Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

A brit and a wedding - expanding the tribe of Israel (Forest Rain)

“What’s his name?”

The women whisper between themselves, not sure they heard correctly: “What’s his name?”

“Shimon? Ah, Shimon… that’s a good name.”

“Shimon, because of Lag BaOmer. That’s a good name.”

Repetition registers his name. Eight days old, he is now known to the community, part of the collective memory - the newest member of the tribe.

Satisfied, the women move to congratulate the mother, ignoring the men who are still in the midst of the ceremony. Everyone says “Mazal Tov!” to everyone else. It’s not just the parents who are congratulated on the birth of their son, it is the community that congratulates itself, rejoicing and celebrating the addition of a new member.

A new Jew. That’s not something to be taken for granted.

I started the day with a brit and ended it with a wedding.

The “brit milah” is the covenant of circumcision, commanded of every Jewish male, since Abraham. The circumcision is performed by a mohel ("circumciser") on the eighth day of a male infant's life. Modern medicine has discovered that this ancient tradition helps preserve physical health, promoting cleanliness and preventing disease. This is a side benefit to fulfilling the ancient covenant.

The brit is meant to be an undeniable, permanent symbol of the bond between God and the Jewish people. Often this was used against the Jewish people. Enemies searching out Jewish men for destruction could simply force the suspects to undress. No man could deny his connection to the Jewish people. The difference between him and every other man was inescapably obvious.

Throughout the centuries, the Nation of Israel has kept our covenant, for better and for worse.

Not something to be taken for granted.

A wedding is also a covenant. Bride and groom stand in front of the community and join themselves to each other. Different cultures consider this occasion one that is sanctified, viewing both the ceremony and the union that is created as holy.

The Jewish wedding has more layers. Here too community has a unique role as does Jewish history - our unbreakable connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

The Jewish wedding celebration does not belong just to the couple and their families. The community attending is part of the event, tasked with the job of making sure that the celebration is full of joy.

Bringing joy to the bride and groom is a task that is considered so important that even people in mourning (who are not allowed to attend or participate in celebrations) are permitted to come to the event to congratulate the couple and witness the ceremony (after which they should leave so as to not take part in the actual celebrations).

You might wonder, isn’t celebrating a wedding obvious? Of course, that’s a joyful time! Why should you need to be commanded to be happy?

How many times throughout Jewish history has it been difficult to celebrate? Was it easy to find joy during the Holocaust, when neighbors were disappearing in the night, when family was murdered in front of your eyes? When you don’t know if you or your loved ones will live to see another day, how do you celebrate?

Then again, how do you not?

Through pogroms, exile, wars and terror attacks, despite enemy after enemy rising up to destroy us, the Jewish people have carved out niches of joy – determined to celebrate new Jewish life. A wedding, a promise of a new Jewish home, a new family, children. A brit, a new member of the community. These are not to be taken for granted.

And then there is Jerusalem.

The Jewish wedding is not complete without the additional layer of our history, our bond to Jerusalem. On what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, the couple must pause and put Jerusalem first. The community listens in silence as the groom declares: “May my tongue cleave to my mouth, if I ever think not of thee, if I ever prize not Jerusalem above all joys!” (Psalm 137). After this the groom breaks a glass, symbolizing the destruction of the ancient Jewish Temple that once stood on the Temple Mount in the heart of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is held up, above all other joys.

I began the day with a brit and ended it with a wedding. A day of expanding the Tribe of Israel, welcoming a new Jew, just eight days old in to the community, cheering the creation of a new Jewish family who, in turn, will add their children to the tribe.

Not something to take for granted.

Our tribe is unusual. We are bound to each other, individuals and community. We are bound to God, as individuals and as a nation. And Jerusalem pulses through our veins and memory, binding it all together.

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Arab states dropping even "full settlement freeze" demand to establish closer ties with Israel

This Wall Street Journal story is a bombshell that was drowned out by the many other bombshells that come out of Washington these days.

Arab Gulf states have offered to take concrete steps to establish better relations with Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make a significant overture aimed at restarting the Middle East peace process, according to people briefed on the discussions.

The offer to the U.S. and Israel comes ahead of President Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East. The potential steps include establishing direct telecommunications links with Israel, allowing overflight rights to Israeli aircraft, and lifting restrictions on some trade, said these people.

The Gulf countries, in turn, would require Mr. Netanyahu to make what they would consider to be a peace overture to the Palestinians. Such steps could include stopping construction of settlements in certain areas of the West Bank and allowing freer trade into the Gaza Strip.

The Arab states’ position, outlined in an unreleased discussion paper shared among several Gulf countries, is aimed in part at aligning them with Mr. Trump, who has stressed his desire to work with the Arab states to forge a Middle East peace agreement, the people said. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have informed the U.S. and Israel of their willingness to take such steps.

The Gulf states’ initiative, according to the people briefed on it, underscores the vastly improved relations between Israel and the Gulf states in recent years, driven by their shared concerns about Iran and Islamic State.

“We no longer see Israel as an enemy, but a potential opportunity,” said a senior Arab official involved in the discussions.

The article goes on to list many under-the-table examples of cooperation between Israel an the Arab world happening now.

The Gulf states have dropped their longstanding demand to wait for a "peace agreement" before establishing relations with Israel. They just want Israel to make some essentially moves to provide cover for the closer cooperation they want with Israel anyway.

In fact, they are no longer even demanding a full settlement freeze.

The Arab nations are more pro-Likud than Obama!

Stopping settlement activity in "certain areas" of the West Bank? Israel already severely limits new construction almost everywhere outside existing blocs. Check.

Allowing freer trade into Gaza? Israel's already doing that too. Check.

Israel just has to provide yet another peace plan - one that everyone knows the Palestinians will refuse. But it will be enough for the Arab states to have diplomatic and public-relations cover to do what they want to do anyway.

The Arab states are slowly but surely signalling that they are more aligned with Israel's interests than with those of the Palestinians. The Palestinian issue is being crowded out. And the Palestinians see this very clearly. The only quote from a Palestinian official in the entire article was a very muted reaction:

“We don’t mind a good relationship between Israel and the Arab world,” said Husam Zomlot, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative in Washington. “[But] is this the entry to peace? Or is it the blocker?”

For all the the mixed messages coming from the White House about the Middle East, many of them troubling, a lot of this is because of Trump's acceptance of Netanyahu's vision of a broader coalition of Sunni Arab states and Israel. For better or worse, Trump's shakeup of the US foreign policy is prompting moderate Arab allies to want to be on his good side. In this case, it could pay off, "big league."

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Silence is consent: "Pro-Israel community" supports terrorist Rasmea Odeh's right to speak at Northwestern U

From the Daily Northwestern:

Palestinian organizer Rasmea Odeh and University of Illinois at Chicago Prof. Nadine Naber spoke Monday about the Palestinian experience in both the Middle East and the U.S., saying Palestine supporters must continue to fight for liberation.

The talk, held in Technological Institute and attended by more than 70 people, was part of a series of events hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine for Israeli Apartheid Week. The week aims to “shed a light on the settler colonial project,” according to SJP’s Facebook page. Monday also marked the 69th anniversary of Nakba, which many Palestinians observe as a forced eviction from their homes following the creation of the state of Israel. Others refer to the 1948 signing of the Israeli Declaration of Independence as Israel Independence Day.

Israeli Apartheid Week has now been extended from February to May, apparently.

Now "Nakba Day" is the primary definition of Israel's Independence Day, according to this reporter.

And only in the third paragraph does this report grudgingly bring up Odeh's history, only to dismiss it.

Odeh was convicted by the Israeli government in 1969 for participating in bombings that killed two Israeli college students. However, she said she was convicted after being tortured into making a false confession.

The fact that her torture claims are an easily proven lie is not even worth mentioning.

However, the obvious bias is not the most disturbing part of the article. (Another student newspaper reporting was even worse.) The pseudo-response from the organized "pro-Israel" community is.

Half an hour before the event in Tech began, a group of students from Fiedler Hillel, Wildcats for Israel and J Street U organized a vigil to mourn the two students who were killed in the 1969 bombing. More than 120 people, including University President Morton Schapiro, attended the vigil.

Hillel president Samantha Max said the vigil was not pro-Israel or a direct response to anything Odeh would say during the event.

“We wanted to offer space for people to decompress and we wanted to really focus it on the victims, these two people who were killed in the 1969 bombing attack,” the Medill junior said. “And really just offer an alternative space for people that would in no way disrupt the event.”

It is nice that the number of people who attended the vigil outnumbered the number who attended Odeh's talk. And it is also nice that it attracted the University President.

But it is nevertheless a poor response to a convicted, admitted terrorist being allowed to be given a place of honor and an opportunity to spout lies about both Israel and the US (she called the Justice Department "racist") on campus.

Sure she has a right to free speech. And that right extends, beyond this silent vigil, to create a noisy, outraged protest outside the actual talk.

Hillel appears to have been rendered impotent by its strange desire to partner with J-Street U in an action that their president is seemingly proud to label "not pro-Israel." But Wildcats for Israel should have skipped this and protested Odeh directly.

The lack of an organized expression of anger at a murderer and terrorist on campus is more of a statement than the silent vigil. After all, the anti-Israel side doesn't afford pro-Israel speakers the same courtesy. In February, Bassem Eid was forced to cancel his speech at Northwestern after he saw the same hecklers who disrupted previous Chicago campus speeches.

I am not saying that Odeh's actual speech should be disrupted. I'm saying that there should have been a noisy protest outside her venue with flyers and signs telling the truth about her. The vigil didn't serve that purpose, and the articles about her appearance are therefore unabashedly anti-Israel since there were no voices opposing her - only organized silence.

As the Talmud says, silence is consent. And this vigil was a tacit acceptance of Odeh's right to slander and lie about Israel and the US.

Rasmea Odeh murdered two people. The facts are undisputed for anyone who bothers to find them. Holding a vigil in the victims' memory is nice, but allowing Odeh's presence and lies to be unopposed on campus sends a much more powerful message of acceptance than any silent vigil can.

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ICRC closes office in Ramallah because of violent break-in and threats over hunger strikers

Since the Palestinian Arab prisoner hunger strike is getting no results and nearly no coverage outside the territories, Palestinian supporters of the imprisoned terrorists are getting frustrated.

So they broke into the International Committee of the Red Cross offices in Ramallah and threatened the staff there because they say that the ICRC isn't doing enough for the prisoners.

The office is closed until further notice.

The ICRC visited terror leader Marwan Barghouti, the cheating hunger striker, but that apparently isn't enough.

In 2016, the ICRC helped arrange 114,000 visits to Palestinian Arab prisoners. But apparently that isn't enough.

So Palestinians who pretend to care about "human rights" of terrorists (getting more satellite TV channels) close down the major organization that helps prisoners.

This is Palestinian logic.

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05/16 Links Pt2: Are Zionists Worse than Islamists?; #NakbaDay commemorating a Jihad against the Jews

From Ian:

Are Zionists Worse than Islamists?

Are Zionists worse than Islamists? According to how the mainstream media, the U.N., the E.U., NGOs, universities and academia, U.S. government officials, and Arab and Muslim propaganda tend to whitewash Islamism – including horrific acts of Islamic-inspired terrorism – and denigrate Zionism, the answer is yes. Here's a handy guide.
Islamism: Can there be any serious argument about a religious-political system that seeks to enshrine and enact its laws (sharia) on lands it occupies, and attempts to conquer through jihad (holy war)? Sharia law essentially abuses women, endorses so-called honor killings and female genital mutilation, demands male supremacy, is biased against all "infidels," glorifies those who chop off the heads of Jews and Christians or who otherwise murder infidels, stones adulterers, puts to death apostates, cuts off the hands of thieves, severely punishes those who criticize Mohammed or Islam, treats non-believers as second-class citizens (dhimmis), and is anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-democracy. Its ultimate goal is Islamic supremacy and triumphalism. What positive things have Islamists brought to the world at large?
Zionism: According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the term was coined in 1890 by Nathan Birnbaum and generally refers to "the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism has come to include the movement for the development of the State of Israel and the protection of the Jewish nation in Israel through support for the Israel Defense Forces." The Jewish people's basic right to self-determination owing to its long history of being persecuted and living as a diaspora community is potent and self-evident. Israel is an open democracy that respects all civil rights and grants equal rights to women, minorities (25% are Arab and non-Jews), and gays. It has an independent judiciary, a robust free press, and excellent health care and educational systems. It upholds freedom of religion and worship with full and complete access to religious sites – in short, classic Western liberal values. This is all enshrined in its Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.
Moreover, Zionism has unleashed the potential of Israelis to endeavor in tikkun olam – repairing of the world. It is the "Start-Up Nation" and shares with the world amazing life-saving technologies and devices – innovations in computers, biomedicine, water, and agriculture. It is a first responder to humanitarian crises and natural disasters around the world. This is a deep expression of Jewish values. Jews have no interest in conquering land or taking over the land of others – there is no jihad equivalent.

MEMRI: Writer For Official Saudi Daily: The Jews Have An Eternal Plot To Destroy Mankind

In a February 4, 2017 article in the official Saudi daily Al-Watan, Hala Al-Qahtani wrote that the Jews are eternally plotting to bankrupt the world and weaken its societies in order to facilitate their takeover of it and realize, at any cost, their dream of establishing a Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem. As evidence she claimed that three of the world's five richest families are Jewish families that are also members of Free Masons movement and have been pursuing this goal since the 18th century. These families, she said, are willing to do anything to advance their own interests, including starting world wars and toppling countries. It should be mentioned that of the three families she lists, only one, the Rothschild family, is actually Jewish.
The following are excerpts from her article:
"The 'fanatical' Jewish mind has throughout history lived in isolation, disconnected from the surrounding society, busy with the details of the grand eternal plot that aims to destroy the life of the surrounding societies in various ways, weaken them, degrade them and fragment them so as to strengthen [the Jewish mind] and enable it to control the world – and all this in order to realize at any cost its dream of establishing its Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem.
"Whoever follows Jewish history notices that [the Jews] work in close unison with the Zionist leadership that helps them realize the Jewish dream, [which is] first of all to control the money. They believe with all their heart that the only source of power is control over money, and that once the world is bankrupted the task of taking it overt will be easier for them. This control plan, which is as old as history itself, obviously had to begin with the U.S. and the [other] superpowers. Despite being difficult, this task has already been completed, in part of or in full, for today the world's money is in the hands of five families that are considered the richest, thee of which are Jewish and belong to the Free Masons and have been expanding their activity since the 18th century.

Palestinian prisoner demands, 2004

I found this old post of mine, copied from the Addameer Palestinian prisoner NGO in 2004, of only a partial list of demands from Palestinian prisoners who were engaged in a hunger strike then.

I dug up the entire list.

I believe that all of the demands today are a subset of these. (Unfortunately, the original link no longer works.)

It is nice to know that Israel didn't cave to these demands as far as we can tell.

This indicates that even during the worst of the second intifada terror spree. Palestinian prisoners in Isrseli prisons had it pretty darn good.

One: Family and/or Lawyers Visits
1. To remove the glass/plastic barrier between prisoners and visitors.
2. To increase the period of family visit to one hour.
3. To allow personal contact with children as in the past.
4. To allow all family members and relatives to visit.
5. To allow brothers and sisters to visit as in the past.
6. To allow private visits (without barriers).
7. To allow second and third degree relatives to visit.
8. To relocate detainees/prisoners in areas close to their residential areas.
9. To relocate prisoners who are immediate relatives in one prison.
10. To allow personal belongings and clothes to be brought during visits.
11. To allow prisoners to take photos with family members and children
12. To allow family visits for Arab prisoners once every 6 months for at least four hours.
13. To allow visitors to bring with them an unlimited number of photographs of relatives.
14. To allow visitors to bring with them bed-covers, watches, Palestinian head scarves, head wear, etc.
15. To make family visits on Fridays as in the past.
16. To bring in families to visit as soon as they arrive to the prison. No delays either at the prison or at checkpoints.
17. To allow prisoners to take out cantina (canteen food and drinks) to the visit without limitations.
18. To allow prisoners to take to any kind of drinks to the visit and not limit it to "Sprite".
19. To allow prisoners to be in plain clothes during the visit and not restricted to uniforms of certain colors or design.
20. To allow prisoners' handwork to be given out at the visit after coordination.
21. To allow bringing in all kinds of cigarettes, audio-tapes, and video-tapes during the visit.

Two: Phone Calls
1. To install pay phones in prison sections and/or yards and/or cells or allow mobile phones in every cell or for every prisoner.
2. To allow prisoners representatives to make phone calls to prisoner's organizations and lawyers and to Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners Affairs.
3. To remove all signal-distortion equipment - known to cause various health problems including cancer.

Three: Food
1. To prepare and define a list of quantities of all sorts of food that prisoners have the right to receive and to provide this list to prisoners representatives.
2. To change the basket of vegetables and fruits and end the practice of the administrations taking part of it.
3. To allow prisoners to buy vegetables, fruits, fish, and meats of all sorts on a monthly basis.
4. To allow prisoners in all prisons to prepare their own food according to their customs and religions.
5. To give back kitchen equipment that was taken away from prisoners in all "security" prisons.
6. To change old kitchen utensils and replace them with new ones.
7. To open bakeries and allow Palestinian prisoners to work at them; to allow bread to be brought in during visits.

Four: Health Care / Treatment
1. To develop and expand clinics and equip them for emergency cases especially at Nafha prison; A practicing physician should be at the clinic 7 days a week.
2. To allow a Palestinian prisoner to be present and working at the clinic.
3. To conduct surgery for prisoners immediately (without the usual intentional delay)
4. To allow physicians from outside to be able to check prisoners and ease the procedures in doing so.
5. To widen the range of physicians to include all specialties.
6. To allow dental surgeries/ teeth implants at the expense of prisoners by their own doctors.
7. To perform kidney, cornea and prosthetic transplants for those prisoners who have been waiting for years.
8. To allow the purchase of medical mattresses, pillows, shoes and some pharmaceuticals through the cantina.
9. To solve all problems related to the hospital in Ramleh.
10. An overall medical checkup for every prisoner at least once a year.
11. A optician visit to every prison on a regular and constant basis; eye checkups for every prisoner once every 6 months, changing of glasses when needed, allow the use of eye lenses; and to provide all needed supplies to solve health problems related vision.
12. To allow prisoners to have the equipment necessary to measure blood pressure and sugar levels where needed.

Five: Counting
1. To end all practices and policies accompanying counting the prisoners; allow all those prisoners in isolation back to regular sections

Six: Collective Punishment
1. To end all collective punishments.
2. To end the policy of fines.
3. To end the policy of confiscating personal belongings and punishing prisoners by denying them family visits.
4. To return all money confiscated from prisoners accounts to be able to use them in enhancing the health care and the education of prisoners.
5. To compensate prisoners for every item that was damaged intentionally through raids on cell-blocks.
6. To define the maximum isolation period as a punishment to a week and to provide humane detention conditions in isolation cells: access to toilets, a washing sink, a two hour recreation period, to allow a fan, to allow books and radio and cantina, not to handcuff prisoners inside the cells, to end the policy of handcuffing prisoners while meeting prison administration.

Seven: Education at Universities
1. To allow prisoners to study at Palestinian, Arab, and International Universities.
2. To end the policy of punishing prisoners by denying them the right to continue their education.
3. To allow newspapers, journals and magazines without any delay.
4. To allow purchasing different electronic dictionaries not limited to one brand.
5. To allow all cells to have access to a computer and not only students.
6. To allocate study rooms and halls and to reopen all libraries.
7. To allow stationary without limitation in type or quantities.
8. To allow photocopying research material, educational material

Eight: Cantine
1. To allow buying from Arab sources and end the monopoly.
2. To cancel the 17% VAT tax.
3. To unify the prices for all prisons.
4. To end all restrictions on the items allowed.
5. To form an investigation committee to check on the legality of the 17% VAT tax and on the right of prisoners to benefit from the profit of the cantine.

Nine: Movement within each section and the recreation area
1. To increase the recreation time to four hours a day as used to be the case.
2. To restore visits between section and cells to day-long visits.
3. To leave cell doors within each section open all day.
4. To restore the right of elderly, ill prisoners, those who spent over ten years of imprisonment, and prisoners with special needs to get to yards and recreation areas freely.
5. To allow university students to choose recreation time suitable for them.
6. To allow prisoners representatives to be able to visit sections, recreational areas, and to be present at family visits in order to be able to follow up on issues and concerns and solve any problem without making this right dependant on the mood of security guards.
7. To open the gate to the recreational area every half an hour to enable prisoners to get to the area or back to sections.
8. To allow freedom of movement within each section without restricting the time or period.
9. To install water pipes in each section.
10. To restore the weekly general cleaning day as in the past.
11. To install water pipes to the recreation area and the yard as used to be the case.
12. To restore the recreation time from 15:00 to 17:00 and from 17:00 to 19:00.
13. To allow working prisoners to stay at the recreation area until 20:00.
14. Not to transfer a prisoner from any prison before spending 2 years in it unless the prisoner applies for a transfer.
15. To cancel the policy of moving certain prisoners constantly around the prisons, never settling in one.
16. To allow Friday Imams to be able to move from one section to another.
17. To allow having events, debates, celebrations in the recreation areas and yards as in the past.
18. Freedom to transfer among cells within one section without any sort of restriction.
19. To remove the ban on practicing Karate during the recreation period.

Ten: Tools, Instruments, private and general equipment
1. To allow the following to be purchased at the cantina by every prisoner: a light-bulb for reading, electronic dictionary without restricting the brand, electric shaving-machine, and electric fan.
2. To install air ventilation in the cells and section as well as air conditioning.
3. To install air conditioning at the visiting area and waiting cells.
4. To provide electric kettle.
5. To provide an electric toaster for each cell.
6. To provide a small refrigerator in each cell.
7. A small photocopier in each section.
8. To install an Antenna for the radio.
9. To allow winter jackets.
10. To allow waist belts.
11. To allow sport ropes.
12. To allow to have cameras in each section and to be able to take collective photos.
13. To allow fruits knife in each cell

Eleven: Searching and Security Checks
1. To end the practice of body search by hand and to restrict it to electronic scanning.
2. To stop searching children 14 years old and under during visits.
3. End totally strip search.
4. End night searches and the practice of Matsada unit, dissolve it or end it's services.
5. Not to handcuff prisoners during the search.
6. Never to damage or confiscate personal belongings while searching.
7. To stop searching prisoners each time they leave to the recreation area or to prayers.
8. Security search be limited to only once a day maximum and not to force prisoners outside the section during the search.
9. Security search to be conducted during the recreation period.
10. To limit the overall general search to once every 6 months.

Twelve: Working Facilities
1. To increase the number of working prisoners in the various facilities.
2. To restore kitchens, laundries, and sewing and allow Palestinian prisoners to work at these facilities.
3. To allow at least two prisoners to work in the section (corridor) outside the cells till 22:30 and extend their recreation time till 20:00.
4. To re-allow a prisoner to work in yard and recreation area as in the past and to make available a storage room and a room for working and working tools.
5. To allow a prisoner to work at the clinic.
6. To restore the special recreation period for workers.
7. To raise payment for workers.
8. To allow an additional worker at the library.
9. To allow a worker to fix electric equipment in each section as in the past.
10. To allow all tools for hairdressing and to change them once every 6 months.

Thirteen: Counting
1. To allow prisoners in the upper beds not to step down at the morning count and to limit to them just raising themselves up in their beds.
2. To be content by showing the hands for those who are in toilets at the time of counting taking into consideration to avoid using the toilet around the time of count unless it's urgent or to pass the cell and return to it later.

Fourteen: Transfer, Travel and waiting (passing) sections
1. To allow prisoners to have cantina with them while being transferred (canned food, etc.).
2. To be moved directly to the buses without being held and delayed in waiting rooms.
3. To change seats in the buses to more comfortable ones.
4. Each prisoner to be handcuffed separately from others and to stop using the plastic handcuffs and replace them with the metal ones.
5. To allow prisoners representatives to meet newly transferred prisoners at the bus as they arrive.
6. To improve all conditions at the passing (waiting) sections in each of Asqalan, Ramleh, and Birsheva prisons.
7. To remove the darkened windows of the buses.

Fifteen: General Demands
1. To return to prisoners all the cans (canned food) and cups and all what was confiscated in Asqalan and Nafha after the last raids.
2. To allow handwork and to be able to purchase all needed at the cantina or to be able to get it during visits.
3. To remove asbestos from the cells to improve ventilation in cells and sections.
4. To provide once again what the administrations used to provide at their expense: tooth paste, tooth brush, soap, cleaning and hygiene provisions, etc.
5. To make available lists of IPS rules in every section in Arabic.
6. To increase the number of allowed TV channels.
7. To re-install wooden boards to all beds, change the beds each year, paint cells each year, and to install sides to the beds.
8. To remove all male guards from female sections.
9. To improve all conditions and to meet all needs of imprisoned minors.
10. To end the use of arbitrary transfer of prisoners from one prison to another.
11. To remove one bed in each cell.
12. To end the use of the special classification of certain prisoners "prisoners sentenced for serious offences" and end all unjustified punishments against them and to allow them to be able to work at various facilities in the prisons.
13. To implement the Geneva Convention and all international human rights standards and agreements.
14. To use only the buses to transfer prisoners between prisons and/or to and from court hearings.
15. To allow visits on special occasions as religious holidays.
16. To double the number and the period of visits during holidays.
17. To allow prisoners to send out written material: diaries, poems, studies, prose, etc. during visits.
18. To define the life sentence as in the case of Israeli prisoners and to consider seriously the provision of parole.
19. Not to interfere in Friday prayers and/or preaching and not to punish preachers for whatever they say.
20. To allow hard covers for books and never to remove them.
21. To separate shower area from toilets.
22. To provide prosthetics for those prisoners with amputations.

The Unified Leadership of the Hunger Strike
11 August 2004

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Partition Hero is a phone app available for iOS and Android devices. Here is its trailer:

The setup is that a Muslim couple are trying to enjoy a nice dinner together - but an Arab man is giving them the "evil eye," quite literally. The goal of the game is to have you, the restaurant owner, set up partitions so that couples can enjoy a night out and "prevent nosy guys from bothering the couples while enjoying a romantic dinner. "

The company that made it, Baskalet, is based in Gaza, and they are part of a startup accelerator called Gaza Sky Geeks that encourages software development and other high tech startups. Gazans taking the initiative to find work in a world where physical borders are no longer as important is a trend that should be applauded and encouraged.

There are popular articles in Arab media, even in English, about the dangers of the "evil eye" on families and marriages. Traditional Judaism shares a similar belief.

But this game reveals more than that.

It shows that there is a problem of Arab men leering at couples, which is prevalent enough that this game resonates with the more than 50,000 who downloaded it.

See also this story of a Muslim couple forced to apologize after the man proposed in public to his burqa-clad girlfriend - and hugged her. They were forced to leave town because of the harassment.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

05/16 Links Pt1: Glick: American greatness and the PLO; Israeli minister: ‘The time has come’ to kill Bashar Assad

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: American greatness and the PLO

The notion that a PLO state will make the region more stable as far more coherent Arab states collapse is absurd.
The notion that it is necessary to empower the PLO to win Arab allies when the Arabs are beating a path to Israel’s door begging for help in defeating Sunni jihadists and Iran is ridiculous.
The notion that Israel’s ability to expand its markets is contingent on peace with the PLO when every week more world leaders descend on Jerusalem to sign trade deals with Israel is not even worthy of a giggle.
As for demography, the American hysteria is bizarre.
The Palestinians already have passports and vote – when they are allowed to – in their own elections. Why would Israel be expected to let them vote for the Knesset?
Beyond that, Jewish immigration to Israel remains high. Israel’s Jewish birthrates have surpassed its Muslim birthrates both within sovereign Israel and in Judea and Samaria.
So why would Israel give up Jerusalem for demography?

PMW: Abbas Appointee: Jews control the money, the press, and the resources

Last March, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas appointed Antisemitic PA TV Islamic teacher Imad Hamato to the post of dean of the Al-Azhar Institutes, a system of schools that prepare students for studies at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza. As dean of students, Hamato now has the opportunity to transmit his venomous Antisemitism to Palestinian youth.
In a class on Islam recently broadcast on official PA TV, Hamato repeated some classic anti-Semitic hate speech regarding Jews and money:
"They [the Jews] are usurers. See, the usury money and usurer banks, those who control the money in the world can be counted on one hand - a few individuals - and all of them belong to the Jewish world. They control the media, the money, the press, the resources, the plans."
[Official PA TV, May 1, 2015 and May 12, 2017]
Abbas' appointee also criticizes those in the Arab world who recognize Israel, saying Israel is "a cancerous tumor."

Maybe the authorities in Israeli prisons should make back issues of the Palestinian Ma'an news agency available.

With the renewed interest in -- and criticism of -- Israeli prisons, by Palestiniain Arabs, it is interesting to read about what the Palestinian newspaper Ma'an has to say about how prisoners are treated in those prisons.

In 2011, Ma'an quoted from an article in Maariv about the treatment of the Palestinian Arab prisoners, and it did so without ever questioning the accuracy of that article.

Entitled Report: Palestinian prisoners in Israel use Facebook, the article begins:

Trying to show that Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s custody enjoy VIP treatment, the Israeli daily Ma'ariv published Wednesday a report by Amit Cohen who monitored the Facebook accounts of some prisoners.

Ma'ariv says that a Hamas-affiliated prisoner, Haytham Battat, uploaded on his Facebook page three weeks ago a short YouTube film he entitled "Take me to Jihad." The film, according to Ma'ariv, included a song in Arabic dedicated to the Chechen rebels. A few minutes after the film was uploaded, his mother wrote a comment saying, “Oh my beloved son. This is a great song. I hope you and all prisoners will be released tomorrow morning."

The strange part of the story is that Battat updates his Facebook page from his prison cell. Battat is 27 and he is serving three consecutive life sentences after he was convicted of masterminding a bombing in Beersheba. He posted on his page photos shot inside the prison in one of which he is sitting with Sa’id Shalalda, who was convicted of abducting and killing an Israeli man, Sasson Nuriel, in 2005 near Ramallah.

Though the Ma'an article today has no pictures, here is a snapshot of one of the security prisoners' Facebook page, as originally illustrated in the Maariv article Ma'an quotes:

Ma'an goes on to describe some of the other luxuries available to the prisoners:

Battat is not the only Palestinian prisoner who updates his Facebook page from his prison cell. Ma'ariv’s report says many prisoners have state-of-the-art cell phones which help them access the Internet easily and even make video calls.

Another Palestinian prisoner, Saed Omar, posted on his Facebook page several photos of the lavish meals he and other prisoners are served, the paper reported. Omar is from the Nablus district, and he is affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He is serving a 19-year sentence. He was said to have posted photos of prisoners preparing stuffed chickens before they gathered around a luxurious table to eat their meal.

Here is another photo from the Ma'an article to illustrate the point:

And here is another photo from the original Maariv article:

The Ma'an article concludes:

After Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was detained in Gaza, the issue of living conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails surfaced as an issue, with hardliners advocating the abolition of prisoners rights. There were attempts to toughen prison conditions.

That is the point of the original Hebrew article in Maariv, Decadent Meals and Free Internet: The Good Life of Terrorists in Prison, which has the subtitle:

The security prisoners are imprisoned for involvement in terror attacks, but are in daily contact with their families and their comrades in the terrorist organizations via their cell phones. In the pictures, which they themselves upload to the web, you can see how good their lives are in an Israeli prison. Gilad Shalit, on the other hand, is still waiting for a sign of life. [Note: excerpts from the original Maariv article are translated via Google, with small modification]

Ma'ariv goes further, both in terms of the contrast with how Gilad Shalit was being treated by the Hamas terrorists at the time, as well as the extent of the rights accorded the imprisoned terrorists:

Since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, the issue of the security prisoners' good conditions has risen even more. After attempts to worsen their conditions, the prisoners returned to watch television, especially the Arab satellite stations. They receive money from the detention centers where they are held, where they can buy food and drink they love.

The money reaches them through the Palestinian Authority and through the various Palestinian organizations. Prisoners have quite a bit of free time and can also complete their basic studies and even pursue higher studies and acquire academic degrees.

It is made clear to the security prisoners that they receive all this "luxury" on the condition that they "keep quiet," at least ostensibly avoiding any activity related to terrorism, and do not give the prison authorities grounds to deny them the benefits they enjoy.

Prisoners inside the prisons use telephones that operate on Israeli cellular networks, with the main demand being for phones with 3G (high-speed Internet) technology. Apart from high-speed browsing, this technology also allows prisoners to conduct video calls with the outside world, which they use well.

For example, one of the prisoners told the Al-Arabiya network that when his father died, one of his friends "broadcast" the entire funeral procession with a video call. Another prisoner used the video to shop; his relatives showed him clothes in the store, and he chose the ones he loved. When his family came to visit him, he received the new clothes he actually bought.

In a recent post, Israellycool investigates Palestinian Prisoner Demands, with a item-by-item analysis of what what they are demanding and what prisoners are actually entitled to according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Even assuming that Palestinian terrorists are not granted today what they received in past years, it is clear they are denied nothing that they are actually entitled to.

Maariv makes clear the danger inherent in the easy access of Palestinian terrorists with the outside world:

The obvious use of Facebook and video can pose great risks. In the past, senior prisoners used terrorist cells outside the prison, mainly to carry out abductions. In those days, the prisoners had to find sophisticated and original ways to convey messages to their people outside. Today they can simply chat on Facebook, or send an encrypted message, all via their cell phones. Simple and easy.

This is one of the reasons that the use of a cell phone is absolutely forbidden, especially in new smartphones that allow prisoners a variety of ways to communicate with the outside world. The prisoners are making great efforts to smuggle these devices into the prison, and make no less difficult efforts to hide them from the prison guards. However, information received by NRG Maariv reveals that the smartphones have entered a series of prisons, including Ramon Prison, Nafha Prison and the Khedar Ohel Prison.

A few years later, in 2014, an article on the Russian site fishki.net, Absurdity in the Israeli prison. We want to live like terrorists!, used the same photos to address another point, namely that Israeli prisoners wanted to receive the same treatment as the terrorists:

The essence of the claim is simple: the citizens of Israel who sit in prisons for various criminal crimes demand that the conditions of their detention equate to the conditions of detention of ... Palestinian terrorists. So that in prisons there was complete equality ...

After all, if the court satisfies this requirement of criminals, they will have to install cable TV with dozens of channels in their cells, and at the same time buy stereoscopic systems, build a shelf for the library, increase the number of visits with friends, allow to buy vegetables and fruits in the prison kiosk, create a gym and Do a lot of other things that are not available for ordinary prisoners, in particular, sharply increase the share of fresh mutton in the diet ... [All translations are through Google]

The article concludes with the alleged psychological effect of the generally superior treatment that Palestinian terrorists receive in Israeli prisons:

At the same time, not so long ago it became clear that many of the terrorist attacks of recent years were pseudo-terrorist attacks. In the sense that the young Palestinians deliberately attacked the IDF soldiers carrying watch at the checkpoint, it was not for the knife to injure or kill any of them, but to get to an Israeli prison and get higher education at Israel's expense . Because the terrorists sitting in our prisons are allowed to receive higher education if they have such a desire. Well, good food, cozy rooms ... sorry, the camera for 2-4 people, compulsory attendance gym with exercise machines and all the other almost resort pleasures make staying in an Israeli prison very comfortable.

The article does not make clear what it considers the criteria for differentiating between "pseudo-terrorist attacks" and actual ones. Looking at the "knife intifada," Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis are very, very real and deadly.

Another difference between the attacks from years ago as opposed to recent years may be motivation.

At one point there were those that pointed out that the luxuries of Israeli prisons on the one hand and the availability of continued education on the other as a possible draw for Palestinian Arabs to try to get caught commiting attacks in order to land themselves in prison.

Today, a different motivation exists for them to commit terrorist attacks -- and they don't even have to survive the attack and be sent to prison in order to take advantage. With Abbas's policy of terrorist stipends paid out to terrorists and their families, those families are guaranteed an income, dependent on how many Jews they can murder.

At one point, Palestinian Arabs could be drawn to trying to improve their own lives; thanks to Abbas, they are now being taught that those lives are not worth living.

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Danish aren't TOO concerned over Imam who says to kill Jews

Last week, the BBC reported on a video that MEMRI publicized:

A video of an imam appearing to call for the murder of Jews in a sermon during Friday prayers at a Copenhagen mosque has caused outrage in Denmark.

Mundhir Abdallah was reported to police after being filmed citing in Arabic a hadith - a teaching of the Prophet Muhammad - considered anti-Semitic.

The hadith says the Day of Judgement "will not come unless the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them".

A Jewish community leader said his words were a "thinly-veiled" threat.

Videos of the sermon were posted on YouTube and Facebook by the Al-Faruq Mosque on Sunday, although Mr Abdallah reportedly gave it on 31 March.

In the video, Mr Abdallah is seen standing in front of a black flag with the Shahadah written on it, similar to those used by jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda.

He declares there will soon be a "caliphate" - a state governed in accordance with Islamic law, or Sharia - that will wage jihad to unite the Muslim community and liberate the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem "from the filth of the Zionists".

Then, he says, "the words of the Prophet Muhammad will be fulfilled" and cites the hadith.

A Danish TV station covered the story. During the first half of the segment, the reporter speaks to Muslims in the neighborhood outside the mosque, and cannot find a single Muslim to condemn the imam's words. They had to dig up a Muslim who spoke out against it on Facebook to find the obligatory "of course not all Muslims believe this" part of the story.

In the second half of the video, a professor of Koran and Islam is interviewed where he admits that the words are problematic, but he says (at the prompting of the interviewer) that calling for the murder of Jews can be taken with a grain of salt - he doesn't mean it literally, he is trying to apply ancient Muslim hadiths to a current situation (implying that murdering Jews was OK in the eighth century).

He admits that these words "fertilize the ground" for hate but they are not really direct calls to murder. Take the statements seriously, but not too seriously - they are usually just the imam "mouthing off."

Why should Danish Jews feel threatened when this is just the everyday, background radiation of Islamic hate in their midst?

No reason. Except for this:

According to broadcaster DR, Omar al-Hussein, who was behind a series of shootings in Copenhagen in February 2015 which left two people dead, had visited the mosque the day before going on the rampage.

The Dane of Palestinian origin had sworn allegiance to Islamic State and shot and killed one person at a cultural centre hosting a conference on freedom of expression, before killing a Jewish man outside a synagogue. Police later shot him dead after he fired on them in a third incident.

The entire point of fertilizing the ground is to get your plants to grow.

(h/t Yoel)

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Palestinian MP photographed slinging rocks at Jews

Jamal Hawil, a Fatah MP for the PA, was photographed hurling stones at the town of Beit El.

The next photo seems more interesting.

Remember, this is one of the "moderates" that Israel is supposed to make a deal with.

(h/t Shimrit Meir)

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Flights from Israel to US starting at $149!

From Globes:

Icelandic low-cost airline WOW Air, which announced some time ago that it would begin operating flights to Israel, today announced the beginning of these flights on the occasion of founder and CEO Skuli Mogensen's visit to Israel. Mogensen has twice been named Man of the Year in Iceland, in view of his business success and trailblazing launching of low-cost trans-Atlantic flights from Iceland capital Reykjavik to various destinations. Israeli tourists will be able to continue from Reykjavik to the US on connection flights.

Mogensen thanked [Transportation Minister Yaakov] Katz for his support and the warm reception he received in Israel. "As Paulo Coelho said, 'Impossible is just an opinion.' When we founded the company five years ago, I never imagined that we'd come to Israel. I've dreamed of visiting here since I was a child. Our mission is to enable everyone to fly by offering the cheapest prices in Tel Aviv: from $99 to Iceland and $149 from Tel Aviv to New York, Boston, and Montreal. No one has ever offered such cheap prices to North America, and we're proud to bring competition to Israel. I hope it enables people to visit here, and that it will help Israelis to travel."

It should be pointed out that the quoted fares do not include a luggage allowance, and that it will cost an extra $40-50 to take a suitcase. The fares are also starting prices, and the actual fare will vary according to the date of the flight.

I can't find any fares to Israel yet on their website, although Tel Aviv is listed as a destination.

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05/15 Links Pt2: Efraim Karsh: An Inevitable Conflict The Six-Day War; Sarsour Doesn’t Pass ‘3D’ Antisemitism Test

From Ian:

Seth J. Frantzman: A war is being fought between the 21st and 15th centuries

There is a slow, creeping war being fought between those who are hanging, jailing and beheading people for blasphemy, and those who don’t want to live in the 15th century. To shield themselves from critique, far-right Islamists shout: “Islamophobia!” That’s like the Inquisition leaders shouting “Christianophobia!” But we aren’t afraid of “Muslims,” we are afraid of hatred, bigotry and intolerance spread by the far-right Islamists. It is Islamistophobia. Fascistphobia. And people should not be cowed by this accusation.
You don’t like female genital mutilation? You’re anti-Islamic.
Wait, I thought you said genital mutilation is a “tribal” practice and non-Muslim?
You don’t like instant divorce whereby Muslim men, but not women, can get rid of their spouses? You’re anti-Muslim.
But wait, isn’t it a “cultural” practice?
Niqab and burkas, you don’t like them, so you’re intolerant of religion.
But aren’t they not “really” Islamic?
To paint all objections to extreme right-wing Islamism as “anti-Islam” is like treating objections to the KKK as “anti-white.” If you oppose the KKK you aren’t “anti-white,” you are anti-white supremacist. And opposing hate-filled imams who incite to murder isn’t “phobia,” it is anti-Islamist supremacist. If you don’t want the 15th century returning, you have to be willing to have this argument. They aren’t just “radicals” and “extremists,” any more than Nazis are just radicals. Far-right Islamists are a very real threat to daily life throughout the world. So either you confront them, or start preparing your kids for the return of the Salem Witch Trials. Because that will be the future.

David Collier: The conference at the University of Sussex; a gathering of (mostly) idiots

The Palestinian
Right at the end of the final panel at Sussex was a fascinating delivery by Leila Sansour who was sandwiched between Adi Ophir and Yoav Peled. Or perhaps it is fairer to suggest Leila Sansour directly and brutally attacked the ‘one state’ paradigm of Ophir, Peled, the Brighton BDS, Brighton PSC, the organisers of the conference and many of the other anti-Zionists in the room. This video is well worth watching:
So many anti-Israel activists in the UK push forward the idea of a single secular state as a way of ‘punishing’ Israel. The brutal truth is that nobody on the ground wants it. Not the Israelis and not the Palestinians. You cannot push BDS and suggest the Palestinians want ‘one state’. It is a fraud. Sansour calls it ‘the worst possible solution’.
Activists and academics
This event at the University of Sussex wasn’t like the conference at Cork, but at times it was even more disturbing. A bunch of naive, ignorant and blindly idealistic academics got together with other less well-intentioned folk, and put on a show that was all about how Israel is ‘the bad guy’. There was not a single submission, not one, that suggested the current situation was created and is perpetuated by a very real, and very worrying security situation. That was an unforgivable bias.
As each activist / academic delivered a presentation, I was required to work out which particular hat they were wearing at the time. An academic conference really should not be like this. When for example, they were pushing elements of their own activism, it turned into the equivalent of political propaganda. Some of these people live and breath the anti-Israel cause, and this conference is part of that activism. Like Pappe, you feel they are willing to bend the truth.
No, BDS is not doing well. I lost count of the times I was fed BDS propaganda about its own success. Can you call it an academic conference, when so many panelists have an underlying requirement to overstate the results of whatever particular ideology they are pushing? How do you tell the difference between the academic and the activist? Why should so much university funding be channeled into something so academically weak?
Questions that perhaps only the organisers know the answer to.

The flowers make him seem so much more lovable, don't they?

The head of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shallah, said on Monday that Palestinian reconciliation cannot occur without the PLO's rescinding it recognition of "the Israeli entity."

During a televised speech for the 69th anniversary Israel's rebirth he said they "cannot achieve Palestinian unity and reconciliation and ending the division without the withdrawal of the PLO's recognition of Israel, and ending the Oslo path that kept the occupation with a new name (under the PA) and making it less expensive for the enemy."

Realize that Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other terror groups have veto power over any "peace deal."

Also note that there is not even a question to Shallah that a signed agreement with Israel is something that can be revoked any time they want to.

Sounds vaguely Koranic.

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