Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 29, 2015

Erekat justifies luxury travel as best way to delegitimize Israel

Israeli state media reported on Sunday that a number of senior Palestinian Authority officials spend more time abroad than in Palestine.

The report, published on the Israeli Broadcasting Authority's website Reshet Bet, alleged that some Palestinian officials spend 150 to 170 days in "fancy hotels" abroad every year.

The report gave details for 10 senior PA officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, Jibril Rajoub and Saeb Erekat.

It said that Abbas spent 166 days abroad in 2013 and 188 days in 2012.

Erekat and Rajoub, meanwhile, reportedly spent 150 to 170 days abroad in each of those years.

The report ...questioned how there could be so much travel despite "financial hardships we have been hearing about for some time."

But Saeb Erekat defended himself:

PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Reshet Bet report on Palestinian Authority officials' days spent abroad is a “cheap” Israeli technique, and is a proved of the success of the PA’s diplomatic efforts.

His statement came shortly after the Israeli state media website reported on Sunday that a number of senior PA officials spend more time abroad than in Palestine, with some spending 150 to 170 days in "fancy hotels" abroad every year.

Erekat told local radio station Raya that the numbers published by the Israeli news source are correct, saying that “we work around the clock in all five continents to defend our cause and expose the Israeli crimes against our people."

"The Palestinian leadership roams the world so the world can listen to our narrative from us and not the Israeli narrative on us," he added.

Senior Fatah official, Nabil Shaath told Raya that Israel deliberately used the information for the purpose of defamation, referring to the alleged move as an “old Mossad trick.”

It is telling that the primary purpose of Erekat's travels is to delegitimize Israel. Also to tell people things like his family's bogus 9,000 year old history in an area that they never lived.

So, pretty much his job is to travel the world to lie, often on the Western world's dime.

Not that this is any surprise.

06/29 Links Pt1: Israel might leave UNHRC; The Last of the Flotillas #FlotillaOfFools

From Ian:

PMW: PA-Fatah summer camp for kids: AK-47 automatic weapons and youth in military uniforms dancing with rifles

More than 150 children "of Martyrs and prisoners" participated in the camp "Jerusalem in the Eyes of the Lion Cubs and Flowers of Palestine" run by the PA's National Security Forces in coordination with Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah's youth movement "the Lion Cubs and Flowers of Palestine."
The camp's closing ceremony, in which the campers paraded and danced in military garb with rifles, was attended by PA and Fatah officials, among them Nablus District Governor Akram Rajoub, Secretary of Fatah's Nablus branch Jihad Ramadan, and representatives of the PA National Security Forces. [Fatah-run Awdah TV, June 12, 2015]
Using summer camps like this reinforces the PA and Fatah's message to adhere to violence as a means to "liberate Palestine," which Palestinian Media Watch has exposed numerous times.
An article in Al-Asima, a bi-weekly distributed with the official PA daily, likewise promoted this message. In the issue following Israel's Independence Day - what the Palestinians call the Nakba - "the catastrophe," each page of the supplement which dealt with the Nakba showed this image with the text:
"The anniversary of the Nakba - What was taken by force, can only be restored by force."
[Al-Asima, bi-weekly distributed with official PA daily, May 27, 2015]
An article in the supplement used the following terms to refer to Israel:
"the so-called 'Israel'"
"the occupation state"
"the Zionist entity"

Israel said to reconsider UN Human Rights Council membership

In a closed meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly announced he would reevaluate Israel’s membership in the United Nation’s Human Rights Council in light of the international body’s recent report on last summer’s Gaza conflict.
The announcement came as the commission of inquiry’s report on the 2014 Gaza conflict, released last week, was presented to the council in Geneva. The report concluded that Israel and Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip may have committed war crimes in the course of the 50 days of fighting. The UNHRC was set to vote on the findings later this week.
“As a result of the report, we will consider whether to remain or to leave the council,” the prime minister said, according to Army Radio.
In 2012, then-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman cut ties with the UNHRC over its probe into Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Israel returned to the council in 2013.
During the closed meeting on Monday, Liberman castigated Netanyahu for reversing the decision. “As foreign minister, I ended Israel’s involvement in the Human Rights Council. Why did you change that decision?” Liberman asked.

Col Kemp at UNHRC

86-year old neo-Nazi Holocaust denier getting lots of attention

Neo-Nazis have been touting Ursula Haverbeck, an 86-year old Holocaust denier who smiles as she spouts her hate.

She was interviewed for a German TV show in March and since then police have raided her house for hate materials.

Here is the interview with English subtitles, which has over 100,000 views on YouTube.

She easily segues from denying the Holocaust to saying that the Jews deserved to be ethnically cleansed because they were enemies of the Germans to saying that the Talmud supports raping children and is more hateful than any Nazi literature. She is an insane Nazi antisemite in a sweet old lady's body. Her husband was evidently an unrepentant WWII-era Nazi.

People always wonder how ordinary Germans could have condoned and justified the Holocaust. Haverbeck is living proof of how ordinary Germans could have accepted genocide as perfectly normal and defensible.

The interviewer is next to clueless on how to challenge her lies. She has a consistent story and he doesn't know enough to break through the soundbites to the hate beneath.

For example, when she claims that there were no gas chambers, she could have been shown the blueprints:

And those for the crematoria:

Holocaust denial is only going to get more prominent and there is surprisingly little out there calling out Ursula Haverbeck as a sickening, hateful piece of Nazi trash.

One more thing: Haverbeck is praised mightily by Intifada-Palestine website.

"Muslims never started a war. And Ramadan is the month for Jihad"

From MEMRI:

In an address posted on the Internet on June 26, Egyptian cleric Muhammad Zaki, secretary-general of the Al-Azhar Dawa Committee, said that the Ramadhan "has never been a month for the lazy or "a month for tormenting one's body or for sleep." It is a month for Jihad, he said.

Following are excerpts:

Muhammad Zaki: The Muslims have never started a war. They have never initiated an attack against peaceful people. They are always the ones who are attacked. Can the fending off of aggression be considered terrorism? Or is it the legitimate right of people everywhere and anywhere? The Quran says: "Permission (to fight) has been given to those who are being fought, because they were wronged." The Quran does not say "those who fight" but rather, "those who are being fought." It means that the others are always the ones who initiate the fighting.

[...]

The wars have always been asymmetric - in the number of soldiers, in equipment, in capablities, and in preparedness. Nevertheless, because they were blessed by their (Ramadhan) fasting, and due to the spiritual might gained by their fasting, which had an effect on their wounded bodies... (The fast) bestowed calm upon their hearts and souls, and strengthened their wounded bodies. Thus came the victory from Allah in the Battle of Badr, followed by the even greater victory of the conquest of Mecca, as well as the surrender of the Hawazin and Thaqif tribes, and in our day and age (sic), the vanquishing of the Mongols at Ayn Jalut, and the greatest victory over the Crusaders at Hittin, followed by the conquest of Andalusia. Ramadhan has never been a month for the lazy. It has never been a month for tormenting one's body or for sleep. It is a month for Jihad - Jihad of the soul, Jihad against Satan, and Jihad for the sake of Allah.

This guy apparently works at the most influential Sunni school in the world, Al Azhar University.

Flotidiots pathetically try to gain more publicity with their version of martyr videos (update)

You know how suicide bombers like to make videos to be released after they blow themselves up?

Meet the "progressive" anti-Israel equivalent, of passengers on the Marianne av Goteborg pleasure boat who made videos to be released if they are intercepted by Israel as they attempt to violate the legal naval blockade on Gaza:

Just like the "martyr" videos, they all sound the same.

Some assume that they are in "Ashdod Prison."

But unlike "martyr" videos, you can hear their drone message in Swedisn, too.

Even the UN says that the naval blockade of Gaza is legal.

Another pathetic failure of the flotidiots is trying to make the presence of New Zealand reporters on the boat into an international incident.

New Zealand responded that they told all their citizens to stay the hell away from Gaza;

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said it was aware two New Zealanders were on the intercepted vessel, the Swedish-flagged Marianne of Gothenburg, as part of the Freedom Flotilla III.

The ministry was monitoring the situation and advised the reporters to heed the travel advisory it had issued, the spokesperson said.

MFAT was advising against all travel to Gaza due to the threat of kidnapping, terrorism and potential for retaliatory military operations.

"They should obey all instructions and directions issued by the local authorities, including the Israeli Defence Force," the spokesperson said."Our travel advisory strongly advises against any attempt to enter Gaza by sea in breach of Israeli navy restrictions or participating in any attempt to break the naval blockade, including participation in flotillas to deliver aid."

UPDATE: The flotidiots indeed have a shortage of real "martyrs." Two of the other three boats that turned around were named after people who were murdered by Palestinians!

Anti-Israel NGO stats show opposite of what they claim

Gisha is an anti-Israel NGO that is dedicated to denouncing Israel for its restrictions on movement an materials to Gaza. They claim to be non-partisan but they will almost always ignore Hamas violations on freedom of movement from Gaza, concentrating on Israel.

Gisha likes to gather statistics (although not from Israeli sources; they find Hamas and Arab sources more believable.) They created some nice interactive graphs showing the situation on various metrics that they care about, like people and goods allowed through crossings.

Their own graphs show pretty much the opposite of what they get a million dollars a year to prove. Israel is allowing more and more movement; Egypt is doing less and less.

Protests over Jews purchasing ruins

Another day, lots more lies.

Ma'an reports:

Israeli forces on Saturday suppressed a Palestinian march protesting Israeli plans to turn a southern West Bank church compound into a settlement outpost.

The 38 dunam compound, known as Beit al-Baraka, is located to the north of al-Arrub refugee camp between Bethlehem and Hebron.

It has been in the spotlight since an investigative report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz last month alleged that an American millionaire, Irving Moskowitz, purchased the site through a Swedish company in 2012 with the intention of turning it into a settlement outpost.

The coordinator of a southern Hebron popular committe, Rateb al-Jbour, told Ma'an that the peaceful march had been called to condemn the Israeli plans and demand protection for the compound.

Israeli soldiers reportedly assaulted protesters, lightly injuring several of them with bruises.

The PA's official WAFA news agency echoed this:

Israeli forces cordoned off the area and physically attacked protestors, causing several to suffer from bruises and injuries.

There is a video of the events, and while there are plenty of soldiers around the 20 or so protesters, the protesters have no problem going right up against them without any fear. No indication of assault or injuries. One is seen being led away peacefully, that's it. It looks like they were able to protest freely for quite a bit of time without being "suppressed." It seems unlikely that the anti-Israel NGO that produced this video would have edited out any assault. On the contrary - that is what they pray for.

Note how they are framing this compound as a church. It hasn't been a church for decades. I found a description of the property from a tourist in 2010:

The Beit El Baraka building seemed abandoned. Its main building was closed up tight, behind barbed wire, and its smaller buildings were smashed with broken windows and shattered glass. I could imagine lots of teenagers walking around its large green grounds in better days, circles of friends playing guitar around a small campfire. But that was then and this was now.

A small sign hung above the door of the building, that it was once a Presbyterian Center, but perhaps there were no more Presbyterians in the area, so they closed up shop. The signs on Beit El Baraka were written in Arabic and English. Gershon insisted that the sign once had Hebrew as well. Since he's got a photographic memory, I had no reason to doubt his word.

According to a Presbyterian website, "Beit El Baraka, formerly a hospital established by Dr. Thomas Lambie in the late 1940s, received its license as a Pilgrim Youth Hostel in April 1995, after ten years of government paperwork. The spacious facilities with modest rates are available for local and foreign groups for camps, retreats and tours."

I wondered what happened to Beit El Baraka. I found a google earth picture captioned, "Beit El Baraka American tuberculosis hospital, rebuilt to hostel, now abandoned."

The name, Beit el-Baraka, "House of Blessing," comes from the Hebrew Bible. In II Chronicles 20:26 the area is called "Valley of Blessing" after a successful battle against Ammon and Moab (from Transjordan.)

If any Christian or Arab had bought an abandoned building complex that lies in ruins, even to raze it to the ground, no one would say a word. Indeed, it appeared that a Swedish group bought the complex years ago and no one cared. But if a Jew buys it - that is worth lots of coverage from SkyNews Arabic.

By the way, where else in the world would 20 protesters be worth a news story?

06/28 Links: PMW: Hamas used civilians as human shields in 2014 war; Expose UNRWA's absurdity

From Ian:

Netanyahu: The enlightened world is battling dark forces

After nearly simultaneous terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France kill dozens of people, PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls for unity in fight against radical Islamic terror • Interpol chief: Attacks show global dimension of current terrorist threats.
"The brutal murders in France, Tunisia and Kuwait again underscore that the enlightened world is struggling against dark forces," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday, after dozens of people were killed in three attacks that followed a call to violence by the Islamic State group. "The fight against the murderous terrorism of extremist Islam requires unity, the beginning of which is the unequivocal condemnation of the murderers and those who support them."
In the deadliest of Friday's attacks, a young man pulled a Kalashnikov assault rifle from a beach umbrella and sprayed gunfire at European sunbathers at a Tunisian resort, killing at least 39 people.
The shootings in the Tunisian resort of Sousse happened at about the same time as a bombing at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait and an attack on a U.S.-owned factory in France that included a beheading. It was unclear if the violence was linked but it came days after Islamic State urged its followers "to make Ramadan a month of calamities for the nonbelievers." In all, the assailants killed at least 65 people in Friday's attacks.
The SITE Intelligence Group reported later that IS claimed credit for the Tunisia attack on its Twitter account and identified the gunman as Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani.

PMW: PMW responds to UN: Hamas used civilians as human shields in 2014 war

In response to the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry report which cites that the high number of Palestinian civilians killed during the 2014 Gaza war indicates that “possible war crimes” were committed by Israel, Palestinian Media Watch is re-publicizing the PMW reports released during the war, documenting that Hamas actively used civilians as human shields.
PMW’s documentation explicitly showed that Hamas openly and intentionally demanded that civilians ignore Israel’s warnings prior to bombings of areas in which there were civilians. Instead, Hamas insisted they endanger their lives and even welcome death, so that Hamas could use them as human shields for their fighters and rocket launching positions.
When Israel warned Palestinians who lived near the Israeli border in the Northern Gaza Strip, an area from which Hamas launched long-range missiles, to evacuate their homes to areas of safety before Israel would bomb the launching sites, Hamas told civilians to remain in their homes in spite of the danger.

Expose UNRWA's absurdity

The U.N. report on Operation Protective Edge was predictable. The harsh and one-sided criticism of Israel, the turning of a blind eye to Hamas' war crimes and the piercing remarks against Israel proved that nothing has changed in regard to the U.N.'s lack of fairness and fairness.
The Israeli government's response to the report, ranging from disregard to criticism, was legitimate, but not something that would change the balance of the relationship between Israel and the U.N. The extent of the condemnation Israel has endured from the U.N. and several of its subsidiary bodies is enough to understand the biased rules of the game the U.N. is playing.
It is time to pass the ball to the court of our adversaries, in this case the U.N., and expose its hypocrisy and double standards. Most importantly, we must highlight the fact that the U.N. is the entity largely responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians, by means of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
For this reason, the Jerusalem Institute of Justice has decided to launch a campaign calling for the dissolution of UNRWA and the absorption of its powers by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The campaign will mainly address members of the U.S. Congress. In a video we produced, we present the absurdity of UNRWA's activities.
UNRWA and UNHCR both work with displaced persons. UNHCR is responsible for integrating refugees in their host countries, while UNRWA focuses solely on refugee aid. In effect, UNRWA helps Palestinians preserve their refugee status and pass it on from generation to generation, contrary to the logic and policy of UNHCR.

As I write this on Friday morning, there it is all over the headlines, again.

Islamist Terror Wave Hits Tunisia and Kuwait.

Man Beheaded in France.

What we know as of this moment is that terrorists shot up the resort town of Sousse, some 150 kilometers from Tunis, killing at least 27 people.

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel is reporting:

A suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque in the Kuwaiti capital during the main weekly prayers Friday, killing and wounding dozens, officials and witnesses said. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State.

And, needless to say:

At least one person was killed and several were injured in a terror attack on a factory in the Lyon region in southeastern France late Friday morning.

The decapitated body of a man was found on the premises, according to Sky News. It reported that the 30-year-old suspect was known to the foreign intelligence services.

The victim was reportedly an employee of the factory. His head was discovered by police perched on the fence outside the factory, covered in Arabic writing.

By the time that you read this it will be old news, but I suppose the question that many of us are asking ourselves is just what is it going to take for our media and our academia and our elected officials to start taking political Islam seriously?

There are two things that must be acknowledged.

1) The rise of political Islam in recent years is the single most significant geo-political happening since the demise of the Soviet Union.

I do not understand why so many people seem to have a difficult time understanding that political Islam is not just a religion, but a political movement, and like any political movement it is open to criticism and opposition. The fact is that political Islam, in the form of organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, and all the rest, do not represent Islam as a whole. What they represent is Islam in its Islamist form.

The form of Jihad.

Too many people seem to think that opposing political Islam is "racist" because it is seen as "Islamophobic" or an attack on regular Muslims.

It isn't.

In fact, cliché as it may sound, no one is abused more under al-Sharia than are Muslims. What is really bigoted is holding different people to different standards of humanity. In the Europe and the United States this generally takes the form of "humanitarian racism" and it is the most prevalent form of bigotry found in the West today.

The old-timey, flat-out racism of people like Dylann Roof is, sadly, not dead, but it is certainly dying.

Coming on the heels of Ferguson and Baltimore it is politically-incorrect to say so, but mid-twentieth-century KKK-style, or SkinHeadStyle, American racism is pretty much over - despite this heinous scum in Charleston.

The Klan is not taking over countries.

Neo-Nazis are not destroying ancient artifacts in Palmyra.

On the liberal-left concern with right-wing racists in Europe and the United States is genuine, and politically entrenched, but we should not allow that concern to be used as an excuse to ignore, or downplay, the far more dangerous fact of the rise of political Islam.

2) The Obama administration sold us out on the issue.

On the question of political Islam the Obama administration simply has nothing to say other than to downplay the seriousness of it and to protect Islam's reputation from itself.

I know that I am not singing to the choir here, and that is a good thing, but it must be stressed that this administration not only refuses to acknowledge the rise of political Islam during the misnamed "Arab Spring" as a serious problem, but has actually aided and abetted that very problem.

The pro-Israel / pro-Obama American-Left must acknowledge that which is directly before their very noses.

Barack Obama is not an Israel-friendly president. Period. End of story and stop making excuses.

Barack Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood and is enabling an Iranian bomb. All we can do is oppose the administration's foreign policy and hope to put enough pressure on Congress, and the powers that be, to oppose political Islam and prevent that bomb from coming into being.

If you think that the rise of political Islam is a problem now, just wait until you get a gander at what it looks like after an Islamist nuclear umbrella covers the region.

That will be, as they say, game over and a nuclearized Iran will be Barack Obama's foremost legacy.

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

"Sabotaged" flotilla ship miraculously on its way to Gaza

On Friday, I quoted Ma'an about the lead ship in the "flotilla" to Gaza:

One of the ships taking part in a flotilla headed towards Gaza strip was sabotaged south of Crete, an activist aboard one of the ships said Thursday.

Israeli-born Swedish activist Dror Feiler told Nazareth-based al-Shams radio that the ship had been sabotaged by professionals, and would have sunk if sailed at sea.

"Somebody went underneath the ship at night and sabotaged its propellers, just like they sabotaged the same ship in 2011,” Fieler said referring to similar damage that was inflicted upon a ship participating in a previous flotilla.

Feiler, who relinquished his Israeli citizenship after moving to Sweden, boarded the trawler Marianne of Gothenburg in Sweden with 18 other activists six weeks ago. The crew had refrained from stopping at European ports prior to avoid being held by authorities, but their trip was cut short after realizing that they might have drowned had they continued.

There has been a miracle!

Here is its track as of Thursday night/Friday:

The pleasure craft is now on its way towards Gaza, without having docked in any port according to online vessel tracking.

Israeli-born Swede Dror Feiler told an Arab Israeli radio station that one of the flotilla's ships had been sabotaged by "professionals", and that a propeller had to be fixed before setting off.

"There are dark forces that are trying to stop us," he told Radio Ashams, without elaborating.

A propeller that was so heavily damaged that it might have sunk the boat as repaired within hours without even going to a dock!

These guys lie as second nature. And the media has no scruples about believing a bunch of Israel-haters.

Here's the latest 24 hour track of the Marianne av Goteborg. It looks like it will be intercepted sometime Monday morning.

Firas Press reports that Fatah distributed food parcels in Jenin to prisoners and released prisoners - meaning, terrorists - on Saturday evening.

The packages came from the Arab League.

More such gifts will be distributed to terrorists and their families throughout the territories, and, they say, within Israel as well.

The article says that the Arab League created a fund to support Palestinian terrorists and their families, and initiate 30 projects over the past several years to support the prisoners and released prisoners.

06/27 Links: What’s Israel supposed to do? Ask the UN for help?; Jews Blamed for Their Own Murders

From Ian:

What’s Israel supposed to do? Ask the UN for help?

Hamas, the gang that controls the Gaza Strip and hopes to destroy Israel, makes war in its own peculiar way.
It conducts a terror campaign by randomly sending unguided missiles across the border, traumatizing the civilian population. Rather than using its payments from Iran to feed its own people, it spends a fortune digging tunnels under the border to Israel, infiltrating the country from beneath the ground. It places artillery on top of apartment buildings and beside schools, so that Israel’s attempts to destroy the artillery will kill as many Palestinians as possible. Hamas built a military command centre underneath Shifa hospital, which Israel built for the Gaza population.
Having counted the dead, Hamas announces the fatal casualties, attempting to shame Israel for mass killing. This is an original form of propaganda warfare, suicide-by-proxy.
If someone attempts to arrange a cease-fire between the combatants, Hamas at first refuses to co-operate, then finally signs on and accepts praise for its peace policy. Eventually, it breaks the cease-fire. Between wars Israel maintains a permanent one-sided cease-fire, having no reason to attack Gaza; in 2005 it closed its Gaza settlements and removed its military forces from the Strip. Hamas can always re-start the war, arousing the ire of their soldiers by complaining about Israel’s enforcement of Gaza’s borders. The borders are shut to keep Hamas from importing arms but Hamas depicts it as hard-hearted retaliation. (h/t Josh Korn)

Students Supporting Israel: Breaking the Silence

This week the United Nations Human Rights Committee published a report on the Israeli operation in Gaza - Operation Protective Edge. Ironically enough, right after the report was published, the Palestinian organization Hamas, which is recognized by the United States and the European Union as a terror group, congratulated the UN on aspects of the commission's findings mentioning that Israel committed War Crimes. The UN has officially lost its sense of morality by announcing that the Israel Defense Force committed War Crimes in Gaza. As the British Commander to Afghanistan Colonel Richard Justin Kemp said in the past conflict in Gaza "We know that the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in the combat zones than any other army in the history of warfare".
One of the organizations that provided testimonies for the UN report was “Breaking the Silence”. The testimonies they provided are being spread around the world and used as anti-Israel propaganda by different campus groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Thus, it comes as no surprise that out of all of the organizations that represent Israeli soldiers, Breaking the Silence was the only one invited to speak by the Human Rights Committee, even though they don’t represent mainstream Israeli society or veterans. In this article, I would like to share my truth, to break my silence.
I was born in Israel, a first generation Israeli in my family, and most of my relatives and friends currently live in Israel. My family lives in the city of Ashdod, where Israeli citizens have no more than thirty seconds to run for shelter from Hamas rockets. One of my biggest heroes is my younger cousin Daniel, who just started first grade. Daniel was six years old during Operation Protective Edge. I tried to Skype Daniel and his brother Tal (an 8 year old) as much as I could throughout the war. At some points during our conversations the siren would go off and the rockets would start flying. I had a brief second to ask my cousins “Aren’t you afraid?” Their answer was: “We aren’t, those are just rockets. We must run now, we will talk to you later.” Tal and Daniel hung up the phone and ran for shelter, while I stayed frozen on the other side of the line. For a few minutes I kept repeating to myself their response. “Those are just rockets.” I realized that I must break the silence and tell my family’s’ story, because young kids should not grow up this way. My cousins, like thousands of other Israeli kids, should not have to run away from Hamas’ rockets.

Douglas Murray: ‘Religion of peace’ is not a harmless platitude

The West’s movement towards the truth is remarkably slow. We drag ourselves towards it painfully, inch by inch, after each bloody Islamist assault.
In France, Britain, Germany, America and nearly every other country in the world it remains government policy to say that any and all attacks carried out in the name of Mohammed have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. It was said by George W. Bush after 9/11, Tony Blair after 7/7 and Tony Abbott after the Sydney attack last month. It is what David Cameron said after two British extremists cut off the head of Drummer Lee Rigby in London, when ‘Jihadi John’ cut off the head of aid worker Alan Henning in the ‘Islamic State’ and when Islamic extremists attacked a Kenyan mall, separated the Muslims from the Christians and shot the latter in the head. It is what President François Hollande said after the massacre of journalists and Jews in Paris. And it is what David Cameron said yesterday after 38 people, mainly British, were murdered on a beach in Tunisia and a man was beheaded in France.
All these leaders are wrong. In private, they and their senior advisers often concede that they are telling a lie. The most sympathetic explanation is that they are telling a ‘noble lie’, provoked by a fear that we — the general public — are a lynch mob in waiting. ‘Noble’ or not, this lie is a mistake. First, because the general public do not rely on politicians for their information and can perfectly well read articles and books about Islam for themselves. Secondly, because the lie helps no one understand the threat we face. Thirdly, because it takes any heat off Muslims to deal with the bad traditions in their own religion. And fourthly, because unless mainstream politicians address these matters then one day perhaps the public will overtake their politicians to a truly alarming extent.
If politicians are so worried about this secondary ‘backlash’ problem then they would do well to remind us not to blame the jihadists’ actions on our peaceful compatriots and then deal with the primary problem — radical Islam — in order that no secondary, reactionary problem will ever grow.
Yet today our political class fuels both cause and nascent effect. Because the truth is there for all to see. To claim that people who punish people by killing them for blaspheming Islam while shouting ‘Allah is greatest’ has ‘nothing to do with Islam’ is madness. Because the violence of the Islamists is, truthfully, only to do with Islam: the worst version of Islam, certainly, but Islam nonetheless.