Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Brandeis, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and hypocrisy

Brandeis University in Massachusetts announced Tuesday that it had withdrawn the planned awarding of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a staunch critic of Islam and its treatment of women, after protests from students and faculty.

The university said in a statement posted online that the decision had been made after a discussion between Ali and university President Frederick Lawrence.

"She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women's rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world," said the university's statement. "That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University's core values."

Ali, a member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006, has been quoted as making comments critical of Islam. That includes a 2007 interview with Reason Magazine in which she said of the religion, "Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace. I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars."

David Bernstein at The Volokh Conspiracy (WaPo) points out a bit of hypocrisy:

A few years back, Brandeis University awarded an honorary degree to Tony Kushner. This was controversial because Brandeis is a Jewish-sponsored (but non-sectarian) university that has historically had very close ties to Israel. Indeed, the university’s namesake, Justice Brandeis, led the American Zionist movement for some time. Kushner, meanwhile, was not only known for his hostility to Israel in general, but for making inflammatory statements such as “The biggest supporters of Israel are the most repulsive members of the Jewish community,” a direct insult to Brandeis’s many faculty, students, alumni, and donors who are strong supporters of Israel.

Despite objections, Brandeis went ahead with the award, with the university president explaining:

Brandeis bestows honorary degrees as a means of acknowledging the outstanding accomplishments or contributions of individual men and women in any of a number of fields of human endeavor. Just as Brandeis does not inquire into the political opinions and beliefs of faculty or staff before appointing them, or students before offering admission, so too the University does not select honorary degree recipients on the basis of their political beliefs or opinions.

It is always treacherous to compare two situations because the analogy is never perfect. Kushner was anti-Zionist but for some reason nowadays that is not so much of an offense as being "Islamophobic."

but I would submit that a more accurate comparison of someone that Brandeis awarded an honorary degree would be a famous Jew who made practically his entire career out of biting criticism of American Jews, a career that was so successful that he is now considered a demigod of American authors.

I am referring to Philip Roth, who received his honorary Brandeis degree in 1991.

Roth, it will be remembered, has written numerous books about how American Jewish men are sex-starved, shiksa-chasing hypocrites. Beyond that, one of his most notorious anti-Jewish works was "The Conversion of the Jews" where a schoolchild asks a basic question about religion that his clueless rabbi teacher cannot answer, resulting in a series of events where the kid forces the entire school to effectively convert to Christianity with a combination of his "logic" and threats to kill himself.

Between Roth's autobiographical critiques of American Jews and his absurdly naive critique of the fundamentals of Judaism, it can be argued that Roth is as critical of Jews and Judaism as Hirsi Ali is of Muslims and Islam.

I don't know if there was any controversy about Roth's award at all, the way there was about Kushner's. There is no doubt that he is a talented writer, and that is why he received his award - not because of his controversial views which people seem to have forgotten about between the '60s and the '90s.

But there is equally no doubt that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an important campaigner for women's rights, especially in societies where women are not well protected. She has put her life on the line, quite literally, for her beliefs. That is a greater accomplishment, by far, than any novelist can claim.

Ali's criticisms of Islam are not simple-minded nor borne out of hate. She is not a bigot. The worst that can be said is that she overly generalizes, but given her life experiences, that is a small infraction.

Most of her criticisms of Islam are really about political Islam, where the Islamic nations (and groups of thugs in places like Europe) can threaten, coerce and even murder those who don't toe the line. Muslims have skillfully managed to manipulate the West into being afraid of criticizing the immoral and unconscionable political aspects of Islam by conflating it with the (Western concept) religious aspects of Islam. Indeed, there is no daylight from within the Islamic framework between the two - Islam is as much political philosophy as it is a religion. As such, it can and must be criticized.

Simply put, Brandeis has once again caved to political correctness. Its claims about valuing all opinions and adhering to "core values" is proven to be a hollow sham.

Dave Zirin's last piece of anti-Israel evidence disappears

Remember Dave Zirin, sports reporter for The Nation who claimed in two separate articles that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian Arab soccer players?

In the second article, which our own Bob Knot ripped to shreds, Zirin self-righteously described how people didn't believe the first article (that Bob also destroyed.)

The part of the response that was truly jarring however was the numerous private queries I received from prominent members of the media. I am choosing to keep their identities private because their correspondence to me was private and I will respect that. The queries contained no curiosity about Israel’s possible expulsion from FIFA. They all instead openly doubted that the shooting of the two young men had even taken place. Was I sure this really happened? When I pointed to my initial sources, the response by numerous people was, “Do you have any sources that are not Palestinian?” One person, writing for a major sports website, sent me numerous queries that I did not respond to, and then when the facts of the shooting appeared in the Israeli paper Haaretz, said to me, “Forget previous queries. I see news of the shooting on Haaretz. Never mind.” The assumption of mendacity affixed to Palestinian sources spoke volumes.

Haaretz' reporting was the peg on which Zirin hung his cap of proof that the soccer players were innocent and shot in the legs, deliberately, by Israeli troops. What self-respecting journalist would doubt Haaretz' account? Zirin shows that unnamed sports reporters were swayed to his side of the story based purely on Haaretz' corroboration.

Only one problem.

That Haaretz article was not written by Haaretz. It was plagiarized from the well-known international affairs journal known as Inside World Football. And that "reporting" contradicted Haaretz' earlier reporting of the same incident!

As CAMERA reports, on Wednesday, Tamar Sternthal, director of CAMERA's Israel office, sent the following email to editors:

I am writing concerning the March 31 article ("Report: FIFA gives Israel until summer to improve Palestinians' soccer conditions"), which reports a disputed Arab claim as fact, and which is largely plagiarized from Inside World Football. (The byline on the Ha'aretz article is attributed to Ha'aretz.)

The Ha'aretz article reports as fact:

Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram, in the central West Bank, on January 31.

At the time, Ha'aretz's Amira Hass covered this incident, and made it very clear that the Israeli border police maintained that the two Palestinians were about to throw a bomb -- they were not just innocently walking home -- when they were shot. Hass reported on Feb. 3 ("Wounded Palestinian teens dispute border police claims"):

Two Palestinians have been hospitalized in Jerusalem since Friday after they were shot and arrested by Border Police forces amid claims they were going to throw a bomb. The two Palestinians are under guard in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, have been operated on for their gunshot wounds, and will remain there until their treatment is finished. They deny the claims made against them, and contend that the Border Patrol forces shot them, sent attack dogs to chase them, beat them with their rifle butts, and punched and kicked them.
Adam Jamous, 17, and Jawahar Halbiyeh, 19, are residents of Abu Dis, a town east of Jerusalem. Last Thursday evening they were en route to visit a friend in a neighborhood close to a Border Police base. An Abu Dis resident told Haaretz that before midnight, residents heard a lot of gunfire and saw dogs attacking the two men when they looked out the window. . . .
In response to inquiries, a Border Police spokesman said, “During operational activity, a group of individuals was seen just seconds before throwing bombs at security forces. When they saw the Border Policemen, the group attempted to run away and tried again to throw bombs at the policemen. The policemen initiated the protocol for opening fire in order to neutralize the threat. The suspects were apprehended, and a bomb was found on them, which has been deactivated.”
The response included a picture of the bomb, but did not include any answers to the claim that the suspects were beaten. (Emphases added)

Given that Ha'aretz has previously reported that according to the Israeli border police, the two were about to throw a bomb when they were shot, why does Ha'aretz now ignore this information? Have editors obtained information substantiating the Jamous and Halbiyeh's account, and disproving the Israeli spokesman's? If not, a clarification ought to be published making clear that the Israeli Border police dispute the Arabs' account that they were shot when they were doing nothing more than walking home. (We will be in touch with Inside World Football to request a clarification there as well.)

Additional contradictions exist between the March 31 Ha'aretz report and Hass' earlier report:

1) According to Hass' report, the two "were en route to visit a friend in a neighborhood close to a Border Police base." According to the later Ha'aretz account, "they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram." (The fact that al-Ram is 13.3 miles from Abu Dis -- not exactly walking distance -- further complicates the picture.)

2) According to Hass, the two were shot by Border Police. According to Ha'aretz's later account, they were shot by Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

3) According to the more recent account, "the two were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs." According to Hass' earlier version, their lawyer said "one of them . . .was hit by many bullets and had a bite wound on his arm."

On a separate matter, at least nine paragraphs of the March 31 Ha'aretz story is reproduced, almost word for word, from Andrew Warshaw's March 31 account in Inside World Football.

Thus, Warshaw wrote:

The Israeli security forces have accused the Palestinians of using football to hide the movement of terrorists and equipment within the region. The Palestinians have denied this and point to the inability to get footballers to training and matches which they say is a deliberate act of oppression.

FIFA have set up a mediation Task Force and Palestine football's leading figurehead Jibril Rajoub has already met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and FIFA President Sepp Blatter to try and resolve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.

Blatter, who is due back in the region next month, wants Israel and Palestine to sign a formal co-operation agreement at or around the FIFA Congress in June but Rajoub has implied this is some way off while travel permit restrictions continue to be imposed by Israel on everyone from players to consultants.

Kemer, however, implied the debate has been far too one-sided.

"I don't think we will be expelled from FIFA because we are making good progress with the Palestinians," he said. "I would say we are on the right track."

Despite his comments, earlier this year two teenage Palestinian footballers were shot by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and were told it is unlikely they would play again.

Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot by Israeli soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram in the central West Bank on January 31. The incident served as a graphic reminder of the situation on the ground and was recently taken up by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin al-Hussein during a briefing with reporters.

"I am not promoting or defending any side (but) I am in a very difficult situation where I have to take two boys from Palestine at my own expense, for treatment in Jordan," said Prince Ali, head of the Jordanian FA.

"These are the two who were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs. Why is this happening? Under FIFA statutes you cannot say one country can do one thing and another country can do something else. All we are asking is to allow our young boys and young girls to play the sport."

The Ha'aretz account follows. All the text that is word for word identical with Warshaw's copy appears in red:

Inside World Football reported that Israel'ssecurity forces have accused the Palestinians of using soccerto hide the movement of terrorists and equipment within the region. The Palestinians have denied this and point to the inability to get soccer players to training and matches, which they say is a deliberate act of oppression.
FIFA has set up a mediation Task Force and Palestinesoccer's leading figurehead, Jibril Rajoub, has already met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and [Warshaw's account gives Blatter's full name and title here] Blatter to try and resolve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.
Blatter, who is due back in the regionin April, wants Israel and Palestine to sign a formal co-operation agreement at or around the FIFA Congress in June, but Rajoub has implied this is some way off while travel permit restrictions continue to be imposed by Israel on everyone from players to consultants.
Kemer, however, implied the debate has been far too one-sided. "I don't think we will be expelled from FIFA because we are making good progress with the Palestinians," he said. "I would say we are on the right track."
Earlier this year, two teenage Palestinian soccer players were shot by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and were told they are unlikely to play again.
Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17, were shot byIsrael Defense Forces soldiers as they were walking home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium in al-Ram, in the central West Bank, on January 31.
The incident served as a graphic reminder of the situation on the ground and was recently taken up by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali bin al-Hussein during a briefing with reporters.
"I am not promoting or defending any side [but] I am in a very difficult situation where I have to take two boys from Palestine at my own expense, for treatment in Jordan," said Prince Ali, head of the Jordanian FA.
"These are the two who were shot in the legs and set upon by dogs. Why is this happening? Under FIFA statutes, you cannot say one country can do one thing and another country can do something else. All we are asking is to allow our young boys and young girls to play the sport."

Ha'aretz's text is virtually identical to Warshaw's aside from minor changes like substituting "soccer" for "football," placing paragraph breaks in slightly different places, updating dates, and the like.

Again, we urge Ha'aretz to publish a clarification making clear that the Israeli border police have said that the two players were about to plant a bomb when they were fired. (Additional background information on this case, including Jawhar Nasser's affiliation with the DFLP, supports the Israeli spokesman's account.)

Thank you in advance for your follow up on these points.

As soon as Haaretz editors received this letter, they immediately deleted the article.

So Dave Zirin is left with nothing but a report written by a British sports reporter whose knowledge of the Middle East is minimal, who unquestioningly trusts one side of the story without researching the other side, and whose "reporting" is contradicted by Haaretz itself. This is besides the many facts that were published here that shredded the report and that no one has yet found a single problem with,

Guess what, Dave? The Palestinian Arab reports of the incidents really were mendacious lies. And over the years I have documented scores of similar, verified cases where the Palestinian media exaggerated or falsified facts, and even where "eyewitnesses" make things up. It happens all the time.

Zirin's righteous indignation that people didn't believe his first report is hypocritical, because now that every shred of his reporting has been shown to be false he does not have the intellectual honesty to admit his role in the libel. Worse still, he added to it with an entire encyclopedia of slander in his second article.

The question remains - will The Nation act appropriately?

04/09 Links Pt2: Dershowitz SLAMS J Street; Brandeis RESCINDS Hon.Degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

From Ian:

Dershowitz SLAMS J Street

In a recently published video, Alan Dershowitz explains the issues he sees with J Street. The clip was recorded at the world premiere of the new film, The J Street Challenge.
Some highlights:
-In reference to Iran: "J Street is weakening both the United States' and Israel's position."
-"J Street cannot call itself a pro-Israel group when it takes positions that do not reflect any few of Israeli leaders."
-"J Street speaks out of both sides of it's mouth"
-"I analogize (J Street) to Jews for Jesus. They (Jews for Jesus) fool students, into thinking it is a Jewish organization and J Street fools students into thinking it is a pro-Israel organization."

HuffPo (CA)Jewish and Arab Refugees Must be Compared

A few weeks ago the Al-Jazeera Arabic channel carried a report on starving Palestinian refugees in a Syrian camp. In a sequence that must have slipped the editor's notice, an elderly man moaned in desperation to the camera: "Take us to the Jews. They will feed us!"
In that unguarded moment, two things were revealed: first -- Palestinian refugees are being deprived of a humanitarian solution to their plight. Second -- Arabs know full well that Israelis look after their own -- and not only their own -- but try and help others.
Nowhere is the contrast more stark than in the treatment of the two sets of refugees which arose out of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. A fair proportion of the 711,000 Arab refugees were left to languish -- and now starve -- in refugee camps as a longstanding reproach to Israel. Some 850,000 Jewish refugees were ultimately absorbed and given full citizens' rights in Israel and the West. (h/t Yerushalimey)

American Muslims for Palestine's Telling Choice of Heroes

In the American civil rights movement, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King were among those who set the moral tone. They were champions of non-violence who believed in civil disobedience to generate change by casting light on unjust laws.
If Saturday's fundraising dinner for the group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is any indication, role models for their cause include an unrepentant killer, a woman directly responsible for two people's deaths in a grocery store bombing. Prosecutors say she is in America only because she kept that crime a secret from immigration officials.
In addition to its praise for Rasmieh Odeh, the dinner at a banquet hall outside of Chicago offered further insight into AMP's radical ideology. Other speakers included a man identified as a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Jordan who previously led a Hamas-propaganda arm in America and a man listed as a member of the Palestine Committee, the Muslim Brotherhood's umbrella organization of American-based Hamas-support groups.

Lebanese playing poker with Israelis "a betrayal of the homeland"

Last week, in Montenegro, the Lebanese Poker Cup was held.

Apparently, Lebanese poker is popular among Israelis, and a contingent of over 100 Israelis participated, along with players from all over the world.

Including, of course, Lebanon.

Al Hadath News is very upset at the idea of Lebanese and Israelis competing at the same table.

Despite the fact that the hosting country was not Lebanon, the competing with the enemy at the same table is no less than a betrayal of the homeland.... The historic conflict between Israel and Lebanon is a fundamental incentive to deter any contact with the enemy under any circumstances or event.

If I didn't know any better, I would think that the Lebanese are against a little more than the "occupation." One could almost think that hating Israel is an obsession.

But surely that cannot be true. I mean, wouldn't it be in the newspapers?

Anyway, since any contact with the Israeli enemy is anathema, that would mean that anything that Israelis tweet to Al Hadath News cannot be answered....

The small stories illustrate the Arab obsession with Israel

Egypt's West and Central Delta Writers Association held its 15th annual conference this week.

In its final session, this unimportant regional association released its list of resolutions.

One of them was to declare that "Israel is our primary and biggest enemy. All intellectuals must reject all forms of normalization and expose all dealings with the Zionist entity whether the purpose is trade or religion or politics."

There are plenty of NGOs and Western agencies in Egypt that supposedly help to foster human rights and other worthy causes. But when it comes to relations between Arabs and Israel, they don't even bother, because they know that the hate is a constant.

But they will spend millions of euros in Israel to fight supposed anti-Arab racism there.

And those NGOs put out a steady stream of reports to justify their existence about how horrible Israelis are.

And those reports get publicized in the media.

And causal consumers of the media don't even have the possibility of knowing what these NGOs know very well but won't ever report: that the hate that the Arabs have for Israel and Jews is orders of magnitude worse than the worst that you can say about Israeli opinions of Arabs.

Even people who want to research the truth about Israel and the Arab world do not have the means to find out about the crazed derangement that this small story illustrates, because the data is simply not out there for them. If there are no reports, then there is no evidence of a problem.

The entire system is rigged to make Israel look as bad as possible and to ignore endemic Arab hate.

04/09 Links Pt1: Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?; Iran admits it deceived the IAEA

From Ian:

Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame?

As the New York Times reports:
"Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Israel’s announcement of 700 new apartments for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem precipitated the bitter impasse in peace negotiations last week between Israel and the Palestinians.
While Mr. Kerry said both sides bore responsibility for “unhelpful” actions, he noted that the publication of tenders for housing units came four days after a deadline passed for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners and complicated Israel’s own deliberations over whether to extend the talks.
“Poof, that was the moment,” Mr. Kerry said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."
Poof? To say that this evaluation of the situation is disingenuous would be the understatement of the century. Kerry knows very well that the negotiations were doomed once the Palestinians refused to sign on to the framework for future talks he suggested even though it centered them on the 1967 lines that they demand as the basis for borders. Why? Because Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wouldn’t say the two little words —“Jewish state”—that would make it clear he intended to end the conflict. Since the talks began last year after Abbas insisted on the release of terrorist murderers in order to get them back to the table, the Palestinians haven’t budged an inch on a single issue. (h/t Norman F)

Welcome to Pallywood. Land Day Edition

Welcome to Pallywood.
The star of our show, filmed on "Land day", March 30, is a rather large Palestinian woman. While the men surround her, cameras ready, she attacks an Israeli officer. There is nothing spontaneous about this- its completely planned and staged.
She tries to steal a weapon from the young officer
Eventually, she provokes a reaction, and is pepper sprayed. This was her goal.
This photo, by AP photographer Sebastian Scheiner was captioned " A Palestinian woman reacts after Israeli border police officers sprayed pepper spray during a demonstration marking the Land Day at the Damascus gate in Jerusalem's old city, Sunday, March 30, 2014"
Deliberately, or through negligence AP missed a whole lot of context there, giving free reign for the propagandists to talk about the brutality of Israel

Elliott Abrams: U.S.: The Great Problem That Needs to be Solved

At the White House the U.S. Administration still says "All options are on the table, and don't underestimate the president."
The only thing I can reply is, "I travel in the Middle East a fair amount, and talk to Arabs as well as Israelis. I think it's fair to say that from Morocco to Iran, there is not one single person who believes that." I don't think he has any real allies abroad. If you asked that question a year ago the White House used to say, "Erdogan." They don't say, "Erdogan" any more.
There are so many intractable problems and no intimation that Hamas is prepared to move on any of those. What do Kerry and his friends really see that gives them any optimism in this area? I think the only variable in his view is "me". "I'm John Kerry. I can do this," which is ludicrous.
And there is a lot more to be said about Iran. What is clear is that they are revving up. They are moving from the first generation to second generation centrifuges, which are much more efficient and productive. They are moving more materiel underground. They are attempting the plutonium route as well as the uranium route. And presumably they are working on a warhead. Of course, they can have a bomb without making the announcement and they can make the announcement without having a bomb.
Reagan came on the scene and with peace through strength -- three words, clarified and explained to Americans what American foreign policy stands for.

Anti-Israel hackers get PWNed by Israeli hackers

An Israeli hacker team managed to take over the PCs of at least 16 of the "#OpIsrael" hackers who targeted Israeli sites earlier this week.

The "Israeli Elite Force" remotely controlled the pseudo-hackers' machines and even took photos of them with their own webcams!

Many of their other social media accounts and passwords were revealed in a document the Israeli team published.

The #Opisrael hackers apparently are more than happy to click on links that allowed the Israeli hackers to take over their machines.

Too funny.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

From Ma'an:

Gaza families who lost members in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Tuesday shut down the PLO's main office in Gaza City protesting unpaid allowances.

A spokesman of the Martyrs’ Families in the Gaza Strip group told Ma’an that angry families closed a PLO-affiliated office in charge of allowances and donations for families of Palestinians killed or injured in the course of the conflict.

Additionally, offices of Fatah-affiliated lawmakers as well as senior Fatah leader Zakariyya al-Agha were also shut down by the protesters. Some protesters attempted to break into the office of member of Fatah central committee Nabil Shaath.

“We have been asking for our rights in a civilized manner for 13 months, but nobody in the leadership has replied and now we became impatient,” Alaa al-Barawi, the spokesman, said.

He urged President Mahmoud Abbas, members of Fatah's central committee and members of the movement’s revolutionary council to work out a solution for the families who haven’t received their allowances for five years.

A significant portion of the PA budget is to pay families of terrorists, both alive and dead. In 2012 it was estimated to take up 6% of the PA budget, and tens of millions of dollars more were added this year.

I don't know the details of why the Gaza families are apparently not getting paid. Perhaps they are families of those killed by Hamas which puts their "martyrdom" credentials in doubt.

Anti-BDS hero of the day: Saul Zabar

Anti-Israel group Adalah-NY writes:

On Sunday, April 6, our first day of flyering outside Zabar's, 94 people signed our petition asking Zabar's to deshelve SodaStream, including at least one Israeli who signed in Hebrew. Many were familiar with SodaStream's operations in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, and thanked us for being there and standing up for human rights. Others were less supportive, and the disagreement sparked spirited discussion among shoppers and passersby alike. We handed out almost 500 postcards with information about the boycott of SodaStream, and encouraged people to mail them to Zabar's.

At one point, owner Saul Zabar came out of the store. When asked why he did not respond to our request for a meeting, he responded, "I didn't think you were worth it." He informed us that he will not be de-shelving SodaStream.

All the more reason for us to go out there again!

Sure, if you like to waste all your weekends on a lost cause, go for it!

I believe this is Saul Zabar telling the BDSers that they are worthless (UPDATE: This isn't Saul.)

Zabar's, while not an exclusively kosher store, does sell a number of kosher gift baskets for Jewish holidays. They have been selling Sodastream since 2010.

Saul is about 85 years old now, gives to Jewish charities, and knows how to run his business. The likelihood that he would cave to a bunch of Israel haters handing out postcards filled with lies is pretty much zero.

(h/t Avi Mayer)

Combat cameramen disprove PalArab propaganda (Globes)

From Globes:

Last August, First Sergeant Naor Blanco joined a Netzah Yehuda battalion (Kfir brigade) nighttime operation to arrest a wanted man suspected of terrorist activity in the Jenin refugee camp. Blanco, a combat cameraman working for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson’s Unit, arrived ready for the mission, however, as is often the case on the battlefield, things got complicated. “Shortly after we went in, they started shooting at us from different directions,” he recounts. “We acted according to regulations, and our forces returned fire when they had identified the sources of the shooting. While advancing in one of the alleyways, a large brick hurtled towards me and fell a short distance from me. That whole time, I held the camera and documented the battle and the exchanges of fire. I turned towards the direction from which the brick was thrown at me, and I identified a terrorist standing on a nearby rooftop. He was about to throw another brick at me. I realized I was in a life-threatening situation.”

Blanco didn’t hesitate: “I had no doubt about what I needed to do in the situation, and I acted swiftly. I put the camera in my vest, and I raised my rifle. The clip was already loaded. The terrorist was about 30 or 40 meters away from me. I aimed, pulled the trigger, and shot a single bullet, which hit him precisely, below his knee. He was injured, and neutralized, and no longer a threat to me or my fellow force members.

The operation ended with the suspect killed, and two Palestinians injured in the confrontation with IDF forces. But even after the forces left Jenin, Sergeant Blanco’s work continued. “When we finished at the refugee camp, I immediately made contact with the chief IDF Spokesperson representative in Central Command Major Ran Baroz and brigade representatives in Judea and Samaria. I understood from them that according to reports that had already been released by Palestinian sources, the IDF had purportedly perpetrated crimes in the nighttime operation, and a 14 year old youth had been injured. I took out my playback equipment, and sent the video documenting the development of the event. The material had been through preliminary editing, the images were distributed to all the communications networks, and within a short time, the tone of the reports cooled down.

“The visual material proved that it was a planned operation to capture a terrorist, and there was clear documentation of the fact that it was the terrorists who opened fire on us. The footage left no doubt that the forces that operated in the field acted with restraint, and the soldiers only fired when a life-threatening situation arose. The footage included cries of “Kill the Jews,” which could be heard constantly in the background. There is nothing better than seeing something with your own eyes, so headlines saying “The IDF invaded Jenin” were switched within minutes and updated to say “The IDF carried out an anti-terrorist operation in Jenin.”

“This is the pinnacle, from every perspective, on every level,” he admits with a glint in his eyes. “I know that the communication networks hate to retract reports they have published. And here, my footage from the field changed the entire thrust of the event’s coverage.”

...The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit is planning to continue the program and train more such documenters, so it will be possible to send fighters armed with cameras even to the complex operations of Squadron 13 other elite units. “It will happen. No one has any doubt of that,” said an IDF Spokesperson. “Today, we can only imagine how the Muhammad al-Durrah incident (during the Second Intifada) would have unfolded had we had a combat documenter at the scene.

This is great....but I wish they would release more footage! The leftists who film riots often edit out the parts where the Arabs are throwing stones or to make it appear that the IDF shot tear-gas before any rioting, and we need more of the IDF videos to show the truth.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

04/08 Links Pt2: UNHRC: When Palestinian Men Beat Their Wives, It’s Israel’s Fault

From Ian:

UN: When Palestinian Men Beat Their Wives, It’s Israel’s Fault

In her recent report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay revives the bizarre charge, made by one of her colleagues in 2005, that when Palestinian men beat their wives, it’s Israel’s fault:
By Navi Pillay regurgitating Erturk’s 2005 canard, the UN is once again telling Palestinian men that they have no moral agency, and bear little or no responsibility for their inhumane actions against women.
What the UN is doing, once again, is to displace moral responsibility and prime agency. Palestinian men are not primarily to blame for their violence against women, says the UN. Israel is.

Australia opposition chief: ‘Some’ settlement activity illegal

The question of the legality of Israeli settlements is once again stirring debate in Australia, after the head of the opposition and Labor Party chairman Bill Shorten said that “some settlement activity in the West Bank is illegal,” leading even members of his own party to protest that he should have left off the word “some.”
The Jewish community, however, welcomed Shorten’s stance, suggesting that the government in Canberra is growing increasingly aware of Palestinian efforts to “deliberately distort the realities of the settlement question for political purposes.”
Shorten’s comments came about four months after the country’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, caused a controversy when she indicated in a Times of Israel interview that settlements might not be illegal under international law.

Anti-Zionist MK Hanin Zoabi's Relative: A Proud Zionist Arab

Muhammad Zoabi, 16, an Arab Muslim from Nazareth, is causing anger in Muslim circles, and considerable joy in Jewish ones, by stating in a unique interview that he is a Zionist and loves the state of Israel.
"I really believe that I'm a lucky Arab and a lucky human being and a lucky Middle Eastern[er] that I was born in this little tiny piece of land!”, he stated. Pointing to the Golan Heights from the window of his interviewer's home, in the Israeli community of Massad, he noted how bad life is beyond the border, for Syrians.
Muhammad's enthusiastic Zionism is made all the more intriguing by the fact that he is related to notorious anti-Zionist MK Hanin Zoabi, of the Arab-nationalist Balad party.

Gaza newlyweds forced to divorce over Fatah song at wedding

Palestine Press Agency reports that a song played at a wedding caused the newlyweds to get a divorce.

It's the old story: the Montagues and the Capulets, the Jets and the Sharks, Fatah and Hamas.

The bride's family are Hamas members while the groom comes from a Fatah family.

Despite family pressures, the couple decided to get married anyway. But it was the groom's music choice that caused the problem.

The groom's family asked the DJ to play a Fatah-linked song called "Ali Keffiyeh" which was famously sung by Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf.

The brother of the bride became very upset and pulled her out of the wedding reception. A scuffle between the two families ensued and police had to be called, where they separated the families including the couple.

The news media is now saying that there is no solution to this impasse except for divorce, which the humiliated bride's family is insisting on.

Incidentally, the fact that a song about the keffiyeh causes such tension between Hamas and Fatah proves pretty conclusively that it is not merely a decorative scarf but a political symbol.