Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Moroccan magazine dresses Hollande as Hitler, says Muslims in France are like 1930s Jews

Moroccan Arab-language newspaper Al-Watan al-An has published images of French President François Hollande retouched to look like Adolf Hitler, sporting a swastika armband with the headline “the French are reopening Hitler’s concentration camps to exterminate Muslims”.

The controversial image was on the cover of Al-Watan al-An was dated yesterday, only two days after the 70th anniversary of Holocaust Day, which marks the allied liberation of the largest Nazi concentration camp in 1945 in Auschwitz, Poland, where over a million Jews, Poles and allied prisoners of war were exterminated by the Nazi regime.

Commenting on the images, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Abderrahim Ariri was not apologetic, and insisted the photomontage of the French head of state was meant to highlight the French government’s bias towards protecting its Jewish citizens and neglecting the security of French Muslims.

“This is a small part of what the French President deserves,” Ariri told Moroccan French-language weekly TelQuel.

“The government of France cannot ensure the security of Muslim citizens in France, in the same way that they do for the Jewish community,” he added.

Funny, I had no idea that the Jewish community was being so well protected. After all, only Jews have been killed in France for bias reasons, not Muslims.

And isn't it interesting that instead of demanding protection for Muslims, Abderrahim Ariri has to imply that there is too much protection of Jews, who are of course being threatened by people who come from the same part of the world that Ariri comes from?

France24 adds:

Contacted by FRANCE 24, the editor of the magazine said he did not regret the comparison between the two men nor the timing of the publication.

“I chose this photomontage myself and I fully assume responsibility for it,” Abderrahim Ariri said by telephone from Casablanca. “Since the Paris attacks I have received many emails from fellow Moroccan Muslims who live in France and who tell me they are living through hell.”

“They are in danger… I want to send a strong message to French authorities. I want François Hollande to step up security for Muslims, for their places of worship. If not, there could be abuses,” Ariri added.

According to France’s National Observatory of Islamophobia, 128 anti-Muslim acts were recorded across France in the two weeks that followed the massacre perpetrated by masked gunman at the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo – as many incidents recorded by the rights group all of last year.

From what I can tell, the National Observatory of Islamophobia counts self-reported acts, not incidents reported to police.

There are anti-Muslim incidents in France. But as I pointed out last week, in 2014, 61% of all violent racist attacks recorded in France by police, 241, were directed against Jews, who are less than 1% of France's population. By comparison, only 55 violent racist acts were anti-Muslim. This means that in France, a Jew is nearly 50 times as likely to be the victim of bias violence as a Muslim is.

Are Muslims in France feeling so endangered that the want to move out of Europe? I mean, if they are living through hell, surely some of them must have moved back to Algeria or Tunisia or Morocco or Libya by now, right?

The magazine cover accomplished three things: it falsely shows Muslims as the major victims of racism in France, and it trivializes the Holocaust, and it minimizes the very real threats that Jews in France have to deal with every day - mostly from Muslims - that dwarfs the danger that Muslims are in.

01/31 Links: Confronting European Anti-Semitism; The Real threat to Jews lies in Middle East

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Confronting European Anti-Semitism

These variations on the theme of anti-Semitism have several elements in common. First, they tend to engage in some form of Holocaust denial, minimization, glorification or comparative victimization. Second, they exaggerate Jewish power, money and influence. Third, they seek the delegitimation and demonization of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Fourth, they impose a double standard on all things Jewish.
Finally, they nearly all deny that they are anti-Semites who hate all Jews. They claim that their hatred is directed against Israel and Jews who support the nation state of the Jewish people.
This common form of the new anti-Semitism—we love the Jews, it's only their nation state that we hate—is pervasive among many European political, media, cultural and academic leaders. It was evident even among some who came to commemorate the liberation of the death camps. A recent poll among Germans showed a significant number of the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of Nazi supporters didn't want to hear about Nazi atrocities, but believed what Israel was doing to the Palestinians was comparable to what the Nazis had done to the Jews.
This then is the European problem of anti-Semitism that many European leaders are unwilling to confront because they have a built in excuse! It's Israel's fault—if only Israel would do the right thing with regard to the Palestinians, the problem would be solved.
Tragically, it won't be solved, because the reality is that hatred of Israel is not the cause of anti-Semitism. Rather, it is the reverse: anti-Semitism is a primary cause of hatred for the nation state of the Jewish people.

Charles Krauthammer: Real threat to Jews lies in Middle East

Amid the ritual expressions of regret and the pledges of “never again” on Tuesday’s 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a bitter irony was noted: Anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. With a vengeance.
It has become routine. If the kosher-grocery massacre in Paris hadn’t happened in conjunction with Charlie Hebdo, how much worldwide notice would it have received? As little as did the murder of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse. As little as did the terror attack that killed four at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.
The rise of European anti-Semitism is in reality just a return to the norm. For a millennium, virulent Jew-hatred — persecution, expulsions, massacres — was the norm in Europe until the shame of the Holocaust created a temporary anomaly wherein anti-Semitism became socially unacceptable.
The hiatus is over. Jew-hatred is back, recapitulating the past with impressive zeal. Italians protesting Gaza handed out leaflets calling for a boycott of Jewish merchants. As in the 1930s. A widely popular French comedian has introduced a variant of the Nazi salute. In Berlin, Gaza brought out a mob chanting, “Jew, Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight alone!” Berlin, mind you.
European anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem, however. It’s a European problem, a stain, a disease of which Europe is congenitally unable to rid itself.
From the Jewish point of view, European anti-Semitism is a sideshow. The story of European Jewry is over. It died at Auschwitz. Europe’s place as the center and fulcrum of the Jewish world has been inherited by Israel, now the largest Jewish community on earth.

CNN: French Terrorist Taped Rampage in Kosher Grocery Store with Chest-Mounted GoPro

Amedy Coulibaly, the main suspect for the killing of police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe and friend of Charlie Hebdo terrorists Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, attached a GoPro to his chest and filmed his raid into a Jewish market in Porte de Vincennes.
The world watched Coulibaly’s hostage crisis, in which he killed four hostages just two days after the Charlie Hebdo shootings. Now, the video of Coulibaly’s attack has made it to the Internet.
The French police have viewed the video and expressed concerns that it will appear in an Islamic State propaganda video. The footage has been called “gruesome” and “grisly.”
French investigators have not released the recipients of the video, but it is believed that Coulibaly spent time editing and emailing the video while in the market that he held many French Jews hostage.
A GoPro video was also found in the car of the Kouachi brothers though no video of their Charlie Hebdo attack has surfaced online.

01/30 Links Pt2: The Islamophobia myth; HuffPo's Anti-Semitic Screed on Holocaust Remembrance Day

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: The wrong end of a municipal drain-pipe

The Charlie Hebdo massacre (as distinct from the subsequent slaughter at the Jewish supermarket) turned the spotlight on Muslim proclivities for righteous rage. Instantly the West’s elected headliners fell over themselves to declare that Islam is a peace-loving religion whose meek adherents only aspire to win a modicum of respect.
As part of our urgent re-education and re-immersion in the cult of multiculturalism, the mantra that the bloodshed “has nothing to do with Islam” was drilled into us nonstop. This, it was repeatedly chanted, is the correct way for us to think. Deviations from the prescribed diktat would be sternly denounced in the name of freedom.
Perhaps that’s why the dismal fate of Saudi citizen Raif Badawi didn’t much move the agenda-setters who so warily safeguard our inalienable right not to veer from their infallible guidelines.
Badawi, 31, fell victim to precisely the same Muslim muzzling as did the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, but he is geographically distant and, therefore perhaps, his pain is less in the enlightened faces of opinion-molders.
But the fact still remains that he suffers appallingly only because he dared take an independent stand.
That’s his one and only crime.

Must Watch: Baroness Deech Pulls No Punches In Opposing UK Recognition of “Palestine”

In the latest parliamentary debate in the House of Lords on UK recognition of palestinian statehood, Baroness Deech tells it like it is.

Britons loathe Israel more than Iran, survey finds

Britons feel more “unfavorable” to Israel than any other country worldwide except North Korea, a survey found.
The survey — taken in August and published Thursday by Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs — showed a massive surge in negative attitudes toward Israel since the previous such study, two years earlier. Thirty-five percent of Britons said they “feel especially unfavorable towards” Israel in the 2014 survey, compared to 17% in 2012.
That figure meant that Israel is regarded more unfavorably by Britons than Iran — 33% in the 2014 survey, compared to 45% in 2012. Only North Korea fares worse — regarded as especially unfavorable by 47% in 2014, compared to 40% in 2012.
Commenting on the dramatic rise in hostile attitudes to Israel, the compilers noted that, “The survey was conducted in August 2014 at a time when … Israel was engaged in a military operation in Gaza against Hamas that caused large numbers of civilian casualties.”

Why do people believe the media in a society that rewards lies?

Ma'an pretends to report some news:

An Israeli settler attempted to kidnap an 18-month-old Palestinian toddler in the Jabal al-Mukkabir neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Thursday, witnesses said.

The child was reportedly the son of Ghassan Abu Jamal, one of the attackers who killed five Israelis in an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue last November.

Who were the witnesses to this terrible crime?

Abu Jamal's brother said the child, Muhammad, was walking with his uncles when he wandered some five meters ahead of the group.

A female settler then exited a car and grabbed him, running with the child for some 20 meters before relatives caught up and freed the boy.

She released the boy and fled the scene in her car.

Witnesses say she shouted: "Arabs, Arabs, they want to kill me" during the incident

.
So the family of a terrorist claims that some "settler" (amazing how they know that) tried tokidnap a toddler but they heroically managed to stop her before anything could happen.

Let's do a quick cost/benefit analysis.

Is there any incentive to lying to Palestinian Arab media about being victimized by Jews?

Sure! Lying about some "settler" gets your name in the paper. It makes you sound like a hero. It demonizes the enemy. It can act as a distraction from your own crimes. It can gain you supporters.

Is there any disincentive to lying?

Only if you live in a society where lying about Israelis is considered wrong. Only if your society's media would bother checking facts and call you out if it is found that there is no evidence for your lies. Only if people would be upset at someone having the audacity of lying.

None of those criteria apply to Palestinian Arab society.

Plenty of Arab media reported this fake incident as fact. Not one bothered to go beyond the statements of a family that explicitly supports murdering Jews as the sole source of the otherwise unverifiable story. And they don't want to, because the media itself is part of the fabric of a society that is founded and dependent on falsehoods.

That's why we see so many stories in Ma'an and elsewhere about unverifiable "settler" attacks - never with photos or video, even though everyone has a video camera in their pockets. That's why there are so many stories about thousands of olive trees being destroyed but the only photo accompanying the story is a generic, staged "Arab woman wailing" photo.

The fact that Arab "witnesses" and media routinely lie wouldn't be a problem if Western media and NGOs would add the skepticism that is missing from the Arab media. But they don't. Reporters will believe other reporters' stories without question unless there is something obviously wrong. NGOs make their money off of these lies. So, unfortunately, the institutions that should be acting as watchdogs instead act like lapdogs for the lies, or at best they simply ignore the obvious lies but believe the next batch of lies that sound a little more plausible.

What a system!

01/30 Links Pt1: Glick: Iran - Unafraid and undeterred; Toameh: Why Is Hamas Smiling?

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Iran - Unafraid and undeterred

From the Golan Heights to Gaza, from Yemen and Iraq to Latin America to Nantanz and Arak, Iran is boldly advancing its nuclear and imperialist agenda. As Charles Krauthammer noted last Friday, the nations of the Middle East allied with the US are sounding the alarm.
Earlier this week, during Obama’s visit with the new Saudi King Salman, he got an earful from the monarch regarding the need to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But it seemed to have no impact on his nuclear diplomacy with Teheran. The administration believes that Iran and Saudi Arabia will be able to kiss and make up and bury a thousand- year rivalry between Sunni and Shi’ite Islam because they both oppose the Islamic State. This too is utter fantasy.
Israel’s January 18 strike on Iranian and Hezbollah commanders in Syria showed Israel’s strategy wisdom and independent capacity.
Israel can and will take measures to defend its critical security interests. It has the intelligence gathering capacity to identify and strike at targets in real time.
But it also showed the constraints Israel is forced to operate under in its increasingly complex and dangerous strategic environment.
Due to the US administration’s commitment to turning a blind eye to Iran’s advances and the destabilizing role it plays everywhere it gains power, Israel can do little more than carry out precision attacks against high value targets. The flipside of the administration’s refusal to see the dangers, and so enable Iran’s territorial expansion and its nuclear progress, is its determination to ensure that Israel does nothing to prevent those dangers from growing – whether along its borders or at Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Is Hamas Smiling?

In 2007, Abbas lost the Gaza Strip to Hamas. Now, he seems to be losing the Gaza Strip to his rivals in Fatah.
The violent events of the past few weeks are yet another sign of Fatah's failure to get its act together, especially in the aftermath of its defeat to Hamas in the January 2006 parliamentary elections.
Over the past few years, Abbas has repeatedly declared that there will never be a Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip.
However, the internecine strife among the Fatah leadership, as well as the continued power struggle between Abbas and Hamas, mean that the chances of creating a Palestinian state while he is still in power are non-existent. If in the past Abbas was unable to visit the Gaza Strip because of Hamas, now he knows that many of his former Fatah supporters have also turned against him.
Under the current circumstances, there is not much that Abbas could do other than remain in the West Bank, where he feels safer, largely thanks to the presence of the Israel Defense Forces there.
It is time for the international community to wake up and realize that the whole idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state is nothing but a joke. The last thing the Palestinians and the international community want is another Syria or Libya or Yemen in the Middle East.
Instead of working to help each other and rebuild the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians are busy fighting and threatening each other. This is not a fight over reforms, democracy or building a better future for Palestinians. Nor is it a fight between good guys and bad guys. Rather, this is a fight between bad guys and bad guys -- and it is all over money, ego and power.

JPost Editorial: Strength in restraint

This week’s cross-border attack by Hezbollah was its expected response to an alleged Israeli attack earlier this month in the Syrian Golan that killed one of its senior operatives and an Iranian general. The nearly symmetrical assault on IDF troops by the Iranian proxy terrorist organization was a clearly calibrated retaliation designed to uphold Hezbollah’s “honor” but without escalating into a wider confrontation that might once again demonstrate Iran’s commitment to global terrorism.
But while Hezbollah is committed on the ground in Syria, fighting to uphold the regime of Bashar Assad – and reportedly not willing to risk drawing Israel into a confrontation that might endanger the stability of the shaky Lebanese government – it also strives to maintain the credibility of its threat to Israel’s civilian population; namely its stockpile of some 100,000 missiles aimed southward.
It is significant to note that Wednesday’s attack was not perpetrated as a cover operation for the abduction of soldiers, as has happened before; nor was it another assault on a bus of schoolchildren or the rocketing of a border town. Any of these hostile acts might have sparked yet another Lebanon incursion or even war.

On Tuesday I mocked an incredibly stupid BDS campaign whose backers honestly thought that Sabra hummus was named after the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

The people behind it must have gotten a lot of WTF messages, because they pulled the graphic and gave this hilarious explanation where they don't admit that they are clueless:

Ah, it was "misleading."

It turns out that there are plenty of other Israel haters who are just as stupid.. Here an angry, clueless tweet from 2013:

Here's another hater, quoting yet another, on Tumblr:

Can you feel how much they want to see a peaceful Middle East?

It is possible that this entire ridiculous meme was started by anti-Israel activist Helena Cobban, who blogged the idea in 2012:

I’m thinking that maybe this year in particular, the BDS folks might start calling the hummus brand “Sabra and Shatila hummus”, to make even clearer the connection between the hummus brand and the excesses/atrocities committed by, or under the close supervision of, the Israeli military….

But she adds a caveat:

What I would not want to do, however, is stigmatize the use of the term “Shatila” in a brand name. The Dearborn, Michigan-based Shatila Food Products bakery produces the very best baklava there is in the whole of North America…

What? American Arabs named food after a massacre???

The lesson is that the stupidity of the anti-Israel crowd is infinite. Lighting a candle might be enough to illuminate a room but it does nothing against an infinity of darkness

All we can do is point out their conscious decision to live in the blackness of their hate.

(h/t L)

"Jews are buying Libyan land, will transfer a million settlers"

The Libyan correspondent of Egypt's Albawabh reports that Jews are planning to take over Libyan land.

The article claims that Voice of Israel had a guest who was the head of the Jewish community in Libya. He made a secret trip to Triploi to start buying up large parcels of land in the Green Mountain area of eastern Libya.

The report says that the lands were originally owned by Jews and it was confiscated by Moammar Qaddafi after the Libyan revolution, taking their shops and farms and businesses.

A separate story, also supposedly from Voice of Israel, says that a Jewish businessman with investments in various countries around the world said that Libyan Jews Libyans are returning to their homeland Libya very soon, and we will see the Jewish return to Libya in 2015, along with the the resettlement of the Jews of the Arab Maghreb countries of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.

The unnamed businessman says that the transfer of a million Jews to Libya wil occur with the help of the international community and the United Nations and human rights organizations around world, and with the help of America, Britain and France.

As always, Arab media is beyond parody.

You know how Arab claim that the blue bars of the Israeli flag represent the Nile and the Euphrates rivers? Clearly, they had it wrong. They stand for the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans!

In 2011, hundreds of Libyans protested a single Jew who returned to the country to try to re-open a synagogue that had been sealed in 1967, saying "There is no place for Jews in Libya."

Daniel Krause, a 34-year old school teacher from the town of Unna in Germany, called into a radio show on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

During the show, he said, "Personally, I'm not interested in Auschwitz at all... Even industrial livestock farming emotionally affects me more."

He was suspended from teaching, and officials are trying to get him fired. Dr. Gerd Bollermann said "I am appalled by the tasteless and dehumanizing utterances. The Arnsberg District will not tolerate anything that denigrates the memory of the murdered Jews during the Nazi era."

No doubt, Muslims will seize on this is evidence that free speech is suspended only for anti-Holocaust speech, and that anti-Muslim speech would be celebrated.

They would be wrong. Krause was suspended once before.

In 2012, during a rally for the far-right "Pro-NRW" group, Krause grabbed the microphone and declared, "As a practicing homosexual I have more fear of Islamists then, for example, [I would have at the time of] the Nazis."

Krause was suspended from teaching as a result of that little speech.

(h/t J_April)

This article shows what a joke the anti-settlement NGOs are:

The Israeli government on Friday published tenders to build 430 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, the head of an NGO that monitors settlement activity told AFP.

"It's the opening of the settlement floodgates," said Daniel Seidemann, head of the Terrestrial Jerusalem group, adding that the announcements were the first since October 2014 and unlikely to be the last before the March 17 general election.

He said that the new homes were to be built in four existing settlements across the West Bank -- 112 in Adam, 156 in Elkana, 78 in Alfei Menashe and 84 in Kiryat Arba.

Seidemann, whose group particularly monitors settlement in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, predicted that building plans there were likely to be announced soon.

"I don't think it's over," he said. "I would be very concerned."

He linked the new tenders to the election in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud is competing with other right-wing parties for the settler vote.

"This could hardly be an accident," he said. "It could not have taken place without Netanyahu's knowledge and consent."

Seidemann is lying, and lying big time.

He is an expert in the procedures involved in building homes across the Green Line. He knows that there are multiple stages towards actually building a home - as many as eight different steps. Except for the initial plans, each stage is part of a bureaucratic process that does not involve high-level decision making. This is how governments work, and Seidemann knows this.

But Seidemann gets his funding based on publicity. And the real boring facts about how the same home can be "approved" or "promoted" many times aren't as likely to produce the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Terrestrial Jerusalem gets from the EU. So he has to make each stage sound much more dramatic than it is.

And in this case, here is what he knows and didn't bother to tell AFP:

The Housing Ministry told Israel Radio that the tenders in question had been issued in the past, and were renewed automatically since construction did not take place after its initial approval.

No high-level decision by Netanyahu to get votes. In fact, no decision whatsoever - it was all automatic.

One thing you have to give credit to the anti-settlement NGOs: They are very good at recycling. The huge outrage that occurred before over these exact same nonexistent structures are being be recycled over and over. Very green.

The whole drama a great scam for Seidemann and other groups to get more money from their donors, who don't bother to research the chasm between the tens of thousands of housing units that T-J and Peace Now breathlessly announce every few months and the few hundred that actually get built.

Of course, Seidemann and the other NGOs aren't the only ones to profit off of this highly choreographed charade.

Meanwhile, a senior Palestinian official said the measure constituted a “war crime.”

“What the Israelis announced is part of a wider war… against the Palestinian people,” Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Wassel Abu Yusef told AFP.

“This is a war crime which should push the settlements issue to the International Criminal Court.”

If we could harvest the Middle East's dramatized outrage as an energy source, the oil wells would dry up tomorrow.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard website calls for assassination of Netanyahu's sons

Mashregh News is a news website affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

An article published Thursday started off with the obligatory text about how Zionists are cowards.

It then urged terror groups like Hezbollah to target Binyamin Netanyahu's sons.

The article gives a brief biography of two of Bibi's kids, along with various things they've done that were newsworthy or controversial.

Here is the article's illustration:

Any questions?

(h/t Martin)

01/29 Links Pt2: Israeli deaths glorified at LSE on Holocaust Memorial Day; Nisman buried with AMIA victims

From Ian:

Richard Millett: Israeli deaths glorified at LSE on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Tuesday was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau but that same night at the London School of Economics at a joint Palestine Society and Feminist Society event Israelis were portrayed as rapists and those who killed Israelis were applauded.
In front of a banner that read “Towards Freedom and Independence the Uprising Continues” a panel of four women described the role Palestinian women should play in the “uprising”.
Rana B. Baker, a student at SOAS who also writes for the Electronic Intifada, said Leila Khaled‘s “hijacking of planes was amazing”. The only problem, Baker said, was that Khaled had now aligned herself with the Assad regime.
Baker reserved her highest admiration for Sana’a Mehaidli who she said “deserves a standing ovation”. She told how, in 1985 in south Lebanon, Mehaidli “drove a car full of explosives and blew it up near an Israeli convoy killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring between 10 and 12 more.”

Israel praises German prosecutor for rejecting Mavi Marmara complaint

The Israeli Embassy in Germany on Monday welcomed a decision by the federal prosecutor to dismiss a criminal complaint filed by a Left Party MP alleging illegal imprisonment and war crimes during the seizure of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara when it tried to run the Gaza blockade in 2010.
The embassy wrote in an email to The Jerusalem Post that it “takes positive note of the decision taken by the general federal attorney (Generalbundesanwalt) to reject the complaint of Ms. Inge Höger.
The same stance was reflected by the decision of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to close the preliminary examination into the Mavi Marmara incident that was opened following a referral submitted to the ICC in the name of the Union of the Comoros in May 2013.
The prosecutor decided to close the file without seeing a need to address the issue of self-defense by IDF soldiers who were attacked by activists of the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), as it occurred in the context of a flotilla which the prosecutor considered as not constituting a humanitarian mission.”

Gaza flotilla lawyers ask ICC to reconsider probe

Lawyers representing the Comoros on Thursday asked International Criminal Court judges to order its chief prosecutor to reconsider her decision not to probe Israel’s deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
The Comoros, which has referred the case to the ICC, “asks the Chamber to request the Prosecutor to reconsider her decision not to open an investigation,” its lawyers said in papers filed before the Hague-based court.

HRW's anti-Israel bias, illustrated, from their annual report

Human Rights Watch has released its 2015 World Report, a 650 page document that goes through the human rights records of every country.

Here is a chart for how often some nations are named in the report:

This gives you an idea of how skewed HRW is when dealing with Israel, placing its importance as a human rights violator somewhere between Syria and Russia.

This isn't a perfect metric. For example, I didn't include the United States (83) because many of its mentions have nothing to do with human rights. "Palestine" or "Palestinians" are mentioned 98 times, but the vast majority of those mentions were regarding them as victims of human rights violations, not violators.

Even with those flaws, this chart is a fairly accurate view of HRW's thinking on who are the biggest violators of human rights, and therefore it is a good indicator of HRW's anti-Israel bias. To think that Israel's human rights posture is deserving of more attention than those of, say, the DRC or Saudi Arabia or Mexico is the height of absurdity. However, it fits in very well with the patterns we have seen in HRW reports and Ken Roth's tweets being heavily weighted to damn Israel far out of proportion to any human rights issues it has..

2015 Hasby Award - Best Own Goal

A new category this year, and definitely one of the most fun to choose.

The nominees for the Hasby for Best Own Goal are:

Max Blumenthal and David Sheen - ToiletGate

George Galloway - everything

Hamas - "Tkof Taaseh Biguim" (explanation)

UCLA Student Meltdown

Kat-Yang Stevens "colonialist whtsprmcst cisheteropatriarchy"

And the winner of the 2015 Hasby for Best Own Goal is...

01/29 Links Pt1: PLO tournament named after terrorists who killed 46; Jeffrey Goldberg's libel

From Ian:

Is Israel Guilty of War Crimes?

It seems that half the world supports demands for Israel to lift its entirely legal weapons and dual-use materials blockade of Gaza, so that Hamas can get down to seriously importing long-range missiles from Iran and its other allies, as well as large quantities of cement to build more terror tunnels. In a recent interview between a Reuters reporter and a Hamas leader, the Hamas official stated openly that "the group would press on with restocking its arsenal or [sic] rockets and other weaponry and shoring up its underground network. In peace we make preparations, and in war we use what we have readied."
Calls for an end to the blockade (which does not block the import of genuine humanitarian goods at all) amounts to a policy of arming terrorists. Hamas has already diverted billions of dollars of aid money to build concrete-lined tunnels and purchase missiles and other arms, leaving ordinary Gazans without the basic necessities of life, while the Hamas elite drives expensive cars, shops at a mall selling designer goods, and builds luxury apartments.
After the premature end Operation Protective Edge, the international community promised to pour in more billions to rebuild Gaza. If there is no blockade, those billions will build another arsenal, and with that arsenal, Hamas will start another war in which even more Gazans and Israelis will die or fall injured.
The simple solution to this is peace -- which Israel has always asked for. But Hamas, as stated in its Charter, rejects peace out of hand and for all time. What is needed is a government in power in Gaza that cares about the well-being of all its citizens, and that might see permanent peace with its neighbours as the right way forward for everyone.

Fatah and PLO tournament named after terrorists who killed 46

Earlier this month, a sports festival organized by Fatah and the PLO included a tournament named after two terrorists who planned and carried out some of the most lethal terror attacks in Israel's history:
The Martyr Raed Al-Karmi and Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Tournament
Raed Al-Karmi was responsible for the murder of 9 Israelis from 2001-2002 and Dalal Mughrabi led the killing of 37 in 1978.
PLO representative Mazen Abu Zaid said that the recent festival's purpose was to "renew our commitment and loyalty to the blood of the Martyrs, and to show support for President Mahmoud Abbas." He praised terrorists Raed Al-Karmi and Dalal Mughrabi as "Martyrs" and stated that their blood had been spilled to "draw the map of the homeland" and to deliver the message that "Palestine is one, indivisible unit":
"[PLO representative Mazen Abu Zaid] added that the blood of Martyr Raed Al-Karmi... and the blood of Martyr Dalal Mughrabi... had been absorbed into the soil of the homeland, and embraced the blood of the Gazan Martyrs, in order to draw the map of the homeland for us and to serve as a message: Palestine is one, indivisible unit." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 18, 2015]

Thousands attend funerals of IDF officer, soldier killed in Hezbollah ambush

Maj. Yochai Kalangel, 25, who was killed in Wednesday's Hezbollah attack against IDF soldiers near the Lebanese border was laid to rest at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Thousands of people arrived to honor Kalangel who was killed along with St.-Sgt. Dor Haim Nini when Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon attacked IDF vehicles traveling in the village of Ghajar in the Galilee panhandle with Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles.
Kalangel grew up in the West Bank settlement of Elazar in Gush Etzion, and leaves behind a wife, Tali, and their one-year-old child. He is one of six siblings, and on Independence Day this year he was awarded a General Staff commendation for excellence.
Tamir, Yochai’s brother, told reporters that Yochai, or “Joha” as the family knew him, “was a giant of a man, salt of the earth, a great warrior.”

Update on Wounded Soldiers’ Conditions

Ziv Hospital in Tzefat (Safed) reports that the medical condition of five of the IDF soldiers wounded in yesterday’s Hezbollah attack have improved.
All five are now listed as lightly injured.
Later today they will undergo additional medical examinations, and the hospital will decide if they need further treatment, or if they can be released.
The soldiers jumped from their vehicle after witnessing the first vehicle blown up by the long-range anti-tank rocket, and thus saved their lives.

UN outraged by Hamas (but not because of human shields or rockets or terror)

It turns out that the UN is capable of strong language against Hamas - but only when it is the victim:

The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process, Robert Serry, has expressed outrage by the assault on the UN premises in Gaza this morning.

“During a pre-announced demonstration, of which Hamas was well aware, a number of protestors climbed the perimeter wall and entered the compound causing damage to United Nations premises and property,” Mr. Serry said today in a statement from his office, UNSCO.

Due to precautionary measures taken, United Nations personnel working in the compound were fortunately unharmed.

The Special Coordinator noted with “deep concern” that, despite repeated assurances, the security forces in Gaza did not take the necessary and timely measures to protect UNSCO's compound.

“Pending a full transfer of security responsibilities to the legitimate Palestinian Authority, we continue to hold Hamas fully responsible for the security and safety of all United Nations personnel and operations in Gaza,” Mr. Serry said.

As this serious incident took place in the context of increasing incitement against the United Nations in Gaza, the Special Coordinator is conducting an urgent review of operations in Gaza.

It is very rare for the UN to express "outrage" explicitly at Hamas. They did express outrage over rockets being stored in UNRWA schools but didn't blame Hamas explicitly, and in 2006 they said they were outraged at Hamas police stealing supplies from a UN warehouse.

So, in Israel and the territories, the UN only seems outraged when it is the victims of attacks. Even though the UN routinely expresses outrage over terror attacks worldwide, I haven't yet found any such expressions for Hamas' explicit policies of using Gazans as human shields, or their terror attacks or rocket fire against Israel.

Hamas reacted to this statement with derision:

Hamas prominent leader Salah Bardawil stated Wednesday that the UN resolutions by Robert Serry to halt aid provided for the victims of the Israeli aggression on Gaza had led to the popular anger the world witnessed Wednesday .

Bardawil said that claims of Robert Serry that Hamas holds responsible for the angry reaction of the refugees towards the United Nations staff are just " an attempt to jump over the reality ", pointing out that the masses wanted to tell Serry they reject the United Nations to be part of the siege imposed on the Gaza people .

" It would have been better for Mr. Serry to consider the serious repercussions of the UN decisions over reconstruction and adis for the victims of the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza, rather that distribution of accusations ." Bardawil added.