Even though the Ayat restaurant in Brooklyn has only been open a few weeks, the New York Times rushed to give it a raving review:
A new restaurant showed up in October on Third Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, announcing its arrival right in the sidewalk, where a tracery of Arabic script meaning “end the occupation” and a peace sign are imprinted in concrete. Above the street wall — a grid of windows that slides open in good weather — the restaurant’s mission is written in swooshes of red, green and black spray paint: “Shawarma. Falafel. Palestinian Street Food.”
Ayat is all that and more.
The reviewer thinks that the V hand symbol is a peace sign, as if the Palestinians are hippies from the '60s. No, it means "victory for Palestine."
For example, it is the profile logo of this account run by a BDS group, which is certainly not interested in peace.
Since it means "victory," guess who is the loser?
The photo of the restaurant in the article show a mural painted on the wall. It depicts a crying Palestinian woman, evil looking Israeli soldiers holding Palestinians prisoner at gunpoint, the Dome of the Rock, and the words "Down with the Occupation."
Can you imagine a restaurant with a theme of Jewish suffering? A mural of an auto-da-fé here, a pogrom there, the burning of the Talmud, some smokestacks?
But this restaurant is more proof that Palestinians wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Jews that they could blame for their suffering. It is a sickness to even consider that this is an appropriate mural for people to go out and enjoy their meal.
Unless the customer base is Bay Ridge woke people who think it is trendy to support a Palestinian restaurant whose very walls scream hate.
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The Knesset on Wednesday passed a bill to dissolve, setting the stage for the fourth round of national elections in two years as Defense Minister Benny Gantz and his Blue and White party broke from the coalition and voted in favor of the measure.
The bill passed with 61 MKs voting in favor and 54 against.
Gantz’s support for the opposition bill will likely spell the end of his ill-fated power-sharing partnership with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, some six months after agreeing to join a unity government in order to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
The measure must still go through committee and pass three more readings in the Knesset before new elections are called, likely for sometime in the spring or summer.
“The dissolution of the Knesset is not a victory, it’s the first step toward a different government, which will deal with the coronavirus and the economy and won’t cause Israelis to hate each other,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who proposed the measure, tweeted after the bill was passed.
Coalition whip Miki Zohar, a Likud party ally of Netanyahu’s, accused Blue and White and the opposition of again “dragging” Israelis to the ballot box.
“The only thing in common between the factions that make up the opposition and Blue and White is their ambition to harm Netanyahu’s tenure,” he wrote on Twitter. “This is a sad moment for the Israeli people.”
Gantz on Tuesday night announced he would support the measure, accusing Netanyahu of committing an “economic terror attack” by refusing to allow the 2020 and 2021 budgets to move forward.
If the Knesset dissolution bill isn’t ultimately approved, the government has until December 23 to pass a 2020 budget or the government will fall and elections will automatically be scheduled for March 23, 2021.
Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, was even more explicit. In a 2018 interview with Israeli television channel Kan, the former premier suggested that the Iranian scientist represented a target of opportunity for Israel's clandestine service. "I know Fakhrizadeh well. He doesn't know how well I know him. If I met him in the streets, most likely I would recognize him," Olmert remarked. "He does not have immunity, he did not have immunity and I don't think he will have immunity." Israel now appears to have made good on Olmert's warning.
Yet Friday's killing has another facet, as well: It reflects what amounts to a significant shift in strategy on the part of the Jewish state. For years, speculation has abounded that Israel might ultimately decide to act unilaterally against Iran's nuclear program, which represents the gravest external threat to its security. The possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear sites is still very much on the table today, but it is an option hamstrung by a harsh reality: It is simply not possible to bomb knowledge.
Over the past two decades, Iran has amassed a formidable cadre of experts, scientists and engineers to power its atomic effort. In turn, the Iranian regime has taken great comfort in the idea that these specialists, spread over the length and breadth of its national nuclear endeavor, provide a guarantee of sorts that any military strike would turn out to be, at best, a temporary setback to the regime's path to the bomb.
Changing that calculus has naturally become a growing priority for Jerusalem. Over the past decade, no fewer than five high-level Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in a variety of very public ways. The assassination of Fakhrizadeh is just the latest part of this pattern.
Whether this campaign has any lasting effect on Iran's nuclear trajectory remains to be seen. The larger message it is trying to convey, however, is crystal clear. Israel is putting Iran's nuclear scientists on notice that their chosen vocation could turn out to be downright hazardous to their health, and that they would be prudent to seek other employment.
The message they [nationals of Lebanon] are sending to a new US administration is: The Lebanese people are hoping that you will help them get rid of Hezbollah. Cozying up to Iran would further embolden Hezbollah and allow it to destroy Lebanon by turning it into an Iranian-controlled colony.
"The Lebanese people... are being held hostage today by a militia that is financed by Iran, whose weapons are coming from Iran, and even whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is stating clearly and publicly that he takes orders from Iran." — Samy Gemayel, leader of the Christian Kataeb Party, November 23, 2020.
"Hezbollah is the only party in Lebanon that has 20,000 soldiers on the ground.... it can do a lot to make our democracy totally fictive. Today, we are being treated as hostages, and therefore the international community must help us." — Samy Gemayel.
Rabi's expressed hope that Biden would refuse to follow the policies of former President Barack Obama toward Iran. "This mistake needs to be corrected," Rabi wrote, referring to Obama's policy of appeasement toward Iran. "Correcting it can only be done by adopting a policy different from the Obama policy."
The Lebanese and Arab warnings about a possible return to the nuclear deal with Iran and the resulting empowerment of Hezbollah need to be taken seriously by the new US administration. The Lebanese and Arabs are trying to tell Biden what they and the Trump administration have known for the past few years, namely, that Iran and its proxies -- such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis -- are poised to wreak havoc in the Middle East.
Germany has pledged to include Israel in Europe’s deal for a future vaccine against the coronavirus, in keeping with Germany’s “special relationship” with Israel as a response to the Holocaust.
According to Hebrew-language media on Monday, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Health Minister Jens Spahn made the commitment to Israel’s Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Israel’s Ambassador to Germany Jeremy Issacharoff in conversations on October 11.
The Palestinian territory of Gaza, however, may not be so lucky. The virus in Israeli blockaded land which is also densely populated has reached a “catastrophic stage.”
Gaza was already suffering from a shortage of medical equipment after more than a decade of a deadly Israeli siege leaving hospitals without vital equipment needed to cope with a pandemic.
Pleas by Palestinian doctors in Gaza that the health system could collapse, have largely gone unheard and the Berlin-Tel Aviv deal only underscores that which makes no mention of Palestinians.
There have been no commitments made by Germany towards the Palestinians who are currently under an Israeli occupation which has its own historical reasons that can be closely linked to Germany’s actions.
This is simply state-sponsored slander in a news article. Israel does not bar medical equipment from Gaza. It also hints at the "Palestinians are the real victims of the Holocaust" meme that Israel haters like to say.
In other words, when Israel gets vaccines, Palestinians get vaccines.
The reverse is not true. Palestinians will also get vaccines from the United Nations and international aid organizations.
Of course, this story got promoted by IfNotNow. Liars have to stick together.
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On Sunday, Rashida Tlaib (and Linda Sarsour) retweeted the statement "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" used by Israel haters calling on the destruction of Israel.
When Jews got upset, she took down the retweet.
Peter Beinart, now a New York Times op-ed writer, defended Tlaib's original post - twice.
His arguments are so disingenuous and filled with so many falsehoods that they need to be seen to be believed.
Beinart's first sentence that Tlaib wants a single state were Jews live in equality with Palestinians is based on her carefully vetted campaign conversation with The Detroit Jewish News where she claims that al lshe cares about is human rights and that it is Israeli racist policies that force her to this position; she visited Israel in 1995 and was impressed that Jews and Arabs lived together in peace but she says that is no longer true.
This is gaslighting.
Even before she was sworn in to Congress she posed with the map that had a Post-It note in her office that indicated she wants to replace Israel with Palestine. If she wants a state with equal rights, why can it not be called Israel? (updated, h/t Israellycool)
More importantly, Tlaib explicitly supports the "right to return," whose only purpose is to destroy the Jewish state and force Jews to live under Arab majority rule. Her talk about "equality" only applies to a situation where Arabs control what "equality" means, which can be seen in the Palestinian constitution:
Article 1
Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Arab unity is an objective that the Palestinian people shall work to achieve.
Article 4
1. Islam is the official religion in Palestine. Respect for the sanctity of all other divine religions shall be maintained.
2. The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation.
3. Arabic shall be the official language.
This doesn't leave much room for Jews except as a tolerated minority. That is the "equality" Tlaib wants to see.
Beinart's second sentence is one of his go-to themes, where he pretends that Palestinians who live in Area A and Gaza - with their own flag, Olympic team, prime minister, president, court system, police, citizenship laws, passports, trade, zoning laws, cities that Jews couldn't live in if they tried, UN membership - are really living in Israel where they are denied citizenship. By his logic, Canadians live in the same state as citizens of the US since their economy is dominated by another country. It is a laughable lie but one that Beinart loves to repeat.
Beinart then doubled down on his defense of Tlaib's bigotry with an equal display of knowing lies and breathtaking ignorance:
Beinart starts off as a wise man: "I get it! But they are all wrong!"
It isn't "some" that have used the statement "From the river to the sea" to espouse the replacement of a Jewish state with an Arab state - it is everyone! There are no counterexamples. The idea that the boundaries of an Arab/Islamic Palestinian state is the exact borders drawn by Westerners to create the British Mandate is in the founding charters of the PLO and Hamas. (Although the 1964 PLO Charter contradicted itself by specifically excluding the areas controlled by Jordan and Egypt, because only Jewish control is anathema to the freedom-loving Palestinians.)
Beinart then mentions that Hamas charter. It doesn't use that specific phrase once.
Beyond that, by using the phrase "1st Hamas charter" Beinart is pretending that it has been superseded. He's either lying or ignorant about a topic he pretends to know cold. Hamas never replaced the charter in 2017; it issued a new political document but was explicit - in Arabic - that the original genocidal Hamas charter is still in place.
Why would Beinart want to downplay Hamas' evil? Because it blunts his message of Israel as an unparalleled violator of all that is holy and good - a position he shares with Rashida Tlaib.
But to point out that Tlaib tacitly supports BDS and explicitly supports the completely nonexistent "right to return" - which are both intended to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestinian, not binational, state - is a "smear."
Beinart has no intellectual honesty. These two tweets prove that.
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The New Israel Fund writes, "Between 2017-2019, five thousand children aged 12-18 from the West Bank and East Jerusalem were arrested by the Israeli military and tried in military courts, including dozens of children under the age of 13."
No source is given.
The number is absurd. It would mean that Israel averages between 4 and 5 arrests of children every day, which would be about 32 every week for that three year period.
According to the UN's OCHA-OPT, looking at a random sample of their biweekly Protection of Civilians reports, there are far fewer children arrested - 8 in this two week period, 13 in this biweekly period, and usually none mentioned.
But NIF goes beyond that, claiming not only that they are arrested but that they are tried in military courts.
A favorite statistic from many NIF grantees comes from a Haaretz article in 2011 that said that Israel has a 99.74% conviction rate in military courts in the West Bank.
If NIF's and Haaretz' numbers are correct, there would be thousands of children in prison! However, there are only a couple of hundred, nearly all of them males over 16.
Even other anti-Israel NGOs, like Defense for Children International, says that Israel arrests between 500 and 700 children a year - far less than NIF's claim of over 1300 a year, and they do not even pretend to say that every one of those get tried. (They also do not say the source of that statistic. UNICEF in 2013 gave a similar figure, but it admitted it was a guess based on speaking with lawyers in the courts who defend the children.)
The NIF statistic is made up from whole cloth. And these are the people who fund lots of other left-wing groups critical of Israel like Breaking the Silence and Yesh Din.
I suppose that NIF doesn't request the truth from the groups it funds, either.
(h/t Tomer Ilan)
UPDATE: Tomer found a HaMoked report where roughly 3000 Palestinian kids were detained in 2018-2019, but there is a big difference between "detained" by police and "arrested and tried."
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Franklin D. Roosevelt is widely remembered as a strong leader who boldly led America out of the Great Depression and to the brink of victory in World War II. Yet when it comes to the Holocaust, some defenders of FDR's record want us to believe he was not responsible for keeping Jewish refugees out of America—as if that was all the handiwork of the State Department, which supposedly ran U.S. immigration policy and foreign policy independently of the president’s wishes.
Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.
Prof. Daniel Greene, speaking recently at the University of Oklahoma, continued to perpetuate the implausible notion that President Roosevelt was too hapless to make his own foreign policy. Remarkably, Greene spoke for nearly an hour about America’s response to Nazism and the Holocaust, yet barely mentioned the president.
This tendentious approach is consistent with the theme of the controversial exhibit on “Americans and the Holocaust” at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for which Greene was senior curator. The exhibit has been criticized by many scholars for downplaying President Roosevelt’s abandonment of European Jewry.
Greene told his Oklahoma audience that the reason so few German Jews were admitted to the U.S. in the 1930s was because of “bureaucratic walls put in place by the State Department” —as if the White House had no occupant.
What actually happened is that the State Department implemented Roosevelt’s policy of restricting immigration far below what the existing law allowed. The annual quota of German immigrants—about 26,000—was filled only once in FDR’s twelve years in office; in most of those years, it was less than 25% filled.
There are letters from the president himself at the time in which he acknowledged and defended the fact that visas were, as he put it, “considerably under-issued.” There are documents showing that State Department officials briefed the president on their efforts to keep refugees out.
Those who attack the IHRA definition of antisemitism are those who discriminate against Jews, practicing antisemitism, as defined by the IHRA. They are primarily proponents of the BDS movement. Among the bill’s fiercest adversaries are leaders and members of a BDS organization inaptly called “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP), who try to put a “Jewish” seal of approval on antisemitism, misrepresenting their own antisemitic campaigns and rhetoric as human rights activism and valid criticism of Israel. The group actively agitates against the use of the IHRA definition of antisemitism and attacks the anti-BDS legislation introduced in Senate and Congress, as well as other efforts to raise awareness of antisemitism. They write op-eds and circulate petitions that falsely claim the bills are “intended to codify criticism of Israel as antisemitic” and to “make dissent about Israel illegal” when, in fact, neither the definition of antisemitism nor the bills proposing its use would outlaw criticism or dissent about Israel. On the contrary: The definition includes language specifying that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
JVP leads the charge that the widely-accepted IHRA definition of antisemitism is undemocratic. The group substitutes its own alternate definition that restricts age-old hatred against Jews to Christian theology-based or Nazi white supremacist-based racial theories alone. This disingenuous propaganda is aimed at those who are unacquainted with antisemitism or with the proposed legislation against it, as it sounds an alarm against any practical attempt to hold people accountable for anti-Semitic racism and persecution of others. JVP demands that:
It is vital that Jewish organizations across the globe stand united against harmful definitions of antisemitism and together for human rights and the freedom to protest. We at JVP are proud to have initiated this historic effort.
In November 2017, Former Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson joined Linda Sarsour—a vitriolic, anti-Israel, BDS activist who has been accused of outright antisemitism—on a panel that redefined antisemitism to exclude the panelists’ own activities.
Former Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson (2nd to right) joining Linda Sarsour (right) in panel that redefined antisemitism.
On December 15, 2020, several BDS and anti-Israel organizations are convening a panel made up of those who seek the demise of the Jewish state, in order to redefine antisemitism. The panelists include Rashida Tlaib—a U.S. congress member accused of using antisemitic tropes of dual loyalty, spreading anti-Jewish blood libels, singling out politicians for criticism because of their Jewish identity, and having close ties to a Holocaust denying, conspiracy theorist and terror-supporting anti-Zionist activists; Barbara Ransby — a university professor in History, African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies who is prominent player in the BDS movement, supporting violent anti-Israel terrorists and using her platform to spread false and vicious anti-Israel propaganda; Marc Lamont Hill— BDS proponent and one-time CNN journalist who advocates the elimination of a Jewish state, justifies anti-Israel terrorism, and is associated with the notoriously antisemitic Louis Farrakhan. The single Jew on the antisemitism panel is Peter Beinart — an “as a Jew” Jew who has made a career of vilifying the Jewish state and advocating its abolition.
If you were assembling a panel of experts to teach the world how to dismantle anti-Semitism, who would you choose? Perhaps a well-known journalist who deals with Jewish issues like Bari Weiss or a dynamic young activist like Hen Mazzig, or perhaps you would contact one of the myriad of great organizations tackling anti-Semitism.
Well, Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and friends have done the opposite. They have put together a team of anti-Israel pundits, anti-Semites and terror supporters; and asked them to lead the discussion on dismantling anti-Semitism.
The farcical panel titled "Dismantling Antisemitism, Winning Justice" is set to take place on December 15th.
LET'S GET TO KNOW THE “QUALIFICATIONS” OF THESE PANELISTS:
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is widely known for her anti-Israel activism and support of the BDS movement, for which she was barred from entering Israel in 2019. She has claimed that Palestinians saved Holocaust survivors and compared boycotting Israel to boycotting Nazi Germany.
Peter Beinart, the ONLY Jew on the panel, has called the Jewish state a “cancer” and lamented the Jews' “unfortunate Zionist obsession” with Jewish statehood. He has referred to Israeli society as “racist” and has implied that Israeli and American Jews are Nazis in relation to the Palestinians.
Marc Lamont Hill was fired from his position at CNN in November 2018 for using language associated with the destruction of Israel. He has also promoted anti-Semitism, fundraised for a convicted terrorist and glorified anti-Israel violence. Read more in his NEW Canary Mission Profile.
Barbara Ransby is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a long-time supporter and friend of terrorist Rasmea Odeh; she has also demonized Israel and promoted violent anti-Israel protests. Read more in her UPDATED Canary Mission Profile.
OUTRAGEOUS: Upcoming @jvplive panel on antisemitism includes @thisisUIC professor Barbara Ransby, a long-time supporter and personal friend of PFLP terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who masterminded the bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two students.https://t.co/kb04N8LBoUpic.twitter.com/mRsgDl6HB3
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of JStreet, on Sunday condemned
the assassination of senior Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Ben-Ami took his cue from the EU, which took its cue from Tehran. One can
understand why Tehran would condemn the assassination of the man considered to
be the father of Iran’s nuclear program, someone considered “irreplaceable”
in the mullahs’ quest to get the bomb. Iran wants the bomb, and the elimination
of Fakhrizadeh is a setback. Big time. The condemnations coming out of Brussels
and from Ben-Ami, on the other hand, can be explained only by the famous quote
from Winston Churchill:
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping
it will eat him last."
It makes sense that JStreet would want to appease Iran by condemning
the elimination of Fakhrizadeh, a man with deep knowledge of the Iranian nuclear
program. A nuclear Iran threatens the free world, not least of all the United
States. Go to any protest, or even to the Iranian parliament after Soleimani was killed, and you will hear the chants of, "Marg bar
Āmrikā," (Death to America).
JStreet’s Ben-Ami hopes that in agreeing with his wannabe murderers, they will consent to eat him last.
Perhaps more to the point, JStreet is an anti-Israel organization pretending
to engage in Israel advocacy. JStreet actually shares the aim of the Iranian
nuclear program: the elimination of the Jewish State—witness the organization's covert
support for BDS. It is believed that Israel is behind the assassination
of Fakhrizadeh, though the Jewish State has neither confirmed nor denied a role
in the targeted killing of the scientist. Israel has a good motive for taking
out Fakhrizadeh and that is that while a nuclear Iran may be the greatest
existential threat to the free world—which unfortunately includes Jeremy
Ben-Ami among its inhabitants—Israel is Iran’s closest target, and the elimination
of the Jewish State a primary goal for Khameini.
Ben-Ami, knowing that Israel is first on the menu, hopes
that in condemning the actions of the Jewish State, he will be last on the list
of tasty items to be consumed by the crocodile named Iran. That is why Ben-Ami
was pleased to be included on the guest list of Jewish leaders invited to Obama’s
table to discuss how Israel might be pressured to give away more indigenous
Jewish land to the Arabs. Obama is the main architect of that ultimate appeasement
of Iran: the JCPOA (which Iran never
signed). It is Obama who sent the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, pallets
of untraceable cash.
It is only natural that Ben-Ami would wish to be a starring
ingredient in the dessert course, to ally himself with Obama. Ben-Ami, like
Obama, wants to be eaten last. Alas, the only way for these men to fulfill this
aim is to make themselves relevant until the end. They hope that if they appear
to share the goal of the crocodile, and even assist in procuring food for the
beast, the beast might save them for another day, when there is nothing tastier
to eat.
The problem is that the crocodile is a bully, and the
problem with appeasing a bully is that the bully always comes back for more.
Which means that the bullied are never free, even as they delude themselves
that the opposite is true, that they are saved. Being last to be eaten, on the
other hand, by definition means that one is eventually eaten. Which is how the
game ends.
And the game always ends unless you stand up to the
crocodile, to cut off its sustenance for good. That is the only way to do away
with the crocodile, once and for all. Which Israel knew. Which is why Fakhrizadeh
had to go.
It only makes sense. It’s the only real way to game the
system, to not get eaten, last or otherwise.
Anyone who understands this, anyone with a modicum of sechel or common sense, therefore did
not vote for Joe Biden. Biden, predictably, intends to revive
the JCPOA, because he too, hopes to be eaten last, as do those who voted for
him. The Biden voters either hope to be last to be eaten by the Iranian
crocodile, or else they are oblivious to the danger in the swamp. They are
oblivious because the media dangles progressive sugar plums before their eyes,
the shiny and exciting causes they prefer to embrace above life itself: BLM,
Antifa, illegal immigrants, and above all, a supreme hatred of the Orange Man.
The people who voted for Biden (and Obama before him), can’t
see the crocodile lurking, waiting to pounce on those with no clue of the
danger waiting for them in the wings. The crocodile, meanwhile, watches on as its
early prey, the Biden voters, spew their hatred of anyone who thinks
differently from them: the people who won’t get with the plan. The Biden voters
don’t know that all along, the plan has been out of their hands and even unknown
to them, the people to be eaten first.
The people who voted for Biden, knowing he would probably
reinstitute the JCPOA, are like so much unwitting chum. They have no idea how delicious
they are, as an appetizer, or even a main course. Ben-Ami, meanwhile, awaits
his turn on the platter with bated breath—perhaps garnished with edible gold—as
the crocodile opens its yawning cavern of a mouth, never to be sated or
satisfied.
Always wanting more.
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The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza announced on Thursday that it will be importing [sic] Palestinian olive oil for the first time from the besieged enclave, to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Speaking to the press, the ministry's Spokesman Adham Al-Basyouni disclosed: "44 tones of olive oil were exported to Arab countries after achieving self-sufficiency for the first time."
He stated that his ministry exerted efforts to export the surplus of Gaza's olive oil as part of its support for farmers.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Palestinian businessman Hamdi al-Jerjawi said that "990 olive oil tins [15 tons] were exported to Saudi Arabia and 600 olive oil tins [9 tons] were exported to the United Arab Emirates."
This is the first time Gaza exported olive oil to Saudi Arabia and the UAE - right when Israel is cementing ties with those same Gulf countries.
Normally, Gaza produce for export outside the West Bank requires Israeli approval. The PA exports some West Bank produce straight to Jordan but I am not aware of them exporting Gaza goods.
Which means that although Arab and Turkish media are loathe to admit it, Israel almost certainly facilitated this export to help Gaza farmers.
This is not the sort of thing that the media wants to report.
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The Iranian regime has already repeatedly demonstrated that its goals are incompatible with those of Western fools, either in the United States or Europe, who think that diplomacy can somehow accommodate its ambitions. Iran’s use of terror, its nuclear ambitions are, like its ruthless and brutal suppression of dissent at home, integral to the identity of the Islamist government. Efforts to appease them like the nuclear pact are unsatisfactory and temporary solutions to a problem that requires a more realistic long-term approach.
It’s equally true that Iran’s leaders have also shown that, despite their bluster, the talk about waging war on Israel or the West is more of a bluff than a credible threat. While that could theoretically change, the talk of so-called experts on Iran about a conflict between “hardliners” and Tehran liberals is, like so much of the analysis of the Soviet Union a generation ago, utterly bogus.
That means that the problem facing Biden is not how to undo Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal or to make a new Middle East where Israel and the Gulf states are working in unison to accept a return of Iran appeasement. Rather, it’s how long it will take his new foreign-policy team to understand that the Obama vision for a housetrained Iran that would do business with the West was never realistic and, even with the support of Europe, Russia and China, can’t be revived. If they’re serious about crafting an Iran policy that is anything more than an Obama nostalgia tour, they must acknowledge that the nuclear deal—whose sunset clauses ensured that Iran would eventually get a bomb and which ignored its terrorism and missile building—must be scrapped sooner or later.
The information about Iran’s nuclear problem that Israel published two years ago—showing they never really stopped working for a weapon, along with every act of terrorism and illegal missile-building they commit—contradicts the Obama-Biden hopes for curtailing, let alone ending the threat from the regime.
Former Secretary of State and future Biden climate change tsar John Kerry may have advised Iran to simply wait until a Democratic administration replaced Trump to resume good relations with the West. But even if Tehran is cheered by Trump’s defeat, they aren’t going to conform to Biden’s will any more than they did to Obama’s. Their violent and aggressive goals remain unchanged, and nothing short of the kind of economic isolation that Trump was seeking to impose will force them to change their behavior, if, indeed, even that would suffice.
As important as the transition to a new administration in Washington is, it changes nothing about Iran or its intentions or the responsibility of those who rightly understand the nature of the threat to act. As they showed with the assassination and with its strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, Israel won’t simply sit back and let Iran have its way. The only question about Biden’s policy is whether he will join that fight as Trump did, or if he will stand on the sidelines as the Jewish state continues to do the West’s dirty work.
In this sense, it’s mistaken to view Israel’s likely strike against Fakhrizadeh through the lens of its effect on President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of re-entering the Iran nuclear deal and negotiating a stronger follow-on agreement. Israel has already proved it has extraordinary intelligence capabilities inside Iran. But the opportunity to take out a high-value target such as Fakhrizadeh does not come along often. It’s more likely that the opportunity presented itself and Israel pounced.
More important, Israel has showed in the last three years that it is willing to use its intelligence capabilities to stymie Iran’s nuclear program. Israel killed some nuclear scientists inside Iran during negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Back then, most observers believed that Israel’s only chance to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was an overt action, such as a missile strike, drone attack or bombing run. The explosions at Iranian sites over the summer suggest Israel can accomplish much of this task through intelligence operations.
The upshot is that any future deal with Iran will have to address Israel’s security needs. That is not what happened five years ago. The tensions of the nuclear deal became so dramatic that in 2015, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress to make the case against the deal Obama was negotiating. Netanyahu was willing to risk Israel’s most important alliance to oppose a deal that he believed imperiled his country’s future. So it’s highly unlikely that Israel would be willing to end its activities in Iran so the U.S. can rejoin that same deeply flawed nuclear agreement.
Israel may agree not to launch any strikes for a time, such as the first few months of the Biden administration. But it won’t give up the capability to strike inside Iran unless Iran agrees to abandon the aspects of its nuclear program suitable for building bombs. If Biden is smart, he will use this dynamic to his advantage as he tests Iran’s willingness to negotiate.
Israel’s sabotage and assassinations have not destroyed Iran’s nuclear program. But they have set it back. As the architect of that program, Fakhrizadeh will be hard to replace. What will be even harder for the regime, however, is persuading its other scientists that they will be safe if they continue the quest for a nuclear weapon.
Iran declared war against the west decades ago, and has committed numerous attacks and sponsored repeated acts of murderous terrorism against America, coalition forces in Iraq, Israel and diaspora Jews. Yet the western establishment, which has perversely refused to defend its interests against such attacks, continues to behave as if Iran is not responsible and that only a western military response would be an act of war.
Progressives say the regime will be contained by reaching out to it in negotiation. Once again, this is an example of the west’s ineffable arrogance in assuming that its own value-system is shared by the rest of the world. To the Iranian regime, attempts to negotiate are a sign of weakness and thus an incentive to further aggression. When the west extends its hand in conciliation, the regime views it as an opportunity to chop it off.
No-one in their right mind could be sanguine about the prospect of an all-out war with Iran. Equally, no-one in their right mind should be sanguine about enabling it to produce a nuclear bomb.
The assassination of Fakhrizadeh, along with all the other measures Israel and its allies have taken against the regime, shows how asymmetric warfare (or warfare by terrorists or rogue states outside the rules of war) need not mean that the bad guys always win. All it needs is the moral will to defend the free world against this novel form of aggressive warfare through novel ways of waging a just war.
Israel and the Trump administration possess that moral will. Obama and his retreads, along with the craven Europeans, do not.
UNRWA sends out emails about its dire financial straits, saying that there is no money left for its services.
But there is one simple way it can alleviate its problems: shut down the UNRWA school system in Jordan.
There is no reason whatsoever for the UN and UNRWA's donor countries to support a separate school system altogether. But in Jordan, it is completely unnecessary.
Nearly all Palestinian "refugees" in Jordan are citizens of Jordan. They can all attend Jordanian state schools, whose curriculum UNRWA uses.
Already about one third of Palestinian "refugee" citizens of Jordan send their children to Jordanian public schools. Jordan does not ban them from its schools. In fact, Jordan also gives schooling to non-citizen refugees from Syria, so even the Palestinians who aren't citizens should be able to attend Jordanian schools.
Maintaining two parallel school systems is inefficient and wasteful. Jordan can take over the existing UNRWA school buildings and hire UNRWA teachers. The donors who fund UNRWA could divert some of their money for a few years to Jordan's education ministry until the transition is complete.
UNRWA in Jordan uses the Jordanian curriculum and schoolbooks, so there is no disruption there.
Most importantly, it is the state's responsibility to educate its young people, and Jordan shouldn't outsource this task to the international community.
How much would this save? Education is roughly half of UNRWA's billion dollar budget, and Jordan has some two million "Palestine refugees." Almost certainly cutting this wholly unnecessary program would save $100 million a year, or about 10% of UNRWA's budget - without impacting the lives of the children who would still attend the same schools with the same teachers using the same textbooks.
UNRWA tries to position itself as being crucial. In this one case alone, it is clear that it isn't, and it is just trying to get as much money from the international community while keeping Palestinians separate from the main population of the country they are citizens of. It encourages Jordanians to consider Palestinians as not real Jordanians and to treat them as if they are only temporarily there, which makes it easier to take away other rights from them - something Jordan has done many times before.
You know....apartheid.
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Iran's Tasnim news agency is reporting that thge assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was done essentially by remote control.
No hit man was involved in the recent assassination of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of burial of the late Iranian scientist on Monday, Ali Shamkhani said the distinguished figure was assassinated in a complicated operation that involved electronic equipment without any assassin at the scene.
Israel's Kan network correspondent Amichai Stein quotes the Iranian Fars news agency saying:
According to Fars - Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and his wife drove to their home in the suburbs of Tehran last Friday, accompanied by three security vehicles. In the middle of the trip, a remote control weapon opened fire, and Fakhrizadeh went out to check what had happened. Fakhrizadeh thought that it was his car that had actually collided with something. From the moment he left, he was shot at by an automatic machine gun that was on top of a nearby Nissan vehicle. After he was hit, the Nissan vehicle with the machine gun on it exploded.....The owner of the vehicle on which the machine-gun was installed left Iran on October 29.
If this report is true, it means that both the Nissan truck and the machine gun were remotely controlled.
Is that possible?
Israel does have plenty of experience with remote controlled and autonomous vehicles.
The Daily Mail reports that Israel designed a remotely controlled pickup truck with a machine gun:
The IDF showed off this technology in 2016, when it was fitted into Ford F-350 pickup trucks that were designed to conduct border patrols.
The trucks, dubbed Border Protector Unmanned Ground Vehicles, are equipped with an array of sensors and cameras that allowed people to drive them remotely.
At the time they were unveiled the trucks were unarmed, but the IDF said it was hoping to arm the vehicles some time in early 2017.
'We will get a machine gun on the vehicle that will be operated from a control room,' an IDF official told Fox News at the time.
The IDF said the vehicles have been operational since 2015, and would later incorporate driverless technology.
And remote controlled machine guns? Israeli arms developers have gone beyond that with Rafael's Samson Remote Controlled Weapons Station, known as Katlanit. One version of it, the Mini Samson ROWS (shown here) can hold 12.7 mm and 14.5 mm machine guns as well as 40 mm grenade launcher, and the weapons weigh between 140–160 kg - which would easily fit on a Nissan pickup truck.
If this hit was really done remotely, it looks like the nation that sponsored the assassination - presumably Israel - built special equipment just for the occasion. The technology is easily within Israel's capabilities but hiding that weaponry on a standard pickup truck and running it remotely via satellite adds quite a bit of complexity. Smuggling such a weapon to Iran is almost as impressive as the technology.
I'm not sure why Tehran would lie about this, unless it is embarrassed that it couldn't find any shooters and is using this as a cover story. But to tell its own people that Israel was able to get such equipment into Iran and execute someone definitely makes any potential targets far more concerned about how easily they could get killed.
On the other hand, if Israel really decided to do the hit remotely, that is an enormous amount of trust in technology for eliminating such a target. Iranian claims that Fakhrizadeh went out of his car to check what happened and was then shot - and that he was in a bulletproof car - indicates that if he hadn't left is car he might still be alive, and it seems unlikely Israel would have taken such a chance. Also, the side of the car he was in shows that the small window in back was shattered, but one would expect the entire side of the car to be riddled with bullets if it was a machine gun, and there is no evidence of that.
One other point: an operation like this would take probably years from conception through building the specialized equipment and smuggling it into Iran to appropriate agents, along with long-term surveillance of Fakhrizadeh's habits (or inside information about them.) Iran may claim that their nuclear program is peaceful, but Israel wouldn't spend that much time and money on a unique method of assassinating someone unless it was very sure that the target was extraordinarily valuable. This much effort indicates that the assassination set back Iran's nuclear weapons program significantly.
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Thanks to you, Elder of Ziyon site continues to help Israel and the Jewish people.
It has been a difficult year for everyone, and EoZ has been doing our part to keep you informed and give you the tools to defend Israel.
This year in addition to the usual analysis, graphics, cartoons and videos, we added some live videocasts over the summer - and we plan to return to doing that.
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Don't promote democracy, talk about the royal families or comment on treatment of foreign workers.
Israel is advising tourism professionals and businesspeople to avoid discussing those and other sensitive political topics with residents of the United Arab Emirates, as it protects its new peace deal with the Gulf Arab country and promotes new daily flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv, launched last week.
"United Arab Emirates: Do and Do Not," the tourism ministry's 29-page Hebrew-language advisory published Nov. 8, is the first public Israeli government comment on the issue of Emirati political freedoms, but it stops short of criticizing alleged abuses.
"The United Arab Emirates is not a democratic country and it is not acceptable to speak about democracies as a preferred model of government," the advisory says. It also recommends "not to speak to Emiratis about the royal families," "avoid speaking about local politics" and "avoid speaking about government or state policy towards foreign workers."
The ministry says the guidelines are not government policy but cultural sensitivity tips aimed primarily at Israeli tourism operators preparing to receive Emirati visitors, whenever Israel lifts its COVID-19 ban on incoming tourism.
... Analysts and activists in both Israel and the Gulf criticized the Israeli approach.
"Gulf citizens are worldly and engage in the topics that the Israeli government is steering its tourists from," says Bader Al-Saif, a Kuwait-based fellow with the Carnegie Middle East Center. "It's how one engages in these topics that would matter."
"The message is: be silent. If you want to go to the UAE, and have a collaboration with them, don't talk about anything that would light a fuse," says Eitay Mack, a left-wing Israeli human rights lawyer.
Every country has travel advisories. The US State Department warns visitors against making derogatory comments about the UAE. It adds, "The UAE has strict laws regarding use of the internet and social media. Individuals have been arrested and criminally convicted for posting information on social media sites that local authorities determined was disturbing to the order of the UAE. Users of social media should be cautious about online posting of information that might be deemed to insult or challenge the local or national government. Individuals should avoid posting insults or derogatory information about governments, institutions, or individuals."
The UK similarly has lots of travel warnings for the UAE: "Posting material (including videos and photographs) online that is critical of the UAE government, companies or individuals, or related to incidents in the UAE, or appearing to abuse/ridicule/criticise the country or its authorities, or that is culturally insensitive, may be considered a crime punishable under UAE law."
Canada: "It’s illegal to criticize or disrespect the UAE’s ruling families or political system."
So why is Israel singled out for criticism? NPR gives a laughable excuse: "The State Department's travel advisory for U.S. citizens in the UAE offers similar advice on behavior and dress, and warns travelers they could be arrested or deported for 'making derogatory statements about the UAE, the royal families, the local governments or other people.' But unlike Israel, the U.S. has also reported human rights concerns there."
The US is required to monitor human rights issues in all countries to adhere to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974. That has nothing to do with giving advice on dealing with various local customs for travelers. Israel doesn't have that obligation.
The Israeli document is more comprehensive than a travel advisory, since it is also geared towards Israeli tourism professionals that will host UAE citizens. But this is advice on how to be polite with an expected influx of tourists with a culture that Israelis are not familiar with yet, not a warning not to discuss sensitive topics. NPR is framing this as if this pamphlet means that Israel is complicit with UAE's human rights abuses, and that is beyond dishonest.
This NPR report is a perfect example of media bias against Israel, blaming Israel for doing what every other Western nation does.
(h/t Tomer Ilan)
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Last week one tweet by ‘Double Down News’ was shared 2000 times and received 3400 likes. It was an upload of a 9-minute video of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi from Jewish Voice for Labour. On YouTube, the same video was watched over 120,000 times in 4 days.
Above the video ‘Double Down News‘ used the headline -‘Meet the Wrong Type of Jew, The Media Doesn’t Want You To Know Exists‘. Putting aside the fact that Idrissi and all of her JVL buddies have been given more than their fair share of mainstream media platforms, the underlying accusation here is stark. Zionists control the media. Why else would anti-Zionists not be given a platform? In other words, this is an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
The recent video even starts with Wimborne Idrissi saying she has been called the wrong sort of Jew. Except nowhere in any of the google searches was there any indication Idrissi and co regularly face such an accusation. All of the ‘wrong sort of Jew’ results were of Jews on hard-left websites batting away at an accusation that does not really exist.
They built the straw man and are now busy playing victims as they publicly demolish it.
The video by ‘the wrong sort of Jew.’
In just nine minutes, Naomi Wimborne Idrissi takes the viewer through most of the rancid arguments we have come to recognise in the fight against antisemitism. The pillars of hard-left antisemitic – anti-Zionist discourse.
That Jewish people are weaponising antisemitism and are harming the fight against real antisemitism.
Idrissi distorts the truth by implying that the Jewish community is evenly divided. She is well aware that her opinion resides in a fringe minority group.
She deals in historical distortion by decontextualising pre-Holocaust anti-Zionism.
Raises the antisemitic idea that the treatment of the Palestinians by Israeli forces is comparable to the way Jews were treated by the Nazis.
Touches on freedom of speech and truth – which is ludicrous hypocrisy coming from a spin artist who publicly calls for no platforming those she opposes.
Tell viewers that media has ‘sidelined and ignored’ left wing Jews because they support Palestine. Which is a blatant lie.
Takes ownership for the historical Jewish fights for justice.
Finishes off by saying that her group are the decent ones – people who want justice and peace. Which means that 93% of Jews must be indecent and against justice and peace.
On August 21, it was announced that the employee would be fired on 1 September. She was left with the cancellation of her medical insurance amid the COVID -19 pandemic.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center for over a year has acted in support of a Spanish Jewish employee, tenured since 1996 and now a senior official of the European Commission. In 2013, she was transferred to the EU diplomatic service, European External Action Service (EEAS), to work in the Middle East (Israel and Palestinian Territories).
One of her colleagues informed her that their Division Head allegedly suspected her of spying for the Mossad. She was thus transferred to the Turkish Division, entrusted with counterterrorism files.
According to her lawyers, then began a “slanderous... defamatory... campaign with antisemitic overtones.” She was again suspected of passing information to Turkish representatives. In 2016, she was dismissed “in the interest of this service.” Thus a long and painful process began.
The story appeared in last week’s Paris Match weekly (Belgian edition). The author, Frédéric Loore, gave the official an anonymous identity, the nom-de-plume of “Eva.” Loore suggested that his article was fit for the cover of a novel by John Le Carré.
He questioned: “Has the EEAS been infiltrated by a Mossad mole or have some of its managers engaged in harassment on the grounds of antisemitism? Was there a Mata Hari in the ranks of the service in charge of the European Union’s foreign and security policy? Or was it a fabricated plot to get rid of a cumbersome senior civil servant of Jewish descent?”
“Eva” had sought an investigation to find out on what these gratuitous accusations were based. “In the end, it was carried out only to harm me... After six years, they still refuse to tell me who accused me of these facts and on what basis,” the employee said.
In an official announcement by the “Belgian Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs” department, on Nov. 6 the Belgian government voiced its condemnation of the demolition by Israel of structures built illegally and without any planning and zoning approval in parts of the disputed territories administered by Israel. The buildings were constructed with Belgian funding.
According to this official announcement, “Belgium supports such infrastructure projects because they meet urgent needs. They are always carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law … the demolition of infrastructure and housing is contrary to international humanitarian law, in particular, the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel’s obligations as occupying power, and UN Security Council resolutions.”
Belgium’s heavy involvement in illegal construction in violation of the planning, zoning, and construction regulations and requirements applicable in what the Palestinians and Israelis have denominated as “Area C” is made clear in the announcement:
“Since 2017, at the initiative of Belgium, a group of partner countries affected by similar actions has systematically intervened with the Israeli authorities to ask them to stop the demolitions and to repair the affected projects or to compensate for the damage suffered.”
Belgium’s audacity in demanding compensation is equaled by its blatant disregard of the legal infrastructure agreed upon between Israel and the Palestinians, applicable in the areas in which Belgium is so actively involved in illegal construction.
Israel Advocacy Movement: Israelis and Palestinian clash over Sheikh Jarrah
The pending eviction of the al-Kurd family from Shiekh Jarrah has made headlines for 40 years. In this video, we reveal the truth behind the headlines.
This one is entitled "The Zionist Lobby," showing the entire world is just an attachment to the Zionist keychain.
And this one is "Trump's Legacy," showing Donald Trump hypnotizing the Arab world while the evil religious Jew sneaks away stealing the Dome of the Rock.
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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.
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Wednesday, December 02, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
