Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

If You Want To Know How Well Palestinian Terrorists Are Treated in Israeli Prisons -- Look No Further Than Ma'an (Daled Amos)

Maybe the authorities in Israeli prisons should make back issues of the Palestinian Ma'an news agency available.

With the renewed interest in -- and criticism of -- Israeli prisons, by Palestiniain Arabs, it is interesting to read about what the Palestinian newspaper Ma'an has to say about how prisoners are treated in those prisons.

In 2011, Ma'an quoted from an article in Maariv about the treatment of the Palestinian Arab prisoners, and it did so without ever questioning the accuracy of that article.

Entitled Report: Palestinian prisoners in Israel use Facebook, the article begins:

Trying to show that Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s custody enjoy VIP treatment, the Israeli daily Ma'ariv published Wednesday a report by Amit Cohen who monitored the Facebook accounts of some prisoners.

Ma'ariv says that a Hamas-affiliated prisoner, Haytham Battat, uploaded on his Facebook page three weeks ago a short YouTube film he entitled "Take me to Jihad." The film, according to Ma'ariv, included a song in Arabic dedicated to the Chechen rebels. A few minutes after the film was uploaded, his mother wrote a comment saying, “Oh my beloved son. This is a great song. I hope you and all prisoners will be released tomorrow morning."

The strange part of the story is that Battat updates his Facebook page from his prison cell. Battat is 27 and he is serving three consecutive life sentences after he was convicted of masterminding a bombing in Beersheba. He posted on his page photos shot inside the prison in one of which he is sitting with Sa’id Shalalda, who was convicted of abducting and killing an Israeli man, Sasson Nuriel, in 2005 near Ramallah.

Though the Ma'an article today has no pictures, here is a snapshot of one of the security prisoners' Facebook page, as originally illustrated in the Maariv article Ma'an quotes:

Ma'an goes on to describe some of the other luxuries available to the prisoners:

Battat is not the only Palestinian prisoner who updates his Facebook page from his prison cell. Ma'ariv’s report says many prisoners have state-of-the-art cell phones which help them access the Internet easily and even make video calls.

Another Palestinian prisoner, Saed Omar, posted on his Facebook page several photos of the lavish meals he and other prisoners are served, the paper reported. Omar is from the Nablus district, and he is affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He is serving a 19-year sentence. He was said to have posted photos of prisoners preparing stuffed chickens before they gathered around a luxurious table to eat their meal.

Here is another photo from the Ma'an article to illustrate the point:

And here is another photo from the original Maariv article:

The Ma'an article concludes:

After Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was detained in Gaza, the issue of living conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails surfaced as an issue, with hardliners advocating the abolition of prisoners rights. There were attempts to toughen prison conditions.

That is the point of the original Hebrew article in Maariv, Decadent Meals and Free Internet: The Good Life of Terrorists in Prison, which has the subtitle:

The security prisoners are imprisoned for involvement in terror attacks, but are in daily contact with their families and their comrades in the terrorist organizations via their cell phones. In the pictures, which they themselves upload to the web, you can see how good their lives are in an Israeli prison. Gilad Shalit, on the other hand, is still waiting for a sign of life. [Note: excerpts from the original Maariv article are translated via Google, with small modification]

Ma'ariv goes further, both in terms of the contrast with how Gilad Shalit was being treated by the Hamas terrorists at the time, as well as the extent of the rights accorded the imprisoned terrorists:

Since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, the issue of the security prisoners' good conditions has risen even more. After attempts to worsen their conditions, the prisoners returned to watch television, especially the Arab satellite stations. They receive money from the detention centers where they are held, where they can buy food and drink they love.

The money reaches them through the Palestinian Authority and through the various Palestinian organizations. Prisoners have quite a bit of free time and can also complete their basic studies and even pursue higher studies and acquire academic degrees.

It is made clear to the security prisoners that they receive all this "luxury" on the condition that they "keep quiet," at least ostensibly avoiding any activity related to terrorism, and do not give the prison authorities grounds to deny them the benefits they enjoy.

Prisoners inside the prisons use telephones that operate on Israeli cellular networks, with the main demand being for phones with 3G (high-speed Internet) technology. Apart from high-speed browsing, this technology also allows prisoners to conduct video calls with the outside world, which they use well.

For example, one of the prisoners told the Al-Arabiya network that when his father died, one of his friends "broadcast" the entire funeral procession with a video call. Another prisoner used the video to shop; his relatives showed him clothes in the store, and he chose the ones he loved. When his family came to visit him, he received the new clothes he actually bought.

In a recent post, Israellycool investigates Palestinian Prisoner Demands, with a item-by-item analysis of what what they are demanding and what prisoners are actually entitled to according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Even assuming that Palestinian terrorists are not granted today what they received in past years, it is clear they are denied nothing that they are actually entitled to.

Maariv makes clear the danger inherent in the easy access of Palestinian terrorists with the outside world:

The obvious use of Facebook and video can pose great risks. In the past, senior prisoners used terrorist cells outside the prison, mainly to carry out abductions. In those days, the prisoners had to find sophisticated and original ways to convey messages to their people outside. Today they can simply chat on Facebook, or send an encrypted message, all via their cell phones. Simple and easy.

This is one of the reasons that the use of a cell phone is absolutely forbidden, especially in new smartphones that allow prisoners a variety of ways to communicate with the outside world. The prisoners are making great efforts to smuggle these devices into the prison, and make no less difficult efforts to hide them from the prison guards. However, information received by NRG Maariv reveals that the smartphones have entered a series of prisons, including Ramon Prison, Nafha Prison and the Khedar Ohel Prison.

A few years later, in 2014, an article on the Russian site fishki.net, Absurdity in the Israeli prison. We want to live like terrorists!, used the same photos to address another point, namely that Israeli prisoners wanted to receive the same treatment as the terrorists:

The essence of the claim is simple: the citizens of Israel who sit in prisons for various criminal crimes demand that the conditions of their detention equate to the conditions of detention of ... Palestinian terrorists. So that in prisons there was complete equality ...

After all, if the court satisfies this requirement of criminals, they will have to install cable TV with dozens of channels in their cells, and at the same time buy stereoscopic systems, build a shelf for the library, increase the number of visits with friends, allow to buy vegetables and fruits in the prison kiosk, create a gym and Do a lot of other things that are not available for ordinary prisoners, in particular, sharply increase the share of fresh mutton in the diet ... [All translations are through Google]

The article concludes with the alleged psychological effect of the generally superior treatment that Palestinian terrorists receive in Israeli prisons:

At the same time, not so long ago it became clear that many of the terrorist attacks of recent years were pseudo-terrorist attacks. In the sense that the young Palestinians deliberately attacked the IDF soldiers carrying watch at the checkpoint, it was not for the knife to injure or kill any of them, but to get to an Israeli prison and get higher education at Israel's expense . Because the terrorists sitting in our prisons are allowed to receive higher education if they have such a desire. Well, good food, cozy rooms ... sorry, the camera for 2-4 people, compulsory attendance gym with exercise machines and all the other almost resort pleasures make staying in an Israeli prison very comfortable.

The article does not make clear what it considers the criteria for differentiating between "pseudo-terrorist attacks" and actual ones. Looking at the "knife intifada," Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis are very, very real and deadly.

Another difference between the attacks from years ago as opposed to recent years may be motivation.

At one point there were those that pointed out that the luxuries of Israeli prisons on the one hand and the availability of continued education on the other as a possible draw for Palestinian Arabs to try to get caught commiting attacks in order to land themselves in prison.

Today, a different motivation exists for them to commit terrorist attacks -- and they don't even have to survive the attack and be sent to prison in order to take advantage. With Abbas's policy of terrorist stipends paid out to terrorists and their families, those families are guaranteed an income, dependent on how many Jews they can murder.

At one point, Palestinian Arabs could be drawn to trying to improve their own lives; thanks to Abbas, they are now being taught that those lives are not worth living.

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Danish aren't TOO concerned over Imam who says to kill Jews

Last week, the BBC reported on a video that MEMRI publicized:

A video of an imam appearing to call for the murder of Jews in a sermon during Friday prayers at a Copenhagen mosque has caused outrage in Denmark.

Mundhir Abdallah was reported to police after being filmed citing in Arabic a hadith - a teaching of the Prophet Muhammad - considered anti-Semitic.

The hadith says the Day of Judgement "will not come unless the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them".

A Jewish community leader said his words were a "thinly-veiled" threat.

Videos of the sermon were posted on YouTube and Facebook by the Al-Faruq Mosque on Sunday, although Mr Abdallah reportedly gave it on 31 March.

In the video, Mr Abdallah is seen standing in front of a black flag with the Shahadah written on it, similar to those used by jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda.

He declares there will soon be a "caliphate" - a state governed in accordance with Islamic law, or Sharia - that will wage jihad to unite the Muslim community and liberate the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem "from the filth of the Zionists".

Then, he says, "the words of the Prophet Muhammad will be fulfilled" and cites the hadith.

A Danish TV station covered the story. During the first half of the segment, the reporter speaks to Muslims in the neighborhood outside the mosque, and cannot find a single Muslim to condemn the imam's words. They had to dig up a Muslim who spoke out against it on Facebook to find the obligatory "of course not all Muslims believe this" part of the story.

In the second half of the video, a professor of Koran and Islam is interviewed where he admits that the words are problematic, but he says (at the prompting of the interviewer) that calling for the murder of Jews can be taken with a grain of salt - he doesn't mean it literally, he is trying to apply ancient Muslim hadiths to a current situation (implying that murdering Jews was OK in the eighth century).

He admits that these words "fertilize the ground" for hate but they are not really direct calls to murder. Take the statements seriously, but not too seriously - they are usually just the imam "mouthing off."

Why should Danish Jews feel threatened when this is just the everyday, background radiation of Islamic hate in their midst?

No reason. Except for this:

According to broadcaster DR, Omar al-Hussein, who was behind a series of shootings in Copenhagen in February 2015 which left two people dead, had visited the mosque the day before going on the rampage.

The Dane of Palestinian origin had sworn allegiance to Islamic State and shot and killed one person at a cultural centre hosting a conference on freedom of expression, before killing a Jewish man outside a synagogue. Police later shot him dead after he fired on them in a third incident.

The entire point of fertilizing the ground is to get your plants to grow.

(h/t Yoel)

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Palestinian MP photographed slinging rocks at Jews

Jamal Hawil, a Fatah MP for the PA, was photographed hurling stones at the town of Beit El.

The next photo seems more interesting.

Remember, this is one of the "moderates" that Israel is supposed to make a deal with.

(h/t Shimrit Meir)

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Flights from Israel to US starting at $149!

From Globes:

Icelandic low-cost airline WOW Air, which announced some time ago that it would begin operating flights to Israel, today announced the beginning of these flights on the occasion of founder and CEO Skuli Mogensen's visit to Israel. Mogensen has twice been named Man of the Year in Iceland, in view of his business success and trailblazing launching of low-cost trans-Atlantic flights from Iceland capital Reykjavik to various destinations. Israeli tourists will be able to continue from Reykjavik to the US on connection flights.

Mogensen thanked [Transportation Minister Yaakov] Katz for his support and the warm reception he received in Israel. "As Paulo Coelho said, 'Impossible is just an opinion.' When we founded the company five years ago, I never imagined that we'd come to Israel. I've dreamed of visiting here since I was a child. Our mission is to enable everyone to fly by offering the cheapest prices in Tel Aviv: from $99 to Iceland and $149 from Tel Aviv to New York, Boston, and Montreal. No one has ever offered such cheap prices to North America, and we're proud to bring competition to Israel. I hope it enables people to visit here, and that it will help Israelis to travel."

It should be pointed out that the quoted fares do not include a luggage allowance, and that it will cost an extra $40-50 to take a suitcase. The fares are also starting prices, and the actual fare will vary according to the date of the flight.

I can't find any fares to Israel yet on their website, although Tel Aviv is listed as a destination.

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05/15 Links Pt2: Efraim Karsh: An Inevitable Conflict The Six-Day War; Sarsour Doesn’t Pass ‘3D’ Antisemitism Test

From Ian:

Seth J. Frantzman: A war is being fought between the 21st and 15th centuries

There is a slow, creeping war being fought between those who are hanging, jailing and beheading people for blasphemy, and those who don’t want to live in the 15th century. To shield themselves from critique, far-right Islamists shout: “Islamophobia!” That’s like the Inquisition leaders shouting “Christianophobia!” But we aren’t afraid of “Muslims,” we are afraid of hatred, bigotry and intolerance spread by the far-right Islamists. It is Islamistophobia. Fascistphobia. And people should not be cowed by this accusation.
You don’t like female genital mutilation? You’re anti-Islamic.
Wait, I thought you said genital mutilation is a “tribal” practice and non-Muslim?
You don’t like instant divorce whereby Muslim men, but not women, can get rid of their spouses? You’re anti-Muslim.
But wait, isn’t it a “cultural” practice?
Niqab and burkas, you don’t like them, so you’re intolerant of religion.
But aren’t they not “really” Islamic?
To paint all objections to extreme right-wing Islamism as “anti-Islam” is like treating objections to the KKK as “anti-white.” If you oppose the KKK you aren’t “anti-white,” you are anti-white supremacist. And opposing hate-filled imams who incite to murder isn’t “phobia,” it is anti-Islamist supremacist. If you don’t want the 15th century returning, you have to be willing to have this argument. They aren’t just “radicals” and “extremists,” any more than Nazis are just radicals. Far-right Islamists are a very real threat to daily life throughout the world. So either you confront them, or start preparing your kids for the return of the Salem Witch Trials. Because that will be the future.

David Collier: The conference at the University of Sussex; a gathering of (mostly) idiots

The Palestinian
Right at the end of the final panel at Sussex was a fascinating delivery by Leila Sansour who was sandwiched between Adi Ophir and Yoav Peled. Or perhaps it is fairer to suggest Leila Sansour directly and brutally attacked the ‘one state’ paradigm of Ophir, Peled, the Brighton BDS, Brighton PSC, the organisers of the conference and many of the other anti-Zionists in the room. This video is well worth watching:
So many anti-Israel activists in the UK push forward the idea of a single secular state as a way of ‘punishing’ Israel. The brutal truth is that nobody on the ground wants it. Not the Israelis and not the Palestinians. You cannot push BDS and suggest the Palestinians want ‘one state’. It is a fraud. Sansour calls it ‘the worst possible solution’.
Activists and academics
This event at the University of Sussex wasn’t like the conference at Cork, but at times it was even more disturbing. A bunch of naive, ignorant and blindly idealistic academics got together with other less well-intentioned folk, and put on a show that was all about how Israel is ‘the bad guy’. There was not a single submission, not one, that suggested the current situation was created and is perpetuated by a very real, and very worrying security situation. That was an unforgivable bias.
As each activist / academic delivered a presentation, I was required to work out which particular hat they were wearing at the time. An academic conference really should not be like this. When for example, they were pushing elements of their own activism, it turned into the equivalent of political propaganda. Some of these people live and breath the anti-Israel cause, and this conference is part of that activism. Like Pappe, you feel they are willing to bend the truth.
No, BDS is not doing well. I lost count of the times I was fed BDS propaganda about its own success. Can you call it an academic conference, when so many panelists have an underlying requirement to overstate the results of whatever particular ideology they are pushing? How do you tell the difference between the academic and the activist? Why should so much university funding be channeled into something so academically weak?
Questions that perhaps only the organisers know the answer to.

The flowers make him seem so much more lovable, don't they?

The head of Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shallah, said on Monday that Palestinian reconciliation cannot occur without the PLO's rescinding it recognition of "the Israeli entity."

During a televised speech for the 69th anniversary Israel's rebirth he said they "cannot achieve Palestinian unity and reconciliation and ending the division without the withdrawal of the PLO's recognition of Israel, and ending the Oslo path that kept the occupation with a new name (under the PA) and making it less expensive for the enemy."

Realize that Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other terror groups have veto power over any "peace deal."

Also note that there is not even a question to Shallah that a signed agreement with Israel is something that can be revoked any time they want to.

Sounds vaguely Koranic.

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CNN's Marc Lamont Hill vs. Israel (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

So Marc Lamont Hill claims not to be anti-Israel…

Marc Lamont Hill has an impressive biography and record of achievements as an academic, activist and TV personality. On his own website, he describes himself as “one of the leading intellectual voices in the country.” His Facebook page has almost 72K followers, on Twitter he has 318K, and on Instagram almost 87K. So unfortunately, it matters that he seems to have a bit of a soft spot for Palestinian terrorism.

Earlier this month, Hill opined on Twitter that “Trump’s position on Israel/Palestine is repugnant. His call for Palestine to ‘reject hatred and terrorism’ is offensive & counterproductive.”

When the tweet came to the attention of Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg several days later and he professed to be a “bit flummoxed”, Hill responded somewhat defensively, suggesting that “the context is missing” and that “[p]eace will not come from demanding action from only one side.” He later stated in exchanges with other Twitter users that he found it “offensive to only call on Palestinians to ‘behave’, while normalizing/ ignoring the violence of the occupation;” he also rejected it as “offensive” to compare “Palestinian resistance to settler-colonialism to the actions of ISIS,” and he declared: “We all agree that hatred and terrorism are bad things. The issue is who gets to define each term, and under what conditions.”

Right… Obviously, it’s appallingly presumptuous of those Israelis to define it as “terrorism” when Palestinians murder and maim civilians who are having pizza for lunch, who celebrate Passover or attend services in a synagogue, who ride a bus, go out for dinner and entertainment, or just go to sleep in their bed at home. And it’s of course also terribly presumptuous of those Israelis to call it “hatred” when the murderous perpetrators of such attacks are celebrated by Palestinians as heroes, who get handsomely paid and have buildings or events named in their honor. And really – who on earth would think of “hatred and terrorism” when the Gaza-based Wa’ed Band for Islamic Art produces a cute cartoon clip “depicting Israelis trembling in fear and fleeing the country,” while the band’s great musicians sing “My rockets long for you, and they will rain down on you;” “I’m coming for you with a gun, or with an axe and a knife – or I could run over you with my car.”

Hatred and terrorism??? Nah – just funky “Islamic Art” illustrating what “Palestinian resistance to settler-colonialism” is all about, right, Prof. Hill?

After all, Marc Lamont Hill has stated very clearly that he is “not anti Israel;” and he emphasized: “I’ve fought, and continue to fight, anti-semitism my entire life. But i oppose occupation of Gaza.”

Well, actually, in August 2014, when Hill declared his opposition to the occupation of Gaza, it was just a few weeks to the ninth anniversary of Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza – which, Israelis hoped, would reduce hatred and terrorism and perhaps even be a major step towards a peace agreement. It didn’t work out as hoped: “Since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, terrorists have fired more than 11,000 rockets into Israel [until 2014].”

Of course, Hill might find it offensive to call the Palestinians who fire the rockets “terrorists;” instead, he might prefer to see them described as ordinary folks who engage in “Palestinian resistance to settler-colonialism” and thus inspire artists like the Wa’ed Band for Islamic Art.

A few months after Hill tweeted about not being anti-Israel and fighting antisemitism, while just opposing the non-existent occupation of Gaza, he joined a group of “Dream Defenders” – dreaming about “the destruction of the political and economic systems of Capitalism and Imperialism as well as Patriarchy” – on a visit to “Palestine” (he has denied ever having been to Israel). William Jacobson posted about this visit at Legal Insurrection under the fitting title: “Wow, Marc Lamont Hill drank the anti-Israel Kool-Aid.”

From a propaganda video produced by the group, Jacobson cut a must-see clip showing Hill during a “Solidarity Demonstration” in Nazareth – which is in Israel, as everyone who doesn’t oppose the existence of the world’s only Jewish state will know – with Hill speaking to the camera [my emphasis]:

“We came here to Palestine to stand in love and revolutionary struggle with our brothers and sisters;

We come to a land that has been stolen by greed and destroyed by hate;

We come here and we learn laws that have been co-signed in ink but written in the blood of the innocent and we stand next to people who continue to courageously struggle and resist the occupation;

People continue to dream and fight for freedom;

From Ferguson to Palestine the struggle for freedom continues.”

When someone who speaks these lines while standing in an Israeli city claims that he has always fought, and will always fight antisemitism, the most benevolent explanation is that this guy simply doesn’t know that for centuries, Jew-haters have invoked the greedy Jew who steals, the hateful Jew who destroys, and the Jew who is after “the blood of the innocent”. And for centuries, Jew-haters have always believed that they were just telling it as it was…

In fall 2015, Hill published an op-ed under the title “Why Every Black Activist Should Stand With Rasmea Odeh.” Again, one could note that people who fight antisemitism usually don’t advocate solidarity with a convicted terrorist murderer of two young Jews. But as far as Hill is concerned, Odeh is a “venerable woman” and “a Palestinian freedom fighter being railroaded for her commitment to justice,” whose story “must also be understood as a Black story. A story of global resistance to colonial power.” After all, as Hill emphasizes, Odeh was arrested “by the Israelis in Palestine,” and, after enduring “over 20 days of vicious rape, and other physical and psychological torture,” the completely innocent “Palestinian freedom fighter” was unfairly convicted “by the Israelis in Palestine.”

Those “Israelis in Palestine” are real evil, aren’t they.

Almost a year before Hill wrote his vile apologia for Odeh, William Jacobson had published a thorough documentation showing that “Rasmea Odeh [was] rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud.” Legal Insurrection published about two dozen additional posts on the Odeh case before Hill wrote his piece – that is to say, if he wanted to get information on Odeh to check the reliability of the material circulating in his activist echo chamber, he could have easily done so.

Needless to say, Hill is also an ardent BDS supporter, and the goal of BDS is of course to rid the world of its only Jewish state. As Hill’s good friend, BDS leader Omar Barghouti put it so hopefully all the way back in 2004, when he denounced the two-state solution as an immoral ploy to save Zionism and eagerly anticipated “the final chapter of the Zionist project:” “We are witnessing the rapid demise of Zionism, and nothing can be done to save it, for Zionism is intent on killing itself. I, for one, support euthanasia.”

But as far as Hill is concerned [archived], “Omar” is admirably devoted to “the work of creating peace and justice for the vulnerable.”

Perhaps we can all agree that Omar Barghouti is as devoted to “the work of creating peace and justice for the vulnerable” as Marc Lamont Hill is devoted to fighting antisemitism?

Let’s conclude with a post by Hill [archived] from last August about the man the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has described as “the leading anti-Semite in America,” while the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls him “an anti-Semite who routinely accuses Jews of manipulating the U.S. government and controlling the levers of world power,” heading an organization that has “earned … a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate.”

But Hill greatly enjoyed the company of Louis Farrakhan, the notorious leader of the Nation of Islam: “Been blessed to spend the last day with Minister Louis Farrakhan. An amazing time of learning, listening, laughing, and even head nodding to music. God is Great.”

However, just to be clear: among “progressives”, Hill is in good company with his admiration for Farrakhan. As I have recently documented, two leading organizers of the Women’s March are ardent fans of Farrakhan, and while their beloved “sister” Linda Sarsour hasn’t offered gushing praise for him, she has given a strident speech at one of his major events, and embraces the Nation of Islam as “an integral part” of “the history of Islam in America” and as “part of one ummah, one family. #Islam.”

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05/15 Links Pt1: Kontorovich: Russia Recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital. Why Can’t the U.S.?; Bibi: Embassy move will shatter Palestinian fantasy

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Russia Recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital. Why Can’t the U.S.?

Note what happened next: No explosions of anger at the Arab world. No end to Russia’s diplomatic role in the Middle East. No terror attacks against Russian targets. Moscow’s dramatic Jerusalem reversal has largely been ignored by the foreign-policy establishment because it disproves their predictions of mayhem.
To be sure, Russia limited its recognition to “western Jerusalem.” Even so, it shifted the parameters of the discussion. Recognizing west Jerusalem as Israeli is now the position of a staunchly pro-Palestinian power. To maintain the distinctive U.S. role in Middle East diplomacy—and to do something historic—Mr. Trump must go further. Does the U.S. want to wind up with a less pro-Israel position than Vladimir Putin’s ?
The American response to real attacks against U.S. embassies has always been to send a clear message of strength. After the 1998 al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Washington did not shut down those missions. Instead it invested in heavily fortified new facilities—and in hunting down the perpetrators.
Moving the embassy to Jerusalem would also improve the prospect of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It would end the perverse dynamic that has prevented such negotiations from succeeding: Every time the Palestinians say “no” to an offer, the international community demands a better deal on their behalf. No wonder no resolution has been reached. Only last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas insisted that new negotiations “start” with the generous offer made by Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. Relocating the embassy would demonstrate to the Palestinian Authority that rejectionism has costs.
If Mr. Trump nonetheless signs the waiver, he could do two things to maintain his credibility in the peace process. First, formally recognize Jerusalem—the whole city—as the capital of Israel, and reflect that status in official documents. Second, make clear that unless the Palestinians get serious about peace within six months, his first waiver will be his last. He should set concrete benchmarks for the Palestinians to demonstrate their commitment to negotiations. These would include ending their campaign against Israel in international organizations and cutting off payments to terrorists and their relatives.
This is Mr. Trump’s moment to show strength. It cannot be American policy to choose to recognize a capital, or not, based on how terrorists will react—especially when they likely won’t.

Mordechai Kedar: Increasing nervousness: Trump's approaching visit to the Middle East

If there are no last minute changes, President Trump will be embarking on a trip to the Middle East that includes Israel, the PA and Saudi Arabia. The trip has a very tight schedule because those planning it at each stop are trying to cram as many events, places and people as they possibly can into the time alloted for the President's visit.
In the nature of things, there will be long lines of people who want to shake hands with the important visitor, the most powerful man in the world. Each one of them is confident that Trump will remember the one sentence he manages to slip in between the shoves of those who are next in line and the elbows of the security detail protecting Trump from all angles. Trump's speechwriters are putting in long hours to prepare suitable texts for each stop and its audience, hoping the listeners will take his words to heart.
One thing is certain, a week affter Trump's visit, he won't remember a word of the texts he read out loud. A week? That long? I must be an incurable optimist.
Everyone knows that Trump himself knows very little about the Middle East's problems and hasn't the sliightest idea where to find a solution for them and how to go about doing so, especially when compared to the presidents who preceded him, who spent a good deal of time learning the problems involved and put much wasted effort into attempting to find solutions for them. The 100 days of Trump's presidency presented the world with a leader imbued with a feeling of power, who acts according to his own instincts and whose reactions are not predictable. As I write these lines, Trump has fired the head of the FBI and my heart tells me that this was not the result of a long, carefully considered analysis of the situation. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

PM: Embassy move will help peace by ‘shattering Palestinian fantasy’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem would boost peace efforts by impressing on the Palestinians the city is the capital of the Jewish state.
After US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said earlier Sunday that the Trump administration was evaluating whether relocating the US mission to Jerusalem would help or harm the peace process, Netanyahu released a statement arguing the move would advance peace efforts.
“Israel’s position has been stated many times to the US government and to the world,” Netanyahu said. “Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem will not only not harm the peace process, it will advance it by correcting a historical wrong and by shattering the Palestinian fantasy that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel.”
On Thursday, Netanyahu said that all foreign embassies in Israel should be located in Jerusalem, chief among them the American embassy.

A year after violent protests shut down an event sponsored by pro-Israel students at the University of California at Irvine, another threatening protest at another pro-Israel event generates questions over whether the university is willing to do more than issue statements regarding freedom of speech on campus.

After last year’s protests – which were just the culmination of a series of discriminatory attacks on Israel-supporting Jews throughout the UC system – the Regents of that system endorsed a set of Principles Against Intolerance, the last two of which - points (h) and (i) - declare that “Actions that physically or otherwise interfere with the ability of an individual or group to assemble, speak and share or hear the opinions of others…” and “Harassment, threats, assaults, vandalism, and destruction of property” would not be tolerated.

After last year’s incident, the local Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was given a written warning and required to host an educational program related to their behavior. Apparently, this week’s decision to orchestrate the same kind of disruption they were warned about last year is their reply, and amply demonstrates what they think about the university and its rules.

Campus administrators, generally sheepish about taking on organized groups of students, are particularly cautious when confronting the violent behavior of SJP, given their understanding that once they act they can expect to hear immediately from the group’s lawyers. Which means the only thing that can motivate them to enforce their own rules is fear of lawsuits from even better lawyers representing Jewish students on campus.

As the school year winds to a close, we can expect the administration to run out the clock with deliberations that will continue after all the students involved on both sides of this week’s fiasco have gone home. One hopes that during this period they will develop the backbone required to enforce their own rules in the face of groups like SJP that have decided to demonstrate to the entire community who they think is in charge of the school. But, failing that, I have a modest recommendation for a new approach that’s not been tried yet.

Under this new proposed policy, rather than reject harassment and intimidation on campus, those kinds of activities should instead be enshrined as the new norm to be embraced and encouraged by administrators and students alike. Such a policy can be implemented by simply taking the original Chancellor’s “Principles Against Intolerance” and swapping “will not be tolerated” whenever it appears with “is both tolerated and encouraged.”

Now such a policy could discriminate against student organizations without the numbers or aggression required to put together a decent mob big enough and violent enough to shut down events put on by students with whom they disagree. But this problem could be easily solved by allowing student organizations to use part of the campus activities budget they are allocated each year to hire professional harassers to fatten up their own mobs and ensure equitable levels of aggression targeting any speaker or event on campus.

Such a policy could have positive economic impact, creating gainful employment opportunities for thugs living at or near University of California locations who can be regularly hired as members of rent-a-mobs. No doubt enterprising temporary employment agencies will spring up to facilitate the appropriate allocation of violent protesters at all controversial campus events (with “controversial” remaining a term that any student group is free to define and interpret based on its own preferences).

The only alternative I can think of to the current “all-talk-no-action” policy at places like UC Irvine and the simple alternative I propose is that the school provide students a list of which groups and issues are allowed to participate in the kinds of violent, harassing behavior now becoming standard at pro-Israel events on campus – essentially creating guidelines that says who is allowed to discriminate against whom.

Such a policy would represent an official imprimatur on bigotry, but at least it would be more honest than the de facto one currently in place.

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.

Dear President Trump: A peace deal isn't the same thing as peace

Donald Trump loves deals. He's made that fact the centerpiece of his career, and the title of one of his books is "The Art of the Deal."

And he has said that he wants to continue that path to make a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Arab leaders.

In November, days after winning the election, he called a peace treaty "the ultimate deal."

“I’ve always heard that perhaps the toughest deal to make is the deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” Trump said to Abbas when he visited the White House. “Let’s see if we can prove them wrong.”

There is only one problem.

A deal isn't the same thing as peace.

Israel brokered peace deals with Jordan and Egypt. Both of them are cold peace deals, but they have been solid for decades.

Yet Palestinians cannot be trusted to hold on to any deal, for one very simple reason.

Unlike Jordan and Egypt, they claim all of Israel as their own.

They might accept Israel as a temporary entity, but they consider all of the boundaries created by Westerners in the early 1920s for the British Mandate to be their "historic lands." (Egypt considers parts of the Negev to be its territory and Jordan might have some slight claims but they do not claim the entire Israel the way the Palestinians do.)

Yasir Arafat has remained the undisputed leader of the Palestinians even after his death. Mahmoud Abbas would never dare to do anything Arafat wouldn't do. Arafat, and the Palestinian leaders, were very consistent since 1974 with the "phased plan" which included:

The Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated. This will require further changes being effected in the balance of power in favour of our people and their struggle.

The Liberation Organization will struggle against any proposal for a Palestinian entity the price of which is recognition, peace, secure frontiers, renunciation of national rights and the deprival of our people of their right to return and their right to self-determination on the soil of their homeland.

Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the Liberation Organization's strategy of establishing the democratic Palestinian state specified in the resolutions of previous Palestinian National Councils.

In light of this programme, the leadership of the revolution will determine the tactics which will serve and make possible the realization of these objectives.

A PLO peace deal with Israel is not meant to be permanent. It is meant as an introduction to the next phase, whether it is "right to return" or new diplomatic pressure or increased terror or even military battles and rockets and tunnels that will be much harder to defend against.

Every Palestinian knows this. It is not a secret. Arafat said it in a speech broadcast hours after he signed the first peace agreement with Israel.

"[the agreement] will be a basis for an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the Palestinian National Council resolution issued in 1974 ... The PNC resolution issued in 1974 calls for the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws or which is liberated."

Arafat repeated this idea a number of times, referring to the "oath" of Arab dominance over all of Palestine. In 1996, for example, he said

"They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a solemn oath...Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which has brought us together and which at moments separated us, but shortly we will meet again in heaven...Palestine is our land and Jerusalem is our capital"

There are plenty of other relevant quotes from Palestinian officials. For example, PLO official Abbas Zaki said that a two-state solution is the spark that will lead to Israel's collapse.

The Palestinian people, when polled on the topic, admit that they only accept a two-state solution as a stage to become a single Arab state. 66% said this explicitly in a poll in 2011, and in 2014, 60% said that this should be the goal for the following five years.

To Palestinians, a deal is not final. It is a stage. Peace with Israel isn't a goal; Arab dominance over Israel and eventual destruction of Israel is the goal.

No matter how the deal is worded, and what provisions are placed inside the document to forestall Palestinians from implementing the next phases, they will continue to teach their children that all of Israel is illegitimate and stolen land from them. They did it during the optimistic days Oslo process 24 years ago and they do it today, what incentive do they have to teach peace?

A peace deal is not the same as peace, and even a cold peace is not possible with people who say, over and over, that their goal is the eventual destruction of their "peace partner." The best deal would buy a little time, but nothing else.

It would take generations to change the situation as it is.

Chasing a deal is the wrong message. In this case, where Palestinians claim the entire region as their own, a peace deal might be possible - but peace is certainly not.

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.

The first victims of the Nakba were Jews

In the revisionist history on Palestinian Arab sites today, "Nakba Day," it is claimed that this was the day that war broke out, when Arab nations fought unsuccessfully to protect Palestinian Arabs from Jewish militias in 1948.

But the war didn't start in May 1948. It started in November 1947 hours after the UN Partition vote.

For months before the vote, Arab terrorists held their fire, hoping that the UN would not recommend a truncated Jewish state along with an Arab state in the area of the British Mandate. But within hours of the UN partition resolution, the gloves were off.

7 Jews were murdered that first day.

Arabs threw grenades at an Egged bus traveling from Netanya to Jerusalem, and one exploded inside.

Devora Yaari was injured, and her husband Shalom Yaari rushed to her aid. He was shot dead in cold blood.

Shoshana Mizrahi Farhi, 22, was on her way to Jerusalem to get married. She was killed.

The other victims were Hirsh Starer, Mrs. Hanna Weiss, and Haya Yisraeli.

Another Egged bus was attacked a half hour later, and Nechama Hacohen, a pathologist at Hadassah Hospital, was killed.

Moshe Goldman was killed with a gunshot in the chest.

Palestinian Arabs started the war that resulted in their abandoning their supposed homeland to let their Arab brethren finish off what they started. Some of them wanted peace but their leaders did not even consider it,

The refusal of Arab leaders to accept Jews as human beings who deserve rights - the decision to oppose the Jews "by all means" - was the beginning of the Nakba.

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.

Mothers Day/Lag B'Omer/Administrivia open thread

A busy day at stately Elder Manor, so here is an open thread.

Also, administrivia: some people have been asking what happened to Mike Lumish's weekly column. He told me several weeks ago he was unable to continue posting here. I appreciate his writing for EoZ for over two years (and hooking me up with other columnists) and I wish him much hatzlacha!

Happy Lag B'Omer and happy Mothers Day!

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.