Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 09, 2014

HRW lies about Beitunia

In a move that surprises no one, Human Rights Watch has released a report on the Beitunia shootings that uncritically reports every anti-Israel claim and ignores everything that is self-contradictory:

Video footage, photographs, witness statements, and medical records indicate that two 17-year-old boys whom Israeli forces shot and killed on May 15, 2014 posed no imminent threat to the forces at the time. The boys, who had been participating in a demonstration in the West Bank, were apparently shot with live ammunition, Human Rights Watch said.

Video footage clearly shows Israeli soldiers firing in the direction of the boys, Nadim Nawareh and Mohammed Salameh, and the boys falling to the ground. Medical records indicate that the two boys, as well as 15-year-old, Mohammed Azza, whom Israeli forces also shot and seriously wounded, suffered wounds to the chest caused by live ammunition. Nawareh and Salameh were shot right through the chest. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch they heard the sound of live ammunition being fired, quite distinct from the sound of rubber bullet fire, at the time the three boys were shot.

“The willful killing of civilians by Israeli security forces as part of the occupation is a war crime,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “Israel has a responsibility to prosecute the forces who targeted these teens, and also those responsible for assigning the use of live ammunition to police a demonstration.”

The Israeli military stated that it is investigating the killings but that its forces “did not use live fire,” only rubber bullets and teargas. However, rubber bullets are specifically designed not to penetrate bodies. It is highly unlikely that, at a range of at least 60 meters, rubber bullets would have caused the injuries that killed Nawareh and Salameh and wounded Azza. Nawareh’s family retrieved what may be the live bullet that killed him.

Offenses committed by Israeli security forces as part of the occupation, such as deliberate attacks on civilians, would be subject to prosecution under international humanitarian law as war crimes. Israeli forces have repeatedly shot Palestinians who posed no imminent threat with live ammunition during similar protests, including at an April 4 demonstration in the same location, and the Israeli military has a poor record of bringing soldiers to justice for such acts, Human Rights Watch said.

The boys were shot in three separate incidents but in virtually the same location in the town of Beitunia, where Palestinians had earlier held a demonstration to commemorate “Naqba Day,” which marks the expulsion of Palestinians from present-day Israel from 1947 to 1949. After the demonstration, there was a violent confrontation during which Israeli forces fired rubber bullets, live ammunition, and tear gas at Palestinians who threw rocks at the forces.

A photojournalist taking pictures at the time, Samer Nazzal, told Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces shot rubber bullets at a group of Palestinians who gathered to carry Nawareh away. Human Rights Watch viewed a series of Nazzal’s high-shutter-speed photographs taken immediately after Nawareh was shot that show a projectile, apparently a rubber bullet, coming from the direction of the Israeli forces. It struck the head of a Palestinian medic, who was wearing a bright orange vest and was part of the group carrying Nawareh.

The Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported that Israeli occupation forces also shot and wounded a 23-year-old man in the arm that day with live ammunition.

...Witness statements, medical reports, security camera videos, news media videos and photographs by journalists, which Human Rights Watch viewed, indicate that Israeli forces fired live ammunition.

As we have shown conclusively, at least Nadeem Nawarah's fall to the ground was accompanied by what was undoubtedly the firing of a rubber bullet.

Nazzal and the other "eyewitnesses" are lying.

Nazzal, 28, a photographer and journalist for Raya news, told Human Rights Watch that he arrived at the scene at around 1:30 p.m., after the clashes had started. He later heard Israeli forces fire both rubber bullets and live ammunition. Witnesses at demonstrations, as well as Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights monitors, have repeatedly confirmed that the sound of live fire is easily distinguished from the sound of the type of rubber bullets used by the Israeli Defense Forces. Nazzal said:

There were seven or eight soldiers on foot in an elevated area, behind a concrete wall and fence, about 60 meters away. There were also a lot of [military vehicles] about 200 meters away from us. There were dozens of protesters, most of them doing nothing but watching, and about 20 others were throwing rocks. Two or three of them would run forward and throw rocks at a time, but because the soldiers were in an elevated place and shielded, none of the rocks seemed to actually hit them. They were shooting tear gas and rubber bullets constantly, and once in a while we would hear live ammunition.

I started taking photos of the clashes as soon as I got there. Nadim [Nawareh] decided to cross the street. At that time he wasn’t throwing rocks; he was just crossing the street. As soon as he was in the middle of the street he was shot straight in the chest. I saw it. I was just 15 meters away from him. I heard the bullet, and he dropped to the ground and didn’t move.

Zayed, the store owner, and Abbas Mamoni, another journalist, corroborated Nazzal’s account.

Nazzal took a rapid series of photographs that show a projectile flying toward the group evacuating Nawareh, and apparently striking the head of a man wearing a medic’s fluorescent vest. The man stumbles and holds his head in subsequent images.

This photograph, if accurate, exactly corresponds with the second gunshot sound in the CNN video, a sound identical to the first one that corresponds to Nawarah's fall. If the sound of a rubber bullet is so easily distinguishable from that of live fire - and it is - then the two shots were of the same type and Nawara was not hit by live fire.

HRW pretends to look at the inconsistencies but dismisses them with what can only be described as a wild conspiracy theory: (There are links in HRW's report that do not go anywhere, and there are no links to the description of the rifle.)

Some commentators and news reports have incorrectly stated that the CNN footage could not show Israeli forces shooting live ammunition because the assault rifles seen in the footage have attachments that are used to fire rubber bullets. However, the Israeli military has used at least one type of assault-rifle attachment, produced by Israel Military Industries, that allows forces to fire rubber bullets, but also to fire live ammunition without removing the attachment. A brochure states that the 22-centimeter-long “launcher” can be “attached to any rifle with NATO flash suppressor” and allows “immediate 5.56-mm lethal firing capability without removing adapter.”

Human Rights Watch could not determine whether the gunshot in the video fired a live round or a rubber bullet, or to rule out the possibility that Nawareh might have been killed by another gunshot that the video did not record.

The gunshot in the CNN video was accompanied by the appearance of a paper wad (you need to go frame by frame to see it) that accompanies many but not all rubber bullet firings, but do not correspond with live fire. In addition, the sound of a live fire round even from such a rifle would sound different, as HRW emphasizes. So HRW prefers a conspiracy theory involving several layers of IDF command over the clear evidence from the CNN video and photographs that HRW relies upon.

HRW's presentation of the facts here simply do not jive with the reality of the videos and the photos. The organization casts no doubt on the supposed bullet that Nawara's family has shown to the media that could not possibly have passed through a human body as an expert showed. And it is credulous regarding "eyewitnesses" who are known to lie.

But HRW isn't interested in discovering the truth - it is interested in damning Israel.

(h/t Gidon)

Of course, Abbas politicizes Vatican speech

There was a huge contrast between the speech that Shimon Peres gave at the Vatican on Sunday and the one given by Mahmoud Abbas.

Peres' speech had very little to say about specific Jewish claims to the Holy Land and almost everything he stated was a universal message of peace.

Mahmoud Abbas, on the other hand, filled his speech with code-words that are meant to exclude Jews from controlling their holy sites and to subtly blame and pressure Israel. And this was all after the Vatican said that this was specifically meant to be a non-political event.

Here are the major parts of Peres' statements, where he emphasizes peace and equality:

Your Holiness Pope Francis, Your Excellency President Mahmoud Abbas … I have come from the Holy City of Jerusalem to thank you for your exceptional invitation. The Holy City of Jerusalem is the beating heart of the Jewish People. In Hebrew, our ancient language, the word Jerusalem and the word for peace share the same root. And indeed peace is the vision of Jerusalem.

As it is said in the Book of Psalms:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you be secure.
May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.”
For the sake of my family and friends,
I will say, “Peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your prosperity.

Two peoples – Israelis and Palestinians – still are aching for peace. The tears of mothers over their children are still etched in our hearts. We must put an end to the cries, to the violence, to the conflict. We all need peace. Peace between equals.

On this moving occasion, brimming with hope and full of faith, let us all raise with you, Your Holiness, a call for peace between religions, between nations, between communities, and between fellow men and women. Let true peace become our legacy soon and swiftly.

Our Book of Books commands upon us the way of peace, demands of us to toil for its realization.

It is said in the book of Proverbs: “Her ways are ways of grace, and all her paths are peace.”

So too must our ways be. Ways of grace and peace. It is not by chance that Rabbi Akiva captured the essence of our Torah in one sentence: “Love your neighbor like thyself.” We are all equal before the Lord. We are all part of the human family. For without peace, we are not complete, and we have yet to achieve the mission of humanity.

Peace does not come easy. We must toil with all our strengths to reach it. To reach it soon. Even if it requires sacrifice or compromise.

The Book of Psalms tells us: “Whoever loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.”

This is to say, we are commanded to pursue after peace. All year. Every day. We greet each other with this blessing. Shalom. Salam. We must be worthy of the deep and demanding meaning of this blessing. Even when peace seems distant, we must pursue it to bring it closer.

And if we pursue peace with perseverance, with faith, we will reach it.

And it will endure through us, through all of us, of all faiths, of all nations, as it is written: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

The soul is elated upon the reading of these verses of eternal vision. And we can – together and now, Israelis and Palestinians – convert our noble vision to a reality of welfare and prosperity. It is within our power to bring peace to our children. This is our duty, the holy mission of parents.

I was young, now I am old. I experienced war, I tasted peace. Never will I forget the bereaved families, parents and children, who paid the cost of war. And all my life I shall never stop to act for peace for the generations to come. Let's all of us join hands and make it happen.

Let me end with a prayer: He who makes peace in the heavens shall make peace upon us and upon all of Israel, and upon the entire world, and let us say Amen.

Peres talks about the people who have been hurt in the Middle East wars, and he tells them to do a very Christian thing - to move forward and work towards peace as the ultimate goal, a peace between equals, not being shackled by the pain of the past. He doesn't demand "justice" for those who are bereaved, for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their land and their people.

Abbas' speech was the polar opposite.

Mahmoud Abbas sprinkles his calls for peace with "justice" - a keyword that often means the destruction of Israel, since its very existence is perceived as unjust. To Arabs, the word "justice" is akin to revenge, to getting everything they demand - since they are the only arbiters of what is considered "just."

Abbas also subtly calls for Jews to be treated as dhimmis by their Muslim leaders in Jerusalem:

...Oh God, we ever praise you for making Jerusalem our gate to heaven. As said in the Holy Quran, “Glory to Him who made His servant travel by night from the sacred place of worship to the furthest place of worship, whose surroundings We have blessed.” You made pilgrimage and prayer in it as the best acts the faithful can make in your praise, and made your truthful promise in your say: “Let them enter the Masjid as they did for the first time.” God Almighty has spoken the truth.

O, Lord of Heaven and Earth, accept my prayer for the realization of truth, peace and justice in my country Palestine, the region, and the globe as a whole.

I beseech You, O Lord, on behalf of my people, the people of Palestine – Moslems, Christians and Samaritans – who are craving for a just peace, dignified living, and liberty, I beseech you, Oh Lord, to make prosperous and promising the future of our people, and freedom in our sovereign and independent state; Grant, O Lord, our region and its people security, safety and stability. Save our blessed city Jerusalem; the first Kiblah, the second Holy Mosque, the third of the two Holy Mosques, and the city of blessings and peace with all that surround it.

...Accordingly, we ask You, O Lord, for peace in the Holy Land, Palestine, and Jerusalem together with its people. We call on you to make Palestine and Jerusalem in particular a secure land for all the believers, and a place for prayer and worship for the followers of the three monotheistic religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and for all those wishing to visit it as it is stated in the Holy Quran.

O Lord, You are the peace and peace emanates from You. O God of Glory and Majesty grant us security and safety, and alleviate the suffering of my people in hometown and Diaspora.

O Lord, bring comprehensive and just peace to our country and region so that our people and the peoples of the Middle East and the whole world would enjoy the fruit of peace, stability and coexistence.

We want peace for us and for our neighbors. We seek prosperity and peace of mind for ourselves and for others alike. O Lord, answer our prayers and make successful our endeavors for you are most just, most merciful, Lord of the Worlds.

Here is the difference between the Arab side and the Israeli side. Even in the most pacific setting possible, in front of the Pope, while Israelis describe how much they yearn for true peace, the Arab idea of "peace" has strings attached - and those strings are meant to weaken and ultimately destroy Israel in the name of "justice."

Former Hamas spokesperson says Abbas is "tricking the Americans"

From Palestinian Media Watch:

Former Hamas government spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein announced today that in private meetings with Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas insists that he is lying in his public statements in order to "trick the Americans":

"When I go out [publicly] and say that the [PA] government is my [Abbas] government and it recognizes 'Israel' and so on, fine -these words are meant to trick the Americans."

Al-Ghussein, who was Hamas government spokesman until the advent of the new unity government with Fatah, posted these words about Abbas's duplicity on his Facebook page.

At the end of the post he laughs at those Palestinians who trust Abbas and the reconciliation.

The following is the post describing Abbas' "tricking the Americans":

"You know what Mahmoud Abbas says behind closed doors?? He says: 'Guys, let me [continue] saying what I say to the media. Those words are meant for the Americans and the occupation (i.e., Israel), not for you [Hamas]. What's important is what we agree on among ourselves. In other words, when I go out [publicly] and say that the government is my [Abbas] government and it recognizes 'Israel' and so on, fine - these words are meant to trick the Americans. But we agree that the government has nothing to do with politics (i.e., foreign relations). The same thing happened in 2006,' he [Abbas] said: 'Don't harp on everything I tell the media, forget about the statements in the media.'
Come on [Abbas]!
The problem really isn't with him [Abbas], the problem is with whoever believes him. Ha, Ha, Ha! (I really do want real reconciliation, meaning partnership and achieving unity, but not reconciliation as Abbas means it)."

[Ihab al-Ghussein's Facebook page, June 8, 2014]

As of this writing, it appears that Ghussein has deleted this Facebook post.

I can't find any mention of the "West Bank" here

Those travelers who visited Palestine in the 19th century must have all been Zionist extremists.

06/08 Links: Peres skewers Palestinian unity ahead of peace prayer; Europe is still sleeping

From Ian:

Europe is still sleeping

So it's a two-headed monster. On the one hand Islamic funding, on the other hand European funding. The goals are allegedly different, but there is one direction. There are those in Europe who think that turning Israel into a monster we'll exempt them from the rage of jihad. Even EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton once compared between the murder of Jews in Toulouse and what Israel does in Gaza. So terror receives justification.
Ashton and others are finding it difficult to understand that Israel is not the global jihad's target. The target is the free world. The jihad representatives say so. Europe refuses to listen. It continues to fund bodies which are part of the red-green coalition of the far left and jihad.
Mehdi Nemmouche is another product among many of the same coalition. The result of incitement and propaganda against Jews, against Israel, against Europe, against the free world. But Europe is still sleeping.

David Singer: "The world has been duped into the use of language that reflects fiction – not fact"

Australia's decision to call a spade a spade will hopefully encourage other countries to follow suit – as well as implementing international action to make some further changes in the duplicitous diplomatic double speak involving the use of misleading and deceptive language which has hindered rather than facilitated any resolution of the conflict.
These changes include:
1. Replacing the term "occupied territories" with the term "disputed territories" to clarify that Jews also have legal rights in these territories in addition to those claimed by the Arabs.
2. Using the 3000 years old term "Judea and Samaria" to replace the term "West Bank" – first coined by Jordan in 1950 to erase any trace of Jews having lived there after having been driven out by the invading Jordanian army in 1948.
3. Substituting "Palestinian Arabs" for "Palestinians" and "Palestinian people" – terms first appearing in the 1964 PLO Charter that excluded former Jewish and other non-Arab residents and their descendants having any rights.
4. Referring to the conflict as the "Jewish-Arab conflict" – which commenced in about 1880 instead of the "Palestinian-Israeli " conflict – which only commenced in 1948.
5. Omitting any reference to the term "State of Palestine" until the provisions of the Montevideo Convention 1934 are complied with.
The world has been duped into the use of language that reflects fiction – not fact. Used often enough it takes on a highly damaging life of its own.
Erasing such language from the international lexicon is long overdue.
The world's nations need to awaken from their fiction-induced slumber.

PA to seek wider Arab reprisal against Australia

The Palestinian Authority intends to lobby Arab and Muslim countries to reevaluate relations with Australia after Canberra announced last week that it would stop referring to East Jerusalem as “occupied” territory, a senior PA official wrote in a letter to Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
“Palestine will request that the Arab League and the Islamic Conference [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] review the relations of the Arab and Islamic world with Australia in light of Australia’s unlawful recognition of the illegal settlement regime in occupied Palestine,” Saeb Erekat wrote in the letter, dated June 5.
On Thursday, Australia’s Attorney General George Brandis explained that using the word “occupied” was judgmental and did not contribute to the dialogue about the contested area. (h/t Bob Knot)

The First Jewish President My... Tush (Michael Lumish)

Michael Lumish, of the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under, continues his weekly column here at EoZ.

In a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal we read this:

The 1988 Hamas Charter explicitly commits the Palestinian terror group to murdering Jews. Thanks to the formation this week of an interim government uniting Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which the U.S. supports to the tune of more than $400 million a year, the American taxpayer may soon become an indirect party to that enterprise.

Oh, joy.

What can one say?

Not only is the United States government paying for the privilege of helping Jihadis kill Jews, but even Jewish "progressives" are going along with it because they seem incapable of removing their ideological blinders. I am convinced that if Barack Obama came on stage before a live international audience and sang Hatikva while pissing on an Israeli flag and kicking a Holocaust survivor in the head as part of a fun-loving interpretive dance, his American Jewish sycophants would still wonder to themselves how it is that we fail to support the guy.

Western Left diaspora Jews have simply got to face the fact that the Obama government is generally supportive of political Islam. {Period. Full stop.} I understand that your average reader of the Elder of Ziyon already knows that, but therein lies the problem. Political partisanship and ideological intransigence are disallowing great numbers of diaspora Jews from seeing what is before their very eyes.

If diaspora Jewry would simply wrap their brains around this basic concept, and acknowledge what it means, it would go a long way to healing the divisions within our community.

What it means is this:

Islam, as a political movement, is driving Christians out of the Middle East entirely, with the sole exception of Israel. Islam, as a political movement, hangs Gay people from cranes in Iran. Islam, as a political movement, shoves women into potato sacks and tells them it is Allah's love. And Islam, as a political movement, calls for the murder of Jews wherever we may be found.

And this is what the Obama administration supports?

It is simply unfathomable that year after year, as the Obama administration bolstered the misnamed "Arab Spring" - which was, in fact, the rise of political Islam - our more naive progressive-left Jewish interlocutors kept telling us that Obama does not support political Islam even as he sent money and heavy weaponry to the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of both Hamas and al-Qaeda.

How ideologically blinkered one must be, at this late date, to still not grasp the simple fact the president of the United States has no real problem with the rise of political Islam throughout the world and, as part of the historical record, encouraged it?

I have never in my life seen such determined and persistent political myopia.

In a May 19, 2011 speech billed as Obama's address to the "Arab World" following the widespread violence and rapes and riots and persecution of Christians throughout the region, he tells us.

There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat.

The "Arab Spring" was the rise of political Islam in the Middle East and this is what Obama compares the Civil Rights Movement to? How is that for a kick in the head to Martin Luther King, Jr.? The irony is profound and deep. We have a president of the United States who would certainly not be the president of the United States were it not for the concerted effort of millions of Americans since the rise of Abolitionism. This is an American president who came out of the progressive-left, which, itself owes much to the New Deal and to American socialism from the nineteenth century. Yet he supports the most vicious and international and repressive political movement in the world today and receives applause from the very people that he harms.

And, make no mistake, supporting Hamas is a harm to the Jewish people everywhere.

The only real questions are why? Why does Obama support political Islam while claiming to be opposed to al-Qaeda, as if al-Qaeda was the end-all and be-all of the movement to advance Sharia? And why is it that western progressives, and western progressive Jews, go along with it and deny what should be absolutely obvious to any concerned observer?

Some people believe that Obama supports political Islam because he is a crypto-Muslim, but I do not think so. The man is a Christian with Muslim influences from his childhood. If I was bigoted against African-American Christians with an Islamic heritage I would never have voted for the guy to begin with... yet I did.

{Go figure.}

The fact is, we cannot fight, or in any meaningful way, oppose Islam because Islam is 1.5 BILLION people. And that, my friends, is a whole lot of people, which is precisely why they are winning the propaganda war in the west. There cannot be enough hasbara in the world to counter the expression of the political tastes of 1.5 billion people. From a practical aspect we cannot win such a fight and I do not even know what "winning" against Islam could possibly look like. Whatever it might look like it would not be the least bit pleasant and the whole notion, promoted by some, that we must oppose Islam, in general, is a terrifically bad idea.

The reason that it is a terrifically bad idea is because it simply cannot succeed and any effort to do so would obviously alienate the kinds of secular Muslims that we need to cultivate and befriend. There are 13 million Jews and something close to 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

I have played a few poker hands in my life. Who would you bet on?

Some people think that Barack Obama wants to harm America's standing in the world. They think that he is a crypto-socialist subversive who wants to take the United States down a peg or two, but that is not true, either. Any actual socialist, that is, anyone who honestly believes in a people's revolution for the purpose of claiming the means of production for the workers, would deny that Obama is one of them.

The bottom line, however, is that American Jewry is in a tough spot.

If we stand up against Barack Obama - as I very definitely learned first hand - it means that in the eyes of many American Jews we must be extremists. It is unfathomable to the majority of diaspora Jews how any of us could not support the political left. In fact, this very question of political allegiance is one of the great questions in debate within the international Jewish community today and for the first time in a very long time.

I take that to be a good thing. For the first time since before the New Deal, American Jews are beginning to question their political allegiances. It is a long and slow process, for sure, but from anecdotal evidence, at least, it seems to be happening.

Norman Podhoretz had his finger on the pulse when he wondered how it is that so many diaspora Jews are liberal? The term "liberal" in this case is an American usage that does not really apply. Secular Jews are almost to a person "liberal" in the sense that we believe in a free press, support democracy, and oppose the kind of fascist authoritarianism characteristic of, say, ohhh, Sharia. David Horowitz, for example, is unquestionably a liberal. I, myself, am undeniably a liberal as are the Jews within most of the diaspora left who oppose my positions.

This is thereby an argument within the diaspora liberal community and it is an argument that can turn ugly.

As for just why it is that Obama's Jewish supporters cannot bring themselves to actually acknowledge that which is before their very noses, I have no definitive answer. My suspicion is that ideological intransigence, buttressed by social imperatives, are largely the culprits. I grew up in a Democratic home and I doubt that my father even met an adult who had not voted for Franklin Roosevelt until he went into the army. Growing up in the post-Vietnam War era almost everyone that I knew leaned to the left and it was almost universally understood that Republicans are one of two types, either the rich, white, northern, Anglo, snobbish, elite, i.e., "Rockefeller Republicans" or that other kind from the Deep South.

If we disliked northern Republicans or, say, "Blue State Republicans" - of which there seem to be less and less these days - then we absolutely loathed and feared "Red State Republicans." Evangelical Christians are among the very best friends that Israel has on this planet and we damn well better keep that in mind going forward, yet progressive-left diaspora Jews absolutely despise those people, the Christian people of the American heartland.

Melanie Phillips has a recent piece in Commentary entitled, 'Jesus Was a Palestinian': The Return of Christian Anti-Semitism, in which she makes the case that Israel is beginning to bleed American Evangelical support due to the concerted propaganda efforts and outreach of the Arab-Muslim world, particularly those Arab Christians who agree with Arab Muslims that Palestinian Jews are the Devil, and who coordinate with the "liberal" protestant sects, such as the Presbyterian Church.

Israel needs all the supporters and partners that it can get and western Jews need to know who their friends are and who they are not. What could not be more clear is that western Jewry has turned its back on the Evangelicals, who are among the most important supporters of the Jewish State of Israel in this world, while embracing an American president who is eager to fund Hamas.

We have to begin by acknowledging the obvious and, in these circumstances, the obvious, while horrifying, is easily acknowledgeable... at least, for some of us.

Trouble in Paradise? Hamas, Fatah squabble over salaries to Hamas workers, Gaza banks closed

Ma'an reports:

Banks in the Gaza Strip remained closed Sunday morning as a financial crisis which began Wednesday evening threatened to undermine confidence in the newly-formed Palestinian unity government.

Employees of the formerly Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip have insisted that they should receive their salaries from the new reconciliation government, and local police deployed around banks and ATMs again Sunday to prevent PA employees related to the new unity government from receiving their salaries until a solution is reached.

Hamas and Fatah, it seems, had neglected to reach an agreement on whether the newly-formed unity government would take over paying the 50,000 employees, including security officers, who were employed by the Hamas-run government that was in power in Gaza since the beginning of the political division in 2007.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that the financial crisis -- which he blamed on Hamas -- was "unacceptable."

The crisis began on Wednesday, when Gaza-based Palestinian Authority public sector employees went to withdraw their salaries from ATM machines but were prevented from doing so by security officers of the formerly Hamas-run government.

On Thursday morning, banks were unable to operate after Hamas' security forces deployed around them in protest against the unity government's failure to pay the salaries of Gaza employees who had been hired by the formerly Hamas-run government.

When banks tried to open on Sunday morning after the Friday-Saturday weekend, officers of the former Hamas government refused to allow banks to operate because they still had not been paid their monthly wages by the unity government.

If 50,000 Hamas employees aren't being paid, that is a recipe for another civil war in Gaza. Look for Abbas to beg Gulf countries to pay these salaries in the next week or two.

Also, there are reports today that Hamas attacked the Office of the Central Committee of Fatah Commissioner Dr. Zakaria al-Agha in Gaza City, and beat some of the staff.

Sources said that Hamas broke into the office Agha's office and expelled all workers and shut down the office, demanding their salaries by the Government of National Reconciliation.

Other reports said that the members of the Hamas police beat a female member of the Arab Socialist Baath Party and member of the General Union of Palestinian Women unconscious, while she tried to enter a bank in Gaza City.

The only publicly moderate Palestinian Arab resigns from his teaching job

We have previously discussed Mohammed Dajani, the leader of the tiny Palestinian Wasatia party, who is essentially the only Palestinian Arab moderate enough to publicly endorse a statement drafted by an Israeli liberal giving Jews and Arabs completely equal rights to live in the territory of British Mandate Palestine.

Dajani is also the person who visited Auschwitz with some of his students to withering criticism from his fellow Palestinian Arabs.

It looks like he has resigned from his job over that episode:

Mohammed Dajani, the Al-Quds University professor who received plaudits and threats earlier this year after leading the first organized group of Palestinian university students to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, has resigned from the university after weeks of mounting pressure.

He heads the Department of American Studies and is the director of the Al-Quds University Library, which has just moved into an impressive new building.

Professor Dajani told Haaretz he felt he had no choice after the university authorities refused to back up their private assurances with a display of public support after what he described as a campaign of “incitement” against him from some members of the university faculty.

Following the Auschwitz trip, Dajani was denounced as a “traitor” and “collaborator” by Palestinian critics and expelled from a university staff union. He says it is important for Palestinians to understand their “enemy” – the Israelis – including the role the Holocaust plays in shaping Israeli policy and consciousness.

Dajani submitted a letter of resignation on May 18, hoping the university authorities would reject it and denounce the campaign against him. Instead, he received a response from the university personnel department that his resignation would take effect on June 1.

“I wanted the president of the university to take a stand by not accepting my resignation and in doing so to send a clear and loud message to the university employees and students, and in general, to the Palestinian community, that the university supports academic freedom and considers my trip as an educational journey in search of knowledge by which I broke no university policy, rules, or regulations,” Dajani said.

“Some may consider my letter of resignation from Al-Quds University as a kind of ‘surrender’ to those opposed to academic freedom and freedom of action and of expression. I don’t,” he said. “In submitting my resignation, I feel I took the battle to a higher level. My letter of resignation from Al-Quds University was a kind of litmus test to see whether the university administration supports academic freedom and freedom of action and of expression as they claim or not.”

Dajanai said he decided to resign after his students were told that university officials had played an active part in the campaign against him, including his expulsion from the staff union – an organization he never joined in the first place. He was also dismayed that in its only official response to the trip, the university tried to distance itself from their professor, claiming he was "on leave" and acting "in a personal capacity."

In May, Dajani met with Prof Sari Nusseibeh, the outgoing university president, and Dr Imad Abu Kishek, the incoming president, who assured him privately that they were committed to academic freedom at Al-Quds, that he had broken no university rules in taking his students to Auschwitz and that none of the university’s leadership supported the campaign to oust him from the university. Dajani says he decided to test their resolve by submitting his resignation so they could reject it and give him their public backing – but they didn’t come through.

Dajani spoke at a peace forum in Israel last month, in English. The entire video is here.

Idiotic Norwegian "expert" explains why Jewish homes have red tile roofs

From Tarud's Blog (Norwegian):

How many lies it is possible to get in a single short story? The Palestinians and their friends in Norway have long ago lost any shame in lying about Israel. And the competition is fierce between "friends of Palestine" in Norway about who can find more imaginative liars.

Norwegian People's Aid is one of the organizations that have positioned itself at the forefront in the fight for demonization of Israel. On April 28th 2014 the Chairman of Norwegian People's Aid, Finn Erik Thorsen, held a lecture in Molde. According to one of the spectators at the lecture, Thorsen, who regards himself as a "Palestine expert," told horror stories about "Zionists and the Jewish state that is controlled by the Russian mafia."

One of the most colorful stories was about red roof tiles. He showed a picture of a [settlement] house with red roof tiles and asked a rhetorical question: "Do you know why Palestinians are not allowed to use red roof tiles on their houses in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), and only the (Jewish) settlements use such roof tiles?" And the answer was: "It will be easier for the Israeli bombers to identify Palestinian houses when they bomb them, while they avoid hitting the Jewish houses."

The natural reaction for those who do not know the situation in Judea and Samaria must be one of shock and anger: Poor Palestinians, this sounds pretty awful, does it not? But the correct question should be: how many lies can you find in this tiny anecdote? Here's a list:

1 Most Palestinians in Judea and Samaria live in areas A and B under control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA has full responsibility for zoning and import of building materials, including the type of roof tiles that can be used. There are no Palestinian regulations that prohibit the use of red roof tiles.

2 Israel has no laws or regulations that prohibit the use of red roof tiles in Area C which is under Israeli control. This means that both Arabs and Jews who build in this area can use red roof tiles in their houses, if they want to.

3 Red roof tiles on houses in a neighboring village can not possibly help a pilot of a bomber to hit its target. It would have been more logical if the target was colored red.

4 Israeli aircraft does not bomb houses in Judea and Samaria.

5 The Israeli air force is regarded as one of the best in the world. Israeli aircraft use precision weapons that can hit its target with great accuracy both day and night, and is completely independent of the color of the house or on the roof tiles.

6 The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) do not attack civilian buildings. Houses used by terrorists are not protected by the Geneva Convention and can be considered military targets.

7 Red roof tiles are traditionally used in many countries of the world including Israel and Norway . I can not find any evidence to suggest that in some countries the red roof tiles help selection of military targets, or to distinguish military from civilian buildings.

8 The main reason that most Palestinian houses do not have red roof tiles is that they do not tile their roofs at all. The traditional Arab architecture in the area includes a solarium that can be used for different purposes.

9 A number of houses built in recent years in Arab settlements in Israel, Judea and Samaria, have red tiles.

10 Many houses in Jewish towns and villages have a rooftop terrace, or use tiles with a different color than red.

Apparently, it is even easier to lie about Israel in Norwegian than it is in English. I don't think even Mondoweiss or Electronic Intifada are idiotic enough to make this claim - but the head of this Norwegian NGO can spout such stupidity with impunity.

By the way, here's an 11th reason:

The first neighborhood outside of the Old City of Jersualem, called Mishkenot Sha’ananim (“Tranquil Dwellings”), was built in 1860 by the wealthy Jewish philanthropist Moses Montefiore. Influenced by Mediterranean architecture, Montefiore designed the settlement of terraced row houses with red roof tiles. Since then, this style of construction - terraced house with red-tiled roof - has became a prototype for Jewish residences all over Israel.

(h/t Spiker's Corner)

06/07 Links: J Street: Anti-Israel, Pro-Lying; Brussels Attack Claims 4th Victim

From Ian:

J Street: Anti-Israel, Pro-Lying

The liberal fringe group J Street is facing renewed questions over its purported dishonesty to journalists and editors after one of its top campus officials penned an op-ed that was so thoroughly riddled with factual errors that a leading Israeli publication was forced to delete the piece and apologize.
Jacob Plitman, the president of J Street U’s National Student Board, recently attacked several pro-Israel groups in an editorial published by the Times of Israel (TOI). However, TOI editors quickly removed the piece after at least four major factual errors were discovered, according to an explanation of the incident provided to the Washington Free Beacon by sources close to the incident.
This is not the first time that J Street has come under fire for misleading reporters and editors at major publications.

MAEL: Unpacking J Street's 'Myths and Facts' Page

J Street suffers from one major problem- an inability to tell the truth. Again and again the organization misleads both the public and its constituents on matters of policy, funding, and co-sponsorship. In its attempt to ignore the film the J Street Challenge and other critics, J Street often relies on its 'Myths and Facts' page, even claiming that "the Myths and Facts page offers a more comprehensive address of the film’s catalog of spurious allegations."
The fact that the leftist lobby group has a need for such a page should be cause for concern in itself. The Orwellian contents on the page only confirm the widespread concern that J Street misrepresents the truth. Rather than address any of the issues that J Street's critics has raised, the George Soros-funded group resorts to double-speak to "diffuse" the situation. Here are four such examples of J Street's public relations spin, with J Street's "Myths and Facts" followed by commentary:

Is the International Consensus on Jerusalem Fracturing?

If Israelis have not been willing to vocally and uncompromisingly assert their rights to their own undivided capital before the court of world opinion, then it is hardly surprising if those who don’t have much love for the Jewish state have taken this as a cue to further delegitimize Jewish rights in Jerusalem. Both the Europeans and the Obama administration insist that they are friends of Israel, but if Israelis want to know what real friends look like then they can look to Stephen Harper’s government in Canada and now to Tony Abbott’s in Australia. The decision to no longer refer to East Jerusalem as “occupied territory” is a bold and brave move that displays a degree of moral clarity that one could barely imagine coming from Obama’s State Department and certainly not from London’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Ideally, the move by the Australians will be repeated by other governments, but if nothing else it calls into question the attitude in Europe that holds the illegality of the Israeli presence in north, south, and east Jerusalem to be an open and shut case.

Australia just made an enormous contribution to the Middle East peace process

So why has the Australian announcement advance peace, if it has angered the Palestinians?
Because the history of Middle East peace negotiations is the refusal to speak the truth to the Palestinians, and instead, to cower at false claims of illegal occupation and Apartheid. Such diplomatic cowering, evidenced by John Kerry’s futile shuttle diplomacy, simply encourages even more unreasonable and unrealistic Palestinian demands.
If peace ever is to be achieved, it will be when the Palestinians accept that they can get no more from international boycotts and pressure than they can get through direct negotiations and meaningful concessions. The Australian announcement brought that moment a little closer.
The U.S. finally moving our Embassy to Jerusalem would move the peace process even closer still.

First the Jews steal the keffiyeh, hummus and falafel. But now: Kenafa!

We've seen many times that Palestinian Arabs claim that Jews have "stolen" their culture, by eating hummus and falafel, or by wearing Jewish keffiyehs and claiming it is their own (which, actually, it might be.)

Now, Dr. Salim Nazzal says that the Jews have gone too far, by eating (and supposedly claiming) kenafa, a sweet dairy dish.

I have never heard that Jews claim this dish. Kenafa apparently originated in Egypt, although there seems to have been a variant that was centered around Nablus using their cheese.

Nazzal's complaints are hysterical:

Zionists now using a new tactic to integrate themselves in the area knowing that it excluded them. This tactic is based on the theft of Palestinian culture and claiming it for themselves, in other words they want to say that they are not invaders from overseas as it is, but Eastern people of the region. And their claim that the Kenafa sweets are Jewish is the latest thing from the mind of the Zionist Jew who lives an existential crisis and a crisis of identity, despite his military superiority. Just claiming this shows the crisis in which they live. It is a crisis of legitimacy of their presence in Palestine.

I am not seeing any Jews complaining that Palestinians love to eat matzoh. No one would be upset if Palestinian Arabs started claiming cholent or gefilte fish - it would actually be funny. It seems that the existential crisis is not from the Jewish side - we have lots of traditions from all over the world, thank you - but from the "Palestinian" side where people freak out over supposedly having their culture "stolen."

If culture can be so easily stolen, maybe it wasn't your culture to begin with.

06/06 Links Pt2: The Apartheid Libel, Demolished; AJ Journalist: Jews Should Know Their Place

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: The Apartheid Libel, Demolished

Whatever critics may think about Israel’s control of parts of the West Bank, the “apartheid” label is such a gross distortion that it can only discredit them. It is inaccurate in terms of both international law and the facts on the ground. And it raises the question of why critics of Israel use the label, despite the risk of discrediting their arguments with their rhetorical overkill.
The answer can be found in the unique international response to South Africa’s apartheid regime. Numerous countries, from Turkey to Russia to Armenia, occupy and annex territory. Numerous countries—perhaps most—are grossly undemocratic, discriminate against minorities, and deny political rights to much or all of their population. Yet only the apartheid label resulted in orchestrated international sanctions that sought to completely eliminate a specific regime. Falsely applied to Israel, the accusation is clearly not a serious criticism, but a diplomatic weapon. It is not about the reality it seeks to describe, but the reaction it seeks to elicit—in a word, BDS. For some, it serves as a scare tactic to push Israel toward dangerous concessions. For others, it is a step toward literally destroying Israel as a Jewish state. Israel has paid a very high price for avoiding anything like apartheid. Creating Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and much of the West Bank has required Israel to forcibly expel its own citizens from all of Gaza and parts of the West Bank. And it has subjected Israel to an unprecedented terrorist war coordinated by the PA, as well as ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza. Yet the international community continues to perpetuate the libel of the apartheid accusation. This indifference to the price in lives and security Israel has paid seems to suggest a stark truth: Whatever Israel does, it can never be safe from such diplomatic demagoguery.

The Anti-Zionism of J Street

The biggest problem with the controversial group isn’t its bullying, mischaracterization of opponents, outrageous lobbying positions, or childish huffing and puffing. It’s their implicit rejection of everything Zionism stands for.
Why does the Zionist movement still exist, while the Women’s Suffrage movement has been gone for nearly a century?
Both movements were founded and led by utopian visionaries whose dreams were initially decried—both inside and outside their circles—as unrealistic, if not dangerous to their group’s well-being. Both based their claims on liberalism, dignity, and human rights. And, most importantly, both movements succeeded in their goals. The Jewish people now have a sovereign state of their own, while women have the right to vote in almost every country on earth.
It seems, then, that the questions of women’s right to vote and the Jewish people’s right to a state are both answered. The debates ought to be over. No one would seriously suggest that after nearly a century, women should now be disenfranchised. Similarly, the 66-year existence of a Jewish state is an immutable and irreversible fact, and no mainstream figure is arguing for its abolition. So why, and why now, is the American Jewish community undergoing such a storm of conflict and recrimination over the issue of Israel?

Cleveland Unites over Anti-Semitic murals

Anita Gray, regional director of the ADL has described the paintings as "highly offensive and anti-Semitic." adding "We are appalled by the intolerance and bigotry these signs convey...The owner of this establishment has the right to have it decorated as he chooses, but we urge fellow members of the community to join us in saying, loudly and clearly, that such hate is not welcome here, and we categorically reject it."
The owner of the gas station/grocery store Brahim "Abe" Ayad Ayad was born in the United States but is of Palestinian descent. Expect JVP to express its outrage at the Zionist lobby attempting to stiffle Palestinian activism in 3, 2, 1.....