Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, March 26, 2015

UN OCHA again proves it doesn't care about the truth

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has released its 2014 report on the "occupied Palestinian territories." And it proves yet again why the UN cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

During last summer's Gaza war, OCHA continously released figures of how many were killed, broken down by civilian and militant. Yet the entire time they always stressed that they were only using preliminary figures, and that they will continue to investigate.

Apparently, that investigation only went in the direction of identifying more civilians, not to reclassify civilians as terrorists when new evidence was revealed.

In September, OCHA-OPT claimed 1,489 civilians killed. The new report says flatly that 1,492 civilians were killed.

This is even though since the war, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups have released the details of scores of people who had been initially identified as civilian as beng "mujahid martyrs" for their groups. These were all exhaustively documented by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, whose findings so far show about half of those killed were terrorists.

The UN is quite aware of the work of the Meir Amit Center. They chose to ignore the evidence.

There is no indication that the UN has bothered to check the facts uncovered by the Meir Amit Center ( or the many I have documented) to revise their figures. No NGO that the UN relies on, namely B'Tselem or PCHR or Al Mezan, has to my knowledge refuted a single one of the Meir Amit Center's proofs showing that their claims of civilian victims were often wrong.

The UN's statistics are treated as authoritative by many other organizations and the media, so this is a big deal. In this report, for the first time, the UN is not saying that its numbers are preliminary or still being investigated - it is stating them as fact. These "facts" will be parroted countless times by people who don't know better or who do not want to believe otherwise. It is basic malfeasance on the part of the UN to buttress its false claim that Israel indiscriminately fires at civilians.

Of course, the UN doesn't mention any of the fatalities of Gazans at the hands of Hamas rockets that fell short during the year - even though the report is supposedly about humanitarian issues. It buries a tiny mention of Hamas killing alleged collaborators.

This report proves that if Israel can't be blamed, then the victims become a lot less important.

As happens after every Gaza war, Amnesty International released a single report about Hamas among its multiple anti-Israel reports to maintain the pretense of objectivity.

But even in this report, which admits that Hamas engaged in war crimes for firing rockets both at Israel and at its own citizens, proves its anti-Israel - and pro-Hamas - bias.

Even though the report unquestioningly states that Hamas shooting indiscriminate rockets at civilian areas are war crimes, it also accuses Israel of war crimes multiple times.

It has an entire section blaming Israel for not adequately providing shelters for hundreds of illegal Bedouin communities in the Negev. As the press release states:

The briefing also highlights the Israeli authorities’ failure to adequately protect civilians in vulnerable communities during the conflict, particularly Bedouin villages in Israel’s Negev/Naqab region, many of which are not officially recognized by the Israeli government. Ouda Jumi’an al-Waj was killed by a rocket that struck the Bedouin village of Qasr al-Sir near the Israeli city of Dimona on 19 July.

Most Bedouin villages are classified as non-residential “open areas” by the Israeli authorities, so the Iron Dome system to intercept rockets does not operate there and there are no bomb shelters. More than 100,000 people live in Bedouin villages in southern Israel.

“Civilians living in Bedouin villages during the conflict were left vulnerable and exposed, one manifestation of the discrimination they face on a daily basis. The Israeli authorities must ensure everyone is given equal protection,” said Philip Luther.

Iron Dome does not protect tiny villages, Arab or Jewish. The priority of providing bomb shelters for the illegal villages has been debated in Israeli courts considering that there are not unlimited resources available. If there were unlimited resources, of course shelters should be provided to every citizen, but to blame Israel for not protecting residents who purposefully set up illegal communities would be like blaming New York for not providing "Occupy Wall Street" protesters with adequate water and electricity.

Then the report goes on to slam Israel's Prawer plan that would allow the Bedouin to live in recognized communities with adequate infrastructure, schools and of course bomb shelters. The plan was halted a while ago. Even though there is no relevance of that to the Amnesty report, Amnesty cannot resist condemning Israel.

Amnesty also bends over backwards to minimize Hamas war crimes.

For example, it is highly biased in terms of which statistics it chooses to use:

According to UN data, Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel between 8 July and 26 August 2014. 20 At least 243 of these projectiles were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system, while at least 31 fell short and landed within the Gaza Strip.

The footnote states:

UNDSS, cited in OCHA, Humanitarian Bulletin, June-August 2014, p. 19, http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_the_humanitarian_monitor_2014_10_03_english.pdf (accessed 15 March 2015). Other sources give much higher figures for the number of rockets and mortars intercepted by Iron Dome. See, for example, YNet, “Operation Protective Edge in numbers”, 27 August 2014, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4564678,00.html (accessed 15 March 2015), which reports that over 735 rockets and mortars were intercepted.

It doesn't bother to quote Israeli sources which would be in a position far better than the UN to count both rockets intercepted by Iron Dome and, becaue Iron Dome keeps track of every Gaza rocket launch, they would know how many rockets fell short in Gaza.

In fact, there were over 250 documented cases of Hamas rockets falling short in Gaza, causing unknown amounts of damage, injury and death. Amnesty, which is aware of the figure (since it references Israel's report on Hamas war crimes in other places) cannot be bothered to accurately state the amount of harm Hamas did to its own residents.

In another case, Amnesty claims that Hamas cannot be accused of using human shields, by making up its own unique definition of human shields:

Several of these actions which have been discussed above, such as storing munitions in civilian buildings or launching attacks from the vicinity of civilian buildings, violate the obligation to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of attacks. But they do not necessarily amount to the specific violation of using “human shields” under international humanitarian law, which entails “using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations.” The practices most commonly condemned as such have involved actually moving civilians to military objectives in order to shield those objectives from attack. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “the use of human shields requires an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives.”

Amnesty International has not been able to verify specific statements which the Israeli authorities have cited as made by Hamas officials during the hostilities encouraging civilians in Gaza to ignore IDF warnings to evacuate.128 However, the reported statements were directed to civilians in general or in large geographic areas; for example, Ministry of Interior spokesperson Iyad al-Buzm’s call on people “in all parts of the Strip to ignore the warnings… as these are part of a psychological warfare”. Public statements referring to entire areas do not amount to directing specific civilians to remain in their homes in order to render fighters, munitions or military equipment in specific locations immune from Israeli attacks. Thus, while potentially of concern, such statements would not constitute the use of “human shields”.

Amnesty, like HRW, are using the most restrictive definition of human shields possible - one that is not even accurate. Nowhere does the ICRC make a distinction between large populations and small ones or the definition of who is a human shields.

Moreover, there were other more specific reports of human shielding that Amnesty ignored. There were reports of Hamas actually firing at civilians who tried to leave their homes. There were multiple documented cases of terrorists working from within the houses of Gaza families making them all human shields. And IDF soldiers witnessed specific cases of Hamas terrorists literally dragging children with them in battle.

Furthermore, there are many,many Hamas war crimes that Amnesty is ignoring. As with HRW, they seize on Hamas rockets and don't bother to check the other war crimes and violations of international law by Hamas.

This report is simply an attempt by Amnesty to shield themselves from accusations of anti-Israel bias. And even so, given the known facts about the war, this report is highly biased against Israel - and for Hamas.

American Library Association partners with UAE book fair that doesn't like Jews

From the American Library Association:

What fun!

Only a couple of problems.

One is this:

The Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) in the United Arab Emirates, which reportedly attracted 1 million visitors from across the region, featured several infamous anti-Semitic books...

The mission of the fair, according to organizers, is “to cultivate the love for literature among people by enriching their experience of the written word.”

The anti-Semitic books for sale at the fair were listed alongside mainstream books in various categories. For example, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was listed in the “Political Science” category. Among the other anti-Semitic books featured at the fair were:

Blood for The Pie of Zion (The Jewish District) by Najib Al Gailany. This novel tells a story of a Christian priest from Damascus who was abducted by the Jews in order to use his blood for Jewish rituals. The story details how Jews danced and celebrated while Rabbis drain the blood of the elderly catholic priest. The book was listed in the “Novels” category and sold for 15 AED, or approximately $4.

The Jews and the Secret Movements in the Crusades by Baha Al-Amir. The book, which suggests that the Jews played a role in the Crusades, includes an introduction in which the author claims that “God the almighty declares in his statement to the people that all wars were started by Jews.” The book was listed in the “International Affairs” category and sold for 50 AED (approximately $14).

Human Sacrifices and Talmudic Slaughtering by Jews and Pagans by Fathi Muhammad Zughbi. The book was listed in the “Faith” category and sold for 83 AED (approximately $23).

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hilter. This book was listed in the “General knowledge” category and sold for 20 AED (approximately $5).

The fair provided several grants and awards in various fields of literature. In the past, it reportedly gave a grant to Gilad Atzmon to translate his anti-Semitic book “The Wandering Who,” into Arabic.

The other problem is that if you try to register for the fair, in the list of countries you can be from there is one that is missing. Take a wild guess.

So the ALA is now explicitly partnering with an event that activley promotes anti-semitism and discriminates against Israelis,

In the past, when principled organizations and prominent personalities told the UAE that they would not participate in activities that excluded Israelis or Jews, the UAE was anxious to drop the ban and do whatever they needed to do in order to not be embarrassed.

Clearly the American Library Association has no such principles.

(h/t Shawarma News)

03/25 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism in Europe akin to 1930s; Tuvia Tenenborm: Ramallah’s Most Wanted

From Ian:

Ron Lauder: Anti-Semitism in Europe akin to 1930s

A prominent Jewish figure urged the United States on Tuesday to beware of surging anti-Semitism in Europe and warned that seven decades after World War II Jews on the continent are having to look over their shoulders once more.
World Jewish Congress (WJC) president Ronald Lauder told a congressional committee in Washington that the United States could not sit by quietly, with events such as the recent attack in France underlining the growing threat.
“Once again, like the 1930s, European Jews live in fear,” said Lauder, a billionaire businessman who inherited a fortune from his mother Estee Lauder’s cosmetics empire.
“The United States can and must speak loudly and clearly to condemn this evil for what it is –- the radical Islamic hatred of Jews.”
“To defeat this new flame of radical Islamic terror and survive… the United States must lead,” stressed Lauder, whose mother was Jewish and in whose faith he was raised.

Tuvia Tenenborm: Jew, Undercover German Journalist, Ramallah’s Most Wanted

While visiting Israel in March to speak at Hebrew University’s conference marking 50 years of German-Israeli diplomatic relations, Tuvia Tenenbom, author of Catch the Jew! (Gefen Publishing), stayed clear of Ramallah. But Jibril Rajoub—the former head of the Palestinian Authority’s Preventative Security Force—had welcomed him as a VIP when Tenenbom arrived as “Tobi the German journalist.”
Tuvia is now a wanted man.
“I hurt [Rajoub’s] honor because he believed that I’m German,” Tenenbom told JNS.org at the seaside Fitzroy Lounge in Tel Aviv, his bright red glasses adding the intellectual flair to his self-described “fat and jolly” countenance, and a pack of cigarettes—a character in his recently published book—within close reach. “He did not for a second suspect me of being a Jew. It’s not nice for his self-respect.”
Rajoub and Tenenbom are featured embracing on the cover of the Hebrew version of the book. Rajoub, who once sat in Israeli jails for terrorism, bonded with “Tobi” as Rajoub presented himself as a proud Palestinian patriot, an expert on Zionism, and a fiery Israel-basher who deplores the Jewish homeland as “racist, fascist, and expansionist.” Now, fully aware of Tenenbom’s identity, Rajoub still invited him to attend a dubious media event in Ramallah.
“I’ll get in a car accident,” Tenenbom said, fearing a trap.
This is Tenenbom’s first interview with an American Jewish publication. Most have not yet caught up with “Catch the Jew!”—arguably because Tenenbom’s story of his “undercover” foray into the disputed Palestinian territories breaks rank with politically correct, mainstream media-compliant analysis of Mideast politics. At the same time, Tenenbom’s approach employs the secular, irreverent sassiness that is typical of the left.

Assange: Argentine Prosecutor Investigating Iran 'Should Have Been Disciplined'

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has decided to jump into the fray of the Alberto Nisman murder mystery, telling an Argentine news outlet that the high-ranking prosecutor– found dead hours before he was scheduled to accuse the Argentine president of aiding Hezbollah– should have been “disciplined” for cooperating in his investigations with the United States.
“Nisman made himself very dependent on the United States to receive intelligence reports,” Assange alleges in an interview with Argentina’s Página 12. Nisman had been working for years on finding the culprits responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), the deadliest attack in that nation’s history, leaving 85 dead and dozens of others wounded. The nearly 300-page report he was to present the Argentine Congress on January 19, the day after his death, suggests that Iranian terrorists associated with the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah were responsible for the attack, and that President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner negotiated with Iran to help keep the suspects hidden from Interpol. No suspects have been arrested in relation to the bombing in 21 years.
Assange argues that the real problem in the AMIA case is not the links Nisman offered to prove existed between the Fernández de Kirchner administration and Hezbollah, but that Nisman’s intelligence may have been aided by American operatives. According to Assange, Jaime Stiuso, one of Nisman’s main intelligence sources in writing the report, received much of his intelligence from “the United States and Israel.”

Hamas newspaper asks if Jews really control the world economy. Guess the answer!.

Al Resalah, a Hamas newspaper, starts an article with an encouraging note:

Many Arabs and Muslims around the world are talking about how the Jews control the world economy and policies in major countries, Is this the actual reality from the evidence, or just conspiracy theories to justify the defeat of the Arabs and Muslims in the current situation nowadays?

The question is, Do the Jews control the world economy? What is the nature of this control?

Given that this is the photo accompanying the article, you know what the answer will be.

It starts off by saying that the Rothschilds are worth a trillion dollars, but some people say they are worth $500 trillion, more than seven times the value of the every other person and nation combined.

We go on to read that the family was not only behind JFK's assassination, but also Abraham Lincoln's.

They somehow manage to avoid being mentioned as the richest people in Forbes list, however. This may have to do with the fact that Jews own all the media worldwide. This is how Jews control everyone's minds. They even mention Wolf Blitzer.

Then comes a list of high tech and consumer products companies that Jews own or control or influence.

Too bad they cannot reach the obvious conclusion: that Jews also control Al Resalah, and Hamas altogether. Which Fatah has stated more than once, since every Arab habitually accuses his enemies of being Jewish. So at some point ISIS, Syria, Jordan, Hamas, Fatah, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and even Iran have been accused of being Zionist and/or Jewish by their enemies.

Anyway, the cute innovation that Hamas used in this article was to preface it with a pretense of skepticism and objectivity, which makes the conspiracy theories sound more legitimate. Kudos!

Walking down J-Street (part 3)

Another report from Messy57 (parts 1, 2)

"One thing you must understand is that when you support the BDS movement, you actually are helping Netanyahu, because Netanyahu is playing on that fear, that almost every Israeli Jewish citizen is feeling, that there is a possibility that the world will just turn against us,"— Stav Shaffir, ZU member of the Knesset.

That was a primary theme of the J-Street convention. I heard this over and over again. The vast majority of the attendees weren’t anti-Israel, they were anti-Bibi, and that was the general consensus: Israel good, Bibi bad. Another consensus was the necessity of a two state solution. What wasn’t agreed to is what shape of the borders for the two (three?) states are going to be.

The first session I attended the first morning was on “Israel as a neighbor”, which was presented by the New Israel fund. The speakers all were in favor of land swaps to keep most of the settlements intact. , it was the same with the main “plenary session”, called “The Choices Ahead, ” which had seven members of the Knesset (by my count, nearly a fifth of the entire Israeli parliamentary opposition was there) talking, and they all were very “hawkish” on security and lamented they didn’t get that message across.

Nobody was in favor of the green line as a permanent border. Not even the Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who specifically stated that Israel needed secure borders. However, no speaker that I heard, and I missed quite a few panels so I can’t be certain about this, came out in favor of the Hamas plan or going back to Folk Bernadotte’s “1935 borders.”

What everyone did come out against a ONE state solution that the Arabs and the BDS crowd (and Bennett) are in favor of. Nobody came out in favor of a binational state of Palestine from the river to the sea (although Noam Sheizaf, the guy from +972, came close.)

The panels that I was most interested were the Arab-centric ones. The panel entitled “Gaza: The Human and Political Costs of Deprivation and Disunity” is a case in point. Yes, the situation in Gaza is horrific, and yes, most of the people on the panel blamed Israel (Howard Sulka, who ran an NGO there, gave the case why HAMAS started the last war but came to the conclusion that “we can’t be sure”), but nobody had a nice word to say about Hamas’ government of the area. Even Maha Mehanna, who is Gazan and has to go back, didn’t say anything good about them (She explained that Hamas was elected because the Fatah regime was so corrupt).

However, they did explain how they had to go through diplomatic hoops because Hamas is a terrorist organization that may not be talked to. The holes in the narrative were amazing to behold.

I attended the Iran panel, which was both fascinating and unedifying to the mx, before going to the next plenum: “Does Liberal Zionism Have a Future?”

This is an excellent question, DOES IT?

The panel, led by Peter Beinart, wasn’t very optimistic, and they rightly blamed Netanyahu, Leiberman and Bennet. Which brings everyone back to which two-state solution is the best one? That particular question wasn’t actually addressed, what WAS, was the status quo, which everyone considers untenable.

The villains were fingered as not just Bibi, Bennett et al, but the Republicans as well, who are working to alienate Liberals/Progressives from the entire Zionist project and declare the 69 percent of the Jewish vote that voted for Obama “self-hating Jews” and guilty of treason. Some of the issues were clearly articulated but not all.

Wet Winter Threatens J-Street's Supply Of Straw Men (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, March 25 - The relatively heavy precipitation of the last several months in Israel has severely reduced the availability of dried grain stalks, the defining component of the straw men used by J-Street and its ideological allies in political rhetoric. If the trend continues, say experts, J-Street and its ilk will be forced to devote greater resources to the procurement of straw from alternative sources, necessitating cuts in other areas of activity.

J-Street has long relied on Israeli straw for the production of its arguments, which involve constructing an extreme or distorted version of an opponent's position, then demonstrating the weaknesses, errors, or absurdity, outright immorality of the straw man position, as if one has thus thoroughly undermined the opponent's argument.

For example, J-Street and its allies on the Israeli Left frequently resort to the contention that the Israeli Right as a whole refuses to accept a two-state solution, when in fact such rejection is the province only of the extreme fringe of the right wing. Painting the Right as irredeemably extreme serves J-Street as a classic straw man argument, using large quantities of the agricultural by-product.
Israel's climate has fluctuated over the last several decades, but the overall trend has been toward shrinking precipitation during the rainy season. That has contributed to plentiful stocks of straw - but this winter proved wetter than usual, cutting seasonal production of straw and forcing the producers of straw man arguments into fierce competition for the resource.

While some straw is available internationally, political and logistical constraints make most sources unavailable to J-Street. The organization's self-description as "pro-Israel," however disingenuous, discourages potential sellers in the Middle East from engaging openly with it, all but forcing J-Street to look for sourcing in the US, where shipping increases the cost.

Further exacerbating the shortage is the White House increasing its use of straw for the same purposes. The Obama administration has invested in the production of vast quantities of straw men for use in rhetoric about Iran, Binyamin Netanyahu, Republican leaders, and global antisemitism. While American domestic straw production is far greater than that of Israel, the sheer quantity of the material consumed by the White House and State Department in the last six years has driven up the price for other potential customers.

One option available to J-Street and its allies is to share the same straw men, but doing so would look amateurish, a fatal flaw in an organization aiming to portray itself as an indispensable, well-connected player on the international stage. Another possibility involves reducing certain non-essential activities to free up the necessary resources, such as explicit opposition to the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement. Jettisoning that opposition would not substantially alter the organization's ethos, says Middle East analyst N. T. Semitt.

"It's actually just a waste of time for J-Street to pretend it opposes BDS," she said. "Maybe one day they'll wake up and realize they're similarly encumbered by the notion of being 'pro-Israel' as well."

03/25 Links Pt1: Resetting the Peace Process; Matt Lee Grills State Dept On Treatment Of Iran Vs Israel

From Ian:

Resetting the Mideast Peace Process

Moreover, under current circumstances Israeli withdrawals would likely lead to establishment of a second “Hamastan” in the West Bank (or worse, an ISIS type regime) – not to a stable and peaceful reality.
So Netanyahu is accurately tapping into a mainstream, dominant Israeli mindset that is realistic and cautious. Indeed, if you factor out Israeli Arab and Haredi voters, one in every three Israeli voters opted for Likud.
For good reasons (born of bitter experience), Israelis distrust Palestinian intentions; for very good reasons, Israelis are wary of the Islamic terrorist armies that have encamped on the Jewish state’s borders; and for crystal-clear reasons, Israelis are suspicious and resentful of the Obama White House.
It has been this way ever since the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel of 2000-2004 (the second intifada); the rejection by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas of sweeping Israeli peace proposals three times over the past 15 years; the emergence of Iranian-dominated enclaves on Israel’s northern and southern borders following Israel’s unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza; and Obama’s decision to wedge “daylight” into US-Israel relations while sprinting towards strategic partnership with Israel’s arch-enemy, Iran.
In truth, Herzog was no more likely to bring about establishment of a full-fledged Palestinian state over the next two years than Netanyahu is.
So it’s time for Israel to re-articulate its thinking about the process of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace. Netanyahu should capitalize on his sweeping victory to reset the diplomatic table by outlining a pragmatic process that Israel can participate in, and to draw clear Israeli red lines as to acceptable contours of a solution.
Doing so is especially urgent since Israel is already facing a renewed international campaign for West Bank withdrawals. The Obama administration is not-so-subtly threatening to throw its support behind a new United Nations Security Council resolution recognizing Palestinian independence and demanding rapid withdrawal to the 1967 lines (with some itsy-bitsy possible land swaps mentioned as a sop to Israel).

Obama’s Pointless Israel Spats Illustrate Spite, Not Strategy

This has, after all, been a constant theme since the president took office in January 2009 determined to make a correction from what he felt was the Bush administration’s coziness with Israel. Throughout the last six years, with only a one-year break for a re-election campaign Jewish charm offensive, President Obama has picked numerous fights with Netanyahu government over settlement building and borders as well as the status of Jerusalem. The goal throughout has been to persuade Israel to take “risks for peace” involving retreating from the West Bank and dividing Jerusalem.
This struggle has been undertaken in the name of saving Israel from itself because as the president noted in his Huffington Post interview, he wanted to preserve Israel’s democracy. But, like his admirers among the crowd at J Street, at no point has the president chosen to hold the Palestinians accountable for their consistent rejection of Israeli peace offers or efforts to torpedo talks, such as the end run around negotiations and unity pact with Hamas that blew up the talks sponsored by Secretary of State John Kerry last year.
Nor is there any answer to the widespread concern voiced by Israeli voters about what would happen if their country heeded Obama’s advice and withdrew from the West Bank, whether to the 1967 lines or not. After the example of Gaza, from which Israeli pulled out every last soldier and settler and which was then transformed into a vast terror base from which rockets are rained down on Israeli cities, why should Israelis believe a pullout from the West Bank end any differently. (h/t NormanF)

AP Reporter Grills State Dept. Spokeswoman

As the White House continues its attacks on Israeli Premier Netanyahu for things he never said, the Administration seems to be ignoring the Supreme Leader of Iran's calls for "death to America." When Associated Press reporter Matt Lee challenged State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on the issue during Tuesday's press briefing, Psaki did all she could to avoid answering the question.
Lee: This has been raised before by other people, but I will ask it again now in this---the same context. When the Supreme Leader of Iran is continuing---in the middle of these negotiations is continuing to make statements like, “Death to America,” how is that not problematic for you? How is that not something---why are you just willing to let it slide basically, and you are holding the Prime Minister of Israel to comments that he made and since changed?
Psaki: Well, Matt, I think we would hardly put the Supreme Leader and the leadership of Israel in the same category. Israel is a strategic partner, a security partner---
Lee: Are you saying the Iranians can be trusted but the Israelis can’t? Is that what you are saying?

AP’s Matt Lee Grills State Dept. On Treatment Of Iran Vs. Israel

AP Reporter Grills State Dept for Obama Admin's 'Anonymous Whining' about Israel

How many of the women "civilians" killed were actually terrorists?

From The Times (UK):

Hadifa sold all her engagement jewellery to buy the battered AK-47 that she lovingly cradled as she talked about preparing for “part two” of the war with Israel. Her fiancé didn’t mind the extravagant purchase, she said, giggling: he is her battalion commander.

A 26-year-old student from Gaza City, Hadifa wears the black niqab and monochrome bandana of her battalion, the Nasser Salahuddin Brigades. She is part of a growing movement of female fighters in the conflict-ridden territory.

The 51-day war with Israel last year, which claimed the lives of 2,100 Palestinians, 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians in Israel, was not yet over, she said, and fighting would break out again “any day” now that the Israeli elections were over.

Palestinian women fighters have been active since the second intifada in 2000, but their numbers have swelled since the most recent Israeli offensive. All of Gaza’s fighting groups have female units, but the most efficient is the Nasser Salahuddin Brigades unit.

“There are more women than ever — we are now almost equal to the number of men. After this war we saw a huge increase of women signing up for the next fight,” said Om Adam, 40, a leathery-faced veteran fighter, and wife of a senior Salahuddin commander.

She said there were several hundred female fighters in Gaza, but no one knew the exact number because each unit worked in a secretive, 25-strong, cell-like structure. She agreed to meet The Times only after nightfall.

The women know only their comrades in their unit. Each cell is led by a female commander, who is assigned a male superior. The Salahuddin Brigade is thought to have at least 80 female combatants and hundreds of others who work in support roles.

Om Adam said that the women fighters had become increasingly important because they could move more freely, passing on weapons, food and information to the men, who might spend weeks almost entirely underground in Gaza’s intricate network of tunnels. “We act as the eyes and ears on the ground for the fighters, checking the streets before they move.”

Some were engaged in direct combat, said Om Khadija, 24, a female fighter who manned an RPG and several rocket launchers during the two months of fighting last summer. All the women recruits were trained to use and fix weapons, including sniper rifles, AK-47s, RPGs and M16s.

Om Adam signed up for a frontline role after her son lost both his legs and half of one arm when their home was bombed during the 2008-2009 war with Israel. She said that a shrapnel wound was still etched like a shark bite into his skull from the blast, which killed several other members of the family.

“Think of it as revenge. People have lost everything and live in appalling conditions here in Gaza. Either you die pointlessly and slowly, or quickly with purpose,” she said.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has forced many desperate youths who have nothing else to live for to join groups fighting Israel, according to Pernille Ironside, Unicef’s Gaza director.

I love how UN agencies justify people becoming terrorists.

...[P]overty is widespread — leaving people with little else to do but fight, Om Khadija said.

Sure. It's not like they can learn web design or languages or desktop publishing or any other freelance job that could be done with only an Internet connection. Nope, they have no other choice.

Her battalion trains three days a week, in a flexible schedule which works around the women’s domestic commitments. Training videos posted on YouTube show them wielding RPGs, all wearing voluminous black burkas and niqabs — but in battle and in the tunnels, some of which are reserved for women, they wear tunics and lose trousers for ease of movement.

“We have a rigorous fitness programme, like the guys, which involves everything from climbing to running through fire. We also study war strategies, English and technology,” said the young mother. “It’s only a matter of time until the fighting starts again. We’re training and re-arming. We’re fully prepared.”

Even if they weren't active combatants, it seems likely that some of the women killed in Gaza who are regarded as civilian were actually part of the terror infrastructure.

Here's video of the ladies. I like how the standard terrorist ski masks aren't modest enough for them.

(h/t Margie)

Jordan's parliament condemns dancing Jews (update)

The reactions to the "dancing Jews" story keep getting more bizarre.

A couple of days ago a number of Hasidim traveled to Jordan's airport and started dancing to wedding tunes as they were waiting for their plane, presumably to celebrate an impending or new marriage of one of them.

Even though no one at the airport complained and the others in the waiting area did not seem upset, video of the event went viral in the Arab world to widespread disgust,

Now, Jordanian parliament members are complaining and asking what the kingdom plans to do about this terrible spectacle of celebrating, dancing Jews.

MP Bassam Batos called the behavior disgusting and revolting and provocative and asked what the government had to do with the event.

(UPDATE:) MP Yahya al-Saud demanded a government response to "Talmudic rituals" at the airport.

Tareq Khoury asked if anyone if filing an official complaint, and demanded that the government translate the lyrics of the songs being sung.

I can help there!

The first song comes from part of one of the blessings given at a Jewish wedding:

[Blessed is G-d] Who created joy and celebration, bridegroom and bride, rejoicing, jubilation, pleasure and delight, love and brotherhood, peace and friendship.

The next song, from the same blessing, is going to make the Jordanians a little more uncomfortable, notwithstanding that it originally comes from the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah 33:10-11, which is a prophecy that foretells the Jewish return to Israel and Jerusalem.

May there soon be heard in the cities of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of celebration, the voice of a bridegroom and the voice of a bride.

OK, that's pretty Zionist, even if it predates modern Zionism by several thousand years.

The third song has only three words. From one of the zemirot sung on Shabbat, it takes on a dual meaning in this context:

שמחם בבנין שלם Gladden them with a complete structure

(h/t Nursemedic)

Hamas claims to have captured Israeli insect drones

From Middle East Monitor:

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas have seized electronic insects that were flying the skies of the Gaza Strip, according to Al-Majd, a security website close to Hamas.

Al-Majd reports that the devices are used by the Israeli authorities for spying and monitoring the positions and bases of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.

It is also believed they are being used to search for Israeli soldiers reportedly kidnapped during the latest Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

An informed source told Al-Majd that Hamas electronic security units disassembled these insects and found pictures of the soldiers kidnapped during the war stored in their memories. They also revealed that they are being run and monitored via satellites.

"The electronic insects are the size of small birds and look as birds from far distances," the informed source said. "They can easily fly and enter into buildings and other facilities through very small holes and fly easily inside them."

The Al Majd article adds that the insect drones have GPS capabilities.

The illustration it uses is from a news story from 2011 on US research.

It was very smart of Mossad to deploy these larger mini-drones, in order to distract Hamas from the nano-drones, which are small enough to enter the noses of the Islamist leaders, burrow to their brains and then explode.

Whoa, sorry, I wasn't supposed to reveal that!

Of course, the story is bogus.

It is true that the US and Israel are working on insect-like drones. However, they are nowhere near production.

Gaza woman defends women's rights in Islam by showing her mastery of math

This is just too funny, from MEMRI:

In a recent TV interview, Tahani Abu Jazar, lecturer on Islamic law at the Islamic University in Gaza, defended the status of women in Islam, saying: "The woman does not have the same needs as the man." The man, she said, "uses the left hemisphere of the brain," whereas the woman "uses both parts of her brain." According to Abu Jazar, "this proves that the testimony of a man equals that of two women." The interview aired on the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV channel on March 8, 2015 to mark International Woman's Day.

She should be happy that men are so tolerant of her:

In a Friday sermon delivered in the Aicha Mosque in Montpellier, France, Imam Mohamed Khattabi said: "No matter how much good you bestow upon a woman... Her selfishness drives her to deny it." The sermon was delivered on March 8 and posted on the Internet.

03/24 Links Pt2: NIF Given $1 Mil+ From State Dept; Hirsi Ali Confronts Jon Stewart About Islam

From Ian:

Edwin Black: Controversial ‘New Israel Fund’ Received More Than $1 Million From US State Department

The controversial New Israel Fund and its social change and political lobbying organization – known as SHATIL – have received more than $1 million from the State Department under a program designed to create political change, reform, and activism in the Middle East. The government program, Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), has extended more than $600 million in grants to political and social activists and reformers in 18 Middle East countries, mainly with unstable or challenged political environments in need of democratic improvement. “
MEPI supports organizations and individuals in their efforts to promote political, economic, and social reform in the Middle East and North Africa,” according to the agency’s official self-description.
The list of nations in which MEPI operates includes such countries as Algeria, Libya, Lebanon, and Yemen.
However, MEPI’s sphere of engagement also includes Israel – ironically the only pluralistic, stable, and democratic nation in the Mideast. Among the leading recipients for MEPI grants in Israel is the New Israel Fund and its SHATIL organization. The NIF is an international, US-based 501(c)(3) charitable organization that has generated intense acrimony within the Jewish community and Israeli establishment for its highly politicized activities.

JCPA: World Vision: Strategies for Fund-Raising and Support for Hamas

WORLD VISION AND HAMAS
The overall effect of World Vision’s media appearances and publicity regarding the fighting in Gaza in 2014 obscures the fact that, on four separate occasions over the past decade (2006, 2008–2009, 2012 and 2014), Hamas initiated wars that it could not win against a country that cannot afford to lose. During these armed conflicts, Hamas has endangered the lives of Palestinians, especially children, by launching rockets from schoolyards and by using hospitals as command centers for its leaders. As we have noted above, Hamas summoned civilians to the rooftops of buildings after a warning that these buildings would soon be under attack. Moreover, Hamas launched rockets at civilian populations. A Palestinian Authority official in the West Bank has called this a crime against humanity.10 Furthermore, during the war in 2008–2009, Hamas diverted food and fuel from their intended recipients as part of its policy of increasing the suffering in the Gaza Strip in order to make Israel look bad.11 It has used cement and other building materials allowed into the Gaza Strip—ostensibly for the benefit of Palestinian civilians—in order to construct tunnels that can penetrate Israel and serve as a means to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The policies of Hamas are intended to create a humanitarian crisis. It has succeeded in doing so. As an “advocacy” organization, World Vision is obliged to point this out and to hold Hamas accountable. However, WV contributes to the propaganda war against the Jewish state conducted by Hamas by directing almost all of its criticism against Israel and by protecting Hamas from condemnation. Thus, World Vision helps Hamas in its use of what Alan Dershowitz refers to as “the dead baby strategy.” To be sure, World Vision occasionally criticizes Palestinian elites, but it does so cautiously and even-handedly. During the fighting in 2014, Kevin Jenkins, president of World Vision International, criticized Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. His comments, however, often were followed by a condemnation of Israel, thereby effectively minimizing his critique of Palestinian leaders, as follows: “If we are to keep our moral compass, the world must make it clear that those firing rockets into Israel and bombing homes in Gaza are doing wrong.” The above statement presents a false moral equivalence between Israel, which acts in self-defense, and Hamas, which initiates the attacks on Israel and seeks the destruction of the Jewish state.

Hirsi Ali Confronts Jon Stewart About Islam

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose new book Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now was released this week, was interviewed by Jon Stewart on his Daily Show Monday night, and proceeded to educate the host as to the need for Islam to be reformed. The interview began with Stewart mocking the title, asking, “Why does Islam need a reformation …now?”
Hirsi Ali replied, “Because too many people are dying in the name of Islam, too many women live under oppression, too many Jews are being demonized, too many gays are being killed in the name of Islam, too many Christians are being killed in the name of Islam. I think it really has … the answer is to have the reformation now.”
Stewart, unsatisfied with the world-wide killing of non-Muslims as a reason to reform Islam, retorted, “Aren’t we having the reformation now?” asserting that Martin Luther wanted a “purer form of Christianity.”
Hirsi Ali pointed out that there are a growing number of people wanting to reform Islam, and said bluntly to Stewart, “I hope you stand with them.”
Stewart, cornered, struck back by asserting, “I think people single out Islam as though there is something inherently wrong with it that wasn’t wrong with other religions … If Christianity went through almost the exact same process … I get the sense that you think Islam is different from other religions.”
Hirsi Ali had a ready response: “Christianity went through that process of reformation and enlightenment and came to a place where the mass of Christians, at least in the Western world, have accepted tolerance and the secular state, the separate of church and state, respect for women, respect for gays.”

A walk down J-Street, part 2

Messy57 is continuing his report from the J-Street Conference.

With dozens of panels to choose from, it was difficult to choose which ones to go to, and as with a lot of these things, there were scheduling conflicts galore. So I decided to go to the major ones (and those I could find). But first, I needed a cup of coffee…

There was a buffet with bagels and cream cheese. Grabbing some of that and a cup, I went down to the lobby where they had the “huckster room” as these areas are generally known, and looked at the booths set up by various groups.

What I found was mostly innocuous, but what really piqued my interest were all the maps….

Now I love maps, I’ve got a huge collection and there in front of me was a gold mine. Most countries have at least two sets, one for the tourists and international community and one for the nationalists and internal use. Such is the case with Israel.

From Jewschool

J Street itself was giving out maps. These were big and were relatively detailed and had the green line easily visible in, what else?, green. Now Israeli maps don’t show the green line. While most showed the Gaza strip and some showed “Areas A and B”, not a single one shows the Green line. J Street was giving these out to be posted in synagogues and Hillels and the like because it’s important to understanding what the situation is. Maps are good for things like that.

Other groups were also giving out maps. For example The New Israel fund had one showing all it’s current projects, such as promoting healthcare for the poor and the rights of Reform and Conservative Rabbis, fighting growing inequality between rich and poor in the land of the Kibbutz and the like, and the most interesting was their blurb supporting “the women of the wall” movement. I say it’s strange because they show the Old City in Israel and don’t mention, as the BDS movement (which NIF claims to be very much against) likes to, that the Kotel is in “illegally occupied Palestinian territory”.

(On a side note, when I asked them about their participation in the lawsuit against the PLO, they said the their witness for the terrorists, Michael Sfard, was actually a ringer who’s testimony deliberately helped the plaintiff.)

“Americans for Peace Now” has a slick, two-sided map with “East Jerusalem“ on one side and the West Bank on the other, which shows the where all the “settlements” are. It also shows the Barrier wall. The Jerusalem side attacks “Ideological tourism projects” that threaten to transform the conflict into a religious conflict where no compromise is possible” I thought that was pretty funny.

The best of the bunch (on a technical level at least) was B’Tselem’s. It was detailed and easily color-coded. You can see the facts on the ground much better than on the other maps. They weren’t there,

Only the “Open Hillel” table seemed to be genuinely pro-BDS. The guy was really defensive. So was one fellow who said that Hamas was merely elected to the “municipal administration” of the district and wasn’t really the government. (You can’t really argue with these people without being tempted to punch them in the face).

The “Kumbaya” people were promoting neighborliness and understanding between Jewish and Muslim Israelis for the most part and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. However they generally make excuses for the Palestinians, such as Bikom, which does some amazing maps, who tried to explain why the Arab Jerusalemites, who can vote, don’t (they don’t want to look like they accept Israeli sovereignty).

After filling up my knapsack with give-aways and my face with food and coffee, I went to listen to the speeches….