Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 07, 2015

01/07 Links Pt1: Abbas: Life Sentence For Selling Land To Jews; Charlie Hebdo Terror Attack Roundup

From Ian:

Abbas Decrees Life Sentence For Anyone Who Sells Land To Jews

The "moderate" President of the Palestinian Authority has enacted a bill in an attempt to ensure that any future Palestinian state is free of Jews, decreeing that any Palestinian who sells land "to a hostile country or its citizens" is now punished with "life imprisonment with forced labor."
Of course "hostile country or its citizens" is another way of saying Jews. Palestinian Media Watch translation of the news reports, all of which appeared on the official Palestinian Authority TV channel, read:
October 21st: [PA] Chairman Mahmoud Abbas published a decision on an amendment to the Jordanian penal law [still in effect in the PA] and on its previous amendments in the northern districts (i.e., the West Bank). In the new amendment, he instituted life imprisonment with forced labor for the clandestine transfer, leasing or selling of lands to a hostile country or its citizens. The previous penalty for the clandestine transfer of land was temporary forced labor.
October 23rd: The [Palestinian] Supreme Fatwa Council stressed in its meeting, chaired by the Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the prohibition on selling lands and clandestinely transferring real estate property to enemies. This came following the occupation authorities' and settlers' takeover of several real estate properties in the area of Silwan [in Jerusalem]... The Council designated anyone selling Palestinian real estate to the enemy a traitor to Allah and His Messenger, as well as to his religion and homeland, and [decreed that] he is to be shunned by all Muslims.

Abbas decrees life imprisonment for selling land to Israelis

12 dead, four wounded critically in shooting at headquarters of French satirical newspaper

Hooded gunmen stormed the Paris offices of a weekly satirical magazine renowned for lampooning radical Islam, killing at least 12 people, including two police officers in the worst militant attack on French soil in recent decades.
One of the men was captured on video shouting "Allah!" as four shots rang out. Two assailants are then seen calmly leaving the scene and remain at large.
Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly) is renowned for courting controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders and has published numerous cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad. The last tweet on its account mocked Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the militant Islamic State, which has taken control of large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
"This is a terrorist attack, there is no doubt about it," President Francois Hollande told reporters after rushing to the scene of the attack. His government raised France's security level to the highest notch and scheduled an emergency cabinet meeting.

Allahu Akbar!' Video of Paris Terror Attack Against Newspaper

Videos are now surfacing of the shooting rampage in the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper known for publishing cartoons lampooning Muslim leaders including Mohammed.
"Allahu Akbar!" can be heard with a barrage of gunshots.

'Charlie Hebdo,' brazen champion of political incorrectness, loved poking fun at Islam

Charlie Hebdo, the Paris-based satirical newsmagazine that was targeted by two gunmen in one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in the history of the Fifth Republic, has been available on French newsstands since its founding in July 1992.
It gained its greater notoriety, however, for its defiant stance toward upholding freedom of expression in the face of Muslim anger over depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.
In 2006, it riled Muslims in France and elsewhere after it reprinted 12 cartoons originally published months earlier by Jylland-Posten, a Danish newspaper. The caricatures sparked rioting and widespread protests across the Muslim world.
Charlie Hebdo’s act of solidarity with Jylland-Posten prompted a French Muslim organization to take the newspaper to court, charging that it was fomenting racism by publishing the cartoons. A French court, however, disagreed, and acquitted the newspaper.
An anti-establishment weekly whose Paris offices were under police protection due to threats, Charlie Hebdo continued to make waves. In 2011, it issued a tongue-in-cheek edition titled Charia Hebdo with “guest editor” Mohammed.
On the day before the edition hit newsstands, its offices were firebombed and its website hacked.

The collection of Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons

This morning there was a horrendous terror attack in Paris:

At least 12 people have been killed by gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs and a rocket-launcher, after they opened fire in the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, Paris prosecutors say.

A further 20 people were injured, at least four seriously, in the shooting at the offices of the newspaper, which were firebombed in 2011 after it published cartoons about the prophet Mohammed.

Two police officers and nine journalists are thought to be among those killed, including the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Stephane Charbonnier, judicial sources told Agence France Presse.

The attackers shouted "we have avenged the prophet" when storming the offices, according to witnesses cited by a police source.

One of the men was captured on video shouting "Allah!" as shots rang out.

In the video, filmed by journalist Martin Boudot taking refuge on a nearby rooftop, the men can also be heard shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) between rounds of heavy arms fire.

In solidarity with Charlie Hedbo (whose editor in chief and several cartoonists were among the dead,) here is the last tweet posted on their account shortly before the terror attack:

Meilleurs vœux, au fait. pic.twitter.com/a2JOhqJZJM
— Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) January 7, 2015

Here are the cartoons from 2012 that mainstream media were too afraid to publish from that satirical magazine, and after the Charlie Hedbo offices had been firebombed in 2011:

"With my new iPhone 5 with 4" screen you can see clearly that they've insulted the prophet!"

Problem teenager - He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't take drugs, he doesn't screw -
"My son is a Salafist!!!"

Riots in the Arab countries ...
after publication of the photos of Madame Mohammed

Salafist stupidity - Any pretext is good!
"Another insulting representation of our prophet!"

Stop kidding around about Mohammed!
"I'm a Jew!"

Mohammed reduces unemployment among young people -
there are lots of new film critics

A film about Islam triggers the rage of the fundamentalists -
"Show us an intelligent film and we start World War III!"

Jews are the only people who must be ethnically cleansed under "international law"

Human Rights Watch gives an overview of forcible transfer as a crime against humanity under international law (in context of forcible transfers of ethnic populations from northern Iraq):

The forcible and arbitrary transfer of populations--that is, without any grounds permissible under international law—has been defined in the International Criminal Court statute as a crime against humanity.30 Although the crimes described here occurred prior to the ICC statute’s coming into force, and Iraq in any case is not a party to the statute, the statute itself is considered to reflect customary international law.

Prior to the coming into force of the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty, international criminal law sometimes did not distinguish between the crime of deportation, defined as “the forced removal of people from one country to another,” and the crime of forced population transfer, defined as the “compulsory movement of people from one area to another within the same State.”31 Deportation has been recognized as a crime against humanity in each of the major international criminal instruments prior to the ICC, including the Nuremberg Charter, the Tokyo Charter, the Allied Control Council Law No. 10, and the statutes of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR).32 The long-standing definition of “deportation” as a crime against humanity included the crime of forced population transfer within a state’s borders.33

The Statute of the ICC, which came into force on July 1, 2002,34 includes among its definitions of crimes against humanity “deportation or forcible transfer of population.” According to one commentator, forcible transfer was specifically included “to make it expressly clear that transfers of populations within a State’s borders were also covered.”35 The crime of forcible transfer of populations includes “the full range of coercive pressures on people to flee their homes, including death threats, destruction of their homes, and other acts of persecution such as depriving members of a group of employment, denying them access to schools, and forcing them to wear a symbol of their religious identity.”36

Human Rights Provisions Relevant to Forced Transfer

Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iraq became a party in 1971, establishes that everyone shall have “the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence.”46 The freedom to choose one’s residence incorporates the right not to be forcibly moved.47 Restrictions on movement and choice of residence are permitted only when provided by law and for reason of “national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals, or the rights and freedoms of others,” and such restrictions must be consistent with other rights recognized in the ICCPR.

“Ethnic Cleansing”

Ethnic cleansing refers to the policy of “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove targeted persons or a given group from the area.”48 Ethnic cleansing is not defined in any international criminal convention or under customary international law, but it is a concept that is “culled from the Yugoslav conflict, where the term has been used by the Serb leadership in connection with their military campaigns to cleanse territories that are intended to be part of ‘Greater Serbia.’”49 Ethnic cleansing is similar to forced population transfer, but involves an additional element of the use of “terror-inspiring violence.”50 The United Nations has repeatedly characterized the practice of ethnic cleansing as a violation of international humanitarian law, and has demanded that perpetrators of ethnic cleansing be brought to justice.51

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Since the 1949 Geneva Conventions the idea of forcing a group of people to move out of their homes against their will has been considered as heinous a crime as possible - a crime against humanity. Here is the ICC's list of crimes against humanity that to show the seriousness of this crime:

murder;
extermination;
enslavement;
deportation or forcible transfer of population;
imprisonment;
torture;
rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
persecution against an identifiable group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender grounds;
enforced disappearance of persons;
the crime of apartheid;
other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering or serious bodily or mental injury.

By any yardstick, forcing a population to move out of their homes against their will - whether between international borders or within them, whether in wartime or in peacetime - is considered a particularly heinous act.

With one exception: forcing Jews to move out of their historic homeland in Judea and Samaria.

Doing that is not only allowed, but demanded, by the United Nations. From UNSC 465 (1980):

The Security Council....calls upon the Government and people of Israel to ...to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem;

I think that dismantling thousands of homes fits under the definition of "coercive pressure" to leave.

So as many as 600,000 people are the exception to the rules against ethnic cleansing and forced transfer.

And every single one of these exceptions is a Jew. (Arab Israelis who moved across the Green Line would have a choice as to whether they want to stay or not, but Jews wouldn't.)

As far as I can tell, no other population of anything close to that size has ever been told that they must move under international law. At worst, some sort of compromise is searched for to avoid the heinous crime of forced deportation and ethnic cleansing.

Except for Jews in their historic homeland.

The reason must be that the "illegality" of the settlements is worse than the crime against humanity of forcible transfer of hundreds of thousands of people.

From a purposeful misreading of the Fourth Geneva Convention rule that was meant to stop the forced transfer of civilians into occupied territories, over the years the international community - prompted by the Arab states demands and sometimes blackmail - has slowly changed international law, and the interpretation of international law, to make the establishment of Jewish communities built by people who voluntarily moved to the land of their forefathers into a worse crime than that of forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing. It has been a slow process but the spirit and intent of the Fourth Geneva Convention has been completely replaced by a new set of rules that are specifically and deliberately aimed at Jews.

HRW, in the paper cited above, has far more concern about the people who illegally moved into the areas that were ethnically cleansed of Kurds and Assyrians than any human rights group has ever stated about the Jews of Judea and Samaria that they want to transfer:

The Iraqi government has brought ethnic Arab populations-some also against their will, others with financial incentives-to Kirkuk to advance its "Arabization" drive, and many of those ethnic Arabs now live in the former homes of displaced persons. The right to repossess private property must be balanced against any rights these secondary occupiers may have in domestic or international law, using impartial and efficient procedural safeguards.124 In Bosnia, property claims administrators have attempted to resolve these disputes in a manner that respects the rights of the first possessor as well as the secondary occupier.125

So under the joke of "international law" as interpreted nowadays, the people who move into the actual houses of those forced out have more rights than Jews who have built the vast majority of their homes on public lands. Even Jews who were born in Judea and Samaria have no human right of staying in the homes that they have lived in all their lives. This interpretation of international law is unique to Jews - not Israelis, but Jews. The paper quoted above bends ove backwards to ensure the rights of the occupiers, but no human rights group has ever said the same about Jews in Judea and Samaria.

Even if you say that Israel's control of land that was for 19 years illegally annexed by Jordan is illegal itself, and even if you say that it is against international law to allow (not force) citizens to move to such territory, the rights of Jews in Judea and Samaria to keep the homes they built should be far higher than the rights of Arabs to stay in houses literally stolen from ethnic groups in northern Iraq.

But no one says that. Just as no one calls for Turks who moved into northern Cyprus or Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh to be forcibly evicted from their homes.

"Palestine" has the right to ethnically cleanse Jews from their homeland. what would be considered a crime against humanity in any other context in any other area of the world is considered mandatory by the UN, as well as "human rights" groups.

This is just one example - although perhaps the most egregious one - of how international law itself, meant to be universal and to uphold the highest standards of impartiality, has been subverted by people with political agendas since 1967 to target Israel and only Israel.

Today's Iranian antisemitism

The most interesting thing about this antisemitic article in Iran's PressTV is that it is only signed with initials BM/BB.

BM are the highly appropriate initials for Brandon Martinez, who has been happily spouting Jew-hatred for far left "pro-Palestinian" sites for a while.

After every major war, victors justice and victors history always win the day. Those who win the war customarily scapegoat their vanquished foes for every calamity under the sun, embellishing and exaggerating the crimes of their adversaries as a means of whitewashing their own. World War II is no exception. Hollywood’s bastardization of WWII history, with its obligatory overemphasis of alleged “Nazi” war crimes and endless “holocaust” adaptations, is a deliberate attempt by the victorious powers to suppress the reality of Allied barbarism and the secret agenda of Allied leaders to aid and abet the Jewish-Zionist seizure and ethnic cleansing of Palestine after the war.

“Six million,” was the frenzied Zionist war cry as they wielded British and American weaponry to depopulate more than 500 Palestinian villages, burning them to the ground. “Never again,” the Jewish-Zionist militants chanted while slaying innocent Arab women and children in the name of Yahweh and the mythical ‘six million’ martyrs. It is this hideous transgression against the Palestinian people that must be drowned underneath a tidal wave of documentaries, ‘survivor memoirs’ and fictionalized flicks on the big screen.

Even though Russia rightly condemns the US for its murderous activities during WWII, Moscow is not a guiltless party in the bloody affair. The Russians are playing a schizoid double game of glorifying their own sordid role in WWII whilst condemning America’s equally barbarous contribution to the bloodshed. Russia’s leaders continue to promote preposterous war myths about the Soviet Union’s ‘benevolent’ and ‘heroic’ role in “defeating fascism,” but the truth is that Stalin and his NKVD henchmen laid waste to more human souls than Hitler and Mussolini could even dream of. Over the course of his 30-year iron rule, Stalin and his predominantly Jewish secret police murdered and enslaved more than 40 million people.

...Enforcing German and Japanese war guilt is a self-serving ruse by interested parties, principally American and Zionist imperialists, to distract the masses from the hidden truths about the Second World War which, if exposed widely, could cause the US-Israeli imperium to crumble like a house of cards.

It's funny that Iran's Supreme Leader tweets about his wonderful tolerance of non-Muslims while his official media publishes things like this.

Leader’s meeting with the family of an Iranian #Christian being martyred during Saddam’s war against #Iran. #Jesus pic.twitter.com/cHJCduQGt6
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 4, 2015

Notice that the Christian mother feels compelled to cover her hair in tolerant Iran..

01/06 Links Pt2: The lessons of Fatah Day; The 10-year klepto-dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas

From Ian:

The lessons of Fatah Day

In this respect, Fatah Day provides us all with an important glimpse into the mindset of Palestinian society and its leaders. It should open our eyes, if they aren’t already, and sweep away any illusions that might still exist about the ultimate aims of the Palestinian “national liberation movement.”
Abbas and his ilk neither shy away from violence nor revile it. As the celebrations on Fatah Day demonstrated, they wholeheartedly embrace it.
Not only that, but Fatah Day serves as a timely reminder that Palestinian terrorists began attacking Israel more than two years before the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel acquired Judea and Samaria as well as the eastern part of Jerusalem.
In other words, the Palestinian struggle against Israel, which is supposedly all about the “occupied territories,” is in fact much broader and even more sinister.
It is aimed at the very existence of the Jewish state.
And this is why there truly is no peace.
Not because Israelis choose to live in Beit El or in Hebron, but because our Palestinian neighbors simply don’t want them to live at all.

Shmuley Boteach: The 10-year klepto-dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas

This coming Friday, January 9, will mark the tenth anniversary of his victory in the Palestinian presidential election. His term was supposed to have ended six years ago, but didn’t – mainly because he’s called off every election since. Which means that this Friday will mark not only the birth of Abbas’ presidency, but also the death of Palestinian democracy. Over the course of the past decade Abbas has completely dismantled whatever democratic process existed in the PA , to the extent that it ever did.
The truth is, though, this refusal to step down or call new elections is just one of many symptoms of the dictatorship that has developed under Abbas. In line with other dictators, Abbas has scrapped any semblance of freedom of speech in the PA . Any journalists who attempt to call him out on his despotic ways are quickly imprisoned. The charge? “Extending their tongue.”
Like any dictator, he’s corrupt. His predecessor, Yasser Arafat, was accused of embezzling billions of dollars of money meant for the Palestinian people, with US officials estimating the man’s personal nest egg at between one and three billion dollars. In line with his role model, after whom he named his own son, Abbas has continued this ignominious tradition.

Exploring How the World Turned Against Israel

Below is an excerpt from “Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel” by Joshua Muravchik.
For every Jew in the world, there are 100 Muslims. While Israel is the only Jewish state, 57 states belong to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The Arabs had been unable to translate these advantages into military strength, but they learned to make them pay off in political clout. They threatened those who crossed them with terrorism, oil cutoffs, and economic boycotts; and the power of their diplomatic bloc, which largely controlled the UN through the Non-Aligned Movement.
While people and countries quite often respond cravenly to such incentives, they seldom like to admit it even to themselves. What made it easier in this case was the rise of a new paradigm of progressive thought: multiculturalism or race-consciousness. The struggle of “the rest against the West,” or of “people of color” against “the white man” replaced the older model of proletariat versus bourgeoisie as the central moral drama of world history. In this paradigm, the Arabs, notwithstanding their regressive social and political practices, assumed a place among the forces of virtue and progress while the Israelis were consigned to the ranks of the villains and reactionaries.
Championed by the Left’s networks of organizations and intellectuals, a Palestinian state became a kind of Holy Grail to enlightened opinion, even while almost no one gave a fig for the aspirations of the Kurds or Tibetans or numerous other bereft peoples. Whether this state would rise alongside Israel or in place of it was of secondary concern.

Sameh Abu Arayes is an Egyptian economist is respected enough to be interviewed on TV programs. He is president of the Arab Society of Technical Analysts of shares and bonds.

Recently, Vodaphone started airing a commercial on Egyptian TV that is set in a circus. At the beginning, the announcer does a voice-over:

"In a faraway circus, there once was a group of people, gifted with flexibility, (the ability to) control and power, who came to Egypt and roamed all over it. And there are many more surprises..."

Abu Arayes immediately figured out the secret message behind this commercial.

On his Facebook page, reproduced in Al-Mogaz (under "Weird News") Abu Arayes interpreted the meaning of this commercial.

The "gifted people"in the circus are the Freemasons, whose leaders are Jews. He says that when it says that they "roamed all over [Egypt]" it means that they means fooled the Egyptian people and play tricks on them, in what he terms "The Freemason January Revolution and its aftermath".

He also says that when the voice says "In a faraway circus", you can see that there is a truncated pyramid on the curtains, a Freemason symbol, and the Jews, (who control Freemasonry) adopted this symbol because they falsely claim that they built the pyramids.

The guy says that when the voice says "And there are many more surprises...", the real meaning is that the Jews are plotting more conspiracies and plots against Egypt.

Thanks Allah we have someone smart enough to decipher the secret coded messages that Jews feel compelled to place in TV commercials for consumer devices!

This is not the first time that Abu Arayes has found secret Jewish messages in TV commercials. In his YouTube page he spins similarly bizarre tales about a 7-Up commercial that he says shows that Zionists and the CIA will launch suicide operations in Egypt, a Coke commercial that shows that the Zionists will engineer the execution of Mohamed Morsi, and a Freska chocolate commercial that is a similar threat from Zionists to Morsi.

However, two can play this game. He identifies another commercial symbolizing Morsi slapping America's face.

Layers upon layers.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Get ready for this year's blaming of Jews for the weather

A major storm system is forecast to hit Israel starting tomorrow.

Which means that we will soon see Palestinian Arabs going to the UN to blame Israel for their weather-related problems.

Last year, potholes and cracks appeared in streets after a major storm in Jerusalem. Most of them were just potholes, but the cracks in Silwan were really the result of Jews digging underneath the area.

In 2012, the Arab League brought a complaint to the UN because some walls in Arab neighborhoods collapsed after a major rainfall.

In 2010, Gazans blamed Israel for flooding during heavy rains, claiming that the flooding was really the result of Israel opening up an imaginary dam in the Negev.

This was repeated in January 2013 and again last winter.

And the impending storms are also the Jews' fault. Last October a Palestinian Arab "expert" said that as a result of microscopic impurities in the air from Israel's illegal weapons used in Gaza, that this winter would have very severe storms.

Watch the Palestinian Arab media over the next week. The omnipotent Jews will be performing some miracles.

01/06 Links Pt1: Human rights, EU money and the ICC wars; Palestinians Still Don't Want a State;

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Human rights, European money and the ICC wars

The Palestinian campaign to “bring Israel to the dock” at the International Criminal Court (ICC) did not suddenly arise out of “frustration” at the failure of the peace talks, the setback at the UN Security Council, or other recent events.
Rather, the strategy was explicitly adopted during the negotiations of the Rome Statute that led to the establishment of the ICC, and has been moving steadily since then. In 1997, towards the end of this process, the members of the Arab League pushed through language inventing a new war crime to ostensibly cover Israeli settlements. The purpose was clearly to prepare the grounds for exploiting the ICC for “lawfare” to target Israel.
Since then, this legal war has proceeded step by step, led by a powerful army of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), largely funded by European governments under the façade of human rights and international law. While the exact amounts and NGO allocation processes in the European Union under frameworks such as the EU Instrument Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) are top-secret and exempted from Freedom of Information laws, the annual total for anti-Israel campaigning related to this warfare is estimated at approximately 100 million euros. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

INSS: Legal and Political Observations on the Defeated Palestinian-Jordanian Draft Resolution

While calling for total withdrawal from all the territories, including East Jerusalem, the Jordanian draft does, however, refer to the possibility of "mutually agreed, limited, equivalent land swaps," a proposal not included in the Arab League initiative.
Along with the artificially rigid timetable and the call for total withdrawal, the Jordanian draft proposes that the Arab refugee problem be resolved on the basis of UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III). Like the Arab League initiative, the Jordanian draft thus indirectly tries to introduce the so-called “right of return” as a condition of negotiations. When Resolution 194 was passed in December 1948, all the Arab states voted against it, and there is no reference to this resolution in UN Security Council Resolution 242, nor in the 1978 Camp David Agreement with Egypt, the 1979 Peace Treaty, the Israel Jordan Peace Treaty, or even in the Oslo agreements with the PLO. It is thus an attempt to introduce an element that is completely unacceptable to Israel and had in fact been quietly abandoned in all the agreements with Israel.
In voting against the draft, the US was not only expressing its political displeasure but was also fulfilling its obligation as part of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, where the US reaffirmed its commitment to "oppose and, if necessary, vote against any initiative in the Security Council to … change Resolutions 242 and 338 in ways which are incompatible with their original purpose."

Daniel Gordis: Palestinians Still Don't Want a State

Abbas was much better off with the proposal dying an ugly death because the defeat enables him to use the ICC to indict Israeli soldiers, a move bound to infuriate Israel and rile up the Arab street rather than lead to negotiations.
Nothing sums up the Palestinian street better than comments made by Mahmoud Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and still a member of its leadership, this week. “This Palestinian resolution is catastrophic and has no future on the land of Palestine,” he said. “The future belongs to the resistance. We will continue to work to liberate all the land and achieve the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Hamas will not accept anything less than all the lands that were occupied in 1948.”
For decades, the Palestinian leadership has preferred conflict to statehood. When the UN voted on Nov. 29, 1948, in favor of the Partition of Palestine (and thus in favor of the creation of a Jewish State), the land allocated to Israel was home to 500,000 Jews and 450,000 Arabs. It barely had a Jewish majority. With the demographics almost equally balanced, birthrate differentials and the ease of encouraging Arabs from nearby lands to immigrate to this new state, Arabs could quickly have tipped the scales and created an Arab majority. There would have been two Arab States and no Jewish State.
But in 1947, the Arabs attacked Israel instead. The rest is history. If last week’s events are any indication, nothing much has changed.

The Palestinian Dream Palace (Bret Stephens)

This article by Bret Stephens is the third important piece in the mainstream media over the past couple of days that challenges the conventional wisdom of PLO saintliness and Israeli blame. (The first two were by Dennis Ross and, to an extent, David Brooks.)

Stephens nails it:

...People who are in the business of making excuses for Palestinians—and the apologists are legion—sagely explained that the vote for Hamas wasn’t a public endorsement of a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s annihilation, but rather a vote against the corruption of Fatah, Mr. Abbas’s party. As if the two propositions could not both be true. As if Palestinians were unaware of Hamas’s intentions. As if a vote against venal officialdom palliated a vote for violent ideologues.

So it has been with the rest of Mr. Abbas’s serial fiascoes over the decade, culminating in his failed bid last week to force a vote in the Security Council over Palestinian statehood. In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, leaving Mr. Abbas in charge and giving him a chance to make something of the territory. Gaza dissolved into civil war within months. In 2008, Israel offered Mr. Abbas a state covering 94% of the West Bank, along with a compensatory 6% of Israeli territory and a land bridge to Gaza. Mr. Abbas never took up the offer.

Last March, President Obama personally offered Mr. Abbas a U.S.-sponsored “framework” agreement. Again Mr. Abbas demurred. The following month, Mr. Abbas signed a “reconciliation” pact with Hamas. War came by summer.

Now Mr. Abbas has moved to have “the state of Palestine” join the International Criminal Court, chiefly in order to harass and perhaps arrest Israeli military officers and politicians spuriously accused of war crimes. The gambit will fail for the simple reason that two can play the game.

So why does Mr. Abbas persevere?

Because, as the late Fouad Ajami knew so well, the pleasures of dreaming are better than the labors of building, just as the rhetoric of justice, patrimony and right is so much more stirring than the fine print and petty indignities of compromise. Mr. Abbas consistently refuses a Palestinian state because such a state is infinitely more trivial than a Palestinian struggle. Becoming is better than being. So long as “Palestine” is in the process of becoming, it matters. Once it exists, it all but doesn’t. How many times will some future president of an established Palestinian state get to visit the White House?

This explains why a Palestinian state—a reasonably peaceful and prosperous one, at any rate—is deeply in Israel’s interest. And why no Palestinian leader will ever accept such a state on any terms. After the endless stream of Palestinian rejections—from the 1947 U.N. partition plan to the “Three No’s” of the 1967 Khartoum Resolution to Arafat’s refusal to make a deal at Camp David in 2000, one begins to sense a pattern. Palestine can never hope to compete with Israel except in the sense that the fantasy of Palestine will always have an edge on the reality of Israel.

Over a beachfront lunch yesterday in Tel Aviv, an astute Israeli friend had the following counter-fantasy: What if Western leaders refused to take Mahmoud Abbas’s calls? What if they pointed out that, in the broad spectrum of global interests, from Eastern Europe to the South China Sea, the question of Palestinian statehood ranked very low—on a par with, say, the prospect of independence for the Walloons? What if these leaders observed that, in the scale of human tragedy, the supposed plight of the Palestinians is of small account next to the human suffering in Syria or South Sudan?

In that event, the Palestinian dream palace might shrink to its proper size, and bring the attractions of practical statecraft into sharper focus. Genuine peace might become possible.

Don’t hold your breath.

While Europe gives legitimacy to Palestinians, Arabs treat them like terrorists

There have been signs that the Arab world has been sick of the Palestinian issue for years. They'll dutifully tell Western governments that 'Palestine" is their top priority but their actions show quite the opposite, as they have withheld pledges and treat actual Palestinian Arabs like dirt.

We already know that Egypt has been treating Gaza like a terror stronghold and doing everything possible to shut off access in both directions.

Now another Arab country has made clear how it thinks about its Palestinian cousins:

The Libyan Foreign Ministry Monday announced an entry ban on Palestinian, Sudanese and Syrian nationals.

“The decision, which takes effect immediately until further notice, will be implemented across all land, sea and air ports,” the statement said.

The ministry did not specify the reasons behind the decision, but said it was a temporary move.

The ministry’s media office later issued an explanation saying that the authorities had received information that a group of people holding these nationalities had participated in “terrorist activities against the army and police in Benghazi and western Libyan cities.”

The irony is that European nations are adding legitimacy to "Palestine" as Arab nations are distancing themselves - yet the European moves are a result of years of Arab diplomatic pressure.

On Monday, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Iyad Madani paid a visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, saying in a speech on Monday that such visits are a right for every Muslim.

Hamas wasn't pleased.

The terror group issued a statement saying that such visits were examples of "normalization" with Israel, and that it is the duty of all Muslims to liberate Jerusalem rather than visit it.

Naturally, the best way for the Muslim world to support this liberation is to send lots of money to groups like Hamas "to support the resistance and the steadfastness of the people of Jerusalem."

This is part of a long standing argument in the Muslim world.

In 2012, Hamas and other Islamist groups denounced a visit to Jerusalem from the then-Mufti of Egypt Ali Gomaa.

In 2010, the sheikh of Egypt's Al Azhar University issued a statement banning such visits, using the logic that such visits makes Israel look good for allowing Muslims to visit. A former Jerusalem mufti also used bizarre logic to oppose visits by Muslims from Arab countries but allowing them for Muslims from European countries..

Influential preacher Yusuf Qaradawi, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, is also against such visits and had a public disagreement with Mahmoud Abbas when the latter encouraged Arabs to visit.

01/05 Links Pt2: Mohammad Zoabi Breaks His Silence; The Miseducation of Chris Gunness

From Ian:

Mohammad Zoabi Breaks His Silence

Mohammad Zoabi has posted his first message since being forced to leave Israel due to threats against his life for supporting Israel and the Jewish people.
Hello everybody.
First of all let me start by honestly, politely and simply saying: I HAVE MISSED YOU SO FREAKING MUCH!!!!!!!
Whew……i feel much better now..!
My dear friends, the last half year was not an easy period of my life. I had to hide, go under ground, keep a low profile like what if i have done a nasty crime.
I simply went and still going through things that teenagers rarely go through. And i do have to say that though i don’t believe that i have done anything wrong by showing my love and loyalty to my country Israel and its people, love makes me blind, and my lovely Israel with all its positive and negative sides blinded me and i was, still and will be ready to pay the price of defending and loving it!
Simply because its my country and i have no other! (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Eugene Kontorovich: Is the International Criminal Court biased against Israel?

In a prior post, I examined the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which contains an important provision directly designed to target Israel.
Now we’ll turn to the Court as an institution. In the wake of the Palestinian turn to the International Criminal Court, several commentators have argued that there is no reason to think the institution is out to get Israel. That is true. Of course, the Court has done so little in its twelve year history, that it is hard to say much with confidence about its inclinations and proclivities. And prosecutions of Israelis (nationals of a non-member state) would be a kind of activity the Court has never engaged in without the request of the Security Council, so there is even less data.
There is no reason to think the prosecutor or Court are eager for Israel/Palestine cases, and a lot of reasons to think they are not, given the disproportionate political headaches they entail.
Yet there is cause to think that the the Court is a most improper venue for sorting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, even absent any bias, the Court is structured in a way that cannot do equal justice, and is thus properly seen as a Palestinian tool against Israel. Moreover, recent statements by the Prosecutor give troubling evidence that she may be willing to replace legal analysis with the off-the-shelf views of the “international community” on the conflict.

The Miseducation of Chris Gunness

On November 6th 2014, investigative blogger Elder of Ziyon, who is well known for his efficient foot-work when it comes to revealing incitement on social media and the internet, discovered the following alarming story: In 2010, UNRWA announced that it would take excelling Gazan students to the United States, where they would visit New-York City and the US Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. According to the media, Hamas demanded UNRWA to cancel the “suspicious” tour. Apparently, the reasons for the cancellation were far more disturbing, as written by Gaza’s UNRWA union, on February 2011
Let me sum this up: Mr. Da’las, the Deputy Chief of Staff at UNRWA’s Gaza Union, released an official statement that is even more extreme than the statement made by Hamas. In this official statement, he rejects the offer to send Palestinian students on an educational tour to the US, because it includes a “fake trip” to a museum revolving “the alleged Holocaust,” where educators will “try to feed students concepts and ideas about the fake injustices suffered by the Jews” according to a “curriculum on so-called human rights.”
Is it possible that a curriculum that was consisted with Holocaust education content was rejected by a United Nations’ agency official because of a claim that the Holocaust never happened? Ever since this disturbing story was published, I have been trying to get a clarification from UNRWA’s spokesperson, Chris Gunness at the most popular arena of our time for media personnel and news sources to exchange ideas and thoughts: Twitter. I had a good reason to believe that I will get a proper reply since Chris Gunness owns a Twitter account, which he is using on a regular basis to post UNRWA-related updates and interact with others.

Menasseh Ben Israel by Rembrandt

Menasseh Ben Israel was a brilliant 17th century rabbi and theologian.

He was born a secret Jew in a Portuguese island off of Africa, baptized as Manuel Diaz Soeiro. The family fled to Amsterdam where his father renamed himself Joseph Ben Israel and named his two sons after Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Menashe (Manasseh.)

Manasseh wrote his first book on Hebrew grammar at 17 and became rabbi of a shul in Amsterdam at 18. He also started a printing press in the city, the first Hebrew press in Holland.

He became famous in the non-Jewish world by publishing, in Spanish, "El Conciliador:"

...a laborious enumeration and discussion of all the passages contained in the Old Testament which seem to conflict with one another. Manasseh brought his very extensive rabbinical knowledge to bear upon each of these, and wrote, in fluent Spanish, an exposition of the recognized Jewish method of reconciling the seeming inconsistencies. The book was almost the first written in a modern language by a Jew which had an independent interest for Christian readers, and it accordingly gave Manasseh a wide-spread reputation in the learned world. Some of the best scholars of his time had correspondence with him—Isaac and Dionysius Vossius, Hugo Grotius, Caspar Barlæus, Cunæus Bochart, Huet, and Blondel; Anna Marie de Schurman consulted him. His Jewish acquaintance was even more numerous, and included Emanuel Frances, and the Buenos, Abravanels (relatives of his wife), Pintos, Abudientes, and Henriques. He corresponded also with Zacuto Lusitano, Daniel Caceres, and Diego Barrassa (to whom he dedicated one of his works), and assisted Joseph Delmedigo to publish a selection of his works at Amsterdam.

Ben-Israel was 27 when he published volume 1 of this work, on the Pentateuch. While he relied primarily on major Jewish sources he was not averse to quoting non-Jews in his works.

He then became known for being at the forefront of working to allow Jews to return to England after their expulsion in the 13th century.

From "The Occident and American Jewish Advocate" newspaper, May, 1845:

Menasseh Ben Israel’s Apology for the Jews.

Our readers are doubtlessly aware that at the time of the Protector Cromwell, Jews were prohibited from residing in England, having been banished from England by various royal decrees, and lastly by that of Edward I., in 1290. We extract from Lingard: “The sufferings, however, of this unhappy people were not yet at an end. In 1287, on an appointed day, all the Jews in England, without any distinction of age or sex, were arrested, thrown into prison, and confined till they had purchased their liberty by a present to the king, of twelve thousand pounds. Three years later, in 1290, their doom was fixed. The whole race was ordered by proclamation to quit the kingdom for ever, within the space of two months, and under the penalty of death. The number of the exiles was sixteen thousand five hundred and eleven, who were furnished with passports by the king, and allowed to carry with them a competent supply for the journey; but their houses and lands, treasures and debts, were confiscated for the benefit of the crown. It is said that during their passage, many perished through the hatred or rapacity of the mariners, of whom several were afterwards convicted, and suffered the punishment due to their crime.” This is merely one instance of what the Jews suffered; we shall probably give more hereafter, with some comments of our own. At present our object is merely to introduce to our readers the contents of the Apology of the celebrated Rabbi and physician Menasseh Ben Israel, who visited England during the protectorate, and addressed Cromwell upon the benefit which the country would derive by re-admitting the Jews within its boundaries. The existence of this document is generally known, but few we think have ever seen it. And as we wish to make the Occident the recipient of every thing of interest, we believe that we cannot communicate to our friends a more gratifying article than the one which we commence in this number. We retain the ancient spelling, and state merely at the same time, that from the appearance of the copy from which we transcribe, we deem it to be one of the original edition, say of the year 1655.—Ed. Oc.

To His Highnesse The Lord Protector of the Common-Wealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Humble Addresses of Menasseh Ben Israel, A Divine and Doctor of Physick, in Behalf of The Jewish Nation.

Give me leave, at such a juncture of time, to speak to your Highnesse, in a style and manner fitting to us Jewes and our condition. It is a thing most certaine, that the great God of Israel, Creator of Heaven and Earth, doth give and take away Dominions and Empires, according to his owne pleasure; exalting some, and overthrowing others: who, seeing he hath the hearts of Kings in his hand, he easily moves them whithersoever himselfe pleaseth, to put in execution his Divine Commands. This, my Lord, appears most evidently out of those words of Daniel, where he, rendering thanks unto God, for revealing unto him that prodigious dreame of Nebuchadnezar, doth say: Thou that removest Kings, and sets up Kings. And else-where, To the end the living might know, that the Highest hath dominion in Mans Kingdome, and giveth the same to whom he please. Of the very same minde are the Thalmudists likewise, affirming that a good Government, or Governor, is a Heavenly Gift; and that there is no Governor, but is first called by God unto that dignity: and this they prove from that passage of Exodus: Behold I have called Bazale’l by name, &c., all things being governed by Divine Providence, God dispensing rewards unto Vertues, and punishment unto Vices, according to his owne good Will. This the Examples of great Monarchs make good; especially of such, who have afflicted the people of Israel: For none hath ever afflicted them, who hath not been by some ominous Exit, most heavily punished of God Almighty; as is manifest from the Histories of those Kings, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezar, Antiochus Epiphanies, Pompey, and others. And on the contrary, none ever was a Benefactor to that people, and cherished them in their Countries, who thereupon hath not presently begun very much to flourish. In so much that the Oracle to Abraham (I will blesse then that blesse thee, and curse them that curse thee) seemeth yet daily to have its accomplishment. Hence I, one of the least among the Hebrews, since by experience I have found, that through Gods great bounty toward us, many considerable and eminent persons both for Piety and Power, are moved with sincere and inward pitty and compassion towards us, and do comfort us concerning the approaching deliverance of Israel, could not but for myself, and in the behalf of my Countrey men, make this my humble addresse to your Highness, and beseech you for Gods sake, that ye would, according to that Piety and Power wherein you are eminent beyond others, vouchsafe to grant, that the Great and Glorious Name of the Lord our God may be extolled, and solemnly worshipped and praised by us through all the bounds of this Common-wealth; and to grant us place in your Countrey, that we may have our Synagogues, and free exercise of our Religion. I nothing doubting, but that your Clemency will easily grant this most equitable Petition of ours. Pagans have of old, out of reverence to the God of Israel; and the esteem they had to his people, granted most willingly free liberty, even to apostated Jewes; as Onias the High Priest, to build another Temple in their Countrey, like unto that at Jerusalem: how much more then may we, that are not Apostate or runagate Jewes, hope it from your Highnesse and your Christian Council, since you have so great knowledge of, and adore the same one onely God of Israel, together with us. Besides, it increases our confidence of your bounty towards us, in that so soon as ever the rumour of that most wished-for liberty, that ye were a thinking to grant us, was made known unto our Countrey-men; I, in the name of my Nation, the Jewes, That live in Holland, did congratulate and entertaine their Excellencies, the Ambassadors of England; who were received in our Synagogue with as great pomp and applause, Hymns and cheerfulnesse of minde, as ever any Soveraigne Prince was. For our people did in their owns mindes presage, that the Kingly Government being now changed into that of a Common-wealth, the antient hatred towards them, would also be changed into good-will: that those rigorous Laws (if any there be yet extant, made under the Kings) against so innocent a people, would happily be repealed. So that we hope now for better from your gentleness and goodness, since, from the beginning of your Government of this Common-wealth, your Highnesse hath professed much respect, and favour towards us. Wherefore I humbly entreat your Highnesse, that you would with a gracious eye have regard unto us, and our Petition, and grant unto us, as you have done unto others, free exercise of our Religion, that we may have our Synagogues, and keep our own publick worship, as our brethren doe in Italy, Germany, Poland, and many other places, and we shall pray for the happinesse and Peace of this your much renowned and puissant Common-wealth.

A DECLARATION TO THE COMMON-WEALTH OF ENGLAND, BY RABBI MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL, SHOWING THE MOTIVES OF HIS COMING INTO ENGLAND.

Marc Shneier's blind spot on Muslim condemnations of terror (update)

Writing in The Washington Post, Rabbi Marc Schneier says:

Why don’t Muslim leaders speak out?

That question comes up every time terrorists purporting to be deeply religious Muslims carry out armed attacks that kill innocent people. Where, commentators ask, are the moderate Muslim leaders and why aren’t they decrying the horrors perpetuated by fellow Muslims?

In fact, mainstream Muslims are speaking out, clearly and consistently. Leaders around the world, many of whom I know personally through my work at the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, have issued strong and unambiguous statements virtually every time a violent attack has occurred, condemning such acts as immoral and counter to the fundamental precepts of Islam.

Yet somehow their responses are not being heard, barely registering in the public consciousness.

He gives examples of widespread condemnations by Muslim leaders, for example of the hostage taking in Australia and the massacre in Peshawar.

Schneier even says that Muslim leaders are condemning European antisemitism:

For example, after riots by a predominantly Muslim crowd in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles attacked a synagogue and Jewish businesses, the local Muslim Association sent a letter of solidarity and support to the vice president of the synagogue. National Muslim leaders took part in an interfaith ceremony that denounced the violence and called for reconciliation. French Council of the Muslim Faith head Dalil Boubakeur, who attended the ceremony, affirmed that the vast majority of French Muslims are not anti-Semitic. How could they be, he asked, when they themselves are battling racism?

To praise Muslim leaders for condemning a massacre of 130 children is faint praise indeed.

There is no political cost for a Muslim to denounce a massacre of children. There is no political cost for a Muslim leader outside ISIS-controlled areas to denounce ISIS. There is little downside for Western Muslim leaders to send letters of solidarity to Jewish victims of terror.

The question is how many Muslim leaders are willing to denounce Islamic-inspired terror, publicly and to their own confregations, when there is a political cost.

Some do. A wonderful example is Sheikh Samir Aasi, Imam of the main mosque in Akko (Acre), whose condemnation of the Har Nof synagogue attack resulted in one of his flock attacking his car with acid.

However, the emphasis on condemnations misses the point.

The fact is that the percentage of Muslims who support terror is not tiny. A significant number of Muslims in Muslim-majority countries think that suicide terrorism is sometimes or often justified.

This adds up to hundreds of millions of Muslims who justify terrorism.

When Westerners want to see Muslims condemn terror, it isn't "Islamophobic" as Max Fisher claims. They aren't demanding a mea culpa to Western audiences to demean Muslims. The desire to see Muslim leaders condemning terror is a response to the disconnect between how Muslims portray themselves to the West as being against extremism and the fact that hundreds of millions of Muslims don't have a big problem with terrorism.

The point isn't soliciting condemnations. The point is the solve the problem of Islamic terror.

The question that needs answering is how can so many Muslims openly admit extreme positions worldwide without fear of being shamed by their own Muslim leadership.

If terrorism was as widely and thoroughly condemned in Islam as Rabbi Schneieir claims, then the Pew poll would show low single-digit numbers for each country's citizens supporting terror. The relatively high numbers indicate that there is a serious disconnect between what we are being told and the reality. Schneier is adding to that disconnect.

No one cares about the condemnations per se; what the world cares about is that the terror stops. Since the vast majority of terror attacks (and, now, antisemitism) are done in the name of Islam, it is reasonable to expect Muslim leaders to be in the forefront of fighting terrorism - not just condemning it but addressing it within their own communities and mosques, finding our root causes of how extremism makes it into their own communities and coming up with Islamic-centered solutions that can both convince the youth that terror is not acceptable and that can effectively defeat the ideological roots of Islamic terror.

If moderate Islam is the choice of the vast majority of Muslims, then that majority does have the responsibility to fix the problem with their extremist Muslim brothers. Condemnations are only a small, visible component of what needs to be a major, soul-searching effort.

That is what the world is not seeing.

I don't doubt that most Muslim leaders detest ISIS. But the fact is that ISIS emerged from their own belief system. And extremist ideologies like that of ISIS is offering something compelling for young people to want to join it. Perhaps it is the perception that extremism is aligned with piety, perhaps it is from years of being indoctrinated with the idea that Muslims are under attack and it is time for them to take revenge, perhaps something else. But this is not a problem that can be solved by non-Muslims. The responsibility lies with Muslim leaders, both in the first and third worlds. and like it or not, the rest of the world is not seeing the excruciating soul-searching and strategy that is a necessary component of solving this problem that is clearly in the heart of the Islamic world today, not peripheral to it.

(h/t EBoZ)

UPDATE: After I wrote this, I saw his article showing that Egypt's president gets it:

In a speech on New Year’s day, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for a “religious revolution” in Islam that would displace violent jihad from the center of Muslim discourse.

“Is it possible that 1.6 billion people (Muslims worldwide) should want to kill the rest of the world’s population—that is, 7 billion people—so that they themselves may live?” he asked. “Impossible.”

Speaking to an audience of religious scholars celebrating the birth of Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, he called on the religious establishment to lead the fight for moderation in the Muslim world. “You imams (prayer leaders) are responsible before Allah. The entire world—I say it again, the entire world—is waiting for your next move because this umma (a word that can refer either to the Egyptian nation or the entire Muslim world) is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.”

He was speaking in Al-Azhar University in Cairo, widely regarded as the leading world center for Islamic learning.

“The corpus of texts and ideas that we have made sacred over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. You cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You must step outside yourselves and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.”

Here's part of the speech. (h/t Effect)

01/05 Links Pt1: Most Palestinians believe Israel wants to destroy Al-Aqsa; Fatah's Founding Myth

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: Ten Points Regarding the Fundamental Breach by the Palestinians of the Oslo Accords

1. The peace negotiation process as set out in the Oslo Accords was intended to lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinian People and mutual recognition of each other’s “mutual legitimate and political rights” (Preamble, Oslo I and Oslo II).
2. In this context Israel was prepared to compromise on the historic and legal rights of the Jewish People in the area, through agreement for peaceful relations. To this end the parties agreed in the Oslo Accords not to initiate or take any steps that will change the status of the territories pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations (Oslo II, Article 31(7)).
3. Yasser Arafat, in his September 9, 1993, letter to Yitzhak Rabin, declared that “all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.”
4. This overall series of commitments and obligations constitutes a contractual framework of obligations between Israel and the Palestinians, signed as witnesses and guarantors by the King of Jordan, the Presidents of the U.S. and Egypt, the Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation and Norway, the EU and endorsed by the UN.
5. By petitioning the UN, the International Criminal Court and international organizations to recognize them and accept them as a full member state, and by their unification with the Hamas terror organization, the Palestinians have knowingly and deliberately bypassed their contractual obligations pursuant to the Oslo Accords in an attempt to prejudge the main negotiating issues outside the negotiation.

‘Most Palestinians believe Israel wants to destroy Al-Aqsa’

Four months after Operation Protective Edge, Palestinian support for violence against Israel is at a peak, with most Palestinians believing that Israel has concrete plans to destroy the Muslim structures on the Temple Mount and replace them with a Jewish temple, a new Palestinian poll has found.
Khalil Shikaki, director of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), told journalists at the Jerusalem Press Club Sunday that Palestinian attitudes toward Israel have hardened more dramatically in the wake of Operation Protective Edge than after the two previous military operations in Gaza, in 2008 and 2012.
Fearful of Israel and distrustful of their own leadership, 43 percent of Gaza residents and 23% of West Bankers said they are seeking emigration abroad.
In a poll conducted by PSR among 1,270 Palestinians during the first week of December 2014, 86% of Palestinians said that the Temple Mount (known in Arabic as al-Haram al-Sharif) is “in great danger,” with 77% believing that Israel intends to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and replace them with a Jewish temple, and 21% opining that it intends to divide the plaza into Jewish and Arab domains, with a synagogue planned for the Jewish area.
Half the respondents believed Israel would succeed in implementing its plans.

Khaled Abu Toameh: What about Arab War Crimes against Palestinians?

And who ever heard of the case of Zaki al-Hobby, a 17-year old Palestinian who was shot and killed last weekend by Egyptian border guards? Had he been shot by Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border, the EU and UN would have called for an international commission of inquiry.
The stories of the Palestinians tortured to death in an Arab prison have also failed to win the attention of the Western media. Nor have the EU and the UN, which called for an investigation into the death of Abu Ein -- who died of a heart attack while in a confrontation with an Israeli soldier -- deemed it necessary to tackle the plight of the Palestinians being killed and tortured to death in Syria and other Arab countries.
As far as the Palestinian Authority is concerned — and the media, the EU, the UN and human rights groups — the only "war crimes" are being committed by Israelis, and not by Arabs who are killing, torturing and displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And all this is happening while the international community and media continue to display an obsession only with everything connected to Israel.

Hamas TV justifies Hitler killing Jews - by comparing Hitler to Mohammed

From MEMRI:

During a December 28, 2014 Hamas TV show, Palestinian imam Sheik Iyad Abu Funun said: "If the Jews had been a respectable, well-bred people,... [Hitler] would not have done those things to them. ... Corruption is deeply rooted in that nation." Abu Funun, who in the past was sentenced to 29 years in an Israeli prison, was released in the 2011 Shalit prisoner swap. He was later rearrested after resuming his militant activity and expelled from Bethlehem to Gaza for ten years. Abu Funun delivers sermons in a Gaza mosque and recently began to moderate a show on the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV channel, where he made the current statements.

Following are excerpts:

Iyad Abu Funun: The Europeans realized that if the Jews were to remain in Europe, it would lead to utter corruption, and so they wanted to get rid of them. The Jews are, by nature, a corrupt people, who sow corruption everywhere. Whichever land they came upon, they did their worst.

A logical question arises: Why did Hitler annihilate a number of Jews? The figure is still in dispute. Why did he do this? This is a major question. If the Jews had been a respectable, well-bred people, who treated others with respect, he would not have done those things to them.

Even in the days of the Prophet Muhammad – why did the Prophet Muhammad banish them? Because they initiated the aggression. The Jews of the Banu Qaynuqa tribe violated the honor of a Muslim woman, and killed a Muslim man. The Jews of the Banu Qurayza tribe committed acts of treachery. The Jews of the Banu Nazir tribe tried to assassinate the Prophet Muhammad. So we see that corruption is deeply rooted in that nation. That is why Europe wanted to get rid of them.

Europe and the Zionists could not take this land as long as the state of Islam existed. One of the most significant things I recall is that the Europeans offered the Zionists several places in the world – in Central Africa, Uganda, Niger, Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere. They gave them a choice, and the Zionists said: "We want the Promised Land, Palestine."

Therefore, when the Austrian journalist Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, went to see Sultan Abdul Hamid, whom we are discussing today, he went in the capacity of a journalist. Imagine – when he conducted the interview with Sultan Abdul Hamid, He said to him: "How about you giving us Palestine, and we will pay all the debts of the Islamic State?" So this was no simple conspiracy. It was a conspiracy hatched by superpowers, and by the international community, as it is now known, against the Islamic state.

See? Hitler was just doing what Mohammed did, because it is all the Jews' fault for not being a "respectable, well-bred people!"

UNRWA's "Peace Starts Here" campaign silently dies

In 2010, to some fanfare, UNRWA launched a campaign called "Peace Starts Here."

Its flagship video, only viewed some 11,000 times in four years, uses the word "peace" a lot but never really defines what it means by peace. Not once is Israel mentioned and there is no indication that even one cent of this "peace" program is being spent on teaching Palestinian Arabs to co-exist peacefully with Israel.

Instead, UNRWA is calling all of its programs "peace" in order to raise money for the things it already does, which have nothing to do with the normal definition of peace.

If you don't believe me, here is how UNRWA itself describes the program. See if you can make any sense of it.

Isn't that clear?

To UNRWA, peace isn't what we normally call peace. Indeed, UNRWA spends no time or money on actually teaching its refugees that Israelis are normal human beings, let alone people to make peace with.

No, UNRWA knows that its funders lover the word "peace" so it plastered the word on top of programs that may be useful or interesting, but none of which promote real peace.

I don't know how much UNRWA spent on a series of about 18 videos showing off various programs that they all label "peace" - showing off a rehabilitation center or teaching breakdancing to Gaza kids. Each video must have cost tens of thousands of dollars. None of them besides the one shown above had over 10,000 views.

They all point back to a very slick "Peace Starts Here" webpage which also must have cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Unfortunately, you can no longer visit this page. The domain has lapsed.

How much was spent on this colossal waste of time, effort and money?

Too bad that a UN agency funded by the world's countries isn't transparent enough to tell us.

There is no story too outlandish for Arab media to believe.

According to Sama News, a prisoner named Bashar al-Haroub was recently told by prison administration that he was going to a hospital for tests, even though he was not ill.

As he was leaving the prison, a guard asked him if he uses Colgate toothpaste.

When he woke up the next morning in the hospital room, he saw that the toothpaste in the room was Colgate. When he examined it, he noticed that the toothpaste did not look like normal toothpaste.

Instead of just leaving the potentially explosive tube on the counter, he brightly decided to squeeze the entire lethal product down the toilet.

When he went for his medical exam, the doctors asked him why he was there - there was nothing wrong with him.

Clearly, al-Haroub has told his lawyer, the Israelis tried to assassinate him with a James Bond-type toothpaste weapon in a hospital, where presumably all the doctors were in on the scheme so their post-mortem would never report the unspeakable toothpaste weapon that killed him.

“Any wrong action by Zionists would trigger a strong reaction by Iran.”

The latest threat by Iran to Israel, reported in Iran's Mehr News:

Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, who was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the ceremony to honor Martyr Gen. Taqavi on Sunday, said that given the capabilities of the resistance and Iran as well, “any wrong action by Zionists would trigger a strong reaction by Iran.”

On response to speculations on the media that Iran would deploy forces in the Occupied Territories borders with Zionist regime, Jazayeri asserted that there was no necessity for such deployment; “we are capable of effective damage on the Zionist regime when the situation demands,” he added.

It sounds like Iran has an ace in the hole: none other than Mohammed himself!

On holding military drills, notably that of Mohammad (SA) the Messenger of Allah in country’s southern coasts, he said that the scenarios of the drill had been successfully implemented, bringing good results, hoping that the drills would consolidate the strength of the whole system.

Mohammed is holding military drills in Iraq?

Oh, it is the name of a war game exercise. Yes, the most appropriate name for a war game exercise was "Mohammed, Messenger of Allah."

Hmmmm.