Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Infighting in Hamas

YNet reports:

For several days, Hamas forces stationed near the security fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel to prevent rocket fire on Israel were gone from their posts; behind the scenes, a drama unfolded in the strip.

Last weekend, the rocket prevention forces – deployed to deter the numerous factions in Gaza from undoing the relative calm between Israel and Hamas – withdrew from their positions, returning to their posts on Tuesday morning.

Palestinian sources said that the matter was not one of tactical indecision, but internal disagreements regarding the proper response to IDF operations. A document obtained by Ynet confirmed that in the end, the moderate elements prevailed.

The affair began Thursday night, when the Israeli Air Force attacked three Gaza Strip targets belonging to the military wing of Hamas. Some of the targets held large reserves of rockets, which were destroyed in the attack.

The following day, the military wing of Hamas announced a withdrawal of the forces along the security barrier. The forces, numbering around 900 soldiers, were posted two weeks ago to search passing vehicles in order to prevent additional rockets being fired on Israel.

The forces' withdrawal could only have one meaning: Hamas was preparing to launch rockets in response to the IDF attack – despite the decision of the political wing of Hamas. These insights were published Tuesday morning in the Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat; Palestinian sources confirmed the events to Ynet.

A security source said that the leadership of the military wing felt that it was losing its popular support in the public, especially given the criticism received by Islamic Jihad, who had called for shooting rockets towards Israel in response to IDF attacks.

He noted that the military leadership of Hamas did not want to be seen as a moderate entity that supports restraint and prevents a military response against Israel – fearing that such a position would weaken their standing next to Islamic Jihad.

However the intention of the military wing to attack caused a conflict between it and the political wing that required the involvement of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and the movement's political chief Khaled Meshaal.

The Palestinian sources said that Haniyeh sided with Meshaal and the two worked together to coax the military leadership away from its decision to respond with rocket fire. The two leaders worried that such a rocket barrage could lead to the collapse of the relative calm, and maybe even to IDF operations within the Gaza Strip.

The quick involvement of the political echelon bore fruit, and on Tuesday Hamas' Interior Ministry announced, that the forces were redeployed along the security barrier to maintain the peace.

The document was written on Saturday, less than a day after the first withdrawal. The letter is written to Abu Ubaidah al-Jarrah, the commander of the national security forces of Hamas, and emphasizes that aggressive action must be taken against anyone who attempts to launch rockets.

Hamas has already clarified that it is not interested in an escalation on the border. The terrorist organization sent such a message to Israel through Egypt after five rockets were fired at Ashkelon in January. That particular barrage led to a conference meeting of the numerous Palestinian factions, in which participants were told they must maintain restrain to prevent further Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The meeting ended with the understanding that all factions were committed to the restraint tactic, though that very night a rocket was fired from the Strip. Hamas was furious with the launchers, who most likely belonged to Islamic Jihad, and the movement announced that it will aggressively operate against anyone who tries to launch rockets towards Israel.

Ask any clueless "Middle East expert" what Israel needs to do to minimize rocket and other terror attacks:

1) Withdraw from territory
2) Negotiate a peace agreement
3) Maintain an uncompromising military posture that the Palestinian Arabs respect

The gap between the truth and the conventional wisdom is more like a canyon.

SodaStream CEO destroys Oxfam official on BBC

This is so great:

I also like when the clueless BBC host says that Judea and Samaria is "territory seized from another country." Which country was that, again? And were that country's claims on the West Bank legal under international law?

Another point that I've been noticing lately is that the Israel haters - and I'm including the Oxfam representative here - purposely conflate "settlements" with Area C. The two are not identical. Settlements take up perhaps 4% of Area C, which, as Birnbaum points out, is administered by Israel under existing agreements with the PA.

The disingenuous statement of Oxfam that it is not against Israel is also fairly bogus, because it funds many organizations that advocate a total boycott of Israel. It has an "ambassador" who also advocates BDS.

If Oxfam supports Israel's right to exist as much as it opposes the "settlements" then it should distance itself from Desmond Tutu as much as it distanced itself from Scarlett Johansson. Yet - it wouldn't ever do that. Which speaks volumes as to how much it believes that Israel is legitimate within the "1967 lines."

The video, however, is priceless.

02/04 Links Pt2: Wiesel- People are no longer ashamed to be anti-Semites; A PA BDS Fail

From Ian:

Elie Wiesel: People are no longer ashamed to be anti-Semites

"The Holocaust is a unique event, but it has a universal significance which must be memorized incessantly," he says, voicing concerns over the temptation of Iran's nuclear ability and the civil war in Syria, which has already claimed a price of 150,000 deaths. And the world is silent.
The unstoppable conversation between us has been going on for several years now, but the murky wave of anti-Semitism sweeping over the Western world, as well as Eastern Europe (with the recent incidents in Hungary and Ukraine), are fresh and extract statements with despair running through them.
"Unfortunately, anti-Semitism still exists," Wiesel says. "It has been alive for more than 2,000 years, and will likely continue living. I thought that the memory of the Holocaust would shame those boasting anti-Semitic opinions. I was wrong. It still exists in different countries, and it seems people are no longer ashamed to be anti-Semitic."

At SodaStream, Palestinians hope their bubble won’t burst

“There are no job opportunities in the West Bank,” Fares told The Times of Israel. “Even the jobs that do exist pay no more than NIS 1,500-2,000 ($430-570) a month.” Fares now earns triple those sums.
Many educated women like Fares were forced to seek work outside the home following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 to support the household as the Palestinian economy collapsed, she explained.
Fares’s husband, a first lieutenant in the Palestinians’ prestigious Preventive Security Force, earns NIS 2,000 ($570) per month after 10 years of service.

PA Report: Palestinians Prefer to Buy 'Blue and White'

Last month, BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) activists slammed Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas for not joining in with them to boycott Israel – and on Monday, the PA revealed just how uninvolved it was in the BDS movement. According to a PA report, 70% of the PA's imports were from Israel, with imports worth $3.5 billion entering the Authority from Israel.
It should be noted that Israel generally does not restrict imports of consumer goods to the PA, and that Israeli goods compete on Palestinian store shelves with goods from Arab countries and Europe as well as from the PA. Rather, it is the Palestinian consumer who is driving the push for Israeli goods in the PA, Palestinian merchants said. (h/t Bob Knot)

Financial Times has a meltdown over SodaStream model of co-existence

First, the SodaStream factory is located in an industrial park within greater Ma’ale Adumim and, even according to Peace Now, only 0.5% of the settlement territory was built on Palestinian land. Additionally, while the fate of the disputed territory will be decided by negotiations between the two parties, it’s important to note that Ehud Olmert’s generous offer to Mahmoud Abbas in 2008, which included a contiguous Palestinian State in 93% of the West Bank, included Ma’ale Adumim as part of Israel.
Further, the phrase “Arab East Jerusalem” is of course a misnomer, as the only time “East Jerusalem” was ‘Arab’ (that is, 100% Jew-free) and separated arbitrarily between “East” and “West” in its entire history was between 1949 and 1967, the short period when Jordan controlled that part of the city (after expelling all the Jews).

AP badly misrepresents Israel's role in Gaza exports

From AP:

Gaza farmers have begun growing mint, basil and coriander, saying such herbs can serve as a remedy for some of the blockaded Palestinian territory's economic woes.

Looking for blockade loopholes, five Gaza farmers began growing herbs a year ago, most in greenhouses on land where Jewish settlers used to raise the same crops until Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. "The motive ... was to find new products that we can grow here in Gaza and that return a good income and can employ more people," said farmer Jamal Abu Naja, 47.

...Some argue that cultivating fresh herbs makes more sense economically because they require less water, grow more quickly, cost less to ship and are always in high demand.

"This can elevate the Gaza economy," said Mohammed Abu Ouda, an expert in agricultural development.

Even if herbs offer a new opportunity, Israel's export policies make it harder for Gaza farmers to make a profit.

AP makes it sound like enterprising Gaza farmers, within the past year, have found a way to get around those evil Israeli restrictions on exports, and their success is in spite of Israel's desires to keep them poor and destitute.

Let's see what the IDF's COGAT unit had to say about the first spice export in 2012:

In addition to the usual exported agricultural goods- peppers, a variety of tomatoes, strawberries and flowers, for the very first time, Gaza farmers are exporting spices.

This represents a significant accomplishment for Gaza farmers and merchants, as the average revenue per spice truck is roughly 40,000 NIS, compared with approximately 25,000 NIS per truck with other produce.

The entire project was initiated by the ICLA Gaza [Israeli Coordination & Liaison Administration] and coordinated with the Khan Younis Association and the Arava Export Growers as part of the continuous support for agricultural development in the Gaza Strip.

Farmers in Gaza were given tutorials on how to grow spices and they were then provided the seedlings from Israel. This morning, Sunday, 21 October 2012, the inaugural export through Kerem Shalom proved a success. Special arrangements at the crossing were made to accommodate the needs of the exported spices, including capabilities to perform refrigerated quality and security inspections.

Spice exports from Gaza was Israel's idea! From conception through training through giving the seeds and working with the Gaza farmers on export requirements, everything was initiated by Israel!

AP's misinformation don't end there:

Israel only permits the farmers to export abroad, but not to Israel and the West Bank, traditionally Gaza's main markets. Gaza's agricultural exports are trucked through Israel to Jordan and from there flown to far-flung destinations, including Europe, the United States and Russia.

No. Most of the exports go through Israel's port in Ashdod, sometimes they are flown out of Ben Gurion airport, and sometimes they go through Jordan - whichever makes economic sense. So exports of produce to Saudi Arabia probably go through Jordan, but most of the exports to Europe and the US go through Ashdod.

It is also interesting that in an article about how supposedly difficult it is to export through Israel, for some reason, no one seems to ask about why Gazans can't export goods to or via Egypt.

Do you think that AP's Ibrahim Barzak has a bias?

(Information verified with COGAT)

Arab American group takes credit for Coke "It's Beautiful" Super Bowl commercial

Last year, Coke gave out this teaser for their Super Bowl ad:

Arabs were furious:

"Why is it that Arabs are always shown as either oil-rich sheiks, terrorists, or belly dancers?" said Warren David, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC.

Coca-Cola released an online teaser of the commercial last week, showing the Arab walking through a desert. He soon sees cowboys, Las Vegas showgirls and a motley crew fashioned after the marauders of the apocalyptic "Mad Max" film race by him to reach a gigantic bottle of Coke.

In its ad, Coke asks viewers to vote online on which characters should win the race. The online site does not allow a vote for the Arab character.

"The Coke commercial for the Super Bowl is racist, portraying Arabs as backward and foolish Camel Jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world," Imam Ali Siddiqui, president of the Muslim Institute for Interfaith Studies, said in an email.

"What message is Coke sending with this?" asked Abed Ayoub, ADC's director of legal and policy affairs. "By not including the Arab in the race, it is clear that the Arab is held to a different standard when compared to the other characters in the commercial," he said.

Guess who got the Coke in the end?

But that didn't stop the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee from continuing their complaint with Coke.

Now, they are taking credit for this year's Coke Super Bowl commercial.

After the Coca-Cola Company has depicted Arabs in a stereotypical fashion in its last year Super Bowl advertisement provoking protest by Arab Americans, it promoted this year a more balanced ad showing diversity in American society, a press release by an Arab American group said on Tuesday.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) commended the Coca-Cola Company for airing an ad during Sunday night’s Super Bowl which celebrated America’s diversity.

“Over the course of the past year ADC has partnered with Coke to promote diversity,” it said. “The partnership developed out of concerns ADC shared with Coke in regards to its 2013 Super Bowl ads.”

Coke ended up being a sponsor of the ADC convention in 2013.

This year's Coke commercial showed "America the Beautiful" being sung in seven languages.

Ironically, none of them appear to be Arabic. (According to this site, the languages were English, Spanish, Keres Pueblo, Tagalog, Hindi, Senegalese French, and Hebrew. Many of the commenters, experts in world languages, had trouble picking out the languages being sung because they were all done with heavily American accents.)

The Arabic version was filmed but ended up on the cutting room floor.

(During the game, some people tweeted some really racist things reacting to the commercial, but that's a different story.)

Here are screen shots of the Jewish guys in the commercial.

02/04 Links Pt1: Iran FM Denies He is Opposed to a 2nd Holocaust; Syria’s Israeli Guardian Angel

From Ian:

Iran Foreign Minister Denies He is Opposed to Second Holocaust

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif vehemently denied on Monday reports that he is opposed to a second Holocaust of Jewish people, according to Iranian media reports.
Some media outlets reported over the weekend that Zarif had stated, the “Holocaust should not happen again” and that “the extermination of Jews by the Nazi regime was tragically cruel and should not happen again.”
However, Zarif maintains that this is not the case, according to top Iranian lawmakers who have spoken to the foreign minister about his remarks.

Caroline Glick: Kerry's Israeli supporters

Once again, on Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry tried to extort Israeli concessions to the PLO by threatening us with a Western economic boycott.
Kerry is obsessed with Israel’s economic success. Last May he told us that we’re too rich to surrender our land.
Now he’s saying we’ll be poor if we don’t do so.
The anti-Semitic undertones of Kerry’s constant chatter about Jews having too much money are obvious. But beyond their inherent bigotry, Kerry’s statements serve to legitimize the radical Left’s economic war against the Jewish state. Administration supporters and fundraisers from Code Pink and other pressure groups, as well as the EU understand that if they escalate their economic and political persecution of the Jewish state, their actions will be met with quiet understanding, and even support from the Obama administration.

PM: Without recognition, there will be no peace deal

Netanyahu said it would be "absurd" to expect Israel to recognize a nation state for the Palestinian people without reciprocal recognition of Israel as the nation state for the Jewish people.
"Let's see if the same international actors who until now have put pressure on Israel will make clear to the Palestinian Authority what exactly will be the consequences for the Palestinians if there is no agreement," Netanyahu said. "Because, unless the Palestinians understand that they will pay a price if the talks fail, they will prefer to not continue the talks."
"No pressure will cause me to abandon the vital interests of the State of Israel, first and foremost the security of the citizens of Israel," Netanyahu said.

Amer Kamal Ali Chinbari lives in the UNRWA camp Beit Hanoun, in Gaza. He is a recipient of UNRWA's Relief and Social Services Plan, and as part of his benefits he gets free food. So Chinbari, along with hundreds of thousands of other family heads, gets a food ration card showing how many dependents he has so UNRWA can give him the proper amount of food.

Chinbari's ration card registration number is 1-00608901.

And, according to UNRWA records, Chinbari's family has 27 members.

Another Chinbari, named Fatmeh Mohad, has a family of 25 members. Mond Ulayan Chinbari has a household of 22, and Khaled Ibrahim Chinbari has 21. Antar has 16, Mohd and Ramadan have 15 each.

Those Chinbaris are really fertile, right?

UNRWA has a database of Gaza food ration registration cards online that, given not too much time, could be completely reproduced because of a pretty bad search algorithm. As it is, I easily took a sample of nearly 40,000 Gazan families representing over 220,000 people.

Within this sample I found 200 Chinbari households, virtually all living in Beit Hanoun, and 42 of them have household sizes of 10 of more. In total, over 1300 Chinbari family members are counted.

I find the Chinbari clan to be fascinating. Either they are scamming UNRWA, which seems likely, or they feel confident enough in UNRWA's services that they have no problem churning out lots and lots of kids despite their presumed poverty. Remember, food ration cards are only given to the poorest people.

27 kids is not out of the question if someone has four wives, but in Islam multiple wives are frowned upon if one doesn't have the means to support them. A successful scam that is being shared with family members seems more likely. (Not that there aren't other families with 25 or so members, but the Chinbaries are the only extended clan to have so many large families listed.)

Arabs have a history of inflating the number of members in their families for UNRWA ration cards that go back to the beginnings of UNRWA itself. The UNRWA reports in its first years note a flourishing trade in forged ration cards and mentions that deaths are never reported, but births are, so families can get more free food.

UNRWA, which was a somewhat worthwhile organization in the early 1950s, attempted to eliminate fraud and perform censuses on the Arab refugees - but they were stymied by the Arabs themselves, who refused to cooperate. That's one reason why, today, UNRWA counts of so-called refugees are wildly inflated.

Today, UNRWA is complicit in this population inflation. Even though a little seen UNRWA report estimated that some 200,000 Lebanese "refugees" left Lebanon long ago, UNRWA continues to count them to extort more money from the international community.

UNRWA today is doing to the world what the Chinbaris are evidently doing to UNRWA.

None of UNRWA's funders are calling for UNRWA to finally do a real census of the people they have been supporting for over 60 years, which is a fairly basic requirement for any social service agency No one is mining the data in UNRWA's databases to find anomalies like I just found about the Chinbaris. UNRWA's donor countries happily give more and more without demanding the most basic auditing.

If I can uncover apparent fraud (or, at the very least, a red flag) in a few minutes without direct access to the database, imagine what anomalies a real auditor could find out about UNRWA with full access.

During the two week period from January 9-22, Gaza terrorists fired 30 rockets and 6 mortars towards Israel.

Of the 30 rockets, according to the Gaza NGO Safety Office, 11 of them either fell short in Gaza or exploded during the launch. That's a failure rate of nearly 37%.

We have seen in the past that several Gaza children have been killed by rockets meant to kill Israelis, including two or three children killed by Hamas rockets during Operation Pillar of Defense. Two children were killed by a single rocket during Hamas' Operation Oil Stain, a day before Israel launched Cast Lead. A two-year old girl was killed by a rocket explosion in Gaza in 2012.

In most of these cases, Hamas spokespeople, the media and many NGOs blame Israel. Because, to many, the truth isn't as important as anti-Israel propaganda.

If you aren't Jewish, BDS won't boycott you

Ha'aretz has a very nice article about their visit to the Mishor Adumim Industrial Park, where they spoke with happy Arab employees from many companies that work there.

But one part was especially interesting:

The Shweiki glass factory, with its sleek outer façade and interior, stands out among the mostly shabby-looking low-tech plants, carpentries, workshops and garages that populate this industrial zone just outside the Jewish settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

But there’s something even more fundamental that sets it apart: Shweiki is an Arab-owned enterprise.

Its ultra-modern glass factory is just a few hundred meters down the road from SodaStream, the company that recently thrust this small industrial park into the international limelight when it hired American celebrity Scarlett Johansson to serve as the global ambassador for its soda machines – at a time when the movement to boycott goods made in the occupied territories is gathering momentum abroad.

But the managers at Shweiki, established in 1936 by an East Jerusalem family, insists that they get an even worse rap than their Jewish counterparts. On the one hand, the Israeli Ministry of Defense refuses to give its seal of approval to the company’s shatterproof glass, while on the other, the Palestinian Authority boycotts its products.

“The Palestinians in Ramallah say we’re no better than the settlers,” explains Amran Shaloud, production manager at the plant, which moved to Mishor Adumim seven years ago.

...“It’s hard for us to hire Jews here because we’re closed on Fridays, but open on Saturday, and that wouldn’t be comfortable for them,” explains Shaloud, whose factory is right next door to Jewish-run Emesh.

Shaloud is taking a late-afternoon break, talking to a friend, Samih Owweida, who runs an aluminum factory down the road.

“As Arabs, we get it from both ends,” gripes Owweida. “I want to sell my stuff in the West Bank, and nobody will buy from me there.”

And then, with a big sigh, he throws up his hands in despair and utters a small prayer: “Let there just be peace already, so we can finish with this whole mess.”

Here's where it gets good.

The bible for BDS is the website Who Profits, which has an extensive database of all companies in Judea and Samaria that they want people to boycott. (They also list an Israeli companies that sell to Jews in Judea and Samaria, and even one that has the audacity to sell bullet-proof glass to Jews who live in the Gilo neighborhood where there used to be lots of sniper fire.)

Who Profits has hundred of companies in their database.

But they don't list the Shweiki Glass Factory.

A quick look through a phone book finds another Arab-owned company in Mishor Adumim - Khaled Ali Metals Ltd. It is not listed by Who Profits.

Nor are the carpenters in Mishor Adumim named Mahmoud Naeel or Abu Asab.

Isn't it interesting that only Jewish-owned businesses are being targeted by the BDS crowd?

(UPDATE: Bob Knot points out that Owweida's whining about being boycotted by the PA is not quite true; on their webpage they show many projects in the West Bank that they completed.)

Even the Guardian's corrections are wrong on SodaStream

From The Guardian's "Corrections and Clarifications" on Monday:

An article about the issue of boycotts of Israel (US and Israel in war of words over boycotts warning, 3 February, ) wrongly stated that SodaStream, an Israeli company, is "based in the West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, which is built on expropriated Arab land". As we have said before, it is a factory that is based there, not the headquarters of the company. In another story about the issue, which examined the relationship between Oxfam and Scarlett Johansson, we said that the charity was "under pressure from anti-Israel campaigners to sever ties" with the film star. It would be more accurate to describe the activists in the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel as "opposed to settlements" (Oxfam under pressure to drop Johansson over Israeli ties, 30 January, page 23).

You know you're in bad shape when even your corrections are wrong.

The SodaStream factory is not based in Ma'ale Adumim, but in Mishor Adumim nearby.

Peace Now once came out with a report claiming that 86% of Ma'ale Adumim was built on private Arab-owned land. Then they were forced to release a revised report that showed that only 0.5% of Maale Adumim was built on private Arab-owned lands. The Guardian, by saying that the entire Ma'ale Adumin is built on "expropriated Arab land," is lying.

Moreover, all of Mishor Adumim - including the SodaStream factory - is built on state-owned land.

In their second correction, they were right the first time. BDS is against Israel, and the BDS movement explicitly calls to boycott all Israeli goods and cultural events, not settlement goods. (Peter Beinart is the one spearheading the idea of "only" boycotting goods created by Jews in Judea and Samaria.) It is completely wrong to say BDS is only against settlements, and one can only wonder why the Guardian made an incorrect correction.

(h/t Irene)

02/03 Links Pt2: French Jews Hold Massive Pro-Israel Rally; ASA panic over NY anti-boycott law

From Ian:

JCPA: Erekat Is Wrong. The Jewish Presence in the Land Dates Back for Millennia

In effect, Erekat was promoting the well-known Palestinian narrative that they are the native population, while the Jews are latecomers who only arrived in the last hundred years. Since the Muslim Arab conquest of Palestine occurred only in 634CE, the credibility of this Palestinian claim is questionable, to say the least.
At the same time, there is documented proof of a Jewish presence in the land dating back millennia. In Jericho itself, the Shalom al Yisrael (Peace unto Israel) synagogue with its magnificent mosaic was discovered in the 1930s and dates back to the Byzantine period. Not far away is the Wadi Kelt synagogue which dates back to 75 BCE, from the time of the Hasmonean monarchy, making it the oldest synagogue to have been discovered. (h/t Bob Knot)

Sharansky’s guide to the region’s human rights dilemmas

I thought Natan Sharansky — the former Soviet dissident and icon of the Soviet Jewish emigration movement, briefly Israeli journalist, later party leader and government minister, and today Jewish Agency chairman — might have some insights into the innumerable human rights dilemmas facing Israel and this stormy region. And so it proved, in an interview Wednesday at Sharansky’s office in the Jewish Agency building.
We talked about Israel’s obligations regarding African asylum-seekers (limited), the government’s obligations to Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Arab citizens in the Galilee triangle (profound, in both cases), President Barack Obama’s obligations regarding the ayatollah-dominated people of Iran (dismally unfulfilled), and a great deal more besides. (He preferred not to discuss the soon-to-be-vacant spot of state president.)

Scarlett Johansson split with Oxfam 'may deter celebrity charity work'

Responding to the split between the Hollywood actress and the charity, for which she has worked for almost a decade, Mr Neilson told The Independent on Sunday: "Now, the celebrities, actors, athletes, people who are the focus of our celebrity-obsessed culture, will be less likely to become philanthropic."
He added: "The biggest asset that Scarlett Johansson has is her fame, and if people like her are scared of using their fame to make the world a better place, no one wins."
Oxfam said Johansson's promotion of SodaStream was "incompatible" with her being its ambassador.
Mr Nielson thinks the charity could now struggle to recruit celebrities, saying that it is "unrealistic" for any charity to expect celebrity supporters to agree with it on everything. "It's not as if Johansson was working with Oxfam on the West Bank issue; she was working with them on extreme poverty. Do you have to agree with an NGO on all issues in the world in order to work with it on one issue?" he added.

In Tablet, there is a book review of Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang Schwanitz. The reviewer, David Mikics, makes what appears to be some valid points disputing the book. However, one point he makes - that became the title of the review - has no evidence behind it:

Rubin and Schwanitz make the astonishing claim that al-Husaini is nothing less than the architect of the Final Solution. Rather than being a garden-variety pro-Nazi, they say, the mufti had so great an influence on the fuehrer that he might as well have authored Nazi Germany’s most demonic project, the mass murder of European Jewry.

The claim that al-Husaini was the hidden hand behind Adolf Hitler is implausible, even silly. Rubin and Schwanitz are historians with a political agenda: They want to show that eliminationist anti-Semitism animates the Islamic Middle East, and so they paint al-Husaini as so devilishly anti-Semitic that he can contend with Hitler himself.

Yet Rubin and Schwanitz’s claim also has serious, troubling implications. Where did al-Husaini’s passionate hatred of Jews come from? Indisputably, from the Jewish colonization of Palestine. So, if you follow Rubin and Schwanitz’s logic—as they themselves fail to do—Zionism is responsible for the Holocaust. No Zionist colonization of Palestine would mean no Arab anti-Semitism, which means no al-Husaini, which means no Final Solution. The authors use a historical life to advance their political reading of the Arab-Israeli conflict—without thinking through the risks of loading their political agenda onto historical analysis.

Mikics insists - and says that it is indisputable! - that Arab antisemitism only exists because of Zionism.

This is, to put it mildly, crazy.

The Mufti was by any account a rabid antisemite. Mikics agrees:

That al-Husaini was a radical anti-Semite is not the real news in Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East. We knew that already. Though al-Husaini was put in power by Britain, he eagerly embraced Nazism and rivaled Hitler in his fanatical anti-Semitism—and frequently proclaimed that the Middle East needed to rid itself of its Jews.

So why does he assume that Husseini's antisemitism would not have existed if Zionism hadn't existed? It's not like every anti-Zionist Arab pushed for genocide of the Jews of Europe. It is an astonishing theory that a anti-Zionism alone can make a person want to wipe out all Jews, or that somehow virulent antisemitism as a result of anti-Zionism is understandable.

The idea that Arab antisemitism was a result of Zionism is completely unsupported. The Mufti himself worked hard to ensure that Jews would have no access to the Kotel - does that sound anti-Zionist or antisemitic?

The Mufti wrote for the journal Suriyya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria) in 1919. In that year, the British suspended the publication of that journal for a month because it was stirring up "race hatred." Not because it was anti-Zionist, but because it was antisemitic.

Of course, Arab antisemitism predates Zionism by centuries, as I have documented many times. It is anything but "indisputable" that the more recent anti-Zionism spawned antisemitism.To be sure, Zionism sharpened existing Arab antisemitism and gave it more of a focus, but it existed and was rampant way before Herzl and Rothschild.

It is a shame that such a ridiculous charge be published on the day that Barry Rubin passed away. His rebuttal would have been fun to read.

I mentioned last week that Israel was returning the bodies of terrorists, including suicide bombers, without any obvious quid pro quo for the gesture.

Here is a description of one of the attacks:

On 29 March 2002, during the afternoon, a Palestinian 18-year-old female suicide bomber approached the Kiryat Yovel supermarket in Jerusalem. The supermarket at the time was full of customers shopping for the weekend.

Haim Smadar, the 55-year-old security guard who guarded the entrance to the supermarket and spoke Arabic, became suspicious after two Arabic women who usually sold vegetables outside the shop entrance had been warned by Akhras to leave. Akhras detonated the explosives at the entrance to the store while struggling with Smadar, killing him and Rachel Levy, a 17 year-old Israeli girl. In addition, about 30 people were injured in the attack. Smadar managed to forcefully keep her away from the crowd, thus preventing a larger loss of life had the attack taken place inside the store.

After the attack, it was discovered that the suicide bomber was also carrying an unexploded mortar bomb. When news of the bombing reached Dheisheh, some of the residents celebrated, handing out candies and firing guns in the air.

Hamas claimed responsibility although Akhras trained with Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.

At the time of the bombing, Newsweek disgustingly compared the terrorist and the victim.

Several years afterwards, an idealistic Israeli filmmaker did the same. She tried to get the mothers of Rachel Levy and Ayat Akhras together to see if they could unite in their respective grief. In the end, they could only speak by satellite. Here, we see the difference between the two sides: while Mrs. Levy tried to find something in common with the other mother, Mrs. Akhras could only speak about how justified the terror act was.

Now Ayat Akhras' body has been returned, and her mother is just as enamored of terror as she ever was.

She is happy that her daughter's remains are returning and she can bury her in a plot that has been waiting for twelve years. The Palestine Today article is sympathetic with her, of course. The mother proudly mentions how passionate her daughter was in her hate of Israel.

The last paragraph of the story:

Today Aayat returns to her mother as a bride, like she [hr mother] always wanted to see her... She returns in times of failure and defeat in order to emphasize through her death, life and martyrdom that "Between us and our enemy there are only funerals", the funerals of our martyrs and their dead.

Thousands attended the double funeral of Akhwas and another suicide bomber whose body was returned. (The other bomber injured four Israelis in Neve Dekalim but didn't kill anyone.)

Huge banners of Ayad Akhwas were set up along the funeral route.

There is truly no comparison between the monsters who raise children to kill others and those who raise their children to live their lives productively.

None of the hundreds of NGOs in the territories, and certainly not the PA government, are doing a thing to change the mentality of Palestinian Arabs away from worshiping at the altar of this death cult. No peace agreement can ever change the attitude of those who openly celebrate terror, and none of the so-called liberals and progressives in the area are doing a thing to change these attitudes. On the contrary, they often identify with them. The official PA news agency refers to Akhwan as a "martyr".

Incitement is a major issue, but the lack of any initiative to change the basic value system of Palestinian Arabs from making terrorists into heroes is even worse. UNRWA claims to have a "human rights" curriculum in the schools but I do not believe at any point do they attempt to humanize Zionists, meaning that it is not making a dent in the hate.

Their self-appointed leaders will pretend to the West that they are liberal and democratic and support human rights, but in the end the majority still are closer in worldview to Ayat Akhras' sickening mother than to Rachel Levy's.

As long as this is true, any peace agreement is doomed before it starts. Those who recklessly push such an agreement before Palestinian Arabs are truly ready to believe that Israelis are human beings are perpetuating and worsening the conflict, not solving it.

02/03 Links Pt1: Soft bigotry, Secretary Kerry, and the PLO; Kerry Abandons UNSC 242

From Ian:

PMW: PA schools named after terrorists raise terror-admiring youth

The Palestinian Authority educates its children to view terrorists who have murdered Israelis as role models. One of the prominent ways the PA glorifies this terror, as documented repeatedly by Palestinian Media Watch, is by naming schools, cultural events, sporting events, streets and more after terrorists.
The educational impact of this practice on Palestinian youth was confirmed in a program on PA TV about a PA high school for girls named after the female terrorist Shadia Abu Ghazaleh. Many students interviewed said they admired the bomb-maker and saw her as a role model. Abu Ghazaleh was active in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization and involved in many attacks against Israel. She was preparing a bomb intended for an attack in Tel Aviv in 1968, when it accidentally detonated and killed her.

Elliot Abrams: Soft bigotry, Secretary Kerry, and the PLO

Bush once noted the "soft bigotry of low expectations" in our domestic context, and the term is useful here. For it is bigotry to believe that more cannot realistically be expected from the Palestinians. And it is very damaging to any hope for a decent, democratic, independent state some day. Neither the political culture nor the institutions of democracy can be built this way. That was the great error of the Clinton administration, which dealt with Yasser Arafat as if he would one day be the George Washington of Palestine instead of the corrupt terrorist he was. The error is being repeated now, as we ask Abbas for one thing only -- to sit at the table -- and overlook all else.

My letter to Reuters about SodaStream

Not that I expect anything to be done, but when they know people are watching them, they tend to be a little more careful.

Dear Editor,

In the story "Israeli settlement factory sparks Super Bowl-sized controversy," writer Noah Browning interviews a worker at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumim:

One mid-level Palestinian employee who spoke to Reuters outside the plant, away from the bosses, painted a far less perfect picture, however.
"There's a lot of racism here," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Most of the managers are Israeli, and West Bank employees feel they can't ask for pay rises or more benefits because they can be fired and easily replaced."

I've noted on my blog that Browning has shown serious anti-Israel bias in the past, and this story appears to add to that list.

The fact is that there have now been nine articles in the media interviewing workers at the plant, and only two of them exclusively found a worker that was disgruntled. Every single other outlet found that the workers were happy and against any boycott of SodaStream.

For documentation, see my articles here, here and here.

Given Browning's record and the anomalous nature of his reporting here - the only media outlet that agrees with him is virulently and openly anti-Israel - this story and his reporting reflects poorly on Reuters, and indicates a serious problem with interview bias done by Browning in order to push an agenda rather than reflect the truth of the situation.

Please review Browning's Middle East articles in general, especially the ones I noted, as well as this article in particular. How many people did he interview altogether? Did he only choose the one interview that jived with his biases? Did he purposefully seek out the same employee that Electronic Intifada interviewed? It is astonishing that 7 separate, independent media outlets find that virtualy all employees agree with each other that they are happy, and only Browning and EI found the counter-examples.

Thanks,

Elder

Barry Rubin, a true scholar and wonderful man, passed away this morning after a battle with cancer. He was 64.

Barry was a staunch defender of Israel. His writings were accurate, clear and powerful. He didn't mince words.

Rubin was also the director of the Gloria Center in Israel. Last year, I believe after his diagnosis, Rubin did the unthinkable - he placed 13 of his books on the website of the Gloria Center to be freely downloaded.

Just looking over some of the older articles I've quoted from him on this blog over the years shows that they haven't aged at all - they are all still spot on in their analysis.

I had the privilege of meeting Barry a few years ago in Tel Aviv, and he was just as nice a man in person as he was formidable in his writings.

A long time ago, I wrote what I thought was a piercing analysis of Syria. After I posted it, I sent a copy to Barry, since he has written a book I admired on the topic. Within a half hour, he responded with a devastating fisking of my piece - a fisking that was so good that I appended it to my post.

Another time, Barry thought I should write something for the Jerusalem Post, so I wrote up an op-ed. Again, within less than an hour, he completely rewrote my piece and made it orders of magnitude better.

People might compliment me, but whenever there is a danger of those compliments going to my head, I think of Barry - because he was in a different league.

Barry Rubin's clarity of thought and encyclopedic knowledge was unmatched. He dedicated his life to pursuing and spreading the truth, no matter how politically incorrect or uncomfortable it may be. We should all follow in his footsteps.

Barghouti's BDS Kumbaya in the NYT

Omar Barghouti, in the New York Times, characterizes BDS as "a nonviolent movement anchored in universal principles of human rights." His punchline is:

Would justice and equal rights for all really destroy Israel? Did equality destroy the American South? Or South Africa? Certainly, it destroyed the discriminatory racial order that had prevailed in both places, but it did not destroy the people or the country.

Likewise, only Israel’s unjust order is threatened by boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Although he doesn't write it in this op-ed, Barghouti is arguing for a one-state solution with the "right of return" - meaning he is arguing for a new Arab state to replace Israel. He is couching this dissolution of Jewish national rights and the right to self-determination in terms of "human rights."

Barghouti is arguing that this is not a problem, because the new state would give equal rights to all and Jews would not have to worry about being persecuted as a minority under the benevolent Palestinian Arab leadership that would be democratically elected.

These assumptions are not spelled out explicitly, but they are hiding behind the soothing phrases "human rights" and "equality" and "democracy" and "non-violence."

Let's talk about these concepts and how well they would apply to a single state.

Human rights - in Egypt, Copts are second-class citizens by any definition. I just posted about an Egyptian TV show where the way to insult Islamists was by saying that they are even worse than Christians and Jews.

Similarly, Palestinians are second-class citizens in Jordan, fearful of losing their citizenship. They are treated like dirt in Lebanon. Kurds are reviled throughout the Arab world.

We don't even need to speak about human rights in Syria or Iraq or Yemen.

Even within the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah are still at loggerheads, and they had a civil war not too long ago. Journalists are threatened. Christians are intimidated.

The only place in the Middle East with decent human rights for all its citizens is Israel. It isn't perfect, but it is a far sight better than in any Arab country. But Barghouti is trying to fool the West into thinking that Arabs will certainly grant equal rights to Jews when they cannot even grant Arab minorities a modicum of right.

Equality - Every single Arab nation, and this includes the PA, has a constitution that declares that they are Arab, which means (according to the logic that declares a Jewish state inherently apartheid-like) that they discriminate against non-Arabs. (Indeed they do, for example in immigration policies.) Most of them declare that they are Muslim nations with a legal system based on the Quran.

Minorities in Arab nations are not treated equally in any real sense (although there is guarded optimism about Tunisia.)

Once again, the only Middle Eastern nation to come close to treating all its citizens equally is Israel. To think that an Arab majority state would treat Jews equally is to ignore the entire history of the Middle East.

Democracy - the most moderate Palestinians are clearly the leaders of the PA, who at least pretend to be against violence (forgetting that the Fatah platform supports violence explicitly.)

Mahmoud Abbas just started the tenth year of his four year term. You know, the one that he promised to retire after.

This is all despite Jimmy Carter's solemn promise that the last elections (which really were probably the last elections, ever) were totally great and democratic.

The prime ministers of the PA weren't even elected to begin with - they were appointed.

Yet again, the only place with a functioning democracy in the region is Israel. And Barghouti wants to end that.

Non-violence - Barghouti and the BDS crowd don't like Abbas and company. They believe that they aren't radical enough. They believe that Abbas' non (explicit) support of terror isn't authentic and that terrorism is a human right. Really!

BDS is a non-violent tactic, but BDSers - and particularly Barghouti - believe in "all means of resistance" being legitimate - and that includes suicide bombing.

He will never tell that to the New York Times, but he has said it in speeches for years. And other "progressive" critics of Israel share that belief.

Readers of the NYT op-eds don't realize that they are being subjected to half truths and doubletalk meant to destroy the Jewish state.All they see are the soothing words of Barghouti hijacking democratic concepts to create another failed Arab state. But that's not his goal - it is to destroy the only Jewish state, which - while not perfect - is closer to the ideals of democracy, human rights, equality and even non-violence than any Palestinian Arab state could ever be.

It is worth looking again at how the Arab nations pretended to want a democratic Arab-majority state as a last chance effort to frustrate the UN partition vote in 1947. They also pretended to care about democracy
and human rights, but it is obvious that their real goal was to stop any Jewish state from ever existing. Then, as now, the nice words were a sham meant to fool the West. (They even demanded to go to the International Court of Justice!)

Their most important requirement in this "democratic" state was to curtail all Jewish immigration.

Barghouti is the modern equivalent of the Arabs of 1947.

(h/t EBoZ)

"Muslim Brotherhood women worse than Jews, Christians"

A female Egyptian expert named Suad Saleh advised a man during a TV show to break up with his Muslim Brotherhood fiancee.

The reason? Because Muslim Brotherhood women are even more vicious and harmful to the community than Jews and Copts. She said, "At the moment, under the difficult conditions seen in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is more dangerous than Jews and Christians, because they are shedding blood, and consider themselves to be exclusively right."

Saleh, who is a professor of comparative jurisprudence at Al Azhar University and is apparently some type of advice guru, told the young man that if he breaks up with this undesirable girl, he will earn many good deeds from God, and will maintain the stability of the family.

It must be super comforting for Jews and Copts to know that they are no longer the most hated people in Egypt.

Hasby Awards 2014 press release

Here is the press release announcing the winners of all of the 2014 Hasby Awards.

PRLog (Press Release) - Feb. 2, 2014 - NEW YORK -- The Elder of Ziyon blog has announced the winners of the annual Hasby Awards, given to the best examples of hasbara (explaining Israel's viewpoint) for the year.

This year awards were given in ten categories.

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Media Outlet/Writer Not Exclusive to Israel were Douglas Murray, Melanie Phillips, Gatestone Institute, Charles Krauthammer, Walter Russell Mead and Bret Stephens. Melanie Phillips was the winner, "for per clear vision, consistency and volume of output. "

The nominees for Best English-Language Pro-Israel Online Media Outlet were Algemeiner, Israel HaYom, Jewish Press, Tablet, Jerusalem Post, The Tower and Israel21c. The winner was The Tower, "a very attractive, well-done news site, and for that alone it deserves kudos - but one of the reasons it won was because of the great things happening at its parent organization, The Israel Project."

The nominees for Best Mainstream Media Watchdog were CAMERA, BBC Watch, CiF Watch, Mideast Media Sampler at Legal Insurrection, and Huffington Post Monitor. The winner was CAMERA, which "had a stellar year with dozens of articles showing bias in the New York Times alone (and forcing many corrections)."

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Commentator Exclusive to Israel/ME were Caroline Glick, Martin Kramer, Daniel Gordis, Evelyn Gordon, Sarah Honig and Khaled Abu Toameh. The winner was Sarah Honig, who "contextualizes today's headlines in terms of history, much of which she witnessed firsthand."

The nominees for Best Watchdog (Arabic Media or NGOs) were MEMRI, Palestinian Media Watch, NGO Monitor and UN Watch. The winner was Palestinian Media Watch, because "PMW has made inroads this year into bubbling up the issue of Palestinian Arab incitement to the masses."

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Video were Pat Condell - Patronizing the Palestinians, "I'm an Israeli Soldier" (Latma), Naftali Bennett on CNN and Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser. The winner was Boycott Israel by Ari Lesser/Here Is Israel, "a fresh take on an old (but still valid) argument, pointing out the hypocrisy of the boycotters. "

The nominees for Best Pro-Israel Tweeter were Arsen Ostrovsky, Margie in Tel Aviv, CiFWatch, No Camels and William Daroff. The winner was No Camels, "dedicated to good news from Israel, especially in covering high tech."

In the much-anticipated Best Blog category, the nominees were Israellycool, Israel Matzav, This Ongoing War, Jews Down Under, Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers, 5 Minutes for Israel and IsraelSeen. The winner was Israellycool, which "has always been a tremendous blog, with great analysis and a wonderful sense of humor" and a "must read daily."

The winner for Best Article was "An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake up!" by Hen Mazzig, writing in The Times of Israel. The article was "the best example of hasbara in the classic sense: explaining things to readers they might not know about, heightened by the first person account of his experiences." The other nominees were Howard Javobson and Brendan O'Neill.

The winner for Best Individual Example of Hasbara went to Ed Kilnger's note on a BDS MacBook, a photo that went viral, which "struck a chord in thousands of ordinary people, seeing how hypocritical the Israel-haters are."

Finally a special achievement Hasby Award for grassroots activism was given to Sussex Friends of Israel. As EoZ wrote, "As far as I can tell, this is a completely grassroots effort. There is no help from the organized British Jewish or Zionist community, and one gets the impression that the lack of an organized response is what helped create SFI."

All of the details, with links to the nominees and the full awards, can be seen athttp://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/search/label/Hasby%202014 .

Elder of Ziyon, a popular pro-Israel blog in its tenth year, congratulates all the winners.

Iranian media says Israel's Golan field hospital is only for "Syrian terrorists"

Times of Israel reports on the Channel 2 report on the field hospital in the Golan to treat victims of the Syrian civil war:

On Friday evening, Channel 2 News aired footage of the fenced Golan Heights facility, which has treated over 700 Syrian patients since it was established less than a year ago.

The hospital, staffed by soldiers in uniform, includes an emergency room, an intensive care unit, an operating theater, a mobile laboratory, a pharmacy and an x-ray facility. It treats Syrian patients who cross the border regardless of creed – or of where their loyalties lie.

Col. Tarif Bader, commander of the hospital, said that while the decision to administer humanitarian aid to populations outside of Israel was always a dilemma, in this case, it was “the right choice” – one he was proud to be a part of.

He added that most patients suffered from “serious battle wounds.” Among them were men as old as 83, as well as young children, who another staff member described as strong and communicative. ”They don’t look frightened,” he said.

Now look how Hezbollah and Iranian media reports this:

The Israeli army has set up a field hospital on the Golan Heights to treat injured militants who belong to the terrorist groups in Syria.

These groups have treated over 700 of its injured militants in that hospital, according to Israeli media outlets, Al-Manar reported.

The report mainly focused on the Israeli intentions behind treating the militants, clarifying that the Israelis aim at strengthen and deepen their relations with the terrorist groups in Syria in order to keep the calm and stability which now prevails between these groups and Israel at Palestinian-Syrian borders.

The report also included interviews with a number of the militants who stated that "Zionism is not macabre as it has been portrayed by the Syrian regime."

"The regime used to force us to believe that our enemy is all the surrounding world, yet after the beginning of the revolution, we recognized our real friends and real enemies."

FARS illustrates the article with this photo, meant to show the Israelis treating an al-Qaeda terrorist:

In fact, this photo was originally captioned (in October) this way:

One 15-year-old patient at Ziv [a different facility - EoZ] was riding in a tractor with his younger brother when the tractor ran over a land mine. Both boys were brought to the Israeli border by their distraught father. “We need peace,” the Syrian boy said of his homeland.