Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 24, 2017

Jordanian cleric disputes that Muslims are racist by going on an antisemitic rant

This is too funny.

On March 3, Syrian-Jordanian cleric Sheikh Muhammad Sa'id Hawa delivered a Friday sermon in which he disputed that Palestinian children are taught hate. He instead said that Palestinian children were nurtured, along with their mother's breast milk, with the notion that Palestine as pure Muslim and Arab land, which was plundered by the Jews. "What racist hate speech are they talking about?" he asked.

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Mahmoud Abbas is on a three day trip to Germany to try to find yet another way to avoid direct talks with Israel by enlisting others to pressure Israel instead, without Palestinians having to make any compromises.

In the name of "peace."

Before his meetings with Angela Merkel, he spoke at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation NGO. According to Arab media, he said that Germany could play an important role in mediating peace.

Abbas also said "The nation of Palestine, throughout its long history, has been a beacon of radiating and generosity, and our people are an extension of the 3500 year old Canaanite civilization 3,500 years ago, with urban communities thousands of years old."

Both his assertions that Palestinians seek real peace and that they are Canaanites are equally true.

Some national leaders get pilloried for playing fast and loose with the facts. And some are honored for it.

(German speakers who want to mine his speech for other doozies can watch it here.)

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The head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, met with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres. According to WJC's press release:

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres met with World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder this week and reiterated an earlier comment he made on Israeli radio that there is an absolute tie between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.

“It is completely clear the Temple that the Romans destroyed in Jerusalem was a Jewish temple,” Guterres said in the radio interview, referring to a recent Palestinian claim that the Jewish people have no historic ties to Jerusalem. In the radio interview, Guterres had also said there is “no doubt that Jerusalem is, today, a holy city for three religions. These are the facts that nobody can deny.”

Lauder told the secretary general that he found it “obscene” that 20 out of 26 resolutions passed by the General Assembly condemning all the countries in the world in 2016 were passed against Israel, a mere three were passed against Syria, where more than 500,000 have died, and only one each against Iran, North Korea, and Crimea.

“The UN was built on the broken bones of the Jewish people after World War II,” Lauder told Guterres. “It is an institution dedicated to making sure that what happened in the Holocaust never happens again.”

“So it is particularly outrageous that the UN has been hijacked by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state,” Lauder added. Guterres promised the he was “committed to act with impartiality” on all matters relating to Israel and the Middle East.

Ronald Lauder said afterwards that, “there is a breath of fresh air coming from the United Nations … a long overdue breath of fresh air.” He added that, “We are also very encouraged by the United States’ commitment to the goal of honesty and change, and support its stance that bodies such as the United Nations Human Rights Council must consistently be condemned as long as anti-Israel bias reigns free.”

For his part, Guterres said that, while he could not keep the Human Rights Council from passing its anti-Israel resolutions, he could and would curtail any biased pronouncements. Just three days earlier, Guterres demanded that a vitriolic anti-Israel report written by two former UN functionaries, Richard Falk and Rima Khalaf, be withdrawn from the UN website. In response, Khalaf submitted her resignation.

It is sad that when a UN official confirms a clear historical fact, it is news.

Meanwhile, Guterres needs to defend himself from angry Arab leaders for removing the absurd ESCWA report from being associated with the UN. He is planning to attend the Arab League summit next week in Jordan, where we will see exactly how consistent he is.

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Rasmea Odeh's co-terrorist implicated both of them in planting 1969 supermarket bomb. On video. (update)

Today, terrorist Rasmea Odeh accepted a plea bargain where she will be stripped of her US citizenship for lying about her terrorist past on her immigration application.

Many people are coming to her defense, as they have for years. They claim that she was tortured to confess to the crime, even though her confession clearly led to the Israeli police reconstructing the crime and uncovering weapons that her family had hidden.

Here are the parts of a 2005 pro-terror documentary called Women in Struggle where Rasmea Odeh's fellow terrorist Aysha Odeh details how her family were heavily involved in terrorist activity and how she helped the SuperSol bombing.

She explicitly says that Rasmea was more involved in the planning of the SuperSol bombing than she was.

Anyone who believes that Rasmea is innocent is either self deluded or an Israel hater.

UPDATE: I originally assumed, based on some articles I read, that Aysha and Rasmea are sisters. They are not.

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03/23 Links Pt2: Liberals gloss over UNRWA terror links; An economic stick against dark forces

From Ian:

Ben-Dror Yemini: An economic stick against dark forces

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), one of the organizations operating on behalf of the UN, has commissioned another report against Israel. The ESCWA is made up exclusively of representatives of Arab states, and its most recent executive secretary was Rima Khalaf of Jordan.
Like other reports published on behalf of the ESCWA in recent years, the latest one, which was released last week, was authored by Richard Falk, an American Jew. The conclusions, which were known in advance, were that Israel is an apartheid state.
Falk represents, perhaps more than any other person, the decline and the ridiculing of the rights discourse. His series of actions gave him the third place on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Top 10 Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs list in 2013. For six years, Falk served as a UN special rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” He kept issuing groundless reports, much to the delight of the cheering representatives of the Islamic states. In addition to his admiration towards the dark forces, Falk repeatedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
In the past, Falk met with Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, who received his protection and admiration. After American linguist Noam Chomsky and American political scientist Norman Finkelstein expressed their support for Hezbollah, it appears that there is some fatal—perhaps abnormal—attraction between Jews of a certain species and people with a murderous and anti-Semitic agenda. How exactly do “human rights” fit in with support for these people?

Exactly 10 years ago today: U.N. banned speech heard around the world. "Human rights dream turned into a nightmare."
Prequel: APPROVED Speeches at UN Human Rights Council (creator of Goldstone report)

FOI docs reveal Liberals glossing over UN group's terror ties

For well over a year, I’ve been talking about the Trudeau government’s flirtation with funding a UN body that has had close connections with terrorist groups, that has employees that glorify terrorism, and that educates children to hate Jews and Israel.
Of course, I’m speaking of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Canada started funding UNRWA again recently despite some grave concerns and the latest documents I’ve obtained through access to information show a government desperate to cover this up, gloss over concerns and rush the money out the door before Canadians ever knew what was happening.
An email, calls for “strict omerta”, the mafia code of silence. (page 206) While also asking if the payments could go to UNRWA on November 7th.
The announcement of the money wasn’t made until November 15th, a week later. And the plan for rolling this out, included giving a heads up to the NDP and Green leader Elizabeth May, but not to the Conservatives who opposed the move. (page 39)
Why the rush and the secrecy? Because the Liberals knew this would be controversial and they know there are problems with UNRWA.

Liberals gloss over UNRWA terror links

Father of terrorist whines about his human rights to the UNHRC

From YNet:

Mohammed Aliyan, the father of terrorist Baha Aliyan, who murdered three Israelis in the east Talpiot neighborhood in Jerusalem in 2015, took part in a UN Human Rights Council meeting on Monday as part of a Palestinian delegation of families of dead terrorists and security prisoners.

In the assembly, Aliyan spoke of the “sufferance” his family has undergone since his son's terrorist attack, due to the investigations and the sanctions imposed upon them by Israel. He also claimed Israel had executed his son.

Since his the terrorist attack, Aliyan Sr. has launched a campaign to glorify his son, and in the process he has become a symbol for Palestinians in general and in east Jerusalem in particular.

"I, the lawyer Muhammad Aliyan, am a defender of human rights, and representative of the Palestinian families who Israel is harming through collective punishment," he said at the assembly.

On October 13, 2015, Baha Aliyan and his partner, Bilal Abu Ghanem, boarded bus number 78 in the Talpiot neighborhood in Jerusalem and opened fire at the passengers, stabbing several of them along the way. Three Israelis were killed in the attack: Haviv Haim,78, Alon Govberg, 51, and Richard Lakin, 76, and seven others were injured.

Yes, a person who explicitly supports his son murdering senior citizens on a bus is claiming to be a human rights defender.

And the UNHRC, of course, welcomes him.

(h/t Josh K)

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Donald Trump likes deals. He likes the idea of brokering a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, and thinks that he can do it. He can’t, and here’s why:

The insurmountable obstacle to a deal is that the essence of the Palestinian movement is the denial of a state belonging to the Jewish people (they don’t even agree that we are a people) in any part of the land between the river and the sea. Questions of borders, Jerusalem, Palestinian unity, and settlements – no matter how difficult – are all secondary to this major problem.

This is why the Palestinian understanding of “two state solution” includes a right of return to Israel for the descendents of Arab refugees, and why it does not include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, or a renunciation of their claim to all of the land. This is the Palestinian bottom line.

Israel is willing to make many compromises (including some that are extremely stupid and dangerous to our security) but we are not prepared to agree to disappear. This is the Israeli bottom line.

Neither side can go any lower.

Mahmoud Abbas understands this very well. This is why he correctly considers direct negotiations with Israel a waste of time. This is why he insists that PM Netanyahu does not accept the two state solution, because he understands that he and Netanyahu mean different things by that expression. This is why he favors getting the Europeans and the UN to force Israel to give him what he wants. He knows that deep down (or not so deep down) many of these elements believe there should not be a Jewish state and would be happy to see it disappear.

There is no hope of changing the bottom line of Abbas and the PLO. But couldn’t we appeal to the ordinary Palestinian, the man or (very occasional) woman on the street? Don’t they want to succeed like all of us, to raise their children in peace, to be secure economically and physically?

No. Or maybe they do want these things, but other things are more important.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab citizen of Israel, often writes about the repression of Palestinian Arab journalists by the PLO and Hamas. He has written about the corruption and brutality of the Palestinian Authority and the attitudes of the Palestinian “street.” Unlike “pro-Palestinian” Jewish writers like Gideon Levy, he understands the language and culture of the Palestinian Arabs and has contacts that provide information rather than propaganda.

So when he tells us that PA Arabs favor armed struggle against Israel, despise Mahmoud Abbas as a collaborator with Israel and the US, and reject the idea of a peace agreement, we should pay attention. Last week, he reported on a demonstration against Abbas in Ramallah:

On the eve of US envoy Jason Greenblatt's visit to Ramallah last week, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in the city, calling on Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to resign. The protesters also condemned the ongoing security cooperation between the PA and Israel.

"Listen, listen to us, Abbas; collect your dogs and leave us alone," the Palestinian protesters chanted during what has been described as the largest anti-Abbas demonstration in Ramallah in recent years. They also called for the abrogation of the Oslo Accords with Israel, and denounced Abbas as a "coward" and an agent of the Americans. …

Yet this was far from a simple a protest against Abbas and his security forces. It was also a rallying cry for pursuing with further vigor the armed struggle against Israel.

"No to peace and no to all the nonsense, we want bullets and rockets," some of the protesters chanted. Notably, these calls in favor of an armed struggle against Israel were coming from the streets of Ramallah and not the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The protests also reflect Palestinians' rejection of the so-called peace process with Israel. In addition to the calls on Abbas to step down, the protesters demanded as well that the PA leadership cancel all agreements with Israel, first and foremost the Oslo Accords.

In other words, Palestinians are trying extremely hard to get their message across: Israel is our enemy, not our peace partner.

This has been clear since Arafat’s intifada in the early 2000s. Polls consistently show that a majority of Palestinian Arabs believe that “an armed intifada … would help achieve national rights in ways that negotiations could not.”

It’s interesting to note that polls show that a majority of Palestinians also say they favor a “two state solution.” This is because they define it just like Abbas, with a right of return, no recognition, no end of claims. This is why they too consider negotiations fruitless. When they are asked, a majority also say that the two state condition is only a temporary step on the way to the “unification of ‘Palestine’.”

But despite the fact that both the leadership and the population do not want a deal, the Trump administration still thinks one is possible, and this week we have been hearing about it in the context of a “regional solution” involving the Arab league. The theory seems to be that the PLO will make concessions like recognizing a Jewish state or giving up their demand for a right of return if the Arab states tell them to. Abu Toameh believes that this approach is probably even less likely to succeed than direct Israel-Palestinian talks.

First of all, Palestinians don’t trust the Arab regimes, who have always preferred to talk about how badly Israel treats Palestinians to doing anything for them themselves. Lebanon, Jordan and Syria have all oppressed and even killed Palestinians. Palestinians in those places today are second-class inhabitants (in Syria, most are dead or have become refugees). They also provide little or no financial help to the PA. What the PLO wants, Abu Toameh explains, is for the Europeans and the US to force Israel to give in and meet their demands. But this is not going to happen, regardless of whether the Arab League is involved in the negotiations or not.

Secondly, most of the Arab countries don’t see anything good for them in a possible deal. Jordan is afraid that it might end up with the Hashemite regime replaced by a Palestinian one; Lebanon worries about possibly being forced to grant citizenship to the Palestinian refugees it presently treats like dirt; and Egypt fears being asked to cede part of the Sinai to Gaza Palestinians. The Syrian regime is presently in chaos, hates Palestinians and Jews almost equally, and isn’t likely to be a constructive partner.

Finally, Abu Toameh notes that,

Israel as a Jewish state is anathema to Palestinian aspirations. No Arab leader in the world can persuade the Palestinians to give up the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees or accept a solution that allows Israel to retain control over certain parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Any Arab or Palestinian leader who promotes such compromise is taking his life in his hands. And Palestinian history will record him as a "traitor" who sold out to the Jews and surrendered to American and Israeli pressure.

Abbas has been straightforward about rejecting negotiations. But Israeli leaders have acted as though they believed that something positive could come out of them. They have done this either out of naïveté or because they wanted to placate the Americans who were demanding it and threatening to withhold diplomatic or financial support. Israel paid a high price for this: murderers were released who murdered again, and Israel’s honor vis-à-vis her enemies was weakened; Israel froze construction in Judea and Samaria and weakened her claim to be a sovereign nation. But even despite this, the Palestinians didn’t change their bottom line.

Trump should know from his real estate experience that a deal is only possible when both sides think they are getting something that they want. But what the Palestinians want is something that Israel isn’t selling.

It doesn’t matter how persuasive you are. It doesn’t matter what sweeteners one side or the other can throw in. It doesn’t matter how hard you push or what you threaten. Sometimes there just isn’t a deal.

This is what Netanyahu should explain to Trump. There isn’t a deal here.

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03/23 Links Pt1: Jewish Israeli-US teen arrested for phoning in JCC bomb threats; London terror – a lesson from Israel

From Ian:

Jewish Israeli-US teen arrested for phoning in JCC bomb threats

A Jewish Israeli teenager born in the US has been arrested on suspicion of issuing dozens of fake bomb threats against Jewish institutions in North America and elsewhere in recent months, police said on Thursday.
Police said the resident of the southern city of Ashkelon was the subject of a months-long undercover investigation by police’s Lahav 433 cyber unit and the FBI. It said in a statement that the motive behind the bomb threats was unclear. Police said he is 19 years old, but several Israeli media outlets reported him as 18.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the suspect allegedly placed dozens of threatening phone calls to public venues, synagogues and community buildings in the US, New Zealand and Australia. He also placed a threat to Delta Airlines, causing a flight in February 2015 to make an emergency landing.
“He’s the guy who was behind the JCC threats,” Rosenfeld said, referring to the dozens of anonymous threats phoned in to Jewish community centers in the US over the past two months.
The hoax calls were widely regarded as acts of anti-Semitism. The threats led to criticism of President Donald Trump’s administration for not speaking out fast enough. Last month, the White House denounced the threats and rejected “anti-Semitic and hateful threats in the strongest terms.”
Channel 2 reported that the suspect tried to seize the gun of a female police officer when cops arrived at his home to arrest him.

Will the JCC fake bomb threat suspect be extradited

Truth is suddenly far weirder than fiction.
With Thursday's blockbuster and bewildering announcement that the main suspect behind bomb threats against Jewish communities in the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand is none other than a 19-year-old dual US-Israeli citizen living in the Ashkelon area, one of the eventual question will be: will he be extradited?
In some ways, it is way too early to ask this question.
Right now, the suspect is just a suspect and the investigation is ongoing. Also, Israel has said it will indict him in Israeli courts.
But could he be indicted in other countries at the same time and be extradited?
The first principle in extradition is there is no double-jeopardy.
You cannot try someone for the same crime in multiple countries.

London terror – a lesson from Israel

Basic math says the more terrorists you bring in, the more you are bound to suffer the consequences.
Granted, they are not all terrorists, but so inclined from specific countries. Our President, Donald Trump, keeps trying to keep them out.
So far he has not been entirely successful because of certain judges who tolerate anything, including rape, in the name of Tolerance.
In the name of Inclusiveness they give in to terror, and so, an hour after the attack, another Member of Parliament told the BBC:
“We will never give in to terror.”
Have you tried getting on a plane lately – without being near strip-searched? Every big city has quadrupled its police force and its intelligence gathering operations. Walls have gone up all over Europe – and we are building a wall. Check points everywhere. Constant alerts – if you see something, say something.
What is that? That is giving in to terror, and it’s happening all over, and electing a Muslim as London’s mayor stopped nothing.
Over the months, Mayor Sadiq Khan has called Trump’s proposed travel pause offensive and “ridiculous.”
Now what’s he say?
Kahn also said that every big city around the world ought to be ready and to expect terror attacks.
No, Sir, we never expected any such business until we shut our eyes and flung our doors and borders wide open.

The story the Jordanians are telling us is that terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who masterminded the Sbarro massacre, cannot be extradited to the US, because there is no treaty. The Jordanian High Court recognizes that an extradition treaty was signed with the US in 1995, but that it is null:

The Court of Cassation approved a decision taken by the Amman Court of Appeal not to extradite Jordanian citizen Ahlam Tamimi, to the US authorities.

A judicial source told Jordan News Agency, Petra that Kingdom and the United States singed [sic] an extradition treaty on March 28, 1995, but was not approved by the Jordanian parliament.

The source said that a request sent by a foreign country to concerned authorities in Jordan to extradite criminals, are not usually accepted as long as the extradition treaty is not effective.

Al Tamimi was accused of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against a U.S national. (emphasis added)

The problem is that this is not true.

The extradition treaty between the US and Jordan may or may not have been approved by the Parliament, but it was signed by King Hussein.

More importantly, in 1995 Jordan did recognize the treaty. The New York Times recounts that the same treaty the Jordanian court is now saying is null, was in fact used to allow US agents onto Jordanian soil to extradite a terrorist, a Jordanian national, to the US for the World Trade Center bombing.

At 1 A.M. on Feb. 9, 1993, Federal prosecutors say, Eyad Ismoil, a Palestinian immigrant working in a grocery store in Dallas, received an urgent phone call from a boyhood friend.

A few hours later, Mr. Ismoil bought a plane ticket, and on Feb. 21, he flew to New York to join the friend, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef -- the man prosecutors call the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing. Five days later, prosecutors say, with Mr. Yousef in the passenger seat, Mr. Ismoil drove a van packed with explosives into the garage below the Trade Center.

...Using airline records, the F.B.I. discovered that Mr. Ismoil had flown to Jordan on the night of the bombing. With the help of the local police, agents tracked him to his home in a refugee camp near Jerash, about 30 miles north of Amman.

Although the F.B.I. knew his whereabouts last winter, the Americans could not arrest him until King Hussein of Jordan signed a new extradition treaty with the United States last week.

...At 2:15 P.M. yesterday, Mr. Ismoil, wearing a bright orange prison suit, was led in handcuffs into Federal District Court in lower Manhattan. The 24-year-old suspect was arraigned in five minutes before Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy on bombing and conspiracy charges. He pleaded not guilty.

Eyad Ismoil. Credit: Total War History Wiki

While The New York Times refers to him as a Palestinian immigrant, Ismoil's family originated in Nablus, then moved to Kuwait, where he was born. The family then resettled in Jordan in 1990 after the Iraqi invasion. Ismoil is a Jordanian national.

If the extradition treaty was in effect in 1995 to bring terrorist Ayed Ismoil to justice, why can't it be used now to extradite the terrorist Tamimi?

If the extradition treaty was not in effect in 1995 because it was not approved by the Parliament, then why were the Jordanians able to hand Ismoil over?

In his book Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists, Samuel M. Katz writes about how Eyad Ismoil, who drove the explosives to the World Trade Center garage, was tracked down -- and extradicted to the US by Jordan.

Amazon describes Katz as an internationally recognized expert on Middle East security issues, international terrorism, military special operations and counterterrorism who has written books and articles and as served as a commentator on television networks.

On page 219, he describes the problem of extradition and how a treaty was drawn up and signed by King Hussein. There is no mention of the Jordanian Parliament being needed to approve in order for the treaty to be valid.

What is mentioned is that the treaty was signed into law in a ceremony in Amman a few months later. Furthermore, as the bottom of page 220 makes clear, not only was Ismoil extradited -- he was handed over to US agents on Jordanian soil.

The treaty surely must have been valid in order to allow agents of a foreign country to enter Jordan and remove the suspect.

So what happened since then that makes the exptradition now impossible? In the third paragraph on page 221, Katz explains the blowback from the first ever extradition from Jordan:

It is clear that the treaty was valid in 1995.

If the only reason that the extradition treaty is not effective now is because the Jordanian Parliament decided to abrogate it, then the Jordanian king, parliament and courts need to stop playing games and tell the truth about why it is refusing to hand an admitted terrorist over to the US.

Even better, Jordan could right this wrong by signing a new extradition treaty with the US so that terrorist Ahlam Tamimi can be brought to justice.

Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, mastermind of the Sbarro massacre

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As predicted, clueless "experts" are praising Hamas' "new charter" that changed nothing

Last month, I reported that Hamas was going to release a new manifesto that would not replace its antisemitic charter, but which would use more moderate language without changing Hamas' positions one bit.

I predicted that the media would be fooled by this and would report this document as if it is proof of a new, moderate Hamas.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the accurate analysis of AP's Fares Akram of the new document:

The Islamic militant group Hamas has drafted a new political program it hopes will improve ties with neighboring Egypt and the West, and present a more moderate image that will help it get off Western terrorism lists.

The internationally isolated group, which has ruled the Gaza Strip for the past decade, characterizes itself in the manifesto as a Palestinian resistance movement against Israeli occupation, dropping references to holy war against Jews. It also raises the possibility of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The document plays down ties to Hamas' parent movement, the regional Muslim Brotherhood, which is being targeted by Egypt's government as a terror organization.

However, Hamas appears to have stopped short of a significant ideological shift amid concerns about alienating its hard-line base at a time when ultra-fundamentalist Islamist groups, such as the Salafists, are making inroads, particularly in Gaza.

The new program, to be made public at the end of the month, will not formally replace Hamas' 1988 founding covenant, which called for the destruction of Israel and for "confronting the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews through jihad."

But Haaretz found an idiotic "expert" named Björn Brenner, who has actually written books on Hamas, who completely believes that the new manifesto replaces the charter, and therefore this proves that Hamas has moderated.

Thirty years after it was founded, Hamas is replacing its anti-Semitic and violent charter with a comprehensively revised document modifying several of its extreme and rejectionist positions. While several of these strategic changes are not completely new - they have at times been talked about by Hamas leaders, but later retracted or contradicted - expressly including them in its charter constitutes something quite unprecedented.

Brenner is wrong. Nothing changed except the tone. The charter is not being replaced. Senior Hamas leader Salah al Bardawil said explicitly "This new document of the Hamas organization will never be considered to constitute an alternative to the organization's founding charter."

Hamas has never - not once - contradicted what is written in the charter. When it says it will accept a Palestinian state in the territories, that doesn't mean it accepts Israel in any borders, only that the destruction of Israel will take place in phases. We've seen gullible Westerners swallow Hamas' implications of moderation many times before, but every single time, if you read their words carefully, you will see that their positions have not changed at all, only their emphasis.

The funny thing is that in 2013, "moderate" Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal released a document that seems very similar to what is being discussed now. It was a nineteen point position paper that I translated then. It allowed for non-violent resistance and it claimed that Hamas was not against Jews, just like the upcoming manifesto. Here are the first ten points:

1. Palestine from the river to the sea, and from north to south, is a land of the Palestinian people and its homeland and its legitimate right, we may not a waiver an inch or any part thereof, no matter what the reasons and circumstances and pressures.

2. Palestine - all of Palestine - is a land of Islamic and Arab affiliation, a blessed sacred land, that has a major portion in the heart of every Arab and Muslim

3. No recognition of the legitimacy of the occupation whatever; this is a principled position, political and moral, and therefore do not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and recognition of "Israel" and the legitimacy of its presence on any part of Palestine no matter how long; and it will not be long, God willing.

4. Liberation of Palestine is a national duty; it is the responsibility of the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nation, it is also a humanitarian responsibility in accordance with the requirements of truth and justice.

5. Jihad and the armed resistance is the right and real method for the liberation of Palestine, and the restoration of all the rights, together with, of course, all forms of political and diplomatic struggle including in the media, public and legal [spheres]; with the need to mobilize all the energies of the nation in the battle

6. Resistance is a means and not an end, if we have another way without blood and painful sacrifices to liberate the land and ending the occupation and the restoration of rights we would take it, but history proves that there is no option to expel the occupiers and restore the land and rights without using all forms of resistance, led by armed resistance.

7. We are not fighting Jews because they are Jews, but are fighting the Zionist Jews occupiers, the aggressors, and we will fight anyone who tries to attack us or usurp our rights or occupy our land, regardless of religion or affiliation, race or nationality.

8. The Zionist project is a racist project based on murder and terrorism, and so it is the enemy of the Palestinian people and the nation, and is a real threat to them, and a huge threat to its security and interests, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a danger to the security of the humanitarian community and the interests and stability.

9. Jerusalem is an Islamic and Christian [holy place], we many not give it up nor relinquish any part of it, it is our right and our spirit, our history, our present and our future, which is the capital of Palestine, and dearest to the hearts of Arabs and Muslims.... Israel has no legitimacy and no right to to Jerusalem at all, nor any legitimacy nor right to all of Palestine. And all actions of Israel in Jerusalem to Judaize and settle and falsification of facts and attempts to fabricate history are void.

10. Upholding the right of return of Palestinian refugees and displaced persons to their homes from which they were expelled, or were prevented from returning, both in the occupied territories in 1948 or 1967, to all of Palestine; we refuse to compromise in any way for this right. At the same time reject all settlement projects or alternative homelands.... [some detail on how people proposed Lebanon or Jordan or the Sinai as alternate homelands]

There is nothing moderate here, and there is nothing moderate in the upcoming manifesto. People who are desperate to mainstream Hamas are willing to blind themselves to believe what they want to believe about Hamas and ignore Hamas' actual words.

Of course, these same experts are keen on pretending that their tortured reading of potential new Hamas papers is more reflective of reality than explicit genocidal statements by Hamas leaders, today.

Be on the lookout for the other willfully blind "experts" and reporters who will dutifully pretend that this new document replaces Hamas'genocidal charter. In the next two weeks there will be plenty of them.

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Last month, I reported that Kuwait was seeking to expel Israel from the International Parliamentary Union.

But they can't just kick out Israel, That doesn't look good. They need to use the existing bylaws of the IPU in order to get rid of Israel. And if the existing laws aren't adequate, they need to add new ones.

So they have put together an elaborate plan over the next couple of years - all with the goal of getting rid of Israel - within the rules.

It is instructive to see them lay out their plans now, because this is how the anti-Israel forces work. They use moral reasons to justify their antisemitism, but as in this case, they know they hate Israel/Jews before they come up with the bogus reasons why they hate them. The IPU has no bylaws to kick out Israel, so the Arabs must create them.

In this case, they are very public about their plans.

Kuwaiti National Assembly Speaker, Marzouq Al-Ghanim said in a speech to the Arab Parliamentary Union conference on Tuesday, that the goal was to remove the Israeli Knesset from the Union.

He told reporters on the sidelines of the conference in Rabat that the Kuwaiti Parliamentary Group is going to propose amendments to the Statute of the Inter-Parliamentary Union to allow the creation of penalties for violation of what they will call "fundamental principles" that are aimed directly at Israel.

In this case, Kuwait will try to propose that any country that ignores certain UN resolutions be expelled. He specifically cited UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that passed late last year and Israel's law that could legalize specific settlements after the fact.

The anti-Israel amendments will be presented to an Executive Committee meeting to be held in Dhaka in April. The proposed amendments will then be placed on the agenda of the Governing Council in St. Petersburg in Russia next October.

But Al Ghanim was careful to tell reporters that all of these moves to expel the only Jewish state was not being done out of racist motives, but because Israel's transgressions are so "flagrant and obvious."

He stressed that "the duty of every Arab member of the group (and not just the Kuwaiti parliament) is to win for the cause of the Arabs and Muslims and all of the free world, which is the Palestinian issue."

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Xerox tries to convert the Jews to Christianity!

Xerox has an amusing advertisement, actually an update of a much older commercial, showing Brother Dominic, who, after painstakingly writing a manuscript, is instructed to make 500 copies and (in the update) to translate it and distribute it worldwide.

The monk, naturally, uses Xerox technology to do this. His words are spread worldwide.

Notice at what happens at the 0:45 second mark.

Religious Jews are discussing Brother Dominic's words!

Is Xerox advocating missionary activity among Jews?

I'm being tongue in cheek.

But I can imagine some Jewish groups protesting to Xerox over this trifle of a commercial.

Please don't! There are enough real problems with antisemitism that we don't have to make up issues and force apologies over what was simply meant to be amusing.

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