Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 31, 2016

10/31 Links Pt1: Palestinian cop shoots, injures 3 IDF soldiers; Mosul, CNN, ISIS and Israel

From Ian:

Palestinian cop shoots, injures 3 IDF soldiers

Three Israeli soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in a shooting attack by a Palestinian police officer at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, according to officials.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, the gunmen approached the Focus checkpoint, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle at the troops stationed there, the army said.
“The force responded [to the attack] with return fire at the terrorist,” the army said.
The assailant was shot and killed by Israeli forces, an IDF spokesperson said.
The gunman was named as Muhammad Turkman, a police officer, by the official Palestinian Authority news outlet al-Hayat al-Jadida.
The soldiers were all approximately 20 years old and sustained “penetrating wounds” — meaning gunshot injuries — to the extremities, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.

PMW: PA official defends naming school after mastermind of Munich Olympics massacre

Following Palestinian Media Watch's report on a new Palestinian Authority school named after Salah Khalaf, one of the planners of the murders of the 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, District Governor of Tulkarem Issam Abu Bakr, who is a PA official, defended the naming of the school after the terrorist.
After the Israeli Prime Minister's Arabic spokesman Ofir Gendelman responded to PMW's report and tweeted about the naming of the "Martyr Salah Khalaf School," the PA official replied with praise for the terrorist and others like him, stating that Palestinians will never forget them:
"The occupation is deluded if it thinks that the Palestinian people can change its culture and forget its leaders, Martyrs Yasser Arafat, Khalil Al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), Salah Khalaf, and a great number of the fighters who sacrificed their blood for the freedom, independence, and establishment of the independent Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem." [Ma'an, independent PA news agency, Oct. 26, 2016]
Fatah also glorified the Munich Olympics massacre this week, honoring Muhammad Daoud Oudeh, another of the planners of the terror attack, boasting that they "executed" the Israeli athletes "in the heart of Germany":
Posted text: "Picture of Muhammad Daoud 'Abu Daoud,' one of the leaders of Fatah's Black September organization and the main planner of the Munich operation that executed the Israeli Olympic delegation in 1972 in the heart of Germany."
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Oct. 24, 2016, emphasis added]

Mosul, CNN, ISIS and Israel

An American led coalition is fighting Islamic State (ISIS) in its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. This is very similar to Israel's battles against the terror group Hamas. So why does CNN report on Israel so differently? Why the double standard?

They aren't remembering Arafat for his Nobel Peace Prize

The Fatah Facebook page is filled with posts about Yasir Arafat as the 12th anniversary of his death is coming up. Literally two out of every three posts is dedicated to Arafat. During the rest of the year, the ratio is about one in three posts on Arafat, a tacit admission that the current Palestinian leadership has not ignited any passion in the ensuring 12 years.

This one sums the Arafat posts up nicely::

It is Arafat's terrorism, not his supposed desire for peace, that Palestinians remember him for.

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Things are starting to fall apart in both the PA and Hamas-controlled territories.

In Gaza, Hamas quietly arrested and reportedly tortured one of its own senior leaders, Mushr al-Masri, on alleged charges of embezzlement and treason.

Reports say that he was briefly transferred to a hospital because of the beatings he endured, only to return to the prison.

News reports say that Hamas has arrested a number of its own in recent months on charges of collaborating with Israel, and some have been executed while the official cover story is that they were killed "while performing tasks of jihad."

On the West Bank, however, things look even worse for the PA.

The pro-Fatah Palestine Press Agency reports that the increasing number of clashes between various armed groups, and between these groups and and PA security forces, are all part of attempts to position themselves ahead of any power struggle if Abbas dies or otherwise leaves without a strong successor.

There have been armed clashes between Fatah armed groups and other armed gangs who are making money on illegal drugs and arms, in the Balata camp and elsewhere. The PA security forces are reportedly providing weapons to some armed groups to buy their loyalty in case things go south quickly. Unemployed youths in the camps are susceptible to being recruited to these armed groups. The residents are very worried that a civil war will break out as soon as Abbas is gone without designating a clear successor that is accepted by the people - a prospect that seems dim.

The planned Fatah conference in November may make things worse if it doesn't address these issues. And the increased pressure from Egypt and Gulf states on Abbas to get his act together is putting everyone on edge.

There are big problems in the territories, and things could explode sooner rather than later.

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I glanced at the most recently released John Podesta emails on Wikileaks to see what might not have been reported yet.

Podesta seems to have subscribed to daily blogposts from the ultra-left Tikkun magazine. For example, one day during the 2014 Gaza war he received an article that started off with

For decades, Israel has slaughtered Palestinians with impunity, always protected by the U.S. government and its veto at the UN Security Council. But the latest bloody assault on Gaza has prompted more open talk about Israeli war crimes - and U.S. complicity, says Marjorie Cohn.

This daily demonization of Israel clearly didn't bother Podesta, and in fact there are lots of similar missives in his email box.

Other mailing lists that Podesta subscribes to include "Spiritual Progressives," which like Tikkun was also spearheaded by Clinton family favorite Michael Lerner, and the leftist website Truthout, which would quote anti-Israel media personalities like Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now!"

Between this and what we already knew from Clinton's own emails, it is clear that the far-left Jewish community represented by J-Street and Tikkun are the only opinions that she and her aides listen to about Israel.

But I saw one email that showed that Clinton's leftist policy on Israel draws a clear line on BDS. An internal email from the pro-Clinton Saban Family Foundation, which was copied to Podesta, said:

Hi All - I thought you might find this of interest: the Israel on Campus Coalition held a recent call regarding polling that they conducted this past semester. I'll send a fuller sum later, but there was one statistic that I think you would appreciate:
* Once informed about Hillary Clinton's letter opposing BDS, the favorable/unfavorable views held by students regarding pro-BDS arguments shifted 11 points in the right direction.
Just a reflection that she remains a trusted source to students on these issues, and I'm glad to see she is out there conveying this viewpoint.

That is not insignificant. A single letter from Hillary Clinton to college students seems to have hurt the BDS movement on campus more than the millions being spent by Israel and by Jewish donors to combat it. Her progressive bona-fides give her credibility among young people that people who explicitly identify as Zionists can never approach.

There's a lot more there, like discussions about how to get the media to report on this letter to help Clinton shore up her support from Jews.

The campaign's antipathy towards Netanyahu is total; I cannot find a kind word about him or Israel's elected government anywhere. There are emails about how Clinton should navigate speaking to the Jewish community about Israel without appearing anti-Netanyahu but also not anti-Obama.

In that vein, one letter from Stuart Eizenstat indicates that supposed right-wing Israeli ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, was essentially advising Clinton on how to support the Iran deal - which he knew she would never go against - and yet distance herself from the worst of Obama's policies concerning Israel. By my sights, Clinton is following Dermer's playbook fairly closely, although whether this is deliberate or coincidental is an open question.

The overall impression from the campaign is that Hillary is above all a politician whose views are more shaped by what would get her elected than what she really believes. The only way to guess what she believes is to look at who she chooses as her advisors, and the most consistent message from them is of a leftist, J-Street and Tikkun Magazine-oriented view of Israel.

Its existence is not questioned - no one supports BDS, no one supports a one-state solution. Everything else about the Jewish state is not only questioned but often harshly criticized by her team, which then scrambles to soften the message for the average Jewish voter to help her get elected, which is the only supreme value about her that shines through.

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John Adams on Jews and Zionism

A Jerusalem Post story about the second president of the United States, John Adams, prompted me to look up the fuller context of two major quotes from him.

Adams, who was born on October 30, 1735, in Braintree, Massachusetts, grew up in a household based on Puritan values. The Puritans believed themselves to be like the Israelite's fleeing Egypt, wandering into the vast and unknown wilderness and reaching the promised land of the New World.
As their guide, they used the Bible, adopting biblical customs, established biblical codes, such as observance of the Sabbath, and gave their children Hebrew names.

In 1808, in a letter to Dutch Patriot leader and American immigrant François Adriaan van der Kemp, Adams wrote:

I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ...

They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.

Note that Adams, like most people throughout history, naturally thought of Jews as a nation, not merely a religion.

And he made that even more clear in this 1819 letter to Mordecai M. Noah:

M. M. Noah Esq.

March 15th. 1819

Dear Sir,

I have to thank you for another valuable publication your travels in “Europe
Africa” which though I cannot see well enough to read. I can hear as well
ever & accordingly have heard read two thirds of it & shall in course hear all
the rest. It is a magazine of ancient & modern learning of judicious observa-
tions & ingenious reflections. I have been so pleased with it that I wish you
had continued your travels-into Syria. Judea & Jerusalem. I should attend
more to your remarks upon those interesting countries than to those of any
traveller I have yet read. If I were to let my imagination loose I should wish
you had been a member of Napoleons Institute at Cairo nay farther I
could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred
thousand Israelites indeed as well disciplined as a French Army-& marching
with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your
nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an
independent nation. For I believe the most enlightened men of it have
participated in the ameliorations of the philosophy of the age, once restored
to an independent government & no longer persecuted they would soon wear
away some of the asperities & peculiarities of their character & possibly in
time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jehovah is our Jehovah
your God of Abraham Isaac & Jacob is our God. I am Sir with respect
esteem your obliged humble servant.

John Adams

Like most British and American proto-Zionists, the desire for Jews to return to Zion was based on the idea that this would be a precursor to them being converted en masse to Christianity. Nevertheless, the desire by many prominent Christians for Jews to return to their homeland cannot be denied, and was a major reason why Zionism was politically successful.

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From Middle East Eye:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has failed to resolve his stand-off with Egypt or Hamas, according to senior officials who spoke to Middle East Eye.

The officials told MEE the recent meeting between Abbas and top Hamas leaders in Doha made no progress toward ending the long-running split between the two camps.

Dr Khalil al-Hayeh, a member of Hamas's political bureau, said that Abbas “clung to his old positions and showed no flexibility in the meeting".

Which is exactly what I wrote on Friday.

Arab media confirms that both sides didn't show any flexibility.

The article adds:

The relationship between President Abbas and Egypt's leader has deteriorated in the last couple of months, with Abbas decrying what he has called “Egyptian intervention in Palestinian affairs".

Egypt has reportedly led efforts to press Abbas to bring exiled Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan backed into Palestinian politics.

When Abbas rejected the efforts, Egyptian intelligence held a conference in Cairo discussing the relationship between Egypt and the Palestinian cause, which one Palestinian official said was an attempt by Egyptian intelligence to put more pressure on Abbas.

The official said Egyptian intelligence officers made phone calls to Palestinian study centers in Ramallah and tried to persuade them to participate in the conference in Cairo.

“That was a stark intervention in our affairs,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Dahlan enjoys the regional support of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan. UAE leaders have also tried to persuade Saudi Arabia that Dahlan is a strong potential successor to octagenarian Abbas.

Abbas plans to hold a Fatah party convention by the end of November, which he is expected to use to block Dahlan's return.

Dahlan does seem to be an important if missing player in all of this drama.

Times of Israel, while making more out of the meeting than it appears to have been, notes the background:

These meetings took place after Abbas met the previous week with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani.
Erdogan and Sheikh Tamim are considered strong patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood, the great rival of Egypt and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

So what — or, rather, who — has led Abbas straight into the arms of the Muslim Brotherhood, and maybe even into those of Hamas, just days after a high-ranking Hamas official in Gaza called him a traitor?

The answer is simple: Mohammad Dahlan. This former high-ranking Fatah official, who has been challenging Abbas for several years, succeeded this week in areas where even Hamas has failed. He managed to get Cairo on his side in the fight against Abbas and proved how weak and shaky Abbas’s status is in the Arab world.

In addition, Dahlan organized a series of demonstrations in the West Bank against the Palestinian Authority and Abbas — to which hundreds of Fatah activists showed up. So Abbas, who has taken some hard hits in recent weeks (including for attending the funeral of Shimon Peres, in case anyone forgot), caught on to the conspiracy being wrought against him in Cairo, Abu Dhabi (where Dahlan lives), and even Saudi Arabia (which recently cut back its aid to the PA). So Abbas decided to approach the patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood and perhaps bring about a reconciliation with Hamas — mainly with the leadership of the group’s political wing abroad.

Why approach Hamas leaders in Qatar and not in Gaza?

One reason is that the high-ranking members of Hamas in Gaza seem to be collaborating with Dahlan, of all people. This means that the conventional division into various camps (pragmatic Sunnis, the Muslim Brotherhood, Shiites, jihadist Sunnis) created in recent years is once again melting before our eyes. The new Middle East transformed long ago into a juicy and tragic political-diplomatic soap opera, and we cannot predict where the plot of its next episode is headed.

Yet in the end...nothing happens.

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10/30 Links: Palestinians funded UK Labour leader’s 2009 trip to meet Assad; Is There An Occupation?

From Ian:

Palestinians funded UK Labour leader’s 2009 trip to meet Assad

The leader of the UK’s Labour party visited Syria in 2009 on a trip paid for by a Palestinian rights group and met with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Jeremy Corbyn made the trip along with other members of parliament from all three of Britain’s major political parties, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday.
A far-left politician who in 2009 called Hezbollah and Hamas his “friends” – an expression he recently said for the first time he regretted using – Corbyn has been accused of encouraging vitriolic speech against Israel as well as Jews by befriending anti-Semitic movements and individuals.
The Syria trip seven years ago was funded by the Palestinian Return Centre, which recently organized an event in the House of Lords during which one member of the audience won applause for claiming that Jews were to blame for the Holocaust and comparing Israel to the Islamic State group.
Members’ Register of Interests records showed Corbyn reported the Syria visit as costing £1,300 ($1,500) and that the purpose was “to visit Iraqi and Palestinian refugee camps in Syria.”
The visit was held to mark the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the United Kingdom committed to viewing favorably the establishment of a Jewish national home in what would later become the British Mandate on Palestine.
Following his return to Britain, Corbyn told parliament at the time that “I pay tribute to the fact that Syria has accommodated a very large number of refugees and ensured that they are able to live in that country in safety.” (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Trump Threatens to Release Video Proving Obama, Clinton Carried out Harambe Murder (satire)

At his most recent rally in New Hampshire, Donald Trump dropped a bombshell that has the general public scared, confused and shocked.
“Folks, it seems that creating the most violent terrorist organization in the world was not enough for Obama and Crooked Hillary, and nor is the current “reinvestigation” by the FBI into Clinton’s emails. No, something far more nefarious is going on in the Democratic Party,” the Republican nominee told an enraptured crowd of supporters hanging on to his every word. “I have proof from a very not-credible source that they together, Hussein and Crooked, shot and killed Harambe, that poor innocent gorilla. Terrible, just terrible.”
When questioned whether he was implying that government policies indirectly resulted in Harambe’s death, he quickly clarified that he meant they literally shot the Gorilla themselves. “Listen, I saw the video, I saw it, you will see it too (thank you, Assange). It shows Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary setting up an M40 sniper rifle in the meerkat exhibit, lying on either side of the rifle, and pulling the trigger together. The only part of Hillary that isn’t crooked is her shot when killing innocent gorillas. They are really dangerous! Really bad people!”
Republican supporter Nathan Edelpitz commended the republican candidate for bringing out the truth. “We all knew Harambe was an inside job. Finally we have someone courageous enough to tell it like it is.”
When asked to comment on the allegation, Clinton was visibly confused “I’m pretty sure I never left that video on my email server….not that I killed Harambe with a well-placed sniper shot…that would be silly.”

IsraellyCool: Citi Should Follow The Lead Of American Express

Citibank is the largest foreign bank in Israel. It placed its Citibank Innovation Lab in Tel Aviv. It invests so much in Israeli innovation because to quote a Citibank representative himself it was a “no brainer” to use Israeli talents for this purpose.
Roger Waters has campaigned to prevent every single act from appearing in Israel and sometimes succeeds in doing so using classic antisemitic tropes and lies. He considers Hamas a “peaceful” organisation and actively promotes violence against Israelis calling it “legitimate resistance”.
Considering how much Citibank invests in Israel, and considering the hate and violence Waters represents we ask that Citibank follow the lead of American Express and drop their sponsorship of Roger Waters.
I have complete respect for Citi in Israel. They utilize our innovative workforce, I’ve banked with them. Maybe it’s someone in their corporate office who is simply unaware of who Roger Waters is and represents. But we need to get the message out.
I don’t know who put up this petition, but I signed it and so should you.

A Symbol of the Pro-Palestinian Movement

As the progressive-left and Democratic Party fling around charges of racism like confetti, perhaps it is time to remind people of the forms of western-left racism.

Why, after all, should Republicans and independents get all the fun?

There are charges of racism to be flung with wild abandon on all sides!

The racism embedded in the progressive movement, and thus embedded in the Democratic Party, takes three interrelated forms.

These are humanitarian racism, anti-white racism, and anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.

Humanitarian Racism

The most prominent form of western-left racism is what scholar Manfred Gerstenfeld dubbed "humanitarian racism."

Humanitarian racism is the primary form of racism practiced in the West, today, but it is a socially acceptable form of racism. It is a type of racism that currently flies under the radar of most Americans even as a form of racism. Humanitarian racists regard all minority groups, and all individuals within those minority groups, as perpetual victims of white racist imperialism, including minority students at elite American universities.

Western-left humanitaran racism acts as a sort-of umbrella racism that shields and nurtures hostility toward white people, malice toward the Jewish state of Israel, and demeaning condescension toward all peoples of non-European backgrounds.

As an underlying theme within the western progressive-left, humanitarian racism can be defined as a prominent form of discrimination typified by the tendency to see minority groups as mere pawns on a world stage dominated by malicious white people intent upon imperial dominance.

Wherever the humanitarian racist casts his eye he sees aggressive western imperialists intent on stealing the resources of non-white peoples in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He sees aggressive western corporate marauders endeavoring to impose their vapid and inauthentic Playstation Culture on the peaceable indigenous peoples of the world. He sees People of Whiteness absconding with the cultural creations of indigenous cultures.

And, of course, he sees the United States reeking havoc throughout the world in order to yank another filthy dollar out of other people's lands and labor.

Among the things that the humanitarian racist refuses to see, however - aside from the idea that white people are not evil - is the fact that non-white people have dignity, history, and agency. While those of us who are concerned about the rise of Political Islam respect that movement as an aggressive power in the world, humanitarian racists pity Jihadis as Victims of the White Man who can be sympathized with when they endeavor to kill non-Muslims.

The Muslim worlds, in particular, represent ancient peoples with long histories of struggle and dominance that created highly influential works of science, art, architecture, religious innovation, and various other forms of cultural production. Islam, after all, is the most successful example of aggressive imperialism in world history. Of the great national powers, only Islamic imperialism to this day maintains far-flung colonies thousands of miles from the imperial bases of Mecca (for the Sunnis) and Tehran (for the Shia).

When humanitarian racists look at Muslim societies outside of the West they see little children in need of protection in a way suggestive of nineteenth-century European notions of "white man's burden." When non-racists, of any type, look at Muslim societies, outside of the West, they see the inheritors of a once great theocratically-based empire that fell into decline when faced with superior western technology, but now resurgent as the West loses confidence in itself.

Whatever the influence of white westerners in the world - good, bad, or otherwise - the humanitarian racist refuses to recognize that non-whites are not merely victims. This is due to the essential narcissism of the movement which insists that ultimately everything is about white people.

Here's a newsflash.

It isn't.

Anti-White Racism

It is not unfair to say that following the Vietnam War, within academia, post-structuralist theorists undermined the knowability of truth, while post-colonial theorists reduced the world to indigenous victims "of color" and their white, imperial victimizers.

It is for this reason that the well-meaning students at the University of Wisconsin sell "All White People are Racists" hoodies, which is an act that ultimately encourages violence by thugs upon ordinary Anglo-type nobodies walking home from work.

It is also for this reason that so many anti-white humanitarian racists believe that there is something inherently malicious within white Wonder Bread culture, particularly in the United States. It is not merely that the petite bourgeoisie support western imperialism through their very act of being - that and paying taxes - but that there is something deplorable and irredeemably awful in White Ways of Being.

The concept is entirely nonsensical, of course, yet it is fascinating.

Many anti-white bigots think that Whiteness is not merely about skin-color, but about ways of being (ontologies) and ways of knowing (epestimologies). In this way Whiteness is essentialized into a form of evil that is directly embedded not only into white-European cultures, but into every aspect of white lives. White people are "white" not merely for coming out of the Euro-family of peoples, but as a matter of consciousness characterized by vapid inauthenticity, rapacious greed, and heartless militarism.

Like Ahab's Great White Whale, "whiteness" symbolizes a form of evil in the world and, therefore, irrepentant white people, much like Jewish-Israelis and their "Zionist" supporters, are fabricated as an enemy of "indigenous" people, everywhere.

Anti-Semitic Anti-Zionism

Humanitarian racism should be of particular interest to those of us concerned about the rise of anti-Semitic anti-Zionism and the well-being of the Jewish State of Israel.

Jewish-Israelis are surrounded by a hostile population in the Middle East that outnumbers them by a factor of 60 to 70 to 1. Many of those neighbors advocate for the destruction of those Jews given any real opportunity. The Long Arab War against the Jews of the Middle East is grounded in an irrational, Koranically-based rancor, but sold to the West as a matter of "social justice."

Following World War II, Nazi-flavored anti-Semitism met with (and married) traditional theocratically-based anti-Jewish Muslim bigotry which then heavily influenced the Palestinian Narrative. Within that narrative, the returning Jewish remnants, including Holocaust survivors, are portrayed as violent colonialist intruders intent on the ethnic-cleansing and exploitation of the Palestinian-Arabs.

This, in a nutshell, is the so-called "Palestinian narrative" and western humanitarian racists gobble it up like cherry pie.

Jewish-Israelis, who want nothing so much as to be left the hell alone to create their medical and technological doo-dads and live their lives without friends and family blown to smithereens by Jihadis, are depicted as the very worst people on the planet.

The Muslim peoples of the Middle East have persecuted the dhimmi minorities in that part of the world since Muhammad started receiving astral visitations from the Archangel Gabriel in the seventh-century.

And every generation Jews are told by both Arabs and Europeans just why it is that we deserve a good beating.

This generation is no different.

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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Once again, religious Jews accused of cutting down olive trees - on Shabbat

From Ma'an:

Israeli settlers on Saturday morning cut down 18 olive trees belonging to a Palestinian family in the village of Nahalin, west of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank.

Journalist Hani Fanun, whose family owns the trees, said his family went to harvest olives on their land in the Wadi al-Hariq area of Nahalin, and found that settlers from the nearby illegal Gush Etzion settlement bloc had cut down over 18 large olive trees.

Whenever I see these stories, which almost invariably come out on Saturdays, I look for photos.

Most of the photos accompanying the stories show old, archive photos. but this time I actually found some photos apparently taken on Saturday of the damage:

In the photos where one can see the fallen branches, the leaves are wholly or mostly brown.

So how likely is it that these trees were cut down only hours beforehand?

We've mentioned before that cutting down olive trees is a very time consuming and difficult job. And Palestinian Arabs often prune olive trees and then claim that "settlers" are chopping them down - in order to claim compensation.

The top two pictures in particular make it appear like the trees were pruned almost down to the trunk, which is common for olive trees. Why would the "settlers" chop down the branches individually?

As usual, there is no evidence that Jews skipped synagogue on Saturday morning to cut down olive trees. This appears again to be a case where Palestinians cut or pruned the trees themselves, perhaps weeks ago, and went to the media yesterday.

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The headline in Haaretz says "Papyrus With Earliest Hebrew Mention of Jerusalem Likely Fake, Experts Say."

The article itself shows that this is a lie.

It quotes two experts, neither of whom say that it is "likely" to be fake.

The first one, is Professor Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University:

Maeir said there were too many unanswered questions about the papyrus. “How do we know it isn’t a forgery intended for the antiquities market?” he demanded, adding that forgers could have deliberately “sacrificed” this document in order to prepare the way for selling other papyri that they would “discover” later.
The fact that carbon-14 dating proved the papyrus’ age is insufficient, he added. “After all, there are well-known cases in which writing was forged on an ancient ‘platform,’” he said. “It’s very possible that only the papyrus itself is ancient.
“In my humble opinion, the need for additional tests is glaring, especially if a government agency is publishing this and giving it a seal of approval. Why wait for the arguments and only then do the additional tests? They should have done them first.”

Maeir is not saying that the papyrus is "likely fake," just that authorities should have done more testing and vetting before announcing it.

The other expert is from the US:

Prof. Christopher Rollston of George Washington University also voiced skepticism, writing on his blog that he believed the document was a forgery.
“The fact that the papyrus itself has been carbon dated to the 7th century BCE certainly does not mean that the writing on the papyrus is ancient,” he wrote. “In fact, it really means nothing. After all, ancient papyrus is readily available for purchase online (check the web and see!), thus, no modern forger worth his or her salt would forge an inscription on modern papyrus.”

But Rollston did not write on his blog that the document was a forgery. He enumerates many ways for motivated forgers to use ancient papyri and even to forge ancient inks, thereby invalidating any modern methods of dating texts. He concludes:

In short, to those wishing to declare that the letters on this papyrus inscription are ancient, I would say: ‘Not so fast!’ Ultimately, I believe that there is a fair chance that although the papyrus itself is ancient the ink letters are actually modern…that is, this inscription is something that I would classify as a possible modern forgery.

Rollston is writing a book on modern forgeries of ancient Biblical-period texts, so he is an expert on forgeries. However, he has not examined this scroll itself; his caution comes from seeing other examples of sensationalist finds that ended up being forgeries. He is saying to be cautious, not that the papyrus is "likely" to be forged.

(Rollston also has a history of casting doubt on ancient Hebrew texts in other contexts, garnering criticism from other scholars.)

Haaretz, after making this false claim, then buries the responses from the scholars who actually studied the texts at the very bottom of the article, where the critics are answered:

Ahituv, however, rejected the critics’ arguments. First, he said, the papyrus was folded up when it was found, which makes forgery seem unlikely. “Would a forger buy an ancient, dry, fragile papyrus, write text on it that’s typical of the seventh century, and then fold it up and tie it with a cord and thereby endanger all his work?” he demanded.

The text itself also suggests it’s not a forgery, he continued. He and his colleagues read the text as “[me-a]mat. ha-melekh. me-Na’artah. nevelim. yi’in. Yerushalima,” meaning “From the king’s maidservant, from Na’arat, jars of wine, to Jerusalem.”

But both “Na’artah” and “Yerushalima” are very rare words, and thus unlikely to occur to a forger, “even if he’s an expert in Bible,” Ahituv said. “If I were a forger, I’d choose a more impressive text,” he added.

Ganor also rejected the criticisms. “We tried in every possible way to check the papyrus,” he said. “We used the methods used to check the Dead Sea Scrolls. If someone has an additional method, he’s invited to apply it. We, as a country, were obligated to get our hands on this, and I’m certain it’s authentic.”

There is nothing wrong with asking the Israel Antiquities Authority to be more cautious before publicizing bombshell finds. But Haaretz is simply lying in its headline claiming that the papyrus has already been debunked. Which tells you a lot about Haaretz' journalistic integrity.

(Of course, idiot anti-Israel bloggers are seizing on the Haaretz headline as proof that the papyrus is fake.)

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Israel-haters claim PayPal discriminating against Palestinians

The "US Campaign for Palestinian Rights" and other anti-Israel activist groups are now going after PayPal for not supporting payments to Arabs under PA or Hamas rule.

It is true - PayPal doesn't support payments to PA- and Hamas-controlled territories. But it isn't because of "discrimination," as the haters pretend.

PayPal also doesn't support payments to Lebanon, Afghanistan. Iraq, Iran, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), North Korea, Haiti, Liberia, Libya, Myanmar, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Timor-Leste, and Uzbekistan.

According to this 2013 article, the likely reasons for PayPal not to support a country are simple: "insufficient regulation and security in a country's banking system, failure of a country to comply with U.S. tax law, or a U.S. trade ban affecting a country."

In this case, the reason is almost certainly because most or all Palestinian banks do business with Hamas, and Hamas is an internationally recognized terror group, which puts their assets at risk from lawsuits. This makes the Palestinian banking system inherently unstable, and therefore a risk.

It isn't discrimination - it is business. PayPal would love to expand their offerings in a safe manner - why wouldn't they? They operate in Egypt, Jordan and plenty of other Arab states. If they thought could make money from Palestinians, they would.

If the Israel-haters cared so much about Palestinian Arabs having access to PayPal, they would insist that Palestinian banks cut off all ties to Hamas in Gaza.

But I don't think they care that much. After all, these supposedly pro-Palestinian groups will never say a word against Hamas or terrorism.

It hurts their credibility, you know.

(h/t/ Spotlighting)

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10/29 Links: Papyrus Speaks Louder Than UNESCO; China, Israel, and a return to the cloverleaf world

From Ian:

Muslim Imperialism Reaches the United Nations

UNESCO has joined forces with Islamic State. The fundamentalists now have a new weapon: resolutions passed by servile international bodies.
An earlier delay and the opposition of UNESCO's chief, Irina Bokova, had raised hopes that this act of jihadist, barbaric, unjust, and, frankly, arrogant supremacism might be voted down. It was not. Now a new lie was given the sanction of the world's largest and most unaccountable body whose reason for being is to preserve significant sites, not to bowdlerize them.
Lies by UNESCO to rewrite history, erasing all traces of Judaism and Christianity to favour a jihadist Islamic fancy, were already under way in 2015. UNESCO fraudulently renamed two ancient Biblical Jewish sites, Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs, as Islamic sites. Historically, Islam did not even exist until the seventh century.
This is the history of Islam, how it takes over -- with both hard jihad (violence) and soft jihad (usurping history, migration [hijrah], political and cultural infiltration), and intimidation (soft jihad with the threat of hard jihad underneath it). What is even more saddening is that often, as with this vote, it is done with the West's cooperation and voluntary submission.
Before the United Nations, with its authoritarian, anti-democratic voting blocs, finishes eradicating Western, Judeo-Christian civilization, as it is clearly trying to do, it is high time for Western democracies to run, not walk, away, before further harm comes to them too, as it surely promises to do.

Papyrus Speaks Louder Than UNESCO

This week the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization—UNESCO—voted yet again to validate Palestinians claims that deny Jewish ties to the holiest places in Judaism. But an unexpected announcement that some of Israel’s critics consider suspiciously fortuitous made clear the ignorant and vicious nature of the Palestinian campaign. On the day of the latest UNESCO vote, the Israel Antiquities Authority unveiled the discovery of an ancient papyrus fragment that has been scientifically dated to the 7th century B.C.E. that mentions Jerusalem in Hebrew. The artifact, which predates the birth of Islam by 1,400 years, is the most effective response imaginable to a UNESCO stand that treats the Temple Mount and the Western Wall as exclusively Muslim shrines.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made a point of triumphantly mentioning the archeological find this week in his denunciation of the UNESCO vote. But while the timing of the two events ought to be particularly embarrassing for the Palestinians and their European and Third World enablers, it’s not likely that this will cause any of those nations that have stuck to their absurd position to change their votes.
After all, does anyone at the United Nations really doubt that Jerusalem was the capital of a Jewish nation many centuries before the Muslim conquest of the country? Or that Hebrew was the language of the ancient Jewish kingdoms? Do even many Palestinians think the site of the Temple Mount mosques isn’t where the Jews built both of their ancient shrines or that the Western Wall is not the last remnant of that structure? Not likely.
Nor is the point of the Palestinian push at the UN an effort to protect the status quo on the Temple Mount whereby the ancient site is administered solely by a Muslim religious authority (which has carried out construction projects that trashed ancient artifacts), and Jews are forbidden to pray there. Accusations by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas that the Israelis intend to harm the mosques is a brazen lie intended to stir up hatred and violence against Jews. The point of this agitation is that denial of Jewish history is required to justify a Palestinian political culture that continues to see the war on Zionism as intrinsic to their national identity.

British Jewish Leaders Outraged by London University Anti-Israel Protest Which Required Police Intervention

Leaders of Britain’s Jewish community expressed outrage on Friday after a lecture on Thursday night by a former IDF soldier at a London university was stormed by protesters, resulting in the arrival of the police.
Marie van der Zyl, vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said in a statement, “We deplore the aggressive and intimidating protests which disrupted a student event in UCL (University College London)…It is disgraceful that in a society which values free speech, students at a top UK university cannot host an open event without being harassed.”
Van Der Zyl also referred to the anti-Israel protesters — who trapped students and visitors inside a lecture hall during the talk by Israeli peace activist Hen Mazzig — as a “hate-filled mob supporting the worst kind of extremism in the Middle East,” who “serve only to bully and threaten.”
The Board said it will be taking its concerns to the government and called on UCL “to initiate a strong disciplinary process against the perpetrators.”
That message was echoed by the Israeli Embassy in London, writing in a statement posted on Twitter: “We are concerned by the shameful violence recorded at last night’s event at UCL aimed at preventing an Israeli speaker from engaging students. We are confident the university will be investigating those responsible.”

Anti-Israel extremists on British university campuses

Last night police were called to rescue Jewish students from anti-Israel thugs at University College London, at the same time SOAS PalSoc had invited notorious Hamas apologist, Tareq Radi, to speak at the campus.
Universities must do more to keep extremists off British campuses.