Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Arabic media closely follows news of Jewish immigration to Israel

I count at least ten Arab news sources covering this story, as reported by YNet last week:

Over 30,000 people made aliyah to Israel in 2015, the highest number in over a decade.

Statistics published by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency on Tuesday showed an increase in aliyah of around 10 percent from 2014 and the highest number of arrivals since the 2003 peak in immigration.

The biggest proportion of olim came from France, with around 7,900 French immigrants arriving in Israel in 2015. This is the second time that France has topped the list of countries of origin for olim, a fact attributed in part to a string of terror attacks that have recently hit the country.

Aliyah from Ukraine has also increased once again, with 7,000 olim arriving from the troubled country – a rise of around 15 percent from 2014 and around 230 percent from 2013.

A further 6,600 immigrants arrived from Russia. In total, the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency recorded 15,000 arrivals from eastern European countries, a 25 percent increase from to 2014.

Meanwhile, around 9,330 olim arrived from Western Europe, a six percent increase on 2014's figure. A slight decrease in aliyah from the US was registered, with 3,768 arrivals in 2015 compared to 3,871 the year before.

Tel Aviv proved the most popular destination for new immigrants, with 3,620 olim making their way to the central Israeli city. Close behind Tel Aviv were Netanya, Jerusalem and Haifa.

The average age of olim has gone down. Around half of the new arrivals in 2015 were under the age of 30, with a 20 percent increase in new olim aged 19 or under.

Minister for Aliyah and Absorption Ze'ev Elkin said that the figures show Israel has a "wonderful window of opportunity."

"While we were all busy with day-to-day problems in Israel, we didn't pay attention to the most meaningful event this year: the number of olim crossing the 30,000 mark for the first time in more than a decade," Elkin added.

Arabs have been trying to stop Jewish immigration to the area for over a hundred years.

The reason for the interest is because Arabs simply do not want to accept Israel's existence, and the nation that has existed for 67 years is still regarded as temporary. Stories like this indicate that Israel isn't going anywhere any time soon.

We are doing everything we can to fight for Israel with hard work, research and - above all - the truth. I could sure use your help. Please donate today. If you have other skills you can volunteer for EoZ, send an email to volunteer@elderofziyon.com

For Next Trick, Iran To Directly Attack US, Get Away With It (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tehran, January 6 - Officials in Iran's capital are telling excited followers of its recent dramatic activities that they should stay tuned in the coming weeks, when he Islamic Republic plans to expand its provocative activities to include direct assaults on the United States, and that the Obama administration, fearful of derailing the nuclear deal, will not mount a serious response.

For months, Iran has conducted and sponsored numerous activities aimed at US interests and allies, while President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been so keen to avoid confrontation with Tehran that they have ignored, downplayed, willfully misinterpreted, or excused each instance, lest severe responses to Iranian aggression or violations thwart the implementation of the nuclear deal reached several months ago. Eager to see how much humiliation they can mete out to the US in that context without facing real consequences, Iran has steadily ramped up its provocations, to the delight of domestic and foreign fans alike.

"We're looking, at a minimum, at a bombing, shelling, or rocket attack of some sort, probably against a military target in the Persian Gulf, but maybe even against an embassy somewhere else in the world," offered Amjasgeddin Startid, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in Tehran. "Personally, I think we should board a US-flagged vessel, hold its crew captive, given them all wedgies, make them say the're 'fags,' and share it all over social media." Obama will refuse to order retaliation of any sort, promised Startid, because of his concern over maintaining the JCPOA agreement.

Even before formal negotiations over Iran's nuclear program began, the Ayatollahs were funding and training Shiite militias in Iraq, fighters responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen and thousands injured. However, with Obama and Kerry keen to paint Iran in a positive light, and eager to avoid any move that might jeopardize the deal that eventually emerged, the Islamic Republic intends to abandon the pretense and exclusively roundabout use of force against US targets.

"If current trends continue, we'll probably see an even greater escalation over the next several months," predicted retired US Marine General Albert Facepalm. "Tehran will try to squeeze all of their provocation for now into the last year of Obama's term, not knowing what November, or next January will bring. In the meantime, the most likely scenario will involve Iran's use of a nuclear weapon they've been able to develop in accelerated fashion thanks to the JCPOA, on American or American-allied targets, and Obama will restrain US forces from responding meaningfully, lest such a reaction cause Iran not to agree to temporarily curtail its pursuit of atomic weapons."

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01/06 Links Pt1: US, Israel should ensure Iran not involved in N. Korean nuclear program

From Ian:

Outrage, skepticism greet North Korea's claim of hydrogen bomb test

However, Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert based in Seoul, South Korea, told Fox News that he was "seriously skeptical" that Pyongyang had tested a hydrogen bomb Wednesday. According to Lankov, North Korea would have needed to divert a large amount of scarce funds to construct such a device, saying it would have been "mission overkill."
"I believe it did not have the 'signature' of a Hydrogen bomb," said Lankov, who added that he had "absolutely no doubt" the blast was an atomic test, the fourth carried out since 2006 in definance of international and United Nations sanctions.
Late Wednesday, South Korean lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo told the Associated Press that the country's National Intelligence Service had expressed in a private briefing that they believed North Korea had tested an atomic bomb, not a hydrogen bomb.
According to Lee, intelligence officials said that an estimated explosive yield of six kilotons and a magnitude-4.8 earthquake were detected Wednesday, a smaller blast than the estimated explosive yield of 7.9 kilotons and magnitude-4.9 quake that were reported after a February 2013 nuclear test by North Korea, and only a fraction of a typical successful hydrogen bomb test's explosive yield of hundreds of kilotons.
Lee says the agency told him that even a failed hydrogen bomb detonation typically yields tens of kilotons.

'US, Israel should ensure Iran not involved in N. Korean nuclear program'

After North Korea announced on Wednesday that it had successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen nuclear bomb, National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz linked the test to Israel's suspicions regarding the Iranian nuclear program.
"The test reminds us all that the most important mission is to prevent a similar thing from taking place in Iran: a nuclear agreement first and nuclear weapons later."
Steinitz said that North Korea does not only threaten nations in the Far East, noting that in the past it had transferred nuclear technology to Syria and apparently to Iran as well.
"Israel and the US should increase intelligence sharing in order to ensure that Iran is not breaching its nuclear agreement through involvement in North Korea's nuclear project," Steinitz said.
In July of last year world powers adopted a final, comprehensive agreement with Iran that will govern its nuclear program for over a decade.
In 1994, North Korea signed a nuclear agreement with the US, under the administration of former US president Bill Clinton. He said at the time that the deal meant "North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.”
Clinton said that the “United States and international inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its commitments. Only as it does so will North Korea fully join the community of nations."
Twelve years later, in 2006, North Korea detonated its first underground nuclear explosion.

Daniel Pipes: Two Things That Could Undo the Islamist Movement

But weaknesses within, especially squabbling and disapproval, could undo the Islamist movement.
Infighting became vicious in 2013, when Islamists abruptly stopped their prior pattern of cooperation among themselves and instead began internecine fighting. Yes, the Islamist movement as a whole shares similar goals, but it also contains different intellectuals, groups, and parties with variant ethnic affiliations, tactics, and ideologies.
Its internal divisions have spread fast and far. These include Sunnis vs. Shiites, notably in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen; monarchists vs. republicans, notably in Saudi Arabia; non-violent vs. violent types, notably in Egypt; modernizers vs. medieval revivalists, notably in Tunisia; and plain old personal differences, notably in Turkey. These divisions obstruct the movement by turning its guns inward.
The dynamic here is ancient: As Islamists approach power, they fight amongst themselves for dominance. Differences that hardly mattered when in the wilderness take on great importance as the stakes get higher. In Turkey, for example, the politician Erdoğan and the religious leader Fethullah Gülen cooperated until they dispatched their common enemy, the military, from politics, when they turned against each other.
Unpopularity, the second problem, may be the biggest peril for the movement. As populations experience Islamist rule first hand, they reject it. It's one thing to believe in the abstract about the benefits of Islamic law and quite another to suffer its deprivations, ranging from the Islamic State's totalitarian horrors to the comparatively benign emerging dictatorship in Turkey.
As populations experience Islamist rule first hand, they reject it.
Signs of this discontent include the large majorities of Iranians who reject the Islamic Republic, the wave of exiles out of Somalia, and the massive Egyptian demonstrations of 2013 protesting a single year of the Muslim Brotherhood in power. As with fascist and communist rule, Islamist sovereignty often leads to people voting with their feet.

Isi Leibler: Out-of-the-box thinking needed to combat terrorism

Of course, the greatest and most effective deterrent is to reintroduce targeted assassinations, which will make the leaders think twice before indulging in terrorist acts. Such action is also likely to impact on the PA and oblige it to temper its current incitement.
These suggestions are complex and can lead to other problems. But Israelis can take pride in the fact that they are capable of creative, outside-the-box solutions and have frequently adopted unconventional methods that proved successful.
The status quo is unacceptable and in the absence of remedial action it is likely to worsen.
The government must determine a strategy and convey the message unequivocally to Hamas. Now may be the best time to bite the bullet. That Iran and Hezbollah are currently engaged in a bitter battle in Syria makes it less likely that, in the event of war with Hamas, we would face a two-front confrontation The international community, which is not unduly friendly toward Israel, will presumably again call for restraint and proportionality and Israel will still be condemned in the majority of international forums.
But today, with the fear being generated by Islamic State terrorism around the world, many countries – even as they publicly join the inevitable chorus of condemnation – are likely to have a greater understanding of our determination to protect our citizens from brutal terrorist attacks than in the past.

The most popular book in UN's library

The UN Library tweeted this:

The most popular book among UN diplomats was about how those diplomats and their bosses can be held immune from prosecution for their crimes.

There are two types of such immunity. Functional immunity, immunity ratione materiae, says that any person who in performing an act of state commits a criminal offence is immune from prosecution. The other is personal immunity, or immunity ratione personae, which confers immunity on people holding a particular office - usually diplomats stationed abroad and their families - from the civil, criminal, and administrative jurisdiction.

So when UN diplomats receive, say, parking tickets from New York cops, they can tear them up without fear.

Oh, and they can also own slaves - and even use them as sex slaves - without worrying that they might end up in jail.

Hey - its the law.

Good to know that these public servants are so interested in learning more about international law.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

In 2013, UNRWA declared "Arab Idol" winner Mohammed Assaf to be its "Youth Ambassador" where he would "promote peace, security and other universal values."

Since then he has released music videos and sent out messages on social media that extolled Palestinian terror and violence.

UNRWA, which claims that it is dedicated to neutrality and peace, responded to Assaf's support of violence and widespread criticism of Assaf with a strong statement: it extended his contract as Youth Ambassador so he can continue to spout his hate.

Assaf is doing exactly that:

Mohammed Assaf, the Palestinian winner of Arab Idol was answering questions from fans in a skype phone-in when he received comment from an Israeli caller.

"You should come to Israel...you have Israeli blood," the fan said.

Assaf did not hold back in his response.

"I spit on you and Israel," the singer replied, before returning to answer other fans' questions.

"I don't want to talk about this issue too much. The person who said that wanted to provoke me and it's known that the issue of Palestine and the Palestinian people is one of my top priorities," Assaf told The New Arab.

"At the end of the day, any artist could be subject to a similar incident, however what happened with me is a isolated incident that will no affect my relationship with my fans."

Here's video of the incident:

Well, asking Assaf to visit Israel and saying that he has Israeli blood is obviously a huge insult to any self-respecting UN representative. How can anyone fault him for responding to such a provocation?

Certainly UNRWA doesn't.

Assaf also recently addressed the incitement in his videos, saying "Israeli journalists write about me in the media and accuse me of inciting, they tried to ban my song on YouTube, but I consider this the price we pay because we sing for the homeland and believe the Palestinian National mission."

By the way, before Assaf became famous, he was harassed and arrested by Hamas over 20 times in Gaza in order to discourage his singing career. Apparently, Assaf and Hamas have reached a tacit agreement that what he is doing now is quite acceptable to the terror group.

It certainly is to UNRWA.

(h/t Bob Knot)

On Tuesday, a group of Palestinian "religious and national leaders" launched a new campaign called "Jerusalem is the Capital of the World" using the slogan "Jerusalem is united and steadfast for Muslims and Christians alike."

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the Supreme Islamic Council, said in his speech that this year should be a year of solidarity with the city of Jerusalem, stressing Muslim and Christian support for the city based on justice, love and tolerance, and against injustice, oppression and aggression.

Sabri, a former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem appointed by Yassir Arafat, has expressed his desire for justice, love and tolerance before, by stating, "Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer. Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity. It is not my fault if Hitler hated Jews, indeed they were hated a little everywhere. Instead, it is necessary to denounce the unjust occupation endured by my people."

Sabri has also stated in 2005, "Anyone who studies The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and specifically the Talmud will discover that one of the goals of these Protocols is to cause confusion in the world and to undermine security throughout the world."

Another speaker at the conference was Bishop Atallah Hanna who said "We call for solidarity with the city of Al Quds, the city of love and peace" and he urged all Arabs - Muslims and Christians - to work to liberate the city from its "occupier." He called for solidarity with all the oppressed in the world, although he apparently doesn't consider Jews who are in danger of being stabbed to death by random Arabs in Jerusalem to be among them.

But the speakers didn't completely ignore the topic of Jews and Jerusalem.

Hatem Abdel Qader, who is in charge of the Jerusalem portfolio for the Fatah movement said: "There is no value for Arabs and Muslims without the city of Jerusalem. The Arab and Muslim worlds are witnessing an Israeli attack that is unprecedented, and the occupation authorities are seeking to convert it into a religious capital for all Jews of the world."

See? Jews were mentioned!

01/05 Links Pt2: Let's boycott dictatorships, not Israel; Doctors Without Borders’ Anti-Israel Crusade

From Ian:

The Tragic Failure of the Arab World, and Why It's Bad for Israel

The 21st century is becoming increasingly characterized by Arab states coming apart at the seams or even completely crumbling, while jihadists are gaining footholds throughout Arab lands.
To compete with more developed nations, Arabs needed to address four challenges:
1. To create sovereign states with functioning national institutions that depend upon cooperative citizens.
2. To develop the capacity to produce technology, which would secure them a competitive position in the world economy.
3. To handle Islam in a way that would instill values to bring society together - like common identity and solidarity - but also neutralize the violent elements that look to restore the ways of the past.
4. To shake off the neocolonialist influence and involvement of superpowers, and act independently in the international arena.
In the West, the thinking tends to be that the toppling of an authoritarian regime might lead to the establishment of a democracy. However, bitter experience has shown that overthrowing the rulers prompts the whole system to collapse, and then the alternative is chaos. It turned out that while it's possible to topple a dictator, the proper foundations for fostering democracy in the aftermath - both conceptually and institutionally - were lacking.
The dizzying growth of the global economy is based primarily on knowledge. In most Arab countries, the level of scientific and technological know-how does not meet the levels required to support advanced, innovative means of production. Knowledge in the Arab world is not up to par because their schools and universities place too great an emphasis on memorization and rote learning.
In 2000, Islamist groups were small, underground factions with limited capabilities; by 2015, they had become large forces with military capabilities and cutting-edge weaponry, and were firmly established throughout Arab lands. The last 15 years have seen a series of mega-terrorist attacks throughout the world. During the last five years alone, there has been a stark increase in the number of casualties from Islamic terrorism.

Analysis: Doctors Without Borders’ Anti-Israel Crusade

The international medical organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF-Doctors Without Borders) prides itself on its neutrality, claiming to provide emergency assistance to people around the world regardless of their “race, religion, gender or political affiliation.” In practice, however, MSF consistently abuses its status as a humanitarian organization to launch venomous anti-Israel political campaigns. These attacks are entirely divorced from medical and health related issues, raising questions as to what its priorities and goals are.
The most recent manifestation of this phenomenon can be credited to MSF-France. The French branch of the organization recently launched an exhibition titled “In Between Wars,” serving as a mouthpiece for Palestinian propaganda. In it, MSF parrots the “Nakba” narrative that views the founding of the State of Israel as a catastrophe, thus delegitimizing the very existence of the Jewish state. Moreover, MSF romanticizes Palestinian violence by referring to images of “armed soldiers face[ing] young stone throwers or Molotov cocktails” as “icons symbolizing the struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation.”
Similarly, the exhibition portrays the living room of Palestinian homes as a place to pay tribute to “martyrs”—a term that whitewashes the murderous terror attacks many carried out against innocent civilians.
In response, Roger Cukierman, head of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, condemned the display as “an apology for terrorism…that could inflame antisemitic violence.”

HRC Op-Ed Published in Kingston Whig-Standard: “Deir Yassin ‘Misunderstood’”

In war, the saying goes, the first casualty is the truth. Referring to the battle to capture Deir Yassin during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, Louis Delvoie, a fellow in the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University, claimed in a recent column (“Terrorists and their causes,” Dec. 12) that Jewish militias committed “one of the most murderous terrorist attacks in the history of the modern Middle East” by intentionally killing “some 250 unarmed civilians, men, women and children, and threw their bodies into a well.” Importantly, there’s no evidence to confirm the veracity of Delvoie’s allegations.
Respected Middle East historian Mitchell Bard has observed that Deir Yassin “remains one of the most infamous, yet misunderstood, incidents in the history of Israel. During the battle, launched by the Irgun, approximately 100 Arabs were killed.”
As Steven Plaut, professor at the Graduate School of the Business Administration at the University of Haifa, noted: “Deir Yassin was a not-at-all-innocent Arab village sitting near the only road into Jerusalem in 1948. In the previous December, the UN had voted to partition what was left of Mandatory Palestine into two states, one a Jewish state and the other an Arab state to be named Palestine, of approximately equal sizes. The Jews of Israel accepted the plan, while the Arab states and the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected it. Had they accepted it, a Palestinian state would have arisen peacefully in 1948. In response to the UN resolution, Arabs launched attacks against Jews everywhere in the country and in particular placed the city of Jerusalem under siege. The Jewish population of Jerusalem was quite literally starving. The only road into the city passed through the area of Deir Yassin, and the Arab militiamen in the town were stopping all convoys from passing through.”
Israel’s path towards statehood, independence and the Jewish people’s right to self-determination was always hoped to be procured through diplomacy, not war. Israel, contrary to Delvoie’s assertions, did not “resort to terrorism in the fight for the creation” of the Jewish state.

Today's examples of Israel Derangement Syndrome

From Tasnim News Agency:

An American human rights activist believes Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was aimed at guaranteeing Israel’s security and Western economic plans in the region.

“As with Sheikh Zakzaky in Nigeria, Sheikh Nimr campaigned against the Saudi Wahhabi distortion of Islam and engineered division of the Muslim world along sectarian lines that did not exist prior to the Saudi propaganda, inflamed and fuelled by the West intent on partitioning the region to best serve Israel's security and Western economic and resource agendas,” Vanessa Beeley, with Syrian Solidarity Movement, told Tasnim on Monday.

A brief look at Beeley's Facebook and Twitter pages shows that she really loves these sorts of conspiracy theories.

For example, the CIA and Mossad are behind HRW and Amnesty:

And some group called the White Helmets (which may be this group of apparent Syrian search and rescue members) are highly connected to everyone:

It's in a picture so it must be true!

Beeley is joined in her pro-Iran, anti Sunni Israel-deranged rhetoric by a Shiite group in Kashmir:

A rally was taken out in Budgam town Monday which culminated in Imam Bara where pro-Islam, pro-Muslim unity, anti-Israel and anti-Saudi slogans were shouted. The rally was led by MLA Budgam and opposition National Conference leader, Aga Syed Rohullah.

"The imperialistic powers and Zionist lobbies are not only taking our advantage but are making every attempt to inflame this fire so that the Muslims get eliminated within. The entire Ummah has caught up in such a dark tunnel where no evidence of any light is seen," veteran Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani said.

There's always an Israeli angle.

(h/t Yenta)

“Europe needs more inward migration, even though we don’t think we do – we’re an ageing, and shrinking, population. Somehow, peace will return to Syria, and it will be a just peace. Isis will, in the end, collapse. Europe will learn to welcome its refugees, and the land will be tilled again, and crops will grow, and the hungry will be fed and the poor will be lifted up.” So blogged London-based Canon Giles Goddard (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/6974) an Anglican vicar critical of the conservative Evangelical wing of the Church of England.

And again (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/1541) ‘Yesterday I was in France, and came back through the Eurotunnel terminal from Calais… I was shocked … by how different the terminal is from when I was last there a year ago. High fences topped with barbed wire are now all round the site, and it feels as if you are entering a fortress when you drive through to board the train… I remind you that we are making a collection for those in Calais this Sunday: Tricia says "we are asking specifically for men’s things: jeans, jumpers, training shoes, Bibles, games (scrabble, chess), toiletries etc., but I am sure a few women’s and children’s things wouldn’t go amiss" so do bring anything you have to church.’

This is the same well-meaning but naïve clergyman who earlier in the year that’s just ended caused uproar in the Church of England by contravening canon law with a full Muslim prayer service (an idiosyncratic, unrepresentative one at that: http://anglicanmainstream.org/inclusive-mosque-meets-to-pray-in-waterloo-church/ ) in his church and during proceedings asked his congregation to praise “the God that we love, Allah”. His pronouncements regarding the “refugees” ignore what is effectively an Islamic invasion of the European continent and a menace to Judeo-Christian values, and he appears to disregard the fact that according to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees an “asylum seeker” should apply for sanctuary in the first “safe country” he/she arrives in; manifestly, the hordes of mainly young males milling around Calais attempting to smuggle themselves into Britain have not complied with that expectation. The fact that they are young and male, with all that implies for the demographic future of Europe should ring alarm bells. As for those Bibles so earnestly solicited, I’d hazard a guess that there are unlikely to be many grateful takers.

In his admirably lucid and much-recommended book The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom, the Australian scholar of Islam Dr Mark Durie, himself an Anglican clergyman, notes that “Classical Islamic law did not allow non-Muslims who lived in an Islamic state to gain a deep understanding of Islam … Today there can be considerable pressure upon non-Muslims not to investigate the primary sources of Islam for themselves, but to refer all their questions about Islam to a Muslim expert. Interfaith dialogue is an increasingly important forum for exploring Islam in Western countries, and these forums tend to follow principles of mutual respect, listening attentively to the other party and accepting their interpretations of their own faith. While this is a common-sense approach to sustaining productive and mutually satisfying relationships between people, it does however tend to have the same impact as traditional Sharia restrictions, inhibiting non-Muslims from studying about [sic] Islam for themselves … One very good reason why Christians should study Islam for themselves is that Islam defines its spiritual identity, not merely in terms of Muslims’ standing before Allah, but in opposition and contrast to Jews and Christians. This self-definition includes a deep rejection of Christianity and Judaism. It is a sad fact that incitement against non-Muslims, and specifically followers of Biblical faiths, is an integral part of Islam, being hard-wired into the Quran and Sunna.”

Such knowledge would empower non-Muslim congregations when listening to addresses like this at Canon Goddard’s church (http://stjohnswaterloo.org/blog/1516) and this ill-conceived fiasco (http://jewsdownunder.com/2014/06/21/melbourne-jewish-temples-interfaith-deception/) at Australia’s largest Progressive Jewish synagogue, for example.

Back to the “refugee” issue. It might be natural for Jews, mindful of their own tragic history, to side with people fleeing persecution. As a perusal of the Jewish Chronicle shows, among the British Jews vocally championing the argument that Britain should strive strenuously to accommodate those displaced by the current upheaval in the Middle East are Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Sir Mick Davis, who heads the (unelected) Jewish Leadership Council. But for every genuine refugee family there are single males, mainly young ones, trying to take advantage of porous borders for their own ends.

An article every bit as naïve as Canon Goddard’s, and disturbingly tendentious, appeared a few months ago in Britain’s odious Israel-baiting Guardian newspaper (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jewish-people-calais-migrants-kindertransport-children-nazis). Its author, Rabbi Laura Janner Klausner, daughter of a Labour life peer, did not speak for all Jews, though she gave the impression she did: ‘For the Jewish people, for thousands of years a dispersed nation without guaranteed safety, the sight of the Calais “jungle” camp on our doorstep is especially painful. We remember with gratitude the great deeds of the Kindertransport, and with hurt the rejection we have also known. What is the Jewish response to hearing that thousands are living in squalor just a few miles away? When we look across the English Channel, we see ourselves.’

No, Laura, not so; rather, some of us know a ruse and a threat when we see one. The present situation at Calais, where young economic migrants determined to get to Britain cluster and try to hide aboard cross-Channel transport, is not analogous to the plight of Jews desperate to escape the Reich. Nor will there be any supportable analogy between them and those refugees if and when they manage to penetrate Britain’s coasts. We align ourselves with the welfare of the British Isles.

As Daniel Greenfield observes (http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261127/lefts-muslim-replacement-theology-jews-daniel-greenfield) there’s grave danger in too nice a naïveté:

"Muslims are the new Jews. You can find this offensive claim repeated everywhere in the media. The Jews, a small ethnic minority of millions that was stateless for thousands of years, are a terrible analogy for a global Muslim population of 1.6 billion and around 50 countries that do not comprise a single ethnicity or race… The only thing the Muslims and the Jews have ever had in common is that the former conquered, persecuted and enslaved the latter. Any religious similarities are the product of Muslim cultural appropriation of Jewish beliefs and any cultural similarities are the result of Muslim colonization... In this twisted historical revisionism, the Jews, a beleaguered minority hanging on to a country slightly bigger than Fiji, who have spent the last 40 years cutting pieces off their small slice of the world to hand over to the region’s massive Muslim majority in the hopes of being left alone, are the new Nazis... The constant claims that Muslims are the new Jews carry with them a whiff of progressive replacement theology. The old Jews have been found wanting. Setting up a country and defending it against Muslim terrorism made them bad victims. The Muslims are superior replacement victims. They have the right to Israel and to Jewish history...."

Naïve well-meaning Jews, and Christians, would do well to heed his words.

01/05 Links Pt1: PA and Fatah: Israel steals organs of dead terrorists; Fight Ideology — Not Terrorism

From Ian:

PMW: PA and Fatah: Israel steals organs of dead terrorists

As the Palestinian wave of terror attacks against Israelis continues and more terrorists are killed while attempting to murder Israelis, the PA and Fatah have revived an old libel, often documented by Palestinian Media Watch, which claims that Israel steals body parts from the dead terrorists before handing them over to the PA.
Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Muhaisen stated on PA TV that Israel's takes whatever organs it needs:
Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Muhaisen: "There are Israeli testimonies acknowledging that organs are being taken from the bodies of young Martyrs. While the body is with the Israelis, organs are taken according to Israel's needs, and afterwards they hand over the body [to the PA] with conditions... including not allowing the body to be autopsied, in order to cover it up."[Official PA TV, Dec. 27, 2015]
The Palestinian ambassador to Bahrain Khaled Aref added to the allegations, saying Israel trades in the stolen organs: Israel "steals the Martyrs' organs, and sells them," he said. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 17, 2015]

Fatah official: Israel steals organs from “Martyrs” and forbids Palestinians to do autopsies

Caroline Glick: The return of the rule of law

Last October, as the Palestinians began their latest round of terrorist war against Israel, lawmakers from the Joint Arab List participated in mass anti-Israel rallies in major Arab towns. One such rally in Nazareth in mid-October attracted some 2,500 participants. After it ended, some demonstrators started throwing rocks at Jews.
The next day, MK Ayman Odeh, who heads the Joint Arab List stood on a street in Nazareth and gave a live interview to Channel 2 news.
Just as the camera began filming, Nazareth Mayor Ali Salam drove down the street. Seeing Odeh, Salam stopped his car and began bellowing, “Get out of here! Enough of your interviews. Go ruin things somewhere else!” Odeh tried lamely to get the camera to stop filming. But Salam continued shouting.
“You guys ruined the city. I’m the mayor… there wasn’t even one Jew here today. Not even one! What are you being interviewed about? What are you doing to us?... You had a march, you guys torched the world. Shut up! Leave! Move it!” Salam’s outburst did not come out of nowhere. He was voicing the frustration that most Israeli Arabs feel towards their Knesset representatives who spend far more time demonizing Israel than advancing the interests of Arab Israelis inside of Israel.
According to the latest detailed survey of Arab Israelis published in November by Prof. Sami Smooha, 60 percent of Israeli Arabs do not trust their representatives in the Knesset. Two thirds of Israeli Arabs say that their Knesset representatives are not advancing their interests.
A full 80% of Israeli Arabs believe that it is the job of the Arab members of Knesset to advance their communal interests rather than concentrate on political war against Israel.

Jews and Palestinians — The difference between us and them

The survey, which was carried out by Dr. Khalil Shikaki among a random sampling of some 1,270 Palestinians adults, firmly puts to rest the assertion that only a small fraction of our foes support violence and terrorism against innocent civilians.
The numbers speak for themselves: A whopping 67 percent of Palestinians – two out of every three! – support stabbing attacks against Israelis.
Think about that for a moment. It means that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians see absolutely nothing wrong with the act of picking up a knife and plunging it into another human being simply because he or she is an Israeli Jew.
This is not a matter of moral cowardice, it is a collective descent into depravity.
Of course, every society has its fringes, those who embrace immoral or destructive behavior. But when such immorality becomes the norm, when tormenting the innocent is considered a socially acceptable path, then how can one possibly even consider making peace with such people? The study also revealed that 60% of Palestinians support a return to an armed intifada and that 66% believe that such a violent uprising would “serve Palestinian national interests.”
This data indicates the extent to which carnage and bloodshed are viewed as being legitimate tools of political expression by Palestinian society.

NYT article on Haifa still employs historical revisionism

The New York Times published a story by Diaa Hadid about how liberal Arabs are thriving in Haifa, able to live lifestyles that are literally impossible for Arabs anywhere else in the region.
“If you are in an Arab neighborhood, you have a community. If you live in a Jewish neighborhood, you are a stranger, and that gives you freedom as an Arab woman,” said Fidaa Hammoud, 32. “There are many de facto couples, and older women living alone without having to hear gossip.”

Ms. Hammoud moved to Haifa in 2011 after studying speech therapy for four years in Barcelona, Spain. She and her partner live together in a Jewish neighborhood where they run a Palestinian cafe called Rai. “I couldn’t do this anywhere else,” she said.

Already the haters are upset because the article is not 100% anti-Israel. They are saying that this article is "pinkwashing" and the reporter "censored" most of the interviews with one person, which is what reporters do with nearly every interview they ever make.

Whatever.

But the article includes this paragraph:

For some, the blossoming Palestinian scene in Haifa is reminiscent of the city during British rule, when a lively Arab cultural life flourished. Much of that ended in 1948 with the war in which Israel was established, when Arabs fled, or were forced to leave, their homes in many cities, including in Haifa, said Mustafa Kabha, a lecturer in Palestinian history at the Open University of Israel.

As far as I know, no Arabs were forced to leave Haifa in 1948. But Arab leaders explicitly instructed Haifa's Arabs to leave while Jewish leaders pleaded for them to stay.

As historian Benny Morris has written:

It is true, as Erskine Childers pointed out long ago, that there were no Arab radio broadcasts urging the Arabs to flee en masse; indeed, there were broadcasts by several Arab radio stations urging them to stay put. But, on the local level, in dozens of localities around Palestine, Arab leaders advised or ordered the evacuation of women and children or whole communities, as occurred in Haifa in late April, 1948. And Haifa's Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levy, did, on April 22nd, plead with them to stay, to no avail.

Tens of thousands of Haifa Arabs voluntarily left because their leaders refused to abide by the demands of a truce after the fighting. From the Palestine Post, April 23, 1948:

Note the terms that Arab leaders felt were so onerous. essentially, they said that if they don't have the right to kill Jews, they would rather force their entire community to leave.

And here is a remarkable article from the Palestine Post from May 9, 1948, that describes the life of a Haifa Arab family that decided to stay despite the pressure:

The NYT piece had one other interesting tidbit:

Haifa in the 1930s and ’40s, he said, “had clubs, cafes, hotels, theaters and newspapers” for Arabs, including the Sham Cafe, where Syrian and Lebanese workers met, and the Port Cafe, for workers from the city’s busy port.

The descendants of those "Syrian and Lebanese workers" are now considered "Palestinian refugees" according to UNRWA's definition: “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict” - and their descendants.

Thousands of the Arabs who fled British Mandate Palestine at the beginning of the war in December 1947 fled precisely because they were from elsewhere, especially the Lebanese but also Egyptians and Syrians. But if they were working in a Haifa port, for example, then they are now part of the pseudo-nation of "Palestinians."

(h/t Ahron Shapiro)

PLO delegate to US: Israel using "new type of lethal bullets"

From the Twitter account of Maen Areikat, PLO delegate to the US:

Oooh, a new type of lethal bullets! Clearly regular bullets aren't lethal enough for the bloodthirsty Zionists. Are they made out of depleted uranium? Or sprinkled with magic Zionist fairy dust? Perhaps coated in lard, causing extra spiritual pain?

Reuters' Dan Williams acted the way a reporter should:

Please expand on your method for determining that 85% figure. Also, what is the new ammunition to which you refer? https://t.co/zKnSF93mct
— Dan Williams (@DanWilliams) January 4, 2016

Areikat responded:

@DanWilliams : I will be more than happy to provide that information to you shortly. Thanks
— Amb Maen Areikat (@Amb_Areikat) January 4, 2016

This was yesterday. We are all still waiting for the information.

Now, if Areikat fails to respond, or responds with similar gibberish, will Dan Williams write the story about how PLO officials make things up? I would be very surprised if Reuters publishes something like this, even if Williams did write it up.

(h/t Ian)

Facebook takes down anti-Palestinian page, allows IDENTICAL anti-Jewish page

A must see video of the The Great Facebook Experiment, by Shurat HaDin.

The "Stop Israelis" page is still up although it appears that the specific post against Jews has been taken down. But that happened after this was publicized.

(h/t Yenta)

01/04 Links Pt2: Defending Israel to Diaspora Jews at Limmud; The Truth is Not Enough

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: The Middle East’s 30 Years’ War just took a turn for the worse

In January 2014, Douglas Murray explained in The Spectator how relations in the Middle East were becoming increasingly tense. With Saudi Arabia having now cut diplomatic relations with Iran, Douglas’s insight seems prescient.
Syria has fallen apart. Major cities in Iraq have fallen to al-Qa’eda. Egypt may have stabilised slightly after a counter-coup. But Lebanon is starting once again to fragment. Beneath all these facts — beneath all the explosions, exhortations and blood — certain themes are emerging.
Some years ago, before the Arab ‘Spring’ ever sprung, I remember asking one top security official about the region. What, I wondered, was their single biggest fear? The answer was striking and precise: ‘That the region will clarify.’ That is a fear which now appears to be coming true.
The Middle East is not simply falling apart. It is taking a different shape, along very clear lines — far older ones than those the western powers rudely imposed on the region nearly a century ago. Across the whole continent those borders are in the process of cracking and breaking. But while that happens the region’s two most ambitious centres of power — the house of Saud and the Ayatollahs in Iran — find themselves fighting each other not just for influence but even, perhaps, for survival.
The way in which what is going on in the Middle East has become a religious war has long been obvious. Just take this radio exchange, caught at the ground level earlier this month, between two foreign fighters in Syria, the first from al-Qa’eda’s Islamic State in Iraq and Syria [ISIS], the second from the Free Syrian army [FSA]. ‘You apostate infidels,’ says the first. ‘We’ve declared you to be “apostates”, you heretics. You don’t know Allah or His Prophet, you creature. What kind of Islam do you follow?’ To which the FSA fighter responds, ‘Why did you come here? Go fight Israel, brother.’ Only to be told, ‘Fighting apostates like you people takes precedence over fighting the Jews and the Christians. All imams concur on that.’

Honest Reporting: The Truth is Not Enough

First, and most importantly, we must turn uninterested parties into interested parties. Public education on all aspects of Israel, including those utterly unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is one of the best ways to foster emotional and intellectual connections to Israel. Even better, BDS protests against such efforts to raise awareness about Israel are utterly ineffective. First, they reveal how very petulant the BDS movement is. For example, at Columbia University, where I am a student, pro-boycott groups flyered the campus in protest of an effort to raise awareness of Israel’s humanitarian efforts abroad. Even an uninterested and uneducated party can see how utterly ridiculous such “protests” are. Second, the response of anyone intrigued by public debate or “controversy” over Israel is to Google “Israel.” Here, the truth once more becomes important, and HonestReporting’s efforts pay the greatest dividends. Our hypothetical Googler will undoubtedly stumble across many different articles on Israel, and it is crucial that he or she finds facts, not bias.
Of course, there are some people who will never be reached by educational efforts, but they too can be swayed. Since we can’t bring Israel to the foreground for these people, we must instead bring it into the background, to make it so normal and pedestrian that boycotting or demonizing it becomes outlandish, rather than the default position. Put another way, no store owner would give the time of day to anyone asking for a boycott of say, Portuguese products, no matter how loud the boycotters were. Uninterested parties must see Israel as just a normal highly-developed Western country, before BDS starts its aggressive demonization efforts. BDS wants to make Israel “special;” we must work to keep Israel normal. This is a subtle and difficult effort, which can range from ensuring the widespread availability of products with the “Made in Israel” label, to things as subtle as making sure Hebrew, or an Israeli flag, is featured in any display of flags or languages. As silly and odd as it may sound, this sort of background messaging is perhaps the only way to keep uninterested parties from being swayed by loud lies.
Neither of these two efforts detracts from the fact that, as mentioned before, the truth about Israel is incredibly important. Honesty, accuracy, and fairness in discussions about Israel are essential in protecting the country from the pernicious and persistent efforts to slander and destroy its image, and without the truth, no amount of effort can protect Israel from its enemies. Equally, however, the truth on its own is not enough in a world that largely doesn’t care about a tiny country with a small population. Only by combining the truth with education and normalization can friends of Israel arrest the tide of demonization and slander against the Jewish state.

Defending Israel to Diaspora Jews at Limmud

I spent the last days of 2015 meeting with British Jews in Birmingham. Along with many presenters from different countries and professional fields, I had been invited to participate in a Limmud conference, a multi-annual — and by now multi-continental — Jewish happening.
The topics on my agenda were ostensibly varied: the viability of a two-state solution; flaws in the Israeli political system; Israel-US relations in the wake of the Iran deal; the cause and effect of the knife intifada; and whether antisemitism is sufficient impetus for immigration to Israel. Still, they all came down to basically the same debate — the extent of Israeli culpability in local and global affairs.
The Paris attacks were still fresh in everyone’s mind, and the heightened security in other European capitals was so palpable that it made Israel’s pale in comparison — as reports on the cancellation of public New Year’s Eve celebrations indicated. Nevertheless, the atmosphere at Limmud was upbeat. Attendees spent good money to live in not-so-luxurious conditions at a hotel repurposed to house the dozens of simultaneous lectures, classes, singles’ events and entertainment for both adults and children. This was a crowd of some 2,500 Jews who could have spent the week after Christmas doing anything they chose. And they opted to spend it reinforcing their sense of community and dedication. Impressive doesn’t begin to describe it.
So far so good. Except for the sad specific reason that I and a handful of like-minded people from Israel and abroad were brought there by one of the members of the organizing committee: to serve as the only voice not singing in the predominantly left-wing choir. (h/t Jewess)

B'Tselem volunteers seem to be somewhat less than credible

Commenter Bob Knot looked a little deeper into my story this morning about a Hebron girl who tripped and hurt her mouth, and her father who claimed that she was being chased by a Jewish settler who did nothing to her after she tripped.

He discovered that the father was a B'Tselem volunteer. Here he is with a B'Tselem issued camera, and he has provided B'Tselem with many stories of Hebron.

On Friday, I reported about a B'Tselem volunteer who made wild claims about how Israelis are humiliating Palestinians at checkpoints, but the accompanying video shows no such abuse.

A year ago we showed how a B'Tselem worker who made up facts about an incident he "witnessed" and was proven to be an avid supporter of violence and terror.

And, of course, in 2014 a B'Tselem worker was caught on video denying the Holocaust.

It sounds like B'Tselem doesn't vet its volunteers to ensure that they adhere to the truth-telling and peace-loving standards of the organization.

Or perhaps B'Tselem actively seeks Israel-hating liars to fill its reports and justify its existence to the EU funders who love to throw money at anything that is anti-Israel.

Here are the best original EoZ posts of 2015, according to commenters (especially AlexandreM.).

As a dry run for the Hasby Awards categories that I will allow people to vote on, here is a poll that you can vote for the best posts.

Vote for your favorite!

feedback surveys

UPDATE: AlexandreM had one other post which he nominated too late for this survey, but which I will post here for posterity:

Time chooses Jerusalem as a top city - despite the desires of the US, UN, EU, Arab League...