Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, April 06, 2014

Palestinian Arab businessman denies peaceful statements after critics slam him

Munib al-Masri, the richest Palestinian Arab businessman and associate with Mahmoud Abbas, wrote an article in Walla where he seems to support a two-state solution. He denies that the Saudi "Arab Peace Initiative" would result in flooding Israel with Palestinian Arab "refugees" and he claims that Yasir Arafat understood and supported the existence of Jews in the region. He ends off with:

When Edmond Rothschild visited Palestine in 1914, he urged the leaders of Zionism live with "their Arab brothers" - Palestinians, for all are children of Abraham. I still believe that the future of our two countries, Israel and the Palestinians, is based on the recognition of our common heritage as Jews, Muslims and Christians.

After this interview was published, Hamas attacked him, saying that if the article is accurate, then al-Masri is a traitor. Other Palestinian Arabs denounced al-Masri as well, including the Palestinian Resistance Committee , which insisted that his statements amounted to "normalization" and they demanded that he publicly apologize.

When contacted by Arab media, al-Masri responded that he is not responsible for how his article was translated into Hebrew. He confirmed that he wants to see a Palestinian state on the 1967 "borders," with Jerusalem as its capital, and that all Palestinian "refugees" "return" as well as the release of all prisoners.

He didn't tell the Arab media that Israel must be recognized in any fashion.

He had a chance to push back and say that it is time for Palestinian Arabs to accept Israel as a permanent state and to stop trying to destroy it so everyone could benefit - but he chose not to.

04/06 Links: Kerry can’t keep kidding himself; Staring Down the Devil at the UoM

From Ian:

David Singer: Kerry can’t keep kidding himself

Kerry now needs to immediately focus his attention on Jordan – the last Arab State to have occupied the West Bank between 1948 -1967 and which – together with Israel – comprise the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine 1920-1948.
Redrawing Jordan’s international boundary with Israel to restore the status quo existing before the outbreak of the 1967 Six Day War – as far as is now possible given the changed circumstances on the ground – provides a realistically achievable alternative to the doomed Israel-PLO negotiations.
Lorenzo Kamel – a historian at Bologna University and a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies – has published an error-riddled article attempting to distance Jordan from becoming involved in any such negotiations – which Kerry should unequivocally reject.
Kamel’s following misleading claims have been corrected by my bold responses:

'Palestinianism' Doesn't Allow for The Peace Process to Succeed

Abbas reportedly issued three “No’s” in his meeting last month with President Obama: no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state; no giving up on the “right of return” of millions of Palestinian descendants of 1948 refugees to Israel; and no final end to the conflict with Israel in any agreement.
Those three “No’s” were no surprise. A “Yes” on any of those issues would give Jewish Israel legitimacy and permanence, and thus would be wholly inconsistent with Palestinian identity. Even though, from a practical standpoint, recognition of a Jewish state of Israel would cost the Palestinians nothing, it would undermine the basic tenets of Palestinianism.
The Palestinians have been offered a state three times since 2000 on virtually all of the disputed territories. They have rejected each offer. They cannot accept a “two states for two peoples” formula without compromising who they are.

Staring Down the Devil at the University of Michigan

I was not prepared to be told that, if I cared about human rights, I could not support Israel. I was not prepared to be told that my community was racist. I was not prepared to see my fellow students attacked with anti-Semitic slurs. And I was most definitely not prepared to be told that “anyone wearing the Israeli army uniform is a Ku Klux Klansman who does not deserve any place at any table in polite society because they are racist killers trying to break the back of Palestine, and they have succeeded.”
I heard these words for the first time as a newly elected student government representative in the winter of 2012. The University of Michigan’s Central Student Government (CSG) consists of a 50-person elected assembly with representatives from every undergraduate and graduate school. During the weekly assembly meetings, there is a section for Community Concerns, during which people have three minutes to address the assembly on any topic. I expected that this time slot would consist of students discussing new curriculum requirements or better dining facilities. Instead, it often consisted of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hate speech. Every week certain individuals would urge students to take action against “the racist, Nazi state of Israel”; and every week I would sit there feeling utterly helpless.

From The Toronto Star:

At the entrance to the Beirut office of the March organization, there is a well-stocked bookshelf. Its contents include notables such as Of Mice and Men, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Da Vinci Code, Sophie’s Choice and the slightly less classy Little Book of Big Penis.

Crack the covers and you’ll realize this isn’t any ordinary book collection. The pages are all blank. The Lebanese government has banned them. The reasons range from homosexual references and politics to religion and vague connection to things Jewish.

On an adjacent shelf sits an eclectic CD collection of banned music, including Frank Sinatra (Zionist tendencies), Lady Gaga (offensive to Christianity), The Buddha Bar Compilation (religion) and Bad Religion (offensive name).

March, a Lebanese NGO and the owner of this collection, has been documenting these obscure and arbitrary censorship practices in Lebanon via its Virtual Museum of Censorship since the group was founded in 2011.
...
While censorship decisions are bizarre enough, the methods of censorship can be even more absurd.

In some cases, material that is banned in one medium can be allowed in another. For example, while a movie may be banned in cinemas it could be approved on DVD.
In the Virgin Megastore in downtown Beirut, some box sets have a sticker warning customers of “missing items that were confiscated by general security for censorship reasons.”

Others are distinguished by what is known locally as “black marker” censorship: the name and title are simply blacked out with a marker. You can listen to the song, you just can’t read the title or artist name.

One reason for censorship is the 1955 Lebanese Anti-Israeli Boycott law, which outlaws any material related to the State of Israel. Although the law targets Israel, rather than Jews, it has been interpreted broadly by some censors. This has resulted in decisions to ban some movies in which Jewish actors appear while allowing others, and the random black markering of any name that has a Jewish ring to it.

The classic Of Mice and Men was recently banned when an officer thought the name John Steinbeck sounded Jewish, according to the Daily Star newspaper. After discovering he wasn’t Jewish, the ban was lifted.

The Israeli factor also extends to actors, composers or artists who, while not being Jewish, have had some connection to Israel. All movies featuring Jane Fonda (banned since visiting Israel in 1982), Elizabeth Taylor (who converted to Judaism) or the music of Frank Sinatra are banned because they have been labelled in Lebanon as supporters of the Israeli state.

The New York Times reported that Francis Ford Coppola was refused entry by airport security in 2009 after attempting to fly his private jet to Lebanon for the opening of the Beirut Film Festival. The reason? Part of the engine was made in Israel. He was forced to land in Damascus and travel overland.

The original article was written a month ago, and has some amazing examples of censored materials:

1. "Puss in Boots" – Censored – Reason: Obscene and immoral. The name "Puss in Boots" was changed to "Cat in Boots" for Lebanese audiences / 2. Nirvana – Banned – Reason: witchcraft, Satanic. While every Nirvana album has been banned in Lebanon, the Nirvana best-of collection strangely passed inspection. / 3. "Nutty Professor" – Seized during a security services raid on the Beirut Virgin Megastore along with numerous other movies because the films "undermined religions, contravened good morals and Israeli boycott laws, or included texts inciting young people to commit suicide". / 4. "The Nanny" – Banned – Reason: Jewish.

1. "Will it pass or won’t it?" A play by March about censorship in Lebanon – Banned – Reason: Does not portray reality and bad artistic quality. That bad artist quality was celebrated in the UK when the play was nominated for a Freedom of Expression award. / 2. Kanye West – Live performance banned – Reason: This image that appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stone. / 3. Beirut Rock festival – Banned – Reason: Gothic people will spread their death culture and they will spread dark thoughts. / 4. Graffiti artist Yazan Halwani – Two works censored – Reason: Immoral. Two faces were painted over at the order of general security. One, the painting of a homeless man named Ali, who died on a cold winters night in the street where the image was painted, was to ensure Ali and others like him were not forgotten.

1. TIME magazine – Nov 1973 edition suspended – Reason: The article titled ‘Arabs: The Forgotten Palestinians’ incites sectarianism. / 2. Wolf of Wall Street – Censored - Two scenes, deemed inappropriate by the General Security were cut to make the movie shorter as "Lebanese audiences do not have the attention span for a three hour movie.” / 3. The West Wing – Banned – Anti-Arab. / 4. Brokeback Mountain – Censored – Reason: Homosexuality. While the movie itself was not banned, scenes depicting homosexuality were removed.

1. "Marilyn, The Premiere Collection" – Items Confiscated – Reason: homosexuality/ 2. Charlie Chaplin – Items confiscated – Reason: anti-Nazi content / 3. Robert Redford Collection – Items confiscated – Reason: Jewish/ 4.Various music compilations, victims of the black marker

1. 3rd Rock from the Sun – Items confiscated – Reason: Jewish / 2. Ben Hur - Banned – Reason: Jewish / 3. You don’t mess with the Zohan - Banned – Reason: Israeli / 4. Clockwork Orange – Banned – Reason: Despite the movie's controversial glorification of rape and violence it was banned solely for featuring Jewish actress Mariam Karlin.

An article by David Gardner in the Financial Times squarely blames Israel for, well, everything, including forcing the US to be too pro-Israel:

The ostensible new roadblock concerns prisoners. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the interim Palestinian Authority, came back to the negotiating table even though Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, refused yet again to freeze settlement building, thus allowing Israel to continue eating up the shrinking territory over which the Palestinians are negotiating to eventually build their state.

As I've shown, virtually all settlement building supported by Israel since 1992 has been within already established settlement blocs. The "shrinking territory" meme is simply a lie, there has been extraordinarily little new land taken up by recognized settlements for decades.

Mr Abbas, seen by admirers as a moderate and by critics as a quisling, has abjured radical siren calls for resistance in favour of a negotiated solution. He has nothing to show his people. He looks weak and discredited.

To offset this, Israel was persuaded to release 104 Palestinian long-term prisoners. The Netanyahu government’s refusal to hand over the last batch on the due date precipitated the current crisis. In retaliation, Mr Abbas this week signed articles of accession to 15 multilateral treaties, investing Palestine with some of the international attributes of a state – which he had promised the US to defer while negotiations continued.

Actually, at the time Abbas signed the articles, Israel's final decision about the prisoner release had not been made, although it was delayed. Only after Abbas' stunt did Israel announce that the last batch of prisoners would not be released.

Now that we know how closely Gardner adheres to facts, we can go on:

The prisoners in question were supposed to have been released 20 years ago as part of the Oslo accords, at the high water mark for hopes that these two peoples could close a deal on sharing the Holy Land. They were not.

Wrong again. The only document about pre-Oslo prisoners was the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum of 1999. Israel was to release two batches of pre-Oslo prisoners. They released the first, but did not release the second because of a long list of violations of the agreement by the PLO, such as the "revolving door" policy of releasing terrorists, their refusal to give Israel a list of their policemen by September 13 1999, their refusal to collect weapons from terrorists, and many others.

But Palestinian Arab violations of agreements don't exist in Gardner's mind.

[There is] a pattern of the US consistently over-rewarding a recalcitrant ally, as well as being snubbed by Israel for its pains.

In 2009, for example, it was Mr Obama who blinked when Mr Netanyahu simply refused to halt colonisation of Palestinian land. Instead, in 2010, the US president offered Israel the Jordan Valley – a big chunk of the occupied West Bank that is not his to give – in return for a short pause in settlement building. Mr Netanyahu, in any event, refused.

The US offered Israel the Jordan Valley? Really?

And Netanyahu did freeze settlement construction for 10 months, during which Abbas refused to talk for nine of them.

It is not just that Washington is behaving more like a crooked lawyer than an honest broker, bullying the weaker Palestinian party into keeping talks going while Israel continues to settle illegally occupied territory.

Far from pushing Israel to roll back the occupation enough to enable Palestinians to build a viable state on the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital, it looks as though the US is planning to hand Israel almost all the settlement blocs, about three-quarters of East Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley.

Since when does the US award territory? The framework was never completed, as far as I can tell. Gardner, based in Beirut, seems to be getting his news from Al Quds rather than any honest source.

Gardner's selective memory and disregard for the facts is bad enough, but for FT to publish such obvious untruths makes its self-described "high quality journalism" more than suspect.

(h/t Herb G)

Those racist Israelis: Newest Master Chef Israel is an Arab Muslim

The newest winner of Master Chef Israel is Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, a Muslim Arab-Israeli woman.

Or, as visceral haters like Max Blumenthal would say, "Tokenism!"

You see, the idea that Israelis would love an Arab on a TV competition - consistently! - completely destroys his thesis of a racist Israeli society. So when things like this happen, he gets a bit defensive. People like Nof might hurt his book sales, and we can't have that! (Max is going to shill for his book next at a CAIR banquet.)

Back to Nof, you can see how effusive the TV hosts and judges were about her performance, obviously all engaged in a massive case of chef-washing:

But that is not the most impressive thing about her.

Nof is a post-doctoral research scientist in microbiology!

According to her LinkedIn profile, she received her PhD from that evil racist Israeli school known as Technion, and now is pursuing her research at another racist school that must be boycotted, Oranim College of Education.

And if the Israel-hating faux boycotters would get their way, she wouldn't have a job.

Who are the racists again?

UPDATE: Third place was an Ethiopian native.

04/05 Links: Kerry ‘Smothered in a Middle East Sandstorm’; The Bad Faith of Mahmoud Abbas

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: A chance to move on

His desperate behavior showed PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas that there are no depths Kerry will not plumb to prolong the fictional peace process.
And so on Tuesday, in an open act of contempt for Kerry, Abbas applied for membership in international bodies, in breach of the foundational requirement of the peace process: that a Palestinian state only be formed as a consequence of a peace agreement with Israel to prevent such a state from gaining independence while in a state of war with Israel.
Until now, it was US pressure on Israel for concessions to the Palestinians that kept the Israeli Left going. Now, without any leadership, with its power base in the permanent bureaucracy weakened, and the US role as mediator wholly discredited not only among the Israeli public, but in the US media, the Left has nothing to latch on to.
If the government uses the opportunity to abandon the two-state paradigm, it stands its best chance in 20 years of succeeding.

To my colleague Caroline, a caveat

Regrettably, I feel this is the case with her new book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, which has received a warm reception among leading rightwing and conservative circles.
The book has considerable value for two reasons. First, it represents a welcome, and much needed, challenge to the monopolistic stranglehold the two-state approach has had on much of the public discourse on the Palestinian issue.
Second, it provides a penetrating historical review of how this choke-hold developed, particularly regarding the formulation of US Mideast policy, and of why this detrimental impediment should be removed.
However, while I strongly endorse her admirable analysis of the pernicious pervasiveness of the two-state principle, I strongly disagree with the conclusions she draws from that analysis. I therefore find myself compelled to take issue with her prescription for the measures with which the problem should be confronted, and with the nature of the alternatives she proposes to replace the dysfunctional paradigm that hitherto dominated the discourse. (h/t Bob Knot)

The Bad Faith of Mahmoud Abbas

The conclusion can only be that Abbas on behalf of the Palestinians is trying to prevent the peace process from continuing by preventing the possibility of negotiations. At his meeting with President Obama on March 17, 2014 he made it clear that he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish State, knowing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made this a condition for resumption of negotiations.
Most important of all is the sad realization that the Palestinian leaders show bad faith in their unwillingness to abide by international agreements. The crucial factor involved is the Oslo Accord of September 13, 1993, with Article V on permanent status negotiations issues that needs quoting in full. It says “It was understood that several issues were postponed to permanent status negotiations, including: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and co-operation with other neighbors, and other issues of common interest. The outcome of these permanent status negotiations should not be prejudiced or pre-empted by the parties.”
It is essential that the officials of the 15 bodies to which Abbas is making applications for membership, as well as President Obama and the US State Departments should remind him of Article V before any action is taken. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Rare photos of Second Aliyah

I found these photos of the Second Aliyah in, of all places, an Iraq news website.

Many of the images seem to have been taken from this 2010 post. But others I cannot find anywhere else on the web.

The sepia-colored ones at the end were taken by Ya’acov Ben Dov, and published in Vienna in 1912

I think we need Israel Daily Picture to help us out here....

04/04 Links Pt2: Foreign investment in Israel $74b up 15%; Israeli software in new Amazon TV Box

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: The postulate of illegitimacy

Something strikingly dramatic happened in this country exactly on this day 94 years ago. Cries of Itbach el-Yahud(slaughter the Jews) filled the air. It was the first coordinated mass-murder offensive launched by infamous Jerusalem Mufti Haj-Amin el-Husseini (who would in time become an avid Nazi collaborator, Hitler’s personal guest in Berlin during WWII and a wanted war-criminal).
Ever since, this land shook fitfully as rounds of massacres and wars followed each other in breathless succession. The past mustn’t be consigned to irrelevance. Unbroken historical continuities contextualize current events. Nothing springs forth from a vacuum. What now transpires began back then.
The pivotal murder-drive of 1920 and its aftermath are vital for understanding why John Kerry’s peace pageant is a flop and why Israel so profoundly displeases him, his boss Barack Obama and their pet-Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas. It established the prototype whereby Jews are punished for Arab crimes against Jews. It highlights the pattern of appeasing Arab wrath and of Jews paying – as if Jewish existence is in and of itself a casus belli.

Injustice Anywhere Is a Threat to Justice Everywhere: A Mother’s Plea

Today, Malki and Michal lie buried side by side, while their murderer, who smiled happily to learn her tally of dead children, is free and thriving in Jordan. She frequently travels in the Arab world to incite adoring crowds to follow in her footsteps.
In my country, my husband and I are not welcome to decry this. Parents of murdered children are hailed as heroes when they declare that they want the murderer to go unpunished. Whether for the sake of a prisoner “swap,” to prolong the negotiations with the PA or, as the cliche goes, “to promote peace.” Waiving our right to justice is considered the noble, patriotic thing to do.
Our quest for justice, for a life sentence for Tamimi – there is no capital punishment here – has invited accusations that we are merely vengeful. (h/t Ken Kelso)

My unpleasant evening with ‘Breaking the Silence’

On March 31, I attended a disturbing lecture at Washington University in St. Louis. It was co-sponsored by St. Louis Hillel at Washington University and J Street U. The speaker, a former Israeli soldier with the group “Breaking the Silence” (BtS), misrepresented and demonized the Israel Defense Forces, Israel, and Israeli policy. BtS is known for bringing in speakers like this, so I could not understand why Hillel and J Street U had sponsored a talk whose only purpose appeared to be to misinform audiences and instill hostility towards Israel.
As an Israeli reservist who had been stationed in the West Bank, I sat in disbelief as the speaker described attitudes and policies that were entirely divorced from reality.
The former soldier, Oded Na’aman, claimed that Israeli soldiers are trained to oppress the Palestinians individually and as a people, that they maliciously mistreat Palestinians in the West Bank, and that they are taught to make Palestinians fear Israeli soldiers. He argued that there are no civil rights for Palestinians and that the Jewish people who now have a state use their power to oppress Palestinians.
I had no idea what he was talking about or what motivated him to lie.
He did not describe the Israel or IDF that I know so intimately.

The Sodastream/Glee Conspiracy

Something awful happened on the last episode of Glee.

I'll let Twitter users describe it.

Nasty #sodastream product placement on #Glee tonight. #wrongsideofhistory #freepalestine
— Ms. Pye (@ladaysandnights) April 2, 2014

Did i just spot a SodaStream product placement in #Glee? shame on u 4 promoting #occupation & #apartheid!
— NS (@NotOccupying) April 3, 2014

OMG!!!! An Israeli company - that employs hundreds of happy Palestinian Arab workers,and yet is targeted for boycott by people who simply hate Israel - is being mentioned on a popular TV show! Horrors!

Apparently, there was a funny scene where one of the characters said, "Do you have to use the SodaStream right now? Artie's in a very fragile state."

But the Sodastream Glee horrors don't end there. No, this is a massive conspiracy involving the highest levels of teen soap opera operatives.

Here is a photo taken last December of actors from Glee at a Sodastream charity event!

And the Sodastream Pinterest page has dozens of photographs of celebrities with Sodastreams!

David Hasselhoff

Mel B

Nicole Kidman

Reese Witherspoon

Zain from One Direction

But it gets even worse.

Sodastream has product placement in other popular TV shows!

The Big Bang Theory

How I Met Your Mother

Homeland

There's a lot of celebrities and TV shows that need boycotting.

Then again, I imagine next year the BDS movement will trumpet their critical role in taking How I Met Your Mother off the TV schedule for 2014-15.

04/04 Links Pt1: Abbas to Kerry: Please Beg Me More!; Kerry Praises Non-Existant Iranian ‘Fatwa’

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas to Kerry: Please Beg Me More!

Abbas is convinced that it is only a matter of time before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry rushes back to the region in yet anther desperate effort to "salvage the peace process."
In recent weeks, according to Palestinian officials, Kerry has literally been "begging" Abbas to agree to an extension of the peace talks after the end of April.
Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership have concluded that the Obama Administration is prepared to do almost anything to show some kind of "victory" in the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinian demands therefore have continued to increase almost every day.

How Many Palestinians Would Endorse a Jewish State?

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) has just released a new poll, conducted March 20-22 in the West Bank and Gaza, in which one of the polling questions raised this issue:

There is a proposal that after the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and the settlement of all issues in dispute, including the refugees and Jerusalem issues, there will be mutual recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and Palestine as the state of the Palestinian people. Do you agree or disagree to this proposal?” [Emphasis added].
The percentage of Palestinians that “certainly agreed” was 3 percent. A total of 58.5 percent disagreed.
In other words–just as Israel’s Ron Dermer asserted at AIPAC five years ago–the Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state does not involve the refugees. The poll assumed “all issues in dispute” were settled, including the refugees. But even with no other issue remaining on the hypothetical table, a lopsided majority of Palestinians rejected a Jewish state. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Related to this story.

Hamas newspaper Felesteen reports that the International Committee of the Red Cross will stop routinely providing medicines, ambulances and spare parts for medical equipment to the Gaza health ministry by the beginning of 2015.

The report says that the aid began during Operation Cast Lead and had remained for five years since then.

The Hamas government is strongly protesting this.

Israel had not restricted any imports of medicines or medical equipment to Gaza (although certain types of equipment sometimes take a few extra days for special permission.)

It appears that Hamas' complaint is that the cash-strapped government doesn't want to pay for these things itself and prefers to have the extra $3 million to be able to buy rockets and build kidnapping tunnels.

In the past, Hamas has confiscated donated medicines from NGOs and governments and sold them for a profit.

The PA has balked at paying for medical equipment and medicine for Gaza as well.

I didn't see any announcement on the ICRC webpage about this.