Saturday, March 26, 2016

What everyone missed about the "AIPAC Trump kippot" story

A small story from the AIPAC conference last week attracted some major attention.

Haaretz, the New York Post , Politico and Arutz-7 all had the story that originally came from the Washington Free Beacon:

If yarmulke sales are any indication of voter attitudes, Donald Trump was the clear winner at AIPAC on Monday night.

Marc Daniels, a vendor selling campaign logo kippas outside the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday evening, said the “Donald Trump 2016” cap was his most popular item by far.

Daniels said he was “inundated” with requests for the Trump yarmulkes from conference-goers and sold out almost immediately.

“I totally underestimated the degree of support that Jewish people who are attending this event have for Trump,” said Daniels, who runs an online yarmulke shop called Marc’s Garden Jubilee. “I probably had about 50 inquiries for Trump yarmulkes that I could not fulfill.”

Daniels said he sold two or three Ted Cruz yarmulkes and three or four for John Kasich. By 8 p.m. on Monday, the vendor said he only had Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders caps left over, and was finding those tougher to unload.

JNI media concluded:

So, this is probably not scientific, but the yarmulke market has spoken: the Orthodox Jewish vote is committed to Trump. Because, unlike a button or a sticker, a yarmulke requires a special dedication, which means that, as Daniels put it, “If someone is going to buy a yarmulke, you have to assume they support the candidate.”

But there is something that everyone is missing.

Last week was Purim!

A Donald Trump kippah is a perfect thing to wear on Purim, when people look for the funniest costumes and accessories. It is far funnier than a Ted Cruz or even Bernie Sanders yarmulka would be. (I saw someone with a Donald Trump wig on Purim.)

To say that this is proof of Orthodox support for Trump is not to know how to read a calendar.

It is true that American Haredi Jews seem to like Trump, but they are not the type that would ever wear a red kippah (except, again, on Purim) and very few would go to AIPAC. Among modern Orthodox Jews who are likely AIPAC attendees, a Trump kippah would be a perfect, relatively inexpensive last-minute Purim costume.

To give an idea of how outrageous Purim costumes could be, there was brief panic in a Paris synagogue during Purim when someone dressed as a jihadist with a fake Kalashnikov entered and shouted "Allahu Akbar!" The congregants then realized that they know the man and laughed, but it was probably not the smartest idea.

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03/26 Links: The Israel That Arabs Don’t Know; The Lie of Academic Free Speech; Israel ranked 24th in ‘Global Terrorism Index’

From Ian:

The Israel That Arabs Don’t Know

When the Israeli Ministry of Exterior invited me to visit Israel as part of a delegation of European-based Arab journalists and media representatives, I accepted without hesitation. The goal of the invitation was to provide us with an opportunity to freely explore the different dimensions to life inside the state of Israel. Located in the heart of the Middle East and one of the region's central and enduring conflicts, Israel receives a large amount of attention from neighboring peoples curious about the state itself and its management. Although major developments in international communication and accessibility of knowledge have transformed the world into a connected community that now sometimes resembles a small village, Arab media coverage of Israel continues to be characterized by a lack of clarity and misrepresentation, making it difficult for Arab citizens to truly understand the country. The persistent and recurring problems in the West Bank and Gaza are of major concern to many Arabs, but media sources often conflate the State's controversial foreign policy with life inside the the country itself and produce dystopian visions of life inside its borders.
While not an article or analysis, the following is an honest testimony of what I saw during my visit, without influence by any person or institution. I hope to present an alternative perspective from other Arab media outlets that I have found to exaggerate and mischaracterize the realities of Israeli life.

Israel ranked 24th in ‘Global Terrorism Index’

Israel has been placed 24th in a new global terrorism index which ranks 162 of the world’s nations from most affected to least affected by terror.
Based on a 5-year average, the index takes into account such criteria as the number of terrorist incidents endured by a country, how many fatalities were suffered in those attacks, how many injuries were caused and the level of damage to property. It also weights the scores for each nation according to the long-term psychological damage of the attacks.
The list is compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, using information from a global terrorism database at Maryland University, which includes more than 125,000 terrorist incidents.
Israel received an overall score of 6.03 out of 10. Its “GTI indicators” for 2015 included 260 attacks, 20 fatalities, 115 injuries and 290 instances of damage to property.
The United Kingdom ranked at 28th, and the US at 35th.

03/25 Links Pt2: Glick: The consequences of anti-Zionism; Palestinian Campuses "More Hamas than Hamas"

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The consequences of anti-Zionism

Following the ISIS strikes in Brussels, both Israeli and American security experts spoke bitterly of the ineptitude of Belgian security services. It is not that the forces themselves are incompetent. Rather, the experts said, their political leadership refuses to allow them to take the actions necessary to protect their country.
The Belgians, like their European brethren generally, refuse to deal with jihad. Rather than acknowledge and deal forthrightly with the phenomenon, they seek every possible excuse to ignore it.
According to senior government officials, the Belgians are among the most vociferous foes of Israel in the EU. Europe’s obsessive castigation of Israel is a central aspect of their jihad avoidance strategy. If Israel is to blame for everything, then they can save themselves by pouring billions of euros on the PA and by funding Israeli anti-Zionist subversives.
This position is of course irrational. In clinging to it, the Europeans have enabled the jihadist forces arrayed against them to gather and grow.
Consider the July 7, 2005, attacks in London. Shortly after they occurred, British investigators discovered that Muhammad Sidique Khan, who led the British al-Qaida cell that carried out the attacks, was connected to the British jihadists who carried out the 2003 suicide bombing at Mike’s Place pub in Tel Aviv, adjacent to the US Embassy.
The Mike’s Place bombers were also connected with the radical Left, having toured Israel and Gaza with an International Solidarity Movement group before carrying out their attack.
Yet, just as British authorities ignored the significance of the participation of British jihadists in the jihad against Israel 13 years ago, and disregarded the significance of the post-7/7 revelations 11 years ago, so in the intervening years, as jihadist forces grew and spread throughout the continent, rather than shed their hostility toward Israel and stop blaming it for the jihadist Islam, the Europeans expanded their onslaught against the Jewish state.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Campuses "More Hamas than Hamas"

While the anti-Israel activists are busy protesting against Israel on Western campuses, Palestinian students and professors are persecuted by their own Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas governments.
Let us redefine "pro-Palestinian." Instead of bashing Israel, real pro-Palestinians will demand democracy for those they champion, and scream for public freedoms for Palestinians under the PA and Hamas regimes, which have always smashed dissent with an iron fist.
PA security forces systematically target students and academics under various pretexts. Hundreds of students have been rounded up. Many remain in detention without the possibility of seeing a lawyer or a family member.
Palestinians on campuses in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have once again been reminded that they remain as far as ever from achieving a state that would look any different from the other Arab dictatorships in the region. The campus incidents, which have hardly caught the attention of the international media and anti-Israel activists in the West, also expose the media double standard about human rights violations.
In the first case of its kind under the PA, Kadoori University in Tulkarem suspended a student who hugged his fiancée in public.

The Pax Americana Is Dead. Welcome to the Age of the Godfathers.

Under the circumstances, one can expect the use of force and violence to become commonplace in the region—and since, so it seems, the use of chemical weapons in the war in Syria is no longer considered taboo, one can expect greater and greater use of non-conventional weapons. It goes without saying that the effort to acquire nuclear weapons, or at least nuclear capability, will also continue to expand from Iran to other players in the region.
The obvious result of all this is that the Middle East will become a permanently unstable region, subject to frequent convulsions and pervaded with violence and terrorism. It will become a hothouse for radical Islamic ideas and groups that will attract support among the population both within and outside the region.
The shock waves from the crisis in the Middle East have not stopped at the region’s geographical boundaries. Waves of refugees, which will only increase, are knocking on Europe’s gates, while radical Islamic ideology is seeping deeply into Muslim communities all over the world, especially in Europe, and even in the United States. As state frameworks disintegrated and chaos came to prevail in the region, the tide of migration found encouragement and rose sharply, and there is no basis for assuming that it will not continue to rise in the future.
Ironically, America’s withdrawal from playing a role in the Middle East did not save it from being criticized, both within and outside the region, as the main culprit responsible for the present crisis. This stems from the fact that the United States is perceived as the clearest manifestation of the West, and the West is perceived as being guilty of the original sins of imperialism and colonialism, and is therefore seen as the source of the region’s ills. It can be assumed that as the distress and crisis in the region intensify, the resentment of the West and the United States will increase. This being so, the United States is destined to discover what Israel discovered in Lebanon and Gaza: that it is possible to disengage from the Middle East, but the Middle East will not disengage from you.

BDS activist says no one died in 9/11 and other fun facts

From MEMRI:

Indian People in Solidarity with Palestine, an Indian BDS forum, held a two-day convention in New Delhi on August 22-23, 2015. Among the speakers at the convention was Nasser Barakat, a Palestinian-Indian activist and former spokesmen of the General Union of Palestinian Students in India. He said that Israel was created as a pretext, just like the "fabricated" 9/11 attacks. Barakat added that he was not fooled by the Iranian nuclear project, because he knows that Iran is Israel’s biggest ally, and that the Jews are not enemies because they are the Muslims' "key to Heaven." The video was posted on the YouTube account of the Indian People in Solidarity with Palestine.

Following are excerpts:

Nasser Barakat: Why have the (Western powers) really created Israel in Palestine? There's a very simple reason - because they want an excuse. Like they fabricated 9/11 - there is still no proof. There's no proof that Al-Qaeda did that. That building - they are saying that 3,000 people died. Nobody... It was all fabricated.They wanted... George W. Bush wanted to demolish (former Russian PM) Primakov's plan.

[…]

The trio-triangle unity of China, India, and Russia - this disturbed America. It had become a nightmare for her. So America... The Caspian Sea is very rich in oil. Afghanistan is in the heart of this triangle. So they had to fabricate something. They wanted to attack, to justify their actions.

[…]

In 2007, I was sitting with some people in Ashok Hotel. There was a place, a Lebanese restaurant, and one Iranian professor - she is here in India, I guess, but I don't have any contact with her... I told her: This fake issue of your nuclear thing - you can make anybody believe this, but not me. You are the biggest ally of Israel. I have no little doubt. You guys should know one thing: In Iran, we have 1.5 million Sunnis, but we don't have any mosques. In Iran... In the Zionist military, which is so-called Israel, there are 200,000... There are 200,000 Jews, and they are all high authorized leaders, major generals, and all. In Iran, there are only 30,000 Jews, and they have 200 temples, and they practice their ceremonies very freely. Iran is a big fake that America created.

You know that in America, they put any policy in the drawers for 10, 15, 20, or 30 years. When the time comes, the whole scenario is already known to them. So now what they are doing in Syria and in Iraq is all fake. It is just because they know that there is big enmity between Sunnis and Shias, and that these two parts will fight each other, and the fight will go on for no end. Anyway, Palestinians...

Finally, I will end with something very strange. As a Palestinian, I have many Jews - not Israeli - Jews as friends. One of them tells me: "We are enemies, so how are you my friend?" I told him: "You are mistaken. You have never been my enemy." Allah informed me, I am called murabiteen. Because you occupied my land,I am a murabiteen. Murabitun are those who are forcibly living there. Those murabiteen are killed by you, and we will go to the higher grade in Heaven. Had Palestine been free, we would not have been murabiteen. So you are the key to Heaven for me. You have never been my enemy.

If Israel's creation is a myth like 9/11, then there is no reason to destroy Israel any more! A huge BDS victory!

Will BDS leaders in the EU and US demand that Barakat apologize for this bizarre rant that insults the families of thousands of those killed?

Of course not. They have no more regard for the truth than Barakat does. They just lie differently in different countries to target their audiences.

As long as a seething hate for Israel is the main animating motive, anyone is welcome in the tent of BDS liars and charlatans.

(Ian had posted this a couple of days ago.)

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Excerpts from the candidates' speeches on the Middle East at AIPAC.

John Kasich:

Yes, we will rededicate ourselves to reaching the bipartisan national security policy that President Reagan and the Democrats achieved. And you can be assured that my strategic program will include and incorporate Israel as the bedrock partner for our mutual security in the Middle East. Together we will combat violence incited in Israel itself and, of course, its eternal capital, Jerusalem.

Donald Trump:

We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem – and we will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel.

Ted Cruz:

On my very first day in office I will begin the process of moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the once and eternal capital of Israel.

Both Hillary Clinton's speech at AIPAC and Bernie Sanders' speech on his Middle East policy in Utah did not mention the word Jerusalem once.

(h/t Ghilmeini)

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03/25 Links Pt1: No More Hug-A-Terrorist; New video corroborates Hebron soldier’s testimony

From Ian:

No More Hug-A-Terrorist

How hard is it to understand that radical Islamist jihadis have declared war on the West? In simple English this means: they will find you and kill you wherever and whenever they can.
Time and again, many of us concerned Muslims have highlighted the dangers of political Islam/Islamism, which stems from one of three sources: the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi/Salafism or Khomeinism.
The West has been asleep at the wheel, waffling about how to address the issue with "sensitivity." Calling out the truth should never be subject to political correctness.
The world needs to take the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to task and challenge it about what it is doing to stem the tide of violence emanating from the Muslim world. The world needs to understand that ISIS is not trying to set up a Caliphate. OIC is the Caliphate.

Police thwart Jerusalem stabbing attack by teenage girl

Security forces on Friday afternoon thwarted a stabbing attack by a teenage girl in East Jerusalem, a spokesperson for Israel Police said.
The incident occurred at the entrance to the neighborhood of Isawiya, the police said.
The would-be attacker was overpowered and arrested at the scene.
The police said that the girl, coming from the direction of Isawiyah, approached a unit of Border Police officers next to a gas station in the French Hill neighborhood, which abuts Isawiyah. She then pulled out a knife and began to slash at the security forces. The troops overpowered the girl and detained her. There were no injuries.
The incident comes hours after a Palestinian woman was arrested in Hebron on Friday morning when she approached Israeli security forces at a checkpoint near the city’s Tel Rumeida neighborhood carrying a knife.

Soldier who shot disarmed Palestinian attacker facing murder charge

An IDF soldier caught on camera as he shot dead an apparently disarmed Palestinian assailant in the West Bank appeared in Jaffa Military Court on Friday, where it emerged that he is now the suspect in a Military Police murder investigation.
The soldier was arrested Thursday. He was filmed in Hebron shooting the Palestinian shortly after the latter had stabbed another soldier. When the suspect shot him, the Palestinian was already lying on the ground wounded, as a result of troop gunfire during the stabbing. The Palestinian was one of two stabbers who attacked troops near the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron, wounding one of them.
The soldier, from the Kfir Brigade, confirmed to the court Friday that he had carried out the shooting, and repeated his earlier statement that he believed the Palestinian had been wearing an explosive vest and therefore posed an ongoing danger, Army Radio said. He arrived in court after a night of questioning.
The soldier’s lawyer, Eyal Beserglick, also said that his client had acted out of the belief that the Palestinian had an explosive device.
“The investigation revealed that the shooting apparently took place when there were already at least several bullets in the attacker’s body,” Beserglick said. “When there was a real danger of an explosion at the scene, after a stabbing incident, what is expected of an outstanding soldier who sees his friends shy away from the same attacker? Who has a genuine fear for his friends’ lives and only then his own?”

Analysis: Severe military punishment awaits IDF soldier who fired on wounded attacker

Judging by the initial IDF response to the ghastly shooting of a Palestinian knife terrorist who had already been shot and was lying on his back, no longer posing a tangible threat to anyone, the soldier responsible for this grave breach of the rules of engagement will meet severe punishment in the military justice system.
The attacker, who together with a second terrorist repeatedly stabbed a soldier in Hebron on Thursday, had already been shot once – justifiably and in line with regulations – preventing him from continuing his mission to kill IDF personnel.
Then a soldier from the Kfir Brigade, standing a few meters away, as seen in a video released by B’Tselem, cocked his firearm and fired a single shot – without justification – at the downed attacker, in violation of IDF rules.
The disturbing images will doubtlessly circulate quickly on social media.
Well before the IDF received the video, the soldier’s commanders took swift and firm action. They held their own investigation, suspended the soldier on the spot, and delivered him to the Military Police, where he will be questioned.
Military sources stressed that no one in the IDF “waited for this video to emerge,” adding that regional battalion and brigade commanders concluded that a grave breach occurred, and acted.

Major terror attack on Brussels airport was foiled by Israeli security in 1979

Remember when Palestinian attacks on civilians were considered terrorism by the entire civilized world?

There is not much difference between the attacks in Brussels this week and a similar one carried out by Palestinian terrorists in 1979 - except that Israeli security prevented a much larger catastrophe in 1979.

From The Washington Post, April 17, 1979 - right before Easter weekend:

Israeli security agents on hand for the arrival of an El Al flight with 160 passengers opened fire on four Palestinian terrorists here today and prevented what could have been a major bloodbath.

The Israelis shot, then seized one heavily armed terrorist and captured a second. Belgian police joined the shootout but were unable to find another man and woman said to be among the attackers.

The terrorists, armed with fragmentation grenades and Soviet-made submachine gun, hurled two light hand grenades into the crowded terminal from a balcony, wounding what officials said was "about a dozen persons." none seriously. The victims, all Belgians, were taken to hospitals in Brussels, 10 miles from the airport.

Belgian police joined the attack on the terrorists but Defense Minister Paul vanden Boeynants-who rushed to the airport as soon as he heard of the attack-said. "The first shots at the terrorists were fired by El Al security agents who happened to be there."

While police said one or two other terrorists were believed to have escaped, most eyewitnesses mentioned two, one of them a woman.

Authorities said the captured terrorists carried bogus Lebanese passports, and said the El Al plane was their target. They reportedly declared they were from a new group of the Palestine Liberation Organization called "Black March"-for the month when the Egyptian-Israeli treaty was signed.

Belgian state radio said the terrorists belonged to the Marxist radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that broke away from the PLO in 1974.

In Beirut, the PLO disclaimed any knowledge of the attack.

Last month the PLO spoke of reviving the Black September terrorist group to punish Egypt and Israel for signing the peace treaty. The Black September group carried out the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Airport authorities said the usual El Al security precaution of parking its planes a good distance from the terminal foiled the apparent intent to seize the aircraft. El Al planes are considered a choice target by Palestinian terrorists.

Police closed the roads leading to the airport for three hours, stranding hundreds of persons on Easter Monday, a holiday in Belgium.

Police then raided the Brussels residences of well-known PLO sympathizers, informed sources said.

JTA added some color that also could have been written this year:

In Washington, the State Department condemned the terrorist attack but refrained from condemning the PLO.

Nathan Perlmutter, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, sent a telegram to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance saying: “It is ironic and instructive that at a time when a State Department visa has been granted to Shafik AI-Hout, PLO representative in Lebanon, to lecture at U.S. universities, and PLO supporters are stressing the ‘moderate’ role of this murderous group, PLO assassins attack innocent passengers in the Brussels airport lounge. We respectfully request reconsideration of your position on AI-Hout.”

And:

The PLO representative in Brussels Naim Khader, said on a Belgian radio interview last night that his organization had nothing to do with the attack. “We had everything to lose and nothing to gain from this senseless attack against Belgian citizens,” Khader said. He charged that the attack was “an Israeli provocation.”

(h/t Naftali)

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Iranian Ababil drone

Israeli site 0404 reports:

A drone launched by Hezbollah over Israel was able to safely return to its base without being damaged, according to foreign reports.

The UAV was launched this past Wednesday night, hovered for about 14 hours over Israel through Thursday morning "and successfully completed the mission," according to reports.

Jihadist sources say Hezbollah is expected to soon provide more details about its success.

Hezbollah has been deploying, with Iranian assistance, some sophisticated drone capabilities. It has also successfully flown drones over Israel before.

Hezbollah drones have reportedly been used to bomb sites in Syria as well, meaning that they have offensive capabilities (possibly by crashing themselves into the targets.)

If this report is true (which is a very big if,) it would be a very worrying development.

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This is the cover of an Arabic novel called "Daughter of Zion", which just had its sixth printing.

Vetogate in Egypt wrote this:

Recently Kayan Publishing published the seventh (sic) edition of the novel “The Daughter of Zion”, by the author Sha’aban Sharif, after the enormous success of the novel after its first edition. The new edition is found in the bookshops of the publishing house.

From the novel:

“When the evening came, they called a Jewish barber named Suleiman. He was a thin-bodied man, and he had a light beard that showed the veins under his skin. They ordered him to slaughter the (Christian) priest. He took out a shaving razor from his suitcase/bag and began to sharpen it so it would be sharp and he would be able to slaughter him (i.e. the priest) easily, but he (i.e. Suleiman) looked at him (at the priest), who was tied and weakened from all the beatings and torture, and he (i.e. Suleiman) hesitated a little, and the razor trembled in his hand. Daoud screamed in his (Suleiman’s) face: “He is a gentile, his blood is halal (permitted) for us” and he took a sharp knife and fell upon him (i.e. upon the priest) with all his brutality everywhere, he cut off his limbs and pierced his torso. All the priest’s screams and pleas fell on deaf ears. Then his brother Haroun Harari came and completed the slaughter. Then they collected his blood in a large and transparent vial and hurried to take it to Rabbi Basha Yaaqub Al-‘Antabi – who gave them the order to slaughter (the priest) -in the Jews' temple.

(Rabbi Basha Yaaqub Al-‘Antabi) was sitting in a dark room on a large wooden chair that had a soft/smooth cushion, and a large Star of David engraved on it. (Rabbi Basha Yaaqub Al-‘Antabi) wore a large black turban, embroidered with Arab ornaments and a wide and black robe, embroidered with golden fiber thread, and a red silk belt. His long white beard hung down to the middle of his chest. He was sitting and impatiently waiting for the two of them (Daoud and Haroun) with his sunken eyes, because of his need for the blood of the sacrificial victim in order to prepare the fatira of the Purim festival from gentile blood.”

Fatira almost always refers to matzoh, so this author is even more ignorant than usual by saying it is eaten on Purim.

This is the beginning of the book itself. For seven pages it describes in detail the supposed blood libel story of Damascus in 1840. The rest of the book is a political novel that starts in Israel in 2003. It is unclear what this section has to do with the rest of the novel.

Oh, who am I kidding? We all know why this is part of the novel - because the author needs to first set the stage of how evil Jews are.

The author works at the Egyptian Department of Antiquities.

Here is a promotional photo of another edition of the book.

(h/t Shawarma News and Ibn Boutros)

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Use the BDS tools against them! Thank McGraw Hill for withdrawing the textbook with The Map That Lies

The BDS crowd was taken by surprise by how fast McGraw-Hill acted after I reported that one of their textbooks included the famous Map That Lies. McGraw-Hill properly withdrew the book from circulation and said it would destroy all copies of the textbook, offering refunds.

Now they are trying to pressure McGraw-Hill executives to change their minds. The Israel-haters set up a page to automatically write letters to McGraw-Hill executives and to tweet what they've done.

Luckily, that page can also be used to email the executives a thank you for how well they responded to the discovery of lying, anti-Israel propaganda in their textbook,

Click on their page and write a letter of appreciation to McGraw-Hill using the BDSers' own tools.

The chances of McGraw Hill changing their minds is essentially zero, but supporting them in their decision can create positive dividends in the future. And it won't take too many "thank yous" to counter the dozens of insulting anti-Israel letters they are receiving. People like to hear compliments, after all, and McGraw-Hill acted like a company that cares about the truth in their textbooks - a very admirable trait indeed.

So take the three minutes to write the letter and thank them. The BDSers set the page up, the least you can do to thank them would be to use it.

The BDSers have a lot of other letter writing campaigns as well, especially to state legislators who are considering bills to condemn or outlaw boycotts of Israel. Those same tools can be used to counter their lies and tell the legislators the truth. So click away!

(h/t YMedad)

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03/24 Links Pt2: UN approves blacklist of "settlements" companies; UC condemns “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism”

From Ian:

UN approves blacklist of companies profiting from settlements

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday voted in favor of creating a “blacklist” of companies operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, a motion that passed with no countries voting against.
The resolution required UN human rights officials to produce a database of “all business enterprises” that have enabled or profited from the growth of Israeli settlements, Haaretz reported.
The proposal, put forward by the Palestinian Authority and Arab states, included a condemnation of settlements and called on companies not to do business with Israeli settlements.
Its most contested clause was that calling for the formation of the database. While European Union nations opposed the creation of the list, they did not vote against the resolution, electing merely to abstain. It passed with 32 nations votes in favor and 15 abstentions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the outcome of the vote Thursday evening, saying the international body “has turned into an anti-Israel circus, which attacks the only democracy in the Middle East and ignores the blatant violations of Iran, Syria and North Korea.”
The prime minister accused the council of ignoring more urgent issues such as terrorism in order to rebuke the Jewish state.

UN Watch: French role in selecting anti-Israel activist for UN post undermines credibility on peace move

France’s claim to be a fair broker which can move Israelis and Palestinians peace is now being called into question by the actions of its UN envoy in selecting a prominent anti-Israeli activist to investigate “Israel’s violations” for the next six years, a critical post.
A 5-member UN committee, on which the French delegate in Geneva serves by virtue of being named by the Western group, recommended Canadian academic Michael Lynk as one of two candidates that it found to be impartial and objective — this despite his leadership role in pro-Palestinian lobby groups, and his long record of inflammatory statements against Israel.
That a representative of France would join others on an Egyptian-led committee to select such a manifestly partisan candidate — someone who three days after 9/11 blamed the West for provoking the attacks on the World Trade Center — constitutes a travesty of justice and a breach of the world body’s own rules.
Someone who accuses Israel of “Apartheid” and openly seeks to dismantle the Jewish state is neither impartial nor objective.

Israel envoy to UN: International community must disarm Hezbollah

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon sent a letter to the UN Security Council on Wednesday demanding that they condemn the latest threats by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Nasrallah threatened on Monday that if a future war breaks out with Israel, his Shi'ite Lebanese terrorist group will strike all targets in the Jewish state "without any limits."
"If the Israeli army escalates its aggression against Lebanon, Hezbollah will strike all the strategic targets in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the nuclear facilities," Hezbollah-linked TV station Al Manar quoted Nasrallah as saying in a televised interview on Al Mayadeen.
"Hezbollah possesses all the details about the positions of the petrochemical, biological and nuclear facilities across Palestine,” he added.
In his letter to the Security Council, Ambassador Danon made clear Israel will not accept any violation of its sovereignty, and will take all necessary measures to protect its citizens.

From Reuters:

Obama 'Not Hopeful' on Peace: We Can't Force Israel and Palestinians
U.S. president says peace was 'not something I was able to get done,' says one-state solution not realistic in light of mistrust.

...Despite his skepticism about progress anytime soon, Obama reinforced his commitment to that prospect.

"There's been talk about a one-state solution or sort of a divided government. It's hard for me to envision that being stable, there's such deep distrust between the two peoples right now," he said. "And the neighborhood is in such a mess that I continue to believe that a two-state solution is the best way. Now, over time that could evolve."

From his words, his preference is two states at this time because the two sides cannot live together peacefully, not because there is any inherent value in having a state for the Jewish people.

I found the entire context of the remarks. A high schooler who identifies as an Arab-Israeli asked if there wasn't some value in having a bi-national state with, say, and Israeli prime minister and a Palestinian president or vice versa.

Obama says that both sides have their narratives and both sides have a hard time listening to the valid points of the other. This is typical "let's call them equal because it sounds better" thinking. The Israeli media gives plenty of coverage to the Palestinian side of the story, but there is nearly no reciprocation (although some Palestinian newspapers will publish selected Hebrew op-eds translated into Arabic.)

Obama then goes into the demographic issue, with the J-Street talking points. What no one seems to mention is that there is a great deal of daylight between a demographic threat and the Green Line. Israel can remain a democracy, maintain a Jewish majority and annex all of Area C. Maybe they should and tell Obama - hey, you keep talking to us about how terrible the demographic threat is to us and how we cannot remain a democracy (despite the fact that the US has plenty of territory where residents cannot vote in national elections.)

If Area C was Israel's starting point in negotiations, the Palestinians would have a lot more incentive to compromise than when President Obama says that he agrees that the Green Line is the basis for negotiations. Now there is no incentive because the US and EU have declared that the Oslo process to determine borders is really to determine land swaps on either side of the Green Line. (And Israeli politicians haven't helped the cause, either.)

Now the Palestinians don't even have incentive to stop terror attacks, and their polls show that most of them think that terror is the best way to get a state, rather than compromise - which really would get them a state.

But it appears that Obama thinks of even the idea of separate Jewish and Arab states as a temporary measure until the kumbaya moment of both sides realizing that they must live together in peace, where the Jews can peacefully resume their dhimmi status in the Arab world and wait patiently for the next pogrom.

One other part: Obama wants to be the next Jimmy Carter. He ends off saying that after he is no longer president he hopes to continue to impose his naive view of Middle East peace on Israel (he says he will "continue to promote that peaceful dialogue.")

Judging from his words, we know that he will be much more publicly anti-Israel as soon as he leaves office.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

So there was a bloody terrorist attack – two bloody terrorist attacks – in Brussels on Tuesday. Dozens murdered, more injured seriously. The Islamic State took responsibility, and threatened more attacks.

The overwhelming feeling one gets is a combination of depression and boredom. Oh no, not again. Since 9/11, terrorism has been followed immediately by outrage, sometimes even by military action that may or may not be targeted accurately. After a while things go back to normal. But the enemy is never named. And nothing changes. The jihadists regroup and return.

Is anything different today? Will anything be different for the European leadership, now that the foolishly-named ‘capital of Europe’ has been struck? “Europe is at war” said the headline on Wednesday’s newspaper. But I doubt that they think so.

I’m sure that security will be beefed up. They will arrest IS sympathizers and activists. Maybe they will support air attacks against the IS in Syria. But as an EU statement issued after the attacks indicates, a change in the suicidal worldview that has led to more and more terrorism is not in the offing:

… This latest attack only strengthens our resolve to defend the European values and tolerance from the attacks of the intolerant. We will be united and firm in the fight against hatred, violent extremism and terrorism.

It isn’t “European values and tolerance” that is under attack, and the attacker isn’t “the intolerant.” Europe does not need to declare war on “hatred, violent extremism and terrorism.”

The truth is that whether they know it or not, all of the non-Muslim world is at war, a war being fought by unconventional means, but a war nevertheless. The enemy is a loose confederation of Muslim groups, from militias to nations, that agree on little other than that the entire world should be ruled by Islam, and that jihad is the way to bring this about. It is entirely correct to call it a war of Islamic conquest.

It has nothing to do with intolerance. It has everything to do with jihadist Muslims wanting to rule over non-Muslims and to take their property (incidentally including humans as property). The goal of Muslim domination is spelled out in the Qur’an and other Islamic texts. The jihadists are trying to implement these prescriptions.

There is a seam, an interface between Islam and not-Islam, which runs through the world. It is found in China, the Philippines and much of southeast Asia, India-Pakistan, the Caucasus, much of Africa, of course Israel, and now Europe. Everywhere along this seam there are regular flare-ups of violence. Of course there is also intra-Muslim strife, but – as Iranian support for Hamas shows – there is often cooperation between disparate groups when there is a common non-Muslim enemy.

Israel is very much on the front line of this war. Her location is highly strategic; she is considered a Western outpost in a region that by rights should be Muslim. She has become symbolic of the struggle since the Crusades. Many Muslims live in the territory Israel controls – that Jews control – a situation that is intolerable for them.

This is a tough war for our side to fight, because it takes different forms in different places, and the enemy does not follow the traditional rules or have a centralized command structure. But in general there are two strategic principles that we must apply: one is disproportionate pushback against violent attempts to extend Muslim sovereignty and the other is cutting the heads off snakes. Let me explain.

Disproportionate pushback means preventing successes that whet the appetites of the jihadists for more. Because their objective is domination, it isn’t possible to defuse their violence by appeasement. This something that Israel has (I hope) learned through her experience with the ‘Palestinian’ incarnation of the jihad. This is why I advocate building in the territories as a response to terrorism, as well as collective punishments for collective crimes. We need to teach the lesson that if you hurt us, expect to be hurt worse.

Cutting the heads off snakes (an expression used by a previous king of Saudi Arabia to refer to Iran) is the idea that there are foci of Islamic jihad – individuals, groups and even nations – that initiate, develop, promote, support, arm and fund the multiplicitous hands of jihad, and that they should be extirpated. So targeted assassinations of individuals like bin Laden or Mugniyeh, the elimination of jihadist organizations like Hezbollah, and the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capability and promotion of regime change there, are all indicated.

Some of these techniques have been used by Israel, the US, and even Russia with varying degrees of consistency and success. The US has never defined the enemy and has inconsistently mixed military action together with appeasement. Europe, though, has almost always taken the path of appeasement.

Both Europe and some circles in the US have been prepared to sacrifice Israel to the jihadists, on the remarkably stupid assumption that that they can protect themselves by doing so. A combination of this tendency to appeasement with the antisemitism that has characterized Europe for millennia has resulted in Europe actually cooperating with Israel’s enemies by financing subversive activities in Israel, supporting BDS by requiring labeling of products from across the Green Line, and trying to force Israel to withdraw to non-defensible boundaries.

The EU Foreign Minister, Federica Mogherini, who was visiting Jordan when the Brussels attacks happened, burst into tears at a press conference with her Jordanian counterpart. “It’s also a very sad day for Europe, as Europe and its capital are suffering the same pain that this region has known and knows every single day, be it in Syria, be it elsewhere,” she said. Does she understand that her pain is caused by exactly the same elements that she criticizes Israel for opposing? Those, like Mogherini, who believe that the greatest evil in the world is “intolerance” also believe that Israel is attacked by terrorists because it is not sufficiently tolerant of Palestinian Arabs, some of whom are the terrorists that attack us. She thinks we deserve what we get.

After the Brussels attacks, will the Europeans begin to take strong measures against terrorism, like profiling at airports and railway stations, controlling their borders, or setting up checkpoints near known terrorist neighborhoods?

Probably not. That would make them intolerant like us.

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03/24 Links Pt1: The ‘Obama Doctrine’ Has Led to Global Chaos; Dying for Allah

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: The ‘Obama Doctrine’ Has Led to Global Chaos

President Barack Obama’s determination to downgrade US international power has generated massive global instability and chaos with especially ominous implications for Israel.
The Obama policies have undermined longstanding alliances within the Western bloc. By supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and allying with terrorist and rogue states like Iran, the US has alienated Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which consider themselves abandoned and betrayed.
The wooing and groveling toward Iran has empowered the world’s leading Islamic terrorist state, enabled it to become a threshold nuclear power and exacerbated the conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis, which has led to the emergence of new Islamic barbarian groups like ISIS. The Islamic fundamentalists have reintroduced the Dark Ages to the region in which mass murder, rape and beheadings of civilians have become rampant.

JCPA: Dying for Allah

The sensitivity to criticism of the Islamic fundamentalist attitude on the “death for Allah” concept, which has been fully adopted by the Palestinian cultural code, is a further instance of our difficulty in understanding a different culture, which leads us to project our own values onto the other in a mirror-perfect image.
President Barack Obama exemplified this mindset in his 2009 Cairo address and in his address in Jerusalem in 2013 when he said there was no real difference between his daughters and the Palestinian youths he had met in Ramallah or the Egyptian youngsters he had encountered in Cairo. Like his daughters, they wanted to get an education, worship God in their way, raise a family, and make a good living, even if there were political or religious differences between them.
Really, Mr. President? Do your daughters identify on Facebook with the worldview of radical Islam, which calls on one to seek “death for Allah”? Palestinian youth indeed wear jeans and do not look religious. Yet almost every Palestinian child you ask will tell you he wants to be a shahid [martyr], and many believe that by attempting to stab a Jew-Zionist to death they increase their chances to attain that honor. This is a direct result of the education they receive.

Last week, in a secret mission, 17 Jews were smuggled out of Yemen and into Israel.

Arab media has shown a keen interest in this story - especially one detail, that the Jews arrived in a flight from Sanaa to Amman, Jordan and from there they went to Israel.

The idea that Jordan helped Jews who then met with Netanyahu did not sit well with some Arabs, but they know very well that the Houthi slogan includes the phrase "Damn the Jews."

So they instead questioned whether Jordan violated its own policies on dealing with people on flights from Yemen, Jordan has set restrictions on passengers from Yemen since the Houthis took over large parts of that territory.

Jordan responded that they only restrict Yemenis if their final destination is Jordan, not if they are ending up elsewhere.

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