Sunday, February 24, 2019

  • Sunday, February 24, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

No, Bibi isn't racist. But he is a politician, which can be almost as bad.

I usually don't comment on internal Israeli politics, mostly because I don't feel qualified to provide an opinion any better than those of actual Israelis.

I do, however, want to make a point about the controversy of Netanyahu convincing the Jewish Home party to partner with Otzma Yehudit, a party that follows the teachings of Meir Kahane, who was banned from Knesset as a racist. The combined party would then be part of a Likud coalition should they do well enough in the upcoming elections.

The optics of this move are terrible.

But Netanyahu himself is no racist - he is just, like virtually all politicians, willing to do whatever it takes to win.

In recent weeks the Israeli media have reported that under Netanyahu's "racist" Likud:

- The number of Israeli Arab Ph.D. candidates has more than doubled
- There has been a 60 percent increase over five years in enrollment to bilingual Hebrew/Arabic schools where Jewish and Arab students share classrooms
- The number of Bedouin students who began studying for a bachelor's degree has doubled

This is only in education. The Likud-led government has put lots of money into the Arab sector, more than under any other government. 

Netanyahu is a brilliant politician and he has been a brilliant statesman, and as a direct result of his decisions Israel has the best relations with the rest of the world since the Six Day War. He is a strategist, not just a tactician, and that is a highly unusual feature from a democratically elected leader. As a strategist, he knows that his vision will not continue to be implemented if he is not in charge. This is why he is trying to salvage his coalition in the next election.

Israel is already paying the price. Mainstream American organizations like AIPAC and the American Jewish Congress have issued strong statements against this, and today the New York Daily News published an editorial that sums up the mainstream Zionist American view of the move:
We, who consider ourselves proudly Zionist, who believe Palestinians' stubborn refusal to accept the Jewish state is the central problem in their conflict with Israel, who have frequently admired Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's grit, are sickened by Netanyahu's decision to bring into the fold his nation's most hateful right-wing extremists.
Alienating Israel's friends is not a smart move. And in this case, Bibi's calculations might backfire on him.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Marc Lamont Hill's new documentary features a terrorist bomber as a victim of Israeli racism


Marc Lamont Hill, who was recently fired from CNN for his rabid hate of Israel, is releasing a documentary about supposed Israeli racism.

The trailer starts off with an interview with a self-described "Afro-Palestinian" who says that Israeli Jews oppress his people not only for being Palestinian but for being black.



The narrator for that section of the video is a terrorist.

His name is Ali Jiddah and his father came from Chad. But he considers himself a "Palestinian."

In 2014, he was interviewed by the Times of Israel, in the exact same spot at this video:

 Ali Jiddah planted four hand grenades on Strauss Street in downtown Jerusalem in 1968. The blasts injured nine Israelis and Jiddah spent 17 years in Israeli prison. His cousin Mahmoud also served 17 years for a similar attack; the two were released in 1985 in a prisoner swap. Fatima Barnawi, daughter of a Nigerian father and Palestinian mother, has the dubious distinction of being the first female Palestinian arrested on terrorism charges. As a member of Fatah, she planted a bomb in the Zion Theater in downtown Jerusalem in October 1967. Although it didn’t explode, she was sentenced to 30 years in prison, of which she served 10 before being exiled.

After his release from prison in 1985, Jiddah worked first as a journalist, then started giving alternative tours of Jerusalem’s Old City, showing the Palestinian perspective of life under Israeli rule.
Tailor made for Marc Lamont Hill.

JTA described the bombing attacks in Jerusalem in 1968 this way:

Sunday night’s grenade explosions were described by observers as the most serious terrorist acts on Israeli soil since the June, 1967 Six-Day War and were obviously the work of organized professionals. The grenades, each with a Chinese-made chemical timing device, were planted in central parts of West Jerusalem, concealed in trash bins and in wastepaper cans attached to lamp posts. Five of them exploded between 9 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. local time but nine of the 10 injured persons were struck by fragments from a single grenade that detonated in a trash bin on Strauss Street, near the Bikur Holim Hospital, about 100 yards from the city’s main business crossroads. 

There was an entire documentary made about Jiddah last year, that you can see here.



Some of what he says is word for word identical with the excerpts in Hill's forthcoming documentary. And they are lies.

Jiddah claims that he was jailed as a "political prisoner" for "political activities."

To prove how racist Israel supposedly is, he mentions that Israel in the 1980s (actually, 1990s) would not accept blood from Ethiopian Jews because their blood was "dirty" and Shimon Peres defended that decision. (In reality, because the incidences of HIV among the immigrants at the time were considered unacceptably high at about 1%, and the Israeli officials accepted and quietly discarded the blood so as not to embarrass them. When the news came out the Ethiopians rioted. Peres opened up an inquiry into the circumstances of the decision. The US didn't accept blood donations from Haitians and sub-Saharan Africans - including Ethiopians - starting in 1990 for the same reasons.)

Jiddah also claims that there is no anti-black racism among Palestinians. This is quite a lie. Blacks experience racism among the Palestinian and the larger Arab worlds. In fact, Marc Lamont Hill himself experienced it in Egypt. 

Jiddah doesn't mention that he was a member of the PFLP terror group. He might still be - in 2008, when asked if he was still active in the group, he answered, "Well if I admitted to it, it would mean I would have to go back to jail again... But I will tell you... I’m addicted to politics and especially to the policy of the PFLP." (He also said about President Obama: "for me, he is not black, he is a coconut, black on the outside, totally rotten, corrupted, white on the inside.")

Ali Jiddah and Yasir Arafat after he was released from prison in a swap

In the TOI interview, he admitted that he planted the bombs:
“Due to the responses from my clients I am satisfied, and I am convinced that the work I am doing today is more effective than the bomb I planted in 1968,” he said.
In other words, he decided that it is easier to destroy Israel by pushing lies to tourists and reporters who don't even bother to check out the truth - or, in Marc Lamont Hill's case,  journalists who actively try to hide the truth.

(h/t Petra)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Sunday, February 24, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Britain poised to define all of Hezbollah as a terror group, not just the "military wing"



From The Telegraph:

Sajid Javid is preparing to ban Hizbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as soon as this week, The Sunday Telegraph understands.

The Home Secretary is expected to proscribe the entire Shia organisation as a terrorist group, preventing supporters from parading its flag through the streets of Britain.

The move will have to be approved by Parliament, raising the prospect that it could be opposed by Jeremy Corbyn, who once referred to members of the group as "friends".

It follows warnings by MPs that the UK had created a false distinction by proscribing the military wing of the group but failing to outlaw its political side.

 The distinction allows demonstrators in the annual Al Quds Day protest to march through central London waving the Hizbollah flag, which features an assault rifle.

The distinction between "military" and "political" wings of Hamas was always completely artificial. It isn't like they have different flags!


This is especially notable because only recently has the new Lebanese government finally been formed, including Hezbollah as a party, which controls three ministries.


(h/t Phil D)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Sunday, February 24, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

EoZ going to Israel!



Mrs. Elder and I will be going to Israel for two weeks starting March 3!

In previous trips we had memorable tours of the Gaza border, the Belz synagogue and yeshiva, the Temple Mount, Save a Child's Heart, tours with Regavim of the Negev and Judea/Samaria, and lots of interviews with well known figures in politics and Israel advocacy.

I've also given talks and hosted symposia in Israel.

If anyone wants to host me speaking, or if anyone wants to give us a tour of a place that doesn't get enough publicity, let me know!


We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Saturday, February 23, 2019

02/23 Links: The Destructive Legacy of Obama’s Approach to the Middle East; Glick: The U.S. Is Right -- Israel Should Apologize to Poland; Roger Waters Announces Boycott of the Moon

From Ian:
The Destructive Legacy of Obama’s Approach to the Middle East
The chief legacy of Obama's foreign policy is not the Iran nuclear deal, but rather the visceral partisanship that he fostered at home while trying to defend the deal. As the country debated whether to support the JCPOA in the summer of 2015, recall how Obama demonized the accord's critics. He went so far as to compare them to the hard men of Iran's murderous regime. "It's those hardliners chanting ‘Death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal," Obama said in August 2015. "They're making common cause with the Republican caucus." Such language is vile and dishonest, but the president and his allies employed it consistently, using an "echo chamber" of experts and media figures to drown out any opposition, no matter how genuine and well reasoned. Obama also troubled American Jews at the time with his rhetoric, singling out Israel and flirting, perhaps unintentionally, with conspiracy theories about nefarious Jewish money seeking to influence the public debate.

The Obama administration and its allies also made support for the Iran deal a litmus test of loyalty for Democrats in Congress. "Opponents of the agreement said they could not remember another recent policy battle where the White House and [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi were so driven," the New York Times reported at the time. "In tandem, they made the Iran vote a strong test of party loyalty." Several Democrats expressed strong concerns about the deeply flawed deal, but they were pressured to fall in line, no matter their reservations. Only a few voted no.

Meanwhile, as Obama waged his campaign of demonization against the deal's critics, he carried on a similar campaign against America's traditional allies in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. Obama's contempt for the Saudis has been well documented, and, whether intentional or not, his approach to the region put the Democratic Party in the position of defending Iran and criticizing Saudi Arabia. Naturally, the Republicans did the opposite.

So what do we have now? One party effectively supports the regime in Iran and opposes Saudi Arabia, while the other party opposes Tehran and supports the Saudis. Both regimes are odious, but the Saudis are, like it or not, an essential strategic ally. They are an important security partner and ensure the free flow of oil from the Middle East. Iran's leaders, meanwhile, chant "death to America" and seek regional preeminence.

A country so divided on the Middle East cannot create effective policies in the region. American leaders cannot even agree on who their friends and enemies are. How can they possibly come to some kind of a bipartisan consensus? The DNC's resolution is a reminder of how far apart Democrats and Republicans are regarding the Middle East, and especially Iran. Of course the parties were never entirely on the same page. But the partisan divide grew substantially during Obama's presidency. His campaign to garner support for the Iran deal at all costs hurt American national security in the long run. Obama did not just cause lasting damage to the Middle East; he also caused lasting damage to Washington, D.C.
Caroline Glick: The U.S. Is Right -- Israel Should Apologize to Poland
The U.S. chose not to cut off its ties with its closest allies and partners in the Arab world — but not because it didn’t recognize their responsibility for spawning and enabling the growth of the jihadist ideology that informed the actions of their nationals. The U.S. chose to remain a close ally of the Saudis and Egyptians because doing so served its strategic interests — whether in preserving the flow of oil in the world market, or ensuring the safe passage of maritime traffic across the Suez Canal.

Was that move wrong? Of course not.

If Israel were to base its foreign policy on countries’ past record of abuse of Jews during the Holocaust — and, more generally, throughout Europe’s 2,000 years of persecution of Jews — then the only European states it would be capable of having diplomatic relations with are Bulgaria and Denmark.

The point isn’t whether or not a state has a past of persecution of Jews generally. All states in Europe have such a past.

The point is that today, some European states are becoming more antisemitic and more hostile to Israel. And some European states are becoming less antisemitic and friendlier to Israel.

Poland, like the other Visegard members, is in the latter category. France, Germany, Belgium, and other Western European states are in the former category. Israel is best served by cultivating close ties to the European states that want close ties with it, and keeping its distance from those who want close ties with Iran and the Palestinians.

The U.S. is now calling for Israel to apologize to Poland for Katz’s statement. And Washington is right.

Hopefully, someday, Poland will reconcile itself with the historical truth of its people’s dubious and decidedly mixed record of behavior towards the Jews during the Holocaust. And Israel cannot accept revision of the historic record.

But Israel also has important interests in the world. Those interests are best advanced by working with like-minded countries. And in issues that matter, along a wide spectrum of areas, Poland is a like-minded country. Israel should treat it accordingly.

British Jewish TV Presenter Rachel Riley, Actress Tracy Ann Oberman to Take Legal Action Over Twitter Abuse They Have Faced for Calling Out Labor Antisemitism
Rachel Riley, host of the UK television show “Countdown,” and actress Tracy Ann Oberman are preparing to take legal action against those who have targeted them on Twitter with abusive remarks over their efforts to call out antisemitism in the Labour party, the pair’s lawyer said on Thursday.

Mark Lewis said he was contacting “between 60 and 70 people” who are “almost exclusively Labour supporters” for alleged libel or harassment of his two Jewish clients, according to the Daily Mail.

He told The Guardian he would go to court and force Twitter to release details of social media users who made the Twitter posts if they did not voluntarily provide him with their contact information.

Oberman, 52, was previously a Labour member but left in April 2017 after the party’s decision to not suspend MP Ken Livingstone following antisemitism allegations. Livingstone resigned in 2018.

Riley, 33, was given extra security in January when appearing on “Countdown” after her criticism of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn resulted in her being threatened by his supporters on social media.

  • Saturday, February 23, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Some of last week's EoZ tweets





















We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Friday, February 22, 2019

02/22 Links Pt2: While hoaxes make headlines, real attacks on Jews keep happening; The ‘Times’ and Israel: A Review of 2018; Why the Academic Boycott of Israel Is Anti-Semitic

From Ian:
Melanie Phillips: While hoaxes make headlines, real attacks on Jews keep happening
And it’s why American Jews who vote Democrat are muted or silent about the virulent antisemitism of people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan or Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Having told themselves falsely that Trump is a mortal threat to Jews, black people or Muslims, they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge that the most dangerous enemies of the Jewish people are on their own side— and that it’s Trump who is their target, not the other way round.

Hoaxes are a kind of false flag operation to cast as villains the victims of such attacks. They are a hallmark of Soviet communism’s strategy of psychological warfare in creating a looking-glass world where nothing is what it seems.

Israel is a prime victim of this hoax politics. The whole Palestinian narrative — cooked up originally by Yasser Arafat in cahoots with the former Soviet Union—is a false flag operation, a hoax that falsely blames its Israeli victim of appalling crimes of which it is innocent but of which the Palestinian perpetrator is itself guilty.

Hoax politics is an example of cultural totalitarianism that fries the brain and creates a climate of political, intellectual and moral chaos.

It’s why so many of us feel that the world has spun off its axis of reason altogether. And it’s why the whole anti-Israel and anti-Jew pathology that has erupted in the West is part of a broader and devastating cultural nervous breakdown.
The ‘Times’ and Israel: A Review of 2018
On the first day of 2018, the publisher of the New York Times wrote a letter to his readers. Quoth A.G. Sulzberger: “The Times will hold itself to the highest standards of independence, rigor and fairness—because we believe trust is the most precious asset we have.” Fairness and accuracy would be paramount, he promised, “and in the inevitable moments we fall short, we will continue to own up to our mistakes, and we’ll strive to do better.”

The date of the letter suggests it would be only fair to look closely at the 12 months of journalism that followed and judge whether the Times delivered on Sulzberger’s promise of impartial, accurate reporting. That is what the media-monitoring organization CAMERA did when producing a timeline assessing a year’s worth of the newspaper’s coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The timeline, alas, makes clear that the Times fell far short of those promised standards when it came to its coverage of Israel and its opponents.

Again and again, the newspaper distorted the news, downplayed inconvenient facts, and departed from journalistic norms. And while the chronological list of the newspaper’s stumbles is striking, a still more damning picture emerges when we sort those stumbles by common theme—a picture of a newspaper eager to tilt public opinion by glossing over news reflecting poorly on Palestinian actors while at the same time zooming in on perceived Israeli misdeeds.
“More Than Just Victims”

At one point during her tenure as public editor of the New York Times from 2012 to 2015, Margaret Sullivan delivered a stunning message to her colleagues. In an otherwise gentle 2014 column about the paper’s coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict, Sullivan called on Times reporters to remember that the Palestinians “are more than just victims.” Her colleagues, don’t forget, are professional journalists at the country’s most reputable newspaper. That the public editor felt the need to impart such a rudimentary lesson about the Palestinians, a multidimensional group that has experienced but also imposed plenty of suffering, raised questions then about how much Times journalists actually knew about the conflict, or about impartial journalism.

In 2018, the newspaper demonstrated time and again that it was unwilling to offer frank coverage of news that highlighted the Palestinian role in exacerbating the conflict. In one emblematic example, Times journalist Nellie Bowles described the Palestinian Authority’s payments to families of imprisoned terrorists as a figment of the right-wing imagination. Facebook, she lamented, has been “flooded with far-right conspiracy programming like ‘Palestinians Pay $400 million Pensions for Terrorist Families.’” In fact, the Palestinian government had been perfectly open about its payments. The newspaper, at least in this case, made amends after CAMERA contacted editors. “That is not a conspiracy theory,” a correction noted.
It’s all about the Benjamins – Franklin and Herzl
Similarly, 150 years later, addressing a people scattered worldwide, not just along America’s East Coast, Herzl said: “Zionism has already brought about something remarkable, heretofore regarded as impossible: a close union between the ultramodern and the ultraconservative Jews.... A union of this kind is possible only on a national basis.”

This is not an exercise in cherry-picking selective quotes that might fit together – their ideas flow naturally together, one of many illustrations of the natural fit linking Americanism with Zionism, Americans with Israelis, the US with Israel. True, shared interests help, too. No other country backs Israel as America does, and Israel watches America’s back. Following Franklin Roosevelt’s high standard, “Judge me by the enemies I make,” the Iranian mullahocracy’s obsessive attacks on “Big Satan” and “Little Satan” honor America and Israel.

Ultimately, it’s all about the Benjamins: thanks to shared values, not just shared interest. A certain brand of transformational, aspirational nationalism, a catalytic identity, a zeal to be useful, constructive, free and redemptive drive America and Israel more than most democracies, thereby driving them together, too.

The other Benjamins – money – lack the power such bonding ideas and defining values enjoy. No lobby could ever manufacture the overlapping images, dreams and ideals that link America with Israel, while making the two peoples so close, too.

That little Israel cheers America is not surprising. But that capitalist America – with its eye on oil – sticks by Israel; that media-driven America, despite constant campaigns to delegitimize Israel, resists such lies; and that Christian America, transcending centuries of Western antisemitism, supports the Jewish state say much about Israel’s value and even more about American values. As Franklin taught: while “a friend in need is a friend indeed,” there is “no better relation than a prudent and faithful friend.”

Lobby-libelers be damned. How lucky Israel and America each are to have each other.

02/22 Links Pt1: UNRWA Called Out For Lying About Its Own Definition Of ‘Refugee’; Hebrew Origins of Palestinian Arab Towns in Judea-Samaria; Israeli Arabs: 'The Arab parties abandoned us'

From Ian:
Pro-Palestinian Frauds: UNRWA Called Out For Lying About Its Own Definition Of ‘Refugee’
On Thursday morning, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — which exists as a discrete group solely to support those whom UNRWA identifies as Palestinian-Arab "refugees" resulting from Israel's 1948 War of Independence — claimed that it defines "refugee" in precisely the same manner as does its sister organization, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). UNHCR, in contrast to UNRWA, exists to support "refugees" resulting from every other conflict in the world besides the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The main problem, as the inestimable Hillel Neuer of UN Watch tweeted, is that this is a bald-faced lie.


As Neuer claims, UNRWA's very own former General Counsel, James Lindsay, confirmed in a 2012 Middle East Quarterly essay that UNRWA calcualtes its "refugees" in a very different manner than does UNHCR:

The UNRWA definition makes no mention of citizenship, and UNRWA makes no effort to de-register persons who were formerly refugees but are now citizens of a state. As such, UNRWA is the only refugee organization in the world that considers citizens of a state to be refugees, and there are many of these oxymoronic "citizen-refugees" on UNRWA rolls.

As Lindsay noted in his essay, UNRWA's lack of mention of citizenship is hugely consequential — and it differs from UNHCR's definition of "refugee," which "specifically does not apply to any person who 'has acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality.'"

Therefore, all the millions of descendants of the Palestinian-Arabs displaced by Israel's 1948 War of Independence — a genocidal war launched by the Jewish state's Arab neighbors only after those neighbors flatly rejected the incipient United Nation's previously proffered two-state partition proposal — who have since acquired citizenship in a distinct sovereign nation, such as the 1.8 million Jordanians Neuer references, would not be considered "refugees" under UNHCR's definition but are considered "refugees" under UNRWA's definition.
Kohelet Policy Forum: UNRWA's Hereditary Refugee Status for Palestinians Is Unique (pdf)
For almost 70 years, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has created a unique category of "registered refugee" status under which the children and grandchildren of a Palestine refugee, and all their descendants thereafter, are automatically considered "refugees from Palestine."

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is responsible for all refugees except those from Mandatory Palestine. UNHCR does not define as refugees people who acquired new citizenship. More than 2 million "Palestine refugees" hold Jordanian citizenship, most of whom have been born in Jordan and have lived there their entire lives. In addition, 2/3 to 3/4 of the 1 million refugees registered by UNRWA in Lebanon and Syria have left those countries over the decades, with many acquiring citizenship in Western countries. But UNRWA's numbers never decline.

UNHCR does not define as "refugees" people who are internally displaced, that is, who have moved within the same territory. "Palestine refugees" living in the West Bank or Gaza were in fact internally displaced since they have never crossed the internationally recognized border of Mandatory Palestine. According to the rules applied by UNHCR, these people are not refugees. UNRWA is not a neutral humanitarian organization but rather a political actor aimed at perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem.

Hebrew Origins of Palestinian Arab Towns in Judea-Samaria
It is absurd to claim that the Arabs are the indigenous peoples of Israel because virtually all the place names used by local Arabs are non-Arabic in origin, and derived either from biblical Hebrew names or from later Greek or Roman names. The Romans renamed the entire region Syria-Palestina (named for the Philistines and Assyrians) after they destroyed the Second Temple so as to erase its Jewish roots. This was later shortened to Palestina, and it eventually became known as Palestine.

The region commonly referred to as the "West Bank" was known for three millennia as Judea and Samaria. Indeed, Jews derive the very name of their religion and peoplehood from the name Yehuda, the fourth son of Jacob, whose tribe settled in that region. In fact, UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947) referred to the region as Judea and Samaria, as do all maps published before 1948.

Israeli scholar and later president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi wrote in 1932 that west of the Jordan River, 277 villages and sites had names that were similar to or the same as Jewish villages in these locations during Second Temple times. Moreover, 1/4 of the 584 Arab localities in Israel and beyond have ancient biblical names. So, to counter those who attempt to disassociate the Jews from the Land of Israel and claim that they are colonizers, the proof is in the names

  • Friday, February 22, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Yemen columnist, after being insultingly called a Jew, says there is nothing wrong with being Jewish

I reported last week about a Houthi leader in Yemen who insulted the other Yemenis by saying that they were donkeys and descended from Jews.

Remarkably, a Yemeni columnist at Al Tagheer, Dr. Abdo el Bahsh, argues that being called Jewish isn't an insult:

I do not know what is the defect in the Jewish religion, and I do not know what is lacking in the children of Israel, whom God preferred to the worlds. Therefore, I find myself compelled to respond to the rebuke and to make clear to the readers that the Jewish religion is a monotheistic religion. The affiliation with the children of Israel is also one of the things that man cherishes. He is proud of the fact that the Israelites are the nation whom God honored by giving the prophets. Therefore I declare that I am very proud that my ancestors were Jewish donkeys.
This is something a Western liberal would write in response to a racist statement. I've never seen anything like this in Arabic media.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Friday, February 22, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Moonshots, potatoes and hate

Last night, the Israeli lunar lander was launched into space.

By any standard, it is a remarkable achievement.

Of course, as with all things Israeli and Jewish, haters are going to hate:






At the same time, in Gaza, a women-owned factory is making potato products:
A specialist factory has been setup in the besieged Gaza Strip to peel, cut and back potatoes and provide chips to local and international restaurants, and it’s run entirely by women.

Rosetta factory manager, Riham Al-Madhoun, said the idea for the factory was thought up from the need to provide jobs to locals and protect Palestinian farmers.

She said only women work in the factory because they are more detail-oriented and it provides them with a source of income for their families. Most, she says, are university graduates unable to work because of Gaza’s struggling economy....

The potatoes are sent to restaurants either in fresh or frozen form after being peeled, cut, washed and packaged.

Uncut potatoes are currently being exported to Kuwait, as there are weekly arrangements for shipment.
This is also a remarkable achievement - people who decide on their own to make a difference and who work hard to succeed.

When I read stories like that, I have nothing but admiration for the people who overcome the odds (and who shake off the self-pity) and make a difference.

I don't know anyone who would read the Gaza story and try to come up with an angle to associate the women with terrorism or the abuses of the Hamas-led government.

Yet so many look at anything Israel does and their first, reflexive response is to figure out a way to tear it down. Either by saying that the act is directly criminal (seriously, Israel is exploiting the moon for rare minerals?) or to associate it with evil ("apartheid") or to claim that Israel is only acting that way in order to whitewash its supposed crimes.

It takes a special kind of hate to think that way. And that hate, whether it is against Israel or Jews, is an indication of the mental state of the hater far more than anything else.

Hate is inherently ugly. Even if one wants to make an artificial separation between Jews and the Jewish state to inoculate oneself against being called antisemitic, the hate against Israel is just as disgusting as hate against Jews or any other group.


If only the world could recognize that all kinds of hate are equally repugnant.


We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Friday, February 22, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Palestinian Ministry of Education admits that its universities are meant for propaganda, not truth

Nashat al-Aktash, a media professor at Birzeit University, appeared on Al Jazeera at the same time as an Israeli during a debate.

That was bad enough, because it was a virtual form of "normalization."



In response to something the Israeli said, Aktash accurately said that the PLO no longer represents all Palestinians, but only a minority of them, based on the voting in the last elections in 2006.

He doubled down on this in his Facebook page about the PLO not representing all Palestinians any more, although he said he was against normalization with Israel and expressed a measure of regret for appearing on TV at the same time with an Israeli.

This is a fairly minor criticism of the PLO. However, the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education freaked out.

The ministry issued a statement saying, "While the Palestinian Basic Law and the Law No. 6 on Higher Education of 2018 guarantees the freedom of expression and academic freedom in institutions of higher education; however, the ministry rejects with clear consistency the ongoing conspiracies to liquidate the PLO, especially by one of the employees of the academic institutions. These institutions are and will remain the most important to protect the Palestinian national memory, at a time when the occupation seeks with all its force to remove the recognition of the organization and its representation as a mountain of the blood of the martyrs and the suffering of the wounded and refugees. "

The statement went on to "affirm its rejection of the ideology based on defamation and abuse of the sacrifices of the Palestinian people and its honorable history....institutions of higher education  are still defenders of the rights of this people and its national constants."

The Palestinian Ministry of Education is admitting that the purpose of their universities is not the pursuit of truth but the propagation of propaganda.

There is a pervasive knowledge among Palestinians that there are certain things that one never says in public, and the consequences of admitting basic truths can be severe. It is one of the facts that Western reporters and international NGOs cannot grasp - Palestinians are reluctant to tell the truth about how they really feel about their government or even what they themselves have witnessed, because what they say might be at odds with the official position of the PLO. This is why so many "eyewitnesses" will tell reporters that an Israeli bullet or bomb killed someone even when it is proven that the fatal shot came from their own side. Anything that contradicts the official narrative of the PLO is suppressed, and certainly nothing positive will ever be said about Israel.

The credulous Westerners then go and confidently report their stories based on interviews with people who are in fear of telling the truth.

This is a minor case, but the Ministry of Education - instead of defending one of its professors - instead decided to condemn him for saying something that is an obvious fact, because facts contradict the only "truth" that is allowed to be publicly spoken under Palestinian rule.



We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Thursday, February 21, 2019

02/21 Links Pt2: Why should we hate Israel?; Did UNC Promote Sarsour Talk by Using Photo of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial?; Israel's first moon mission set for liftoff from Florida

From Ian:
JPost Editorial: Antisemitism in France
Gallant said the vandalism at the Jewish cemetery was “reminiscent of dark days in the history of the Jewish people.”

“Last week, I visited the French Jewish community, which faces antisemitic attacks and a process of assimilation,” he said. “The State of Israel is the safe, national home for the Jews of the world. I strongly condemn the antisemitism in France and call on Jews [to] come home; immigrate to Israel.”

Meyer Habib, a Jewish member of France’s National Assembly, said the recent spate of antisemitic attacks raised “serious questions over the future of Jews in France.”

While aliyah is clearly an option, a report from Paris by Bernard Edinger in The Jerusalem Report indicates that immigration to Israel from France is on the wane rather than the rise.

After reaching a record 24,000 immigrants from 2013 through 2016, according to the Jewish Agency, annual immigration from France dropped in 2018 for the third year running, to only 2,660 (down from 3,500 in 2017, and 5,000 in 2016).

Despite the rise in antisemitism, according to Daniel Benhaim, outgoing head of the Jewish Agency in France, “French Jews feel that the situation is less oppressive than it was in the past, and there is less of a feeling that they should accelerate their departure to Israel.”

While we commend French leaders for speaking out against antisemitism, we urge French authorities to take aggressive action to combat all signs of it, and bring the offenders swiftly to justice.

As for French Jews, they must be on the alert – but should be assured that Israel stands by them, and will always be here for them.
Why should we hate Israel?
Back in 1994, I was still a middle school student in a small Kurdistani town called Amadiya, which had been under the control of Saddam Hussein until 1991. I recall our history teacher stepping out of the curriculum line and saying, “Although the books favor Arabs over Jews, history indicates Jews lived in Jerusalem prior to Muslims.”

The teacher got away with this statement because Kurdistan was then outside the control of Saddam. Otherwise, he could have easily been executed for making such a comment to students.

The comment made by our teacher stuck in my head, so I always questioned whether the Arab media conveyed the truth regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This month, I was fortunate to visit Israel. Understanding and analyzing a nation requires profound knowledge. While Israel is far from perfect, I learned there are many reasons to respect the country, and that the portrait of Israelis as portrayed by the Arab media is misleading.

When I arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, the passport control officer separated me from the rest of the travelers and asked me to walk to a corner office where I should wait to be called. I was questioned about my visit to Israel. The officers were very professional and respectful. I did not feel any racism or ill treatment that suggested a predetermined suspicion because of my background. At the end of the questioning, an officer stepped forward with my password and entry permit, saying, “Mr. Amedi, you are good to go.”

When I entered the airport’s main terminal, I noticed many signs in Arabic. “Perhaps it is an international facility, and that could be why Arabic is used,” I thought. One of the first steps in foreign travel is to buy local currency, and I was intrigued that the Israel shekel is printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English!
Did UNC Promote Sarsour Talk by Using Photo of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial?
As I recently reported in the Tower, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is hosting their Minority Health Conference on February 22, featuring keynote speaker Linda Sarsour. The American-Palestinian activist is known for her hostility towards Israel, having said “nothing is creepier than Zionism” and advising Muslims not to “humanize” Israelis.

Community members are now concerned that the UNC-CH Minority Health Conference may have exploited the Holocaust by using what appears to be a picture of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial to promote the conference on social media. A number of Jewish community members confidently informed me that the image in question, posted to Facebook by the Minority Health Conference on February 19, is of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.

Michael Abramson, Chairman of the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust, a state agency organized under the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, said, “The Holocaust or any Holocaust Memorial commemorating the Holocaust, should not be used as an advertising tool to promote a political event. When an organization invites Linda Sarsour to speak, the organization is opening itself to politicizing its conference.”

A UNC-CH graduate student remarked, “The conference organizers seem to have a definite fixation on Jews and the topic of Israel. One would expect an academic conference on public health to focus on public health.”

  • Thursday, February 21, 2019
  • Elder of Ziyon

Lecture in Egypt on "Herzl, Imam of the Zionists"

There was a lecture this week at the Egyptian Opera House about Theodor Herzl, described in this article as the "imam of the Zionist."

,Dr. Adel Al-Sayyid, lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, just published a book about Herzl and he discussed his findings.



In the lecture, the author said that the rush of some Arab rulers today to cooperate with Israel without solving the basic question of Palestine will not contribute to resolving the crisis and will not end the conflict and the dispute between Jews And the Arabs.

Al-Sayyid emphasized that if only the Jews would have moved to Argentina or Chile, then the Jewish problem in Europe would have been solved and there would be no Israel to cause such problems.

The lecture discussed Herzl's motivation for Zionism but does not mention the Dreyfus Affair. Therefore, the author could say that the only antisemitism was in Tsarist Russia and the Western European Zionists planned to use Russian Jews as cheap labor to build the land.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The absurdity of land swaps (Vic Rosenthal)



 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column


Recent hints about what might be in Donald Trump’s deal of deals indicate that it includes Israel annexing parts of Judea and Samaria containing major settlement blocks, in return for “land swaps” in which a Palestinian entity would receive land that is presently within the Green Line.

I am not sure where the idea first surfaced, but it was included in the Clinton Parameters, the offer made at the 2000 Camp David summit, which was rejected by the PLO.

Let’s consider the history.

Prior to 1948, all of the land from the river to the sea was a single entity, the British Mandate for Palestine, established in 1922 and intended to constitute or contain a “national home for the Jewish people.” In 1947, Britain had had enough rioting and terrorism from both Jews and Arabs in the territory of the Mandate, and wanted to be done with its obligation. Over the years, they had lost interest in the Jewish national home, and felt that their interests would best be served by Arab control of the area. But others supported the establishment of a Jewish state, for various reasons.

There was the worldwide Zionist movement, and of course the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael itself, which had already put into place the structure of a shadow state. There were Christian Zionists, who believed that the establishment of such a state would be a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. There were elements in the US who thought that the Jews deserved recompense after the Holocaust. There were those who saw a Jewish state as a convenient destination for millions of Jewish refugees that nobody wanted. And there was Stalin, who saw in the socialist leanings of the leadership of the Yishuv a possible ally in a very strategic neighborhood.

So the UN proposed a compromise and recommended a partition of the area of the Mandate into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jewish Agency, happy to get any kind of state no matter how attenuated, accepted it, although both Begin and Ben-Gurion were apprehensive, correctly expecting war. The Arabs – both those who lived in the Mandate and the Arab nations – rejected it. Why should the Jews get anything at all? The nonbinding recommendation (UNGA 181) of the General Assembly was never implemented. It’s important to understand that it was only a recommendation, with no legal force. Both Jews who say “the UN gave us a state” and Mahmoud Abbas, who in 2016 called for the implementation of the partition on its original lines, are wrong.

In May 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed without specifying borders (although an agent of the “provisional government” wrote to US President Truman that the state was declared “within the frontiers approved by the General Assembly… in [Resolution 181],” it’s not clear if this had any legal significance). It has been persuasively argued by Eugene Kontorovich that Israel inherited the borders of the Mandate, since there was no other entity that could have a claim on it.

Immediately after the declaration, several Arab states invaded the new state of Israel, making statements that they intended to destroy the state and massacre its Jewish inhabitants. The war ended with a cease-fire, not a peace agreement. In 1949, agreements were signed between Israel and Jordan and Israel and Egypt, which specified lines of disengagement where the armies were at the time of cessation of hostilities. The line between Jordanian and Israeli forces in the east was called the “Green Line” because Moshe Dayan drew a line on a map with a green pencil during negotiations with the Jordanians.

Neither side, particularly the Arabs, wanted to make borders out of the armistice lines, and there is language in the armistice agreements that specifically states that the lines have no political significance. The agreement with Jordan states,
Article II

1. The principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce ordered by the Security Council is recognised;

2. It is also recognised that no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations. …

Article IV

1. The lines described in articles V and VI of this Agreement shall be designated as the Armistice Demarcation Lines and are delineated in pursuance of the purpose and intent of the resolution of the Security Council of 16 November 1948 [UNSC 62].

2. The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Lines is to delineate the lines beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move. …

Article VI

9. The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.

During the fighting and after its end, Jordan occupied the territory of Judea and Samaria to the east of the Green Line, committing numerous war crimes – massacres of prisoners and civilians; ethnic cleansing; unnecessary destruction of civilian property, especially including religious sites; sniping civilians, and more. A year later, in 1950, Jordan officially annexed the territory, calling it (for the first time) “The West Bank.”

The annexation violated the UN charter, and was considered illegal by most of the world. It was only recognized by the UK – which had helped the Jordanians in the 1948 war and which still hoped to replace the Jewish state with an Arab one – Iraq, which was an ally of Jordan in that war, and possibly Pakistan.

Jordan, which had opposed the partition resolution in 1947, did not try to create an Arab state in Judea and Samaria in 1949. Its objective was to add to its territory.

Nineteen years later, in 1967, King Hussein of Jordan ignored Israeli warnings, listened to the fake news coming out of Egypt and joined the war – yet another Arab war to destroy Israel. As a result, Israel gained control of Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem, ending the Jordanian occupation, and arguably finally obtaining the borders it should have had with the declaration of independence in 1948. Later, treaties with Egypt and Jordan established recognized borders between Israel and those countries.

But the Green Line and the name “West Bank,” artifacts of the nineteen-year illegal Jordanian occupation never went away. Despite the clear declaration by all parties that the Green Line was not a border, the PLO – by wishing it so – has decided that it is one, between Israel and the non-country of “Palestine.” The Israeli presence between the Green Line and the Jordan river is considered by the European Union and others, following the lead of the PLO, to be a “military occupation,” and Israeli Jews living there are called – based on an egregiously wrong interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention – “illegal settlers.”

How this happened is a long story, but a simplified explanation is that a lie can become accepted as true when it is repeated enough times by enough people. And that’s what happened here, starting with the KGB’s creation of the Palestinian people in the 1960s, through the extended blackmail of Europe by Palestinian terrorism, bolstered by Western leftist guilt, and sealed by resurgent European and Islamic Jew-hatred.

The idea of swaps ought to be unacceptable to Israel, because it presupposes Arab ownership of all of Judea and Samaria. Why should Israel be required to compensate the Palestinians for taking its own land?

The next time someone tells you that the “West Bank” is “Arab land,” ask them how nineteen years of illegal Jordanian occupation made it so.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

02/21 Links Pt1: U.S. envoy Friedman knocks Oslo, says hand open to Palestinian people; Polish norms helped Nazis wipe out local Jewry; Eight Bernie Sanders Anti-Israel Outrages

From Ian:
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: "The Slap of the Century"
Under the current circumstances, when Arabs are being widely shamed and condemned for sitting in the same room with an Israeli prime minister, it is hard to see how the Trump administration will be able to convince Arab states and leaders to normalize their relations with Israel. Some of these Arab leaders may be privately telling US administration officials things they like to hear about peace and coexistence with Israel. The very same leaders, however, are fully aware of the opposite sentiments, not only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but throughout the Arab world.

All that is left for the Trump administration to do is to try and persuade the Arab states to abandon the Palestinians, and to continue focusing on the regional threat from Iran. If the US completes its pullout from Syria, Iran will successfully complete its long-desired "land-bridge" to the Mediterranean through Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. This encirclement of the area will position Iran, via its proxies, to be the hegemon controlling the region, as it has clearly been trying to bring about. Russia, of course, is standing in the wings, thanks to the gift that then US President Barack Obama handed Putin in 2011 by pulling American troops out of Syria.

For decades now, not only Palestinian leaders but Arab ones as well, have been radicalizing their people against Israel. Using every available platform, including mosques, media outlets and United Nations organizations, these leaders, with the collaboration of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have demonized Israel. They have poisoned the hearts and minds of their people with the hate that exists towards Israel all over the Arab world. To promote normalization with Israel, a leader must prepare his people for the possibility of peace with Israel. Meanwhile, Arab leaders are doing the exact opposite -- which is why some of them are currently being denounced as traitors and pawns in the hands of Israel and the US. It would be wise for President Trump's advisers, if they wish to grasp what is really going on in the Arab world, to listen to the voices of the Arab street.
U.S. envoy Friedman knocks Oslo, says hand open to Palestinian people
United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman knocked the 1993 Oslo Accords and said his hand was open to the Palestinian people, when he spoke in Jerusalem on Thursday at a joint Israeli-Palestinian business forum sponsored by the Judea and Samaria Chamber of Commerce.

“To all the Palestinian friends who are here, the US is with you, the people of the US are with you, the President of the US is with you,” Friedman said.

He spoke of his support for the grassroots initiative that brings together settlers and Palestinian in the West Bank in joint business ventures, which was started last year.

“To my Israeli friends, I say the same. We are all with you, together to support you in new out-of-the-box thinking, to build a safe and more prosperous world for Israeli and Palestinians alike,” Friedman said.

The gathering comes at a time when there are no relations between the US and the Palestinian Authority. The US has cut most of its funding to the PA, and the PA in turn has rejected all US funding, including for humanitarian projects. In a climate with few opportunities for cooperation, Israeli-Palestinian public meetings are rare.

But on Thursday, Friedman’s comments made it seem as if settlers, who are often portrayed as a stumbling block to the peace process, are now leading the way in an arena with few opportunities for joint cooperation.

David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan
Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.


Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

AddToAny

EoZ Book:"Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism"

 Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM


Stellar reviews from:
Algemeiner
Jewish Press
Times of Israel/Jewish Link


Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

Speaking

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Hasbys!

Hasbys!

2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Show All

Blog Archive

Copyright © Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News | Powered by Blogger
Blogger Templates