Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Arabs seethe over Saudi writer's pro-Jewish and anti-Pal stance

Palestinian Arabs and other anti-Israel and antisemitic Arabs are seething over two tweets by Saudi writer Saud al-Fawzan, a columnist for the Saudi Al Asharq newspaper.

Al-Fawzan's first tweet said:

I rented furniture from a Jewish store, and when my flat burned down, I met the owner of the store, who said (to his workers): “Furnish the flat on my account”. I regretted each time that I “paid a Riyal to save an Arab”

“Pay a Riyal, save an Arab” was the name of a campaign of donations for the Palestinians, conducted in Saudi schools, organized by the Saudi government 30 years ago.

That tweet was met with a torrent of antisemitic replies, but not a small amount of support for al-Fawzan as well.

Then he tweeted:

I am not the Jews’ lawyer, but truth must be said: Show me one Jew who killed a Saudi, and I will show you a thousand Saudis from ISIS and Al-Qaeda who killed their own kind with explosive belts.

This received hundreds of very angry replies.

Arab media is picking up on this story.

The cracks in the antisemitic, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian stances in the Arab world are getting wider every day.

While the spread of the Internet has had a huge impact on an Arabs who are now questioning the hate they were taught as they grew up, it is worth noting that this writer's attitude was apparently changed by a single Jew doing him a big favor.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Palestinians burn British, American and Israeli flags on anniversary of Balfour Declaration in 2015

Now, this is how to do propaganda.

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and Higher Education announced on Tuesday the launch of a campaign, in cooperation with the PA's Supreme National Committee, to get Palestinian high school students to write 100 thousand letters addressed to Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May against the Balfour Declaration on its centenary.

According to a ministry statement, these messages will be written in different languages, and a number of them will be published in the media.

In addition, a moment of silence will be observed in all Palestinian schools in commemoration of the letter.

The ministry instructed school districts to organize events on November 1 in every schoolyard, and to invite the media and Palestinian leaders to participate.

Every student is supposed to hold a sign in Arabic or English denouncing the Declaration and insisting on an apology from Great Britain.

The Palestinian Authority eagerly and cynically uses children in an effort to get news coverage of its political goal to destroy Israel. And the wire services that will show pictures of these children holding signs will not mention that the PA forced them to do it, and make it appear like a grassroots movement of angry youths.

Children are being weaponized. And the money behind this campaign comes from your tax dollars.

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Bethany Mandel writes in The Forward:

Last week, Quebec introduced a “burqa ban” – a prohibition against Muslim women wearing the full-face covering (which is actually called a niqab, not a burqa) in the public sphere. The law bans those working in public service or using public services from wearing veils or any sort of facial covering. Teachers and doctors, and anyone else who works for the government, would be subject to the law, as would anyone taking the bus.

Similar bans have been passed across Europe, like the national ban on burqas in schools in France and the total ban on full-face veils in France and Belgium. When the bill was passed in Belgian parliament, lawmakers cited security reasons for the ban, also claiming the veil is a tool of oppression.

But the ban in Quebec is the first time such measures have been taken in North America.

...We Jews especially should stand up for religious liberty rights, regardless of what that faith is. We especially should be in the business of opposing legislation like “burqa bans,” because any attempt to get a minority religious group to assimilate inevitably affects Jews as well.

...And as we saw in France, these bans don’t just affect Muslims, but almost certainly will come to affect Jews who also cover their heads for religious reasons. If Canada proceeds down this path, Jewish men will no longer be able to wear yarmulkes, and religious married women will be banned from wearing a wig (sheitel) or scarf.

If Jews are interested in practicing some ideological consistency, not to mention preventing ourselves from becoming collateral damage in a misguided attempt to assimilate Muslims, this is just the kind of legislation we should be pushing back against. We’re too well acquainted with religious discrimination to bow out of this one.

After the uproar over the proposal, the person who introduced it clarified what it was meant to do:

{t]he law would be in effect only at the moment of identification. Someone embarking on a municipal bus would have to show their face in order to use a transit pass with photo ID, but would not have to remain unveiled for the duration of the ride.

People would have to uncover their faces in order to ask a question of library staff or register at a medical clinic or hospital, but could leave their faces covered while browsing bookshelves or sitting in the waiting room. The ban would extend to public services such as attending university classes, seeking court documents from a clerk or picking up children from a public daycare.

“These are commonsense rules,” Vallee told reporters. They would apply to anyone whose face is obscured, including those wearing large sunglasses or scarves, she said.

The law does not stipulate fines or sanctions for those who fail to comply and does allow for accommodation requests, with guidelines as to the process expected to be ready in the coming months.

The lawmakers blew it with the original rationale of "social cohesion" being the reason for the ban, since, as Mandel notes, that is a slippery slope that could apply to any religious symbol.

However, there are two real reasons that the niqab should be banned in the public sphere, and perhaps beyond. One is the basic idea of identifying people, as noted in the revised reason for the ban - people should not be allowed to wear masks of any sort in schools and when boarding buses because normal social and official interaction requires seeing someone's face and identifying them to be who they claim to be. Otherwise someone could kidnap little Maryam from day care pretending to be her mother.

The more important reason to ban the niqab (and burqa), which the Quebec lawmakers didn't mention, is that those garments are a violation of women's rights. Islam does not require that a woman's face be covered, but too many extremist Muslims force women - either directly or through social pressure - to wear the veil. It is akin to torture.

As feminist Phyllis Chesler puts it:

In a burqa or chadari, one has no peripheral and only limited forward vision; one's hearing and speech are muffled. One's facial expressions remain unknown; no eye contact is possible. Movement is severely limited. A first-time burqa wearer may feel that she cannot breathe freely and that she might slowly be suffocating. She may feel buried alive and may become anxious, claustrophobic. (Try on a burqa, this experience is easy to confirm). Imagine the consequences of getting used to this as a way of life. But maybe one never gets used to it. I have heard many descriptions of what Saudi women do the moment their aircraft leaves the Kingdom's terra firma: they immediately fling off their "coverings."

A burqa wearer, who can be as young as ten years old, must surely experiences both isolation and sensory deprivation which are, essentially, forms of torture which can lead to depression, anxiety, even a psychological breakdown. According to my colleague, psychoanalyst and Arabist, Dr. Nancy L. Kobrin, the burqa may "create an artificially induced autistic-like environment." Covering up the five senses is harmful to the woman in the burqa; making it impossible to recognize or identify such a woman is potentially harmful to others.

If you care about security, you should be against all face coverings. If you care about women's rights, you should be against the use of the Islamic veil.

(I am reading Chesler's new book, "Islamic Gender Apartheid - Exposing a Veiled War Against Women." This is a major theme of the book, which I hope to review next week.)

If Quebec wanted to ban the hijab (headscarf,) I would be against it 100%. That would indeed be a violation of freedom of religion. The hijab doesn't impede women's freedoms.

But the niqab/veil (and more so the burqa, which has been used to hide hundreds of suicide bombers) is a violation of the rights of women - and it is a security risk as well.

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10/24 Links Pt2: British élites regret Israel's very existence; Faculty Support for BDS Intensifies Antisemitism on Campuses

From Ian:

British élites regret Israel's very existence

The refusal of Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the English Labor Party, to attend the dinner in London for the centenary of the Balfour Declaration is the confirmation of what many have always suspected (for the occasion, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in the British capital to thank the UK for that gift made in 1917 to the Jewish people).

The antipathy towards Israel by Corbyn and other important Western segments of the Left goes far beyond hostility towards Israeli “settlements”, as the leaders of the Left repeat. Corbyn and his comrades would like Israel to never have been born.

Corbyn and his comrades would like Israel to never have been born.
The leader of “Momentum” is often referred as a hooligan on the Israeli issue. But Corbyn's refusal to publicly support Israel's right to exist is in fact embraced by a substantial part of the British élite. They are government officials, MPs, filmmakers, journalists, intellectuals, academics, heads of non-governmental organizations, church leaders.

England has first place in Europe for the academic boycott of Israel. English universities are often no-go-zones for Israeli students. English actors, such as Emma Thompson, are often in the front row signing petitions against “Zionism”. English newpapers, such as the Times and the Independent, host the most violent cartoons against Israeli leaders. And the English queen has never visited Israel.

It would make us comfortable if Corbyn's rejection of the centennial of Balfour, a rejection praised by Hamas, was the decision of the crazy guevarist mind out of step with time. But that is not the case. Indeed, intellectual corbynism is within the British mainstream, it is the expression of the “chattering classes”, those who make the public opinion in the UK.

Shadow Foreign Secretary will attend Balfour centenary

Emily Thornberry, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, will attend a high-profile event to commemorate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, the party has confirmed.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had declined an invitation to the dinner in London next month.

A spokesman for the Leader of the Opposition said on Friday "Jeremy is unable to attend this event, but Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry will be attending."

Jonathan Goldstein, chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council, has called Mr Corbyn’s absence “deeply unfortunate”.

It was Ms Thornberry rather than the Labour leader who appeared at a Labour Friends of Israel reception during the party’s conference last month.

David Collier: History repeating: Jewish Voice for Labour, today’s Yevsektsiya

You can be religious and not Zionist, you can be Zionist and not religious, but you cannot be both anti-religious and anti-Zionist in the Diaspora without bringing about an end to the Jewish family tree. Imagine for just one moment, that JVL gave a representative face of British Jews. Imagine that all Jews were like this. How would the Jewish people look in two generations? They simply wouldn’t. JVL represent the ‘communist’ answer to Judaism, the eradication of the identity. Their way, the Jewish people would simply cease to exist.

The propaganda involved is staggering. Calls to restrict the over-amplification of the voice are met with accusations of ‘suppression’. Apparently, this ideologically driven antisemitic hate, should be allowed to develop freely. Perversely, they turn criticism of the group on its head, suggesting that opposition to these Jews is the only real antisemitism in the room. Look at this vile tweet from Asa Winstanley:

That’s antisemitism right there. Winstanley is using today’s Yevsektsiya to attack Jewish identity, both in the national and religious sense. The group are putrid, yet Winstanley hides behind them for ideological reasons. As does, rather unsurprisingly, Ben White:

Ben White. 814 retweets. The same identifiable issue. The promotion of the ‘Yevsektsiya’. To see the antisemitic propaganda in motion, and to understand the intent, here is the headline from the Socialist Worker:

Here, the explicit aims of JVL are set out in the headlines. The article goes on to ‘big-up’ JVL. The group was created to deflect accusations of antisemitism. The same core reason for the creation of the Yevsektsiya in 1918. If you know an anti-Israel activist, any of them, go and look at their social media pages. You will see it full of promotional material about the modern Labour Party Yevsektsiya. Legitimisers of Jew-hate.

Ending this antisemitism
Labour has an antisemitism problem. A problem it cannot even begin to address until the groups at the root of the attacks are rejected. About 300 people packed the hall at the JVL launch, to welcome the latest version of the Yevsektsiya to the political world. The vast majority were not Jewish. That non-Jewish crowd that came to seek legitimacy for their own hatred – inherently antisemitic.

The two union bosses, Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey and Aslef train drivers’ union president Tosh McDonald, both of who turned up at the event to promise their union’s affiliation with a hate group – antisemitic. Placing a microphone in front of Idrissi to artificially amplify the group’s voice- antisemitic. Hiding behind these Jews, promoting them, using them as a way of attacking other Jews, all antisemitic.

It is why the atmosphere at the conference was so bad. Only when this is understood and dealt with, only when the ‘it’s kosher to boycott Israel’ banners no longer appear at each Labour rally, can Labour move on. Labour needs, as a first step, to forcefully reject JVL, the group’s members and everything that the group stands for.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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