Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

After Hamas wins student elections, PA arrests Hamas students

I reported last week that Hamas had won student elections in Birzeit University, which had generally been pro-Fatah in recent years despite a strong Hamas presence.

The PA apparently didn't think much about this show of student democracy, because Arabic media is reporting today that the PA arrested 12 Hamas supporters both at Birzeit as well as at Hebron Polytechnic University.

The reports say that the police broke into students houses to arrest them, damaging their contents.

Unity!

04/28 Links Pt2: Anti-Zionism is racism; Why Is Pakistan More Legitimate than Israel?

From Ian:

Anti-Zionism is racism

Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Jew-hatred is not a result of the existence of Israel or of anything Israel does. The cause and result go the other way round. Israel is hated because Jews are hated.
We are not talking about the religion of Judaism. Strange to say, it’s very rare to hear even the most rabid anti-Semite attack the Jewish religion. (We ourselves do, in a rational way, because we attack religion as such, but we are not anti-Semites.) We are talking about hatred of the Jews as a people.
The root of anti-Semitism is, however, in religion.
For two thousand years Christianity (though not all Christians) held the Jews to be bad. Not their religion, which Christianity came round to adopting as the pre-history of the god-man, but the nation, the people, who were dispersed from their own land and scattered among other nations when their general mutiny against Roman rule failed. They were cast in the role of handy scapegoats for every ill that afflicted the peoples they lived among.
With the rise of Islam, the Jews who lived in the lands that Muslims conquered were maltreated for a different badness: they, like the Christians, would not accept the “truth” of Muhammad’s religion, so must suffer the consequences of their obstinacy and pay to stay alive, or die. When, in 1948, the Jews in their recovered homeland mustered an army which actually defeated six invading Arab armies, the Arabs felt deeply humiliated. Something had gone very wrong. Allah simply could not allow such a thing to happen. Islam had conquered that once-Jewish territory centuries earlier, and no one else was allowed to own it.

Dennis Prager: Why Is Pakistan More Legitimate than Israel?

Given the spectacularly larger number of refugees and deaths caused by the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, why does no one ever question the legitimacy of Pakistan's existence?
This question is particularly valid given another fact: Never before in history was there a Pakistan. It was a completely new nation. Moreover, its creation was made possible solely because of Muslim invasion. It was Muslims who invaded India, and killed about 60 million Hindus during the thousand-year Muslim rule of India. The area now known as Pakistan was Hindu until the Muslims invaded it in A.D. 711.
On the other and, modern Israel is the third Jewish state in the geographic area known as Palestine. The first was destroyed in 586 B.C., the second in A.D. 70. And there was never a non-Jewish sovereign state in Palestine.
So, given all these facts, why is Israel's legitimacy challenged, while the legitimacy of Pakistan, a state that had never before existed and whose creation resulted in the largest mass migration in recorded history, is never challenged?
The answer is so obvious that only those who graduated from college, and especially from graduate school, need to be told: Israel is the one Jewish state in the world. So, while there are 49 Muslim-majority countries and 22 Arab states, much of the world questions or outright only rejects the right of the one Jewish state, the size of New Jersey, to exist.
If you are a member of the Presbyterian Church, send these facts to the leaders of the Presbyterian Church USA who voted to boycott Israel. If you are a student in Middle Eastern Studies -- or for that matter, almost any other humanities department -- and your professor is anti-Israel, ask your professor why Pakistan is legitimate and Israel isn't.
They won't have a good answer. Their opposition to Israel isn't based on moral considerations.

NGO Monitor: The Lancet, Richard Horton, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Political War Intensifies

The controversy surrounding The Lancet, a British medical journal edited by Richard Horton, and its central role in targeting Israel continues to be an important and evolving issue. Last July, during the war with Hamas, The Lancet published an egregious “Open Letter for the People of Gaza.” As detailed by NGO Monitor, The Lancet has a history of exploiting health for anti-Israel advocacy, and two of the primary authors of the “Open Letter” – Drs. Paola Manduca and Swee Ang Chai – promoted an antisemitic video made by American white supremacist David Duke. As a result, Horton and his allies have sought to defend themselves and to vilify their critics.
The main critics consist of over 700 medical professionals under the framework of the Concerned Academics Group, who sent a detailed complaint to the publisher, Reed Elsevier. Led by Professor Sir Mark Pepys of University College London, they called on the publisher to retract the letter, issue an apology, and ensure that “any future malpractice at The Lancet is prevented.”
In response, a counter group, Hands off The Lancet, launched a media campaign to vilify Pepys and Horton’s other critics. This self-serving group includes two authors of the “Open Letter,” -- Sir Ian Chalmers and Dr. Mads Gilbert. They have previously been linked to promoting antisemitic rhetoric and expressing support for the September 11 terrorist attacks, respectively.

From the Wits Vuvuzela:

Wits’ SRC president, Mcebo Dlamini caused controversy this weekend after he posted a Facebook status regarding whites and the state of Israel: “I love Adolf Hitler”. Following his Facebook comments, he told Wits Vuvuzela that he admired the German leader, who sent millions to death camps, for his “charisma” and “organisational skills”.

Mcebo Dlamini, Wits Student Representative Council (SRC) president, posted the statement “I love Adolf Hitler” in a comment thread below a graphic comparing modern Israel to Nazi Germany.

Responding to a commenter who wrote “Hitler new [sic] they were up to no good”, Dlamini replied “I love Adolf HITLER”.

When contacted about his comments on Hitler, Dlamini restated his admiration of the fascist leader of Nazi Germany.

“What I love about Hitler is his charisma and his capabilities to organise people. We need more leaders of such cailbre. I love Adolf Hitler,” Dlamini told Wits Vuvuzela.

As the leader of Germany, Hitler is generally blamed for triggering World War II and sending over 6-million Jews to death camps as well as Roma, communists and homosexuals.

“I have researched about president Adolf Hitler. I have read books about president Adolf Hitler. I have watched documentaries about president Adolf Hitler,” Dlamini told Wits Vuvuzela defending his knowledge of the former German dictator.

In the same comment thread, Dlamini wrote that every white person has “an element of Adolf Hitler”.

“I have had numerous encounters with white chaps. From primary till today I live with white chaps … As I said, they are not Hitler but there is an elements of him in all of them. I connected the dots,” Dlamini said.

Dlamini is not the sharpest tool in the shed. His comments came in response to his own Facebook post comparing Israel and white people to Nazis.

So if he loves Hitler, I guess he loves Netanyahu too.

There is a Change.org petition to remove Dlamini as SRC president.

(h/t Savana)

December 1940. France had fallen six months earlier. The United States would stay wrapped in isolationism for another year. The British Empire stood alone against the Nazi barbarians.

In Jerusalem, the Very Reverend Dr Norman Maclean (1869-1952) was fourteen months into his wartime appointment as chaplain to St Andrew’s Church. The son of a schoolmaster on the Isle of Skye, the elderly minister had enjoyed a distinguished career. From 1915-37 he had served the foremost congregation in Edinburgh – St Cuthbert’s – and in 1927 had been moderator of the Church of Scotland. He had preached in the United States, in Australia, and, in 1930, at the League of Nations in Geneva. He was a king’s chaplain for Scotland, and often preached before the Royal Family when they were in residence at Balmoral.

Much published, he had commenced the foreword he had written to Leon Levison’s The Jew in History (1916) with a resounding assertion of philosemitism: “The world owes its soul to the Jews”. He was also an ardent supporter of Zionism, declaring that “the restoration of the Jews to Palestine” comprised “the only lasting reparation that Christendom can make for centuries of wrong” and that “it was a disgrace that the holy places of Christianity should be in the hands of Mohammedans”.

Shortly after his arrival in Jerusalem in 1939 he had delivered a sermon on the theme of Exodus 17, with the Nazis depicted as the Amalekites who attacked the Israelites at Rephidim only to be ultimately vanquished by Joshua.

Now, Maclean had been invited by Gershon Agron, editor of the Palestine Post (retitled the Jerusalem Post in 1950) to write a Christmas message for inclusion in that paper. Gladly accepting, he warmed to the task. Attempting to raise morale at so dark and desperate a juncture in human affairs, he entitled the message “Sursum Corda” (“Lift up Your Hearts”).

Determined to gesture his deep sympathy for Jewry, and mindful that Christmas coincided that year with Chanukah, he was at pains to acknowledge Christianity’s debt to its parent religion, referring in his message to the

“world of wonder and mystery, in which the threads of life are so closely interwoven that were it not for the Jewish festival there would never have been a Christian festival, for the one is the child of the other”

However, that passage never made it to Agron’s newspaper – it was cut by the Palestine Censor employed by the British Mandatory government during the Second World War.

Dr Maclean also wrote:

“it is totalitarians today who must be changed from instruments of torture and tyranny into men of goodwill ‘ere peace can come”

For some reason the Palestine Censor disapproved of that eminently reasonable statement, and through that passage too went his blue pencil.

The Censor also struck this out:

“the Angels did not proclaim peace to gangsters, robbers, and mass murderers”

And this:

“Bethlehem will conquer Berchtesgaden. In that great hope Christians and Jews can rejoice together. The Jews no less than the Christians. For it is the Jews who have given the world a universal religion. They gave the world the priceless gift of monotheism that through Bethlehem has gone unto the ends of the earth. It is no exaggeration to say that there is nobody in the world today for whom life is not different because of Jerusalem or Bethlehem.”

You’ve guessed it. Blue-pencilled as well.

In fact, by the time the Palestine Censor put down his pencil only thirty-nine lines of Dr Maclean’s 100-line text remained. The good clergyman’s message had been eviscerated – or, to express that another way, effectively de-judaised.

The following month, January, saw Maclean and his wife preparing imminently to depart Jerusalem and return to Scotland. Maclean had evidently been declared persona non grata by the British authorities.

The pro-Jewish book he had begun to write while sitting on a hilltop overlooking John the Baptist’s birthplace would have to await its completion at home on his native Isle of Skye.

At the beginning of 1942 (see Jewish Chronicle,16 January 1942) Time and Tide – a British literary and current affairs journal of liberal inclination, founded in 1920 by Welsh feminist Viscountess Rhondda (1883-1958) – broke the story of Maclean’s treatment at the Palestine Censor’s hands..

The journal noted with indignation that the Censor even reworked the translation from the Latin “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis” in Maclean’s message in order to discard the final three words, meaning “to men of goodwill”.

Maintaining that the Censor’s changes constituted a “British version of the Index Expurgatorius,” the journal continued:

“If any underlying idea can be traced in the Censor’s excisions, it seems to suppress the connection between Christianity and Judaism. This connection is asserted by all the Christian Churches, while the Nazis deny it by suppression and perversion of evidence. Is Bethlehem not to conquer Berchtesgaden?”

Following Time and Tide’s exposure of the story, a leading article in the Manchester Guardian – as pro-Zionist then as its egregious lineal successor, the London-based Guardian, is anti-Zionist – called for an explanation of the Censor’s “eccentricities”. The article went on:

“There seems to be no reason for the fantastic exercise except that the Palestine censorship must have wanted to hide the origins of Christianity in the Jewish race and religion. But why? The Colonial Office, which is the Ministry responsible to Parliament, should be made to explain.”

As the relevant issue of Hansard shows, on 10 March 1942, in the House of Lords, a Welsh peer and former Liberal MP, Baron Davies of Llandinam (1880-1944), a wealthy colliery-owner who took a keen interest in international affairs, fulminated against British policy towards the Jews in Palestine.

Regarding the abridgement of Maclean’s Christmas message, Davies complained:

“….When this article appeared, the Censor had got hold of it and out of 139 lines he had struck out 100 lines. If your Lordships will read the article you will find that there is not a single word about any political subject at all. It is simply an endeavour to put the case from the standpoint of the Christians and from the standpoint of the Jews. I cannot help feeling that it was not only an affront to the Jews but an affront also to the Christians that this article should be dealt with in the way that it was. I wonder whether the Censor has been reprimanded. The whole thing has a Nazi smell about it, and I cannot help feeling that it does show the extraordinary way in which our Administration carries on affairs in Palestine.”

Furthermore:

“There is a second instance to which I must draw the attention of the House, and which happened quite recently. Dr Weizmann, who, as your Lordships are aware, is the head of the Jewish Agency, sent a cable to Palestine on the occasion of a great recruiting campaign, in order to encourage people there to join not Jewish regiments but the British Army. He said: "My heartiest greetings to the Palestine Auxiliary Territorial Service at the outset of its recruiting campaign. I know how eagerly our women will welcome this opportunity to share with the ten thousand of their men already serving in defence of their lives, homes and of all that Palestine means to them. That was the message, but the Censor refused to allow it to be published in the Jewish papers in Palestine. I cannot help wondering how we can ever hope to win this war if this is the way in which we treat our friends and their efforts to help us in fighting the enemy. It is a stupid policy. It brings us into contempt with the Arabs, and it brings us into disrepute with our friends".’

That same year, the book that Dr Norman Maclean had embarked upon while in Jerusalem was published in London by Victor Gollancz. Destined to go quickly into a second edition and to be taken up by the American Zionist Emergency Council, it was entitled His Terrible Swift Sword: On the Problem of Jewish Immigration to Palestine.

Reported the Palestine Post (4 June 1942):

‘The High Commissioner [Sir Harold MacMichael] has prohibited the importation into Palestine of Dr Norman Maclean’s book entitled “His Terrible Swift Sword” under the Customs Ordinance …’

The Glasgow Herald (5 June 1942) carried a similar item, which added:

‘…. The “banned” book is concerned with the Jew-Arab controversy and is sympathetic to the Jewish cause in Palestine.’

As Professor Elliott Horowitz has written, MacMichael ‘may not have approved of such passages as

“Nine months after we declared war on Hitlerism, victims of Hitlerism are still in Athlit [the detainee camp south of Haifa]”.’

But of course the case of Dr Norman Maclean was only the tip of an iceberg of censorship by the British authorities in Palestine that was deemed detrimental to Jewry.

Join me again, dear reader, for more on this subject …

Note: For an obituary of Maclean see The Times (17 January 1952). Apart from the newspapers cited, I also referred in the compilation of this article to a blogpost by Professor Elliott Horowitz of Bar-Ilan University: http://seforim.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/elliott-horowitz-modern-amalekites-from.html

Daphne Anson is an Australian who under her real name has authored and co-authored several books and many articles on historical topics including Jewish ones. She blogs under an alias in order to separate her professional identity from her blogging one.

04/28 Links Pt1: UN admits Hamas fired rockets from UNRWA schools; Nepal Thanks Israel for Aid

From Ian:

UN Watch: Explosive: UN admits Palestinians fired rockets from UNRWA schools

The UN finally investigated the Palestinian storing of rockets in UNRWA schools and their use of the schools to launch rockets against Israel, all of which constitute grave violations of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.
Key findings gleaned from the UN report:
Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad stored rockets in UNRWA schools. The board found, in the case of the UNRWA Jabalia Elementary “C” and Ayyobiya Boys School, referring to the discovery of weapons there on 22 July 2014, that “it was highly likely that a Palestinian armed group might have used the premises to hide weapons.”
Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad stored rockets in schools that were in active use by children. During the war, former PLO lawyer Diana Buttu famously said on Al Jazeera that “the rockets that were found in the schools in UNRWA were schools that are not being used by anybody—school is out, I’ll have you know.” However, in the UNRWA Gaza Beach Elementary Co-educational “B” School, on 16 July 2014, the UN Board of Inquiry notes that the school gate was unlocked during the period leading up to the incident “in order to allow children access to the schoolyard.” School was out, but UNRWA was inviting the children back in to play.
Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad fired rockets from UNRWA schools. In the Jabalia school listed above, the board found that “it was highly likely that an unidentified Palestinian armed group could have used the school premises to launch attacks on or around 14 July.” Similarly, concerning weaponry stored at the UNRWA Nuseirat Preparatory Co- educational “B” School, the UN inquiry found that “the premises could have been used for an unknown period of time by members of a Palestinian armed group” — and that “it was likely that such a group may have fired the mortar from within the premises of the school.”

UN Secretary General: Palestinian militants put UN schools at risk during Gaza war

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon charged that Palestinian militants had stored weapons in three UN facilities during last summer’s Gaza war and that such action was “unacceptable.”
“I am dismayed that Palestinian militant groups would put United Nations schools at risk by using them to hide their arms,” Ban said on Monday as he released a summary of a Board of Inquiry probe into events that occurred in UN facilities in July and August.
“The three schools at which weaponry was found were empty at the time and were not being used as shelters,” Ban said. "However, the fact that they were used by those involved in the fighting to store their weaponry and, in two cases, probably to fire from is unacceptable.”
He also took Israel to task for shelling neutral UN facilities and killing or injuring Palestinians sought shelter there from the bombings that occurred during Operation Protective Edge.

IsraellyCool: Chris Gunness Has Clearly Lost His Mind, But So Far, Not His Job

Back in July, Brian wrote about how UNRWA, the “United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East,” discovered rockets stored in one of its schools in Gaza, and subsequently returned those rockets to Hamas.
With the publication of a UN report on the matter, UNRWA Spokesman Chris Gunness tweeted the following today:

Chris Gunness
‏The UN Secretary General Board of Inquiry found no evidence that UNRWA handed rockets over to Hamas
There you have it, nothing to see here. Here’s the relevant section of the report, from the UN Watch website:
57. The Board was informed that UNRWA had received testimony that two individuals identifying themselves as policemen had come to the school, alleged that they knew who was responsible for the cache of weapons and left a telephone number. Upon being contacted, one of these individuals stated that the weapons would be removed from the school in the early morning. The Board was further informed that, early in the morning of 17 July, the door to the classroom in question was found locked, with no signs of forced entry or exit, and that it was noted that the weapons had been removed.
Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhh. So, according to the report, UNRWA found the rockets, contacted “local authorities,” i.e., Hamas, and asked them to remove the rockets. Instead of removing the rockets, the Hamas police provided a phone number, which they somehow just happened to have, for the unnamed individuals who had put the rockets there in the first place, whom they just happened to know. Those people were contacted — presumably, by UNRWA staff — and apparently came to the school and picked the rockets up. Lost property, happily reunited with its owner. Much better!
In the warped mind of Chris Gunness, that counts as “no evidence that UNRWA handed rockets over to Hamas.”

Canadian Muslim paper calls Jews terrorists

Meshwar is an Ontario-based free Arabic newspaper.

Its April edition (p. 22) includes an article that describes Judaism as a terrorist religion, entitled "Jewish terrorism."

The article, originally published in Al Jazeera, says that Islam only orders Muslims to fight defensive battles, "but if you look at the Bible, the Jews are the real terrorists in the name of the Lord."

The article also says that Jews believe that "the world is divided into two parts: the people of God who have grace and love, and other peoples who engage in bestial, savage acts." The Torah, it says, tells the Hebrews to separate from the other people because non-Jews are unclean and really just animals in human form who do not deserve to mingle with the Chosen People. The only reason God created non-Jews, we are told, is to either have them available to be destroyed by the Jews or for God to use them as a lesson when he is angry so the gentiles can defeat the Jews.

There are only three things permissible for Jews to do to gentiles, according to the writer. The first is to murder them (of course.) The second is to expel them. And the only other acceptable behavior of Jews towards non-Jews is to enslave them.

Also, we are told that women are considered to have bad qualities and are despised by Jewish men.

I believe that this article may violate Canadian laws on hate propaganda. While there is a loophole for legitimate critiques of religious beliefs, the person making the critique must be acting in good faith, and in this case the article is based thoroughly on lies that the author (and editor) must have realized if they weren't a priori antisemitic.

Here is the illustration for the article in Meshawar.

(h/t Shawarma News)

When "human rights" activists turn intolerant

Haaretz reports:

A rights group in Israel is calling on the country’s medical association to forbid doctors from taking part in a Jerusalem women’s health event scheduled for Tuesday that is closed to women participants.

The event is co-sponsored by one of Israel’s leading - and publicly funded - HMOs, Meuhedet, and the ultra-Orthodox medical institute Yad HaRamah. It is meant to focus on research and innovation in women's health, bringing together medical experts, rabbis, teachers, and experts in Jewish law for dialogue and discussion.

A spokesperson for the conference told the Ynet news website that not only were women absent from the roster of speakers and panelists at the event, but that they were barred from the audience as well.

Uri Regev, director-general of Hiddush, a nonprofit organization that promotes religious freedom and equality, declared that “the existence of this conference proves how crucial it is that the exclusion of women be declared a criminal act. The idea that the Meuhedet HMO and the Shaare Zedek hospital can hold an event in which exclusively male doctors and rabbis gather and discuss women’s medical issues without even one woman doctor is a surreal phenomenon that one hardly believes can exist in what claims to be a Western country.”

Charging the HMO with “sucking up” to the haredi public by agreeing to exclude women, Regev said that medical professionals should stay away from the gathering. The participation of senior doctors in such an event, he said, represents a “blatant violation” of a decision by the medical association’s ethics board forbidding discrimination against women and determined that “doctors will not participate in any medical or scientific event in which women are excluded.”

Jessica Montell, formerly of B'Tselem, gleefully tweeted an obscene comparison:

Saudi Arabia? No, Israel 2015! Women barred from speaking at or ATTENDING seminar on women's health & Jewish law. http://t.co/iEfJCw5CQZ
— Jessica Montell (@JessicaMontell) April 28, 2015

I do not agree that there is any justification for excluding women from this conference. I don't believe that there is even any halachic (Jewish legal) reason that justifies it. There is nothing wrong with publicizing the incongruity of a conference about women's health issues that excludes women.

But these "rights" organizations and activists like Montell are going much further than that. Hiddush is demanding that an Israeli HMO cut out health services to a portion of the population because they find their passionate religious beliefs to be objectionable.

This isn't a stamp collecting conference. It is a medical conference meant to help women, despite the non-attendance of women. That is bad, but not as bad as the self-righteous "rights activists" who believe that the health of hundreds of thousands of haredi Jews is less important than their oh-so-moral stance.

Meuhedet's response was quite reasonable:

After the protest hit the headlines, Meuhedet issued a statement saying that the event was designed to serve its clientele in the Jerusalem area, which includes 250,000 ultra-Orthodox members and was part of its mission to serve all elements of the population and that “the conference was designed for the rabbis of Jerusalem neighborhoods with the goal of strengthening the connection with the communities rabbis and the HMO through open dialogue with doctors who practice gynecology. The goal of the conference is to encourage dialogue with tens of these neighborhood rabbis (with whom the hundreds of thousands of our clients consult) The nature of the event was designed to suit the target audience it is trying to serve.”

Meuhedet is serving its clients. Hiddush, and presumably Montell, don't give a damn about the health of those fanatic Jews.

If individual doctors don't want to speak at the conference, that's their right as well. But those who demand that others refuse to educate a major sector of Israeli society go way beyond this. They are just as intolerant as the conference organizers are.

And I cannot help but think that this intolerance would not ever extend to any religion besides Judaism. Has anyone, ever, called on the World Health Organization to cease all operations in Saudi Arabia because it segregates men and women in conferences the country demands that women cannot visit doctors unaccompanied by male guardians?

Intolerance may be intolerable, but so is intolerance in the name of fighting intolerance.

From The Arab American News coverage of an anti-Israel event:

Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News, said it is vital to honor the victims.
...
He praised the resistance as the sole protector of Lebanese civilians.

"The Israelis are not able to get across one foot into our country [Lebanon],” he said. “And that is because brave people who were ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice, taught them a lesson that we cannot forget our martyrs and we shall never forget who our enemy is."

Siblani stressed the importance of unity to safeguard the community from the challenges it is facing. He said the resistance defeated Israel in the 2006 war when the second Qana massacre was committed; hence the enemies of the Arab World are reverting to the divide-and-conquer strategy to prevail.

"The only way they could defeat us is dividing us," Siblani said. "They went to their books and they searched for a way to do it. Unfortunately, they have found it— sectarianism."

The enemies of Arab unity have books to look up how to defeat the Arab world? What books might those be?

To get the answer all you have to do is find out how Arabs describe the famous forgery the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. This article, which is typical in Arab media, describes the first, third and fourth protocols as saying that the Jews will use liberal ideas to destroy the power structures of governments, causing civil wars and sectarian chaos.

Hamas says essentially the same thing in its Charter, article 32:

World Zionism, together with imperialistic powers, try through a studied plan and an intelligent strategy to remove one Arab state after another from the circle of struggle against Zionism, in order to have it finally face the Palestinian people only. Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of the struggle, through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. They are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar agreements and to bring them outside the circle of struggle.

....The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.

Sibliani tries hard to hide his overt antisemitism, but this little comment reveals that it is an integral part of his worldview.

If he denies this, then the easiest question to ask him is...what books was he referring to?

By the way, imagine the outcry if a non-Arab media mogul would say something like this. But since he is an Arab, the same standards do not apply.

(h/t Dan)

Abbas also volunteers to help Nepal victims - with words

From the official PA Wafa news agency:

President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday offered his condolences to President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, Ram Baran Yadav, following the earthquake that hit Nepal on Saturday.

Abbas expressed his and the Palestinian people’s solidarity with the families of the victims, as well as with the people and government of Japan, and hoped a speedy recovery for the wounded, affirming the Palestinian side’s willingness to provide all possible help.

(The "Japan" part seems to be a typo, it isn't in the Arabic version of the article.)

I'm sure that they appreciate it.

04/27 Links Pt2: Bernard-Henri Lévy: New Wording is Making Antisemitism ‘Acceptable’ Again

From Ian:

French Philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy Says ‘New Wording’ is Making Antisemitism ‘Acceptable’ Again

French philosopher and public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy told a New York audience on Sunday that an emerging new language for antisemitism is once again making the world’s “oldest hatred” acceptable.
“Antisemitism in Europe is taking on a new form, is adopting a new wording which makes it again acceptable … by a growing number of French and European people,” he told an audience at the Consulate General of France in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
He said the new antisemitism rested on the three pillars of anti-Zionism, Holocaust denial and using the Holocaust to “shut up” other human catastrophes.
Explaining his thesis, Lévy said that “one of the questions … of antisemitism … is to inhabit the wording which makes the hatred possible and legitimizes the hatred. It gives the feeling to the one who hates that he hates for good reasons.”
Throughout history, as the justification for antisemitism, Jews have at times been despised for “killing Christ” and at other times resented for “inventing Christ,” Lévy said. During other periods Jews were considered to be a corrupting race. These historic forms of antisemitism are now in the “process of disappearing” he said.
According to Lévy, today’s emerging anti-Jewish bigotry rests on three arguments.
The first of them is anti-Zionism. That “Jews deserve to be hated because they are faithful…to an illegitimate state.” The second is Holocaust denial. “Jews deserve our distrust…our hate…because they traffic what should be the most sacred part of themselves.” And the third justification antisemites are using, Lévy argued, is that Jews use the Holocaust to “shut up” the suffering of others and other genocides, “particularly the Palestinians.”

A defining moment for Europe

Europe’s leaders and media have long ignored, downplayed or outright denied that anti-Semitism has increased on the continent over the past 15 years. When in 2006 a gang of self-described “barbarians” of African and North African background tortured llan Halimi, a young Parisian Jew, for 24 days, finally dousing his naked body with acid and leaving him to die beside a highway, the police refused to acknowledge the obvious hate element of this horrific crime.
The anti-Semitic nature of more recent attacks on Jews could no longer be so easily denied. But even so, the murders in 2012 of three Jewish children and a rabbi in Toulouse, and of four people in the Brussels Jewish museum last May failed to evoke any largescale demonstrations, let alone serious political action.
One therefore does not have to be a cynic to wonder whether the January attack on the Paris kosher supermarket and the murder the following month of a synagogue guard in Copenhagen would have passed just as quickly from public consciousness had these crimes not been flanked by assaults on journalists and free speech. The Charlie Hebdo attack galvanized public outrage in a way the Toulouse and Brussels murders clearly had not.
However belatedly, governments, particularly the French, speak now more openly about the anti-Semitic threat from Islamic extremists. We would be fooling ourselves, however, if we reduced the problem “just” to Europe’s thousands of home-grown jihadis.

When you hate Israel, it can do nothing right
Evil Hasbara claim	Israel Derangement Response
Israel is tolerant towards gays	Israel has some homophobes, and therefore really hates gays (Richard Silverstein) Israel is only pretending to be tolerant; it is engaging in “pinkwashing” to distract the world from its crimes (Sarah Schulman)
Israel has repeatedly offered peace and been rebuffed	Those “peace plans” were completely unacceptable to Palestinian society and therefore Israel didn’t offer enough (+972) Palestinians accepted the idea of two states in 1988 and therefore cannot be expected to ever compromise on anything ever again (Robert Malley)
How could supposedly racist Jews consistently vote for non-Jews in TV reality polls?	They are still racist, they are simply practicing “tokenism” (Max Blumenthal)
Israel sends aid to help victims of natural disasters	Israel really wants to learn how to kill more effectively (Rania Khalek) Israel wants to steal the organs of the victims (Jenny Tonge) Israel is trying to distract the world from its crimes by pretending to do good (Ali Abuminah)
Hamas and Hezbollah are terror groups that Israel must defend itself from	Hamas and Hezbollah are “social movements that are progressive” (Judith Butler)
Arab men beat their wives and engage in “honor killings”	It is Israeli policies that cause Arab men to beat and kill their wives (The Lancet and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay)
The IDF has fewer reports of rape compared to other countries’ armies	They don’t rape because they consider Arab women too inhuman to even consider raping (Tal Nitzan) IDF rabbis say rape is perfectly OK according to Yossi Gurwitz Tasteless T-shirts prove Israel has a “rape culture” (David Sheen)

In short: If Israel does something bad, it is proof that Israel is evil. If Israel does something admirable, it is proof that Israel is evil. If Arabs do something bad, it is because Israel is evil.

Life is so simple for the simple-minded.

PA prime minister Rami Hamdallah spoke at the Asian-African Conference in Jakarta, Indonesia last week. In his speech, he said that the independence of Palestine and gaining their freedom is the last remaining objective of this conference from its inception 60 years ago.

Hamdallah said that his people are still suffering from the historical injustice done to him, and that living under occupation is unjust and claustrophobic, and that the pain of exile and asylum is still continuing and worsening He called for the establishment of fully sovereign Palestinian state on the "1967 borders."

But the first Asian-African Conference was held in 1955, way before 1967. Why wasn't there any mention then of creating a Palestinian Arab state in the illegally annexed West Bank and Gaza then?

The Palestine issue was addressed in the 1955 final conference communique with a very vague paragraph:

In view of the existing tension in the Middle East, caused by the situation in Palestine and of the danger of that tension to world peace, the Asian-African Conference declared its support of the rights of the Arab people of Palestine and called for the implementation of the United Nations Resolutions on Palestine and the achievement of the peaceful settlement of the Palestine question.

Nothing about statehood.

In fact, that 1955 declaration included parts that Palestinian Arabs have consistently violated against Israel:

Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.
Recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations large and small.
Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country.
Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
Abstention by any country from exerting pressures on other countries.
Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country.
Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties’ own choice, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.

Why doesn't Hamdallah insist that his own people adhere to all of these principles?

04/27 Links Pt1: A light unto the nations; IDF Activities in Nepal; Someone sends Iran a message

From Ian:

A light unto the nations

Israel's critics have tried, with some sophistication, to compare the monsters of the Third Reich who ravaged Europe to the IDF soldiers who are working tirelessly to safeguard Israelis, even though our national ethos is not destruction but rather the pursuit of peace and securing the continuity of life.
Not only do those comparisons lack any merit, they are utterly outrageous. Especially in light of the events of the past few days.
The tragic earthquakes in Nepal have claimed thousands of lives. Beyond the immediate humanitarian concerns, Nepal is looking at a long recovery. The first disaster relief team has already left for Nepal as part of a coordinated effort orchestrated by the IDF and the Foreign Ministry.
The so-called military of thugs is already assembling another delegation of some 250 people to help with the search-and-rescue efforts, provide security and carry out field surgeries.
The IDF has been saving lives all over the world for more than 60 years. Technological advances have helped it gain more expertise. The soldiers have demonstrated their capabilities in Turkey, Greece, the Philippines, Haiti, African countries and elsewhere. In fact, by doing so they have lived up to the mission Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion assigned them. Israel's first prime minister believed the IDF was more than just a military force and said it was duty-bound to advance educational and socio-economic causes owing to its central role in building the nation. Indeed, the IDF has been an "army of relief," fitting into what Prophet Isaiah called "a light unto the nations."

IDF Blog: Update on IDF Activities in Nepal

This morning, April 27, an 80-member Israeli humanitarian aid delegation set flight for Nepal, after a magnitude-7.8 quake struck the capital city Kathmandu on Saturday. They will be joined shortly in Nepal by another cargo flight with around 170 trained military personnel.
“We’re on a mission to achieve three things. Deploy major search and rescue operations. Admit patients to our field hospitals within 12 hours of landing. Help the Nepalese people.”
-Colonel Yoram Larado, head of the IDF humanitarian delegation to Nepal
The first team is scheduled to arrive in Nepal late Monday night. It will immediately join other countries that have set up disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of the worst earthquake to hit Nepal in the past 80 years:
- The earthquake’s death toll has already reached more than 3,000 people.
- Local hospitals are unequipped to treat more than 6,500 injured people.
- A second tremor has struck, measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale.
- Hundreds of thousands of people in Kathmandu have been displaced as a result.
- 150 Israeli travelers have yet to establish contact and are believed to be missing.

Four Israelis rescued from Mt. Everest, 100 still missing

Four Israelis were rescued from the slopes of Mt. Everest on Monday, where they had been trapped in the wake of the earthquake that shook the mountainous nation of Nepal on Saturday, leading to a death toll in the thousands. Some 100 Israelis are still missing, according to Israeli officials.
Army Radio said a rescue team sent by Harel, an Israeli insurance company, brought the quartet to safety. All four were reported to be in good health.
Meanwhile, an army 747 jet carrying 250 medical and rescue personnel and supplies, including a field hospital, lifted off from Ben Gurion Airport Monday afternoon for the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.
The plane was the second shipment of aid Monday to the earthquake-battered nation. Earlier in the day, another IDF plane carrying 90 rescue workers and supplies lifted off from Ben Gurion.

NYT and WSJ headline bias, and the underlying anti-Arab racism of the media

Yesterday, the New York Times inverted cause and effect in its headline and reporting of terror attacks in Israel:

Today, the Wall Street Journal claimed that Israel defending itself from bombs is what "threatens to fuel tensions," not the bombs themselves:

There is an underlying racism with these and countless other examples of similar reporting. The assumption is that only Jews have the ability to assume responsibility for their actions, while Arabs are wild animals who are expected to act irrationally and violently.

Since only Jews can act like adults, they are expected to treat the mentally deficient Arabs with kid gloves, just as you would be careful how you act around anyone with mental illness.

Teachers know well that students will act in ways corresponding to how they are treated; if they are expected to be disruptive they will end up being disruptive, if they are expected to be brilliant they end up actually getting smarter.

The same dynamic is at work every day in the Middle East. As long as Arabs are expected to act as if they have no moral compasses, they readily live down to the expectations.

By treating Arabs as people who cannot be held responsible for their actions, the media (and the world governments who subscribe to the same viewpoint) help perpetuate terror and irresponsibility.

The irony is that in an honor/shame culture, Arabs would be even more likely to respond to being shamed by the West pointing out that their behavior is what is aberrant, not Israel's wholly justifiable reactions to being attacked.

But the media will continue to do its part to push the subconscious narrative of Arab intellectual and moral inferiority, the surest way to keep things that way.

Last week, Israeli UN ambassador Ron Prosor treated UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to shakshuka, from an Israeli Manhattan food truck called Shuka Truck.

Naturally, this upset the perennially upset Palestinian Arabs.

Palestine Today writes that the dish "originated in occupied Palestine since ancient times; and spread to become one of the main dishes known in the Arab world."

The Palestinian Arab kitchen is a target of Israeli theft. Israel claims for itself much Palestinian Arab cuisine, such as hummus and falafel.

It should be noted that the occupation also claimed that Palestinian costume and headdresses and the Canaanite shekel is of pure Jewish heritage.

Professor of history at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, Dr. Riad al-Astal, confirmed that Jewish groups have been trying hard to convince the world that they are the rightful owners of in the Arab region, especially the Palestinian land, by distorting facts and falsification of heritage in their favor.

Dr. Astal said the battle with the occupation over heritage is no less dangerous than the occupation of land and required a clear strategy to address these thefts, calling on international bodies such as UNESCO to address the issue of counterfeiting heritage.

In reality, the dish originated in northern Africa, not in the Levant. Jews from Tunisia and Libya brought the dish with them when they were expelled from those tolerant Arab countries. Ambassador Prosor never claimed that this was a Jewish or Israeli-origin dish.

So the only people who are stealing others' culture is, as usual, "Palestinians." I wonder what the north African community thinks about that.