Sunday, February 22, 2015

  • Sunday, February 22, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
A Twitter thread between me and UNICEF Palestine:









UNICEF repeated their bewildered tweets about it merely being a photo of children playing in Jerusalem a number of times.



At about this point, UNICEF Palestine blocked my tweets.

The idea that Jews have religious rights is utterly foreign to this UN agency - which is orders of magnitude better than many other UN agencies.

Soon afterwards, they did respond, in a manner:

To which CiFWatch responded:




  • Sunday, February 22, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
Remember how Palestinian Arabs claim that Jews release stray dogs to attack them and their farms?

PA police are now hunting down the dogs and laughing as they toss them into trash compactor trucks. This video was taken in Hebron.

(WARNING: Very disturbing, especially for animal lovers.)



(h/t Bob Knot)

  • Sunday, February 22, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
I am going across the country for a few days on a business trip, so blogging will be a little less consistent than usual. .



I have a few things queued up, though.

From Ian:

Palestinian stabs Israeli, neutralized by mayor
A man was stabbed in the abdomen near City Hall in Jerusalem Sunday evening.
The victim, an ultra-Orthodox man in his 20s, was moderately wounded in the attack in Tzahal Square.
The assailant was an 18-year-old Palestinian who was residing illegally in Israel.
Mayor Nir Barkat and his security team apprehended the attacker, who was taken to police for questioning.
Barkat told Channel 2 he was on the way to the municipality headquarters for a meeting when he saw the attack unfold.
He and his security guard confronted the attacker and got him to drop the knife, Barkat said. They then pinned him down.
PMW: Columnist in official PA daily:US and Israel direct Islamic State terror in Europe
The Palestinian Authority and Fatah continuously repeat the libel that Israel and the US are collaborating with the terror organization Islamic State. The cartoon above shows a Jewish man with a black flag similar to that of Islamic State, holding an automatic weapon and a blood-dripping knife. The flag displays a white Star of David and the inscription: "Jewish State in Israel and the Levant," meant to mimic the terror organization's name "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant." The cartoon was posted on the website of Fatah's Information and Culture Commission. [Jan. 29, 2015]
In early January, Fatah Central Committee and PLO Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat also made remarks comparing Israel and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to Islamic State. According to official PA TV, Erekat said that "there was no difference between the terrorism practiced by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi's gang [Islamic State] and Israeli terrorism." [Official PA TV, Jan. 6, 2015] Erekat later explained his statements as referring to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu only. [Official PA TV, Jan. 5, 2015]
Fatah spokesman Ahmad Assaf reiterated the claim that Israel is worse than the Islamic State, when responding to then Canadian foreign minister John Baird's request that Erekat apologize to Netanyahu:
"The occupation is the worst form of terrorism, no less abominable than the terrorism of the Islamic State, and in fact [even] more abominable." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 17, 2015]
Fatah Central Committee Member Sultan Abu Al-Einein: How Come ISIS Does Not Attack Israel?


UN’s steady Israel-bashing reveals true face of a failed system
Every time a U.N. committee writes a report about Israel or resolutions are adopted criticizing the Jewish state, it further marginalizes the United Nations as a reliable venue for conflict resolution, and proves once again that the world body cannot speak with credibility on these issues.
Soon, the United Nations Human Rights Council will once again turn its attention to the annual “Item 7” on its agenda. That is the basket of anti-Israel resolutions taken up each session that speaks to the heart of this credibility gap. The voting blocs at the U.N. always march in lockstep, blindly castigating Israel. If they were honestly interested in a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they would realize that condemning Israel year after year contributes only to un-meetable Palestinian expectations and justifiable frustration on the part of Israel.
In turn, Israel then sees an organization unfairly obsessed with Israel at the expense of addressing serious fires burning in the Middle East and elsewhere. You would think Israel’s critics would try carrots, but instead they keep applying bigger sticks.
Therein lies the problem with the forthcoming “Schabas report,” the expected support once again for Item 7, and by extension, a failed United Nations system.
Israel demands UN condemn Iran's Holocaust-themed cartoon contest
Israel’s top representative to the United Nations is demanding that the world body condemn the Iranian government for hosting a contest featuring Holocaust-themed cartoons.
Ron Prosor wrote a letter over the weekend to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and global delegates urging them to publicly censure the contest, which is scheduled to take place this coming April.
The contest organizers said the event is a response to the massacre of journalists at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo last month. The magazine was targeted due to controversial cartoons it had published depicting Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, in humorous situations.
The organizers argued that the event is in line with Western values that preserve humans’ right to freedom of expression.
The contest winners will receive awards, while one cartoon will be chosen for exhibition at a museum featuring Palestinian works of art in Tehran.

  • Sunday, February 22, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon




lord of the rings sauron zion lotr tolkien jewAs a progressive-left political blog, Daily Kos is infested with anti-Zionists and encourages what one participant has dubbed the Jew Rule.  In The Jew Rule on Daily Kos, "dhonig" reminds us that for many participants when Jews are murdered by Jihadis in Europe, ultimately it is Israel's fault for allegedly being mean to the perfectly innocent, bunny-like "indigenous" population.

Of course when some horrendous maniac in North Carolina shoots up three young Muslims no one would suggest that ultimately it's the fault of the Islamic State or Saudi Arabia.  No one would ever try to justify, or explain, the murders by pointing to the excesses of Islam.  On the contrary, everyone would understand that the murderer is solely responsible for his behavior and no one would endeavor to shift blame to other members of the victim's ethnicity, nation, or people.

Daily Kos, like much of the Left, has special rules for Jews.  The Jew Rule, of course, is not a formal rule.  It is merely the way things are on the foremost progressive-left blog in the United States.

What Honig calls the Jew Rule is actually nothing more then the influence of garden variety anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.

He writes:
Daily Kos has become a haven for anti-Semites. There, I said it. Sure, the anti-Semitism is usually couched in "but Israel" terms, but it's there. Allow me, please to give a recent example of the Jew Rule here, the one that says, "every other form of bigotry and hatred is rejected here, but feel free to blame the Jews, as long as you use the word 'Israel' when you do it."

I'm going to compare two recent incidents, and diaries about each. The first is the murder of three young Muslim students in North Carolina. The second is the murders the other day in Denmark. I'll assume, for the sake of this diary, that readers are familiar with both.
Under a piece entitled Jews are NOT at war with Islam. But jihadi terrorists have declared war on Jews, Honig finds a number of examples of how Daily Kos members use Israel as a justification for the murder of European Jews.

Here are a few examples:
Of course they did nothing to deserve being (56+ / 8-)killed.  But the role the current Israeli leadership plays in endangering Jews around the world cannot be ignored.  Otherwise you're discussing the issue in a vacuum.

by Paleo on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 11:08:46 AM EST
So, Paleo is not arguing that they deserve it, but that it is perfectly understandable why any Arab or Muslim would want to kill Jews, because the Israeli government has them, rightfully, filled with impotent rage.  Your average "Kossack" believes, therefore, that Arabs have every right to kill Jews.

Sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...

Or, say, this for an example:
The actions of the Israeli state create a clear and present danger to Jews across the world.  That's not debatable.  To discuss the issue of murderous anti-Semitism among jihadi extremists without acknowledging their best recruiting tool is simply dishonest.

by Dallasdoc on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 11:29:06 AM EST
Dallasdoc thinks that Israel manufactures hatred for the Jewish people and, thus, danger for the Jewish people and that this conclusion is "not debatable."  The crazed Jihadis may do the killing, but behind the Jihadis lurks the evil Jewish state which causes radical Islamists to go into a murderous rage at random Jews.

They just cannot help themselves.

Sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...
Whether the Jewish people of the world like it or not, they are tied to the actions and existence of Israel as a Zionist state. I can understand you do not want to discuss it but unless you want to turn this into a book review of Leon Uris's Exodus book, expect others to disagree with you.

by Sinan on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 01:30:39 PM EST
Sinan is a bit more strident concerning the Jew Rule.  We are tied to Israel and, therefore, responsible in some measure for its behavior.  Thus it is perfectly natural for Muslims to seek to kill random Jews anywhere in the world.

Sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...

Or, how about this one?
To not address the obscene Israeli policy, euphemistically called "mowing the Palestinian lawn", which involves the starvation, imposition of drought and killing of innocent Palestinians as having some relationship to the re-emergence of anti-Jewish violence may be interpreted as purposely deceptive.

When the noble term "Never Again" is meant not as a declaration that humanity will no longer abide by genocide, no matter who the victims, but is instead used as a justification for Israeli preemptive violence against their neighbors, that declaration loses all moral authority.

If we're attempting to analyze the circumstances that contribute to such violence, we must not be myopic and view events in a vacuum. 
by elesares on Sun Feb 15, 2015 at 11:36:05 AM EST
This person obviously sees the world through the eyes of Hamas.  She honestly believes that the Jewish people of the Middle East are so utterly immoral that the government of Israel would intentionally starve Arab children and impose drought upon them... as if Jews command the weather.

This is the contemporary blood-libel and anyone who thinks that Israel is this evil is unquestionably an anti-Jewish racist.

When Obama told Jewish Israeli college students that they needed to see the world through "Palestinian" eyes, is this what he had in mind?  Self-loathing?  That we should hate ourselves through the eyes of those who hate us?  Perhaps what is really needed is for the great Arab majority to try to see the world through Jewish eyes, for a change.

In any case, sure, the victims don't deserve it, but Israel...

Again, no one would suggest that the murder of the three young Muslims in Chapel Hill was in any way due to anything other than whatever hallucinations, racist or otherwise, that Craig Hicks may have endured when he opened fire.  However, whenever a Jew is killed by a Muslim the act is justified by pointing the trembling finger of blame at the Jews of the Middle East.

The western Left is, in fact - as we see by the behavior of Barack Obama - endeavoring to drive a wedge between the Jews of the diaspora and the Jews of Israel.  If Israel represents, as I believe it does, the salvation of the Jewish people, then progressives in places like Daily Kos are trying tell Jewish people that we are immoral for embracing that country and, thereby, defending ourselves and our people.

They prefer their Jews weak, guilt-ridden, and compliant.  Israel, however, stands as a constant reminder that traditional Jewish subservience can no longer be expected.   Individual Jews may exhibit the galut mentality, but the Jews as a people are redeemed by Zionism; that is, by autonomy grounded in collective self-defense.

Here is another example of how Daily Kos progressives seek to divide the Jewish people from the State of Israel in order to undermine our well-being, solidarity, and security.

In a piece entitled Will Netanyahu Ask US Jews to Become Traitors, someone writing under the nom de blog, tsackton, suggests that if American Jews agree with Benjamin Netanyahu, in his dispute concerning Iran with Barack Obama, then we are traitors to the United States.  He writes:
Our President is trying to negotiate a deal to prevent another war in the Middle East, and most of the country supports him on this.  For Netanyahu to imply that you cannot be an American Jew and still support these negotiations with Iran is a call for Jews to abandon America.
Of course, Netanyahu has implied no such thing.

The purpose of this "diary," ultimately, is to give notice to American Jews that if we disagree with Barack Obama then we are traitors to our country.  The purpose is to keep American Jewry in-line in the most egregious manner possible short of violence.
Israel has become a violent, anti-democratic (no equal rights for palestinians)  and vastly corrupt and racist country.

If Americans are forced to choose, the outcome will not be pretty. 
In other words, this individual despises Israel and is threatening American Jews.

This is what the progressive-left has evolved into.

The Jew Rule reigns and Honig should be commended.


Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

  • Sunday, February 22, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:
A Hamas spokesman on Saturday slammed what he described as a campaign of "incitement and deception" by a number of Egyptian journalists against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri denied reports that Palestinians have been traveling via tunnel into Egypt recently, denouncing what he called a "Zionist-like" network that had spread the rumors and sought to sow discord between Egypt and Palestine.

All of the tunnels under the border area, he said, have been destroyed and both Egyptian and Palestinian security forces have been guarding both sides of the borders.
Too bad Ma'an couldn't add a link to this story from the day before:
Two Palestinians died in separate incidents in underground tunnels beneath the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt on Thursday.

The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, said that a fighter in the group was killed during a military mission in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

The brigades said in a statement that "Muhammad Talal Abu Matar, 25, from western Rafah was killed in a jihadi mission," without providing further details.

However, a spokesperson for the Gaza Ministry of Health said that Abu Matar was killed in an accident in one of the tunnels.

Also Thursday, a young Palestinian man died after being accidentally electrocuted inside a smuggling tunnel connecting Rafah to Egypt.

A spokesman for the Gaza Strip's civil defense forces, Muhammad al-Midana, identified the victim as 19-year-old Abd al-Majid Othman.
And this one from a few days earlier:
Egyptian border guards on Sunday discovered a smuggling tunnel from Gaza which ran at least 2.5 kilometers underground.

Egyptian military officials told Ma'an that it was the longest tunnel ever discovered by Egyptian security forces.

The opening of the tunnel was found in an unpopulated area near Rafah. Large communication networks connected to satellites were found inside the tunnel.
Ma'an knows that Hamas is lying, but it doesn't have the integrity - or the bravery - to prove it using its own reporting. Instead, when a terror group releases a statement, Ma'an acts as its mouthpiece, without caveats or context.

Just something to keep in mind when one uses Palestinian "independent" media as a news source.


From Ma'an:
Hundreds of Palestinians were evacuated from their homes Sunday morning after Israeli authorities opened a number of dams near the border, flooding the Gaza Valley in the wake of a recent severe winter storm.

The Gaza Ministry of Interior said in a statement that civil defense services and teams from the Ministry of Public Works had evacuated more than 80 families from both sides of the Gaza Valley (Wadi Gaza) after their homes flooded as water levels reached more than three meters.

Gaza has experienced flooding in recent days amid a major storm that saw temperatures drop and frigid rain pour down.

The storm displaced dozens and caused hardship for tens of thousands, including many of the approximately 110,000 Palestinians left homeless by Israel's assault over summer.

The Gaza Valley (Wadi Gaza) is a wetland located in the central Gaza Strip between al-Nuseirat refugee camp and al-Moghraqa. It is called HaBesor in Hebrew, and it flows from two streams -- one whose source runs from near Beersheba, and the other from near Hebron.

Israeli dams on the river to collect rainwater have dried up the wetlands inside Gaza, and destroyed the only source of surface water in the area.

Locals have continued to use it to dispose of their waste for lack of other ways to do so, however, creating an environmental hazard.

This is not the first time Israeli authorities have opened the Gaza Valley dams.

In Dec. 2013, Israeli authorities also opened the dams amid heavy flooding in the Gaza Strip. The resulting floods damaged dozens of homes and forces many families in the area from their homes.

In 2010, the dams were opened as well, forcing 100 families from their homes. At the time civil defense services said that they had managed to save seven people who had been at risk of drowning.
So my January prediction that Gazans would blame Israel for flooding was a month early.

In previous years I searched for these dams that the Jews keep opening. I finally found the "dam" - a reservoir in Nahal Oz whose walls failed once in 2001. (There are couple of similar reservoirs around Gaza, others throughout the Negev, and many tiny "limans" to create mini-oases.)

Here is a satellite image of this reservoir, so you can compare it with the size of Gaza itself and determine on your own whether it can create floods three meters high through central Gaza by someone opening its floodgates:



UPDATE: The official PA "news" agency Wafa goes beyond this, saying Israel is pumping water into Gaza!

The Israeli authorities last night pumped large amounts of rainwater into the Gaza Strip, causing tens of neighboring homes to sink, according to witnesses and media sources.

Civil Defense said about 50 homes sank in the floods, while a number of local residents in eastern Gaza areas were reported injured. There were also reports of deaths of livestock and poultry.

“The [Israeli] army opened the floodgates of a canal leading to central Gaza, which resulted in the removal of sand mounds along the border with Israel,” Gaza's Civil Defense Directorate said in a statement.
(h/t Bob K)

UPDATE 2: AFP has shown how little journalistic integrity it has by picking up the Ma'an story without doing any fact checking. Meaning that they are parroting Hamas spokesmen.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

  • Saturday, February 21, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
Islamic Jihad held a ceremony of planting olive trees in memory of the terrorists killed in Gaza.

Sort of like a bizarro-world version of JNF's tree planting.

It is so touching to see children next to masked, armed terrorists and their trees.



Every tree is associated with a dead terrorist:


Here is part of Islamic Jihad's video of the ceremony:



From Ian:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Obama Must Confront the Threat of Radical Islam
ISIS is recruiting young Muslims from around the globe to Jihad, and the White House apparently doesn't understand why
Recent days have witnessed a number of attempts to grapple valiantly with the threat posed by ISIS and radical Islam. Graeme Wood in The Atlantic and Damon Linker in The Week are among those who are now confronting the theological arguments that inspire radical Islamic fighters and groups such as ISIS.
Even as writers and public intellectuals explore the theological factors pertaining to Islamist violence, however, the U.S. Administration has conspicuously avoided any discussion of Islamic theology, even avoiding use of the term “radical Islam” altogether. The White House this week held a “Summit on Countering Violent Extremism” (a rather nebulous concept) while intentionally avoiding use of the term “radical Islam.”
How can the Obama Administration miss the obvious? Part of the answer lies in the groups “partnering” with, or advising, the White House on these issues. Groups such as the Muslim Public Affairs Council or the Islamic Society of North America insist that there should be no more focus at the Summit on radical Islam than on any other violent movements, even as radical Islamic movements continue to expand their influence in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Nigeria, and elsewhere.
Amplifying a poor choice of Muslim outreach partners, however, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have argued in recent days that economic grievances, a lack of opportunities, and countries with “bad governance” are to blame for the success of groups such as ISIS in recruiting Muslims to their cause. Yet, if this were true, why do so many young Muslims who live in societies with excellent governance—Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, the United States—either join ISIS or engage in Jihadist violence in their own countries? Why do young Muslims with promising professional futures embark on the path of Jihad?
Marie Harf Wrote Thesis on How Conservative Support for Israel Complicates US Foreign Policy
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf wrote her college honors thesis on “how conservative evangelical support for Israel complicates U.S. foreign policy,” according to Indiana University records.
Harf’s thesis further illustrates the collegiate thinking in an Obama administration that has alienated a key American ally in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Harf, 33, previously worked on Obama’s 2012 campaign.
Harf’s Indiana University honors political science professor said that Harf did not plan to pursue political science like her professor father Jim, but that she ended up becoming “pretty good” at it.
Harf generated controversy this week for saying that the way to combat terrorists like ISIS is to help get them jobs.
“But we cannot win this war by killing them, we cannot kill our way out of this war,” Harf said on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC program. “We need, in the longer term, medium and longer term, to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs.”
Harf later doubled down on her remarks, saying that her view is simply too nuanced for media commentators to ingest.
Palestinian Rock Throwing and the Humanity of a Jewish Child
Like the justifications heard for the rockets launched indiscriminately at Israeli cities, towns and villages, apologists for the Palestinians say they should be allowed to throw rocks because they don’t have tanks or an air force. For Palestinians, the sight of a Jew in a car living in a place where Arabs would prefer no Jews to live is enough to justify a rock thrown at a moving vehicle. But whatever one thinks about West Bank settlements, the rocks are lethal weapons. When used in this manner they are a practice that any American who was subjected to similar treatment on a U.S. highway would consider attempted murder.
The rocks thrown by Palestinians are neither acts of peaceful disobedience or a plea for Israel to withdraw to the June 1967 lines. To the contrary, like the rockets launched by Hamas, they are a visceral expression of the Palestinian belief that any Jew living anywhere in the country, whether in the West Bank or pre-1967 Israel are fair game for murder. Those who throw them may be depicted as kids just engaging in youthful pranks or conducting a protest against Israeli policies. But the truth is that they are part of a process by which Palestinian youths are desensitized to the humanity of their Jewish neighbors.
The death of this child wasn’t mourned, let alone mentioned in the Western press. Israel’s critics don’t care about her because she was a “settler” and therefore worthy of being singled out for murder. But, like the Palestinian children who are used as human shields by Hamas terrorists, she was a human being whose right to life deserved to be respected. May her memory be for a blessing and may those responsible for her death and the many other Israelis who have been injured and terrorized in this fashion be punished for their crimes.

Friday, February 20, 2015

  • Friday, February 20, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
This article by AP is sort of amazing:

In what is becoming an increasingly nasty grudge match, the White House is mulling ways to undercut Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming trip to Washington and blunt his message that a potential nuclear deal with Iran is bad for Israel and the world.

There are limits. Administration officials have discarded the idea of President Barack Obama himself giving an Iran-related address to rebut the two speeches Netanyahu is to deliver during his early March visit. But other options remain on the table.

Among them: a presidential interview with a prominent journalist known for coverage of the rift between Obama and Netanyahu, multiple Sunday show television appearances by senior national security aides and a pointed snub of America's leading pro-Israel lobby, which is holding its annual meeting while Netanyahu is in Washington, according to the officials.

The administration has already ruled out meetings between Netanyahu and Obama, saying it would be inappropriate for the two to meet so close to Israel's March 17 elections. But the White House is now doubling down on a cold-shoulder strategy, including dispatching Cabinet members out of the country and sending a lower-ranking official than normal to represent the administration at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the officials said.

Vice President Joe Biden will be away, his absence behind Netanyahu conspicuous in coverage of the speech to Congress. Other options were described by officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.

Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry, who have both previously addressed AIPAC, will be out of the country on foreign travel that appears to have been arranged to make them unavailable to speak. Biden will be visiting Uruguay and Guatemala on a trip that was announced after Netanyahu's speech was scheduled, while the State Department announced abruptly this week that Kerry will be traveling to as-yet-determined destinations for the duration of the AIPAC conference.

Obama spoke to AIPAC in 2012, while he was in the midst of his re-election campaign.
It is clear that Natanyahu isn't playing politics, Israeli or American, since the political risks of this speech are huge. The only reason that makes sense is because he honestly believes that a nuclear deal with Iran endangers his nation and his people.

The White House reaction, on the other hand, is the definition of pettiness and peevishness. It is so juvenile as to be embarrassing to every American.
  • Friday, February 20, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon
Since today is the first day of Adar and I have been having a hard time finding good Jewish jokes that I hadn't heard of, I thought to go in the other direction and look at jokes that were made at the expense of Jews in 19th century books.

Here's one from The Library of Wit and Humor, Prose and Poetry: Selected from the Literature of All Times and Nations, Volume 4, 1894:

A JEW'S EYE TO BUSINESS.

A Jew, who was condemned to be hanged, was brought to the gallows, and just on the point of being turned off, when a reprieve arrived. When informed of this, it was expected he would instantly have quitted the cart, but he stayed to see a fellow-prisoner hanged; and being asked why he did not get about his business, he said, "He waited to see if he could bargain with Mr. Ketch for the other gentleman's clothes."
From Ian:

Yair Lapid: Those calling for a boycott of Israel are ignoring some painful truths
[Published in the Guardian note the vile comments]
This past weekend, 700 British artists had a letter published in the Guardian in which they called on others to boycott Israel until what they term the “colonial occupation” ends. As an Israeli politician who supports the creation of a Palestinian state, it has been a long time since I saw a letter so shallow and lacking in coherence.
The fact that, as is common with petitions like this, the majority of the signatories are unaware of the reality here in the Middle East, doesn’t reassure me. It only takes one “useful idiot” like Roger Waters (the expression is not an insult but a phrase attributed to Lenin to describe weak liberals used by cynical regimes for their own ends) to call Israel an apartheid state and the liberal choir will immediately stand to attention and sing the chorus with him. Why? Because everyone wants to be like Nelson Mandela but no one has the patience to learn the details.
I wonder if, before they put their names to the letter, anyone told the 700 signatories that twice already – once in 2000 and once in 2008 – Israel offered the Palestinians the chance to build an independent state on over 90% of the territories, and on both occasions the Palestinians refused? (h/t Ha Meshuga)
Channel 4 News: Is walking in Muslim areas of Paris with a kippah a provocation?
Can the simple act of wearing a Jewish kippah be considered a “provocation” to Muslims in Europe?
That’s the question you should ask while contextualizing this interview on Channel 4 News with the Israeli Jewish journalist (Zvika Klein) who recently filmed himself being verbally abused and spat on at as he walked around Paris.
Klein’s response to the Channel 4 News anchor’s question is telling. When asked if filming himself walking around Muslim areas with a kippah was a “provocation”, Klein noted that he’s a religious Jew and that’s how he normally dresses – except when in areas of Europe where doing so is not safe.
Where Does Liberal Icon Sen. Elizabeth Warren Stand on Israel?
Two recent moves by Warren may shed light on her outlook regarding issues prioritized by the Jewish state. She was one of four Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee to vote against the bipartisan Iran sanctions bill co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), legislation that is strongly supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The bill—which would impose sanctions on Iran if it fails to reach an agreement with world powers by the June 30 deadline—passed the committee 18-4, with six Democrats supporting it.
Warren was also not among the 75 senators to sign a Jan. 29 bipartisan letter to Secretary of State John Kerry stating that the senators would not support foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) until the Obama administration completes a review of the Palestinians’ decision to unilaterally join the International Criminal Court.
“Both of these actions are worrisome signs,” Tevi Troy, who served as White House liaison to the Jewish community under President George W. Bush, told JNS.org regarding Warren’s recent decisions on Iran sanctions and PA funding. “The best place for the pro-Israel community to be is in a place where they have bipartisan support. … I would hope that Senator Warren would return to the bipartisan consensus position in the future.”
Additionally, last September, Warren was not one of the 88 senators to sign a letter calling for the prevention of both the re-arming of Hamas following the Gaza war and unilateral PA actions at the United Nations. By comparison, the other Democratic US senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey, signed both that letter and the January letter to Kerry on PA funding. (Markey is not on the Senate Banking Committee and as such, could not vote on the Iran sanctions.)
Channel 4: “Would you accept that (walking in Muslim areas of Paris in a kippah) was an act of provocation?”


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