Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Sunday Links

From Ian:

Barry Rubin: If You Think America Should Go to War in Syria You Haven't Been Paying Attention

Don’t get me wrong. On balance, I’d like to see the Assad regime fall and to see an end to the suffering of Syrian civilians. From a strategic standpoint, though, the fact that the Sunni and Shia Islamists—who both want to destroy U.S. interests and wipe Israel off the map—are battling in Syria may not be the worst thing in the world.

Prosor warns UN to rein in Hezbollah

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor on Friday warned that the transfer of “game changing weapons” from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon threatens to “plunge the entire region into instability and violence.”
Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on counter-terrorism, Prosor further lambasted several European countries for refusing to recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, saying that “one does not need to be Mother Theresa to realize that [Hezbollah] is not a social organization.”

EU threatens pullout of south Lebanon peacekeepers

The European Union has threatened to remove its troops from UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, unless the Lebanese government improves the security situation in the area.

UN says 4 peacekeepers held by Syria rebels freed

Syrian rebels on Sunday released four Filipino UN peacekeepers they abducted last week, a military spokesman in the Philippines said.
The four, seized Tuesday, were apparently unharmed, but will undergo a medical checkup and stress debriefing, said Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan.
Al-Jazeera reported on Sunday that the men were transferred to Israel.

Galloway: Israel supports Al-Qaeda
British Member of Parliament chirps up conspiracy crackpottery from his Press TV pulpit

Apparently, Israel is working with Al-Qaeda to help bring down the Assad regime. Yes. Apparently Israel is stupid enough to arm a terrorist group that would arguably work much harder to wipe the Jewish state off the map than Assad's lot ever did.

IRS Punished Conservative Non-Profits, Perhaps Also Pro-Israel Groups

After repeatedly denying it was targeting conservative groups for unfair treatment, the IRS admitted it was treating politically conservative groups in inappropriate ways. A pro-Israel group sued the IRS in 2010 for the same (and worse) conduct.
For example, in 2010, the passionately pro-Israel organization Z STREET filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming it had been told by an IRS agent that because the organization was “connected to Israel,” its application for tax-exempt status would receive additional scrutiny. This admission was made in response to a query about the lengthy reveiw of Z STREET’s tax exempt status application.
In addition, the IRS agent told a Z STREET representative that the applications of some of those Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

Soldiers: We've Capitulated to Rock Throwers
Report: number of soldiers injured by rocks is soaring but they are not allowed to open fire.

Writing in the web magazine Mida, Erez Tadmor says that in the past week, since the grave injury of Yaakov Zlatkin at the hands of an Arab mob, he has spoken with dozens of officers and soldiers who all said the same thing: The health and security of Jews who live in Judea and Samaria, as well as those of the soldiers who are supposed to guard them, have been left to the mercy of the enemy.

American stabbed in Cairo for "Being American" identified as lefty anti-zionist academic Chris Stone

Stone is a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and writes frequently against Zionism

Cairo says thwarts suicide attack on embassy

Egyptian security forces thwarted an al-Qaida-linked group's plan to carry out a suicide attack on a foreign embassy and captured several militants, the interior minister said on Saturday.
Mohamed Ibrahim, speaking in a televised news conference, declined to say which embassy had been targeted. He named three suspected members of the cell now under arrest.

Turkey arrests nine in connection to deadly bombings

46 reported dead and 50 still hospitalized from Saturday blasts; Turkish officials blame Syrian intelligence for attacks; Syria denies allegations

One arrested as plot to assasinate Patriarch Bartholomew uncovered

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into an alleged plot to assassinate Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I on the 560th anniversary of the conquest of İstanbul by the Ottomans, with police arresting one suspect and still seeking two others.

To get money, Marmara families must drop demands

Turkish Deputy PM says negotiators are trying to get up to 20 times the amount requested in court, but victims must waive civil suits

"Business Insider" names 20 hottest Israeli start ups

"Business Insider" yesterday listed Israel's 20 hottest start-up, and praised the country's developed start-up industry. "By some counts, Israel is home to 4,800 startups today. It's also home to least two dozen accelerator/incubator programs in the Tel Aviv area, alone, including some run by Microsoft and Google," it says, adding, "As a startup hub, Israel is second only to Silicon Valley

SodaStream raises guidance on strong Q1 results

SodaStream has raised its full-year revenue guidance to $554.1 million (27% growth over $436.3 million revenue in 2012) from $545.4 million ($25% growth over 2012). The company also raised its non-GAAP net profit growth forecast to 27% from 25%, to $63.5 million from $62.5 million, compared with a net profit of $50 million in 2012.

Morgan Freeman Presented With The Jake Eberts Key Of Knowledge Award By Canadian Friends Of The Hebrew University Of Jerusalem

Event raised $2 million for Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada
Last night Academy Award-winner Morgan Freeman was honoured with the Jake Eberts Key of Knowledge Award at a gala reception hosted by Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (CFHU). The award celebrates Freeman's dedication to combating racism and promoting knowledge and education worldwide. The gala was held at the Toronto Centre for the Arts and was attended by more than 700 guests.

Siege! Hamas blocks human rights workers from leaving Gaza

From PCHR:

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the decision of Internal Security Services (ISS), stationed at Beit Hanoun Crossing (Erez), to prevent lawyer Eyad al-Alami, PCHR's Deputy Director for Legal Affairs, and lawyer Mohammed Bseiso from traveling to the West Bank this morning. The two lawyers were leaving for an official mission related to PCHR’s Legal affairs. PCHR calls upon the government in Gaza to intervene in order to put an end to these illegal measures and unjustified decisions which restrict the constitutionally guaranteed right of civilians to freedom of movement, and to ensure respect for the right freedom of movement. PCHR also calls upon the Government to allow people to move freely, especially, in light of restrictions imposed on Palestinian civilians’ movement by the Israeli forces.

At approximately 11:00 on Sunday, 12 May 2013, Mr. Eyad al-Alami and Mohammed Bseiso arrived at the checkpoint of the Ministry of Interior near Beit Hanoun crossing, in the northern Gaza Strip, and handed their ID cards to an officer in order to complete the procedures of traveling to the West bank. Al-Alami and Bseiso were on their way in an official mission related to following up legal cases of victims of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip; prisoners held in Israeli jails; medical referrals of patients from the Gaza Strip for treatment abroad, and; other humanitarian cases. The aforementioned officer asked the PCHR’s staff members to wait. After approximately half an hour he told them that they were prevented from traveling and that they had to refer to the Ministry of Interior in Gaza for obtaining a travel permit.

The evil Israelis gave them permission to travel through Israel to visit the West Bank. The "democratically elected" Hamas leaders of Gaza blocked them.

The "Free Gaza" movement is, naturally, silent.

VIDEO: Lebanese TV shows Gaza luxury, slams Hamas (EoZ exclusive)

Lebanon's OTV is owned by a Christian party that is allied with Hezbollah, so this very interesting video shows Iran's displeasure at Hamas' non-support of Bashir Assad's regime in Syria.

The report apparently aired May 9. It was publicized in anti-Hamas Palestinian Arab media.

Reporter: Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that it has Movenpick, Rotana, and other expensive hotels. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that Western Union, Money Express and other financial and banking services are available for Gazans on every street. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that some fishermen have changed the flags from those of Palestine to those of Qatar. Those who don’t know Gaza don’t know that the price of some apartments in the Rimal neighborhood are the same as the price of an apartment in the Rauche neighborhood in Beirut (an upscale neighborhood in Beirut).

Woman in car: They came/returned from Syria and Lebanon.

Reporter: Here all pre-conceived notions are gone.

Reporter to worker: Where are those goods from?
Worker: Israel.
Reporter: You mean from occupied Palestine.
Worker: Yes, occupied Palestine.
Reporter: What are those goods?
Worker: Poultry.
Reporter: How does it arrive? Is it brought by Palestinian, “Palestinians of ‘48” [Israeli Arabs] or what?
Worker: No, directly from the Jews.
Reporter: Maybe they poisoned it.
Worker: No, no, no.
Reporter: What guarantees that they didn’t poison it?
Worker: We checked it.
Reporter: You "checked it” (sarcastic)

Reporter: Their cars, currency, their food and much of the things they need come from the factories of the Israeli occupier enemy, and they don’t object, and they don’t have a choice.

Reporter: You use shekels only?
Man: Yes. That’s what is used.

Reporter: Those who haven’t visited Gaza which is ruled by Hamas, haven’t seen the “shahids” and the people killed who died in Syria fighting the regime which protected, embraced and provided weapons to and helped Hamas previously. The Syrian regime has become a target which (Hamas) fights, while it promised the (Muslim)Brothers of Egypts to uphold the ceasefire with Israel.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Antisemitic rant in Gulf News op-ed (in English)

Usually one only sees these in Arabic, but Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman, the editor of the "Palestine Encyclopedia," wrote an article about the highly ineffective "Russell Tribunal on Palestine"in the Gulf News and segued into a crazed rant against Rabbinic Judaism:

Abusing the Torah, they [the "Rabbinic Council" of Israel] managed to turn its teachings into a real-estate book with ‘Divine Entitlements’ to possess Palestinian lands by Jews only as “the chosen people of God”. Such egotistical doctrine being taught to Israeli youth brings back to memory the doctrine of “the master white Aryan race” which ignited “the Holocaust” The racist mentality prevailing in Israel has deep roots entrenched and nourished by the Ashkenazi (western) Talmud written to explain the Torah by Ashkenazi Rabbis who abandoned the Sephardim Talmud written by the Arab Jews who originally came from Arabia representing the real Hebrew community. The Ashkenazi conservative rabbinic council excommunicated the sect of ‘reform Jews’, mostly Americans, for abandoning the Ashkenazi Talmud which is now considered by these Rabbis more holy than the Torah itself. Abandoning the Ashkenazi Talmud by “the reform Jews” of America was for the overwhelming “tone of racism”, which declares the Jews as superior to all races and “other races were solely created to serve the Jews” as the chief Rabbis of Shas declared in the news media in Israel. The reform Jews of America could not be the vanguard of combating racism in America against Jews and blacks which equated “dogs with Jews” while keeping a racist book, the Ashkenazi Talmud, as a sacred book in their houses. The “reform Jews” in America and Europe still support Israel, but not the racist mentality that has transformed the secular Zionist state into a Talmudist religious state. They have now come together forming the new lobby of “J Street” to stop the Israeli colonists who adhere to a racist doctrine, especially after becoming the real power in the current Israeli government, which is adamant on transforming Israel into “a Jewish state” that negates the presence of all non-Jews especially the Palestinian Arabs.
during the Nazi regime. Codifying apartheid in enacted laws in Israeli parliament and in Rabbinic religious edicts, respectively, has no relation, whatsoever, to a democratic civil state nor to Judaism. Such practice has rightly changed the code name of Israel from “the only democracy in its neighbourhood” to “the last apartheid state still existing”.

"Professor" Rahman, after putting "the Holocaust" in scare quotes, makes up a bizarre history of Judaism.

I confess, I never heard of the "Sephardim Talmud." Sephardim learn the same Talmud that Ashkenazim do. [There were two main Talmuds written, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. The Babylonian is considered more authoritative but both are studied and used by both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews.)

Shas is a Sephardic party! If the "Sephardim Talmud" reflects the true Torah, then how did they become such "racists"?

The idea that any rabbi considers the Talmud "more holy" than the Torah is beyond absurd, as the Talmud itself shows countless times.

And, once again, it needs to me mentioned that if the idea of a "Jewish State" is racist and negates the presence of all non-Jews, than every single Arab state, without exception, as well as "Palestine," are racist states that negate the presence of non-Arabs (and, for most, non-Muslims" based on the wording in their own constitutions.

Keep in mind that this writer is considered an intellectual in the Arab world, and he doesn't have the ability to do the slightest amount of research. His hatred of Jews trumps any facts. The chances that the Gulf News would reprimand him for making things up range from remote to zero.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

Hamas compiling photos of Israeli soldiers

There have been a few incidents in recent years of IDF soldiers getting in trouble for posting information on Facebook that could compromise security or embarrass the IDF.

In 2010, the IDF announced "In response to the latest incident the army's Information Security department issued a letter to soldiers warning: "Enemy intelligence scans the Internet in search of pieces of information about the IDF, information that could sabotage operations and endanger our forces."

It turns out that the English-language Qassam website has been quietly compiling photos of IDF soldiers that originated on Facebook. The photos are not all on the same section of their site, and the captions do not help to understand why they are doing this. While their goal is unclear, but all potential scenarios - kidnapping, lawfare, or whatever - are not appealing.

(h/t Irene)

Egyptian Coptic teacher charged with "blasphemy"

Is your teacher too strict? Giving you too much homework?

Just accuse her of insulting Islam, and they'll take her away!

From Amnesty:

A Coptic Christian teacher detained in Egypt on charges of “defamation of religion” must be immediately released and the criminal case against her dropped, said Amnesty International today, ahead of her appearance in court on Saturday.

Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour, 24, has been in custody since 8 May, when she went to the public prosecution’s office in Luxor to respond to charges of “defamation of religion”. The case against her is based on a complaint lodged by the parents of three of her students alleging that she insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad during a class.

The alleged incident took place at the Sheikh Sultan primary school in Tout, Luxor Governorate, on 8 April during a lesson on “religious life”. Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour has been teaching at three schools in Luxor since the beginning of this year.

“It is outrageous that a teacher finds herself behind bars for teaching a class. If she made some professional mistake, or deviated from the school curriculum, an internal review should have sufficed,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“The authorities must release Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour immediately and drop these spurious charges against her.”

According to the information available to Amnesty International, some of the students alleged that Dimyana Obeid Abd Al Nour said that she “loved Father Shenouda”, the late Patriarch of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, and touched her knee or her stomach when she spoke about the Prophet Muhammad in class. She has denied the charges, and maintained that she stuck to the school curriculum.

This is better than calling in a fake bomb threat!

Daily Mail shows photo of Israeli police restraining Orthodox Jews - while talking about Palestinian Arabs

From Edgar Davidson's great blog:

Douglas Murray is one of the UK's finest political commentators. He is also a staunch defender of Israel. But in an otherwise excellent article he has written in the Daily Mail about Stephen Hawking's boycott of Israel he has provided the opportunity for a bizarre blunder by the Mail's editors. Because Murray decided (wrongly in my view) to 'balance' his criticism of the boycott with comments like these:

I acknowledge that there are those who are concerned about Israel’s approach to the Palestinians
the Editor (I assume) decided it was an opportunity to smear Israel even in a pro-Israel article by posting a picture showing Israelis 'mistreating Palestinians'.

Hence we have this picture captioned

There are those who are concerned about Israel's approach to the Palestinians, but if these academics think a boycott is the right way to address those concerns they are profoundly mistaken
Except that the women in the photo, including the one being held back by an Israeli policeman, are clearly orthodox Jewish women.

Indeed, the photo is from AFP, and shows Israeli police stopping a protest after the murder of Evyatar Borovsky.

The rest of Davidson's piece is worth reading as well.

Saturday Links

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Stephen Hawking Endorses Iranian and Chinese Repression

The only logical conclusion that can be derived from Stephen Hawking’s decision to join the academic boycott of Israel, coupled with his enthusiastic visits to Iran and China, is that he actively endorses and supports the repression practiced by the Iranian mullahs and the Chinese party bosses. Why else would he single out the world’s only Jewish state for his academic boycott?

'Chomsky pushed Hawking to boycott Israel event'

Chomsky joined British academics in telling Hawking they were "surprised and deeply disappointed" that he had accepted the invitation to speak at the conference in Israel," according to the Guardian.

Douglas Murray: How can a man as brilliant as Hawking boycott Israel when it makes the microchip that enables him to talk?

For with supreme irony, the speech device which enables Hawking to communicate with the world and relate his fascinating thoughts to us is a computer Intel Core i7-based communication system. Which runs on a chip designed by Israel.
Perhaps Professor Hawking should reflect on what it would mean if he truly committed himself to a boycott of Israel.
The conference will be the poorer for his absence. But in the meantime those of us who admired this man and cherish the true principles of freedom are left speechless ourselves — at the extent of his naivete.

CAMERA: Economist Joins BDS Whitewash

Equally euphemistic is demand three, which envisions the influx into Israel of millions of Palestinians born abroad, the descendents Palestinian refugees from 1948. This would lead to Barghouti's dream of rewinding history so that the Jewish people are forced back to the dark era in which being a Jew meant everywhere being an ethnic minority.
If the BDS movement's leaders are willing to tell the truth about the movement, why does The Economist insist on hiding that truth?

Profs on Boston Bombing: Blame Right-Wingers, ‘Islamophobia,’ and Blowback

Clearly, the specialists cited above are using their knowledge not to clarify, but to conceal; not to explain, but to apologize. When they serve as a source of propaganda rather than elucidation, the professoriate becomes a barrier to understanding. Moreover, the insistence that bigotry is endemic to the American character only promotes the very hysteria and division they decry. In turning to such “experts” in times of crisis, the media and the public at large are ill-served and often misled.

'Mounting Evidence' Boston Bombers Involved in 2011 Triple Murder

Massachusetts investigators have developed what they call "mounting evidence," bolstered by "forensic hits," that point to the possible involvement of both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar in a gruesome, unsolved triple homicide in 2011, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

Susan Rice: Attacks on Israel at UN undercut peace

“But the UN isn’t at its best when it comes to Israel. In fact, it’s sometimes at its worst,” Rice continued. “Anyone who cares about the international system has to be concerned when one member state is unfairly singled out.”
Rice described Israel as enduring “a barrage of obsessive, unbalanced, and relentless criticism” at the United Nations.

Think Tank Slams Newseum’s Plan to Honor Hamas Faux ‘Journalists’

“We just learned about this last night, and we are eager to learn more. FDD’s president, Cliff May, has a call in to the CEO of the Newseum. As a think tank that has done significant research on terrorist media, we are obviously deeply concerned,” Schanzer said, while adding, “We would have a hard time understanding why anyone would choose to honor anyone working for a terrorist propaganda outfit.”
The Newseum, a journalism museum in Washington, is honoring journalists who were killed on the job this past year in a ceremony on May 13. Two of those being honored, Hussam Salama and Mahmoud al-Kumi, were killed in Gaza in November and worked for Al-Aqsa Television, a Hamas-funded outlet, which itself has been designated a terror organization by the U.S.

Newseum Puts Journalists at Risk by Honoring Terrorists

One lesson in all this was the bias and unconscionably low standards of both the press and activist organizations that cover Israel. But another–and very important–lesson was this: Allowing terrorists to masquerade as journalists and then celebrating their “work” in war zones will almost surely put all journalists at much greater risk by blurring the lines that should keep them safe and treating terrorists as media martyrs.

PA Warns Against Qaradawi's 'Fake Palestinian Passport'

The PA urges world countries to take legal action to seize the passport given by Hamas to radical cleric Yousef al-Qaradawi.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Holds Massive Anti-Israel Rally

The anti-Israel rally, the first of its kind by the Muslim Brotherhood since the Islamist party took power from Egypt’s military nearly a year ago, protested Israel’s recent brief detention of the Mufti of Jerusalem and its purported airstrikes in Syria.

Davutoglu: Tests on Syrians Show Signs of Chemical Weapons

Turkey's FM: tests conducted on wounded Syrians suggested use of chemical weapons.

Cagey Russia defends possible Syrian anti-aircraft missile deal

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says international law doesn’t restrict sale of S-300 defense system to Bashar Assad

Lebanese Director: Arab League Trying to Ban My Film

Lebanese director whose film was banned in his home country because it was made in Israel, points accusing finger at the Arab League.

Israeli technology to keep disconnected, when necessary

In today’s hyper-connected world, it’s all too easy for secrets to seep out. Meetings, sensitive research in labs, courtroom trials, and so many other formerly private or closed events and venues are now open to the world, with proprietary information or tenuous negotiations threatened by the tweeting or facebooking of sensitive data that could ruin hard-won progress, or further complicate already tangled legal proceedings.

Shabbat open thread (updated)

This was a very busy week at EoZ.

My "Israeli peacenik meets the reality of Palestinian Arab intransigence" article received a bit of attention, and for good reason. But that paled next to my other major post yesterday, "Why are human rights organizations silent about Arab and Muslim anti-semitism?", which received over 500 Facebook Likes and was republished in The Algemeiner. Lost in the glare of those two posts was my article, also Thursday, about B'Tselem's bias in their latest report.

Another notable post was about the BBC's biased headline on the apparent Israeli airstrike - a headline which ended up being changed because of all the complaints.

I wish the same could be said for my other post about extreme British media bias, where The Economist falsely claimed that some 400 Arabs were evicted from the West Bank. I emailed, tweeted and commented on their site multiple times, and yet they kept their erroneous statistic in the article. (Even an anti-Israel commenter at the site agreed I was right.) It is a shame that a prestigious magazine refuses to correct its glaring error. If anyone else wants to complain to them, feel free - even though it is way too late to make a difference to the readers, The Economist should know that it cannot lie about Israel with impunity. Right now, apparently, it can. (That post of mine was also reproduced in The Algemeiner.)

This week, one of my most-read posts was actually from 2011. It is gratifying to see that every time some idiot on Facebook posts "the map that lies," one of the good guys can easily find my post to debunk it.

Also this week I managed to squeeze in some history , some marketing and some more proof that lazy journalists often just play telephone with each other. And a few dozen other posts, besides.

Thank God for Shabbat!

Here's a very inside Shabbat joke/pun:

UPDATE: I just saw this nice Yom Yerushalayim video - on an Arab site, meant to make their readers angry at how much Jews love the city. (Apparently, they also had a rally for kicking the Jews out of Jerusalem on Friday morning, so this is a wonderful contrast:)

So who deserves the City of Gold more?

One thing is for certain: there were never any celebrations like this praising Jerusalem when Jordan occupied the city.

Friday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Latma: A song to Jerusalem and everything's really cool in Judea and Samaria

Blaming America

Those commentators who ascribe victimhood to the perpetrators of terror instead of its casualties share an essential idea with those responsible for the Boston bombings. Although one faction justifies its view with blood and the other with ink, their message is the same: that terrorism can be justified.
If there is one consistent response that should unite people across the Western world, it is that those who commit acts of terrorism or support terrorist groups are alone responsible for the murderous result. By painting such atrocities as a question of moral ambiguity, rather than as an outrage to be condemned and as a threat to be fought, these opinion writers and cartoonists only embolden terror and weaken the West's ability to defend its freedoms.

UN Watch: UN’s Richard Falk Again Calls Boston Attack “Resistance” to U.S. “Military Undertakings”

UN official Richard Falk, who was condemned for blaming the Boston terrorist attack on U.S. and Israeli policies, has once again justified the bombings as a form of “resistance” that was “bound” to result from U.S. “military undertakings,” in an interview he gave to The Daily Princetonian newspaper.

Anti-Israel UN human rights official can’t be fired, State Department says

Richard Falk, the United Nations Human Rights official who said last month that the Boston Marathon bombings were connected to the “American global domination project,” apparently can’t be fired from his position, according to the U.S. State Department.

Caroline Glick: NGOs vs those who serve
Support for those who serve in IDF, national service without reference to their religion, race or gender stymied by some NGOs.

A study completed this week by Im Tirtzu exposes the vast array of NGOs generously funded by the supposedly pro-Israel New Israel Fund as well as by foreign governments which are running a campaign to oppose Cpl. Joseph and her comrades – Arabs and Jews alike. Since 1999, these groups have been conducting a campaign to undermine Arab integration into Israeli society specifically and to demoralize and reduce the social standing of those who serve in the IDF, national service and IDF reserves generally. The campaign is being carried out on a dual track of discouraging Israeli Arabs from serving in the IDF or national service, and of opposing government benefits to IDF veterans, reservists and those who undertook national service by claiming that these benefits unjustly discriminate against Israeli Arabs.

Washington "Newseum" to honour Hamas terrorists

One think-tank is reconsidering its use of the much-loved "Newseum" in Washington DC after its decision to honour Hamas terrorists
The famed Newseum, the museum of journalism and news located in Washington, D.C., has found itself in the middle of a major argument over the honouring of two dead Hamas terrorists that some claim were simply journalists in the Palestinian territories.
The Newseum plans to add Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama to its "Journalists Memorial" which honours those killed while reporting the news. But the two men were cameramen for Al-Aqsa, Hamas's propaganda network, and thus qualify as Hamas operatives and therefore terrorists.

Israel's UK Ambassador Condemns Offensive Church Paper

Israel's ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, condemned on Thursday a report by the Church of Scotland that questioned the divine right of Jews to the land of Israel.

Israeli hackers ready to defend US sites, as #OpUSA flops
Anonymous had planned to follow up its #OpIsrael attacks with a mass hacking of American sites

It was supposed to be Anonymous’s glorious followup to #OpIsrael, but a scheduled May 7 “attack day” for Operation USA turned out to be a flop. Security experts prepared themselves for massive denial of service (DDOS) attacks, overwhelming banking, government and business sites with a flood of traffic. And Israeli “white hat” hackers were ready to lend a hand to deflect attacks on American sites, or to counter-attack sites in countries where the attacks originated.

Wiesenthal Center calls for zero tolerance for terror online

As terrorist groups expanded their presence on the Internet, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on social networking sites to adopt a policy of zero tolerance.

Harvey Weinstein to Elie Wiesel: Without You There Would be no ‘Schindler’s List’ (VIDEO)

“I think there would be no ‘Schindler’s List,’ no ‘Life is Beautiful,’ no ‘Reader,’ so many of the movies that us in the industry have been involved in about the Holocaust, came from that first seminal book which was ‘Night,’ which continues to inspire me,” said Weinstein.

Followup on Church of Scotland report

Last week I fisked a paper written by the Church of Scotland that denied any Biblical basis for the right of Jews to have a state in the Middle East.

Of course, I wasn't the only critic of the incredibly biased (and self-contradictory) screed.

Now, the Church is backtracking - slightly:

The Church of Scotland has moved to defuse a furious row with Jewish leaders and the Israeli government after agreeing to change a controversial report on Israeli settlements.
Senior figures in the church met Jewish leaders on Thursday after an official report entitled the Inheritance of Abraham?. suggested the church consider political action including boycotts and disinvestment in Israel in protest at illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
The church and society council, which is to present its report to this year's meeting of the Church of Scotland's governing body, the general assembly, later this month, has agreed to reword the paper's introduction to make clear the church has never challenged the right of Israel to exist.
The original report, which will be debated and then voted on by 723 general assembly commissioners, or delegates from across Scotland, has also been taken down from the Church of Scotland's website until it is rewritten.
The concession emerged after Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, accused the church of perpetuating anti-Semitic views by challenging the basis of Jewish ties and belief in Israel, and distorting the basis of Zionism.
"This report not only plays into extremist political positions, but negates and belittles the deeply held Jewish attachment to the land of Israel in a way which is truly hurtful," Taub said.
"If a document of this nature is adopted by the Church of Scotland it would mark a significant step backwards for the forces of tolerance and peace in our region."
The Anti-defamation League in New York said the paper was "stunningly offensive" and "negated the beliefs of Judaism", while one columnist in the Jerusalem Post, Seth Frantzman, described it as a "vicious and defamatory text."
The newspaper said the report was distorting arguments about the Holocaust by "pretending Jews manipulate the Holocaust in order to make Christians feel guilty."

The problems with the report were far deeper than just what is mentioned here. A Christian blog destroys the Church's main arguments nicely:

Christians should not believe those parts of Scripture where God promised that a virgin would conceive: Isaiah 7:14 didn't really refer to a promised messiah: it was just about a general plan of salvation. And he wasn't born in the long-promised Bethlehem either - that's just a metaphor for anywhere, like Slough. And he didn't have to be a 'he' either - that's just a metaphor for all humankind. And his name didn't have to be Jesus (Mt 2:21) - meaning 'The Lord saves', because it could have been Brian or Steve: there's no real promise that the Lord will save us from our sins (Zech 3:9). He is not 'God with us' (Mt 1:23), and he didn't need to suffer (Is 53:7) because there's no real reward for obeying the word of God (Lk 11:27). Jesus isn't the visible image of the invisible God through whom all things were created (Col 1:15f) - that's just silly. He didn't reconcile us to himself through the cross (v20), and he's not the glory of the nations (Ps 96:3; 39:21). And when God promises that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8:35), he didn't really mean 'nothing' - he meant God's love is completely dependent on the which side of the bed he gets out of in a morning.

Oh, hang on. His Grace has got it wrong.

Sorry.

It's only the Jews who shouldn't take God's promises literally.

That's alright, then.

And neither should Christians when they relate to Jews and Israel. Ah, now it's becoming clearer.

If God makes a promise to Jews, it's a metaphor. If He makes a promise to Christians, it's literal except where it refers to the Jews and Israel.

Yes, that's right. According to a report by the Church of Scotland, 'Israel' and the 'Promised Land' is all just one big mushy metaphor for... well, something like the fuzziness of promises that aren't promises. God's promises are just pictures, without precise meaning, and certainly could never apply to matters of geography. The 'Promised Land' in Scripture is not a literal land - it's more 'a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This "promised land" can be found, or built, anywhere'.

Except, of course, in Israel.

(h/t JH)

Friday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians in Syria Killed, Injured, Displaced
Arabs, Human Rights Organizations, Media Yawn

The Arab League foreign ministers who recently met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington did not even bother to raise the issue of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes in Syria.
For these ministers and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, construction in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank is more urgent than the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians.
But it is not only the Arabs and the Palestinian governments who are turning a blind eye to the mass displacement of Palestinians. Human rights organizations and the mainstream media in the West are also ignoring the plight of the Palestinians. This is, after all, a story that lacks an anti-Israel angle.

Sarah Honig: Another Tack: The inconvenient truth

Indisputably, no national collective can afford the lackadaisical lunacy of waiting till after its own death. Definitive proof supplied by our demise would be of little use to us posthumously. The unavoidable bottom line for a sovereign state can only be self-reliance. No one else will come to our aid, not when it still matters.
Some things never change. It may be an inconvenient truth but what was, still is. We still upset the fine sensibilities of European and American self-styled adjudicators of international morality. To paraphrase Weizmann, the Jewish state’s squawks about Iranian nuclear designs “are regarded as provocation. Our very refusal to subscribe to our own death sentence becomes a public nuisance.”

Fellow ALS sufferer to ‘hero’ Hawking: Reconsider Israel boycott

Photojournalist Esteban Alterman, who met and photographed the astrophysicist before a 2006 lecture in Jerusalem, says misguided decision undermines battle against their shared disease
An Israeli photojournalist who suffers from ALS, the same disease as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, has written a letter urging the professor, who he says was his hero, to reconsider his decision to boycott Israel.

UJS praises NUS vote against BDS

Today, a motion calling for the National Union of Students (NUS) to join the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) Campaign was voted down by the National Executive Council (NEC).
The voting record showed: 5 in favour, 15 against, 3 abstentions
The failure of this motion to pass reinforces the lack of support for the BDS within the student movement.

Cal. Univ. Pro-Israel Professor Harassed and Defamed
In the snake pit of academia, where unfashionable explicit Jew-hatred has morphed into enthusiastic and widespread over-the-top anti-Zionism, Professor Tammi Rossman-Benjamin stands out.

It is no longer remarkable that supporters of the most racist, misogynist, homophobic, intolerant, anti-free-speech and violent forces in the world today — for example, Hamas — take shelter behind Western concern for the complete opposite of all of those. They are expert at the game of political correctness (here is another example). At the same time, their behavior conveys veiled physical threats against their targets.

BBC Radio 4 programme on Jerusalem erases Jewish presence

In his diary account of the trip he made to Jerusalem in 1862, Albert the Prince of Wales recorded his meetings with Jerusalem’s Jews.
However, a listener to John McCarthy’s programme on Jerusalem from the series “In a Prince’s Footsteps” which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on May 8th (available here for a limited period of time) would have no idea that any Jews lived in the city at all when Prince Albert visited it in 1862 – or indeed before or after that date.

Radical Muslim Cleric in Gaza: 'Palestine' Was Never Jewish

Israel has no right to exist, a radical Muslim cleric visiting Gaza declared on Thursday, encouraging rocket attacks on the Jewish State.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi warned that nobody was allowed to cede "any part of Palestine" during his visit to the Hamas-controlled region, according to AFP.

Israel’s Game-Changer with Hezbollah

Israel’s recent strikes in Syria, then, are not just about preventing the transfer of game-changing weapons — they are about changing the rules of the game in how it engages with Hezbollah and Syria. Furthermore, the strikes represent an eye toward a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program in which Tehran may look to use Hezbollah as a tool in its arsenal.
Despite analyses to the contrary, Israel has not entered the conflict on behalf of any side. Israel has not attacked regime headquarters, its airfields and tank positions in a bid to assist the Free Syrian Army. The available intelligence does not suggest that Israel has attacked chemical weapons facilities in order to remove those weapons from the equation.

IHH president seeks at least $1 bln from Israel for flotilla victims

Turkey should demand a biting sum of $1 billion from Israel as compensation for its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla ship in 2010, according to the chairman of the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH).

The farce is complete – Gilbert too gets his commander of the Order of St. Olav

It really sucks, and I am quite frankly unwilling to conceal my disappointment that persons who have worked tirelessly to propagate foul lies and contributed greatly to anti-Semitic attitudes in the general Norwegian population.
Purportedly Gilbert has gotten his prize for his surgical prowess, a claim hard to believe since he has celebrated the attacks against the twin towers in 2001 and other very questionable attitudes, among them hiding armed combatants in a medical compound and allowing them to carry out acts of war from said compounds.

PalArabs prefer terror to negotiations 3-1

The latest Pew Research Global Attitudes report has this revealing statistic:

Three times as many Palestinian Arabs believe that terrorism is the best way to achieve a state than negotiations. Anther 22% believe that terror can work together with other methods, meaning that far more than half support terror as a key way to achieve statehood.

Of course, we cannot expect Western media to highlight this very important finding, can we?

(h/t PMB)

"Researcher" warns that Egypt may seek loan from a "Jewish bank"

Another day, another antisemitic diatribe in mainstream Egyptian TV...

Keshef Abdul Rahim, a "researcher," discovered that the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egyptian government was negotiating with JP Morgan Chase to secure a desperately needed loan for Egypt, in case the International Monetary Fund cannot provide a loan.

Speaking on Al Tahrir TV, Rahim darly wanred that JP Morgan is a "Jewish-controlled bank."

Rahim is apparently a secular opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he hates Jews just as much as the Islamists do. He also knows that antisemitism is a winning argument in Egypt.

Oh, JP Morgan is not owned nor controlled by Jews, although some neo-Nazi sites claim that its embattled chairman, Jamie Dimon, is a "crypto-Jew." (His wife is apparently Jewish, however.)

Sheikh Mohamed Mukhtar al-Mahdi, a prominent cleric and teacher at Egypt's Al Azhar University, said in his sermon today that war between Jews and Muslims is inevitable.

He said that all Muslims are affected by Israel allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount, and this will lead to the war, "and the Muslims will win," he stated.

Al-Mahdi stressed that Muslims must be patient, and ensure that they strengthen sufficiently before the ultimate battle, quoting Islamic sources on the virtues of patience.

The sheikh added that the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to all Muslims and the responsibility lies on every Muslim to free it from "the Zionist abomination."

Al Azhar is considered a relatively moderate Islamic institution in Egypt.

UPDATE: It appears that this may have been part of an official anti-Israel rally organized by the Muslim Brotherhood:

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is staging an anti-Israel rally in Cairo to protest Israeli airstrikes in Syria and the detention of a Muslim cleric.

Chants of “the people want destruction of Israel” rang out Friday inside Al-Azhar mosque, the centuries-old seat of Sunni Muslim learning.

The rally is the first such protest by the Brotherhood, from which Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi hails, since it gained prominence after 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

Group officials say they are protesting the Israeli detention of top Palestinian Muslim cleric in the Holy Land in a rare crackdown on a leading religious figure that drew fierce condemnation from Palestinians. The demonstrators also were denouncing Israeli airstrikes in Syria that targeted alleged shipments of advanced Iranian missiles thought to be bound for Hezbollah.

(h/t Ian)

UPDATE 2: A different preacher in Egypt today said that it would be preferable to demolish the Al Aqsa Mosque than to let Jews pray there.

Group claims to have shot rockets at IDF positions in Golan

Arabic media are reporting that a group called the "Abdel Kader Husseini Martyrs Brigades" has shot a

series of rockets at a "Zionist radar station" in the Golan Heights.

The group, which says it is Palestinian, claims to have caused "casualties in the ranks of the enemy."

Apparently, the purported rockets came from Syria.

Some sources say they fired rockets; others that it was an RPG attack.

The unknown group promises to release a videotape within a few hours of the alleged operation.

UPDATE: Afternoon came and went, and no video.

Hebron Arabs meet with Jews to discuss co-existence - despite danger

YNet (Hebrew) reports on monthly meetings between yeshiva students in Efrat and Muslims from Hebron to discuss co-existence.

Ma'an translates:

“For a short hour, two completely different worlds would meet here. Young Palestinian men from Hebron and Jewish Yeshiva students from Efrat settlement have been involved in monthly meetings.

“However, to document these meetings was not an easy job as the participants at the beginning refused to let us take photos of them, and asked us blur their faces because revealing their identities may create serious problems within their societies,” the report said.

“The Palestinians have enough reasons to fear joining such meetings with settlers because such dialogue is illegal in the eyes of their society. If they are stigmatized as collaborators, they will be in real danger,” the report quoted chair of the Jewish organization of religious dialogue Yehuda Stolov as saying.

This is the sort of thing that should be celebrated by the so-called "progressive" Western liberals.

Instead it will be ignored, or worse, condemned as "normalization" - a positive word that has become as toxic in certain circles as "Zionism" itself.

People who live together wanting to cooperate. How awful!

Video can be seen at the linked sites.

Thursday Links Part 2

From Ian:

HRW Founder: Human Rights Must Focus on Arab Regimes’ Hate Speech

Human Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein said that today's human rights advocates ignore the repression of basic freedoms across the Middle East and mistakenly call "free speech" and "advocacy' what is really state-sponsored hate speech.

PMW: Former advisor of Mahmoud Abbas praises terrorist who murdered father of five

Jordan Moves to Scrap Peace Treaty over Arrest of Jerusalem Mufti

World War III may have been close and may have been prevented on the Temple Mount, where the Jerusalem Mufti was arrested and then released for throwing chairs at Jews on Jerusalem Unification Day.

Despite Calls to End Peace, Israel Increases Water Flow to Jordan

According to Ambassador Eran, the Jordanian government is on very friendly terms with Israel, it’s only the vast population that wants all of us dead.
Now, here’s the zinger: according to Reshet Bet, Israeli sources have said that Israel has increased the amount of water it transfers to Jordan and the Palestinian Authority recently regardless of the increase in the number of refugees from Syria in Jordan.

What about persecuted Christians?

Here we go again. Christians are under attack in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, and yet another Christian deliberative body is gathering to talk about – who else – the Jews.

Hawking Boycott 'Slap in the Face to Academic Freedom'

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today criticized the decision by British professor Stephen Hawking to withdraw from the Israeli Presidential Conference on political grounds, calling it “a slap in the face to academic freedom.”

Will Hawking Boycott his own Voice Generator?

British physicist Prof. Stephen Hawking’s decision to support the academic boycott of the state of Israel is “quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his own intellectual accomplishment,” asserted Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center.
“His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel's Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet," said Darshan Leitner.

Opinion: Would Stephen Hawking Survive Under an Arab Regime?

Would Professor Hawking ever survive in any Arab country or under the Palestinian autocracy he shamefully defends?
While in the Arab world disabled people have been called “the invisibles,” because they are segregated and hidden from the public eye, Israel’s work with illness and disabilities would merit a book in itself.

‘Glory and disaster’ intertwine in Budapest’s historic Jewish quarter

The beauty and horror of the past merge with evidence of revitalised but wary community life along the cobblestone streets of District VII
The city’s Jewish timeline includes the births of Max Nordau (1849) and Theodor Herzl (1860); it holds Adolf Eichmann’s headquarters, from where he deported Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz (1944); and it boasts the Dohany Synagogue (built 1859) — the largest in Europe and one of the biggest in the world.

Harvey Weinstein to Elie Wiesel: Without You There Would be no ‘Schindler’s List’ (VIDEO)

“I think there would be no ‘Schindler’s List,’ no ‘Life is Beautiful,’ no ‘Reader,’ so many of the movies that us in the industry have been involved in about the Holocaust, came from that first seminal book which was ‘Night,’ which continues to inspire me,” said Weinstein.

Israel and China Sign $400 Million Trade Agreement

Israeli and Chinese officials signed a $400 million trade agreement during meetings on Wednesday, expanding trade between the two nations to $2.05 billion.

Facebook said ready to drop $1 billion on Waze

Facebook is reportedly in advanced talks to buy Israeli crowdsourced traffic and navigation app Waze. The price is said to be between $800 million and a billion dollars.

UN looks to Israel for advice on disabilities issues

UN’s Economic and Social Council says Israeli “knowledge and experience should be shared with the world.”

By the Law Among Nations, Jerusalem Belongs to Us

Contrary to the claims made by Palestinian leaders, various NGOs, and certain members of the international community, international law fully recognizes the Jewish people’s claim to Jerusalem, where they have historical roots dating back over 3,000 years and have been the largest ethnic group in the city since 1820.
Ernst Frankenstein, a British authority on international law said, for example, that the Jewish people have a right to their ancestral homeland and ancient capital city in Jerusalem based on the fact that the Jewish people never relinquished their historic claims to the area.

Video: Tens of Thousands Gather for Jerusalem Flag Dance

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem for the annual Rikudgalim (flag dance) in honor of Yom Yerushalayim.

Another child killed by a Hamas rocket during Pillar of Defense?

B'tselem today released a report on civilian deaths in Gaza. Yet there was very little independent investigation, and none on the ground - B'tselem relied on reports from others and people they spoke to on the phone to verify their facts.

There are a number of flaws in the report, as noted by NGO Monitor, and especially the disconnect between B'tselem's press release and the actual contents of the report.

Additionally, B'tselem does not give a list of all the people they are counting as civilian, so it is not possible to cross-check their statistics against the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report from December that showed that 101 terrorists were killed during the fighting. Indeed, the B'tselem report counts only 69 terrorists (62 fighters, 7 objects of targeted operations) while the ITIC report shows the photos, most in uniform, of 73 terrorists!

One of the fatalities they mention, of an 18-month old boy, is interesting in that it shows B'tselem's bias in assuming that the IDF is responsible for all deaths:

The extended Abu Khusah family lives in an isolated three-story house with a wall-enclosed inner-courtyard. The house, located in al-Bureij Refugee Camp about 1.5 km from the border with Israel, is surrounded by agricultural land which was bombed by Israeli planes during Operation Pillar of Defense. Therefore, the Abu Khusah children did not leave their home’s courtyard. B’Tselem’s investigation found that no member of the Abu Khusah family belonged to a Palestinian armed group. It was also found that no armed Palestinians had operated in the vicinity of the family's home.

On the morning of 18 November 2012, at around 8:00 AM, an Israeli plane fired into the courtyard. One-and-a-half-year-old Iyad Abu Khusah was killed by shrapnel that hit him in the head. Shrapnel hit his six-year-old brother Suhaib in the face and neck. His four-year-old cousin Sarah was hit by shrapnel in the abdomen and the lower torso.

For every other incident listed by B'Tselem, the IDF responded that either investigations were underway or that they determined that they acted within the bounds of the laws of armed conflict. This case was the only exception. Here, the IDF replied:

Why would the IDF deny this attack when they admitted involvement in many other airstrikes, including others that regrettably killed children? Clearly there is no more incentive to lie about this than about any other attack.

The only reasonable answer is that the IDF must not have shot the rocket that killed Iyad Abu Khusah. (The alternative is that the IDF has such poor record-keeping that it cannot account for all its missiles.)

B'tselem says that "no armed Palestinians had operated in the vicinity," which means that they were trying to find out if the IDF had aimed at rocket launchers near the family's expansive open area. (How they determined that is not clear.) Yet they didn't even consider the idea that an errant Hamas rocket - a Grad-style rocket, most likely, but maybe one of the larger Qassams - had misfired and killed the child. Keep in mind that the family lived near the Gaza border.

B'tselem is well within its rights to be skeptical about the IDF's investigations or methodologies. A flat denial that an attack even occurred, however, should cause an objective organization to step back and come up with alternative explanations. Instead, it states as fact that "an Israeli plane fired into the courtyard." No photos, no forensics, no proof outside of what the family said - and the family never even said it was a plane, only "a huge explosion."

We've seen the damage that a Grad rocket could do; clearly it can destroy a wall. Some Qassam-class rockets could, too, under the right circumstances.

Why didn't B'tselem even consider the possibility?

Either they know something about the circumstances of the episode they are not telling us - which seems unlikely because everything they know is second-hand - or they are so emotionally invested in blaming Israel that any counter-evidence is, by default, ignored.

To B'tselem, the terrorists that may have killed Iyad Abu Khusah are assumed innocent, and the IDF is assumed guilty.

MUST READ: An Israeli peacenik meets the reality of Palestinian Arab intransigence

Lital Shemesh is a young, liberal Israeli journalist, considered a rising star in the Israeli media who openly expresses her political aspirations.

She wrote a must-read article from Walla, translated by Baruch Gordon on his blog:

Peace? From the Palestinian Standpoint, There is a Past, No Future

by Lital Shemesh

I participated in the Dialogue for Peace Project for young Israelis and Palestinians who are politically involved in various frameworks. The project’s objective was to identify tomorrow’s leaders and bring them closer today, with the aim of bringing peace at some future time.

The project involved meetings every few weeks and a concluding seminar in Turkey.

On the third day of the seminar after we had become acquainted, had removed barriers, and split helpings of rachat Lukum [a halva-like almond Arab delicacy] as though there was never a partition wall between us, we began to touch upon many subjects which were painful for both sides. The Palestinians spoke of roadblocks and the IDF soldiers in the territories, while the Israeli side spoke of constant fear, murderous terrorist attacks, and rockets from Gaza.

The Israeli side, which included representatives from right and left, tried to understand the Palestinians’ vision of the end of the strife– “Let’s talk business.” The Israelis delved to understand how we can end the age-old, painful conflict. What red lines are they willing to be flexible on? What resolution will satisfy their aspirations? Where do they envision the future borders of the Palestinian State which they so crave?

We were shocked to discover that not a single one of them spoke of a Palestinian State, or to be more precise, of a two-state solution.

They spoke of one state – their state. They spoke of ruling Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Akko, Haifa, and the pain of the Nakba [lit. the tragedy – the establishment of the State of Israel]. There was no future for them. Only the past. “There is no legitimacy for Jews to live next to us” – this was their main message. “First, let them pay for what they perpetrated.”

In the course of a dialogue which escalated to shouts, the Palestinians asked us not to refer to suicide bombers as “terrorists” because they don’t consider them so. “So how do you call someone who dons a vest and blows himself up in a Tel Aviv shopping mall with the stated purpose of killing innocent civilians,” I asked one of the participants.

“I have a 4-year-old at home,” answered Samach from Abu Dis (near Jerusalem). “If God forbid something should happen to him, I will go and burn an entire Israeli city, if I can.” All the other Palestinian participants nodded their heads in agreement to his harsh words.

“Three weeks ago, we gave birth to a son,” answered Amichai, a religious, Jewish student from Jerusalem. “If God forbid something should happen to him, I would find no comfort whatsoever in deaths of more people.”

Israelis from the full gamut of political parties participated in the seminar: Likud, Labor, Kadima, Meretz, and Hadash (combined Jewish/Arab socialist party). All of them reached the understanding that the beautiful scenarios of Israeli-Palestinian peace that they had formulated for themselves simply don’t correspond with reality. It’s just that most Israelis don’t have the opportunity to sit and really converse with Palestinians, to hear what they really think.

Our feed of information comes from Abu Mazen’s declarations to the international press, which he consistently contradicts when he is interviewed by Al Jazeera, where he paints a completely different picture.

I arrived at the seminar with high hopes, and I return home with difficult feelings and despair. Something about the narrative of the two sides is different from the core. How can we return to the negotiating table when the Israeli side speaks of two states and the Palestinian side speaks of liberating Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea? How can peace ever take root in a platform which grants legitimacy to terrorism?

This is not the first time a group of Israelis who pine for peace have met with their liberal Arab counterparts - only to find that they have no counterparts at all.

(h/t Josh K)