Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

05/03 Links Pt1: Labour secretly suspended 50 members; Hamas endorses Corbyn; The Kunduz Double Standard

From Ian:

Labour has secretly suspended 50 members for anti-Semitic and racist comments

Labour has secretly suspended 50 of its members over anti-Semitic and racist comments as officials struggle to cope with the crisis engulfing the party.
Senior sources reveal that Labour's compliance unit has been swamped by the influx of hard-left supporters following Jeremy Corbyn's election.
The suspensions that have been made public so far are said to be just the tip of the iceberg.
On Monday night Mr Corbyn appeared to acknowledge there was a problem for the first time, while insisting it was "not huge". He told the Daily Mirror: "What there is is a very small number of people that have said things that they should not have done. We have therefore said they will be suspended and investigated."
There is growing pressure on the Labour leader ahead of the local elections on Thursday, in which his party is forecast to lose more than 100 seats.
Senior figures are now so concerned about the row that they are openly discussing the possibility of an attempted coup following the EU referendum.

*Satire*

Hamas says its ties with UK Labor's Corbyn 'painful hit for the Zionists'

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas praised the head of the British Labor Party for his refusal to condemn the organization considered by Western governments and Israel to be a terrorist outfit.
According to Breitbart Jerusalem, a Hamas spokesperson bragged that Corbyn’s readiness to maintain contacts with the Palestinian organization was “a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received.”
Hamas’ praise of Corbyn coincides with a media firestorm in the United Kingdom surrounding recent revelations of extremist anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expressions by Labor members, most infamously the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.
A Hamas spokesperson, Taher A-Nunu, told Breitbart that Corbyn’s insistence on maintaining contacts with the group is a sign that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which is aimed at punishing Israel economically over its policies as they relate to the Palestinians, is making inroads.
“We welcome the declaration of the Labor chairman and see his engagement as a very important statement that is also a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received,” A-Nunu said. “It comes as part of the international boycott campaign that the enemy (Israel) is suffering from. This campaign is succeeding on both the economic and political levels and it comes at a moment that the enemy is facing difficulties in justifying its crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The Hamas spokesperson said that Labor’s willingness to engage the Islamist group sends “an important message” to the West.

The Secret Jewish Vegetable (UPDATE)

Amy Fine Collins wrote an autobiographical essay in Vanity Fair about growing up Jewish and being embarrassed about it, while her teenage daughter wants to reclaim her Jewish identity.

This anecdote at the end was something I had never heard of:

The last stop of this meditation is Zagorsk, Russia, where, troubled by the anti-Semitism he encountered there, my friend Andrew Solomon asked a local peasant why, in his estimation, there was such antipathy everywhere against Jews. Without a moment’s hesitation, the peasant answered, in Russian: “It is because the Jews have a secret vegetable they eat so they don’t become alcoholics like the rest of us. And they refuse to share that vegetable with anyone else.”

Yes, the secret Jew vegetable! How did they find out?

In fact, many people say that the reason Jews aren't as likely to be alcoholics (though of course some are) is because children drink wine from a young age at Friday night dinner, so the allure of forbidden fruit (or vegetables) is not as strong.

But the Jews are more than happy to share the secret - especially the sickly-sweet version that many grew up with - with non-Jews.

There's your secret vegetable right there.

UPDATE: Rebbe Yell found a book referencing the vegetable legend - and adds a crucial detail.

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Video: Yitzhak Rabin was against a Palestinian state

We've previously shown that leftist hero Yitzhak Rabin was always to the right of where Benjamin Netanyahu is today.

This video shows this more starkly.

Here is what Rabin said in a speech in Knesset only weeks before he was murdered:

We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.

And these are the main changes, not all of them, which we envision and want in the permanent solution:

A. First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev -- as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.

B. The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.

C. Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the "Green Line," prior to the Six Day War.

D. The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

Since 1995, even the "hawkish Likud" in Israel has moved far to the left - while the "moderate" PLO has moved further away from any interest in a peaceful negotiated settlement.

One can only wonder whether the prospects for peace would not be better if Israel had adhered to Rabin's red lines for peace.

(h/t Yoel for translation)

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A tunnel made of imaginary cement

From Middle East Monitor:

The head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) stressed on Sunday that there is no proof that the construction material entering Gaza through his organisation was used for “military purposes”, Safa news agency has reported.

Robert Piper’s comment was made in a film broadcast by Sky News about the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

I had seen this quoted in other Arab media as well as Iranian media.

Al Resalah, a Hamas mouthpiece, praised Piper's assertion.

Palestinian parliamentarian and senior Hamas leader Yahiya Mousa said the UN denial that cement has been used for military purposes is a move on the right direction. Mousa called the UN to take a stand that would lift the Israeli siege on Gaza, saying Israel fakes up lies to further tighten the siege on Gaza.

I tweeted Piper on Monday morning to allow him to confirm or deny this statement but as of this writing did not receive a response.

If he in fact said this, it would be an astounding example of willful blindness by the UN. In January, Ban Ki Moon said he was "alarmed" after Hamas explicitly promised to continue to build tunnels despite the deaths of many of its tunnel workers. Only two weeks ago, Moon condemned tunnel that Israel discovered as a dangerous and provocative move that undermines attempts to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip.

So what is the evidence that Hamas is using cement for military purposes?

We know that Hamas is still building tunnels - they say it explicitly and we have seen terrorists killed while building them.
We know that cement is necessary to build tunnels deep under Gaza.
We know that cement that is earmarked to help ordinary Gazans is being sold on the black market.
We know that very little cement can be smuggled in from Egypt, if any, as Egypt has destroyed the vast majority of tunnels on the Rafah border.
We have known since 2014 that the system that allows cement to enter Gaza was rife with corruption and that Hamas has been taking advantage of it to enrich themselves and to grab more cement.

It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to realize that these five facts are evidence that Hamas is using some of the cement meant for homeowners to build and rebuild terror tunnels. There is simply no other source for the cement.

But apparently Robert Piper and the UN prefer to turn a blind eye to what is happening literally under their noses.

In fact, the UN is spending money producing professional videos ostensibly about Gaza reconstruction but instead concentrating on how Israel, for no reason whatsoever, just decided to bomb civilians in Gaza and now restricts reconstruction. No mention of rockets or tunnels or weapons caches, no shots of armed Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists, no names of the homeless people so we could research which of their relatives were the target of the bombs that destroyed their houses and why they have been denied cement so far while allowing tens of thousands of other Gazans to rebuild.

My guess is that the UN spent at least $100 for each of the 130 people who viewed this video in the past three weeks.

(h/t Irene)

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The most polite policeman in the world is in the IDF

Some leftist activists wanted to cross a security checkpoint leading to the West Bank in Israel. They tried to get the security forces angry.

But they didn't count on Israeli Police Officer Alon Tif.

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE: Bob Knot found the original; the leftists were from Ta'ayush and the video is from 2013.

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05/02 Links Pt2: Vatican-funded club holds Abu Jihad Football Tournament; Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees?

From Ian:

PMW: Vatican-funded sports club sponsors tournament named after mass murderer

The Jerusalem Clubs Association, which is funded by the Vatican, sponsored a football tournament for youth named after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad. On numerous occasions, the PA has glorified Abu Jihad because he planned terror attacks that killed 125 Israelis.
According to the official PA daily, the Abu Jihad Football Tournament was "held under the auspices of the Jerusalem Clubs Association, in the framework of its program that is funded by the Pontifical Mission."
The Pontifical Mission is "the Papal agency for Middle East relief and development," according to its website. "Pope Pius XII mobilized worldwide Catholic aid, establishing in 1949 a temporary agency - the Pontifical Mission for Palestine - to feed, clothe and educate Palestinian refugees." [Pontifical Mission-Jerusalem's website, accessed May 2, 2016]
Palestinian Media Watch has reported that Abu Jihad is routinely honored by the PA and Fatah, by having sports events, summer camps, and other events named after him. This is the first time Vatican funding has been involved in glorifying Abu Jihad.

Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees?

It's been seven decades since the 1948 Arab-Israeli, and yet there are still an estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees...and zero Jewish refugees. With so many nearby Arab allies of the Palestinians, how did this happen? What does it say about Israel? What does it say about its Arab neighbors? Dumisani Washington, Diversity Outreach Coordinator for Christians United for Israel, explains

US authorities say one arrested in foiled bomb plot on Florida synagogue

US federal agents over the weekend arrested one suspect in what is said to be a thwarted bomb attack on a synagogue in Florida, local news reported Monday.
Miami-Fort Lauderdale's 7News cited law enforcement sources as saying the FBI had set up a sting operation Friday to foil the planned attack at the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center.
According to the sources, authorities posed as terrorists and managed to detain the suspect, who was allegedly planning to hurl an explosive device at the Jewish house of worship in the Miami area.
Friday's arrest came as crowds filled the synagogue in observance of the second to last day of the Passover holiday.
The arrested suspect may have converted to Islam, according to the local news reports.

Douglas Murray - Mass Migration Irreversibly Changing Europe

Douglas Murray speaks on J-TV with Alan Mendoza on how mass migration is transforming Europe.

QudsPress has been zealously counting every Jew who ascends to the Temple Mount, and the April numbers are in.

According to these counter, 1,868 "settlers" "stormed" and "broke into" the "Al Aqsa Mosque" during the month, the largest number possibly ever.

It should be noted that far more Muslims desecrate (from the Jewish viewpoint) the holiest Jewish site on any given Friday than the number of Jews who respectfully visit the site every year.

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UN says 29.5% of WB "refugees" live in UNRWA camps. It doesn't ask why.

Robert Piper, UN Assistant Secretary General Development & Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine, tweeted this graphic today with the (corrected) caption "29.5% of West Bank refugees still live in camps."

The question that the UN leaves unasked is - why do these camps still exist some 68 years after the last refugees were created? (There were essentially no refugees by any definition created by the Six Day War.)

This graphic claims that life in the UN-administered camps is dangerous due to IDF operations. Of course, it doesn't bother to say that the reason that many operations occur in these camps is because they are hotbeds of terrorism.

70% of the so-called "refugees" (actually, descendants of refugees) live outside the camps - meaning that there is no legal impediment to integrating the "refugees" with the rest of Palestinian society.

The Palestinian Authority, recognized by the UN as the State of Palestine, can build as many houses as needed for these people in Areas A and B. And they have had this autonomy for nearly 20 years now.

Where are the infographics showing how successful the PA, with international aid, has been in dismantling these completely unnecessary and dangerous camps and mainstreaming the residents to become normal citizens?

They don't exist, because no such programs exist.

The PA doesn't want to dismantle the camps because they want to point to overcrowded, violence-filled ghettos as evidence of how Palestinians are still suffering from Israeli actions in 1948.

Jordan was happy to keep these camps around from 1948-1967 because the hundreds of million of dollars used to maintain the camps was money that Jordan didn't have to spend - even though the Palestinians were full Jordanian citizens.

The UN, which puts out reams of reports about how awful things are for Palestinians, has no interest in a single program to take vulnerable people out of these camps.

The graphic comes from a 33-page UN document that describes how many problems Palestinians have and all of the programs the UN has to help them. Yet these is not one program to mainstream camp residents into normal houses and apartments, going to normal non-UN schools and becoming self-sustaining members of society.

There is no reason that these camps should exist today. But the UN is complicit in keeping a second-class society of Palestinians in misery and insecurity, all while promising them a fairy tale that one day they will "return" and go back to their ancestors' houses that no longer (and in some cases never did) exist.

If the UN recognizes a "state of Palestine," isn't it time for the UN to help that entity to take responsibilities for its own citizens as every other nation does?

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05/02 Links Pt1: Corbyn called convicted 'terrorist' an 'iconic figure'; Today's Labour suspension count 3.. so far

From Ian:

Jeremy Corbyn called convicted 'terrorist' an 'iconic figure'

Jeremy Corbyn described a convicted terrorist accused of plotting a series of suicide attacks in Israel as an “icon” and compared him to Nelson Mandela.
In a post now deleted from Mr Corbyn’s website, the Labour leader described Marwan Barghouti as an “iconic figure for ordinary Palestinians”.
Barghouti was convicted of organising attacks against Israeli civilians and allegedly founded the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, a designated terrorist organisation.
The comments threaten to intensify the anti-Semitism row that has engulfed the Labour Party in the last week.
In 2004, an Israeli court sentenced Barghouti to five life sentences and 40 years in jail. He was accused of orchestrating ambushes and suicide attacks during the Palestinian Intifada.
In the article entitled “An icon is born: Marwan Barghouti”, Mr Corbyn wrote: “His sentence of five life terms by an Israeli Court means he now becomes an iconic figure for ordinary Palestinians, and his unshakable belief that he will be freed is shared by many.
"The Palestinian papers have likened his situation to that facing Mandela after the Rivonia Treason Trial in 1964.
"Indeed the similarities go well beyond the trial and prosecution of Marwan.”
Mr Corbyn has repeatedly failed to apologise for his past links to Hamas and Hezbollah.
He once described members of the two Islamist militant organisations as “friends”.

Pressure grows on Jeremy Corbyn as dossier of anti-Semitism in Labour Party is revealed

A dossier compiled by The Telegraph includes a series of disturbing examples of anti-Semitic attitudes among party activists and leading members.
It follows the suspension from the party last week of Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, and of Naz Shah, Labour MP for Bradford West, for making anti-Semitic comments.
Labour has announced an independent inquiry into anti-Semitism and other forms of racism within the party.
But Mr Livingstone, who was suspended after saying that Hitler supported Zionism “before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews”, on Saturday refused to withdraw his statements and claimed the Israeli Prime Minister agreed with him.
Our dossier reveals that:
- A London Labour council leader shared a Facebook post comparing the “terrorist state of Israel” to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). He apologised and deleted it on Saturday;
- Mr Corbyn questioned why an anti-Semitic mural in east London should be taken down;
- The Labour leader also attended events run by self-confessed Holocaust denier Paul Eisen long after his views had become clear, and
- A Labour council candidate used the derogatory term “Zios” to refer to Jews.
Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council and “equalities lead” on the body representing 32 London boroughs, shared a post calling Israel a terrorist state and compared it to Isil, on April 16. It showed a Palestinian girl in a skirmish with an Israeli soldier.

The Islamic Jihad Police Force

Palestine Today has a story about how Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades has busted a major drug ring, capturing some 175,000 tablets of Tramadol.

Take a look at the police:

In Gaza, apparently anyone with a gun (and a ski mask) can now legally do police work. There is no indication that Hamas is against this police force and in fact Hamas works closely with Islamic Jihad in other matters. It seems likely that Hamas allows the Islamic Jihad terrorists to act openly as an official security force.

When "human rights groups" claim that the police in Gaza are considered civilians, keep this in mind.

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US exhibits at another Arab book fair with lots of antisemitic titles

The Abu Dhabi Book Fair is in full swing, and the US Embassy is there:

So are the antisemitic book titles.

Doing a quick search for the word "Jews" in the titles of the books, here are some - from many different publishers - that are clearly antisemitic.

Jewish danger - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, That Al Salasil Company
Jewish influence in the media by Fouad al-Rifai, Dar Al Yakeen for Publishing & Distribution
Jews and contempt of religion, Hanafi Mahalawy, Alam Al Kotob publishers

Great Deception: Are the Jews really God's chosen people?
Dr.. Mohammed Jamal Tahan, Safahat for Studies & Publishing
Secrets of Jewish supremacists, Yuri Mukan Aladdin, Publishing, Distribution & Translation
Is the Jewish religion heavenly? Abdul Majid Hamu
Human sacrifice and the Talmudic sacrifices by pagans and Jews, D / Fathi Mohamed Zoghbi,
Dar Al Afak Al Arabia
There are plenty of others whose titles don't make it obvious that they include Jew-hatred, although it is highly likely.

Once again, the US is supporting an event that includes blatant antisemitism in the Arab world. And it is not like they don't know that such things are going on.

At what point does the US State Department make an actual stand against antisemitism, instead of meaningless declarations? A simple declaration that they will not attend any fair that includes antisemitic literature is all that is needed to make a huge impact.

And yet - they don't.

(h/t Shawarma News)

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One terrorist was killed and two other people injured by a "mysterious explosion" in the northern Gaza Strip today.

Mazen Lulu, a terrorist for the Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad, was killed east of Gaza City.

The explosion occurred near the Civil Administration building, indicating a war crime by putting military facilities in or near ostensibly civilian structures.

Far more terrorists have been killed by tunnel accidents and accidental explosions in Gaza than from any Israeli actions this year.

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