Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, August 22, 2016

08/22 Links Pt1: They hate Bibi but they know he’s right; Israel strikes 50 times in Gaza after rocket attack

From Ian:

JCPA: The PA, Based in Ramallah, Faces Opposition in Other Towns

As the Palestinian Authority prepares for municipal elections in October, the rift between Fatah and the official PA security forces is growing in Samaria towns. Nablus and Tulkarem have seen real battles in which both official PA security operatives and Fatah members have been killed.
In Nablus the tension has risen to even higher levels after the Al-Aghbar family of the Nablus casbah issued condemnations of the Palestinian security forces for, they claim, having “executed” their son, Khaled Abd al-Nasser, while he was a detainee in their hands after his release from an Israeli prison,.
According to the Nablus Facebook pages, the city’s main thoroughfares are strewn with fires.
Fatah Opposition to the PA
The question that arises, of course, is if the elections do take place, who in Nablus will vote for the pro-Ramallah candidates – if there are any? Who can stop the lists of candidates from Hamas and the pro-Iranian organizations, such as the Popular Front?
In Hebron, the clans are considering whether to draw up lists that are loyal to the city and the district, and not to Ramallah.
Fatah elements have expressed bewilderment as to why, given these gloomy prospects, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is also the supposed head of Fatah, is insisting on holding the elections.

Vic Rosenthal: They hate Bibi but they know he’s right

I’ve been reading Ha’aretz lately and listening to some of our left-of-center politicians, and it seems like they are living in an entirely different world than I am.
The usual piece starts off with an attack on Binyamin Netanyahu, each one trying to find a new angle. Ari Shavit tells us that he’s dishonest, he’s obsessed with his father, he hates Arabs, he will destroy the country, he is little by little crushing democracy, and on and on. Avraham Burg claims that Israel is becoming a dictatorship and refers to Iran and the Hamas terror tunnels as “some … Netanyahu phobia.” Phobia!
Former PM Ehud Barak claims that Netanyahu has made serious errors recently that have made Israel vulnerable to a “central security threat.” But he won’t say what, exactly, so we are waiting for it to leak. This from the guy that opened the door to the Second Intifada, and who allowed Druze IDF soldier Madhat Yusuf to bleed to death because he didn’t want to anger the Palestinians.
Most of these writers and politicians admit that Israel is doing well economically and that Bibi has made some serious diplomatic gains, with Turkey, the Sunni Arab states, several African nations, India, even China to some extent. They have to admit that there have been few wars during his years as PM, and they’ve been limited in extent. He has kept us from getting entangled in Syria, seems to have reached a modus vivendi with the Russians, and avoided the big one with Iran/Hezbollah.
They blame him for our bad relationship with the US. They might as well blame him for climate change too, but anyone with eyes can see that the Obama Administration – correctly viewing our PM as the main obstacle to realizing their goal of reversing the outcome of the 1967 war – has it in for him and for us as a result. That’s why they blame him for the PLO/PA’s refusal to even sit down to negotiate and why they tried to intervene in our last election.

The (Supposed) Right-Wing Israeli Fanatic Who’s Making Life Easier for the Palestinians

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s recently appointed defense minister, has a reputation as a hawkish right-wing nationalist. To those who know him solely by this reputation, it might be surprising to learn that his first major initiative regarding the West Bank has been to expand the access of Palestinians living in Areas A and B (under, respectively, complete and partial Palestinian Authority control) to economic opportunities in Area C, which remains under direct Israeli control. David Makovsky writes:
The eleven projects [the defense ministry announced last week], ranging from a medical facility to residences, will be carried out in locations adjacent to Areas A and B. While the projects may only occur in a limited geographic space in Area C, they certainly create an interesting precedent. . . .
This week’s move suggests that Lieberman, obviously with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support, will back an emphasis by the Israel Defense Forces on taking stabilizing economic steps during a period of diplomatic stasis. In particular, the IDF has resisted pressure from the most right-wing forces within the Israeli government to reduce sharply [the number of] work permits granted to Palestinians in response to the wave of stabbings that began last October. IDF officials generally believe that any such overreaction will only worsen the situation, and they feel vindicated by the dissipation of the stabbings. . . .

The news media spins it this way: (from AP)

Slim majority of Israelis, Palestinians still favor peace deal

A new poll of Israelis and Palestinians released on Monday found that a slim majority on both sides still favor a peace settlement establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, despite years of conflict and deadlock in negotiations.

The results of the joint poll may provide some small signs of encouragement when peace prospects appear bleak. The last round of negotiations broke down two years ago, and a resumption of talks, much less progress between the sides, at this point seems unlikely.

The poll found that 51 percent of Palestinians and 59 percent of Israelis still support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But the reality is shown to be different once you look at the actual questions.

While the question about a two-state solution indeed shows that a slim majority of Palestinians support it, what is not being revealed is that they do not see that as the permanent solution.

Other polls have shown that they look at two-states as a stage on the way to destroying Israel. Unfortunately, this poll didn't ask that question. However, what it did show was consistent with that thinking.

It showed that Palestinians do not see a two-state solution as the end of the conflict.

The poll asked a series of specific questions about the parameters of any ultimate peace agreement. One question asked of Palestinians:

Mutual recognition of Palestine and Israel as the homelands of their respective peoples. The agreement will mark the end of conflict, Israel will fight terror against Palestinians, and no further claims will be made by either side. Support or oppose?

57.4% opposed ending the conflict based on the parameters of a basic two-state solution and only 40% supported it.

Interestingly, West Bank Palestinians were even more hawkish than those in Gaza. And 68% of Israelis supported an end to the conflict along those lines.

The headlines say that both Israelis and Palestinians want peace. But a basic analysis of the poll itself shows the truth: Israelis want peace, Palestinians want to keep the conflict going until their ultimate victory.

This is the fundamental fact missing from most analysis of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Palestinians do not want a real, permanent peace, only to grab what they can to stage the next phase of their goal to destroy Israel.

Most polls are written by people who do not even want to accept that as a possibility, so the question is not asked and the headlines can be written based on the very specific, yet ultimately inadequate, questions that were asked.

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The Gaza target that Israel didn't hit

People are up in arms over Israel's largely symbolic airstrikes in northern Gaza yesterday - a reported 50 strikes that resulted in one minor injury.

Amnesty, for example, tweeted:

The IDF hit 50 separate locations in Gaza after 1 rocket was fired into #Israel. https://t.co/OaeP32pys5
— Amnesty Israel (@AmnestyIsrael) August 22, 2016

Most of the bombs, however, hit completely empty areas. Big bombs, targeting - desert.

It was symbolic. The entire point was to give a message that Israel holds Hamas responsible for rocket fire. It wasn't meant as an escalation - it was meant to preserve the status quo.

Hamas got the message loud and clear.

And the proof comes from one major target that would have been very easy for Israel to hit.

In southern Gaza Sunday evening, at the same time that Israel was bombing sand, Hamas held a major military parade celebrating the deaths of several major leaders killed two years ago during Protective Edge.

If Israel wanted to inflict damage, this would have been the place to do it:

Also, notice the UN vehicle passing by the Hamas parade.

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A group of protesters have closed the main offices of the UN in Ramallah to protest the lack of support for a Palestinian hunger striker.

Bilal Kayed started his hunger strike when he was placed in administrative detention the day he was scheduled to be freed from prison after a 14 year sentence.

Other prisoners joined the hunger strike as well.

According to Arab media, Israel has said that the administrative detention was necessary based on evidence that Kayed intended to go back to terrorism upon release.

Kayed is a member of the PFLP terror group.

Palestinian protesters often target the very agencies who are the most on their side, thereby hurting their own people when they close the offices. They have closed UNRWA and ICRC offices recently.

In this case, the target was the United Nations Ramallah Common Premises, a large building where numerous UN agencies are concentrated. Since the UN has so many separate agencies working from its obsession with demonizing Israel, it decided to consolidate them to work in one building.

Ironically, only two days ago the UN has quite publicly criticized Israel for its use of administrative detention against Kayed specifically.

Once again, Palestinians are shooting themselves in the foot because they would rather blame any Westerners for their problems than to actually wonder whether it helps their cause to have so many terror groups freely operating under their noses.

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One of George Soros' grantees engages in Holocaust denial

A great catch from the Tayara Herzl blog based on a story I posted earlier:

Holocaust-denying articles have been popping up on El Badil, an Egyptian news site. But, as Elder of Ziyon notes:

Part one denies that Jews are a people altogether, claims that Ashkenazic Jews are Khazars,

Part two says that the Jews use the myth of being called “the chosen people” to manipulate the world to do their bidding.

Part three denies that Israel is the Promised Land, and says Jews have no particular historic attachment to the land.

Part four, published yesterday, denies the Holocaust, quoting famous Holocaust deniers like Fred Leuchter, David Irving and Ernst Zundel. It claims that “experts” like Leuchter proved that there couldn’t have been any gas chambers and that there were only 3 million Jews in Europe before World War II.

Wattan News, a Palestinian TV network, has been republishing these articles.
That last sentence is a real shocker. Wattan News, for those who don’t know, was just revealed to be one of the sites George Soros’s Arab Regional Office funds. In a March 2014 portfolio review, it was revealed that $405,000 was given to Wattan TV between 2012-2014 by Soros. That was over 15 percent of Wattan TV’s budget.

We can’t know for sure if Soros is still funding Wattan TV, as he did from 2012-2014, because that is when the last document regarding funding ends. But it is possible that Soros is funding a Holocaust-denying Palestinian news website, which would only further prove that he cares more about demonizing Israel than spreading facts.

Sure enough, Wattan is listed in the Open Society Foundation DCLeaks document as "an independent, non-profit Palestinian TV station that was established in 1996 by Palestinian civil society organizations. It is owned and operated by a consortium of NGOs- Medical Relief Society, Palestinian Hydrology Group, and Palestinian Relief Committee-and is governed by a board of directors in a transparent manner. " Its purpose is described as "to provide quality, public interest news and programming to Palestinian communities in the West Bank, Gaza, and in the Diaspora through TV and online platforms."

And we now know that this news and programming includes the worst kind of antisemitism including Holocaust denial.

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Wife of dead Hamas commander carries his blood around, seeks vengeance

Palestine Today has a lengthy feature with the wife of senior Hamas commander Mohammed Abu Shamala, killed two years ago during Operation Protective Edge along with two other senior Hamas leaders.

Umm Shamala says that she is very proud that Hamas has named a new missile after her husband.

She keeps a handkerchief stained with his blood, saying that "This blood is a message and a witness to the aggression of brutal occupation that we must avenge his spirit and his pure blood....We remain always ready at every moment to go behind enemy lines, and take revenge."

Here is the photo of the bereaved wife published in the site.

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08/21 Links: From The Sbarro Bombing To ISIS : Islamist Terror Fed At The Trough Of Western Appeasement

From Ian:

From The Sbarro Bombing To ISIS : Islamist Terror Fed At The Trough Of Western Appeasement

Fifteen years ago Palestinian terrorists blew up a pizza place in the heart of Jerusalem. One month later, other Islamist terrorists blew up the World Trade Centers in NY, the Pentagon Building in Washington DC, and were foiled in their attempt to destroy the Capital building by the brave passengers of Flight 93.
It is important to remember these acts, not simply to memorialize the innocent victims whose only crime was to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, but as a reminder that even today, fifteen years later terrorism still suckles at the teat of political correctness and Western World appeasement.
From ” A Personal Account of the Bombing” by Rabbi Binny Freedman:
Her eyes, I think, will stay with me forever. Imploring, beseeching, full of so much sadness. I think the shock of where and how she was, was sinking in. I can’t begin to describe all that was in those eyes.

Jewish settlements are legal

The misperceptions, misrepresentations and ignorance over the legal status of Jewish settlements in the disputed ‎area of Judea and Samaria reflect the general attitude ‎toward the unique phenomenon of the reconstruction of the Jewish national ‎home in Israel.‎
‎"Fidelity to law is the essence of peace," opined Professor Eugene Rostow, a former dean of the Yale University Law School, undersecretary of state and a co-author of ‎the Nov. 22, 1967, U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Rostow resolved ‎that under international law, "Jews have the same right to settle in the West ‎Bank as they have in Haifa." ‎
Rostow determined that according to Resolution 242, "Israel is required to withdraw 'from territories,' not 'the' territories, ‎nor from 'all' the territories, but 'some' of the territories, which included the ‎West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Desert and the Golan ‎Heights."
Moreover, "resolutions calling for withdrawal from 'all' the territories ‎were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. ... Israel was ‎not to be forced back to the 'fragile and vulnerable' [9- to 15-mile wide] lines ... but ‎to 'secure and recognized' boundaries, agreed to by the parties. ... In making ‎peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai ... [which ‎amounts to] more than 90% of the territories occupied in 1967."‎
Former International Court of Justice President Judge Stephen ‎M. Schwebel stated: "[The 1967] Israeli conquest of territory was defensive ‎rather than aggressive ... [as] indicated by Egypt's prior closure of the Straits of ‎Tiran, blockade of the Israeli port of Eilat, and the amassing of [Egyptian] ‎troops in Sinai, coupled with its ejection of the U.N. Emergency Force ... [and] ‎Jordan's initiated hostilities against Israel. ... The 1948 Arab invasion of the ‎nascent State of Israel further demonstrated that Egypt's seizure of the Gaza ‎Strip, and Jordan's seizure and subsequent annexation of the West Bank and ‎the Old city of Jerusalem, were unlawful. ... Between Israel, acting defensively ‎in 1948 and 1967 ‎‏]‏according to Article 52 of the U.N. Charter‏[‏‎, on the one hand, ‎and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively in 1948 and 1967, on the other, ‎Israel has better title in the territory of what was [British Mandate] Palestine, ‎including the whole of Jerusalem. ... It follows that modifications of the 1949 ‎armistice lines among those states within former Palestinian territory are ‎lawful." ‎

PMW: PA crossword puzzle: Israeli city Haifa is “port in occupied Palestine”

A crossword puzzle clue in yesterday’s official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reiterated the Palestinian Authority ideology that teaches Palestinians to see all of Israel as “occupied territory.”
Clue (9 down): “A port in occupied Palestine”
Solution: “Haifa,” (i.e., Israeli port city in Northern Israel).
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 20, 2016]
The PA avoids expressing legitimacy for Israel in any borders by using euphemisms to replace “Israel.” The official PA daily regularly presents all of Israel as “occupied Palestine,” “occupied Palestinian Interior” or “1948 territories,” and defines Israeli cities as “occupied” cities.
Recently, the official PA daily reported on an invention by Israeli Arabs who were studying in a university in Haifa. The PA daily defined the Arabs of Israel as “Palestinian students from the Interior that was occupied in 1948.” Haifa, where they were studying, was defined as “the occupied city of Haifa”:
"Three Palestinian students from the Interior that was occupied in 1948 (i.e., Israel), who are studying software engineering at the College of Applied Sciences at Technion University in the occupied city of Haifa, have succeeded in inventing a small device that reveals the quality of the watermelon before the purchase."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 28, 2016]

PA TV teaches kids to hope that "all Palestine will return to us"

JeffwithaJ mentioned The Big O over at Israel Thrives in reference to a Tablet article written by Daniel May, a doctoral candidate in Religion, Ethics and Politics at Princeton University and a former director of J Street U entitled, "The Problem Isn’t Black Lives Matter. It’s the Occupation."

I responded as follows:

"The Occupation with the Big O.

What is the significance of the Big O?

It is the Big Daddy of all Occupations.

It is the means by which some Jews, particularly in diaspora, make themselves feel superior to Arabs and Muslims.

After all, if 6 million Jews in the Middle East can defeat the Palestinian-Arabs, via the Big O, despite the serious objections of 400 million Arabs and 1.5 billion Muslims, what does that say about Jewish strength?

It says that, # 1, Jews kick ass and, # 2, we're humble enough to regret it.

It's a means by which goodhearted and intellectually-inclined Jewish boys and girls get, on the one hand, to feel powerful even while, on the other hand, they burnish moral credentials. There is a kind-of arrogance to the use of the Big O by Jews when discussing those few of us who choose to live in the lands of our heritage.

It raises us and diminishes us, both, at the same time."

The first time that I came across the term was in a children's book by Shel Silverstein called The Missing Piece Meets the Big O... which, although it has been awhile since I read it, I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with sex.

Today, however, when I think of The Big O, sadly, I tend to think of the capitalized word "Occupation."

As any linguist - including Noam Chomsky - will tell you, the terminology within which we discuss any topic, particularly highly charged topics, like political topics, gives away our biases. When people use "The Big O" to discuss the presence of Jewish people in Judea (and Samaria) it indicates something more than disdain for Jews.

It indicates an off-handed contempt for the Arabs, who are wrongly thought of as weak, and a true dislike for the Jews of Israel who are thought of as racist imperialists.

The very first thing that must be acknowledged is that Jews cannot "illegally occupy" the very land where Jews come from. It is as if they want to bring us back to medieval wandering status. The Wandering Jew.

Jews occupy the Land of Israel in the ways that the French occupy France or the ways in which Czechs occupy the Czech Republic.

Arabs, and many Muslims, may despise Jews for traditional religious reasons - embedded in fourteen centuries of hostile Islamic theocratic doctrine and dogma - but that does not mean that we are going to surrender the only small place that we have, as our own, on this planet.

The problem, however, is not just the Arabs.

It is the Jews who swing around The Big O.

Progressive-left, Democratic-Party-Leaning, navel-gazing, guilt-ridden, white-western, upwardly-mobile, American and European Jews, are so riddled with humanitarian racism that they cannot even begin to imagine that non-Jews "of color" have agency. It seldom occurs to them that non-white people should not be reduced to mere victims of the progressive-left imagination. It seldom occurs to them that by insisting that people "of color" are merely victims of Whitey that they robbing these people of their dignity.

In the meantime, many will point the trembling finger of blame toward their fellow Jews on the other side of the planet and accuse them of genocide, ethnic cleaning, and the Big O.

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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El Badil, an Egyptian news site, has been publishing a series called "Zionist Lies" written by Maher Shayyal.

Part one denies that Jews are a people altogether, claims that Ashkenazic Jews are Khazars,

Part two says that the Jews use the myth of being called "the chosen people" to manipulate the world to do their bidding.

Part three denies that Israel is the Promised Land, and says Jews have no particular historic attachment to the land.

Part four, published yesterday, denies the Holocaust, quoting famous Holocaust deniers like Fred Leuchter, David Irving and Ernst Zundel. It claims that "experts" like Leuchter proved that there couldn't have been any gas chambers and that there were only 3 million Jews in Europe before World War II.

Wattan News, a Palestinian TV network, has been republishing these articles.

But don't call them antisemites.

Denial that Jewish people exist and that Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis are framed as if they are merely anti-Zionist positions.

Meanwhile, Arab media are complaining that Arab refugees in Germany are being escorted to the sites of death camps to learn a little history, and are being scolded by their tour guides when they try to compare Israeli actions to those of the Nazis.

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On August 21, 1969, a mentally ill Australian Christian names Denis Michael Rohan set fire to the pulpit of the Al Aqsa Mosque, causing lots of damage.

Ever since then, the Palestinians have tried to blame Israel and Jews for the attack. And this year's anniversary is no exception.

The official PA Wafa news agency has many articles on this anniversary.

One says that Israel has enacted security measures and says that there will be a meeting today of senior figures to condemn "as well as continuous provocative incursions, and the accompanying attempts to perform the rituals and prayers of the Talmud, and the statements and declarations to demolish the mosque and build a "temple" on its ruins."

The Islamic Christian Commission used this anniversary to denounce "Judaization projects by the Israeli government against the al-Aqsa mosque and the holy city as a whole, including the daily incursions of the blessed mosqu , preventing worshipers from entering, continued tunneling beneath the foundations of the mosque, and more outposts and settlement blocs, and building of more Talmudic gardens, which combine to the Israeli goal to set up a Temple....The burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque 47 years ago was the beginning to outline a comprehensive and dangerous Judaization of the mosque..."

The official PA government statement used the anniversary to say "the series of crimes of the occupation against the first Qiblah and the third holiest shrine has not stopped from 1967 to today."

Another article said that "settlers" visited the Temple Mount today to celebrate the anniversary of the attack. The Supreme Muslim Council condemned the peaceful visits by Jews to their holiest site, calling the visits "aggressive intrusions" and saying that Jews have no rights on the area.

The PA foreign ministry also used the anniversary to issue a statement condemning "Benjamin Netanyahu's extremist government" for "continuing the Judaization of occupied East Jerusalem and its environs, through the creation of fake Talmudic Jewish landmarks that have nothing to do with history and religion, but politics through the use of force." It also complained about how there are now over 100 synagogues near the Temple Mount and how Israel is oppressing Muslims by limiting the noise level of calls to prayer in mosques "because it disturbs the settlers."

Perhaps the most telling article at the official Wafa site was written in English, where the author clearly knows that the arsonist in 1969 was not Jewish, but wants to give readers the impression that he was:

Israeli police Sunday intensified what it called, security measures in the Old City of Jerusalem as this day marks the 47th anniversary of Al-Aqsa Mosque arson at the hands ofan Australian man who studied Torah and wanted to build a new temple....Presented in front of the court, Rohan stated that he was acting as “the Lord’s emissary” following the divine instructions and also stated that his reason for trying to destruct Al-Aqsa Mosque was in order to give a chance to rebuild it as the Jewish Temple.

Taken together, it is obvious that the PA is trying yet again to incite violence to "defend Al Aqsa" - the same kind of incitement that led to last year's knifing and car ramming spree against Jews throughout Israel.

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The geography textbook that I recently mentioned was filled with anti-Israel lies was the fourth edition of World Regional Geography.

In response to my initial criticism, the main author released this statement:

OK, let's look at the sixth edition.

It doesn't include some of the more egregious lies (like blaming Jews for modern terrorism,) but it still has plenty.

Here are the major errors - all against Israel - that can be seen in its three main pages on the topic. (Click to enlarge the pages.)

1. The choice of statistics gives a skewed picture. Why not compare Palestinian vital statistics with those of Egypt and Jordan, who controlled those territories before? Why not compare their statistics from 1967 with those in 1993, while they were under full Israeli control? The choice of what to show shows a bias and does not explain the entire story.

2. What is the source for this? Palestinians are far better educated than their Arab counterparts in most countries, and I think they are less impoverished as well.

3. The book pretends that Palestinians controlled their own land before 1948, and it is not true. But this passage is worse, because it pretends that Israel has continuously been taking more and more land away from them over the years, when the only other event of significance happened in 1967 when the land was controlled by Egypt and Jordan.

4. The separation barrier does not encircle the territories. Or any part of them.

5. The purpose of the barrier was to curtail Palestinian access? What is the source for that? It was purely for security. Israel allows tens of thousands of Palestinians to work in Israel every day.

6. The number of Arabs displaced by Zionist land purchases was quite small. A British report in 1931 found only 664 landless Arabs. The Peel Commission noted that most Jewish land purchases were in areas that had never been cultivated before, saying "The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought."

7. What is missing is far more important than the errors in the text. How can it not mention the Arab riots in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936-9, aiming at killing Jews? How can it not mention the British White Paper that blocked hundreds of thousands of Jews from migrating to Israel from Europe, instead dooming them to being gassed to death? Which, incidentally, really was a breach of the Balfour Declaration!

8. It was not "warfare between the Jews and Palestinians" that began. The Arabs in Palestine attacked Jews immediately after the 1947 partition plan passed in 1947, way before May 1948. The Jewish defenders only went on the offense months later after absorbing many losses that no one else cared to stop.

1. Although the text now accurately says that the Arabs rejected the partition plan, the map caption says the Jews did and started the war. This is completely false.

2. The Oslo Accords specifically said nothing about settlement expansion. I don't know anything about "verbal agreements in the Oslo Accords" - the phrase makes no sense, either they were part of the Accords or not, and they were not. Also, Oslo had nothing to do with the Golan Heights.

3. We could argue whether the settlements are "extralegal" but at least mention that Israel says that they are not illegal, and no Israeli court has ruled them illegal.

4. It is curious that in a page of maps it does not show Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

1. There was no "Palestinian" land to shrink. The area of British Mandate Palestine was British, then Israeli/Egyptian/Jordanian. It was never "Palestinian."

2. Who, exactly, forced them into refugee camps? It certainly wasn't Israel. Why does the text not mention how Arabs have discriminated against Palestinians for six decades?

3. Under Israeli law, they are equal, certainly since 1967. One can claim that there is de facto discrimination against Arabs by the Jewish majority, but saying that the state discriminates against Arab Israelis is not true.

4. To blame the second intifada on the settlements is simply false.

5. The Golan Heights is not "Palestinian territory" under any definition.

6. The term "occupied Palestinian territories" was not coined nor used by the UN until the 1990s. The Palestinian Arabs were not mentioned once in UNSC 242.

7. See above. UN 242 had nothing to do with any Palestinian state, and it was not even envisioned when it was written - it was for peace between Israel and the Arab states, especially Egypt and Jordan. Interestingly, the text here does not mention that Israel and Jordan are at peace, and only implies Israel's peace agreement with Egypt.

8. Not a word about Hamas coup, and their rockets and terror, that caused the closure of Gaza. Instead, the authors say that Israel "negated" its withdrawal. This is an outrageous assertion.

9. Thousands of Palestinians were not displaced by settlements. Essentially all settlements outside Hebron and Jerusalem were built in areas where no one ever lived before, and the numbers of Arabs displaced in those two cities is quite small, not to mention that the purchase of the houses was done legally.

10. This number, claiming 30,000 farmers separated from their land by the security barrier, is absolute fiction. I would be surprised if the number of landowners affected by the fence is 1% of that number.

There is more. A couple of pages later the authors claim that the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s was a spillover from the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is false. And then the authors claim that regional stability would naturally follow a peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians (plus an end to Syria's civil war.)

Plus, students who purchase the book have access to videos mentioned in the text, and who knows what errors are in those.

But these three pages show quite clearly that at least this college textbook is riddled with errors - nearly two dozen in only three pages - and all the errors seem to be in one direction, against Israel.

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08/20 Links: Real Tikkun Olam; Elie Wiesel: A Life in Pictures

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: Looking a gift horse in the mouth

After billionaire George Soros was discovered to be behind a plot to influence Israeli NGOs, practical action must be taken to prevent such a threat in the future.
Anyone who follows NGO Monitor’s reports on Soros knows that he isn’t involved in projects that promote peace, solidarity and conciliation among different peoples. That’s not his what he’s about. Rather, what Soros has focused on was the funding of different bodies, most of them Palestinian, which had all taken part in a campaign that delegitimized and demonized Israel. This is already known to whoever wishes to look into Soros' track record, as Soros himself has admitted that his actions promote anti-Semitism. This evil man, who has been indicted in France for insider trading, was reportedly behind financial speculation that threatened to topple entire nations. Noted philosopher Slavoj Žižek said of him that “Soros’ daily routine is a lie embodied: half of his working time is devoted to financial speculation, the other half to ‘humanitarian’ activities (the inside quotes are my own).” Žižek is admittedy a well-known anti-Zionist himself, but even anti-Zionists can get it right some of the time.
For a moment, a sneaking suspicion makes you wonder whether the relative quiet with which Solos’ leaked documents were received here was the work of some of the organizations that he had backed, such as the New Israel Fund and breaking the Silence. This only further stresses the ridiculousness of the “NGO Law” passed by the Right, which demands that all NOGs be transparent only in regard to the backing they receive from organizations outside of Israel, when private organizations and citizens intent on ushering in a new world order can be far more dangerous.
The take-home message from the Soros affair is that a practical response must be carried out. There has to be some legislation the deals more seriously with NGO donations. When private or governmental bodies, be they Soros or Sweden or an Irish church fund, begin assisting organizations that deny Israel’s very existence, or that support racism, they should not be allowed to donate to politically-affiliated NGOs in Israel. It is simply unacceptable that a body that denies Israel’s right to exist should be allowed to interfere in its inner workings through a generous donation to an NGO that supports, for instance, the Palestinian right of return. A country cannot stay indifferent to a campaign that works toward its undoing. Israel's Basic Law: the Knesset, which limits the extent of any body denying Israel’s right to exist to act as an elected representative, must also be implemented in regard to NGO funding.

Real Tikkun Olam

From the Economist.
Tiny Israel gives aid to 76 countries.

Just so you know.....

08/19 Link Pt2: Five Things You Need to Know About World Vision

From Ian:

Five Things You Need to Know About World Vision

The allegations against World Vision's man in the Gaza Strip are lethal to the organization's credibility. World Vision collects money through a child-sponsorship program in which donors give money to assist and benefit individual children and here is Halabi allegedly confessing to turning these donations into some sort of terrorist-sponsorship program.
What makes the accusation so bothersome is that World Vision has a well-documented tendency to portray Israel as singularly responsible for the suffering of children in the Gaza Strip (and for the Arab-Israeli conflict) while giving Hamas a pass.
Here are a five things that people need to know about World Vision.
1. World Vision is a conglomeration of local affiliates that operate in countries throughout the world. Its umbrella organization, World Vision International (WVI), is not just a humanitarian agency, but a church.
2. World Vision's affiliates have a troubling tendency to use stories of Israeli villainy as part of its fundraising narrative. It has also supported anti-Israel propaganda in a number of different venues.
3. World Vision's reticence is not restricted to Hamas. Staffers in the Middle East have historically spoken in much harsher terms about Israel than they have about bad actors in the region, such as Bashar Al Assad or ISIS.
4. If the allegations against Halabi are proven in court, World Vision will undoubtedly hear from its U.S. donors in a big way.
5. Experts who pay attention to the humanitarian aid industry have repeatedly documented how humanitarian organizations working in war zones have been corrupted by the circumstances in which they operate. Diversion of goods provided by humanitarian organizations is inevitable in places like the Gaza Strip. It is part of the business. That being said, the allegations against Halabi are beyond the pale, way beyond the pale.

UEFA probing Celtic for Palestinian flags at Hapoel match

The European soccer’s ruling body UEFA is to hold an investigation into Scotland’s Celtic soccer club, after its fans waved hundreds of Palestinian flags during a Champions League game in Glasgow against Israeli team Hapoel Beersheba on Wednesday.
UEFA’s regulations ban “any message that is not fit for a sports event, particularly messages that are of a political, ideological, religious, offensive or provocative nature,” the BBC said Friday.
According to the BBC, Celtic has been penalized eight times in five seasons for poor behavior by its fans.
Scotland’s Daily Record news website said UEFA will hear the case on September 22, and Celtic could be forced to close one of its stands if the governing body decides to take a hard stance over the incident.

NZ Advertising Watchdog Reaffirms Defence of Propaganda Lies

The New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority appeals board has reaffirmed its original ruling that maps are just opinion. The historic and geographic facts are of no relevance to the industry watchdog. It seems content to undermine its own Code of Ethics and allow anyone to publish an advert, no matter how misleading or inaccurate, as long as they claim their image is the expression of a political perspective.
Last December, the “map of lies” billboard in Auckland was taken down after one day. The Advertising Standards Authority said “this is the best outcome we could hope for”, presumably because they, and the advertising company which removed the billboard, understood how misleading the maps were.
Since then, the billboard reappeared in the Auckland CBD. Unlike Ad-Vantage, Go Media refused to remove the billboard, saying they had been threatened with legal action from the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign (PHRC). The ASA has now ruled that the maps are ‘robust opinion’ and allowable because:
"when it comes to strong political perspectives, there are no absolute truth or lies, just political standpoints”
NZ Advertising Standards Authority decision 11/085
This statement will no doubt come as a shock to any serious cartographer.

Can you believe the Palestinians once made whiskey?

In May, JTA reported that "The Golan Heights Distillery is the first whiskey to be bottled and sold in Israel. "

Maybe - but there was a whiskey once made in Palestine:

Bozwin, which roughly translates to "Beauty of Zion" was a brand created in the late 1920s by Mendel Chaikin, a Russian immigrant who founded M. Chaikin & Company, a London-based wine and spirit merchant. The company purchased kosher wine, spirits, and liquers in bulk from what is now modern day Israel, and shipped them back to London for bottling and sale to a growing Jewish community in the East End of London.

Here's the label:

See how Israel is stealing the history of the proud Palestinians who lived there before 1948?

There is a scandal here, though, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Palestinian Jews happily made whiskey before Israel was reborn.

The scandal is that the Hebrew on the labels say that the product is kosher for Passover.

How can a whiskey be kosher for Passover?

This snippet from an ad in the Jewish Monthly of 1951 shows that Bozwin was still being made after 1948, and it still claimed that it was used on Passover.

I know that theoretically it can be made from corn, but even that would not be acceptable to British Jews for Passover in the 1920s and 1930s.

Now, there's a story that needs to be researched.

(h/t Rob)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

08/19 Link Pt1: The price of powerlessness; The Temple Mount and UNESCO

From Ian:

Charles Krauthammer: The price of powerlessness

This week Russian bombers flew out of Iranian air bases to attack rebel positions in Syria. The State Department pretended not to be surprised. It should be. It should be alarmed. Iran’s intensely nationalistic revolutionary regime had never permitted foreign forces to operate from its soil. Until now.
The reordering of the Middle East is proceeding apace. Where for 40 years the U.S.-Egypt alliance anchored the region, a Russia-Iran condominium is now dictating events. That’s what you get after eight years of U.S. retrenchment and withdrawal. That’s what results from the nuclear deal with Iran, the evacuation of Iraq and utter U.S. immobility on Syria. Consider:
● Iran
The nuclear deal was supposed to begin a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. Instead, it has solidified a strategic-military alliance between Moscow and Tehran. With the lifting of sanctions and the normalizing of Iran’s international relations, Russia rushed in with major deals, including the shipment of S-300 ground-to-air missiles. Russian use of Iranian bases now marks a new level of cooperation and joint power projection.
● Iraq
These bombing runs cross Iraqi airspace. Before President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq, that could not have happened. The resulting vacuum has not only created a corridor for Russian bombing, it has gradually allowed a hard-won post-Saddam Iraq to slip into Iran’s orbit. According to a Baghdad-based U.S. military spokesman, there are 100,000 Shiite militia fighters operating inside Iraq, 80 percent of them Iranian-backed.
● Syria
When Russia dramatically intervened last year, establishing air bases and launching a savage bombing campaign, Obama did nothing. Indeed, he smugly predicted that Vladimir Putin had entered a quagmire. Some quagmire. Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not only saved. It encircled Aleppo and has seized the upper hand in the civil war. Meanwhile, our hapless secretary of state is running around trying to sue for peace, offering to share intelligence and legitimize Russian intervention if only Putin will promise to conquer gently.

The Temple Mount and UNESCO

Is this really what it boils down to? The Islamic State rules the international community? Including UNESCO?
On April 15 this year, the Executive Board of UNESCO's Programme and External Relations Commission convened for its 199th session. The earlier Temple Mount resolution was moved by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan -- all members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. That vote then passed to the 21 members of the World Heritage Committee during its 40th session in Istanbul, which had been scheduled to run from July 10 to July 20.
By mere chance, July's military coup attempt in Turkey disrupted the event, and the vote has now been scheduled for an autumn meeting. That may be based on a draft resolution created by the European Union, which is, in fact, just another denial of the historical Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. But, considering the one-sidedness of this resolution, just where is UNESCO's above-stated commitment to bring about "a dialogue between all stakeholders"?
Turning the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, Rachel's Tomb, the Cave of the Patriarchs, and other sites into exclusively Muslim holy places is directly linked to the growth of Islamisation in the modern era. By destroying churches, shrines, tombs, whole sites of antiquity deemed idolatrous, and even mosques deemed heretical, the Islamic State seeks to wipe out all traces of what is termed the era of Jahiliyya, the "Age of Ignorance" that held the world in its grip before the advent of Islam.
The world is outraged when it sees the stones of Palmyra tumble, or other great monuments of human civilization turn to dust. But that same world is silent when the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters Islamise everything by calling into question the very presence of the Jewish people in the Holy Land.

PA: There's no proof of Jewish existence in Jerusalem

Adnan al-Husayni, the Minister of Jerusalem Affairs in the Palestinian Authority (PA) government, on Thursday accused Jewish organizations of preparing plans to demolish the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and to establish an "imaginary" Holy Temple in its place.
Speaking with the Hamas-affiliated Palestine newspaper, Husayni claimed that Israel is aware that the demolition of the Al-Aqsa Mosque will result in a firestorm that would spread to all parts of the country.
But despite the fact that Israel is aware of this, he continued, Israel’s policy is meant to deliberately expel the “original” inhabitants of Jerusalem from their homes, including by demolishing their houses and imposing taxes on them.
Husayni called on UNESCO, the UN’s cultural organization, to act immediately against the excavations carried out by Israel in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Israel, he claimed, is digging tunnels in the area in an attempt to find historical evidence of Jewish existence in the region, "but they failed to do so despite all their attempts to falsify the history and the Palestinian historical sites."
PA officials often make unfounded and ridiculous claims with regards to Israel’s intentions on the Temple Mount. The false claim that Israel plans to demolish the Al-Aqsa Mosque and replace it with a Jewish temple is often repeated by these officials.