Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, January 26, 2017

West Bank unemployment not much different from Jordan's

The unemployment rate in Jordan reached 15.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2016, the Department of Statistics (DOS) reported Wednesday.

The DOS said the unemployment rate among males stood at 13.8 percent and 24.8 per cent among females in the same period.

In the West Bank, unemployment among males was 15% and among women 26.7%, which is not too much different.

So why does the world make such a big deal over the Palestinian economy and ignoring Jordan's?

Admittedly, in Gaza it is a mess, but the numbers in Gaza would be similar to the West Bank if it wasn't run by Hamas.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Like many American Jews, I was born in Brooklyn, NY. As a young man I was interested in electronics and radio, which got me a job as a broadcast engineer that, along with scholarships, paid for my college education. But I had my heart set on an academic career and studied philosophy, specializing in logic. I ultimately decided that I did not want to be a teacher and would be a bad one, but before that I experienced the strange world of the academy.

My time as a graduate student in Pittsburgh and a college teacher in California straddled the great revolution in higher education that took place in the late 1960s – the period of grade inflation and politicization, and the introduction of race and gender studies as academic disciplines. The experience was invaluable in understanding the nature of political correctness and other academy-birthed neuroses that are endemic in American culture today.

I found myself interested in computers, and little by little moved away from the academic world. This was still the day of massive mainframes, before personal computers and the Internet. I liked programming in assembly language, as close to the metal as I could get. It was a good fit for a person with a logical mind who was not especially good at dealing with humans (Mr. Spock would understand). It was an honest way to make a living, too.

The important part of my life started in 1979, when my wife and three children and I made aliyah. I had the honor of being drafted for reserve duty in the IDF, which – after I explained all my experience and technical skills, basically said “here is an M16, go guard things for 6 weeks every year.” We lived on two kibbutzim – one of them a leftist kibbutz of the Hashomer Hatzair movement at which I learned something about carpentry, tractor repair, and unfortunately totalitarianism. The other was a somewhat more reasonable place politically, but kibbutz living didn’t agree with me and after nine years we returned to our home town, Fresno, California. We almost immediately began to compensate for being yordim (leaving the country) by becoming passionate supporters of Israel from the Diaspora.

I started blogging more than ten years ago, because I was frustrated at my inability to get people to listen to me. The local newspaper would publish a 200-word letter from me every few weeks, and – very rarely – a longer piece. But they wanted stuff of local interest, not political articles about Israel. I sent emails to the members of the Jewish community about matters that I thought should be of concern to them, but the reaction ranged from amusement to irritation to anger. Everyone, from editors to synagogue board members to university officials (they had, and continue to have, regular bash-Israel programs) got really tired of me.

My wife and I and some of our friends counter-demonstrated at every anti-Israel demonstration and program at the university, with signs and leaflets. In 2002, I had a somewhat surreal struggle with the management of the public radio station about my offer to buy a “day sponsorship” which would include several announcements “in remembrance of the 526 (and counting) Israeli men, women, and children who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists since September 2000.”

They did not take my money. “How do we know it’s true?” they said. So I gave them names and dates. “Too political,” they said. So I gave them examples of other sponsorships that they did accept, such as one “...in honor of the Stonewall riots, the beginning of the Gay and Lesbian civil rights movement.” “That’s different,” they said. We went round and round for a while until they stopped talking to me.

Toward the end of 2006, the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study report came out, in which Ben Rhodes, a committee staffer who would later become one of Barack Obama’s close confidants on Middle East policy, argued that the way to rescue the US from the quagmire of Iraq was to appease Iran and Syria (there was still a Syria then) by letting them have their way with Israel. Give Syria the Golan – and by all means establish a Palestinian state as quickly as possible, because ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (as if a Palestinian state would end it!) will solve all the region’s problems. Not.

I was invited by a local TV station to be on a panel “to discuss the report.” It turned out that the other guy was a member of a “peace” group who was opposed to how America was blowing all its money bombing Iraq while people were hungry at home; and they wanted me to be the hawk who was in favor of America blowing all its money by bombing the crap out of Iraqi kids. When I mentioned the report and Israel, everyone looked at me blankly (in general, the TV reporters were astonishingly ignorant. Apparently the newspaper people were the ones that did well in their Journalism classes at Fresno State, and the rest went into TV).

Unable to keep my thoughts to myself (and my long-suffering wife), I began a blog called FresnoZionism.org. I used “.org” because my idea was that I would start a Zionist organization that would fight back against the constant flow of anti-Israel propaganda coming from activists at the university, from the local Pacifica radio station, from NPR, and from the various left-wing and “peace” groups. I inaugurated my blog with a post about the Iraq Study Report.

I am not much of an organizer, it turns out, and the Zionist group did not come into existence (although in one of my letters to the university president, which he didn’t answer, I claimed to be the president of it).

Two out of three of my children went back to Israel at age 19 to serve in the army (the oldest served before we left), and as often happens, met their spouses and stayed. Now they each have four children of their own. As soon as my wife and I sold our business and retired in 2014, we joined them. It was a relief to be able to stop trying to make Zionists out of our Jewish friends, many of whom are far more dedicated to liberal causes than to Jewish ones.

When I got back to Israel, I started a new blog, AbuYehuda.com. Sometimes I write philosophical or historical essays about Zionism, and sometimes I write indignantly about the latest example of hypocrisy by liberal American Jews (from whom I have finally come to expect absolutely nothing). Sometimes I write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how there is no possible diplomatic solution to it. Sometimes I write about the subhuman cruelty of Arab terrorists, and sometimes I speculate about the coming war with Iran and Hezbollah (we’ll win it, at great cost). During the past 8 years I wrote a great deal about Barack Hussein Obama, whose deep animus against the Jewish state will (I think) only begin to fully become clear to us in the future.

Sometimes I write about American culture or politics, although that is becoming less frequent as I am no longer a first-hand observer. It is also true that the extreme anger and irrationality that are coming to characterize them are hard to understand. The recent election and the reactions to it are beyond anything in my experience. Some of my old friends are truly angry with me for seeing Trump as an improvement over Obama (despite everything wrong with him, I still think he is).

Every day I am more and more convinced that a Jewish state – not some kind of state of its citizens, but a state that is truly an expression of the national feelings of the Jewish people – is essential for the survival of that people. This is something that most American Jews don’t understand, and which is anathema to the Left in this country, which would like to make Israel a tiny version of the US or perhaps Sweden. Perhaps they don’t understand that their success would mean the end of the Jewish people. Or perhaps they do, and consider that desirable.

I’ve done many jobs in my life, in electronics, broadcasting, teaching, software, carpentry, tractor mechanics, industrial maintenance and more. Some have paid more or been more interesting than others. But probably the most important job that I’ve had is what I am doing with my writing today: defending the concept of the sovereign, Jewish state of Israel.

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01/26 Links Pt1: Saudi Journalist: The Palestinians' Reliance On Armed Resistance Is Political Suicide; The Losers of 2016: The Palestinians

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Council of Europe Report on Gaza – Another NGO Echo Chamber

Jansson also fails to support her claims with verifiable sources, often referring to unnamed “NGOs” with no proper citation. For example she states, “As I was told by Palestinian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) during my visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah, those who do manage to cross the borders are sometimes arrested by the Israeli authorities or incited to collaborate with them”. She further fails to provide a source for the claim, “According to Palestinian NGOs, 51% of children in Gaza are suffering from physical and mental traumas”.
In one place, Jansson names and cites a severe and unverifiable allegation from the Palestinian political NGO known as the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, regarding “a massive and exceptional escalation in Israel’s attacks and harassment of Palestinian fishermen, including use of live fire, arbitrary arrest employing humiliating and degrading practices and use of physical violence and verbal abuse”. Al-Mezan regularly describes Israel’s policies as “apartheid,” accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “war crimes,” and promotes the “Nakba” narrative, and these allegations should be seen in that context.
Jansson’s report further cites The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) extensively. OCHA also repeatedly publishes reports, factsheets, and informational databases that rely on and repeat NGO claims, thereby lending credence and credibility to highly misleading accusations. For example, on December 29, 2015, OCHA published a “2016 Syrian Arab Republic Humanitarian Response Plan.” According to media reports, after consulting the Syrian government, OCHA “altered dozens of passages and omitted pertinent information to paint the government of Bashar al-Assad in a more favorable light.” (For more on OCHA bias and politicization, see NGO Monitor’s report UNOCHA-oPt: Politicized Activities and Funding in the Arab-Israeli Conflict.)
The Council of Europe document highlights the lack of credibility resulting from reliance on claims of political NGOs, without independent verification. The Council of Europe and other organizations repeatedly overlook the abuse of human rights rhetoric by groups that disperse misinformation in the service of radical political agendas. Thus, instead of suggesting “practical recommendations to improve the situation” in Gaza, this publication simply restates the biases and unfounded claims of NGOs, fueling the conflict and doing nothing to address the humanitarian concerns.

The Losers of 2016: The Palestinians

In 2016, supporters of the Palestinian cause clung to one symbolic victory at year’s end: the passage of a UN resolution (passed with a crucial abstention from the U.S.) condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. But the fact that this toothless declaration from a UN echo chamber, passed with the help of a lame duck American presidential administration in its death throes counts as the Palestinians’ main accomplishment in 2016 only underscores how much trouble the Palestinian cause is in.
The problem for the Palestinians is this: organizationally and economically they remain weak compared to their Israeli opponents and rivals, and the gap between the capabilities of the Palestinian movement and the Israeli state widens every year. The Palestinian movement has attempted to counter this growing disparity by building alliances with external actors who, for a variety of reasons, either dislike and fear the Israelis, or, for a mix of religious, ethical, or cultural reasons are disposed support the Palestinian cause.
Over the years, the Palestinians have gradually managed to build significant alliances with the wealthy Gulf Arab states, the European Union, and liberal Democrats in the United States. Those alliances have resulted in significant diplomatic and economic support, to some degree offsetting the underlying weakness of the Palestinian movement considered in itself.
These external alliances do things for the Palestinians that the Palestinians cannot do for themselves. The Palestinian Authority, for example, could not pay its bills, operate educational or health systems, police its territory or provide for its civil servants without recurring annual subsidies from donor governments. The Palestinian Authority has no ability to meet the needs of Palestinian refugees outside the West Bank; such aid as they receive comes from international donors.

MEMRI: Saudi Journalist: The Palestinians' Reliance On Armed Resistance Is Political Suicide; The Palestinian Cause Is No Longer The Arabs' Primary Concern

In his January 2, 2017 column in the official Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, titled "The Palestinians Have No [Choice] But Peace," journalist Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh criticized Palestinian factions that advocate armed resistance, such as Hamas and radical left-wing factions, on the grounds that relying on such resistance and rejecting the option of peace is political suicide. He called on these factions to realize that the two-state solution is the only option that is feasible and is backed by most of the world's countries – especially given the existing circumstances, with the U.S. Congress expressing pro-Israel positions, and the Arab world, preoccupied with more pressing crises, no longer intensely concerned with the Palestinian cause. A stubborn insistence on armed resistance will only end up hurting the Palestinians themselves, he concluded.
Aal Al-Sheikh's column sparked diverse responses on Twitter, some supporting his opinion and others opposing it. The following are excerpts from his column, and a sampling of the reactions.

Temple Mount "status quo" gets more absurd

Felesteen reports that 108 "Jewish settlers stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque" this morning.

The Waqf issued its usual condemnation, but this time it said:

This escalation by the settlers with the presence of the Israeli police is a "change of the status quo in the historic Al-Aqsa Mosque," and they play to their detention Bahath unilaterally and under police guard and special forces.

The Waqf emphasized that the 144 dunums of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is for Muslims alone, and under the care and guardianship of King Abdullah II of Jordan, and flatly refused to allow the entry of settlers to al- Aqsa, or anything that affects change the existing historical situation before the occupation of the city of Jerusalem in 1967.

If it is for Muslims alone, then why has the Waqf historically published guidebooks for non-Muslims that are visiting the site?

Ah, when they say it is for "Muslims alone," that is a codeword meaning it is "not for Jews." Which really was the "status quo" during the 19 anomalous years of Jordanian rule.

Here's the guidebook from 1950, when it was under the "status quo", and when the guidebookt still said that there is no doubt that this was the site of the Jewish Temples.

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The hidden annex to the Oslo Accords (ElderToons)

From Al Jazeera:

A senior member of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party has threatened to withdraw the Palestinian Authority's recognition of Israel in response to the planned relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

During his electoral campaign, US President Donald Trump pledged to move the embassy to Jerusalem despite reluctance to do so by past administrations.

Speaking to the Voice of Palestine radio station on Tuesday, Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, said the Palestinian Authority, or PA, planned to adopt a raft of retaliatory measures in the event of the embassy’s relocation.

"[We would also] demand that Israel recognise Palestine as a state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Yes, he really said that the PLO would withdraw recognizing Israel while at the same time insisting that Israel recognize a state that doesn't exist.

Azzam wasn't the first to make this threat. Abbas said it in November, Saeb Erekat said it in December along with Mohammed Shtayyeh and Hanan Ashrawi, Shtayyeh repeated it earlier this month.

Apparently, the PLO regards signed agreements with Israel as only binding on Israel.

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For those who don't think the PLO and PA support terror...

The New York Times reports:

The Trump administration is preparing executive orders that would clear the way to drastically reduce the United States’ role in the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as begin a process to review and potentially abrogate certain forms of multilateral treaties.

The first of the two draft orders, titled “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations” and obtained by The New York Times, calls for terminating funding for any United Nations agency or other international body that meets any one of several criteria.

Those criteria include organizations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organization, or support programs that fund abortion or any activity that circumvents sanctions against Iran or North Korea. The draft order also calls for terminating funding for any organization that “is controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism” or is blamed for the persecution of marginalized groups or any other systematic violation of human rights.

We know that terror apologists will attack this by claiming that the PLO and PA aren't terror groups.

So, just to make sure they have up to date information, here's a screenshot from the official PLO webpage showing part of a video they have in honor of the anniversary of the death of Ali Salameh, the "Red Prince," who was the leader of the Black September terror group that was behind the Olympics massacre.

I had already shown that the PA officially mourned Salameh.

But this video starts off with photos of lots of other terrorist "martyrs" from many terror groups, not only Fatah. For example, PFLP founder George Habash - who was responsible for numerous airplane hijackings in the 1970s - is featured.

In the place of honor next to Yasir Arafat (the founding father of modern terrorism) is the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Yassin. No matter what Jimmy Carter may believe, Hamas is universally recognized as a terror group, today.

So, yes, the PLO supports terror. Just because the West has gotten used to sending them money for the past few decades doesn't change that fact.

Any objective observer would know that the Oslo process was essentially abrogated by the PLO's decision to start a war against Israeli Jewish civilians in 2000 instead of negotiate peace.

It is more than acceptable to stop treating the PLO like they are honored members of the world community - it is mandatory.

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01/25 Links Pt2: After Eight Years with a Friendly White House, J Street Has Little to Show

From Ian:

After Eight Years with a Friendly White House, J Street Has Little to Show

The self-styled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group is now in its tenth year; during most of this time it has benefitted from having a White House supportive of its goals. Indeed, its director stated that he and his colleagues saw themselves as the president’s teammates. Yet, writes Gregg Roman, J Street has precious little to show, especially since peace between Israel and its neighbors, let alone Palestinian statehood, seems as far off as ever:
J Street’s continued criticism of the Israeli government created a pseudo-Zionist political shield on the Jewish community’s left flank that the Obama administration used to blame Israel for actions largely caused by Palestinian obstinacy.
For eight years J Street supported President Obama’s destructive policies toward Israel, like the unilateral settlement freeze, nuclear détente with Iran, and his allowance for international condemnation of Israeli communities in the West. . . . At the end of 2008, when Israel decided to defend itself against incessant rocket attacks from the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, J Street attacked Israel’s defensive actions. . . .
J Street also placed itself out of mainstream pro-Israel circles when it invited prominent activists in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement to its conferences and claimed that George Soros had not funded the organization until it became a matter of public record that he had in fact provided significant donations, especially during its formative years. All of these hits have left J Street and its combative but rarely reflective president Jeremy Ben-Ami’s reputation battered and bruised.

Maajid Nawaz: Students are sleepwalking into anti-Semitic hysteria

How did it all come to this? The perfect storm: Islamist theocrats, their regressive left apologists and right wing populists.
Though they may hate each other, they agree to hate on Jews more. I call this Europe’s triple threat, and it is tearing our political culture asunder, poisoning our discourse and leaving a nasty aftertaste to campus activism.
No surer sign of rising fascism have we had in our history than the scapegoating of our Jewish communities. Alarm bells should be sounding, and yet they are not.
This week, we remember the tragedy that was the Holocaust. An atrocity made so easy because Europe was allowed to sleep walk into anti-Semitic hysteria.
So ponder this. Last month the government’s first higher education adjudicator, cross-bench peer Baroness Ruth Deech, warned that certain UK universities are becoming no-go zones for Jews.
No-go zones, she said. Never again, we had promised.

Douglas Murray: Nomination for Nobel Peace Prize: Reverend Gavin Ashenden

The section of the Quran that a Muslim student recited at the church service points out the Islamic belief that Jesus was not the Son of God. Even in today's Britain, this does not seem quite the view that leaders of the national church are supposed to propagate.
"The justification offered that it engages some kind of reciprocity founders on the understandable refusal of Islamic communities to read passages from the Gospel in Muslim prayers announcing the Lordship of Christ. It never happens.... apologies may be due to the Christians suffering dreadful persecution at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere. To have the core of a faith for which they have suffered deeply treated so casually by senior western clergy such as the Provost of Glasgow is unlikely to have a positive outcome." — Reverend Gavin Ashenden, The Times.
"I resigned in order to be able to speak more freely about the struggle that Christianity is facing in our culture. I had no idea that there were plans afoot by a Scottish Cathedral to 'reach out to Muslims' by scrapping a Bible reading from their worship on the Feast of the Epiphany (when Christ's Lordship is celebrated as the Light of the World) and replacing it with a part of the Koran that denied Jesus was the Son of God.... it represented one more step along a road, which if the Church continues to follow, will speed up the destruction of Christianity in our country." — Reverend Gavin Ashenden, The Times.

It's that time of the week again where a topic must be chosen for this week's column. There's some great material this week, but each topic has its weaknesses and pitfalls. There is, for instance, the matter of the $221m that Obama gave the Palestinian Authority as his final eff you to the Jews the morning he left office, the last act before Trump became president. It's money that will be used to pay pensions to the families of both jailed and dead terrorists, people who killed Jews. Indeed it is money that will be used to buy the weapons that will be used to kill Jews.

We know that, because hey. It's going to the PA (and that rhymes).

He knew that, Obama. He approves of that. He circumvented Congress to help underwrite that, Obama.

Yeah. I could probably find a few hundred more (steaming, seething) words to say about that. But then I'd have to give up on writing about the suspicious and possibly titillating behavior of Sonja Maria Jetter, an activist with Women Wage Peace. (Is this organization really about peace? Or is it just one more antisemitic organization posturing on the order of J-Street or Jewish Voice for Peace, claiming to want what's best for Israel while giving an assist to the murderers of Jewish Israelis?)

It is Sonja Maria Jetter, you see, who confides to near strangers in lurid detail the story of an orthodox rabbi sexually assaulting her, but refuses to name him. Meantime, she is quite happy to pound the flesh with Mahmoud Abbas for a photo opp. That would be Abbas the mastermind behind the Munich Massacre, a man whose doctoral dissertation was a study in Holocaust denial, a man who incites his people to murder Jews on a daily basis.

Ah yes, the story of Sonja and Women Wage Peace might titillate a few readers, while sending a few others to toss their cookies.

Alas it's a weak story. I can't actually prove that Women Wage Peace is antisemitic or that Sonja has it in for the Jews even if she's one herself. There's just the lingering stench of that ugly, detailed, lewd story, with no name attached hence lacking all credibility, plus the photo of the handshake with Abu Mazen. It's like Potter Stewart and porn. You know it when you see it. But write about it? Not much to say.

And of course, if I write about Sonja Maria Jetter and Women Wage Peace, I won't get to the story about the Women's March on Washington, all those Jewish women marching for free tampons and abortions, when their beloved Obama just slipped the PA $221m to kill the Jews. All those women who closed their eyes as Obama did nothing about rebels in Iran, the Yazidi women, Syria. All those women who are wearing pink hats and dressing up like vaginas. . .

but who won't say boo about Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile, if I write about the pink-hatted women and their non-violent protests . . .

. . . then I won't get to write about Ivanka and Jared riding in a car; going into a church; the matter of his bare head; her bare head (and arms); and the fact that they call themselves orthodox. But everyone and his dog is writing about that. And anyway, who wants to walk into a minefield? You just know you're going to get attacked if you write about that. People will say you're judging them. People will say it's not being nice to the stranger, the convert.

People will say that if we criticize them, they might leave the faith altogether—better we should be warm and embracing. Others will quote Halacha until their faces turn blue, while me? All I have is my common sense. I'm no rabbi. But if I didn't know a thing about Ivanka and Jared and ran into them at a party, what would tell me they are Jewish, let alone orthodox?

But if I were to say that, then readers would jump down my throat telling me that orthodox isn't a look. That there are all sorts of ways to be orthodox. And I'll be left looking rigid and unkind and judgmental when all I want to say is:

"You had a chance. You could have been this wonderful example for your people. You could have been orthodox out loud and proud, not just by giving lip service to hanging out with your family on Shabbos but by wearing the trappings of orthodoxy, you know, the fringes, the skullcap, the um, sleeves."

But if I say that, then people will say, but a rabbi said it was pikuach nefesh, saving a life, for them to ride in a car. A rabbi said they are karov l'malchut close to the kingdom, and therefore they must do what they must do to fit in so they can ultimately help their people in ways we cannot foretell.

And then I'll be left saying, "Okay, okay, but just think what an opportunity they had. What if they hadn't asked a question and had just stayed home, or slept over somewhere close by, or had the ball postponed until after Shabbos. Would it really not have been well received? Would they really have jeopardized something by doing so? And would the negative impact of that really have been greater. Would they really have been putting their lives in danger? Our lives in danger here in Israel?"

But you know: who wants to walk into a minefield, be called judgmental, blind, unkind to converts, ignorant of Halacha, intolerant, and so forth and so on.

So I'm not really sure what to write about this week. So many stories, so little time.

Maybe I should just pack it in and call it a day.

BBC Server Crashes After Story Filed With No Reflexive Israel-Blaming (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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London, January 25 - The main computer handling incoming dispatches from British Broadcasting Corporation journalists around the world was forced into automatic shutdown this afternoon after a correspondent covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict included no assumptions of Israeli guilt.

A four-minute clip and a condensed, two-minute version of a report on corruption rampant in the Palestinian Authority arrived at the London server of the BBC just after 1 pm Wednesday, and within seconds, the system had crashed, a development that technical staff at the institution are attributing to the report's lack of anti-Israel slant or implications. The server was never configured to handle such content, and the resulting processing error caused a deactivation of the system.

"The system just isn't set up to deal with that kind of anomaly, I'm afraid," explained IT specialist Amin Husseini. "We're still looking into what went wrong in the filing process, when the app our correspondents use to upload is supposed to scan the content for all the elements the server requires to properly process the submissions."

Husseini offered no concrete thoughts on what might have malfunctioned, but would not rule out foul play. "There is already one automatic suspect when anything untoward happens, so at least we have that avenue of investigation if all else fails." He added that the default finding for that internal probe would remain unless evidence emerged of some other cause, but that mention of the possibility of Israeli culpability in the incident would automatically be included in any report.

Unfortunately for the BBC team, all content on the server has been unavailable since the shutdown, and the backup server that came online in the wake of the crash was missing several reports that had been filed in the moments before the shutdown was triggered. Attempts to contact the journalist who submitted the faulty report have so far failed, leading to concerns that the problem may have originated with, and continues to compromise, the user-end of the app.

Corporation executives promised a thorough review of training to ensure the incident is not repeated. "We have strict guidelines, and the tools we employ to enforce those guidelines have functioned well, to date," stated Vice President for Operations Sir Shea Getts. "This is merely a technical matter, but it goes to the very root of this organization's mission. Noble Palestinian innocence and victimhood versus sinister ~~Jewish~~ Israeli conquest must shine through every news item we bring from the region. The most basic values of journalism are at stake here."

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01/25 Links Pt1: WH to review $221m. to Palestinians in Obama’s last hours; Giuliani: Trump backs Jerusalem embassy move

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah already planning terror campaign to prevent US embassy move

Abbas’ Fatah Movement has already held meetings in preparation for a terror campaign against Israel should the United States decide to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to Deputy Secretary of Fatah’s Jerusalem branch, Shadi Mattour.
Mattour told official PA TV that Fatah is holding meetings with “all the field leaders in the branches and the Shabiba (Fatah’s youth movement)... in preparation for a fierce popular intifada.” He declared that Fatah “won't hesitate to take to the streets and return to confronting the occupation using all means."
The term “using all means” is a Palestinian euphemism for violence and terror. Already last week, Palestinian Media Watch reported that PA and Fatah leaders are preparing the population for a violent response to a decision to move the embassy by threatening that an embassy move will lead to bloodshed .

Trump administration to review $221m. payment to Palestinians in Obama’s last hours

The State Department is reviewing a last-minute decision by former Secretary of State John Kerry to send $221 million dollars to the Palestinians late last week over the objections of congressional Republicans.
The department said Tuesday it would look at the payment and might make adjustments to ensure it comports with the Trump administration’s priorities.
Kerry formally notified Congress that State would release the money Friday morning, just hours before President Donald Trump took the oath of office.
Congress had initially approved the Palestinian funding in budget years 2015 and 2016, but at least two GOP lawmakers — Ed Royce of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Kay Granger of Texas, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee — had placed holds on it over moves the Palestinian Authority had taken to seek membership in international organizations. Congressional holds are generally respected by the executive branch but are not legally binding after funds have been allocated.

Republicans Plot Retaliation to Kerry's 'Closing Act of … Lawlessness'

Congressional leaders are moving to respond to a last-minute transfer of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority by the Obama administration with a range of measures, including a possible total freeze of funds to the PA, according to senators and other sources who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry endangered future funding to the PA by orchestrating the $221 million release in the final hours of the Obama administration, according to a report published Monday by the Associated Press and additional details provided to TWS. The release was made in spite of holds that had been placed on the funds by a number of lawmakers.
“I don't know if we can recoup that money, but I intend to suspend future funding to the Palestinian Authority until they change their laws that reward young Palestinians for killing Israelis and Americans," South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham told TWS.
Graham said he will reintroduce the Taylor Force Act, named after an Army veteran who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist last March, which cuts funding until the PA stops directly or indirectly financing terrorism. The PA set aside roughly $140 million to support imprisoned terrorists and their families in 2016, according to experts who spoke to Congress in July.
"I find that cruel and unacceptable," Graham said. "I will be pushing to stop those payments."
A congressional advisor who is working with Congress on Israeli-Palestinian issues in the aftermath of the $221 million release told TWS that lawmakers will retaliate against the move.

A Tunisian MP has apologized for using an offensive word to describe Jews during a parliamentary session.

MP Abu al-Hanaa, during a debate over a 1964 land law, said something like some of the land was for the French and the rest for the "Hashakim" Jews, which I believe translates roughly to "shitty."

(UPDATE: The word Hashak is used as an apology for mentioning something disgusting in conversation, like feces or spit or dogs.)

Immediately, the chairman of the parliament Abdul Moro said that such language was unacceptable and that Jews were respected members of Tunisian society.

Other Tunisian groups - not Jewish groups, but other NGOs - also called on al-Hanaa to apologize for the slur.

And she did, saying it was a slip of the tongue and she did not mean to offend.

This is a remarkable story for the Arab world and I do not recall ever seeing anything close to this happening before. Tunisia and Morocco have been far more tolerant to Jews than most Arab states (which can be seen by the fact that there are simply no Jews to speak of in Arab countries outside those two states.) But immediate censure for an antisemitic slur, not being prompted by the West, is as far as I can tell unprecedented.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Hamas has announced that 150 homes in the area of the old "American School" in Gaza will be razed.

2500 people will become homeless.

The neighborhood will be bulldozed and the land given for free to Hamas employees, probably in compensation for not receiving their full salaries. Hamas has done that before.

For comparison, Israel demolished 125 illegally built homes in the West Bank in all of 2015, according to B'Tselem, with far fewer people becoming displaced. (The counts of the homes Israel demolishes are often counted several times over the years as NGOs, often from Europe, rebuild the same illegal homes multiple times.)

The many NGOs who monitor the horror of Palestinians having their homes demolished have very little to say when they are not demolished by Israel.

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