Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Turkish Muslims flocking to visit Jerusalem

Ma'an has an article on Turkish tourism to Jerusalem, and being Ma'an, they have to add in some anti-Israel spin:

Thousands of Turkish citizens are visiting Islamic religious sites in occupied East Jerusalem on a yearly basis despite the obstacles they face, and the numbers are only set to increase in coming years.

What are these obstacles?

Thousands of Turks visit the Al-Aqsa compound in particular each year, especially during Islamic holidays, despite the intensive and invasive searches they often face by Israeli security personnel.

Searches? Every Jew who visits the Kotel must go through checkpoints and metal detectors, and to go to the Temple Mount Jews and non-Muslims have to go through a much more complete search to use the single gate available to them. I was not allowed to bring up much of my camera equipment during my visit there. On the other hand, Muslims have a choice of a dozen gates, and the last time I looked there was no metal detector or searching for them to enter, just a couple of bored looking Israeli guards.

Around 3,000 Turkish citizens recently came to Jerusalem to celebrate the day in the Islamic calendar that marks the Prophet Muhammad's ascension to heaven, known as Isra and Miraj, a member of the Graduates' Committee of Turkey told Ma'an recently.

06/01 Links: French Police Arrest Suspected Gunman in Brussels Jewish Museum Shooting

From Ian:

Suspected Brussels gunman admitted on film to attack

Mehdi Nemmouche filmed a short video after the shootings in which he claimed responsibility for the May 24 attack, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said in a press conference. The film also reportedly showed the weapons used by Nemmouche throughout the assault, according to AFP.
The suspect was wrapped up in a white sheet scrawled with the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an extremist group fighting in Syria, Molins said. He said the suspect had spent about a year in Syria.
Nemmouche, a 29-year-old from the northern French town of Roubaix, was arrested Friday in Marseille in possession of a gun and an AK-47 assault rifle of the sort used in the attack.
Nemmouche is suspected of having jihadist links and had reportedly visited war-torn Syria in 2013. (h/t Yoel)

Jewish leaders hail arrest of alleged Brussels gunman

Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French citizen from the northern French town of Roubaix, was arrested Friday in Marseille in possession of a gun and a Kalashnikov assault rifle of the sort used in the May 24 attack that claimed the lives of four people, including two Israelis.
“We are very satisfied with the work of the French authorities in finding the perpetrator of the cold-blooded murders last week,” European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor said in a statement. “However, for too long authorities in Europe have acted speedily after the fact. it is now time for all to turn attention and set as the highest priority the prevention of these vicious crimes.”

Czech president: Radical Islam behind Brussels attack

President Milos Zeman made the statement last week, before the capture in Marseille on Friday of a suspect whom French authorities said had fought with jihadists in Syria and may be tied to the May 24 murder of four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in central Brussels.
“I will not be reassured by claims that these are the actions of small fringe groups,” Zeman said at the Prague Hilton on May 26 about the shootings, which he called “abominable acts of murder.” He added: “I believe, by contrast, that this xenophobia, racism or anti-Semitism are at the very nature of this ideology, on which these fanatical groups rely.”

San Francisco State University Funds Hatred (Michael Lumish)

Michael Lumish, of the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under, continues his weekly column here at EoZ.

San Francisco State University is among the most racist universities in the United States today.

Last year my old alma mater funded student political organizations that called specifically for murder and presumably for the murder of Jews. At an event sponsored by the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), among a few other like-minded groups, honoring the late Columbia professor of the Humanities, Edward Said, signs were held aloft calling for the murder of "colonizers."

The people that I spoke to on campus all hold significant institutional positions at the university. They are people with their finger on the pulse of that campus, yet they seemed mystified about just who these "colonizers" in need of killing might be. Nonetheless, I feel reasonably certain that when hard-left students, who happen to be members of the General Union of Palestine Students, hold up signs that read, My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers, that they do not mean Rosicrucians or Rastafarians, they mean Jews.

The irony, of course, could hardly be more rich. The Arabs that flowed from the Saudi Peninsula in the seventh-century were among the greatest, most vicious, and most successful colonizers in human history. They conquered much of Europe and still often hold out hope for the reconquest of Al-Andalus, which you and I might know as the country of Spain. They also kept the Jews in a state of submission for thirteen centuries until the movement for Jewish liberation, Zionism, freed us from perpetual dhimmitude and persecution in the part of the world that the Jewish people have lived in for millenia.

Although last year's president of SFSU's General Union of Palestine Students, Muhammad Hammad, received considerable attention from press around the world due to his violent racism, his mentor, professor Rabab Abdulhadi, received considerably less.

This is because while Abdulhadi might share and encourage Mr. Hammad's disposition toward the Jewish people, as a university professor, she clearly has the wits not to hold up a knife on a social media website in order to discuss a desire to stab Jews.

I have her listed in my notes from the time, but I never wrote about her because, in truth, I find this whole nasty situation with SFSU to be unbecoming. I used to love that campus. I not only received a Master's Degree in History there, but I also met my wife in that department. Some of the happiest years of my life were spent at San Francisco State and arriving at that campus in the late 1990s represented a true turning point in my life.

Of course, I also distinctly recall walking past Malcolm X Plaza, in front of the Cesar Chavez Student Center, and witnessing the Palestinian organization at that time, presumably GUPS, in solidarity with the Pan-African student organization holding aloft a banner that replaced the five-pointed stars in the American flag with 50 little Stars of David.

It was just little racist reminder to the tiny Jewish minority on campus that they better keep in line.

In truth, it should not have taken me a full ten years after that moment to acknowledge the fact that the western left is very definitely no friend to the Jewish people.

So, when, the other day, I received an email from Tammi Benjamin of the University of California, Santa Cruz's AMCHA Initiative telling me that SFSU GUPS' advisor, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, took university funding to visit those who seek to murder Jews, I was only slightly taken aback.

The blood red on the fist that Abdulhadi proudly displays on her SFSU webpage reminds this Jew of the proud display of blood captured in the picture below taken directly after two young Jewish IDF members were lynched by an Arab-Muslim mob, after taking a wrong turn in Ramallah, upon the start of the Second Terror War (intifada) in 2000.

I wish that I could say that I was shocked but, of course, I was not.

This is what Benjamin writes:

Dear Friends and Supporters:

A California Public Records Act inquiry, requested by AMCHA Initiative, revealed that San Francisco State University (SFSU) Professor Rabab Abdulhadi received more than $7,000 from SFSU to fly to Jordan, the West Bank and Israel to meet with known a terrorist and individuals closely affiliated with terrorist organizations.

Abdulhadi claimed the purpose of her trip was for academic and University business-related reasons and she concealed the true nature of her trip - personal political activism - on at least four documents with administrators, including President Wong, who approved the trip. Evidence demonstrated that Abdulhadi had actually always intended to use the University-funded trip to build relationships with anti-Israel political activists to promote anti-Semitic academic, cultural and economic boycotts of Israel, and the meetings were set before Abdulhadi requested University approval.

This is the same professor who was the faculty advisor to the SFSU knife-wielding student investigated by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force. She was also caught on tape glorifying terrorism to SFSU students.

My initial reaction was to close my eyes and turn away because I simply do not want to deal with this.

I do not want to call down to that campus and, as an alumnus, complain about the fact that the university literally funds student groups that calls for the murder of Jews. What are we supposed to do? Call the office of SFSU President Dr. Wong and talk with some administrative assistant about how funding student organizations that spread violent hatred toward others is perhaps not in the university's mission statement?

I just do not want to feel that the university wherein I met my wife not only tolerates violent hatred directed towards us, but quite literally funds that hatred.

I have no intention of pursuing this story beyond this post - although I may - because I simply do not want to go through this again. If San Francisco State University wishes to gain a reputation as the most anti-Semitic campus in the United States, today, then there is very little that I can possibly do to dissuade them.

I would suggest, however, that the university administration might consider the notion that funding student organizations that call for murder, or funding their advisor's trip to visit with Jihadis, is not necessarily very good for the university's reputation.

Here's the first minute of a documentary shown on Israel's Channel 2 last week showing how kids in Jenin, under PA control, want to become Hamas terrorists when they grow up, and how they get brainwashed to think that way.

But don't worry - I'm sure UNRWA has some excellent programs in place to counter jihadist rhetoric and promote peace with Israel.

Ignore the small fact that the Islamists with Hamas ties are major contributors to UNRWA....

(h/t Yoel)

A few days ago, Reuters published a photo essay of IDF women going through their final training mission before they are officially inducted into the Karakal battalion guarding the Egyptian border.

This didn't sit well with Egypt.

Al Masry al-Youm reproduces every single Reuters photo, but writes:

Dr Ahmad Fuad Anwar, an expert on Israeli affairs, professor of Hebrew studies and Zionist thought at Alexandria University, said in response to a question by Al Masry al Youm about the purpose of such images and their publication, especially with the strong cooperation within the Israeli army: "Such a phot series is provocative propaganda ...to serve the Israeli army."

Fouad adds that [for Israel] to allow the Reuters photographer to enter the training mission of Caracal and accompany them during the whole day are [it accomplished] several goals, the first of which may be to tarnish the image of the Egyptian side, especially with the facts of several incidents of [Egyptian] live fire on African infiltrators which killed them.

He pointed out that the Egyptian side deals with infiltrators using three methods, namely: hotels, prisons, and deportation, and this depends on the way the infiltrator engages with the troops, and while the Israelis are delivering a message to the world that they are recruiting women to deal with the intruders as they are always considered civilians.

He continued: the second goal is to reassure Israeli citizens, who have a tendency to panic, to calm their fears and apprehensions of infiltrators and drug traffickers, and to deliver a message to the Israeli people that it is under control and it sends women to these hot spots, and the third goal is to beautify the image of the Israeli army as it is recruiting women in combat missions which indicates equality, not only using them for administrative work like a lot of the armies of the region, especially with the publication of pictures of beautiful girls with strong physiques that are always smiling.

Fouad called on the Egyptian side to officially complain to the famous Reuters agency about such images in the Western media, as well as to request the Israeli side to refrain from provocations by releasing such images, and Fouad added that religious Israeli soldiers refuse to work near the women's camps, and he wondered "Should the Egyptian side object to the presence a of battalion on the common border that is two-thirds women?"

Hey, at least he isn't accusing the IDf of using the women to seduce and blackmail Egyptians the way Hamas claimed once.

(h/t Aaron)

The Perfectly Placed Pallywood Photographer

This video - again taken from the extended CCTV video released from "Nakba Day" protests in Beitunia - isn't a smoking gun, but it sure raises some questions about what may have been pre-planned.

It shows the events in the three minutes between the "botched Pallywood" video I showed (which now has over 20,000 views) and the first incident with Nadim Nawara. Clearly, one of the masked leaders of the riots also is good friends with photographers on the scene, and they manage to be at the right place at the right time.

(h/t Elihu)

05/31 Links: Exposing the Human Shield Industry; Palestinian MD lauds Israel for saving children

From Ian:

Palestinian Propagandists are Losing Their Touch

To be sure Palestinian propagandists from the West Bank had their helpers in the West. For example, Charles Enderlin, the man who helped broadcast the Al Durah video to French viewers in 2000, has a lot to answer for. Jews are fleeing the hate he helped promote.
But nowhere is this harvest of hate more evident than in Palestinian society itself. In lying to the world about the cause of their suffering, Palestinian elites are lying to themselves and the people they lead.
The anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messaging that Palestinian elites have promoted to Westerners for the past few decades reveals that the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are a long way off from establishing and maintaining a democracy, making peace with Israel and coming to grips with the modern world.
They live in a demon-haunted world of their own making. The end result will be disaster for the Palestinians and possibly for the rest of the world.

New book claims Israel spied on Bill Clinton

The allegations in the book, reported by Newsweek on Friday, are the latest in a series of reports regarding Israeli spying on US targets. The reports have been vehemently rejected by Israel and largely dismissed by American officials.
The new book, however, by British-Israeli political scientist Ahron Bregman, cites purported verbatim transcripts of the Clinton-Assad calls which he says he obtained through “private sources.”
Bregman writes in “Cursed Victory: A History of Israel and the Occupied Territories,” that Israel also listened in as Syria’s foreign minister called the elder Assad to report on private meetings with US officials. The author further claims that he received transcripts of confidential talks between Clinton and then-prime minister Ehud Barak, as well as a letter marked “SECRET” from Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine Albright to Barak’s predecessor and current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in which the Americans promised to check with Israel first before offering any peace proposals to the Arabs. (h/t Yenta Press)

Exposing the Human Shield Industry

Here’s one example of how this industry works: On the night of September 30, 2013, IDF troops opened fire at two Palestinians who were trying to sabotage the Israel-Gaza border fence, killing one and wounding the other. Both men later proved to be unarmed, so that’s naturally how the story was reported: Israel kills two unarmed Palestinians.
Four days later, I happened to be visiting friends whose soldier son was home on leave. It turned out his unit was involved in this incident, and he was furious over what the media reports left out: Standing just a few hundred meters behind the two men, he said, was a group of armed Palestinians waiting to see whether the attempt to break through the fence succeeded. In other words, the soldiers had every reason to believe the men sabotaging the fence were part of a much larger infiltration attempt, even though they couldn’t be sure those two were themselves armed (it was night, they were moving, and they were partially obscured by the fence). Thus the soldiers did what responsible soldiers do when facing an attempted terrorist infiltration: They used lethal force to stop it.

Brussels May Be Lying About Museum Shootings, Professor Claims

A Swiss professor wrote on Facebook that Belgian officials may be part of a conspiracy to falsely present the Brussels Jewish museum shootings as anti-Semitic.
Tariq Ramadan, a Geneva-based lecturer on Contemporary Islamic issues at Oxford University in Britain, speculated on Tuesday that the slaying of four people last week at the Jewish Museum of Belgium was a deliberate attack on Israeli secret agents.
“The two tourists targeted in Brussels worked for the Israeli secret services,” Ramadan wrote, citing media reports.
“The [Belgian] government does not comment,” Ramadan wrote. “Coincidence. Is this a case of anti-Semitism or a maneuver to divert attention from the real motives of the executioners? We oppose all slaying of innocents and racism but at the same time, it’s time they stopped taking us for fools.”

Sussex U votes against academic boycott of Israel

People aren't only getting sick of BDS in US universities.

The University of Sussex Students Union held a referendum on the question:
Should the Students’ Union endorse a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions?

The motion failed to pass by a vote of 904-649.

Unfortunately, even the "no" vote argument was framed as anti-Israel:

No one can deny the suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli government. For too long, they have been deprived of their sovereignty, as well as their basic civil and human rights, at the hands of a ruthless military occupation. At Sussex, we have a proud tradition of standing up for the victims of injustice and oppression. This cannot be an exception.

But this referendum is not about solidarity with the Palestinian people. Throughout the history of the conflict, Israeli academics have been known for their outspokenly left-wing and pro-peace views. According to Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian president of al-Quds University in East Jerusalem, ‘if you look at Israeli society, it is within the academic community that we’ve had the most progressive pro-peace views and views that have come out in favour of seeing us as equals… If you want to punish any sector, this is the last one to approach.’

The academic boycott of South Africa was a result of the apartheid policy to restrict the black population’s access to higher education. Within the legal borders of the state of Israel, there is no such policy. A significant percentage of Israel’s students are Arab Palestinians. And while advocates of a boycott may point to the fact that the Israeli military restricts access to higher education within the occupied territories, this is a result of military rule and occupation, not the policies of Israeli universities themselves.

An academic boycott of Israeli universities would be a form of collective punishment. Israel’s entire academic establishment cannot be held responsible for the actions of its government, as just as in Britain, our students and lecturers often disagree entirely with our government’s actions.

We cannot afford to lose the moral high ground when it comes to our solidarity with the Palestinians – this only serves to strengthen the arguments of chauvinistic right-wingers who will point to this boycott as an example of anti-Semitic prejudice. Widely considered as one of the most prominent activists for the Palestinian cause, Noam Chomsky has stated in numerous interviews that an academic boycott ‘will only strengthen support for Israel’, and will seriously hurt Palestinians in the process.

Instead, we should be encouraging co-operation with critical and progressive elements within Israeli academia. Otherwise, we risk isolating Israeli students and lecturers solely by virtue of their nationality.

This anti-boycott argument shows, very clearly, how embedded the lies and distortions of the Israel-hater are in British universities.

Nothing about how hypocritical it is to single out Israel and only Israel as a place to have an academic boycott, while every truly repressive regime on the planet is not subject to such discussions by the oh-so-progressive students who pretend to care so much about the oppressed. The students are not being taught the most basic critical thinking skills.

Even so, while it is not a victory for the pro-Israel side, it is a big loss for the haters.

05/30 Links Pt2: Palestinians say BDS Activists Are Criminals; TempleU backs Holocaust Denying Prof

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: BDS Activists Are Troublemakers, Criminals

At university campuses in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe, they are hailed as heroes campaigning for Palestinian rights. But in Ramallah, ironically, activists belonging to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] movement are seen by the Palestinian Authority [PA] as trouble-makers and law-breakers.
For some PA officials, BDS is a movement that acts against the true interests of the Palestinians. They say that the actions of those promoting BDS make the Palestinians appear as if they are not interested in peace and coexistence with Israel. BDS activists in Ramallah have succeeded in preventing several planned meetings between Israelis and Palestinians in Ramallah and east Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority is also worried that BDS is harming the Palestinians' relations with other countries. The most recent example of BDS efforts to damage Palestinians' relations with friendly countries occurred a few weeks ago, when the "anti-normalization" activists tried to disrupt a performance by an Indian dance troupe in Ramallah.

A journey through Twenty-First Century antisemitism

Some Of My Best Friends: A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Antisemitism, by Ben Cohen
Review by Karl Pfeifer
This well-edited volume contains selected thought-provoking articles by Ben Cohen, written in this century. His subject is the crude, violent “Bierkeller” antisemitism and the polite, modulated, ostensibly reasonable antisemitism, called nowadays “anti-Zionism” and so often expressed in the “progressive” camp.
Ben Cohen is not making sweeping judgments about the Left, but he calls a spade a spade and does not spare the rhetorical rod from those who engage in any form of antisemitism.
There is a foreword by Anthony Julius, the lawyer who successfully defended Deborah Lipstadt when she was sued by the Holocaust denier and antsemite David Irving.

Sarah Honig: A Small Tragedy

These verses were recited to Pope Francis when he visited Yad Vashem this week. He was also given a replica of a painting by the underage poet, an inmate of the Lodz Ghetto. He shook hands with several Holocaust survivors, including Abramek’s stepbrother Eliezer Gyrnfeld.
Sarah Honig was the first to publish Abramek’s story back on July 7, 1989 in the Jerusalem Post. Here is the feature exactly as it appeared then:
A SMALL TRAGEDY
At 13, Abramek was writing bright and beautiful poetry, far in advance of his years. He, and his words, came to an end in Auschwitz. By chance, some small memory of him was salvaged.
What child doesn’t, at some point in time, indulge in day-dreams of flying, of satisfying an as-yet unjaded curiosity to see and explore the wonders of the world?

David Singer: Palestine – Pope’s Political Power Play Promises Pandemonium.

The visit of Pope Francis to Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem this week proved that His Holiness is just as fallible – and gullible – as a host of other world power brokers like US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and the negotiators representing the Quartet – the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and America.
All had plunged into the political mire that constitutes the 130 years old Arab-Israel conflict believing they could resolve it – but ultimately discovered it was destined to become their political graveyard.
The Pope’s descent into the political hell-hole that comprises former Palestine was totally unnecessary.
Regrettably the Pope chose to turn what should have been a purely spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Land into a highly contentious political one.

I don't know if I will do this every week, but people liked last week's roundup, so....

Of course, this week was dominated by my original coverage of the Beitunia Pallywood incident (all posts here.)

My Synchronized video of the Beitunia incident (created Saturday night but improved later in the week) was the first and IMHO best video analysis that proved really beyond any reasonable doubt that the gunshot that corresponds to Nadim Nawarah's falling down was from a rubber bullet, and that there is no way Israeli fire killed him in the way that the medical examiner described it.

On Monday I put forth my theory that Nadim Nawarah was shot in the leg by a rubber bullet . I still think it is likely, even though the IDF claims that the first bullet, fired by an unauthorized soldier, was fired at a wall. The other alternative, of course, is that Nawara was good at reacting fast to the sound of the gunshot to fall down and create a scene, as we saw in the failed attempt I publicized in my post A botched attempt at Pallywood: "The Hopper"

That video was picked up by other media like Breitbart and has so far received 16,000 views on YouTube. My other video taken from the extended CCTV footage, showing how absolutely no blood was spilled by the supposed shooting of two youths with bullets that ripped through their midsections, is almost at 10,000 views. The videos get far more publicity than my posts do.

People who can get past the idea that Palestinian Arabs have a history of faking injuries and deaths can see that there is far, far more to Beitunia than how it is reported in The New York Times and other media. As I've said repeatedly, I dislike conspiracy theories, and I really don't know how two youths apparently died, but I do know that Nadim Nawara was not shot by Israeli forces, and the story of Mohamed Salama has serious problems as well (as I noted here.)

I also challenged the media to find real experts to help decode what happened. Only some Israeli media has interviewed actual experts, but Haaretz hasn't bothered, and neither has any of the mainstream media, in regard to squaring the facts with the videos we have. Isn't that strange?

There were increasingly bizarre theories later in the week to try to pretend that Israel somehow managed to shoot live fire at the exact same moment as the rubber bullet shot, which I took apart here. One Israeli blog even claimed that the police were shooting live fire through the rubber bullet canister, which Haaretz said was impossible or ridiculously difficult today.

Other notable posts this week:

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"Think Progress" slyly throws in Israel hatred

You can find subtle Israel hatred in the most interesting places.

Think-Progress has an article about Pope Francis' visit to the Middle East.

At the conclusion of Pope Francis’ already surprise-ridden trip through the Holy Land last week, the first Argentinian pope turned heads by spontaneously inviting Presidents Shimon Peres of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to visit him for a joint “prayer summit” at the Vatican. Both leaders accepted his offer, and a date was set for a meeting at the pontiff’s apartment on June 6.

The bold move by Francis — who has virtually no formal diplomatic training — rekindled hopes of reinvigorating Middle East peace talks that collapsed less than a month ago. Yet while the announcement of the summit was welcomed by many world leaders, several commentators were quick to point out that the pope’s primary goal in holding the prayer service is probably to help establish enough good will to help protect the Middle East’s Christian minority. After all, Christians, who make up 5 percent of the population in the Middle East, continue to face stiff persecution at the hands of both Jews and Muslims in the region, and Francis told members of the press last November, “We will not resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christians.”

"Stiff persecution at the hands of both Jews and Muslims"? Is there any comparison between the thriving Christian community in Israel and the dwindling Christian communities in every single Arab nation?

Apparently not. The author seems to believe that Israel is worse. Because his link doesn't go to any article about Arab persecution of Christians and mass Christian flight from Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere. It links to PCUSA's article about "price tag" attacks in Israel!

The Presbyterian Church USA is rabidly anti-Israel and its members who write articles like that are often openly antisemitic:

For example, at an opening program of the IPMN-PCUSA annual conference, the Rev. Craig Hunter said "greed and injustice is a cancer at the very core of Zionism." In a 2010 letter to church delegates, the IPMN-PCUSA falsely accused the Jewish community of intimidating Presbyterians by sending a letter-bomb to the church’s headquarters and setting fire to a church. IPMN-PCUSA tweeted an article proclaiming “Jewish power + Jewish hubris = moral catastrophe of epic proportions.” IPMN-PCUSA also has supported virulently anti-Israel resolutions including those equating Israel with Apartheid and has been a vocal supporter of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanction movement.

The IPMN-PCUSA Facebook page includes a cartoon of President Obama wearing weighty Jewish star earrings to suggest Jewish control of the American leaders, a common theme on the site. The IPMN-PCUSA has posted articles that accuse Jews of controlling Hollywood, the media, and American politics - and blaming Israel for the American housing and economic crisis. IPMN-PCUSA's communications chair also posted her opposition to a two-state solution and the existence of a Jewish state, something which she terms "anachronistic.” The same IPMN leader, Noushin Framke, clicked "like" on the Obama cartoon with the Jewish stars and another post that Hamas should keep Israeli Gilad Shalit hostage until Palestinians are granted a right of return.

While "price tag" attacks against churches in Israel are reprehensible, they areis hardly causing a mass exodus of Christians from Israel and they have been denounced by all Israeli leaders of every major political party. I think that Coptic Christians in Egypt would be thrilled if the worst thing to happen to them would be occasional offensive graffiti on their churches. To highlight that instead of mentioning the actual life-threatening incidents against Christians under every Arab regime is more than just an oversight. It is deliberate anti-Israel incitement, albeit low key.

The article is idiotic on many levels, not least being a complete ignorance of the role of Israel's president, but this little link betrays a much deeper problem with many "progressive" writers.

(h/t Ronald)

05/30 Links Pt1: Police Prevent Suicide Bombing; Hamas pays for attacks on Jews at Temple Mount

From Ian:

Minister praises policemen who stopped suicide bombing

“Your vigilance and professionalism led to the capture of a terrorist with an explosive belt,” Aharonovitch told the policemen in a phone conversation shortly after the Friday morning incident.
“You prevented an attack and saved lives, and I’m proud of you and your professional excellence,” he said.
The incident took place on Friday morning, when Border Policemen saw a Palestinian man, a 20-year-old Nablus resident, walking toward them at the Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank. The man was wearing a heavy coat, despite the 35-degree-Celsius heat (95 degrees Farenheit). The policemen called on the man to stop, at which point he lay down in the road.
The suspect then allowed policemen to remove his coat, revealing what looked like an explosive belt on his person. He admitted that it was indeed a bomb.

A terrorist with an explosive belt was caught at the intersection Tapuach Samaria

Sarah Honig: Proportional to the threat

Trying to get inside Jennifer Rene Psaki’s head is one heck of an intellectual challenge. The pearls of wisdom that habitually escape the lips of this US State Department spokeswoman are often no less than stupefying, so it must be edifying to get a handle on what inspires them.
She is the gauge of just how disliked we are. Our tendentious, left-dominated, agenda-driven media has turned Psaki into the adjudicator of our international standing. If she isn’t pleased, we are in obvious trouble. Her pronouncements open our news broadcasts and star on our front pages.
Thus we quaked the other day, awaiting her judgmental input following the deaths of two Arabs in Bitunia (near Ramallah) on May 15. They took part in irredentist disturbances to decry Israel’s Independence anniversary as a catastrophe – Nakba – their loaded characterization of our existence.
Psaki unequivocally put us in the dog-house when she encouraged “the government of Israel to conduct a prompt and transparent investigation to determine the facts surrounding this incident, including whether or not the use of force was proportional to the threat posed by the demonstrators.”
Ouch! We are well-familiar with that demand for proportionality. It never augurs well for us.

‘Hamas pays hundreds of youths to harass Jews at Temple Mount’

Israel arrested a major Hamas figure earlier this month as he attempted to infiltrate the country via the Allenby Bridge crossing, the Shin Bet security service revealed Thursday afternoon. Mahmoud Toameh, a “top-ranking overseas operative of Hamas,” gave the security agency a wealth of details about the activities of the radical Islamic group during his interrogation, it said, including its funding sources, international activities and activities inside Israel. Notably, he revealed that Hamas pays hundreds of young Israeli Arab citizens to harass Jews seeking to enter the Temple Mount area.
Toameh was arrested on May 14, the Shin Beit said, and formally indicted on undisclosed charges on Thursday.
In his interrogation, Toameh revealed that Hamas works with the Islamic Movement (an Israeli organization that promotes Islam among Israel’s Arab citizens) to keep Jews from entering the Temple Mount compound, by retaining a group of young men to harass and throw stones at Jewish visitors. These men, who ostensibly are studying Islamic theology at the site, are paid a monthly salary of NIS 4,000 to NIS 5000 ($1,150-$1,440) for their activities, the Shin Bet said. (h/t Bob Knot)

Story here, h/t JJ.

This poster series continues to go strong - some 5000 views every week, from all over the world.

People are hungering for the truth about Israel and it is hard to argue with straight facts showing how minorities in Israel are treated as well or better than they are in almost any nation, and how there are no limits to what they can accomplish.

Saudi cleric forbids online chat between men and women

From Al Arabiya:

A prominent Saudi cleric has declared that online conversations between men and women are religiously forbidden and has warned that they may lead to committing sin.

According to Saudi daily al-Eqitisadiya, Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlaq, a member of the Saudi Committee of Senior Scholars, said that chatting online through social networks falls under the forbidden “khulwa” (a religious term describing a situation where a man and a woman are alone in a private area).

Sheikh al-Mutlaq, speaking on a local Saudi radio show, warned that “the devil would be present when women talk to men” and urged women not to talk to males, even if the purpose of the discussion is to obtain guidance and advice.

Saudi social media users took to the Internet to express mixed reactions regarding his statement.

Whilst some users praised the cleric and said that he was right, most other users ridiculed him and his views by saying things such as “why don’t they (religious clerics) just ban women all together?”

Meanwhile, others wondered if direct messages could cause accidental pregnancy.

Soon the Saudi religious police might open up their cyber division!

But will they sentence the violators to virtual lashes?

Moroccan journalist vilified for visiting Israel, posing with Hebrew Psalms

From Morocco World News:

Ghislaine Taibi, who works for a French-speaking private Moroccan channel has been harshly criticized by many Moroccans for a recent visit she paid to Israel. A picture of her holding the Torah [sic] while standing adjacent to the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem has set social media ablaze.

The bulk of comments on the picture associate Taibi to the Zionist cause in a derogatory way and attack the private channel 2M. “Pigs go back to their origins,” read one of the comments. “Truth need be revealed about this filth,” read another comment referring to Moroccan channel 2M.

...Asked on how she reacted to some Moroccans’ negative reactions to her visit to Israel, Taibi answered, “I’ve never considered responding to these trivial and unjustified attacks, carried out by people who don’t even know the real reasons for my visit there, and who ignore the principles of my work as a journalist.”

Taibi explained that her very first motivation for visiting Israel was her job as a journalist, a job that consists of “hunting news regardless of where it is found.” The second reason for her visit to Israel, she further explained, is her intention to write a book about religions, which she intends to announce very soon.

“The reasons for my visits to Israel are only professional and scientific,” she told Febrayer.

“Supporting peace and coexistence between both sides (Palestinians and Israelis) is what matters most,” declared Taibi. “The two sides are yearning for peace, except for those extremists who are fighting against the willingness of their people,” she added.

Taibi also visited the Church of the Nativity during her trip. She didn't get nearly the same reaction to posing with Christian religious objects as she did in the photo above where she is holding a Hebrew book of Psalms.

Which goes to show that her Moroccan critics weren't as insulted at her visit to Israel as they were with her associating with anything Jewish.

MLK's Pro-Israel Legacy and the Racism of BDS (video/lecture)

IBSI (Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel) Director Dumisani Washington speaks at Hillel UCLA on Dr. King's pro-Israel legacy, Israel's multiethnic society, the formation of BASIC, and the racism and hypocrisy of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

05/29 Links Pt2: Why So Many Palestinians Are Still Refugees; Judith Butler’s BDS “Truthiness”

From Ian:

Explaining Why So Many Palestinians Are Still Refugees (REVIEW)

As the authors elucidate, UNRWA’s steadfast espousal of the Palestinian “Right of Return” reveals both the degree to which it has been politically co-opted and compromised by its constituency, and that it is a position at odds with the United Nations’ own Charter; such a right “necessarily entails the dissolution of Israel as such… Jewish sovereignty as envisioned by the Zionist movement and the 1947 Partition Plan, would be ended and Jewish political and cultural rights necessarily curtailed.” In other words, for both AFSC and UNRWA, an initial commitment to humanitarian aid and relief became heavily politicized, reflecting the complexities of merging philanthropic (or religious) intention with geopolitics and regional conflict.
Romirowsky and Joffe are exhaustive in their research and consistent in describing an aspect of the Palestinian refugee historical experience that has heretofore been neglected in the scholarly and policy literature.
The dilemma the global community faces – building social and economic progress along with a political resolution that brings stability (if not peace) – is ultimately hampered by an agency of its own creation that pursues its agenda at the expense of the greater goal. UNRWA bears culpability for enlarging, intensifying and prolonging a refugee calamity it was intended to ameliorate. AFSC’s pragmatic withdrawal from Palestine refugee relief five decades ago, juxtaposed with UNRWA’s persistent re-entrenchment even in the face of decades of the breakdown of agency operations and the collapse of its chartered goals, should be a clear signal that a different strategy is necessary in the pursuit of Palestine refugee relief and the question of the resolution of the refugees’ status.

Musings on the Subject of Nakba Day

It behooves us, then, to make a list of other apolitical and neutral examples of human suffering to demonstrate that there are no political agendas behind the choice of which events are selected to be commemorated and mourned.
First, a day of commemoration for the tragic losses in property values by white slave owners in the American south, stripped of their slave assets, as a result of the loss of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, would be a great step in the direction of neutral apolitical honoring of human rights and dignity.
Second, we should be holding special campus days of commemoration and empathy for male rapists who have been injured while violently raping women. Their bruised knees and knuckles and scratched faces are human tragedies that all compassionate members of society must honor and respect in the name of neutral human rights and apolitical dignity.

Judith Butler’s Mythologies: “Truthiness” in the Philosophy of BDS

Although she denies being a spokesperson or leader of anything, few who have been following recent discussions concerning the BDS (Boycotts, Divestments, Sanctions) movement for restrictions aimed against Israeli academics on American college campuses would fail to recognize her name as one of its prime symbols. And it is in this case precisely the symbolic power of a name (since her books are unreadable for most non-specialists) that is at issue.
Butler lends credibility to an otherwise quirky, retrograde, and at least sometimes anti-Semitic push to reject Israel’s very right to exist in any conceivable two-state solution whatsoever to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (BDSers would prefer to liberate all of Palestine, “from the river to the sea”), because of her intellectual cache as one of today’s leading, trend-setting cultural “theorists.” The tribe of theorists, by the way, are supposed to be, like the extinct race of philosophers before them, lovers of wisdom–souls so drawn to the truth that they’re willing to run risks for it. Such at least is their reputation among the impressionable; when they aren’t, by contrast, being dismissed by cynics (like the philosophers before them) for pretensions to mere radical chic. Or worse.

Child publicly executed in Syria (video)

This horrific video was allegedly taken in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. Reports say that it shows the execution of a child by the Syrian Islamist group ISIS in front of a large crowd.

Just a reminder as to what kind of neighborhood Israel is in. Not to mention how little Israel's neighbors care about violence that cannot be blamed on Israel.

The grassy knoll in Beitunia

Ben Ehrenreich writes that the bullets that killed the youths in Beitunia were not fired by the Israeli shooters in the CNN video, but from an entirely different group:

In the LARB article I quoted a doctor who treated both boys and who told me that their wounds were without question caused by live fire. Nuwara was shot in the chest, Abu Thaher in the back: both bullets passed through their bodies, leaving exit wounds. The rubber-coated steel bullets used by the IDF can and often do penetrate the skin and can be lethal, but they cannot pass entirely through a human torso even when fired from a relatively short distance. I interviewed four eyewitnesses to the killings, all of whom said live fire was used. (The concussion from a live shot sounds differently than that of a shot when rubber-coated bullets are fired. I have met 11-year-olds in the West Bank who can accurately tell what sort of munitions are being fired by ear alone. All four of the eyewitnesses I interviewed had witnessed many such clashes and knew the difference well.) Three of them testified that they saw Israeli commanders choosing targets and pointing them out to snipers just before each boy was killed.

One thing is worth noting: the bullet that killed Nadim Nuwara was almost certainly not fired by the soldier caught on the CNN video. It was almost certainly a coincidence that he fired his weapon at approximately the same moment that Nuwara was hit. And he almost certainly was shooting rubber-coated bullets: the video is hazy, but his rifle appears to be equipped with the sort of extension that is attached to the barrel of an M16 to allow it to fire rubber-coated bullets. Mohannad Darabee, one of the witnesses I interviewed, told me repeatedly that he was sure the shot that killed Nuwara did not come from the group of Border Police who had gathered on a driveway just uphill and slightly back from the road. Darabee walked me to the spot where Nuwara fell, and to the spot from which the Border Police (and the now-suspended soldier) had been firing. The corner of a building stood in the way: there was no line of fire that would have allowed those soldiers to hit Nuwara.

However, another, larger group of Israeli soldiers had gathered behind a concrete blast wall on the edge of a parking lot about 200 meters from the spot where Nuwara was hit. (See image above.) It was there, Darabee said, that he saw a commander choosing targets through binoculars. Those soldiers had an unimpeded shot at Nuwara. Forgive me if this is all a bit hard to visualize: The Guardian produced a graphic that maps it all out. But I want to make this very clear, because the waters have been muddied considerably, both through deliberate obfuscation and by speculation about a video that reveals less than it appears to: the fact that the soldier caught on video by CNN was apparently firing rubber-coated bullets only confirms the accounts of eyewitnesses who testified that the bullet that killed Nadim Nuwara was likely fired by another group of soldiers gathered at the edge of the parking lot. Abu Thaher, who was shot an hour earlier, and was standing in the middle of the road, easily visible from the Border Police officers’ perch, could have been killed by either group.

I responded:

The CNN video doesn't only show two shots of rubber bullets - it has the sounds of the shots. The first two shots recorded sound the same and the first one corresponds with Nawara's falling down.

Are you saying that the Israeli police in the other area shot live fire at exactly the same time both times? That would be unbelievable.

The Guardian had also reported of another group of Israeli troops to the south with a clear line of sight. I have no reason to doubt that some border police were there are well. However, we conveniently don't have video of them to see what kind of weapons they were firing. Apparently the dozen or so journalists at the scene, all witnessing gunshots from two directions, didn't bother to photograph one of the groups of soldiers doing anything aggressive. Moreover, this theory would also assume that the CNN videographer, who would have definitely been able to tell the difference between gunshots straight ahead of him and shots from his left, ignored the actual source of the gunshots!

More to the point, however, is that if there really were Israeli shooters at this other location using live fire, and if every child in the West Bank can distinguish between live bullets and rubber bullets by sound, then the CCTV video makes no sense.

All of the people in the video use the building to the right (west) in the clear CCTV video as cover from being shot. Why would they remain in an exposed position where live bullets could kill them? Many times throughout the CCTV video we see them flinch and run for cover - always in the direction away from the "CNN shooters," closer to the building, never out of the line of sight of this new mysterious second group of Israelis that were supposedly shooting at them. They aren't nervously looking down the road, even in the footage after the first incident that supposedly came from the new southern position. They aren't seeking cover from these supposedly obvious sniper shots.

There is one exception: at 14:46:05 of the CCTV video we see everyone run away at once from something, running north, but with no discernible flinching that a gunshot would generate.

It takes several minutes before people re-appear, many from inside the building. But no one ducked into the building as one would expect if they wanted to take cover as quickly as possible. Also, some of them ran into the street - into a more exposed position (other angle video) and not around the corner. My guess is that this quick evacuation was either a false alarm that someone shouted out or maybe the sound of a tear gas canister coming that way.

Notably, no one reacts this way during either of the alleged shooting incidents on video. If the shots came from this other position, the crowd would react very differently.

So this new theory has no objective evidence, and the lack of audio evidence in the CNN video makes it highly unlikely, at least in the case of Nawara. Even the video of the incident with Mohammed Thaer doesn't show anyone looking in the direction of, or taking cover from, the supposed mysterious second shooter with the completely different sounding bullets from the completely different position.

If Ben Ehrenfeld can dig up more video from his journalist buddies showing the second Israeli position, by all means, let's see it. But the CCTV footage shows nothing that would support this new theory, which at the moment sounds more like a conspiracy theory than anything that has solid evidence.

And it might be reasonable to be a little more skeptical about Palestinian eyewitness testimony.

05/29 Links Pt1: Without Zionism, the Temple Mount would not be as holy to Islam

From Ian:

Baker: Govt. Should Act Now on Sovereignty

Baker was a member of a panel headed by former High Court Judge Edmund Levy that in 2012 researched the question of Israel's “occupation” of Judea and Samaria and found that Israel could not be considered as such under international law. Baker said that it was impossible to dispute Israel's right to the Land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, as ancient and modern history makes it clear that the land belongs to the Jewish people.
Ancient writings, from the Bible to Greek, Roman, and early European and Middle Eastern sources all attribute the Land of Israel to the Jewish people. In modern times, the defining documents of the current status of the Land of Israel, from the Balfour Declaration to the UN partition plan all recognized this historic connection as well. “This cannot be disputed,” Baker told the conference.
With that, he said, Israel could not ignore the fact that it had a large Muslim population. It was on this basis that the Oslo Accord was signed, with the final disposition of the land to be decided in negotiations. So far, Baker said, those negotiations have not gone very well, and Israel should use this fact to advance its own ideas on the matter.
In recent months, Baker said that the PA had committed significant violations of the Oslo Accords. “They changed their status, indicating to the United Nations that they wished to be regarded as a state, not an Authority as specified in Oslo. This was a fundamental violation of the Oslo Accords. In addition, they have been engaging in foreign policy-setting,” he said, by signing international agreements – also specifically forbidden under Oslo.

Without Zionism, the Temple Mount would not be as holy to Islam

“Temple denial,” however, is a recent phenomenon that stands in stark contrast with Islamic tradition.
During the early Muslim period (between the 7th and 11th centuries), the Arabs used to call Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, interchangeably, Bayt Al-Maqdis, an Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew Beit Hamikdash (Temple). A 1924 tourist guidebook published by the Supreme Muslim Council says the Temple Mount is the site of the Jerusalem Temple. Araf al-Araf, a Palestinian Arab historian who, as a close friend of Haj Amin al-Husseini could hardly be suspected of pro-Zionist sympathies, wrote in his 1951 book "Tariah Al-Quds" that the Temple Mount “was bought by David to build the Temple, but it is Solomon who built it in 1007 BCE.”
Not only is “Temple denial” a recent phenomenon; so is Islam’s interest in the Temple Mount. Muhammad made a point of eliminating pagan sites of worship and of sanctifying only one place: the Kaaba in Mecca. In the 14th century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya ruled that sacred Islamic sites are to be found only in the Arabian Peninsula. The Koran does not mention Jerusalem, and Muslim Jerusalemites pray toward Mecca. They do not take off their shoes in the space between the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.
Without Zionism, there would have been no Muslim sanctification of the Temple Mount and no Arab denial of the existence of the two Jerusalem Temples.
Israelis may still be divided about their reunited city; but their ideological divide is thankfully being narrowed by modern Palestinian mythology.

Do they have a right to a state?

They lie about everything. The create fake atrocities to smear the IDF (one is in progress now). They have a made-up version of history that gets wilder every day. The Jewish Temple didn’t exist, they say. “Jesus was a Palestinian,” they say. Was he an Arab? A Muslim? A Canaanite? What Temple did he throw money-changers out of? This is so far beyond nonsense that it’s impossible to respond, but it’s used to justify both their crimes and their demands.
The culture, thanks mostly to Arafat’s educational and media systems, is obsessed with death, martyrdom, and revenge. Palestinians make it clear to anyone who is prepared to listen that their greatest aspiration is to destroy the state of Israel, kill or expel the Jews, and take the land that they believe they have a right to.
In a moral sense, then, are they ‘deserving’?
The Pope mentioned the “right to live with dignity and freedom of movement.” I presume he is referring to the security barrier. But the barrier was built because allowing Palestinians total freedom of movement led to hundreds of Israelis dead from bombings and shootings. Does the Pope think they have a ‘right’ to go where they want to kill whomever they want?
What does he think?