Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, August 05, 2018

Russian Foreign Ministry officially invites Islamic Jihad terror group for a meeting

Palestine Today reports that Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine received an official invitation to visit Moscow from the Russian Foreign Ministry.

According to the Information Office of the Islamic Jihad a delegation headed by Deputy Secretary-General Ziad Al-Nakhla and members of the Political Bureau, Dr. Mohammad Hindi and Dr. Anwar Abu Taha are expect to travel to Moscow to meet the Russian diplomats.

I don't know if this is the first time this has happened, but any country to give official recognition to an Islamist jihadist terror group is most definitely a bad idea.

Even though Russia was fighting ISIS, it appears that the Russians consider some jihadists to be OK.

Israel should formally ask for an explanation.

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The Guardian whitewashes Bin Laden's family - while they still consider him a hero

From The Guardian:

Hamza bin Laden, the son of the late al-Qaida leader, has married the daughter of Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker in the 9/11 terror attacks, according to his family.

Bin Laden’s wives and surviving children have returned to Saudi Arabia, where they were given refuge by the former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef. The women and children remain in close contact with Bin Laden’s mother, Alia Ghanem, who told the Guardian in an interview that she remained in regular touch with surviving family members.

“When we thought everyone was over this, next thing I knew was Hamza saying I am going to avenge my father,” said Hassan al-Attas. “I don’t want to go through that again."

“If Hamza was in front of me now, I would tell him: God guide you. Think twice about what you are doing. Don’t retake the steps of your father. You are entering really negative and horrible parts of your soul.”

See how they want to distance themselves from Osama bin Laden when talking to the Guardian?

But the family members also choose to pose next to pictures of Osama Bin Laden. Not Osama as a college student, but Osama as the jihadi who killed thousands of people. His photos are prominently displayed.

They aren't ashamed of Osama and his actions. They are proud.

(h/t Ghilmeini)

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08/05 Links: The True Extent of Palestinian Hatred for Israel; Head of Syrian chemical arms research center assassinated; The EU's pathological relationship with Hezbollah

From Ian:

The True Extent of Palestinian Hatred for Israel

It is clear to anyone who closely observes the reality in Israel that the No. 1 goal of Hamas is the destruction of Israel, not pursuing a viable Palestinian state, which is what Hamas wants you to think.

While Israel tries to minimize casualties, Hamas does the complete opposite. Let us not forget that Hamas is an internationally recognized terrorist organization, infamous for using the Palestinian people as human shields and for using financial incentives to encourage people to become suicide bombers.

During recent protests, Hamas encouraged Gazans to try to storm the border with Israel. Having gotten wind of this plan of action, Israel responded by dropping leaflets beforehand warning everyone to avoid harm by not approaching or attempting to breach the barrier.

Hamas knew full well that it was sending its own people to death since no country would allow a mass infiltration by a mob incited to rampage and kill innocents. But dead Palestinians provide great PR pressure points for Hamas against Israel. After whipping its own people into a frenzy all while knowing that it was a death sentence, Hamas proceeded.

In the aftermath, Hamas painted a very different story of innocent Palestinian victims in a peaceful mob, gunned down by Israel. It and a chorus of international actors then denounced and lambasted Israel.

The Palestinians should immediately halt these cynical games. Until then, Israel has no choice but to do what it must to defend its people.

EU report details international web of Hezbollah terror funding

A newly released European Union report on terrorism states that Lebanese nationals worked with organized crime organizations to finance Hezbollah’s terrorist activities.

The European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2018 wrote, “In 2017, member states carried out several investigations into financing of terrorism. One major investigation focused on a large network of Lebanese nationals offering money laundering services to organized crime groups in the EU and using a share of the profits to finance terrorism-related activities of the Lebanese Hezbollah’s military wing.”

The report added, “The cooperation of these money-launderers and Hezbollah’s military wing was a clear example of a nexus between organized crime and terrorism.”

The Jerusalem Post reviewed the 70-page EU report and found it did not provide any more specifics on Hezbollah’s activities in Europe. Hezbollah has played a key role in aiding Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war that has resulted in the deaths of more than 500,000 people.

The EU only designated Hezbollah’s so-called military wing a terrorist entity in 2013. US President Donald Trump, former US president Barack Obama and ex-secretary of state Hillary Clinton have urged the EU to proscribe all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The Iranian regime is the chief financial sponsor of Hezbollah, with an annual $700 million supplied by Tehran to the Lebanese Shi’ite group, according to the US government.

The Post reported in June that Al-Mustafa Community Center in the northern German city-state of Bremen is a major hub for raising funds for Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to a German intelligence report published by the Bremen intelligence agency.

What to do about EU's pathological relationship with Hezbollah

Europeans have criticized US President Donald Trump for distancing America from her traditional allies in NATO, while favoring his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. After relying on America for protection for over 70 years since the end of World War II, Europe is “now more worried about an America withdrawing from the transatlantic relationship than an overbearing superpower”, according to Richard Wike writing in the Atlantic.

Yet when European financial interests were threatened last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized bipartisan congressional legislation that proposed increasing sanctions against Russia because it targeted the European- Russia Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in which German companies are invested.

The legislation toughened sanctions on Russia over its Ukrainian invasion. Mrs. Merkel’s doesn’t seem to realize that she lives in a glass house.

American critics of Europe have focused on European underfunding of their NATO obligation, spending under 2% of their GDP, below their promised commitment.

However equally as troubling to both Congress and the administration is Europe’s associations and protection of the American-designated terrorist organization Hezbollah that operates freely in Europe, raising funds while threatening American and allied interests. The Europeans stick their collective heads in the sand as multiple Hezbollah planned attacks on European soil have been foiled within the last few years.

European appeasement of Hezbollah begins and ends with their failure to designate its political wing as a terrorist organization, despite Hezbollah itself having no distinction between its terrorist and political entities.

From Israel Hayom:

Four Palestinian high school friends are heading to California this week to pitch their mobile app about fire prevention to Silicon Valley's tech leaders, after winning a slot in the finals of a worldwide competition among more than 19,000 teenage girls.

The teens first heard about the competition a few months ago from an IT teacher at their school in a middle-class neighborhood in Nablus, where IT classes are a modest affair, held twice a week, with two students to a computer.

The girls, friends since 10th grade, each had a laptop at home though, and worked with Yamama Shakaa, a local mentor provided by the competition organizers. The teens "did everything by themselves, with very few resources," said Shakaa.

The team produced a virtual reality game, "Be a firefighter," to teach fire prevention skills.

The teens now hope to expand their app to include wildfire prevention. They will also present a business and marketing plan at the California pitching session.

I am all for Palestinians learning computers and programming. I wish these girls luck. The only way the Palestinian economy can grow is by moving away from agriculture and towards high tcch fields, especially in jobs which can be done for clients around the world.

But this story leaves out an important fact.

Literally every day, Palestinian media proudly reports about the number of wildfires set by Gaza incendiary balloons and kites, which have destroyed thousands of acres of Israeli forest, farmland and wildlife preserves.

The idea that these girls are going to California for a fire prevention app - that they hope will be expanded to prevent the types of wildfires that their people celebrate - feels more than a bit cynical.

(h/t Andrew)

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UNRWA Souf camp in Jordan

There was buzz over the weekend over a Foreign Policy article revealing a secret Jared Kushner memo about UNRWA.

Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, has quietly been trying to do away with the U.N. relief agency that has provided food and essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees for decades, according to internal emails obtained by Foreign Policy.

[Kushner's] position on the refugee issue and his animus toward the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is evident in internal emails written by Kushner and others earlier this year.

“It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote about the agency in one of those emails, dated Jan. 11 and addressed to several other senior officials, including Trump’s Middle East peace envoy, Jason Greenblatt.

“This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace,” he wrote.

In the same January email, Kushner wrote: “Our goal can’t be to keep things stable and as they are. … Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there.”

Kushner raised the refugee issue with officials in Jordan during a visit to the region in June, along with Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt. According to Palestinian officials, he pressed the Jordan to strip its more than 2 million registered Palestinians of their refugee status so that UNRWA would no longer need to operate there.

“[Kushner said] the resettlement has to take place in the host countries and these governments can do the job that UNRWA was doing,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

She said the Trump administration wanted rich Arab Gulf states to cover the costs Jordan might incur in the process.

“They want to take a really irresponsible, dangerous decision and the whole region will suffer,” Ashrawi said.

My only problem with this is that the email and Kushner's talks with Jordanian leaders were not made public earlier. Because now that it is public, there can finally be a reasonable debate on UNRWA.

The vast majority of Palestinians in Jordan whom UNRWA considers refugees are citizens of the state. They should have equal access to public education and health services that every Jordanian citizen has.

By calling nearly 2 million Jordanian citizens "refugees," Jordan is discriminating against some 20% of its population - telling them that they are not really citizens, that they are only temporary residents who would be expected to one day "return" to overrun Israel.

By telling these citizens that they are not really full citizens, Jordan is practicing apartheid. Anyone who is up in arms over Israel's Nation State bill because of its supposed disenfranchisement of 20% of Israel's citizens who are not equally upset over long-standing Jordanian policy to treat so-called Palestinian refugees as anything other that full citizens is a hypocrite.

Beyond that is the more basic issue: Those who are citizens of a state, by definition, are not refugees. When Palestinian leaders and NGOs insist that they are it means that they support Jordanian apartheid against Palestinians as well, and they want the world to keep footing the bill for something that common sense and human rights says should be the responsibility of the Kingdom of Jordan.

If Jordan provides services to only some of its citizens, it is discriminating against the others.

Jordan's Foreign Minister decried the idea of defunding UNRWA and giving the money straight to Jordan instead. Meaning that Jordan officially condones apartheid against a significant minority of its citizens. (Interestingly, the statement came from the foreign minister, underscoring that Palestinians are foreigners to the Kingdom.)

Even the Palestinians who are not Jordanian citizens aren't refugees by any definition - because they voluntarily fled in 1967 when they didn't want to live under Israeli rule. A refugee is someone who is forced out of their home, not someone who decides they don't like the new government where they live. Jordan should be providing services to them as well, not a "refugee" agency.

Under the legal UN definition of refugees, there is not a single Palestinian refugee who lives in Jordan.

So bring the debate on. Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat will try to pretend that eliminating UNRWA from Jordan is a violation of human rights, but it takes very little to show that UNRWA's existence is the violation of human rights for the Jordanian citizens of Palestinian ancestry who are forced to rely on UNRWA for basic services that Jordan should be providing.

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Palestinians rewriting history of Yemenite Jews in Silwan in a most disgusting way

Israel opened up a new cultural center in Jerusalem last week:

Two cabinet ministers, two candidates for Jerusalem mayor, the Sephardi chief rabbi of the city and a right-wing US former governor on Wednesday celebrated at a cornerstone ceremony for a heritage center in a former Yemenite synagogue, in overwhelmingly Palestinian Silwan, near the Temple Mount.
Also on hand was a representative of the Moskowitz family, which supports Jewish settlement in Palestinian neighborhoods of the capital.

The building — once the synagogue of Kfar Hashiloah, a village built for poor Yemenite immigrants in the early 1880s and evacuated during Arab riots in the early 20th century — was acquired in 2015 by the right-wing Ateret Cohanim organization, which settles Jews in East Jerusalem.

We have shown in the past that the neighborhood, called Kfar HaShiloah before the Arabs named it Silwan, was exclusively Jewish at the beginning. Here's a photo I helped uncover back in 2010 of the neighborhood in 1891:

But when Palestinians are reporting on the story of this new "settlement," they have a completely different history.

PA spokesman Yousuf Al-Mahmoud said that the inauguration of the center "is one of the attempts of this extremist government to ignite the fires of religious war alien to us and our country and our culture, and is a blatant challenge to the Arab and Islamic nations, the international community and the resolutions of international legitimacy."

He went on to say "the fabrication of establishing this settler's center under the name 'Center for the Heritage of Yemenite Jews' is meant to disguise the racism of Israeli officials that has crossed every limit." The Yemenite Jews, he claims, "escaped the oppression of those Westerners who embraced Judaism (evoking the Khazar myth) and settled in Silwan, where the (local Arab) people helped them and provided them with a safe place among them for years. Today racism is raging and it turns that event, which is overflowing with humanity and shows moral values, and it (the racism) brings upon the original inhabitants of the country wickedness and brutality that is manifest in settling, and stealing and robbing the property of the (Palestinian) civilians and their holy places."

As you can see from the photo, there were no Arabs in that neighborhood. The Yemenite Jews weren't driven out of Jerusalem, they just couldn't afford housing inside the Old City, and they moved to caves. The Jews of Jerusalem raised money to build these buildings for them.

And later on, the Yemenites were forced out of their homes - they were attacked by Arabs in the 1921 riots and the 1929 massacres, and the British forced them to leave in order to save their lives. The idea that al-Mahmous claims that the Yemenites were welcomed by their Arab neighbors is exactly opposite of the truth - the Arabs who moved in afterwards attacked them, ethnically cleansed them and stole their houses.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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08/04 Links: Kushner said pushing to close UNRWA, end Pal refugee status; Cory Booker Pictured With Anti-Israel Radicals; 91.6% Of Orthodox Jews Find Trump Satisfactory or Very Satisfactory

From Ian:

Kushner said pushing to close UNRWA, end refugee status for Palestinian millions

Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, has been pushing to remove the refugee status of millions of Palestinians as part of an apparent effort to shutter the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, a report on Friday said.

Under Trump, the US has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, with the US president linking the decision to the Palestinians’ refusal to speak with his administration after he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

According to emails published Friday by Foreign Policy magazine, Kushner has been highly critical of UNRWA, with he and other White House officials weighing its closure as part of their peace efforts.

“It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote in an email dated January 11, just days before the US froze $65 million in funding for UNRWA. “This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.”

“Our goal can’t be to keep things stable and as they are… Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there,” he added in the email, according to Foreign Policy.

Uniquely, UNRWA grants refugee status to all descendants of Palestinians who left or fled Israel with the establishment of the state in 1948, swelling the number to an estimated five million at present, when the number of actual refugees from that conflict is estimated to be in the low tens of thousands. In peace talks, the Palestinian leadership has always demanded a “right of return” to Israel for these millions — an influx that, if accepted by Israel, would spell the end of the Israel as a majority Jewish state.

POLL: 91.6% Of Orthodox Jews Find Trump Satisfactory or Very Satisfactory

According to a new poll released by Ami Magazine, an international magazine catering to the Jewish community, 91.6% of Orthodox Jews from the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut approve of President Trump as “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory.”

The 263 respondents of the poll varied in political affiliation, with 34.6% registered as Republican, 29.3% as not registered, 28.9% as Democrat, and 7.2% independent.

“There are many possible reasons why,” Jake Turx, Ami Magazine’s Senior White House Correspondent told The Daily Wire. “Though, one thing I see that Orthodox Jews have in common with Trump himself— personality wise— is a very strong sense of loyalty, in the sense that ‘if you have my back, I have yours.’”

Turx also says that there were many critics of Trump in the Orthodox Jewish community at the beginning of Trump’s term but many are now quieter.

“After the Jerusalem declaration and the pardoning of Rubashkin, they just disappeared,” Turx explained, referring to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Trump pardoning Sholom Rubashkin, the former owner of the largest U.S. kosher meat processing plant who was sentenced to prison for 27 years for financial crimes. “Some became fans, and some just stopped criticizing him, not because of pressure, but because at the end of the day they feel that if he has their back, they have his.”

Cory Booker Pictured With Anti-Israel Radicals, Holds Sign Calling for Elimination of Security Borders in Israel

New Jersey senator Cory Booker (D.) was pictured on Friday afternoon at the liberal Netroots Nation conference holding a sign calling for the removal of security borders in Israel, a policy proposal from a radical anti-Israel group with financial ties to terrorist groups.

Booker, standing next to radical activists from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, is holding a sign that says, "From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go," a slogan used by the group in its call for the removal of Israeli security barriers used to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks.

The picture of Booker was posted by the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a radical activist group that supports anti-Israel campaigns such as the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement and was recently found to be financially tied to designated terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

"Excited to be here at Netroots Nation talking with progressives like Sen. Cory Booker about our shared commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for all people," the group wrote.

Booker's senate office did not initially respond to an inquiry on the picture and whether he believes security barriers that prevent terrorists based in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering Israel should be removed, but after publication sent a statement claiming the New Jersey senator didn't know what was written on the sign he was holding.

08/03 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: Chomsky Calls Russian Interference a Joke - Blames Guess Who?; Murray: Owen Jones is lying about Israel. Plain and simple

From Ian:

Alan M. Dershowitz: Chomsky Calls Russian Interference a Joke - Blames Guess Who?

Noam Chomsky has gone off the deep end once again. This time he claims that in "most of the world" the issue of Russian interference in U.S. elections is "almost a joke." The real villain, according to him, is, of course, Israel -- as it almost always is with Chomsky. According to the world's "top public intellectual," Israeli intervention in U.S. elections, "vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done." His proof of this absurd and false charge is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in front of Congress "with overwhelming applause." Only on Planet Chomsky would it be worse for the Prime Minister of an American ally openly to accept an invitation from the Speaker of the House to address Congress about an issue of mutual concern, than for Russian agents surreptitiously to try to manipulate voters by false social media campaigns, hacking emails, and other illegal actions.

Chomsky simply fails to understand how democracy is supposed to work. Transparency and public accountability are the cornerstones of democracy. Prime Minister Netanyahu's very public opposition to Obama's Iran Deal -- a deal opposed by most members of Congress and most Americans -- was just as consistent with democracy as Winston Churchill's public demands for the United States to help Great Britain fight the Nazis.

American presidents, as well as Israeli prime ministers, seek to influence the policies and electoral choices made by their allies. That, too, is part of democracy. The United States has pressured Israel to stop building settlements, Israel has pressured the United States to be more aggressive in preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal. This, too, is part of democracy.

Waiting to Hear That USA Won't Interfere in Foreign Elections

Yesterday I heard part of the press briefing by Sarah Sanders. In it she discussed the allegations of foreign interference in American elections, most notably the 2016 presidential elections. Of course she condemned any interference very firmly.

But I was waiting for her to say that she also condemns American interference in foreign elections. Especially during Obama's reign and even before, American officials backed Israel's Left wing parties in an attempt to get the Likud out of office.

That's how Labor led by Ehud Barak won in 1999. They unseated Likud and Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu with the help of American campaign experts. The wording of Barak's slogan about leaving Southern Lebanon was very familiar... And the damage the fleeing from Lebanon did was horrendous.

It took ten years for Netanyahu to return to power, and those ten years were among the most notorious in the History of the State of Israel. Arik Sharon's inexplicable turn Left to Disengagement, which placed Gaza in the firmly in the hands of Hamas terrorists who are at present burning Souther Israel with their incendiary balloons/kites etc, then Ehud Olmert who was tried and convicted for corruption. Since then, the Israeli public has made it clear that although Netanyahu may not be perfect, they prefer him, head of Likud, as Prime Minister. But that didn't stop Barack Hussein Obama, during his presidency from supporting Bibi's opponents.

Cory Booker smiling with BDS activists and terrorism advocates. The transformation is complete. @mattklapper https://t.co/7VzzXjUen3
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) August 3, 2018

Glenn Greenwald Keeps the Ugly ‘Dual Loyalty’ Accusation Alive

Rather, Greenwald engages in an ad hominem attack on the Jewish congressman who, he notes, issued his remarks in favor of tough sanctions in front of “an Israeli and American flag.”

Greenwald coolly notes that it is “simply impossible to deny that this highly influential American Congressman, devoted to pushing the US to war with Iran, is driven, at least in substantial part, by his fervent devotion to Israel.”

That Greenwald, a former Constitutional lawyer and civil rights litigator, could simply be ignorant of the lethal history of this facile narrative about Jewish power he so frequently engages in is certainly possible. But one thing is certain: 65 years after the Holocaust, with Jews representing roughly 2% of the American population, it is horribly dispiriting that the charge that organized Jewry is too powerful and pushing the United States to war is once again becoming fashionable.

Wieseltier, in his New Republic essay, describes Sullivan as belonging “to the party of Mearsheimer and the clique of Walt … to the herd of fearless dissidents who proclaim in all seriousness, without in any way being haunted by the history of such an idea, that Jews control Washington.” It is clear that this clique increasingly includes those who take cover behind a progressive veneer.

From CNN:

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the Danish capital of Copenhagen wearing burqas and other face veils Wednesday to protest a law against facial coverings, saying the legislation oppresses some Muslim women and violates their rights.
Denmark joins several other European nations restricting face coverings. France banned the full face veil in 2011, while Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands and parts of Switzerland have restrictions in place. Other European countries have debated the issue.

If these liberal Western European countries ban the burqa, then doesn't that mean that Israel is more tolerant and liberal than they are? Doesn't this sort of destroy the argument, especially in wake of the Nation State law, that Israel is bigoted against its Muslim population?

(I actually agree that the burqa should be banned for safety as well as human rights reasons, but not other Muslim headcoverings. )

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08/03 Links Pt1: Glick: Trump's Offer to Talk to Iran Was Shrewd Move in Complicated Showdown; Gaza truce proposal would ease blockade, end fire balloon attacks

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Trump's Offer to Talk to Iran Was Shrewd Move in Complicated Showdown

All negotiations have a tendency to create a dynamic in which reaching a deal – any deal – becomes more important than achieving the goals that brought the parties to the negotiating table in the first place. Western leaders, who are subject to media scrutiny and election pressures, are more susceptible to the pressure to achieve a deal than leaders of dictatorial regimes like those in Iran and North Korea.

As a consequence, the dynamic of negotiations works against the interests of the Western powers and favors the interests of the authoritarians they face at the table. In the current context of U.S.-Iranian relations, we will know that we should be concerned about this dynamic if and when the administration diminishes its public support for the anti-regime protesters in Iran.

On Wednesday, U.S. Central Command warned that Iran is about to launch a massive military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz. Suleimani and other regime leaders have threatened repeatedly in recent weeks to seal the maritime choke point through which 20 percent of world oil shipments transit if the U.S. blocks Iranian oil exports.

This Iranian move, like the missiles its Houthi proxies shot at two Saudi oil tankers in the Bab el Mandab choke point in the Red Sea least week, shows that the Iranians also know how to talk and shoot at the same time.

Obviously, it is too early to know where Trump’s offer will lead. But what is clear enough is that Trump’s offer to negotiate with Iran is no fluke. It is a shrewd, albeit high-risk move made in a complex and highly dynamic and dangerous standoff between the U.S. and its allies — and a lethal, menacing regime whose back is up against the wall.

Eli Lake: Trump’s Outreach to Rogues Follows in Obama’s Footsteps

This was a hot-button issue back in 2007 and 2008 when an upstart Democratic senator named Barack Obama proposed that if elected president, he would meet with leaders of Iran, Cuba and North Korea in his first year. His opponents pounced. Hillary Clinton said she wouldn’t want a meeting with such dictators to be “used for propaganda purposes.”

In his recent memoir, Obama’s deputy national security adviser and speechwriter, Ben Rhodes, described the reaction to his critics from inside the bubble. The campaign team was reading a news story in which Madeleine Albright, formerly Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, criticized Obama’s naive offer. Obama responded, according to Rhodes, by pounding his open palm on a table to emphasize every syllable: “It. Is. Not. A. Reward. To. Talk. To. Folks.”

Fast forward to 2018 and it’s fair to say that Trump takes the Obama view of talking to bad guys. After all, Trump met North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un in Singapore. He met with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. If aliens threatened to vaporize Los Angeles, Trump would first tweet some threats and insults and then a few days later propose a summit on a neighboring planet.

Now the president says he is open to talks with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, without preconditions. “If they want to meet, I’ll meet,” he said at a joint press conference with Italy’s prime minister.

Anyone who has paid close attention to Trump’s Iran policy should not be surprised. As I wrote last week, Trump has consistently said he wants to negotiate a new deal with Iran’s leaders now that he has withdrawn the U.S. from the one negotiated by Obama.

Why The United States Should Give Iranian Dissidents A Boost Via Social Media

It’s crucial to remember that even though we may share much in common, Iranian opponents of the theocratic regime may not always agree with us on foreign policy. Indeed, the intensity of the partisan divide in the United States makes it difficult to cross political aisles even here at home. Nevertheless, we can use our converging interests to mutual advantage.

While these Iranian democracy activists represent a diverse range of opinion about both the United States and its current president, they are still opponents of the theocratic regime in Tehran. Thirty-nine years after the birth of the theocratic Shi’a regime, the president reached out to the people of Iran, telling them: “The future of Iran belongs to its people. They are the rightful heirs to a rich culture and an ancient land. And they deserve a nation that does justice to their dreams, honor to their history, and glory to God.”

Young democracy activists need to hear this message on their own channels. U.S. government information, analysis, and policy branches need native Farsi speakers reading these and other social media daily, giving feedback and recommendations to policymakers.

Whether or not the opposition is in the streets doing battle with the regime, it is always online. Through a massive network of existing social media networks, we can reach this crucial group of activists both inside Iran and in diaspora communities around the world.

For those who oppose the Basic Law but support a Jewish state...

For the American Jewish Zionists who support Israel but oppose the Basic Law, what exactly would they support to make Israel the Jewish state?

Apparently making Hebrew the official language is racist, somehow. Apparently the Law of Return is problematic. Apparently supporting building Jewish communities (while not stopping Arab communities from being built) is no good, either. Obviously a state based on Jewish law is outrageous. Clearly Israel cannot claim any parts of the territories, and even saying Jerusalem is the capital is an issue to most American Jews (according to some biased polls.)

So, for those Zionist Jews - what does a Jewish state mean to you, specifically, if Israel is not allowed to do anything about it? (Except to retreat to the 1967 lines, but not include Jewish holy sites.)

(h/t EBoZ)

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Palestine Today reports that sources close to Hamas have leaked the details of the Hamas-Israel truce to the newspaper Al-Akhbar.

According to the report, the agreement involves a a five-year truce that will be implemented in stages.

The first phase, which will begin within a week, is to end the arson kites, incendiary balloons, and attempts to breach the Gaza fence in return for the reopening of the Kerem Shalom crossing and a permanent opening of the Rafah crossing (meaning that Egypt is part of the plans as well.)

In two months there would be talks about a prisoner exchange, presumably both for the Israelis held in Gaza and the remains of soldiers.

No more details were given.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was said to have canceled his trip to Colombia in order to discuss this plan, which was pushed by United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Nikolai Mladenov.

According to the newspaper, there is fear of the reaction of the Palestinian Authority, which may impede the truce. The story said that Egypt threatened the PA saying if they continue to stop paying salaries to Gazans and other anti-Gaza moves then the plan will go on without them, marginalizing their role on the world stage.

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A challenge to the UK's "Free Speech" Palestinians

The Guardian published a letter from major Palestinian leaders in the UK rejecting the IHRA definition of antisemitism that includes:

Targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

The letter says:

Any use by public bodies of the IHRA examples on antisemitism that either inhibits discussion relating to our dispossession by ethnic cleansing, when Israel was established, or attempts to silence public discussions on current or past practices of settler colonialism, apartheid, racism and discrimination, and the ongoing violent military occupation, directly contravenes core rights.

I once made a list comparing classic antisemitic speech with contemporary anti-Israel speech.

I would like to ask the signatories of this letter to kindly inform us which of these criticisms of Israel on the right side of this list are considered OK in their view, or if they consider all of them legitimate criticism of Israel.

Antisemites	Anti-Zionists
“Jews should go back where they came from”	“Israeli Jews should go back where they came from”
“Jews control the USA”	“Israel controls the USA”
“Jews control the banks”	“Zionists control the money supply”
“Jews control the media”	“Zionists control the media”
“Jews are inferior Semites”	“Israeli Jews are not native to the region”
“Jews poison the wells”	“Israel poisons the water supply”
“Jews were behind the Black Plague”	“Israel is creating anti-Arab biological weapons”
“Jews murder Christian children”	“Israel targets and murders Arab children”
“Jews use blood of gentile children for rituals”	“Israeli doctors steal organs from gentile patients”
“Jews cannot be trusted”	“Israel cannot be trusted”
“Jews exploit their workers”	“Israel exploits Arab labor”
“The Star of David offends me”	“The Star of David offends me”
“We don't want Jews in our clubs”	“We don't want Israel in international bodies”
“Jews controlled the slave trade”	“Zionism is racism”
“Jews are not white”	“Jews are guilty of white privilege”
“The Holocaust never happened”	“Zionist Jews were complicit in the Holocaust”
“Jews are behind all wars”	“Israel is the reason for all terrorism and ME unrest”
“Jews arrogantly believe they are 'chosen'”	“Israel arrogantly believes it is above the law”
“Greedy Jews always want more money”	“Greedy Israel always wants more land”
“Jews have secret plans to control the world”	“Israel plans to expand from the Nile to Euphrates”
“Jewish businesses must be boycotted”	“Israeli businesses must be boycotted”
“Jews not allowed in this hotel”	“Israelis not allowed in this shop”
“Universities must limit Jewish students”	“Universities must not work with Israelis”
“Germans had good reasons to hate Jews”	“Palestinians have good reason to hate Israelis”
“People I don't like must be secretly Jewish”	“People I don't like must be associated with Israel”
“If everyone hates Jews, there must be a reason”	“If everyone hates Israel, there must be a reason”
“'Jew' is the ultimate insult”	“'Zionist' is the ultimate insult”

I would like to add that when anti-Zionists say anything bad about Israelis, they always only mean Israeli Jews. Israeli Arabs who live across the Green Line are not "settlers." Israeli non-Jews who service in the IDF are not baby killers. Israeli Arabs are not boycotted by universities or shops, as far as I know.

So, please, let us know which of the expressions on the right side are legitimate criticism and not hate speech. While you are at it, let us know which ones on the left are considered antisemitic to you as well, and explain the difference between the two sides.

I don't think any of the esteemed academics and entertainers who signed the letter has the guts to actually expose the specifics of that they consider acceptable. I think they are cowards.

Please, anti-Zionists, prove me wrong.

Here are the signatories:

Omar Al-Qattan Chairman of the board of trustees, AM Qattan Foundation,Atallah Said Chairman, British Palestinian Policy Council, Professor Kamel Hawwash University of Birmingham, Professor Karma Nabulsi Univerity of Oxford, Nadia Hijab Author and human rights advocate, Dr Aimee ShalanCharity chief executive, Ben Jamal Director, Palestine Solidarity Campaign,Mazen Masri Managing director, Edgo, philanthropist, Sawsan AsfariPhilanthropist, founder educational charities, Zaher Birawi Chairman, Europal Forum, Salma Karmi-Ayyoub Barrister, Professor Suleiman Sharkh University of Southhampton, Professor Izzat Darwazeh UCL, Dr Adam Hanieh Reader in development, Soas, Dr Dina Matar Soas, Feras Abu Helal Editor-in-chief, journalist, Dr Nimer Sultany Senior lecturer in public law, Soas, Dr Ghada Karmi Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, Akram SalhabRefugee and migrant organiser, Karl Sabbagh Author and publisher, Dr Ahmed Khalidi Academic visitor, St Antony’s College, Oxford, Samir Eskanda Musician, Selma Dabbagh Author, Ahmed Masoud Writer and director, Omar Shweiki Director, HE educational charity, Hanna Khalil Playwright, Kareem SamaraMusician Ahmed Ziat Humanitarian aid coordinator

(h/t Ronald)

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08/02 Links Pt2: Hamas summer camp poisons young Palestinians' minds with hatred & violence; Caving to pressure, Tunisia to host 7-year-old Israeli chess whiz

From Ian:

Radical Islamists, women and little girls are not your toys

Recently, the media reported that 14 terrified young girls and women were kidnapped by ISIS when they attacked the Druze city of Suwayda, Syria. ISIS has threatened to treat these Druze women and girls in the same manner that they have treated Yazidi women and girls should the Syrian regime not halt its offensive against the Yarmouk Valley. As a feminist and Jewish woman, I have the following to say to ISIS and other radical Islamists who have a similar mentality: Minority women and little girls are not toys with whom you can do with whatever you like.

Many young girls across the Middle East do better in school than their male counter-parts.
Women and girls, just like men and boys, are breathing living human beings and deserve to be treated as such. They have feelings and are in pain when you hurt them. They can articulate themselves just as well as a man can and in many cases, better. Furthermore, according to an article that was recently published in the Atlantic, many young girls across the Middle East do better in school than their male counter-parts. However, despite this, women only make up a tiny fraction of the work force in most Arab countries, while men who did not perform as well in school are the ones who end up with the jobs.

ISIS and other radical Islamist groups seek to allow women and girls to do nothing in addition to being wives, mothers and in the case of minority women, sexual slaves. The Me Too Movement should be up in arms but it is not, preferring to focus its wrath upon people who sexually abuse American women. To date, there is no sign of intent to broaden the movement to include minority women in the Islamic world who continue to be oppressed merely because they were born into the wrong gender and the wrong faith. Other Western feminist organizations ignore the real plight of islamic women and falsely charge Israel with suppressing them.

Hamas summer camp poisons young Palestinians' minds with hatred & violence

What are your children doing this #summer?
#Hamas in #Gaza is depriving young Palestinians of their childhood by poisoning their minds with hatred & violence.

A college textbook says Holocaust victims failed to realize their strength

An online textbook, which blames Holocaust victims for failing to tap into their strength, is required reading for nearly 19,000 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students.

"21st Century Wellness" is part of a one-credit hour Lifetime Fitness course all UNC undergraduates have to take before graduation. The course is meant to teach students how to stay physically fit and make healthy lifestyle choices.

But along with handing out advice about leading a healthy lifestyle, the book delves into other subjects. One excerpt says Holocaust victims who died failed to find their inner strength.

"The people in the camps who did not tap into the strength that comes from their intrinsic worth succumbed to the brutality to which they were subjected," the book reads. The text was contracted for use for two years, but it is currently under review for the fall, a school spokesman said.

Ryan Holmes, who took a Lifetime Fitness weight training course last fall, was one of a number of students who criticized the book.

"Some of the stuff they said seemed almost like pseudoscience, and it kind of blurred the lines between what I recognized to be real factual information and things that may or may not be true. It put a lot of emphasis on the connection between mental and physical health, more than normal," he said. "I thought that it was an oversimplification that didn't account for situational factors."

Caving to pressure, Tunisia to host 7-year-old Israeli chess whiz

The Tunisian Chess Federation has agreed to allow a 7-year-old Israeli girl to take part in the World School Individual Chess Championships in Sousse, Tunisia, in 2019.

In response to a request for clarification from the World Chess Federation, the organization issued a letter saying players from all countries, "without exception," are invited to participate in the tournament.

The World Chess Federation had demanded that the North African country confirm it would provide visas to all participants or else risk losing the right to host the competition, following a campaign by Israel advocacy group StandWithUs.

After Tunisia initially showed no signs that it intended to let European School Individual chess champion Liel Levitan in to Tunisia to play in the tournament, the group launched a campaign called "Let Liel Play" in which hundreds of Israel supporters signed a petition demanding that she be allowed entry. StandWithUs also wrote to World Chess Federation Administrative Manager Polina Tsedenova about the matter.

Booking.com stops referring to Jerusalem as an "Israeli settlement" - but Bethlehem and Hebron are still called that

Joods Actueel uncovered an amazing example of anti-Israel bias in the travel site Booking.com in all languages.

The site referred to all of Jerusalem as an Israeli settlement.

After an inquiry from an outraged customer, Booking.com changed its designation of Jerusalem.

But it continues to use the words "Israeli settlement" for any town with any Jews.

While Ramallah is considered "Palestinian territory":

Bethlehem and Hebron, with very small Jewish populations are where the vast majority of both cities are under full PA control, are still considered "settlements."

You can see that the Arab hotels that are deeply in Area A under full Palestinian control are considered to be within "Israeli settlements."

Bizarrely, the towns most associated with being Israeli settlements like Gush Etzion or Kiryat Arba are given no country whatsoever:

This all doesn't even make business sense. People who want to stay in Arab Hebron or Bethlehem are less likely to visit the "Israeli Settlement" that Booking.com says they are in.

And if you look for hotels near Kiryat Arba, sure enough - you see the Arab hotels in Hebron.

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