Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Arab Idol star: "I am a son of the camp." Why is that?

Mohammad Assaf declared himself a "son of the camp" on Tuesday as he returned to the Gaza
Strip, where thousands of jubilant fans awaited the arrival of the Arab Idol star.

Flag-waving crowds waited for several hours at the Rafah crossing on Egypt's border for 23-year-old Assaf, three days after he was crowned the winner of the popular regional singing contest.

Assaf bent over and kissed the ground as he crossed the border, an AFP correspondent reported, before holding a news conference alongside Hamas officials.

"I thank you for your wonderful welcome and hope the celebrations won't feature gunfire," Assaf said, alluding to the shots in the air that sometimes accompany celebrations in the Middle East.

Assaf said he was the son of Palestine and "son of the (refugee) camp," and told reporters he would continue to sing nationalistic songs and raise the Palestinian flag.

So the newest Palestinian Arab hero is a "son of the camp."

Will any reporter ask why these camps still exist in territory that is ruled by Palestinian Arabs?

Why can't Hamas or the PA dismantle the camps and mainstream the residents into more normal society? There is nothing stopping that from happening. They are not "refugees" by any definition because even the ones who are over 65 years old are living in the land they came from. (At worst, they are "internally displaced persons.")

So why do these camps, often hotbeds of terror, exist?

Netty Gross, in The Jerusalem Report in July 1998, asked an official why the camps there hadn’t been dismantled. She was told the Palestinian Authority had made a “political decision” not to do anything for the more than 650,000 Palestinians living in the camps until the final-status talks with Israel took place. (quoted here.)

Keeping the people crammed into these "camps" is a violation of their human rights, but no human rights organizations are calling for Hamas or the PA to dismantle them and end the discrimination that exists even within Palestinian Arab ruled territory.

Indeed, the UN has condemned Israel for attempting to do just that!

Where are the human rights activists demanding that the camps be demolished and the people given normal housing and services in line with everyone else, to live in their land as normal citizens? Why did Assaf have to grow up in such miserable conditions?

The sad fact is that the camps exist for one reason only - to purposefully keep hundreds of thousands of people in misery to make Israel look bad, even though Israel does nothing to keep a single person in a "refugee" camp.

Don't believe me? Then look at this quote from Palestine's ambassador to Lebanon, Abdullah Abdullah, in 2011, quoted in Lebanon's Daily Star:

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Mohammad Assaf is part of the long tradition of anti-Israel propaganda where ordinary Palestinian Arabs are used as pawns and discriminated against even in places ruled by their leaders until Israel is destroyed. And that is the long-term plan - a plan that is apparently endorsed by the UN as well as by so-called "human rights" organizations who never say a word against the existence of these outdoor prisons for thousands of people.

How KGB actions led to Arab and Muslim terror

From The Daily Mail:

The highest-ranking Soviet-bloc intelligence officer ever to defect to the West claims in a new book that anti-American Islamic terrorism had its roots in a secret 1970s-era KGB plot to harm but the United States and Israel by seeding Muslim countries with carefully targeted propaganda.

Yuri Andropov, the KGB chief for 15 years before he became the Soviet premier, sent hundreds of agents and thousands of copies of propaganda literature to Muslim countries.
'By 1972,' according to the book, 'Andropov's disinformation machinery was working around the clock to persuade the Islamic world that Israel and the United States intended to transform the rest of the world into a Zionist fiefdom.'

'According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a petri dish in which the KGB community could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought.'
Those claims come from former Romanian Lt. Gen Ion Mihail Pacepa and University of Mississippi law professor Ronald Rychlak.

In their book, titled Disinformation, Pacepa spills the secrets he kept for decades as head of Romania's spy apparatus and secret police, the DIE, before he secured political asylum in the U.S. in 1978.

Andropov began his leadership of the KGB just months before the 1967 Six-Day War between Arabs and Israelis, in which Israel humiliated the key Soviet allies Syria and Egypt. And he decided to settle the score by training Palestinian militants to hijack El Al airplanes and bomb sites in Jerusalem.

But more shocking, Andropov commissioned the first Arabic translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian-forged 1905 propaganda book that alleged Jews were plotting to take over Europe - and were being aided by the United States.

Much of this was already known - see this post from last year.

I have also noted that a 1968 PLO document that created a blueprint for destroying Israel that seems to be mostly in place even today has all the hallmarks of being originally drafted by the Soviets.

(h/t/ Shlomedic)

PressTV has a new columnist!

His name is Arif Hussain, and here is his bio:

Arif Hussain is a Pakistani journalist. A graduate of a prestigious military institution in Pakistan, Arif Hussain has been writing articles about international relations, global politics, Middle East and the expansion of Zionism across the globe.

Oh goody!

His first article informs us:

When human, religious and cultural values vanish from a society, it eventually changes into capitalism. Then murder, injustice, bribery, oppression and occupation becomes the practices of the society.

Zionists being totally deprived of all these values have put their all-out efforts to deprive societies from their highest religious and human values. To accomplish this dirty mission of spreading capitalism, they have been using pornography, bribery and interest-based banking systems worldwide. They kept on invading societies psychologically and enslaving them in a net of racism.

In the process of building puppet governments, the Zionist regime of Israel has been very successful in replacing many Arab and non-Arab governments so far. Under the slogan of democracy, Israel has toppled many governments which tried to resist its policies, and replaced them with its own versions.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Bahrain in the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and other countries outside the Arabian Peninsula are by now standing under the Zionist Umbrella, offering their best services in return for its barbarism on the innocent people of Palestine.

Now that he gets to the second article, he can start to expand on his theme:

It has been almost two and half years when the enemies of humanity allegedly applied a well plotted mind-set in Syria. The aim was to topple the government of Bashar Assad, resultantly cutting blood supply to other organs of the resistance against Zionism.

The mechanism started with simple anti government peace demonstrations as usual. But a very few people knew that the wolves were hiding within the herds, with their skins changed. It was easy for the wolves to catch the black sheep; the black sheep then created havoc in the peaceful environment.

The false flag propaganda of nine eleven and the invasion of Afghanistan, the years long hunt for Osama and the final drama of his imprisonment in dark depths of sea, allegation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and shameful return after mass destructing the country, the Libya's so called civil war, the war with Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen and friendly table talks with them in Qatar, the decades long so called hunt for Al Qaeda and support for them in Libya and Syria, the false flag Boston bombings and handling the self created situation with extreme un professionalism in nervousness, accusing other nations for spying and their own spies being caught and expelled by others, the so called nuclear talks with Iran and secret killing of its nuclear scientists. What else should i mention, every step they take is hypocritical, every decision they make is a double standard decision.

Why all these wars and everything else happen?

Well I am not going to write a paragraph on this. Everything is already mentioned and is as clear as water. I would rather prefer to write a single sentence.

All this happens to flourish a minute racist entity: the Zionist state of Israel.

I'm not one to brag, but placing Hussain at PressTV is definitely one of my best moves of the past month. I mean, its summer and there are no good original comedies on TV, so this is a great alternative.

Last December, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam el-Erian suggested that when Israel is destroyed, Egyptian Jews should be allowed to return to Egypt.

Ever since then he has come under withering criticism from antisemitic Egyptians and other Arabs, of all political stripes, who are twisting his words to make it sound like he is a Jew-lover. Even this month the was criticized for his statement in the war of words between Egypt and the UAE.

Now, an Egyptian has brought a lawsuit to strip Erian of his Egyptian citizenship based not only on his record with the Brotherhood but also because of his statement about Jews. The suit states that his statement alone should be enough to strip his citizenship, by indicating that he would welcome the usurping Jews. This indicates, the suit says, that Erian has no pride in his land.

6/25 Links Part 2: Pope Says Anti-Semites are not True Christians and Rihanna is Coming to Israel

From Ian:

Barry Rubin: Unlike Madonna, the Middle East Isn’t a ‘Material Girl’

A reader pointed out that in the West, it is assumed to be obvious that Arabs understand that material advancement is necessary for progress and power. For example, Tom Friedman talked about the UN Arab Human development report written by Arab liberals. In other words, the Arabic-speaking world is shaped by the failure of leaders to understand that Western pundits know far more about their society than they do.
Understanding that Friedman doesn’t understand the Middle East, though he has persuaded a big audience otherwise, is the beginning of wisdom on the region.

French marines held over anti-terror probe

The men are accused stealing military-owned bullet-proof jackets and heavy-duty helmets.
They were arrested in connection with a probe into a terror cell implicated in an anti-Semitic bomb attack near Paris last September, it was revealed on Thursday.
A brother of one of the suspects is believed to be an Islamist extremist fighting with anti-Assad rebels in Syria.

Islamist Terror Cell Arrested in France

French police arrested six members of an Islamic terrorist cell early Monday suspected of planning attacks against well-known figures in France, sources close to the investigation told France 24.
The suspects are all in custody after coordinated raids across the Paris region, the news source said.

Who Firebombed Montreal's Kosher Restaurants?

Police have released surveillance video footage of perpetrators who firebombed two kosher restaurants in Montreal in the hopes that someone in the public might have seen the perpetrators and could offer investigators a tip on their identity.
Although no one was injured in the arson, both businesses were damaged.

‘Israel’ among keywords IRS used to target groups seeking tax-exemptions

The Internal Revenue Service’s screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed, the new head of the agency acknowledged Monday. Terms including “Israel,” ”Progressive” and “Occupy” were used by agency workers to help pick groups for closer examination, according to an internal IRS document obtained by The Associated Press.

Study: Almost half of Belgian, French, Hungarian Jews mull emigration

Despite the absence of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, and a renaissance of sorts in European Jewish life, Jews on the continent feel insecure about their future, two new studies show.
The studies show that almost half the Jews in Belgium, France and Hungary are considering emigrating, some to Israel, others to North America. For those who want to come to Israel, there is very little political will in Israel to help with immigrant absorption bureaucracy, and there is no effective European equivalent of the popular Nefesh B'Nefesh organization.

Anti-Semites are not true Christians, Pope says

Pope Francis condemned anti-Semitism during a meeting with representatives of the international Jewish community at the Vatican.
“Because of our commons roots, a true Christian cannot be anti-Semitic,” Francis said Monday at a meeting with a delegation of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, or IJCIC.
He added that the Catholic Church “firmly condemns hatred, persecution and all manifestations of anti-Semitism.”

Prince Charles warns of rising antisemitism

Prince Charles has warned that Britain was suffering from an "apparent rise in antisemitism, along with other poisonous and debilitating forms of intolerance", according to . He made the comments in a speech that praised the work of Lord Sacks, the outgoing chief rabbi, in promoting tolerance.
Charles said: "Running throughout your time as chief rabbi has been that all-important principle of which this country has long been an exponent – the principle of tolerance.

Israeli Tourists Shocked by Nazi Kitsch in Bulgarian Town

Perhaps even more startling was the response of one of the shop owners selling items such as Hitler mugs, wristwatches with swastikas, and an alarm clock with a picture of Hitler on its face: “There are people who want to buy the products, otherwise we would not sell them. We sell to those who want them, those who don’t, don’t have to buy them.”

Dutch to rule on Anne Frank letters amid archival spat

A Dutch court may rule this week whether some of the letters of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl whose posthumously published diary about her time in hiding from the Nazis made her a symbol of the Holocaust, should stay in Amsterdam or be sent to Switzerland.
The letters - together with about 10,000 photographs and other documents, but not the famous diary - are at the center of a long-running dispute between Anne Frank House, the Amsterdam museum dedicated to her memory, and Anne Frank Fonds, the Basel-based foundation set up by her father Otto.

Book reveals Wallenberg also helped armed resistance

Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from Nazi-occupied Hungary, may also have had a secret military mission during World War II, a new book claims.

IDF Blog Startup Soldiers: from the IDF to High-Tech Success

The Israeli military’s ranks have included future politicians, celebrities, journalists and many other success stories. Some of the high-tech geniuses who have changed the world also wore the IDF uniform.
Behind almost every Israeli startup is an accomplished innovator who calls Israel home. But before setting out on the road to success, most of these brilliant minds served as IDF soldiers. Here we remember their roles in the IDF – and the accomplishments that followed.

Chicago mayor comes to Israel for H2O solutions

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is planning to purify his city’s water using new technologies created by a collaboration between the University of Chicago and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
The two schools, which have been working together for the last 18 months, have come up with a series of proposals that would look at ways to purify water at the molecular level, making clean, fresh drinking-water more plentiful and less expensive by 2020.

SodaStream teaming up with Whirlpool’s Kitchen-Aid

Israel’s at-home carbonation specialist SodaStream has signed a deal with KitchenAid, a leading maker of premium kitchen appliances and culinary tools and a brand of Whirlpool Corporation, to launch a new at-home carbonation machine.
The new soda maker – that lets people make fizzy soda drinks at home — is expected to be available at retail in the fourth quarter of 2013. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rihanna to shine bright like a diamond in Tel Aviv

International singing sensation Rihanna will bring her "Diamonds" world tour to Tel Aviv for an October 22 concert in Park Hayarkon, Bookmark Entertainment Agency announced Tuesday morning.
The six-time Grammy winner last performed in Israel at Tel Aviv's Bloomfield Stadium in 2010.

Saudi foreign minister declares Syria "occupied territory"

From Al Arabiya:

Syria can only be considered as an “occupied land,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Tuesday during a press meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Al-Faisal described the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria as dangerous, saying the opposition forces must be offered military help to defend themselves.

Saudi Arabia "cannot be silent" about Iranian intervention, al-Faisal added and called for a resolution to ban arms flows to the Syrian government.

Don't you get the impression that Faisal is just looking for the biggest insult he can use against Iran, and (short of labeling them "Zionist") the phrase "occupied territory" fits the bill?

Keep in mind that many of Syria's rebels come from outside Syria as well, so we might see this argument being used by the Syrians soon!

Benny Morris schools author of another anti-Zionist book

At Jewish Review of Books, Benny Morris takes apart another anti-Israel screed masquerading as a serious book.

In this case, the target is "Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country—and Why They Can’t Make Peace"
by Patrick Tyler.

The review is long but here are some excerpts:

Tyler’s book is a gossipy overlong pseudo-history of Israel, which is noteworthy mainly for what it indicates about the standing of Israel among the chattering classes. For Patrick Tyler is the former chief correspondent of The New York Times and the former Middle East bureau chief of The Washington Post, and his book comes festooned with blurbs from former Times executive editor Howell Raines, CNN’s national security analyst Peter L. Bergen, and others lauding its scholarship as “meticulous” and describing it as “the definitive historical and analytical account” of the role of the military in Israel. Incidentally, Tyler does not know Hebrew or Arabic, and the only archive he appears to have visited is the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in his home state of Texas.

In his Prologue, Tyler asserts that “militarism” is the ruling spirit in Israeli society:

Once in the military system, Israelis never fully exit. They carry the military identity for life . . . through lifelong expectations of loyalty and secrecy. Many Israeli officers carry their “top secret” clearances after retirement, reporting back to superiors or intelligence officers items of interest gleaned from their involvement in business, finance, and interactions with foreigners.

On the next page, he writes, “the specter of the security state remains a dominant aspect of life,” and a little later, “The military is the country to a great extent.” This is all nonsense. Had Tyler been writing about Israel during the late 1940s and 1950s, perhaps he would have had a point. Perhaps. But the Israel of the past several decades, Israel today, is another animal altogether. For most Israelis, individual achievement and interests trump the old collectivist Zionist ethic. Indeed, fewer and fewer Israelis actually serve in the army or do reserve duty (as the few who carry the burden are constantly complaining). It is true that among eleventh and twelfth graders, there is still great competitiveness to get a slot, once inducted, in one of the IDF’s elite units or in pilot training, but this has more to do with adolescent competition and machismo than militaristic ideology. Indeed, a good argument can be made for depicting the Israeli army as one of the world’s least “military.” Since its inception in 1948, the IDF has abjured saluting (the practice exists only in formal parades), and the men, after completing basic training, generally address their non-coms and officers on a first-name basis. The dress code in the army ranges from informal to sloppy and always has (except in the Armored Corps), and breaches of discipline tend to be punished lightly. While females are still kept out of combat units, women non-coms and officers are playing a major role in training combat troops (in armor and artillery, for example), and there are growing numbers of women pilots and navigators, also flying combat aircraft. All of this points to a liberal rather than “militarist” military.

As with poker players, books have tells. At one point in Fortress Israel Tyler writes that Israel’s paratroops wear black berets. Had he interviewed any Israeli, even a child (even an Israeli Arab child), he would have known that, as in Britain and France, paratroopers wear red berets. Sadly, Tyler knows nothing about the nuts and bolts of Israel or its military.

Israel is, in sober fact, a small, flawed, and embattled democracy, with a strong and unusually egalitarian military that has produced an extraordinary stream of writers, academics, and artists, supported by world-class academic and artistic institutions. In short, it is more Athenian than Spartan.

Tyler is as weak on the history of Israel as he is on its sociology, though he is chock-full of opinions and judgments, all of them anti-Zionist. ...

One other point Tyler makes about the [Six Day] war’s aftermath is worth quoting because it is so blatantly untrue: “It seemed that with few exceptions, everyone in Israel had embraced a creed that envisioned a Greater Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. There were differences [only] about how to achieve it.” It is true that a semi-messianic euphoria took hold, but post-1967 Israel was nonetheless a deeply divided society and remains so down to the present. Many opposed, or were uncomfortable with, retention of the Palestinian-populated territories. Tyler forgets to tell his readers that Ben-Gurion, whom he repeatedly brands an arch-expansionist and warmonger, immediately advised Eshkol to withdraw from the whole of the West Bank except East Jerusalem, nor does he mention that Labor Party minister Yigal Allon quickly formulated a plan which called for withdrawal from the bulk of the West Bank in exchange for peace with Jordan. The “Allon Plan” was never formally adopted as the Labor Party’s platform or Israeli government policy, but it guided Labor’s policies for a decade. (Settlements were not established in the areas earmarked for transfer to Arab sovereignty.) In the immediate post-1967 years, Israel’s leaders, in secret meetings, repeatedly proposed the plan to King Hussein as a basis for a bilateral peace settlement to no avail.

...The War of Attrition came to an end after the Soviets sent in thousands of their own personnel to man anti-aircraft missile batteries and fighter squadrons to counter the IAF. In one incident, Israeli Phantoms shot down five Soviet-piloted MiG-21s. At this point, both sides called it quits. The Egyptians were now thoroughly exhausted, and the Israelis feared an open-ended clash with the Russians. Tyler, as usual, has the story all wrong. He tells us that Soviet pilots “shot down half a dozen Israeli Phantoms.” This never happened.

...The subtitle of Tyler’s book carries a clear message: Bloodthirsty Spartan generals “run” Israel and that is why it has not achieved peace with its neighbors. The actual history of the various post-1967 Israeli-Arab peace processes gives the lie to this argument. IDF generals and ex-generals have actually loomed large in these peace processes, both those which succeeded and those which didn’t.

Israel so far has signed two peace treaties with Arab states, with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994, both of which are still in force (though how they will fare in the coming years, with fiercely anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic Islamists on the ascent in Arab politics, is anyone’s guess). Negotiations with Egypt were led by Menachem Begin, a civilian who had headed the pre-state right-wing Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL). But the two men who pressed and persuaded him to make the requisite concessions, including handing over to Egypt the whole of Sinai, were his foreign minister Moshe Dayan and his defense minister Ezer Weizman, both of whom had spent most of their lifetimes in the IDF. Dayan was a former chief of general staff, and Weizman was a past commander of the Israel Air Force. The peace treaty with Jordan, in which Israel ceded several hundred square kilometers of territory in the south, was negotiated and signed by Yitzhak Rabin, also a former IDF chief of general staff.

...The basic problem with Fortress Israel is that Tyler dismisses, or is simply unaware of, the pan-Arab desire to rid the Middle East of the Jewish state and its periodic efforts to do so. According to Tyler, Israel alone is to blame for the wars, for the absence of peace, for the hopelessness. Thus, he fails completely to deal with the 1948 War, about which all acknowledge that the Arabs—first the Palestinians and then the neighboring Arab states—were the aggressors; thus, he fails to come to grips with the very real Arab threats to Israel in 1956 and 1967 and, indeed, ever since. He pooh-poohs Saddam Hussein’s effort to achieve nuclear weaponry in the early 1980s and writes off Israel’s destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor outside Baghdad in 1981 as merely “a new phase of [Israeli] militarism.”

Indeed, Tyler kicks off the book with a description of how, in 2011-2012, Israeli agents “murdered” two top Iranian nuclear scientists on the streets of Tehran. “The astonishing thing,” Tyler writes, “was that Iran might not have been engaged in clandestine nuclear weapons development at all.” Rather, Israel’s “highly provocative” killing of the scientists pushed Iran into pursuing, or resuming the pursuit of, nuclear weaponry. All of this flies in the face of what almost all the world’s intelligence agencies believe, which is that Iran aims to build nuclear weapons and has been trying to do so for more than two decades.

...Tyler’s purpose in writing this book was not to offer his readers an honest history, it was to blacken Israel’s image. Fortress Israel is just the latest in a spate of venomous perversions of the record that have appeared in the past few years in the United States and Britain, all clearly designed to subvert Israel’s standing in the world. Deliberately or not, such books and articles are paving the way for a future abandonment of the Jewish state.

(h/t Mel)

Khaybar update: Press Release issued, petitions being delivered today, Arab media notices

I created this press release today:

You can still sign the petition, because all comments get emailed to HRW and Amnesty. There are over 1100 signatures and 250 comments, including from places like Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco!

The Call to Action and supporting materials can be seen in this document:

Egyptian website Rassd reported on the Zionist Organization of America's condemnation of the series and their call for President Obama to pressure Egypt's president to have it stopped.

(Special thanks to Dian for delivering the petitions and working so hard on this material. All during her vacation in New York!)

6/25 Links Part 1: Palestinians Say "No Jews Allowed!" and How Hamas Lost the Arab Spring

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: "No Jews Allowed!"

"We will approve the meeting on condition there are no Jews."
This is what you are likely to hear these days if you request a meeting with any senior Palestinian Authority official in the West Bank.
Palestinian journalists who try to arrange meetings or interviews with Palestinian Authority representatives for Western colleagues have become used to hearing such things almost on a daily basis.
Just last week, for example, a journalist who requested a meeting between Western journalists and a top Palestinian Authority official was told "to make sure there were no Jews or Israelis" among the visitors.
The official's aide went on to explain: "We are sorry, but we do not meet with Jews or Israelis."

Douglas Murray: In Syria, Let Them Fight It Out

There are many people around the world who would like to fight jihad, and there are many al Qaeda affiliate groups who clearly hate what Hezbollah are doing. So if it weren't for the consequences for civilians, shouldn't we simply encourage both sides to go at each other full-tilt? If al Qaeda and Hezbollah want to fight each other to the death, then the West ought to support them every step of the way—and our hope must be that they both lose. This is one intervention that the West would be mad to get involved in.

PM: 'My Policy is to Strike at Those Who Try to Attack Us'

Evoking the memory of his father, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Israel would defend itself in all circumstances, and act against Gaza terrorists who disrupt the daily life of Israelis with rocket attacks. “My policy is to strike at those who try to attack us. We will allow no 'trickles,' no 'accumulations.' This is how we will operate against both near and distant threats,” the Prime Minister said.

Tonge wrong on BBC bias

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has just sent one of the most bizarre campaign e-mails I've ever received.
I've written before on how anti-Israel campaigners are trying to push BBC bias against Israel further by pretending the Beeb is actually biased in favour of Israel, but disgraced Baroness Tonge's latest mailout really takes the biscuit.
She claims, "Challenging the bias and inaccuracy of the BBC is an integral part of PSC’s work," which gives a punch line to the wider claims in the e-mail that the BBC is inherently biased in favour of Israel.

BBC’s ‘last-first’ reporting keeps audience attention focused on Israel

Significantly, the BBC chooses not to trouble its audiences with the question of why the sleeping residents of Israeli towns should come under missile attack due to a confrontation between two terrorist organisations in a territory from which Israel disengaged eight years ago.
Instead, in line with its prevailing narrative, the BBC focuses its audiences’ attentions on the Israeli response to those attacks on its civilians through the use of omission, language and ‘last-first’ reporting.

BBC ignores executions in Gaza Strip

As we know, the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Yolande Knell was very busy last Saturday in Gaza preparing no fewer than four reports on the subject of a TV talent show. Obviously, that pressing task prevented her from getting round to informing BBC audiences of the fact that on the same day the ruling Hamas terrorist organization executed two men by hanging for ‘collaboration’.

How Hamas Lost the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring years have been surprisingly unkind to Hamas. The falling out with Iran is just one example. The Islamist group has failed to benefit from the rise of other Islamist governments across the region. Instead, the faction finds itself at a strange inflection point, with more ideological allies but few true alliances.

Hamas: Ousting Assad More Important than 'Liberating Palestine'

Ousting Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is more important than “liberating Palestine”, a senior member of the Hamas terror group has said, according to Arab affairs expert Dalit Halevi.
Abdel Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian Authority's parliament, told an Algerian newspaper in an interview that the very existence of the Assad regime is a knife in the heart of the Palestinian problem. Removing Assad, he claimed, will start the road to victory for Palestinian Authority Arabs.

Gaza Illustrates Palestinian Statehood

The main obstacle to peace remains the inability of Fatah to do what Hamas and Islamic Jihad will not consider: recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn and to renounce the so-called right of return that would swamp Israel with the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees. If they were ever able to do that and to convincingly promise that this ended the conflict rather than just pausing it, they’d find Israel ready to deal. After all, Israel has already offered the Palestinians a state three times only to find each one rejected. But so long as Palestinian independence is synonymous with terror groups and their infighting, Kerry will find few serious observers heeding his calls. Anyone who wants to know why Israelis are skeptical about a Palestinian state in the West Bank need only look at Gaza.

Dispute leaves wounded Syrians’ hospital bills unpaid

Israel has treated around 50 Syrians injured in the country’s civil war, but the question of how to pay the hospitals for their services remains uncertain, according to a Tuesday report.
Payment for emergency medical care in hospitals for non-citizens is generally provided through a Health Ministry fund. In the case of the Syrian wounded, the Health Ministry and the Defense Ministry have agreed with the hospitals to jointly fund the treatment.
With some NIS 3 million ($830,000) currently owed to hospitals in the north for services already rendered, though, the ministries have come to loggerheads over who will foot the bill, Maariv reported.

Top Iranian General Rejects Compromise With U.S.

Basij commander rejects compromise with US – Commander of Basij (Volunteer) Force said any compromise with Washington will repeat what happened in Afghanistan and Turkey. Today, the US is suffering from disgrace resulted from resistance of the Iranian nation and advocates of the Islamic Revolution in the entire world, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said while addressing a national gathering.

Egypt’s defense chief warns of military intervention if Morsi, opponents don’t reconcile

Egypt’s top ranking defense official warned Sunday that the military was “ready to intervene to stop the violence” ahead of scheduled mass protests to mark the one-year anniversary this week of Mohammed Morsi’s inauguration as Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
Defense Minister Abdel-Fatah el Sissi’s comments were the most forceful to date by a senior official of Egypt’s revered military in response to months of unrest and seemed to threaten the possibility of a military coup if protests lead to bloodshed or, as el Sissi described it, “uncontrollable conflict.”
El Sissi gave Morsi and his opponents a week to reconcile.

Gas Pipeline Sabotage, Egyptian Cutoff Cost Israel $187 M

Sabotage of the natural gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt’s willingness to buckle to terrorism cost the State of Israel $187 million (NIS 677 million) in 2012, a new report shows.
The Finance Ministry’s accountant general, Michal Abadi-Boiangiu, pointed out that the cutoff of Egyptian natural gas sales to Israel following repeated sabotage of the pipeline forced Israel to use more costly diesel fuel.

Turkey, Amid Islamization and Anti-Semitism, Fit for EU Membership?

Should Turkey be admitted to the EU? One can see how membership of the EU would boost the fortunes of those courageous Turks who have risked life and limb in their confrontation with Erdogan. Equally, the Europe that emerged after the Second World War cannot, by its very nature, tolerate the kind of government that has hospitalized more than 7,000 of its own citizens simply for exercising their right to peacefully protest. And it certainly cannot tolerate the kind of anti-Semitic agitation that brings to mind the worst excesses of the 1930s.

Emir of Qatar Abdicates, Hands Power to Son

Home to the Al Jazeera news network, Qatar was one of the first Gulf states to establish relations with Israel, but the relationship soured a few years later, when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead to silence the constant Gaza-based rocket fire terrorizing residents of southern Israel. The country has also allowed Hamas terrorists to established headquarters there in Doha and is also home to a U.S. military command center, with the longest runway in the Persian Gulf.

Report: Egypt won't allow El Al planes "offensive missile capabilities" to land

From the always amusing Middle East Monitor:

Egypt's Minister of Civil Aviation has said that Israeli passenger aircraft armed with offensive missiles will not be allowed to land at Cairo or other airports in the country. Engineer Wael El-Ma'dawi made his announcement after Israel's El Al Airline said that it plans to equip its aircraft with missiles to protect them from terrorist attacks.

In a press statement issued on Monday, the minister said, "This ban is not confined to Israeli aircraft but applies to all international airlines. Aircraft equipped with offensive missile capabilities will not be allowed to land in Egypt or enter Egyptian airspace." He did note, however, that aircraft armed with defensive missiles are different from those with offensive capabilities.

El Al suspended its flights to Egypt last year and has closed its office at Cairo International Airport. The move followed the drop in passenger numbers travelling between Israel and Egypt since the January 25 Revolution.

What are they talking about? Apparently, this:

Elbit Systems is presenting the newest member of the MUSIC Directional Infrared Countermeasure (DIRCM) systems at the 2013 Paris Airshow. Defense-Update reports.

The new, compact system dubbed ‘mini-MUSIC’ is designed to protect small rotary and fixed-wing aircraft against heat seeking Ground to Air Missiles (MANPADS) threats. In 2012 the company has demonstrated the C-MUSIC pod system in flight, mounted on a Boeing 707 flying testbed. More recently the system was installed on a Boeing 737 passenger jet to be used for type certification. The system has been selected for the Israeli national program for protection of Israel’s commercial fleet, installing MUSIC DIRCMs on Boeing B737, B747, B757, B767, B777 and Airbus A320 platforms. While all relevant aircraft will be fitted with the A-kit attachments, MUSIC DIRCM systems will be provided to those aircraft flying to high threat destinations or such locations reported to be high-risk, based on short-term assessments.

The proliferation of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, particularly with terrorist groups operation in Asia, Africa and Latin America has increased the demand for DIRCM, protection helicopters, medium and large transport planes, as well as VIP aircraft and heads of state transportation aircraft (VVIP). Several manufacturers are currently developing similar systems, including Northrop Grumman, Selex ES, BAE Systems and Raytheon – all developing lightweight DIRCM systems under the CIRCM . The Israeli system is considered the most mature of these systems.

...The system comprises a fiber-laser based DIRCM housed in a sealed turret for maximized reliability. A missile warning system provides the initial detection of incoming threats. When a threatening missile is detected, the warning is passed to the DIRCM that then directs a thermal tracker to acquire and track the threat. A powerful laser beam is then fired accurately at the missile causing it to be deflected away from the aircraft.

So the systems have no missiles! Egyptian authorities are so knowledgeable!

Previously, El Al has been using the Flight Guard which uses flares on some aircraft - and that is probably more dangerous.

(h/t JPMelamed)

Honest Reporting slideshow on photo bias

I used to spend a lot of time in this blog looking at photo bias in the media, not sure why I haven't done it lately.

But here is a good primer on the issue from Honest Reporting:

A lawyer rips Erekat to shreds

We've shown many times that PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat is a liar.

Here is a great article by lawyer Richard Horowitz that rips apart Erekat's claims at a recent conference that Israel is violating legal agreements in the Oslo framework:

On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3376creating the “UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,” and on May 20, 2013 it held its 352nd meeting, for which Saeb Erekat, Palestine’s chief negotiator with Israel, delivered the keynote address.

Erekat explained that the Palestinians will not resume negotiations with Israel, not because it has preconditions, but because Israel has to first satisfy its legal obligations.

“We have no conditions to resume negotiations. When we say Israel must stop settlement activity, this is not a condition, this is an Israeli obligation, emanating Article 31 the final clauses of the Interim Agreement 1995 and the Roadmap which specified stopping settlement activities including natural growth as an obligation on Israel.

When we speak about releasing prisoners, especially those who were arrested before the end of May 1994, we also stipulate Article 3 to the Sharm el Sheik Agreement of 1999; that’s an agreement signed with Israel.

And when we say two-state solution of 1967 the Roadmap specified that the objective of the peace process is to end the occupation that began in 1967. So Israel in its blame-game and finger pointing that we put conditions. Ladies and gentlemen, these are not conditions, these are Israeli obligations.”

A review of the documents Erekat cites shows no such Israeli obligations. Article 31 of the Interim Agreement of 1995 signed by both parties contains no requirement for Israel to cease settlement activity. This interim agreement mentions settlements only in the context of issues that will be determined through “permanent status negotiations,” along, for example, with Jerusalem, borders, and refugees (Article 31(5). These issues, including settlements, are again listed in Article 17(1)(a) as “issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations.”

Erekat ignores paragraph six of Article 31, “neither party shall be deemed, by virtue of having entered into this Agreement, to have renounced or waived any of its existing rights, claims, or positions,” and paragraph seven, “neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations,” as the Palestinians did by presenting the issue of its statehood before the Security Council and General Assembly.

Erekat also relies on the 2003 Roadmap as proof of Israel’s obligation to “freeze[s] all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements),” as the document states. The Roadmap, however, is neither an agreement nor in any way a legally binding document. It is a recommendation proposed by the Quartet to the parties bearing no legal authority, similar to UN General Assembly resolutions, which are non-binding. For example, General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, a non-binding recommendation, “call[ed] upon the inhabitants of Palestine to take such steps as may be necessary on their part to put this plan into effect,” meaning “independent Arab and Jewish States … shall come into existence in Palestine,” soon after the expiration of the Mandate for Palestine in May 1948, created by the League of Nations in 1922. This resolution was accepted only by Palestine’s Jewish community, which declared Israel’s independence in May 1948, not its Arab community.

The second Israeli obligation Erekat claims is that Article 3 of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum (Erekat referred to this document as an agreement), also signed by both parties, requires Israel to release all Palestinian prisoners by stating that the article applies to “especially those who were arrested before the end of 1994.” Article 3 however, states that “Israel shall release Palestinian and other prisoners who committed their offences prior to September 13, 1993, and were arrested prior to May 4, 1994,” meaning the article refers onlyand not especially to prisoners in this category. Erekat ignored the implication of Israeli and Palestinian negotiations, pursuant to Article 3 of the Memorandum, which stated, “the two Sides shall establish a joint committee that shall follow up on matters related to the release of Palestinian prisoners.” The joint committee met numerous times to negotiate the prisoner release issue, with Erekat playing a leading role.

To prove Israel’s third obligation, to return to the 1967 line in order to create the two-state solution, Erekat again cited the Roadmap, which does state, “the settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967.” As stated the Roadmap is a recommendation by the Quartet to the parties and not a binding legal document. As such, the Roadmap cannot create obligations on either party; rather, this language provides historical perspective. Moreover, that the issue of borders is included in the Interim Agreement of 1995 as a matter for final status negotiations negates the argument that a return to the 1967 line is an Israeli obligation. In fact, theSecurity Council Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967 submitted by UK ambassador, Lord Caradon, spoke of the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” and intentionally omitted the word "the" preceding the word terroritories, indicating the resolution did not have the intention of withdrawal from all territories.

The implication of Erekat’s claim that a return to the 1967 line is an Israeli legal obligation and not a Palestinian condition to resume negotiations becomes evident when he stated, “we have also entertained that if Israel accepts two states on 1967, and Palestine becomes independent we are willing to entertain the idea of minor modifications.” Erekat in effect is saying that only after Palestine achieves statehood on the 1967 line will it entertain minor modifications on its sovereign land.

The parties agreed in the Interim Agreement of 1995 that settlements, refugees, and borders are to be left for final status negotiations, which will not occur if the Palestinians consider these issues unsatisfied Israeli legal obligations.

You literally cannot trust anything that comes out of Erekat's mouth.

(h/t Lauri)

Egypt will run out of strategic fuel reserves within a week (updated)

From Al Ahram last Friday 6/21:

Egypt's strategic reserves of three vital fuel products will run out by end of this month, Turkish news agency Anadulo reported on Thursday, citing Petroleum Minister Sherif Haddara.

According to Haddara, Egypt has enough diesel fuel to last eight days, butane enough for ten days and petrol enough for 14 days.

Ministry officials declined to comment on the Anadolu report when contacted by Ahram Online.

The news agency stated that the government was currently providing the nation's gas stations with 18,000 tonnes of octane per day and 37,000 tonnes of diesel fuel, while also providing the country's power stations with 23,000 tonnes of low-quality mazut fuel.

In recent weeks and months, Egypt has seen a spate of intermittent power blackouts, which government officials have attributed to chronic fuel shortages.

Haddara said that the current fuel quantities were meant to meet national demand, attributing ongoing shortages to hoarding and smuggling activities.

Former petroleum minister Osama Kamal recently estimated that smuggling and black market activity accounted for as much as 20 percent of all fuel the ministry provides to the local market.

He also blamed bad public energy-consumption habits. "Fuel isn't consumed rationally because it's sold at very cheap prices," he said.

According to Anadolu, the Egyptian government has requested a $265 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank to finance the import of diesel in the first quarter of 2013/14.

The news website of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party quoted Supply Minister Bassem Ouda on Thursday as saying that the state's current reserves of diesel fuel were "sufficient."

In August, the government intends to introduce a smart-card fuel allocation system aimed at reducing energy subsidies. The new system will allow consumers to purchase limited amounts of subsidised fuel, beyond which they will have to pay market prices.

Daily News Egypt adds:

According to Reuters, Egypt, which owes more than $5 billion to fuel suppliers, has shifted to large Swiss trading houses after small firms stopped delivering to the financially crippled nation, fearing that it will fail to pay.

The Egyptian government has been struggling with a shortage of fuel, a predicament symptomatic of an ailing economy stuck in a downward spiral since the revolution in 2011. While some attribute this crisis, which has hit the country’s industrial sector, power plants and fuel stations, to smugglers and bootleg markets, the American Chamber of Commerce said it’s the result of “the government’s recent inability to pay its fuel suppliers.”

Litasco, Glencore, Gunvor, Trafigura, Vitol and Mercuria are currently Egypt’s main suppliers; smaller firms such as BB Energy, AOT Trading, Eminent, Augusta and Sahara have stopped selling it fuel, Reuters reported earlier this week.

Egypt is doomed.

(h/t Missing Peace)

UPDATE: Commenter Niklas points to this new video on YouTube showing a line to get fuel in Egypt that takes over four minutes to drive past:

Hamas now preventing its own people from leaving Gaza!

Whose siege is it anyway?

From the virulently anti-Israel IMEMC site:

Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip have reported that the Hamas government in the coastal region prevented Mahmoud Zahar, one of the political leaders of Hamas, from travelling, as he and a delegation he heads were trying to cross into Egypt on their way to Lebanon and Iran.

The sources said that Zahar, and 22 Hamas officials, were stopped by the Palestinian Security Forces of Hamas at the Palestinian side of the Rafah Border terminal between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the Radio Bethlehem 2000 have reported.

Zahar wanted to visit Iran to congratulate the new president-elect, Hasan Rohani.

Last week, the Political Bureau of the Hamas movement issued a statement “demanding the Lebanon-based Hezbollah party to withdraw its fighters from Syria”.

Zahar said that the statement was not issued by the Hamas movement in Gaza, and added that the Hamas leadership in exile, led by Khaled Mashal, was behind it.

This is so great on so many levels.

It shows that Hamas infighting is reaching a new peak.

It shows that Hamas is the party that is controlling entry and exit from Gaza, not Israel.

It shows that the "siege" is enforced by none other than Hamas!

Right now in Gaza we have Hamas vs. Salafists, Hamas vs. Islamic Jihad, Hamas vs. the PFLP, Hamas vs. Fatah, and now pro-Iran Hamas vs. pro-Al Qaeda Hamas.

"Pro-Gaza" activists must be very confused, not knowing which branch of a murderous terror organization to back in this intra-Hamas spat. Their anti-Israel message is being drowned out by the infighting.

(Not to mention their sputtering anger at the "Zionist" World War Z movie. )

(h/t Jonathan Schanzer)

6/24 Links Part 2: Boycott Turkey!, 75th Anniversary of Kindertransport and the Intel-Israeli Tablet

From Ian:

A modest proposal for a new ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ campaign

There is a country in the Middle East which makes a great play of being a democracy and about espousing Western ideals regarding human rights, and is forever bragging how different this makes it to its despotic Arab neighbours. But this self-same Middle Eastern country for decades now has been occupying the lands of one of its neighbours and conducting apartheid-like discrimination against its internal minority community. Its charismatic right-wing leader has one message for its close ally the United States and for the EU, with which it seeks closer ties, but quite another for its internal allies.
Isn’t it time this so-called democracy was held to account, and was made to face up to its hypocrisy? Isn’t it time the international community as a whole, and the International Solidarity Movement in particular, launched a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Turkey?

Neturei Karta Rabbi Attacked in Amsterdam

A friend of the rabbi told Channel 2, "As he was walking down the street, a car stopped next to him, and a man who appeared to be a Muslim immigrant came out. The immigrant started shouting anti-Jewish slurs at the rabbi. Rabbi Antebi is anti-Zionist, he does not advocate for war in the Middle East but he was identified as a Zionist. The Muslim started yelling at him and threatening him, and the rabbi noticed that the immigrant was going to attack him."

Jewish Groups Slam Belgian Paper Over 'Demonization'

Prince Laurent visited Israel last week as part of a delegation sponsored by the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF). He received a diploma for his initiatives in the sector of environment and planted a tree in the "Forest of Belgium" near Jerusalem.
However, the visit sparked controversy in Belgium. In the article in Le Soir, KKL is described as "a Zionist group which is subject to criticism for exploiting the villages deserted by the Palestinians.”

Vatican newspaper defends ‘Italian Schindler’

The semi-official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano hit back Sunday at allegations that Italian police official and purported Holocaust rescuer Giovanni Palatucci was in fact a Nazi collaborator.
Palatucci, known as “the Italian Schindler,” has long been credited with saving thousands of Jews during the Holocaust while serving in the police department in the city of Fiume, and was designated by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

On 75th Anniversary, New Book Recounts a Father-Son Kindertransport Correspondence

A series of events are being hosted by, among others, former British Secretary of State David Milliband and the Prince of Wales, over the next two days in England to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the “kindertransport”—a clandestine program, enacted in the months preceding the Second World War, meant to save Jewish children. Thousands of children were whisked from near certain death at the hands of the Nazis and granted refuge in England.
Among the attendees at the events will be Henry Foner, nee Heini Lichtwitz, a benefactor of the program whose correspondence with his father during and following the “kindertransport” has now been published by Yad Vashem.

Surprise new UK trade minister is committed Jew, thinks Israel’s ‘amazing’

Livingston, 48, is one of Britain’s most visible business leaders, widely credited with steering telecom giant BT (formerly British Telecom) through the global downturn as its chief executive. Wednesday’s announcement of his departure from the company, which will take effect in September, immediately wiped £400 million ($618 million) off its market value.

Cybersecurity projects next on Israel-India agenda

To enhance that cooperation, Dharmadhikari organized a cybersecurity conference at Tel Aviv University. Held in the framework of the last month’s International Cybersecurity Conference of Tel Aviv University’s Yuval Ne’eman Workshop, Dharmadhikari’s event, called India-Israel Cybersecurity Connect, featured speakers from Israeli and Indian tech companies, as well as diplomats and cybersecurity experts

Shikun and Binui unit wins $580m Nigeria road contract

Shikun & Binui Holdings Ltd. (TASE: SKBN) subsidiary Solel Boneh International Infrastructures Ltd. has won a $580 million Nigerian government tender to rebuild and widen a section of the Ibadan-Lagos highway in southwest Nigeria.
Solel Boneh will rebuild an 84-kilometer section of the highway between Ibadan and Shagamu, widen the road, improve drainage, rebuild and maintain 14 bridges and overpasses to adapt it to current traffic. Payment for the project will made during the work.

6 Israeli Startups To Watch As Google Reportedly Buys Waze For $1.3 Billion

Now that Google has reportedly agreed to buy Israeli crowd-powered navigation app Waze for $1.3 billion, many other “Silicon Wadi” startups are daring to dream big. Below are six that could potentially follow in Waze’s footsteps.

TAU, Technion to offer free online courses

Tel Aviv University and the Technion announced on Sunday their partnership with the international education company Coursera, which provides free online courses.
The two institutions will soon offer especially developed classes in four study areas – including engineering, archeology, biology and cultural studies – on the company’s website.

Samsung’s new iPad challengers have ‘Intel Israel’ inside

Intel may have started out behind the eight ball in the tablet market, but Intel Israel’s team has helped the company catch up – in a hurry, said one of the company’s top engineers. Aviad Hevrony, the front end design manager for Intel Israel’s Cloverview team, Told the Times of Israel that Intel HQ counted on the 100-strong Israeli team to come up with a system on a chip (SoC) design that could be used in a lightweight tablet/convertible device — allowing use as a standard tablet, or attaching it to a keyboard for laptop-style use.

Jews wanting to pray on their holiest site are branded "ultra rightist" by Reuters

Reuters published their latest article on the Temple Mount and it is just as bad as all the previous ones.

In this case, Reuters is hell-bent to describe any Jews who want to worship on their holiest site as crazed right-wing fanatics, while Muslims who want to ban Jews from their holiest site are simply reasonable people.

Look how many times Jews simply wanting to pray are given adjectives, while Arab rioters and those against freedom of worship are given no monikers whatsoever.

The headline says it all:

Far-right Israelis stir tensions over Jerusalem holy site

Far-right Israelis are pressing for an end to an effective ban on holding Jewish prayers at a Jerusalem holy compound once dominated by Biblical temples and now home to al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's most revered sites.

Palestinians (not right wing - but just "Palestinians") oppose Jewish worship at the vast stone plaza overlooking Judaism's Western Wall as a potential threat to access for Muslims.

...Israeli police accompany most visitors to the compound, where escorted tours are held frequently. They cross a wooden bridge to a gate where plastic police shields and other riot-control gear are stored, a ready display of how quickly the otherwise serene atmosphere can sometimes go awry. [And who does the rioting? Not the "far-right" visitors!]

Visitors are closely watched by both the police and the Muslim religious officials of the Waqf who administer the compound and keep an eye out to make sure no Jewish worship takes place. Anyone wearing Jewish religious garb is generally kept away from the Islamic holy tract. [Whoops, it is no longer a Jewish holy site.]

At the compound, one group of visitors walked past al-Aqsa, drawing shouting from Muslim women [not right wing fanatic Muslim women] sitting in the shade of tree and from Palestinian children attending a day camp. They ignored the catcalls and continued deeper into the plaza.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has denounced the Israeli visits as a part of a "dangerous and an evil plot to demolish al-Aqsa" and build what he calls "an alleged temple". [Not "right wing bigot Mahmoud Abbas, who is against the right of Jews to worship."]
...
In 2000, Palestinian protests over a visit to the site by then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon spiraled into deadly clashes and a five-year Palestinian uprising in which thousands died. [The riots were pre-planned but Reuters still wants to make it look like Sharon instigated them.]

Also in May, Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel, a Jewish settler in the occupied West Bank who is from the far-right Jewish Home Party, said in a largely tongue-in-cheek remark in parliament that he would "definitely be happy" to be assigned the job of rebuilding a new holy temple.

While some Jewish zealots advocate such construction, such a project has never been on the agenda of Israeli governments.

However, one member of Netanyahu's Likud party, legislator Tzipi Hotovely, visited the compound on the eve of her wedding last month. She said her pilgrimage was symbolic of a historic yearning "to rebuild on the ruins of Jerusalem". A Likud colleague, Miri Regev, has said the site should be shared between Islam and Judaism so that Jews could pray there openly.

Israeli police have barred further visits by another Likud lawmaker, Moshe Feiglin, an ultra-rightist who has been arrested in the past for what police said were attempts to worship on the plaza. Officials said they feared Feiglin's presence could stir violent Palestinian protests. [Jews praying are "ultra-rightist" but rioters get no adjectives whatsoever.]

Most of those campaigning for Jewish prayer in the compound represent a far-right minority, but many Muslims "see a provocation, and blame the (Israeli) government, so we have a big problem", said Israeli political scientist Yitzhak Reiter. [Again, "regular" Muslims against a "far-right" minority, whose freedom of religion just happens to be compromised by the "normal" Muslims.]

A new synagogue opens in Morocco (updated)

I don't have a translation, but this story of a new synagogue being dedicated in Salé, Morocco is apparently being covered quite nicely in the Moroccan media:

The comments on the story do have some antisemitic elements, though, with some mention of "sons of monkeys and pigs" and some noises that Morocco is helping Jews while abandoning Islam.

The good news is that the remaining Moroccan Jewish community, reportedly numbering about 5000, appears to be vibrant and surprisingly young, unless the younger people were imported for the occasion.

UPDATE: Bataween of the Jewish Refugees blogspot believes that this is about the annual pilgrimage or Hiloula to the tomb of the venerated rabbi Raphael Encaoua at Sale a couple of weeks ago. Makes sense because the younger people are French pilgrims.

Zvi's #BDSFail roundup

From Zvi:

Emina Ibrahim speech against BDS at British UNISON Union Conference

We should be supporting progressive forces in Israel, not boycotting them

She calls upon British trade unions to reengage with the Histadrut.

It is also an irony that the Histadrut is now being ignored when it has a history of achieving free democratic trade unionism and last year alone it negotiated a seven per cent pay rise for all public sector workers over two years. I repeat conference seven per cent! Not the derisory one per cent we have on the table. The Israeli trade unions have also managed to secure recognition and bargaining rights at IKEA and McDonald’s, notorious anti-trade union multinationals.We should be learning lessons – they have something to offer us and we have something to offer them. This must include playing a constructive and facilitative role in bringing together Palestinian and Israeli workers in the spirit of workers solidarity.Ibrahim is a devoted leftist and clearly not a supporter of the Israeli government. But she seems to be one of those devoted leftists who is at least - seemingly very rare, nowadays - free of anti-Semitism.We cannot continue to obstruct the ability of our fellow workers in the Middle East to work together toward a just and progressive peace in the region which ensures justice for Palestine and security for Israel.Our message from Unison Conference 2013 must be a message of hope, that we want them to and are willing to help them to work together. We must also send a message of support in their struggle on both sides for fair and just labour rights and ultimately a fair and just solution.

It's a shame that she doesn't know how corrupt and enslaved to kleptocratic/terrorist Fatah the Palestinian "labor" movement is. It's a shame that she doesn't get that "justice" for Palestinians, translated into the language of Palestinian society, means the genocidal obliteration of Jews.

But if she doesn't know as much as she probably should, at least her heart seems to be in a pretty good place. That is so rare, these days, among British leftists who talk about Israel.

#BDSFail:

French Green Party visits Israel

"Until recently it was common to obey the unwritten orders of pro-Palestinian groups and not talk to the Israeli side, but I think that's totally illogical," Place said. "The Israeli left is also very pleased with our visit."

(Their positions are still naive in various ways. I mostly posted this because of the statement by Mr. Place; in so few words, Mr. Place manages to speak volumes about what has been going on among leftists in the west).

#BDSFail:

Cyprus signs Liquified Natural Gas Plant Deal with Israel

Actually, with Israeli companies. Still #BDSFail.

#BDSFail:

Georgia PM dreams of strategic relationship with Israel

#BDSFail:

India Seeks Water Management Lessons From Israel

Last week, a delegation of 16 high-ranking Indian officials of the water authorities of Rajasthan, Karnataka, Goa and Haryana arrived in Israel for a seven-day visit.

#BDSFail:

Israel's Blue Water Technologies offers Clean Water Solutions to China

#BDSFail

Israel, Colombia sign free trade agreement

#BDSEchoesAntiSemitism

BDS is a recast version of the Arab Boycott of Israel, which itself is a recast version of the Nazi boycotts of the Jews.

Major antisemitic attack ignored by police in Belgium

From EJP:

Police in the Belgian town of Artselaar, near Antwerp, have ignored and minimized a grave anti-Semitic attack, said the lawyer of a Jewish women and her friend who last month were hospitalized after being brutally beaten by racist neighbors.

In a conversation with Jewish magazine Joods Actueel in Antwerp, lawyer Mischael Modrikamen called for an investigation by a parliament committee monitoring police activities and urged the Interior Minister to react to this incident.

Problems started after Ruth Sverdloff, a former Israeli tennis champion, and her Flemish girlfriend, Cindy Meul, took up residence in a building in Aartselaar beginning of May. The next day Ruth put a mezuzah (a parchment prayer tube affixed on the door of every Jewish home) to the door of the apartment.

From then on, they were constantly harassed by neighbors yelling every night. “They banged on the walls and shouted the most horrific anti-Semitic slogans," said Cindy Meul, like "stinking Jews", "we do not want Jews in this building" or "Jews should fuck off."

Police were called but nothing changed. "I had to send my daughter to her grandparents because the child was too scared to stay here any longer," said Ruth.

The situation escalated after two neighbors invaded the apartment on May 24 and beat Cindy Meul, [while yelling "We're here to finish what the Nazis started"] who at that time was alone at home, leaving her bleeding profusely.

The unfortunate woman was taken to hospital with a broken nose and several bruises. She was treated for two weeks.

According to Joods Actueel, the situation was really ‘’hallucinating’’ when it appeared that the police in Artselaar decided to dismiss the case as "unimportant."

‘’When the ambulance took Cindy Meul at hospital, she saw a policewoman laughing and chatting with the aggressors,” Modrikamen told the Jewish magazine.

When Ruth Sverdloff made her complaint to police, she was reportedly told by a police officer: "This is Flanders and you must speak Flemish," because she spoke English.

Only after Joods Actueel and the Israeli TV made the case public, the two victimes were questioned by police and a report was written, one month after the aggression.

(h/t Rudi)

6/24 Links Part 1: Diplomatic Chess with Iran, Russia Rearming Iran, Hezbollah in Germany.

From Ian:

Checkmate Iran

I have no doubt that The Black King (Ayatollah) will eventually place itself in a position of being Checkmated by White (Israel) because despite all the smoke and mirrors it is clear that President elect Rohani will not be able to enact nuclear reforms while still ensuring that he has the support of Iran’s supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is the ultimate decision maker who has adopted a consistently hard line on the nuclear issue. Israel can Checkmate Iran through accurate information and diplomacy. However it may also need to remove many Black pieces from the board in order to do so, analogous to limited military actions.

Isi Leibler: Tea-time in Tehran

The challenge facing the West is no less critical than the battles fought to prevent Nazism and communism from achieving global domination. Democracies led by the U.S. must devise a realistic strategy including the option of employing force, to deter terror and efforts to undermine our social and democratic order.
This is no time for "hoping for the best." It is a time for facing reality.

Report: Russia Offers Iran Alternative to S-300 Missile System

Russia is attempting to avoid a multi-billion dollar lawsuit from Iran over a failed deal to supply S-300 missile systems by offering an alternative defense system, the Russian Kommersant daily reported Saturday.
The newspaper, citing unnamed sources in the Russian arms trade industry, said the new offer on the table is for the Antei-2500, aka S-300VM. The missile defense system can simultaneously destroy up to 24 aircraft within a range of 200 kilometers or intercept up to 16 ballistic missiles.

Harriet Sherwood characterizes Hamas as a “conservative” group

Whilst in previous reports Sherwood has described Hamas a ”militant Islamic group” or an “Islamist group”, her recent work suggests movement towards such shameful moral inversions, by which Jews living on the ‘wrong’ side of the green line are “extremists”, while a radical Islamist movement whose leaders have openly called for genocide against Jews are merely “conservative”.
As we’ve noted on many occasions, one of the more disturbing elements of the Guardian Left ideology is this increasing tendency to grotesquely distort ordinary language in an attempt to shape political reality. It’s difficult to overstate the political toxicity of such activist journalism, which attempts to convince the public that a movement advancing a reactionary racist, violent ideology should arguably evoke greater moral sympathy than the Jews who represent the object of their malign fixation.

The Curious Case of the Israeli Ku Klux Klan Photo

With no accompanying caption, the most obvious conclusion that can be drawn by the average reader is some sort of connection between Israel and the racists of the Ku Klux Klan, something that could not be further from the truth.
When we traced the photo, the truth was surprising. Available from iStockphoto and Shutterstock image sites, the image was captioned:
Tel Aviv, Israel – December 9, 2011: Israeli activists dress as KKK members to satirize right-wing Israeli policies and politicians during in the annual human rights march in Tel Aviv.

BBC continues to ignore majority of attacks on Israeli civilians

Back in April the BBC claimed that attacks on civilians in Judea & Samaria “are rare”, later revising the statement to read “fatal attacks on settlers are rare”. We are all aware of the old journalistic adage “if it bleeds it leads”, but the BBC seems to have taken that several steps further by totally ignoring the vast majority of violent attacks directed at Israeli civilians.

Large Scale Swoop on Terrorists in Judea, Samaria

The operation involved about 200 Border Police under the command of Brig. Gen. Uzi Levi, and was fully coordinated with the IDF 's Judea and Samaria Division.
The police said that the suspects have already admitted to dozens of incidents in which they hurled rocks at security forces. In addition, the suspects have incriminated other people and more arrests can be expected.
The wave of arrests was mostly in response to an increase in the audacity of the terrorists, who began using improvised explosive charges and fire bombs against the security forces, said Brig. Gen. Levi.

In upside-down Gaza, rockets fired at Israel actually aim to hurt Hamas

The various Palestinian groups, including Islamic Jihad, didn’t even attempt to claim that the “Zionist enemy” was responsible for the current deterioration. The shooting is rooted in an internal Palestinian incident whose exact circumstances are unclear. What we do know is that a senior Islamic Jihad official was shot to death, apparently by Hamas policemen. The Jihad decided to “avenge” his death by attacking a very sensitive spot for Hamas these days — the ceasefire with Israel.

Israel hits Gaza targets in response to rocket fire

Two weapons storage facilities and a rocket-launching site in Gaza were targeted by the Israeli Air Force in the early hours of Monday morning, the IDF Spokesperson’s office said, after at least six rockets were launched from the Strip into southern Israel late Sunday night and early Monday.
“The IDF will not tolerate attempts to harm Israeli citizens, and our soldiers will continue to act against anyone who engages in terror against the State of Israel. The Hamas terror organization is held responsible,” the IDF said in a statement.

German mosque groups raising funds for Hezbollah

Hezbollah has long used German territory to raise funds for the families of suicide bombers involved in killing Israelis. A 2009 report from the European Foundation for Democracy titled “Hezbollah’s Fund-raising Organization in Germany” revealed that the Orphans Project Lebanon, based in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, is “the German branch of a Hezbollah suborganization” that “promotes suicide bombings” and aims to destroy Israel.