Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 12, 2017

01/12 Links Pt1: Col Kemp: Call off the Paris conference; The UN Is Beyond Reform

From Ian:

The planned Paris conference was born out of good will, but it comes at a very bad ‎moment. On the one hand, Resolution 2334, recently adopted by the U.N. ‎Security Council, has endorsed the Palestinian narrative that the core of the ‎problem comes down to a geographical issue: the settlements in the West Bank ‎and the 1967 borders. Yet this interpretation does not hold water. Every time Israel ‎has swapped land for peace, it has only earned more terrorism. The most striking ‎and visible case is the Gaza Strip: Since Israel carried out its unilateral ‎withdrawal in 2005, Hamas has ruled in that territory with total impunity and the ‎attacks on Israel have only continued. Thousands of rockets and missiles have ‎been launched from Gaza against civilian populations in Israel.‎
It is easy to believe that the conflict can be reduced to an issue of territories. But that's ‎false. The reality is different.
The real problem is that the Palestinians don't want ‎to give an inch of what the Israelis want, namely, that they recognize Israel as ‎the state of the Jewish people. It is as basic as that; nothing more, nothing less. ‎To demand that Israel renounce any claim to the Western Wall and other places ‎at the heart of Judaism is not just historical nonsense, it is the wrong move. The ‎Palestinians demand east Jerusalem today; tomorrow they will want the entire ‎city, and later, the entire country. In fact, that's what their propaganda teaches. ‎Their school textbooks, all paid for with EU taxpayers' money, are full of hatred, ‎incitement to violence, and clear denial of Israel and the Jewish people.‎
Peace cannot come out of incitement to hatred and violence. It would be good if ‎the participants in Paris would demand that Palestinian leaders end their ‎campaigns and indoctrination against Israel and assume once and for all that ‎Israel was created as the homeland of the Jewish people and that it will ‎continue to be so. The sooner they accept that, the better, so they can reach an ‎agreement with Jerusalem on the drawing of borders.‎
In the same spirit, this international conference would do well to demand that ‎the Palestinian state have transparent institutions, free from corruption, and ‎defend tolerance and peaceful coexistence with neighboring Israel. No ‎liberal democracy should be satisfied if what it establishes and recognizes is a ‎nest of corruption, nepotism, discrimination, and violence.‎

French Ambassadors Declare War on Israel

For our ambassadors, terrorism does not exist in "Palestine". They just whisper Quixotically about "the need for security" for Israel.
The obvious conclusion is that they are just trying to hide their own detestation of Israel behind the Arab one.
The problem is not Jewish "settlers" in "Palestine". Before 1967, there were no settlements, then what was the Palestine Liberation Organization "liberating" when it was created in Cairo in 1964? The answer, as the PLO was the first to admit, was "Palestine" -- meaning the entire state of Israel, regarded by many Arabs as just one big settlement. Just look any Palestinian map.
The problem is that these ambassadors are not as dangerous to Israel as they are to Europe and the free world, as they keep on succumbing to the demands of Islam.

Melanie Phillips: Perfidious Boris?

First of all, the Israeli settlements are not illegal. They are lawful several times over under international law which the UK Foreign Office persistently and wilfully misrepresents. Second, this profession of the government’s “strong support for a Jewish homeland in Israel” is simply nauseating in view of the fact that resolution 2334 falsely declares that Judaism’s holiest places in Jerusalem, to which the Jews alone have the overwhelming legal, historical and moral claim as the only people for whom Jerusalem was ever their national capital, belong to the Palestinians.
The UN resolution of which Boris Johnson is so proud says in effect that it is illegal for Jews to pray at the Western Wall. It is therefore not just a strike against Israel but a strike against Judaism itself.
Not satisfied with this hypocrisy, Boris Johnson added for good measure that Britain had supported UN resolution 2334 “only because it contained new language pointing out the infamy of terrorism that Israel suffers every day, not least on Sunday, when there was an attack in Jerusalem.”
But resolution 2334, of which Boris Johnson boasts, contributed to the atmosphere of incitement in which last Sunday’s murderous truck-ramming attack, which claimed the lives of four young Israelis and wounded many more, took place. The Palestinians – who thanked Britain and the other supporters of 2334 in a cartoon which threatened more violence against Israel – have ramped up their incitement to murder as a direct consequence of the UN having now endorsed in 2334 their exterminatory lies. Israeli officials have also observed that there has been a sharp rise in the number of violent attacks in the disputed territories, primarily rock-throwing incidents, since 2334 was passed.
No more funny guy, Boris. Perfidious Albion redux, indeed.

19 years of ethnic cleansing, 50 years ago (Zvi)

A guest post from Zvi:

In 1948, the Arab Legion ethnically cleansed - illegally - the millennia-old Jewish Quarter
of eastern Jerusalem, as well as other parts of the "old city." The Jordanians, occupying the area, expelled every last Jew, destroyed 58 synagogues and tens of thousands of Jewish graves, and forbade Israelis to pray at their holiest places. Arab Muslim settlers - including some from Hebron, which had violently murdered most of its own Jews only a few decades before, in 1929 - were later transferred in to replace the Jews who had been violently expelled from their homes in eastern Jerusalem. The area became a slum.

Only 19 years later, In 1967, Israel took Jewish eastern Jerusalem and REVERSED that ethnic cleansing, allowing Jews to return. It did so without ethnically cleansing Arabs, or even expelling the Arab settlers. Today Jerusalem is a busy city in which people from all sects and cultures rub shoulders, nearly all peaceably.

Today, the Palestinian Authority - with the Obama Administration and the United Nations cheering it on - claim that it was illegal for Israel to reverse that 19-year act of ethnic cleansing and demand that the Jews be forced out once again. They insist that Jews have no ties to the ancient Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem; to our holiest place on earth, the Temple Mount, and to the Second Temple's Western Wall; to the cemeteries where our people were buried for centuries; and to the houses from which all Jews were violently expelled only 19 years before 1967.

It has been 50 years since that brief 19 year period of Arab ethnic cleansing in eastern Jerusalem. Anyone who truly stands for peace and justice must support the most open and free government that Jerusalem has had in millennia, stand against the denial of millennia of Jewish history in the city and stand for Israel's right to its capital, the united city of Jerusalem.

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Knesset member calls on Israeli Arabs to prioritize Palestinian cause over Israel

What other democracy would tolerate a traitor in its own government?

From MEMRI:

On November 20, 2016, Ayman 'Odeh, chair of the Joint List, an alliance of Arab-dominated parties in the Israeli Knesset, participated in a conference held by the Palestinian Masarat Center for Research and Public Policies. The conference, held simultaneously in Al-Bireh and Gaza under the heading "Reality and Horizons in the Struggle of the 1948 Palestinians [i.e., Israeli Arabs]," was attended by dozens of politicians, academics and social activists. 'Odeh, who attended the conference in Al-Bireh, addressed the political path of the Israeli Arabs and said that, when a conflict arises between their Palestinian and Arab identity and Israeli citizenship, their Palestinian and Arab identity takes precedence, and that is why they avoid taking jobs at various government ministries.

He added that Israeli Arabs have a duty to support the Palestinian struggle and have a national interest in seeing an end to the occupation, the establishment of a Palestinian state and the return of the refugees.

'Odeh called "to form a joint cultural framework [for Israeli and non-Israeli Palestinians] to strengthen national identity, with the PLO's consent." Noting that the PLO cannot represent the Palestinians inside Israel, and that the latter cannot be members of the PLO or its National Council, he added that "there is need for functional separation that will take into consideration the unique [position] of the Palestinians inside [Israel]," and that "the implementation of this idea requires discussion and study."

'Odeh made similar remarks at the opening ceremony of Fatah's Seventh General Conference on November 30, 2016 in Ramallah. He addressed Fatah as "Fatah of the great sacrifices" and "Fatah of the martyrs and prisoners," and, speaking on behalf of his party, called on the Palestinian factions to put aside their differences in order to concentrate on the main struggle, against the occupation. He explained that the Israeli Arabs have a role in helping the occupied Palestinians and in swaying public opinion in Israel, and ended his speech with a quote from Arafat and with a call for the next Fatah conference to be held in Jerusalem: "As the great [Arafat] said, 'people think that [the Palestinian state] is far, but we see that it is near.' Fatah's next conference will be held in East Jerusalem, capital of the Palestinian state, and we shall be there with you." 'Odeh's speech was received with applause and cries of the slogan, coined by Arafat, "thousands of martyrs are marching on Jerusalem."

(h/t Josh K)

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In 2007, Mahmoud Abbas officially announced that all armed groups outside official PA security forces were illegal and that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were dismantled.

It's been nearly ten years, and nothing has changed.

This month the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades openly participated in the 52nd anniversary of Fatah's first terror attack. Their masked terrorists paraded in public, through city streets, with their weapons including what appeared to be rockets. (These videos were made in Gaza.)

When Israel makes a stink about Abbas violating agreements or doing things that are against peace, sometimes the media starts asking questions and you will see a vague announcement or denial from some Palestinian official. But the open acceptance of a separate armed terror group under the Fatah umbrella is completely unreported. And it brags about attacks it makes against Israel in the West Bank.

It doesn't fit the narrative of a "peaceful" Mahmoud Abbas and therefore the story must be blackholed.

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Yemen site: "Protocols" are a myth but Iranians are taking a page from them

This is progress, of sorts.

Yemeni news site Tehama Press has an interesting op-ed:

Experience has proven that the Iranian regime does not seek to make peace with its Arab neighbors, but its main concern is the restoration of the glories of a defunct empire, where they converted Arab Shiite youth to firewood and cannon fodder for their sectarian treacherous, war. This danger of this system to usurp all political, religious and military areas exceeds the Israeli danger itself, and we have to be ready for military confrontation with them to end their ambitions, and reduce the risk of [Iran's] sectarian project which is growing by supporting terrorist organizations and militias in the region.

...Although modern analysts say that that these Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] are incorrect and fraudulent despite their spread on a large scale between 1902 and 1920, but it can not be denied that what Iran seeks to reach today is much more dangerous than The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols only wanted to dominate and exterminate the Christians, while the protocols of Iran seek the malicious destruction of Arab societies and the demonization of Muslims, and the elimination of the ties that bind members of the Arab communities, Sunni and Shi'a Muslims and Christians.

If you read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , you will find myriad parallels between them and the velayat - e faqih projects and actions and interventions of Iran in the Arab region and the world .

I do not recall this much hate for Iran and Shiites back when Iran started to flex its muscles to become a world power. Right now Israel, as despised as it remains in the Arab world, is not nearly as loathed as Iran is among Sunni Arabs.

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01/11 Links Pt2: Al-Jazeera Over-Eggs Israeli Conspiracy Sting

From Ian:

Guido Fawkes: Al-Jazeera Over-Eggs Israeli Conspiracy Sting

Guido thought the Al-Jazeera sting exposing Israeli ‘diplomat’ Shai Masot and Rob Halfon aide Maria Strizzolo discussing their dislike of Alan Duncan was a fun tale. Was it a “plot” to “take down” a Tory minister? No. Maria Strizzolo was a very junior aide. The truth is MPs and journalists have far tastier conversations with friends at London embassies all the time…
Part two of the sting caught Masot telling Labour Friends of Israel chair Joan Ryan that he could fund trips for MPs to Israel. If you believe Al-Jazeera this is proof of a million pound Israeli conspiracy to buy off British MPs. Again they’ve over-egged it. Pretty much every MP has taken a freebie trip to another country at some point.
Today brings part three: the Israeli embassy helped Jewish students campaign against Malia Bouattia’s election as NUS president. Seriously? Bouattia had been embroiled in some pretty nasty anti-Semitism allegations, is it a surprise or even a bad thing that the Israelis aren’t her biggest fan? Noteworthy that the Qatari-funded Al-Jazeera is siding with an alleged anti-Semite while peddling a bunch of far-fetched anti-Israel conspiracies in a series titled “The Lobby” (that old trope). Guido looks forward to Al-Jazeera’s exposé of Qatari money funding much more sinister activities in the UK…

Jewish Group Screens ‘Jerusalem Eternal Capital of Israel’ on UNESCO’s Paris Headquarters

The French branch of the organization Israel Is Forever on Tuesday announced it had decided to take strong action “on behalf of many French Jews and Israeli Francophones,” to show their dissatisfaction with the upcoming international conference on the Middle East to be held in Paris January 15, whose only goal is to harm Israel.
According to IIF France, its members proposed on Tuesday evening to project the image of the Western Wall with the text “Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the State of Israel” on many facades of the UNESCO building in Paris, as well as on the building fronts of the “disinformation” news agency AFP, and on the Arc de Triomphe.
IIF France argued that France’s voted at Unesco and the UN, along with its initiative for an international conference Sunday, January 15, can only promote terrorism against Israel. They suggested that last Sunday’s terrorist truck ramming attack in Jerusalem was further proof for the notion that the more the PA Arabs sense that the international community is anti-Israel, the more inclined they are to resort to terrorism.
They also issued “An open letter to the President of the French Republic,” which “draws attention to France’s harmful role vis-à-vis the island of stability and democracy in the Middle East.” The letter condemned a policy that undermines prospects for peace and expresses its solidarity with the State and people of Israel.

FBI looking for source of 'robocall' bomb threats to Jewish centers

A wave of telephone bomb threats to 16 Jewish community centers in nine US states may have originated from the same number and been placed by at least one individual and an automated calling system, security officials said on Tuesday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the calls, which led to evacuations at some of the community centers on Monday, but resulted in no attacks or injuries. Police who searched the centers found no bombs.
The FBI has not named any suspects or described a likely motive for the bomb threats, and it was not clear why the centers in the US Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and South regions were targeted.
Some of the phone calls were made using an automated "robocall" system, while others were placed live by at least one individual, said Paul Goldenberg, national director of the Secure Community Network, a nonprofit group that advises Jewish groups on security.

How's this for a stunner? According to the latest Peace Index,* a poll of Israeli attitudes put out by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and Tel Aviv University (TAU), the majority of Israelis (57%) think Barack Obama has had an unfriendly attitude toward Israel during his tenure. Of course, the IDI and TAU are both bastions of liberal thought, so you can probably assume the actual number of Israelis who think Barry hates us is closer to, oh, a gazillion percent.

It's no surprise that we think Barry O. hates us here in Israel. It is kind of surprising, however, when you look at what Israelis think about the by now, infamous abstention on UNSC Resolution 2334. One might have thought that the IDI and TAU, being slanted so far left they're in danger of falling over, would find a way to skew their poll so that it attributes the motivating force behind the resolution to settlement construction.

But no.

The majority of Israelis polled, (52.9%), as it turns out, are certain the resolution was all about hostility toward Israel, rather than any principled stand on settlement construction. And since that is the case, some 62% (!!!) of Israelis polled feel that in light of the Security Council resolution, we should "continue" building homes in "the territories." Which is a funny thing to say, considering there hasn't been any settlement construction to speak of under PM Netanyahu, except for some (inadequate) natural growth expansion. Obama has made sure of that.

Still, it's nigh impossible to get 62% of Israelis to agree on anything at all, so let's look a bit closer at the number of Israelis who think we should Build Baby, Build.

89% of those on the right say Israel should keep building

83% of moderate right Israelis say Israel should keep building

45% of the center says Israel should keep building

21% of moderate left Israelis say Israel should keep building

15% of the left says Israel should keep building

That final figure (15%!!) kind of jumps out and makes one wonder what prompts that many leftist, anti-settlement, pro-two-state-solution, land-for-peacenik Israelis to favor building in the territories. Could it be that Security Council Resolution 2334, or perhaps the U.S. abstention of same, finally brought home (if you'll excuse the expression) to them that when the UN and Barack Obama speak of "territories," they don't just mean Judea and Samaria, but Jerusalem, and probably Haifa, Tel Aviv, Beersheba, and all parts in between?

It would be nice to think so. Because fixing problems always begins with a frank assessment of the problem. Part of that problem is the blame game.

The Israeli left traditionally blames settlers for the lack of peace in the region. This belief was the driving force behind Disengagement. The left needed a scapegoat. They needed to punish someone. The settlers were "It." All 11,000 of them. That is the number of Jews expelled from Gaza and Northern Samaria in order to make Disengagement possible.

Expelling those settlers made the left very happy. It made them cheer. But the thing is, all of us can see the results of Disengagement. All of us can see what happens when you boot out the settlers and give the land they made bloom to the Arabs. You get Hamastan on your border. You get tens of thousands of rockets shot from the land you gave them into the part you still have. You get terror tunnels invading your kibbutzim.

The left is beginning to see these simple truths. That the only answer to a world that doesn't want Jews to build homes in Israel—the land promised to the Jews—is for Jews to build homes in Israel.

Building homes won't stop the terror. Not altogether. But it will make a dent in that terror. Because it's giving an inch that makes them attack you until you give them a mile. The more you give, the more they will demand, the harder and more cruelly they will attack you. That's just the way it is.

It has always been thus.

Building, on the other hand, says, "No. We're not going away. We're digging in our heels."

Now most Israelis (71%) believe that under the Trump administration, Israel will have a free hand in this renewed desire to build the land of Israel. Or at least, we won't have anyone tying our hands to keep us from doing so. Even the Arabs believe this (81%). They know that when Obama goes, there goes the constraints, the blackmail, the nasty lashing out at Israel. They know that no one in the White House is going to get in the way of Jewish building now that Barry's going away for good.

It's all so close and yet so far away. The dream of a racist Judenrein Arab state on Jewish soil may yet be declared in Paris before Obama's timeline runs out. But it will matter little to how we run our affairs in Israel. We know it and the Arabs know it, too. Jews are gonna build homes in their homeland, because they can and they will.

We'll keep on building because there is nothing wrong with Jews building homes and everything right. Unless you're Obama and the UN Security Council. And there is this sense that these two entities have had their day in the sun and that this particular sun is waning. They will hurt us all they can and then they will render themselves completely irrelevant as the world begins to understand that their hate is just hate. Even if it's Jew-hate.

It's going to happen. People will see that homes are just buildings and that it is terror, not buildings, that prevents peace. All over the world, they will awaken and see it.

There may be some blips along the way. But we can smell truth dawning, getting ready to sit pretty in the sunshine and put some color in its cheeks.

And it's only a week and counting until it happens.

*From the IDI press release: The Peace Index is a project of the Evens Program for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University and the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research of the Israel Democracy Institute. This month's survey was conducted by telephone on January 2 and 3, 2017, by the Midgam Research Institute. The survey included 600 respondents (500 Jews, 100 Arabs), who constitute a representative national sample of the adult population aged 18 and over. The maximum measurement error for the entire sample is ±4.1% at a confidence level of 95%.

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Roger Waters Announces Concerts In Tel Aviv, Jerusalem (Satire from PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Roger Waters Announces Concerts In Tel Aviv, Jerusalem

: Credit: Alterna2 via Wikimedia Commons

New York, January 11 - Former Pink Floyd frontman and boycott-Israel advocate Roger Waters announced today that he will perform a series of concerts in Israel this summer, in both the cultural capital of Tel Aviv and the political and spiritual capital, Jerusalem.

A spokesman for the singer-songwriter told reporters that the announcement by no means indicates that Waters has departed from his pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel political stance. "Every single BDS activist uses Israeli technology constantly," explained Preet Ender. "I can't think of a single one who would specifically instruct the medical facilities treating them not to use inexpensive generic pharmaceuticals, most of which are made by the Israeli manufacturer Teva. And I don't see them lining up to ban the sale of cherry tomatoes, which are an Israeli invention. And I won't even mention instant-message technology, Intel computer chips, and the fact that our BDS ally Omar Barghouti got his PhD at Tel Aviv University."

Ender added that no plans have been made for protests or internet campaigns urging Waters not to perform in Israel. "It would normally be Roger's approach to hound artists who have announced performances in Israel, but the effect of calling on himself not to play Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be incoherent," he noted. "Not that it won't happen, because incoherence is a thing with BDS in the first place, what with the declared-undeclared opposition to Israel's existence, as opposed to its policies." He did not rule out the possibility that Waters would delegate the harassment to other washed-up celebrities in the BDS movement, such as Elvis Costello.

Music industry insiders note that political ideology and commercial interests seldom mesh. "Waters himself has certainly not renounced profits from sales of Pink Floyd materials in Israel," remarked Arthur Facepalm, a talent agent. "Besides, if Arab countries that once boycotted Israel, not to mention the Palestinian Authority's own economic leadership, are investing in better commercial relationships with the Jewish State, it makes little sense for him to adhere to some ideologically pure policy when the people on behalf of whom he claims to be campaigning have themselves rejected that stance."

To assuage fellow BDS advocates who might feel betrayed or slighted by the concerts, Waters also announced that he would hold several benefit performances at American college campuses in the fall, to which only declared anti-Semites will be admitted. Proceeds from the US concerts, said Ender, will go toward a fund for grassroots BDS groups to build and run their own websites using the Israeli web-design utility Wix.

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01/11 Links Pt1: Once again, Palestinians never miss a chance to foster Israeli unity; Barely a fifth of Jewish Israelis think Obama was friendly to Israel

From Ian:

PMW: PA: Terrorist who killed four in truck ramming attack died for Allah

On Sunday, a Palestinian terrorist drove his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers participating in an education study tour in Jerusalem, murdering 4 and wounding at least 15.
Attack is sanctioned by Islam
The official PA daily referred to it as “a car ramming operation” and wrote that the killer “died as a Shahid” (i.e., a Martyr who died for Allah). By calling the terrorist murderer a Shahid, the PA is telling its people that murdering the Israeli youths was sanctioned by Islam and seen as positive Islamic behavior.
PA TV went out of its way to focus on the religious value of the terror attack by using the term “Shahid” 7 times, mostly as a replacement for the terrorist’s name: “The Shahid executed the attack,” “The Shahid’s home,” “The Shahid’s sister,” “The Shahid’s parents home.” In contrast, the terrorist’s name was only mentioned twice, both times informing that he became a Shahid. [Official PA TV, Jan. 8, 2017]
PA will pay terrorist’s wife 2900 shekels ($760) monthly
According to its fundamental policy of supporting all Palestinian terror, the PA will reward the terrorist’s wife with a lifetime monthly allowance. According to PA law, the family of a Shahid receives a base payment of 1400 shekels per month. A wife of the Shahid receives an additional 400 shekels, for each child she receives 200 shekels, and for being a resident of Jerusalem an additional 300 shekels. In total the wife of this murderer will receive 2900 shekels ($760) per month for the rest of her life. In addition, within the next few months, she will receive a one-time grant of 6000 shekels ($1580).
Mahmoud Abbas’ silence
Mahmoud Abbas did not condemn the terror attack. Abbas’ silence is a strong message to Palestinians because it contrasts his fervent and vocal condemnations of the other recent car ramming terror attacks in Berlin and Nice.

Once again, Palestinians never miss a chance to foster Israeli unity

Abba Eban’s enduring insight that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity needs amending: the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to boost Israeli unity, either. On Sunday, as The New York Times delighted in a polarized Israel sacrificing the army and national unity “on the altar of ultranationalist ideology,” a sadistic Palestinian truck driver – along with his Palestinian cheerleaders – unified us in sorrow. Amid intense reactions to the Azaria verdict punishing the shooting of a disarmed terrorist, this hit-and-run terrorist emphasized the murderous context in which Israeli kids must make split-second life-anddeath decisions.
As Israelis texted back and forth to see who escaped terrorism’s luckless lottery – which one Haaretz columnist that morning justified as “resistance to the occupation” – as the Palestinian wheel of misfortune crushed two dozen families, “citizens” weren’t “waging war” against “the citizens’ army.” We were one; we are one.
We are one with the families of the four young idealists massacred. We are one with the 17 wounded and their families, too. We join Left and Right in repudiating Hamas for lionizing this murderer. We join Left and Right in denouncing the Gazans who celebrated this despicable act. We unite in condemning the international enablers whose excusing of Palestinian incitement puts their fingerprints all over the deadly driver’s steering wheel.
We unite in lamenting that terrorism targeting us doesn’t merit headlines elsewhere. And we all share the same prayer, whatever our chosen political prescription for ending this conflict: that these will be the last victims – even as we wonder with dread, “who’s next”? Some media commentary nevertheless was harsh: one commentator sneered that two young women who clutched each other’s hands as they ran away from the runaway truck “thought they were at Disneyland. ” Wow. Consider the crazy pressures Israeli kids endure. If soldiers overreact as Sgt. Elor Azaria did, they’re arrested. If they react normally by scattering, as some officer cadets did in Sunday’s attack, they’re mocked. Honor the heroes who ran toward the truck and killed the terrorist, but don’t punish the others.

IsraellyCool: Israeli PM Netanyahu: “Unequivocal Evidence” UNSC Resolution Led By Obama Administration

Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu is doubling down with his accusation that the Obama administration orchestrated the whole thing, as well as rejecting the idea the resolution is just reformulating what previous US administrations had been saying.
Methinks Obama is going to end up with some (more) egg on his face by the end of this. But he’ll just make an omelette out of it, and tell everyone to get stuffed.

UK top diplomat admits to helping draft anti-settlement UN resolution

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Tuesday told Parliament the United Kingdom played a key role in advancing an anti-settlement resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council last month.
London’s top diplomat also maintained that he backs US Secretary of State John Kerry who, during a keynote speech on the Middle East, criticized Jewish settlements in the West Bank as a major obstacle to peace.
“I remind the House that the UK was closely involved in its drafting, although of course it was an Egyptian-generated resolution,” Johnson said on Tuesday, according to a transcript of the proceedings. “We supported it only because it contained new language pointing out the infamy of terrorism that Israel suffers every day, not least on Sunday, when there was an attack in Jerusalem.”

Ehud Yaari of Israel's Channel 2 has a long and fascinating account of the strategies Israel used to bring down the level of violence from Palestinians in the territories to the levels of before September 2015.

Some highlights:

For more than a year, Israel has been engaged in efforts to curb an intense wave of attacks by Palestinian youth acting on their own. This “Haba” (“eruption” in Arabic), as some Palestinians call it, has been gradually contained by the Israeli military and intelligence agencies. The scope of incidents has been dramatically reduced, leading to a sharp decline in the number of casualties on both sides. At its peak in October 2015, the Haba produced no less than sixty serious attacks a month, whereas by spring 2016 the number of severe incidents was down to four or five a month, close to the standard pace of terrorism in previous years.

Israeli security officials have invested much effort in studying the sudden rise in the number of violent incidents. The main features of the Haba were fairly easy to discern. First, most perpetrators have been quite young, between the ages of 17 and 22. Almost all of them have been unaffiliated with any Palestinian political faction. They embarked upon spontaneous individual initiatives, typically without sharing their plans of attack with friends or relatives. Often, they fit the definition of “from zero to hero” terrorists: They came mostly from the margins of their social groups; few if any were recognized as political activists or leaders among their peers. Social media, primarily Facebook, served as their platform rather than any of the many politically sponsored media outlets.
In most cases they were motivated by personal circumstances, striving to avenge and imitate previous attackers, and in some cases seeking to gain recognition as martyrs. Although many were driven to act by the widespread allegations that Israel was seeking to change the status quo at the al-Aqsa mosque, very few were devout Muslims. Patriotic sentiment trumped religion as the strongest driving force, coupled as always with feelings of indignation and humiliation at the presence of Israeli troops.

When the Haba was at its most active, a surprisingly high proportion of attackers were women—up to one fifth. Investigations showed that almost all of these women—including a 72-year-old grandmother from Hebron—were seeking to escape family hardships, such as pregnancies out of wedlock, arranged marriages, violence within the family, and so forth. Quite often it seemed that these women were seeking death or arrest in order to break away from their environment. In more than one instance, a young woman would wave a kitchen knife or scissors far from the Israeli soldiers, not posing any real threat, knowing that she would be immediately taken into custody.

In closed-door debates, proponents of a new and less muscular approach emphasized that most of the attackers came from the fringes of West Bank society: young people struggling with social marginalization, who had experienced repeated setbacks in their private lives or faced insurmountable personal or financial hardship. The collective profile of the assailants identified most as frustrated individuals who felt that their lives had reached a dead end, to the point that many sought salvation through martyrdom. Many of those captured during assaults told interrogators that they believed that death for the sake of jihad would reward them with the recognition they failed to obtain in life. It eventually dawned on Israeli analysts that many of the attackers who had maintained their own Facebook pages tended to replace their old pictures with new self-portraits just weeks, and sometimes only days, before setting out on an attack, so that mourning ceremonies could display photos of the “martyrs” that were appropriately current and flattering. In numerous cases, would-be assailants also wrote about their wish to sacrifice their lives in the form of short poems, Quranic verses, or tributes to other shahidis (martyrs).

This was an intifada of victims of Palestinian society trying to gain honor with their attacks. I mentioned this in the context of child attackers based on UNICEF reports earlier this week.

There are six main components of Israel’s counter-Haba strategy that have emerged over time. The first and arguably most important has been to reduce tension over the Temple Mount. Since its beginning, the Haba revolved around the sensitive situation at al-Aqsa mosque and it surrounding area. The Palestinian narrative, promoted by the PA as well as other factions, has claimed that the Israeli government wished to gain a Jewish foothold in this holy place and ultimately impose some form of divided control there. Allegedly, the Israeli government was moving toward establishing a new regime that would allow those Jews who wished to do so to pray on the Temple Mount.

Many Palestinians were sincerely concerned about the future of al-Aqsa. Both Islamist leaders and PA politicians urged Palestinians to defend al-Aqsa and struggle to retain exclusive Muslim control over the Temple Mount—what Muslims call Haram al-Sharaf. This has led to frequent skirmishes in the al-Aqsa courtyards as well as the stoning of Jews praying at the Wailing Wall below. The almost weekly outbreak of violence led Israeli authorities to outlaw the Islamic Movement within Israel that used to maintain shifts of “guards,” both men and women, in the mosque. These “Murabitoon” and “Murabitat” were also declared illegal and their presence in the Mosque discontinued.

This action quickly led to a sharp decline in the number and severity of clashes with the Israeli police.

Yaari, apparently a leftist, also claims that Israeli restrictions on Jewish prayer at the Mount helped tamp down tension, but that is clearly not true. The Palestinian media never backed down from their incitement as long as Jews visited in any form - there has been no change in reports of "Jewish extremists storming the Al Aqsa Mosque to perform Talmudic rituals." The real difference was the banning of the "murabitat."

The second and third parts of Israel's strategy are also fascinating:

The second component of Israeli policy in dealing with the Haba concerned social media. As Facebook—and to a lesser degree Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms—became the favorite means of communication for would-be assailants and those inciting violence, Israeli intelligence diverted significant additional resources to monitoring the web, rapidly screening the flood of information to identify potential threats. The innovative software employed underwent continuous upgrades and adaptations, including methods to crack encrypted messages, commonly used by Hamas and Hezbollah operatives. A few months after the Haba began, no less than a third of Shabak manpower was already assigned to technological departments, this in addition to the massive capabilities of the famed 8200 division of IDF military intelligence.

The combined cyber effort allowed Israeli analysts to identify persons inclined to attack, and thus initiate preventative measures. At the same time, Israeli officials set “traps” in the different social media forums to lure potential attackers. Cyber offensives brought down sites engaged in inciting violence. Aided by the Shabak’s network of informants in every Palestinian locality, Israeli efforts thwarted roughly 400 intended assaults—almost half of all planned attacks, including some 20 plots to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The third component has been selective retaliation. In response to the Haba, Israeli security agencies limited retaliatory measures to the immediate environment of the attackers. Family members of attackers, and sometimes their extended clans, were denied work permits in Israel, which are a major source of income throughout the West Bank. Some were also denied trade licenses and permits to enter Israel. Villages that produced several attacks were isolated, and temporarily put under lockdown with military checkpoints on all roads leading to them. When repeated stabbing attacks occurred, for example, at the Jalameh crossing point into Israel near Jenin, Israeli officials blocked all traffic, affecting trade of every sort. The security services also demolished the houses of attackers on occasion, imposing such a significant economic price on the families, clans, villages, and neighborhoods that local leaders felt obliged to deter the youth from perpetrating further attacks.

Officers from the six Israeli territorial brigades in the West Bank also kept in constant communication with Palestinian notables, mukhtars (local leaders), and schoolmasters. Private pirate radio stations pouring oil on the flames were raided and shut down. Prayer leaders preaching violence were arrested and sentenced. In many places, Israeli officials sought to identify and then capture the organizers of riots and those who offered money to teenagers willing to demonstrate. Gradually, these efforts helped create a powerful if quiet lobby among the Palestinian population against the expansion of the Haba into something more pervasively violent. Towns and villages not drawn into the cycle of violence received various economic incentives, so carrots as well as sticks played a role in this highly targeted approach.

The other components were better cooperation with the PA security forces, targeting weapons factories that tripled the price of locally-produced arms, and targeting Hamas in the West Bank which was trying to leverage the attacks into a wider, more organized movement.

(h/t PMB)

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US consulate in Jerusalem

The Washington Post reports:

Close U.S. allies in the Middle East have warned that moving the embassy might look easy but would be deeply reckless, like painting a big bull’s eye not just on a building, but on the United States and its friends.

A top government minister in Jordan, Israel’s pro-Western neighbor, said the embassy move would have “catastrophic consequences,” inflaming religious passions and rallying extremists.

The Palestinians have called the move “a red line” that would dash hopes for a two-state solution to the long-running conflict.

Palestinian leaders are now pleading with Trump not to do it. They have also asked mosques around the world to offer prayers this Friday against the move.

“The call for prayer is to say we don’t accept this,” said Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian official and former peace negotiator, signaling how quickly the issue had moved from the diplomatic realm to the sectarian street. The Palestinians also want churches to ring their bells in protest of the proposed move.

Shtayyeh said that if Trump moved the embassy to Jerusalem, the Palestine Liberation Organization would consider revoking its recognition of the State of Israel.

If such a threat is carried out, it would mark the collapse of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.

...[S]ome U.S. diplomats, including former Middle East peace negotiators, say the move would do little to advance U.S. interests in the region.

“It was and is a symbol of American policy, which has always been that the status of Jerusalem should be resolved through negotiations, and any effort to move it unilaterally would be disruptive and dangerous for everyone,” said Philip Wilcox, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem from 1988 to 1991.

“It’s playing with fire,” Wilcox warned. “It would quite likely incite acts of Palestinian violence and terrorism, not only there but everywhere. It would alienate other Muslim states and make our role in trying to preserve some stability and peace more difficult. It would alienate the international community. And all it would accomplish is the goodwill of the Israeli right wing.”

This story is not what the media is presenting it to be.

While the PLO has been warning for months about the supposed earthquake that would occur if the US moves the embassy - a move that is perfectly legal and legitimate according to even the most anti-Israel interpretations of international law - it is an earthquake that the PLO is inciting, not warning about.

Until Abbas made a statement about this five days ago, Palestinian Arabic media has been almost silent on the issue. I have not seen any anger about this on social media. And as I mentioned previously, a Jerusalem Post report indicated that Palestinians themselves responded to questions about this with "overwhelming apathy."

But the PLO's main weapon is threats, and it has been using the threat of "spontaneous" violence to spook clueless (and anti-Israel) Westerners to pressure Trump not to do anything hasty.

There is no evidence that Palestinians or the Arab world care about this. Jordan only issued its warning about the move at the behest of the PLO to begin with. And the mosques (and now churches) are being directly incited to inflame passions among people who really wouldn't care otherwise, but who can be provoked into making demonstrations with the right keywords about "Al Aqsa."

Expect some of these PLO-organized "spontaneous" demonstrations within the next week. And expect the media to cover them as it they are really reflective of reality.

Media outlets like the Washington Post are more than happy to be complicit in this overt attempt by the PLO to turn this fake news of widespread Arab anger over a non-issue into real news by inciting violence where none would occur otherwise.

This is not only about a symbolic move. When the PLO incites anger, it incites terror. People might die - not because of the embassy but because of this direct incitement to violence over a topic Palestinians wouldn't otherwise care about.

Moreover, the PLO is also directly threatening to abandon the Oslo accords over this non-issue. They won't, of course, but the threat itself should be exposed as a naked attempt to manipulate public opinion, not as a reflection of any real potential fallout of an embassy move. The story isn't that Oslo is jeopardized - it is that one of its signatories is so willing to cynically lie about it.

But despite this outrageous behavior by the PLO and Fatah officials, the media is being used as a platform to pressure Israel, not to expose this clear case of PLO incitement to riots and violence - incitement that has been well reported.

Most worryingly, CNN reports that the pressure might actually be working, and that these threats of violence are effective. It says that Trump's team is floating the idea of having the ambassador work out of the Jerusalem consulate building but not to call it an embassy.

If Trump folds on this issue, it would be a huge victory for the PLO's diplomacy of fear, the exact sort of thing that the embassy move was meant to expose as hollow.

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Ma'an reports that J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami met with PLO representative to the US Maen Areikat.

The article says they discussed "political developments in the American arena with the imminent inauguration of the new US president Donald Trump" and also "coordination and cooperation between the two sides and with other US Jewish and Arab and Palestinian organizations in order to rally support to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

In other words, J-Street actively meets with and strategizes with Israel's enemies against Israeli interests, as defined by Israelis themselves.

Areikat famously said, very explicitly, that any Palestinian state would expel all Jews and would not allow them to become citizens (he walked that back when it became obvious that his words made him look bad.)

Airekat honored antisemite Helen Thomas in his home.

Airekat has claimed that Israel tested out a "new type of lethal bullets" on Palestinians. When called on this claim by a Reuters reporter, he said he would prove it - and never did. But his libel remains on Twitter.

And his many other baldfaced lies remain online as well.

I don't think you can call the representative of an organization that openly praises Jew-killers and antisemites "pro-Israel."

Yet this is who Jeremy Ben-Ami works together with as he works against Israel.

Any further questions about J-Street?

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