Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Can you imagining forgiving Harvey Weinstein? Then why do some Jews forgive Imam Shahin?

Imam Ammar Shahin is the cleric at the Islamic Center of Davis (ICD) in Davis, California, who said last July statements like:

Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews..... Oh Allah, count them one by one and destroy them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them. Oh Allah, destroy them and do not spare their young or their elderly. Oh Allah, show us the black day that You inflict upon those who occupy Palestine. Oh Allah, show us the wonders of Your ability that you inflict upon them. Oh Allah, turn Jerusalem and Palestine into a graveyard for the Jews.
....Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews. ...Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them.... Oh Allah, make this happen by our hands. Let us play a part in this. Oh Allah, let us support them in words and in deeds.

After the story broke, Shahin didn't apologize for what he said. he never disavowed his desire to have Allah destroy all Jews. He merely said, "To the Jewish community here in Davis and beyond, I say this deeply: I am deeply sorry for the pain I have caused.”

Restated: Sorry you took offense to my beliefs that you should all die and my congregants should participate in your slaughter.

From The California Aggie:

Community members who attended the Oct. 22 event “Walking Our Faith and Sharing a Meal,” an interfaith potluck and walk, were met with protesters when they arrived at the Islamic Center of Davis. The event began at Congregation Bet Haverim, where Rabbi Greg Wolfe presented; participants then walked together to the Islamic Center of Davis to hear a presentation by Imam Ammar Shahin. The group Davis United Against Hate had pre-planned to assemble in front of the Center to protest for the removal of Shahin.

Yes, a rabbi led a walk from his synagogue to the Islamic Center specifically to hear Imam Shahin.

What a proud moment for him! To genuflect in front of a man who says he wants that rabbi to die (Bet Haverim supports Israel.) To act more Christian than Christians do by turning the other cheek to a man who advocates genocide, just not as publicly nowadays. Wolfe is a good dhimmi, showing respect to the man behind hate speech and promising to honor Shahin in the name of interfaith goodwill or something.

Would Rabbi Wolfe also counsel any of his congregants who may have been sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein to forgive him, too? If a right wing rabbi went in front of his congregation and called for the annihilation of Muslims, and then pretend to apologize, would Wolfe be as forgiving?

We know the answer.

Brian Landry / The California Aggie.

Luckily, there are still Jews with some self-respect, who demand that Imam Shahin be fired, just like Weinstein.

About 20 people gathered to protest in front of the Islamic Center and across the adjacent streets. Gail Rubin, the organizer of Davis United Against Hate, said the group is a “loose affiliation of residents in the community.” Recently, Rubin’s guest opinion piece was published in The Davis Enterprise. In the opinion piece, she asked members of the community to join her group in the “peaceful interfaith vigil” they held on Oct. 22 from 4 to 6 p.m.

“UC Davis students who are Muslims, all they have to do is cross the street […] and hear those words now to become radicalized,” Rubin said. “We’re here to say, ‘He needs to go.’ We are here because the interfaith community is being cynically manipulated by this Imam to stand with them as a show of solidarity.”

Frohar Osmani, a third-year international relations major, said the Islamic Center of Davis is where she and others go to feel safe; “one person doesn’t represent Islam,” Osmani said.

Protesters held signs that read “I am a Jew. Here in Davis an Imam wants me and my family DEAD,” “Speak out no hate peace please,” “teach love practice tolerance,” “no hate in Davis words hurt” and “stop attending Mosque that preaches genocide of the Jews.”

Alexander Groth, a professor emeritus from UC Davis’ Department of Political Science as well as a survivor of the Holocaust from the Warsaw ghetto, was one of the protesters in attendance. Groth emphasized the need to stand up against hateful and anti-Semitic speech and likened Shahin’s speech to Hitler’s call for the “decimation of Jews” in World War II. He also expressed dismay that the Davis “city council has done nothing” in response to the July sermon.

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Why it is worth fighting to live (Forest Rain)

Ziv Shilon is the stuff the legends are made from. He is just a normal Israeli guy but in Israel, the extraordinary is common. Anywhere else he would be a legend.

Ziv’s wife, Adi is a very special woman too. She is less outspoken, less public than Ziv but it is she who helps be who he is today – his terrible injury did not scare her away, together they face the challenges of life and seem to conquer every one with grace and positivity.

Their first daughter Shira was born an albino, a condition that, in addition to making the child look unusual, also creates health issues. Instead of being devastated, the Shilon’s decided to turn the situation in to an opportunity. They chose to emphasize their daughter’s beauty, understanding that raising awareness regarding albinism would benefit other families like their own but it would also help create a society more tolerant and understanding of all differences.

When I talk or write about Inspiration from Zion I mean people like Ziv and Adi Shilon. They do not tell people how to live or what to do. They teach by their own example. By action, not words.

It is easy to say: “Never give up!” but how many people actually live that idea? It is easy to say: “Turn lemons in to lemonade” but how many people actually do?

On October 17^th Ziv posted an announcement that made me think of the stories I hear from America of all the wounded warriors who come home and feel hopeless. I thought of the sickeningly high numbers of American veterans who commit suicide because they lose sight of reasons to keep on living. [Interestingly PTSD is much less prevalent in Israeli veterans]. I thought of all the people who feel overwhelmed with their problems, whatever they might be – cancer, abuse, financial issues… any number of issues can drive people to consider whether it is worth living through such difficulties…

Ziv’s message is simple. The accompanying image is one of the most beautiful, most powerful I have ever seen.

This is what power looks like. More importantly, this is what HOPE looks like and there is always hope.

This is my translation to English of what Ziv wrote (originally in Hebrew):

“Five years ago, minus one week, I arrived here at Soroka Medical Center on my deathbed, in a helicopter from the Gaza Strip, after an explosive device ripped off both my hands.God granted me life when he gave me the strength of body and mind to run hundreds of meters, in a burnt body, with hands ripped to shreds, from the border fence to my crew.God granted me a life by placing Nir and Sami with me. They stabilized my condition.
God granted me life when he sent me the hospital doctors, the best of the best, to save my life that morning.God granted me life in the amazing family that has enveloped me ever since and to this day.
Today, five years later, I returned to Soroka, again to receive life, but this time it is I who am accompanying my wife, a hero in her own right and in much better circumstances.
Today God chose to grant me new life in the birth of our new and amazing son.A brother to Shira, who bringing me full circle, provides me with more proof why it is worth fighting to live.”

I bring you these words with a request:

Next time you feel hopeless, for whatever reason, think of Ziv.

Inspiration from Zion is not just for Jews or even for people who care about Israel. Inspiration from Zion is for people who need hope.

Next time you feel hopeless, think of Ziv. If he can do it, you can too.

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10/24 Links Pt1: Fatah's partnership with Hamas, Neither will give up violence; Netanyahu to visit India in January

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah seeks "true partnership" with Hamas; Neither will give up violence

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub says the unity agreement with Hamas does not mean that Hamas has to give up its use of "resistance," i.e., the PA euphemism for violence and terror against Israel, since Fatah itself "has not given up and will not give up the resistance."
Rajoub explained in an interview on the Lebanese TV channel Al-Mayadeen that Fatah wants to achieve "national unity" based on "true partnership" with Hamas:

Al-Mayadeen TV host: "What has actually changed? Why will the reconciliation [with Hamas] eliminate the resistance, or the idea of resistance (i.e., violence)...?"
Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: "First of all, Fatah has not given up and will not give up the resistance. We are ready to enter a dialogue [with Hamas] and to refine our positions in order to reach a general agreement... We want to achieve national unity [with Hamas] on the basis of true partnership." [Lebanese TV channel Al-Mayadeen's YouTube channel, Oct. 6, 2017]

Another Fatah Central Committee member, Azzam Al-Ahmad, elaborated on this, explaining that Fatah has not changed its principles which remain "popular resistance, armed struggle, and negotiations." "Popular resistance" is a term Palestinian leaders at times use to refer to violence. During the PA terror wave of 2015-2016, Palestinian Media Watch reported that Mahmoud Abbas used the term "peaceful popular uprising" to describe Palestinian terror that had murdered 14 Israelis by stabbings, car rammings and shootings.

Fatah uses the concept "armed struggle" to describe organized terror using rifles and bombs, as was done in the PA terror campaign from 2000-2005, in which over 1,200 Israelis were murdered.

Seth Frantzman: What Iraq’s recent moves against Kurds mean for Israel and region

On Sunday, Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi began a historic visit to Saudi Arabia, where he is meeting the king of Saudi Arabia and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

It came at the same time that Iraq is strengthening its control over disputed areas seized from the Kurdistan Regional Government over the last week. The intentional weakening of the Kurdistan region comes less than a month after it held an independence referendum and has wide implications for the region. This affects Israel as well because of Jerusalem’s opposition to Iranian hegemony.

The main affect of Iraq’s decision to take back disputed areas from the Kurdistan region has been to reduce the areas the Kurds controlled and liberated over the last three years battling ISIS.

In addition Iranian influence has played a central role through Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani’s role in advising and attempting to broker a deal with some Kurdish officials to give up control around Kirkuk.

Despite conflicting accounts from different Kurdish and Iraqi officials, the result was that the Kurdish Peshmerga withdrew in the face of overwhelming firepower the Iraqi army brought to bare, including US-made tanks and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias such as Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq.

This has weakened the Kurdistan Regional Government’s hand after the referendum, depriving it of a major city and half its oil revenue. The Peshmerga, lauded as a partner for fighting Islamic State, were not able to stand up to the partly US-trained Iraqi army, which has re-drawn the power relationship between Erbil and Baghdad.

While the US is concerned about clashes between Kurdistan forces and Baghdad and called on both sides to “cease all violence,” it is not making the crises a priority. Instead the priority lies in Riyadh.

The US is working to bring Baghdad to Riyadh and encourage it to grow closer to the Saudi alliance system in the region, the Iranians have other plans.

The time has come for FIFA to kick terrorism out of football

On October 27, the FIFA Council is set to meet in Kolkata, India.

Alongside the other issues, it is worth paying special attention to the agenda items titled “Monitoring Committee Israel-Palestine” and “First Report of the Human Rights Advisory Board.”

The first item will discuss FIFA’s insistence on entertaining the baseless, and purely political, demand of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) to sanction the Israeli Football Association (IFA) for allegedly breaching FIFA’s statutes.

The claim is that the IFA is in breach of FIFA’s statutes since six of its registered clubs play in Judea and Samaria, in what the PFA refers to as “its territory.”

The claim is both factually and legally baseless. From a factual point of view, according to FIFA’s own website, the IFA inherited the status of the Palestine Football Federation (PFF) that was accepted to FIFA in 1929. The PFF was set up by the famous Jewish sportsman Josef Yekutieli and comprised mainly Jewish clubs that played against the British. When accepted into FIFA, the Zionist movement’s PFF was granted exclusive rights to organize football in all of mandate Palestine, including Judea and Samaria.

The control of the area of Judea and Samaria was only temporarily stripped from the IFA, in 1948, when five Arab states invaded the nascent Jewish state.

The illegal occupation of the area by the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan finally ended in 1967 when Israel, and the IFA, regained control of the area.

Back in July, when Palestinian Arabs protested against the use of metal detectors to secure and protect visitors to the Temple Mount from terrorist attacks, Walter Russel Meade made an interesting point. He noted on his website, The American Interest, the key role Palestinian terrorism has played -- not only in the innovation and development of terrorist strategies, but also in the effort to protect against them:

With the possible exception of al-Qaeda, Palestinian terrorism—which pioneered the use of plane hijackings, airport attacks, and suicide bombings—has perhaps done more to force the introduction of metal detectors into our daily lives than just about any other cause.

While plane hijackings in the 1970's were just as easily associated with Cuba as with the Palestinian Arabs, it was the latter that pushed the US to increase security on airplanes.

In September 6th and 9th in 1970, 5 planes were were hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Of the 5 airliners, 3 of them were forced to land at Dawson's Field, located near Zarka, Jordan.

This became then-President Nixon's own "9/11":

The crisis opened Nixon's eyes.

His chief of staff, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, recorded in his diary on September 7, 1970, that Nixon was "very anxious to develop some dramatic administration action about hijackings, need tough shocking steps, especially guards on planes."

Nixon responded to the trio of hijackings in a written statement listing seven steps to combat "air piracy." Beyond the air marshals, he called on foreign governments to join the United States in combatting hijackings and ordered electronic surveillance at airports to spot potential terrorists.

Nixon also envisaged that the 100 initial air marshals would eventually grow to a force of thousands. But over the ensuing years, as the threat from hijackings receded, the force never reached full capacity.

President Richard Nixon, who faced his own 9/11 in the form of
Palestinian terrorism. Credit: Wikipedia

On September 11, Nixon responded to the Palestinian hijackings with a program on dealing with the problem.

I have directed the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, and Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of Science and Technology, and other agencies to accelerate their present efforts to develop security measures, including new methods for detecting weapons and explosive devices. At the same time, the Departments of Defense and Transportation will work with all U.S. airlines in determining whether certain metal detectors and x-ray devices now available to the military could provide immediate improvement in airport surveillance efforts. To facilitate passenger surveillance, appropriate agencies of the Federal Government will intensify their efforts to assemble and evaluate all useful intelligence concerning this matter and to disseminate such information to airlines and law enforcement personnel. (emphasis added)

Metal detectors, which decades later Palestinian Arabs would protest as an impediment, were first deemed necessary as a result of Palestinian terrorism.

Nixon reiterated this point later that month, while speaking to some of the released Americans who had been held hostage

Again, in speaking to the released hostages, Nixon emphasized that in addition to the newly instituted air marshals, "new electronic devices" would be put in place as well.

Times have changed since then, in ways that Nixon could never have imagined.

The years during which Palestinian Arabs terrorized the airways have been forgotten. Who today remembers that the tools used now to secure travelers against terrorist attacks were originally developed to protect them against Palestinian terrorists.

Instead, the only irony greater than the attempt to used those security devices on Palestinian Arabs is their protest that such tools impinge on their rights.

Meanwhile, the world endures the legacy of Palestinian terrorist innovations used by other terrorist groups: hijackings, airport attacks, suicide bombings -- and now car-rammings.

Nixon may not have foreseen these developments, but he did try to prevent them.

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Pope Francis met with Theophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, on Monday and he gave a brief speech afterwards.

This is the key paragraph, which was clearly carefully wordsmithed:

Our meeting allows me to renew my closeness to all those suffering from the conflicts that for decades have beset the Holy Land. The uncertainty of the situation and the lack of understanding between the parties continue to create insecurity, the restriction of fundamental rights, and the flight of many people from their land. I invoke God’s help in this, and I ask all those involved to intensify their efforts to achieve a stable peace based on justice and recognition of the rights of all. To this end, any kind of violence, discrimination or displays of intolerance against Jewish, Christian and Muslim worshipers, or places of worship, must be firmly rejected. The Holy City, whose Status Quo must be defended and preserved, ought to be a place where all can live together peaceably; otherwise, the endless spiral of suffering will continue for all.

He is using the language of the anti-Israel crowd - emphasizing "fundamental rights" and "justice," the keywords that the haters misuse to the point of parody - but the people he is speaking about as victims of injustice are specifically the Christians under Palestinian rule! No one else is fleeing from their land out of fear.

Unfortunately, any such intended rebuke will go unnoticed or ignored. Arab media is reporting his speech as a straight criticism of Israel. His use of the words "justice" and "rights" will (ironically) hearten the Israel haters.

But there was a criticism of the Muslims who have forced hundred of thousands of Christians to flee the West Bank since 1948. It is too bad that this - one of the major stories out of the Holy Land of the past 70 years - will continue to go virtually unreported.

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Last month, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas hammered out a unity agreement.

Since then, Hamas has gone out of its way to prove that it has only genocidal goals for the Jewish state.

The most explicit comment came from Hamas head Yahya Sinwar:

“Over is the time Hamas spent discussing recognizing Israel. Now Hamas will discuss when we will wipe out Israel,” Sinwar said, according to the Hamas-linked news agency Shehab.
“No one in the universe can disarm us. On the contrary, we will continue to have the power to protect our citizens,” Sinwar said, according to the official statement.
“No one has the ability to extract from us recognition of the occupation.”

But throughout the Hamas delegation visit to Iran there were many other statements making it clear that Hamas is sworn to fight Israel forever.

[Deputy head of Hamas' Political Bureau Saleh al-Arouri] cautioned Arab countries about normalization of ties with the Zionist regime of Israel, adding that Hams will never recognize Israeli regime and will not give up its right of resistance.
“Despite the existing difficulties, fighting the Zionist occupiers and resisting against them is our option," al-Arouri added.
He emphasized that the resistance’s weapon is not negotiable and the issue has not been and will not be discussed in the reconciliation talks between Palestinians.

But we are constantly told that the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian people and Mahmoud Abbas in particular support peace with Israel.

If that is true, then how come there is not one word to be found against Hamas' war rhetoric? It has been well-reported in Palestinian media, but I can't find one op-ed, one statement by any Palestinian Authority or Fatah official, that even mildly rebukes Hamas for its explicit support of war and terror until Israel is destroyed.

Not even a hashtag.

Nothing.

Silence is consent, and official Palestinian silence about Hamas' support of terror against Israel says far more about the real position of the Palestinian Authority than a thousand photo-ops with stupid and credulous smiling Western diplomats.

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10/23 Links Pt2: UC Berkeley Newspaper Runs, Nazi-Like Cartoon Of Alan Dershowitz; Journalists Bin Laden Could Count On

From Ian:

In Upcoming Book, Controversial Rutgers Professor Accuses Israel of Sparing Palestinian Lives in Order to Control Them

A professor with a history of supporting terrorism against Israelis is publishing a new book accusing the Jewish state of physically debilitating Palestinians in order to control them.

The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, authored by Jasbir Puar — associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University — argues in part that the “Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have shown a demonstrable pattern over decades of sparing life, of shooting to maim rather than to kill.”

According to the Rutgers professor, this “purportedly humanitarian practice of sparing death by shooting to maim” is part of a “logic long present in Israeli tactical calculations of settler colonial rule—that of creating injury and maintaining Palestinian populations as perpetually debilitated, and yet alive, in order to control them.”

The Right to Maim is set to be published by Duke University Press in November 2017, and was the topic of Puar’s lectures at Stanford University and Rutgers University this year. A copy of its introduction can be found at the Duke University Press website.

Puar’s latest claims appear similar to those she shared during a controversial, faculty-sponsored event at Vassar College in February 2016, when she said that Israel “manifests an implicit claim to the right to maim and debilitate Palestinian bodies and environments,” according to a transcript of the talk provided by the Vassar alumni group Fairness To Israel.

During that appearance, Puar repeated allegations that the bodies of “young Palestinian men … were mined for organs for scientific research.” She also asserted that Israel’s actions can be called a “genocide in slow motion,” and said, “we need [the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions movement] as part of organized resistance and armed resistance in Palestine as well. There is no other way the situation is going to change.”

Feminist Writer Claims Zionism Is ‘Built To Uphold White Supremacy’

Mahroh Jahangiri, an editor at Feministing.com, recently published an article in which she claims Zionism is a system "built to uphold white supremacy" (emphasis added):
In case you missed it, women are flooding social media this week to share our stories of sexual assault and harassment, using the hashtag #MeToo to “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” Though this should be obvious, in this moment it bears repeating: gender-based violence does not exist without other systems of violence, especially those built to uphold white supremacy (such as racism, colonialism, zionism, militarism) ...

But just as we acknowledge that rape does not happen in a vacuum and that gender violence comes from our fathers, brothers, friends, and partners, we have also *got to admit* that this violence often specifically comes from people in institutions many amongst us otherwise support: men with badges, those in uniform, people who staff detention facilities across our arbitrary borders and outside of them (in Guantanamo, Iraq, Israel), men who learn harmful stereotypes about women of color from American culture and media, and most importantly, people of all genders who support them.

Unfortunately, Zionism-as-white-supremacy is an argument that’s been tossed around by progressives for quite some time. Those who rail against a Jewish State are either unwilling or unable to understand two very important, and very obvious, facts:
The Jewish people are a minority group who were targeted by white supremacists (see: Nazis) in the 1930s and 1940s, resulting in the brutal execution of approximately 6,000,000 of them via shooting or gas chambers.

Israel is home to a multitude of people of varying ethnicities and faiths — Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. Even among the Jewish population, there are variant races (see: Ethiopian Jews).

Unsurprisingly, Jahangiri doesn’t expand on her contention that Zionism "uphold[s] white supremacy." Rather, she simply lists it right next to "racism" and "colonialism" as if the notion is obvious.

At first this looks like a heartwarming story from Haaretz:

In First, Yad Vashem to Bestow 'Righteous Gentile' Honor to an Arab
Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center will for the first time recognize as “Righteous Among the Nations” an Arab who saved the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. The family of Dr. Mohamed Helmy will accept the award from Israel’s Holocaust memorial and museum in a ceremony in Berlin on Thursday.

Helmy, an Egyptian-born doctor living in Berlin, risked his life when he sheltered four Jews throughout the period of World War II.

But then we read this:

Yad Vashem recognized Helmy, who died in 1982, as Righteous Among the Nations in 2013, but his family initially refused the honor because the institution is Israeli.

“If any other country offered to honor Helmy, we would have been happy with it,” said Mervat Hassan, the wife of Helmy’s grandnephew, told The Associated Press during an interview at her home in Cairo in October 2013. Now, after a four-year search, a relative was found who agreed to accept the award.

Nasser Kutbi, an 81-year-old professor of medicine from Cairo whose father was Helmy’s nephew and who knew him personally, will travel to Berlin to accept the award.
In 2013, when Yad Vashem recognized Helmy and Szturmann as Righteous Among the Nations they tried to locate Helmy’s relatives, and even turned to the Egyptian Embassy in Israel and the press.

The Associated Press located a relative in Egypt who refused to accept the award. Other relatives explained to German historian and journalist Ronen Steinke why they refused: Yad Vashem is political institution representing Israel and has no right to represent Jews everywhere, they said. In addition, Israel was not founded until 1948 and did not exist at the time Helmy carried out his actions, so today Israel has no right to represent the Jewish victims of that period, they added. They also criticized Israeli policy toward Palestinians, saying one of their relatives had died in one of the wars between Israel and Egypt.

Helmy’s relatives feel he saved Anna not because she was Jewish but because she was a human being and the attempt to recognize him for saving Jews is inappropriate, Steinke told Haaretz.

Yad Vashem has recognized some 26,000 Righteous Among the Nations from 44 countries and nationalities so far. A few dozen are Muslims, including from Albania, the Caucasus and the Balkans. But Helmy was the first Arab so recognized.

Ordinary Egyptians refused to accept a huge honor on behalf of their relatives - because, you know, Israel, hand waving, Israel, mumble, Palestinians, 1948, Nakba, Israel.

In other words, by traveling to Israel to accept the award, the relatives would be guilty of the crime of "normalization with the Zionist enemy" that has been at formal peace with Egypt for 40 years, longer than the two countries were at war. (Arab media accurately noted the reason was "normalization," not the four absurd reasons listed in the article.

This is how relatives of a hero behave today in a country with a peace treaty with Israel, today's Egypt that has no interest in real peace but only in the benefits it receives from the peace agreement.

This is yet another reason that true peace is impossible.

(h/t JW)

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The Washington Post’s fake news about “Palestinian Gandhi” Issa Amro (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

The Washington Post markets its “World Views” column as “smart analysis of the most important news,” and when you hover over “Analysis,” a pop-up tells you it means “Interpretation of the news based on evidence, including data, as well as anticipating how events might unfold based on past events.” But Ishaan Tharoor’s recent column about “Palestinian Gandhi” Issa Amro is just lazy journalism promoting the kind of Palestinian propaganda that can be read on countless websites for free: like other journalists before him, Tharoor made do with telling his readers what Amro told him – all backed up by what supporters of Amro would say…

So I decided to do the research Tharoor couldn’t be bothered to do, and you can check out the resulting documentation at Legal Insurrection. It is, admittedly, a longish post, but the title gives it all away: “Issa Amro is no ‘Palestinian Gandhi.’”

As the documentation shows, Amro has longstanding and close relations with several notorious professional anti-Israel activists who earn their living by promoting the 21st century version of the Nazi slogan “The Jews are our misfortune” – which is: “The Jewish state is our misfortune.” Moreover, Amro has apparently never condemned Palestinian terrorism, and he enjoys the full support of activists who are not only outspoken apologists for Hamas, but who have repeatedly voiced support for the terror group. Amro himself has issued repeated predictions and calls for another intifada. Particularly noteworthy is the timing of his call for an intifada in May 2014, just four weeks before the abduction and murder of three teenaged Israeli students by Hamas terrorists from Amro’s hometown Hebron. Back then, Amro boasted about having a ‘secret plan’ for a “smart intifada.” Then there is his reported defense of a member of Hebron’s Qawasmi clan – which is prominently associated with Hamas and includes two of the perpetrators of the 2014 kidnapping and murder case. In addition, there is quite a bit of evidence indicating that Amro’s group Youth Against Settlements (YAS) is supportive of terrorism and is eager to incite Muslim religious passions that are often an important motivation for Palestinian terrorists.

I think it’s unlikely that the Washington Post’s “Foreign Affairs Writer” Ishaan Tharoor would be surprised by any of this. Given the focus of his writings, he is presumably aware of the fact that so-called “pro-Palestinian” activism is more correctly described as anti-Israel activism, because the goal of most groups and campaigns is the replacement of the world’s only Jewish state with yet another Arab-Muslim majority state.

This makes the title of Tharoor’s piece so devious: he pretends to explain “Why a leading Palestinian activist isn’t fixated on a Palestinian state” – but could he name any Palestinian or “pro-Palestinian” activist who is “fixated” on a Palestinian state that would peacefully coexist with a Jewish state of Israel? Indeed, it seems Tharoor didn’t even bother to ask Amro directly if he would support a negotiated two-state solution – or maybe he did, and Amro’s emphatic “no” is reflected in Tharoor’s opening paragraph, where he sneers at the failure of Washington’s “diplomats, politicos and wonks” to realize that “on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories, the two-state solution is a mirage.” [Bold original]

And of course, it’s all the fault of the “right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” and “Israeli settlers” who “continue to expand across the West Bank.” Since Tharoor’s “analysis” is supposedly “based on evidence, including data,” he surely knows that this relentless expansion “across the West Bank” over five decades has resulted in settlements that take up about 2% (according to data) to 4% (estimate) of West-Bank territory.

Then there’s this astonishing passage – with the first sentence bolded in the original:

“The repeated refrain from Netanyahu and other Israeli officials is that the main obstacle to peace is Palestinian violence. But that argument falls short with people like Amro, whose tactics include sit-ins and the monitoring of settlers and Israeli security forces with video cameras. ‘They see us as the main enemy,’ he told me. ‘They don’t know how to deal with nonviolence.’

‘It is particularly people like him that Israel is most uncomfortable with, more than the militant carrying the weapon,’ said Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. ‘People often ask, 'Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?' You’ll often find many of them either in Israeli prisons or shot or killed or otherwise oppressed from engaging in activism.’”

Right, of course: the Palestinians are really a people of Gandhis, all imprisoned or shot or killed for no reason whatsoever by a monstrously vicious Israel – “evidence, including data,” about Hamas and longstanding broad popular support for terrorism among Palestinians be damned.

So let’s conclude by looking at how Tharoor ends his piece:

“’It’s not about two states. It’s not about peace,’ Amro said, referring to the aims of Netanyahu and his allies. ‘They believe that it’s all for them.’”

Well, here’s a clue about what Amro believes: in a recently posted tweet, Amro’s group YAS claimed that “40,000 Israeli settlers storm into Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.” They repeated the same claim a day later, linking in both tweets to an article on the Islamist website MEMO, which often serves as a mouthpiece for Hamas.

The article features a photo of a religious Jew accompanied by a few children – which is presumably meant to illustrate how the “40,000 Israeli settlers” storming the “Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron” looked. Why religious Jews with children would want to “storm” any mosque is probably not a question that bothers the audience cheering Amro and YAS; but Amro and his group know of course that long before there was an “Ibrahimi Mosque,” the site was revered by Jews as the Cave of Machpelah (Tomb of the Patriarchs), and it is considered Judaism’s second holiest site after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet, most of the site is controlled by a Muslim body (waqf), while Jewish access to the site is severely restricted.

As is to be expected, the MEMO article Amro’s group links to is trying very hard to present the Jews visiting the site to mark the Jewish holiday of Sukkot as desecrating a holy place that rightfully belongs only to Muslims. According to MEMO, “The Director and Head of the Ibrahimi Mosque, Sheikh Hafthi Abu Esnaina, condemned the incursions. He stressed that Israel is encouraging the Judaisation of Palestinian religious sites. ‘The Ibrahimi Mosque will always be a holy site for Muslims only,’ he insisted.”

Sounds an awful lot like “They believe that it’s all for them.”

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10/23 Links Pt1: Toameh: The Iran-Hamas Plan to Destroy Israel; Netanyahu compared to Hitler by PA TV hosts

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Iran-Hamas Plan to Destroy Israel

Some Palestinian Authority and Hamas officials have recently claimed that Israel was not happy with their "reconciliation" agreement and was doing its utmost to foil it. The truth, however, is that it is Iran and Hamas that are working to thwart the agreement by insisting on maintaining the status quo in the Gaza Strip. Iran's message to Hamas: If you want us to continue providing you with financial and military aid, you must continue to hold on to your weapons and reject demands to disarm.

What is in it for Iran? Iran wants Hamas to retain its security control over the Gaza Strip so that the Iranians can hold onto another power base in the Middle East.

Iran wants Hamas to continue playing the role of a proxy, precisely as Hezbollah functions in Lebanon.

The last thing Iran wants is for the Palestinian Authority security forces to return to the Gaza Strip: that would spoil Tehran's plans to advance its goal of destroying Israel.

Iran's continued support for Hamas stems not out of love for either Hamas or the Palestinians, but from its own interest in consolidating its presence in the Middle East.

Many Palestinians see the "successful" visit of the Hamas officials to Tehran as a major setback for efforts to end the 10-year-long Hamas-Fatah dispute. Similarly, the Egyptians are now wary of the sudden rapprochement between Iran and Hamas and are beginning to ask themselves whether they have been duped by Hamas. An Israeli delegation that visited Cairo on the eve of the signing of the Hamas-Fatah deal is said to have warned the Egyptians that the "reconciliation" would not work unless Hamas disarms and severs its ties with Iran. However, the Egyptians reportedly failed to listen to the Israeli warning.

As for Israel, the US and other Western parties, the lesson to be drawn from the renewal of ties between Hamas and Iran is that Hamas has not changed one iota.

Contrary to delusional hopes, discussed on the heels of the "reconciliation" agreement in Cairo and based on lies and thin air, Hamas is not headed toward moderation and pragmatism. By openly supporting Hamas, Iran is once again demonstrating that it aims to fan the fire in the Middle East and continue to sabotage any prospects for peace.

PMW: Netanyahu compared to Hitler by PA TV hosts

In a show on official PA TV, the hosts compared Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to Hitler. The discussion was about mugs with a picture of Hitler that were “the most popular in Bulgaria” that had been removed from stores by police following a complaint by Israel’s ambassador.

PA TV’s Israeli Affairs Expert Fayez Abbas commented critically about Israel's complaint: “Look what they’ve come to.” The PA TV host responded by comparing Netanyahu to Hitler, and asked what would Israel have done had it been Netanyahu’s picture:
Israeli Affairs Expert Fayez Abbas:“Coffee mugs with Hitler's picture are the most popular in Bulgaria. However, the Israeli ambassador in Bulgaria interfered and submitted an official complaint, and the police seized the mugs from the stores. Look what they’ve come to.”
PA TV host: “If there was a picture of Netanyahu on them...”
Fayez Abbas: “On the contrary, they [Israelis] would be encouraging it.”
[Official PA TV, Palestine This Morning, Oct. 11, 2017]

Official PA media and leaders often compare Israel to Nazis and Netanyahu to Hitler. Palestinian Media Watch documented when the official PA daily published an op-ed, that Netanyahu "imitates Hitler's racism," which he acquired "genetically from the days of the Nazis and the Aryan race."

UNESCO-affiliated scholars slam agency’s anti-Israel bias, plead for rethink

A group of scholars affiliated with UNESCO criticized the agency for recent one-sided resolutions on Jerusalem, calling for a new approach to sensitive holy sites that takes into consideration everyone’s religious sensitivities.

“The UNESCO decisions on the holy sites in Jerusalem have failed to draw on expert scholarship and knowledge,” the scholars said in a joint statement, issued Thursday at the close of a conference in Israel’s capital.

"The reality in Jerusalem is complex. Complexity is the solution, not the problem. To understand the multi-layered situations and to avoid simplistic, inadequate and divisive responses that can, and do, have harmful consequences, scholarly expertise is required.”

The 15 scholars who issued the statement are members of UNESCO’s UNITWIN network for interreligious and intercultural studies. They include experts in intercultural studies from the US, Israel, France, Tajikistan, New Zealand, Russia and India.

Earlier this month, the US administration announced it was quitting UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Israel commended Washington for the move, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying UNESCO “has become a theater of the absurd” that distorts history instead of preserving it. He ordered the Foreign Ministry to “prepare Israel’s withdrawal from UNESCO in parallel with the US.”

We Jews have been branded (or self-branded) with a number of names. “People of the Book,” and “The Chosen People” are two of the most popular, although I’ve also heard us described as a “stiff-necked people,” a “people of memory,” as well as a “people that dwells alone.”

But when it comes to verbal jousting with political opponents, I’d like to propose a different title for our side: A people that rise to the bait.

To show you what I’m talking about, look at the comment section of last week’s Divest This bit on Elder (which discussed tactical options for fighting the campus wars in an era of intersectionality). On the surface, I should have been thrilled that the piece triggered over 60 discussion comments. But if you look those comments over, you’ll see that what triggered them was not my original argument but one of those run-of-the-mill accusations Israel haters routinely throw into other people’s comment sections, regardless of the original topic covered.

In this case, our visitor reached for the old “Israel as US-aid welfare queen” chestnut, and no sooner had he posted than dozens of supporters of the Jewish state rushed to debunk the accusation, presenting facts and arguments that explained the true nature of American aid to the Jewish state, while also trying to turn the slur back on the original accuser.

While this defense was both able and passionate, no one involved in it seemed to realize that (1) they were fighting on terrain chosen entirely by our enemies; and (2) no matter what facts and arguments were presented, the original accuser simply ignored them and continued on with the pointing finger.

It’s no accident that a culture, like ours, which values disputation and argument births defenders eager to mix it up with opponents. But when we rise to someone else’s bait (which we do time and time again), it never seems to occur to us that this gives our foes the power to decide what we get to talk about.

Even as we man the barricades to show our accusers how wrong and misguided they are, notice that they will never budge an inch from their original position. And if (usually when) their original attack has been smashed, they will either (1) bring up a new accusation, ignoring everything that’s been said before; or (2) slip away and start the whole shtick over again in the next venue they hijack for their own purposes.

Given this dynamic, why should we bother making new and fresh arguments in the first place if we’re willing to let any bozo dedicated to ignoring them dictate to us the terms of debate?

By endlessly accusing opponents and demanding a response while never responding to the points of those opponents, Israel’s foes want to place us in the lose-lose position of either rising to their bait (and thus handing them control over debate) or saying nothing and letting the opposition’s accusations stand unchallenged.

I wish I could offer a no-fail way of handling such situations (which have arisen dozens of times during my many years of blogging). One useful technique is to promise an opponent an immediate answer to their challenge once they either respond to the original blog post or admit (either directly or through silence) they are in full agreement with my original points. Another is to point out the dynamic described above and insist that the accuser’s days of acting as prosecutor, judge, jury and hangman are over.

Whatever you choose to do, always keep in mind that once you’ve moved the discussion to a topic of your opponent’s choosing, you have already limited the best-case scenario to not losing, rather than winning the argument.

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Last week there was a bombshell in the Israeli political scene:

Israel does not necessarily need to evacuate any West Bank settlements in a future peace deal with the Palestinians, Labor party leader Avi Gabbay said Monday.

The left-wing party leader made the statement in an interview with Israel's Channel 2, after having been asked whether the Eli or Ofra settlements would have to be evacuated.

"If you make a peace deal, solutions can be found that do not necessitate evacuations," Gabbay said. "If a peace deal is made, why do we need to evacuate? I think the dynamic or the terminology that we have become accustomed to, that if you make a peace deal you evacuate, is not actually true."

The statement shocked members of Labor and its partner, Zionist Union, and was widely criticized, but mostly privately, out of fear of public infighting in the beleaguered leftist party.

Gabbay himself clarified a day later, and the media completely missed that his clarification was not based on a rightist view - but that of a liberal:

Gabbay elaborated on his comments on Tuesday, saying that "we must not look at the evacuation of 80,000 Jews casually."

One rock-solid rule of modern international law is the illegality of the forcible transfer of populations except for extreme security reasons. In almost all circumstances, forcibly transferring a group of people against their will is regarded as a war crime, the only exception being for security reasons.

Among the many international instruments against forced transfer:

Pursuant to Article 7(1)(d) of the 1998 ICC Statute, “[d]eportation or forcible transfer of the population”, “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,” constitutes a crime against humanity.

Under Article 8(2)(a)(vii) of the 1998 ICC Statute, “[u]nlawful deportation or transfer” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts.

Under Article 8(2)(e)(viii) of the 1998 ICC Statute, “[o]rdering the displacement of the civilian population for reasons related to the conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand”, constitutes a war crime in non-international armed conflicts.

Article 3(1)(a) of the 2009 Kampala Convention provides that States Parties shall: “[r]efrain from, prohibit and prevent arbitrary displacement of populations”.
States Parties shall respect and ensure respect for their obligations under international law, including human rights and humanitarian law, so as to prevent and avoid conditions that might lead to the arbitrary displacement of persons. [P]rohibited categories of arbitrary displacement include but are not limited to: …b. Individual or mass displacement of civilians in situations of armed conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand, in accordance with international humanitarian law;…h. Displacement caused by any act, event, fact or phenomenon of comparable gravity … and which is not justified under international law, including human rights and international humanitarian law.

The 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement provide:
Principle 5All authorities and international actors shall respect and ensure respect for their obligations under international law, including human rights and humanitarian law, in all circumstances, so as to prevent and avoid conditions that might lead to displacement of persons.Principle 61. Every human being shall have the right to be protected against being arbitrarily displaced from his or her home or place of habitual residence.2. The prohibition of arbitrary displacement includes displacement:(b) in situations of armed conflict, unless the security of the civilians involved or imperative military reasons so demand;

The right of people to continue to live where they have lived is considered in nearly all circumstances to be sacred under international law, and under international humanitarian law, the only real exception being for urgent security reasons.

No one, and I mean no one, demands that populations be forcibly removed from occupied territories in Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus since 1974; Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara since 1975; Armenia’s occupation of parts of Azerbaijan including Nagorno-Karabakh since 1994; Russia’s occupation of Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia since 2008; and Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea since 2014. In fact, the human rights of "settlers" is considered obvious in all cases - except Israelis.

It is self-evident that forcibly removing populations is inconsistent with modern, liberal interpretations of international law. The previously accepted "population transfers" from the first half of the twentieth century (for example, India/Pakistan) are no longer considered to be legal by anyone.

Gabbay's statement was not "rightist"- it was liberal and entirely consistent with the Labor Party's leftist philosophy.

The so-called liberals who are upset at Gabbay are the ones who are advocating a policy that is reminiscent of fascism. Anyone who cares about human rights cannot create an exception for a single group of people, and all those who criticize him for his statements from the Left are simply hypocrites.

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