Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 27, 2019

We live in a world where Israel tries to give money to its cash strapped enemies and they refuse it

Ma'an reported on an Israeli Kan News exclusive:

The Israeli government tried to circumvent the economic collapse of the PA government by transferring NIS 660 million to the Palestinian Authority without the latter's knowledge, Israel's Kan television reported.

The channel said that Israel hoped the move would solve the PA's economic problems. However, after several days, the Authority asked the banks to return the money to Israel, and it was actually returned to Israel.

Someone has to say it: THIS IS ALL INSANE. The cash-strapped PA refuses to accept the 94% or so of the money Israel owes it - because it wants to maintain the sacred right of being allowed to pay terrorists and their families.

Indeed, PLO chief negotiator and Western darling Saeb Erekat emphasized that the Palestinian leadership will continue to pay salaries to terrorists, families of "martyrs" and wounded, as he spoke at an Iftar breakfast in honor of the families of prisoners.

He is saying that paying terrorists is the top priority of the Palestinian Authority, higher than any other budget item. People who work for the PA are living on half-salaries or worse but the people who tried to or succeeded in killing Jews continue to receive their stipends.

That isn't even the most unbelievable part.

Somehow, the West is not outraged at this immoral gang who is running the PLO and the PA who are so eager and proud to use their own people as pawns. Journalists and diplomats are acting as if the PA has every right to demand that they must pay terrorists and that they can hold the rest of their own people hostage to assert that right!

To add to the insanity, the US and Arab countries are trying to put together a mechanism where tens of billions of dollars can be given to the PLO - the organization that has said quite plainly that rewarding terror is its #1 priority - to provide jobs and dignity to the Palestinian Arab people, and the PLO is refusing to even discuss it.

Who is paying the price? Ordinary Palestinian Arabs.

Who is on the people's side? By any measure, Israel and the US and the Gulf States care more about them than their own leaders do.

Israel is going out of its way to pay those who are saying plainly that they worship people who have killed Israelis.

Reporters and pundits and diplomats are more interested in disparaging the US (=Trump) for attempting to actually help Palestinians - something with no political downside for the Palestinian leadership, because they would not be obliged to accept any dictates on "return" or Jerusalem or "settlements" or their other key demands.

People are trying to throw money at the Palestinians, money that they desperately need, they are proud of refusing it - and the enlightened Western liberals and leftists who pretend to care about Palestinians are applauding them for their principled position to reward terrorists above all else.

Not one Arab or Western leader is willing to publicly say that the PLO is acting like a bunch of crybabies whose bizarrely misplaced idea of "dignity" is to punish their own people and beg for money from other Arab countries and the international community - as long as they don't attach any conditions to the billions the Palestinians pretend they deserve.

If a Hollywood scriptwriter would write such a story as farce, it would be rejected for being too far fetched.

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05/27 Links Pt2: NYTs: The Old Scourge of Anti-Semitism Rises Anew in Europe; History Channel Doctors Israeli Declaration of Independence; In 1929, Miss Palestine was Jewish and spoke Yiddish.

From Ian:

NYTs Editorial: The Old Scourge of Anti-Semitism Rises Anew in Europe

What is clear is that these strains of anti-Semitism — from the right, from the left and from radical Muslims — have morphed into a resurgence of a blight that should have been eradicated long ago, and that is causing serious anxiety among Europe’s Jews.

A CNN poll last November on the state of anti-Semitism in Europe found that a third of respondents said they knew little or nothing about the Holocaust. Nearly a quarter said Jews had too much influence in conflict and wars; more than a quarter said they believed that Jews had too much influence in business and finance. A 2015 survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 51 percent of Germans believed it was “probably true” that “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust.” These are the stereotypes that make anti-Semitism an especially pernicious form of bigotry, a grand conspiracy theory in which Jews spread evil in their countries through some illusory subterfuge, whether controlling capital, or the media, or whatever.

All this is not news to European Jews, who for some time have been feeling less and less safe and welcome in their home countries. After polling more than 16,000 Jews in 12 European countries at the end of last year, the European Union’s Agency for Fundamental Rights concluded that anti-Semitic hate speech, harassment and fear of being recognized as Jews were becoming the new normal. Eighty-five percent of the respondents thought anti-Semitism was the biggest social and political problem in their countries; almost a third said they avoided Jewish events or sites because of safety concerns. More than a third said they had considered emigrating in the five years preceding the survey.

As appalling as these statistics should be to every European, they should also ring a loud alarm for every American leader of conscience. Speak up, now, when you glimpse evidence of anti-Semitism, particularly within your own ranks, or risk enabling the spread of this deadly virus.

I have to say @kishkushkay is very entertaining in this interview, as she is in real life, even when the subject matter is rather intense https://t.co/csGaVNvM65
— Ozraeli Dave (((דיויד לנג))) (@Israellycool) May 26, 2019

‘Friends of Zion’ grows to 60 million followers in antisemitism battle

The Friends of Zion and the Jerusalem Prayer Team reached 60 million members on their global social media network of Israel supporters this week. This large group of non-Jewish advocates for Israel joined the network out of an understanding that much of the modern conflict takes place not on battlefields, but online. This newfound support broadcasts that the State of Israel and the Jewish people truly have friends all around the world, even when the world struggles to show it, according to FOZ.

In this day and age, FOZ said, Israel’s adversaries have weaponized the Internet, especially social media, as tools in their attacks against the Jewish state. The Friends of Zion Museum said that it has planned a new approach to fighting these so-called “anti-Israel forces” and is putting together a counterforce to help defend the Jewish people and the State of Israel – including the new FOZ Educational Center, which includes a studio, the first Christian Zionist think tank, an online academy which educates Israel’s friends in how to defend the Jewish state online, and much more.

“The hatred of Jewish people now has a new face – and a new excuse! Now we hear people claim they don’t hate Jews, but they do hate Israel or Zionism,” said founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team Dr. Mike Evans. “It is the same thing. Under the guise of ‘social justice,’ Zionism is being equated with white supremacy, colonialism and slavery. Our members are fighting against this evil and damaging falsehood that is getting Jewish people killed, both in Israel and around the world.”

Why Don't You Support Israel?

Israel is one of the most free and most prosperous countries in the world. Not only is Israel a booming economy and a wellspring of innovation, it is the only democracy in the Middle East. So why is it so controversial to support the Jewish state? Stephen Harper, the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada, lays out several fundamental truths about America’s most critical ally.

When reporters can't handle basic facts

Earlier today I made an accurate if somewhat snarky comment to reporter Noga Tarnopolsky when she wrote this:

A real reporter should mention that Israel only withheld the percentage of tax transfers that was going to support salaries to terrorists and their families. The PA has refused to accept the rest of it = >90%. to blame Israel for Pals losing salaries is untrue, @NTarnopolsky https://t.co/OR9pXX6K1x
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) May 27, 2019

Without responding to me, she tried to make fun of me, to which I responded.

She then blocked me.

I wrote a short thread in response:

Hilarious! "Reporter" @NTarnopolsky couldn't respond to a simple point I made, trolls me while accusing me of being a troll, and when she is called out on it - she blocks me.

I write more articles, do more research and am more transparent in my writing than 90% of the reporters out there. (Psrt time!)

I do this BECAUSE I am anonymous - I WANT people to check my work. And I correct my errors.

But when someone outside the "club" dares to point out how the professionals are wrong, many of them just can't deal with it. They want to be considered authorities, not questioned but believed because of their name.

Sorry, not my style.

There are many good reporters. They welcome corrections, or they engage in discussion without insulting the person who bring up criticism.

Then there are ego-driven hacks like Noga, who simply cannot support her own reporting and therefore wants to shut down the critics.

Maybe I shouldn't have insulted her in my first tweet, but her blaming Israel for Palestinian refusal to accept cash from Israel was risible to begin with. It was not educating her followers, which is what a reporter should do - it was hiding the basic facts. It was propaganda, not news.

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Been playing with animated GIFs

They take more time to create but have a better chance of going viral on Twitter....

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05/27 Links Pt1: German paper to print cutout kippah in solidarity with Jews; Israel Destroyed Syria's Nuclear Potential. What Would The World Look Like Now If They Hadn't?; Fauxtography: Gaza Pink T-Shirt Scam?

From Ian:

Top German paper to print cutout kippah in solidarity with Jews

The editor of Bild, Germany’s largest newspaper, on Sunday said he will print a Jewish skullcap on the front page of the Monday paper so that Germans can cut it out and wear it in solidarity with the local Jewish community.

The protest comes days after the government official in charge of fighting anti-Semitism said he wouldn’t advise Jews to wear the traditional Jewish head-covering in parts of the country.

“If even one person in our country can’t wear a kippah without putting themselves in danger, the only answer is that we all wear a kippah,” Bild’s editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt tweeted. “The kippah belongs to Germany! That’s why tomorrow the kippah will be printed for cutting out on page one.”

Reichelt tweeted a photo of the mockup of the Monday morning edition cover page, which features an editorial and the stylized Star of David skullcap, called a kippah in Hebrew.

On Saturday, German anti-Semitism czar Felix Klein said his “opinion has unfortunately changed compared with what it used to be” on the matter. He said: “I cannot recommend to Jews that they wear the skullcap at all times everywhere in Germany.” He did not elaborate on what places and times might pose a danger.

U.S. ambassador urges Jews in Germany to wear kippot and not conceal identity

The US government’s most high-profile ambassador in Europe, Richard Grenell, said Jews in Germany should not conceal their religious identity, and urged them to wear kippot in defiance of a statement from Germany’s commissioner to combat antisemitism that Jews should avoid wearing kippot in public.

“The opposite is true,” tweeted Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany. “Wear your kippa. Wear your friend’s kippa. Borrow a kippa and wear it for our Jewish neighbors. Educate people that we are a diverse society.”

On Saturday, Felix Klein, the federal government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism, told the Funk media group, “My opinion on the matter has changed following the ongoing brutalization in German society. I can no longer recommend Jews wear a kippah at every time and place in Germany.”

President Reuven Rivlin reacted on Sunday, saying “The statement of the German government’s antisemitism commissioner – that it would be preferable for Jews not to wear a kippah in Germany out of fear for their safety – shocked me deeply. Responsibility for the welfare, the freedom and the right to religious belief of every member of the German Jewish community, is in the hands of the German government and its law enforcement agencies. We acknowledge and appreciate the moral position of the German government, and its commitment to the Jewish community that lives there, but fears about the security of German Jews are a capitulation to antisemitism and an admittance that, again, Jews are not safe on German soil.

“We will never submit, will never lower our gaze, and will never react to antisemitism with defeatism – and we expect and demand our allies act in the same way.”

German chancellor Merkel commits to ensuring security for Jews with kippahs

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman on Monday stressed the country’s responsibility to ensure security for all Jews wearing kippahs anywhere in the country without having to fear an anti-Semitic attack.

“It’s the job of the state to ensure that anybody can move around securely with a skullcap in any place of our country,” Steffen Seibert said.

The comments came after the government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, said he wouldn’t advise Jews to wear the traditional Jewish head-covering in parts of the country.

Felix Klein said his “opinion has unfortunately changed compared with what it used to be” on the matter. He said: “I cannot recommend to Jews that they wear the skullcap at all times everywhere in Germany.” He did not elaborate on what places and times might pose a danger.

Government statistics released earlier this month showed that the number of anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner incidents rose in Germany last year, despite an overall drop in politically motivated crimes.

Arabs pathetically keep trying to play the "Arab street" card

From Al Jazeera:

As the announcement of the deal of the century approaches, the Arab world is growing increasingly tense. Widespread rumours about the contents of the proposal have fuelled public outrage across the region.

This is a very old and discredited talking point. There was no mass uprising by the vaunted Arab street against the US Embassy move to Jerusalem or the US recognizing the Golan Heights as being under Israeli rule - notwithstanding the dire warnings from the "experts."

Arabs will pay lip service to the Palestinian cause, but by and large they don't care. They know that the Palestinians have only themselves to blame, and the decade old Fatah-Hamas split has disgusted the Arab world.

The interesting thing about this op-ed, though, is that the threat of the Arab/Muslim street is not directed to the West, as it had been so many times over the past 150 years. It's directed at the Arab regimes themselves who are interested in the Trump/Kushner plan.

What the deal of the century will ultimately do is erase what little legitimacy Arab leaders have left and undermine their corrupt regimes. And just like in 2011, sooner or later, Arab anger will boil over and sweep through the region in yet another wave of uprisings which neither Israel, nor its western and regional allies will be able to control.

The idea that Arabs will rise up and topple their regimes is always a possibility. The thought that they will do it in support of Palestinians is sheer fantasy.

Notably, in the wake of Al Jazeera's AJ+ antisemtism scandal, they are still publishing Ramzy Baroud, who is an unapologetic supporter of murdering Jews.

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Palestinian leaders choose to hurt their people - just like in 1946

In 1946, the Arab League declared a boycott of Jewish businesses and services in Palestine.

Arabs in Palestine were instructed to not buy from Jewish merchants, not get services from Jews, not to go to Jewish doctors - even though there were not nearly enough Arab doctors to treat the Arab population.

The following articles show some of the trajectory of the boycott through 1946. Immediately, Jewish manufacturers and farmers looked to open up their markets to overseas customers, in Europe and the United States, and while some industries were somewhat hurt in the beginning, altogether Jewish exports rose significantly in 1946 compared to 1945.

Meanwhile, Arab League nations pretty much ignored the boycott themselves when there were goods they wanted. Arab boycotters started intercepting truckfuls of Jewish goods headed to Lebanon (and were arrested by the British for theft.)

Arabs in Palestine also mostly ignored the boycott, causing self-appointed enforcers to hreaten and injure (including with bombs) businesses that ignored the boycott.

Yet as two of these stories show, even the leaders of the boycott used Jewish goods when it suited them.

A boycott that was meant to hurt Jews ended up hurting only Palestinian Arabs. The people were the victims of the selfish decisions of their so-called "leaders" who themselves often ignored the boycott.

Bnai Brith Messenger, Friday, January 04, 1946

Bnai Brith Messenger, Friday, January 11, 1946

The Palestine Post, Tuesday, March 05, 1946

The Palestine Post, Monday, April 01, 1946;

The Palestine Post, Tuesday, July 23, 1946

The Palestine Post, Monday, August 26, 1946

The Palestine Post, Thursday, October 24, 1946; Page: 4

A similar thing is happening today. Palestinian Arab leaders are saying that they will boycott a conference that is meant to help their people economically. The people who are most affected by not attending don't get a say - they are pawns just as they were in the past. Just as in 1946, if any speak up, they are risking their lives. Just as in 1946, many of them certainly want to gain the benefits of working with Jews and massive investment that would help everyone - but their newspapers will not print their stories.

The main difference between then and is that so much of the world hates Trump and Israel that many people who pretend to want to help Palestinians are taking the side of their corrupt leaders over the actual Palestinian Arabs who will be hurt by not attending the conference.

Remember, attending the conference in Bahrain does not place any political obligation on Palestinians at all. It is purely meant for their benefit, with no downside - and their leaders refuse, anyway.

The only people who actually are showing interest in helping the day to day lives of Palestinian Arabs are the Trump team and Israel.

Of course there is an ulterior motive - people who are in better shape economically are less likely to become terrorists or support terror. Which means that those who opposed or disparage the conference are tacitly saying that they prefer terror to economic peace.

This is crazy. But this is the world we live in. And the people who pay the price, as always, are the Palestinian Arabs themselves.

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From Times of Israel:

The Israel Fire and Rescue Service on Sunday said it suspects arson as the cause of a fire that broke out on Thursday at Ben Shemen Forest and burned down almost the entire adjacent community of Mevo Modi’im in central Israel.

Fueled by the scorching weather, more than a thousand fires devastated towns and forests across the country from Thursday to Saturday, forcing thousands of people out of their homes.

After an investigation into the Mevo Modiim blaze, the fire service determined it was sparked in several different spots, raising suspicion of arson.

And:

Fires broke out Sunday evening in a wooded area between the Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev and the Shuafat Palestinian refugee camp in East Jerusalem, Israel Police said in a statement.

Hebrew media reported that the fires, in a valley alongside Eliyahu Meridor Street, were caused by Molotov cocktails.

An additional Molotov cocktail was thrown at firefighters as they battled to prevent the flames, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

There is a long history of Arab terrorist fires (both forest fires and against factories and residences) in Israel that pre-dates 1948.

July 24, 1939:

In September 1945, a JNF official wrote an article that touched on the constant arson the organization had to fight:

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Sydney, Australia man planned to stab Jewish students wearing Kippot

From Australian Jewish News:

A CONVICTED terrorist who stabbed a man in Sydney’s south-west had plans to kill Jewish students at the University of Sydney as a “revenge” attack, a court has heard.

Taking to the witness box, Ihsas Khan told a sentencing hearing he had bought the knife used in the 2016 attack to target students wearing kippahs.

“I was planning on using it on Jewish students in the university to kill them. Just people wearing the Jewish head gear, the kippah,” he said.

“I was filled with hatred … It was revenge for what was happening in Palestine.”

People from certain leftist groups would find that last line to be a valid excuse for wanting to kill Jews, as long as the terrorist remembers next time to say that he only wanted to target "Zionists."

(h/t PookieSaurus)

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05/26 Links: Western aversion to Israel is really self-hatred; PA PM: Palestinians may revoke recognition of Israel; Jewish Teens Don't Regret Helping Save Man With Swastika Tattoo

From Ian:

Western aversion to Israel is really self-hatred

The recent Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem, sponsored by the Tikvah Fund, was notable in a number of respects. Besides being a gathering of almost 800 like minded people who share a moral and intellectual clarity about critical political and philosophical issues, the Conference cast both a direct and a reflected light on some of the most pressing issues confronting the West.

Yoram Hazony, one of Israel’s greatest minds, made the exhilarating point that much of the world not only respects Israel, but wants to emulate Israel. Hazony believes that foreign observers applaud our traditionalism: our traditional values, our engagement if not observance with religion, our respect for the family, community and nation.

British political commentator Douglas Murray went on to contrast attitudes in Israel with those in Europe, finding that Israelis were more comfortable embracing nationalism, patriotism, and a respect for national borders than their European counterparts.

Murray made the provocative point that guilt was driving much of the European behavior towards migrants, and this was perhaps a reason for their adopting policies that he depicted as suicidal.

While the two men seemingly contradicted each other, I think they were actually describing two sides of the same coin.

In Murray’s view, the West has been untethered from the values and the mindset that made it the West. He detects a lurking fear of reverting to 20th century behavior, much as a recovering addict fears slippage back into his own self-destructive behavior.

This fear is the product of an expansive guilt, not just of German genocidal evil, but guilt about Colonialism. Murray astutely noted this feeling in England which once “controlled much of the world,” but also noted its widespread existence in Sweden, “which never controlled anything.”

The Rage Less Traveled

On December 18, 2010, two female friends – one Christian and the other Jewish - were hiking together in the hills of Jerusalem when they were accosted by a pair of members from a Palestinian terror cell. Both women were bound and hacked with machetes until the Christian, Kristine Luken, was dead and the other seemingly so.

But in an incredible display of a bottomless will to live, Kay Wilson – with thirteen machete wounds, a crushed sternum, multiple rib fractures, bone splinters in her lungs, a dislocated shoulder and broken shoulder blade – got up and walked over a mile barefoot, bound, and bleeding until she reached help. She survived to testify against her assailants in court. The reason the pair was caught was that Wilson had managed to stab one in the groin with a penknife during the assault, and investigators linked him to the DNA in his blood on her clothing. The two monsters, who were convicted of other crimes as well, including stabbing another Jewish woman to death earlier that same year, were imprisoned for life.

The Rage Less Traveled: A Memoir of Surviving a Machete Attack is Kay Wilson’s relentlessly gripping, intensely personal story. You can find it on Amazon here (and here on audiobook) where the book has racked up dozens of exclusively 5-star reviews. Simultaneously raw and poetic, transcendent and unsentimental, The Rage Less Traveled is not a predictable book about learning to forgive your attackers or seeking interfaith dialogue with members of a Jew-hating ideology. The book acknowledges that evil exists and that there can be no coexistence with it. It is a story about the tortuous road through survival into the light. As Wilson said in her 2019 AIPAC address, “My story is Israel’s story.”

Ms. Wilson kindly agreed to answer some questions about the book and her shocking experience.

PMW: Boy taught to shoot at Jews – “the enemy” - in special Ramadan series on PA TV about Arab village

During the current month of Ramadan, official Palestinian Authority TV is broadcasting a series called Children of the Village Chief. The series portrays Arab life around the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and afterwards in a village in what was until the Six-Day War in 1967, the "West Bank" of the Kingdom of Jordan.
The poster of the series

The first program starts with the so-called Palestinian "Nakba" - the "catastrophe" of the creation of Israel - and continues until the 1980s. In the series, which deals primarily with daily life during this period, attitudes to Israel and Jews are likewise expressed.

In one episode, a boy around the age of 10 asks his uncle to teach him how to use a rifle because he wants to shoot at "the Jews." The uncle willingly answers his nephew's request, explaining that he should only aim at "your enemy," who the boy then identifies as "the Jews":
Nephew Fares: "Uncle Ibrahim, I want you to teach me how to use the rifle"
Uncle Ibrahim: "Why do you want to learn to shoot?"
Fares: "So that if the Jews come to the village, I'll shoot them like you shot them at Khirbet Al-Loz." ...
Ibrahim: "Fares, your weapon will only be pointed at your enemy, and you know who your enemy is."
Fares: "The Jews, who removed us from our land and our homes, like they removed us from Khirbet Al-Loz."
Ibrahim: "Therefore, Fares, immediately when you see your target, aim at it well and shoot it. Are you ready?"
Fares: "Ready!"
Ibrahim: "Go ahead, hero."
[Official PA TV, Children of the Village Chief, May 11, 2019]

Cartoon of the Day: Tikkun Olam vs. Judaism

Continuing my series of re-captioning existing single-panel cartoons....

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Arabs freak out over the word "Shalom" showing up in Medina

Israel in Arabic tweeted about a sign in the Muslim-holy city of Medinah. Saudi Arabia. welcoming visitors in many languages - including "Shalom" in Hebrew (for some reason shown off the coast of Africa.)

Palestine Today put out a video about it which I don't understand but the announcer clearly is very concerned over how four Hebrew letters could defile a Muslim holy place.

Responses in Arabic to the tweet ranged from outrage to shoulder shrugging.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Jordanian newspaper seen as close to royal family says Palestinians should go to Bahrain conference

This was surprising, from the Jordan Times:

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is pouring cold water on the US plan to convene a conference in Bahrain on June 25-26 to promote investment and business opportunities for the West Bank and Gaza, for fear it is part of the dreaded ”deal of the century” that President Donald Trump is contemplating for the Palestinians.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh flatly rejected the idea, saying that his government was not even consulted on it. Palestinian Social Development Minister Ahmed Majdalani went even further after a Cabinet meeting by declaring that “there will be no Palestinian participation in the Manama workshop. Any Palestinian who would take part would be nothing but a collaborator for the Americans and Israelis”. Hamas followed suit. Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum emphasised that “we reject any economic and political steps that aim to implement the deal of the century or to normalise ties with the Israeli enemy”.

These are strong words from the PA and Hamas against an investment conference that business leaders and executives from Europe, the Middle East, the US and Asia are expected to attend. This premature negativism is unwarranted and has become a familiar pattern in the Palestinian thought that made things worse for the Palestinian people.

For starters, no one, including the Palestinians, knows for sure what this suspicious ”deal of the century” really looks like. Without having an inkling of what the US proposal for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis would look like, the Palestinians have rushed to reject it in toto.

Besides, a meeting to promote the economy of the Palestinian territories by inviting investments from the US, Europe and Asia could be as benign as it sounds. The Palestinians may welcome this initiative after all without endorsing the wider political implications. The Palestinian side would be better advised not to rush into taking positions that may hurt them, especially when the projected Manama conference as such is only a forum for considering improving the Palestinian economies in the West Bank and Gaza.

Welcoming the conference in Bahrain, or at least not impeding it, would provide the Palestinians with an opportunity to test the full implications of the initiative. Breathing life into the lifeless Palestinian economy cannot in itself be so bad after all. The Palestinian leadership cannot go on saying “no” to everything offered to them before examining the full implications.

The Manama initiative may not be such a bad idea before exploring it.

Given how former diplomats who were so invested in the Oslo process have been so vocal in disparaging the Bahrain conference before even knowing what it is about, this is a refreshing opinion - and one that makes a lot of sense.

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05/25 Links: Al Jazeera Writes Another Chapter in Its Own Ugly History; Little Help From American Jews During the Holocaust; The Left is mainstreaming Palestinian Marxist terrorists

From Ian:

Al Jazeera Writes Another Chapter in Its Own Ugly History

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the former host of the show, has been banned from the U.S., Britain, and France for his extremist views, which include praise of Adolf Hitler and an insistence that the killing of American soldiers is a “religious obligation.” Al-Qaradawi has been considered the intellectual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his status as a respected imam in Qatar is secure despite his retiring from television.

Sunni preachers such as al-Qaradawi are Al Jazeera’s go-to experts on political subjects, all the better to offer the Muslim world an anti-establishment, Islamist alternative to other state-run outlets, which the network seems to suggest have weakened their respective countries. The Nation’s Kristen Gillespie wrote in 2007 that the “clear, underlying message” of the field reports is that the way out of the humiliation of the Muslim world by the West is “political Islam.” After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Al Jazeera’s secular Baghdad bureau chief was replaced by Wadah Khanfar, an Islamist sympathizer who former employees note was responsible for the hiring of hard-line Islamists as his assistants.

In July 2008, Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic channel threw Samir Kantar, a Lebanese man who killed three Israelis — including a four-year-old girl — in 1979, a party upon his repatriation in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah. “Brother Samir, we wish to celebrate with you,” Ghassan Ben Jeddo, then the network’s Beirut bureau chief, was filmed exclaiming during the party, which aired on the channel, and included a cake with Kantar’s picture on it. Wadah Khanfar, by then Al Jazeera’s director general, later apologized for the incident, writing in a letter that the broadcast violated the outlet’s code of ethics. He also assured the public that he had ordered the channel’s programming director to take measures that would prevent similar incidents in the future.

Evidently, whatever measures were taken — if any were taken — have failed. As last weekend’s video showed, Al Jazeera continues to rely on conspiratorial anti-Semitic tropes and Islamist rhetoric to fan the sectarian flames in the Middle East. The damage it does should not be underestimated: It appears in the channel listings of every home with Arabic-language satellite television, in the Middle East and the West. Its English-language affiliate offers slick propaganda to appeal to progressives in hopes of sugarcoating the sinister political aims of its Qatari corporate overlords. This latest controversy is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

Gil Hoffman: John Hagee’s Juggernaut

The CUFI founder and Texas megachurch pastor reflects on his organization’s membership reaching six million.

When entering the offices of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) in San Antonio, the first sight seen is the Western Wall.

The model of the Kotel is no coincidence.

A visit to the site in Jerusalem more than 40 years ago inspired CUFI founder and chairman Pastor John Hagee to become America’s leading Christian Israel advocate and arguably the world’s most successful builder of support for the Jewish state.

A year ago, Hagee delivered the benediction at the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem, in which he called Israel “the lone torch of freedom in the Middle East” and said the message of the embassy move should be heard by every Islamic terrorist in the halls of the United Nations and at the presidential palace in Iran.

Hagee celebrated the one-year anniversary of the embassy opening by announcing that CUFI had reached the symbolic figure of six million members, less than six months after the organization reached five million, and 13 years after it began with 400.

He said antisemitism becoming more mainstream in America has made CUFI more vital than ever. The six million number was not CUFI’s only recent achievement.

The embassy opening happened after more than 135,000 CUFI members emailed the White House asking US President Donald Trump to keep his pledge to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital.

In March 2018, after a 15-month lobbying campaign, including more than one million emails sent to elected officials by CUFI members, the Taylor Force Act became law, threatening to freeze State Department funds to the Palestinian Authority unless it ends its longstanding practice of compensating terrorists and the families of terrorists convicted in Israeli courts.

CUFI also claims credit for Trump’s cutting all US funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in August 2018, and Trump formally recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in March.

Little Help From American Jews During the Holocaust

American public opinion before World War II was deeply divided about what to do about Nazi Germany, and even less interested in the fate of German Jews under the Nazi regime.

Those are two of the conclusions that emerge from recent examinations of the period, which were highlighted last week at a program in Atlanta, “What Were We Watching? American’s Responses through Cinema, Radio and Media.” It was presented at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The program featured Daniel Greene, a distinguished historian and curator of a major new exhibit at the Holocaust museum in Washington, “Americans and The Holocaust,” which opened last year. The exhibit details how many of the issues that America wrestled with in the Depression years of the 1930s shaped the response to the rise of Nazis. Issues such as how to cope with isolationism, racism and extremism on the left and right made it difficult for Americans to come to terms with anti-Semitism in America, much less what was happening in Europe.

Greene spoke about America’s response to Kristallnacht, the German attack on Jews in November of 1938. While Roosevelt condemned the attack and recalled America’s ambassador to Germany, he kept a firm lid on Jewish immigration to America, Greene said.

“There was no political will to liberalize the immigration system.”

In a 1939 poll, two-thirds of Americans were even against taking in any refugee children threatened with annihilation.
Eddie Cantor, the popular Jewish-American entertainer, lost his radio program’s sponsor when he spoke out about the Nazis in 1939.

“It was Southern Democrats led by Sen. Robert Reynolds of North Carolina, who argued that American children had their own problems and we needed to take care of American children.”