Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Can you tell the difference between J-Street and the BDSers?

Last month I pointed out an eerily similar emails that both J-Street and BDSers sent out.

It's happened again.

One of these columns shows a (slightly edited) email from J-Street. The other shows an email from the BDSers known currently as the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

See if you can tell which is which.

As President Donald Trump prepares to meet tomorrow with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we also wanted to make sure you were aware of another important policy development that you can impact.

On Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing and vote on David Friedman’s nomination to be ambassador to Israel.

You’ve already sent more than 6,000 letters to Senators opposing the nomination of this extremist who denies Palestinian rights, funds and identifies with the Israeli settler movement, and viciously attacks all who disagree with his abhorrent ideology.

Now, we need you to pick up your phones and call your two Senators to oppose Friedman’s nomination.

Two days from now, the Senate will begin its deliberations on Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.

This is a man who called President Obama an anti-Semite. And, in contrast with everyone who has held this position since 1967, he’s a major supporter of the Israeli settlement movement. In fact, he’s raised millions of dollars for one of the most extreme settlements in the West Bank.

Right now, we need you to call your senators and tell them to vote NO on David Friedman’s nomination.
Every Senator needs to know that a vote to confirm Friedman is a vote against America’s commitment to Middle East peace.

Today is the day. Let’s flood the Senate with calls opposing Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel.

(If you read carefully, you can figure it out - only J-Street pretends that treating Israel like a banana republic helps Middle East peace.)

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

02/14 Links Pt2: Foreign Ministry places permanent exhibit at UNESCO; A Tale of Two Talks: Free Speech in the U.S.

From Ian:

Foreign Ministry places permanent exhibit at UNESCO

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decided to place a permanent exhibit at UNESCO headquarters of a replica of the seven-branched Menorah featured on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
The decision to place the exhibit at UNESCO in Paris is part of the Israeli government struggle against the Palestinian narrative denying any Jewish connection to Jerusalem; a narrative which many in Israel and around the world have accused UNESCO of abetting following the passing of a controversial UN resolution which conspicuously failed to make any mention of Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama Hacohen, came to an agreement with UNESCO's Director-general, Irina Bokova, in which the exhibit will be presented in an official ceremony with ambassadors from all over the world.
Following consultation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Tender Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved the project at a cost of NIS 45,000.
Initially, the statue was only meant to illustrate the seven-branched Menorah, but Hacohen decided to add the imagery showing Jewish slaves carrying the Menorah into exile to Rome. The statue will also include a written explanation in English, French, Hebrew and Arabic.

Top employee at EU-, UN-funded Gaza hospital quotes ‘Protocols of Zion‘

The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday called for the withdrawal of UN and EU funding from a Gaza Strip hospital whose director of public relations posted quotations from the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion on his private Facebook page.
The Protocols documents as fact an imaginary late-19th-century meeting at which Jewish leaders, the “Elders of Zion,” purportedly plan their takeover of the world.
Yahya Al Nawajha, director of public relations and media at the European Gaza Hospital in the southern Strip, referred on Facebook to Victor Marsden’s English translation of the Tsarist protocols and included a link to download the book.
Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, called for the immediate withdrawal of the hospital’s UN and EU funding until the hospital apologizes, issues a public repudiation of all forms of Jew-hatred, and fires Al Nawajha.
Even if the post appeared on a personal page, the hospital bore full responsibility, he charged.

Douglas Murray: The shameful hypocrisy of Sweden’s ‘first feminist government’

Pipping even Speaker John Bercow to the award are the brave sisters of the Swedish government. Here is a photo from earlier this month of Isabella Lovin (Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate and spokesperson of Sweden’s Green Party). In response to Donald Trump’s male-heavy team, Isabella and the sister-hood (pregnant and non-pregnant) recently posed for this photo to signal that the self-declared ‘first feminist government in the world’ will be taking no lectures from the current US President:
Just signed referral of Swedish #climate law, binding all future governments to net zero emissions by 2045. For a safer and better future. pic.twitter.com/OqOO2y8BU6
— Isabella Lövin (@IsabellaLovin) February 3, 2017
Here, by contrast, (courtesy of the excellent UN Watch) is how the Swedish sisterhood behaved when they visited Iran this past weekend:
But who’s to call, hey? On the one hand you have an American President and former Miss Universe competition owner who has done nothing to diminish women’s rights. On the other you have an Iranian President before whom all women must cover, and who presides over a legal system where nine-year old girls can be legally raped and women are regularly hanged from cranes.
The contrasting approaches are emblematic of our stupid, signalling times. To President Trump it’s ‘Hey you, Mr bigot, get off my vagina.’ While to President Rouhani it’s ‘How’s my hijab, Mr President? Do just say if anything else about my body offends you.’ The sisterhood should enjoy it while it lasts.

UNRWA has been trying to use the worldwide refugee crisis as a means to raise money as if most of the people under its program are real refugees. Refugees who don't know where their next meal is coming from.

But when people send money to UNRWA, not all of it goes to providing food and shelter.

Some of it goes towards producing professional cooking shows.

Obviously, starving refugees need to know how to make meat-filled dumplings on YouTube.

The UN clearly knows its priorities. People of Palestinian descent must learn how to correctly create avocado onion rings, because they are so horribly oppressed without that knowledge.

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

Can you imagine living in exile? Knowing that, although you have lived all your life in one place, as have your parents and maybe even grandparents, you belong to a different land?

The Jewish people lived in exile for centuries. Their religion and traditions did not allow them to forget… Maybe, most of all, it was their neighbors who did not allow them to forget that they belonged to a different land.

Jews in exile yearned for Zion, “the sun-drenched land.” Its fruits became something almost mythological. If someone managed to bring them fruits of the Land, it was like receiving a small miracle, something rare and very precious.

Of course, fruits couldn’t stay fresh on such a long trip. Dates, for example, could be brought from the far away land to the people in exile. This is where the tradition of eating dried fruit on Tu B’shvat began.

Tu B'Shvat is the new year for trees, celebrated according to the Hebrew calendar, on the 15th of the month of Shvat.

This is the new year for the purpose of calculating the age of trees for tithing (See Lev. 19:23-25, which states that fruit from trees may not be eaten during the first three years; the fourth year's fruit is for God, and after that, you can eat the fruit).

It is customary to celebrate the holiday by eating fruit from Israel, particularly a new fruit or one of the Seven Species described in the Bible as being abundant in the land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes (vines), figs, pomegranates, olives and dates (honey) (Deut. 8:8).

In 1904, Professor Otto Warburg proposed establishing a Zionist Fund for the purpose of planting olive trees in Zion on lands redeemed by KKL-JNF. The Teachers’ Association of Eretz Yisrael turned planting trees in to a national tradition, followed by school children throughout the country.

The Jewish people returned to the land, planted trees and made the desert bloom. Technology and dedication realized the promise of a land “flowing with milk and honey”. Hills that were barren became green. The fruits of the land grew more abundant and new fruits were cultivated.

Our trees and their fruit are precious. This land gives much – when it is loved.

This year Tu B’Shavat seemed to me a holiday of sad stubbornness.

My beautiful city of Haifa is currently scarred with black patches of land that once were green.

Hills that were covered in trees are now bare. The arson-terrorism that brought fires to my neighborhood, city and in other places across the country just two months ago, has caused scars that will take years to heal.

Thankfully no human lives were lost during the fires. Many homes were lost or terribly damaged. It is difficult to comprehend the loss of memories, family heirlooms, treasures that survived so many other attacks…

Enough anguish is caused by the loss of things that can be replaced with money. How can you replace the irreplaceable?

This Tu B’Shvat new trees and flowers were planted in Haifa. Experts say it will take some 30 years for the trees to grow back to something like what we had before the fires. Their knowledge will guide the replanting to facilitate speedy, healthy new growth, in a way that is best for the land.

The green will spread before the trees grow. New plants will cover the ugly scars terrorism left behind. Our city, that was lovely in its green urbanity by the sea, will be lovely once more.

Tu B’Shvat should not have to be used in this way but it is fitting that it was. Ours is a love story between a people and their land, between a land and its people.

Hate so ferocious that it is willing to burn us out of our homes, killing the fruits of the land and make it barren where it was once green, is not enough to disconnect the People of Israel from Zion.

Exile could not make the People of Israel forget Zion. Terrorism, even terrifying fires, cannot make us give up this land. Like countless times before, we will rebuild, plant new plants and grow better and stronger than ever before.

People can be killed. Trees can be burned. True love lasts forever.

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

02/14 Links Pt1: Glick: The Livni-Fayyad two-step; Beyond the Failed "Two-State Solution"

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Livni-Fayyad two-step

Livni isn’t being considered for the position because she’s the former foreign minister. She’s being touted as a “balance” to Fayyad because she agrees with him that Israel shouldn’t defend itself against his aggression or that of his cronies in the PA.
Moreover, if Livni receives the UN post, Guterres will expect her to defend the intrinsically anti-Israel organization when it is justifiably attacked by the government of Israel she stands no chance of ever serving in again.
The only way to get the UN to think twice before it attacks Israel is for Israel to stop acting like a chump.
Not only must the government reject Guterres’s offer. The government should take the actions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to take against the UN following the Security Council’s diplomatic pogrom against the Jewish state on December 23.
The UN should be kicked out of Jerusalem.
International and UN forces deployed in Judea and Samaria should be shown the door.
And Israel should stop transferring taxpayer funds to the corrupt institution that is controlled by an automatic majority of states that believe the chief purpose of the UN is to criminalize Israel while whitewashing terrorists and their supporters like Fayyad.
The purpose of the Livni offer is to distract Israel – and the US – and make us forget the organization’s inherent bigotry against the Jewish state while enabling the UN to maintain and even increase that bigotry. Israel must not be seduced by Guterres’s cheap, insulting, phony peace offering.

Col Kemp: Nato needs to reform into a global alliance against Islamic terrorism – or become obsolete

In 2005 we proposed, in a study called “Nato: An alliance for freedom”, a few ideas on how to close the gap between the Nato we have and the Nato we need. Some of them are still relevant. For instance, forget all the bureaucratic jargon about "capabilities-based alliance", "stability operations" or "operations other than war".
Nato should accept that we are all under attack by Islamist extremist forces of all kinds. President Hollande said that France was at war, and the rest of the allies cannot sit idle by his side. Nato must make the fight against Islamic terrorism its core mission.
Second, we are clearly not in a time to expand freedom in the world – a point British Prime Minister Theresa May made in Washington last week. On the contrary, we need to defend and preserve freedom in our lands.
In order to reinforce our Western world, Nato must invite to become members countries that are alike in the defense of our values and with the willingness to share the burden in this civilizational struggle. Nato should invite without delay Israel, Japan, Singapore and India to become members.
Defense expenditures should be revised and increased, but ceilings and burden sharing are not the problem. We don’t expend more because current leaders do not feel compelled to do so. Furthermore, to spend more on the same will not change our ability to confront the threats and challenges we face.
There is a myriad of things that can be done to put Nato back on track. Interior ministers should join defense ministers at council level and in summits.
That’s easy. But above all, what Nato needs is a vision and an impulse to transform from the new US President and administration. Yes, Mr President, we agree with you that Nato has become obsolete. But we believe you can make it relevant again. Your allies will follow.

Amb. Alan Baker: "The Two-State Solution": What Does It Really Mean?

The phrase "two-state solution" is repeated daily by international leaders and organizations. However, the phrase is bandied about without a full awareness of its history or of the practical aspects of its implementation in the realities of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
It is accepted that a situation in which a neighboring Palestinian state would be politically and economically unstable and open to manipulation by terror elements could never be acceptable to Israel and would constitute a threat to Israel's security.
It is accepted that a unified Palestinian leadership must be able to speak in the name of the entire Palestinian people and capable of entering into and fulfilling commitments. Such a situation does not exist at present.
On the basis of experience gained with the existing agreements, any permanent status agreement between the sides will need to include solid guarantees - legal, political, and security - that a Palestinian state will not abuse its sovereign prerogatives and international standing in order to violate or void the agreements.
It is clear that a Palestinian state will only emanate from direct negotiations between Israel and a unified Palestinian leadership. Issues such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements will only be resolved by negotiation and not by partisan political resolutions emanating from the UN or any other source.
Any such state must recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, in the same manner in which Israel would recognize a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people.

The Report of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA in 2007 indicates that

...The mission of UNRWA is to contribute to the human development of Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic until a durable and just solution is found to the refugee issue. The Agency fulfills this purpose by providing a variety of essential services within the framework of international standards...

The Agency’s vision is for every Palestine refugee to enjoy the best possible standards of human development, including attaining his or her full potential individually and as a family and community member; being an active and productive participant in socio-economic and cultural life; and feeling assured that his or her rights are being defended, protected and preserved.

UNRWA is a global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees. In humanitarian crisis and armed conflict, the Agency’s emergency interventions, and its presence, serve as tangible symbols of the international community’s concern and ultimately contribute to a stable environment.

This is UNRWA?

UNRWA is supposed to address the problem of Palestine Refugees and find them permanent homes in host countries. Yet, in the entire report, there is not a single mention of "repatriation", "reintegration" or "resettlement" of Palestine refugees. In fact, there is only one time the word "return" is even used -- and that is in a reference not to refugees going back to their homes but rather to "a return to normal Palestinian life" for Palestinian Arabs already living in the West Bank.

So why doesn't the report emphasize its primary mandate of finding a permanent home for refugees?
And since when is UNRWA a "global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees"?

UNRWA logo

What happened?

On December 11, 1948, the UN adopted Resolution 194 regarding the Arabs who fled during the war. Paragraph 11:

Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date...Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.

Clearly the original intent was to either repatriate the Arab refugees back to their original homes -- in Israel -- or to resettle them elsewhere in the area.

One year later, on December 9, 1949, UN Resolution 302 established UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) for that purpose:

without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.

We already saw that the provisions of paragraph 11 require either repatriation and resettlement, which becomes part of the UNRWA mandate. In fact, a year later, on December 2, 1950, Resolution 393 reviews a report by UNRWA and reiterates that "the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential."

Another point that Resolution 302 makes clear is that the creation of UNRWA is "with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief" -- clearly "global advocacy" for Palestinian rights was not intended to be part of UNRWA's job.

From the beginning, UNRWA was not intended to be a permanent agency of the UN.

But there is a bigger problem.

Who qualifies to be considered a Palestine Refugee?

Apparently, the answer must have been obvious -- because in defining UNRWA's job, Resolution 302 never actually defines who is a Palestine Refugee.

Yet UNRWA has defined -- and redefined -- who qualifies as a Palestine Refugee multiple times over the years.

Originally, in 1950 UNRWA based its definition of a refugee on need alone: the "agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."
In 1954, a refugee was specified in terms of a time frame: "one whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum period of two years preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, has lost both his home and means of livelihood.
In 1955, Arabs who were not necessarily displaced during the war -- for example, lived in Jordan -- but who lost some or all of their livelihood as a result of it were included as being qualified for aid.
In 1965, UNRWA extended refugee status to third generation Palestinian Arabs, i.e. grandchildren.
In 1971, because of the additional refugees as a result of the 1967 war, the definition was again redefined:

A Palestine refugee, by UNRWA's working definition, is a person whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum of two years preceding the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, lost both his home and means of livelihood and took refuge, in 1948, in one of the countries where UNRWA provides relief [limited to Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan]. Refugees within this definition or the children or grandchildren of such refugees are eligible for agency assistance if they are (a) registered with UNRWA, (b) living in the area of UNRWA's operations, and (c) in need.
In 1982, UNRWA went one step further, extending eligibility to all generations of descendants, as a result of a General Assembly resolution that

Requests the Secretary-General, in co-operation with the Commissioner- General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to issue identification cards to all Palestine refugees and their descendants, irrespective of whether they are recipients or not of rations and services from the Agency, as well as to all displaced persons and to those who have been prevented from returning to their home as a result of the 1967 hostilities, and their descendants;

Why the changes?

Some of the changes, like the original definition itself, were the result of purely humanitarian grounds.

Joan Peters, in her book From Time Immemorial, suggests that the two-year minimum initiated in 1954 could have been in order to include the Arabs who were recent arrivals to the coastal areas from where many had fled. (p.398)

According to political scientist Benjamin Schiff, the reason for extending refugee status to 3 generations was actually because of budgetary problems caused by the inflated rolls of refugees. UNRWA's Commissioner-general, Laurence Michelmore, wanted to "enlist the host-states' assistance in cutting the rolls ... he had offered a trade: If the governments would help rectify the rolls, he would be willing to ... add third-generation refugees to the rolls."

But extending aid to third-generation Palestinians created a unique dilemma for UNRWA:

With regard to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the names of the refugees in its army should be struck from UNRWA's rolls; the Palestine Liberation Organization was committed to renewed military struggle and thus confronted the Agency with the paradox of United Nations funds being used to provide rations for refugees recruited for armed action against a Member State. Israel, however, supported the extension of the Mandate of UNRWA and was in full agreement with the imperative need to rectify the relief rolls.

This seems to be part of an ongoing problem for the agency. We saw in the last Israel-Hamas war that UNRWA has difficulty staying out of the ongoing conflict and Hamas weapons were found being stored in UNRWA schools.

With all of these changing definitions, is there really any limit to how UNRWA can define a Palestine refugee under its jurisdiction? Apparently not. In 1991, when Kuwait expelled thousands of Palestinian Arabs who supported Saddam during the war, UNRWA claimed jurisdiction:

During a meeting of the agency's major donors in June 1991, its commissioner general, Ilter Turkmen, affirmed that UNRWA did have an obligation toward Palestinians who were being "persecuted, hounded, and expelled by the Kuwaiti government for supposed support of the Iraqi occupation … I consider that the responsibility of UNRWA extends to Palestinians in all parts of the Middle East [including Kuwait]." Despite UNRWA's supposedly restricted fields of operation, Lance Bartholomeusz, former chief of the agency's International Law Division, noted that "General Assembly resolutions do not explicitly exclude UNRWA from operating in other areas."

Somewhere along the way, humanitarian concerns have become infected with political interests that have created an agency that has rejected the fact that it was meant to be temporary and has given itself an unlimited, global sphere of influence among Palestine refugees.

The full extent of the politics of UNRWA become more evident when we examine the change and redefinition of the actual role of UNRWA and how the agency views itself.

That will be examined in the next post.

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

Palestinians officially celebrate terrorists at Cairo embassy

Last month an exhibition called "Martyrs for Palestine" opened at the "Palestine embassy" in Cairo.

It includes propaganda art like this, contributed by professional and amateur artists throughout the Arab world.

But, as the name of the exhibition indicates, its main purpose was to celebrate murderers.

Tribute photos include mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi, founder of Islamic Jihad Fathi Shaqiqi, founder of Hamas Sheikh Yassin and master Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash. Along with, of course, the Nazi-sympathizing antisemite Mufti Amin al-Husseini.

Awards were given out with the terrorists as a backdrop.

Official state support for murder doesn't get more explicit than this. Yet this story was not reported anywhere in the West.

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

Tunnel accident!

Another Hamas member was killed from a tunnel collapse.

Ahmed Boraim was killed Monday afternoon from the "collapse of a resistance tunnel" according to the Qassam Brigades website.

Here is he surrounded by his seventy virgins.

By my count, this is the 20th Hamas terrorist to die in a tunnel collapse since January 2016.

This is what happens when the evil Jews restrict cement shipments to Gaza - Hamas terrorists die from substandard tunnel excavations.

I expect Human Rights Watch to issue a report condemning Israel about this any day now.

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

UCLA newspaper publishes, then apologizes for, antisemitic cartoon

From Ha'am News:

Jewish groups condemned the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, Monday morning for publishing what they said is an anti-Semitic cartoon.

The cartoon, drawn by Felipe Abejón, depicts Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in front of the two pillars of the Ten Commandments. In the cartoon, the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal” is written with the word “not” crossed out in red. Underneath, the seventh commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is written with Netanyahu shrugging in front of it saying “number 7 is next.”

“The point of the cartoon is that the Jewish faith does not have tenets of stealing, theft or murder and that the State of Israel is creating laws and has created a law that goes against that,” said Abejón, the cartoon’s creator. Abejón stated that the cartoon has no connection to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), although he was a board member for the group last year. Late Monday afternoon, the SJP board, in a submission to the Daily Bruin, condemned the cartoon and confirmed that it had nothing to do with the illustration.

“I didn’t intend to offend anyone,” Abejón said. “I stand by what the cartoon represents, I also stand against anti-Semitism and against intolerance against [sic] the Jewish people. I apologize to anyone who has been offended, but I still stand behind what this cartoon says politically.”

According to Jewish students, the religious undertones made the cartoon more than an anti-Zionist political statement — they made it anti-Semitic

Danny Siegel, President of USAC, UCLA’s student body government, released a statement on Facebook saying, “As a Jewish student at UCLA I am disgusted by the anti-Semitic claim in my school newspaper (Daily Bruin) that the Israeli government is purposefully using my Jewish faith to justify a policy matter.” He followed by writing that he, too, would be willing to criticize Israel’s government, but that stereotyping is unacceptable.

Rabbi Aaron Lerner, Executive Director of Hillel at UCLA, created a petition online and posted on Facebook, calling the cartoon an “Anti-Semitic form of Anti-Zionism in today’s Daily Bruin.” Many other student leaders and groups took to Facebook, outraged.

The Anti Defamation League (ADL) wrote in a response to the cartoon, calling it “deeply offensive, not to mention incorrect, to suggest that the Israeli government is willfully changing the tenets of the Jewish faith to reflect a policy matter.” They expressed a clear difference between criticizing Netanyahu’s government and “impugn[ing] core Jewish beliefs,” and that the types of stereotypes targeting “a specific religion should not be condoned.”

Tanner Walters, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Bruin, cited a lapse of judgement in the editorial process that allowed the publication of the cartoon. “This was a mistake that should have been caught at any point in the process, and it didn’t get caught,” he said. Walters said that the Daily Bruin has no formalized training process for religious, ethnic and cultural sensitivity training, and that editing teams rely on common sense to avoid mistakes of this nature.

The Daily Bruin released a letter of apology late Monday. “We strive to understand the community that we cover. So as part of our ongoing education, we are reaching out to local religious leaders to help our staff understand the historical context behind these kinds of hurtful images.”

One student at UCLA, Mati Geula Cohen, wrote;

Today the UCLA school newspaper, Daily Bruin, published an editorial cartoon which used the Jewish faith to criticize Israeli policy.
Not only is the claim against this policy blatant misinformation, (since the law in question does not legalize the seizing of land), but the use of the Ten Commandments to criticize this policy, and the suggestion that Israel is not only trying to legalize seizures of land but also seeking to legalize the murder of Palestinians (which is ridiculous), in relation to their Jewish faith, make this cartoon not only for anti-Israel propaganda, but also an anti-Semitic caricature.

California Assembly member Richard Bloom issued this statement:

Here is the Daily Bruin's apology.

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

Hamas demolishes mosque under construction by Islamic Jihad

Trouble in the Gaza paradise!

According to (mostly Fatah-sourced) reports, Hamas security demolished a mosque under construction by Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

Islamic Jihad was building the foundations for the mosque in the Karama region in the north-west of the Gaza Strip. A large number of Hamas members came and declared the site closed.

According to sources, Islamic Jihad tried to come up with a solution and they discussed it for hours without reaching a solution. with Hamas.

The land for the mosque was donated by a philanthropist and, according to these reports, had all of its paperwork and approvals in order.

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

02/13 Links Pt2: Foreign governments fund terrorists' legal defense; Israel releases 1967 war recordings

From Ian:

Soundtrack to a legendary victory: Israel releases 1967 war recordings

Fifty years after the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel’s military archives on Sunday released a partial soundtrack — the IAF’s realtime communications — of the opening, decisive airstrikes in which the Israeli air force destroyed over 400 Egyptian and Syrian planes on the ground, and put 20 Arab airfields out of action. Almost the entire Israeli air force was involved, with just 12 Mirage jets kept back to protect the country.
Operation Focus began at 7.45 on the morning of June 5, 1967; by noon that same day, the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian air forces had been destroyed, the IAF had almost complete control of the skies in Israel’s pre-emptive resort to force, and the war was essentially won.
The operation is regarded as one of the most successful air strikes in military history. In all, Israel lost 24 pilots in the war, seven were injured and 11 were taken captive.
In the Hebrew recordings, made public by the IDF archive, the IAF’s command and control officers are heard overseeing a series of critical developments in those opening hours.
One recording begins with complete air silence as the pilots head to their first targets, flying low to evade enemy radar, in the first wave of attacks on the Egyptian air fields. The silence is broken by reports of the initial successful attacks: Eleven Egyptian air fields are targeted in these first strikes, and 101 minutes and 183 bombing runs later, some 200 planes, half of the Egyptian air force, is destroyed on the ground.

Seth Frantzman: The Iron Lady and the Jewish state

On June 7, 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak. Israel was worried the reactor was about to “go hot” and bombing it after that date could lead to more deaths and contamination. UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher was outraged. The Jewish state’s actions were a “grave breach of international law,” and an “unprovoked attack.” Iraq was a peaceful country seeking peaceful nuclear energy in line with international obligations. Thatcher supported condemning Israel at the United Nations Security Council.
The 1981 controversy is one of many highlighted in a new book, Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East, by Azriel Bermant. A historian and lecturer in international relations at Tel Aviv University, Bermant brings an incisive analysis to Thatcher’s relations with Israel, and examines how she also balanced ties with the US and the Arab states in this period.
As prime minister from 1979 to 1990, she faced many of the key crises in the region, including the Israeli withdrawal from Egypt, the Lebanon invasion of 1982, the breakout of the intifada, Iraq’s attack on Kuwait and the first tentative steps toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Bermant argues that Thatcher was “instinctively sympathetic toward Israel,” an image that history has inherited. However, the declassified archival material revealed in the book paints a much more nuanced picture. Thatcher inherited a Foreign Office that was inimical to Israel. Many viewed the UK as responsible for the problems in the Middle East let loose by the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the creation of Israel. The Jewish state was a burden that harmed relations with the Arab states which many Foreign Office leaders felt an affinity for.

Report: Foreign governments fund terrorists' legal defense

HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, which has provided legal aid to 48 terrorists who killed 50 people, received $4.13 million from EU, U.N., and 11 European governments, says Im Tirtzu report • "This is a danger to democracy," CEO says.
Foreign donations are largely sponsoring the legal defenses given to terrorists and their families, a new report by the right-wing organization Im Tirtzu claimed Sunday.
According to the report, by funding various human rights groups that operate in Israel, such as HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, European nations are essentially funding terrorists' efforts to avoid being held accountable for their actions.
The data showed that over the past two and a half years, HaMoked has provided legal aid to the families of 48 terrorists who filed over 58 High Court petitions against orders to raze their homes.
Those terrorists had killed a combined total of 50 people, Im Tirtzu said.
The group found that between 2012 and 2016, HaMoked received 15.5 million shekels ($4.13 million) from the European Union, the United Nations, and 11 European governments -- Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Britain, Spain and Norway -- for the legal defense of terrorists and their families.

Remember the "sex gum" that Israel supposedly spreads among Gazans to corrupt youth?

There have also been regular accusations of Israel sending poor Palestinians materials that make them impotent.

But there are constant accusations of Israel spreading drugs among Palestinian youth.

Al Jazeera added to that this weekend, claiming that Jerusalem Arabs are becoming addicted to drugs that Israel is spreading, and the police are encouraging the phenomenon, actively trying to stop any Palestinian authorities from helping out.

Of course, Palestinian police aren't allowed in Jerusalem to begin with.

Middle East Monitor made the same accusations in English a couple of years ago. It gave four reasons for Palestinian drug problems, see if you can find the common denominator:

The obvious and arguably most important reason is the ongoing Israeli occupation, which has a distinct influence on the drug problem in the occupied West Bank....A direct result of Israeli policies in occupied Palestine since 1967 has been increasing despair and frustration among Palestinians. The pressures of the occupation shake the confidence of the local populace, creating a loss of hope that their land will one day be liberated. The occupation authorities target the younger generation (18-28) in this respect.

The second reason is also linked to the occupation: the frustration caused by the deteriorating political situation and a build-up of frustration since the defeat of June 1967 drives many Palestinians to use drugs in order to “escape” from the painful reality of their life in the occupied territories.

Third, the pressure, tension and fatigue seems to have sapped young people’s capacity to carry the burdens of daily life under occupation; again, some turn to drugs to escape from this reality.

Fourthly, there are limited leisure and entertainment opportunities for young Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

As usual, no sense of actual responsibility for anything; the "occupation" is the reason to justify anything and everything.

It also said that a lot of Palestinians are introduced to drugs in prison because they are housed with drug addicts, implying that Israeli prisons allow drug smuggling.

That article also adds a different twist, tying the drugs to, of all things, Jewish settlements:

Israel apparently encourages addiction among young Palestinians; this is done, claims Hosni Shahin of Samed Community Centre in the Old City, to put pressure on families to sell their land and property to Jewish settlers in order to have enough money to fund the addiction.

I have no doubt that there is a real drug problem among many Arabs, but to blame Israel for causing it is just another way to abdicate any responsibility for Palestinians altogether.

(h/t Elhanan Miller)

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