Anti-Islamist bloggers banned from entering UK

From BBC:

Two prominent US bloggers have been banned from entering the UK, the Home Office has said.

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer co-founded anti-Muslim group Stop Islamization of America.

They were due to speak at an English Defence League march in Woolwich, where Drummer Lee Rigby was killed.

A government spokesman said individuals whose presence "is not conducive to the public good" could be excluded by the home secretary.

He added: "We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form."

The specific letters they sent to Geller and Spencer are most interesting. Here is Geller's:

I am writing to inform you about the British governments measures for excluding or deporting extremists under the Unacceptable Behaviour policy. The list of unacceptable behaviours covers any non-UK national whether in the UK or abroad who uses any means or medium including:
• writing, producing, publishing or distributing material,
• public speaking including preaching,
• running a website,
• using a position of responsibility such as a teacher, community or youth leader

to express views that:

• foment or justify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs,
• seek to provoke others to terrorist acts,
• foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts,
• foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.

The list is indicative and not exhaustive.

The Home Secretary has considered whether, in light of this list, you should be excluded from the UK. After careful consideration on 25 June 2013 she personally directed that you should be excluded from the United Kingdom on the grounds that your presence here is not conducive to the public good. The Home Secretary has reached this decision because you have brought yourself within the scope of the list of unacceptable behaviours by making statements that may foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.

The Home Secretary notes that you are a prolific blogger, author, political activist and commentator, You co-founded Stop Islamization of America', an organization described as an anti-Muslim hate group. You also operate a number of websites including Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs.

You are reported to have stated the following:

• 'Al-Qaeda is a manifestation of devout Islam...it is Islam.'

• 'If the Jew dies, the Muslims will die as well: their survival depends on their constant jihad. because without it they will lose the meaning and purpose of their existence.'

The Home Secretary considers that should you be allowed to enter the UK you would continue to espouse such views. In doing so. you would be committing listed behaviours and would therefore be behaving in a way that is not conducive to the public good. You are therefore instructed not to travel to the UK as you will be refused admission on arrival. Although there is no statutory right of appeal against the Home Secretary's decision. this decision is reviewed every 3 to 5 years.

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 the Home Office treats all personal information in confidence. However, such information may be disclosed to other government departments. agencies. local authorities, the police, foreign governments and other bodies for immigration purposes or to enable them to perform their functions.

Spencer's letter has a different example of his writing:

"...it [Islam] is a religion and a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose of establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society because media and general government unwillingness to face the sources of Islamic terrorism these things remain largely unknown."

Whether or not you agree with Geller's and Spencer's statements on Islam, there is no way that these writings reach the defined  level of "unacceptable behaviours" listed in the beginning of the letter.  To say that these opinions can incite people to terror acts is simply not defensible. To compare their statements with the hate speech and clear incitement that radical Islamic clerics spout in the UK against Jews, infidels and gays is a perversion.

Will Human Rights Watch and Amnesty defend Geller's and Spencer's right to enter Great Britain and to speak there?

Moreover, will the people who complain when Israel bans people from entering (on "flytillas") for the express purpose of combating Israel's existence and causing disturbances act equally outraged that England has a much looser standard for banning anyone who might act in a way that "is not conducive to the public good"?

After this disgraceful decision on the part of the UK we can expect a wave of hypocrisy from all the "liberals" who pretend that Israel is far worse.

This decision proves that a powerful nation, not under any direct threat from anyone,  is far more restrictive of basic freedom of expression than Israel is. Not that anyone from the Left would ever, ever admit it.

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Egypt charges 9 with spying for Israel

From AFP:

Egypt's public prosecutor on Wednesday referred nine people, including six foreigners, to trial for allegedly spying for Israel, the official MENA news agency reported.

Three Egyptians and six Israelis were referred to a criminal court, though it was unclear if any of them were in the country.

Four of the Israelis are said to be intelligence officers and two are Arab Israeli citizens, MENA said.

Investigations by the state security prosecutor showed the defendants had "passed on information to Israeli military intelligence services to harm Egypt's national security and the country's higher interests," MENA said.

The information pertained to the security situation in the Sinai peninsula and the presence and movements of extremist Islamist groups there, the agency reported.

Given Egypt's incompetence in figuring out who is a spy, I doubt highly that Egypt caught any real spies.

The names of the alleged spies have been published in Arabic; the ones I figured out are Danny Ovadia, Aharon Danone, David Jacob, Shlomo Sofer, Israeli Arabs Abdullah Salim Ibrahim Darokheeba and Omar Harb Abu Jarad, and Egyptians Salameh Hamed Abu Jarad and Mohammed Ahmed Abu Jarad.

My guess is that the Abu Jarads of Rafah are related (or assumed to be related) to the Israeli Abu Jarad, and Egypt built a "case" based on that.

One also cannot discount the idea that Egypt is trying to divert attention from the upcoming June 30 anti-government demonstrations by trying the tried-and-true "unite around hating Israel" card.

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Terror-supporting Islamist visits the White House

The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports:

Radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi is considered so radical that the United States bans him from entering the country.

Qaradawi, considered the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, has called for the killing of Jews and Americans.

That history makes the June 13 White House meeting with Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah all the more inexplicable. Bin Bayyah is vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), a group founded by and headed by Qaradawi. The IUMS has a long history of supporting Hamas –a top Hamas leader is an IUMS member – and of calling for Israel's destruction.

Bin Bayyah's website claims that he met June 13 with senior Obama administration officials at the White House.

Nonetheless, it was the Obama administration which sought the meeting with Bin Bayyah, his website's account said.

"We asked for this meeting to learn from you and we need to be looking for new mechanisms to communicate with you and the Association of Muslim Scholars (another name used for the IUMS)," Gayle Smith, senior director of the National Security Council, reportedly said.

Bin Bayyah's June 13 account placed other senior officials in the meeting, including:Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and White House spokeswomanJennifer Palmieri. But the account was later changed to delete the reference to Donilon's presence at the meeting.

Smith also thanked Bin Bayyah for "his efforts to bring more understanding amongst humanity" during the meeting, the Bin Bayyah account said.

The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comments between June 14 and Tuesday.

This was reported in Arab media, including Al Jazeera. There is no way to verify whether his report on what happened at the White House is accurate without the administration verifying or denying it.

Here's the largest photo I could find so people can identify who was there (click to enlarge):

While the major topic seems to have been Syria, Bin Bayyah is simply not someone the White House should be speaking with.

Interestingly, on his website Bin Bayyah seems to be a big advocate of Muslim dialogue with Western non-Muslims, as long as it can bring advantage to Muslims. He doesn't say that Muslims can learn anything from this dialogue; but rather they can speak to Westerners using the language of human rights and diversity to help the Islamic agenda, as well as to teach Westerners that issues like human rights and equality are Muslim values as well - but not absolute values, rather they must be interpreted within Islamic ideas of "justice."

(h/t Dennis)

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Muslims warn that Jews plan to build, um, second Temple

From Saudi Gazette:

Israeli authorities on Monday began new excavations near Al-Aqsa Mosque Complex in occupied Jerusalem, a Palestinian foundation said.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said that the Israeli authorities began the excavations in the southern part of Al-Magharebah Gate, the eastern part of the Umayyad palaces and at the entrance of the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood. The three sites are located in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The foundation said that its inspection teams documented the new excavations in the three sites. It added that these excavations take place at night and are covered with tents and plastic sheets.

It warned that the use of huge machines in the excavation work in the area puts in serious danger the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It added that the Israeli will build in the sites several facilities, including synagogue for women, restroom facilities, police station, tourists’ centers, a network of bridges and iron stairs.

The foundation stressed that goal of excavations “is to Judaize Jerusalem and the collapse of Al-Aqsa Mosque to build the so-called second temple on ruins of it.”

Hate to break it to ya, Aqsa Foundation guys, but if you want to prevent Jews from building the Second Temple, you are a tad late.

If this story seems familiar, that's because it is an evergreen story in the Arab media. Israel's imminent plans to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque have been a weekly staple in Arabc media, even though coverage seems perfunctory nowadays. I mean, it is hard to maintain rage when all the previous predictions have been wrong.

Only last spring, we were warned that Israel planned to demolish the mosque ahead of Obama's visit to the region.

My favorite was the prediction that Israel would build the Third Temple on March 16, 2010, based on a completely stupid report from Haaretz. That was in the Arab headlines for months!

In fact, those crafty Jews keep faking out the Al Aqsa Foundation so that when they really are ready to build the Temple, no one will believe it. It is called Operation Cry Wolf. Working like a charm.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

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Arab Idol star: "I am a son of the camp." Why is that?

From Ma'an:

Mohammad Assaf declared himself a "son of the camp" on Tuesday as he returned to the Gaza
Strip, where thousands of jubilant fans awaited the arrival of the Arab Idol star.

Flag-waving crowds waited for several hours at the Rafah crossing on Egypt's border for 23-year-old Assaf, three days after he was crowned the winner of the popular regional singing contest.

Assaf bent over and kissed the ground as he crossed the border, an AFP correspondent reported, before holding a news conference alongside Hamas officials.

"I thank you for your wonderful welcome and hope the celebrations won't feature gunfire," Assaf said, alluding to the shots in the air that sometimes accompany celebrations in the Middle East.

Assaf said he was the son of Palestine and "son of the (refugee) camp," and told reporters he would continue to sing nationalistic songs and raise the Palestinian flag.

So the newest Palestinian Arab hero is a "son of the camp."

Will any reporter ask why these camps still exist in territory that is ruled by Palestinian Arabs?

Why can't Hamas or the PA dismantle the camps and mainstream the residents into more normal society? There is nothing stopping that from happening. They are not "refugees" by any definition because even the ones who are over 65 years old are living in the land they came from. (At worst, they are "internally displaced persons.")

So why do these camps, often hotbeds of terror, exist?

Netty Gross, in The Jerusalem Report in July 1998, asked an official why the camps there hadn’t been dismantled. She was told the Palestinian Authority had made a “political decision” not to do anything for the more than 650,000 Palestinians living in the camps until the final-status talks with Israel took place. (quoted here.)

Keeping the people crammed into these "camps" is a violation of their human rights, but no human rights organizations are calling for Hamas or the PA to dismantle them and end the discrimination that exists even within Palestinian Arab ruled territory.

Indeed, the UN has condemned Israel for attempting to do just that!

Where are the human rights activists demanding that the camps be demolished and the people given normal housing and services in line with everyone else, to live in their land as normal citizens? Why did Assaf have to grow up in such miserable conditions?

The sad fact is that the camps exist for one reason only - to purposefully keep hundreds of thousands of people in misery to make Israel look bad, even though Israel does nothing to keep a single person in a "refugee" camp.

Don't believe me? Then look at this quote from Palestine's ambassador to Lebanon, Abdullah Abdullah, in 2011, quoted in Lebanon's Daily Star:

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Mohammad Assaf is part of the long tradition of anti-Israel propaganda where ordinary Palestinian Arabs are used as pawns and discriminated against even in places ruled by their leaders until Israel is destroyed. And that is the long-term plan - a plan that is apparently endorsed by the UN as well as by so-called "human rights" organizations who never say a word against the existence of these outdoor prisons for thousands of people.

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How KGB actions led to Arab and Muslim terror

From The Daily Mail:

The highest-ranking Soviet-bloc intelligence officer ever to defect to the West claims in a new book that anti-American Islamic terrorism had its roots in a secret 1970s-era KGB plot to harm but the United States and Israel by seeding Muslim countries with carefully targeted propaganda.

Yuri Andropov, the KGB chief for 15 years before he became the Soviet premier, sent hundreds of agents and thousands of copies of propaganda literature to Muslim countries.
'By 1972,' according to the book, 'Andropov's disinformation machinery was working around the clock to persuade the Islamic world that Israel and the United States intended to transform the rest of the world into a Zionist fiefdom.'

'According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a petri dish in which the KGB community could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought.'
Those claims come from former Romanian Lt. Gen Ion Mihail Pacepa and University of Mississippi law professor Ronald Rychlak.

In their book, titled Disinformation, Pacepa spills the secrets he kept for decades as head of Romania's spy apparatus and secret police, the DIE, before he secured political asylum in the U.S. in 1978.

Andropov began his leadership of the KGB just months before the 1967 Six-Day War between Arabs and Israelis, in which Israel humiliated the key Soviet allies Syria and Egypt. And he decided to settle the score by training Palestinian militants to hijack El Al airplanes and bomb sites in Jerusalem.

But more shocking, Andropov commissioned the first Arabic translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian-forged 1905 propaganda book that alleged Jews were plotting to take over Europe - and were being aided by the United States.

Much of this was already known - see this post from last year.

I have also noted that a 1968 PLO document that created a blueprint for destroying Israel that seems to be mostly in place even today has all the hallmarks of being originally drafted by the Soviets.

(h/t/ Shlomedic)

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PressTV has a new columnist!

His name is Arif Hussain, and here is his bio:

Arif Hussain is a Pakistani journalist. A graduate of a prestigious military institution in Pakistan, Arif Hussain has been writing articles about international relations, global politics, Middle East and the expansion of Zionism across the globe.

Oh goody!

His first article informs us:

When human, religious and cultural values vanish from a society, it eventually changes into capitalism. Then murder, injustice, bribery, oppression and occupation becomes the practices of the society.

Zionists being totally deprived of all these values have put their all-out efforts to deprive societies from their highest religious and human values. To accomplish this dirty mission of spreading capitalism, they have been using pornography, bribery and interest-based banking systems worldwide. They kept on invading societies psychologically and enslaving them in a net of racism.

In the process of building puppet governments, the Zionist regime of Israel has been very successful in replacing many Arab and non-Arab governments so far. Under the slogan of democracy, Israel has toppled many governments which tried to resist its policies, and replaced them with its own versions.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Bahrain in the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and other countries outside the Arabian Peninsula are by now standing under the Zionist Umbrella, offering their best services in return for its barbarism on the innocent people of Palestine.

Now that he gets to the second article, he can start to expand on his theme:

It has been almost two and half years when the enemies of humanity allegedly applied a well plotted mind-set in Syria. The aim was to topple the government of Bashar Assad, resultantly cutting blood supply to other organs of the resistance against Zionism.

The mechanism started with simple anti government peace demonstrations as usual. But a very few people knew that the wolves were hiding within the herds, with their skins changed. It was easy for the wolves to catch the black sheep; the black sheep then created havoc in the peaceful environment.

The false flag propaganda of nine eleven and the invasion of Afghanistan, the years long hunt for Osama and the final drama of his imprisonment in dark depths of sea, allegation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and shameful return after mass destructing the country, the Libya's so called civil war, the war with Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen and friendly table talks with them in Qatar, the decades long so called hunt for Al Qaeda and support for them in Libya and Syria, the false flag Boston bombings and handling the self created situation with extreme un professionalism in nervousness, accusing other nations for spying and their own spies being caught and expelled by others, the so called nuclear talks with Iran and secret killing of its nuclear scientists. What else should i mention, every step they take is hypocritical, every decision they make is a double standard decision.

Why all these wars and everything else happen?

Well I am not going to write a paragraph on this. Everything is already mentioned and is as clear as water. I would rather prefer to write a single sentence.

All this happens to flourish a minute racist entity: the Zionist state of Israel.

I'm not one to brag, but placing Hussain at PressTV is definitely one of my best moves of the past month. I mean, its summer and there are no good original comedies on TV, so this is a great alternative.

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Egyptian sues to strip nationality of MB leader because of remarks about Jews

Last December, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam el-Erian suggested that when Israel is destroyed, Egyptian Jews should be allowed to return to Egypt.

Ever since then he has come under withering criticism from antisemitic Egyptians and other Arabs, of all political stripes, who are twisting his words to make it sound like he is a Jew-lover. Even this month the was criticized for his statement in the war of words between Egypt and the UAE.

Now, an Egyptian has brought a lawsuit to strip Erian of his Egyptian citizenship based not only on his record with the Brotherhood but also because of his statement about Jews. The suit states that his statement alone should be enough to strip his citizenship, by indicating that he would welcome the usurping Jews. This indicates, the suit says, that Erian has no pride in his land.

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6/25 Links Part 2: Pope Says Anti-Semites are not True Christians and Rihanna is Coming to Israel

From Ian:

---

Barry Rubin: Unlike Madonna, the Middle East Isn’t a ‘Material Girl’

A reader pointed out that in the West, it is assumed to be obvious that Arabs understand that material advancement is necessary for progress and power. For example, Tom Friedman talked about the UN Arab Human development report written by Arab liberals. In other words, the Arabic-speaking world is shaped by the failure of leaders to understand that Western pundits know far more about their society than they do.
Understanding that Friedman doesn’t understand the Middle East, though he has persuaded a big audience otherwise, is the beginning of wisdom on the region.

French marines held over anti-terror probe

The men are accused stealing military-owned bullet-proof jackets and heavy-duty helmets.
They were arrested in connection with a probe into a terror cell implicated in an anti-Semitic bomb attack near Paris last September, it was revealed on Thursday.
A brother of one of the suspects is believed to be an Islamist extremist fighting with anti-Assad rebels in Syria.

Islamist Terror Cell Arrested in France

French police arrested six members of an Islamic terrorist cell early Monday suspected of planning attacks against well-known figures in France, sources close to the investigation told France 24.
The suspects are all in custody after coordinated raids across the Paris region, the news source said.

Who Firebombed Montreal's Kosher Restaurants?

Police have released surveillance video footage of perpetrators who firebombed two kosher restaurants in Montreal in the hopes that someone in the public might have seen the perpetrators and could offer investigators a tip on their identity.
Although no one was injured in the arson, both businesses were damaged.

‘Israel’ among keywords IRS used to target groups seeking tax-exemptions

The Internal Revenue Service’s screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed, the new head of the agency acknowledged Monday. Terms including “Israel,” ”Progressive” and “Occupy” were used by agency workers to help pick groups for closer examination, according to an internal IRS document obtained by The Associated Press.

Study: Almost half of Belgian, French, Hungarian Jews mull emigration

Despite the absence of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, and a renaissance of sorts in European Jewish life, Jews on the continent feel insecure about their future, two new studies show.
The studies show that almost half the Jews in Belgium, France and Hungary are considering emigrating, some to Israel, others to North America. For those who want to come to Israel, there is very little political will in Israel to help with immigrant absorption bureaucracy, and there is no effective European equivalent of the popular Nefesh B'Nefesh organization.

Anti-Semites are not true Christians, Pope says

Pope Francis condemned anti-Semitism during a meeting with representatives of the international Jewish community at the Vatican.
“Because of our commons roots, a true Christian cannot be anti-Semitic,” Francis said Monday at a meeting with a delegation of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, or IJCIC.
He added that the Catholic Church “firmly condemns hatred, persecution and all manifestations of anti-Semitism.”

Prince Charles warns of rising antisemitism

Prince Charles has warned that Britain was suffering from an "apparent rise in antisemitism, along with other poisonous and debilitating forms of intolerance", according to . He made the comments in a speech that praised the work of Lord Sacks, the outgoing chief rabbi, in promoting tolerance.
Charles said: "Running throughout your time as chief rabbi has been that all-important principle of which this country has long been an exponent – the principle of tolerance.

Israeli Tourists Shocked by Nazi Kitsch in Bulgarian Town

Perhaps even more startling was the response of one of the shop owners selling items such as Hitler mugs, wristwatches with swastikas, and an alarm clock with a picture of Hitler on its face: “There are people who want to buy the products, otherwise we would not sell them. We sell to those who want them, those who don’t, don’t have to buy them.”

Dutch to rule on Anne Frank letters amid archival spat

A Dutch court may rule this week whether some of the letters of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl whose posthumously published diary about her time in hiding from the Nazis made her a symbol of the Holocaust, should stay in Amsterdam or be sent to Switzerland.
The letters - together with about 10,000 photographs and other documents, but not the famous diary - are at the center of a long-running dispute between Anne Frank House, the Amsterdam museum dedicated to her memory, and Anne Frank Fonds, the Basel-based foundation set up by her father Otto.

Book reveals Wallenberg also helped armed resistance

Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from Nazi-occupied Hungary, may also have had a secret military mission during World War II, a new book claims.

IDF Blog Startup Soldiers: from the IDF to High-Tech Success

The Israeli military’s ranks have included future politicians, celebrities, journalists and many other success stories. Some of the high-tech geniuses who have changed the world also wore the IDF uniform.
Behind almost every Israeli startup is an accomplished innovator who calls Israel home. But before setting out on the road to success, most of these brilliant minds served as IDF soldiers. Here we remember their roles in the IDF – and the accomplishments that followed.

Chicago mayor comes to Israel for H2O solutions

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is planning to purify his city’s water using new technologies created by a collaboration between the University of Chicago and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
The two schools, which have been working together for the last 18 months, have come up with a series of proposals that would look at ways to purify water at the molecular level, making clean, fresh drinking-water more plentiful and less expensive by 2020.

SodaStream teaming up with Whirlpool’s Kitchen-Aid

Israel’s at-home carbonation specialist SodaStream has signed a deal with KitchenAid, a leading maker of premium kitchen appliances and culinary tools and a brand of Whirlpool Corporation, to launch a new at-home carbonation machine.
The new soda maker – that lets people make fizzy soda drinks at home — is expected to be available at retail in the fourth quarter of 2013. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rihanna to shine bright like a diamond in Tel Aviv

International singing sensation Rihanna will bring her "Diamonds" world tour to Tel Aviv for an October 22 concert in Park Hayarkon, Bookmark Entertainment Agency announced Tuesday morning.
The six-time Grammy winner last performed in Israel at Tel Aviv's Bloomfield Stadium in 2010.

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Saudi foreign minister declares Syria "occupied territory"

From Al Arabiya:

Syria can only be considered as an “occupied land,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Tuesday during a press meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Al-Faisal described the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria as dangerous, saying the opposition forces must be offered military help to defend themselves.

Saudi Arabia "cannot be silent" about Iranian intervention, al-Faisal added and called for a resolution to ban arms flows to the Syrian government.

Don't you get the impression that Faisal is just looking for the biggest insult he can use against Iran, and (short of labeling them "Zionist") the phrase "occupied territory" fits the bill?

Keep in mind that many of Syria's rebels come from outside Syria as well, so we might see this argument being used by the Syrians soon!

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Benny Morris schools author of another anti-Zionist book

At Jewish Review of Books, Benny Morris takes apart another anti-Israel screed masquerading  as a serious book.

In this case, the target is "Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country—and Why They Can’t Make Peace"
by Patrick Tyler.

The review is long but here are some excerpts:

Tyler’s book is a gossipy overlong pseudo-history of Israel, which is noteworthy mainly for what it indicates about the standing of Israel among the chattering classes. For Patrick Tyler is the former chief correspondent of The New York Times and the former Middle East bureau chief of The Washington Post, and his book comes festooned with blurbs from former Times executive editor Howell Raines, CNN’s national security analyst Peter L. Bergen, and others lauding its scholarship as “meticulous” and describing it as “the definitive historical and analytical account” of the role of the military in Israel. Incidentally, Tyler does not know Hebrew or Arabic, and the only archive he appears to have visited is the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in his home state of Texas.

In his Prologue, Tyler asserts that “militarism” is the ruling spirit in Israeli society:

Once in the military system, Israelis never fully exit. They carry the military identity for life . . . through lifelong expectations of loyalty and secrecy. Many Israeli officers carry their “top secret” clearances after retirement, reporting back to superiors or intelligence officers items of interest gleaned from their involvement in business, finance, and interactions with foreigners.

On the next page, he writes, “the specter of the security state remains a dominant aspect of life,” and a little later, “The military is the country to a great extent.” This is all nonsense. Had Tyler been writing about Israel during the late 1940s and 1950s, perhaps he would have had a point. Perhaps. But the Israel of the past several decades, Israel today, is another animal altogether. For most Israelis, individual achievement and interests trump the old collectivist Zionist ethic. Indeed, fewer and fewer Israelis actually serve in the army or do reserve duty (as the few who carry the burden are constantly complaining). It is true that among eleventh and twelfth graders, there is still great competitiveness to get a slot, once inducted, in one of the IDF’s elite units or in pilot training, but this has more to do with adolescent competition and machismo than militaristic ideology. Indeed, a good argument can be made for depicting the Israeli army as one of the world’s least “military.” Since its inception in 1948, the IDF has abjured saluting (the practice exists only in formal parades), and the men, after completing basic training, generally address their non-coms and officers on a first-name basis. The dress code in the army ranges from informal to sloppy and always has (except in the Armored Corps), and breaches of discipline tend to be punished lightly. While females are still kept out of combat units, women non-coms and officers are playing a major role in training combat troops (in armor and artillery, for example), and there are growing numbers of women pilots and navigators, also flying combat aircraft. All of this points to a liberal rather than “militarist” military.

As with poker players, books have tells. At one point in Fortress Israel Tyler writes that Israel’s paratroops wear black berets. Had he interviewed any Israeli, even a child (even an Israeli Arab child), he would have known that, as in Britain and France, paratroopers wear red berets. Sadly, Tyler knows nothing about the nuts and bolts of Israel or its military.

Israel is, in sober fact, a small, flawed, and embattled democracy, with a strong and unusually egalitarian military that has produced an extraordinary stream of writers, academics, and artists, supported by world-class academic and artistic institutions. In short, it is more Athenian than Spartan.

Tyler is as weak on the history of Israel as he is on its sociology, though he is chock-full of opinions and judgments, all of them anti-Zionist. ...

One other point Tyler makes about the [Six Day] war’s aftermath is worth quoting because it is so blatantly untrue: “It seemed that with few exceptions, everyone in Israel had embraced a creed that envisioned a Greater Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. There were differences [only] about how to achieve it.” It is true that a semi-messianic euphoria took hold, but post-1967 Israel was nonetheless a deeply divided society and remains so down to the present. Many opposed, or were uncomfortable with, retention of the Palestinian-populated territories. Tyler forgets to tell his readers that Ben-Gurion, whom he repeatedly brands an arch-expansionist and warmonger, immediately advised Eshkol to withdraw from the whole of the West Bank except East Jerusalem, nor does he mention that Labor Party minister Yigal Allon quickly formulated a plan which called for withdrawal from the bulk of the West Bank in exchange for peace with Jordan. The “Allon Plan” was never formally adopted as the Labor Party’s platform or Israeli government policy, but it guided Labor’s policies for a decade. (Settlements were not established in the areas earmarked for transfer to Arab sovereignty.) In the immediate post-1967 years, Israel’s leaders, in secret meetings, repeatedly proposed the plan to King Hussein as a basis for a bilateral peace settlement to no avail.

...The War of Attrition came to an end after the Soviets sent in thousands of their own personnel to man anti-aircraft missile batteries and fighter squadrons to counter the IAF. In one incident, Israeli Phantoms shot down five Soviet-piloted MiG-21s. At this point, both sides called it quits. The Egyptians were now thoroughly exhausted, and the Israelis feared an open-ended clash with the Russians. Tyler, as usual, has the story all wrong. He tells us that Soviet pilots “shot down half a dozen Israeli Phantoms.” This never happened.

...The subtitle of Tyler’s book carries a clear message: Bloodthirsty Spartan generals “run” Israel and that is why it has not achieved peace with its neighbors. The actual history of the various post-1967 Israeli-Arab peace processes gives the lie to this argument. IDF generals and ex-generals have actually loomed large in these peace processes, both those which succeeded and those which didn’t.

Israel so far has signed two peace treaties with Arab states, with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994, both of which are still in force (though how they will fare in the coming years, with fiercely anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic Islamists on the ascent in Arab politics, is anyone’s guess). Negotiations with Egypt were led by Menachem Begin, a civilian who had headed the pre-state right-wing Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL). But the two men who pressed and persuaded him to make the requisite concessions, including handing over to Egypt the whole of Sinai, were his foreign minister Moshe Dayan and his defense minister Ezer Weizman, both of whom had spent most of their lifetimes in the IDF. Dayan was a former chief of general staff, and Weizman was a past commander of the Israel Air Force. The peace treaty with Jordan, in which Israel ceded several hundred square kilometers of territory in the south, was negotiated and signed by Yitzhak Rabin, also a former IDF chief of general staff.

...The basic problem with Fortress Israel is that Tyler dismisses, or is simply unaware of, the pan-Arab desire to rid the Middle East of the Jewish state and its periodic efforts to do so. According to Tyler, Israel alone is to blame for the wars, for the absence of peace, for the hopelessness. Thus, he fails completely to deal with the 1948 War, about which all acknowledge that the Arabs—first the Palestinians and then the neighboring Arab states—were the aggressors; thus, he fails to come to grips with the very real Arab threats to Israel in 1956 and 1967 and, indeed, ever since. He pooh-poohs Saddam Hussein’s effort to achieve nuclear weaponry in the early 1980s and writes off Israel’s destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor outside Baghdad in 1981 as merely “a new phase of [Israeli] militarism.”

Indeed, Tyler kicks off the book with a description of how, in 2011-2012, Israeli agents “murdered” two top Iranian nuclear scientists on the streets of Tehran. “The astonishing thing,” Tyler writes, “was that Iran might not have been engaged in clandestine nuclear weapons development at all.” Rather, Israel’s “highly provocative” killing of the scientists pushed Iran into pursuing, or resuming the pursuit of, nuclear weaponry. All of this flies in the face of what almost all the world’s intelligence agencies believe, which is that Iran aims to build nuclear weapons and has been trying to do so for more than two decades.

...Tyler’s purpose in writing this book was not to offer his readers an honest history, it was to blacken Israel’s image. Fortress Israel is just the latest in a spate of venomous perversions of the record that have appeared in the past few years in the United States and Britain, all clearly designed to subvert Israel’s standing in the world. Deliberately or not, such books and articles are paving the way for a future abandonment of the Jewish state.

(h/t Mel)

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Khaybar update: Press Release issued, petitions being delivered today, Arab media notices

I created this press release today:



You can still sign the petition, because all comments get emailed to HRW and Amnesty. There are over 1100 signatures and 250 comments, including from places like Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco!

The Call to Action and supporting materials can be seen in this document:

Egyptian website Rassd reported on the Zionist Organization of America's condemnation of the series and their call for President Obama to pressure Egypt's president to have it stopped.

(Special thanks to Dian for delivering the petitions and working so hard on this material. All during her vacation in New York!)

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6/25 Links Part 1: Palestinians Say "No Jews Allowed!" and How Hamas Lost the Arab Spring

From Ian:

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Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: "No Jews Allowed!"

"We will approve the meeting on condition there are no Jews."
This is what you are likely to hear these days if you request a meeting with any senior Palestinian Authority official in the West Bank.
Palestinian journalists who try to arrange meetings or interviews with Palestinian Authority representatives for Western colleagues have become used to hearing such things almost on a daily basis.
Just last week, for example, a journalist who requested a meeting between Western journalists and a top Palestinian Authority official was told "to make sure there were no Jews or Israelis" among the visitors.
The official's aide went on to explain: "We are sorry, but we do not meet with Jews or Israelis."

Douglas Murray: In Syria, Let Them Fight It Out

There are many people around the world who would like to fight jihad, and there are many al Qaeda affiliate groups who clearly hate what Hezbollah are doing. So if it weren't for the consequences for civilians, shouldn't we simply encourage both sides to go at each other full-tilt? If al Qaeda and Hezbollah want to fight each other to the death, then the West ought to support them every step of the way—and our hope must be that they both lose. This is one intervention that the West would be mad to get involved in.

PM: 'My Policy is to Strike at Those Who Try to Attack Us'

Evoking the memory of his father, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Israel would defend itself in all circumstances, and act against Gaza terrorists who disrupt the daily life of Israelis with rocket attacks. “My policy is to strike at those who try to attack us. We will allow no 'trickles,' no 'accumulations.' This is how we will operate against both near and distant threats,” the Prime Minister said.

Tonge wrong on BBC bias

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has just sent one of the most bizarre campaign e-mails I've ever received.
I've written before on how anti-Israel campaigners are trying to push BBC bias against Israel further by pretending the Beeb is actually biased in favour of Israel, but disgraced Baroness Tonge's latest mailout really takes the biscuit.
She claims, "Challenging the bias and inaccuracy of the BBC is an integral part of PSC’s work," which gives a punch line to the wider claims in the e-mail that the BBC is inherently biased in favour of Israel.

BBC’s ‘last-first’ reporting keeps audience attention focused on Israel

Significantly, the BBC chooses not to trouble its audiences with the question of why the sleeping residents of Israeli towns should come under missile attack due to a confrontation between two terrorist organisations in a territory from which Israel disengaged eight years ago.
Instead, in line with its prevailing narrative, the BBC focuses its audiences’ attentions on the Israeli response to those attacks on its civilians through the use of omission, language and ‘last-first’ reporting.

BBC ignores executions in Gaza Strip

As we know, the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Yolande Knell was very busy last Saturday in Gaza preparing no fewer than four reports on the subject of a TV talent show. Obviously, that pressing task prevented her from getting round to informing BBC audiences of the fact that on the same day the ruling Hamas terrorist organization executed two men by hanging for ‘collaboration’.

How Hamas Lost the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring years have been surprisingly unkind to Hamas. The falling out with Iran is just one example. The Islamist group has failed to benefit from the rise of other Islamist governments across the region. Instead, the faction finds itself at a strange inflection point, with more ideological allies but few true alliances.

Hamas: Ousting Assad More Important than 'Liberating Palestine'

Ousting Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is more important than “liberating Palestine”, a senior member of the Hamas terror group has said, according to Arab affairs expert Dalit Halevi.
Abdel Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian Authority's parliament, told an Algerian newspaper in an interview that the very existence of the Assad regime is a knife in the heart of the Palestinian problem. Removing Assad, he claimed, will start the road to victory for Palestinian Authority Arabs.

Gaza Illustrates Palestinian Statehood

The main obstacle to peace remains the inability of Fatah to do what Hamas and Islamic Jihad will not consider: recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn and to renounce the so-called right of return that would swamp Israel with the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees. If they were ever able to do that and to convincingly promise that this ended the conflict rather than just pausing it, they’d find Israel ready to deal. After all, Israel has already offered the Palestinians a state three times only to find each one rejected. But so long as Palestinian independence is synonymous with terror groups and their infighting, Kerry will find few serious observers heeding his calls. Anyone who wants to know why Israelis are skeptical about a Palestinian state in the West Bank need only look at Gaza.

Dispute leaves wounded Syrians’ hospital bills unpaid

Israel has treated around 50 Syrians injured in the country’s civil war, but the question of how to pay the hospitals for their services remains uncertain, according to a Tuesday report.
Payment for emergency medical care in hospitals for non-citizens is generally provided through a Health Ministry fund. In the case of the Syrian wounded, the Health Ministry and the Defense Ministry have agreed with the hospitals to jointly fund the treatment.
With some NIS 3 million ($830,000) currently owed to hospitals in the north for services already rendered, though, the ministries have come to loggerheads over who will foot the bill, Maariv reported.

Top Iranian General Rejects Compromise With U.S.

Basij commander rejects compromise with US – Commander of Basij (Volunteer) Force said any compromise with Washington will repeat what happened in Afghanistan and Turkey. Today, the US is suffering from disgrace resulted from resistance of the Iranian nation and advocates of the Islamic Revolution in the entire world, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said while addressing a national gathering.

Egypt’s defense chief warns of military intervention if Morsi, opponents don’t reconcile

Egypt’s top ranking defense official warned Sunday that the military was “ready to intervene to stop the violence” ahead of scheduled mass protests to mark the one-year anniversary this week of Mohammed Morsi’s inauguration as Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
Defense Minister Abdel-Fatah el Sissi’s comments were the most forceful to date by a senior official of Egypt’s revered military in response to months of unrest and seemed to threaten the possibility of a military coup if protests lead to bloodshed or, as el Sissi described it, “uncontrollable conflict.”
El Sissi gave Morsi and his opponents a week to reconcile.

Gas Pipeline Sabotage, Egyptian Cutoff Cost Israel $187 M

Sabotage of the natural gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt’s willingness to buckle to terrorism cost the State of Israel $187 million (NIS 677 million) in 2012, a new report shows.
The Finance Ministry’s accountant general, Michal Abadi-Boiangiu, pointed out that the cutoff of Egyptian natural gas sales to Israel following repeated sabotage of the pipeline forced Israel to use more costly diesel fuel.

Turkey, Amid Islamization and Anti-Semitism, Fit for EU Membership?

Should Turkey be admitted to the EU? One can see how membership of the EU would boost the fortunes of those courageous Turks who have risked life and limb in their confrontation with Erdogan. Equally, the Europe that emerged after the Second World War cannot, by its very nature, tolerate the kind of government that has hospitalized more than 7,000 of its own citizens simply for exercising their right to peacefully protest. And it certainly cannot tolerate the kind of anti-Semitic agitation that brings to mind the worst excesses of the 1930s.

Emir of Qatar Abdicates, Hands Power to Son

Home to the Al Jazeera news network, Qatar was one of the first Gulf states to establish relations with Israel, but the relationship soured a few years later, when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead to silence the constant Gaza-based rocket fire terrorizing residents of southern Israel. The country has also allowed Hamas terrorists to established headquarters there in Doha and is also home to a U.S. military command center, with the longest runway in the Persian Gulf.

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Report: Egypt won't allow El Al planes "offensive missile capabilities" to land

From the always amusing Middle East Monitor:

Egypt's Minister of Civil Aviation has said that Israeli passenger aircraft armed with offensive missiles will not be allowed to land at Cairo or other airports in the country. Engineer Wael El-Ma'dawi made his announcement after Israel's El Al Airline said that it plans to equip its aircraft with missiles to protect them from terrorist attacks.

In a press statement issued on Monday, the minister said, "This ban is not confined to Israeli aircraft but applies to all international airlines. Aircraft equipped with offensive missile capabilities will not be allowed to land in Egypt or enter Egyptian airspace." He did note, however, that aircraft armed with defensive missiles are different from those with offensive capabilities.

El Al suspended its flights to Egypt last year and has closed its office at Cairo International Airport. The move followed the drop in passenger numbers travelling between Israel and Egypt since the January 25 Revolution.

What are they talking about? Apparently, this:

Elbit Systems is presenting the newest member of the MUSIC Directional Infrared Countermeasure (DIRCM) systems at the 2013 Paris Airshow. Defense-Update reports.

The new, compact system dubbed ‘mini-MUSIC’ is designed to protect small rotary and fixed-wing aircraft against heat seeking Ground to Air Missiles (MANPADS) threats. In 2012 the company has demonstrated the C-MUSIC pod system in flight, mounted on a Boeing 707 flying testbed. More recently the system was installed on a Boeing 737 passenger jet to be used for type certification. The system has been selected for the Israeli national program for protection of Israel’s commercial fleet, installing MUSIC DIRCMs on Boeing B737, B747, B757, B767, B777 and Airbus A320 platforms. While all relevant aircraft will be fitted with the A-kit attachments, MUSIC DIRCM systems will be provided to those aircraft flying to high threat destinations or such locations reported to be high-risk, based on short-term assessments.

The proliferation of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, particularly with terrorist groups operation in Asia, Africa and Latin America has increased the demand for DIRCM, protection helicopters, medium and large transport planes, as well as VIP aircraft and heads of state transportation aircraft (VVIP). Several manufacturers are currently developing similar systems, including Northrop Grumman, Selex ES, BAE Systems and Raytheon – all developing lightweight DIRCM systems under the CIRCM . The Israeli system is considered the most mature of these systems.

...The system comprises a fiber-laser based DIRCM housed in a sealed turret for maximized reliability. A missile warning system provides the initial detection of incoming threats. When a threatening missile is detected, the warning is passed to the DIRCM that then directs a thermal tracker to acquire and track the threat. A powerful laser beam is then fired accurately at the missile causing it to be deflected away from the aircraft.

So the systems have no missiles! Egyptian authorities are so knowledgeable!

Previously, El Al has been using the Flight Guard which uses flares on some aircraft - and that is probably more dangerous.

(h/t JPMelamed)

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Honest Reporting slideshow on photo bias

I used to spend a lot of time in this blog looking at photo bias in the media, not sure why I haven't done it lately.

But here is a good primer on the issue from Honest Reporting:

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