Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Taglit Birthright holds mega event with thousands of visiting Jews

It's hard to describe Taglit-Birthright Israel's Mega Event to those who haven’t been there. It’s almost a phenomenon. People-sized balloons and balloon-sized excitement. Music blaring, disco balls and night club lighting. Most remarkable are the 3,000 bodies jumping in ecstatic thrill, full of motivation and bursting with joy. And most surprising is that even in the midst of this, the words said don’t get lost.

"My friend Yossi Beilin had an idea," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the opening of his speech. "We have to bring young Jews from all over the world to Israel. It's not simple, you know, because someone has to pay for it. And then the crazy idea met Michael and Judy Steinhardt, crazy, yet very good Jews from the United States, who shared the same feelings."

"The outcome of all this is you," he continued. "From Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Poland, Russia, Great Britain, the US (“and Canada!” shouted the audience). Nowadays, you need not know each other's languages. You all speak Facebook. You all speak Youtube. You are all able to say what you want to say in 140 characters or less. Use these tools. Tell the world the truth."

There ‘s really nothing else to say. It is contagious. Even people wearing suits and people in their seventies danced here this evening. Where does all this happiness come from? "It's just too big to explain in words," answers Rosa from Venezuela. "This idea is too great to express. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world, different but exactly the same, who meet each other in the homeland that belongs to all of us."

Behind the scenes, Taglit-Birthright Israel CEO, Gidi Mark, wanders around, finalizing last details yet still grinning from ear to ear. He says to IDF Website, "There is a reason why we are here in these first days of January. It's an event opening the new year, announcing what is to follow. This event opens the door to the 50,000 people who will come to Israel by next January." When asked how exciting it has been to take part in the Mega Event for 11 years, he answers, "It’s as exciting as the first time every time. This place, here, is the strongest young Jewish energy in the world."

The 300,000 people from 54 countries, who visited Israel since the establishment of the Taglit-Birthright Israel program, got to meet, among others, many Israeli soldiers. Eight join every delegation that comes. One of the thousands who did so is Corp. Sivan Peleg, a military writer. Sivan does not lack stories in her bevy military experiences. Despite this, she says, "It’s unbelievable. You see things here that Israelis never get to see. Like that they discover that there are others Jews in the world, that they are not alone – ‘they are just like me’. There are people here who’ve never met another Jew, and suddenly they are in a bus full of Jews in the State of the Jews. You are told about Taglit-Birthright, but nothing can really prepare you for the experience. As a soldier, it's an opportunity to take days off from the army and still be Israeli."

"For many years, the State of Israel has received money from the Jewish community," recalls Netanyahu. "Today, we are giving back. In the near future, the State of Israel will invest over 100 million dollars in the Taglit-Birthright program. If it's up to me, it will not stop. Every Jew wishing to come to Israel can come to Israel. I believe that a strong international Jewish identity is essential for ensuring our future. We must remember that Israel is not only a 63-year miracle. It is a miracle at the top of a history of 4,000 years."

Do you think that the so-called "pro-Israel, pro-peace" crowd reads this and feels happiness, or dread?

Abbas consolidates his power even more

While Mahmoud Abbas likes to give the impression to the West that he is politically weak and does not have the power to make concessions to Israel, in fact he has been quietly building his political power base within the PLO and Fatah.

Today, he appointed one of his own, Sa'id Abu Amara, to be head of a new PLO political department headquartered in Ramallah.

The reason this is significant? Because his last major critic from within the PLO, Farouk Kaddoumi, who has been the official head of the PLO's political department in Tunisia, was not even consulted. Observers believe that whatever vestiges of power that remained in Tunisia under Kaddoumi will now be effectively transferred to Ramallah, under Abbas' watchful eye.

Almost exactly a year ago, Abbas had begun to marginalize Kaddoumi.

In August 2009, Abbas managed to strengthen his hold of Fatah, meaning that he is now the unquestioned leader of Fatah, the PLO and the PA.

So when Abbas says he cannot negotiate, or he is unwilling to compromise, it is his decision alone.

Spanish government sponsors ad to boycott all Israeli goods (updated)

From Palestinian Media Watch:

A boy enters a store and overhears a conversation.
Customer to shopkeeper: “Do you see them? They’re plastering the city with advertisements about boycotting Israeli goods.”
Shopkeeper: “I can’t not bring in [Israeli products], because people ask for them.”
Customer: “Israeli products are better than the local products.”
Shopkeeper to the boy: “What do you want?”
Boy, after looking at Israeli products: “I want Israeli chips.”
He takes the chips, walks to the door, and hears gunfire. He looks around, drops the chips on the floor, returns to the shopkeeper and says: “I don’t want the Israeli product, I want the Palestinian product.”

The advertisement ends by displaying the text: “Don’t prolong the occupation’s life upon our land,” with the logo of the Palestinian NGO Health Work Committees, followed by the logos of the ad’s sponsors:
The Spanish government,
the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
AECID (Spanish governmental humanitarian aid development),
ACSUR (a Spanish non-profit organization),
Canaan Joint Development Project for Jerusalem (Palestinian).

UPDATE: The Spanish government denies being behind the ads.

But I thought Israel stole all the water!

The Murad Resort, in the Palestinian Arab territories:

And it features an indoor pool for women, too:

Iran's new university dress code

From Reuters:

Iran has enforced a stricter Islamic dress code at a number of universities including a ban on female students wearing long nails, bright clothes and tattoos, a local news agency reported on Monday.

The semi-official Fars news agency published a list of universities around Iran that were given a note outlining the code but did not say on what basis they were selected.

The new rules ban women from "wearing caps or hats without scarves, tight and short jeans, and body piercing", except earrings, Fars said.

It said tattoos, long nails, tooth gems, tight overcoats, and bright clothes were also banned.

The new code also bans male students from dying their hair, plucking eyebrows, wearing tight clothes, shirts with "very short sleeves" and jewellery, Fars said.

I couldn't find the link in the Fars website, but last month the news agency was clearly telegraphing that these rules were coming. It published a series of articles about the dress codes at Western universities in its Persian edition, and used that as proof that there was nothing extremist about enforcing Islamic dress codes in Iran.

For example, it published the dress code at St. Louis University, claiming that it was for students - but it was for employees.

Missouri State University's code says "brief shorts, trank tops, tube tops, torn jeans, bare feet are not acceptable. Wearing of pierced jewelry should be confined to ears only. Tattoos should be covered."

They also are happy to see that Brigham Young University has a strict dress code, without mentioning that it is a Mormon school.

Yemeni Al Qaeda infiltrating Gaza?

Last week, the IDF shot and killed two men who were trying to climb the Gaza border fence.

Palestine Press Agency notes that these men have still not been identified.

Initially, Hamas has claimed that they were Egyptians who independently went into Gaza in order to "join the resistance" but that story has fallen apart, because Hamas did not hand any bodies over to the Egyptian authorities.

Similarly, the usual terror groups in Gaza did not claim these men as their "martyrs."

The rumors are that a number of Yemenis associated with Al Qaeda are going to Gaza, and that these were two of them. When Hamas attacked the Jund an Ansar Salafist group in August 2009, three of the dead were never identified but it was considered general knowledge that there are Al Qaeda Yemenis in Gaza and those men were assumed to be members.

Visit Gaza 2011!

I don't know who made this, but it is fun to watch:

(h/t Israeligirl)

A rare protest against Hamas in Gaza (UPDATE - um, no.)

A group of Gaza journalists protested Hamas' imprisonment of one of their colleagues yesterday.

Public protests against the Hamas government are very rare in Gaza. Usually, Hamas shuts down any protests under the pretext of the organizers not having the proper permits.

I cannot find the name of the journalist. Reporters Without Borders has not seemed to update its "Palestine" section in over a year.

UPDATE: An email correspondent who knows Arabic looked at the photos are figured out that these are Hamas "journalists" who are protesting the PA imprisoning their colleagues in the West Bank!

One of the signs they were holding was the Hamas Al Aqsa TV logo:

So this is not an anti-Hamas protest - it is a pro-Hamas protest.

Never mind!

SPJ Helen Thomas award about to be scrapped

From the Society of Professional Journalists:

The Executive Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists voted Saturday to recommend that the organization retire the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement. The recommendation, which will be sent to the full board of directors within the next 10 days for a vote, states that the award will be retired with Thomas’ name attached.

The recommendation by the executive committee is to retire the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement, meaning no lifetime achievement award will be given. The recommendation is not to rename it or to remove Thomas’ name.

The retirement will not take effect unless the board votes to accept the recommendation.

“This is a complex issue, and the executive committee considered comments and letters from both sides. Because of the importance of this decision, it is appropriate to put this before the full board,” SPJ President Hagit Limor said.

The executive committee said the following in making its recommendation: “While we support Helen Thomas’ right to speak her opinion, we condemn her statements in December as offensive and inappropriate.”

They published this absurd argument against rescinding the award from a self-proclaimed Jew and Zionist, Lloyd Weston, condemning Wayne State University from pulling their Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award:

The reasoning behind WSU’s decision to no longer offer the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media award sends a mixed message to its students – especially journalism students – that the values instilled in them over four years of education are both flexible and expendable; that freedom of speech and of the press is not a foundation, set in stone, upon which life in America is based, but rather merely a suggestion to be taken if it suits you, or left behind when it becomes inconvenient or embarrassing.

I have urged officials of WSU to reconsider what they have done, and to apologize to Helen Thomas, of course, but, more importantly, to the Wayne State University students and alumni who expected better of them.

Weston of course does not explain how getting rid of an award whose very name has turned into an embarrassment is a threat to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is important, but it does not run roughshod over other freedoms - such as the freedom of Wayne State University and the SPJ from not wanting their names associated with a bigot.

(h/t Backspin)

It's all Israel's fault!

It is well known that Israel is the cause of all strife in the Arab world (not to mention the world at large.)

Here are some recent examples:

In Egypt, some video of peaceful Egyptian police beating Coptic rioters with billy-clubs, January 3, 2011.

In Sudan, January 10.

Arab tribesmen accompanied by a Khartoum-backed militia killed 20 policemen in Sudan's disputed region of Abyei, a southern military spokesman said Monday, raising concerns of violence as the south carries out a weeklong independence referendum.

In Jordan, January 5:

Jordanian security authorities detained at least 20 on Wednesday in connection with two days of tribal riots that left three persons dead in the southern town of Maan, a senior official said.

In Tunisia this week:

Nineteen demonstrators protesting high unemployment and poor living conditions have been killed during the past two days in riots that broke out in two Tunisian cities near its border with Algeria, a government official said Monday.

The incidents occurred in the cities of Thala and Kasserine, said Minister of Information Samir Abidi. All of the dead were demonstrators; more than 30 police were injured, he said.
Amnesty International said at least 23 people died in protests over the weekend, and it had received reports of more deaths on Monday.

Citing "information gathered by Amnesty International," it said security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse demonstrators in the cities of Thala, Kasserine and Regueb in central Tunisia.

In Algeria this week:

At least three people have been killed and 300 others injured in riots that erupted across Algeria amid rising food prices and a housing crisis, according to state-run media.

If only Israel wasn't there, none of these incidents would have happened and the Arab world would be peaceful and unified.

Obviously.

Ten million Loughners (Barry Rubin)

A must read from Barry Rubin:

When one crazed or ideologically obsessed gunman starts shooting in Arizona, people condemn him and start bemoaning their society. How about a place with ten million people like that who are treated as heroes?

America this week is awash in a huge and passionate debate over whether angry political disagreements and harsh criticisms of certain views or groups inspired the attack on an American congresswoman (Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, by the way). I’m not going to enter into that argument right now but I want to point out the Middle Eastern ramifications of what's going on here.

Every day for more than a half century, Arabs and Muslims have been inundated every day with hatred for Israel, America, the West, Jews, and often Christians. You can read transcripts of Syrian broadcasts or Palestinian speeches from 50 years ago that sound just like what was said in the same places yesterday by powerful and/or respectable figures and institutions.

Let’s say that the proportion of lies, slanders, and incitement in the American discourse is one-tenth of one percent of all the words spoken on controversial issues. The equivalent figure for the Middle East is well over 95 percent.

In addition to that tone, there is not only a total lack of balance but an absence of the other side altogether.

And in addition to those two points, the level of factual accuracy has a huge gap separating it from reality. (Though, admittedly, that gap has been narrowing in recent years as Western standards decline).

And in addition to those three points, while extremists tend to be marginal in the United States, they are in control--either politically or at least rhetorically--throughout most of the Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority worlds.

Read the whole thing.

The Israeli Way of War (Totten)

His writings might meander, but they never fail to inform. A small sample:

God only knows how Hezbollah trains its fighters, but I have a pretty good idea what the Israelis are up to because Abe Lapson, an IDF director of combat engineering, hosted me at the urban warfare training center in the northern Negev near the border with Gaza.

They built a scale model city out there in the desert where Israeli soldiers engage in sophisticated combat exercises. They fight each other in these exercises, so it’s always a challenge. Trained Israeli soldiers are far more dangerous than any army—even Hezbollah—the modern Arab world has yet produced.

I saw the skyline of the “city” as we approached on a road through desert, and from a distance it almost looks real. Up close it’s different.

“It almost looks like a set for a video game,” I said.

Lapson chuckled and said, “But it’s real.”

I could see everything from the control tower. The buildings are smaller and farther apart on the outskirts than they are in the center, just like a real village or town in the West Bank, Gaza, or Lebanon. And I have to say they did a pretty good job with the realism. Pyrotechnic teams set off explosions. Vehicles emit different colors of smoke depending on what kind of damage they’ve supposedly taken. Walls have simulated blast holes because doors and windows are often booby-trapped, forcing soldiers to create alternate entrances.

I’ve never been to a Hezbollah training camp, although I did ask Hezbollah officials if I could see one before they blacklisted me for “writing against the party.” They refused. Still, I’m certain they don’t have dummies representing civilians who aren’t to be touched.

The Israelis do, though. They place mannequins on the grounds dressed in the clothes of civilians and peacekeepers as well as enemy soldiers and terrorists.

“The other side includes both hostiles and civilians,” Lapson said, “and the hostiles will often embed themselves among the civilians. We go over a large number of what-if scenarios. We imbue an ethical and moral backbone in all our soldiers from the very beginning, and we have humanitarian officers with our infantry troops. We take extra precautions, even when it puts our own troops in danger.”

Read the whole thing.

And while he mentions that it looks like a video game, that is one great idea that someone could do - a video-game that shows the difficulty of fighting the IDF way, trying to avoid civilians while hitting terrorists pretending to be civilian. While, at the same time, worried that the rockets you are targeting don't end up hitting your own family.

Ramallah naming more streets after terrorists

From RT.com:

The West Bank city of Ramallah is naming its streets to mark its 100th anniversary, but some of the choices are causing controversy as they honor people involved in planning terrorist acts.
This naming is part of a regeneration scheme started two years ago, but it is already being seen by some as a sign of growing extremism.

Before the scheme was launched, there were no street names, street signs or house numbers that could help people navigate around the city.

Janet Mikhail, Mayor of Ramallah, says it is “a human right for citizens to know where they are.”

Thus Yasser Arafat gets a square. And a street is called after the neighbourhood Al-Nuzha that used to exist in Arab Jaffa in the 1930s. Another street called Al-Awdeh, meaning ‘return’, is a call for Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.

The criteria for choosing a name are simple: heroes, places, and ideas supported by the Palestinian people.

“We don’t differentiate between Hamas or Fatah,” explains Janet Mikhail.

If anything, the opposite, as members of both organizations fighting for liberation are glorified. Which might surprise those who think the modern city of Ramallah would shy away from praising stalwarts of Hamas, an organization considered by many world powers as terrorist.

One of the thoroughfares is named after chief Hamas bomb maker – Yahya Ayyash, dubbed “the engineer”. For three years he was Israel’s most wanted man for masterminding suicide bombings that killed 90 Israelis, until he himself was killed.

As political analyst Khalil Shaheen explains, “anyone who was killed by the Israelis, even in a car accident, is considered a martyr”.

Yahya Ayyash was killed by the Israeli internal security service after they tricked a friend of his into giving him a cell phone that was booby trapped. Fourteen years on his family is as proud as ever.

“I’m very pleased they’ve named roads and streets after him,” says Yahya Ayyash’s mother, Aisha. “My son is in my heart and I miss him. He’s the hero of Palestine.”

Surprisingly, not all the streets names are Palestinian. One street is called after Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer during a demonstration in Gaza in 2003. Rachel was part of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that, as Israelis charge, aids Hamas and other Palestinian extremist groups.

The decision to name a busy street in Ramallah after her was anonymous.

Such attention, even to extremist groups, may be explained by the growing desire among Palestinians to change the current course of events.

”People in the West Bank are fed up with the way they have been ruled during the past 15 years and they’re eager to try something else,” believes Khalil Shaheen.

Polls show Hamas growing in popularity in the West Bank, while talks between rival Palestinian faction Fatah and Israel deadlock.

“Hamas is changing, Hamas is trying to speak in the language the West understands,” argues Shaheen.

And as the new street signs go up in the city, it is becoming more and more clear that Hamas is also speaking in a language Ramallah Palestinians understand.

Gaza town to create "Mavi Marmara" park

Palestine Today reports that the mayor of Jabalia met with a Turkish man, Hanafy Osama Sinan, who had been on the Mavi Marmara.

Sinan traveled to Gaza with an aid convoy.

The mayor said that he would establish a park on 6 dunums west of the city in memory of the terrorists who were killed on the ship, as well as naming streets after them.

Amazing how they find land when they want to!

Newspaper accidentally becomes Wayback Machine

I saw a number of Arabic newspapers report breathlessly that the US is using 250,000 bullets for every insurgent they kill in Iraq, and they are forced to import more from Israel because of a bullet shortage.

I traced the story back to this article, printed today, in the Belfast Telegraph.

Interestingly, that same article was published in The Independent - in September 2005.

Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh. Instead, I should just recycle some of my own blog posts from September 2005 that could have been written today:

More words of peace from the PA

Media reports Hamas lies; ignores facts

Get ready for "Moderate Hamas"

Victimology

And, completely off topic:

Leonard Nimoy on drugs

Latest Arab rumor: "Alexandria church bomb had Israeli explosives"

Egyptian newspaper Al-Mesryoon has an exclusive report that tries to implicate Israel in the deadly Coptic church bombing.

According to the story, the explosive used in the church was ten times more powerful than TNT and it is used by some of the countries in the region, particularly including Israel. They claim that this is the same explosive used by Israel to blow up some cars that had Hamas members.

They deny that it was a suicide bomber, saying instead that it was a remotely controlled device, either through a timer or a mobile phone.

This report is spreading pretty quickly through the Arabic media.

The stupidity of the EU

I just saw the actual document that Ha'aretz was referring to in my previous post.

It proves beyond any doubt that EU diplomats are clueless about Arab goals. They are so caught up in their diplomatic bubble that they are willfully ignorant of how Arabs really feel, and they can therefore publish complete rubbish.

For example:

Developments at the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, are significant in several respects - they are a cause of tension locally between the various communities, but also receive attention globally,such as the large demonstrations by Muslims whenever they perceive the Muslim position in Jerusalem to be undercut. For this reason, this site is one of the most sensitive in Jerusalem and therefore, any event happening on it or around it is likely to have serious repercussions.

In 2010, the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount area continued to see heightened tension and inflammatory actions which led to riots and demonstrations in Palestinian neighbourhoods. Repeated provocative visits of the Haram area by Jewish radical political and religious groups, which continue to occur during 2010, are highly problematic. On several occasions Israeli forces entered Al Aqsa Mosque and confronted stone-throwing Muslims. The perceived threat to religious places promotes rumours which in turn can lead to violent encounters between the various groups.

This is a great example of subconscious liberal racism towards Arabs. Every Israeli action is "provocative" and every Arab riot is an understandable result of Israeli actions. As is always the case, Arab violence is justified and even inevitable, while Israeli and Jewish actions are designed purely to anger Arabs. Only the Jews have the ability to be responsible for their actions - terrible, awful actions like wanting to peacefully visit their own holiest place, or to support archaeological digs that show the Jewish history in the holiest city on Earth. How provocative! From the EU diplomats' perspectives, violent Arab reaction to such events is inevitable and Arabs are not responsible.

The disputes regarding various construction projects (e.g.“archeological tunnels”, recent plans to alter of the Western Wall plaza) serve as examples of a lack of consensus-building by Israel around those projects in sensitive areas of the city.

Do they honestly think that the Islamic religious leadership would allow Israel to do anything at all that tacitly accepts that Jews have the right to live in Jerusalem? How clueless can you be?

Work on the Mughrabi Gate has proven a particular example of this in 2010. The Waqf, the Islamic body responsible for the Haram al-Sharif compound, has expressed concern regarding the construction by the Israeli Authorities, without their agreement, of a new bridge to replace the collapsed ramp leading to the Mugrabi Gate. Work on the Mugrabi Gate, the passageway between the Wailing Wall Plaza and the Temple Mount / Haram al Sharif, started again in September after the Jerusalem District Court's decision to authorize the work. The Waqf believe that the damage caused to the ramp is negligible and could be fixed without replacing the whole structure. They suspect this may be used as an opportunity to undertake new excavations under the ramp or as seemed to be originally planned (prior to the Court’s ruling against it) to expand the area of the Wailing Wall Plaza. A new plan for the Mughrabi Gate, revealed in November this year, seems to be less far-reaching in the sense that it does not include any expansion of the Plaza. The Waqf, however, was again not consulted in the process.

The rocket scientists of the EU diplomatic corps want to give veto power to the Waqf - an organization that is as extremist and anti-semitic as possible - over everything that the municipality of Jerusalem undertakes for the good of the city. Strengthening extremism against moderation - what a great diplomatic initiative!

Did the EU, even once, say anything against the criminal bulldozing of priceless archaeological treasures by the Waqf on the Temple Mount? Or is the Waqf allowed to act unilaterally, while only Jewish decisions can be vetoed by the Arabs?

If it was up to the Waqf, the Western Wall and the Old City would be Judenrein. But the EU wants Israel to consult a racist hate organization before doing anything.

Unbelievable.

What is behind PalArab demands for Jerusalem?

Ha'aretz has a very vague report:

East Jerusalem should be treated as the capital of the Palestinian state, according to a report compiled by the heads of European diplomatic missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The report includes several other unprecedented recommendations to the European Union regarding its attitude toward East Jerusalem.

The European diplomats, mainly consuls, also recommend that EU officials and politicians refuse to visit Israeli government offices that are located beyond the Green Line and that they decline any Israeli security in the Old City and elsewhere in East Jerusalem.

The report, which was completed last month, was sent to the EU's main foreign policy body, the Political and Security Committee in Brussels. It was apparently not released at the time due to the sensitivity of its content.

The diplomats' report also discusses the possibility of preventing "violent settlers in East Jerusalem" from being granted entry into EU countries. In the area of commerce, it recommends encouraging a boycott of Israeli products from East Jerusalem.

If this is true, it represents another major political gaffe by the government of Israel in putting forth its case.

Much of that is the fault of Israeli governments that have reportedly already offered significant parts of Jerusalem to the PLO, implying that somehow it really isn't as important to Jews as it is to Arabs.

Even so, the GOI should be doing what it can to stop this impression of inevitability that a Palestinian Arab state must have Jerusalem as its capital. When one looks at the issue dispassionately, it becomes clear that this is not a political need - but a form of blackmail.

It hardly needs to be mentioned that Jerusalem was never the political capital nor religious capital of any Arab entity. The demand for Jerusalem has always been the demand to strip the Jewish state of its spiritual center, not because of any objective value that is placed on Jerusalem by the Arab world or by "historic" Palestinian Arabs.

Decades of listening to the mantra, started by Arafat, of "an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital" has convinced gullible Westerners that somehow Jerusalem has inherent value to Palestinian Arabs, rather than tactical value as a means to weaken the emotional and spiritual hold that Jews have on Israel.

The Arabic press makes this clear. To give a minor recent example, the Al Aqsa Foundation was quoted favorably in the Palestinian Authority's official newspaper when it complained about the iPhone "iKotel" app - a simple app that shows a live video feed of the Western Wall. The reason for the consternation is that the app helps strengthen Jews' emotional connection to the Wall, and this is what frightens them most of all.

The unstated but nevertheless consistent policy of the Palestinian Authority is to strip any vestiges of Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. This is why they are most adamant about Jewish holy places in Judea and Samaria. This is why they created - out of whole cloth - a fake "historic" mosque in Rachel's Tomb. It is because an emotional connection to a place is much harder to fight against than logical or legal arguments. Places that throughout history were ignored by the Arabs have taken on brand-new importance only when Jews asserted control over them. (And during the 19 years of Arab rule over them, their importance again faded into virtual invisibility, to be resurrected in 1967.)

To gullible Westerners, the fake emotional connection that Palestinian Arabs assert consistently over holy places is much stronger than the cool-headed, logical connection that modern Israeli leaders have paid lip service to.

This was not always the case. Guess who wrote these words:

The city of Jerusalem-which became in the course of time, from the crowning of David until our own days, not merely the most precious and Holy City in the Land of Israel, but one of the most revered cities in the world is not mentioned at all in the Five Books of the Torah. Further, after the reign of David who captured the city Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the eternal capital of Israel and his son, King Solomon, built the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) within her. After Solomon died the people of Israel came to crown his son Rechavam, not in Jerusalem, but in Shechem. And of the forty years of David's reign, seven and a half he ruled in Hebron, while Jerusalem, though not mentioned at all in the Torah, was made by Israel's greatest king into the city of holiness.

However, don't forget: the beginnings of Israel's greatest king were in Hebron, the city to which came the first Hebrew about eight hundred years before King David, and we will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron, neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly growing and expanding, very soon. This will also be a blessing to the Arab neighbors. Hebron is worthy to be Jerusalem's sister.

It was staunchly secular and anti-religious David Ben Gurion.

In fact, the writings of all of the major early secular Zionist leaders showed a much deeper emotional connection to the land of Israel than we have seen from any prime minister since Menachem Begin.

And this is what frightens the Palestinian Arabs the most - because their ultimate goal is still to drive the Jews out of the land, one way or another. Jews who are emotional about their land are not likely to leave as those who look at Israel as just another Western country.

So Palestinian Arabs make Jerusalem a central issue (along with "return," something they have not wavered on.) And their repetition of its importance convinces Westerners against all reason.

Which brings up a bizarre situation where Western diplomats are apparently demanding that a city be divided, that thousands of residents be forced to leave their homes, and that Jews are estranged from their heritage - all in the name of "peace."

That "peace" has no relationship with reality. It is a form of Mafia-style blackmail. The Arabs are telling the world, almost explicitly, that unless they get their demands met - and Jerusalem is only an example - the result will be Arab-initiated violence. Both in Israel and worldwide.

This is the real reason the EU is caving to a demand that has no basis in history or logic. There is no real reason why "Palestine"'s capital cannot be Ramallah. It is incredible hypocrisy that the same countries that demand that Tel Aviv be the capital of the Jewish state also demand that Jerusalem be the capital of a state whose "people" simply did not exist as such a mere hundred years ago.

These two factors - Palestinian Arab demand to strip Israel of its Jewish soul, and EU fears of terror and "an end to peace"- are what causes insane developments like the one Ha'aretz is reporting to seem almost normal.

It is up to the Israeli government to understand this and expose it. They are failing, badly.

Netanyahu: "Hebron, Shiloh, Bet El, Kever Rochel must remain in our hands"

From IMRA, January 7:

Makor Rishon correspondent Ariel Kahane reports on the front page of today's edition that during the course of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's biannual presentation to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday he said:

"It should be remembered that we, as Jews, have been within the broad borders of the Land of Israel not tens and hundreds of years but instead thousands of years. When the Palestinians talk about historic rights they should remember that they have been there a shorter time. The rights of the Jews to Hebron and Beit El, Rachel's Tomb and Shilo, are greater and much more significant. Therefore these places should remain in our hands in any arrangement".

This statement seems to have slipped under the radar of not only Israel's media but also the Arab media - which usually jumps to publicize anything like this.