Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 08, 2016

No, Ehrenreich wasn't "bamboozled." He knew exactly what the Tamimis stand for.

Petra Marquardt-Bigman, whom I worked with to make the video posted earlier about Ben Ehrenreich and the Tamimi clan, published an article in Tablet on the same topic.

It is important to understand that the Tamimis see their “struggle” not just as a fight against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, but against Israel’s existence as a Jewish state in any borders. Because one might expect that open support for terror and the ambition to physically eliminate a UN member state are the kinds of opinions that remain beyond the pale for writers who hope to receive plaudits from The New York Times and the Economist, it is fair to assume that Ehrenreich must have been bamboozled by his subjects or is unable to read basic Arabic—neither one of which reflects particularly well on the likelihood of him having achieved a more advanced form of journalistic truth.

It is obviously also possible that Ehrenreich knew about the Tamimis’ political leanings. Not unlike the Tamimis, Ehrenreich has long believed that “Zionism is the problem,” as he explained in a 2009 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. When it comes to the methods the Tamimis support in order to solve this “problem,” it is certainly disingenuous to ask—as Ehrenreich does—if there is “no form of Palestinian resistance so innocuous that it wouldn’t be condemned.” There is absolutely nothing “innocuous” about the Tamimis’ ardent support for terror and their equally ardent Jew-hatred. (Ehrenreich declined to comment for this article.)

Despite the headline that emphasized the "bamboozled" part, the answer is actually quite clear (Tablet created the "bamboozled" headline, not the author, and Tablet edited the article apparently to emphasize this idea.)

Ehrenreich knows exactly how much the Tamimi family supports terror attacks - and he purposefully tries to fudge that information by making it appear that other relatives or residents of Nabi Saleh are the ones that support terror, not his saintly friends.

In 2013, writing for the New York Times on the article that in many ways became this book, Ehrenreich notes:

In 1993, Bassem told me, his cousin Said Tamimi killed a settler near Ramallah. Eight years later, another villager, Ahlam Tamimi escorted a bomber to a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. Fifteen people were killed, eight of them minors. Ahlam, who now lives in exile in Jordan, and Said, who is in prison in Israel, remain much-loved in Nabi Saleh. Though everyone I spoke with in the village appeared keenly aware of the corrosive effects of violence — “This will kill the children,” Manal said, “to think about hatred and revenge” — they resented being asked to forswear bloodshed when it was so routinely visited upon them.

Ehrenreich waters this down much further in his new book.

In one early bombing in August 2001, a woman named Ahlam Tamimi, a twenty-year-old journalism student from Nabi Saleh, escorted a young man named Izz al-Din al-Masri to a crowded Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem. Shortly after she left him there, he detonated an explosive, wounding 130 people and killing himself and 15 others. Eight of the dead were children. ...Her relatives in Nabi Saleh still speak of her with great affection.

Yet Ehrenreich doesn't draw the line between Ahlam Tamimi and the relatives that he relied on to write this book that showed him such wonderful hospitality in Nabi Saleh. It isn't only Ahlam's immediate relatives who love her bombing kids in a pizza shop, it is the entire community including the main subjects for the book. Ehrenreich's mission to canonize Bassem and Nariman and Bilal and Manal Tamimi would be jeopardized by noting that they cheer the murder of dozens of Jews, including 13-year old Hallel Yaffe Ariel, as the video shows.

Here is how Ehrenreich looks at the Tamimis, explicit supporters of murder and terrorism who he considers generous, kind and wise.

The Tamimis aren't the subjects of the book - they are co-conspirators to write a piece of anti-Israel propaganda by pretending to be something that their social media posts prove they clearly are not.

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Hamas releases video showing how beautiful Gaza is

This is part of a social media campaign Hamas is embarking on ahead of local elections, with the hashtag (in Arabic) of "Thanks_Hamas!"

Of course, they must show off their accomplishment of creating rockets that could reach millions of Jews.

Nearly all of the grown women pictured have a hijab.

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08/08 Links Pt1: World Vision: a Christian charity on an anti-Israel mission; PA Police Break Legs of Arab Children

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Terrorist Aid Hijacking and NGO Oversight Failure: Learning from the World Vision Case

NGO Monitor identified World Vision as susceptible to aid diversion in its 2015 book, Filling in the Blanks, concluding that there is “little doubt as to World Vision’s willingness to negotiate and coordinate with armed groups. This raises questions as to whether the group would prevent components of its aid from being misappropriated by terrorist organizations, if it felt that taking a stand would jeopardize the organization’s ability to continue its operations in a given area.”
The failure to properly prevent the siphoning of funds stems in part from a lack of will on the part of humanitarian organizations. Many international NGOs reject attempts to incorporate security concerns into funding guidelines, decrying them as politically motivated. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has argued that legislation designed to prevent hijacking of aid by terrorist organizations should not apply to humanitarian groups, and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has stated that “counter-terrorism measures remain the primary obstacle to humanitarian action within Gaza.”
Humanitarian NGOs operate in conflict zones around the world, risking the diversion of aid by terrorist groups. The recent decision by USAID to suspend its humanitarian assistance to Syria due to this issue, as well as the multiple UN reports on commandeering of aid by terrorist organizations in Somalia, underscore this point.
Prof. Gerald Steinberg adds that, “World Vision’s failures in Gaza highlight the problems of a multi-billion dollar NGO industry that remains largely unregulated and unexamined. While World Vision is currently the focus of attention following the arrest of El-Halabi and the scale of the allegations, this should be a cautionary moment for many other international aid organizations that have similar operations in Gaza, such as Oxfam, Care, Christian Aid, and UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.”
As NGO Monitor has warned repeatedly, humanitarian efforts in warzones are inherently susceptible to extortion and theft by violent actors, including terrorist organizations. In particular, Hamas has a history of raiding aid warehouses and convoys as well as developing tax schemes designed to skim money off of international largesse. UN Gaza aid mechanisms similarly suffer from corruption, compromising the integrity of imported materials. Any consideration of humanitarian projects in Gaza must, therefore, include vigorous, concrete, and effective policies that address the risk of aid diversion, both on the part of the implementing organization and on the part of the funder.

IDF Blog: Aerial photo reveals Hamas misuse of international donations to Gaza

Donations from the United Kingdom made to the Christian aid organization World Vision were used by Hamas to build one of such 70 military bases that operate in Gaza. The allegations are part of the June 15, 2016 arrest of Mohammed El-Halabi, a senior World Vision worker facing charges of funneling $43 million in charity funds to Hamas.
Eighty thousand dollars of aid donated to World Vision by the United Kingdom, which was intended to help the civilians of Gaza, build badly-needed infrastructure, and provide food and medical care to those in need, was instead invested in building a Hamas military base and pocketed by the terrorists who constructed it.
“In this compound we have identified surveillance and observation capabilities facing north, towards Israel.” IDF Spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said. “I can also tell you that in June 2015 we targeted components within the compound following a rocket attack against Israel.” The active Hamas military base, codenamed “Palestine,” was built, among other things, for close-quarter combat training in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia, the third-largest Gazan city. The relatively large base is 600 by 200 meters, and is a short distance from residential buildings, as seen in the below declassified aerial map.
The World Vision investigation exposed that sixty percent of the charity group’s annual budget was funneled to terror activities by Halabi, the Palestinian manager of the World Vision’s Gaza branch. Forty three million dollars of aid earmarked for agriculture, treatment for the disabled, and public health was instead used by Hamas to buy weapons, build military bases, and fund the construction of tunnels, which were used in the past to kidnap Israeli soldiers and stage attacks against Israel.

World Vision: a Christian charity on an anti-Israel mission

I would like someone to explain to me how pumping millions of dollars of good Christians' money to the radical Islamic terror regime of Hamas, the Palestinian Arab wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose history is replete with oppressing the people of Gaza and killing all opposition to its stranglehold and whose founding charter expresses their desire for a global Islamic Caliphate and for the murder of Jews, advances the aims of World Vision.
Unless proven otherwise, it seems to me that World Vision has been so blind to the injustice done to the Jewish state by Hamas and Palestinian terror that it has been deliberately myopic to the massive misuse of money that has been eagerly used by Hamas in their vain attempt to attack Israel and kill Jews.
Either Hamas has exploited World Vision, or World Vision has exploited its global donors. There is no other explanation for what has been exposed.
Truth be told, the fund-raising appeal that appears on World Vision’s official website, so full of anti-Israel false statements, makes me feel that the former is true, unless they can convince me otherwise.
As I write this report, Australia and Germany have suspended their funding to World Vision for spending on Palestinian causes. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. I hope we will hear that the US Administration and all Americans will refuse to donate to World Vision until they put their house in order and return to their original Christian charitable roots.

Look at all of those Talmudic Jews!

From Egyptian news site El-Shamal News, which looks like a normal, respectable news site based on the stories on its front page.

Global Talmudic Zionism has succeeded in planting a Talmudic Zionist gang who are staunch enemies of Islam and Muslims in the very land of Muhammad, since the 284-year-old when Zionism succeeded and convinced Britain to install the Mordechai family whose lineage started with the Jews of Khaybar to take the name of the Al-Saud and (Britain) enabled them and international Zionism to British colonial occupation of the Hijaz led by the name of Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab who have committed the most heinous crimes against the people of Hijaz and the people of Iraq.

(More on the supposed jewish origin of the Saud family can be seen in lots of conspiracy websites like this.)

The Talmudic family is hungry for the killing of Muslims for several reasons:

First: the revenge of their ancestors for the (massacre of the) Jews of Khybar.

Secondly, because the Talmud says to kill a lot of non-Jews to draw near to God and enters the supreme paradise. Therefore the Wahhabists killed more than 600,000 Muslims in addition to the thousands of pilgrims and also destroyed many Islamic monuments in the Hijaz and Iraq, while they kept their ties to their ancestors the Jews of Khaybar.

After the release of Mohamed Ali Pasha Hijaz of the Wahhabis in 1814, colonial England decided to return the ring of the Talmud to the rule of Hejaz and provided them with the latest types of weapons at the time and enabled them to occupy the Arabian Peninsula after the killing of tens of thousands of people of Hijaz. Also a gang of Talmudic Yemenites occupied three Yemeni governorates - Asir, Jizan and Najran- and gave the Mordechai family the first waiver of Palestine while also continuing destruction of Islamic monuments.... as support for the Zionist gangs that came to the rape of Palestine.

The Talmudic descendants continued killing Muslims either via US, British, French and Israeli wars, or by supporting terrorist groups that target only Muslims, or through fatwas that allows the killing of those hostile to the Jews and their associates.

The Talmudic family uses large amounts of money looted from the wealth of the Hijaz in the killing of Muslims and to finance all Western colonial wars of Zionism....The Talmudic gang were involved in the bombing of mosques and markets to ensure the Dar Al-Fatwa in the Kingdom of the Talmud paradise ....

The Talmudic family killed more than 10 million Muslims because of the Talmudic motto that everyone who kills a lot of non-Jews will enter Paradise, and 10 million dead Muslims would ensure the highest levels of Paradise.

The article goes on to say that the Shah of Iran as well as Saddam Hussein were all Talmudic agents, and it praises Hezbollah and the Iranian regime as well as the Houthis in Yemen as the only true Muslims willing to stand up against these Talmudic Jewish fake Muslim murderers.

This strongly indicates that the people that are behind this antisemitic screed are from Iran. The author's name is Shahat Shata, and he has written similar articles for Arab media in the past, so it appears that he is part of an Iranian psych-ops campaign against Saudi Arabia and other enemies of Iran.

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An ordinary story of corruption that hides a bigger story

Fadi Elsalameen is a non-resident fellow at The Foreign Policy Institute at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

He shared something very interesting on Facebook:

You couldn't make up this stuff even if you tried. But here it goes:

Ali Jouma (the guy with Mickey Mouse) is a Palestinian intelligence officer, his wife wanted the parking spot of another person (a young man). The young man naturally refused to give it to her. She threw a fit. Cussed him, and called her husband to the rescue. The husband being an intelligence officer, found out where the young man lives, went with his body guards, beat up the young man, and even chased his mom in a car trying to run her over.

The next day, Majid Faraj, head of PA intelligence asks Ali Jouma to leave the country for few days to escape any backlash.

The whole country is now outraged.

See why PA intel have things under control? No problem is too big for them to solve.

This story was first reported by Faten Elwan a Palestinian journalist working for the US funded alhura TV station. (How about we fund anger management and then crises management classes too?) what a mess!!

This appears at first to be an ordinary story of corruption that one may find in any country. But I think that there is a bigger story here.

The journalist whom he quotes removed her story and replaced it with one that does not include any names. She also apologizes for censoring out some comments to the story, saying that her goal is to help improve the country and not to only complain about corruption. She is a very reluctant whistle-blowing journalist.

Elsalameen says that the whole country is now outraged, but I cannot find this story in the Palestinian media that I monitor, nor by searching for likely keywords in Arabic media.

If the "whole country" is outraged, it is only happening on social media and face to face. The Arab media itself doesn't want to touch the story, at least not yet. The journalist who broke the story doesn't seem to want to push it and is defensive about even bringing it up to begin with, and has been apparently frightened by something that happened after she initially named names.

Which means that this is not just a story about corruption, but also a story about how anything that makes the Palestinian Authority look bad is swept under the rug for as long as possible.

No wonder the Arab rumor mill is considered the most reliable source for information by the community. Palestinians literally cannot believe the news in their own media as being accurate or independent.

Yes, the PA is corrupt, and the people know it. But the donors and funders who keep sending over more and more cash, especially from the West, are kept in the dark about it.

The honor/shame mindset exists on a national level.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

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Mahmoud Abbas has said many times, including in front of the EU, "I assure you that we are not in favor turning the political conflict into a religious conflict." Other PA officials parrot that line in English to Western audiences as well.

In Arabic, things are a bit different. The entire "knife intifada" from last autumn was sparked by Abbas calling on his people to use any means to "defend Jerusalem" which was clearly heard by his people as a call to violence. PA officials explicitly have called for "jihad".

Today, the PA issued another statement in Arabic inciting Muslims to fight Jews.

The Israel Antiquities Authority started taking baby steps towards doing its job last week (many years too late) by stopping some illegal Waqf renovations on the most sacred spot on the planet. Today the IAI returned and filmed what the Waqf was apparently doing anyway.

The reaction by the Palestinian Authority was to say that the very existence of the Israel Antiquities Authority on the site is "a rabid campaign being waged by the Israeli occupation forces against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque" and "contrary to religious laws, and moral values, and humanity."

Government spokesman Yusuf Mahmoud also said "This attack is part of the attacks, and intrusions, and desecration daily suffered by Haram al-Sharif which is one of the most sacred sanctities of Muslims" done by Israel to "plant illusions and myths around Al-Aqsa."

He said that daily visits by "herds of settlers" to the Temple Mount "shows the size of extremism and racism which dominate the mind and thinking of the Israeli government."

He concluded by saying "This assault is an attack on 1.7 billion Muslims" and he called on the whole world to "immediately intervene to deter the occupation attacks."

This is incitement. And as we have seen in the past, this incitement often directly leads to violence.

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VIDEO: Ben Ehrenreich shares his love for the Sbarro massacre mastermind’s family

This Tuesday will be the 15th anniversary of the infamous Sbarro pizza shop bombing, masterminded by Ahlam Tamimi.

The attack, on August 9, 2001, killed 15 people and injured 130. Among the dead were a pregnant woman and seven children – some counted eight, including an 18 year-old who had just finished school; the injured also included one young mother who was left in a permanent vegetative state.

For the families of the victims, this year’s 15th anniversary of the attack may well be particularly grim, because of a fawning book that has been recently released by Ben Ehrenreich, lionizing the murderous Tamimi clan.

Who would have ever imagined that an American writer would come out with a book that presents the family of Ahlam Tamimi – the Sbarro massacre mastermind – as simply wonderful people? This despite the fact that the Tamimis not only continue to justify the Sbarro attack, but are openly cheering pretty much every terror attack that has been perpetrated over the past year. And who would have ever imagined that prestigious publications like the New York Times and The Economist would praise this hagiography of the terror-supporting Jew-hating Tamimis to the high heavens? What is it about killing Jews that is so romantic that the NYT would gush about Ehrenreich’s “Love Letter to Palestine” and The Economist would fawn about all “the hope, and the love” that infuses Ehrenreich’s depiction of the Tamimis?

For a glimpse of the intense Jew-hatred and the ardent support for terror that animates Ben Ehrenreich’s protagonists, watch the video below that will introduce you to the four people Ehrenreich lists first in the Acknowledgements for his book: Bassem and Nariman Tamimi, and Bilal and Manal Tamimi.

The video was conceived, researched and written by Petra Marquardt-Bigman. Narrated and directed by Elder of Ziyon.

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The Forward has a decent summary of how the Black Lives Matter platform is anti-Israel:

What does it say about Israel?

It singles out Israel as the recipient of $3 billion in U.S. aid, calling it “a state that practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades.”

The platform seems to imply that Israel benefits from military aid to Egypt. It invokes the fact that together the two countries receive close to 75% of U.S. aid money, and claims that Egypt is “Israel’s most important regional ally.”

The platform devotes a whole paragraph to Israel, in which it criticizes Israel’s “genocide” against the Palestinians, calls it “an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people” and claims the Jewish state arrests Palestinians as young as 4 years old.

The anti-Israel sections were written by three dedicated anti-Israel grups: Adalah, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

There is an irony here.

The Black Lives Matter movement is keyed on ending what it perceives as exploitation of blacks:

Black humanity and dignity requires Black political will and power. Despite constant exploitation and perpetual oppression, Black people have bravely and brilliantly been the driving force pushing the U.S. towards the ideals it articulates but has never achieved. ...While this platform is focused on domestic policies, we know that patriarchy, exploitative capitalism, militarism, and white supremacy know no borders. We stand in solidarity with our international family against the ravages of global capitalism and anti-Black racism, human-made climate change, war, and exploitation.

Yet the authors did not realize that they are being exploited by a group that has no interest in black lives at all, a group that only cynically uses black people for its own purposes.

The anti-Israel section of the BLM platform is filled with the usual lies (like the "fifty laws on the books" lie and charges of apartheid and genocide by Israel.) Those lies were placed there for only one reason, and it has nothing to do with the goals of Black Lives Matter - it is naked exploitation of blacks by a non-black group. Allowing the Palestinian groups to attempt to write part of the platform is a historic mistake that will hurt it.

This has been the Palestinian way of thinking for a while- infiltrate an organization and then hijack its goals to focus on hate for Israel. They did it with numerous UN agencies and other international organizations and commemorations that had been useful before they were co-opted.

The idea that the black movement was ripe for exploitation has been on the Palestinian radar for years. It is doubly cynical, because not only does it attempt to hijack the movement to become yet another vehicle to bash Israel, but it also disenfranchises the many Jews who have been in the forefront of the civil rights movement since it began.

Adding lies to the platform does not strengthen the movement, on the contrary, it weakens it considerably. What could have been the beginning of a serious discussion is now sidetracked and the Palestinian hijacking of yet another liberal social movement has begun - to the detriment of the actual people that the movement was meant to help.

One would have hoped that the BLM movement would have been more conscious of how it feels to be exploited by a group that doesn't give a damn about anyone besides themselves and who only wants to use blacks for its own purposes.

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08/07 Links: Danon: 'If they see the facts, they won't believe Palestinian lies'; Anti-Israel blacklisters complain they are unfairly being blacklisted

From Ian:

'If they see the facts, they won't believe Palestinian lies'

Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon expressed great satisfaction with the visit to Israel he led in which 11 UN ambassadors representing countries from four different continents had the opportunity to observe life in Israel for themselves.
"It was a very effective visit. We managed to show them the chief challenges we're dealing with in only four days," Danon told Arutz Sheva.
Danon recounted that the ambassadors first visited the border with Gaza, where they saw the threat of the rockets and tunnels, and then went north to the border with Lebanon, in order to observe the threat posed by a rearming Hezbollah. Danon showed the ambassadors maps of the various Hezbollah bases that are located in the heart of local villages very close to the border, complete with rocket launchers.
Ambassador Danon claims that there is no doubting the effectiveness of these types of visits and tours. He says that it's not a matter of gaining victory in a knockout blow but rather gaining "points" little by little, with the fruits of these efforts becoming apparent in future diplomatic struggles. Danon said that the maps and pictures he showed the ambassadors are of great value in rebuffing baseless criticisms of Israel, and that if he could he would bring all the ambassadors in the UN for a similar visit.
When asked whether any of the visiting ambassadors hailed from countries that are consistently anti-Israel, Danon replied that most of the countries were what he would call "middle-of-the-road" regarding their Israel policy, and that the great advantage in bringing their ambassadors over for a visit is in the fact that it makes it far less likely that they will turn anti-Israel in the future, as they have seen the facts on the ground first-hand, and aren't just getting their information from pro-Palestinian propaganda.

Peace Now leader wants Israel to overthrow the Palestinian Authority

Peace Now has long functioned almost as a defense attorney for the Palestinian Authority--vigorously demanding Israeli concessions to the PA, while refraining from criticizing the PA's sponsorship of terrorism and its constant incitement against Jews and Israel.
Martin Bresler's op-ed began with the usual litany of denunciations of Israel's behavior. "The occupation is evil," he informed Jewish Week readers. "It is immoral. It is un-Jewish." Israel has become "the oppressor of another people." This "twists the souls" of Israelis, and is "making the entire body [of Israel] sick." It even "feeds anti-Semitism."
But not to worry—Mr. Bresler has a solution. He has a six-step peace plan, and here's step #1: "Israel can announce…that it recognizes that the occupation must end at some point, that it will do so as soon as the security situation permits, and until that time it will administer the West Bank for the benefit of its Palestinian inhabitants and its own safety."
Come again?
Martin Bresler, in the name of Americans for Peace Now, wants Israel to "administer the West Bank for the benefit of its Palestinian inhabitants."
Right now, of course, it is the Palestinian Authority which administers 99% of the Palestinian Arab inhabitants of Judea-Samaria (the West Bank). The PA has been doing so since 1995, when then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin withdrew Israel's forces from the areas, called A and B, where nearly all of the Palestinians reside. Only 4% (about 50,000) of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria still live in area C under Israeli administration, as do all the Jews.

Palestinians: The "Country" Where Crime Is an Official Job

"[W]hoever was imprisoned for five years or more is entitled to a job in a PA [Palestinian Authority] institution. Thus, the PA gives priority in job placement to people who were involved in terrorist activity." – Yigal Carmon, president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), in testimony to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, July 6, 2016.
In 2016, not less than $300 million (between 7% and 10% of the budget) was allocated to prisoners, their families, and to "martyrs' families."
In June, an independent report commissioned by the Britain's Department for International Development concluded that by enabling the PA to pay salaries to terrorists, British aid to the PA had made anti-Israel terror "more likely." DFID dismissed the report.
Palestinian society is totally built and organized on the basis of "resistance". It is a society where jobs, fame and money go to people who are in, or who have spent years in, Israeli jails. There, legitimacy goes to people who are considered "martyrs."

I remain dismayed at what looks to be a sincere disregard for the well-being of Jewish students on the campus of San Francisco State University.

This may come as something of a surprise to SFSU President Leslie Wong because I have no doubt that he thinks of himself as just as much a friend of the Jewish community as he is with every other ethnic group at the university.

Well, sadly, he isn't.

Let's look at two very simple facts.

1) Wong praised the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) and their advisor, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, as representing the best values of the school in April of 2015.

2) GUPS calls for violence against Jews within Israel, if not elsewhere.

What I fail to understand is how he can possibly square this circle.

In a video created during a reception to celebrate the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) initiative, and the creation of an undergraduate minor in that sub-field, Wong said:

"I want to offer my personal congratulations to the student leadership of GUPS. They have been an inspiration for me. And they have helped me when I have to tell other community groups to mind their own business. GUPS is the very purpose of this great university."

The student leadership of GUPS?

Would that include this former president of GUPS, Mr. Mohammad Hammad, and his famous blade from 2013?

In case anyone has any difficulty reading Mr. Hammad's sentiment, he claims:

"I seriously can not get over how much I love this blade. It is the sharpest thing I own and cuts through everything like butter and just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier."

The case of Mohammad Hammad, from 2013, when he posted his violently-inclined social media bit, was well-known to President Wong long before he praised GUPS leadership as a personal inspiration in 2015. This story was well-covered and we know for a fact that Wong was well aware of it.

As I wrote at the time:

Tammi Benjamin, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the ACHMA Initiative seems to be taking the lead and "Dusty" at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers put up a website devoted entirely to SFSU and its ongoing reputation for hostilities toward the Jewish State of Israel. The Elder of Ziyon has also showed considerable interest and linked to one of my posts at the Times of Israel with the exceedingly sad title, "Canned Palestinian Children Meat."

Israellycool is covering it.

The Jewish Press is covering it.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is involved.

The Times of Israel has taken notice.

The Jewish Journal Says Hello.

Furthermore, it must be noted that when the students of GUPS stand on the quad at Malcolm X Plaza and chant "Intifada! Intifada! Long live the Intifada!" they are quite literally calling for the murder of Jewish people.

What does SFSU President Wong think that "Intifada" means?

This material is largely a rehash, of course, but the issue hangs in there - as we see from this recent piece by columnist Cinammon Stillwell, published in the Independent Journal Review entitled, "Why Is A San Francisco University Secretly Partnering With An Arab College That Promotes Jihad?"

It is precisely because so many at San Francisco State University honestly believe that Arabs have good reason to seek the murder of Jews that Wong has little problem with student cries for Intifada.

In the mean time, I would recommend that Jewish students take up a martial art, perhaps Krav Maga.

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

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Last month I noted that Palestinian authorities were cracking down on car-theft rings and destroying the cars that were found - and I showed that most of those cars were stolen from Israel.

Instead of returning the stolen vehicles to their rightful owners, the Palestinian Authority decided to destroy them.

There are some more details that were revealed in a Ma'an story about stolen cars in the West Bank.

The article admits that most of the cars are stolen from Israel, and it estimates that some 40,000 vehicles in the West Bank are actually stolen from Israel. The PA destroyed over 4500 cars this year alone!

However, Palestinian security officials spin the thefts as more of a public safety issue, because the cars are not inspected properly. It also improbably claims that many of the cars are sold illegally by Israelis to Palestinians.

Why doesn't the PA simply return the cars to Israel?

It turns out that the Palestinian Authority doesn't completely destroy the stolen vehicles. They make them unusable, for example by bashing in the roofs, but the cars are then auctioned to auto-repair shops for spare parts - and "the proceeds of the sale are deposited in the state treasury according to Palestinian law."

Which means that the PA is not interested in stopping the car thefts. They just want to make sure that they make a profit from the work of the thieves.

The rampant car theft helps enrich the Palestinian Authority - which is why their crackdown is not to stop the thefts but to ensure that they make money off of them.

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The Olympic-sized swimming pools in the West Bank that Reuters couldn't find (update)

Remember Mary al-Atrash, the Palestinian Olympic swimmer who told Reuters' Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh that she had no Olympic-sized pool to train in, and couldn't make it to Jerusalem "due to the conflict" to train in one there?

I showed that she lied about having no access to swimming pools in Jerusalem - she simply never applied for a permit.

But it turns out that she lied about something more fundamental. After I publicized the story, Tablet magazine showed that there are indeed 50-meter Olympic sized pools in the West Bank.

And there are quite a few.

Here is one in her own home town at the Murad Tourist Resort:

Here is a screenshot from a video about how a Bedouin woman opened up a water resort in Jericho that included an Olympic sized pool - a pool that apparently was funded by the International Olympic Committee specifically to help Palestinian swimmers!

Here's one in Qalqiya:

And an indoor pool also in Qalqiya:

And in Hawara:

For Reuters, the story of evil Israel and poor Palestine was too good to check.

Because, that is what Reuters reporters believe.

UPDATE: Some are not sure that most of the pools here are 50 meters, as opposed to 25 meters.

The Jericho pool, however, certainly seems to be the right size:

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