Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 04, 2014

05/04 Links: PM: ‘We would not be here without their sacrifice’; Israeli Co. 'Reinvents the Wheel'

From Ian:

PM: ‘We would not be here without their sacrifice’

Israelis began to mark Memorial Day on Sunday afternoon, commemorating 23,169 fallen soldiers and 2,495 terror victims who fell throughout the history of the State of Israel and the Zionist movement. Commemoration ceremonies will continue throughout the country until Monday night, when Memorial Day ends abruptly with the start of celebrations marking Independence Day.
The first official event began at 4 p.m. Sunday at Yad LaBanim, or “Memorial for the Sons,” in Jerusalem. The event was attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose brother Yoni fell during the IDF’s rescue of Jewish hostages in Entebbe, Uganda, in July 1976. It was also attended by other families of the fallen, Israel’s chief rabbis, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Supreme Court Chief Justice Asher Grunis, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and other top officials.
“On this day, the nation adopts us and unites with us, and with the heroes of the nation,” Netanyahu said, speaking for the families of the fallen. “They came from all parts of the country, from all segments of Israeli society, and the simple and most concise truth is this: We would not be here if not for their sacrifice. We would not be here without their readiness to give their lives so we could be here. This right, this sacrifice, the ability to risk their lives in the face of the horrors of war — all this was not available to us before the founding of Israel.”

Danny Danon: ‘Every Man Has a Name’

Living among us today are thousands of people who have been named for a father, an uncle or another hero of Israel they will never meet. When I was born, I was honored to be named in memory of one of these thousands of heroes and therefore became part of a living legacy that walks among us to remind our society of those who fell defending our country.
I was named in memory of Danny Vardon, my father’s commander in the Negev reconnaissance unit.
Throughout my childhood I tried to learn as much as I could about this man, who to me was legendary.

Danny Ayalon: In Memory

In Israel, Memorial Day and Independence Day go hand in hand, showing how we cannot celebrate our independence without commemorating those who Alterman titled “The silver platter on which the Jewish state was given.” That duality of sorrow and happiness will be shown across the country, as groups of young, and not so young men, visit their fallen comrades’ families. They will come to lessen the mother’s sorrow, but she will end up comforting them. They will come in tears after visiting his grave, but will leave with smiles as even after all these years, his squad mates show up like clockwork, never missing even once.
Isaiah wrote “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” The sages teach that there were hundreds of prophets, but only those that carried a message for prosperity were recorded in the Bible. We must heed Isaiah’s prophecy, yearning for the day when peace will come with our neighbors, and we will not train for war anymore. But until that day, we mark and commemorate those who have given their last full measure of devotion, adhering to what King David wrote in Psalms: “Behold the Guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep”.

Stand With Us: Defaming the IDF on Remembrance Day

This year, as Israelis pay tribute to their servicemen and women, a very different event will be taking place on Independence Day in London. Yachad – the British version of lobby group J-Street – together with the New Israel Fund, will be hosting “Breaking the Silence”, a notorious anti-IDF group. No one serious would suggest that Israel is beyond criticism but this is strange yet deliberate timing. Should we surmise that if Israel-bashing is a year-round sport, why should this night be different from any other?
If past experience is anything to go by, the audience will be treated to a flurry of half-truths and accusations aimed solely at blackening the name of Israeli soldiers. Indeed, “Breaking the Silence” has made its name by promoting a distorted and unfair portrayal of the IDF via its website and tours.

When Barack Obama snubbed the Knesset, and Jews who live where he does not want them to live, during his last visit to Israel, he claimed that Israelis needed to learn to see things through "their eyes." The implication, of course, was that the Jews of the Middle East are lacking the requisite compassion to gain peace for themselves and their children.

I would argue something rather different.

I would suggest that the so-called "Palestinian narrative" of pristine victim-hood has made remarkable advances into Jewish minds, particularly progressive-left diaspora Jewish minds. The problem is not that the Jews are lacking in empathy, as Obama shamefully implied, but quite the opposite. Diaspora Jews, as a group, tend to be so painfully empathetic that we cannot really bring ourselves to take our own side in a fight. This explains the fact that Israeli Jews tend to be more "conservative" while diaspora Jews tend to be more "progressive." Israeli Jews are under siege and diaspora Jews, with the growing exception of European Jews, are not. Thus Israeli Jews are tougher and diaspora Jews are softer on security issues viz-a-viz Israel.

The process through which the Palestinian colonization of the Jewish mind accomplished itself found its primary vehicles in the final quarter of the twentieth-century with the rise of post-structural and neo-colonial theories within the western academe. The former trend, following scholars such as Michelle Foucault, suggested that knowledge is subjective and represents political imperatives that bolster systems of power. This laid intellectual foundation for anti-Zionist Jews, such as Ilan Pappé , who famously claimed:

Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts. Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truthseekers.

The latter discipline, neo-colonial theory, as it bubbled onto the popular level with much help from Columbia University professor, Edward Said, represents a popular and snapping critique which divides the world into malicious imperialistic white people and their innocent victims of color. Given that the ruling elite within Israel tended, since its founding, to be "white" Ashkenazi Jews of eastern European descent it became very easy for the enemies of Jewish sovereignty, influenced by post-structuralist and neo-colonial theories, to jam the Israeli round peg into their ideological square hole.

In this way they simply ignored the fact that about half of Israelis are "people of color" and they did so - and do so - because portraying Israelis as white imperialist colonialist murderers fits preconceived political agendas that bare remarkable resemblance to western religious notions of Good versus Evil, with the Palestinian Arabs representing the Good and the White Imperialist Colonialist and Racist Jews representing Evil. This is not so far removed from medieval European conceptions of transcendent Jewish malice as we would generally prefer to think.

These broad popular and academic inclinations, over decades now, have had their effect on the way that westerners, and western Jews, view the ongoing Arab-Muslim war against us in the Middle East. The effect has been to entirely ignore the long history of Jewish people in Judaea and Samaria - the Jewish homeland - which they insist upon calling "West Bank," a twentieth century Jordanian term designed specifically to erase Jewish history. The very notion of "West Bank" is an erasure of Jewish heritage and therefore some of us wonder why it is that the great majority of western Jews use terminology that erases their own heritage?

One answer to that question goes under the moniker "Oslo Syndrome." Harvard University professor of psychology, Kenneth Levin, in The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege, suggests that, much like battered children who promise to be "better" in order to make the beatings stop, the Jewish minority has tended over many centuries to hope for relief by endeavoring to appease our persecutors through adopting their ways of thinking. This represents a particularly Jewish version of Stockholm Syndrome wherein the victim adopts her persecutors ways of thinking as a psychological defense mechanism. Whatever the validity of this notion, there is small question but that the tendency among diaspora Jewish progressives is to lay the great majority of the fault for Arab aggression against their fellow Jews at the feet of Jewish victims of that aggression.

This tendency of pro-Israel diaspora Jews to incorporate the "Palestinian narrative" into their intrinsic understanding of the conflict, along with the imperatives of domestic partisan politics pitting Democrats against Republicans in the United States, has inclined many of them to think of Israel's friends as enemies and some of its enemies as friends. Evangelical Christians, for example, are widely perceived among western diaspora Jews as representing a political enemy, despite the fact that the Evangelicals have long been a great friend to the Jewish state of Israel. Meanwhile some progressive-left diaspora Jews think that "BDS," the movement to bitch-slap, denigrate, and silence supporters of Israel, is actually a positive thing because Israel allegedly requires "tough love" and that they must "save Israel from itself" by imposing their will upon it.

The "Palestinian narrative," embraced by much of the western left, infuses our understanding of the conflict. The presumption, even among Jewish supporters of Israel, is that the Jews of the Middle East are guilty of horrific crimes against the "indigenous" population. There are about 6 million Jews in the Middle East and about 400 million Arabs, which means that there are somewhere between 60 to 70 Arabs for every individual Jew, yet, somehow, the tiny minority of Jews are said to be the oppressors who not only persecute the local Arabs, but who spread war throughout the region. Progressive-Left Jews who embrace the "Palestinian narrative" see Jewish self-defense as a form of aggression. They therefore blame Jewish "aggression" for Palestinian-Arab "self-defense" in the form of suicide bombings and general terrorism; a notion that they spread throughout the west, more generally.

This is a terrific mistake.

Michael Lumish writes for the Israel Thrives blog as well as Times of Israel and Jews Down Under,

Analyses of the US blaming Israel for failure of talks

Yesterday, as mentioned in the linkdump, it was reported that unnamed US officials involved in the negotiations squarely blamed Israel for the bulk of their failure.

Detailing how the US sought to solve disputes over the core issues of a two-state solution, Barnea wrote on Friday that, “Using advanced software, the Americans drew a border outline in the West Bank that gives Israel sovereignty over some 80 percent of the settlers that live there today. The remaining 20 percent were meant to evacuate. In Jerusalem, the proposed border is based on Bill Clinton’s plan — Jewish neighborhoods to Israel, Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians.”

He quoted the Americans saying that while the Israeli government made no response to the American plan, and also failed to draw its own border outline, Abbas agreed to the US-suggested border outline.

The Americans said they had intended to begin the nine-month negotiating period with an Israeli announcement of a settlement freeze. But this proved impossible, an American official was quoted saying, “because of the current makeup of the Israeli government, so we gave up… We didn’t realize [that] continuing construction allowed ministers in [Netanyahu's] government to very effectively sabotage the success of the talks. There are a lot of reasons for the peace effort’s failure, but people in Israel shouldn’t ignore the bitter truth: the primary sabotage came from the settlements. The Palestinians don’t believe that Israel really intends to let them found a state when, at the same time, it is building settlements on the territory meant for that state. We’re talking about the announcement of 14,000 housing units, no less. Only now, after talks blew up, did we learn that this is also about expropriating land on a large scale. That does not reconcile with the agreement.

One bitter American official told Barnea, “I guess we need another intifada to create the circumstances that would allow progress.”

A third intifada, the Americans made clear, “would be a tragedy. The Jewish people are supposed to be smart; it is true that they’re also considered a stubborn nation. You’re supposed to know how to read the map: In the 21st century, the world will not keep tolerating the Israeli occupation. The occupation threatens Israel’s status in the world and threatens Israel as a Jewish state.”

Pressed by Barnea on perceived international hypocrisy over Israel’s presence in the West Bank, when the world “closes its eyes to China’s takeover of Tibet, it stutters at what Russia’s doing to Ukraine,” the Americans were quoted as responding: ”Israel is not China. It was founded by a UN resolution. Its prosperity depends on the way it is viewed by the international community.”

The final straw for Abbas was the late March announcement by Uri Ariel’s Housing and Construction Ministry of building tenders for more than 700 housing units in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood. At that point, the Americans told Barnea, Abbas “lost interest. He turned to the reconciliation talks with Hamas and to the question of who would inherit his mantle.”

Fresno Zionism takes the accusations apart:

The officials’ account is riddled with inconsistencies — for example, they claim that the last straw, the final blow that caused Abbas to abandon negotiations was the announcement that Israel intended to build in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem:

Abbas lost interest. He turned to the reconciliation talks with Hamas and to the question of who would inherit his mantle. According to the Americans, this is the reason for his recently launched public front against Mohammed Dahlan.

The Americans understood from their Israeli counterparts that the Gilo tenders announcement was an intentional act of sabotage, one of many, by Housing Minister Uri Ariel, an extremist who opposes any agreement with the Palestinians.

But earlier they said that Abbas agreed to the Clinton parameters regarding Jerusalem: Jewish neighborhoods would be in Israel, Arab neighborhoods would become part of Palestine (never mind that this might be a terrible idea). What is Gilo if not a Jewish neighborhood? And they fail to mention that prior to this announcement, Abbas violated his commitment not to seek statehood through the UN, and applied to join various UN treaties and conventions. So how could this have been the ‘last straw’?

Israel is not China. It was founded by a UN resolution. Its prosperity depends on the way it is viewed by the international community.

This is a remarkably ignorant statement. The Jewish nation is actually a lot like China, going back thousands of years, always with a presence in and a connection to the land of Israel. Created by a UN resolution? Do they mean the non-binding and never implemented 181? The modern state of Israel was created by the struggle and blood of the Jewish people who threw out the British colonialists and defended themselves against the genocidal Arabs, who quite literally subscribed to Nazi doctrine.

Excuse me, these are the diplomats who represent the US? Or just a pair of idiots?

Alex Joffe, in TOI, notes:

One of the more remarkable statements from Barnea’s interlocutor shows just how little understanding there is regarding “settlements” as an Israeli political issue. “We didn’t realize continuing construction allowed ministers in his government to very effectively sabotage the success of the talks.”

Since the 1980s there has been a predictable manner in which low and mid level Israeli committees embarrass prime ministers engaged in peace negotiations with announcements of construction tenders, some for projects far in the future. This is a major Israeli political problem, but reasonably informed American observers should at least be aware of it.

Amazingly, the Americans appear not to have been. Instead, they reacted with outrage, which is more foolish than simply being surprised and disappointed, since it rewards the Israeli right wing. It also betrays just how ill-informed American diplomats appear to be about the convoluted, if not demented, nature of Israeli politics and bureaucracy. Allowing Abbas to collapse the talks because of housing tenders issued for Gilo – a Jerusalem neighborhood that no reasonable observer could possibly expect to be evacuated – is doubly so.

Dr. Aaron Lerner adds:

Once again, the Americans are pathetically clueless, relying on the words of encouragement from their lefty Israeli friends rather than actually appreciating what the country really thinks. They thought they would hurt Netanyahu with this piece when the opposite is the case.

And now to the real puzzle: If they actually believe that the Palestinians "will get a State for themselves in the end" then why all the fuss?

After all, according to the narrative these folks subscribe to, once the Palestinians have a state of their own we will enjoy Utopian Peace. [Only someone who thought there would be Utopian Peace would think that a deal that completely removes the IDF from the scene within 60 months is a deal that promises Israel security].

The intervew seems to reveal far more about American cluelessness than about Israeli intransigence.

(h/t Bob Knot)

Al Arabiya (Arabic) reports:

Assistant Iranian President for Nationalities and Religious Minorities, Yonsei Ali, called to fight "Salafists and al-Qaeda and Zionism" which he called extremist ideas in a speech on Friday evening during a visit to a synagogue in Shiraz, southern Iran.

During his speech to the Iranian Jews, Yonsei strongly criticized religious extremist tendencies in the world, and considered them a threat to international peace.

He said: While there may be relatively few members of al Qaeda and Salafist Islam and the Zionist Jews and pro-Christian extremists, they pose a threat to international peace, and everyone must address them."

It appears that Ali visited a church as well.

No official word on what would have happened to any of the honored Jews if they would have publicly disagreed with him about Zionism.

Oh, by the way, a Long Island mosque funded Al Qaeda

Ujaama

Which is bigger news: that a mosque on Long Island funded a terror group, or that a Brooklyn mosque didn't?

The New York Daily News decided the latter:

When a Seattle man working in London with hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri flew to New York to raise money for jihad fighters in Afghanistan, a Brooklyn mosque told him to get lost, he testified.

Witness James Ujaama said a Long Island mosque chipped in to help Abu Hamza’s Supporters of Sharia group. “What was the reaction you received from the mosque in Brooklyn?” a prosecutor asked Thursday. “Not very supportive,” Ujaama said.

Abu Hamza, 56, is charged with aiding Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

I haven't been following the case, but I don't see anything else about any Long Island mosque funding terrorists (although there have been terrorists that attended at least one mosque on Long Island.)

It appears that political correctness forces the media to emphasize when American Muslims don't support terror, and all but ignore when they do. This is pandering and ultimately an insult not only to the general readership but to US Muslims as well, as it implies that Muslims who say no to terror are somehow praiseworthy while those who support terror are the norm.

Meanwhile, shouldn't people know the name of this Long Island mosque whose members happily fork over money to terrorists?

05/03 Links: US blames Israel for talks failure; US State Dept partners with Anti-Semitic book fair

From Ian:

US officials: Even if Israel doesn’t like it, Palestinians will get state

Speaking on condition of anonymity to Nahum Barnea, a prominent columnist from Israel’s best-selling daily Yedioth Aharonoth, the officials highlighted Netanyahu’s ongoing settlement construction as the issue “largely to blame” for the failure of Secretary of State John Kerry’s July 2013-April 2014 effort to broker a permanent peace accord.
They made plain that US President Barack Obama had been prepared to release spy-for-Israel Jonathan Pollard to salvage the talks. And they warned that “the world will not keep tolerating the Israeli occupation.”
Barnea, who described his conversations with the American officials as “the closest thing to an official American version of what happened” in the talks, said the secretary is now deciding whether to wait a few months and try to renew the negotiating effort or to publicize the US’s suggested principles of an agreement.

U.S. State Department Listed as ‘Cultural Partner’ of Abu Dhabi Book Fair Featuring Anti-Semitic Titles

A listing of English and Arabic titles on display at the Fair, which is currently underway, include Holocaust Denial, The International Jew and Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Also exhibited is The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the second most published book in the Arab world, which promotes the anti-Semitic notion that Jews are planning global domination.
According to the Book Fair’s official website, the U.S. Department of State is among the event’s “cultural partners.” Others include Ikea, France 24, The National Geographic and the French Embassy.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), said the discovery “should surprise no one” and urged the U.S. to disassociate itself from the fair.

Iran bans Whatsapp, citing ‘Zionist’ owner Zuckerberg

“The reason for this is the assumption of WhatsApp by the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is an American Zionist,” Fox quoted Abdolsamad Khorramabadi, head of the country’s Committee on Internet Crimes, as saying.
Facebook bought the mobile messaging service in February for $19 billion in cash and stock.
Zuckerberg is Jewish, but has made little comment about Israel or about regional politics.
One Iranian blogger who asked to remain anonymous told Fox that Tehran views social media as a threat to its power.

05/02 Links Pt2: Netanyahu: Learning the lessons of the past; J Street: The Pro-War Group

From Ian:

Binyamin Netanyahu: Learning the lessons of the past

Today, we are unafraid to speak the truth to world leaders. As is written in the Bible: "I will speak of your testimonies before kings, and I will not be ashamed… listen, for I will speak the truth." Unlike the Holocaust, when the Jewish people were like a wind-tossed leaf and utterly defenseless, we now have great power to defend ourselves, and it is ready for any mission.
This power rests on the courage and ingenuity of the soldiers of the IDF and the men and women of our security forces. It is this power that enabled us, against all odds, to build the State of Israel. Look at the remarkable achievements we have made in the 66 years of our independence.
All of us – scientists, writers, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, employees, artists, farmers – the entire people of Israel, each one in their own field – together we have built a glorious state. The spirit of the people of Israel is sublime, our accomplishments tremendous. Seven decades after the destruction of the Holocaust, the State of Israel is a wonder of the world.
On this day, on behalf of the Jewish people, I say to all those who sought to destroy us, and to all those who still seek to destroy us: You have failed, and you will fail again. The State of Israel is stronger than ever. It is a state that seeks peace with all its neighbors and it pulsates with an iron will to ensure the future of our people.
"The people will arise like a lion cub and raise itself like a lion...and Judea will dwell securely". (Numbers 23:24; Jeremiah 23:6).

Irwin Cotler: 70 years since the Hungarian Shoah, Am Yisrael Hai

I write at a historical yet painful moment of remembrance and reminder: the 70th anniversary of the Shoah of Hungarian Jewry, when some 600,000 Jews, three-quarters of that country’s Jewish population, perished in 1944. It has also been 70 years since the rescue of the remnant of Hungarian Jews by Raoul Wallenberg, the disappeared hero of the Holocaust, who demonstrated that one person can confront evil, can resist, can prevail, and thereby transform history.
I write also having participated in the March of the Living in Budapest this past Sunday, and then on Monday in Auschwitz. In Budapest, I joined tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews and their supporters in reenacting the death march from the Danube River to the eastern railway station. In a period of 10 weeks, 430,000 Hungarian Jews were herded onto cattle cars at that station and deported to Auschwitz.
Those 10 weeks represent the fastest and most brutally efficient extermination of the Shoah.

Israel prepares to mourn 23,169 casualties of war and terrorism

Israel is set to pay tribute to 23,169 casualties of war and terrorism who have fallen since 1860.
On Sunday evening, events marking the Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism will be held around the country.
The Defense Ministry said 57 newly fallen had been added to the casualty count since the last Day of Remembrance in 2013, and that an additional 50 disabled IDF veterans died due to their disability.
The number of bereaved family members stands at 17,038, of which 2,141 are orphans, and 4,966 are IDF widows.

Pathetic hater Roger Waters can't stand that his attempts to get artists to boycott Israel have been backfiring far more often than they have succeeded.

In the past couple of years Israel has seen Metallica, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Madonna, David Bowie, and Eric Clapton. This year Israel has seen or will see Neil Young, Soundgarden, Justin Timberlake and the Pixies (who once were darlings of BDSers for canceling a gig in Tel Aviv.).

And, now, the Rolling Stones.

Waters, writing in Salon, is not happy, and he blusters:

Playing Israel now is the moral equivalent of playing Sun City at the height of South African apartheid....We are nearing the tipping point in global awareness that the denial of Palestinian rights has had a devastating impact on generations of people, and that they need our support now more than ever.

Lebanon treats Palestinian Arabs far worse than Israel does, by every possible measure. Yet does Waters ask anyone to boycott concerts in Beirut?

Of course not. Waters doesn't give a damn about Palestinian Arabs; his is the politics of hate, not of peace.

BDS has reached its peak, and Waters has gone past the expiration date with his fellow artists for his anti-Israel advocacy.

And it isn't only entertainers who are roundly sick of people like Roger Waters and their simpleminded one-dimensional politics. The failure of BDS initiatives on college campuses this year show that even the young aren't buying into the hate any more.

Many of the commenters at Salon are predictable in their support for Waters, and this one, called @I Hate Onions, is emblematic of many:

One has to remember that Judaism is one of the most insular religions on the face of planet, yet Israeli's scream for world recognition and international aid.

Just try and become a Jew. It is very hard and not a welcoming a experience.

Jews hate outsiders....perhaps not hate, but view them with deep suspicion.
---
Jews really don't like outsiders, but for some reason we need to lay down the red carpet for them.

Their sense of entitlement knows no bounds.

Then, when another commenter pointed out how he was stereotyping Jews, he answered:

I meant Israelis. They have a sense of entitlement.

Please prove how I hate Jews.

You can't....you are just another loser playing the antisemitic card.

Yup, he just mistypes Jews and Judaism lots of times before realizing his "mistake."

How dare anyone criticize him based on such skimpy evidence!

A full day session criticizing UNRWA - at the UN!

The The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) and the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IAJLJ) will be presenting a most interesting program at the UN on May 19th called "UNRWA - Providing Humanitarian Relief or Prolonging the Palestinian Refugee Problem?"

I know that the IAJLJ is an accredited UN NGO, which is probably how they were able to get space at the UN itself.

Here's the description (received via email):

According to its charter, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is a humanitarian group helping Palestinian refugees. In reality, it has become an obstacle to Palestinian-Israeli peace by engaging in incitement and holding Palestinians back from rebuilding their lives.

While some have suggested that UNRWA be abolished, we believe it is not UNRWA's existence but rather how it executes its mandate that is the root of the problem. UNRWA has broken all the rules that are supposed to govern humanitarian enterprises. Consequently, UNRWA is the exact opposite of other refugee relief operations. While other relief operations seek to resettle refugees; UNRWA is dedicated to blocking resettlement. While other relief operations limit the definition of "refugee" to individuals who flee their homeland; UNRWA uniquely inflates the number of Palestinian refugees by defining all descendants of the original refugees of 1948-1949 as "refugees." While all other relief operations help refugees live normal lives so that they can move on with their existence; UNRWA ensures the refugees' lives remain abnormal so that the refugees will be filled with anger and a thirst for revenge that inspires violence and can only be quenched by a victorious return. While relief organizations try to create stable conditions for refugees; UNRWA enables radical political activity and indoctrination by armed groups which ensure a continual state of near chaos.

People often wonder why violence and instability persist and why the Arab-Israeli conflict is so seemingly impossible to resolve. An important part of the answer is that UNRWA perpetuates the problem. UNRWA has kept Palestinian refugees in suspended animation and at low living standards. Their suffering and anger is maintained as a weapon to encourage them toward violence and intransigence.

The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949. It is highly unlikely, however, that the General Assembly would support any meaningful reform of the agency without a tremendous amount of persuasion and pressure. But there are important and common sense changes to UNRWA that can be effectuated outside the General Assembly.

During the past year, the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IAJLJ) met in Israel with the Ambassadors and staff of donor countries that support UNRWA. At these meetings, the IAJLJ provided the government officials with a letter describing the problems associated with UNRWA's activities. During these discussions, the IAJLJ questioned whether UNRWA, established over 60 years ago, is fulfilling its mission or failing in its mission. Facts on the ground demonstrate the need for substantial change in the way UNRWA is handling the Palestinian refugee crisis.

The IAJLJ and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) have organized as a side event at the United Nations headquarters in New York, a symposium focusing on UNRWA. The event will be held on May 19, 2014, and will gather representatives from the United States and other donor countries to discuss and confront these difficult issues, and to develop ideas to address these challenges.

Speakers include Ambassador Ron Prosor, Prof. Alexander H. Joffe, Prof. Asaf Romirowsky, Dr. Einat Wilf and James M. Lindsay.

It will be livestreamed over the UN's WebTV channel.

05/02 Links Pt1: What Abbas has learned from Iran; Moving beyond the doomed ‘peace process’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Abbas has learned from Iran’s approach to the west

Has Mahmoud Abbas been taking instruction from Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran
The Palestinian president’s recent moves have been straight out of the Iranian playbook: make moderate noises and however ludicrous they may be, the West will be so desperate to avoid facing up to the reality of murderous extremism it will take them on face value.
Iran has been playing this to perfection. Its newish president, Hassan Rouhani, mouthed enough of the right platitudes to make people assume he was a terrific guy — even though Iran is still proceeding towards nuclear weapon breakout capability.
Abbas has understood what the Iranians grasped: that Washington will do anything to be seen to have achieved a deal. Consequently, the US will not act against him whatever he does, while it dumps on Israel instead.
So Abbas has behaved accordingly. His attitude to the Kerry negotiations was to say no to everything and wait for the US to blame Israel — over the “settlements”, of course, surely the most spectacular red herring ever to have swum in the fetid waters of diplomacy. The US duly obliged.

Caroline Glick: Life under the Obama Doctrine

Since his first days in office, Obama has signaled clearly through his deeds that he had absolutely no interest in blocking Iran’s nuclear progress. On the contrary, Obama’s policies in the Middle East have consistently involved strengthening and legitimizing the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood at the expense of Israel and the less radical Sunni Arab states.
Out of habit, and in the hopes that something would change, Israel pretended away this reality and continued to follow Washington’s lead, limiting its goals to covert operations against Iran – that Obama leaked to the media – and lobbying Congress for sanctions that never had any chance of blocking Iran’s race to the nuclear finishing line.
Certainly since last November, when Obama signed his nuclear surrender to Iran, Israel has had no excuse for following the US’s lead on Iran. The deal’s sole effect is to enable Iran to become a nuclear power and a regional hegemon.
And so Israel must ignore it. Every day that Israel does not set back Iran’s nuclear progress brings Israel closer to being the subject of nuclear blackmail, Iranian-backed terrorism, and even nuclear Armageddon.
Obama may hide his doctrine behind petulance, populist canards and straw men, but it is clear enough. And that means that as far as Israel is concerned, its goal of securing its survival and prosperity for at least the next two-and-a-half years requires Jerusalem to act on its own and in the face of White House opposition.

Sarah Honig: Another Tack: It’s a rotten line

Nowhere in 242 was a Palestinian state ever mentioned. Neither was Jerusalem ever mentioned and certainly not the Johnny-come-lately demand that it be recognized as the Palestinian capital. According to today’s mind-blowing misrepresentation of 242, it isn’t as if the final borders are to be determined by future negotiations but that reinstating the June 4, 1967 lines is compulsory. This is the diktat. It must be implemented rather than discussed.
Gradually and deliberately, all the partial prudence mustered in 1967 was obfuscated and unconscionably warped. Resolution 242 was manipulatively deformed into the quasi-religious two-state doctrine. The key UN Resolution was first calculatingly counterfeited as obliging Israel to a full and unconditional withdrawal from every inch beyond the 1967 starting line.
Later “fine-tuning” centered on the establishment of a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital. Neither figment had yet been invented in 1967 but both are nowadays treated as if they were cardinal components of 242 from its inception.
With frequent repetitions, the two-state premise gains priority in indoctrinated psyches. Memory is reinforced with each tendentious news report and skewed analysis until the preaching becomes an axiomatic irrefutable precept.

Arab media continues to write offensive Holocaust articles

Continuing with our survey of how Arab media is portraying the Holocaust after Abbas' statement....

Jamal Ibrahim, writing in El Balad (Egypt), says that rich Jews like the Rothschilds cooperated with Hitler to murder thousands of poor Jews as part of a huge conspiracy to gain support for Jews establishing a state in Palestine. After Hitler died, the Jews covered up the evidence.

Dr. Ibrahim Barawi in Al Ittihad (UAE) asks three questions:

The first question is: Is there really a substantial difference between the murder of Jews in the gas chambers by the Nazis and killing of masses of unarmed Palestinians shot dead in the village of Deir Yassin, for example?

The second is: Is it fair to play down the crimes and massacres by the Zionists using quantitative difference by saying that the number of Jews who were murdered by the Nazis was in the millions, while the number of Palestinians killed by the Zionists or displacing them from their homes and threw them out in the open does not exceed one million?

And third question: Is it possible to be the founders of Israel hurt by the Nazi aggressor then tried to imitate them three years after the fall of Hitler?

Is there really any difference between diaper rash and murder? Between a car accident and 9/11?

Ahmed Mughrabi in Al Hayat actually criticizes the Arabs who defend the Holocaust. Not because the Holocaust is heinous, but because that by doing so they aid Israel by conflating Zionists and Jews and making people sympathetic to Zionists (or something like that.)

See - there is progress! None of these people denied the Holocaust! We should be celebrating, given the very low standards that the world assumes for Arab morality.

Russia's RT.com pushes one-state solution, insults Israel, US, Canada, Australia

RT.com, the Russian state-funded English-language media outlet, posted what is meant to be a humorous "rap news" piece that purports to give the truth about Israel. The show is created by two Australians.

The number of lies and slanders in this 7 minute piece rival anything in Arab media.

The piece shows a trigger-happy, kippa-wearing Netanyahu justifying Israel's existence based solely on Jewish suffering, wantonly killing a Hamas leader who was willing to recognize Israel. The Six Day War is shown as a malicious land grab and UNSC 242 is misrepresented as insisting that Israel return all lands, which Bibi says is antisemitic.His actions are justified by American media and John Kerry, afraid to say anything to offend Israel.

"The Map that Lies" makes an appearance, as does Norman Finkelstein to insult both the US and Israel.

The US, Canada and Australia are said to support Israel only because they are all genocidal states built on stolen land.

Palestinian Arabs are shown as pure victims of Israeli evil. The show goes on to say that treating Israel like South Africa and imposing a one-state solution is the only real answer and will turn Arab terrorists into Nobel peace prize winners.

It is easy to disprove literally every stanza of the "rap" but one cannot easily counter the fact that lies that are disguised as entertainment are accepted by viewers uncritically. People simply refuse to believe that they are being lied to explicitly, especially when the lies are what makes them laugh.

It is masterful agitprop in the mold of the Soviet playbook that has been the backbone of leftist anti-Israel propaganda for decades.

(h/t Shlomedic)

Israeli vs. Arab concessions for peace, 1993-2014 (poster)

A followup to my earlier post about Saeb Erekat.

(h/t Preoccupied Territory)

05/01 Links Pt2: Chloe Valdary: The J Street Paradigm; The birth of the Israeli Air Force

From Ian:

Chloe Valdary: The J Street Paradigm:Methods, Means, & Modes of Suicide

Post Zionism and the rise of J Street
It is within these two historical contexts–‘Enlightened’ evil and Stockholm Syndrome– that the conundrum of the so-called post-Zionist movement can perhaps be better comprehended. Post-Zionism posits that the Zionist era has passed and is at best a historical era which had its run but is no longer in session. Generally Jews who belong to this camp are of the left-wing progressive persuasion who also fail to understand what Zionism is. They usually understand Zionism to be merely a response to anti-Semitism and thus no longer necessary. They are largely ignorant of the emancipatory nature of Zionism, which, must like the civil rights movement in America, was rooted in ethnic and cultural pride. Zionism, while it was indeed reactionary, was also proactive in its advancement of an indigenous people’s rights. The Jewish right to settle in its ancient homeland is not simply due to the spread of anti-Semitism; It is a matter of fact, regardless of whatever political climate Jews find themselves in, in the Diaspora. Post-Zionists also do not grasp the scope of anti-Semitism, not in the Middle East nor its growth in Europe. Indeed, they often, through Stockholm Syndrome, contribute to it.
I realize that this is a very hard pill to swallow. Nevertheless the symptom must be properly diagnosed if the patient is to heal. Perhaps no greater example of such a festering sore on the heart of the Jewish people can be found then in that of the political organization, J Street. Claiming to be pro-Israel and pro-peace, J Street is neither and advances no such policies. Founded in 2008, its major pronouncement is that a two-state solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict is what must be advanced both for the sake of Israeli security and American stability in the region. This of course precludes a detailed analysis of the situation, and a study into all possible prognosis to the problem. This premature announcement of an end, rather then examining the complexity of the situation and then coming to an educated conclusion reflective of those same complex factors, epitomizes J Street’s creed: The end justifies the means.

Indy publishes letter (whose signatures include Desmond Tutu) with lie about ‘maimed’ Palestinian ‘footballers’

However, the charges about the alleged attack on the ‘talented teenage Palestinian footballers’, which was first published in the Arab media and then by Dave Zirin at The Nation, were proven to be a lie in a superb fisking at Elder of Ziyon.
First, the two Palestinians were not ‘targeted’ because they were “football players”, but because they were allegedly seen throwing bombs.
The incident, which occurred in late January near Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem, reportedly began when a group of Palestinians (including the two “footballers”) threw bombs at Israeli security forces. The security forces evidently only opened fire when the group attempted to run away and tried again to toss explosives at them.
Additionally, both of the Palestinian ‘victims’, Joher Naser and Adam Johar, are evidently supporters of the terror group, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. (h/t Bob Knot)

A Case of Selective Holocaust Memory

Grand Mufti: Founder of Palestinian Liberation, Nazi Collaborator
As disturbing as Abbas’s statements are, it’s what he does not say that is morally repugnant. Let’s not forget that the annihilation of Hungary’s Jews was aided by the founder of the Palestinian national liberation movement, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.
Having fled to Berlin in 1941, the Mufti got busy, actively assisting the Nazis by recruiting Bosnian Muslim soldiers into the Wafen-SS. It was these Mufti recruits who guarded the bridges across which passed the trains that carried over half a million Hungarian Jewish men, women and children to Auschwitz for extermination.
The Muslim soldiers were tasked with thwarting partisan efforts to slow the killing machine by blowing up vital arteries such as bridges.
The Mufti also helped establish the “Free Arab Legion” that operated as an adjunct to the Wehrmacht, the German army. The Nazis were most appreciative, paying al-Husseini a monthly salary that was twice the amount of a Reich Field Marshall’s.
Al-Husseini’s activities on behalf of Nazi Germany are explored in a documentary titled “The Turban and the Swastika”. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

From The Jordan Times:

In his book “Mein Kampf”, Adolf Hitler states that in “… the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature…”.

The Zionist big lie about Palestine — “a land without a people” — that the entire Western world adopted, and the biblical, Talmudic myth of the “chosen people” have been the most important factors behind all the tragedies and atrocities that Palestine and the Palestinians have been subjected to since the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in l897.

Our Arab-Muslim civilisation has never had a moment of rest, or peace of mind, since Zionism was able to penetrate Western civilisation to the point where tens of millions of Westerners, the neoconservatives, adopted that esoteric Talmudic myth, placing Zionist interests before and above their own national interests.

We Arabs, Jordanians and Palestinians especially, are victims of a torrent of lies by a few international media magnates that every day enter every room of every household, propagating not only sex and violence but also, above all, the Zionist ideas of the extreme right.

Yes, in these four short paragraphs we learn that ~~Jews~~ "Zionists" use Hitler's methods to propagate "The Big Lie," that ~~Jews~~ "Zionists" managed to get the entire world to buy into their lies, that ~~Jewish~~ "Talmudic" myths are the only reason ~~Jews~~ Zionists in the Middle East to begin with, that Western nations are so incredibly enamored of ~~Jewish~~ "Zionist" myths that they happily sacrifice their own interests to make ~~Jews~~ "Zionists" happy, and that ~~Jews~~ "Zionists" control the media that drenches the world with ~~Jewish~~ "Zionist" myths and sex and violence.

Oh, and the author, Kamel S. Abu Jaber, is the former foreign minister of Jordan.

He goes on to say that Arabs need to counter Israel by any means necessary, including military:

What will get Israel to agree to a settlement is not going to be good sentiments or feelings, wishes or intentions.

What is needed is a counterforce, be it military, political, economic or the oil weapon.

Unfortunately, such force is not available now, nor does it appear to be likely in the near future.

...An Arabic proverb says: “The rope of lies is short.”

Hopefully that will prove to be true in the case of Zionism, too, though for that to happen, we need to intensify our efforts in that direction.

I believe that Jordanians and Palestinians alone are a match for Israel, and that while we will welcome any support from other Arabs, Muslims or others, we can face Israel alone.

In other words, as soon as Arabs are strong enough to start another war with Israel, that is one necessary path to destroy Zionism. He's not talking about a fair settlement between Israel and the Arab world, but about the end of Jewish nationalism to be forced by military, economic or political means.

Speaking of lies, he adds this one:

By the terms of the l994 peace treaty with Israel, Jordan was entrusted with the care and protection of the holy places in Jerusalem.

Not even close.

According to Walla, Israel has lodged a formal complaint to Jordan, saying:

The fact that the author based his article on quotes from Hitler's racist doctrine is offensive - not only for Jews but for every person who believes in the basic values of humanity. The Israeli Embassy strongly condemns the author of the article and the newspaper that published the remarks, and calls on the Jordanian Foreign Ministry to prevent the publication of similar articles and to take a strong stand against it.

(h/t O)

Here is a survey of how the Arab media is reporting about the Holocaust in today's newspapers.

Al Arab al Yawm, an Arab newspaper based out of Jordan, has an article about the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem who contributed directly to the genocide of Jews in Europe during World War II.

The unsigned article quotes, and does not dispute, Israeli newspaper accounts of the history of the Mufti's crimes in Nazi Germany. But here is how it introduces the topic:

Israel is trying through its media to offend every symbol of Palestinian leaders, Arabs and Muslims, including Haj Amin al-Husseini and Gamal Abdel Nasser and Yasser Arafat, and many others who unfurled banners of struggle and the struggle against the Zionist aggression that usurped Palestine, and displaced the Palestinian people in an orgy of crimes against humanity.

Among the continuous misrepresentations committed by Israel against our symbols is the report published recently about Galilee fighter Sheikh Haj Amin al-Husseini and his relationship with the German state in the thirties and forties of the last century. We will not get in the evaluation of the position of Jews from Germany, but we want to ask, what do you expect from a national leader who sees his home and and people usurped and displaced by the Zionist gangs, backed by the great powers at the time, led by Britain?!!

Isn't it obvious when people start buying houses in your neighborhood that you should seek to exterminate everyone who shares their peoplehood and religion?

Another Arab newspaper today, Moheet, denied the Holocaust altogether:

Some Europeans who did not believe the lie of the Holocaust started researching, and inquiring about the facts, and documenting the numbers, and the French philosopher Roger Garaudy presented facts and figures about the Jews in World War II that belies claims of damage to the Jews.

Al Watan Voice today uses the Mahmoud Abbas angle that Zionists were cooperating with Nazis in their crimes, but notes that those crimes pale in comparison with what Zionists are doing in the Middle East:

The Zionist state has exercised against the Palestinian people, the worst massacres of human history, the number of massacres carried out against the Palestinian people are endless in quantity and quality, to the present time.

This is all just in the past day.

05/01 Links Pt1: Richard Kemp: The Fatah-Hamas Agreement; Iran becomes UNESCO's M.E. Rep.

From Ian:

Richard Kemp: The Fatah-Hamas Agreement

Gaza terrorists have seized every available opportunity for other forms of attack against Israeli soldiers and civilians including kidnappings, shootings, suicide bombs, anti-tank missiles and Improvised Explosive Devices [IEDs].
Iran, sworn to Israel's destruction, as are its Gaza-based proxies, has funded, armed, energized and directed both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As we saw with the Israeli interdiction of the Iranian arms shipment aboard the Klos-C only last month, Iran's sponsorship of terrorism continues unabated -- even as the international community is rehabilitating its extremist regime.
Especially in a region and among neighbours that are becoming even more unstable, violent and unpredictable, Israel must ensure that in the event a Palestinian state should ever reach fruition, the West Bank does not become a second Gaza. The bloody consequences of that for the Israeli people would be far greater than from anything Hamas could hurl out of the Strip.
Kerry has proposed international troops to provide security against attacks on Israel from the West Bank. Few Israelis believe that they could rely on such a force to protect them. There are the historical precedents for the failure of peacekeeping forces in the region and beyond, especially when the going gets tough. And in the West Bank, the going would get very tough very soon and very often.
There is the criminal failure of the international community, as both accomplice and accessory before the fact, to make any meaningful effort to prevent endless salvoes of lethal terrorist rocket attacks against Israeli civilians for over nine years.
Worse still, when Israel has been forced to respond to protect its citizens, it has been stabbed in the back by the international community, who have accused it of war crimes.

Getting Rid of National Borders in the Middle East Won’t End Sectarian Warfare

Borders aren’t moving. Rather, populations are moving to accommodate borders. We all know about the exodus of Arab refugees from Israel in 1948 and 1967, as well as the often forced emigration of Jews from Arab lands to Israel in the years after the Jewish state was established—but Christians have been in flight from Lebanon since that country’s 15-year-long civil war, from 1975 to 1990, and the subsequent Syrian occupation, from 1990 to 2005, one of the aims of which was to disempower the Christian community. In Iraq, Assyrian Christians fled in large numbers after the fall of Saddam, largely to Syria, and then on to the West.
But the Christians’ trail of tears pales in comparison to the departure of Sunnis from Syria.
Conservative estimates show that there are more than half a million refugees now in Turkey and Jordan and nearly a million more in Lebanon, which is still home to another 450,000 Palestinian refugees from 1948 and 1967. It’s not difficult to imagine how this crisis may come to shape the region. Take Lebanon: With roughly one-third of Lebanon’s population now made up of Syrian refugees, the vast majority of whom are Sunnis, the country’s sectarian balance between Shiites, Christians and Sunnis is now tipped in favor of the Sunnis, perhaps irrevocably. That in turn may force Hezbollah to move in the other direction, from what is certain to be a Sunni-majority Lebanon to a Syria or Iraq ruled by Shiites.
Even if, or when, Assad falls, the Syrian conflict hasn’t erased borders. What it’s done is destroy homes and families—and confessional communities with longstanding and in some cases ancient ties to the lands they’re now leaving. The real Middle East crisis isn’t about the failure of democracy in its nation-states, but the private disasters its citizens are facing.

The Pal "unity" agreement includes Islamic Jihad

Ma'an reports:

Three senior Islamic Jihad leaders traveled from Gaza to Egypt via Rafah crossing on Wednesday, sources within the faction told Ma'an.

Islamic Jihad sources said that Muhammad al-Hindi, Nafith Azzama, and Khaled al-Batsh traveled through Egypt to convene with other faction leaders for meetings on the recent Hamas-PLO reconciliation deal.

The leaders will consider the ways Islamic Jihad could be involved in the unity government, which is due to be set into place within four weeks, the sources said.

Ramzy Baroud, a pro-terror Palestinian Arab writer, confirms:

On April 23, top Fatah and Hamas officials hammered out the final details of the Beach Refugee Camp agreement without any Arab mediation. All major grievances have purportedly been smoothed over, differences have been abridged, and other sensitive issues have been referred to a specialized committee. One of these committees will be entrusted to incorporate Hamas and the Islamic Jihad into the fold of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Islamic Jihad is even more publicly extreme than Hamas is. It was Islamic Jihad (along with Fatah) that shot dozens of rockets against Israeli communities in the micro-war in March, while Hamas sat that action out.

Islamic Jihad was included in previous attempts of unity between supposedly moderate Fatah and other terror groups that form the PLO.

From the UN's perspective, the PLO is the State of Palestine. Which means it is the only "state" in the world that is run by a terrorist organization, soon to be joined by two other terrorist organizations.

Latest Egyptian conspiracy theory: Jews hiding Israeli flag in plastic cups

Egypt's Foreign Minister, Nabil Fahdy, apparently met with a Jewish group in the US this week. Here's a photo of the visit from his party's Facebook page:

Egyptian paper Al Mesryoon is upset over part of the scene:

What an insult!

You mean, you don't see it?

Come on, its obvious. The Jews purposefully put two stripes of blue cups around the water bottles to evoke the Israeli flag!

How much more humiliation are Egyptians expected to take???

I'm surprised that Al Mesryoon didn't notice that there were exactly six water bottles between the blue cups - obviously meant to symbolize not only the six-pointed Star of David, but also the Six Day War and Egypt's humiliating defeat at the hands of Israel.

Notice also that there are four cups in each row, for a total of eight. This is clear reference to 1948, the year of the Nakba!

And there are two sets of drinks, which symbolizes the two [alleged, according to Arab media] Jewish Temples and Israel's desire to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque to build the third Temple!

How transparent those Jews are in their evil plots!

Saeb Erekat's lie of the day, in Time magazine

Saeb Erekat published an anti-Israel screed in Time claiming that Israel is not interested in peace and the PLO, trying to merge with terrorist group Hamas, is.

Among the many lies comes this gem:

Frankly, it is difficult to understand how anyone could expect us to negotiate with such a government. And yet we have, in good faith, offering concession after concession for the sake of peace.

The list of Israeli concessions for peace since Oslo is quite long - giving full autonomy to parts of Judea and Samaria, accepting the idea of two states for two peoples (something even Yitzchak Rabin refused to do,) offering unprecedented concessions of disputed land even in Israel's capital. These concessions are well documented by the Israelis who offered them and the Americans who were there at the time.

But can Saeb Erekat name a single public concession that the PLO has made to Israel since the Oslo accords?

Erekat says they have offered "offering concession after concession for the sake of peace." So it should be simple for him to name, say, one of them.

Saeb Erekat heads the PLO Negotiating Unit. If he offered a concession remotely comparable to what Israel has conceded since 1993 in the possibly reckless pursuit of peace, wouldn't we know what it is by now?

It will be hard for Erekat to specify a single solid concession that he claims he has made - because his boss Mahmoud Abbas has publicly bragged, in Arabic, more than once, that he has not changed the PLO's positions one iota since 1988.

So we have proven for the umpteenth time that Saeb Erekat is a liar.

Too bad the Westerners whom he talks to don't have the guts to call him on his litany of lies that continue to be spouted every time he opens his mouth. .