https://t.co/913NGmMYI9 pic.twitter.com/vzOZ0nf6bD
— euronews فارسی (@euronews_pe) June 22, 2018

Arab media is astonished at Israeli Jews cheering on the World Cup teams from Muslim Middle East countries, like Iran and Morocco:

Fans of the Iranian soccer team leaped out of their seats cheering wildly and waving Iranian flags when Saeid Ezatolahi thumped the ball into the back of the net in Wednesday's World Cup game against Spain, tying the game 1-1 and leaving Iran a chance to advance. A moment later, groans of disappointment spread as the goal was disqualified.

This scene did not take place in Tehran or at the stadium in Kazan, Russia. It was in a bar in Jerusalem, where the fans were mostly Israelis expressing their shock and disappointment at Iran’s defeat.

Geopolitics set aside, many Israeli Jews are rooting for Muslim countries in this year’s World Cup, including Israel’s archrival Iran. The Israeli national team has only competed in one World Cup, in 1970, leaving local soccer fans to root for other teams when the quadrennial event rolls around.

This year, Iran and four Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt — are competing in the World Cup in Russia. This rare showing of countries from the Muslim world, from which a large percentage of Israelis immigrated in the 20th century, has prompted many in Israel to cheer on the teams of their ancestral countries. As of 2011, Israel was home to 141,000 Jews of Iranian descent, 492,000 Jews of Moroccan descent, 134,000 of Tunisian and Algerian descent, and 57,000 of Egyptian origin, according to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The Israeli government has also joined in the World Cup spirit. The Foreign Ministry’s official social media accounts have been publishing messages of encouragement to the Muslim countries competing in the World Cup even though Israel does not have diplomatic relations with Tunisia, Morocco or Iran.

“So many teams from our region competing in the @FIFAWorldCup, Too bad we're not there too! Good luck #IRN, Good luck #MAR,” the @Israel Twitter feed said last week. The @IsraelArabic account also wished Saudi Arabia good luck ahead of the tournament’s opening game against Russia.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said that Israel sought “to send a message of support to sport and separate sports and politics” through its social media statements in support of Muslim countries. “We did not receive any official response from those countries, but we do receive on social media very positive reactions from citizens of those nations,” he said.

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06/23 Links: Celebrating the ‘Haley Effect’; The UN Has A VESTED INTEREST In Keeping Palestinian Arabs In Perpetual Refugee Status; The Death of Abu Thuraya: What Really Happened?

From Ian:

Celebrating the ‘Haley Effect’

In many Jewish households on Friday nights, parents bless their daughters in the names of our matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. We do so to hold out our highest role models to our girls. Lately though, I’ve had the creeping inclination to consider another name to this list of women: US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Haley represents our country with bold, honorable, and principled leadership. In no forum are these traits more lacking than the United Nations. In no place are they more sorely required. And on no issue does this present itself more clearly than her proud and consistent stand in defense of Israel.

Just this week, Haley announced that the US delegation would withdraw from the UN Human Right Council — in large part because of its history of unfairly targeting and condemning Israel, while turning a blind eye toward human-rights violators like Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

Earlier this year, when mothers and fathers in southern Israel were forced to wake their children and run to bomb shelters as rockets rained down from Gaza, Haley reassured these parents that their fears would be heard. Not only did she condemn these attacks, but she also called for a UN Security Council emergency meeting on Gaza-based terror.

Brooke Goldstein: The United Nations Has A VESTED INTEREST In Keeping Palestinian Arabs In Perpetual Refugee Status

We co-produced a documentary film with the Center for Near East Policy Research, on UNRWA summer camps and their programs that incite terror. In 2014, our staff attorneys met with a number of congressional offices and committees about UNRWA, providing a dossier of evidence, including discussion of potential legal implications of continued unbridled funding of the agency by the U.S. Subsequently, Congress added and continues to include language in the annual Consolidated Appropriations Acts requiring heightened oversight of UNRWA and conditioning funding on Secretary of State certification that the agency is complying with applicable laws.

Substantively reforming UNRWA — and if that proves impossible, shutting down the agency — is a necessary step in the path toward peace. Inflating the number of Palestinian refugees to over 5 million, and then teaching Palestinian youth to embrace terrorism against Israel and Jews, raises current and future generations of Arabs who will never consider coming to the negotiating table and who will never accept Israel’s existence.

The Trump administration is currently questioning whether the U.S. taxpayer should continue to bankroll an organization that permits and encourages hatred towards a U.S. ally.

“We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect,” President Trump tweeted in January. “But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?” he added.

Switzerland’s foreign minister has shown that UNRWA’s role in perpetuating the conflict is beginning to be understood beyond the U.S. and Israel. Foreign ministers, lawmakers, and others in the international community should follow his lead to demand UNRWA’s immediate reform. They must do this for the sake of Palestinian Arab children, at the very least.

UNRWA’s role in keeping the refugee status of Palestinians unresolved while allowing terrorist organizations to incite hatred and recruit Muslim children to violence is an open secret that needs continuous exposure. The international community cannot continue to preach peace on the one hand while it indulges a UN agency that aims to make peace impossible.

THE DEATH OF ABU THURAYA: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?

In Summary
The IDF investigation concluded that sniper fire had ceased at least an hour before Abu Thuraya was reportedly hit. Two separate videos claim to show the moment Abu Thuraya was “martyred” by Israeli troops. But discrepancies in the time of day the purported event took place, the weather at the time, and the number and identity of participants, suggest two entirely different scenes.

The two videos ostensibly show the injury that caused Abu Thuraya’s death, but only in the second video can the injury be clearly seen. A photo released from the funeral show what appears to be blood still present on the deceased’s face, something that would be in contravention of Muslim practice in preparing the body for a funeral and burial. Moreover, a comparison between the apparent site of the injury in the video and that in the funeral picture – show two different locations.

Questions that are raised inlclude:

- Why were two different videos of the same incident released?
- Why were the two videos filmed at different times of the day (or perhaps not even on the same day) with different people surrounding and carrying Abu Thuraya?
- Why were apparent blood stains allowed to remain on Abu Thuraya’s face at his funeral in contravention of Muslim practice?
- Why do the two photos – in video and in funeral photo – show entirely different locations of injury?
- How and when did Abu Thuraya actually die?

Conclusion
This incident extends beyond the personal case of Abu Thuraya. It demonstrates a propagandist mechanism of staging the injuring and killing of a person who eagerly anticipates his martyrdom and views it positively as his contribution to a campaign against the Jewish state.

A video in which Abu Thuraya climbs on an electric poll to hang the Palestinian flag indicates that he and the riot’s organizers understood the potential impact of this man’s death in affecting public opinion. His death was inevitable. Beyond the question of exactly when and how Abu Thuraya died, is the question of how many other ‘Abu Thurayas’ are out there, and how many others will be sacrificed in the future.

06/22 Links Pt2: Glick: The peril of politicized antisemitism; Phillips: Should Jews Flee Europe; Charles Krauthammer, 1950-2018 A life well lived

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The peril of politicized antisemitism

In 2017 Weisman wrote a widely cited book, (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump.

Weisman’s basic argument in his book is that Trump’s populism empowers far-Right antisemites and so threatens the Jewish community in the US.

It isn’t that antisemitism on the far Right is nothing to be concerned about it. To the contrary. There is great reason to be concerned, even alarmed by the Jew-hating rhetoric emanating from the far Right. To their credit, cognizant of the danger, Republican leaders, including Trump have consistently condemned and marginalized these voices and actors in their party.

There is also reason to be concerned with left-wing antisemitism, including when it takes the form of a New York Times journalist singling out for rebuke Jewish members of Congress who oppose an anti-Israel policy. Left-wing antisemitism should be should be fought without prejudice even when it is being propagated by minority groups. Farrakhan should not get a pass, nor should his African-American supporters.

Because the US has a two-party system, marginal forces always seek to use the machinery of the large parties to advance their positions and causes. As a consequence, it is not surprising that antisemites on the Right seek to penetrate the GOP. And it isn’t surprising that their leftist counterparts are seeking to take over the Democratic Party. But again, while the state and national Republican Party condemns and disowns antisemites, the Democrats woo them for their votes and political support and elect them to office. And as they do these things, they libel the Republican Party and Trump accusing them of Nazi sympathies and goals.

It is hard to see a happy end to the story. By attacking Trump, the most pro-Jewish president in living memory, as a Nazi, while ignoring the dangers of the growing power and numbers of antisemites in their own party, Jewish Democrats are doing themselves no favors. So long as Jewish Democrats go along with the rise of antisemitic forces in their party on the one hand, and assault the Republicans as Nazis on the other, the situation will only get more dangerous for them and for the Jewish community in the US as a whole.

Melanie Phillips: Should Jews Flee Europe

The same people who claim to see anti-Semitism in European populism or the political base of Donald Trump regularly accuse Jews of claiming anti-Semitism just to “sanitize the crimes of Israel” or “bring down Jeremy Corbyn.”

This reaction is worse, far worse, than the anti-Semitism itself. It’s worse even than indifference. For it imputes to the Jews malicious intent in claiming that Jewish people are being maliciously targeted. It says they are lying. It blames the Jews for their own victimization.

This reaction is the inescapable evidence that the Jews are being abandoned. Those of us who have loved Britain for its gentleness, its tolerance, its decency, its stoicism, its reasonableness, and the dampness of both its weather and national temperament feel as if we have been orphaned. But maybe we were living all along in a fool’s paradise.

Some people think Europe is over, that the demographics are against it and that it will become a majority-Muslim culture in a few decades. My guess is that Europe won’t go down without a fight. If that happens, the Jews are likely to get it in the neck from all sides. Whichever way it goes, it’s not a pleasant prospect.

So is it time to leave? It’s very personal, and I wouldn’t presume to advise anyone what to do. I can only speak for myself and say that for some years now, I’ve been spending a great deal of my time in Israel. Because even with 150,000 Hezbollah rockets pointing at us from Lebanon, even with Hamas trying every day to murder us, and even with Iran working toward its genocide bomb to wipe us out, Israel is where I feel so much safer and the air is so much sweeter, and it’s where Jews are not on their knees and where no one will ever make me feel I am not entitled to live and don’t properly belong.

Israel is where we have astonishingly renewed ourselves as a nation out of the ashes of the Shoah. Israel is where all those who want us gone meet their nemesis in the political realization of the eternal people. Israel is the ultimate, and ultimately the only, definitive and triumphant repudiation of anti-Semitism and the true vindication of the millions of us who perished in the unspeakable events that we memorialize on Holocaust Memorial Day.

John Podhoretz: Stop cheapening the Holocaust to score political points

In October 1975, the writer and survivor Elie Wiesel wrote these oracular words: “Novelists made free use of it in their work, scholars used it to prove their theories, politicians to win votes. In so doing they cheapened the Holocaust; they drained it of its substance.”

We’ve been witness to the same distressing intellectual trend this week, as prominent Americans ranging from former CIA chief Michael Hayden to the cable-TV showrunner Brian Koppelman and many others have made explicit analogies between what has been going on at the Mexican border with the separation of children from their parents that preceded the gassing and murder at Nazi concentration camps.

As Wiesel’s words remind us, there’s nothing new in deploying the Holocaust as a political or aesthetic cudgel.

What’s different about this week’s events is that expressions of concern about the misuse of the Holocaust analogy have been the occasion for heated, even enraged, criticism: No, it is those who object to likening the extremely bad policy of the Trump administration to the worst event in human history who are doing wrong.

In a piece called “Yes, You Should Be Comparing Trump to Hitler,” a self-described “professional journalist” named Adam Roy writes (citing me and Yair Rosenberg of Tablet), “This, to put it mildly, is a load of bunk. We want to believe that the Nazis were a special, exceptional kind of evil, because it’s easier for us. But the reality is that their brutality was just another manifestation of humanity’s worst flaws: our fear of the Other, the unthinking cruelty we unleash upon each other as soon as society gives us license.”

The anti-Israel activists in 1957 were just as stupid as today

Nasser is great, Israel is the aggressor, Arabs want peace, "Zionists" control the media, the UN is a arbiter of all that is moral.

Nothing has changed in the anti-Israel world.

From The New Outlook, May 1957:

AN AMERICAN expert on Arab- Israeli affairs has come out with the statement that Israel is directly responsible for the explosive tensions of the Middle East. His views, given at a press conference, were printed in the Los Angeles Times in mid-April. They were promptly challenged by spokesmen for Israel, as was to be expected.

Elmo H. Hutchison is Middle East director of American Friends of the Middle East. He also is a former member of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine and a former chairman of the Israel Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission, so he speaks with a measure of authority.

His most interesting observation was that alleviation of the tension "is within easy access if only Israel wants it."

Arab neighbors are willing to recognize the Jewish state, providing it is a contained state "more in line with the plan originally put forward by the United Nations," he told reporters. Hutchison charged that Americans have a very distorted picture of the Middle East.

This is because, he said, they are up against "the world's greatest propaganda machine—the Zionists." He said that only the Arabs have given in on any of the pressing problems that have arisen in that heated arena. To elucidate his position he made these points:

Some 300,000 Arabs whose people had lived for centuries in Palestine were uprooted and rendered destitute to establish Israel. The Jews of Palestine, he said, constituted 33 per cent of the population and owned only seven per cent of the land before their new state suddenly came into being and they came into possession of 55 per cent of the land.

Israel rejected all of the UN resolutions governing the establishment of its state save that which was favorable to its ambitions. Her present borders violate the UN plan.

Egypt's President Nasser, Hutchison believed, is not the "villain portrayed in this country." He is the child, not the parent, of Arab nationalism. The Arabs, he thought, want only to attain their just place in the sun, and they are going to reach it, one way or another. The Arabs, he said, do not tend toward Communism and Russian overtures to those countries "are making little progress."

He quoted the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem that "the Communists are running after the Arabs. The Arabs are running after the United States. And the United States is being led blindfolded by the Zionists."

Hutchison said that the Eisenhower administration's policies have been effective, in so far as they try to check Communist penetration into the Middle East. But this effort, he thought, should be coupled with stronger attempts to solve the Palestine refugee problem and the rectification of the territorial inequities forced on Arab states.

He termed Israel, "on the basis of UN records," an expansionist, aggressive and militarist power with "a military machine second to none in the world per capita." American policy makers might well keep this in mind, he said.

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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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