Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 01, 2013

Slides from my lecture at YU

Due to popular demand, here are the slides of my lecture at YU earlier this week:

If anyone wants me to speak at their venue, feel free to contact me.

Baby burqas demanded in Mali. Oh, in Saudi Arabia too.

From AP:

A leaflet listing the regulations for women under Islamist rule now lies in dirt here at the tribunal in Timbuktu. Rule No. 1: The veil should cover the entire body. Rule No. 4: The veil cannot be colored. And Rule No. 8: The woman should not perfume herself after putting on the all-enveloping fabric.

Several days after French special forces parachuted in and liberated this storied city, there is a growing sense of freedom. Though in the houses immediately facing the Islamic tribunal, many of the 8- and 9-year-old girls are still wearing the head covering.

"It is out of fear of the Islamists that they still wear this, says Diahara Adjanga, the mother of one girl said Thursday."They hit everyone — even children."

The Islamists seized control of Timbuktu and the other northern provincial capitals of Gao and Kidal last April. During the nearly 10 months of their rule, the al-Qaida-linked extremists imposed harsh regulations for women and publicly whipped those who went in public without veils.

Fatouma Traore, 21, said that there was one commander who was especially brutal to the women in Timbuktu.

"We don't want the army to catch him. It's the women who want to arrest him so that we can kill him ourselves. ... Even if you're talking to your own blood brother on the stoop of your house, they hit you. Even if you are wearing the veil, and it happens to slip off, they hit you. This man, Ahmed Moussa, he made life miserable for women. Even an old grandmother if she's not covered up, he would hit her."

She picks up her 1-year-old niece and hoists her on one hip, saying: "We even bought a veil for this baby."

It isn't only Al Qaeda nutcases demanding a veil for babies.

A Saudi cleric just declared that all female babies must have their faces covered as well.

Sheikh Abdullah Daoud said on TV that even little girls must wear the veil.

His logic? Since there are reports of even little girls being sexually molested, he believes that the veil will protect them!

Dauod was roundly criticized on Twitter and from some fellow Saudis. Sheikh Mohammad Aljzlana, former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, said that the ruling was denigrating to Islam and Sharia and made Islam look bad. He added that he feels sad whenever he sees a family walking around with the children covered, saying that it is an injustice to children.

Khamenei aide says "total upheaval in the Middle East" will bring the Mahdi

From AEI Critical Threats:

Representative of Supreme Leader to the IRGC, Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Saidi addressed the coming of the Mahdi [12th Shia Imam]:
"The fourth way [of bringing about the arrival of the Mahdi] is by preparing upheaval in the Middle East and so long as there is not total upheaval in Middle East then the Imam of the Era [Mahdi] will not arrive."

"Before the arrival of [the Mahdi] we needed a Mahdi government, and the Iranian Islamic Revolution was along the path of the arrival of Imam of the Era."

The Washington Post describes some of this possible upheaval to fulfill the crazed imams' messianic dreams:

In a defiant move ahead of nuclear talks, Iran has announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Eager to avoid scuttling those negotiations, world powers are keeping their response low-key.

The brief note quoted Iran as saying new-generation IR2m “centrifuge machines ...will be used” to populate a new “unit” — a technical term for an assembly that can consist of as many as 3,132 centrifuges.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert and former senior official at the U.S. State Department, described the planned upgrade as a potential “game-changer.”

“If thousands of the more efficient machines are introduced, the timeline for being able to produce a weapon’s worth of fissile material will significantly shorten,” said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“This won’t change the several months it would take to make actual weapons out of the fissile material or the two years or more that it would take to be able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, so there is no need to start beating the war drums,” he said. “But it will certainly escalate concerns.”

But, hey, the West is really, really pushing Iran - to talk:

The British Foreign Office confirmed that Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plan, and described it as “a cause for concern,” noting it breached both U.N. Security Council and IAEA board resolutions urging Iran to curb enrichment.

But it avoided linking the move to the next round of talks. Instead the statement expressed hope that Iran would soon respond to the six powers on a time and place for a meeting, adding: “We hope that Iran will agree to talks quickly and come to the table ready to engage and negotiate seriously.”

The European Union’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, said she is confident negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program will resume soon.

Talks have been so effective over the past decade in curbing Iran's nuclear program, haven't they?

(h/t Washington Guardian Geopolitics Playbook)

PLO's new attempt to use UNESCO to co-opt Jewish history

This Ma'an report leaves some information out:

Palestinian experts are putting the final touches on Palestine's 2013 submission to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which will propose the ancient Bethlehem village of Battir as a heritage site.

The proposal, which outlines historical, natural, and cultural features of the hillside village, will be submitted by mid-February, the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs official working on UNESCO, Omar Awadallah, told Ma'an.

The committee will vote on whether Battir takes World Heritage status at the June general conference, he said. A Palestinian official delegation will attend the conference.

Battir village, with a population of about 4,500, uses an ancient system of irrigation that has provided fresh water to the community for centuries.

Battir, Battir, sounds so familiar. Oh yes - because its real name is Betar, the last Jewish stronghold in the Bar Kochba revolt.

Archaeologist David Ussishkin points out:

Iron I-II pottery was found in previous surveys. Some Iron IIB-C pottery was found in the fills supporting the wall, including a storage jar handle bearing a two-winged lmlk seal impression. Pottery from the Persian, Hellenistic and Early Roman periods was found in previous surveys, and several Hellenistic coins were recovered in the excavations. It thus appears that Betar was continuously settled since Iron I till the Roman period and that a settlement of some importance existed here during the later part of the Judean Monarchy.

Significantly, wall segments built of ashlars, one of them with ashlars dressed in characteristic Roman-Herodian style, were incorporated in the later fortifications. These remains and the pottery indicate that a settlement of some significance existed here prior to the Second Revolt.

As Diane Muir Appelbaum noted in a post I linked to last year, "the Jewish liberation fighters hastily threw up crude stone fortification walls, incorporating parts of the walls and buildings of the Jewish village."

Elli Fischer in TOI adds:

Jewish memory – as preserved in the Talmudim and Midrashim – recalls Betar as a catastrophe of massive proportion whose implications for the future of Judaism exceeded even that of the destruction of the Temples. The rabbis viewed the fall of Betar, not the Temple, as worthy of adding a blessing to the Grace after Meals – a blessing that sought God in the minor miracles of an exilic existence and not in the divine flourishes of an integral Jewish civilization.

In fact, the Talmud offers an alternative explanation for the fertility of Battir: “For seven years [after the fall of Betar] the gentiles fertilized their vineyards with the blood of Israel without using manure.”

So Battir and its environs are certainly worthy of being marked as a significant site with Jewish as well as world culture. No doubt the ancient terraces are worth preserving. Yet if these hills are to be recognized as a World Heritage Site, they must be acknowledged, first and foremost, for its significance to Jewish history.

Maybe there really are some ancient Arab villages or sites in the boundaries of British Mandate Palestine that deserve UNESCO recognition, but for some reason the ones being nominated by the PLO are always ancient Jewish sites of significance - and they ignore the Jewish component.

As we have seen before, the PLO's strategy of joining UNESCO has nothing to do with culture or education. It is meant to do no less than to co-opt, and delegitimize, the history of Jewish people.

Ban Ki Moon seems to have forgotten something

From the UN:

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today noted with “grave concern” reports of Israeli air strikes in Syria and called on all concerned to prevent an escalation of tensions in the region.

“The Secretary-General notes with grave concern reports of Israeli air strikes in Syria. At this time, the United Nations does not have details of the reported incident. Nor is the United Nations in a position to independently verify what has occurred,” said a note issued by Mr. Ban’s office.

“The Secretary-General calls on all concerned to prevent tensions or their escalation in the region, and to strictly abide by international law, in particular in respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty of all countries in the region.”

What do we know about what happened?

Here's the NYT:

Many questions swirled about the target, motivations and repercussions of the Israeli attack, which Arab and Israeli analysts said demonstrated the rapid changes in the region’s strategic picture as Mr. Assad’s government weakens — including the possibility that Hezbollah, Syria or both were moving arms to Lebanon, believing they would be more secure there than with Syria’s beleaguered military, which faces intense attacks by rebels on major weapons installations.

American officials said Israel hit a convoy before dawn on Wednesday that was ferrying sophisticated SA-17 antiaircraft missiles to Lebanon. The Syrians and their allies said the target was a research facility in the Damascus suburb of Jamraya.

It remained unclear Thursday whether there was one strike or two. Also unclear was the research outpost’s possible role in weapons production or storage for Syria or Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite organization that has long battled with Israel and plays a leading role in the Lebanese government.

The Jamraya facility, several miles west of Damascus, produces both conventional and chemical weapons, said Maj. Gen. Adnan Salo, a former head of the chemical weapons unit in the Syrian Army who defected and is now in Turkey.

Hezbollah indirectly confirmed its military function in condemning the attack on Arab and Muslim “military and technological capabilities.” That raised the possibility that Israel targeted weapons manufacturing or development, in an attack reminiscent of its 2007 assault on a Syrian nuclear reactor, a strike Israeli never acknowledged.

But military analysts said that the Israeli jets’ flight pattern strongly suggested a moving target, possibly a convoy near the center, and that the Syrian government might have claimed the center was a target to garner sympathy. Hitting a convoy made more sense, they said, particularly if Israel believed that Hezbollah stood to acquire “game-changing” arms, including antiaircraft weapons. Israeli leaders declared days before the strike that any transfer of Syria’s extensive cache of sophisticated conventional or chemical weapons was a “red line” that would prompt action.

Hezbollah — backed by Syria and Iran — wants to upgrade its arsenal in hopes of changing the parameters for any future engagement with the powerful Israeli military, and Israel is determined to stop it. And Hezbollah is perhaps even more anxious to gird itself for future challenges to its primacy in Lebanon, especially if a Sunni-led revolution triumphs next door in Syria.

But if weapons were targeted, analysts said, it is not even clear that they belonged to Hezbollah. Arab and Israeli analysts said another possibility was that Syria was simply aiming to move some weapons to Lebanon for safekeeping. While there are risks for Hezbollah that accepting them could draw an Israeli attack, said Emile Hokayem, a Bahrain-based analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, there is also an upside: “If Assad goes down, they have the arms.”

Those suggestions comported with the account of a Syrian officer who said in a recent interview that the heavily guarded military area around the Jamraya research facility was used as a weapons transfer station to southern Lebanon and Syria’s coastal government stronghold of Tartous for safekeeping, in convoys of tractor-trailer trucks. (The officer said he had lost faith in the government but hesitated to defect because he did not trust the rebels.)

Apparently, either Israel hit a convoy transporting weapons to Hezbollah, or a depot for weapons meant to go to Hezbollah, or a plant that manufactures weapons of mass destruction - or a combination of the three.

According to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah should be dismantled as an independent armed force. According to 1701, arms transfers from Syria to Hezbollah are prohibited. According to everyone, Syrian chemical weapons are a serious threat to the entire region.

Yet Ban Ki Moon could only rebuke Israel for doing what the UN cannot and is seemingly unwilling to do. The UN forces in Lebanon have stood by impotently since 2006 watching Hezbollah illegally build a huge arsenal of smuggled arms from Syria for its private terror army - and Moon personally made that decision to keep the UNIFIL forces impotent.

It looks like the only operative parts of 1701 that remain are the ones that can be used against Israel.

Iranian broadcaster says Jew--er, Zionists control world media

I love this stuff:

Dr. Mohammad Sarafraz, says the Zionist system controls all the mainstream news channels in the world.

“Because they [the Zionist system] want to proceed with their own economic agendas, they have to control people’s thoughts and they achieved this by controlling the largest news channels throughout the world,” Sarafraz said during a ceremony to mark the first anniversary of Iran’s Spanish-language news channel, Hispan TV, in Tehran on Wednesday.

“If a news channel comes and it is an alternative news channel, then the Zionist system wants it removed,” he added.

The comments are gold:

In America, TV stations, Newspapers, Magazines..etc. air and print news like there is nothing with America. Game shows show happy people full of life and excitement. Shows that make people feel good like times are good and they are all happy and whoever thinks otherwise areConcpericy nuts , survivalist ...etc. and while the Zionist Jews plundering the treasure of future American generations, the job of these TV stations and programs is to numb the mind and show untrue picture of what's really happening in America. And yes, Zionist Jews control all that and are al guilty of misleading and conspiring to destroy America. It's treasonous and should be all punished accordingly.

Everyone in the world knows Jews control the news and they always will.

But only till someone or some groups like Hezbollahbomb them to hell.
GEE! YAH, THINKS THEY MIGHT CONTROL MEDIA WORLDWIDE????THEY HAVE BEEN DOING IT IN THE U.S. SINCE ABOUT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY. THATS WHY THE U.S. PUBLIC IN ITS ENTIRETY ARE ZIONIST THROUGH AND THROUGH.UNLESS WE WHO ARE WHAT IS CALLED ANTI SEMITES AND REALLY WE ARE ANTI-ZIONISTS.I COULD CARE LESS WHAT THEY DO ABOUT RELIGION,BUT THE FILTHY ELITE JEWS WHO ARE NOT RELIGIOUS ,USE THE JUDAIC RELIGION AS A SHIELD TO PROTECT THEIR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY,FOR WORLD ENSLAVEMENT.AND GUESS WHAT THEY ARE ALMOST THERE AT THEIR GOAL.

Most people in the west are blind to the fact that all their news is created and controlled by jews. Its a fact. But PRESS TV is extremely well produced with intelligent and comprehensive coverage. The "news" in the USA and Britain is a joke. Press TV must continue to expand its coverage.

Sorry, I'm late for my programming meeting with Al Jazeera...

CBS bans SodaStream ad from Super Bowl. Will BDS claim credit?

From Forbes:

CBS banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl spot because, apparently, it was too much of a direct hit to two of its biggest sponsors, Coke and Pepsi.

Please pause and read that sentence again.

I am shocked that CBS would ban a spot for being too competitive. But I’m even more shocked that the advertising world isn’t up in arms about it.

SodaStream has a product that could be wildly disruptive to the soda industry, if successful. As in, the “automobile” to the soda industry’s “buggy whip.” If SodaStream takes off, Coke and Pepsi would have a lot to worry about, for sure. But isn’t that what progress is all about?

CBS is protecting its relationship with Coke and Pepsi. Those two brands spend big bucks on the Super Bowl and on the network, in general. I get it. But all CBS would have to do, if Coke and Pepsi put the pressure on, is say, “Hey, we’re just the unbiased middle man here. It’s not up to us what competitors of yours say about you.” There’s no need for the medium to have a say in the message.

Competitive battles should be fought in the marketplace.

If the SodaStream product is a better “soda idea” than Coke and Pepsi, then shouldn’t it be given a fair shot within any medium it decides to risk its dollars? If it’s not a better idea, the market will decide its fate, not CBS. But even beyond that obvious argument, it’s in CBS’s, and all media’s, interest to encourage unbridled competition. The more threatened a Coke and Pepsi feel, in this case, the more likely they are to launch new campaigns specifically targeting the threat. And that’s more money pouring into the media, not less. But Coke and Pepsi won’t do that now (or are less likely to), because CBS intervened, took the pressure off, and effectively sided with Coke and Pepsi.

Advertising Age adds:

So what's the issue? The content of its planned commercial seemed to have concerned CBS because it was a direct hit at two other Super Bowl sponsors and heavy network TV advertisers: Coke and Pepsi.

SodaStream, which sells home soda-making machines, has already run afoul of authorities in the U.K. for a Bogusky-crafted spot indicating its product is more environmentally friendly than established sodas; the spot shows branded bottles and cans of soft drinks exploding into thin air. For the Super Bowl, it hoped to up the ante with a spot depicting truck drivers clad in clothing with Coca-Cola and Pepsi marks on them, according to Ilan Nacasch, SodaStream's chief marketing officer.

"We really tried to comply with the standards" set by CBS, he said. At the same time, he added, "We were taking it to a new level, and that's the level where they apparently judged to be going too far."

Interestingly enough, Pepsi has scored big points with viewers over the years by showing Super Bowl ads with Coke deliverymen abandoning their employer wholesale for a sip of a Pepsi drink.

Here's the ad, which has already gained over 2 million views since yesterday:

The BDS movement has been freaking out about the ad since it was announced, to no avail. (SodaStream is Israeli.) I'm sure they will attempt to claim credit here. The controversy will probably help SodaStream in the end, though, with more people watching the ad on YouTube than would have on CBS.

However, it seems likely that the earlier British Sodastream ad, that had been banned in the UK for even dumber reasons, is being retooled for the Super Bowl without mentioning the big guys:

If you really want to make the Israel-haters' heads explode like the plastic bottles in these ads, read this:

SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) is poised for its biggest gain in seven months as the Israeli maker of home soda machines seeks to expand sales in the U.S. by airing its first Super Bowl commercial.

Shares have posted a 13 percent gain this month after dropping 0.3 percent to $50.53 in New York yesterday.

...SodaStream will probably say on Feb. 28 that sales rose 37 percent last year to $425 million, according to the mean estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The company last year expanded into U.S. retail outlets including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) The U.S. represents more than 90 percent of SodaStream’s Americas sales, which also include Canada and Brazil, Lloyd said.

There's one other aspect of this I enjoy: watching pseudo-liberals fight against a company that helps the environment and instead side with big soda makers. All because it was created by smart Jewish Israelis.

(h/t D)

EoZ lecture at YU: The video

Here is the video of my lecture at Yeshiva University on Tuesday night, without me. The topic is "How to answer the most popular anti-Israel arguments."

I couldn't upload it to YouTube, and while LiveLeak is slower it seemed to be the best alternative.

My voice recorder was right next to my cell phone so there is some interference at times. Irritating but nothing I can do about it. Besides that, the sound is quite clean.

I also had to reduce the video quality in order to make this work.The slides are still readable.

I tend to say a lot of things off the cuff, so I sometimes worry if I'm being 100% accurate in these sorts of things when I'm pulling facts out of my brain in real-time without the Internet to act as my external storage. I think I did OK, though.

I did not include the Hasby Awards or the Q&A. This was long enough already and I didn't repeat the questions for the recording.

I hope you enjoy it!

Thurslinks: Anti-semitism at Ma'an, Galloway slammed, Bklyn PoliSci BDS, HRW bias

From Ian:

Website Backed by EU, UNESCO Prints Anti-Semitic Article

“[The Jews] feel inferior to the nations and societies in which they live, because of the hostility and evil rising in their hearts towards others and for their plots and schemes against the nations who know with certainty that the Jews are the root of conflict in the world, wherever they reside.”
This sentence, as reported by Palestinian Media Watch, is taken from the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, which is funded by Danish, Dutch and UK governments and the EU, UNDP, and UNESCO.”

Comedy Gold: Anti-Israel MP George Galloway Slapped Down by Prime Minister David Cameron

Without hesitation Cameron responded, “Some things come and go, but there is one thing that is certain: Wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator in the world, he’ll have the support of the honorable gentleman.”

ADL Slams Brooklyn College for Allowing Political Science Department to Sponsor BDS Event

"The controversy surrounding Brooklyn College’s political science department, which is co-sponsoring an event aimed at building support for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel next month, has intensified in recent days and has prompted a response from the ADL and Alan Dershowitz, as well as a petition at the college which has been signed by hundreds of students."

Alan Dershowitz: Brooklyn College Political Science Department Denies Equal Free Speech and Academic Freedom to Pro-Israel Students and Faculty

"The international campaign to delegitimate Israel by subjecting the Jewish state—and the Jewish State alone—to boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) has now come to the most unlikely of places: Brooklyn College. The political science department of that college has voted to co-sponsor a campaign event at which only pro-BDS speakers will advocate a policy that is so extreme that even the Palestinian Authority rejects it."

Think Again: The Muslim Brotherhood
How did so many Western analysts get Egypt's Islamist movement so wrong?

"As the Brotherhood's first year in power has demonstrated, elections do not, by themselves, yield a democracy. Democratic values of inclusion are also vital. And the Muslim Brotherhood -- which has deployed violence against protesters, prosecuted its critics, and leveraged state resources for its own political gain -- clearly lacks these values."

UN denies Abbas claims on Palestinians fleeing Syria

Ban Ki-moon corroborates Israeli denial of agreement to let 150,000 refugees from civil war enter West Bank
"A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday denied that Israel had agreed to allow Palestinian refugees fleeing violence in Syria to enter the West Bank, directly contradicting claims made by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to that effect."

NGO Monitor: Far Beyond the Curve: HRW’s Bias and Lack of Credibility in 2012

"Human Rights Watch (HRW) epitomizes the ongoing crisis and moral failure of powerful non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to promote the universal principles of human rights. The following review of HRW’s 2012 activities, particularly in the Middle East, demonstrates that little has changed compared to previous years, and that the same individuals continue to control the organization’s agenda and activities."

Honest Reporting: Misleading, Mismatched Photos Miss Mark

"While Israeli jets were on target hitting a Syrian arms convoy, The Scotsman and Daily Telegraph badly missed the mark with their choice of photos. The Irish Independent
also flunked.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think those nasty Israelis killed the kids."

BBC R4 guest promotes Qaradawi as a source of “nuanced understanding”

"That decision by the programme’s editor turns a broadcast supposedly attempting to discuss and inform on the subject of antisemitism into one indirectly promoting it. It makes the BBC part of the problem rather than a contributing factor to any solution. Beyond belief indeed."

Clinton On Morsi's Views Of Jews: 'It's Not What Somebody Says; It's What They Do'

Egypt activist advocates for better ties with Israel
Emad el Dafrawi braves secret police and explosion to meet with ‘Post’ in Cairo and explain why Egyptian media fuel hatred of Israel.

“They already have a presumption that Israel is always an aggressor, that Israel is always an attacker, that they attack any person and any place without reason because they feel like it,” el Dafrawi said.
News media in Arabic reinforces these opinions by using explosive language to describe Israeli activity.
“They handpick words which play on peoples’ emotions,” el Dafrawi explained."

Report: Convoy Israel Struck Carried SA-17 Rockets
Russian-made anti-aircraft rockets were intended for Hizbullah, could "change balance of power."

IAF Commander: Syria is in a Process of Disintegration VIDEO

Islamic Jihadists Implemented Racist Sharia Law in Mali Targeting Blacks

"One of the most disturbing things I’ve learnt is that those condemned to these harsh punishments were all black Malians – Sonrai, Peul, Bamba, and Della, traditionally the slaves of the Tuareg. The jihadis were a mixture of Malian Arabs and Tuaregs as well as many foreign jihadis.
“They would never do this to one of their own,” said Issa."

US Law Enforcement Officials Train in Israel
A delegation of law enforcement executives from the United States is participating in a counter-terrorism training program in Israel.

The (successful) politics of West Bank water
Israel and the PA have been quietly cooperating to ensure a safe, clean, and water-ful environment west of the Jordan River

"Quietly, Israel and the PA have been cooperating extensively to preserve the environment of the entire land mass west of the Jordan River, according to a top water engineer from a large Palestinian-controlled city in the West Bank. The PA needs and wants Israel’s help in keeping water clean, expanding agricultural opportunities for farmers, and ensuring safe disposal of waste and trash, the engineer said."

Brazil honors diplomats who saved Jews from Nazis
Two officials who issued hundreds of visas to fleeing Holocaust survivors celebrated at Remembrance Day ceremony

"The Wednesday night ceremony paid tribute to Aracy Guimaraes Rosa, a staff member of the Brazilian consulate in Hamburg in the 1930s and 1940s and Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, Brazil’s ambassador to France during the same period. Both issued hundreds of visas to Jews."

Ziontastic Superheroes Save the Day! VIDEO

"The Creative Zionist Coalition and the World Zionist Organization called all superheroes to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2013. In Hollywood, these Zinomite and Ziontastic men and women were kryptonite to hate and spread sweet Israel truth and love!"

The UN insists that Jews must be ethnically cleansed from Judea and Samaria. Isn't that a crime?

The UN Human Rights Council came out with its report on the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. To no one's surprise, it declared them illegal.

But what is interesting is what they demand be done:

Israel must, in compliance with article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, cease all settlement activities without preconditions. In addition it must immediately initiate a process of withdrawal of all settlers from the OPT.

Let's look at the Rome Statute:

Article 7: Crimes against humanity

1. For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

How is the forcible transfer of Jews away from Judea and Samaria not a crime against humanity?

Even if you say that the Israeli government is guilty of the heinous crime of allowing people to voluntarily move to the land of their forefathers, why are the residents being punished? Isn't this collective punishment? Did they do anything illegal? Geneva only prohibits the "occupying power" to transfer people, it doesn't prohibit the people from doing so voluntarily (more on this below.)

In fact, from a quick survey, it appears that the forcible transfer of an entire population against their will violates a slew of human rights principles if not outright humanitarian laws:

The right of a people to self-determination
The right to remain in one's homeland
The right to individually appeal an expulsion order
The prohibition against collective punishment

(The UNHRC has a long list of such potential violations [Annex 1], most of which are very tortured in my mind, but it goes to show how much they go out of their way to say that forcible transfers are heinous - unless those being transferred are Israeli Jews.)

Here is a relevant portion of an article in Opinio Juris by Eugene Kontorovich about some of these points:

Crucially, the Convention only bars action by the “occupying power” — in other words, the government and public authorities of the country. It does not apply to the movements and real estate decisions of private individuals. Various other parts of the Convention distinguish between “nationals of the occupying Power” and “the occupying power” itself; the prohibitions of Article 49 fall exclusively on the latter.

The birth of babies to civilians – we’re not talking Hitlerian birthing homes – is not a “transfer … of its own population” by any plausible definition. Indeed, the newborn is not even part of the previous population of the occupying power! So a significant proportion of settlers never “settled.”

Nothing in the text or history of Art. 49 suggests that it becomes illegal for nationals of the occupying power to reside in the occupied territory. People want to read Art. 49 as saying “the occupied territory shall be prohibited to nationals of the occupying power for residence.” This is a far cry from what it says. It goes against the GC’s humanitarian principles to read it as a restrictive covenant. The precise meaning of transfer – how much government action is required – is undefined by any source I know of, though the Rome Statute’s addition of an “indirect transfer” prohibition only underlines how absent such language is from Art. 49(6).The relevant Security Council resolutions only condemn “the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements” (S.C. 446). This seems to support my view.

Given the ambiguities about the scope of the transfer ban, one might look to other incidents of state practice to see how such situations were handled. If there is a general rule that an occupation makes not just the “transfers” by the government themselves, but the continued residence of the transferees and their descendants illegal forever, I am surprised we have not heard of it in other contexts. None of the proposals for ending the occupation of Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, etc. contemplate removing a single Turk or Moroccan, as far as I know. And while there are not any proposals for ending Chinese occupation of Tibet and Russian occupation of Georgia, no one has suggested that the presence of occupying nationals in those countries is a continued violation of international law. Yes, China violates the GC by shipping Han en masse to Tibet to demographically overwhelm the native population. But has even a law professor suggested their deportation back?

When America occupied Iraq, would it have been illegal for Americans of Iraqi ancestry to move back? I believe some did and no one made an issue of it. Would it matter if they flew there on a U.S. plane? If they moved to a neighborhood that people had moved out of as a result of the war? No one was even asking such questions.

All of this means two things. First, there is nothing illegal about nationals of the occupying power residing in the occupied territory if they get there without being sent by the government, without being “transferred.” The scope of this category is unclear but must certainly include those born in the West Bank. Israel has no affirmative obligation to prevent migration, or to deny municipal services to migrants. Second, even those have been transferred are not themselves doing anything illegal.

He is more concise in this more recent article:

When one reads discussions of Israel and 49(6), the only precedents cited are various statements about 49(6) – in the context of Israel. One might conclude that Israel has been the only significant alleged violator in the post-War period. If there were no other arguable 49(6) cases, then this limitation would be natural.

Our project allows for a more dispassionate look at 49(6) by 1) using multiple independent data points; 2) not focussing on arguably the single most politically controversial situation in the world. Thus to be clear, the research project is NOT about Israel.

Indeed, instead of focusing exclusively on Israel [see Parts VI-IX of the ICRC state practice guide], we study global state practice. In particular, we examine civilian population movements into occupied territory from Morocco, Turkey, Indonesia, and several other cases, and the international legal response to these actions.

Our paper is not finished, as we hope to have a comprehensive survey. What we see so far, as described in my talk above, is that state practice in regards to these migrations fairly uniformly shows that the movement of civilians into occupied territory is not treated as “deportation or transfer” even when it is favored or generally supported by the government. Second, even for migrations directly organized by the government that may violate 49(6), international authorities have never regarded the removal of the “transferred” civilians as the appropriate remedy. On the contrary, U.N.-approved land-for-peace deals leave settlers in place, and often even let them vote on a referendum about the occupied area’s political future.

We see, yet again, that Israel is being treated uniquely by a faux "human rights" body. Of all the occupations or alleged occupations of the world, only one is considered so heinous that the [Jewish] residents - even those born there - must be forced to move.

The UN Human Rights Council has just officially said that Jews must be ethnically cleansed from Judea and Samaria (there are at least a few Israeli Arabs who live in the territories but they are not being told to leave.)

Again, I am not a lawyer, but it is clear that the demand to have a specific defined set of people be transferred from their own homes en masse is something that has never been demanded by any human rights body in any remotely comparable circumstances. In virtually every case of forced transfer, human rights organizations would be the first ones to condemn it.

Once again, the demands - and even the interpretation of laws - are different for Israel than for every other country.

The hypocrisy would be stunning if we weren't already so used to it.

To this "rabbi," pork is kosher and kosher is trayf

Off-topic, but....

From The Portland Phoenix:

Rabbi Jared Saks, of Maine's largest Jewish congregation, no longer subscribes to his religion's most well-known taboo. An erstwhile vegetarian, Saks kept strictly kosher in Israel for his first year of rabbinical school. Then, upon moving back to New York, he read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, and everything changed. He could no longer stomach industrial (even if kosher) meat. At the time, Saks couldn't find any certified kosher, ethically raised beef.
"What really is at the core of kashrut is that G-d makes things holy by separating things," says Saks, of Congregation Bet Ha'am in South Portland. "So I don't say that I keep kosher, but for me there's still an essence of kashrut at play every time I sit down to a meal."

For Saks, and a growing number of progressive Jews, that means he only consumes meat from sustainable sources. This movement catalyzed after the 2008 immigration raid that revealed abhorrent labor practices at the largest US kosher meatpacking plant, in Postville, Iowa. Saks initially ate "kosher-style." But a locally sourced meat entrée became preferable to vegetables shipped in from overseas. Now, Saks will order that pork chop, if it's from a worthy source.

After all, pigs thrive here in Maine. They're more sustainable than cows, devouring all our scraps except coffee grinds and citrus peels. For many (including this reporter), kosher is more about whether the animal lived in a holy way than how it died. Our tribe takes our cues less from the Torah, and more from nature.
...
Maina Handmaker would agree with that view. She loved pork as a child in Hong Kong, then went vegetarian in high school in Kentucky and for most of her time at Bowdoin College. Apprenticing as a student on Milkweed Farm in Brunswick, she experienced the magic of bacon raised on-site.

"As a Jew and just as a person, I feel more connected to the ethical principles of sustainable agriculture than I ever did to the isolated, ancient rules of kashrut," says Handmaker, who works for Six River Farm in Bowdoinham.

Portland's Jewish leaders are holding a panel on "Different Ways to Observe Jewish Dietary Laws" at Temple Beth El, 400 Deering Ave, Portland, on Tuesday, April 9 @ 7 pm

I am not so sheltered that I don't know that most Jews don't keep kosher. Hey, it is not easy; I understand that,. I am not going to judge others - we each have our own challenges and all of us fall short in one way or another.

But I have a big problem with Jews - especially purported rabbis - redefining Judaism to justify their behavior.

It is one thing to say that it is hard for me to do something my religion asks of me but it is a worthy goal somewhere down the line.

It is another thing to say that the religious rules are outdated and were appropriate for their time. . Even that shows a level of respect for the faith.

But to my mind, it is unconscionable to twist the very definition of what it means to be Jewish to fit today's fashions.

Rabbi Saks could easily say that he disagrees with the practices at kosher slaughterhouses and therefore decides to be a vegetarian. But for a "rabbi" to say that pig is kosher if it is ethically raised is perverse. This isn't Judaism; it is a different religion altogether - environmentalism, liberalism, whateverism.

He is cheapening Judaism to become, literally, meaningless. If Judaism is whatever makes you feel good, it isn't a religion - it is a justification to do whatever you feel like.

I feel very, very sorry for his congregants to have a spiritual leader who changes the religion simply because he loves to eat bacon.

And how do we know that?

Because if pig meat tasted terrible, even though raising them were great for the environment, Rabbi Saks wouldn't be forcing them down his throat because of his ethics.

Muslims complain about a wedding site overlooking the Kotel

Muslims are condemning a new wedding site set up in the Old City of Jerusalem that overlooks the Kotel.

No, it is not on the Temple Mount. It is not even within the Kotel courtyard. It is a hundred meters away, apparently around the site of Aish HaTorah, overlooking the courtyard and the Kotel:

The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation condemned this, saying it contributed to the "Judaization" of Jerusalem and is "affecting the basis of Islamic civilization and heritage."

Other Arab media reported this horrible crime.

I think they would condemn photos of Jerusalem in Jewish homes if they thought about it.

It does look like a great spot for a wedding though, doesn't it?

By the way, a group associated with this same Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation has been offering free Muslim weddings on the Temple Mount, something that was as far as I can tell never done historically, in order to forge another false bond between Islam and the site it usurped.