Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Tuesday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Al-Qaradawi and the New Religious Conflict With Israel

Al-Qaradawi's visit has further bolstered Hamas's standing, enabling it to tighten its grip over the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Moreover, the visit has granted legitimacy to Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip and turned it, in the Arab and Islamic countries, into an acceptable Islamic party.
But more importantly, al-Qaradawi's visit and statements also serve as a reminder that the Israeli-Arab conflict is centered, more than ever, around religion. The sheikh's message to the Palestinians and Muslims is that this is a religious conflict and not a political issue.
This is an unequivocal message that stresses that no Muslim is entitled to give up Muslim-owned land to non-Muslims. As far as al-Qaradawi, Hamas and their followers are concerned, the conflict is not about a settlement or a checkpoint. Rather, it is about Israel's presence -- its right to exist at all -- in the Middle East.

Ken Livingstone’s favourite Islamist spreads Jew-hatred in Gaza

We have slept while Islamists such as Qaradawi have built a network of ideological institutions in the West, and an internet, television and publishing empire beyond the dreams of most political movements. Swathes of the liberal-Left have done more than sleep. They have acted as cheerleaders for the Islamists. When Ken Livingstone justified his public embrace of Qaradawi in 2005, he told us the cleric was "a progressive figure” who was “moving that religion in the correct direction”.

Britain’s Lord Ahmed quits party over reported anti-Semitism

A member of Britain’s House of Lords quit the Labour Party on Monday, two days before he was due to face a hearing over allegations he made anti-Semitic remarks in a television interview.
Nazir Ahmed was suspended from the Labour Party in March following a report that he blamed a Jewish conspiracy for his 2009 prison sentence for dangerous driving.

Barry Rubin: As Benghazi Scandal Builds, Libya Falls Apart

A forgotten element in the Benghazi scandal is this one: If Obama had said it was a terrorist attack back in September 2012 he would have to have done something about it.
Now, not just on that one day of September 11, 2012 but for seven months thereafter (!) the U.S. government has done zero about the murder of four American officials.

Guardian’s Milne diligently promotes Assad propaganda

Like his ideological heroes in Damascus, Milne probably does not for one moment really believe that Israel is collaborating with Al Qaeda or – no less absurdly – that Al Qaida would agree to join forces with Israel. Such nonsense is just part of the propaganda strategy of the Assad regime.

BBC’s Bowen invents new quarter in Jerusalem

Obviously Bowen’s expertise in Jerusalem geography is about as precise as his knowledge of Jewish prayer traditions.
Somehow, this faux pas got past the Telegraph’s fact checkers. Perhaps they mistakenly relied on the assumption that the man ultimately in charge of Middle East content for the BBC would stick to the facts.

Fox’s Discredited Anti-Israel Guest Michael Scheuer

Scheuer has been out of government nine years. He has written or said little in that time to burnish what were previously thin credentials as a Middle East expert, his CIA posting notwithstanding. He also seems to be obsessed negatively with the Jewish state and its supporters, repeatedly making false generalizations. Why is Fox so hospitable to Scheuer when he has so thoroughly discredited himself by his antisemitic bias and loony Middle East comments on TV and in other venues?

Canada deports 1968 Palestinian El Al hijacker

After a 25-year legal battle, Canada has finally deported a Palestinian convicted of an attack on an Israeli airliner in 1968, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said on Monday.
Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, a former Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine commando, took part in the assault on an El Al jet in Athens that killed an Israeli man. He was deported to Lebanon on Saturday.

UN Watch: Iran to chair U.N. disarmament conference

Iran will chair the United Nations’ most important disarmament negotiating forum during the panel’s May session, which opened today, sparking calls by an independent monitoring group for the U.S., the EU, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon to protest.
“This is like putting Jack the Ripper in charge of a women’s shelter,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva based non-governmental organization, which announced it will hold protest events outside the UN hall featuring Iranian dissidents.

US to boycott UN anti-nuke meetings chaired by Iran

The United States said Monday it will refuse to send its ambassador to any meeting of the UN forum where nuclear disarmament is negotiated when it’s chaired by Iran because countries under UN sanctions shouldn’t be allowed to hold such positions.

Nigeria court convicts Iranian of illegal arms shipment

A Nigerian court on Monday sentenced an alleged member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and his Nigerian accomplice to five years in jail each over an illegal arms shipment.
Azim Aghajani and Nigerian Ali Abbas Jega were detained in 2010 when authorities at a Lagos port discovered 13 containers of weapons that had been declared as construction materials.

Joseph Massad tries to equate anti-semitism with Zionism

Joseph Massad, the Columbia professor whose anti-Zionist arguments are often little more than proof by assertion, has a new piece in Al Jazeera that includes his usual pseudo-scholarship, and ends up being almost unbelievably offensive.

Here is the key section:

Scientific anti-Semitism insisted that the Jews were different from Christian Europeans. Indeed that the Jews were not European at all and that their very presence in Europe is what causes anti-Semitism. The reason why Jews caused so many problems for European Christians had to do with their alleged rootlessness, that they lacked a country, and hence country-based loyalty. In the Romantic age of European nationalisms, anti-Semites argued that Jews did not fit in the new national configurations, and disrupted national and racial purity essential to most European nationalisms. This is why if the Jews remained in Europe, the anti-Semites argued, they could only cause hostility among Christian Europeans. The only solution was for the Jews to exit from Europe and have their own country. Needless to say, religious and secular Jews opposed this horrific anti-Semitic line of thinking. Orthodox and Reform Jews, Socialist and Communist Jews, cosmopolitan and Yiddishkeit cultural Jews, all agreed that this was a dangerous ideology of hostility that sought the expulsion of Jews from their European homelands.

Is there anything wrong in this paragraph?

Massad is not your typical neanderthal Israel-hater. He is smart enough to hide his agenda and sprinkle his lies so subtly that it requires a word-by-word analysis to see where they are.

In this case, nearly all of this paragraph is slanted but accurate - except for five words.

"The only solution was for the Jews to exit from Europe and have their own country."

Nineteenth century anti-semites did not espouse Jews having their own country. They simply wanted to persecute and marginalize the Jews in their countries!

Modern Zionism did not work in concert with 19th century "scientific" anti-semitism, it was a response to it.

Here is the description of Jews in the 1898 International Yearbook describing the situation after two decades of "scientific" anti-semitism taking root in Europe:

During the year 1898, the persecution of the Jews continued in many parts of the world, taking the form of violent anti-Semitic outbreaks, especially in Austria-Hungary and France. In France the hatred of the Jews is especially marked among the lower classes of society, including the laboring classes, and it has been employed by socialistic and radical leaders for party ends. The political importance of French anti-Semitism can be seen in connection with the Dreyfus case. (See FRANCE.) In Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, it is not only the lower classes who are opposed to Jews, nor is the anti-Jewish fanaticism found exclusively in districts where the educational standard is low. Vienna is a great centre of anti-Semitism, the mayor of the city being himself an anti-Semitic agitator. A numerous element of the population in Germany and Italy are also hostile to the Jews. In Germany, the anti-Semites include some of the large landed proprietors, and old nobility. In Russia where the persecution of the Jews has led in recent years to an extensive migration of that despised sect, the persecution seems to come mainly from the official class. The Russian laws discriminate against Jews, forbidding them to live outside of certain specified districts, and to follow certain pursuits. It is this revival of the old-time spirit of persecution in Europe that has led to the so-called Zionist movement for the repeopling of Palestine by the Jews. ...

Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia of the same year makes this more explicit:

The growth of anti-Semitism within the past few decades has had much to do with the Zionistic movement, for it is only in countries where civil and religious liberty is denied to the Jew that there is a desire to colonize in Palestine under any form.

If the anti-semites wanted a state in Palestine for the Jews, where is the literature demanding this? Why were they restricting Jews to live in certain districts instead of encouraging their emigration?

Massad helpfully links to the hard-to-find pamphlet written by the apparent coiner of the word "anti-semite," Wilhelm Marr, where he explains "scientifically" why he has a problem with Jews in Europe. Not once does he say that the Jews must have their own state to solve this problem. That idea is wholly made up by Massad in order to pretend that Zionism is the same as anti-semitism.

This lying academic goes on to describe how Zionists, from Herzl onwards, allegedly collaborated with anti-semites - including, of course, Hitler - to help create Israel.

Massad is purposefully fudging cause and effect, because only with that lie can he continue to build his wholly fictional thesis and try to separate historic anti-semitism with anti-Zionism. Massad believes that anti-Arabism is the only real anti-semitism, and he goes on to ludicrously claim that German reparations to Jews after the Holocaust is only because Germans belatedly came to realize that Jews were really "white."

The article is a ludicrous and offensive twisting of history in order to demonize today's Jews. The good Jews in Massad's estimation were anti-Zionists who were wiped out in the Holocaust. He actually tries to imply that Hitler didn't target Zionist Jews:

The Jewish holocaust [note the lower case - EoZ] killed off the majority of Jews who fought and struggled against European anti-Semitism, including Zionism. With their death, the only remaining "Semites" who are fighting against Zionism and its anti-Semitism today are the Palestinian people.

This absurd piece reveals much - not about history or truth, but about Massad's seething hate and willingness to twist facts to fit his own agenda.

It is a stain on Columbia University that they keep this fraud employed.

Egyptian Christian writer incites Copts against Jews

It isn't only Arab Muslims who hate Jews.

An article by an Egyptian Christian writer, Emile Amin, that was published both in Egypt and in the UAE decries (false) reports that Copts are seeking asylum in Israel as well as the true stories that Copts have traveled to Israel to visit holy places.

In order to dissuade this awful "normalization," Amin stoops to classic Jew-hatred:

The Jews are the primary enemy for the Christians, who have been suffering from them for seven centuries before Islam. The Jewish Talmud shows the spirit according to which Jews should behave towards Christians: "You can, nay, you must kill the best among the Christians."
[Of course, this quote is fabricated - EoZ}

And what are the Freemasonry and other global organizations anyway, if not secret organizations which were established in 33 AD in order to fight Christianity which was developing secretly, after the Jews couldn't fight it in the open?

The previous Coptic Pope harshly criticized the Vatican for exonerating Jews for the death of Jesus.

If you want to know what medieval Christian antisemitism looked like, the Egyptian Coptic community is a good place to start. Like their Muslim neighbors, they have managed to jealously preserve their 15th century traditions of Jew hatred.

Maybe UNESCO will offer to honor their admirable steadfastness in adhering to their antisemitic beliefs and culture for so many centuries.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Egyptian preacher calls on Allah to annihilate the Jews. @HRW, @Amnesty silent.

Nothing genocidal about this:

Following are excerpts from a public address delivered by Egyptian cleric Sami Abu Al-'Ala, which aired on Al-Hafez TV on May 3, 2013:

Sami Abu Al-'Ala: Oh Allah, make the conspiracies of the Jews their own ruin. Oh Allah, crush their soldiers and their weapons, destroy their homes, freeze the blood in their veins, disperse them, make their children orphans and their women widows, and shake the earth under their feet. Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews as you annihilated the peoples of 'Aad and Thamud. Oh Allah, make the Jews annihilate themselves.

In related news, today a Jordanian newspaper had a major feature article about the upcoming Ramadan TV series "Khaybar" that is pure Jew-hatred. Anticipation of this TV series is very high, which the article seems to say is being readied for this upcoming Ramadan that starts in July "thanks to the technical team which works day and night to complete editing the scenes." (I thought they were aiming at Ramadan 2014.)

Again, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty are silent about Arab and Muslim antisemitism, broadcast on TV. A single tweet or short report from them could put the Arab broadcasters on the defensive about their antisemitism, but they refuse to say a word, even though they are on the record as saying that antisemitism is a human rights issue.

Tweet them, email them and post on their Facebook pages demanding that they condemn this upcoming series. Demand a response. Their silence in the face of imminent incitement of hundreds of millions of Arabs against Jews is unconscionable.

An enterprising Gaza entrepreneur has hooked up with a counterpart in Egypt to provide restaurant take-out services to Gaza from El Arish, Egypt.

A Gaza food service company director, Khalil Efranji, stated that "a company that offers delivery service started about two weeks ago to take food orders from the Egyptian town of El Arish to the Gaza Strip, and these requests are for meals from the worldwide Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant."

He added: "The idea of transferring meals from El Arish to Gaza came after repeated requests from people who are accustomed to travel, and eating in restaurants around the world""

The time it takes to cover the distance between El Arish and Gaza is less than three hours and the demand is great, according to Efranji.

It appears that the meals are smuggled in via tunnels; I don't believe that Egypt would allow food delivery through the Rafah crossings.

It is nice to know that starving Gazans have an alternative to basic food commodities like flour, rice and Chanukah chocolate coins.

Here is El Arish's KFC Facebook page.

Return of the Jordan option?

I had missed this essay in Al Monitor last week:

A recent visitor to Amman reports some senior Jordanians declaring openly that “there never was a place called Palestine. There is no such thing as Palestine, only Jordan.” Such sentiments, while still a minority view, mark a sea change in the long-standing Jordanian deference to the PLO on developments west of the Jordan River. According to one Palestinian, such views are being encouraged by some voices in Fatah, who fear Hamas' baton more than Amman's reluctant embrace, and who no doubt believe, as many veterans in Fatah do, that all it will take to turn Jordan into Palestine is a Palestinian decision to do so.

“Jordan is Palestine” is the mirror image of “Palestine is Jordan." Jordanians identified with the latter are not contemplating a confederal agreement between respective Jordanian and and Palestinian states, but rather the restoration of Jordan's uncontested place in Jerusalem and the West Bank on the eve of the June 1967 war.
...
The feasting on the corpse that was once Syria poses the most immediate challenge to Jordan, and it was at the heart of recent discussions during the King's recent visit to Washington in the last week of April. But Jordan's cascading problem managing the fallout from Syria complements the more essential challenge that has always been uppermost in the mind of Jordan's political elite as well as its growing Islamic opposition. This challenge, of course, relates to the Palestinian dimension of Jordan's national identity, and the King's ability to manage this without his Hashemite or Transjordanian identity suffering as a consequence.
It is against Jordan's basic nature to make precipitous moves in any direction, yet a dynamic trend favoring a “New Look” in Jordan's Palestine policy — one that is viewed sympathetically in both Jerusalem and Washington — is hard to ignore.

For many years now Jordan has been confronting a most unwelcome strategic environment to its west, across the Jordan River. Fatah has failed to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the growing power of Hamas as a political factor has proceeded in tandem. Fatah is no friend of Jordan, where memories of Black September remain etched in the consciousness of the Jordanian elite. But Jordan long ago was forced by its own failures and by circumstances beyond its control to make its peace with the PLO, not only as the recognized representative of the Palestinian people — at least those residing east of the Jordan River —- but also as a strategic buffer against Israeli, American and Islamic/Arab claims against Amman. The PLO, notably after King Hussein's 1988 disengagement from the West Bank, became Jordan’s insurance policy against the imposition of a solution at Jordan's expense to Palestine's problems in West Bank and Gaza Strip.

To Jordan's dismay, it is being forced to realize that Fatah and the PLO it embodies cannot perform this task. This conclusion has been debated from time to time in recent years. The barometer of these discussions is Amman's on-again, off-again dance with Khaled Meshaal and Hamas, most notably the 2009 thaw in relations engineered by Gen. Mohammad Dhahabi, who was at the time head of Jordan's General Intelligence Department. If Fatah cannot be a Palestinian shield protecting Jordanian interests in a quiescent West Bank, it is argued, then perhaps Hamas should be given a go.

The other option, and the one today at the center of Jordan's agenda, suggests a fundamental rethinking of Jordan's exit from the West Bank that began with King Hussein's failure in 1972 to reach an agreement on Israeli withdrawal with Moshe Dayan and that gained momentum with the Arab League decision to recognize the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1974. Like Jordan's unenthusiastic turn in Hamas' direction, this option reflects Jordan's despair at Fatah's failure and is a hedge against Fatah’s capitulation to Israel in a deal that would endanger Jordan's interest in preventing an influx of Palestinians eastward across the Jordan River.

One example of this trend is the “historic,” if precipitous, agreement between King Abdullah and PLO head Mahmoud Abbas in March confirming the Jordanian king’s stewardship of the holy places in Jerusalem.

"In this historic agreement, Abbas reiterated that the king is the custodian of holy sites in Jerusalem and that he has the right to exert all legal efforts to preserve them, especially Al-Aqsa mosque," the palace said in a statement. Abbas said that the agreement confirmed "Jordan's role since the era of the late King Hussein" and that it consolidated agreements established decades ago.

Abbas' signature marks the first formal Palestinian recognition of Jordan's central role in Jerusalem and it complements the understanding detailed in Jordan’s treaty with Israel in 1994. The treaty notes that “Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.”

Abbas' interest in formalizing Jordan’s role is a function of Palestinian weakness and stands in ironic contrast to the nominal, and apparently symbolic boost for sovereignty won at the UN last November.

It appears that the Arab world has known for years what the West still cannot grasp: the Palestinian Arab national project has been an abject failure, and it is time to start thinking of creative alternatives.

Jordan is a country that needs stability and the uncertainly in the West Bank is a threat.

Normal Palestinian Arabs who haven't been thoroughly brainwashed yet simply want to live their lives and raise their families with honor, and they don't give a damn if they are citizens of "Palestine," Jordan or Saudi Arabia as long as they are no longer treated like pariahs in the Arab world.

Even with the uncertainty of Jordan's political climate, Israel would trust Abdullah far more than they can ever trust the lying, corrupt, self-proclaimed leaders of the Palestinian Arabs.

Once upon a time, King Abdullah's namesake envisioned a Jordan that would include Syria. That might not be such a bad idea today.

Nice piece on the truth behind "grassroots" campus BDS campaigns

From Max Samarov at The (LA) Jewish Journal:

Over the last month the UC Santa Barbara student government has been voting on a resolution to divest from companies doing business with Israel. As a UCSB graduate and former student leader, I spoke at two senate hearings and worked with current students to defeat the resolution. It should now be very clear that what we are fighting at UCSB is the local face of an organized, global propaganda campaign against Israel.

Divestment activists at UCSB attempted to portray their campaign as grassroots and local. But evidence to the contrary abounds. Indeed, divestment is part of an increasingly organized and global movement. The language of the resolution introduced atUCSB was strikingly similar to those recently presented at UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and elsewhere. The Facebook pages set up in support of divestment at the different campuses werealso very similar. These campaigns were carefully synchronized. They hit Stanford first, then UC Riverside, then UC San Diego, then UC Santa Barbara, then UC Berkeley, and finally UC Davis. As the drama was ending at one university it would begin anew at the next one down the line.

Divestment did not happen overnight. It is the result of years of work by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and similar campus organizations. Their modus operandi is simple and extremely effective. They get involved in student politics, build relationships with student leaders, hone their talking points, and lobby. At some campuses, like UCSB, this issue has been elevated to the point where some candidates for student government run on a platform of divestment. The anti-Israel movement has evolved, drastically increasing its participation in the democratic process.

It is clear that there is a well-oiled machine organizing and orchestrating this campaign behind the scenes....

BDS portrays itself as a progressive human rights movement, but nothing could be further from the truth. BDS uses anti-Israel propaganda to promote a fundamentally immoral and illiberal political agenda: the elimination of Israel as the democratic state of the Jewish people. Some BDS leaders and organizations hide this or avoid stating it explicitly. But the undeniable reality is that the third core demand of the BDS movement, the return of millions of Palestinian refugees to Israel, is a call to replace the Jewish state with a Palestinian state.

It is a very nice reference piece on the state of the campus BDS movement and their deceptions.

"Shias more dangerous than naked women!"

Last week:

There won’t be a ban on bikinis or alcohol in Egypt just yet. According to the country’s Tourism Minsiter Hisham Zaazou, the government has no intention of cracking down on women who wear bikinis or foreigners coming to the country and want to have a drink of alcohol. It comes as tension between the conservative Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood government has increased, especially concerning the tourism sector.

“Bikinis are welcome in Egypt and booze is still being served,” Zaazou, speaking in English, told a news conference during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

“We had talks with these Salafi groups and now they understand the importance of the tourism sector, but still you have some individuals that are not from the leadership saying these things,” added the minister, an independent who is not a member of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.

The Salafis may have reluctantly allowed that a bikini ban is counterproductive, but there are some tourists that offend them even more:

Members of the culture committee of Egypt's Shura Council discussed their concerns on Monday about the possibility of Iranian tourism to Egypt, with some expressing fears that it
could spread Shiism in the country.

Dangerous almost naked woman, for illustrative purposes

According to Ahram's Arabic news website, members of the committee called on Tourism Minister Hesham Zaazou to discuss the issue in the council, the country's upper house of parliament which is holding legislative powers until a house of representatives is elected.

"The Shias are more dangerous than naked [women]," MP Tharwat Attallah of the Salafist Nour Party said during the meeting.

"They are a danger to Egypt's national security; Egyptians could be deceived into [converting to] Shiism, giving it a chance to spread in Egypt," he added.

First Shiites are worse than Jews, now worse than naked women? Can any insult be worse?

Monday Links Part 2

From Ian:

Israel Fights America’s Battles
Why the U.S.-Israel alliance may be returning to its Cold War roots

The United States has long had moral, emotional, and domestic political reasons to support Israel. The return of the American-Israeli alliance to its Cold War foundations will aid both countries in overcoming their disagreements and coordinating their efforts in Syria and across the Middle East. Just as Israel downed Soviet-made Syrian jets in the Cold War, it will now destroy Iranian-made missiles, bolstering U.S. deterrence as Washington’s proxy war with Tehran approaches its climax.

Accepting 'Arab Initiative' is Suicide, Says Diplomat

The so-called "Arab initiative" or "Arab League peace plan" that has been gaining currency in recent months is "a recipe for Israel's suicide," according to Israel's former representative in Washington, DC, Yoram Ettinger.
Ambassador Ettinger told Arutz Sheva that the plan is no more than "a honey trap" that misguidedly seeks to force reality to fit some people's imaginings.

Hawking, Goldstone and political warfare

In the short term, it is important to show Professor Hawking the contradiction between the moral language of the delegitimizers and the immoral substance of their campaigns. In this process, perhaps Hawking will follow the Goldstone precedent, and recognize that he has been used as part of the ongoing war against Israel. Until he does, the moral stain caused by his actions will continue to spread.

Conference boycotted by Hawking has hosted Palestinian speakers every year

The Israeli Presidential Conference that Stephen Hawking is boycotting in solidarity with the Palestinians has featured a succession of prominent Palestinian speakers among its participants over the years, including key members of the Palestinian Authority.
This year’s conference is again set to include at least one prominent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and the gathering has been attended in each of its previous four years by leading Palestinian figures including top Palestinian Authority officials, negotiators, academics, and the man helming development of the first planned Palestinian city.

CAMERA Toronto Star Claims Bruce Willis is a BDSer

Finally, given the fact that Mr. Willis has come out in the past publicly expressing strong support for Israel, by signing, for instance a 2006 ad (below) in the Los Angeles Times condemning Hamas and Hezbollah, on what basis does the Star allege that his 2010 cancellation was intended to promote the anti-Israel boycott?

Spanish left-wingers seek boycott of Israeli singer

Left-wing parties from the Spanish autonomous region of Galicia are demanding their local government launch a boycott of Israel by canceling a concert by Israeli singer and peace activist Noa, also known as Achinoam Nini.

Pope Francis Canonizes Several Hundred Christian Martyrs Who Refused to Convert to Islam

Pope Francis on Sunday announced the canonization of new saints to the Catholic Church, including several hundred 15th-century Christian martyrs who were killed for refusing to convert to Islam.
The “Martyrs of Otranto” were 813 inhabitants of the southern Italian city of Otranto who were beheaded in 1480 by Ottoman Turkish invaders after they refused to convert to Islam.

Warsaw Synagogue Replica Would Make Nazis 'Turn in Their Graves'

A miniature replica of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw will be installed on the site of the original, almost 70 years to the day after it was leveled by the Nazis, an architect for the project said Sunday.

After the survivors, only the stones will tell stories

The two Hebrew words for cemetery — beit-kvarot (house of graves) and beit-olam (eternal home) – exist in a deliberate but uneasy tension. The former evokes the past, conjuring images of headstones made of concrete, while the latter suggests there is more to the place than its infrastructure. A cemetery is a reminder of the lasting, ongoing influence of those who came before us.

Dairy diplomacy yields stronger ties with Vietnam

After suffering decades of civil war and foreign incursions, as well as a decade of Stalinist rule that ended only in 1986, Vietnam has become one of the better-performing economies in the developing world, especially in agriculture, and Israeli technology has been a cornerstone of that progress.
The two countries are currently working on a free trade agreement, and to date Israel has trained hundreds of Vietnamese in agriculture, aquaculture, livestock, dairy milk production and education.

More accolades for Israeli maker of top online game

Funtactix is a portfolio company of Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), an Israeli VC that has made a commitment to content development, seeing content as emerging as a strong growth sector for Israeli companies in the coming years. Among the other content companies that JVP has invested in are Animation Lab, which develops animated films, and AnyClip, which lets users search in a database for their favorite movie clips.

Black Jazz Musician Encounters Mixed Reactions to Subway Renditions of Hatikvah, Hava Hagila

At first you may be skeptical of Isaiah Richardson Jr. He doesn’t look like somebody who would be playing Hava Nagila for passengers waiting for their train in the subway. Firstly, he seems too young, and secondly, he’s a black kid from the Bronx, dressed sharply, derby hat and all. But when upon meeting Isaiah, the 32-year-old ticked off “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem,” “Bashana Haba’ah,” and “Zum Gali Gali” as some of his favorite songs to play passing crowds, I knew he was serious about his Jewish music.

UNRWA rep poses with map of "Palestine" and "Al Quds" handbag

From Palestinian Media Watch:

At the official launch of two German-funded UNRWA projects in southern Lebanon, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, Ann Dismorr, posed with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine."

The map includes both the Palestinian Authority areas as well as all of Israel. Above the map is the Palestinian flag and the inscription "Arab Palestine." The text at the bottom of the map also says "Palestine." The neighboring countries Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are all named on the map as is the Mediterranean Sea. Israel is not mentioned or designated anywhere. Several places and cities, both in Israel and from the Palestinian Authority, are included on the map of "Palestine": The Negev desert, Be'er Sheva, Rafah (Gaza), Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias and the Dead Sea.

The map was presented at the launch of an UNRWA project to improve the water supply network and rehabilitate shelters in the Rashidieh Camp, and was a gift from the "Palestinian Women's Union," the Palestinian news site pn-news.net reported.

Here's the photo:

Notice that UNRWA's smiling Ann Dismorr is also carrying a handbag or souvenir bag depicting a Judenrein Jerusalem surrounding the Dome of the Rock, with a decorative keffiyeh pattern that symbolizes "resistance:"

Très chic!

People may want to tweet @UNRWA or go to one of their Facebook pages to ask if this is appropriate behavior for a supposedly non-political organization.

Then again, maybe this is an admission that when UNRWA energetically supports the mythical "right of return," that this map and painting of Jerusalem is what would inevitably result.

Video of Syrian rebel cutting out, eating soldier's heart (graphic videos)

And these are the "good guys"...

A video of a Syrian rebel commander cutting the heart out of a soldier and biting into is emblematic of a civil war that has rapidly descended into sectarian hatred and revenge killings, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The New York-based group said an amateur video posted on the Internet on Sunday shows Abu Sakkar, a founder of the rebel Farouq Brigade who is well known to journalists as an insurgent from Homs, cutting into the torso of a dead soldier.

The video has caused outrage among both supporters of President Bashar al-Assad and opposition figures.

“I swear to God we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog,” the man says to offscreen cheers of his comrades shouting “Allahu akbar (God is great)”.

Just for balance, when Bashir Assad's father was in charge and Jimmy Carter felt particularly close to the dictator, Syrian soldiers would strangle puppies and drink their blood at military parades, and girls would rip apart live snakes with their teeth, to the applause of Syria's leaders, as the first minutes of this video show:

Either way, the enemy of my enemy is a sick, perverted POS.

Maybe we can hope they all kill each other and the Kurds can take over Syria?

(h/t EBoZ)

Monday Links Part 1

From Ian:

Muhammad Al-Dura: The boy who wasn't really killed
Defense Minister formed secret investigative committee that concluded Al-Dura had not been hurt and the video was staged.

Not only was 12-year-old Gazan Muhammad al-Dura not killed by IDF fire in 2000 – he was not even hurt.
That was the preliminary finding of a special commit- tee formed several years ago by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and headed by Brig.- Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the Research and Analysis Division of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, and the current director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry.

BBC whitewashes Islamist antisemitism with semantics

According to the BBC, if Tunisian Islamists (and presumably any elsewhere too) chant “Killing the Jews is a duty” or “Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahud” or ”the army of Mohammed will return”, then local Jews have nothing whatsoever to worry about because in fact they are not referring to them – or indeed to Jews at all – but to Israel, which should apparently be perfectly understandable. And the BBC website’s Middle East desk is quite sure of that because a prominent Salafist – who obviously thinks it unremarkable to chant hate speech relating to “the Zionist entity’s policies” in front of a synagogue in Tunisia – told them so.

More revealing BBC replies to audience complaints

Evyatar Borovsky was murdered for no other reason than the fact that he was an Israeli citizen. The terrorist did not request information regarding his postcode before deciding whether or not to stab him to death at a bus stop. It is high time the BBC brought itself up to speed with that unpleasant reality and ceased its offensive, dehumanising and misleading habit of dividing Israelis into ‘good’ ones who live where it thinks they should be allowed to live and ‘settlers’ who do not – according to the BBC’s own partisan and politically motivated interpretations of “international law”.

PMW: PA pays 5 million shekels per month to 4,000 released prisoners

International Red Cross plants trees to honor Palestinian terrorists

In a ceremony celebrating its 150th anniversary, the International Red Cross together with the Palestinian Red Crescent planted 150 trees bearing the names of "veteran prisoners." The Palestinian Authority uses the term "veteran prisoners" to refer to those who have been in jail the longest, and in most cases are serving life sentences for murder or multiple murders. Giorgio Ferrario, representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, participated in this ceremony honoring terrorists, which was named "My Honor is My Freedom."

Leftist Glee over Terror Murder Earns Police Complaint

Gad Di'ee of the grassroots Samaria Residents Council has filed a police complaint against leftists who expressed glee after the stabbing murder of a Jew, Evyatar Borovsky of Yitzhar.
The complaint accuses the leftists of incitement to violence or terror, a punishable offense.
One leftist activist, Hila Shifman Galant, put up a link on her Facebook page to a photograph of Borovsky's son hugging his father's body at the funeral and wrote: "Daddy went to a place where he can't burn fields or poison sheep anymore. Don't take it so hard, sweetie."

Carter urges EU to label settlements products

Former US president Jimmy Carter is pushing the European Union to implement a law forcing products coming out of the West Bank settlements to be labeled as such, according to a report in the Irish Times.

Arab Breaks Chair on Elderly Jew's Head

A large-bodied Arab man attacked an elderly Jew in Jerusalem's Old City last Saturday. The victim's daughter, Tali Hoffman, told Arutz Sheva that her father was making his way to Shacharit prayers, as he does every Sabbath, from his home in the Muslim Quarter to the Kotel

'Turkey closer to energy agreement with Israel'

The paper quotes top Turkish officials as stating they are moving to be in favor of “extensive cooperation” with Israel and Cyprus. Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Energy Minister Taner Yildiz were said to have discussed the issue on Friday at an energy conference in Istanbul. Gul said at the conference that Turkey is “ready to contribute to any constructive project,” according to the report.

BCF: Egyptian man disguised as woman gets sexually harassed

"As he strolled, Hammad, who wore light makeup to conceal hints of facial hair and accentuate his eyes, was hissed at and verbally abused. In one instance — when he was wearing a head veil — he was taken for a prostitute and offered up to 4,000 Egyptian pounds ($575) for one night."

Al Qaeda training in South Africa - and authorities stopped the investigation

The Daily Maverick has an astounding scoop of secret Al Qaeda training bases in South Africa - and an apparent cover-up.

The police’s specialised unit, Crimes Against the State (CATS) and the State Security Agency (SSA) have been monitoring the training of al-Qaeda terrorists in South Africa for several years, without taking any action. A year-long investigation by the Daily Maverick’s DE WET POTGIETER has revealed surprising inaction by police despite incriminating evidence about secret military training camps and sophisticated sniper training at three well-documented locations as well as several others across South Africa. These subversive activities have taken place at a farm near the notorious Apartheid police hit squad camp at Vlakplaas outside Pretoria, as well as a secluded farm in the mountains of the Klein Karoo.

The SAPS top-secret, deep-cover operation – Operation Kanu – was driven by crime intelligence, and was launched shortly after the 9-11 World Trade Center terror attacks to investigate extremist Muslim activities in the country. Operation Kanu began at the same time as the parallel investigation into far right-wing activities called Operation Waco.

Operation Waco resulted in the marathon Boeremag trial. The right-wingers were dubbed Al-Cadac by a police wit, as the Afrikaners’ plot was often discussed over a braai. Yet Operation Kanu resulted in no action from intelligence agencies, and no arrests of the alleged trainees or the masterminds.

All spying activities in connection with Operation Kanu were abruptly halted at the beginning of 2010 under yet-unexplained circumstances. The teams of intelligence operatives were recalled from the operation sites, all visual material seized and laptops with the surveillance data and situation reports of deep-cover agents taken away from them. The men were told by their superiors that the orders for the cessation of the surveillance operation had come “from the top”. No other explanations were given and they were re-deployed to other assignments.

In the wake of the cessation of Operation Kanu, British and US intelligence agencies began to pressurise the South African government to act against any possible Muslim terrorist threats emanating from within South Africa.

Top-level intelligence sources confirmed that representatives from both those countries’ intelligence services have been in the country for negotiations regarding the al-Qaeda operations here.

US and British intelligence have warned the South African authorities to stop “pussyfooting” with intelligence regarding international terrorists activities in South Africa. “The fact that no bombs have gone off to date in the country doesn’t mean that the threat doesn’t exist within South Africa’s borders,” they warned.

They have been frustrated for some years with the South African authorities for not taking action against perceived international terrorist threats.

South Africa is a signatory to the United Nations resolution against international terrorism and is thus obliged to act against any such threats.

Despite overwhelming intelligence information gathered well before the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa, no action had been taken to date.

The cause of the anxiety stems from the fact that thousands of illegal immigrants from Pakistan manage to cross into South Africa, while the government appears to turn a blind eye.

Says Professor Hussein Solomon from UFS in Researching Terrorism in South Africa: More Questions than Answers:

“Pretoria’s ambiguous response to terrorism also extends into the international sphere. In October 2006, during his meeting with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former president Thabo Mbeki spoke of the need for international co-operation in the area of counter-terrorism. When such co-operation, however, is needed from the South Africans, they baulk. In January 2007, when South Africa was informed that the US intended to place two South Africans – the Dockrat cousins – on the UN Security Council’s list of terror suspects, South Africa was vehemently opposed to this. Needless to say, relations between Washington and Pretoria soured. These incidents raise the question of whether South Africa is prepared to walk the talk in the global fight against terrorism or not. Put differently, is South Africa a credible partner in the fight against terrorism?”

THE SOUTH AFRICAN CONNECTION

At the centre of this alleged terrorist network are several members of the well-known and influential Dockrat family.

The family was catapulted into the world focus in 2007 when US terrorism financing trackers have noted suspicious financial transactions coming out of South Africa that appeared to benefit al-Qaeda.

...

To all intents and purposes, it would appear that police crime intelligence as well as the specialised police unit, Crimes Against the State, and the State Security Agency had carried out a competent and at times inspired intelligence-gathering operation without being detected. Yet they were surprisingly forced to stop their monitoring by operatives of an unidentified state agency.

In his already quoted story, Prof Hussein has this to say:

“Reports of paramilitary training camps have also surfaced periodically. As early as 1996, Israel lodged a formal complaint with the South African government regarding the existence of five Hezbollah training camps in the country. In March 2007, Barry Gilder, the former head of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (Nicoc), acknowledged the possible existence of small-scale training camps used by terrorists in the country. Most of these trainers it would seem came from Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh and Jordan. In the same month, a Johannesburg magazine exposed the existence of a jihadi facility outside Port Elizabeth, where instructors provided students with combat training, as well as training in illegal high-calibre handguns, R1 rifles and AK-47s. The camp became operational in the mid-1990s with Nazier Desai as the head trainer and his cousin Ahmed Seddick Desai running the finances.

“More worrisome is the existence of terrorist training camps on isolated farms – with the knowledge of certain people in the South African government. Clearly, these government officials believe that South Africa will not be targeted by these elements. Unfortunately, the available evidence does not support such wishful thinking. When the US, for example, was targeted on foreign soil, as in the East African US embassy bombings, there were 5,000 casualties – overwhelmingly local Kenyans and Tanzanians. Likewise, the redoubtable Richard Cornwell has noted that there is nothing preventing South Africa’s own citizens from becoming “collateral” in the pursuit of other targets. Unfortunately, this belief that South Africa will not be targeted could also account for the fact that, despite monitoring these camps for a number of years, no action has been taken.”

The reporter was interviewed on this radio show.

(h/t Steven Z)

Newseum takes terrorists off honoree list

As those who read Ian's linkdumps know:

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.

Hamas is listed as a terrorist organisation in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Jordan, Japan, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

"Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama were Hamas operatives and cameramen for Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television network, which regularly features programming that encourages and praises attacks on Israeli civilians. The IDF targeted Al-Kumi and Salama on Nov. 20," says the Israel Defense Forces website. Palestinian media confirm that the two men were indeed Hamas operatives.

There was a large backlash from many quarters, pointing out that honoring terrorists is hardly honorable. Even if they were not actively fighting (and that is by no means a given,) there should be a difference between a legitimate journalist and someone who peddles terrorist propaganda.

Even though it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference.

The good news came this morning:

A few minutes ago, the Newseum’s manager of media relations sent out this statement:

Serious questions have been raised as to whether two of the individuals included on our initial list of journalists who died covering the news this past year were truly journalists or whether they were engaged in terrorist activities.

We take the concerns raised about these two men seriously and have decided to re-evaluate their inclusion as journalists on our memorial wall pending further investigation.

Terrorism has altered the landscape in many areas, including the rules of war and engagement, law, investigative and interrogation techniques, and the detention of enemy combatants. Journalism is no exception.

To further our First Amendment mission to provide a forum where all may speak freely, the Newseum will establish a new initiative to explore differing views on the new questions facing journalism and journalists.

The names of the two Al-Aqsa TV ‘journalists’ have also been removed from the Newseum website.

I previously discussed how terrorists use journalists as cover here.

Now is a good time to repost my video about one of Al Aqsa TV's programs, Pioneers of Tomorrow, with its curiously short-lived mascots:

Ahmadinejad to get 74 lashes for election law violation?

Probably not, but the idea is attractive, isn't it?

After accompanying his former chief of staff to register for June’s presidential vote, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may face punishment if charged with breaking electoral

rules, the country’s electoral watchdog said.

The president had accompanied Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie on Saturday to register at the Interior Ministry.

Photographs in the Iranian media showed them gripping hands and making peace signs.

Abbas Ali Kadkhodai, a spokesman for the Guardian Council, said the council’s supervisory board unanimously agreed “the...actions of the president in introducing an individual as an election candidate constituted a violation and were criminal,” according to Khabar.

“We reported the facts to the judiciary,” Kadkhodai said.

The Guardian Council, a body of clerics and jurists, vets all candidates for elections.

Iranian electoral law forbids the use of state resources on behalf of or against any candidate, and bans individuals from supporting candidates in an official capacity.

A conviction could bring a maximum punishment of six months in jail or 74 lashes, according to local press reports.

For years Ahmadinejad has claimed that Iran's human rights record was better than that of any Western nations, so he should volunteer to be flogged just to prove how wonderful Iran's justice system is.

Abbas calls Jews visiting Temple Mount "attacks against Al Aqsa"

The "moderate" president of the Palestinian Authority has made it crystal clear that he would not tolerate freedom of religion in his purported "state."

At his opening speech at the PLO Executive Committee meeting last night, Abbas said that "attacks on the Al Aqsa Mosque cannot be tolerated."

Abbas added that it is unacceptable for such "attacks" to continue, and that "if Israel is dreaming as such daily attacks that attack the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy sites can change the situation on the ground they are disillusioned."

"East Jerusalem as our capital, and Al-Aqsa is ours, and the Church of the Resurrection is ours, and we will not allow them" to perform these "attacks."

Abbas ended by saying "we call upon the Arab and Islamic countries and the international community in general to act to stop these tragedies perpetrated in the name of the Israeli occupation."

Keep in mind that during Jordan's brief period of sovereignty over the Old City, Jews were barred from praying not only on the Temple Mount but at the Kotel as well. Not Israelis - Jews.

This is the "status quo" that Abbas would consider ideal, along with a Judenrein Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and a Tomb of Rachel that is converted into a mosque.

Yes, under any "peace plan" this most moderate of all Palestinian Arab leaders in history would grudgingly allow limited busloads of Jews to occasionally visit some specific sites for short periods of time, but inevitably those visits would cause riots and he would stop even this allowance. For "security" reasons.

Every clear thinking person knows that this is the best that can be expected under a Palestinian Arab state. Yet no "human rights" group seems to mind that freedom of religion for Jews would simply not be tolerated under the Palestinian Arab state they believe is the key to "peace."

And the Western media will refuse to publish that their "moderate" hero is openly lying about peaceful visits to Judaism's holiest site and trying to get them banned, today.

Stephen Hawking is only a symptom

As Zionists gnash their teeth over Stephen Hawking's embrace of BDS, and Israel-haters celebrate their victory, it it worthwhile to take a step back to understand how Hawking might have come to such a position.

After all, as smart as Hawking is, his ability to access original information about the Middle East is quite

limited. Almost certainly a large percentage of his time online is simply dealing with email, and his assistants are almost certainly filtering even that. It is not like Hawking can take a few weeks off to double-check the veracity of articles about the Middle East in British media, or even the many emails he was probably bombarded with from the BDSers when it was announced that he would attend a conference in Israel.

Hawking is a product of his environment, and his ability to go beyond the conventional wisdom in anything besides physics is severely constrained. Which means that Hawking's knowledge of Israel is filtered through the conventional wisdom of Britain.

In the most recent Pew Global Attitudes poll, we see that 44% of the British have an unfavorable attitude towards Israel, and only 34% have a favorable attitude.

When asked which side they sympathize with more, 19% were on the Israeli side and 35% sympathized more with the Palestinian Arab side. Even more telling, in 2002, while Israelis were being blown up every couple of days from suicide bombs, the British were only 17% sympathetic towards Israel compared to 28% for Palestinian Arabs.

A most telling episode occurred in 2001, when the French ambassador to England referred to Israel during a dinner party as "that shitty little country." The British, rather than being upset at the ambassador, tended to rally around him, with an op-ed in the Independent supporting the statement and other in the Guardian and the Observer all far more angry at the Jewish woman who revealed the comment than the French ambassador who made it.

This was hardly an anomaly. Only days after 9/11, Richard Ingrams wrote in The Observer:

The mountain of words and pictures last week mirrored the piles of rubble in New York. Like the rescue workers there, one waded in trying to find something that was alive, that would illuminate and explain what had happened.

Noticeable was the reluctance throughout the media to contemplate the Israeli factor - the undeniable and central fact behind the disaster that Israel is now and has been for some time an American colony, sustained by billions of American dollars and armed with American missiles, helicopters and tanks.

Such has been the pressure from the Israeli lobby in this country that many, even normally outspoken journalists, are reluctant even to refer to such matters. Nor would you find anywhere in last week's coverage, any reference whatever to things I have mentioned here in recent issues of The Observer: the fact, for example, that Mr Blair's adviser on the Middle East is an unelected, unknown Jewish businessman, Lord Levy, now installed in the Foreign Office; the fact that this same Lord Levy is the chief fundraiser for the Labour Party; unmentioned also would be the close business links with Israel of two of our most powerful press magnates, Rupert Murdoch and the newly ennobled owner of the Telegraph newspapers, Lord Conrad Black....

Yes, Ingrams' first reaction to the 9/11 attacks was that it must obviously be Israel's fault.

There is no shortage of writings about British anti-Zionism and, yes, the related British anti-semitism. From the pages of The Guardian to members of the Church of England, virulent anti-Israel and more subtle anti-semitic statements have been becoming more and more mainstream and accepted. The fact is that the environment in Great Britain is turning increasingly toxic against anyone showing sympathy, or empathy, with the Jewish state.

No doubt, the genesis of this hate is complex, from historic British antisemitism through antipathy towards Zionist Jews during the last years of the British Mandate of Palestine, plus the increasing influence of socialism and its concomitant anti-Zionism.

In a nation that has embraced the false themes of unlimited Israeli evil and absolute Palestinian Arab victimhood, can we expect people to suspect that they are being fed a diet of lies? Finding out the truth takes time; it takes effort, and it takes commitment, all resources that most people cannot be bothered with. If their newspaper says that Israel is the intransigent party, who will spend the time to research the other side? Who would even consider that there is another side?

We read reports about British anti-Zionism and think that it is a shame, but they are abstract. It takes a Stephen Hawking for us to realize that the torrent of lies and half-truths about Israel does affect and poison the minds of real people, even smart people.

In such an environment, how could we expect Stephen Hawking to think differently? Why would he doubt the hundreds of emails he probably received, many illustrated with seemingly authoritative maps showing Zionist expansionism and fake quotes showing Zionist depravity? He simply has little or no exposure to anything but anti-Zionism and no real ability to check the veracity of the propaganda he and his fellow countrymen have been force-fed for decades.

Hawking isn't the problem. His decision is the result of a much bigger problem, of an entire nation - actually, an entire continent - that cannot be bothered with the truth because of years of being brainwashed with simplistic and false notions of an evil Jewish Goliath and the saintly Arab David.

South Africa haters upset that students who disrupted concert are being charged

Remember the concert by pianist Yossi Reshef that was stopped by Israel-haters who broke into the concert hall and jumped on the stage? A reminder:

Guests and the audience arriving for the concert, were manhandled, shoved by the student protesters and utterly traumatised - some were in tears and shaking.

What values do we espouse at Wits? We talk glibly about freedom to express oneself. A protest does not mean freedom to smash windows to get into the basement, nor does it mean breaking the door to the Atrium, so that a mob can break through into the hall where a civilised classical music concert was in progress.

The music department was assured that the public and the students at the concert would be protected. A group of wellmeaning but utterly helpless security guards could not control the mob.

Our music students were traumatised by the swearing, threats and intimidations in the Atrium when the mob burst in screaming and with vuvuzelas and went berserk.

Is this the kind of freedom for which Wits stands? Is this the kind of message that Wits sends out to the public - that if we don’t like something we are entitled to disrupt and destroy it? Of course the concert had to stop. This was not a political rally - it was a concert.

The haters, naturally, are being brought up on charges by the university for their crimes. But their comrades seem to feel that violently stopping a pianist from playing is considered "free speech" and is something to be admired!

From Business Day Live (South Africa:)

CONGRESS of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on Friday added to a call for the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) to drop charges of violating its code of conduct against students who disrupted a concert by an Israeli pianist.

Hundreds of protesters gathered on the Wits campus in Johannesburg on Friday to demand that the university’s management call off disciplinary hearings, scheduled for next week, against 11 current and former members of its Students’ Representative Council (SRC) who disrupted an on-campus concert by Israeli pianist Yossi Reshef in March.

The concert, which took place during international "Israeli Apartheid Week", was cancelled after 15 minutes after students from, among other organisations, the SRC and the African National Congress Youth League took to the stage in solidarity with Palestinians.

Speaking at the protest, Mr Vavi said that former president Nelson Mandela "would be shocked to hear that students were harassed and now charged by this university". Wits had a proud history of not being intimidated by the apartheid regime and now risked being an instrument of "Zionist racists", he said.

Protesters on Friday handed over a memorandum demanding an immediate end to the charges to Wits management.

In Vavi's memo, we see a master of Orwellian rhetroric:

We stand here, in a free, democratic and post-apartheid South Africa, to affirm our unequivocal support for the right of all people to engage in peaceful resistance in defence of their rights and those of others.

We therefore condemn in the strongest terms the fact that Wits University has charged 11 students (9 of them SRC Members) for participating in an SRC-led protest at the Israeli Embassy-sponsored piano concert in which an Israeli (publicly admitted Zionist) was performing. [The concert was not sponsored by the Israel Embassy, by the way - EoZ]

This concert, and the protest, happened during the Israeli Apartheid Week campaign, which the SRC participated in and endorses. Now, the charges have left our comrades in great fear of being expelled and thus losing their careers. Students learn not only academically, but also through their active participation in extra-mural and political or social mobilisation for the cause of the greater society in which they live. They can't isolate themselves from the conditions surrounding them and their people, within and outside their own immediate boundaries.

The university seeks to demobilize the growing BDS movement and opposition to its silence and complicity with Israel and its actions. We should applaud the student leadership of their bravery and conviction to defend and fight for justice, in particular their opposition to Israeli Apartheid, and voicing their frustration when any complicity is shown by the university authorities on their own campus.

We condemn the university's response of targeting student leadership by charging them. This is not only wrong and undermines the fundamental right to protest, but an indication that the university dismisses the legitimate claims and demands of the students.

Get that? Israelis, and Zionists, have no right to speech, to play music publicly or indeed to be treated like human beings. The students who broke through police lines, broke windows and doors to force themselves in, violently disrupted the concert, intimidated the audience and guests, and terrorized the artist should not only not be charged - they should be admired! But they must not suffer any consequences for breaking the law. That would be wrong.

How liberal!

Luckily, some students at Wits are not falling for this hypocrisy:

Dear Wits Student

I love my University , but I do not love what is happening to it.....

I love my University so much I spent two years homeless and hungry trying to raise money to continue my education, and now I am worried about this great institution, I am sure you are too....

The student representative council, has chosen to ignore the 'R' in SRC, they have chosen to turn our University into their political playground at the expense of our issues.

To be blunt, I do not care about Israel and or Palestine, I am a hungry poor black man and I have more immediate issues that bother me, issues like my inability to buy text books, my inability to raise printing money, issues such as the crowded libraries with few computers, issues such as the Kudu buck machines with no coin slots for the poor students.

I have not heard the SRC speak of these issues for the past three months, all they have been making noise about is the Israel Palestine issue, which is not immediate to me.

Other students have different issues,...

Today the SRC tells us they are fighting for us, for the right to protest, yet the truth is they are telling half the story. They may have a right to protest, but the jewish students also have a right to congregate without being bullied or disrupted. JEWS ARE STUDENTS TOO, THEY DESERVE REPRESENTATION TOO....

Representation requires listening and speaking for all students!

The SRC is not the toy of political parties to be used to divide us and to advance your personal ambition. Your job is not to serve some of us , but all of us.

You do not represent yourselves, or only the palestinian students, your job is to represent all of us....and you have not done that. ...

As a student I feel unrepresented by you, I feel ignored by you, but more importantly I feel like you have come to harm the institution I have sweated blood and tears to be a part of....

You have eroded unity, you have disrupted peaceful gatherings and caused commotion at our University....and you have done this in my name as a student....but I NEVER GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO ....

With love
a Concerned Wits student

We live in a Bizarro world where up is down, black is white, free speech is oppression and violent oppression is freedom.

I have a feeling that the students will not be punished at all. Bullying Jews and Zionists will be considered a human right in parts of South Africa.

Kristallnacht cannot be far behind.

(h/t StevenZ)

Arab Muslim girls enjoying river rafting in Israel (poster)

Latest in my "Apartheid?" poster series:

(h/t Israel Muse)

Fifth anniversary of the death of a woman who saved thousands of Jewish lives

Exactly five years ago today, Irena Sendler passed away at the age of 98.

If you have never heard of this remarkable woman, here is a description from AP upon her death:

[Irina] Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker with the city's welfare department when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II. Warsaw's Jews were
forced into a walled-off ghetto.

Seeking to save the ghetto's children, Sendler masterminded risky rescue operations. Under the pretext of inspecting sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, she and her assistants ventured inside the ghetto -- and smuggled out babies and small children in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages.

Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labor outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.

"Irena was truly a noble lady and a great humanitarian who helped save thousands of children," said Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of the New York-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.

Records show that Sendler's team of about 20 people saved nearly 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and its final liquidation in April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

"Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory," Sendler said in 2007 in a letter to the Polish Senate after lawmakers honored her efforts in 2007.

In hopes of one day uniting the children with their families -- most of whom perished in the Nazis' death camps -- Sendler wrote the children's real names on slips of paper that she kept at home.

When German police came to arrest her in 1943, an assistant managed to hide the slips, which Sendler later buried in a jar under an apple tree in an associate's yard. Some 2,500 names were recorded.

"It took a true miracle to save a Jewish child," Elzbieta Ficowska, who was saved by Sendler's team as a baby in 1942, recalled in an AP interview in 2007. "Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come."

Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being summarily shot, along with family members -- a fate Sendler only barely escaped herself after the 1943 raid by the Gestapo.

The Nazis took her to the notorious Pawiak prison, which few people left alive. Gestapo agents tortured her repeatedly, leaving Sendler with scars on her body -- but she refused to betray her team.

"I kept silent. I preferred to die than to reveal our activity," she was quoted as saying in Anna Mieszkowska's biography, "Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Story of Irena Sendler."

Zegota, an underground organization helping Jews, paid a bribe to German guards to free her from the prison. Under a different name, she continued her work.

After World War II, Sendler worked as a social welfare official and director of vocational schools, continuing to assist some of the children she rescued.

"A great person has died -- a person with a great heart, with great organizational talents, a person who always stood on the side of the weak," Warsaw Ghetto survivor Marek Eldeman told TVN24 television.

In 1965, Sendler became one of the first so-called Righteous Gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem for wartime heroics. Poland's communist leaders at that time would not allow her to travel to Israel; she collected the award in 1983.

Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said Sender's "courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate goodness of mankind."

Despite the Yad Vashem honor, Sendler was largely forgotten in her homeland until recent years. She came to the world's attention in 2000 when a group of schoolgirls from Uniontown, Kan., wrote a short play about her called "Life in a Jar."

It went on to garner international attention, and has been performed more than 200 times in the United States, Canada and Poland.

Amazingly, this isn't everything. Even before the Warsaw Ghetto, at the outbreak of the war, Sendler created some 3000 false documents to save Jews.

Her story was dramatized in this movie:

The story of the play about her, Life in a Jar, written by high school students in Unionville, Kansas who researched her in the 1990s, is also very worthwhile reading. Here is a 2002 news report about the play: