Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Time to go on the offensive

Lately, I have been spending some time reading the Twitter accounts of the ultra-Left haters of Israel.

They live in a bubble, of course. When they get into discussions with a Zionist they will make sure that the entire frame of reference is their accusations against Israel, and Zionists are put on the defensive. One mistake in their argument and the haters claim victory. And if the Zionists point out that other countries do worse things, they are accused of "whataboutism."

It's time to change the script.

Forget defense - go after these guys. Point out how hypocritical and immoral their positions are. Put them on the defensive and make them explain why Palestinians have rejected multiple peace offers, or why ethnic cleansing of Jews is not only permitted but encouraged by these so-called "progressives."

I've changed a lot of my Twitter habits over the past few days to push things in that direction as well:

For those who still believe that Jews lived peacefully under Muslim rule, see how Muslim Jew-hatred was categorized in 1841: https://t.co/Uan9hkUByJ pic.twitter.com/fF0DrsJvwt
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 25, 2019

No, criticism of Israel isn't antisemitism.

But denying Jews the right to self-determination - 70 years after the Jewish state was reborn - definitely is. pic.twitter.com/BMpaQWIU4r
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 24, 2019

If you believe that the Palestinian Arabs, who never thought of themselves as a nation until the mid-20th century, have more of a claim to nationhood than Jews who have been a nation for 3000 years....

You just might be an antisemite.
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 24, 2019

Here's one of many reasons no one has taken "Tikun Olam" @richards1052 seriously for years pic.twitter.com/flgfD3PgKS
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 24, 2019

Did you mention in your film that Jiddah was an unrepentant PFLP terrorist?

Do you believe his claim that there is no racism towards blacks by Palestinians?

If "no," do you consider the film to be based on truth or do you admit it is anti Israel propaganda?
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) February 25, 2019

I have not usually been actively tweeting these to the haters, but that is where the focus should be - ridiculing them and forcing them to defend the indefensible.

And there is a lot that is indefensible. There are polls that show that Palestinians have supported the most heinous terror attacks, there is "pay for slay," there are the other surveys that show that Palestinians who do say they support a two state solution only look at it as a stage to destroying Israel.

Sure, Israel needs to do a better job in describing its side of the story. But defense only gets you so far. Giving the haters free reign over social media to throw mud until something sticks makes the onlookers think there is something to their arguments.

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02/25 Links Pt2: The U.S. Green Party’s Crusade against Israel; Don't fall for the SPLC's lies; Links Between Top Corbyn Aide and Anti-Israel Terror Groups

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: The U.S. Green Party’s Crusade against Israel

Anyone who peruses the website of the U.S. Green Party or any component of the global Green movement would naturally expect to read about the noble aims of a movement devoted to such values as ecological wisdom and environment protection. Such issues touch upon the very sustainability and integrity of our existence on the planet and should logically override partisan, political issues.

In a world that is plagued by environmental and ecological catastrophes and that faces continuing and ongoing moral and humanitarian crises such as willful bombing and wholesale killing of civilians, mass murders, mass expulsions, denial of basic social, cultural and religious rights and freedoms, assaults on immigrants and others, it is curious that the U.S. Green Party has chosen to concentrate most of its efforts on hounding Israel.

This is even more astounding because Israel is one of the only states that excels in the very values treasured by the Green movement - innovative ways to protect the environment, reduce pollution, purify wastewater, desalinate seawater, reforest, and protect natural resources.

It is all the more curious that the U.S. Green Party, as a matter of policy, considers itself sufficiently credible and authoritative as to advocate dismantling the State of Israel and replacing it with "the creation of one secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan."

On September 12, 2018, the U.S. Green Party wrote to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on behalf of "the oppressed and besieged people of Palestine peacefully protesting on a weekly basis for their Right of Return," accusing Israel of committing crimes against humanity, including genocide.

The U.S. Green Party ignores the grave Palestinian violations of some of the most basic and important ecological and environmental principles that should surely constitute the backbone of any genuine Green party, including deliberate pollution of the air through the massive burning of tires, the deliberate arson of agricultural produce through the use of explosive kites and balloons, and the deliberate pollution of groundwater resources.

Appeals Court reinstates suit against Sheldon Adelson and others over support for Israel

The U.S. Court of Appeals has just reinstated the lawsuit. Reuters reports:

In a 3-0 decision on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said a federal district judge wrongly concluded in August 2017 that all of the plaintiffs’ claims raised political questions that could not be decided in American courts….

… in Tuesday’s decision, without ruling on the merits, Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson said the only political question concerned who had sovereignty over the Israeli-occupied territories.

She said courts could rule on whether the defendants conspired to expel non-Jews or committed war crimes “without touching the sovereignty question, if it concluded that Israeli settlers are committing genocide.”

Henderson said that presented a “purely legal issue” because genocide violated the law of nations, and could support the plaintiffs’ claim under the federal Alien Tort Statute.

Of note, the courts refers to the territories in question as “disputed territory,” rather than the popular “occupied territory.” Israel has a legal claim to the “West Bank” despite the propaganda otherwise:

1 The ownership of the territory, which comprises the WestBank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, is at the heart of a decades-long dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We refer to it as the “disputed territory.”

The court clearly is wrong on the issue of whether the complaint raises non-justiciable political questions. Everything in the case turns on the issue of whether Israel and Israeli settlers properly control the “disputed territory.” That is a political and foreign policy question.

Hopefully either the D.C. Circuit will hear the case en banc, or the Supreme Court will take the case.

French Philosopher: Jews First Victims of Islamic Immigration

French Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut has claimed that the populist movement in Europe has largely been a reaction to demographic changes, blaming German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Finkielkraut labelled Chancellor Merkel’s infamous “wir schaffen das!” (we can do it!) phrase during the height of the migrant crisis in 2015 as “nonsense”, saying, “You see it yourself: you can not do it. This mix of extreme moralism and economic interests was repugnant,” Die Welt reports.

“The Germans wanted to buy themselves free and finally become a morally impeccable people. But that happens at the expense of the Jews, who are the first victims, as more and more immigrants are let in,” he added.

The philosopher said he would support “responsible, if not extremely restrictive” immigration policies, explaining: “I am convinced that the integration of immigrants is becoming increasingly difficult. If immigration goes on, we will have more reverse phenomena, namely that the French adapt to the culture of Islam or convert more and more.”

Last Saturday Finkielkraut was the victim of anti-semitic abuse hurled at him by a Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protestor who was later revealed to be an Islamic extremist.

Commenting on the attack, Finkielkraut said: “We are now trying to convince ourselves that this is a reawakening of old nationalist and anti-Semitic combat calls such as ‘France belongs to us’, ‘France for the French’.”

“But the one who called that, the most aggressive of them all, is a Salafist,” he said, adding: “If someone says: France belongs to us, then that means: France is destined to become Islamic soil.”

Yellow Vest leader: I would participate in an Anti-Zionist protest

Jerome Rodriguez, one of the prominent leaders of the yellow vests movement in France, who lost his eye from a rubber bullet fired by the police, told Maariv that his movement was not antisemitic. Nevertheless, he added, "Finkielkraut is someone who goes around letting everyone know what his views were." According to Rodriguez, he did not take part in a demonstration against antisemitism because he was "busy visiting his movement's checkpoints in various parts of the country." However, he added that if he had time, he would prefer to participate in a demonstration organized by an anti-Zionist organization that supports boycotting Israel".

Elder's ripoff of New Yorker cartoons

I had some time on Sunday so I started looking at creating new captions for New Yorker cartoons that make fun of Israel haters.

I posted some of these on Twitter, others will be posted there later this week.

Enjoy.

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Continuing from last time, if you are an aggressor, then it is easy to come up with an enact strategies and tactics involving being an aggressor against your enemies.

This observation should be obvious, yet we so often fail to appreciate its converse: that lack of an aggressive goal limits one’s ability to behave aggressively against others, especially those you have not branded as enemies.

There are many explanations as to why Israel’s friends have failed to meet the challenge of BDS and other anti-Israel propaganda campaigns with adequate force, from weak will among Jewish institutional leaders to historical factors that lead Jews to value accommodation with non-Jewish majorities over sticking up for ourselves.

Such criticisms are certainly well founded, but they fail to take into account that even if we were disposed or led to fight rather than get along, we would still need a destructive end-point to guide strategies and tactics that would get us to that destructive goal.

But if you were to ask even the most vocal critics of the Jewish community’s response to BDS, I suspect you would find almost no one who wants to see the world’s Muslim’s disbursed, Arab states dismantled, or other outcomes likely to get large numbers of people killed, despite the fact that dismantlement, disbursement and death are the fates hoped for and worked towards by Israel’s enemies.

In fact, both militant and non-militant defenders of Israel are united in the desire to see Israel left in peace, its citizens unthreatened and unmolested, and the Jewish condition normalized. But if these are the goals we seek, how can we be expected to attack those that attack us with matching levels of ferociousness?

Even if such levels of attack could be initiated, possibly through campaigns designed to tell the truth about the Arab world (including their treatment of women, gays and minorities) as incessantly and aggressively as they tell lies about us, BDS has taught us that such campaigns would need to go on not for months or years, but decades. Can a community that longs to live at peace with others be realistically expected to put in the time, effort, resources and organization into behaving in such a way for a century?

But it actually gets worse. For, as readers of Divest This know, BDS does not limit the damage it causes to Jews alone. Whenever they import the Middle East conflict onto a college campus, or drag an academic association, church, municipality, or even a humble food coop into their campaigns, they do untold damage to everyone making up those communities, creating needless strife and conflict over an issue that is only on the agenda because the boycotters want to leverage other people’s reputation for their own political gain.

Are we ready to do the same? And how about all the effort the Israel haters have been putting into ginning up hatred between races and religions in their war against the Jewish state? Are we ready to stop trying to heal rifts in our society and instead exacerbate the pathologies driving the world to ruin, just to see enemies harmed?

In addition to our lack of militant goals, another reason we’re not ready to harm others to get our way is that it is wrong, and even if we (like our foes) are able to delude ourselves into thinking a descent into evil represents virtue and courage, is this really who we want to become?

Finally, even if we can distort our souls enough to fight fire with fire for decades in hope of seeing someone else destroyed, our foes already have a fifty-year head start on us, not to mention alliances with dozens of powerful nation states controlling vast wealth and a stranglehold on organizations like the United Nations and other major institutions. If anyone can explain a strategy for generating another 49 Jewish states or finding other ways to dominate global organizations, I’m all ears.

Our inability to take on Israel’s enemies by becoming more like them should not be considered a weakness, but an opportunity since it forces us to look for alternative strategies that meet our goals while limiting our enemy’s ability to achieve theirs. This is in fact what Israel and, to a large extent, its supporters have done (however imperfectly) since Israel was founded seventy years ago.

What are the strategies that have left Israel sending spaceships to the moon while its would-be destroyers sink ever deeper into genocide, ignorance, poverty and weakness? They involve manning the walls, celebrating life over death, and making every Israeli and every friend of Israel count, while not standing in the way of Israel’s enemies having to live with the consequences of their own choices.

Thoughts on the strategies and tactics associated with those four ideas next time.

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02/25 Links Pt1: Palestinians uproot trees planted in memory of slain Israeli teen; Trump's peace plan will focus on drawing the borders of Israel; Only the full defeat of Hamas can ensure Israel’s security

From Ian:

Palestinians uproot trees planted in memory of slain Israeli teen

Palestinians on Sunday uprooted some 50 trees planted in the West Bank in the memory of Ori Ansbacher, who was brutally murdered in Jerusalem by a Palestinian terrorist.

The 19-year-old was attacked and murdered at the beginning of February by 29-year-old Arafat Irfayia in the woods of Ein Yael, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The trees were planted between the West Bank settlements of Tekoa, where Ansbacher lived, and Nokdim, during which a confrontation sparked between local Palestinians and the settlers, with the Israel Defense Forces having to intervene. Shortly thereafter, the settlers noticed the Palestinians had extracted the newly planted trees.

Gush Etzion Council head Shlomo Ne'eman said in response: "The State of Israel must define this agricultural terrorism as terror for all intents and purposes,l and put an end to this phenomenon. A firm stand must be taken, for we cannot allow human lives to be harmed."

Meanwhile, as part of an initiative led by drivers from the Egged bus company, poems Ansbacher wrote will be printed and displayed on the company's vehicles.

WATCH: Palestinians uproot & steal 50 trees that were planted by Jews in memory of terror victim, Ori Ansbacher, who was raped & murdered by a #Palestinian terrorist.

What they uproot we will plant fivefold more! pic.twitter.com/TMgqnO6Ntg
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) February 24, 2019

Kushner: Trump's peace plan will focus on drawing the borders of Israel

US special envoy Jared Kushner was interviewed on Monday on Sky News in Arabic, saying that "the American peace plan is very detailed and will focus on drawing the border and resolving the core issues."

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been used for years to incite extremism," Kushner said, "for years resistance to the nation of Israel has united the region, but now it is changing ... We see that Iran is the greatest threat in the region."

"We want to see the Palestinians united under one leadership, the Palestinians want a non-corrupt government that cares for their own interests," Kushner added.

Kushner also claimed that the US "managed to keep a large part of the plan secret," and that they "succeeded in formulating practical and just solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian issue that will be relevant for 2019."

'I don't see why I shouldn't have to serve': Why young, Jewish Canadians are enlisting in the Israeli military

Yonah Morrison, 20, was 15 when he first stepped off a plane in Tel Aviv.

Alone in a country he'd never visited, a strange feeling washed over him: He was home.

The Canadian teen spent the next two months in Israel as part of a program that familiarizes North American Jews with the Jewish state. While on that trip, he spent a week embedded with the Israeli military.

He says that week in fatigues left such an impression on him that three years later, in the summer of 2016, after he graduated from his Toronto high school, he decided to leave Canada and enlist in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

"I always considered Israel to be my home," Morrison said. "I don't see why I shouldn't have to serve, just because I was born somewhere else."

Military service is mandatory for almost all Jewish Israelis as of age 18, with notable exceptions, one of which — that for ultra-Orthodox men — was at the centre of a bitter political fight that triggered an early election call last December.

But Jews from other nations are also allowed to enlist. They're known as lone soldiers.

At least 230 Canadians were serving in the military, according to 2017 statistics from the IDF, with periods of service usually lasting around two years. Hundreds more go over for shorter periods of service through similar programs to the one Morrison did in 2013.

From the website of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei:

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution—Ayatollah Khamenei— met with teenaged international chess medalist, Ariyan Gholami, who refused to play against a representative of the Zionist regime in a recent international chess competition. In this meeting held today February 24, 2019, the young medalist presented his medal to Ayatollah Khamenei.

The following is the text of a conversation that took place between the Supreme Leader and Aryan Gholami:

Imam Khamenei: Did you join the national team?
Gholami: yes, thanks to you. I am grateful.
Ayatollah Khamenei: Thanks be to God. May God protect you, and the youth like you. May God preserve you for Islam and for this country. Is this gentleman your father? And this lady is your mother? May God protect this young man for you [his parents]. I hope he will make you feel proud in this world and the hereafter, God willing.
Gholami: I would like to offer you my medal.
Ayatollah Khamenei: Wonderful! You made me really happy Mr. Gholami, dear Ariyan. I am happy to have you, and other youth like you, thanks be to God. For the country’s future, you are the best assets; keep these assets.
Gholami: Thank you very much. It is kind of you.
Ayatollah Khamenei: I accept your medal and then, I return it to you. I would like you to keep this medal.

What a natural-sounding conversation!

In reality, Gholami didn't have a choice, and was miserable at having to not play his match in early January.

In 2017, Borna Derakhshani, a 14-year old chess player, was banned by Iran Federation forever for playing against an Israeli player.

This Swedish chess site says:

Aryan Gholami tells schack.se that he has no personal antipathy against the Israeli Ariel Erenberg.
"But if I were to play against an Israeli, it would have serious consequences for me."

An Iranian human rights group released a caricature showing how Khamenei forced Gholami to withdraw.

Gholami quickly learned that he has to pretend to be a good patriot instead of a frightened pawn.

The Swedish site also revealed that tournament organizers routinely try to set up the draws in such a way to avoid any matches between Israelis and Iranians, and the international chess federation FIDE looks the other way when this happens, to avoid controversy.

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The uber-Left social media is in an uproar because one of their own has decided that supporting Syria's murderous regime is perhaps not very progressive.

Bluestockings is a bookstore in Manhattan that describes itself as "a volunteer-powered and collectively-owned radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We carry over 6,000 titles on topics such as feminism, queer and gender studies, global capitalism, climate & environment, political theory, police and prisons, race and black studies, radical education, plus many more! "

It was scheduled to screen an anti-Israel film called "Killing Gaza" and follow that with a discussion via Skype with Max Blumenthal who produced the film.

Then it realized that Blumenthal supports the murder of hundreds of thousands by Syrian president Assad, and decided that he is perhaps not as progressive as his anti-Israel credentials would indicate.

In a Twitter thread last night, the bookstore wrote:

We here at Bluestockings want to be very clear on our decision to cancel the Killing Gaza screening the @nycDSA set for March 16. All the love to the DSA, it's clear that there wasn't enough due diligence on both our parts in regards to the film's director, Max Blumenthal.

As has been pointed out to us over the past few days, Max Blumenthal and many in his camp regularly make a point of retweeting and sharing pro-Assad stances.

This goes from directly mocking Syrian refugees to suggesting that Assad's war crimes are completely fabricated. Which hurts not just the Syrian people but the sizeable Palestinian population within Syria.

The objection to this screening is entirely based on Max Blumenthal and we are in talks with the DSA to screen another film that is made by and centers Palestinian voices in the ongoing conflict against the Israeli army.

Bluestockings is a community space first and we want to make sure that our inclusivity does not come at the expense of Middle Eastern communities and activists.

The response has been pretty evenly split between those who love Blumenthal's hate for Israel above all, and those on the far-Left who still have some idea of the difference between right and wrong. (Not with Israel, of course, but I suppose we should praise those who actually agree that killing hundreds of thousands of Syrians is a bad thing.)

Here's a subthread where Lebanese journalist Rania Khalek and her friends explain why they are so upset, to a little pushback - but mostly support.

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Major European leaders are meeting with Arab leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

If you believe the Palestinian media, the summit looks like it could have taken place during the Oslo process, and the Palestinian issue is dominating the discussion as the issue that must be resolved before anything else.

European media indicates something quite different, with the Palestinian issue all but ignored.

Palestinian Ma'an says that the Palestinian cause is the central issue, and gives examples from speeches.

Host Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said at the opening, "Common challenges have been reflected in the hotbeds of conflict in the region, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue, which is the main Arab cause and one of the main roots of these conflicts, as it continues to deprive the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, and even the continued destruction of Palestinian human rights, which the international community overlooks."

King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia said that the Palestinian issue is the primary issue of the Arab states. "At the recent summit of the Arab states held in Jeddah called the Jerusalem Summit, we reiterated our firm stand towards restoring all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital in accordance with the Arab peace initiative and international legitimacy. "

He echoed the subtle threat that used to be standard in all discussions with Arabs, saying that the solution of the Palestinian issue is important for peace and stability not only in the region but also for world peace and for Europe in particular, praising the European efforts to find a lasting and just solution to this issue. The implication being that terrorists will blow stuff up unless Europe gives the Palestinians whatever they want.

Mahmoud Abbas' speech today is expected to echo the same theme, according to Saeb Erekat, that the key to regional and world peace is giving in to Palestinian demands.

Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit also mentioned the Palestinians, saying that the Palestinian issue is a political issue and will not be solved by economic measures. The settlement of the Palestinian issue in a fair and sustainable manner is the most effective way to stabilize the region, he said.

Coverage of the summit by the European media tells a different story, though.

Germany's DW has an article on Day 1 of the summit, and the word "Palestinian" is missing.

The EU statement on the summit likewise ignores what had been up until recently widely considered the key issue to be resolved in the Middle East. Instead, it says:

Leaders from both sides will seek to strengthen Arab-European ties. They will also address a wide range of issues and common challenges, such as:

multilateralism
trade and investment
migration
security
the situation in the region

The summit will also provide an opportunity for leaders to discuss the latest developments in the region, such as the Middle East Peace Process and the situation in Yemen, in Libya and in Syria.

The absence of the word "Palestine" in that last paragraph says volumes.

Significantly, after the opening statements, the rest of the Day 1 activities were closed sessions, so it appears to be understood that the Arab leaders would trot out the pretense that they care about the Palestinian issue and then get to work on the real problems of the region.

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Libya jails Palestinians suspected of being Hamas members

Interesting, from Middle East Monitor:

A court in Tripoli on Wednesday sentenced four Palestinians to prison terms ranging from 17 to 22 years over their alleged links to Hamas.

The four defendants were accused of “setting up a secret foreign organisation on Libyan territory, arms possession and conspiring against state security.”

The Palestinians were arrested on 6 October 2016 from their homes in the capital, Tripoli, and were taken to an unknown destination.

The four Palestinians used to work for a technology company in the capital, Tripoli.

The detainees’ families expressed their “fear that they would be handed over to Israel via a third party” appealing to all concerned bodies to help release them.

Western far-leftists are more supportive of Hamas than Libya!

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Now @IfNotNowOrg romanticizes the Diaspora to justify hating Israel

On Saturday, IfNotNow protested outside a Chabad house in Austin, TX because of an Israeli speaker there.

Besides the immorality and obnoxiousness of pseudo-Jews protesting outside a synagogue during services, the group bragged about it with a crazed justification:

Today we stood outside of Chabad at UT in protest of their event, Morality and Combat. The invited speaker, Leibel Mangel, was a machine gunner in the IDF and uses the Holocaust as a way to justify the occupation. There is no denying the very real trauma that the Holocaust has left on our community; yet, our historical trauma should not be exploited to justify the oppression of Palestinian people.
Our Jewish history is not only one of persecution, oppression and fear. We also have a rich history of resistance and solidarity. Jews have survived in diaspora for thousands of years, largely through solidarity with other oppressed groups. We do not need to support Israel at all costs to stay safe.

Really? Jews have been largely safe in the Diaspora because of solidarity with other oppressed groups?

Can IfNotNow name a single time in 2000 years that a pogrom or massacre was averted because of some other oppressed group sticking their necks out to save the Jews?

They are just making shit up to appeal to their "progressive" friends.

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02/24 Links: Arabs continue destroying Jewish archaeology on the Temple Mount; Palestinians celebrate victory after Israel capitulates, again, on Temple Mount; Dr. Miriam Adelson: In heaven's name

From Ian:

Arabs continue destroying Jewish archaeology on the Temple Mount

While Israel preserves Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, Arabs have proven that they cannot be trusted to respect Jewish Holy sites.

On December 15, 2017 Nadav Shragai wrote in Israel Hayom "King Herod's grand Third Palace is being systematically destroyed by the Palestinians, who are stripping its stone and building homes around it. The site is in Area A, meters from Israeli-controlled territory, but the Israeli government can do nothing...Here is a lesson that teaches us how the Palestinians today treat remnants of the past...It is unclear how much of this beauty remains.

Yaron Rosenthal, director of the Kfar Etzion Field School, who sometimes works with the Palestinian Arabs on environmental preservation projects, finds it difficult to hide his anger. "Israel sees how one of the grandest palaces ever built in the Holy Land is being destroyed, and is standing by helplessly, because under the Oslo Accords the site, which is 30 meters from Area C, was made the responsibility of the Palestinians. It's time for Israel to say, 'No more.' With all due respect to the Oslo Accords, we will not let you destroy important [archaeological] remains linked to the history of the Jewish people in their land, remains that are part of the cultural fabric of this country," Rosenthal says..."

On Jan 6, 2018 Judith Abramson reported in Jerusalemonline "Hebrew University archaeology doctoral student Haggai Cohen Klonymus described to the Israel News Company (formerly Channel 2 TV) how Palestinian tractors and bulldozers arrived at an archaeological site where the ancient city of Archelaus once stood. The Palestinians completely leveled the compound in order to locate hidden archaeological treasures to sell in the antiquities market. "Just as ISIS destroyed sites in Iran and Syria that were thousands of years old, the same situation is occurring here," he said. "This is a deliberate and systematic destruction of an archaeological site....It's just a tragedy."

In 2000 the Palestinians destroyed Joseph's tomb. Sidney Brounstein wrote for the Los Angeles Times "Oct. 8: Where is the outrage? Imagine what would have happened if Jewish police stood by and allowed a Jewish mob to destroy a Muslim holy place! Does the destruction of a Jewish holy place by an Arab mob while Palestinian police stand by (after promising to protect it) deserve no more than inclusion in a list of other damage done by rioters? Is this an acceptance of attacks on Jews and things Jewish as a normal part of life?" "It makes a mockery of any thought of giving Arabs any control of Jewish holy places. The destruction of dozens of such places in the Old City of Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, along with the exclusion of Jews entirely from their most holy site, the Western Wall, was clearly of a piece with the current destruction."

Vandals draw swastikas on school playground in New York City

Vandals drew dozens of swastikas on an elementary school playground in New York City overnight Thursday.

The anti-Semitic graffiti, which included the words “Heil Hitler,” was found early Friday morning in the Rego Park neighborhood in the borough of Queens.

School staff removed the drawings and called the police, the Ynet news site reported.

The school was closed for vacation but the playground was open to the public.

“This is terrible anti-Semitism. This is a neighborhood with a lot of Jews who are proud of their Judaism and don’t hide it. It’s terrible that something like this is happening in New York,” Idan Shefi, an Israeli who lives near the school, told Ynet.

The incident comes amid a surge in hate crimes in New York City, especially attacks against Jews. The 55 hate crimes in the city so far this year represent a 72 percent increase over the same period last year, with close to two-thirds of the attacks this year targeting Jews, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Car drives on NY sidewalk, nearly hits kids from religious Jewish school

New York City police are searching for a motorist who drove around a stopped school bus onto a Brooklyn sidewalk, nearly mowing down schoolchildren.

A security camera captured the startled children as they scattered outside a Jewish school in the Borough Park neighborhood.

On Saturday, authorities looked for the driver using the car’s license plate, taken from the video as the children came off the bus Thursday morning. The children are seen heading for the Yeshiva Medrash Chaim.

A police spokeswoman says the suspect is wanted for reckless endangerment.

Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represented Borough Park, says that passing the school bus could have resulted in the driver committing murder.

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, 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)

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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)

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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.