Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, July 06, 2018

Article on EoZ and other pro-Israel activists in Makor Rishon. Even a photo!

Four months after the conference in Jerusalem for pro-Israel activists, the article about it was finally published in Makor Rishon.

It shows a little more of me than I'm thrilled with, but there you go.

Photo: Avishag Shear-Yeshuv

A rough translation of the section on EoZ:

In order to meet with Elder, a veteran pro-Israel blogger who came to the conference, I first have to promise that his identity will not be revealed in the article. Even his badge shows only his nickname from the virtual world. "As a high-tech worker, I do not want my name to come up on Google as a pro-Israel activist, and if I look for work in the future, it can hurt me," he explains. All that can be revealed is he an American Jew in his fifties, a resident of the East Coast, who comes from an haredi background [not really] and defines himself as modern Orthodox [not quite.] Since 2004 he has been running the "Elder of Ziyon" blog, which draws nearly half a million views every month and boasts tens of thousands of social networking followers. At his workplace they know nothing of his side-business.

Every day, Elder publishes about four articles on his blog, including original content in a variety of fields. "I was active in Yahoo forums, when they were still very popular, and I argued there with others on issues related to Israel, until I realized that it was a waste of time."

On the Elder of Ziyon, he says: "This is a blog that provides analyses of current Middle East issues, or news you have not seen elsewhere, the agenda is to attack anti-Israel incitement and talk about anti-Semitism in general. There are many stories in Arabic that expose terrible anti-Semitism and distortion of facts. "

One of his first articles dealt with the concept of "Palestinian." "I went to the New York Times archives and searched for articles that were published before 1948 [with the word "Palestinian."] I saw all the references to the Jews living in the area, and I posted a lot of screen shots with pictures of Jewish pioneers, and I wrote, 'That's how Palestinians looked before the establishment of the State of Israel '".

Eldar speaks at a dizzying pace. His mind works very quickly, which is also reflected in the unique content he brings to the blog. In 2012, when an BBC reporter reported on a Palestinian child killed by an Israeli missile during the "Pillar of Defense" operation, Elder looked at the pictures and immediately understood that this was a deception. "I said to myself: It looks like a Qassam," he says. His acquaintance, an expert on the subject, looked at the picture he had given her and determined with certainty that it was not a Western military missile, certainly not the IDF's, "Following the article I published on the subject, many people pressured the BBC to reexamine the details. The reporter turned to the boy's father again, but did not really research the subject. They spoke of missile types and decided that it was still an IDF missile, but a UN report published several months later stated explicitly that there were several Palestinian children killed by Hamas rockets, ...From the details I understood that one of them is this boy."

To date, Elder has uploaded about 30,000 posts, which rank high on Google searches. His dream is to set up a website parallel to The Electronic Intifada, the BDS homepage, which gathers all the information and articles published by other organizations related to the boycott movement. "I would like to collect all the articles from the Blue Network [the network of activists at the conference,] where everything will appear in one place, and I also want to see to it that there is a variety of opinions and approaches."

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Diversity, Palestinian style: Fatah honors a black woman terrorist

From the Fatah Facebook page:

This is Fatima Bernawi, one of the earliest female terrorists.

In October 1967 she placed a bomb at the Zion Cinema in (west) Jerusalem. The bomb didn't explode. Israeli police arrested her and she claims, ludicrously, that she was arrested because of her skin color - not because she placed a bomb in a movie theatre.

Bernawi was released after 10 years of a life sentence and returned to Fatah, where she became a police chief in Gaza. Yasser Arafat was quoted once as saying "if he would marry anyone it would be [Fatima] Bernawi."

Though the bombing was a failure, Bernawi insisted it was successful, saying, "This is not a failure, because it generated fear throughout the world. Every woman who carries a bag needs to be checked before she enters the supermarket, any place, cinemas and pharmacies."

This is the very definition of terror - instilling fear for political purposes. Bernawi is a true pioneer of terror, and therefore she must be honored by the Palestinians whose entire sense of self-worth is based on how successful they are in attacking Israeli Jews.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Palestine Today published this video showing young arson terrorists preparing a set of balloons tethered to burning materials to fly to Israel to start fires.

Notice that there is a cloth covering the helium tank.

My guess is that the helium tanks have markings on them either identifying them as coming from a specific hospital, or with the name of the NGO that donated them for medical purposes.

The people making the video didn't want the world to know that Gazans use helium that was earmarked for medical purposes for terror.

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07/05 Links Pt2: Claude Lanzmann, acclaimed director of documentary 'Shoah,' dies at 92; I’m Jewish and Pakistani… let me go to Israel; Debunking claims about Israel’s “apartheid” wall

From Ian:

Claude Lanzmann, acclaimed director of documentary 'Shoah,' dies at 92

French Director Claude Lanzmann, whose 9½-hour masterpiece “Shoah” bore unflinching witness to the Holocaust through the testimonies of Jewish victims, German executioners and Polish bystanders, has died at the age of 92.

Gallimard, the publishing house for Lanzmann’s autobiography, said he died Thursday morning at a hospital in Paris. It gave no further details.

The power of “Shoah,” filmed in the 1970s during Lanzmann’s trips to the barren Polish landscapes where the slaughter of Jews was planned and executed, was in viewing the Holocaust as an event in the present, rather than as history. It contained no archival footage, no musical score — just the landscape, trains and recounted memories.

Lanzmann was 59 when the movie, his second, came out in 1985. It defined the Holocaust for those who saw it, and defined him as a filmmaker.

“I knew that the subject of the film would be death itself. Death rather than survival,” Lanzmann wrote in his autobiography. “For 12 years I tried to stare relentlessly into the black sun of the Shoah.”

“Shoah” was nearly universally praised. Roger Ebert called it “one of the noblest films ever made” and Time Out and The Guardian were among those ranking it the greatest documentary of all time. The Polish government was a notable dissenter, which dismissed the film as “anti-Polish propaganda” (but later allowed “Shoah” to be aired in Poland).

Long before Israel, Claude Lanzmann stirred Poland’s wrath

Claude Lanzmann was mostly amused by the “truckloads of calumny” unloaded across the front pages of the livid Polish press after the 1985 release of his nine-and-a-half hour landmark “Shoah” documentary.

Preoccupied with raising money for further copies of his pioneering cinematic masterpiece on the genocide of six million Jews during the Holocaust — and pressed with a sense of urgency to disseminate the accounts of the survivors — the French Jewish journalist and filmmaker had casually shrugged off the torrential, raging criticism emerging from then-Communist Warsaw.

“And yet, while I may have been amused, I did not realize that the Polish lobby disposed of some heavy artillery. Compared to their firepower, the Jewish lobby was barely capable of a skirmish,” Lanzmann wrote in his 2012 memoir, “The Patagonian Hare.”

Lanzmann died on Thursday at the age of 92, some 33 years after he first cast his lens on many ordinary Poles, offering up some piercing accounts of horrific wartime actions and deeply rooted anti-Semitism, and violently upending narratives of untarnished Polish victimhood.

Yad Vashem slams ‘highly problematic’ Israeli-Polish Holocaust statement

The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center on Thursday slammed an agreement between the governments of Israel and Poland regarding the latter’s record during the Holocaust, saying it would stifle free research on the subject.

A joint declaration issued by Warsaw and Jerusalem “contains highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and accepted historical knowledge in this field,” the institution said in a press release.

The statement is an embarrassing blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last week hailed the agreement and the joint statement that was issued on the occasion as safeguarding “the historic truth about the Holocaust.”
.....
On Thursday, Yad Vashem released a long press release in which its historians detail why they not only contest the joint statement’s historical veracity, but are also dissatisfied with the Polish amendment to the controversial law.

“A thorough review by Yad Vashem historians shows that the historical assertions, presented as unchallenged facts, in the joint statement contain grave errors and deceptions, and that the essence of the statute remains unchanged even after the repeal of the aforementioned sections, including the possibility of real harm to researchers, unimpeded research, and the historical memory of the Holocaust,” the statement read.

Indeed, the statement “contains highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and accepted historical knowledge in this field,” the statement continued.

The joint Israeli-Polish declaration “effectively supports a narrative that research has long since disproved, namely, that the Polish Government-in-Exile and its underground arms strove indefatigably — in occupied Poland and elsewhere — to thwart the extermination of Polish Jewry.”

Bennett: Israel-Poland Holocaust declaration ‘a disgrace, saturated with lies’

Education Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday led a chorus of widespread condemnation for a joint Israeli-Polish declaration signed by the two nations’ prime ministers that appears to accept Poland’s official position that it is not responsible for the crimes of the Holocaust.

The outrage from across the political spectrum came following a statement from the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center saying it would stifle free research on the subject.

“The joint declaration of Israel and the government of Poland is a disgrace, saturated with lies, that betrays the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust,” Bennett said in statement put out on Twitter. “As minister of education, entrusted with passing on the memory of the Holocaust, I reject it completely. It has no factual basis and won’t be studied in the education system,”

The Jewish Home leader added that he would be demanding”the prime minister cancel the declaration or bring it to the government for approval.”

As a cohort, Jewish millennials have acquiesced to the half-baked scenarios presented by the radical left-wing group IfNotNow. They've strategically branded themselves as ardent advocates for social justice and human rights in Israel, "to see the full picture," a description in this case synonymous with anti-Israel—and by extension, anti-democratic—sentiment. It’s unfathomable to me how effective their campaigns to band young Jews against Israel has proven, and it’s frightening to consider that millennials are the impending leadership of of American Jewry.

Despite being highly biased against Israel’s existence (IfNotNow refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Zionism), it’s elementary to comprehend why IfNotNow has grown so rapidly and their message believed by so many of my generation. Their leaders present the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts in the most oversimplified, cut-and-dry terms, allowing American Jews to easily grasp the Palestinian narrative without delving into the Israeli perspective and grappling with the reality that each side possesses legitimate concerns. IfNotNow continually employs broad and generalized rhetoric to depict the ‘Palestinian struggle,’ spouting fallacies like "Israel denies Palestinians freedom and dignity by depriving them of civil, political and economic rights" and making generalized claims like "the out-of-touch establishment to continue leading us down a path of isolation and fear that is wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of Palestinians and alienating a generation of young American Jews." Without question, the vast majority of the group's statements have no genuine basis in fact, but it’s the much simpler stance to adopt in the matter: no one ever supports the reigning champ, they invariably stand with the underdog, no matter how illegitimate or reckless a choice that may be.

And compared with the host of prominent pro-Israel organizations, IfNotNow is composed of a far more savvy leadership. They know how to systematically reach and interact with young Jews, utilizing emotional and loosely-factual stories of despair in addition to coordinating high-profile and disruptive protests—-in effect speaking the ‘millennial language’ of taking to the streets in opposition. "Will we unite to fight the occupation, and in doing so, resist the burden and bonds of a victim narrative and make Judaism relevant and meaningful to our generation?" These are fighting words for millennials, tackling an establishment--Israel--head-on in order to restore some perceived justice is what politically-charged young people have done in recent years. IfNotNow banks on this fighting spirit of millennials to garner support and combat Israel in swathes. Their rhetoric coupled with a robust social media presence, far outclassing many pro-Israel groups, has piqued the attention of the millennial cohort unlike any Israel-centric organization to date.

Last week IfNotNow furthered their agenda to "end American youth support for the occupation " when five of their activists sabotaged a Birthright trip in order to visit Hebron and, in true IfNotNow fashion, to grab a few headlines and incite internal conflict among Jews.

Reservists on Duty noted that this infiltration and deliberate disruption of a consensus organization, Birthright, is a new low connived by IfNotNow’s leadership, and a blatant attempt to disrespect Birthright, Israel, and the Jewish faith. They took to politicizing the trip by dispatching undercover operatives, an extremely unethical act reflective of the malicious intent of IfNotNow as an organization.

Since it’s inception, Birthright has prevailed as a cultural and religious multi-day experience to tens of thousands of young American Jews who travel throughout Israel and foster their connection to Judaism and their religious and cultural connection to the land--a land which IfNotNow—a Jewish-led movement—continuously refutes and rejects vehemently. And the assertions made by IfNotNow against Birthright are largely unfounded, as Benji Davis, a Birthright tour guide of seven years, writes that Birthright participants do learn the Palestinian story, of settlements, and of the dilemma of collective security against collective rights, presenting matters from a bipartisan standpoint and sharing all accounts with attendees, contrasting the accusations lobbed at Birthright from IfNotNow. Whereas Birthright daily attempts to bridge the divide between American Jews and their Israeli heritage, IfNotNow burns those bridges to indoctrinate and mobilize the next generations of Diaspora Jews against Israel.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Today I read a very interesting piece by Times of Israel editor David Horovitz, an interview with David Brog, who runs Sheldon Adelson’s Macabee Task Force. The objective is to fight delegitimization of Israel and BDS on college campuses; but rather than applying a predetermined formula, the group cooperates with local pro-Israel students and community members to determine what works, in a very practical way. It was fascinating to me, as someone who spent years trying to counteract anti-Israel incitement in my own small community – and to a great extent, failed to do so.

One paragraph that stuck in my mind was this:

…when it comes to demonizing Israel on campus, there is no comparable effort focused on any other country. No remotely comparable effort. There’s intensive, relentless bashing of Israel… and of no other nation on earth. Not Syria, where President Bashar Assad has massacred hundreds of thousands of his own people. Not North Korea, which runs re-education and concentration camps. Not Venezuela, Cambodia or Afghanistan, which head the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index. Not China or Russia, singled out in the latest US State Department report on human rights practices. Not Yemen, Turkey or Saudi Arabia, prominently criticized in Amnesty International’s latest human rights audit. Just Israel. Israel. And Israel.

What is true on American campuses is true for Western society as a whole. As Brog notes, here and there one finds demonstrations or campaigns for one cause or another, but anti-Israel agitation and propaganda is everywhere, despite the fact that the relative number of people hurt or killed in our little conflict is minuscule. Bashar al-Assad has killed half a millionSyrians and turned his country into a bloody shambles, and yet he gets less media coverage than Israel killing a few dozen Palestinians trying to penetrate our border and murder our citizens.

This almost cries out for a conspiracy theory. Who is behind it? Who pays the bills and gives the orders? The answer is “quite a lot of people,” and while some of them are secretive, it is not exactly a conspiracy. Financing comes from governments of disparate nations like Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (despite our new-found common cause), Germany, Norway and Sweden; from the EU and the UN; from Oxfam, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the multiple charitable enterprises associated with George Soros; from the Danish National Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Mennonite Central Committee, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Presbyterian Church USA; and from the pockets of millions of liberal Americans, mostly Jewish, who give to the New Israel Fund or J Street.

That’s just a small sample, which doesn’t begin to cover all of the sources of funding for anti-Israel causes. Did you participate in one of the US-wide CROP Hunger Walks sponsored by Church World Service? Then you, too, became part of the worldwide demonization-of-Israel project. Many other charitable organizations support the Palestinian Cause (the end of the Jewish state) in one way or another. Are you a college student in the US or the parent of one? Then the student activities fee that you or your child pays supports Students for Justice in Palestine, which has almost 200 active chapters in American universities.

It made news when Black Lives Matter (now called The Movement for Black Lives) published its platform which accuses Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians and calls it an “apartheid state.” But virtually every progressive or left-wing group – including the left wing of the US Democratic Party and the British Labor Party – shares its point of view. The leaders of South Africa’s ruling ANC party called Israel a “blight on humanity,” compared it to Nazi Germany, and recalled its ambassador over the Gaza crisis. The Swedish Foreign Minister recently promised Palestinians at a PLO-sponsored event that Sweden would “fight with you and for you.”

And these are countries and organizations associated with the West. It isn’t necessary for me to add what officials and media in Iran, Turkey, and Arab countries (including those that have signed peace treaties with Israel) have to say about us every day.

Perhaps we are too close to it to recognize the historical uniqueness of the massive tsunami of anti-Israel sentiment that has washed over the world since it began, possibly aided by the Soviet KGB, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I certainly can’t think of anything comparable.

It becomes even more difficult to understand both the extent and viciousness of worldwide Israel-hate when one looks at the dimensions of the Israel-Arab conflict. Casualties in all the major and minor wars and terrorism from the 19^th century to today amount to about 115,000 on both sides, about the number of Syrians killed by Bashar al-Assad in one year. The “mistreatment” of Palestinians by Israel, which is said to be so heinous, still leaves the Palestinian Arabs – at least, those in areas under Israeli control – among the healthiest and most prosperous Arabs in the Middle East. The Arab population between the river and the sea has tripled since 1970 (so much for “genocide”).

The Palestinians themselves are not so lovable. Their main contributions to modern society seem to be the popularization of airline hijacking, suicide bombing, and vehicular attacks. They glorify terrorism – Yasser Arafat once addressed the UN wearing a pistol. The father of Palestinian nationalism, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a Nazi sympathizer who broadcast propaganda from Berlin and raised a Muslim division for the SS. Israel, on the other hand, has been responsible for countless innovations in medical and agricultural technology, and sends delegations of medical personnel and aid to disaster sites around the world, including its Syrian border.

And yet, it continues. Irrational and vicious, it even grows. Palestinian terrorism is excused as a legitimate response to “occupation,” while Israeli medical aid is dismissed as an attempt to distract from its oppression of Palestinians. Palestinian violence against gays is explained as an unfortunate cultural artifact, while Israeli tolerance is called “pinkwashing.”

Maybe there is a reader who can explain it to me. Explain how Israel is so villainous that the good that Israelis do can be dismissed. Explain why it is so important that its conflict overshadows all the other disputes in our contentious world. Explain why they support “solutions” that imply the replacement of Israel by a Palestinian Arab state.

I can come up with only one explanation: Israel is the Jewish state, and the imperative to despise the Jewish people is so deeply ingrained in Christian and Muslim traditions, that the embodiment of Jewish sovereignty, the State of Israel, has become the Devil for them.

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07/05 Links Pt1: Terrorists involved in the brutal murder of Israeli soldiers in 2000 honored as “heroic” by PA TV; Did Israel have a hand in thwarting an Iranian plot in France?

From Ian:

PMW: Terrorists who participated in brutal murder of Israeli soldiers in 2000 honored as “heroic” by PA TV

In October 2000, two Israeli reserve soldiers, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami, accidentally entered Ramallah. They were lynched by a Palestinian mob who brutally murdered them and mutilated their bodies. Many remember the following photo of one of the Palestinian murderers joyously displaying his bloody hands to the frenzied Palestinian mob.

One of the participants in the lynch, Aziz Salha, displaying the blood of the victims.
Israel released him in the Shalit prisoner exchange deal with Hamas in 2011

Three of the Palestinians who participated in the murders and are imprisoned in Israel were recently honored by official Palestinian Authority TV in an episode of Giants of Endurance - a program about terrorist prisoners. While visiting the families of murderers Habbes Bayyoud, Muhammad Nawarah, and Jawad Abu Qara, the PA TV reporter referred to each of them as “heroic.” A sister of one of the murderers also emphasized how her brother makes the family “raise their heads and feel proud”:

Official PA TV host: “I’m with the family of heroic prisoner Habbes Bayyoud... We are now at the home of heroic prisoner Muhammad Nawarah...”
Sister of terrorist Muhammad Nawarah: “Muhammad is a handsome guy and makes one proud. I am proud that I have a brother like Muhammad... Thanks to him, we raise our heads and feel proud...”
PA TV host: "We have now arrived at the house of heroic prisoner Jawad Abu Qara...”
[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, June 16, 2018]
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As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, these murderers are not only honored by the PA in words. Since their arrests, the PA has generously rewarded them each with a salary as is stipulated by PA law. Their salaries, as of June 2018, have reached a combined total of 2,023,600 shekels ($583,606).

The PA policy of honoring terrorists as well as the ongoing PA practice of rewarding them with salaries are two of the many ways the PA supports terror. Earlier this week, PMW's findings and documentation played a central role in the creation and passing of the Israeli law to deduct from PA tax money a sum equivalent to what the PA pays in terrorist salaries.

Did Israel have a hand in thwarting an Iranian plot in France?

A planned Iranian terrorist attack on French soil "wasn't thwarted by chance," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, hinting that Israel had a role in preventing the attack.

Iran has set up terrorist and intelligence ‎infrastructure across Europe with the aim of ‎assassinating exiled Iranian dissidents and moderate ‎Arab leaders, particularly those whose countries ‎rival Iran in the Persian Gulf, intelligence experts ‎told Israel Hayom Tuesday.‎

According to both Israeli and foreign intelligence ‎experts, the vast Iranian infrastructure was set up ‎to serve the Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite black-‎ops arm, the Quds Force. ‎

One foreign intelligence official said that a prominent Arab ‎leader had recently canceled a visit to Europe ‎following solid information suggesting that an ‎Iranian terrorist cell was planning to assassinate ‎him.‎

‎Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, meanwhile was visiting the Austrian capital, where his country's nuclear agreement with world powers was drawn up three years ago, in an effort to salvage the deal after the withdrawal of the United States in May.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu criticized European leaders for meeting with Rouhani while his country ‎was plotting against the continent. ‎The prime minister made the comments at an event marking the American ‎‎‎Independence Day, hosted by U.S. ‎‎‎Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

The truth about Palestinians in Lebanon

A long essay at Synaps Network describes the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon in more detail than anything else I've read.

Highlights:

Despite their degree of assimilation, Palestinian youth suffer from discriminatory measures imposed by the Lebanese government precisely to prevent their gradual—and, it is feared, permanent—integration. They are formally forbidden from work in at least 39 different professions. They are locked out of such essential fields as healthcare, transport, fishing, accounting, engineering and the judiciary. A 2001 law even barred Palestinians from acquiring property on Lebanese soil. These restrictions have knock-on effects for the ability of Palestinian youth to reach a normal form of adulthood, since securing a job and buying real estate are the traditional gateways to marriage.

Perhaps the most oppressive aspect of the environment in which Palestinians live is of a more psychological nature. Lebanon’s various religious sects tend to view their assimilation as a threat. Maronites often seem to nurture the trauma of the civil war, during which Palestinian militias turned Lebanon into a staging ground for their fight against Israel—committing ugly crimes in the process. Shia, for their part, fought bitterly against Palestinian militias, and also worry that integrating a predominantly Sunni Palestinian community would disrupt the country’s delicate sectarian equilibrium. Lebanese Sunnis, for their part, resent increased competition in what is often an intensely sectarian job market, where Sunnis vie against one another more often than they contend with, say, Maronites.

All in all, Lebanese regard Palestinians with overwhelming negativity. This bias is mostly latent but occasionally explosive...

There is no better illustration of the growing apathy among younger Palestinians than their reaction to the American decision, in late 2017, to recognize Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel—a symbolic move widely condemned internationally, given the city’s contested status. Youth groups briefly took to the streets in front of the US embassy, and the Lebanese faction Hezbollah organized a mass protest on its turf in the southern suburbs of Beirut, but Palestinian camps themselves remained eerily quiet.

This doesn’t mean that refugees are willing to surrender the sacrosanct “right of return,” nor the dream of establishing, someday, a sovereign Palestinian state. Young Palestinians, rather, are forced to reconcile their sense of patriotism with current realities, which in turn pushes them toward a more pragmatic rapport with their national identity. Cut off from Palestine and squeezed in Lebanon, many look at emigration as the sole remaining option. “You will hear the same words in every family in the camp,” said a housewife in Beddawi. “All the young people want to leave.”

In December 2017, the results of the LPDC census addressed Palestinian demographics, long perceived as a time bomb. Notwithstanding some disagreements regarding methodology, the figures mostly dispel perceptions of a large, growing Palestinian population that Lebanon cannot possibly assimilate. The census found that Palestinian refugees and their descendants officially represent something like 175,000 individuals, not the half-million previously thought to live in a country with around four million Lebanese.

Despite significant humanitarian involvement, everyday living conditions in refugee camps have deteriorated noticeably in recent years, putting growing pressure on today’s youth compared to earlier generations. Palestinians rely primarily on a dedicated international entity, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, for certain basic services, notably education, healthcare and sanitation. This enormous organization also provides steady employment to large numbers of refugees, who in turn support their extended families.

These functions, however, are increasingly under strain. Donors have grown fatigued with the organization’s archaic structures, and indeed with the very premise of a UN agency dedicated solely to Palestinian refugee affairs. ...In 2016, funding shortfalls led UNRWA’s offices in Lebanon to abruptly decrease reimbursements of health expenses from 100 percent down to 90 or 85 percent, depending on the nature of the care or medicine provided. This move sent shockwaves through a community that is excluded from Lebanon’s National Social Security Fund—a form of discrimination made all the more galling by the fact that employers are required, legally, to pay almost 15 percent of Palestinians’ salaries to an NSSF scheme from which Palestinian employees themselves cannot benefit.

(h/t Reuven)

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"Palestinian fetus a proud martyr in his mother's womb"

From Palestinian Media Watch:

"The First Direction of Prayer" by Syrian singer Assala Nasri:
“Our Martyrs are convoys and our bones are mountains
We don’t surrender to the lowly
We aren't deterred by imprisonment
Palestine is etched on the heart of the fetus
A proud Martyr in his mother’s womb
And the Arab state will remain ours - Arab, Arab Palestine...
We [hold] the rifles to our chests and our eyes are raised to you
Our homes are trenches and our souls are the sacrifice for you
O Jerusalem, you will not remain stolen.”
[Official PA TV, June 19 and 26, 2018]

Interestingly, it appears that Nasri first wrote/sang this song in 2011:

Her YouTube page is pretty dead and her website mentioned in the earlier video is no longer around, the domain bought by a Chinese face cream advertisement.

Apparently, Nasri's career has been on the skids and she is using the violent pro-Palestinian song as her way to stage a comeback.

Naturally, the main audience for such an attempt is the official Palestinian Authority TV channel. You cannot even imagine one of them saying "no, this video does not promote peace, it is unacceptable to be shown here."

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani claimed that Iran has always had close and very good relations with the Jews of the world.

At a press event with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Rouhai said that it was "Zionists, as an occupying and unjust group," who are persecuting people, imposing a siege on the people of Gaza, bombing innocent civilians, and - in a most ironic statement - intervening in Syria.

"The Iranians have sheltered the Jews in Babylon, so they are always indebted to Iran and the Iranians," Rouhani told the news conference.

Bizarrely, Rouhani is quoted by Iranian media as saying, "Our ultimate goal is to bring security and peace in the Middle East."

For his part, Kurz said in front of Rouhani that he considers it “absolutely unacceptable” to question the right of Israel to exist or call for the state’s destruction, as well as to deny or minimize the Holocaust as Iran has done numerous times.

All of this came as a Vienna-based Iranian diplomat was arrested for his part in planning a terror attack in France against an anti-Iran rally.

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07/04 Links Pt2: Netanyahu Praises Trump, Calls on Europe to Break Relations With Iran, In July 4 Message; Israelis overwhelmingly prefer Trump to Obama; The environmental impact of war

From Ian:

Netanyahu Praises Trump, Calls on Europe to Break Relations With Iran, In July 4 Message

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to the historic alliance between Israel and the US at a July 4 reception at the newly-opened American Embassy in Jerusalem.

“We’re grateful for America’s independence,” Netanyahu declared. “We’re grateful for America’s strength. We’re grateful for America’s alliance with Israel.”

Netanyahu also singled out US President Donald Trump for special praise. “You remember that Iran nuclear deal? Remember that?” the Prime Minister asked. “President Trump decided to leave this bad deal and he did the greatest thing for the security of the world and for the security of Israel.”

Commenting on the arrest of an alleged Iranian terror network operating in France by French, Belgian and German authorities, Netanyahu remarked: “This Iranian terror plot was planned on the soil of Europe on the same week that the European leaders are supposed to meet the President of Iran about circumventing the sanctions on Iran.”

Netanyahu called on European nations to break relations with Iran.

“Here’s my message to the European leaders: Stop funding the very regime that is sponsoring terrorism against you and against so many others,” he said. “Stop appeasing Iran.”

Israelis overwhelmingly prefer Trump to Obama — poll

Israelis overwhelmingly favor US President Donald Trump over his predecessor Barack Obama, according to a poll released on Wednesday, and are lukewarm in their support for the immigration of American Jews to the Jewish state.

The survey, conducted for Haaretz newspaper to coincide with US Independence Day, found that almost half of Israelis — 49 percent — strongly approved of Trump (and 23% slightly approved), while only 22% disapproved of the US president.

However, when asked about Obama, only 19% of respondents strongly approved of him (while 30% slightly approved), compared to a substantial 46% who disapproved of the former American leader.

Trump came to Israel last year in his first overseas trip as president and visited Jerusalem’s Western Wall, becoming the first American president to do so. In December, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and in May the US embassy in Israel was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In his views vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority, Trump has been seen as more favorable to Israel than his predecessor.

His approval ratings in Israel eclipsed his support at home, where he only enjoys a 41.8% approval rating, according to 538’s poll aggregator.

According to the Haaretz poll, 44% of Israelis believed Trump’s peace plan would be pro-Israel, while only 7% thought it would be pro-Palestinian (31% thought it would be balanced).

Jerusalem’s Past and Jerusalem’s Future

Among his other prominent roles in the public life of the Jewish state, Dore Gold has served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and director general of the Israeli foreign ministry. In conversation with Eric Cohen, he discusses efforts to deny the Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem, 20th-century debates over the city’s fate, America’s decision to relocate its embassy, and the changing face of relations between Israel and some Arab states.

The parents of Naftali Fraenkl asked the courts to reconsider the ridiculously low penalty imposed on Syria and Iran for the kidnapping and murder of their child, a dual American Israeli citizen. Naftali was abducted and murdered along with Eyal Yifrach and Gil-Ad Sha’ar in 2014, as the three were on their way to school. Federal Judge Rosemary Collyer refused their plea, on the grounds that the Fraenkl family lives over the Green Line. Her verdict sets the compensation to $4.1m, though the plaintiffs had requested $340m, an amount comparable to awards in other, similar such lawsuits.

"The Plaintiffs took upon themselves the risks of living in a community built beyond the Green Line in Israel, and sending Naftali Fraenkel another 40 kilometers into the West Bank to a high school in Gush Etzion, 6 kilometers from the city of Hevron," wrote Collyer in her decision.

In other words, Collyer is blaming (and punishing) the victim. Or rather, she’s not blaming and punishing the victim, but the victim’s parents. Sure Syria and Iran are bad. But he got it, Naftali, because his parents are settlers. It’s their fault he’s dead.

Now, based on her decision, one might conclude that Collyer’s thinking runs along these lines: Settlers are bad and need to be punished. Not only to have their kids killed by terrorists but to be hit in the wallet in a big way, as well.

So, according to Collyer, not only do the Fraenkls deserve this thing: the abduction, murder, and mutilation of their son, they need to be punished for living where they do. Lucky for Collyer, the power to punish was in her hands. She made sure the Fraenkls lost out on a big ass financial settlement. Because of where the Fraenkls live and because of where they chose to send their child to school.

Now in saying so, saying that it’s the Fraenkl’s own fault their teenage son was brutalized and murdered, because of where they live, Collyer is betraying a political bias. Because there is no legal consideration to be made here. The Fraenkls have broken no law living where they do, sending their child to school where they did. There is no law on the books, international or otherwise, that says Jews can’t live, build houses in, or go to school in Judea and Samaria.

Since there is no legal impediment for the Fraenkls to live where they do or for their son to attend school where he did, Collyer’s decision is not based on the law, but on her personal political bias. Perhaps Collyer has heard people speak of “illegal settlements” or call settlers an “obstacle” to peace. But there’s no legal basis backing either of these statements or concepts. These ideas are simply not founded in the law and as such are mere propaganda.

Having betrayed a political bias, it is clear that Collyer had a duty to recuse herself from this case.

In fact, the last person who should have ruled on this case was someone like Collyer who appears to believe that Jews have no right to live in their indigenous territory. The word “believe” is important here, since there is no legal basis to this idea. It’s simply Collyer’s personal prejudice.

Not that it matters, but Collyer probably thinks that Jews should live in safer places (Germany, perhaps? Poland?)

Or rather, like Helen Thomas before her, she doesn’t really give a damn where Jews live, as long as they aren’t on “Palestinian” land. (Because she’s obviously never read a bible or a history book.)

Nice to know the judiciary is so well read. And so morally upstanding.

UPDATE: The Fraenkls appealed the decision and the decision has been reversed in part and remanded back to Collyer to decide anew: (see: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cadc/17-7100/17-7100-2018-06-08.html)

"The District Court [found] that the location of the Fraenkels' home, Naftali's school, and the site of the abduction indicated that Naftali and his family had "accepted the risk" of terrorist attacks. Based on these considerations, the District Court awarded solatium damages to Naftali's family members that were lower than the amounts awarded to the plaintiffs in Gates.

"The Fraenkels claim that the District Court abused its discretion in awarding solatium damages because the court's judgment was based on impermissible consderations and clearly erroneous findings of fact. We agree.

"For the reasons explained below, we reverse the District Court's judgment on the solatium damages awards and remand for further consideration."

h/t IsaacStorm

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Preschool Teacher Censured For Missing Quota Of Crap To Send Home With Kids (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jerusalem, July 4 - A nursery school educator in the Nahalat Ahim neighborhood of the capital faces disciplinary action this week following a period in which she failed to send the children home with the mandated minimum quantity of kitsch, crafts, and assorted other debris, Ministry of Education sources reported today.

Ministry spokeswoman Inda Boydem told reporters that the teacher, whose name has not been released, missed the monthly average of six kilograms of trash in the guise of crafts and souvenirs that preschool teachers must by law distribute each month to each child to take home. Upon end-of-year review, noted Ms. Boydem, the educator in question was discovered to have met the six-kilo threshold only three times, and failing to crack even the four-kilo mark in April.

"This is a rare instance of consistent failure that we will address in no uncertain terms," she promised. "The guidelines on this matter have never been clearer: each child registered for the preschool for ages three and four must be given no less than six kilos per month of drawings, collages, finger paintings, pinwheels, birthday surprises, ugly picture frames, flags, and other bric-a-brack. Unless those quotas are met, parents will be confronted with the prospect of having usable space in their homes, and that would be a disaster."

Ministry Superintendent for Preschool Education Onda Frijj explained the importance of the materials. "The Ministry of Education has several primary purposes, one of which has always been inconveniencing Israeli families," she commented. "In extreme cases that involves having nationwide strikes so parents must scramble to find arrangements for their school-aged children, but the everyday fulfillment of that purpose attracts far less media attention. From keeping school hours that force parents to miss work to pick up and care for their children in the afternoon, to a system that seldom gets into gear before two months into the school year, to making sure parents must find a place for tons of crap their kids have 'made' or received at some party, lest junior throw a tantrum at seeing the crap chucked in the garbage, there are countless daily inconveniences our educators must foist on parents, and adherence to the mandated minimums is what ensures the foisting remains at appropriate levels."

Ms. Frijj observed that the low April figure also stems from the two weeks each year schools are closed for the seven-day Passover break, but that in general, teachers generally make up for those lost weeks by doubling or tripling the quantity of crap sent home in the two weeks preceding the Passover break.

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07/04 Links Pt1: Foiled Iranian bomb plot overshadows Tehran’s European charm offensive; PA TV: Your fetus will be a “Martyr for Palestine”; Israel Wishes USA a Happy Birthday!

From Ian:

Seth J. Frantzman: Foiled Iranian bomb plot overshadows Tehran’s European charm offensive

On the eve of a visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Europe, two suspects in Belgium were detained and charged with preparing a terrorist attack. A diplomat from the Iranian Embassy in Austria was arrested in Germany.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif claimed the arrests were part of a “sinister false flag ploy,” and designed to sabotage Iran’s attempt to court Europe to stick with the Iran Deal.

However, the arrests will overshadow Tehran’s attempts to court European countries as the US pushes sanctions.

The arrest of terror plotters in Europe comes amid increasing pressure on the Iranian regime. Tehran has faced more than a week of protests that cap more than six months of unrest in Iran.

"We strongly condemn the Iranian regime's support for terrorism which clearly continues to threaten out European allies. The recently announced US sanctions on Iran are designed specifically to stop this kind of destabilizing activity," US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell said in reaction to the arrests.

Experts: Iran set up terrorist infrastructure in Europe

Iran has set up terrorist and intelligence ‎infrastructure across Europe with aim of ‎assassinating exiled Iranian dissidents and moderate ‎Arab leaders, particularly those whose countries ‎rival Iran in the Persian Gulf, intelligence experts ‎told Israel Hayom Tuesday.‎

According to both Israeli and foreign intelligence ‎experts, the vast Iranian infrastructure was set up ‎to serve the Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite black-‎ops arm, the Quds Force. ‎

One foreign intelligence official said that a prominent Arab ‎leader had recently canceled a visit to Europe ‎following solid information suggesting that an ‎Iranian terrorist cell was planning to assassinate ‎him.‎

Belgian authorities announced Monday that they have ‎exposed extensive infrastructure deployed by the ‎Quds Force and Iranian intelligence. Three people ‎were arrested, including an Iranian diplomat, on ‎suspicion of plotting to bomb a meeting of an exiled ‎‎Iranian opposition group in France.‎

The IntelliTimes intelligence blog said Tuesday that ‎former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was also in Paris ‎during that time. ‎

PMW: PA TV to pregnant Palestinians: Your fetus will be a “Martyr for Palestine”

Pregnant mothers all over the world are busy imagining the future of their unborn child and wishing him/her the best. The Palestinian Authority is promoting a song lately in which mothers are taught to see their unborn fetus as a future “Martyr for Palestine.” The song has been broadcast on official PA radio, Fatah’s Awdah TV, and now official PA TV.

“Our Martyrs are convoys and our bones are mountains
We don’t surrender to the lowly
We aren't deterred by imprisonment
Palestine is etched on the heart of the fetus
A proud Martyr in his mother’s womb
And the Arab state will remain ours - Arab, Arab Palestine...
We [hold] the rifles to our chests and our eyes are raised to you
Our homes are trenches and our souls are the sacrifice for you
O Jerusalem, you will not remain stolen.”
[Official PA TV, June 19 and 26, 2018]

“Martyrs” (Shahids) are those who die for Allah. “Martyrdom” has been presented by the PA as the most honorable status achievable in Islam.

Palestinian Media Watch reported when this song appeared on PA radio together with five other songs all encouraging "Martyrdom."

The “from fetus to Martyr” image has been used in the past by the PA and Hamas. When a Palestinian terrorist murderer, Yasser Hamdouni, collapsed while exercising in an Israeli prison in 2016, PA District Governor of Ramallah Laila Ghannam comforted his mother, using the image:

Text on image: “You carried him in your womb as a fetus to be separated from him as he is raised over your head as a Martyr (Shahid).
How long the separation, [due to] the jailer, and how you dreamed of embracing him in peace and security, and God’s decree arrived, and he left the grip of the jailer so that you will accompany him as a groom to Paradise (i.e., Martyr's funeral is considered wedding to the 72 Virgins in Paradise in Islam).”
[Facebook page of District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam, Sept. 27, 2016]

By Forest Rain Marcia

Have you ever imagined what it is like to be a farmer?

Any farmer is connected to their land in ways city-folk have a hard time understanding. You feel the rhythm of the land, when it needs to rest and when it is ready to bring forth new life.

There is something magical about communing with the land, being in partnership so that through your sweat and her nourishment you give birth to new growth that will give life to others.

The Jewish farmer in Zion has an even deeper union with the land.

It’s a 3000 year old love story consummated every time he or she goes to work, plants new seeds, waters the lands. It is biblical prophecy fulfilled when he or she walks the land, making it bloom once more.

The land (particularly that in the Gaza area) was dormant, empty. Waiting. When her lover come back she burst into bloom, producing rich fruit, vegetables, anything and everything that could be desired, in thanks, in gratitude for, once again being loved.

The Jewish farmer doesn’t have to consciously think about how the relationship with the land makes him (or her) a more complete Jew. It happens with every breath, with every effort, with the glorious harvest after a year’s labor of love.

And then, in an instant, it’s all ruined.

Melon field, Nahal Oz by Kfir Sivan

One kite, such an innocuous thing, a child’s toy, turned into a weapon, a firebomb burns away a year of love. You aren’t hearing about these attacks on the news. To others this is a non-story – Jews under fire, literally, day after day after day.

Acres of land going up in flames, crops ruined, wildlife burned alive. Greenhouses burnt to the ground, homes drenched in smoke, poisoned air…

This is something else, only the Jewish farmer experiences – people enraged that the land is once again taking part on the centuries old love story that has nothing to do with them. People so full of hate they are willing to burn farmer and land together, just so that no one will benefit.

This is what is happening in Israel now.

Take a look at this field of melons by Nahal Oz. Melons in their prime, ripe and ready to be harvested. Their juice should now be bursting in the mouths of the people they were destined to nourish, their sweetness sliding down throats of people who appreciate this produce of the land.

Instead they lie, burned in ruin. The land that gave them life is now a grave instead of a mother. The farmer that loved them, raised them to be all that they could be, counted on them for the sweet life they would give him is left with bitter tears.

When you hear of kite bombs think of these melons.

Think of their farmer.

Think of this land.

2000 years of yearning, 70 years of hard work, investment of love and labor, livelihood of individuals, food for a nation. THAT is what is under attack.

It won’t work.

We are Zion, home to stay

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