Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Video: Hebron Arabs ransack an Israeli truck

On Monday, Arabs in Hebron broke into an Israeli delivery truck and destroyed all the packages within, tossing them onto the street to the wild cheers of the crowd.

From FajerTV:

The products seems to have been food:

This week, Fatah authorities started a new campaign against bakeries in the territories that use Israeli flour. Perhaps sensing that people won't boycott bread, they are also framing it as a consumer protection issue, claiming that bakeries that use Israeli flour are price-gouging consumers by charging 4 shekels a loaf ($1) , as they claim it should not cost more than 3 or 3.5 shekels. ($.67 or $.75.) Some are also saying that the bakeries that use Israeli flour are also violating health codes.

The new campaign against bakeries seems to be called "let it rot."

One of those racist, right wing Bibi voters

Seen on the Arabic FajerTV Facebook page.

Some Arabs did vote for right wing, and even religious, parties.

While the Arab list received over 92% of the vote in Nazareth, the remainder of the votes went to: 2.68% for the Zionist Union, 2.09% for Meretz, 1.06% for Likud, 0.42% for Kulanu, 0.39% for Yisrael Beiteinu, 0.22% for Yesh Atid, 0.19% for Shas, 0.13% for Aleh Yarok and 0.04% for Yahad.

03/18 Links Pt2: Chloe Valdary: Peace, the Grand Delusion of the Jews; Israel: Hero of the Middle East

From Ian:

Chloe Valdary: Peace, the Grand Delusion of the Jews

In 2015, the Jewish community is at a crossroads. Jews are being mowed down in the streets of Europe. Students are being intimidated on college campuses. Jewish-owned businesses and homes are being vandalized. The indigenous status of Jews in their homeland is either callously trivialized or completely denied by prominent voices in the media and elsewhere, including in academia and the United Nations. The 21st century is beginning to feel all too much like the torment of the 1930s and ’40s.
Yet, we pledged to ourselves, “Never again.”
This is not merely an adage—it is a demand. The time has come to ensure that the demand is met.
We must draw on our courage and have the audacity to force those who humiliate and threaten us to pay a price. Peace—if it means that we must lie down and be denigrated and even slaughtered while our enemies cheer, is not only wrong—it is evil.
How many more supermarkets will be attacked before we rise? How many more synagogues, schools, and homes will be assailed? How many more innocent Jews will be slaughtered while praying, or pelted with rocks while driving home?
Will we silently submit to these injustices unfolding around us? Will we be satisfied with telling ourselves that we have a higher moral claim because we want “peace?”

Col. Richard Kemp: Hamas tunnels like Auschwitz

One of the keynote speakers at the United Israel Appeal’s (UIA’s) General Division functions, Kemp was in Israel last year during much of the duration of Operation Protective Edge, where he was in contact with ground troops, generals and politicians.
He said the judgments he formed from his observations were the “mirror opposite” of the “lies, distortions and abuse” reported in the international media.
“The first item on the agenda of every war cabinet meeting … was Palestinian civilian casualties. That tells you something serious about the priority and the emphasis given by the Prime Minister and his cabinet to the issue,” he said.
He said Hamas wanted dead civilians to show the world, in order to demonise Israel “because they know – it’s been proven time and again in history – that the IDF cannot be defeated militarily”.
He also recalled his visit to a Hamas tunnel.
“There were railway lines running down the floor of the tunnel,” he said.
“Something troubled me about that tunnel, I couldn’t work out what it was and then it came to me. A few months before I was in Auschwitz and I saw similar feats of engineering … but on a much larger scale.
“The purpose of both of those things was to kill Jews. The tunnel was intended to send Hamas fighters to massacre as many Jews as they could find.”

Hero of the Middle East: The Israeli Messenger

In its evident, inexplicable eagerness to sign just about any deal with Iran to allow it nuclear weapons capability, the U.S. State Department has removed Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah -- two of the world most undisguised promoters of terror -- from its Foreign Terrorist Organizations List.
Iran's President, Hassan Rouhani, has even openly admitted that Iran's diplomacy with the U.S. is an active "jihad." How much plainer does a message have to get?
The Islamists have nothing but contempt for Europe's weakness.
The West needs to paralyze Iran, rather than appease it.
A series of significant defeats to Islamist organizations will counter the effects of their efforts to entice young people to join them, especially ISIS.
In these terrible times, critical for the future of our region, Netanyahu spoke to the representatives of the American people, despite the objections of many Israelis and Americans. He was willing to accept personal, political and diplomatic setbacks in order to look after his people's security.

Gaza Wins Bid To Host 2032 Olympics (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Gaza City, March 18 - The International Olympic Committee announced today (Wednesday) that the winning proposal to host the 2032 Summer Olympic Games was submitted by the Hamas government of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza beat out a number of other candidate locations considered by many to be better suited to the events, among them Berlin, New Delhi, Jakarta, Caracas, and Vancouver, and the organizers of the proposal admitted they were as surprised as anyone else that Gaza was chosen.
"We are humbled, proud, and, frankly, somewhat puzzled at the committee's decision, but we will try to do it justice," said Ministry of Sport spokesman Aiwil Behedd. "We have much work ahead of us now."

The planning challenges facing the government of Gaza are more imposing than those faced by any other host of Olympic games. Essentially, said Behedd, every bit of infrastructure for the games, including transportation and accommodations for attendees and participants, will have to be built from scratch, since the coastal territory lacks the most rudimentary facilities.

However, some of the obstacles that have plagued other Olympic hosts will likely not affect Gaza to nearly the same degree. For example, while other cities have engaged in protracted court battles to gain rights to property for purposes of constructing Olympic facilities, Hamas had a head start in demolishing large swaths of its territory by provoking a 5-day war with Israel last summer. By withholding permission for the rebuilding of homes from everyone but a number of proven Hamas loyalists, the government has been able to engineer significant portions of unused land that can now be converted into stadiums, the Olympic Village, press accommodations, and other support facilities.

Labor costs will also not challenge Hamas the way they have crippled other hosts, as the movement that governs Gaza does not shy way from forced child labor to complete its infrastructure projects. Hundreds of children died while digging and reinforcing the tunnels Hamas used in last summer's war, and the local population of 1.4 million is disproportionately young, meaning an effectively infinite supply of free workers. Initially reluctant to exploit that advantage in promoting Gaza's bid because of human rights violations, according to Behedd, "when we realized the international sporting community didn't care about Dubai's use of slave labor to prepare for the World Cup, we knew we had a chance."

Moreover, whereas other locales often struggle to justify the capital expenses that go into preparing for the Games, and for decades afterwards question whether any lasting benefit accrued from the investment, the residents of the Gaza Strip have never expected the Hamas government to invest in them; they have long been accustomed to being provided for by the international community, and the anticipated Olympics will probably afford them a welcome distraction from the the quotidian misery.

Nevertheless, some formidable logistical challenges remain. As it stands, Gaza lacks an airport or seaport, and is closed in on all four sides by Israeli and Egyptian forces. Tunnels to and from the Egyptian city of Rafah have been largely rendered unusable amid ongoing conflict and tension between Hamas and Cairo, and the Israeli navy interdicts most maritime traffic headed toward the Gaza coast. That leaved Turkish flotillas as the only method of entry for athletes, spectators, and personnel, and the supply of vessels for that purpose is expected to remain tight for the foreseeable future.

Political obstacles also loom: disunity with the Palestinian government in the West Bank may translate into the embarrassment of a boycott by a large portion of the host country's team, and discontent among Gaza's various militant Islamist factions also threatens to explode into violence. That last thing Hamas needs on its hands is for another war with Israel to break out during the Olympics because the Popular Resistance Committees wish to flex their muscles.

UN Security Council obsession with "Palestine," 2014

Here are the number of meetings by the UNSC on Middle East/North Africa topics in 2014.

To give some context, in 2014 there were some 76,000 killed in Syria, 17,000 in Iraq and 7600 in Afghanistan.

(h/t Irene)

03/18 Links Pt1: Election Roundup; Dershowitz: Pres. is not Commander in Chief of Foreign Policy

From Ian:

Netanyahu scores crushing victory in Israeli elections

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party was the clear winner in Tuesday’s election, a near-final tally showed early Wednesday morning, defeating the Zionist Union by a margin of some six seats.
That margin was far more decisive than TV exit polls had predicted when polling booths closed at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. All three TV polls had put Likud and Zionist Union neck-and-neck at 27 seats, albeit with Netanyahu better-placed to form a coalition.
On the basis of those TV polls, Netanyahu hailed a Likud victory, though Herzog initially refused to concede. As counting proceeded through the night, however, the Likud opened a growing margin of victory.
By 6 a.m., with some 99% of votes counted, the Central Elections Committee was indicating a dramatic victory for Netanyahu, with the Likud heading for 30 seats, compared to Zionist Union’s 24 seats.
Next came the Joint (Arab) List on 14 seats, Yesh Atid on 11, Kulanu on 10 and the Jewish Home on 8. They were followed by Shas, 7, United Torah Judaism on 6, Yisrael Beytenu on 6, and Meretz on 4 seats.

David Horovitz: King Bibi and his divided people

We’ll see the specifics of his coalition. We’ll note who he chooses as his defense minister, his foreign minister, his justice minister — outspoken hawks or gentler figures? Will he push legislation that highlights the Jewish character of the state and subtly relegates its democratic nature? Will he employ healing rhetoric as regards those ostensibly over-voting Israeli Arabs? Will he address widespread domestic concerns about the high cost of living, soaring housing prices and the growing inequalities between Israel’s haves and have-nots? Will he find a path through the conflict over ultra-Orthodox military service? Will he shift to a less dogmatic position on the two-state solution, stressing that he cannot envisage Palestinian statehood in the current Middle East reality but allowing for the possibility of change? Will he move to seize the opportunities he has frequently cited to build alliances with those Arab states that share Israel’s profound concerns about Iran’s nuclear drive and the imminent US-led deal with Tehran? Will he seek to ease the strains with an Obama administration that, he believes, wanted to see the back of him?
In the past few days, Netanyahu proved himself a political tactician in a different league from his rivals. But amid the euphoria of victory, and the majority’s reaffirmation of faith in his leadership, will he take heed of the fact that a substantial proportion of the electorate is as shocked and horrified by Tuesday’s results as he and his supporters are shocked and delighted?
Will Netanyahu seek to reposition himself, in short, from defiantly victorious leader of the Israeli right to prime minister of our riven, multi-challenged Israel?

Alan Dershowitz: President is not Commander in Chief of Foreign Policy

This important limitation on the president's power is highly relevant to the current debate about Congress having the authority to check the president's decision to make the deal that is currently being negotiated with Iran. The Constitution is clear about this. The President is not the Commander-in-Chief of our nation's foreign policy. When he is involved in "high-stakes international diplomacy," his involvement is not as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, but rather as negotiator-in-chief, whose negotiations are subject to the checks and balances of the other branches.
As President, he cannot even declare war, though he can decide how a war should be fought after Congress declares it. He cannot make a treaty without the approval of 2/3 of the Senate. He cannot appoint Ambassadors without the consent of the Senate. And he cannot terminate sanctions that were imposed by Congress, without Congress changing the law. Were he the "Commander-in-Chief" of our country — as Putin is of Russia or as Ali Khamenei is of Iran — he could simply command that all of these things be done. But our Constitution separates the powers of government — the power to command — into three co-equal branches. The armed forces are different: power is vested in one commander-in-chief.
To be sure, when politicians call our president the "Commander-in-Chief," they are using that term rhetorically. But it is a dangerous rhetoric, because it suggests a concentration, rather than a division, of power. Military metaphors are as inappropriate in a democracy as is martial law, which does empower the executive to act as the commander of all people, but only in cases of extreme emergency.
So let's describe the president by his actual constitutional role: the head of the executive branch of our tripod government that stands on three equal legs. As the head of the executive branch, he gets to negotiate treaties, agreements and other bilateral and multilateral deals. But Congress has a say in whether to approve what the president has negotiated.

Gangs of haters intimidating Swedish store-owners to drop Israeli products

From Sweden's "Isolate Israel" BDS site:

Join Malmö’s Apartheid Inspectors when they visit stores and companies around Malmö to investigate dangerous levels of apartheid-supporting products! Support the inspectors to inform shop-owners and consumers on how they through consumer-boycott can push for apartheid-free zones.

What comes next - death threats? Firebombs?

Luckily, Swedish commentators are coming out against this.

Luke Berggren writing in Varlden Idag says:

Scary rhetoric is being used, which is unfortunately reminiscent back to the 30s. "Support inspectors in their efforts to inform shopkeepers and consumers about how they can promote the apartheid-free zones through consumer boycott." In practice, this will disadvantage Jewish businesses in Israel. There seems to be no distinction between Israel Criticism and pure hatred of Jews. Talk about apartheid.

Many shopkeepers will be pressured to not buy Israeli goods. Let us do the opposite. Ask your retailer for Israeli goods. And buy Israeli goods. Boycotts of this kind suffered by Jews and is another worrying sign of the growing anti-Semitism. We can not accept this.

And more:

Member of Parliament Hanif Bali says that he hopes that the BDS movement's various operations in Malmö should not threaten the city's Jews.

"I can only hope that their different opinions do not go out to Malmö's Jewish population, which has happened before. Historically, the left has had difficulty distinguishing criticism of the state of Israel with pure racism against Jews...".

Hanif Bali also questioned what designates Israel as an "apartheid state".

"Apartheid is based on an ethnic specific legislation, that it would treat the Israelis by Palestinian background differently, and that does not happen. Certainly there is discrimination, but we have that in Sweden too, but we do call it apartheid."

(h/t @eu_jew)

According to Al Bawabh News, Hamas is trying to hush up a major sex scandal involving young boys in a Gaza mosque.

A prominent Hamas member is accused of engaging in sex acts with young boys after enticing them with promises of teaching them Jihad and the Quran.

According to the story, he pretended to be teaching the boys martial arts. He evaluated their "performance" and if he felt that they wouldn't resist he would make his move. He told them that the sex acts were allowed under Islamic law if it was consensual, and he characterized the children who fell under his influence as "Mujahadeen Heroes."

The man told his victims that he will stay in touch with them through social media.

There are two complicating factors that are stopping Hamas from arresting him.

One is that the sex offender is a hero, a "symbol of symbols," a 45-year old who was a prisoner in Israeli jails for 18 years and who was released under the Shalit deal.

The other is that the pedophile is not from Gaza, but from Hebron, and arresting him cause sectarian problems between different tribes.

Sources say that Hamas is now trying to smuggle him out of Gaza so as not to deal with the issue.

From looking at the list of people who were released in the Shalit deal the most likely person seems to be Maedh Waal Taleb Abu Sharakh, sentenced to 19 life terms for the attack on bus No. 37 in Haifa in 2002 that killed 17. He is about 45 years old, from Hebron, a Hamas member and clearly a "symbol of symbols' and sent to Gaza as part of the deal. He had been in prison only about 9 years but he might have had other stints in jail.

Yesterday I was the first (and still only) to report in English that the president of the Qatari National Committee for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and their ambassador to Gaza) Mohammed Al-Emadi, had praised Israel for helping in reconstruction efforts in Gaza while slamming the international mechanisms that were meant to help ordinary Gazans. He also charged Egypt and the PA with wasting the $100 million Qatar had donated to help Gaza electricity needs.

Emadi said that the only way to help Gazans get power would be for Israel to add a new 100 megawatt line, and he said that he was not negotiating with Israel on the issue but was negotiating the idea through the PA.

Emadi also announced that Qatar will pay $1000 to every owner of a destroyed home.

After the interview was published in Safa.ps, Mahmoud Abbas immediately scheduled a visit to Qatar at the end of this month, right after an Arab Summit meeting in Sharm el Sheikh on the 28th. He is apparently incensed that a Qatari official would break ranks with the normally solid anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Arab front to make such statements. Through the game of telephone that the media often engages in, Abbas apparently thinks that Emadi said that he was meeting with senior Israeli officials himself about the power line and construction materials (he explicitly said he wasn't in the interview.)

As Karama Press states, "It seems that the movements of Ambassador angered the Palestinian presidency, which prefers to silence the media about him, and to prevent any public criticism directly about him, until a meeting of President Abbas with the Emir of Qatar in Doha. "

Al Resalah adds that Abbas was angry that Qatar was negotiating to increase the amount of cement going into Gaza, apparently successfully, without deferring to the PLO in all matters concerning Gaza.

Fatah expressed its "worry" about the Qatari moves through its Secretary of the Revolutionary Council Ameen Maqboul.

Maqboul considered the meetings of the Qataris and the Israelis as overstep to the PA's role.

Raialyoum Newspaper revealed that the PA President Mahmoud Abbas give the Fatah officials a green light to attack Qatar.

Quds Press says that Abbas is accusing Qatar of supporting an independent Hamas-run state in Gaza.

The amount of aid transported from Israel to Gaza has been steadily increasing, with 640 trucks scheduled to go to Kerem Shalom today (on any day, scores of the scheduled trucks never arrive.)

This incident shows how much Abbas works to silence any media criticism of himself, as well as to silence anything positive about Israel. In this case it failed because the Hamas/Fatah split and the Abbas/Dahlan split has ensured that there are many media outlets who are against Abbas.

Israeli elections open thread

It's all anyone is talking about anyway....

By the way, look how prescient Slate was four days ago!

UPDATE: With 90% of the votes counted, the exit polls predicting a tie between Likud and ZU seem to have all been quite wrong:

My guess is that Israelis don't like exit pollsters and will lie to them.

But it ain't over till its over. I just find it hard to believe that even if the remaining 10% are all in Tel Aviv cafes, that the seat counts will change significantly.

03/17 Links Pt2: Col. Kemp: Protesters disown their university values; Einstein's 100th birthday gift

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: University of Southampton’s Symposium on Israel’s Right to Exist: Speaker Profiles and NGO Connections

The University of Southampton will hold a three-day quasi-academic conference, “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism” (April 17-19 2015). Billed as a “ground-breaking historical event,” the forum “concerns the legitimacy in International Law of the Jewish state of Israel” and questions the legality of the “foundation and protection of a state of such nature.”
The conference aims to lend academic legitimacy to the notion that the existence of a Jewish state, within any borders, is up for legal and moral debate. Participating speakers and panelists plan to “diagnose the legal position” of Israel to enable “scholarly debate and disagreement” on the legitimacy of Israel’s existence. Such events represent the antithesis of constructive academic dialogue and peaceful coexistence.
As shown below, the vast majority of the speakers listed on the program are virulent anti-Israel ideologues who demonize Israel using labels like “apartheid,” advocate for a “one state” framework that denies the right of the Jewish nation to self-determination, promote BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns targeting Israel, and advance legal attacks (“lawfare”) against Israel in international legal bodies. The involvement of a number of NGO officials and individuals affiliated with politically biased NGOs highlight the primary non-academic, ideological nature of the event. Some of these NGOs receive direct and indirect funding from European governments, as well as from the New Israel Fund (NIF).

Colonel Richard Kemp: Protesters disown their university values

I have addressed the UN commission of inquiry on the conduct of the parties to the Israel–Hamas war. I have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation and recognised the extraordinary measures to which Israel has gone to avoid civilian casualties when faced with an enemy that militarises civilian infrastructure and shields its fighters with the bodies of the civilians it claims to defend. US General Martin Dempsey, the highest ranking officer in the US Army, sent a fact-finding team to Israel and concluded the US forces had lessons to learn from the measures taken by Israel to spare the lives of Palestinian civilians as far as possible, often at the expense of its own soldiers.
By daring to defend the actions of the Jewish state and condemning Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both designated terrorist organisations, I was considered fair game for the protesters. This is indicative of a pervasive culture among certain sections of university students and staff in Britain, and clearly in Australia, where to speak objectively about Israel is to court harassment, thuggery and violence. The behaviour of the protesters and the academics was an affront to the core ideals of the university — the freedom to speak, the freedom to assemble and the freedom to engage with ideas and opinions.
This protest had clear anti-Semitic undertones. The audience was predominantly Jewish and the protesters knew that. Often anti-Semitic abuse and hatred is dressed up as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist action. This resonated that way, with vicious shouting and intimidation against a group of Jews and brandishing money around invoking the stereotype of the “greedy Jew”.
As for Associate Professor Jake Lynch, shown to be so adept at conflict with an elderly woman, his value to the university and its students would be enhanced by listening to those who have seen real conflict and have risked their lives to secure peace.

Antisemitism on Campus: Has Sydney University's Jake Lynch Finally Gone Too Far?

A petition started by the Jewish student union calling for Associate Professor Jake Lynch to be sacked has already attracted over 5,000 signatures. It alleges he breached the University's code of conduct, which requires that staff treat students with "respect, impartiality, courtesy and sensitivity" and that "Lynch has a history of supporting harassment and discrimination against Jewish students." A Sydney University spokesperson commented: "The University is deeply concerned about events surrounding a protest on campus and has commenced an investigation into the incidents."
The protesters, accused of disrupting a lecture, intimidating Jewish students, filming them without their permission and shouting at them could face expulsion from the University. A professor accused of the same, and of thrusting money in the faces of a Jewish student and an elderly Jewish woman, needs to be taken just as seriously. If the professor and the other demonstrators acted so disgracefully, the University has a responsibility to protect the welfare of its students and its own reputation.

From NPR:

Palestinian investor Bashar Masri is building an entirely new city in the West Bank. It's a huge investment, with 5,000 new homes for tens of thousands of families. And, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's also a political statement.

As we approached this new city of Rawabi, north of Ramallah, we saw a row of high-rise apartment buildings topped by construction cranes. Scaffolding surrounds the minaret of an incomplete mosque. Nobody has moved in yet.

Masri has had to battle for years, but says he finally has permission to hook up the water system, which is controlled by Israel. The military occupation of the West Bank often complicates Palestinian efforts to build, and this distinctive project was no exception.

Israel's opposition to hooking up the water was in response to Palestinian Arab refusal to work with Israel on crucial water issues all over Judea and Samaria.

But if you bother to read way further down the article, you can see that the PA also put up roadblocks to Rawabi. Instead of paragraph 3, we can find it in paragraph 20:

The Palestinians do have their own government, the Palestinian Authority, but Masri was equally frustrated with those officials. He says the group didn't keep a promise to build schools and roads for Rawabi.

"They signed the agreement and I think they should have delivered," he says. "Whenever I talk to them they say, 'Oh, Bashar, we need schools in other areas, we need roads in other areas.' Well, I think we should have gotten at least our fair share, proportional to the expected community in the next five years."

No roads and schools? Aren't they pretty important too?

Finally, NPR focuses on Israelis who want to become settlers. Of course, they won't call them that:
When we met some of the buyers, we learned that several are not from the West Bank, but rather live inside Israel, and are Israeli citizens.

Sofian and Fahimeh Mowassi are Arab citizens of the Jewish state. About 20 percent of Israel's population are Arab Israelis — or, as many call themselves, Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Fahimeh say they are buying a second home because Jewish Israelis are not comfortable living with Arabs. "We don't feel they accept us," she says, adding, "it's nice to come here, among our people."

They want to maintain their Israeli citizenship (this is only a second home) but they want to buy a house in the West Bank. Doesn't that make them settlers?

Oh, sorry, Moving to the east of the Green Line is only "illegal" if you are Jewish.

What would happen if Jews tried to buy houses in Rawabi? Would Mr. El Masry (-"The Egyptian") allow it? Would their neighbors?

These are questions that NPR doesn't want to ask, because the answer shows that the heroes of their story are bigots and antisemites. And that's not news.

(h/t Irene)

Egypt's Vetogate has a series of articles about the disgraceful condition of Egypt's Jewish cemeteries.

The leader of the almost extinct Jewish community, Magda Haroun, said that she visited one cemetery nnd saw boys had urinated on the tombstones.

Vetogate visited the cemetery in Alexandria (pictured above) and reported that it was being used as a garbage dump and was being encroached by street vendors. Tombstones and mausoleums are cracked, broken or otherwise in serious disrepair.

The newspaper talks about one cemetery that is the second-oldest Jewish burial ground in the world after the Mount of Olives. It includes such famous rabbis as Saadia Gaon.

The newspaper also interviewed a number of Islamic clerics who all said that respect for the dead is a high priority in Islam and that there was no justification to treat these cemeteries badly.

The newspaper goes on to call for the restoration of these cemeteries - and the resumption of tourism to visit them.

03/17 Links Pt1: Post-Colonial Hangover and the Jihadi Bomb; French: Arafat died of natural causes

From Ian:

Micahel Lumish: The Post-Colonial Hangover and the Jihadi Bomb

One thing that is striking about this political moment is the fact that the western Left seems entirely complacent with the idea of a nuclear bomb controlled by the ayatollahs.
This is rather odd since the Left, in general, opposes nuclear proliferation. Yet few seem disturbed at the idea of a theocratic-authoritarian regime, grounded in al-Sharia, that hangs Gay people from cranes, and that has incessantly called for the destruction of Israel, gaining a nuclear arsenal that could devastate anything on the planet.
How unusual.
When Barack Obama told the world that it was US policy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, he lied.
Jeffrey Goldberg, writing in The Atlantic, in the fall of 2012, said this:

But the record is the record: Given the number of times he's told the American public, and the world, that he will stop Iran from going nuclear, it is hard to believe that he will suddenly change his mind and back out of his promise.
The Obama administration changed its stated, if not actual, policy from preventing an Iranian bomb to enabling an Iranian bomb.
Democrats still complain about Netanyahu's speech as a violation of protocol. This is transparent nonsense. The problem that Obama has with Netanyahu's speech has nothing to do with protocol and everything to do with the fact that Netanyahu alerted the world that Obama's "deal" enables a Jihadi bomb in the not too distant future.

French experts rule out foul play in Arafat’s death

French experts have ruled out that the 2004 death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was the result of poisoning, a prosecutor told AFP Monday.
The prosecutor of the western Paris suburb of Nanterre said the experts found there was no foul play in Arafat’s death, which sparked immediate and enduring conspiracy rumors.
The findings echo those of Russian experts, but a Swiss team has said that the poisoning theory is “more consistent” with their own test results.
A center in the Swiss city of Lausanne had tested biological samples taken from Arafat’s personal belongings given to his widow after his death, and found “abnormal levels of polonium” — an extremely radioactive toxin — but stopped short of saying that he had been poisoned by polonium.
The French experts “maintain that the polonium 210 and lead 210 found in Arafat’s grave and in the samples are of an environmental nature,” Nanterre prosecutor Catherine Denis said. (h/t Bob Knot)

Chuck Norris says vote Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got a last minute hand from Hollywood action man Chuck Norris, who published a video on Monday calling on the Israeli public to back the prime minister in the coming general elections.
“You have an incredible country, and we want to keep it that way,” said Norris, who stood in front of a banner for Netanyahu’s Likud party during the minute-long, Hebrew-subtitled clip, called, “Please vote for Prime Minister Netanyahu!”
Norris recalled his close ties with Israel — where he has made three movies, including “Delta Force” — and declared that Netanyahu is a strong leader, “which is absolutely crucial for the safety of the Israeli people.”
The actor, 75, closed by making a direct appeal to Israelis that they vote for Netanyahu in Tuesday’s election.

Chuck Norris: Please vote for Prime Minister Netanyahu!

ISM upset that they cannot break Etsy's rules

Etsy is the famous online store that sells handmade items. Its guidelines state:

Handmade by you
Handmade items must begin with the imagination and creativity of the member operating the Etsy shop.

The anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement has been breaking those guidelines by selling items that were made in the territories, and Etsy promptly shut down the shop.

Here is an email from the ISM whining about how they are being discriminated against by not being allowed to break the rules. Which explains a lot about why they feel so close to Hamas.

If you have wanted to buy a Palestinian-made keffiyeh or Palestinian olive oil or soap or zaatar from our Etsy store since March 9, 2015, and wondered where we are, now you know.

Our Etsy customers gave us the highest possible ratings on Etsy. At least 65 of you gave us five stars out of five and one four (our lowest rating), all with glowing comments about our prices, quality and service. Many expressed endorsement for the use of our fundraising to support the Palestinian economy and culture, as well as nonviolent resistance in Palestine. We are fairly sure that we were the most popular site for Palestinian products.

Etsy's complaint against us was that our items are not hand made by us. That is of course only partly true, because nearly everything that we sell requires the time and effort of our group volunteers to finish the product and make it ready for shipping.

A more telling point, however, is that there are nine other Etsy sellers offering keffiyehs for sale, and theirs are not any more handmade than ours. In fact, four of them offer the exact same product as us, from the exact same supplier in Palestine (Hirbawi factory). Why are we being singled out? We think it is precisely because we are a nonprofit supporting Palestinians and Palestinian human rights. That is the main difference between us and the other Etsy stores.

In a followup email, ISM reproduced some correspondence between them and Etsy. Etsy's emails prohibit their being reproduced without permission, but it was clear based on ISM's own admission that the items were not handmade by the owner of the shop, which is Etsy's criterion for handmade items.

Even so, ISM is crying foul in this response:

Even if we accept that you did not deliberately discriminate against us because of our advocacy for Palestinian rights, you are practicing de facto discrimination. You suggest that if If we see a listing that might not be appropriate for Etsy, the best way is to report it via your site-wide flagging system. You are therefore relying heavily upon others to uphold your standards. If no one complains, it is unlikely that you will take action.

This is ripe for exploitation by persons who want to persecute others or sabotage their competition. In our case, our Palestinian advocacy is not appreciated by persons or groups who would be pleased to see Palestinians disappear from the remnants of historic Palestine where they cling to existence under horrific conditions. I can well imagine that such persons might organize in such a manner as to create a critical mass of reports in order to motivate you to close our store. It is therefore not accurate to say that our store was not suspended due to our support of Palestinians and Palestinian human rights, only that this was perhaps not your intention.

Thanks for the advice, ISM! There are plenty of other Etsy shops selling anti-Israel propaganda items that are clearly not handmade by the sellers.

Like this:

Or this:

Or this

:

Or this T-shirt taken from a Latuff cartoon:

:
Just go to Etsy and search for "Palestine" or "Gaza." If you see items that violate their policies, you can complain. The email address is integrity@etsy.com, addressed to Alison.

The president of the Qatari National Committee for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, Ambassador Mohammed Al-Emadi, admits that the mechanism for rebuilding Gaza by giving cement directly to Gazans has failed.

In his assessment of the UN mechanism to bring the building materials to Gaza, Al-Emadi said it was "unfortunate and non-effective... because 90% of those affected have sold the quantities of cement they have received on the black market without starting the reconstruction of their homes," and it would have been better to give them the money directly instead of cement.

Reconstruction of terror tunnels and military bases has been proceeding apace even as individual houses, according to Hamas and Islamic Jihad statements, even as houses remain in ruins.

"We need large quantities of cement for each project, and we need materials for brick factories and other factories. The mechanism must be different so [the materials] are delivered to the contracting companies and not to the citizens."

He says that a new mechanism is going to be put into place where building projects of international agencies are directly supplied with construction materials. A new initiative where Israel will allow 1000 tons a day for Qatari-funded construction projects will start next Wednesday.

Surprisingly, even as he emphasized that Qatar is not negotiating directly with Israel to bring aid to Gaza, Emadi praised Israel's efforts, saying that he sensed a serious intention by Israel for the reconstruction of Gaza and to improve living conditions.

Expressing frustration over previous failed efforts to help Gaza, Emadi also said "Qatar paid more than $100 million for Gaza electricity over 3 years through Egypt and the PA, and the whole amount went down the drain."

Qatar has been building 2,000 housing units in Sheikh Hamad and 500 houses elsewhere, as well as some other reconstruction projects.

Qatar has pledged $1 billion for Gaza, including $200 million to the PA that Emadi claims are earmarked to be spent in Gaza.

Hamas propaganda video pretends that they called off mortar attacks when kids arrived

In concert with Hamas' Twitter outreach to the West, they released this video that is 100% poppycock:

Last summer, Hamas sent texts to Israeli civilians saying that they were legal targets:

Your government claimed yesterday that it stopped the battle, but without our consent and meeting our conditions - and it thought we were rash enough to [agree to a] cease-fire. On the contrary, we hurried to strike anywhere in Israel - from Dimona to Haifa - and we made you hide in shelters like mice. . .

Again, we warn you - if your government does not agree to all of our conditions, then all of Israel will legally remain open to our weapons fire.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "all of Israel" includes significant numbers of women and children. (And Arabs.)

They don't have binoculars powerful enough to see where they are shooting their rockets, but they know quite well that they are aiming at cities and civilian targets, as the Qassam Brigades wrote at the time:

The city of Tel Aviv which is the head of the economy, and the Zionist Ben Gurion airport, has become a strategic goal for the Qassam rockets.

Aren't there some kids in Tel Aviv?

Last summer, Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum exhorted Israeli Arabs to kill any Jews they can find:

Let me say, loud and clear, to our people in the West Bank: Don't you have cars? Don't you have motorcycles? Don't you have knives? Don't you have clubs? Don't you have bulldozers? Don't you have trucks? Anyone who has a knife, a club, a weapon, or a car, yet does not use it to run over a Jew or a settler, and does not use it to kill dozens of Zionists, does not belong to Palestine.

Last November, the Qassam Brigades published a list of their achievements. The very first one they mention was the murder of a "rabbi" who lived in Gaza. Not a soldier, but a bearded farmer that they happily brag about killing because he is assumed to be not only Jewish but also a rabbi.

Yet Hamas knows one thing well. Clueless Westerners don't automatically assume that the words that come out of the mouths of even proud murderers are necessarily untrue. And as they learned from their ideological predecessors, if you repeat a lie often enough...

2015 Israel Voters Guide (funny and not too inaccurate)

Received via email, pretty funny:

(h/t David)

Last November, Reuters reported:

The United States is in the midst of renewing its 35-year-old commitment to supply Israel with oil in emergency situations after the pact expired on Tuesday, a U.S. State Department official said.

The United States "is in close contact with the government of Israel on extending the longstanding memorandum of understanding" between the two countries on emergency oil supplies, a State Department official said on the condition of anonymity.

The agreement was first signed in 1979 by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan after the Iranian revolution sent shock waves of higher prices and fears about disruptions in the Middle East through oil markets.

Under the agreement, the United States, provided it has enough oil for its own use, will provide Israel crude for purchase. If Israel is unable to secure transportation for the oil, Washington will make "every effort" to help Israel secure transit, according to the agreement.

The pact is an exception to Washington's ban on crude oil exports that Congress passed after the Arab oil embargo of 1973 to 1974 spiked petroleum prices and led to fears of shortages. Israel has never asked the U.S. to supply it with emergency oil.

Amid a six-year drilling boom that has led to a glut of light sweet crude along the U.S. Gulf Coat refinery hub, the Obama administration has been pressured by oil companies to relax or lift trade restrictions.

The agreement between the United States and Israel was extended in 1994 and in 2004.

It looks like this never happened.

From FuelFix:

For more than three decades, the United States has pledged to help Israel get crude in case the country’s own oil supplies were cut off.

But a U.S.-Israel agreement guaranteeing that emergency assistance expired last November. And now, six senators are pressing the Obama administration to re-up the deal.

The senators delivered their plea in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, urging him “to expedite the renewal of this important agreement as a meaningful gesture of support to our friend and ally at this challenging time.”

Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Mark Warner, D-Va., spearheaded the letter. Other signers were Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Jim Risch of Idaho as well as Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

From Globes:

The US has not renewed a historic agreement under which it guaranteed a supply of oil to Israel in emergencies, that is, instances in which Israel might be cut off from its regular commercial sources of oil because of war or closure of sea lanes. The agreement expired in November 2014, and since then the US administration has done nothing to renew it, Washington sources told "Globes".

The sources said that it was not clear whether this was a deliberate step by the administration, stemming perhaps from renewed friction between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House, or a matter of bureaucratic inertia in Washington.
...
Israel has never invoked the agreement, but Israel sources say that its importance lies in its very existence. An Israeli source compared the oil supply agreement to the loan guarantee agreement between the two countries that enables Israel to obtain commercial loans at low rates of interest. "Israel used the loan guarantee agreement very sparingly, but it is important that the loan guarantees agreement should exist, and the same applies to the energy agreement that guaranteed a regular supply of oil," the source said, "We never used it, but it's important that it should lie signed in a drawer."

Is the White House that petty?

Unfortunately, the answer seems to be yes.

(h/t Yenta)

03/16 Links Pt2: Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?; BDS, Anti-Semitic in Intent if Not in Effect

From Ian:

Should the ABC (Australia) have given advocacy journalist Sophie McNeill the keys to its Jerusalem bureau?

There are serious questions that must be raised about whether Sophie McNeill, who has recently been appointed the ABC’s exclusive Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, can comply with the obligations contained in ABC’s Code of Practice.
Interviewed by her former professor Victoria Mason in 2011, McNeill said that the journalism she wanted to do was to frame stories from the point of view of the people who are “really suffering” in a situation. Both the examples she offered referred to Palestinians.
McNeill has acted on her self-proclaimed sympathy for the Palestinians by appearing on a panel at two pro-Palestinian events, including one sponsored by Palestinian groups and speaking alongside two other speakers who called for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the movement to sever all economic, educational and cultural ties with Israel. She has also written for Electronic Intifada, an extremist website that routinely publishes screeds calling for the destruction of Israel and justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.
How could the ABC give such a candidly agenda-motivated journalist the exclusive job of Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent, with extensive autonomy?

Anti-Israel Efforts Are Anti-Semitic in Intent if Not in Effect

Yet not without precedent did the academic boycott lobby inside the MLA select their strategy of largely meaningless, if vociferous, denunciation of Israel in particular. Cleverly, like the United Nations itself in this way—no doubt the MLA activists were aware that three-fourths of all UN resolutions that single out a lone country for criticism by the General Assembly have been aimed at the Jewish state—the professors of various literatures knew just where to begin healing the world, by piling on with the “language.” Moreover, not just the UNGA, but a smaller and less important MLA sister organization—the American Studies Association (ASA)—had also recently decided on a similarly cowardly course of action, and even went as far as voting to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. While the problems with a corrupt General Assembly are no secret (its motives for attacking Israel, mostly symbolically and out of all proportion, are well understood by that institution’s observers), the ASA’s weird decision to pick now to get in on the Israel-bashing phenomenon of many years raised a question. Why?
Which in turn gave rise to an answer.
As explained by ASA President, Professor Curtis Marez, in what quickly became an infamous joke—although/because he really was serious (he actually said it), “You have to start somewhere.”

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?

For half a century, memories of the Holocaust limited anti-Semitism on the Continent. That period has ended—the recent fatal attacks in Paris and Copenhagen are merely the latest examples of rising violence against Jews. Renewed vitriol among right-wing fascists and new threats from radicalized Islamists have created a crisis, confronting Jews with an agonizing choice.
The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, the son of Holocaust survivors, is an accomplished, even gifted, pessimist. To his disciples, he is a Jewish Zola, accusing France’s bien-pensant intellectual class of complicity in its own suicide. To his foes, he is a reactionary whose nostalgia for a fairy-tale French past is induced by an irrational fear of Muslims. Finkielkraut’s cast of mind is generally dark, but when we met in Paris in early January, two days after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he was positively grim.
“My French identity is reinforced by the very large number of people who openly declare, often now with violence, their hostility to French values and culture,” he said. “I live in a strange place. There is so much guilt and so much worry.” We were seated at a table in his apartment, near the Luxembourg Gardens. I had come to discuss with him the precarious future of French Jewry, but, as the hunt for the Charlie Hebdo killers seemed to be reaching its conclusion, we had become fixated on the television.
Finkielkraut sees himself as an alienated man of the left. He says he loathes both radical Islamism and its most ferocious French critic, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s extreme right-wing—and once openly anti-Semitic—National Front party. But he has lately come to find radical Islamism to be a more immediate, even existential, threat to France than the National Front. “I don’t trust Le Pen. I think there is real violence in her,” he told me. “But she is so successful because there actually is a problem of Islam in France, and until now she has been the only one to dare say it.” (h/t Herb Glatter)

From Al Arabiya:

Canadian superstar rapper Drake brought his “Would You Like a Tour?” show to Dubai on Saturday, wowing a 15,000 strong crown with a medley of his hits.

“Excited to be performing for the first time ever in Dubai on March 14th at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium,” he wrote on Twitter on Monday, before taking to the stage to declare he wanted to buy a home in the city.

With more No. 1 songs in the U.S. billboard chart than any other rapper, Drake performed hits such as “Find Your Love,” “Headlines” and “Best I Ever Had.”

Drake is Jewish. I don't think he has ever visited Israel, though.

I didn't see any Arabic news sites mention his religion.

"Mitzvah Tantz" video goes viral on Arabic websites

The Mitzvah Tantz, as described by Wikipedia:

[T]he Hasidic custom of the men dancing before the bride on the wedding night, after the wedding feast. Commonly, the bride, who usually stands perfectly still at one end of the room, will hold one end of a long sash or a gartel while the one dancing before her holds the other end.[1] There are times when one of the leading rabbis, usually her father or grandfather, will dance with her as well. The dance is usually a highly charged emotional moment, wherein the dancer prays silently for the couple's success in life.

For some reason, a lively mitzvah tantz video has gone viral on Arab websites, usually with the headline "Oddity of Jewish weddings." Over 70,000 have watched this video since it was uploaded on Saturday:

Most Arabs don't seem to like it, with far more dislikes than likes on YouTube. Many websites include comments like "May Allah curse the Jews."

None of the articles I've seen so far make an attempt to explain the tradition.

03/16 Links Pt1: The anti-Israel network behind UN's Gaza investigation; Hillary’s Hezbollah Donor

From Ian:

Gerald Steinberg: Revealed: the anti-Israel network behind UN's Gaza investigation

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is one of many organisations that use moral-sounding language as a façade for the opposite. Its officials and activities are controlled by regimes with abysmal human rights records - including Russia, China, and Middle Eastern dictatorships. It is not surprising that Israel is the main focus of "investigations" and condemnations.
Among its other faults, the UNHRC is very secretive - its reports are characterised by a lack of transparency, often written by unidentified persons with a worrying lack of political impartiality. For years, the secret authors of the 500-page document condemning Israel for "war crimes", published as the Goldstone Investigation in 2009, were hidden. (Judge Richard Goldstone showed little grasp of the content, and later acknowledged that the allegations were baseless.)
Recently, however, Hillel Neuer, the head of UN Watch, published the results of detailed research showing that it was Grietje Baars who assembled the text of the Goldstone report (primarily from questionable NGO claims). Ms Baars, who teaches human rights at City University in London, is a radical Marxist and an important figure in a network that seeks to exploit international law to target Israel.
Like others in this network, Ms Baars is closely linked to powerful anti-Israel NGOs, such as the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and Swedish development charity Diakonia, helping them in campaigns to prosecute Israeli soldiers and officials.
Diakonia is mainly funded by the Swedish government (about £30m annually), implicating them in this moral corruption. The charity submitted a lengthy "report" to the Goldstone Commission, thereby suggesting that the appointment of Ms Baars gave rise to a conflict of interest.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Israelis prepare to vote; Palestinians prepare to fight

For some Palestinians, the election is not about removing Netanyahu from power. Rather, it is about removing Israel from the face of the earth and replacing it with an Islamist empire.
Kerry's statement about the revival of the peace process shows that he remains oblivious to the reality in the Middle East, particularly with regards to the Palestinians.
Kerry is ignoring the fact that the Palestinians are today divided into two camps; one that wants to destroy Israel through terrorism and jihad and another that is working hard to delegitimize and isolate Israel with the hope of forcing it to its knees.
As Kerry was talking about the revival of the peace process, Hamas announced that it has completed preparations for the next confrontation with Israel.
Abbas will come to the talks with the same demands he and his predecessor have made over the past two decades, namely a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. And when Israel does not accept all his demands, he will again walk out and demand international intervention to impose a solution on Israel.
Talk about the resumption of the peace process is nothing but a silly joke.

Hillary’s Hezbollah-Friendly Donor

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from a former deputy prime minister of Lebanon known for defending Hezbollah, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
Issam Fares, a Lebanese billionaire who has established himself in the United States as a prominent philanthropist, has given between $1 and $5 million in donations to the Clintons’ foundation with donations coming as recently as last year, according to a public donor disclosure list on the foundation’s website.
Fares was a part of the pro-Syria government of Prime Minister Omar Karami during his tenure as deputy prime minister between 2000 and 2005.
“It seems the Zionist lobby in the United States and its agents in the region were displeased and worried that certain Lebanese and Arab personalities have a friendly relationship with some senior officials of the new American administration,” Fares was quoted as saying in a 2001 statement after questions were raised about his relationship with incoming U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Fares decried comparisons drawn between the terrorist organization al Qaeda and Hezbollah after the September 11 terror attacks.
“It is a mistake to make a comparison between the [Al Qaeda] network … which Lebanon has condemned, and Hezbollah, which Lebanon considers a resistance party fighting the Israeli occupation,” Fares told Agence France-Presse. “Hezbollah did not carry out any resistance operation against American interests in Lebanon or abroad and did not target civilians in its resistance activities as happened on Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center.”

The third holiest karate demonstration on Earth

Yesterday, on the Temple Mount:

Of course, such a show would never be tolerated in the courtyards of the mosques in Mecca and Medina.

Most of the comments talk about how great it is that these kids are preparing for victory over the Jews.

(h/t Bob Knot)

A Tunisian court banned two planned tourist flights to Amman, Jordan where the travelers planned to visit Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho .

Lawyer Nadia Alorga, on behalf of a group called the "Tunisian Association of Arab Resistance to imperialism and Zionism" known as "Resist," filed a suit to stop the trips, saying that they were a form of "normalization" with Israel.

The Tunisian Constitution under the new "Arab Spring" government does not criminalize "normalization"with Israel, but the lawyer Alorga based on her legal claim on the idea that the constitution provides for the support of the just causes in the world and there is no more just cause than the Palestinian cause.

This is ironic, because the PA leadership is on the record to encourage such visits from Arab and Muslim countries.

This is the first time that the Tunisian judiciary intervened in the political controversy since the rule of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Some Tunisian political activists have been claiming that Zionist activity has been penetrating Tunisia using US funds through "suspicious private associations" operating in the framework of "civil society."

National Intelligence Estimate no longer lists Iran, Hezbollah as terror threats

From TOI:

An annual report delivered recently to the US Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats, after years in which they featured in similar reports.

The unclassified version of the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities, dated February 26, 2015 (PDF), noted Iran’s efforts to combat Sunni extremists, including those of the ultra-radical Islamic State group, who were perceived to constitute the preeminent terrorist threat to American interests worldwide.

In describing Iran’s regional role, the report noted the Islamic Republic’s “intentions to dampen sectarianism, build responsive partners, and deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia,” but cautioned that “Iranian leaders—particularly within the security services—are pursuing policies with negative secondary consequences for regional stability and potentially for Iran.

Here is the evolution of how the NIE regarded Iran as a terror threat in recent years (this is separate from their nuclear program):

2012:

The Threat from Iran

The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials-probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei-have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime. We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against US or allied interests overseas.

Iran’s willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran’s evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the Ambassador as well as Iranian leaders’ perceptions of US threats against the regime.

2013:

Iran and Lebanese Hizballah

The failed 2011 plot against the Saudi Ambassador in Washington shows that Iran may be more willing to seize opportunities to attack in the United States in response to perceived offenses against the regime. Iran is also an emerging and increasingly aggressive cyber actor. However, we have not changed our assessment that Iran prefers to avoid direct confrontation with the United States because regime preservation is its top priority.

Hizballah’s overseas terrorist activity has been focused on Israel—an example is the Bulgarian Government’s announcement that Hizballah was responsible for the July 2012 bus bombing at the Burgas airport that killed five Israeli citizens. We continue to assess that the group maintains a strong anti-US agenda but is reluctant to confront the United States directly outside the Middle East.

2014:

Iran and Hizballah

Outside of the Syrian theater, Iran and Lebanese Hizballah continue to directly threaten the interests of US allies. Hizballah has increased its global terrorist activity in recent years to a level that we have not seen since the 1990s.

2015:

(Nothing.)

This is an amazing evolution of thinking. Even as the NIE was noting that Iran and its proxy Hizballah was increasing their global terror activity over the years against US allies, it no longer sees it as a threat against the US itself (despite the 2011 attack on the Saudi ambassador), so it is no longer even worth mentioning.

Also amazing is that the near simultaneous Iranian attacks on three separate Israeli diplomatic missions in 2012 are not mentioned at all, even though the FBI at the time said "Quds Force, Hezbollah and others have shown they both have the capability and the willingness to extend beyond that [Middle East] region of the world and likely here into the homeland itself."

The NIE is not supposed to be politically motivated, but it is hard to escape two conclusions.

One is that as part of the Obama strategy to embrace Iran as a potential ally against Sunni extremism, the idea of Iranian backed terror is inconvenient to mention.

The other is that Iranian terror attacks against Israeli targets and other US allies are irrelevant in determining if Iran is a terror threat to the US itself, a truly shortsighted analysis.

The NIE remains on the fence as to Iran's nuclear designs even as it notes that it is working on building ICBMs that can carry nuclear warheads worldwide:

We continue to assess that Iran’s overarching strategic goals of enhancing its security, prestige, and regional influence have led it to pursue capabilities to meet its civilian goals and give it the ability to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons, if it chooses to do so. We do not know whether Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

We also continue to assess that Iran does not face any insurmountable technical barriers to producing a nuclear weapon, making Iran’s political will the central issue. However, Iranian implementation of the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) has at least temporarily inhibited further progress in its uranium enrichment and plutonium production capabilities and effectively eliminated Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium. The agreement has also enhanced the transparency of Iran’s nuclear activities, mainly through improved International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access and earlier warning of any effort to make material for nuclear weapons using its safeguarded facilities.

We judge that Tehran would choose ballistic missiles as its preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons, if it builds them. Iran’s ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering WMD, and Tehran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East. Iran’s progress on space launch vehicles—along with its desire to deter the United States and its allies—provides Tehran with the means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

There is no strategic thinking here, and it is frightening that the US makes strategic decisions based on an analysis that appears to be more interested in furthering political interests than soberly assessing true threats.

More on how Arabs treated Jews in 19th century Palestine

From Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land, Volume 2, by John Lloyd Stephens, 1849:

I cannot leave this place, however, without a word or two more. I had spent a long evening with my Jewish friends. The old rabbi talked to me of their prospects and condition, and told me how he had left his country in Europe many years before, and come with his wife and children to lay their bones in the Holy Land. He was now eighty years old; and for thirty years, he said, he had lived with the sword suspended over his head; had been reviled, buffeted, and spit upon; and, though sometimes enjoying a respite from persecution, he never knew at what moment the bloodhounds might not be let loose upon him ; that, since the country had been wrested from the sultan by the Pacha of Egypt, they had been comparatively safe and tranquil; though some idea may be formed of this comparative security from the fact that, during the revolution two years before, when Ibrahim Pacha, after having been pent up several months in Jerusalem, burst out like a roaring lion, the first place upon which his wrath descended was the unhappy Hebron ; and while their guilty brethren were sometimes spared, the unhappy Jews, never offending but always suffering, received the full weight of Arab vengeance. Their houses were ransacked and plundered; their gold and silver, and all things valuable, carried away; and their wives and daughters violated before their eyes by a brutal soldiery.

This is the Hebron massacre of 1834. Unlike 1929, it was not the Jews' neighbors in Hebron who preformed the massacre this time but the Egyptians - even though the Jews had not done anything against them. Some say that the Jews were assured of their safety, which is why they didn't flee the oncoming soldiers as their Muslim neighbors did.

7 Jewish men were murdered and 5 Jewish girls raped before being killed.

The narrative shows that the Jews felt themselves to be on the lowest rung of the social ladder, always in danger from whatever event happens.

Terrorists bless +972 writer for supporting United (Arab) List

At Arabic site Bokra.net, Noam Sheizaf - a writer at +972 Magazine - explains why he will vote for the (Arab) United List in the upcoming Israeli elections.

The Al Qassam Brigades, the "military" wing of Hamas, has been active on Twitter trying to tell Arab Israelis to vote for that same group. (I'm assuming that this is not a fake account; it looks legit but one never knows.)

@AnkeJulieMartin @afagerbakke We had democratic elections. @Ayman_Odeh_TJL, @Ahmad_tibi , @haneenzoabii will help the liberation
— Ezzedeen Al-Qassam (@qassamenglish) March 15, 2015

#AskHamas who do we support in the Zionist election? @Ayman_Odeh_TJL, @haneenzoabii, @Ahmad_tibi and all those who will help the liberation!
— Ezzedeen Al-Qassam (@qassamenglish) March 13, 2015

So the terror group is ecstatic at the Jewish useful idiot who is so far left that he has turned around and supports the choice of the most misogynist, antisemitic Arabs:

@sfrantzman @nsheizaf Allah bless him
— Ezzedeen Al-Qassam (@qassamenglish) March 15, 2015

What do 21st century "progressive" Jews have in common with Muslims who want the world to roll back to the 7th century? Hating Israel!

From Ma'an:

The military wing of Hamas on Saturday said that it had rebuilt a number of military bases near the Israeli border in the Gaza Strip, asserting that it had recovered from Israel's summer offensive and was "not afraid" of confronting the occupation again.

"No sooner has the war come to an end, than the al-Qassam Brigades started a new stage of the conflict in preparation for the battle of liberation," a report on the official website of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades said.

The report said that fighters from the group had rebuilt military training sites near the border in the north, east, and west of the Gaza Strip, giving lie to Israeli claims that "Operation Protective Edge" in July-August 2014 had caused the group serious damage.

You will recall that the far-left Gisha NGO recently said that no houses were rebuilt since the war.

The chances that Gisha or HRW or Amnesty will condemn Hamas for prioritizing its military build-up over rebuilding damaged homes is roughly zero.