Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 19, 2014

01/19 Links: Netanyahu to UN: The Truth Won’t Hurt Talks, Laser-Based Rocket Interceptor!

From Ian:

UK parliament launches inquiry into funding for UNRWA, Palestinians

The British parliament has formed a committee of inquiry to probe the flow of funds used by the international refugee agency UNRWA to support the Palestinians, according to an exclusive report first revealed on Saturday by The Jerusalem Post's Hebrew-language sister publication, The Post.
According to the report, the British government contributes 90 million pounds annually in aid to the Palestinians. A third of that sum is earmarked for UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.
The parliamentary committee was formed in response to heavy lobbying by pro-Israel organizations and with the encouragement of former Israeli Labor MK Einat Wilf. The committee is due to submit its recommendations to parliament soon.
"UNRWA is perpetuating the notion that the descendants of refugees are themselves refugees, and it is based on this principle that the Palestinians are demanding the right of return, something that will not happen in any future agreement," Wilf said. (h/t Bob Knot)

US, Canada urge UNESCO not to postpone exhibit on Land of Israel

“UNESCO’s decision is wrong and should be reversed,” said US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power on Friday. “The United States has engaged at senior levels to urge UNESCO to allow this exhibit to proceed as soon as possible.”
”UNESCO is supposed to be fostering discussion and interaction between civil society and member states, and organizations such as the Wiesenthal Center have a right to be heard and to contribute to UNESCO’s mission,” said Power.
In spite of her harsh rebuke, the US had opted not to sponsor the exhibit, which bore the sponsorship seal of only three countries, Canada, Israel and Montenegro.

Netanyahu slams UNESCO for scrapping Israel exhibit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a scathing criticism of the UN’s cultural agency at his Cabinet meeting Sunday, for indefinitely postponing an exhibit on Jewish connections to the Holy Land.
“It would not harm the negotiations,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “Negotiations are based on facts, on the truth, which is never harmful. But what does harm the negotiations is the automatic summoning of Israeli ambassadors in certain countries regarding matters of no substance, while significant violations by the Palestinian Authority pass without a response.

British MP calls Israeli flag "Nazi"

From Grahame Morris, British Labour Party politician, and Member of Parliament for Easington, on Twitter:

@ynkutner - Nazis in my village do you see the flag they fly http://t.co/J9v8CCoz5Y pic.twitter.com/2a0W2gLGkG
— Grahame Morris (@grahamemorris) January 18, 2014

In case he deletes it...

I guess the next step in his career will be to write for Iran's PressTV.

(h/t Randy)

UPDATE: He deleted the tweet, but here is the screenshot.

The University of Calgary (and maybe many others) is using a textbook called "Culture of Prejudice: Arguments in Critical Social Science," (2003, 2008) by Judith C. Blackwell, Murray E. G. Smith, and John S. Sorenson.

Here is part of the blurb for the book:

Contesting the putative "even-handedness" of many introductory social science texts, this innovative book presents strong and provocative arguments on contemporary social issues that will stimulate readers to think critically. The principal theme of the book is that social science is at its best, and most exciting, when it confronts and refutes "cultures of prejudice"—intricate systems of beliefs and attitudes that sustain many forms of social oppression and that are, themselves, sustained by ignorance and fear of the unknown and the unfamiliar. Such a critical social science, it is argued, can make an important contribution to promoting human freedom and extending human capacities.

As we will see, the book does the the exact opposite of its stated purpose.

Here are two passages:

Often, nationalist ideologues propose a mystical attachment with certain territory. Where nationalism is aligned with or defined by religious identity, it may even be asserted that the group has been given the right to this territory by the authority of a supernatural being. Thus, a Chosen People will need to inhabit its Holy Land in order to fulfill its divine covenant, with unfortunate consequences for any other populations who may inhabit the territory but who are not considered part of the nation. For example, European invaders and their descendants imagined they had a Manifest Destiny to acquire the Americas and nearly exterminated the indigenous population in the course of taking possession. More recently, supernatural sanctions have been invoked by Israelis who violently dispossessed the population of Palestine. As Israel came to be defined as a Jewish state, promised to them long ago by a supernatural being, most of the Palestinian population was expelled; approximately 4.5 million still live there as refugees. Millions of Palestinians remain under military occupation, under constant surveillance and regular attack by Israeli forces, including tanks, fighter planes, and helicopter gunships. Their houses and land have been destroyed or expropriated and given to hundreds of thousands of armed settlers. Former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir simply dismissed their suffering by asserting that “Palestinians do not exist." While international media audiences are well informed about the dreadful attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers, the far higher rate of Palestinian deaths and casualties is defended as retaliations or self-defence. The 1993 Oslo peace process simply gave an extremely constrained form of power to Yassir Arafat's corrupt regime, while allowing the occupation to continue.

How many inaccuracies and baldfaced lies are in this single paragraph? Zionists did not historically invoke the "Chosen People" phrase to justify their desire to return to their ancestral lands; indeed one has nothing to do with the other. (That part alone is borderline antisemitic.) It is a lie to say that most of the Arabs were "expelled." There are not 4.5 million "refugees" living in the borders of British Mandate Palestine even by the bizarre UNRWA definitions. Palestinian Arabs are not under "regular attack." None of their houses have been "given" to "armed settlers." Golda Meir never said the phrase "Palestinians do not exist." (The authors quote it twice in this book.)

This is a college textbook, being used, today, where I can count at least 6 lies in a single paragraph.

Here's another passage:

One thing leads to another. Osama bin Laden and his al Qteda terrorist organization presented three conditions for ending their “holy war” against the United States both before and after the events of September 11, 2001: first, that Israel retreat from the territories that it occupied in 1967 and that an autonomous Palestinian state be recognized; second, that the trade sanctions imposed upon Iraq that have cost the lives of over one and a half million people, most of them children, over the last decade be lifted; and third, that United States military bases established in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War of 1991 be closed. An overwhelming majority of humankind would likely sympathize with these demands, even as they would condemn bin Laden's methods and reject his program of establishing repressive, fundamentalist theocratic states throughout the “Islamic world.” At the same time, most inhabitants of the Third World-and a great many people elsewhere-would consider the terrorist methods of al Qaeda no more “evil” (to use President George W. Bush's favoured term) than the methods employed by the US and other major powers in maintaining a global order that serves the interests of huge transnational corporations while perpetuating the grinding poverty of billions of people.

Did Bin Laden demand that Israel withdraw to 1967 lines? Did he demand a Palestinian state be recognized? Did he ask that trade sanctions be lifted? (For that matter, did 1.5 million Iraqis die because of these sanctions? )

No. His "letter to America" after 9/11 stated "The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased." His fatwas before 9/11 were to kill every single American and its allies: "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."

The "letter to America" had, in fact, seven demands, not three, and they do not correspond at all with what this textbook says:

The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.

What we call you to thirdly is to take an honest stance with yourselves - and I doubt you will do so - to discover that you are a nation without principles or manners, and that the values and principles to you are something which you merely demand from others, not that which you yourself must adhere to.

We also advise you to stop supporting Israel, and to end your support of the Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the Chechens and to also cease supporting the Manila Government against the Muslims in Southern Philippines.

We also advise you to pack your luggage and get out of our lands. We desire for your goodness, guidance, and righteousness, so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins.

Sixthly, we call upon you to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington.

We also call you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, rather than the policies of sub dual, theft and occupation, and not to continue your policy of supporting the Jews because this will result in more disasters for you.

His second fatwa mentioned three of America's "crimes" and, again, nothing about Israeli "occupation" - he wanted Israel destroyed.

These are only two paragraphs in a book of 359 pages, looking at subjects I know something about. And the anti-Israel rhetoric doesn't end there: on page 330 we are told that while Jordan's killing of thousands of Palestinian Arabs in 1970 was "ghastly" they wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for Israel, on page 61 the same point about Jews claiming the land because of proimises by a "supernatural being" is repeated, on page 67 it says that the US has provided weapons to Israel to "kill large numbers of Palestinians," on page 90 it says that the Mossad uses torture regularly, on page 69 Israel is explicitly called a "terrorist state."

How many hundreds of distortions and lies are in this book being given to clueless university students? How can universities allow books that don't have a modicum of fact-checking? Why are the authors not today despised and blacklisted in the world of academia for their horrendous use of lies to push their own political agendas under the cover of "fighting prejudice"?

Isn't using lies to demonize an entire people the very definition of "prejudice"?

And how many other textbooks are being given to college students in the West that are just as filled with lies and distortions?

To say this is outrageous is an understatement.

(h/t Calgary United With Israel)

The Great Kuwait Zionist Potato Scare

From Gulf News:

The highly offensive potatoes

Kuwait’s commerce ministry has launched an investigation into reports that Israeli potatoes were being sold in cooperative societies.

“The ministry is currently coordinating with several parties to reach a conclusion about the allegations and ensure that they are not malicious,” ministry sources told local daily Al Kuwaitiya.

“The ministry has a zero-tolerance policy towards the import and sale of Israeli products and if there are Israeli potatoes in the stores, there will be stringent action against those involved,” the sources said.

Khalid Al Subai, the deputy head of the Consumer Protection Society, was quoted by the Kuwaiti daily as saying that Israeli potatoes had been sold in several cooperative societies and that he held the commerce and industry ministry and the country’s customs responsible.

“The product has been spotted in several places and I would like to know how those in charge of monitoring the import of foreign products allowed it into the country,” he said.
However, Abdul Aziz Al Samhan, the head of the Cooperative Societies Union, has denied the existence of any Israeli products in Kuwait’s cooperatives. “This is definitely a red line that no one is allowed to cross under any name,” he said in a statement.

“We do deplore the allegations by some people and the accusations they levelled at Al Nassem Cooperative claiming that it was selling potatoes in bags with an Israeli label,” he said.

The Customs have denied the claims about the sale of Israeli products in Kuwait and insisted that the potatoes being sold in cooperatives were from Jordan, he added.

Al Samhan called for an end to the “electoral manoeuvres” and “the fabrication of unsubstantiated accusations, slander and falsehoods.”

“We in the Union do know that putting a false label on the product bags is an indication of bankruptcy or a way of having fun at the expense of others. Such acts have unfortunately sparked an online debate and raised questions about the authenticity of the news,” he said.

For Al Samhan, placing an Israeli label on the product does not make sense at all.

“Will selling Israeli products increase sales? We will not tolerate this fabrication and there will be serious questioning. We will find out who is behind this attack on Al Naseem Cooperative, especially that we know that it has a clean record,” he said.

The story is all over Kuwait media even though it apparently started on Twitter.

Sale of Israeli goods is a violation of Law 21 of 1964. There is an entire office in Kuwait dedicated to the boycott. One newspaper said "there are tight customs procedures to prevent Jewish products from leaking to the market."

The Jeleeb website comments, "This is a calamity if it is true."

A calamity!

If you want to stop any Arab economy dead in its tracks, all you need is an inkjet printer and a blank white label sheet.The Arabs will do the rest themselves.

(h/t Bob Knot)

Joniversity takes on "two Arab chicks"

Once you get past the snark, sarcasm, profanity and side-jokes, this is a remarkably accurate and well-referenced debunking of the Arab response to Danny Ayalon's "Truth about the West Bank" video.

(h/t Bob Knot)

01/18 Links: 134 Congressmen sign anti-boycott letter, Canadian PM Harper’s moral leadership

From Ian:

134 House Members sign letter against academic boycott of Israel

A total of 134 Members of the House of Representatives have signed a letter, organized by the offices of Reps. Peter Roksam (R) and Ted Deutch (D) condeming the academic boycott of Israel passed by the American Studies Assoction. The effort was truly bipartisan, with 65 Republicans and 69 Democrarts signing. The full list of signatories is at the bottom of this post.
As previously reported, the congressional organizers were hoping for 50 signatures, so the response was better than expected. Gathering signatures on short notice was difficult, one of the staffers explained to me, because of the press of House business before members left today on break.

Report: Soccer Club Sponsor Delivers Ultimatum Over Anelka ‘Reverse Nazi Salute’

The shirt sponsor of British soccer club West Bromwich Albion (WBA) has threatened to immediately axe its multi-million pound deal with the club over the growing furor surrounding one of its star players, who recently used a quenelle “reverse Nazi salute” after scoring a goal, the UK’s Marketing Week reported.
Zoopla, an online property portal, which is concerned that its brand is being tarnished, reportedly told WBA that if the offending player, Nicolas Anelka, plays in an upcoming match against Everton on Monday its threat will go into immediate effect. Zoopla is co-owned by Jewish businessman Alex Chesterman.

British City of Liverpool Overwhelmingly Rejects Anti-Israel Motion

The city council of Liverpool, England, has rejected a motion that condemned Israel for “human rights violations,” voting it down 74 to two, the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported on Friday.
The JC said the motion was tabled by two members of Britain’s Green Party ahead of the Liverpool International Festival for Business 2014, in June and July, when Israeli investors and businesses are expected to come to Liverpool to take part in the business networking event. The motion urged the council to “distance” the city from “condoning or tolerating the human rights violations, of some participating countries,” including Israel, Russia and China.

Saudi preacher urges jihad to overthrow "pro-Jewish, pro-Christian" Egyptian government

Egyptian media is buzzing with a video made Friday in Medina, Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Nasser Asheian, the (possibly former) imam and preacher of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, accused the Egyptian government of implementing the demands of the Jews and the Christians to overthrow the government of President Mohamed Morsi.

Asheian says on the video clip, "Egypt, Nation of Islam, is working on the deployment of infidelity and atheism and heresy, with unbelievers behind the plot."

He added: "Muslims are being killed in Egypt and the Levant, and everyone has to get rid of the cooperation with the Jews and the Christians. We long to announce a strong man as a ruler of the Muslim jihad for the sake of God."

Here's the video. Sorry, no translation.

01/17 Links Pt2: Why can’t Arab armies be more humane like Israel’s? The Shame of Academia.

From Ian:

Al-Jazeera: Why can’t Arab armies be more humane like Israel’s?
Among the questions posed on air:

“Why don’t they learn from the Israeli army which tries, through great efforts, to avoid shelling areas populated by civilians in Lebanon and Palestine? Didn’t Hezbollah take shelter in areas populated by civilians because it knows that Israeli air force doesn’t bomb those areas? Why doesn’t the Syrian army respect premises of universities, schools or inhabited neighborhoods? Why does it shell even the areas of its supporters? …

Al Jazeera Arabic admits France, Israel better

Iron Dome: A new idea for a St James' Church Stunt (Satire)

This morning the peace-loving Palestinians fired numerous rockets into Israel - including five targeted at Ashkelon that were all intercepted by the Iron Dome system. Given how ugly the Iron dome system is - and how its only purpose is to save the lives of Israelis targeted by Palestinian terrorists, this surely is a perfect subject for the next Christmas stunt by the St James' Church Piccadilly: Build a life-size replica of the Iron dome and demand it be torn down.
In fact, to save much time and effort I have prepared the Press Release for the event

Arabs expecting another Mabhouh-type hit in Dubai

JPost reports:

Infrastructure Minister Silvan Shalom will lead an Israeli delegation to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, to attend a conference focused on renewable energy, his spokesman confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Shalom will attend the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Fourth Assembly, held at the St. Regis Hotel on Saadiyat Island from January 18 to 19, as part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

He follows in the footsteps of then-energy and water minister Uzi Landau, who traveled to a similar Abu Dhabi conference on January 16, 2010, and became the first minister to visit the United Arab Emirates. Israeli is one of 123 member-states of IRENA, an intergovernmental organization focused on renewable energy development that is based in Abu Dhabi.

This is the first Israeli delegation visit to the UAE, with which Israel has no diplomatic ties, since the assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai on January 19, 2010.

While Israel never confirmed or denied involvement in the killing, the Dubai police chief afterward forbade all Israelis from entering the country, even those holding foreign passports.

Palestine Today says that Uzi Landau left Dubai only an hour or two before Mabhouh was killed, and it suspects that this is not a coincidence. Therefore, it believes, Israel is planning another killing in Dubai very soon.

(In fact, Landau returned to Israel two days before the Mabhouh killing.)

But this gives me the chance to ask again my question about the Dubai police investigation in the murder: where is the hotel footage of the hallway outside Mabhouh's room?

01/17 Links Pt1: Glick: Truth Hurts, Explosives found at PA Embassy in Prague, 2nd day of Rockets

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The truth hurts

In other words, the Obama administration is using Ya’alon’s private remarks, leaked by an unidentified source to a newspaper with an anti-Netanyahu editorial agenda, as a means to neutralize the most powerful voice opposing Kerry’s obsessive, messianic behavior in the Israeli government. They want to use American umbrage at the tone of Ya’alon’s private statements to upend Israeli policy and force Israel to embrace the substance of the Obama administration’s delusional and destructive actions. And to advance this goal, they are using anti-Semitic signals to castigate Israel and deny it the right to speak on its own behalf.
Israelis love America. And for that reason, it is compelled to do what anyone strapped into the back seat of a car driven by a drunk would do: try to convince him to stop driving. As a grateful ally of the United States, Israel should publicly tell the Obama administration that what Ya’alon said in private is the truth.
And yes, sometimes the truth hurts.

Belief Undeterred by the Facts

After the Israeli defense minister’s undiplomatic skepticism about the peace process prompted a diplomatic flap earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry announced yesterday that he is “undeterred,” explaining, “I believe strongly in the prospects for peace.” In that, Kerry isn’t alone: An entire industry has arisen around the belief that Israeli-Palestinian peace is imminently attainable, and it is consistently “undeterred” by the facts. For a classic example, consider the joint Israeli-Palestinian poll released in late December under the unequivocal headline, “The majority of Israelis (63%) and of Palestinians (53%) support the two states solution.”
That sounds very promising, until you read the fine print. And then it turns out that most Palestinians don’t support the two-state solution at all–or at least, not the one whose terms “everyone knows.” In fact, when presented with the elements of that “everyone knows” package, defined by the researchers as based on the Clinton parameters and the Geneva Initiative, 53 percent of Palestinians opposed it, while only 46 percent supported it.(h/t Bob Knot)

Police find explosives at Palestinian embassy in Prague

Czech investigators have discovered explosives at the Palestinian Embassy complex in Prague where a possibly booby-trapped safe killed the ambassador on Jan. 1, police said Thursday.
Police discovered 12 illegal weapons following the explosion at the embassy that killed Ambassador Jamal al-Jamal, but this is the first time that authorities said explosives also were found in the new complex that includes the embassy and the ambassador’s residence.
Police said experts are trying to determine whether those weapons were used in any criminal activity in the past. The ballistic testing might take weeks, police said.

Palestine Press reports that Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech that he hopes that 2014 will be the year of Palestinian independence.

Sound familiar?

Abbas says 2013 will be year of Palestinian independence

(2010) Abbas expresses hope for Palestinian state by next year

(2007) "We pray next year will be the year of independence for the Palestinian people," Abbas continued.

(2006) President Mahmoud Abbas wished Saturday that the next year will be a year of stability and peace for the entire world and the year of establishing the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as a capital.

Maybe next year will be the year that Abbas actually makes concessions that could allow peace.

Oh, that's right - he signed a law to make that impossible.

PLO says Jews visiting Temple Mount is against international law!

Ma'an reports:

A PLO Executive Committee member spoke out against visits by rightist Israeli Jewish groups to the Al-Aqsa compound on Thursday.

Ahmad Qurie warned of "catastrophic" consequences if the Jewish groups continued to visit Al-Aqsa, saying the visits violated international law.

Yes, now Jews practicing their religion is a violation of international law, according to the PLO.

Soon the PLO will define being Jewish itself as a gross violation of human rights, and the UN will praise them for it.

By the way, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." The UN's (non-binding) "Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief" amplifies this:

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have a religion or whatever belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

...[T]he right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief shall include, inter alia, the following freedoms:

(a)To worship or assemble in connexion with a religion or belief, and to establish and maintain places for these purposes;

The article continues:

Qurie said Israeli police arrested Palestinian youths who were attempting to stop the groups from entering the compound. He criticized the police for making such arrests.

Qurei believes that violating the Jewish right to exercise their beliefs is perfectly acceptable.

Then the article repeats an absurd rumor that has been going around:

Earlier, the director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque told Ma'an that the visits were a "provocative and dangerous intrusion by extremists."

Azzam al-Khatib said extremist lawyer Yehuda Glick, who chairs the Temple Mount Heritage Fund, entered the mosque compound through the Moroccan Gate and later "climbed to the roof of the Dome of the Rock and verbally assaulted the guards."

Also Saturday, Palestinian security spokesman Adnan al-Dumieri told Ma'an that Israeli rightists "ascending to the roof of the Dome of the Rock" was a provocative action that would have a negative impact on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

But Israeli police spokesman Rosenfeld said he was unfamiliar with the roof-climbing incident.

He confirmed that there were "normal visits" to the Al-Aqsa compound, but said no arrests were made.

Climbing to the roof? Religious Jews generally don't go near the Dome of the Rock; it is probably where the Holy of Holies is and believing Jews can't visit there. The idea that they could climb it without the Israeli security guards who accompany them stopping them is absurd.

But no lie is too absurd for Palestinian Arab spokespeople.

Obscene editorial in U. of Calgary newspaper

The National Post of Canada wrote last week:

A pro-Israel group says it has complained to Calgary police over Facebook comments made by a former university student group president who urged Palestinians to ‘‘spill blood.’’

“My body and soul are ready to fight and die,” wrote Ala’a Hamdan, former president of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, a University of Calgary student group. “This land will be proud that Palestinian babies are born men and women ready to spill their blood.”

In a battle hymn written to a son, Ms. Hamdan wrote: “I will soak a koffiah with your blood and save it to show to your siblings … I will be named the mother of the martyr.“

Members of the Calgarians United With Israel (CUWI) advocacy group copied the comments and posted them to their website.

“It’s extremely melodramatic and poorly written but beyond that, it’s hate speech, I think,” said Ryan Bellerose, who helped found CUWI. “This student group talks about justice and peace and she talks about blowing herself up and having her children blow themselves up. It’s hypocritical.”

It is difficult to interpret these writings as anything but advocating murder of Israeli Jews. Palestinian Arabs call suicide bombers and others who target civilians "martyrs." They also call anyone killed by the IDF to be martyrs as well, but this poem is talking about a mother pushing her son to become one, which means she wants him to actively attack Israeli Jews.

Advocating murder of a national group is pretty much the definition of incitement.

To publicize the disgusting writings of Hamdan and to denounce them is not an attack on free speech - it is free speech.

But look at this editorial in the university newspaper, the Gauntlet. They justify Hamdan's writings because they think she has a very good point. Why? Because the editors of this student newspaper don't know basic facts of history - they have been brainwashed with propaganda and aren't embarrassed to spout it themselves:

The conflict is complicated. Arguments on both sides are often fueled by emotion or religion, but the basic history is such.

Imagine it’s the 1940s. Jewish people are uprooted in Europe by the Nazis because of the Holocaust. An obscene number of them are murdered. The Second World War ends and the concentration camps are closed, but Jewish communities remain broken, individuals still stripped of their property and the stink of anti-Semitism continues to hang over much of Europe.

Under the banner of Zionism, sectors of the Jewish community have long advocated for a return to their ancient homeland, which is then referred to as the British mandate for Palestine. After the Second World War, the United Nations decides that the Zionists will get their wish, and much of Palestine transforms into the Jewish state of Israel.

The problem is that people already live there. And they don’t feel like leaving, so Israel colonizes them, violently.

A series of wars between Israel and the surrounding Arab states ensue. Arabs living in Israeli controlled territory — most of them identifying as Palestinians — are delegated to the status of second-class citizens, lacking the same political and civil rights as their Israelis elites. A flood of violence from both Palestinians and Israelis escalates every year.

These are only the basics.

These are the basics?

Zionism didn't start after World War II, as this implies. Jews had accepted partition plans twice and the Arabs rejected them. Zionists who had already built up much of Palestine over the previous decades always intended to live in peace with their Arab neighbors. The UN vote partition vote would have given Palestinian Arabs a state of their own and they rejected it because part was going to Jews. Most Palestinians would not have lived under Jewish rule under the plan. Within hours of the vote they started attacking Jews in buses and on the streets. When Israel finally declared independence, the Arabs were joined by the combined Arab armies from Transjordan, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. If the Jews would have lost they would have been slaughtered mercilessly, if you believe the rhetoric that Arab leaders said explicitly. Today, Arabs in Israel have the same rights as Jews, although there is unfortunately still some racism as there is everywhere else in the world. It pales next to the antisemitism of the Arab world that has remained constant for hundreds of years. And in no way, shape or form can Israeli actions be compared to the Holocaust, which seems to be an implication here, along with the idea that Jews are foreign colonizers when they are in fact the indigenous people returning to their homeland.

The Gauntlet is not giving a basic history lesson. It is propagating a series of lies. It adds another lie, claiming that CUWI is calling for the student group to be disbanded, something they never did. They only asked that hate speech be denounced and that they be protected from incitement. (The exact request in their letter to the Student Union was "We are requesting the University of Calgary protect us from rhetoric and action on campus that exposes us to hatred, and we are asking to be provided with a safe environment that is conducive to our academic success. ")

Now, lies may be protected free speech, but there should be consequences for a newspaper - even a student newspaper - to have such reckless disregard for the truth.

Without any seeming knowledge of the terror war that Israel endured only a few years ago, the editorial assumes that Hamdan's poems refer to military actions, not attacks against women and children that characterize most historic Palestinian Arab attacks.

Naturally, given this false framework of the conflict, the newspaper understands Hamdan's anger and defends her right to call to murder people.

But if the media would start telling the truth about the Middle East, perhaps the next generation won't be so inclined to create pathetic poetic peaens to terrorism against Israeli Jews.

UNESCO drops Jewish themed exhibit because Arabs objected. And the US agrees with their reasons!

The Simon Wiesenthal Center last week invited everyone to UNESCO's headquarters in Paris to see an exhibit:

"People, Book, Land - The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People

and the Land of Israel", co-organized by UNESCO and our Centre, will be

launched on Monday 20 January and displayed at UNESCO headquarters in

Paris from Tuesday 21 until Thursday 30 January from 9am to 5:30pm (closed weekends)

Don't bother calling the number to attend.

From The Algemeiner:

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, has pulled a Jewish exhibit two years in the making, entitled “People, Book, Land – The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel,” after a zero hour protest from the Arab League, The Algemeiner has learned.

The exhibit, which was created by Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) together with UNESCO, was scheduled to open on January 20th, 2014, at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters. The invitations had already gone out, and the fully prepared exhibition material was already in place. The display was co-sponsored by Israel, Canada and Montenegro.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, Dean of the SWC, told The Algemeiner that the move was an “absolute outrage.” “The Arabs,” he said, “don’t want the world to know that the Jews have a 3,500-year relationship to the Land of Israel.”

Hier said that his organization, which is accredited by UNESCO as an NGO, worked in intimate co-operation with the international body on the project, which his center initiated after the Palestinian Authority was unilaterally accepted as a UNESCO member state in 2011.

“We made a clear attempt to work with them and the system, they can’t say they were blindsided, they commented on every sentence (in the exhibit’s materials) and still, in the end, the Arabs protested and they kicked us out,” he said.

“It is not supposed to be a place of censorship,” Hier said, “It is not supposed to deny one nation the right to their history.”

UNESCO informed the SWC of the change on January 14th in a letter to the Center’s Shimon Samuels, asserting the Arab League’s claim that going ahead with the show “could create potential obstacles related to the peace process in the Middle East.”

In a letter to Irina Bokova, president of UNESCO, President of the Arab group within UNESCO, Abdulla al Neaimi, from the United Arab Emirates, expressed “deep worry and great disapproval” over the program showing the age old connection between Israel and the Jewish people.

“The subject of this exhibition is highly political though the appearance of the title seems to be trivial. Most serious is the defense of this theme which is one of the reasons used by the opponents of peace within Israel,” the Arab League wrote. “The publicity that will accompany… the exhibit can only cause damage to the peace negotiations presently occurring, and the constant effort of Secretary of State John Kerry, and the neutrality and objectivity of UNESCO.”

“For all these reasons, for the major worry not to damage UNESCO in its… mission of support for peace, the Arab group within UNESCO is asking you to make the decision to cancel this exhibition,” Al Neaimi concluded.

So, UNESCO immediately bowed to the wishes of its Muslim masters. Sure enough, mention of the exhibit was scrubbed from the UNESCO site - it was there two days ago according to Google's cache.

But it gets much worse:

Interestingly, 10 days prior to the suspension of the exhibit, the United States declined co-sponsorship on remarkably similar grounds.

“At this sensitive juncture in the ongoing Middle East peace process, and after thoughtful consideration with review at the highest levels, we have made the decision that the United States will not be able to co-sponsor the current exhibit during its display at UNESCO headquarters,” wrote Kelly O. Siekman, Director at the Office of UNESCO Affairs of the State Department, in an email seen by The Algemeiner.

SWC’s Hier told The Algemeiner that he was disappointed in the U.S. position on the issue, and said that he was sure the exhibition would not have been suspended has the U.S. aligned itself as a formal co-sponsor. “This is not the end of this story,” he said.

Let this sink in for a moment: The official United States position is that publicly acknowledging that Jews have deep historic ties to Israel is a threat to the "peace process."

Maybe the White House will ban publicly mentioning the Bible next, because of all those irritating references to "Children of Israel" and "the Kingdom of David" and "Judah" and "Jerusalem." We can't upset the Arabs at this sensitive time, can we? Better hide the Bible that new appointees swear on.

This is beyond disgusting. If the truth must be hidden then you end up with lies, and peace cannot be built on lies. If the US cannot publicly acknowledge that Jews have a deep relationship with their land, then there is no reason for Israel to trust the US. Talking about the "special relationship" rings hollow when basic truths become censored.

Meanwhile, the UN today launched the "Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" - an event that absolutely no one says is a threat to the peace process.

General Assembly President John Ashe told today’s meeting that he hoped the Year leads to “robust” support for the people of Palestine. “I am sure I speak for many when I say that I hope the Year helps foster an atmosphere of dialogue and mutual understanding between the two sides of this decades-long conflict,” he said.

Dialogue? Mutual understanding? UNESCO's decision doesn't seem quite consistent with those lofty words, does it?

Oh, that's right. When the UN says "dialogue" they mean "monologue" and when they say "mutual understanding" they mean "one way propaganda." You just have to understand the lingo off the hypocrites and moral midgets that work for the United Nations.

It is scary that the US has been moving in that exact same direction over the past five years.

01/16 Links Pt2: BHL: French Were Right to Ban Dieudonné, Israel Joins CERN, Israeli Chromebook

From Ian:

PA state-sponsored hate speech must stop, human rights expert says

Cotler later returned to Abbas and tried to convince him to end hate speech against Israel for domestic reasons, regardless of negotiations with Israel.
“Leaving aside the Israeli-Palestinian component, I told Abbas: ‘You should do away with hate speech because it is not only a threat to Israeli-Palestinian peace but it’s a threat to your own society. You want to bring up children not in a culture of hate but in a culture of respect for the other, for the inherent dignity of all people’.”
Non-democracies where free speech is prohibited, such as Iran or the Palestinian Authority, have an even greater obligation to prevent hate speech than free societies such as the US where all speech is protected, Cotler said.
“If it’s a non-democracy where there’s no opportunity for democratic free speech, then the state has a particular responsibility to ensure that hate speech does not fester. What’s happening in the Palestinian Authority is exactly the opposite; that hate speech is not only being permitted, it’s being encouraged.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy: The French Were Right to Ban Dieudonné’s Offensive ‘Performance Art’

Anti-Semitism has a history. Over the ages it has taken different forms, but on every occasion that form corresponded to what the spirit of the times could or would permit. And I believe that, for reasons that it would be impossible to get into here, the only form of anti-Semitism with legs today, the only form capable of taking in and galvanizing large numbers of people, is one that accomplishes the trifecta of anti-Zionism (Jews as supporters of an allegedly murderous state), Holocaust denial (an unscrupulous people who, in pursuit of their purposes, are capable of inventing or staging the slaughter of their own), and competitive victimhood (memory of the Holocaust as a screen to hide other massacres on the planet). Well, Dieudonné was in the process of tying these strands together. With his accomplice, French right-wing extremist Alain Soral, he was a sapper assembling his explosive device and preparing to set it off. And for that reason, too, because he was weaving together three themes that individually are incendiary enough but that, joined together in mutual reinforcement, would provoke a new wave of anti-Semitism, it was urgent to stop him.

Turkey reassured that NATO shield will not protect Israel

Turkey has accepted assurances a planned NATO missile defense system in which it is playing a part is not designed to protect Israel as well, the alliance's deputy secretary-general said on Wednesday.
Alexander Vershbow said objections by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government had resulted in part from confusion about a Turkish-hosted NATO radar. Ankara had been further assuaged by alliance Patriot anti-missile batteries assigned to protect its territory from Syria.
A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2010 described the Islamist-rooted Erdogan, under whom Turkey's once-solid ties with the Jewish state have deteriorated, as worrying that the NATO shield might provide cover for a threatened Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

Netanyahu saying Israel will keep Bet El, Hebron, Shiloh?

Arutz-7 reports:

While nothing is official yet, the settlement framework being developed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is likely to include a mechanism for Israeli retention of the so-called “settlement blocs,” the areas where the large majority of Jewish communities are located in Judea and Samaria....

In most discussions of the blocs, there are three that are generally mentioned – the Ariel bloc, which includes most of the towns of central Samaria; Maale Adumim bloc, encompassing eastern suburbs of Jerusalem; and the Gush Etzion bloc. But a report on Army Radio Thursday said that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was demanding that Israel retain a fourth bloc – the area around Beit El, north of Jerusalem.

According to the report, Netanyahu told Kerry that Israel could not give up these areas, which played a major role in Jewish history. Shilo, for example, was the home of the temporary Sanctuary (mishkan) before the building of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, Nabi Samuel is the burial place of the Prophet Samuel, and Beit El itself was the site of the famous dream of the Biblical Jacob, in which he saw angels ascending and descending from heaven.

Haaretz reported this last week as well:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Likud Knesset faction on Monday that he opposes evacuating settlements like Hebron and Beit El, which are outside the major settlement blocs but are “important to the Jewish people,” MKs present at the meeting said.

Interestingly, two years ago I asked Danny Ayalon whether Bet El would be one of Netanyahu's "painful concessions for peace" that he always spoke about, and Ayalon denied that Israel would ever give it up. (It is hard to hear, starting at around 0:25:)

To be honest, I didn't believe him. It's not like he could answer any other way at a dinner for Bet El!

Arutz-7 continues:

In addition to demanding the fourth bloc, the report said, Netanyahu has nixed the idea of a “centimeter for centimeter” land swap, as the PA has demanded. At least part of the swap would come in the form of cash, or in the value of the land, cities, and industrial base that Israel would be surrendering to make the plan work.

The report said that PA negotiators have rejected both demands out of hand.

Let's hope that Netanyahu's government is as adamant about "red lines" as the PA has been.

It would have helped if the governments of Israel would have been saying this since Oslo, rather than first mentioning it, privately, at the eleventh hour.

Abbas hasn't gone a day since he's been in office without saying "Jerusalem, 1967 lines, right of return" to whoever is in earshot. Israeli leaders instead say defensive, nearly useless things like "the settlements aren't the problem." After a decade or two, along with Israeli governments that have offered to give away these sacred areas, who is the world going to side with?

French and Arabic media are reporting that a Jew named Rene Trabelsi is being tapped to be the Minister of Tourism in the new Tunisian government.

Trabelsi is Jewish, and is the CEO of a successful Tunisian travel agency. He is tasked with resuscitating Tunisia's tourist industry.

He has been a major player behind the annual Jewish pilgrimage to Djerba, which attracts tens of thousands of Jews every year.

Naturally, some Islamist parties are mounting opposition to this appointment. It doesn't look like they will get much traction, especially since the previous Islamist government destroyed the tourism sector and Trabelsi seems to be very competent from what I am seeing.

Tunisia seems to be doing the best of all Arab Spring countries.

01/16 Links Pt1: Kerry’s Moral Inversion on Terrorism, Aust. FM: settlements aren't illegal

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Kerry's Peace Process Double Standards

But while the U.S. Administration has been quick in issuing a response to the Israeli minister's statements, it continues to ignore remarks and demonstrations against Kerry made by Palestinians and other Arabs.
Palestinian officials representing various organizations, including the Palestinian Authority, have been denouncing Kerry almost on a daily basis over the past few weeks. But these condemnations do not seem to bother the State Department.
Among the officials who have been extremely critical of Kerry's role in the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO's Secretary-General and one of the closest advisors to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Just last month, Abed Rabbo launched a scathing attack on Kerry, denouncing his latest proposals as unacceptable. "Kerry does not have the right to decide where our borders will be," the top PLO official said. "If the U.S. wants, it can give parts of California or Washington to Israel. Kerry's framework agreement is very dangerous."

Kerry’s Moral Inversion on Terrorism

Speaking yesterday at the Vatican, Secretary of State John Kerry let slip a comment so ludicrous that one has to wonder how much wider the gap between reality and Kerry’s worldview can yet grow. Following his meeting with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, in which the two discussed the violence in Syria and prospects for Middle East peace, Kerry delivered a public statement in which he remarked, “And so we have a huge common interest in dealing with this issue of poverty, which in many cases is the root cause of terrorism or even the root cause of the disenfranchisement of millions of people on this planet.”
In making such a claim, America’s Secretary of State commits a terrible moral inversion, one in which the terrorists are cast as the victims, driven to such desperate acts by poverty, while the people they murder, particularly when Westerners, are really the ones who are guilty–guilty of having allowed the great injustice of poverty in the first place.

Australia FM: Don’t call settlements illegal under international law

“I don’t want to prejudge the fundamental issues in the peace negotiations,” Bishop said. “The issue of settlements is absolutely and utterly fundamental to the negotiations that are under way and I think it’s appropriate that we give those negotiations every chance of succeeding.”
Asked whether she agrees or disagrees with the near-universal view that Israeli settlements anywhere beyond the 1967 lines are illegal under international law, she replied: “I would like to see which international law has declared them illegal.”
“Israel has to be ever vigilant against such tendencies on the part of the international community,” the minister said. While private organizations were free to boycott whomever they wanted, any Australian body that received state funding should be barred from calling for boycotts, she continued.
She also strongly condemned the global anti-Israel BDS movement: “It’s anti-Semitic. It identifies Israel out of all other nations as being worthy of a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign? Hypocritical beyond belief.”

Palestinian Authority fakes a Golda Meir quote

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Information has released the first of a series of reports on what they call "Israeli Incitement to Racism against Palestinians." This one concentrates on Israeli media.

The report's sloppiness and brevity shows that it is clearly a slapdash response to the extremely well documented examples of Palestinian incitement that have been in the news. The PA apparently believes - with justification - that if they issue a press release proclaiming lies and point to a report that no one will read, then it will blunt the effects of Israel's actual facts.

After all, who would assume that a government is lying so blatantly?

Even though the report covers over a decade of supposed quotes from Israeli media that they say proves racism and incitement, it gives only a handful of examples. It's biggest quote comes from Haaretz describing Israelis as racist, commenting on a story that they badly misreported to begin with (saying that there were Jews-only bus lines in the West Bank, which is not at all true.)

In other words, their main proof of racism in Israeli media comes from Israeli media condemning supposed racism - which contradicts their entire thesis.

That, however, is nothing compared to this quote from this official PA report:

Golda Meir, the fourth Prime Minister of Israel said: “Every morning I hope I wake up without finding any single Palestinian child alive”...

This quote is a complete fabrication. It doesn't even exist on other anti-Israel or antisemitic websites - it was made up by the Palestinian Authority. (They link to an Arabic PA webpage which doesn't even have that quote.)

Their history of lying has not caused them any serious negative consequences so far - indeed, it helped them tremendously - so they've kept it up. But this is a conscious deception on their part, made of whole cloth. They didn't find the quote - it did not exist on the Internet before this report.

...she also said:”I will not forgive Palestinians as they force our soldiers for killing them”.

The second quote is a purposeful mangling of a real Golda Meir quote: “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”

This quote is the opposite of racism. It says Jews can forgive Arabs for killing them (when peace comes) but Jews have a natural aversion to killing and it is a terrible (but necessary) thing to be forced to kill to defend your land and family.

If you want to see a people who are enthusiastic about killing their enemies, you don't have to look far.

When the official Palestinian Authority government lies so egregiously in their official reports, how can anyone trust them for anything else?

Indeed, the only real examples of incitement, stereotyping and bigotry in the report are those against Israel. for example:

Israeli incitement isn’t limited to school curricula and further deteriorates into brainwashing that continues at different levels for all ages, beginning with kindergartens through primary schools and then high schools through college. When students come out of the circle of influence of the educational institution the role of the media comes, which completes the circle of hatred and incitement in a planned and systematic structure, which has its means and goals, to get at the end a brainwashed Israeli soldier who doesn’t hesitate to kill a Palestinian child and doesn’t care about a Palestinian woman when she is made to give birth while stranded at an Israeli roadblock without allowing her to proceed in her ambulance to hospital.

The official Palestinian Authority position is that all Israelis are raised from birth to become bloodthirsty killers of Palestinian children.

If that isn't incitement, what is?

I didn't check the veracity of their few other examples of anti-Arab racism in Israeli newspapers over the past decade, but even if they are true and in context - which is doubtful - it does not prove Israel is a racist state.

This one report does prove, irrefutably, that the Palestinian Authority itself lies, fabricates facts, and incites against Israelis.

Their conclusion is a picture perfect example of Palestinian projection:

Israeli incitement machine is still going forward due to the lack of Israeli desire to stop it. Besides the lack of an effective international mechanism is leading to the establishing an entire extreme society under the control of the Israeli incitement and this goes on generation after generation.
In the end, this explains the lack of readiness of Israel so far for a lasting peace despite the passage of 25 years since the start of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Wow...who does that sound like?

Arab discrimination and abuse against Palestinians since 1948

I have never seen a comprehensive list of examples of how Arabs have abused, mistreated and discriminated against their Palestinian brethren. Here is my attempt.

Please send me any other major examples I missed (anything affecting hundreds of people or more) so this can become a reference post.

All Arab countries except Jordan:

Palestinians are not allowed to become citizens of Arab countries, in accordance with Arab League Decree 1547 for 1959, "in order to preserve the Palestinian entity and Palestinian identity." Even in Jordan they can no longer become citizens. (There have been some exceptions: Palestinian Christians in Lebanon in the 1950s, Palestinians born from Egyptian mothers in 2011.)

Palestinians face severe travel restrictions throughout the Arab world. They do not receive passports and their travel documents are only accepted by a few countries.

Palestinians cannot vote or run for office in national elections.

Children born to Palestinians do not get citizenship in their host countries, violating Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Jordan:

1967: Jordan refused to allow Gazans who came after the Six Day War to become Jordanian citizens. Today some 165,000 Palestinians in Jordan cannot become citizens and get no government services.

1970: 3500-5000 Palestinians killed and 20,000 Palestinians expelled, their camps demolished, in the Black September events.

1988: Jordan revoked citizenship for millions of West Bank Palestinians as they declared "independence." As usual, this move was justified as being for their own good.

2010: Jordan continued to revoke citizenship for thousands more Palestinians

2012: Jordan passed an electoral law that effectively limits the number of Palestinian members of Parliament to less than 10%

2013: Jordan places Palestinian refugees from Syria in special camps that they cannot leave, separate from other refugees, and turns hundreds or thousands back to a dangerous future in Syria.

2014: Palestinians who are citizens are still denied equal rights in the military, and on getting college scholarships and being admitted to some public universities, among other areas.

Egypt:

1948: Placed all Palestine refugees that reached Egypt into camps, forced men to go back to Palestine to fight.

1949: Expelled all Palestinian from Egyptian camps into Gaza. Very few Palestinian Arabs were left in Egypt.

1950: Egypt refused any UNRWA presence on its territory, relegating it to Gaza.

1949 - 1956: Any Palestinians in Egypt were barred from schooling and employment.

2013: Hundreds of Palestinian refugees from Syria placed into jail as they try to enter Egypt

2013-now: Egypt has effectively closed the Rafah border with Gaza, even limiting hospital patients from traveling, effectively imprisoning 1.7 million Gazans.

Lebanon:

1950-58: Would only issue one-way travel documents for Palestinians to leave the country

1962: Palestinians classified as "foreigners":
73 job categories banned for Palestinians until 2010; now there are "only" 50 jobs off limits
They are still banned from working as physicians, journalists, pharmacists or lawyers.
They are not permitted to build new houses or own property, or even to repair their homes
Martial law imposed on refugee camps. Army stops people from entering and exiting.
Limitations on schools for Palestinian "foreigners"
Not allowed to live outside refugee camps, which in turn are not allowed to grow. Population of camps is now triple capacity.
Palestinians not allowed to create organizations.

1975-78: At least 5000 Palestinians killed in Lebanese civil war

1985-88: Thousands killed in "War of the Camps"

1995: Law prohibiting Palestinians from entering country without a visa; and visas weren't issued. Those expelled from Gulf states could not return to Lebanon. (Law repealed in 1999.)

2005: Specific laws prohibiting foreigners who are not "nationals of a recognized state" - Palestinians - from owning property. Those who owned it previously cannot pass it to their children.

2007: 31,000 Palestinians homeless because while Lebanese Army destroyed Nahr el Bared camp

2013: Some 50,000 refugees from Syria treated differently from other Syrian refugees; expensive temporary short-term visas effectively make them criminals

2013: Lebanon starts turning some Palestinian Syrian refugees away at the border

Kuwait:

1991: 400,000 Palestinians were harassed and forced out of the country.

Libya:

1994-5: Expelled 30,000 Palestinians, dismissed many from their jobs and confiscated their houses
Arab countries refused to take in the new refugees. Hundreds were stranded in the desert or the sea. Eventually Libya allowed some to stay but kept threatening to expel them again. In the end about 15,000 were forced to go to Arab countries they had documents for, Gulf countries, and Western nations.

2011: Palestinians were forced to pay a special tax of $1550.

2012: Many Palestinians lost their homes as properties were claimed by others in the wake of the revolution and the collapse of the judicial system.

Iraq:

Early 1950s: Expelled striking Palestinian workers, along with Saudi Arabia and Libya..

2005: After Saddam Hussein lost power, Palestinians in Iraq were subjected to abduction, hostage-taking, killing and torture from armed groups. Politicians derided them. About 15,000 were forced to leave Iraq. Thousands were stranded in camps in the desert between Iraq and Syria, where no Arab country would allow them to enter.

Qatar:

1994: Refused to grant Palestinians work visas.

Syria:

1970: Palestinians cannot vote, cannot run for office, cannot own farmland, cannot own more than one property..

2005-2008: Syria did not allow thousands of Palestinian Arab refugees fleeing from Iraq to enter the country.

2012-today: Some 2000 Palestinians killed so far in Syria's war. About 50 have starved to death as forces cut off all food and water to the Yarmouk camp.

MSNBC's Chris Hayes spins a Jewish lobby conspiracy theory

From Chris Hayes at MSNBC, especially from 3:05 on:

Hayes' arguments are naive and his description of the opposing viewpoint borders on the stupid.

But beyond that, his entire thesis that any Democrats only support the bill because of pressure from AIPAC is provably wrong. In fact, AIPAC has not put any pressure on the Democratic lawmakers Hayes is upset at.

Politico reports:

Despite growing support in the Senate for Iran sanctions legislation, Democratic leaders have yet to feel insurmountable pressure to bring the measure to the floor.

One major reason: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is mostly keeping quiet.

The powerful pro-Israel lobby has not engaged in a shoe-leather lobbying campaign to woo wayward senators and push Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to schedule a vote on the bill, according to several key senators and aides. While the group supports the bill — authored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) — it is not yet putting its political muscle behind a push for an immediate vote.

“I don’t know where AIPAC is. I haven’t talked to anybody,” said Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who opposes any vote for additional sanctions at this time.

As of now, the Menendez-Kirk bill has 59 public supporters, including 43 of 45 Senate Republicans. But dozens of Democrats remain publicly undecided on the bill and seem unlikely to cross the Obama administration and openly back the legislation at this time. And AIPAC isn’t yet twisting Democratic arms.

A number of senators on both sides of the sanctions debate said they’d heard little from AIPAC on the issue, suggesting that wavering lawmakers are feeling little pressure from the group. With its clout on Capitol Hill and ties to deep-pocketed Jewish donors, the group’s muscle could be enough to change the political calculation over how to proceed on the contentious issue.

“I don’t know what they’re doing,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading defense hawk and strong supporter of getting a vote on the bill.

...California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Jewish Democrat, said she’s met with AIPAC “many times” on the issue of Iran. But asked if the group had been pressing her to support the Iran sanctions measure, she replied “not at all.”

“They respect my position, which is that sanctions are totally appropriate if this fails,” she said, referring to the diplomatic talks.

But other senators have not yet heard from the group and indicated they were entirely unaware of AIPAC’s activities on the Hill.

“I really have not talked to AIPAC about it,” said Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, a Jewish liberal and one of the few Senate Democrats publicly backing the Kirk-Menendez legislation.

Hayes is, at best, a fool. And he is now proven to not have done a modicum of research before spouting his idiocy. He simply assumed that it must be AIPAC acting as a puppeteer for his fellow Democrats.

At worst - well, what can you call someone who assumes that any Democrats who disagree with him are being controlled by a Jewish group?

(I don't watch MSNBC much, but it amazes me that Fox News gets slammed [correctly] for being partisan, but MSNBC gets far less criticism for their obvious partisanship, which this clip reveals quite obviously.)

(h/t CC)

Islamic Jihad accidentally compliments IDF defenses

Islamic Jihad newspaper Palestine Today has an article about the IDF's UAV, the Heron-1, that in many ways reads like promotional literature:

The Zionist enemy does not stop even for a moment its development of combat, technical, and technological capabilities in all fields of military, due to the fear that lives in his being; he knows very well that the Palestinian people will not give up their usurped rights, and that what was taken by force will be retaken by force eventually.

The Zionist air force recently introduced two reconnaissance-type "Heron 1" UAVs for field work, which increases the burden of the Palestinian resistance, which to this day has been able to overcome these technical modern military tactics and baffle new methods of military occupation.

An [Islamic Jihad] "Media War" reporter conducted an exclusive interview with one of the leaders of the military intelligence agency of the Al-Quds Brigades, "Abu Mohammed," to identify the new capabilities of the reconnaissance plane. He said, "The Heron 1 is an unmanned fourth generation reconnaissance aircraft which was developed by the Zionist aircraft industries (IAI), Department of Unmanned Aircraft (UAV)", pointing out that it... can have any work long hours in difficult weather conditions.

He added: "This aircraft was built with modern technology and is very advanced. It can take off and land automatically, and it covers a large area of land with high accuracy."

The Quds Brigades intelligence chief said that the Heron 1 used for reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting and directing fire at any moving target with high accuracy, stressing that the Heron has the ability to fly continuously for more than 52 hours at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

Abu Mohammed continued, "The plane is loaded with electronic sensors, including infrared sensors, and it has light sensors in addition to the various radar systems."

Abu Mohammed said that the Heron is able to connect to a permanent ground control station by linking to electromagnetic data waves directly or via Zionist satellite.

All the Mujahideen in all fields of jihad and the resistance on the blessed land of Palestine must take all degrees of caution and camouflage and follow all proper security methods to move away from the sensors and the other Zionist methods of spying and surveillance. Modern technology is used by the enemy to undermine the Palestinian resistance, so Mujahideen must comply with all security regulations to preserve their lives, so as not to be easy prey to the Zionist enemy that lurks on them day and night.

The page includes photos of the UAV that were taken off the Internet.

The Heron-1 is not new; the IDF bought them in 2005 and used them in Operation Cast Lead.

Islamic Jihad "inteligence" found nothing about the UAV that was not in the Wikipedia page about it.

Interestingly, the page shows that the Moroccan Air Force owns three of them!

01/15 Links Pt2: Law Frim- Drop ASA or face Civil Rights suit, Neil Young Tours Israel

From Ian:

Walt Disney’s Anti-Semitism, and Modern Day Bias Towards Israel

The irony is that while Meryl Streep was condemning Walt Disney for associating with extremists, she herself was doing the very same thing. The actress to whom she gave that award when she made her anti-Disney speech, her close friend Emma Thompson, is active in the anti-Israel boycott movement.
Streep hailed Thompson as “splendid, beautiful, practically a saint… a living, acting conscience.” Yet this ‘saint,’ together with other British actors, publicly urged a boycott of Israel’s Habimah theater troupe when it participated in a festival in England. Habimah, of course, has nothing to do with Israeli government policies or any political issues. Its only “crime” is that it’s Israeli.

Employment Law Firm: Drop American Studies Assn membership or risk Title VII liability

While over 190 university presidents have denounced the ASA academic boycott of Israel, many have decided either to keep the membership or to leave the decision to individual American Studies Departments. Some others are switching the membership listing to their American Studies Departments, rather than the full University name.
Anything other than a full termination of Institutional Membership, however, opens up the universities to legal liability for national origin discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
That potential liability is explained in a recent article by two attorneys at the Seyfarth Shaw law firm.

Has your Rep signed Congressional letter against Israel academic boycott?

I reported last Friday on the draft Bipartisan Congressional letter to denounce academic boycott of Israel.
As of Friday, there were 36 signatories. As of yesterday, the number had risen to 57.
The final signature list should be released later this week.

Pro-Israel Christians Protest Dutch Pension Giant’s Divestment From Israel

Hundreds of Dutch Christian activists demonstrated outside the headquarters of Dutch pension giant PGGM, to protest the pension company’s recent decision to divest from Israeli banks.
The protesters, members of the pro-Israel group Christians for Israel, held up Israeli flags and banners saying “Stop the Boycott of Israel.”

For some reason, the article I posted (copied from Simcha Jacobovici's blog) about the Deir Alla inscriptions has been getting lots of attention. Metafilter has a thread about it that is typical.

While the article said that this was a "cover-up" - as the original artifact is not displayed anywhere - I don't think Jacobovici is saying that this is being deliberately hidden by scholars. I certainly don't think so. After all, it is mentioned in Wikipedia and other places. What is interesting is that the amount of attention given to this find in the non-scholarly world seems to be disproportionately tiny compared to its significance.

My guess is that Jordanians are not nearly as interested in Biblical-era archaeology as Jews and Christians generally are. There is evidence that Muslim archaeologists tend to discount the importance of Jewish or Biblical-era artifacts (and vice versa.) This does not imply a deliberate cover-up..

Now, let's talk about its significance. Critics are saying that this is not proof of the Torah's authenticity. I agree, and never said it was.

However, this does not make the find any less significant. Right now there are headlines whenever an artifact is found that might bear the name of someone obscure mentioned once in the books of Chronicles or Kings. Anything found from the First Temple period or earlier is considered big news. The mainstream media certainly covered (much scantier) evidence of external evidence pointing to David or Goliath.

Here, though, is something that certainly refers to a major Torah figure, from hundreds of years prior to the era of the Prophets whose artifacts generate press today. The inscription was found in the same geographical area as the Biblical event. The chances that there are two famous prophets named "Balaam, son of Beor" in Jordan is essentially zero.

While it is hard to compare, one would think that this is roughly as important as the Mesha Stele, which also corroborated stories from the times of the Prophets.

(The Biblical story of Balaam is also interesting because it is, I believe, the only story in the Pentateuch from Exodus onward where the Israelites aren't the central characters. They have no idea of the drama happening near their tents. )

I couldn't find any contemporary references to the Deir Alla finds in 1967 newspapers.

So, yes, this seems to be bigger news than something that is relegated to university libraries. The popularity of the post shows this to be true. How you interpret it is up to you.

Iran still engaging in Holocaust revisionism

While Hassan Rouhani puts a (sometimes) friendly face on the Iranian regime, its state-controlled media is still filled with the worst kinds of antisemitism (and anti-American rhetoric), including Holocaust revisionism.

In English.

Here are excerpts from a not atypical PressTV article today:

Zionist perversion of history threatens world peace

The planet is being held captive by two rogue terrorist states: the United States and Israel.

Behaving like rabid dogs on the world stage, these two enormous threats to world peace are content to spread their imperial hubris throughout the globe, invading weaker countries and laying siege to millions of defenseless innocents while condemning those who resist Israeli-American imperialism as ”terrorists,” “threats to peace” and “rogue actors.”

..The creation of Israel was a war crime in and of itself, wherein at least 750,000 indigenous Arab Palestinians were either massacred or ethnically cleansed by Zionist gangs such as the Irgun, Haganah and Lehi.This murderous colonial project was sponsored in large part by Britain and the United States. The latter country was itself a by-product of British colonialism and harbours a damnable legacy even worse than that of Israel.

Less known is the role of Nazi Germany in helping the Zionists gain a foothold in Palestine. ...The German SS even provided the Haganah with weapons to do battle with Palestinian Arabs. ..This fact of history illustrates the farcical nature of Zionist-controlled Hollywood’s depiction of Hitler as a villainous demon, when in fact Zionist Jews themselves were Hitler’s most enthusiastic collaborators.

Upon close inspection, the official story of the holocaust crumbles into pieces. Anyone who has even a mild understanding of the facts cannot continue to believe in the myth of the “six million.” ... It turns out the Zionist fixation on the magical number of six million originates with Jewish religious mysticism in the Kabbalah.

...The “new world order” vision of the Zionist elite and their sinister collaborators is a world filled with tyranny and death, where unwanted thoughts and ideas are ruthlessly extirpated, and dissent is crushed with an iron fist. Those seeking truth and justice will be deemed “enemies of the state” and will be promptly executed or relegated to concentration camps, as per the Bolshevik method.

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