Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 04, 2013

Israel responds to textbook report

From The Forward, and plenty of other places:

The question of Palestinian textbooks’ portrayal of Jews has been bitterly debated for years. More than a decade ago, the European Union considered halting aid to the Palestinian Authority based on its negative portrayals of Israelis in its textbooks.

As recently as last year, the Washington Jewish Week reported on a dispute over whether Palestinian textbooks call Israelis pigs and snakes. Over the past decade, the Israeli government, the State Department and independent groups have produced wildly varying reports on the contents of Palestinian textbooks.

The new study examined 94 books from Palestinian school systems in Gaza and the West Bank, and 74 books from the Israeli secular and religious school systems. There were just 20 instances of “extreme negative characterizations” of Palestinians in Israeli secular books and seven in Israeli ultra-Orthodox books, according to the study. One such example in an ultra-Orthodox book referred to a decimated Arab village, now the site of an Israeli settlement, as “a nest of murderers.”

Palestinian books had just six instances of these “extreme negative characterizations.” For instance, one book referred to an Israeli interrogation room as a “slaughterhouse.”

These characterizations, however, were extremely rare and statistically insignificant.

Until I see the actual report (not yet on the webpage of the organization that created it) or can see the actual textbooks I cannot say for certain that this report is wrong. I can say quite definitively that in the Palestinian Arab media, the idea of a peaceful two-state solution providing two states for two peoples is virtually nonexistent.

Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs came out with a response (not sure it is is online.) Here are some highlights:

The "Victims of Our Own Narratives" study on Israeli and Palestinian school books correctly recognizes that education towards a culture of peace, and the cessation of incitement, are critical elements in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace. However, the report is highly-problematic and strongly-misleading for five reasons:

1. The overall approach and tone of the study reflect an attempt to present an artificial and inaccurate picture of balance between the levels of incitement and peace culture development in Palestinian and Israeli textbooks. In reality, there can be no comparison between Israeli state textbooks, which, while not perfect, educate for peace, and Palestinian textbooks which are pervaded by incitement, delegitimization of Israel, and education for the continuation of conflict. While the actual findings of the study do indeed point to the very significant differences between official Israeli and Palestinian books, and the widespread incitement in the latter, in order to create the impression of balance the study understates and obscures its findings, presents results in a misleading manner, , provides excuses for the Palestinians, and couches its analysis in general terms which take as a given parallels and similarities between the educational systems.

2. The study omits important examples of incitement and delegitimization of Israelis and Jews in official PA textbooks, whether in an intentional attempt to blur the differences between the two educational systems or due to poor research. At the same time, it categorizes as negatives examples from Israeli textbooks which do not deserve to be described as such.

3. Its methodology is flawed in that it misses or obscures critical differences between Israeli and Palestinian texts. For example, if one examines the examples categorized as negative descriptions of the acts of the other, one finds that while the Israeli examples primarily refer to pogroms and terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews, such as the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Iraq and PLO terrorist attacks, many of the Palestinian examples describe Zionism and the foundation/existence of Israel as essentially illegitimate and immoral. Inculcating the message that Israel's existence is essentially illegitimate makes any kind of progress towards an end of the conflict and lasting peace impossible. Similarly, the study finds that in both Israeli and Palestinian textbooks martyrdom through self-sacrifice is the third most common value attributed to the self-community. This obscures the fact that the Palestinian examples glorify martyrdom while perpetuating acts against Israelis, while the Israeli examples describe historical victims of such attacks (Joseph Trumpeldor's death at the Tel Hai fortress in 1920.)

4. The report provides a misleading picture regarding its sponsors. The report states that the study received funding from the US State Department, creating the impression of official US support for the study. While the project did receive a State Department grant in 2008, the US government had no involvement with the methodology or findings of the study and has not lent its support to the actual report. Additionally the authors of the report attempt to provide it with an aura of respectability and authority by noting that it was commissioned by the 'Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land'. This too is misleading as the Jewish representative on the Council, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, has retracted its support for the study. It should also be noted that the Palestinian representatives on the council, the PA Minister of Religious Affairs and the Chief Justice of the PA Sharia Courts, have themselves made publically-documented statements of incitement and delegitimization against Israel on a number of occasions, including denying the Jewish connection to the Western Wall. (see Appendix 1 for examples).

5. Perhaps most importantly- The study provides a highly-flawed and distorted depiction of the PA's systematic efforts to educate and indoctrinate Palestinian children to hate, violence and non-acceptance of Israel's existence. This is a result of the fact that the study focuses only on a very specific and limited component of those efforts. In addition to the material included in school books, official PA educational publications, matriculation exams, summer camps, children's media programs, cultural events and social media portals, all constitute key components of the PA system for inculcating messages which glorify terror, demonize Israelis and Jews, and teach that Israel's existence is illegitimate and transitory. Information regarding incitement in these other educational and youth-oriented arenas and platforms is readily available in the public domain. While the study's authors can perhaps justify these omissions by the narrow mandate given to the study, the inaccurate and misleading picture which results strongly compromises the study's utility as an investigation into the phenomenon of education for peace/conflict and its potential solutions.

Then they give specific examples:

The following examples of incitement are not included in the study. They are either from school textbooks which presumably were examined by the researches, who chose to omit the examples, from textbooks which were not examined by the researches due to their subject matter (e.g. mathematics or natural sciences ), or from other publications, outlets and platforms which make up key elements of the PA apparatus for educating and indoctrinating Palestinian youth.
It must be noted that the following examples constitute a very small sample of the hundreds of examples of official PA incitement.
1. The dispute with Israel is not over territory, but over the legitimacy of Israel's existence, let alone Israel's existence of a Jewish state.
i. “The Levant countries [Al-Sham] presently consist of the states of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.” [History of Ancient Civilizations textbook, Grade 5, (2012), p. 27]
ii. In a 2012 book for 3rd graders, a text referring to the Palestinian state is accompanied by a small map of the country in its entirety—including pre-1967 Israel—shown as one political unit covered by a pattern of the Palestinian flag. The text asks "An independent Palestinian state was declared in 1988. How many years have passed since the declaration of independence?" [Mathematics, Grade 3, Part 1 (2012(, p. 80.]

iii. PA textbooks falsify historical documents in order to erase and deny the Jewish connection to the land. The front cover of the National Education textbook for second grade portrays a British Mandate-era stamp in which the original Hebrew writing has been erased leaving only the Arabic.
Stamp as portrayed on front page (and again on page 7) of Grade 2 National Education textbook (part 1, 2009), and actual stamp:
iv. PA textbooks inculcate messages of non-acceptance of the other even when discussing seemingly innocuous topics. This education begins as early as first grade. In a first grade science textbook, a discussion of magnifying glasses includes the following image of a magnifying glass over a text reading "Palestine is Arabic." [Science, grade 1, Part 1, (2010), page 7]

Director of "The Gatekeepers" libels Bibi on CNN, blaming him for Rabin's death (Yoel)

From Yoel:

Dror Moreh is the director of The Gatekeepers, an Oscar nominee featuring 6 of Israel's Shabak chiefs.

The movie is getting a lot of buzz because it indicates that previous heads of the Shin Bet are admitting Israeli mistakes in the territories.

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour Moreh had this to say:

AMANPOUR: You mentioned the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, who was the one who signed the Oslo Accords and who believed in a peace settlement. I notice in the film that you brought up footage of the rallies before the assassination. And you featured -- at least the rallies featured -- Benjamin Netanyahu.
What were you saying by putting that video in? And what was he saying then?

MOREH: Well, there was a lot of incitement towards Rabin as a prime minister then. And Benjamin Netanyahu took his big share in that. I mean, the demonstration where Netanyahu is headed and behind him there is the coffin of Rabin. And he saw that. I'm absolutely sure that he saw that. He wasn't naive.
And he was heading those -- some of the rallies were horrible. I mean, they called Rabin a Nazi collaborator. They called Rabin -- especially the extreme right wing in Israel, they basically -- I mean, Yigal Amir, the assassin, is in jail.
But I think much of the perpetrators, the people who sent him, the extreme right wing rabbis, those politicians who were there, are as much to blame as the one that pulled the trigger. He [Yigal Amir - Yoel] was their [the rabbis' and the politicians' - Yoel] messenger.

Moreh is simply recycling the Israeli Left's blood libel myth that Bibi was somehow responsible for Rabin's death. Everyone of these accusations - that Bibi incited against Rabin, that there was a coffin of Rabin, that the Right was responsible for the poster of Rabin in SS uniform - is a complete lie.

In this video, dated the 17th of April 1995, more than half a year before Rabin's assassination, Bibi is seen telling a crowed of Likud supporters, who are shouting "Rabin is a traitor", that Rabin is not a traitor. He repeats this several times. He also tells the crowed that Rabin is wrong, that he'll have to step aside and that "we're dealing with political rivals, not enemies. We're one and the same people."

More than a year before that, on the 4th of March 1994, there was a Right-wing rally in Ra'anana. The rally featured a coffin. Ever since that rally the Left has been claiming that the coffin was that of Rabin. Thus the Right was accused of wanting the death of Rabin and this incident was regarded as a milestone on the road to Rabin's murder. The Left relied on people's short memory, on their ignorance or on the fact that they weren't born yet or were very little back then. But thanks to the web we can now know if the coffin really symbolised the death of Rabin. In fact, one side of the coffin said "Rabin is burying us" (

''רבין קובר אותנו'')

, while the other side said "Rabin is bringing about the death of Zionism" ("רבין ממית [ה]ציונות"). (see comments)

These are harsh words but the coffin symbolised the death of Zionism not the death of Rabin. It should be remembered that this was during the Oslo Accords when buses and suicide bombers were blowing up people on the streets of Israel on a daily or weekly basis.

Here and here Shelly Yachimovitch (now the head of Labor but then a journalist) and Tommy Lapid (Ya'ir Lapid's father) are calling upon the Left to stop accusing the Likud and Bibi of inciting against Rabin or of being responsible for his murder.

This is not to say that there wasn't incitement against Rabin among the far Right. But there was, and still is, also incitement on the Left. I can provide many examples.

If the director is so dismissive of the truth when on CNN, how loose with the truth was he with how he edited the film?

UPDATE - see comments; Yoel clarifies and adds some information.

5 Palestinian Arabs killed, 12 injured. But it was in Syria, so no one cares

Yesterday 5 Palestinian Arabs were killed in Syria, and 12 more wounded.

Four were killed in the Yarmouk camp by Syrian shelling, and one more was killed by a sniper in the Adra camp.

"Pro-Palestinian" groups have not commented. Nor will they. Because Arabs killed by Arabs are a dog-bites-man story that can be buried or ignored, but those killed by Jews are a war crime and a propaganda bonanza.

Abbas: Solution can come this year - if the world forces Israel to surrender

"Moderate" PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas told a Russian news agency that a solution to the Israel/Palestinian Arab problem can come this year, as long as the world pressures Israel to capitulate to the maximal PLO demands.

"President" Abbas - whose term ended several years ago - said in an interview with the Tass news agency that "Palestine got recognition at the United Nations and therefore can settle all matters relating to settlement, Jerusalem and refugees during the current year; we are hoping to achieve Palestinian independence in 2013."

He stressed that the conflict can be resolved if the Israeli government is ready to solve it "on the basis of international legitimacy," which is the Palestinian Arab keyword for ignoring the wording of UNSC 242 and elevating UNGC 194 into importance and meanings it never had to force Israel to sccept millions of fake refugees.

abbas stressed the importance of international support, pointing out that Russia had always stood with the Palestinians. He added that the Palestinian Authority was seeking to obtain the support of the United States and other countries.

He said nothing about going back to the negotiating table with Israel, though. Instead, he reiterated his precondition added in 2008 that Israel must stop Israeli settlement activity, one that didn't exist since Oslo.

On unity with Hamas, Abbas announced that the internal Palestinian reconciliation with the terror group can be achieved in the coming months. No doubt he sees no problem with the international legitimacy of including terror groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in his government.

Morsi looking more like Mubarak; sends family on expensive vacation

From Al Arabiya:

Reports that Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi recently sent his family and friends on an expensive vacation that consisted of a private jet ride to the Red Sea resort town of Taba and the booking of 12 rooms at the Hilton has caused outrage in country, battered by an ongoing political and economic crisis.

Earlier this week, an official at the Taba resort told the Egyptian newspaper, Almasry Alyoum, that Mursi’s family arrived on Wednesday.

The official also said Mursi’s family reserved 12 rooms at the Hilton Hotel, which overlooks the Red Sea, and in addition to the Mursi clan wives of officials from the Freedom and Justice Party came to stay.

Egyptian screenwriter Wahed Hamed on Sunday spoke out against the alleged luxurious vacation.. Hamed, in remarks published in the Egyptian daily Al-Shrouq, asked who was paying the bill for the 12 reserved rooms.

“The country is poor, and the [rate of hunger] increases every day. Mursi’s [financial] resources do not allow these huge expenses. And since when has Mursi’s family traveled via a private jet?” he added.

Almasry Alyoum reported the president’s family, as well as the others who accompanied them, returned to Cairo on Saturday afternoon, on a private jet.

An official at the Smart Aviation Company said expenses for the flight per hour costs 6,000 U.S dollars. The official added that the total cost encompasses the time from when the jet was prepared for travel and until it lands at its destination.

Radwan Salam, head of the Smart Aviation Company, said he did not know who rented the jet which Mursi’s family boarded, Almasry Alyoum added.

During an interview with the channel An-Nahar on Saturday evening, Hamed, the Egyptian screen writers, acknowledged that Mursi’s wife, Najlaa Mahmoud, may have “nothing to do with politics.” But she “must look at the poor citizens.”

Reports on the alleged expenses of the vacation were also not well-received on the social networking website Twitter. One user tweeted: “I thank all the respectful citizens who paid the price for the Taba vacation.”

Another wrote: “All of this is from the citizens’ pockets.”

Iran's new jet really is "stealth" - it doesn't even exist!

From The Blaze:

Iran has unveiled a new domestically designed and manufactured fighter jet that it says has stealth capabilities, a claim that aviation experts are already questioning.

Iranian authorities rolled out a single-seat bomber, the Qaher F-313 (“Dominant”), on Saturday to much fanfare, including an appearance by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who assured the jet is for defensive purposes only, a claim reminiscent of Iranian assurances that its nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes.

The Tehran Times reports that Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi detailed some of the plane’s capabilities which he claims include:

• avoiding radar detection
• flying at low altitudes
• carrying advanced domestically-manufactured weapons
• taking off and landing on short runways
• able to combat other aircraft and targets on the ground

The Israeli paper Maariv interviewed aeronautical expert Tal Inbar who says the aircraft looked like a model made of fiberglass or cardboard. He said, “It’s not a plane, because that’s not how a real plane looks.”

“Iran doesn’t have the ability to build planes. Plain and simple,” Inbar added.

TOI adds:

Aviation guru David Cenciotti, a freelance reporter, remarked on his blog that the plane sported “implausible aerodynamics and Hollywood sheen” and was laughably small for a fighter jet. He noted that the cockpit was far too basic for a sophisticated aircraft, and appeared “similar to those equipping small private planes.”

“The nose section is so small almost no radar could fit in it,” he wrote. “The air intakes are extremely small, whereas the engine section lacks any kind of nozzle: engine afterburners could melt the entire jet.”

“It looks like this pilot is in a miniature plane” and it appeared “nothing more than a large mock-up model,” he argued.

Iran also broadcast video footage of the Qaher F-313 in flight, which Cenciotti said appeared to fly like a “radio-controlled scale model more than a modern fighter jet.” He also noted it was suspect that Tehran did not release takeoff and landing footage of its new aircraft.

Other aviation blogs were similarly skeptical.

An aircraft that doesn't exist? Now, that's what I call stealth!

Arab group calls Coke Super Bowl ad "racist"

From Reuters:

Arab-American groups have sharply criticized a Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad depicting an Arab walking through the desert with a camel, and one group said it would ask the beverage giant to change it before CBS airs the game on Sunday before an expected audience of more than 100 million U.S. viewers.

"Why is it that Arabs are always shown as either oil-rich sheiks, terrorists, or belly dancers?" said Warren David, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC.

Coca-Cola released an online teaser of the commercial last week, showing the Arab walking through a desert. He soon sees cowboys, Las Vegas showgirls and a motley crew fashioned after the marauders of the apocalyptic "Mad Max" film race by him to reach a gigantic bottle of Coke.

In its ad, Coke asks viewers to vote online on which characters should win the race. The online site does not allow a vote for the Arab character.

"The Coke commercial for the Super Bowl is racist, portraying Arabs as backward and foolish Camel Jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world," Imam Ali Siddiqui, president of the Muslim Institute for Interfaith Studies, said in an email.

"What message is Coke sending with this?" asked Abed Ayoub, ADC's director of legal and policy affairs. "By not including the Arab in the race, it is clear that the Arab is held to a different standard when compared to the other characters in the commercial," he said.

CBS declined comment. Coca-Cola spokeswoman Lauren Thompson said Coke took a "cinematic" approach with the ad, employing the characters as a nod to movies of the past.

The Arab League boycotted Coke from 1968 to 1991, and some Arabs still boycott Coke.

A hat tip here to the first one to identify the classical piece in the first ten seconds of the commercial. And which movement.

UPDATE: AlexandreM gets it after some prodding - Scheherazade, by Rimsky Korsakov, second movement. Jody Goldberg identified the piece but not the movement.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, today expressed the hope that Syria will strike back at Israel after the apparent Israeli raid on one or two targets in Syria, presumed to be a chemical/biological weapons plant and a shipment of advanced anti-aircraft missiles to Hezbollah.

Middle East Online, however, remembers that only last week Iran declared that any Israeli strike on Syria will be considered an attack against Iran and Iran would retaliate. That statement, the latest of a long line of similar declarations, was made by Ali Akbar Velayati, assistant to the Supreme Leader Khamanei. As the MEO headline says, Iran is telling Syria to go and fight while Iran is doing nothing.

This isn't stopping Iran from saying that the Syrian response is imminent, and "will put Israel in a coma." Tehran also announced that thousands of Israelis are preparing to leave the country in anticipation of the massive Syrian response.

It it too early to say that Iran is not preparing a response, but history shows that Tehran likes to do its dirty work through proxies like Hezbollah or by attacking Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide through its spy services.

One cannot also underestimate Muslim pride - Iran is undoubtedly not happy with being made fun of and of having its fellow Muslim countries see it as breaking its own promises.

How did I miss the fatwa against Spongebob????

From Ansamed:

A dozen little girls, the older not even eight years of age, wore the Islamic veil when they posed around a Kuwaiti preacher who is visiting Tunisia to preach conservative Islam. The photos led to vibrant protests across the country with even 70 lawmakers in the Constituent Assembly signing a motion to condemn what the Tunisian association for the rights of minors slammed as a 'crime against children'. The little girls, the rights association said, were 'used to convey an idea which is far removed from our culture and the noble precepts of Islam' with a clear intention to indoctrinate the population.

The preacher at the centre of the controversy, Kamil Al Awhadi, said he did not come to Tunisia to change its society or impose religious choices.

Al Awadhi is known across the Middle East and North Africa thanks to his ability to use television to broadcast his ideas.

He is also well known for issuing a fatwa against cartoon character Sponge Bob accused of 'homosexuality' and of 'inducing children to pervert behaviour'.

He's posing with little girls whom he believes would be sexually enticing if they wouldn't wear a veil, and he says SpongeBob is perverted???

(h/t Ian)

Sunday links: Iran currency drop, Yemen confirms arms ship was Iran's, Alibi Antisemitism

From Ian:

Alibi Antisemitism
Israel has been made an alibi for a new climate of antisemitism on the left.

“It is a moral scandal that some few decades after the unmeasurable catastrophe that overtook the Jewish people in Europe, these anti-Semitic themes and ruses are once again respectable; respectable not just down there with the thugs but pervasively also within polite society, and within the perimeters of a self-flattering liberal and left opinion. It is a bleak lesson to all but those unwilling to see. The message of ‘never again’ has already proved to have been too sanguine. Genocides still occur. We now know, as well, that should a new calamity ever befall the Jewish people, there will be, again, not only the direct architects and executants but also those who collaborate, who collude, who look away and find the words to go with doing so. Some of these, dismayingly, shamefully, will be of the left.This is not a hopeful conclusion, but it is a necessary one. The best of hope in politics must always be allied to a truthful realism. We need to know what we are up against.”

Lessons from the Holocaust? Try these two
(An article by Daniel Finkelstein that appeared in today's Times)
The Jews have learnt all about Man’s inhumanity to Man. But also that you cannot rely on others to keep you safe.

"Last week, in anticipation of Holocaust Memorial Day, David Ward, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, said that the Jews — my Mum, perhaps, her sisters — hadn’t learnt the lesson of the Holocaust. “It appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated.” I’ll give my Mum a call when I have a moment and pass on his complaint.”

Israel Election: How The Pundits Got It Wrong
Many have failed to understand the currents of Israeli society - illustrated in the recent election and Holocaust Memorial Day.

"A similar lack of what is not really such a subtle argument, was shown by a cartoon in the Sunday Times depicting Mr Netanyahu as a big nosed, large-eared, bloodthirsty Jew cementing what appear to be screaming Arabs into a wall as blood oozes from the bricks.
On Holocaust Memorial Day this showed not just a lack of sensitivity, an echo of the blood libel, and a distortion of Holocaust iconography, but the belief that there is only one side in a peace process.
It was a cartoon version of Israel, a pictorial version of the analysts' predictions of the Israeli election and society. Wrong."

NYC Mayoral Candidate Bill Thompson Blasts Brooklyn College for Anti Israel BDS Event

"New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson ripped Brooklyn College Thursday for its plan to hold a BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) event against Israel with the co-sponsorship of the school’s political science department.
Speaking alongside Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a political heavyweight in the Brooklyn Jewish community, Thompson said, “Those are our taxpayer dollars. We should not be using those dollars to express hate.”

CAMERA: Maligning Israel at American Public Health Association Annual Meeting

"Why does an association formally devoted to improving the health of Americans not only concern itself with the Palestinian-Israeli situation – but also side with one (the Palestinian Arabs) against the other This is exactly what the American Public Health Association did in its recent (2012) 140th annual meeting's closing keynote speech delivered to hundreds of enthusiasts by Angela Davis.
Davis, who is professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz in what the school calls “the History of Consciousness Department,” was a member of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and U.S. Communist Party member until 1991 when dissolution of the Soviet Union took place. The party generally sided with the Russian-led Soviet Union against the United States.
Davis' obsession with Israel's alleged unfair treatment of Palestinian Arabs apparently leaves no room for focusing any attention on nearby Syria whose real human rights violations include killing tens of thousands of its own citizens in the last year or two, renewed Sunni-Shi'ite violence in Iraq, oppression of Coptic Christians in Egypt or any of the other numerous and statistically more significant examples of Arabs maltreating Arabs."

PA Asks Israel to Allow Terrorist into Areas it Controls
The PA is making efforts to bring the leader of a group that carried out a terror attack in Israel in 1974 into Judea and Samaria.

"The man, Nayef Hawatmeh, is the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), one of the main factions in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)."

Israeli civilian, soldier hurt in West Bank clashes
Dismantlement of protest camp turns violent as soldiers fire stun grenades at rock-throwing Palestinians near village of Burin

Yemen says intercepted ship carrying weapons was Iranian
Yemen confirmed on Saturday that a ship intercepted last month off its coast was an Iranian vessel trying to smuggle explosives and surface-to-air missiles to the country, the state news agency Saba reported.

'Failure to blacklist Hezbollah undermines security'
London conference discusses EU failure to list Hezbollah as terrorist organization as "undermining security goals."

"It is a “very bad thing that Hezbollah can operate in Europe regarding fund-raising and logistics,” US Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, a former coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department in the first Obama administration, said. Hezbollah’s legal status in the EU “undermines security goals,” he said."

Ex-Iran bank head busted with $70 million check
Tahmasb Mazaheri, who was governor of the Central Bank of Iran from 2007-2008, suspected of money laundering by German authorities

Iran's Currency Plummets to All-Time Low
Iran’s rial has plummeted to an all-time low, dropping more than 21 percent over two weeks.

Islamist threatens to attack Germany, Merkel: paper
A German Islamist has threatened to attack Berlin this summer and kill Chancellor Angela Merkel in a video posted on the Internet, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

Also:

Not a Mistake, Misunderstanding, or Well-Intended Criticism But a Deliberate Campaign to Bash Israel (Barry Rubin)

Inventing words to demonize Israel (CJ News) (h/t Jason)

Linking Obligations with Rights at the UNHRC (Commentary - Evelyn Gordon) (h/t YM)

Richard Falk justifies and supports Hamas rockets

I had missed this essay from December by Richard Falk.

It is always interesting to see a special rapporteur of the UN justify targeting Jews - and for a supposed expert on international law to say that the laws themselves are insufficient in allowing the right of Hamas to shoot rockets at Jewish civilians:

There is no doubt that Hamas’s reliance on rockets fired in the direction of Israeli civilian population centers are violations of international humanitarian law, and should be condemned as such, but even this condemnation is not without its problematic aspects. The Goldstone Report did condemn the reliance of these rockets in a typically decontextualized manner, that is, without reference to the unlawfulness of the occupation, including its pronounced reliance on collective punishment in the form of the blockade as well as arbitrary violent incursions, frequent military overflights, and a terrifying regime of subjugation that imparts on Palestinians a sense of total vulnerability and helplessness. The Goldstone Report also was silent as to the nature and extent of a Palestinian right of resistance. Such unconditional condemnations of Hamas as ‘a terrorist organization’ are unreasonably one-sided to the extent that Palestinian moral, political, and legal rights of resistance are ignored and Israel’s unlawful policies are not considered. This issue also reveals a serious deficiency in international humanitarian law, especially, as here, in the context of a prolonged occupation that includes many violations of the most fundamental and inalienable rights of an occupied people. The prerogatives of states are upheld, while those of peoples are overlooked or treated as non-existent.

It is also relevant to take note of the absence of alternative means available to the Palestinians to uphold their rights under international law and to challenge the abuses embedded in Israeli occupation policies. Israel with its drones, Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter aircraft, Iron Dome, and so forth enjoys the luxury of choosing its targets at will, but Palestinians have no such option. For them it is either using the primitive and indiscriminate weaponry at their disposal or essentially giving in to an intolerable status quo. To repeat, this does not make Hamas rockets lawful, but does it make such reliance wrong, given the overall context of violence that includes absolute impunity for Israeli violations of international criminal law? What are we to do with international law when it is invoked only to control the behavior of the weaker party?

It gives perspective to imagine the situation being reversed as it was during the Nazi occupation of France or the Netherlands during World War II. Resistance fighters were uniformly perceived in the liberal West as unconditional heroes, and no critical attention was given as to whether the tactics used unduly imperiled innocent civilian lives. Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honored as martyrs. Mashaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions, in effect asking what Palestinians are supposed to do in the exercise of resistance given their circumstances, which have persisted for so long, given the failures of traditional diplomacy and the UN to secure their rights under international law.

Falk is admitting that Hamas terror rockets aimed at Israeli civilians are unlawful - but he cannot say that they are wrong! You see, Hamas is just like the French and Dutch resistance fighters!

The major argument Falk advances is that Khaled Meshal's statements in Arabic flatly stating his desire to destroy Israel should also be "contextualized" and his ambiguous statements to the Western media being misinterpreted as showing flexibility should be what we believe.

Oh, and he is again not above lying with statistics:

Although not the whole story, the one-sided ratio of deaths as between Israel and Palestine is a good first approximation of comparative responsibility over the period of Hamas ascendancy in Gaza, and it is striking. For instance, between the ceasefire in 2009 and the Israeli attack in November 2012, 271 Palestinians were killed and not a single Israeli. [B’Teselm [sic] report]

Actually, B'tzelem counts 4 Israeli fatalities from Gaza in that time period.

But moreover, looking at the details of B'Tselem's statistics for that time period, we see that the vast majority of Gazans killed were terrorists! 200 of them were either actively engaged in hostilities against Israel (165) or targeted as leaders of terror groups (35)! Of the remainder, a large percentage were either smugglers in tunnels killed during air raids, Arabs trying to sneak into Israel or found directly next to the perimeter fence, or rock-throwing protesters. (Also, 45 Gazans killed by other Gazans, and 14 executed by Hamas.)

Then again, why should anyone be surprised when someone who clearly supports terrorism as legitimate "resistance" is also a liar?

(h/t Missing Peace)

Hezbollah member killed - apparently in Syria - doing his "Jihadist duty"

From Naharnet:

Hizbullah held a funeral on Saturday for Hussein Mohammed Nether in the southern town of Arabsalim, a member who died while “performing his Jihadi duty”, the party said in a released statement.

“The funeral procession marched from Ragheb Harb Hospital in Nabatieh towards Arabsalim where the martyr was buried,” it explained.

The procession was lead by party official Ali Daoun and the member of the central political bureau Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid, in addition to prominent figures in Hizbullah.

The party has been accused of allegedly sending members to fight alongside the Syrian army in the neighboring country's conflict.

The pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported in January that around 1,500 men are receiving salaries and being trained in the Bekaa camps to fight in Syria and defend Shiite villages and towns against the rebels.

Meanwhile, the Saudi al-Watan daily had reported that some 5,000 Hizbullah members have been fighting alongside regime troops in the restive suburbs of Damascus.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the fighters crossed the border into Syria last month. But they said that around 300 of them were killed in the fighting in the past few days.