Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 20, 2010

Arabs placing dead "settlers" in Israeli-controlled territory

For the past week, representatives of the Popular Palestinian Committees (PPC) have been urging West Bank residents to bury their dead in Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank, identified as Area C.

The plan has been endorsed by several ministers in the Palestinian Authority, who back the initiative as a way to influence conditions on the ground pre-final status negotiations, which at this point seem elusive.

The Intifada of Graves, the label given to the plan by proponents, has been called a land grab by some Israeli politicians, including the head of the Yesha Council, Danny Dayan.

The plan was revealed on Army Radio on Sunday morning, when it reported that the PPC was urging all Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria to send their dead for burial in Area C.

Proponents of the Intifada of Graves believe it will be more difficult for Israelis to take control over parts of the West Bank in a final agreement if there are Arab cemeteries throughout the disputed territories.

This is far from a new tactic. Arabs placed a cemetery around Rachel's Tomb - an area at the time otherwise deserted - in what seems to have been a similar strategy of replacing any Jewish connection to the Land of Israel with a fake Islamic tradition.

It should be pointed out that Israel moved the graves from Gaza when they abandoned the area, and there is nothing stopping Arab graves from being moved if necessary in an agreement.

Any new Arab graves dug in Israeli-controlled territory outside of existing graveyards should immediately be exhumed just as they would be if they were dug in the middle of a public park or a schoolyard.

About that Israeli airstrike in Gaza Saturday...

From WaPo:

An Israeli airstrike killed five Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. It was the deadliest attack against the coastal strip in months.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the men were about to launch a rocket attack against southern Israeli communities when they were struck. Palestinian hospital officials confirmed that the five dead were militants.

While initial reports claimed that the dead were from Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees, those groups did not claim responsibility. Newer information seems to point to a smaller Salafist group. It is unclear whether this group adheres to the point of view of Sheikh Yassin al-Astal, who we noted had called afterwards for a stop to rocket attacks.

Notable, however, is that the airstrike - which everyone would admit was purely military - is being slammed by Israel's "peace partners" in Fatah. A Fatah spokesman referred to the event by saying that "Israel committed a horrific massacre against our people in Gaza resulting in five martyrs."

Yes, according to the moderates in Fatah, any attempt by Israel to stop an imminent attack on her territory is a "horrific massacre."

The Arab play for the Internet

From The Lawfare Project:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the entity responsible for assigning domain names on the Internet, and was established as a non-profit corporation based in California during the Clinton administration so that the Internet's development would be coordinated by a single entity.

ICANN works "in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier systems."[1] As part of this mission, ICANN approves Domain Name Registrars, which are organizations that register specific domain names, and assigns IP addresses, the numerical codes by which computers actually connect to each other via the Internet.

From November 25, 1998 until September 30, 2009, ICANN was overseen by the U.S. Commerce Department. The Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Commerce and ICANN was allowed to expire, to be replaced by international, multilateral control.

There are three current and developing issues that are of particular concern relating to ICANN:

I. ICANN's Geographical Region classifications;

II. 'Public Morality' Objections to New Domain Names; and

III. Objections to Terrorism Background Checks.

...3) On August 28, 2010, Amre Moussa, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, sent a letter to ICANN criticizing the body for not recognizing "the Arab region," and cited "the operational precedent of many UN agencies" as authoritative.[3]

4) On September 25, 2010, the ICANN Board of Directors approved the following resolution: "The definition of Continent or UN Regions in the Guidebook should be expanded to include UNESCO's regional classification list which comprises: Africa, Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America, Latin America and the Caribbean."[4]

9) Should the September 25th Resolution become applicable to ICANN's Board of Directors, it would mean that the "Arab States" Region would be entitled to between one and five directorships, while the collapsed "North American and Europe" Region would have a maximum of five seats. In fact, the director of ICANN's Nominating Committee noted at the workshop that, "This year we'll select one individual from North America, which is 400-500 million people with fairly deep penetration of internet."

10) Further alterations to the geographical makeup of ICANN's Board of Directors would mean a considerable shift in power towards the Arab League, which would presumably vote as a bloc far more than preexisting Geographic Regions.

...12) Should the League of Arab States gain bloc voting power at ICANN, there is every indication that it will seek to replicate its effective takeover of the United Nations General Assembly, likely in conjunction with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

13) The OIC is extremely interested in developing internet capability, and recently formed a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) with the following mission statement: "OIC-CERT is to provide a platform for member countries to explore and to develop collaborative initiatives and possible partnerships in matters pertaining to cyber security that shall strengthen their self reliant [sic] in the cyberspace."[7]

14) OIC-CERT's Steering Committee consists of the following countries: Tunisia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.[8]

15) On October 28, 2010, at OIC-CERT's Second Annual General Meeting, OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu noted the following as a core mission of OIC-CERT: "In view of the phenomena of discrimination, stereotyping and defamation targeting Muslims and their religion known as 'Islamophobia,' we invite the OIC-CERT to use its available professional and technical resources (in line with its objectives stated in terms of reference) in order to cooperate with the 'OIC Islamophobia Observatory' to identify the best ways and means including technical, administrative and legal tools to combat anti-Islamic contents on the internet."[9] This issue bears more directly on the ongoing debate regarding 'public morality' objections and will be considered more fully in Point 2 below.

The paper goes on to discuss how this could cause limitations on websites that are offensive to Arab nations (such as pornography and "Islamophobia".) beyond that, it could promote terrorist sites on the Internet:

On September 25, 2010, ICANN's board of directors removed a reference to "terrorism" from the fourth version of its Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG, or DAGv4), after complaints were received from several Arab individuals and organizations. Failing to retain the ability to investigate applicants for ties to terrorism would significantly hamper ICANN's effectiveness, and could lead to a proliferation of pro-terrorist websites.

1) Until 2009, ICANN necessarily complied with applicable United States Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations regarding terrorism, and had no reason to specify such as the subject of a background check.

2) The term "terrorism" was included without any conceivably objectionable modifiers such as "Islamist."

3) The Chairman of the (Pan Arab) Multilingual Internet Group Khaled Fattal declared that the term "terrorism" itself was objectionable because "it will be seen by millions of Muslims and Arabs as racist, prejudicial and profiling." Fattal requested not only its removal, but an apology from ICANN.[25]

4) NOTE: The Multilingual Group's Mission as stated on its website is in part, "To secure this Multilingual Internet, starting with the Arabic Internet on Pan Arab level."[26] All of its actions to date have been to further an Arabic-language Internet.

5) Abdulaziz H. Al-Zoman of SaudiNIT claimed "the international community is extensibly [sic] divided on who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter" as reason to remove the term.[27]

This is not only blatant politicizing of the major authority behind the Internet itself, but it is could conceivably promote censorship of opinions that are deemed "Islamophobic" and otherwise offensive while giving terrorists much freer reign over their own Internet activities.

(h/t Daily Alert via SoccerDad)

Gaza Salafi leader calls for halt to rockets

In general, the Safali Islamic groups in Gaza are considered more hard-line than the de facto Hamas government. But Sheikh Yassin Al-Astal, head of the Salafi Council in Palestine, has just issued a statement for Gazans to stop shooting rockets to Israel, a phenomenon that has been accelerating in recent months.

According to al-Astal, the purpose of jihad is to prevent, deter, or repel aggression, but Palestinian Arab rocket attacks do the opposite: they cause Israel to react with its own attacks. Jihad is not for the purpose of wantonly destroying the enemy's property or lives for no reason.

Al-Astal said that he fears that the violence that is started by Gaza rockets could in fact be a sin, and that people who launch rockets actually get punished by Allah rather than rewarded.

The Salafis are only a small percentage of the Gaza population, but this is a very interesting development.

PMW back up, plus YouTube's problematic practices (JPost op-ed)

It looks like PalWatch is back up on YouTube...thanks for everyone who helped by complaining to YouTube! (h/t Stablehand)

Here is an op-ed in Monday's JPost by Andre Oboler about the recent suspension of Palestinian Media Watch's YouTube channel before it was reinstated:

A few months ago, efforts were made to shut down the YouTube presence of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The institute provides the English-speaking world with insight into the Mideast media. Some of the exposure is not welcome by those who say one thing in English to a Western audience and another thing at home.

The MEMRI debacle seems to have been resolved, but YouTube is now going after Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) which fulfills a similar role, focused exclusively on the Palestinian media.

PMW monitors, translates and shares examples of incitement. It was PMW that exposed the use of a Mickey Mouse character inciting hate and violence on the Hamas TV children’s show “The Pioneers of Tomorrow.”

That story created shock waves around the world, leading to discussions in the Western mainstream media and at the UN of the link between incitement in the media and terrorism.

PMW’s violation appears to be that it was posting “hate material.”

There is no doubt that it was. However, like MEMRI, that material was not shared for the purpose of incitement, but to expose and counter the spread of hate. Some commentators have speculated that it is not the hate against Jews, Israelis and Americans – as shown in MEMRI and PMW videos – that is the problem, but rather the fact that the videos might cause a backlash against those promoting such hate.

Any argument that uses free speech to prevent the exposure of hate speech is inherently deeply flawed.

YouTube needs to get its act together.

What it has created is a haven for hate, devoid of sunlight. Its policy seems inconsistent, ineffective and only selectively enforced. It is working against community expectations and the public interest. Ignoring illegal content, while removing the very sunlight needed to expose those spreading hate, creates a volatile environment.

Social media is built on concepts of security and trust. When these start to go, opportunities for competitors are created. It may be too early to call this the beginning of the end for YouTube, but unless it gets its policies right, and properly enforces them, we may well see this megalith begin to slide downhill.

Maldives minister publicly insults Jews

We have discussed the doctors from Israeli NGO "Eye from Zion" have been treating Muslim patients in the Maldives, and that some Muslims there have protested this aid with anti-semitic rhetoric.

This weekend there was more of the same. Here is a report from a sermon given by Minister of State for Islamic Affairs Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed on Friday:

He said that the Jews, who have historically nurtured severe enmity towards Muslims continues to assault the Muslims.

The State Minister warned the Muslims of the notoriety and the betrayal and treachery of the Jews. He said that that yesterday’s Jews are evil predecessors and today’s Jews are worse successors.

History of Jews is full of deception, trickery, rebellion, oppression, evil and corruption. They always seek to cause mischief on the earth and Allah loves not the mischief-makers.

“So it is not it is not acceptable that one who would stab the ummah in the heart could heal the eyes. This philosophy is not acceptable,” he said.

He said that it is not acceptable that we as Muslims are agreeing with the Jews with peace of mind while our Muslim brothers are moaning, while our first Kiblah [Jerusalem] is lamenting because of the tyranny of the Jewish occupation.

Yet Minivan News calls this an "anti-Zionist protest":

Hundreds of people gathered at the protest with some carrying banners in both Dhivehi and English with messages ranging from “Say no to Israeli terrorism” and “Jews said Allah is poor” to “We are with anyone who fights Israel & USA” and “Bloody Zionists”.

But they report on the government's rejoinder to the critics:

In response to the anti-Zionist protests and criticism that the government was engaged in a pro-Israel agenda, Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair said that the government “holds friendly relations with Israel, as it does almost every other nation in the world.”

“We are not at loggerheads with any states, though we have some differences with Burma over the treatment of [formerly arrested dissident] Aung Sun Suu Kyi,” he said. “There is nothing special in terms of agreements with Israel.”

Though Zuhair claimed that the Maldives government has been “consistent on criticising Israel over Palestine and other foreign policy issues it did not agree on”, this was not a barrier to humanitarian cooperation, he said.

Zuhair added that by having bilateral relations with a large number of nations, the Maldives was able to benefit from cooperation based on technical assistance, education and humanitarian aid.

He claimed that the medical expertise offered by Eye from Zion was a strong example of this.

“We ourselves don’t have the means for this type of surgery, which has so far treated 140 patients in Male’ and 40 people across islands in the outer atolls,” Zuhair added. “In this case, the patients that thankful for the treatment they have received, which outweighs the protests against [the doctors].”

No one in the Maldives seems the least bit concerned about the explicitly anti-semitic statements of their minister, however. It looks like he didn't get the memo to always say "Zionists" instead of "Jews."

Dusk open thread

I have lots of social obligations today, not the least of which is the engagement party ("vort") for Daughter of Ziyon, so here is an open thread with the latest photo from my camera phone.

A Kuwaiti-born Jew

From JPost:

The most breathtaking panoramic view of the Old City opens up from the balcony of the Aish HaTorah yeshiva. The building is located almost at the foot of the Western Wall Plaza, which makes it a perfect location for viewing the holy city.

But 15 students, who are sitting right next to the big panoramic window, are not paying any attention to the view. They have completely lost themselves in study, listening carefully to the rabbi’s explanations, holding Gemaras in front of them.

The rabbi speaks in English, the common language among all the students, who make an incredible mix of cultures and origins.

One of the students, a smiling young man with a small beard and a black kippa, is totally focused on the lesson. It’s not the first time that he has confronted a complicated religious text: He did so many times back at school. Only back then the texts were Koranic verses in Arabic, and the school was in Kuwait.

Mark Halawa, 33, who now calls himself Mordechai, was born in Kuwait and grew up as a Muslim in a nonobservant family.

So how does a guy who grew up in Kuwait end up in a Jerusalem yeshiva? As a matter of fact, Halawa’s Jewish adventure began in Canada, where he traveled alone to attend university in London, Ontario. His family had wanted him to study nearby, but after a brief stint at a university in Syria, Halawa decided that the environment there did not suit him, and he made the move to Canada in 1998. There, he studied psychology and industrial organization, only realizing he was Jewish toward the end of his time there.

“There was a rabbi at my university, a professor of philosophy. I just felt I wanted to approach him and talk to him,” he says. “Although there is a lot of prejudice against Jews in Kuwait, I never felt that I hated them.

“I told the rabbi about myself and where I come from. Since my early childhood I have known that my grandmother on my maternal side used to pray in Hebrew. Her last name was Mizrahi. He asked me who my father was. I answered that he was a Muslim.

“So you are a Muslim, if your father is a Muslim, I thought to myself. And then he said, ‘Since your Mom is Jewish, you are Jewish.’ I was astonished at his words.”

After some searching and questioning he confirmed that his grandmother was in fact a Jew who married a young Jordanian soldier back in 1946, ran off to Nablus with him and converted to Islam.

Later the family emigrated to Kuwait, where employment opportunities were vast. The Jewish past of the grandmother was never publicly discussed.

Read the whole thing.

The funny thing is I found this story on the Arabic Firas Press site.

Hamas illegally seizes land in Gaza - and sells it

Palestine Press Agency has another article on Hamas corruption.

According to the article, Hamas has been seizing land that is already privately owned, and then sells it - either back to the original owner at an exorbitant price, or to a Hamas member at a fraction of that same price.

Two weeks ago, Hamas announced the sale of public lands, and the PA replied that Hamas has no right to sell that land, warning people against buying land that the PA claims for itself.

IDF sonic booms make crocodiles want to mate

From Ma'an:

Sonic booms created by Israeli warplanes speeding across the sky are having the unintended consequence of launching hibernating crocodiles into mating mode, the daily Maariv reported Sunday.

According to the newspaper, each time warplanes break the sound barrier over a crocodile breeding farm in the Golan Heights, the randy reptiles begin emitting their ritual mating cry.

"The powerful squealing noises, reminiscent of the sound of a car braking, can be heard from hundreds of meters around," David Golan, head of crocodile breeding at the Hamat Gader park, told Maariv.

The calls appeared to be a response to the sonic booms, which seemed to convince the crocodiles that other males had begun making mating signals, the newspaper said.

There are around 100 crocodiles at the park, which is underneath airspace used by the Israeli air force for training runs.

A population boom is not expected, however, because the male crocs are all bark and no bite.

Despite issuing their signature mating calls when the planes break the sound barrier, there has been no uptick in actual breeding -- and the "official" mating season does not begin until the summer.

Um.....okay.

Israeli deal with Cyprus to demarcate maritime borders

From Cyprus Mail:

CYPRUS and Israel yesterday signed a bilateral agreement defining their sea boundaries, which paves the way for hydrocarbon exploration in the area between the two countries.

The agreement, signed in Nicosia, by Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou and Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau, delimits the exclusive economic zone between the two countries.

“This agreement reflects the close relationship and ongoing cooperation between Israel and Cyprus,” an Israeli embassy statement said.

Kyprianou and Landau did not make any statements and did not take any questions.

The agreement will require ratification by the parliaments of the two countries’.

Cyprus, which says there are encouraging signs of hydrocarbon reserves in its waters, held a first licensing round in 2007, prompting a fierce reaction from Turkey.

Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots claim that Cyprus does not have the right to exploit the island’s natural resources before the political problem is resolved.

Texas-based Noble Energy has exploration rights for hydrocarbons in a Cypriot offshore field, and in an adjacent one on the Israeli side of the sea boundary.

"This agreement essentially provides them (Noble) with a legal safety net, that their rights are legally enshrined," a diplomatic source told Reuters.

Noble was given exploration rights for one of 11 Cypriot plots up for grabs in 2008, about 65 km away from Israel's Tamar prospect, the world's biggest gas find in 2009.

“In light of the recent discovery of a wealth of natural resources in the Mediterranean Sea, the delimitation of Israel's borders will play an important role in securing Israel's vital economic interests, by providing certainty to investors and offering clarity to Israel's neighbours as to the precise location of Israel's maritime borders and its right to natural resources at sea,” the embassy statement said.

Cyprus has also signed similar bilateral agreements with Egypt. One is also pending ratification by Lebanon.

Zvi comments:

What's the difference between the PA and Cyprus? Why does the Israel-Cyprus agreement get delineated so easily, while the so-called "peace process" continues to grind on?

The Cypriots are pursuing self-interest - not genocide. They want a slice of the pie; they are not out to destroy Israel.

It's that simple.

UPDATE on Palestinian Media Watch suspension from YouTube

More details on this story from Itamar Marcus of PMW:

YouTube closed PMW's main account - PALWATCH - for "violating YouTube terms of use" by propagating hate speech and they specified the videos listed below:
1. "Hamas TV teaches kids to kill Jews" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwN2M6ZIIRU
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 10/02/2009.

2. "Jews are a virus like Aids" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYaGl3KjPUw
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 01/18/2010.

3. "Farewell video before suicide attack of Hamas suicide bomber Adham Ahmad Hujyla Abu Jandal" formerly athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYdTudQhWM4
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 06/10/2010.

4. "Hamas suicide farewell video: Jews monkeys and pigs; Maidens reward for killing Jews" formerly athttp ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryc7RqXlVdE
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 08/14/2010.

5. "PA cleric: Kill Jews, Allah will make Muslims masters over Jews" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjuDTO8fgqM
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 12/12/2010.
Please see http://www.youtube.com/t/terms and http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines

6. "Hamas suicide terrorist farewell video: Palestinians drink the blood of Jews" formerly athttp ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSftYIGH6-w
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 12/15/2010.

The claim is that our videos, which expose the hate speech propagated by the Palestinian leadership and controlled media, themselves represent hate speech.
YouTube stated that the account was henceforth terminated "due to repeated or severe violations of our Terms of Use".
Since 2009 they have been deleting specified videos - those mentioned above - but now "terminated" the entire account due to no 6 above:

The main PMW You Tube account called : palwatch was "terminated".
The older account pmwvideos from a few years ago is functioning.

I emailed him the information posted here by StabelHand on how to best contact YouTube to complain:

@YouTube & @hunterwalk on Twitter

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=2a20b0a0786950b4&hl=en

- Official YouTube blog: http://www.youtube.com/blog

- Twitter: http://twitter.com/youtube

- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/youtube

- Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/YouTube

- Creator's Corner: http://www.youtube.com/creatorscorner

- News, politics & activism: http://www.citizentube.com/

Guys, start writing! And if you have blogs, start publicizing! This is really outrageous. The irony that YouTube allows thousands of Jihadi videos but suspends a whistleblowing group from publicizing them is way to thick. And, as was pointed out, much of PMW's content - including one that is listed above by YT - is from PA TV, which is funded by the EU!

Hamas slams Holocaust education

From YNet:

Hamas condemned on Saturday the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees for its intention to take excelling Gazan students on a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.

The terror group called the plan "suspicious", and demanded that the initiative be dropped. It also called on the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to "take a national stand for halting the moral corruption of superior Palestinian youth".

"The tours on human rights which UNRWA is organizing abroad, especially in New York, include visits to the Holocaust Museum and the site on which the twin towers stood," says a statement issued by Hamas.

"UNRWA clerks have offered explanations of the Holocaust, and expressed in them empathy for the
Jewish people for what it underwent. UNRWA must focus on materials regarding the rights of the Palestinian refugees without dealing with persecution in other areas of the world," the statement adds.

"The memory of the children of Gaza cannot withstand the suffering of all of the persecuted people around the world. The suffering caused by the Jewish occupiers is enough. Besides, the United States has no claim to human rights, as it violates them every day around the world and in its own territory."

YNet is actually underplaying what Hamas said. The Hamas-oriented newspaper Palestine Times quotes Palestinian Minister of Culture Dr. M. Osama Abdel Halim al-Issawi as saying that "such visits are a travesty of reality and try to brainwash the minds of the best Palestinian students, and they come within the framework of the invasion of intellectual and cultural exposeure to Palestinian society, culture, and nationalism."

Sounds like Hamas is afraid what would happen when their kids learn that their lives - with access to water parks, museums, restaurants, and all sorts of consumer goods - are not nearly as bad as they claim they are.

(h/t Emet)

"The Present State of the Jews": Muslim anti-semitism in 1676

I just found this gem in Google Books: "The Present State of the Jews," by Lancelot Addison, written in 1676:

He starts off with a description of how the Jews live in the Barbary States:

When I looked into the great number of Jews in Barbary, and saw how they were lorded over by the imperious and haughty Moor, I could not but resent their Condition, and wish their Deliverance from that direful imprecation, His Blood be upon us and our Children. One effect whereof may be seen in their present Condition under the Moresco Government, which is no other than a better sort of Slavery. For even in those places where they have permission to inhabit, they are not only Tributary, but upon every small disgust, in danger of Ejectment. Insomuch that they cannot promise to themselves either any durable Settlement or Security. Indeed their calmest state is sufficiently stormy, and when they seem to enjoy the greatest peace, they are vilely Hector'd by the Moors, against whom they dare.not move a finger, or wag a tongue in their own defence and vindication , but with a Stoical Patience support all the Injuries and Contumelies to which they are dayly exposed. For in the midst of the greatest abuses, you shall never see a Jew with an angry countenance, or appearing concerned, which cannot be imputed to any Heroick Temper in this People, but rather to their customary suffering, being born and Educated in this kind of Slavery. By reason whereof, they were never acquainted wich the Sentiments of an ingenuous and manly Usage. It is very common with the Morisco-Boys to rally together, and by way of pastime and divertisement, to beat the Jewish Children: which later, though they should far exceed the former in numbers and age, yet dare not give them the least resistance or opposition.

Addison is hardly philosemitic, as he describes the Jews harshly for not accepting Christianity. He claims that their methods of defending their religion in disputations forced upon them by Christians is flawed and that the Rabbinic tradition has skewed their understanding of the Bible.

He then goes into detail on Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith, viewing it as not much more than an attempt to impugn Christianity. This is followed by a lengthy, and relatively comprehensive, look at Jewish customs and laws.

The author then concludes with practical advice on how to convert Jews to Christianity.

Nothing's Changed: The Video

Last year I posted a fantastic Swiss cartoon from 1956 that described Israel's relations with its neighbors perfectly.

I just made it into a video:

URGENT: Write to YouTube to reinstate Palestinian Media Watch channel

I received this email from Itamar Marcus, director of the essential site Palestinian Media Watch:

For years there have been PA backers trying to get You Tube to close down the PMW video account by complaining that we are involved in hate speech. Now they succeeded. They complained to the administrators about a farewell video of a suicide terrorist from a few years ago who boasted he would drink the blood of Jews. You Tube sent us notice that this video is "violation of terms" by promoting hate speech and closed our entire account. Most of the hundreds of videos on our web site are not running.

PMW has been excellent at revealing the truth about incitement in the Palestinian Arab media, thoroughly documenting literally hundreds of examples of hate broadcasts and publication in recent years.

It is not easy to find a good email address for YouTube, but I think that the best way to contact them might be "service@youtube.com". You can also try some of their on-line contact information.

Please write to them and let them know how important this resource has been to you and asking that they should reinstate it. Pro-terrorist cyber-bullies should not be able to censor valuable educational resources like PMW.

Cairo Film Festival excluded Israeli films

Last week Egypt hosted the Cairo International Film Festival, and a smattering of Hollywood stars attended like Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.

Were they aware that the festival was engaging in blacklisting?

From Al Masry al-Youm:

Organizer of the Cairo International Film Festival, Ezzat Abu Auf has said that he will not allow Israel to participate.

"I will not allow Israel to intrude into the festival even if I have to sleep on the doorstep to keep them out," Abu Auf told reporters on Thursday evening,

In Arabic, he said it a little stronger: "I will not allow this to happen [any Israeli films at the festival] as long as I live."

It is a shame that this was not publicized in the English-language media before the festival. It would have been interesting to ask the stars whether they felt it was appropriate for them to support an event where Israelis are banned.

Israel outsourcing computer work to Palestinian Arabs

From AP:

Within the pastel walls of a modest suburban office, Israeli high-tech workers have accomplished a feat that still eludes their political leaders: They have created a partnership with the Palestinians.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks may be stalled, but that hasn't stopped a small but steady trickle of Israeli technology companies from seeking to work with people on the other side of the decades-old conflict.

Israeli CEOs say it's their way of bringing a little bit of peace to their troubled corner of the world. But the real reason they're hiring Palestinians, they acknowledge, is because it simply makes good business sense.

"The cultural gap is much smaller than we would think," said Gai Anbar, chief executive of Comply, an Israeli start-up in this central Israeli town that develops software for global pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Teva.

At a previous job, he worked with engineers in India and eastern Europe, but found communication difficult. So in 2007, when he was looking to outsource work at his new start-up, he turned to Palestinian engineers. He said they speak like Israelis do -- they are direct and uninhibited. Today, Comply employs four Palestinians.

Palestinian engineers have also warmed up to the idea. "I doubt you would find a company who says, 'I am closed for business'" to Israelis, said Ala Alaeddin, chairman of the Palestinian Information Technology Association.

So when is the BDS movement going to protest this?

Erekat declares US Congress "an obstacle to peace"

From Palestine News Network:

Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Dr. Saeb Erakat, stated on Friday that he “deeply regrets” the resolution passed by the United States House of Representatives opposing international efforts at resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“We have devoted ourselves to negotiations for nearly two decades and today we are trapped in a framework that thus far has not yet lifted the occupation. Unlike the Israeli government, which is comfortable with the status quo of occupation and continued colonization, the Palestinian people must seek their freedom through any peaceful channel available to us.” Erakat said in a press statement today.

Just as a reminder, no less a leader than Mahmoud Abbas said last year "in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life."

“The U.S. Congress has placed one more obstacle towards achieving peace between Palestine and Israel....Israel has done nothing but sabotage the efforts of the Obama administration to restart meaningful negotiations by refusing to freeze settlement expansion and negotiate based on clear terms of reference. Through the passage of this resolution, the US Congress is contradicting the policy of the American government to create a Palestinian state by hindering the ability of the Palestinians to navigate around the Israeli government’s obstructionist policies."

Just as another reminder, the PA refused to negotiate during the last building freeze until the very end, under pressure from the US. And the demand for a settlement freeze as a precondition to negotiations is a brand new tactic that did not exist before the PA perceived a White House that would pressure Israel for them.

So who is adhering to obstructionist policies?

The real obstacles to peace (Moshe Ya'alon)

From Foreign Policy, by MK Moshe Ya'alon:

The Middle East peace process is once again stalled, while Palestinian leaders sadly continue to propagate the myth that Israeli construction impedes progress. Only last Friday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said in Washington that "the Israeli government had a choice between settlements and peace, and they chose settlements."

Unfortunately, what stands between the Palestinians and eventual statehood is their insincerity when it comes to real peace. Israel has repeatedly proposed the independence that the Palestinians ostensibly desire. But instead of concluding a deal with Israel, they have demonstrated a total unwillingness to compromise, often favoring terrorism, as witnessed in the barrage of terrorist attacks that followed the Camp David negotiations of 2000. Is it any wonder Israelis find it ever more difficult to trust the Palestinians?

If there is to be a stable and lasting peace, Israel's recognition of the Palestinians' right to self-determination -- which successive Israeli governments have affirmed -- cannot go unreciprocated. The Jewish people are no less entitled to a state in their homeland, the land of Israel, or to their right to defend it.

The fundamental problem is that the Palestinians continue to reject these inherent rights of the Jewish people. That's indeed why we do not yet have two states for two peoples: The Palestinians remain steadfast in their refusal to accept that there even exists a Jewish nation that lays legitimate claim to its land. They reject the entire premise of a state for the Jewish people -- not only beyond the pre-1967 lines of the state of Israel, but even within its original 1948 boundaries. This, of course, explains why the Palestinians did not pursue independence prior to 1967, when Israel was within the 1949 Armistice lines.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t Silke)

Latest Latma (12/17/10)

I liked this one:

What "peace" would look like in a two-state scenario

From Ma'an:

Shortly before midnight on Friday morning residents of the Salfit-district village of Kifl Haris reported dozens of Israeli military vehicles and bus-loads of what were described by locals as "settlers" entering the area.

Locals estimated some 3,000 "settlers" - religious Jews, many from settlements in the occupied West Bank - entered the area as protecting troops set up checkpoints and barricades around a small tomb in the village.

Locals say the tomb belongs to a sheikh from the village, while religious Jews visiting the site say it is the final resting place of Joshua ben Nun, leader of early Jewish tribes.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said there were 800 visitors accompanied by Israeli soldiers. The group stayed in the area from midnight to 5 a.m.

According to Israeli news site Ynet, the visitors found the tomb "desecrated" by Arabic graffiti with slogans like "we are the defenders of the national project" and "conciliation, speak to you enemy through bullets."

Similarly, when Jews want to visit Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), they are forced to also come in the middle of the night, limited to once a month, in armored buses that get stoned by local residents.

If a two-state "solution" should ever materialize, this is what "free access to religious shrines" would look like. The very best scenario that the Palestinian Arab leaders would allow would be that Jews visiting the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem would also come once a month or so, in the dead of night, to visit their holy places. (If it was up to the PA, this is how they would let Jews visit the Kotel/Western Wall as well. And, of course, Jews would never be allowed to the Temple Mount.)

It would actually be worse, because the IDF would not be able to defend Jews wanting to visit their shrines in "Palestine," so the Jews would be at the mercy of the Palestinian Arab police's whims as far as when or if they could ever visit.

This is what the world is demanding for "peace" - ripping out all Jewish access to Jewish heritage and historic sites. Soothing words about how a peace agreement would allow free access to religious shrines would become quickly as meaningless as they became when Jordan took over the West Bank in 1949 (ironically violating the same UN Resolution 194 that Palestinian Arabs now claim as giving them the fake "right to return.")

AFP puts a moderate face on a Jew-hating terrorist leader

Last month, Hamas' co-founder and ideological leader Mahmoud Zahar said:

The Jews will soon be expelled from Palestine that same way they were kicked out by France, Britain, Belgium, Russia and Germany, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said over the weekend.

..."They have no place here amongst us because of their crimes. They will soon be expelled from here and we will pray at the Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”

Zahar claimed that Jews were expelled in the past “because they betrayed, stole and corrupted these countries.”

And last week he said publicly at a Hamas rally, as he burned an Israeli flag:

The [Hamas] movement was launched to continue the jihad until the liberation of all Palestine...The journey of jihad and martyrdom began 23 years ago and will continue until the liquidation of the masses of aggression, treachery and even high banners of faith and bring us day after day, year after year from Palestine .. all of Palestine. The Jihad will continue until the liberation of the Palestinian city of Jerusalem to pray a prayer of thanks after the liberation of all Palestine.

So when AFP spoke to him yesterday, did they ask him about his violent, anti-semitic and jihadist rhetoric?

Of course not!

AFP's Sara Hussein puts as moderate a spin as she can on Zahar:

Palestinians have time in their fight for a state, and a victory will come through nation-building rather than military confrontation with Israel, a senior Hamas leader said.

Zahar derided peace talks as a waste of time, heaping scorn on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for engaging in negotiations, and ruled out recognition of Israel.

But he also stressed Hamas has no plans to launch new attacks on the state and was instead focusing its efforts on state-building and providing an example of honest Palestinian governance.

"We are not saying 'wait,' because we are not just sitting here," he said. "We are reconstructing everything... For the first time, we are really administrating real progress in different ways, on all kinds of things.

"We are giving a good example of purified administration."

Zahar laid out a platform with similarities to that of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, who is implementing a two-year plan to build infrastructure in the West Bank.

Hamas rejects peace talks because negotiations have failed, he said.

"We are ready to talk to everybody, but about what? About eating falafel?"

Zahar joked about the years of failed negotiations.

"They left no city without negotiations -- they started in Madrid, Sharm Ash-Sheikh many times, Wye River -- many talks," he said.

He pledged Hamas would continue to "resist the occupation" but insisted resistance was more than military confrontation.

"One of the methods of resistance is to reject the occupation as an idea, one is to educate yourself and your people in their culture, one is to prepare yourself for the war if it happens.

"This," he said, "is resistance."

The reporter refrains from asking about Hamas' closing of charities, or its violence against other Palestinian Arab groups in Gaza, or torture in its jails, or corruption where Hamas steals aid and sells it, or Zahar's anti-semitic statements, or his jihadist rhetoric, or his own personal corruption. No, AFP takes everything he says at face value, propping him up as a moderate Islamic alternative to the PA's Fayyad.

The exception that proves the rule: An Arab speaks against Helen Thomas

I have mentioned a couple of times that I could not find a single prominent Arab American who did not defend Helen Thomas' anti-semitic comments, by either denying they were anti-semitic and/or confirming that they were true. I also showed that major Arab American organizations specifically went out of their way to honor her because of, not in spite of, her anti-Jewish outburst.

A single exception has just appeared.

Hussein Ibish, a quite prominent Arab American, has written a pretty good essay on the topic. He spends much of it going rebutting Thomas' and her acolytes' false definition of "anti-semitism" and gives a history of the term as well as of both Christian and Arab anti-semitism. He then goes into the Thomas affair as well:

I really had intended to stay out of this altogether, and I'm not going to ultimately pass any definitive judgment on her recently expressed sentiments, but some observations seem necessary. Her initial comment was very disturbing, but could certainly have been dismissed as an off-the-cuff remark to a hectoring videographer by an exasperated and elderly journalist who was trying to be deliberately obnoxious to someone it seems may have been pestering her. The explanation offered at the time that she was referring to the occupation was never very convincing because she referred to Jews getting out of Palestine and going home to Germany, Poland or the United States, but not to Israel. But had it been isolated and off-the-cuff, as it first appeared, it really shouldn't have been that big a deal, especially since she apologized right away.

Unfortunately, Ibish refrains from mentioning that the full video shows that Thomas seemed to be happy to answer the initial question from Rabbi Nesenoff about journalism as a career and she did not seem irritated at all, and even laughed heartily as she went onto her anti-semitic rant.

Ms. Thomas decided to make some additional remarks that got her into even deeper trouble. Parsing whether or not any of it descends to the level of anti-Semitism seems utterly beside the point. But to suggest, as she did in her subsequent remarks, that "Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by Zionists" is just silly, and it's indefensible. Let's take them one by one.

Later he writes

I do think it's possible to read Thomas' most recent comments as a rallying cry to Arab-Americans to get more involved, and that's certainly good advice. But the phraseology is extremely unfortunate and, indeed, inaccurate. And certainly she didn't do anything to contradict the impression that was created in many minds by her original off-the-cuff ill-advised remarks, and more than reversed whatever corrective had been accomplished by her well-advised apology. The debate over whether her original or follow-up comments are anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist or simply inaccurate isn't particularly interesting. But it needs to be clearly stated that the idea that because Thomas is of a Semitic Arab heritage she therefore cannot be anti-Semitic herself by definition holds no water at all. Sadly, there is far too much genuine anti-Semitism among Arabs and Arab-Americans, just as there is a disturbing plethora of anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment among Israelis and Jews around the world, including the United States.

Ibish falls short of the clear-cut condemnation of Thomas that is sorely needed in the Arab American community. But at least he recognizes that she was wrong, something that makes him utterly unique - and which highlights that the vast majority of Arab American leaders really either do support Thomas' remarks wholeheartedly or are too cowed by institutional anti-semtism in their community to say anything against them.

Ibish's attempts to draw a parallel between Jew-hatred among Arabs and "Islamophobia" among Jews are unsatisfying as well, simply because the former is apparently endemic while the latter is anything but, especially in the United States. It is possible to find (way too) many Jews whose positions on the Arab/Israeli conflict are in perfect consonance with the official positions in the Arab world, but it is nearly impossible to find any Arabs whose public positions align with Israel's.

So while his essay is flawed, it at least is a belated acknowledgment of the issue, it is thoughtful, and it is welcome as a worthy addition to the debate.

(h/t Alex)

Status of anti-semitism/anti-Zionism on US campuses

A pretty comprehensive report at Hudson-NY by Alexander Joffe. Here's how it begins:

The situation on campus continues to change for Israel's supporters: abuse is now almost everyplace. There have been important successes, like upholding the recent veto of a "boycott, divestment and sanctions" (BDS) proposal at the University of California at Berkeley's student council, and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's recent definition of anti-Semitism on campus as a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But there have also been notable failures, such as the continuing unwillingness of the administration of the University of California at Irvine to take harassment of Jewish and Israeli students and speakers seriously. Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was heckled and silenced there by a group of students from the Muslim Student Association before university security stepped in and removed them. These students later accused the university administration of denying them their First Amendment rights.

At Evergreen State University Jewish students have felt compelled to transfer to other schools after overt harassment. Sukkahs have been vandalized in recent years at Stanford, the University of Colorado, the University of Southern California, and other campuses. "Israel Apartheid Week" is now an established part of the calendar at colleges across the country, bringing verbal harassment and even physical assaults against Jewish students. At these events, "Jews" are assumed to be "Zionists" and are subject to abuse on this basis, as well as because they are Jews. Worse, universities and the community at large are getting accustomed to it all.

Read the whole thing.

"The Oral Historian of Israel’s Terror War" (Totten)

Michael Totten scores with another great interview, with the author of a new book about Israel's victims of terrorism, Giulio Meotti. Here are some excerpts where this non-Jewish author talks about the book, and about European anti-semitism and anti-Zionism:

Giulio Meotti: What’s the difference between a Western democracy, such as France or the United States, and Israel’s democracy? It’s not the start-up nation, the job opportunities, the scientific progress, or the number of Nobel laureates. The most important difference between Israel and the other Western countries lies in the young men and women killed for what they are: Israelis living as free human beings in their historical homeland.

The Jewish state is the only member of the United Nations condemned to death. Its existence is the only one widely considered temporary by a large number of countries in the world. In 2003 I decided to investigate the great black hole that in the last fifteen years has snuffed out thousands of lives, Jews killed because they are Jews.

The book is the result of many years of research inside the painful heart and soul of Israel. There were no books devoted to this single dramatic question. I give a voice to dozens of families and survivors of terrorism who have been neglected by an arrogant media industry. I think the blood spilled by terrorism is the most precious and fragile story that Israel has today, a story that even Israeli writers have neglected.

MJT: Why do you suppose the Western media, especially European media, are so biased against Israel? And why are you different?

Giulio Meotti: Europe is an anti-Semitic continent. The wave of hatred from the European and American ruling classes, the “mainstream” international press with its headlines that repeat diabolical condemnations without appeal, and the satisfied hate of academics is like a pile of straw that waits only for the match to be struck before it will burst into flames.

In Italy the National Order of Journalists, which is a state funded institution, is hosting the presentation of the “Freedom Flotilla 2,” the so-called “humanitarian” ship that will be sent to break the Israeli siege of Hamas in Gaza. Among the speakers are Turkish militants of the IHH group, which is now on Germany’s black list of terrorist organizations. A few weeks ago hundreds of writers and personalities from Norway promoted a massive boycott of Israel. Spain decided to ban the homosexual Israeli movement. Israeli politicians are afraid to land in London’s airports because they might be arrested for “war crimes.” In Sweden the popular newspaper Aftonbladet wrote that Israeli soldiers ripped out the organs of Palestinians in order to sell them.

In the Netherlands the former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein just invited the Dutch Jews to emigrate to Israel or the United States. There is no future for them in Netherlands due to Islamic anti-Semitism. The Netherlands is hosting the United Nations International Court of Justice. Its condemnation of the Israeli security barrier in 2004 and the Goldstone Report against Israel in 2009 simply forbids Israel to defend itself. The most important Dutch writer, Leon de Winter, who is also of Jewish descent, recently explained in a magnificent essay forStandpoint magazine why he decided to move to the United States. It’s much better to live in California, a place without history, than in a country where the synagogues are protected by the police and Jews can not wear their religious symbols in public. The beautiful Holland of Galileo, Spinoza, and Descartes, the shelter of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews fleeing the Inquisition, is dying. In its place there is fear, intimidation, and subjugation. There is so much darkness in Europe and in its newspapers and books.

...We have an indifferent majority of people about the fate of Israel and the Jews and a very powerful minority in the newspapers, political parties, universities, televisions and public arena that is extremely hostile.

America has historical, religious, cultural, political, and economic links with Israel. It’s sad to say, but Europe is probably lost to Israel.

Think about Spain. It has a very small Jewish community and its ancient synagogues are empty monuments, but it has a virulent anti-Israel ideology. In Norway and Sweden the anti-Israel hatred has become mainstream among prime ministers and best-selling writers such as Jostein Gaardner. He is the author of the global literary phenomenon Sophie’s World and he wrote an article in the Aftenposten newspaper where he said, “We no longer recognize the State of Israel… Do not worry, Israel will go to exile again.”

For the commemoration of the Nazi’s Kristallnacht, the city of Frankfurt has just chosen as speaker the Jewish essayist Alfred Grosser, author of the violent anti-Israeli pamphlet Von Auschwitz nach Jerusalem. Grosser compared what the Nazis did to the Jews to what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. I agree with the great American writer Cynthia Ozick when she says it would be best to abolish Holocaust memorial days in Europe.

As you can see, Michael, the anti-Israel ideology is now mainstream, fashionable, and even sexy all over Europe. Israel is overwhelmed by a tsunami of delegitimization. A group of Israeli tennis players was only allowed to play behind closed doors in a Swedish stadium. In Hanover an Israeli dance group was stoned by demonstrators shouting “Juden Raus.” The British Trade Union has called to boycott Israel. European supermarkets, even in Italy this year, have more than once decided to boycott Israeli goods. Israeli movies are ousted from international festivals, as in Edinburgh. Israeli academics are expelled from European universities and conferences.

Karel De Gucht, the European Union’s trade commissioner and a former foreign minister of Belgium, said in an interview in October that the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were sure to founder on two accounts; first, because Jews are excessively influential in the U.S., and second because they are not the sorts to be reasoned with. If this isn’t anti-Semitism, the term has no meaning.

MJT: You’re not Jewish. (Neither am I, by the way.) What is it that draws you to Israel and the tragedy of the Jewish experience in this world?

Giulio Meotti: If some day Israel were to fall into the hands of its enemies, the West as we know it would cease to exist. The West is what it is thanks to Rome, Jerusalem, and Athens–Rome’s rule of law, the Bible’s morality, and Greek democracy. If the Jewish part of those roots is overturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Israel is a lighthouse of life at a time when life is our most endangered value. A New Shoah is an affirmation of life in the kingdom of death.

A special friend of mine said the book is the Dead Sea Scrolls of modern Israel. It may take some years before the book’s stories have an effect, and for me the most important would be to change the world’s conscience about Israel. It’s a hard task, but one worth attempting. My enduring consolation will be to give an everlasting name and voice to those who have been murdered.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t Silke)

Mel Gibson innovates a new slur against Jews

From GQ, in an interview with Winona Ryder:

A Mel Gibson anecdote: "I remember, like, fifteen years ago, I was at one of those big Hollywood parties. And he was really drunk. I was with my friend, who's gay. He made a really horrible gay joke. And somehow it came up that I was Jewish. He said something about 'oven dodgers,' but I didn't get it. I'd never heard that before. It was just this weird, weird moment. I was like, 'He's anti-Semitic and he's homophobic.' No one believed me!"

"Oven Dodgers"? Too bad the interview came out today, or else Gibson could have beat out Helen Thomas in the #1 spot of the year's Top Ten Anti-Semitic Slurs, just released by the Wiesenthal Center.

Columbia's Center for Palestine Studies - Politics masked as academia

An illuminating article in The New Republic looks at the new Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia, and finds that it is not what it is supposed to be:

Given the highly sensitive subject matter of this dialogue, the CPS faces an important choice. It can host academics interested in serious Palestine-related scholarship, or it can advance political interests under the guise of Palestine studies. Should it move in the latter direction, it could make the boundary between politics and scholarship more meaningless than ever. And there are already troubling signs that this is exactly what is happening.

To be sure, the Center represents a crucial development in a nascent field. “Very simply, there’s never been a dedicated space … for this kind of research,”says CPS co-director and anthropologist Brinkley Messick. Rashid Khalidi,the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia and fellow CPS co-director, hopes that the Center will help broaden a “tiny, narrow, not well-established” field by building an archive, hosting events, and awarding doctoral fellowships to Palestinian scholars. By pursuing these admirable goals, the CPS has the potential to cast new light on the Palestinian people, who are too often only known within the context of their relationship with Israel. And the leaders of the Center are aware that they must ensure that the Center’s activities fall within a scholarly mandate. “The last thing you want is a Middle East Institute or a center for Israel or Palestine that isn’t within the university mission,” Khalidi says. “We’d avoid doing is anything that’s directly related to any political activism.”

But there are signs that politics have already infiltrated the CPS. Take, for example, the fact that Joseph Massad (the professor accused of bullying students in 2004) is associated with the center. Massad’s body of work is a postmodern mash-up of high-minded critical theory and base innuendo. His book Desiring Arabs theorizes that homosexuality is a western construct that imperial powers imposed upon the Middle East and that a “gay international” cabal (consisting of groups like Amnesty International and the Human Rights Campaign) uses the rhetoric of minority rights to unfairly vilify Muslim regimes.

More troubling than this vilification of human rights organizations is that much of Massad’s work is overtly political—exactly the type of scholarship that the CPS purportedly intends to avoid.

...[U]naccompanied by a dedication to real expertise, the CPS will be little more than a clique of like-minded academics whose defining commonality is hostility toward Israel. In its current form, it’s likely that the first Palestine Center at an American university will lead the way not in “a new era of civility,” but, rather, in politicizing Middle East studies further than ever before.

...[Legal scholar Katherine] Franke’s own work reveals the perils of such uncertainty in mission. She told us that she focuses on “gender and sexuality and how the rights of LGBT people in Israel are being used to punish Israel’s Arab neighbors.” For her, one of Israel’s greatest accomplishments (the creation of one of the most tolerant societies in the Middle East) is linked to the country’s ceaseless persecution of Palestinian Arabs. The association of Mahmood Mamdani—the former directorof Columbia’s Institute of African Studies—with the CPS further illustrates the dangers of mission-creep. Mamdani justifies his involvement by pointing to a conference he helped to organize titled “Post-Apartheid Reflections on Israel and Palestine,” which taught him “how a thematic focus [on Palestine] could bring African scholars … into the mainstream of intellectual discussions.” Mamdani associates with Palestine studies, it seems, to increase the profile of his primary field. Moreover, he has used his background as an Africanist to attack Israel. In a 2002 speech at a pro-divestment teach-in, Mamdani argued that Israel was an apartheid state and a settler-colonial enterprise comparable to Liberia.

Both Franke and Mamdani use hostility toward Israel as a jumping-off point for specific academic inquiries—issues of sexual identity politics for Franke and comparative colonialism for Mamdani. Their involvement with the CPS helps elevate this reductive and opportunistic treatment of Israel and Palestine to the cutting-edge of a new academic field, turning the CPS into a platform for niche interests that, together, share an anti-Israel agenda.

I am more skeptical than the authors are about the chances that the CPS could ever be anything but political and anti-Israel. The authors say that "the Palestinian people... are too often only known within the context of their relationship with Israel" - but this is how they define themselves to begin with! The very history of the Palestinian Arabs, as such, cannot be said to have started before the era of modern Zionism. They were never a cohesive people after the Arab nations collectively decided to treat them as such for their own political purposes. They never defined their "ancient homeland" in terms outside of whatever lands Jews have political control over.

Yes, there were costumes sewn in Bethlehem and soap made in Nablus but there was, simply, no specifically"Palestinian" Arab culture before the 20th century. Any institute that attempts to be a center for Palestine studies cannot avoid these facts - either it has to make up a new, older culture and history or it needs to start this "history" in terms of Zionism. Either way, it becomes an inherently political institution.

(h/t Jordan Hirsch, one of the authors.)

Another unintentionally funny anti-Israel protest

Via Israellycool:

If you can stand more than a minute of that horrible singing and out-of-sync "dancing" asking AIPAC to "leave Iran alone," you are made of stronger stuff than I am.

Time to play: Spot the Reuters bias!

Reuters has what could have been a good article, by Mara Arwad, about Bedouin in the Sinai smuggling arms to Gaza, but it just cannot resist finding reason to blame Israel at every turn.

It starts off as an interesting story:

Sitting cross-legged in the desert darkness, a 44-year-old Bedouin tribesman was describing how he smuggles weapons across Egypt's Sinai desert to the Gaza Strip when a heavily laden four-wheel drive vehicle pulled up.

"The latest deal just arrived from Sudan, come and see," said 'Aref' the smuggler, rising to greet the driver, who shut off the headlights that had briefly pierced the moonless night.

"These are 80 Kalashnikovs," said Aref, flinging open the trunk to reveal the stacked assault rifles, gleaming dimly in the flashlight held by his Bedouin assistant. "We will bury this shipment in the desert until we find a buyer."

Arms smuggling by Bedouin tribal networks, mainly by land along Egypt's southern border with Sudan, across the Sinai peninsula and into the Hamas-run Gaza Strip is on the uptick, according to an Egyptian official, who asked not to be named.

Sudan denies that it allows any kind of weapons shipments across its territory to any destination.

But then it takes its usual anti-Israel course:

"Sinai suffers a security imbalance," military analyst Safwat Zayaat said. "Under-development is fuelling the arms trade fed by unstable neighboring areas in northeast Sudan."

He said there was a ready market for weapons smuggled via a network of border tunnels into the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas since 2007.

This is a concern for Israel, which has frequently complained about Egypt's failure to stop the arms transfers.

Yet the terms of Camp David accords signed by Egypt and Israel in 1978 help explain why it is so hard for the Egyptians to police their borders and maintain control in Sinai, where well-armed Bedouin occasionally clash with security forces.

The accords, signed by former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, demilitarised central Sinai and allowed Egypt to deploy only a small number of lightly armed border guards there and on the 266-km (166-mile) frontier.

After Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Egypt proposed raising the number to 3,500 to help it secure its border with the Gaza Strip. Israel refused, citing security concerns.

So the smuggling is happening and is not being stopped - because of Israel's insistence that Egypt remain weak in the Sinai. But wait:

Sinai's border with Israel is a main trafficking route for thousands of African migrants seeking asylum in Israel. Israel has criticized Egypt for not doing enough to stem the flow.

Under Israeli pressure to secure the frontier, Egyptian police have used tough tactics including shooting migrants on sight.

The same woefully weak Egyptian forces are using deadly force on migrants - because of Israel!

Egyptian forces are simultaneously too weak and too trigger-happy, and it is all because of Israel.

In fact, the entire article's detour into the African migrants seems designed just to throw in a dig at Israel, because it does not seem relevant at all and then goes right back to the smuggling story.

But, hey,. that's Reuters for you!

Israeli swim team competing in Dubai - but their name was not announced

From YNet:

The Israeli swim team found itself snubbed on Tuesday during the opening ceremony of the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) in Dubai. As the competition organizers announced each participating nation while the teams marched into the arena, they failed to call the Jewish state by its name, curtly dubbing it 'ISR.'

Over 800 athletes from 148 countries are participating in the competition, which is taking place at the Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Sports Complex. The state of the art facility was built especially for the event, and costing $100 million.

The National (UAE) does not mention the snub:

Hanging from the roof of the Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Sports Complex, sandwiched inbetween the flags of Iceland and Italy, appears a sight virtually invisible in the UAE.

The national emblem of Israel represents just one of 153 countries - from Albania to Zimbabwe via Iraq and North Korea - that are competing in the Fina World Swimming Championships in Dubai.

The UAE does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, but the country's five-member team have been granted access to the Emirates and will compete in 20 events across the championship's five days.

Gal Nevo, who yesterday morning competed in the men's 200-metre freestyle, was their first swimmer to appear on the pool deck.

He said his team arrived a day late because "there was some problem with security" and added they are operating under heightened supervision, which includes seven or eight "visible" bodyguards.

Palestine Press Agency has a different spin, saying that the Israeli team was "exposed to humiliation and contempt" during the opening ceremony. Palestine Today called it a "great insult." They also mention that apparently the TV coverage did not show the Israeli flag or swimmers during the opening ceremony, unlike all the other nations.

Gaza terrorist killed - by the US

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian family in Gaza has received news that their son, Mahmoud Abu Rideh, died a few days ago in a US bombing in Afghanistan.

The man's family, from Bani Sheila - a town east of Khan Younis - heard from friend's of their son that Mahmoud was with a group of 'mujahideen' before the airstrike.

Another Gazan, just minding his own business while hanging with his jihadist friends.

Congress opposes unilateral PA moves - and J Street is upset

From Ha'aretz:

The United States House of Representatives unanimously on Thursday approved a resolution opposing unilateral declaration of Palestinian state.

The resolution introduced by Rep. Howard Berman, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slams Palestinian efforts to push the international community to recognize a state in such a manner as "true and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties."

The resolution calls on the U.S. administration to "deny recognition to any unilaterally declared Palestinian state and veto any resolution by the United Nations Security Council to establish or recognize a Palestinian state outside of an agreement negotiated by the two parties."

It also urges Palestinian leaders to "cease all efforts at circumventing the negotiation process, including efforts to gain recognition of a Palestinian state from other nations, within the United Nations, and in other international forums prior to achievement of a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians… and calls upon foreign governments not to extend such recognition."

And which purportedly pro-Israel group opposed the resolution?

The pro-Israel lobby J Street issued a statement on Wednesday criticizing Berman's resolution, saying "it addresses only one issue standing in the way of peace."

In the statement, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said that the resolution continued "a pattern in which overly one-sided resolutions are introduced and moved to the floor of the House without an adequate opportunity for debate, discussion and modification by the Members."

The irony gets better. From JPost:

While Palestinian spokesmen such as Yasser Abed Rabbo were taking a hard-line public position on the talks, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in a teaser for an interview on Channel 2 to appear over the weekend, said the Palestinians were not going to go to the UN seeking international recognition, nor would they revert to violence if the negotiations did not work out.

Asked if he was willing to make a clear statement that no matter what happens, he would not turn to the UN for a unilateral declaration of statehood, Fayyad said, “What we are looking for now... is a state of Palestine.

“We are not looking for yet another declaration of statehood.

Remember, we had one,” he said, in reference to Yasser Arafat’s declaration of statehood in 1988, a declaration since recognized by around 100 countries.

It seems that J Street is more pro-"Palestinian" than the PA prime minister!

(h/t Lenny, Jim)