Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

01/27 Links Pt1: Dwindling group of survivors mark Auschwitz 70 years on; Anti-Semitism: then and now

From Ian:

Dwindling group of survivors to mark Auschwitz 70 years on

A decade ago, 1,500 Holocaust survivors traveled to Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation. On Tuesday, for the 70th anniversary, organizers are expecting 300, the youngest in their 70s.
“In 10 years there might be just one,” said Zygmunt Shipper, an 85-year-old survivor who will attend the event in southern Poland to pay homage to the millions killed by the Third Reich. In recent years, Shipper has been traveling around Britain to share his story with school groups, hoping to reach as many people as he can while he has the strength.
“The children cry, and I tell them to talk to their parents and brothers and sisters and ask them ‘Why do we do it and why do we hate?'” he said. “We mustn’t forget what happened.”
But as the world moves inevitably closer to a post-survivor era, some Jewish leaders fear that people are already starting to forget. And they warn that the anti-Semitic hatred and violence that are on the rise, particularly in Europe, could partly be linked to fading memories of the Holocaust.

Douglas Murray: Adolf Eichmann hoped his ‘Arab friends’ would continue his battle against the Jews

Over Christmas I finally got around to reading Eichmann Before Jerusalem by Bettina Stangneth. I cannot recommend this book – newly translated from the German – highly enough. It challenges and indeed changes nearly all received wisdom about the leading figure behind the genocide of European Jews during World War II.
Of course for years after the war there were rumours that Eichmann had fled to an Arab country. He might have had a better time there. Other Nazis certainly did, including Alois Brunner – Eichmann’s ‘best man’ – who settled in Damascus after the war and who is now believed to have died in Syria as recently as 2010. Eichmann’s Argentina years were certainly filled with frustration and rage. What is most interesting is how mentally caught he remained even before he was captured, principally by the impossible conundrum of how to persuade the world to accept what he had done and simultaneously boast about his role in the worst genocide in history.
There is much more to say about this book. But I do urge people to read it. Not least for the way in which Stangneth sums up the problem with the only strain of Nazi history which really remains strong to this day. ‘Eichmann refused to do penance and longed for applause. But first and foremost, of course, he hoped his “Arab friends” would continue his battle against the Jews who were always the “principal war criminals” and “principal aggressors.” He hadn’t managed to complete his task of “total annihilation,” but the Muslims could still complete it for him.’

Pat Condell: A special kind of hate (h/t dabney)

Israeli Army Pummels Targets in Syria in Response to Cross-border Rocket Attack

The Israeli army fired an artillery barrage at the source of several rockets fired from Syria Tuesday afternoon, which struck Israeli locations near Mt. Hermon in the northern Golan Heights, the IDF said in a statement to reporters.
The army said it fired 20 artillery shells in response to the attack, and identified hits.
“At least two rockets hit the Golan Heights in northern Israel. IDF responded with artillery towards the positions that launched the attack. The IDF has evacuated and closed Mt. Hermon for visitors,” the statement read.
There were no immediate reports of injury or damage to areas near several kibbutzim and Druze villages in the area, although police evacuated the Neve Ativ resort at the foot of the tourist and skiing center, and closed roads in the area, according to Army Radio.
There were about 1,000 visitors at the skiing center when the attack occurred.
The army instructed residents of Majdal Shams, Buq’ata, Mas’ade, Ein Qiniyye, El Rom, Neve Ativ and Nimrod to remain in bomb shelters until an all clear was given.

New antisemitism report from France is shocking

In France, a Jew is nearly 50 times as likely to be the victim of racist violence as a Muslim, according to a new report.

France's Jewish Community Security Service has just released their report on antisemitism in France during 2014. And it shows that the increase in Jew-hatred is quite real.

Some highlights:

In 2014, the number of Antisemitic acts recorded on French soil doubled. They increased to 851 versus 423 in 2013. This represents a jump of 101 percent.
In 2014, violent acts increased by 130 percent compared to 2013. There were 241 violent acts in 2014 versus 105 in 2013.
Antisemitism has become increasingly violent and hyper-violent. Today, Antisemitic threats in France include persistent bias, sectarian stereotypes, deep hatred, but especially Antisemitic jihadist terror. Men and young children are killed for the sole reason that they are Jewish.
51 percent of racist acts committed in France in 2014 targeted Jews. Jews represent less than one percent of the French population. Less than 1 percent of this country's citizens are the target of half of all racist acts committed in France.
The 30-percent increase in racist acts committed in France in 2014 compared to 2013 comprises exclusively an increase in Antisemitic acts. Indeed, racist acts, excluding Antisemitic acts, that were recorded in 2014 decreased by 5 percent compared to 2013. This shows once again how much we need tailored programs, adequate measures, and specific tools to fight Antisemitism efficiently. Many anti-Racism programs do not stop the rise Antisemitic acts, far from it.
Cities most impacted by Antisemitic acts in 2014 include Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Sarcelles, Strasbourg, Nice, Villeurbanne and Créteil.

61% of all violent racist attacks recorded in France, 241, were directed against Jews, who are less than 1% of France's population. By comparison, only 55 violent racist acts were anti-Muslim. This means that in France, a Jew is nearly 50 times as likely to be the victim of bias violence as a Muslim is.

This report does not count all antisemitic acts; only those reported to police.

Here's the entire report:

2014 Report on Antisemitism in France

How would Arabs treat Jewish rights to visit their holy sites under their control? Look at Joseph's Tomb

If you ask J-Street or One Voice or John Kerry or any EU diplomat what a peace treaty would look like, the would all agree with the basic outline of Israel giving up almost all of the territory across the Green Line in exchange for a promise of peace.

"Everyone knows" that under any peace agreement the Arabs will end up controlling all of Bethlehem and all of Hebron and parts of Jerusalem. And "everyone knows" that under any peace treaty, the Arabs will agree to allow Jews to freely worship in their holy sites.

Just like Transjordan promised in 1949 in Article VIII of the armistice agreement with Israel:

2. The Special Committee shall be organised immediately following the coming into effect of this Agreement and shall direct its attention to the formulation of agreed plans and arrangements for such matters as either Party may submit to it, which, in any case, shall include the following, on which agreement in principle already exists: free movement of traffic on vital roads, including the Bethlehem and Latrun-Jerusalem roads; resumption of the normal functioning of the cultural and humanitarian institutions on Mount Scopus and free access thereto; free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives; resumption of operation of the Latrun pumping station; provision of electricity for the Old City; and resumption of operation of the railroad to Jerusalem.

OK, so they broke that agreement for 19 years without any international concern. But surely today would be different! Surely today's Palestinians are more trustworthy than their Jordanian forebears!

Last night, a drama played out in Shechem (Nablus), virtually identical to a drama played out every month for the past few years:

Palestinian security sources told Ma'an that several buses loaded with ultra-orthodox Jews and settlers arrived to Joseph's Tomb escorted by more than 15 military vehicles at around 2:30 a.m.

They then performed religious rites at the holy site.

The sources added that clashes then broke out in the nearby Balata and Askar refugee camps between young Palestinian men and Israeli soldiers.

They said dozens of young men hurled stones at the Israeli soldiers who fired tear-gas canisters, stun grenades, rubber-coated bullets as well as live ammunition at the protesters.

Jews who want to worship at Joseph's Tomb - Jews who are not particularly Zionist - are forced to arrive in the middle of the night, in heavily armored buses, where they are pelted with rocks. The only reason they are not lynched outright is because the IDF is there to protect them.

This is what "free access to holy sites" looks like, today.

And since under any "peace agreement" Israeli forces would not be allowed to enter "Palestine" to protect the worshipers, Jews would have to rely on the "Palestinian" police to protect them against the mobs of Arabs who have been brought up on a diet of antisemitism and hate. That would last exactly as long as Transjordan's promises in 1949.

The diplomats and pundits don't really care about Jewish rights to their holy places. Hey,some of them are Jewish themselves, and they certainly don't care about them; Illusory "peace" is far more of a religion to them than actual Judaism is. To them the only Jews who care about their history and heritage are simply fanatics whose rights can be ignored.

They don't want to admit the truth about Joseph's Tomb, which is that it is the ultimate barometer of whether real peace is possible:

There can be no real peace between Israel and the Palestinians until Palestinians admit that Jews have rights in their land. There can be no real peace unless the Palestinian Arabs themselves guarantee, through their actions, that Jews are welcome visit these spots safely without any fear whatsoever.

Joseph's Tomb proves every month that such a peace is impossible. And the desire to sign a "peace agreement" in a place where pure Jew-hatred is not only tolerated but encouraged is an exercise in self-deception.

From AFP:

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday that it cannot afford to repair Gaza homes damaged in last year's war with Israel because donors have failed to pay.

"The agency has exhausted all funding to support repairs and rental subsidies," the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said in a statement.

"$5.4 billion was pledged at the Cairo (aid) conference last October and virtually none of it has reached Gaza. This is distressing and unacceptable.

"It is unclear why this funding has not been forthcoming," it added.

Actually, it is quite clear. The reason was said explicitly by Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shoukry last month:

Commenting on a Gaza donors conference held in Cairo months ago, Shoukry said donors who pledged billions of dollars for the embattled Palestinian territory had not sent the money because they had no trust in the absence of a lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the suspension of direct Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations.

"The international community links its financial contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza to the return of the Palestinian authority to its position in it," Shoukry said.

He added that this international community had confidence in the Palestinian Authority and a desire to contribute to the reconstruction of Gaza through the authority.

Hamas refuses to relinquish its hold on Gaza even after it supposedly joined the "unity government" and international donors don't want to contribute to Hamas. Arab countries don't trust Hamas and neither do Western countries.

There is one other reason: Arab countries always lie about how much they support their Palestinian brothers.

There is a long history of Arab countries pledging hundreds of millions of dollars and not paying. In 2008, it was revealed that Arab nations had paid only 40% of the money they had pledged to the PA. In 2012, Arab nations again promised hundreds of millions that they didn't pay. And in 2010, not one dime of a half billion dollars pledged specifically for Jerusalem was paid. You know, the city that is supposedly the one that Arabs would die for couldn't even get anything.

While Arab nations will insist to the West how the Palestinian issue is their top priority, their actions have consistently shown this to be a lie. They just say it in order to put political pressure on Israel via the West, but they really don't give a damn about Palestinian Arabs. (Anyone who has ever followed how they treat their Palestinian Arab "guests" in their countries know this to be the case.)

But the hypocrisy is rarely discussed in the West, because their foreign ministers and prime ministers always make grandiose speeches in "support" of people that they just wish would go away already. It just so happens they hate Jews even more.

The UNDP also stated last week that it had only received 5% of the funds pledged for reconstructing Gaza.

The cement is available. The trucks to deliver them are ready. But the vast majority of the media coverage (prompted by Mahmoud Abbas' gang and many anti-Israel NGOs) blames Israel for Gaza reconstruction delays.

Oh, and UNRWA is making a subtle threat:

[Serry added,] "People are desperate and the international community cannot even provide the bare minimum – for example a repaired home in winter –let alone a lifting of the blockade, access to markets or freedom of movement. We’ve said before quiet for quiet will not last, and now the quiet is at risk.”

Meaning that UNRWA knows that Gazans are not being told that their Arab brethren aren't paying up. They are being told that it is Israel's fault, so they will want to start resuming rocket fire at Israel.

UNRWA is telling the world that irrational Gazans might start another war against the nation that is not standing in the way for their legitimate reconstruction needs. And that is to be expected. Certainly UNRWA isn't going to tell Gazans the truth. They will continue to teach hate against Israel in the schools so as to give their "refugees" a convenient target for hate.

As is so often the case in the Middle East, everyone is afraid of the truth, and everyone - world media, Western diplomats, Arab leaders, UN agencies, and Palestinian Arab leaders themselves - spin a web of lies in order to keep Israel in the crosshairs in the name of Palestinian solidarity. No one is willing to stand up and say that Palestinian leadership has been corrupt, that Hamas has been a disaster for Gaza, that Arab nations are sick and tired of them whining. Deep down, everyone sees through PLO stunts meant to pressure Israel and pretending that the Palestinian issue is more important than Syria and ISIS and Libya and Yemen the the Iranian threat. But they aren't willing to say it out loud.

Gang must have been suffering from Islamophobia when they went "Jew bashing"

Sultan, smiling about his "Jew-bashing"

From The Daily Mail:

An Orthodox Jew was beaten up by a gang of teenagers who said the attack was a protest ‘about the Palestinians and the Jewish community’, a court has heard.

Balawal Sultan, 18, Kesa Malik, 19, Hassnain Aliamin, 18, all from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and a 17-year-old boy have all admitted attacked the 41-year-old victim in nearby Gateshead.

Sultan, who had hours earlier sent a text message saying he was ‘going Jew bashing’, lay in wait with the other three behind a van before pouncing on the victim as he walked home to his family.

The victim screamed in fear as the pack chased him down the street, throwing wood at him, before tripping as he fled and being surrounded by the teenagers while stricken on the ground.

One of the thugs was threatening to kick him in the head when the victim was saved by a friend.

The attackers claimed they were only in the area looking for a new mosque but one of them admitted the planned attack was motivated by the dispute between Israel and Palestine.

The night before the attack, Sultan sent a text message saying ‘I’m going to go Jew bashing. Haha’.

Hours later, just after midnight on July 18, he and the others set about carrying out the threat. With Malik driving, they started looking for a victim.

The man they attacked had been at a Jewish study room nearby and was on his way home.

Bridie Smurthwaite, prosecuting, said: ‘The defendants had deliberately travelled to the area in Gateshead where there were members of the Jewish community with the particular intention of targeting someone from that community.

‘The Crown say the victim was targeted because he was wearing traditional Jewish attire, a black suit and white shirt and a black hat.

Those poor Muslims, having to fight against Islamophobia and Israeli aggression! They were so distraught that they were forced to plan the attack ahead of time, traveling to a different neighborhood miles away to find random black-hatted Jews, and not being able to stop themselves from attacking the first one they saw.

But it can't be simple Jew-hatred, no way. They "admitted" that they were motivated by Israeli actions, and it had nothing to do with hating Jews per se, of course not. They cannot be possibly be considered antisemitic, and how dare anyone accuse them of that heinous attribute instead of focusing on the real issue which is of course settlers and hasbara and Likud and all the other keywords that they learn to spout when they get caught that prove that deep down it has nothing to do with Jews.

Really, we must feel sorry for those poor, oppressed Muslims who are forced to travel in packs to attack the first Jews they seek out. They are so distraught over what is happening to their co-religionists in Khan Younis or somewhere (although not Aleppo or Sanaa or Baghdad.) They are not motivated by hate: it's only political! Anyone suggesting otherwise is probably an Islamophobe. Shame on you for thinking that. They are afraid, poor dears!

It is the "Zionists" of Gateshead and Golders Green who have all the power and money and influence. They are the ones who walk around haughtily in their Zionist black hats and Zionist beards without fear when they go to their heavily fortified Zionist synagogues and Zionist schools. The proof is that they don't feel the need to form gangs to attack Muslims. I'm surprised that I even have to explain this logic to you, it is so obvious.

(h/t Bob Knot)

01/26 Links Pt2: Netanyahu presented with emergency plan to absorb 120,000 French Jews

From Ian:

Netanyahu presented with emergency plan to absorb 120,000 French Jews

Indicating displeasure with Israel’s immigration promotion and absorption strategy, the Jewish People Policy Institute last week presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with its emergency plan for the absorption of 120,000 French immigrants.
According to the high profile Jerusalem think tank, which maintains close ties with the Jewish Agency and senior politicians, Israel has thus far not implemented the necessary policies to compete with the United States, Canada, and various European states in attracting highly educated and business savvy French Jews.
According to JPPI senior fellow Dr. Dov Maimon – himself a French immigrant – despite the increase in French aliya over the past several years, the number of people making the move is relatively small compared to the large numbers of people who have made inquiries with the Jewish Agency.
Agency chairman Natan Sharansky recently told The Jerusalem Post that some 50,000 French Jews had requested information on aliya during 2014.

BBC Arabic Won't Call Charlie Hebdo Attackers 'Terrorists'

The head of BBC Arabic has instructed editors not to use the word "terrorist" to describe the Islamist gunmen who murdered 12 people at the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
Tarik Kafala told the UK's Independent newspaper that the term "terrorist" is too "loaded," and said the decision was in-line with the BBC's overall policy on reporting such attacks.
"We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist. What we try to do is to say that 'two men killed 12 people in an attack on the office of a satirical magazine'. That’s enough, we know what that means and what it is," said Kafala.
"Terrorism is such a loaded word," he added. "The UN has been struggling for more than a decade to define the word and they can’t. It is very difficult to. We know what political violence is, we know what murder, bombings and shootings are and we describe them. That’s much more revealing, we believe, than using a word like terrorist which people will see as value-laden."
He also explained why the BBC, like other mainstream British media outlets, was censoring any images of the founder of Islam Mohammed, with the only exception being its inclusion of the front cover of the post-attack Charlie Hebdo "Survivors" edition.
But while "the cover has appeared… on a banner or on a newsstand, on our screens," he emphasized that "we haven’t shown it in full frame or real detail."

BBC Tim Willcox Investigation Moves Forward

The BBC’s Tim Willcox caused a wave of revulsion and outrage in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket massacres in Paris. Many complaints were sent to the BBC including one from HonestReporting.
We’ve continued to pursue the complaint through the drawn-out BBC process and we can share with you the latest email to HonestReporting from the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit.
Due to the large quantity of complaints and issues raised, the Editorial Complaints Unit has expedited the process by dealing with the complaints in their totality and drawing up a summary of the issues that will be investigated:

PressTV publishes satirical "news" that Obama unfriended Bibi on Facebook

Iran's PressTV believed an article published on the satirical site The Israeli Daily:

Unfortunately, PressTV realized the mistake when people started making fun of them on Twitter and took it down.

Obama campaign experts in Israel to defeat Bibi

From IMRA:

Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections.

One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign's national field director) who will run the campaign out of offices taking up the ground floor of a Tel Aviv office building.

V-2015 is careful not to support a specific party - rather “just not Bibi”. As such, the foreign funds pouring into the campaign are not subject to Israel’s campaign finance laws.

You mean, a foreign organization wants to interfere in Israeli politics? Isn't that the terrible kind of thing that all proper Americans are against?

I mean, even J-Street hates the idea of outsiders meddling in Israeli elections. They sent out this email:

Certainly, if Netanyahu making a speech in the US is considered meddling in Israeli elections, certainly a hand-picked team of Obama campaigners dedicated specifically to change Israel's leadership would be considered way beyond the pale.

Interestingly, Ha'aretz, which has published an average of five anti-government articles a day over the past month, didn't bother to translate this article into English.

The OneVoice movement that is behind this "anyone but Bibi" campaign headed by Daniel Lubetzky, describes itself this way:

OneVoice is an international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians, empowering them to propel their elected representatives toward the two-state solution. The Movement works to forge consensus for conflict resolution and build a human infrastructure capable of mobilizing the people toward a negotiated, comprehensive, and permanent agreement between Israel and Palestine that ends the occupation, ensures security and peace for both sides, and solves all final-status issues in accordance with international law and previous bilateral agreements. The 1967 borders form the basis for the establishment of an independent, viable Palestinian state, with permanent borders and any modifications to be agreed upon by both parties. The Movement recognizes that violence by either side will never be a means to end the conflict.

Yet when you look through their website to see exactly how it tries to have Palestinian Arabs influence their leaders towards peace and compromise, you come up blank. No, instead, this award winning "peace" organization teaches both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to pressure only one side: Israel.

Here is one of their major initiatives in the territories, to encourage "non-violent resistance" against Israel and Jews who live in Judea and Samaria:

Do they check whether the land that they are planting trees in belongs legally to any Jews? Of course not.

Do they encourage the Arab youth of the territories to demand that Abbas accept one of the many peace proposals that Israel has offered over the years to end the conflict? Of course not.

Do they have any compunction about interfering in Israeli elections? Of course not.

Do the people who pretend that they care so much about Bibi speaking in Congress have any problem with this explicit and intentional interference in Israel's elections? Of course not!

01/26 Links Pt1: Rouhani Involved in AMIA Bombing Decision; Journalist who reported Nisman's death lands in Israel

From Ian:

Argentine Prosecutor: Rouhani Involved in AMIA Bombing Decision

Nisman, who was found shot in the head in his apartment just hours before he was scheduled to provide testimony against Argentine President Cristina Kirchner last Monday, denied the Free Beacon story in 2013 and suggested that Rouhani played no role in the attack.
“There is no evidence, according to the AMIA case file, of the involvement of Hassan Rouhani in any terrorist attack,” Nisman told the Times of Israel in response to the article.
However, Nisman said privately he had evidence that Rouhani was involved in the decision to authorize the bombing, according to Miami Herald reporter Andres Oppenheimer.
Nisman told Oppenheimer that Rouhani was on the committee that green-lighted the attack. “Nobody is pointing out that Rouhani participated in the decision of the AMIA attack,” wrote Nisman in a July 2013 email.
“In several telephone conversations and email exchanges I had with Nisman over the past three years, the prosecutor told me that Rouhani was among the top Iranian officials who had ‘participated in the decision’ to bomb the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires,” Oppenheimer wrote after Nisman’s death.

Journalist who reported Nisman's death lands in Israel

Damian Pachter, who first reported the story about the mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman and fled the country out of "fear for his life", has landed in Israel where he hopes to find safe haven.
"I came to Israel because I am an Israeli citizen I lived here the most important years of my life and this is a place where I feel safe," Pachter said Sunday after landing in Israel.
"I left because the Argentinean government persuade me because of my news report regarding the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman who died in unresolved way last week, so I was the first who report on that and now I am kind of suffering the consequences of that," he said.

Interview with Damian Pachter (h/t Yoel)

After accusing the Argentine Government of going after him for breaking a story about the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, journalist Damián Pachter talked to The Bubble from Israel.

Argentinean Jews Boycott Shoah Ceremony Over Iran

The official Argentine Jewish community is planning to boycott the country's official Holocaust commemoration. The state ceremonies will be held on Tuesday, International Holocaust Day – and the Jews of Argentina will hold their own separate memorial ceremony the same day.
The Jews are protesting the suspicious death – and subsequent investigation thereof – of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, as well as ties between Argentina and Iran.
The official memorial ceremony happens to mark two years since Argentina and Iran signed an agreement to establish a “truth commission” into the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center back in 1994 that left 85 dead and hundreds wounded.
It is widely believed that Iran was actually behind the bombing, and that top Argentinean government officials attempted to stymie investigations to this effect – so as not to stymie negotiations for a favorable oil deal with Iran.

The convergence of the idiots

Egypt's El Badil newspaper regularly quotes fringe Western websites for "news." They will write articles based on "reporting" from sites like Global Research on bizarre conspiracy theories.

One of their favorite sources in Veteran's Today. Today El Badil published an article from VT about how Jews control all the major media in the US that came from that site. The article ends with a quote from a "Rabbi Reichhorn" in Prague in 1869, where he supposedly gave a proto-Protocols address at a funeral describing the Jewish strategy to control the world.

I haven't looked at Veteran's Today in a while, and besides its crazed antisemitic articles, it also continues to expand 9/11 "truther" rhetoric:

It is now known beyond any reasonable question that the 9-11-01 nuclear attack on America was an “Inside-job”, a Gladio-style false-Flag attack on America.

What this means is that this attack was no surprise attack at all and was done with the help of some high ranking US Officials in the Administration, JCS, USAF, NORAD, the FAA and the local NYC government officials.

false-flag1 (2)It is also known that the individuals responsible for planning and executing this attack included PNACers, Top NeoCons, the President and the Vice-President and the Secretary of the Department of Defense, Several top JCS, USAF, NORAD and FAA, some Top Directors of AIPAC, and numerous American-Israeli ‘Israeli-first” Dual Citizens and Israeli Intel.

Not only that, but VT reports that the moon landings were fake!

So it is a natural fit for Arab media to quote fringe Western media (something Iran's PressTV has been doing for years.)

One more interesting fact about El Badil: Human Rights Watch quotes them uncritically. Maybe the report that HRW quoted from El Badil was accurate and maybe not, but there is no indication that HRW did any independent fact checking as they quoted a newspaper that consistently reports on antisemitic conspiracy theories.

RyanAir's route map eliminates border between Israel and Jordan

RyanAir is a low-cost Irish airline. While it doesn't serve the Middle East, it shows a route map that includes the countries of the region.

The colors are a little muted so it is hard to see the borders:

But with a little color editing, we see something interesting:

There is no border between Israel, Jordan and the territories, even including Gaza.

Now, it is possible that RyanAir is mimicking the maps of Eretz Yisrael that the Irgun used to circulate before 1948, that included the entire original area of "Palestine" that was envisioned in the Balfour Declaration before the first partition:

Somehow, I doubt it. But it might be fun to start that rumor that the airline supports a very expansive vision of Greater Israel. After all, why should the Zionists be the only ones paranoid about maps on websites?

My guess is that RyanAir just didn't want to worry about upsetting people which would happen no matter what borders they drew, so they just decided to purposefully not draw a border altogether.

They cannot be accused of being anti-Israel; their CEO stated last August that he intends not only to add a Tel Aviv route but to make Israel a regional hub.

(h/t Johnny)

Gaza minister ends boycott of Israeli products that never existed

A bizarre article in Ma'an:

Gaza's Ministry of Economy said Sunday that it would allow the entry of Israeli products into the Gaza Strip for the first time in five years.

Imad al-Baz, assistant deputy of the ministry, said soft drinks, clothes, coffee, and other Israeli goods would be allowed into the Strip.

"The last war led to the destruction of thousands of factories, which affected the production power (in Gaza), and to fill that gap we decided to allow Zionist products in," al-Baz said.

"The war damaged the production ability of factories and the nature and quality of the product, because some raw materials are not allowed in" due to the blockade.

"We decided to allow (Israeli) products to enter so that the market is not hindered and so products are available," al-Baz added.

But Israeli consumer products have been seen in Gaza continuously over the past five years.

Since a photo essay that I published in 2011 that showed everything from Israeli snacks by Osem to Chanukah gelt being sold, that same Metro Market in Gaza City has featured many Israeli items on its Facebook page.

Corn Flakes in 2012:

Chicken in 2013:

Ice cream and Krembo in 2014:

Laundry detergent in 2015:

Here is a 2012 video showing how many goods are able to enter Gaza and into this supermarket (including Israeli products):

So unless Gaza officials are loosening their restrictions on specific Israeli product categories that had been not allowed into Gaza (I wonder what Gisha thinks of that,) I don't understand what this announcement is about. There is no reason why coffee and clothing and soft drinks cannot be imported via Europe through Kerem Shalom while keeping Gaza clean of those Zionist products.

Another remarkable coincidence!

Last month, I noted that Gisha, the Israeli NGO that pretends to care about freedom of movement of people and goods to and from Gaza, had never said anything bad about Hamas.

This even though Hamas was routinely stymieing movement to and from Gaza, which is exactly what Gisha supposedly cares about. Specifically, I noted a widely reported story of how Hamas didn't allow some 37 orphans to leave Gaza to go to Israel, which Israel gave approval for.

I noted that Gisha, funded from European dollars, was taking an interesting position by ignoring Hamas violations of freedom of movement while concentrating on Israeli and (to a lesser extent) Egyptian restrictions.

Lo and behold, two days after I wrote my article, Gisha wrote its first extraordinarily mild scolding of Hamas for this same story. Although it couched it as a minor infraction compared to Israeli restrictions, Gisha reluctantly wrote:

According to the most recent data released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 43.2% of Gaza residents are children under the age of 14, which is slightly more than 750,000 children. Around 1,500 of them are newly orphaned since the fighting last summer. Hamas’s decision prevented 37 of them from receiving a rare opportunity to leave the Gaza Strip, since Israel allows Palestinians to exit only if they meet a strict set of criteria. Most Palestinians who receive approval to exit are medical patients and those accompanying them, merchants and a handful of “exceptional humanitarian cases”. Given this, it’s unfortunate that Hamas officials also obstruct travel for political reasons.

"Unfortunate!" Oooh, that must have hurt! But it is important to protect your funding sources, and we cannot have European governments asking uncomfortable questions about why Gisha refuses to ever say anything bad about Hamas. Better to write the barest minimum possible against Hamas so if anyone does ask a question, Gisha can answer, "Look! See? We did it! We're objective! Please keep our funding going!"

Sheer coincidence that the first negative thing Gisha seems to have ever written on its own about Hamas (not quoting other sources) happened right after I pointed this out.

Hamas leader says "No Jew will ever enter Gaza"

Mahmoud Zahar gave a speech on Friday night, during a memorial for Hamas "martyrs" killed last year during Operation Protective Edge. It was widely published in Arabic media.

During the speech, after assuring families of the dead terrorists that Hamas will do everything necessary to "unconditionally liberate the land of Palestine," Zahar said that Gaza "would remain defiant of the Jews, and no Jew would ever enter it, whatever it costs us. "

Zahar forgot the rule to pretend that this has nothing to do with Jews and to always use the word "Zionists" as a substitute, even when referring to how evil "Zionists" have been for 3000 years.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Comic artists invoke Charlie Hebdo to support those who HATE freedom of speech

From JTA:

Dozens of comics artists signed a letter calling for a boycott against any Israeli entity that does not “promote freedom and justice for Palestinians.”

The open letter, cosigned by more than 80 individuals involved in producing comics, was sent out Wednesday to the organizers of an international festival for comics artists scheduled to open next week in France, and which is cosponsored by the Israeli company Sodastream.

In the letter, the authors wrote that they call for the Angoulême International Comics Festival to sever all ties with Sodastream, which has a factory in Ma’aleh Adumim – an Israeli settlement regarded internationally as illegal because it is situated in the West Bank.

Here is their open letter:

Statement of solidarity:

We want to express our grief and outrage at the slaying of five cartoonists, Wolinski, Cabu, Honoré, Tignous, Charb, among many others, at the Charlie Hebdo offices. These horrific acts of violence compel us to act even more urgently for a world where the dignity, freedom, and equality of all people are respected and promoted. We reaffirm that the Palestinian boycott movement is one important step towards that vision, and we hope that you will continue to join us in this movement.

Here are Palestinian Arabs in Ramallah and Jerusalem protesting against Charlie Hebdo's freedom of speech:

Palestinian Arab cartoonists also came out against Charlie Hebdo's freedom of speech. So did the Union of Palestinian Clerics in Gaza. So did the Greek Orthodox archibishop in Jerusalem. So did a group of Gazans who proudly screamed outside the French Cultural Center, "Leave Gaza, you French, or we will slaughter you by cutting your throats."

These are the people who the cartoonists want to show solidarity with.

In fact, you will not find a single rally in support of freedom of speech for Charlie Hebdo in all of the Palestinian Arab territories.

So how exactly do these cartoonists think that solidarity with people who are uniformly against freedom of speech is somehow a tribute to the memory of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who literally died upholding that principle?

Not to mention that the PLO was behind the murder of the most iconic Palestinian cartoonist, for lampooning Arafat's girlfriend!

Logic is not exactly the strong point for these cartoonists. They make it clear that it is Israel - not the "occupation," but Israel - that they are against:

Today, the Sodastream company proudly boasts of its factory’s location in the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, which makes it complicit in the crime of military occupation. However, even if Sodastream, thanks in part to the pressure campaign launched last year, moved its manufacturing to the Negev (where Palestinian Bedouins are facing eviction from their ancestral lands by Israeli government’s Prawer Plan) it, and other Israeli companies and institutions, are part of a system built on the mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities and sustained through racism and discrimination. It, and other Israeli companies, contribute to the economy of a state which conducted a brutal military assault against a civilian population in Gaza in the summer of 2014, resulting in over 2,100 deaths, including over 500 children.

Facts are also not exactly one of these cartoonists' strengths, as this paragraph shows. (Sodastream treats their Arab employees exactly like their Jewish employees; the Prawer plan has never been approved, the Gaza war was not against a"civilian population"....)

But bigotry against Jews, and only Jews, having the right to self-determination is clearly a major part of their agenda, all in the name of being against discrimination!

Their hypocrisy doesn't end there. Some of the cartoonists signing this letter would be jailed or lynched if they tried to publish their works in the Palestinian Arab territories. One of them draws what would be considered lesbian pornography (NSFW).

But their thought processes cannot go beyond the simplistic "We are against murdering cartoonists. We are against the only state in the region who wouldn't murder cartoonists. Therefore, the two positions must be consistent, evidence be damned."

(h/t Yenta and Ian)

Hasby Award for Best Watchdog - Arabic Media and NGOs

The Hasby Award nominees for Best Watchdog - Arabic Media and NGOs are:

MEMRI

NGO Monitor

UN Watch

Again, even though there were only three nominees, it was a very hard category.

And the winner of the Hasby is....

01/25 Links: France most dangerous for Jews; Official PA paper: Israel behind terror attacks in France

From Ian:

Howard Jacobson: Try ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ and you’ll find that America and Israel are not to blame for all the world’s atrocities

And so it has been these past few shameful weeks with the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Little by little, day by day, the “But Brigade” has turned its monosyllabic screw until the cartoonists become complicit in their own demise and their murder appals us a little less. Yes the requisite noises are made – free speech non-negotiable blah blah – but the “butters” are quick to invoke instances where we do negotiate it: anti-Semites removed from their positions, for example, anti-Semites not allowed to speak what’s on their minds. Funny how it’s always the freedom to be an anti-Semite the “But Brigade” protects. And finally, in justification of murder, the issue of provocation is wheeled out, though the concept of “asking for it” would not be entertained for a second if the crime were rape.
Pace the Papa, he who insults my mother might deserve a stern rebuke, but not with rocket launchers and Kalashnikovs. Nor does being rude to someone’s ma equate to criticising his beliefs. I thought we had long ago decided we are all fair game when it comes to the gods we choose to revere, whereas our mothers, like the colour of our skin, we are given. If the Pope has a vested interest in protecting religion from scrutiny, so does the “But Brigade” have a vested interest in drawing attention away from any atrocity that isn’t perpetrated by Americans or Israelis. Except that there isn’t any atrocity which isn’t perpetrated by Americans or Israelis, for who else is ever on the end of the chain of repercussion, extenuation and blame that begins with that malignant “but”?

Douglas Murray: I don’t want to live under Islamic blasphemy law. That doesn’t make me racist

But let us take a strain from this strained idea and pretend that Muslims constitute a tiny put-upon sect in France and Western Europe, and that for this reason anything which transgresses Islamic blasphemy laws must be recognised as the big guys (cartoonists) beating up the little guys (tens of millions of Muslims). If it is the minority component that is the issue then let us transfer this to a country where Islam does not constitute a minority. Saudi Arabia, say. Or Iran. Or Pakistan. What if a free-thinker were to publish a cartoon of Mohammed there? Would that be Myriam’s and Mehdi’s kind of satire? I cannot help thinking that they and all the other ‘context of these cartoons’ complainers would feel no happier about a drawing of Mohammed done in Mecca, Tehran or Islamabad than one drawn in Copenhagen or Paris. In the same way I can see them being little happier about free Western non-Muslims ‘insulting’ Mohammed if they also did this alongside making more jokes about the Holocaust.
Incidentally the Holocaust detour is a particularly fascinating one. Disturbing too, because it is surprising how many Muslims in particular have in recent weeks responded to drawings of Mohammed with the cry ‘But you can’t draw cartoons that upset the Jews or joke about the Holocaust.’ In saying this they not only confuse denial, diminishment or praise of the murder of six million Jews within living memory with a stick drawing of someone subsequently called ‘Mohammed’. They also give something away. Because although I am sure that Mehdi, Myriam et al are far too moderate to wish to start taunting Jews about the Holocaust, I cannot forget all those banners at anti-Israel parades in Britain where, for instance, the banners say ‘Stop the Holocaust in Gaza’ and so on. And I cannot help thinking that here too the selection of the Holocaust or Jews as the comparison is a little more revealing, or insinuating, than the speakers intend it to be. ‘Taunt my prophet and I’ll taunt your dead family’ is an interesting argument. But after the last couple of weeks I have come to the conclusion that there are more people than I had previously thought who wish to really get stuck in on the Jews and the Holocaust once they get the chance.
But like most other arguments against Charlie Hebdo in recent weeks what this boils down to is a scramble for a justification for why Islamic blasphemy law must be observed even in Western Europe.

Fatah statement urges ‘resistance’ to IDF, settlers

In a statement published on Fatah’s official website, the movement’s West Bank branch lambasted Israel’s decision to withhold tax revenue from the PA in the wake of the Palestinian UN bid, dubbing it an act of “theft” that “deprives our people of their daily bread.”
Fatah pledged its support for Abbas’s international attempt to isolate Israel, calling for “an escalation of popular resistance against occupation forces and settlers.”
Abbas has publicly criticized the armed intifada, or uprising, against Israeli civilians, but has endorsed “popular resistance” consisting of large-scale rallies, processions, and the boycotting of settlement products.
The new statement appeared to legitimize physical attacks against IDF soldiers and Israelis living in the West Bank, which have dramatically increased in recent months.

Reporter who broke news of Nisman’s death is on his way to Israel

Damian Pachter of the English-language Buenos Aires Herald left the country Saturday, the local journalism group Foro de Periodismo Argentino said.
Pachter told The Times of Israel on Sunday afternoon that he is on his way to Israel. Haaretz reported earlier that he is “planning to take refuge” in the country.
Pachter, who is Jewish and has Israeli citizenship, told a local internet site that “I left because my life was in danger. My phones were being monitored. I intend to return to Argentina when my sources tell me conditions have changed. I don’t think that will happen in the term of this government.”
The Buenos Aires journalism group said Pachter reported on Friday he was followed by unknown people and felt his safety was at risk but did not elaborate. (h/t Yenta Press)

Those of you who follow my writings or Jon Haber's blog, Divest this!, know that we have been conversing about Israel, the western-left, and the Obama administration for a number of months.

I don't want to call it a debate so much as a conversation between people with somewhat differing views, but with mutual concerns. A list of each of our contributions can be found toward the top of the right side bar at Israel Thrives.

My fundamental argument is that the Obama administration validated political Islam through supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the parent organization of both Qaeda and Hamas and if not a parent organization of the Islamic State, certainly an ideological partner in praying for the extinction of Jewish sovereignty and self-defense.

While Jon agrees that I am not a political partisan, and we both understand that partisanship is not automatically a reprehensible thing, he also acknowledges that the Obama administration has been far too friendly to the enemies of the Jewish people.

In his recent piece entitled Partisanship, Haber writes:

But there is no disagreement that the current President’s choices: from cutting endless slack to Islamist foes of both Israel and the US to picking needless fights with the Israeli government, make it a perfectly reasonable choice for Jews who support Israel (which describes the majority of us) to refuse to vote for him.

According to Haber, Obama gave "endless slack to Islamist foes."

At this point it becomes difficult to know where we actually disagree.

At the end of the day, that is my fundamental point. It is my thesis in a nutshell, although we would need to determine just where slack ended and support began?

Jon, however, takes issue with the fact that I have sometimes characterized progressive-left Jews as people with their heads buried in the sand.

I must admit that Jon is correct and that I have resorted to my favorite ostrich image more than once.

I did so particularly in my Failures of the Progressive-Left Zionism series.

In those writings, I criticized the Jewish Left for refusing to seriously denounce political Islam.

I criticized the Jewish Left for demonizing their fellow Jews who live where neither Mahmoud Abbas, nor Barack Obama, want them to live.

I criticized the Jewish Left for constantly playing political defense, which is always an invitation for aggressors and a general sign of insecurity within one's own beliefs.

I criticized the Jewish Left for tending to support their enemies over their friends out of a misguided and self-righteous political altruism.

These are not in-depth pieces, but merely pointers to problems. That is all.

And, in truth, there are other reasonable criticisms that I am not even bothering with for the moment on the assumption that liberal Jews, such as myself, are rethinking - just as we are all continually rethinking - as political sands shift.

My only real discomfort with Jon's analysis is that he chalks up Jewish American support for Barack Obama, despite Obama's alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, to the fact that American Jews preferred Obama over his opponent on a broad range of issues beyond the Arab-Israel conflict.

While this is clearly true, why be content to leave it at that?

Haber writes:

Jews (like all Americans) were not casting a vote on each and every issue of importance to them, but were rather making a narrow choice between two individuals. And had the Republican candidate been more appealing in ways having nothing to do with Israel and the Middle East (as was Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984), who knows how the Jewish vote might have gone?

Even if I don’t expect to ever see a total party realignment of the Jewish public, I think it’s safe to say that the majority of Jews voted for Obama for the same reasons the majority of Americans did: they liked him better than the other guy.

We know that the Obama administration supported the Muslim Brotherhood in a variety of ways, including material and financial support. We also know that the Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of both Hamas and al-Qaeda, if not the Islamic State, itself. The Brotherhood backed the Nazis during World War II and assisted many Nazis and friends of Nazis, such as Haj Mohammed Amin el-Husseini, in escaping the consequences of their behavior upon the conclusion of that war. In recent years Brotherhood leader, and ex-President of Egypt, Muhammad Morsi, supported calls for the conquest of Jerusalem among throngs of his supporters, both before and after his "election" and still maintained Obama administration support.

I do not know about you, but as someone who voted for Obama the first time around, I was absolutely horrified.

There is no question that Jon is correct when he notes that the majority of American Jews simply liked Obama more than the other guy. I, too, like Obama - as a guy to have a beer with - more than that other guy. Furthermore, on many domestic issues I very much prefer the Democratic agenda over that of the Republican agenda.

But however much I support a woman's right to choose an abortion, or however much I like Obama's idea for federal support to community college students, none of that can possibly outweigh my concern for the fact that there are 6 million Jews in the Middle East surrounded by 400 million Arabs who generally do not want them there and are often prepared to use extreme violence to make their case.

This is what I cannot get past.

The chance of any Republican administration in the United States rolling back abortion rights are virtually nil, yet such concerns are supposed to trump our concern for our own families in Israel?

I do not think so.

It seems to me that diaspora Jewry, as a group, tends to be very good about looking out for the well-being of others. For example, no other group in American history, aside from the Black American community, stood up more for Civil Rights during the 1950s and the 1960s than did Jewish Americans... although, I am not certain that you would learn this from the recent film Selma, which I am very much looking forward to renting.

In the United States, the Jewish people were almost universally behind abolitionism and nineteenth-century American progressivism, with its workers' solidarity and early union activity. By inordinate percentages Jews favored women's rights to suffrage, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, Women's Rights, GBLT, environmentalism, and the rights of all ethnic minorities to equal treatment under the law.

We are among the most persecuted people within record human history and this is precisely why we tend to support movements for social justice.

But...

There must come a point wherein a violent and ongoing threat to the Jewish community becomes a primary concern.

My question is this:

In what ways do Obama administration support for political Islam, via support for the Muslim Brotherhood, advance the interests of either the American people or the Jewish people?

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

Molotov cocktails were thrown at the guard stations at the Jewish community of Bet El on Saturday.

Another one was hurled at an Israeli bus south of Hebron.

Both of these incidents are so routine that the English-language Israeli media didn't even bother to report it. Both of these stories came from Arab media.

Arabic media also reported two other cases of Molotov cocktails being hurled over the weekend.

One was thrown at the home of a police captain in Egypt. Another was thrown at another policeman's car in Minya, blowing up the car.

Thankfully, there were no injuries in any of these cases.

But the Egyptian newspapers referred to both of the stories in Egypt as being done by "terrorists."

Of course, no one besides Zionists ever refer to Arabs who throw firebombs at Jews as being "terrorists."

But what else can you call someone who throws a firebomb at civilians?

On Friday, I noted that the New York Times sneaked in a new phrase in an article about Obama and Netanyahu, referring to the "1967 borders with Palestine" - a nonsensical phrase that the newspaper had never used before.

My piece was also published in The Algemeiner.

On Saturday, they changed it, as NewsDiffs shows:

Famously, many of those conversations have been deeply uncomfortable. The two leaders have often clashed on Israel’s determination to build new settlements, which Mr. Obama viewed as a way to sabotage peace talks. Mr. Netanyahu was accused of lecturing Mr. Obama in front of the cameras in the Oval Office during an angry conversation in May 2011, after Mr. Obama suggested that
~~the 1967 borders with Palestine~~Israel’s pre-1967 borders should be the starting point for peace negotiations. Later that year, after former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France complained in front of an open microphone that Mr. Netanyahu was “a liar,” Mr. Obama said, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.”

That was the only substantial difference between those two versions of the article. But there was no acknowledgement of the correction, and of course the print version has the original nonsense phrase.

It is still wrong, of course: they weren't borders but 1949 armistice lines, never agreed to as border by the international community as UNSC 242 makes clear. But the NYT has erroneously referred to them as "borders" for decades as I showed in my original piece.

Newspapers that subscribe to the New York Times News Service still have the old phrase as well.

Miracle Allah Ear, 2015 edition

We saw it in 2007 with a baby born in Ramallah.

We saw it again in 2010.

Now, a baby in Bethlehem is the latest one with a malformed ear which resembles the Arabic word "Allah."

This is considered a miracle, unlike when Allah's name manifests itself on ice-cream cone logos (2005):

Or on athletic shoes (1997):

Even some Muslims make fun of CAIR for freaking out over Nike's logo which barely resembles the word Allah.

01/24 Links: Dershowitz: The Case Against the International Criminal Court Investigating Israel

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: The Case Against the International Criminal Court Investigating Israel

It is telling that Hamas has expressed satisfaction with the decision of the ICC to open an investigation of Israel’s military action during the recent war in Gaza. The hypocrisy of a terrorist group that boasts of its multiple war crimes expressing satisfaction that the victims of these war crimes are being investigated for trying to stop rocket and tunnel attacks, should be evident to any reasonable person.
More significant is the response of the US, which issued the following statement: “We strongly disagree with the ICC prosecutor’s action. The place to resolve the differences between the parties is through direct negotiation, not unilateral actions by either side.”
Ocampo acknowledges that the principle of “complementarity” precludes an ICC investigation of Israel unless “there are no genuine national investigations of the crimes committed under its jurisdiction.” I am familiar with the Israeli legal system and its mechanisms for investigating alleged war crimes. There is no country in the world with a legal system that is more responsive to claims made by victims of war crimes. At the apex of the Israeli legal system is its Supreme Court, which is widely admired by lawyers around the world. If it were to be ruled that the Israeli legal system does not provide the required complementarity to deny the ICC institution jurisdiction as “a court of last resort,” then no nation would pass that test. The United States will never, and should never, submit itself to the jurisdiction of an international court that does not regard the Israeli legal system as a satisfactory fulfillment of the principle of complementarity.
On balance, the decision to open an investigation against Israel at this time will harm prospects for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and will harm the credibility of the ICC. It is a serious mistake and should be rescinded.

The Folly of Partition: ICC Ruling Seals Fate of Gaza Residents

The ICC’s decision effectively rejects a century of Jewish reconciliation efforts: acceptance of partition, failure to annex and populate the West Bank, and the recognition of a new independent Arab entity in areas known until very recently as Judea and Samaria.
Tragically, partition has served the interests of neither Israelis nor Gazans. Quite the contrary, it has both condemned nearly two million people to a fate worse than death on one side, and placed nearly eight million people within range of rocket fire on the other.
Israel, a vibrant, thriving – if wildly imperfect – exercise in Middle East democracy, will weather the tempest being kicked up by a pack of lawyers in The Hague.
However, this is a dark day for those forsaken men, women, and children living under Hamas’ jackboot of hate and terror.
The ICC, by delegitimizing one sovereign nation’s right to defend itself, has granted the Islamist Jihadists cover to commit acts of exceptional barbarity inside the Gaza Strip – and unleash another wave of violence against Israel and its allies in the near future.

WH: Houthis 'Legitimate Political Constituency'

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki has continued the Obama Administration’s whitewashing of radical Islamist groups, referring to the Houthis of Yemen as a “legitimate political constituency.” The Houthis’ slogan is simple: “Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews and victory to Islam,” echoing similar slogans utilized by Shiite terrorists in Iraq and supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, considered a terrorist group by the United States since 1997.
Psaki said, “The Houthis are a legitimate political constituency in Yemen and have a right to participate in affairs of the state. We urge them to be a part of a peaceful transition process. That said, we condemn their use of violence and are concerned by their non-compliance with agreements they have been signatories to.”
The White House has also whitewashed the Muslim Brotherhood; only last month the White House rejected a July petition signed by more than 200,000 Americans in a single month demanding the Obama Administration label the Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Obama Will Not Attend 70th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will represent the United States at the 70th anniversary ceremony for the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Tuesday—rather than President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden—while other countries are slated to send their heads of state.
Tuesday’s ceremony will likely be the last major anniversary where a significant number of survivors of the Nazi camp are present. About 300 are expected to attend, and most of them are in their 90s or older than 100. Nazi authorities killed 1.1 million people at the camp, mostly Jews, which was liberated by the Soviet army in January 1945.
The New York Times reported on the foreign dignitaries that would be present:
"A preliminary list of those attending includes President François Hollande of France, President Joachim Gauck of Germany and President Heinz Fischer of Austria, as well as King Philippe of Belgium, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. The United States delegation will be led by Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said he would not attend because his schedule was too crowded and because he had not received an invitation. Museum officials said no head of state had received one. Mr. Putin had attended the 60th anniversary ceremony in 2005 — it was Soviet troops, after all, who liberated the camp in 1945 — but relations between Russia and Poland have soured over the conflict in Ukraine."
Bernadette Meehan, National Security Council spokeswoman, said in an email that, “President Obama will be in India, on a long-scheduled trip.”

Obama cuts India trip short to visit Saudi Arabia

President Obama has cancelled the end of his trip to India to fly to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the death of the country's king and growing instability in the region, U.S. and Indian officials said Saturday.
The officials said Obama will fly from India Tuesday, skipping a planned trip to the Taj Mahal.

01/23 Links Pt2: Europe Offers Israel the Peace of the Dead; BHL & Prosor at UN antisemitism conf.

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: Zionism and etrogism

The name switches of what until recently marketed itself as the Israel Labor Party offer fascinating insight into how Zionism has steadily lost its allure on the Israeli Left.
What began life as Poalei Zion – the Workers of Zion – in time it morphed into MAPAI, Hebrew acronym for the Party of the Workers of Eretz Yisrael. The next stage was adopting the generic name of Labor – doubtless borrowed from the British context. So far the trend is clear and straightforward.
But now comes the spin – under its latest leading light, Isaac (not Yitzhak) “Buji” Herzog, Labor (aligned with Tzipi Livni’s disintegrating list) has chosen to call its ticket the Zionist Camp. At first hearing this certainly appears to be the sort of affirmation that would gladden Zionist hearts. Here at last is the cause of Zionism ostensibly espoused proudly and unapologetically.
A true balm for the soul – or is it?

‘What You Saw Here Today Was Naked, Blind Antisemitism:’ NYC Councilman Slams Palestine Activists Who Disrupted Auschwitz Commemoration Debate

New York City Councilman David Greenfield fiercely denounced a group of antisemitic pro-Palestinian demonstrators who disrupted a Council meeting today, at the exact time that a resolution commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was being discussed.
Moments after the demonstrators were escorted from the chamber by security guards, Greenfield, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, began a speech that rapidly evolved into an impassioned discourse on the overlap between hatred of Israel and hatred of Jews.
“While we were discussing a resolution regarding the murder of 1.1 million human beings – I will point out that 90 percent of them were Jewish, but the other 10 percent, they were political dissidents, they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were gays, those were the people who were being killed together at Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Greenfield declared, “while we were discussing that, they had the chutzpah, the nerve, the temerity, to unfurl a Palestinian flag and yell at us.”
Voice rising, Greenfield contrasted Israel’s open society with the repressive regimes across the Middle East, before asserting, “What you saw here today was naked, blind antisemitism.”
Greenfield said that the demonstrators had unfurled the Palestinian flag out of anger that “Hitler had not finished the job. He only wiped out half of my family.”
He concluded: “Shame on them for disrespecting the most diverse democratically elected body in the United States of America, and that’s why we go to Israel.”
Other councillors joined Greenfield in condemning the antisemitic disruption, which included the fringe group “Jewish Voice for Peace” among the participants. “City Council protesters today were so hate-filled and venomous that they strengthened our support for Israel, ONLY democracy in Middle east,” tweeted Councilman Mark D. Levine. Councilman Cory Johnson called the demonstration “incredibly disrespectful and offensive. Simply awful.”
Republican Councilman Eric Ulrich told the meeting that “to be pro Israel you don’t have to be Jewish. Israel is a vibrant democracy and I’m proud to go back to Israel again. I will not be intimidated by the hecklers. I will not sit here and allow people to attack the Jews.”

Councilman Greenfield Denounces Anti-Semitic Outburst in NYC Council Chamber

Yarmulke-Clad Swedish Gentile Reporter Attacked in Malmo (VIDEO)

Eighteen months after an intrepid gentile journalist strolled the streets of Malmo, Sweden wearing a yarmulke, in order to get a sense of how residents of the city view Jews, a new video suggests that the situation has only worsened, Israel’s NRG News reported Thursday.
In October, 2013, Patrick Reily, a journalist for The Local English-language newspaper, spent a day in the city of Malmö wearing the traditional kippah headcovering in order to see how passersby might react.
After an uncomfortable few hours walking the streets, and becoming the object of stares and insults, Reilly concluded: “As an Irish person abroad I’ve never felt remotely threatened, but wearing the kippah for a few hours was enough to instill feelings of fear. Even when I didn’t feel afraid I was made to feel different and unwelcome.”
This time it was Peter Lindgren’s turn to don a kippah and Star of David chain around his neck and head into town. The result: “He received direct threats as he walked through the city,” according to expressen.se.
Lindgren, walking with a hidden camera and microphone alongside, recorded every step. The report showed the reporter enduring verbal abuse by a man who called him a “Jewish s***” and told him to “leave.” Another person hit him and shouted “Satan Jew,” at him.