Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Shame, shame, shame. What Human Rights Watch won’t do for money. (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

When HRW was schmoozing with the Saudis

What a difference a few months can make… Sarah Leah Whitson – who is the executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch – is now raging against Saudi Arabia. You can find countless examples of her fury on her Twitter feed.

But just a few months ago, Whitson apparently felt that the Saudis (and other repressive Arab regimes) could make great allies against Israel.

Back in the merry month of May, Whitson quoted a tweet by Jordan’s foreign minister condemning Israel’s response to the Gaza riots and added the comment: “Your turn @AdelAljubeir and @abzayed and @mfaEgypt -- have any firm words for your ally @Netanyahu and his open fire policies that allow this massacre to unfold?”

The people she tagged as contemptible ‘allies’ of Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu included Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Aljubeir and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed as well as Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It clearly didn’t matter to Whitson that these countries have dismal human rights records – she would have been only too happy if they joined her to bash the Jewish state for defending its borders from violent mobs incited by Gaza’s Islamist rulers.

Just like Whitson has changed her tune on the Saudis, her boss Ken Roth is by now also sure that they really deserve to be shunned. As he commented disapprovingly on a recent report about brisk business at a Saudi investment conference: “Shame, shame, shame. What people won’t do for money.”

Well, less than a decade ago – when the Saudi human rights record was hardly better than now – one could have said: “Shame, shame, shame. What Human Rights Watch won’t do for money.”

It’s worthwhile checking out this superb post by Jeffrey Goldberg from 2009 on “Fundraising Corruption at Human Rights Watch.”

Goldberg notes that he first found it hard to believe a report which claimed “that Human Rights Watch officials went trolling for dollars in Saudi Arabia, and that the organization’s senior Middle East official, Sarah Leah Whitson, attempted to extract money from potential Saudi donors by bragging about the group’s ‘battles’ with the ‘pro-Israel pressure groups.’” As Goldberg put it back then: “this allegation, if proven true, would cast serious doubt on whether Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division could ever fairly judge Israel again.”

Goldberg then recounted his efforts to find out whether the allegation was true, and he posted his astonishing email exchanges with Ken Roth, who did everything humanly possible to avoid answering Goldberg questions.

In the end, Goldberg managed to get Ken Roth to admit that his organization had indeed tried to solicit Saudi donations by highlighting HRW reports on Israel and by claiming that Israel’s supporters “fight back with lies and deception.”

Well, that was probably a very worthwhile fundraising effort in a country that had long made sure that “modern-day Muslim readers have at their disposal the whole gamut of Nazi antisemitic mythology and iconography.”

Shame, shame, shame. What Human Rights Watch won’t do for money.

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Palestinian deputy PM threatens violence and terror forever unless Israel surrenders Jerusalem

Nabil Abu Rudeina, the Palestinian Authority's deputy prime minister and minister of information and spokesperson for Mahmoud Abbas, has once again made a Mafia-style threat of violence that the world will roundly ignore - because no one wants to upset the meme that the Palestinian Authority is anything but peaceful.

Speaking in response to a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, he said, "There is no peace and no security without the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the 1967 borders."

Forget international law, forget signed agreements, forget solemn promises that the PLO no longer supports terror. Palestinian leaders say that unless they get everything they demand - without compromise - they will continue to support violence and terror, murder and mayhem, bombs and bullets. Whether the threat is implicit or explicit, it is a clear threat and proof positive that Palestinian leaders are against peace.

But instead of reacting with justified anger at such overt threats, the world responds as if the demands are reasonable and it is Israel that is promoting violence - by not giving in to this blackmail.

The idea is bigoted - Israel is responsible not only for Israeli actions but for Arab violence. Israelis who are killed and terrorized deserve it because they haven't given in to the threats. And the Arabs who embrace violence are hailed as heroes.

This is not an exaggeration. Many articles are being published today about a viral photo taken on Monday in Gaza talking about how this photograph of a Palestinian with a sling in one hand is "iconic" and the protester is being hailed as heroic.

This is romanticizing terror and violence, and no one has a problem with it.

Because the world has bought into the sickening idea that Palestinian violence is just and the Israeli desire to live in security is evil.

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10/24 Links Pt2: NY Times Suggests Israeli Victim of Stabbing Attack Was Aggressor; UNESCO Slammed by US Religious Freedom Commission for Denying Jewish Connection to Holy Sites

From Ian:

She admits she planned the Sbarro massacre. But for parts of the media, Ahlam Tamimi remains 'an accomplice'

In a piece about FBI Most Wanted fugitive terrorist Ahed Tamimi published yesterday, the Washington Post breezily describes our daughter's murderer this way:

For Israelis, the Tamimis are a group of provocateurs intent on manipulating the media to hurt the country’s image. One cousin [of Ahed], Ahlam Tamimi, was an accomplice to a suicide bombing. "
At this point, we know a lot about Ahlam Tamimi. Here's how she herself details the central role she took in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria massacre:

Interviewer: "Who chose Sbarro [restaurant, as the target of the attack]?"
Ahlam Tamimi: "I did. For nine days I examined the place very carefully and chose it after seeing the large number of patrons at the Sbarro restaurant. My mission was just to choose the place and to bring the martyrdom-seeker (i.e. the human bomb, a young man called Al-Masri). [I made] the general plan of the operation but carrying it out was entrusted to the martyrdom-seeker."
Ahlam Tamimi: "I told him to enter the restaurant, eat a meal, and then after 15 minutes carry out the martyrdom-seeking operation. My job was to realize, for this martyrdom-seeker, the happy life that he wanted."
Interviewer: "Didn't you think about the people who were in the restaurant? The children? The families?"
Ahlam Tamimi: "No."
Interviewer: "Do you know how many children were killed in the restaurant?"
Ahlam Tamimi: "Three children were killed in the operation, I think."
Interviewer: "Eight."
Ahlam Tamimi (smiling): "Eight? Eight!"

This is the monster that Jordan's King Abdullah refuses to extradite to the United States despite the US Department of Justice's request under a valid extradition treaty that has existed between those two countries since 1995 and under which multiple Jordanian felons have been extradited to face trial in US courts.

NY Times Suggests Israeli Victim of Stabbing Attack Was Aggressor

CAMERA has recently highlighted numerous examples of the New York Times using language to manipulate reader understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict and its players.

Over the past several weeks, for example, the newspaper slurred an official who fights anti-Semitism as “a longtime opponent of Palestinian rights causes,” but dubbed a student who led a virulently anti-Israel organization on campus as merely an “advocate for Palestinian rights” whose credentials as an anti-Israel activist are “far from clear-cut.” It wrongly declared that Palestinian stone-throwing attacks, part of a regular schedule of rioting along Gaza’s border with Israel, were a “response” to supposed Israeli “intervention,” but concealed that a wave of Israeli airstrikes were a response to Palestinian rocket fire. Earlier in the year, a Times count of “protesters” killed by Israel included Hamas gunmen who were killed while attacking Israeli soldiers.

The pattern continued yesterday in a Times story about the relationship between Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan. The article, by Isabel Kershner and Rana Sweis, recounts a diplomatic crisis between the two countries as follows:

Last year a confrontation involving an Israeli guard at Israel’s embassy compound in Amman, which left two Jordanians dead, led to a monthslong diplomatic standoff.

The language is vague. There was a confrontation, then two dead Jordanians. The clear impression is that the Israeli killed the two Jordanians, which is narrowly true, but readers aren’t told whether “confrontation” describes the slaying of the Jordanians without cause, some pushing and shoving, or just a shouting match. We sense there’s an Israeli aggressor, and that’s all.

GoFundMe page for Beersheva family whose house was destroyed by rocket https://t.co/AfABhUw4m7
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) October 24, 2018

Disclaimer: If you are an American Jew who believes in coexistence, pluralism, and peace, and you think that Israel could not exist without you and your largesse, you probably should not read this piece as you will find it to be unbearably pompous and ungrateful.

If you are Israeli and were at the General Assembly (GA) this week, with its confrontational theme “Let’s Talk,” you know by now that you should be very grateful that the Americans have come. Because Israeli Jewry needs a good talking to, needs to be put in its place. GA Co-Chairman Marius Nacht underscored this point when he said that looked at from the perspective of dog years, Israeli Jews are younger than you think they’d be at 70 years old. Israeli Jews are, in actuality, “adolescent teenagers,” while American Jews are the “responsible adult.”

Yes. He actually said that. And then he delivered the coup de grâce. “It’s time for parent and teenager to talk,” said Nacht.

“Whoa,” I said to myself and sucked in my breath. “Is that ever paternalistic, or what??”

It’s funny, because I knew it would be like that at the GA, the paternalistic, insulting attitude, but I had expected it to be more veiled. Mostly, it was. People used words like “dialogue” and “discussion” even if what they really meant was “Let’s make Israeli Jews hear the American Jewish (liberal left pluralistic) viewpoint.”

And force them to heel.

After all, the Americans have been paying the big bucks to develop Israel and prop it up. They’ve kept it going all these years. Make no mistake. They told us so, us Israelis. More than once. Federation bigwig after bigwig, graced with a chance to speak into a mic these past couple of days patted themselves on the back and said, “Israel would not exist without North American Jewry.”

Now it could be that’s true. They certainly have raised a lot of money for Israel. It could be that without that money, Israel would still be a dusty, dirty, Turkish outpost, or that Israeli Jews would have been wiped out in their entirety, slaughtered by Arabs long ago (or pushed into the sea), had it not been for all that money to buy munitions. It could be we’d all be dead of malaria if they’d not brought us hospitals and top-notch medical care. It could be we wouldn’t have so many people here from so many countries, thriving, with amazing job opportunities, and healthy, nutritious food.

It could be.

But couldn’t it just be that without Israel, American Jewry would long ago have succumbed to its final death throes? Might it not be equally true that without Israel as American Jewry’s symbol and primary project, that North American Jews would have no reason to remain Jewish or to have Jewish pride?

I’m just going to throw that out there for you to think about.

It has been said that more than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews. I would posit that “keeping” Israel is just as important as something that keeps Jews Jewish, uniting them toward a common goal. And that was my reason for attending the GA.

In the run-up to the GA, it was clear from the venue (liberal Tel Aviv as opposed to traditional Jerusalem); the panel themes of coexistence, pluralism, and peace; and the identities of the speakers (nary a religious person or anyone on the right), that the GA was to be biased in favor of the leftist liberal narrative. This made it crucial to assert a different narrative, to make sure another side was presented and heard.

But during a panel on the state of religious pluralism in Israel, the moderator, apparently in reaction to seeing that my hair was covered, refused to allow me to ask a question of the panelists. She self-described as “very active on behalf of religious pluralism.” But her “plural” apparently does not include the orthodox or their views.

I did better on the second day of the GA during a panel on coexistence. The speakers consisted of two Jews and two Arabs who have different youth organizations that work to bring Arab youth and Jewish youth together. It seemed to me that the organizations center on having the kids socialize to show them that at heart, we’re all just people.

All well and good. But if you don’t wrestle with the tough stuff, it’s all meaningless. So I posed the following question to Meredith Rothbart of Kids4Peace: “North American Israeli Ari Fuld was murdered by a Palestinian teenager one month ago and this was a very impactful event. Did you discuss the murder with the kids, and if not, why not?”

Rothbart’s answer seemed vague to me. “Whenever there is something difficult,” she said, “we talk about it.”

Then she went off into a tangent about her family saying after every terror attack, “Now will you quit your job???” and described how her brother was in the synagogue in Har Nof during the time that the infamous terror attack took place there. How her family is all over the religious spectrum, and etc.

None of this actually answered my question. Did they talk about ARI? Did they talk about why some kid just decided to up and stab him to death because he was a Jew.

My guess is they didn’t talk about Ari, but perhaps spoke about terror in general terms, without getting into the specifics. Because if they had talked about Ari and what happened, she would have said so, in frank terms, without diverging into side issues, or generalizing about terror attacks in general.

I was willing to let it go, having at least raised the issue in front of this large, liberal audience. But another member of the panel, Omar Alyan of Net@, asked if he could also respond to my question. He made full eye contact with me, and his voice was infused with sincerity, as he told me about a recent day in which something had happened (whatever it was wasn’t named) and it was frightening for the Arab youth of his organization to meet with Jewish youth because of heightened security measures at the center, which meant checkpoints and lots of big scary IDF soldiers with guns.

I had been content to shut up, but now I was furious. “Surely you are not suggesting that this is the same as minding your own business and being stabbed to death???”

And a woman in a row ahead of me, turned around, touched me on the arm and chimed in loudly for all to hear, “You’re right! It’s NOT the same.”

Alyan finished his story by telling us how a virtual meeting had been suggested instead, but the Arab kids manned up and said, “No. If we do not come, there will be no peace. We ARE the peace.”

And so the meeting was held despite all the scary people in khaki holding arms.

Alyan, by the way, when earlier asked if Israel had a right to exist, remarked that from Jerusalem to Haifa, that is his, with all of us living in peace of course. He also said that at the end of the day, both Arabs and Jews want to make sure the doors are locked, that both sides live in fear. Which is a lot of crap. No Jews are coming after Arabs unless the Arabs come at them FIRST.

This session was just chockful of bull pucky, of course. I could go on and describe it for you. But the bottom line is that I was grateful to have the opportunity to assert a different, more truthful narrative at the GA for the American Jewish audience members to hear—a narrative that illustrates the inequality of the situation. Because the fact is that no matter how much Jewish and Arab youth socialize with each other, if their leaders aren’t going to be real about the issues, no true coexistence or anything of lasting value will come out of these experiments. No matter that they so deeply please North American Jews with their big fat wallets and their money.

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Lara Alqassem Blending In Among Heb. U Faculty (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

: Credit: Grauesel via Wikimedia Commons

Jerusalem, October 24 - An American anti-Israel activist whose expulsion from the country was overturned by the High Court began her studies today at the Hebrew University, where her radical politics and opposition to Jewish sovereignty made her difficult to distinguish from the majority of lecturers on staff at the institution.

Lara Alqassem rode a series of successful appeals to have a deportation order canceled, despite evidence that she had led a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel group often involved in threatening behavior toward Jews on college campuses in the US. As the fall semester launched this week, Ms. Alqassem had the mistaken impression that she would stand out, only to discover her dismissal of Jewish ties to their ancient homeland dovetails with the views of a good number of faculty at Hebrew U.

"I thought I'd be more conspicuous," she admitted. "I did, after all, campaign on behalf of Rasmeah Odeh, who murdered two students from this same university. But apparently that's not enough to make you stand apart from the crowd in academia these days, not even Israeli academia. I thought all the like-minded folks were at Tel Aviv University, or maybe Ben-Gurion over in Beer Sheva, but it turns out there's no shortage of kindred spirits right here."

Ms. Alqassem's surprise compounded upon discovering that the anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish vibe finds a welcome home even outside the sizable population of Arabs attending Hebrew U. "At first I didn't even expect to see Arabs, since I know Israel is a fascist Apartheid state," she recalled. "Well, I was a little discomfited to see that's not the case in this situation. Of course that won't stop me from bandying about the 'Apartheid' label at every opportunity. I have cred to maintain."

Some students and faculty, in fact, voiced disappointment at Ms. Alqassem's claims in court that she had abandoned or softened her previous anti-Israel positions. "I don't know how well she's going to fit in here," cautioned Fashla Sharmuta, a sophomore. "We expected a bit more courage from someone confronting the vast Jewish-controlled media in America, but there she was, pretending she doesn't believe in boycotting Israel or its institutions anymore. I'd much rather have seen her get deported so we could continue with our narrative of the Jew- I mean Israel suppressing dissent and silencing critics, since that's how we're used to our supporters on campuses operating."

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10/24 Links Pt1: Peace with Jordan – stop panicking; Netanyahu reaffirms commitment to demilitarized Palestinian state; PA Violates Oslo Accords in East Jerusalem

From Ian:

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Peace with Jordan – stop panicking

The King of Jordan, not some lowly clerk, announced that Jordan will not extend the currently existing leases renting two parcels of land to Israel. One is the so-called Island of Peace in the northern Naharayim area and the other located in the southern Arava, near Tzofar, an agricultural cooperative village (moshav). Jordan was entirely within its rights to decide not to renew the leases insofar as the relevant clauses in the 1994 peace treaty with Israel are concerned, and the only reason the king announced it himself was to give the declaration the weight of a final decision not open to negotiation. Jordan’s foreign minister added, in his own declaration, that if there are to be negotiations, they will be limited to deciding on the way those areas are to be returned to Jordanian jurisdiction.

Since the publication of the King’s declaration, utter hysteria has overcome the Israeli media and the voices of both broadcasters and those they interview are laced with panic. “Jordan has cancelled the peace treaty!!” “Why is the king doing this to us?” “What will happen to the longest peaceful border Israel has? “ Politicians, on the other hand, are attempting to calm us down on the lines of: “The peace treaty with Jordan is a strategic asset of the first order for Israel,” “ there is no threat to future relations with Jordan,” “Jordan depends on us for its security,” and other similarly irresponsible remarks, the gist of which is that Israel would do anything to preserve the peace agreement with Jordan.

Those media personalities and their interviewees do not realize that when they talk about the importance of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, they are granting the Hashemite kingdom the ability to pressure Israel on more crucial issues, such as a Palestinian Arab state in Judea and Samaria, continuing Jordan’s special status in Jerusalem overriding Israel’s sovereignty in the Holy City and including Jordan as a partner to negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. In its endless search for scoops and hysterical headlines, the media have turned into talking heads whose unnecessary pronouncements ignore the Middle Eastern propensity for raising the price of anything Israel considers important.

The King of Jordan announced the cancellation of the leasing due to internal pressures. Numerous Jordanians demanded that the leasing of Jordanian land to Israel must end and the king acceded to those demands. In addition, the king has several “bones to pick” with Israel and the US, especially regarding Jerusalem, America’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital and its relocation of the embassy. Trump took these steps despite King Abdullah II’s requests to leave the Jerusalem issue to negotiations between the PA and Israel, expecting the city to be divided between Israel and a future Palestinian state. The king was insulted when his request was ignored and looked for a way to punish Israel.

Hashemite Chutzpah

Traditionally, when you start a war and lose, there's a price to pay--especially if the land you launched from wasn’t yours in the first place. Whatever will or won't become, in the future, of the land in question, it must be noted that this is disputed territory, not "purely Arab" land. In Arab eyes, however, they claim the whole region as “purely Arab patrimony.”

Jews lived and owned property in those "occupied territories" until their slaughter by Arabs in the 1920s and 1930s. Judea (as in JEW) and Samaria, only since the 20th century known as the "West Bank" (via British imperialism and Transjordan's later annexation), were non-apportioned parts of the original 1920 Mandate with thousands of years of documented Jewish history; and leading authorities such as Eugene Rostow, William O'Brien, and others have stressed that these areas were open to settlement by Jew, Arab, and other residents of the Mandate alike.

The Minutes of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission documented scores of thousands entering into Palestine from Syria alone in just several months’ time. Hamas' "patron saint," Sheikh Izzedine al-Qassam (for whom the rockets and terror brigade are named), was from Latakia.

It's estimated that many more Arabs entered the Mandate, to take advantage of the economic development going on because of the Jews, under cover of darkness and were never recorded...more Arab settlers setting up more Arab settlements in Palestine. Why are these "legal" and those of the Jews not? Scores of thousands of Jews in Syria soon became refugees fleeing that country. Greater New York City alone now has tens of thousands of descendants, with some of the most beautiful synagogues I’ve ever seen.

Peace between Israel and its immediate Arab neighbor to the east is obviously a worthy goal. But the world must stop accepting the Hashemites’ assertion that Jordan is not part of the balance sheet when the of rights of both Arabs and Jews in the region are being discussed.

David Singer: Jordan and Israel – Trump’s only viable two-state solution

Four major developments in the past week have heightened expectations that President Trump will have no option but to call on Jordan and Israel to negotiate the allocation of sovereignty between their two respective States in the West Bank and Gaza – 5% of the territory comprised in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (Mandate) .

Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the Mandate currently exercising sovereignty in the other 95% of the Mandate territory – Jordan 78%, Israel 17%.

Jordan-Israel negotiations – if successfully concluded – would complete the two-state solution first contemplated under article 25 of the Mandate. Arab and Jewish claims to the Mandate territory would be finally resolved.

These four developments were:
1. The G77 and China – comprising 135 of the 193 United Nations member states – appointed the non-existing “State of Palestine” as Chairman of the G77 for 2019 and procured the passage of a United Nations General Assembly Resolution giving this phantom “State of Palestine” the right to:
(a) Make statements on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, including among representatives of major groups;
(b) Submit proposals and amendments and introduce them on behalf of the Group of 77 and China;
(c) Co-sponsor proposals and amendments;
(d) Make explanations of vote on behalf of the States Members of the United Nations that are members of the Group of 77 and China;
(e) Reply regarding positions of the Group of 77 and China;
(f) Raise procedural motions, including points of order and requests to put proposals to the vote, on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

US Ambassador to the UN – Nikki Haley – re-iterated America’s long-standing position:
“The United States does not recognize a Palestinian state, notes that no such state has been admitted as a UN Member State, and does not believe that the Palestinians are eligible to be admitted as a UN Member State.”

The PLO has chosen the United Nations fantasyland to push its agenda in preference to negotiating with Israel under Trump’s proposed plan – simultaneously rejecting the Montevideo Convention requirements necessary for statehood in international law.

11 other UN member states embraced this nonsensical resolution, whilst the remaining 47 voted: Against (3), Abstained (15), or Did Not Vote (29).

2. US Secretary of State – Mike Pompeo – announced that the U.S. Embassy Jerusalem and U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem would be merged into a single diplomatic mission.
This was Trump’s response to the UN’s embrace of the “State of Palestine”.

3. President Trump sent World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder as his personal envoy to Jordan.
Lauder's visit reportedly occurred without the knowledge of Israel or Trump’s Special Middle East Negotiators – Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt.

Jordan received $690 million in US aid in 2018 – to be boosted by a 27% increase for each of the next five years. Lauder would have reminded Jordan’s King Abdullah that Trump’s policy could see this aid reduced if Jordan refuses to negotiate with Israel.

4. King Abdullah gave Israel twelve months’ notice of Jordan’s intention to not renew twenty-five year leases of two areas denoted as “Special Regimes” in the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty.
Israel is entitled to request that consultations be entered into – as Israel undoubtedly will – since Israeli private land ownership rights and property interests are affected in one area and Israeli private land use rights in the other.

These Special Regimes would become important bargaining chips in Jordan – Israel negotiations on the West Bank and Gaza over the next 12 months.

Any Trump peace proposal not requiring direct Jordan –Israel negotiations will be dead in the water from the get-go.

What is an earthship? From Wikipedia:

An Earthship is a type of passive solar house that is made of both natural and upcycled materials such as earth-packed tires, pioneered by architect Michael Reynolds.

An Earthship addresses six principles or human needs:

Thermo-solar heating and cooling
solar and wind electricity
self-contained sewage treatment
building with natural and recycled materials
water harvesting and long term storage
some internal food production capability
Earthship structures are intended to be "off-the-grid-ready" homes, with minimal reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels. They are constructed to use available natural resources, especially energy from the sun and rain water.

They are designed with thermal mass construction and natural cross-ventilation to regulate indoor temperature.

The designs are intentionally uncomplicated and mainly single-story, so that people with little building knowledge can construct them.

Doesn't this sound like an ideal home for people in Gaza? These homes can reduce the need for power, sewage treatment, and even water.

Given that the people who claim to be so pro-Palestinian are often also the people who claim to care about saving the planet, why have we not seen anyone working to help Gazans build inexpensive, energy-independent homes?

For some reason, no one seems upset that instead of using earth-filled tires to build homes, Gazans are using their tires in a completely different and environmentally damaging way, to burn them during riots:

Once again, we see that being "pro-Palestinian" means attacking Israel, not helping Gazans in any meaningful way. Or else we'd be seeing lots of organizations working to help Gazans build these homes that can actually help everyone.

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.

Bizarre Arab op-ed says if Israeli Jews are killed by stones, they get Hollywood movies about them

A couple of weeks ago, Aisha al-Rabi was killed from a stone being thrown at her car, and her husband claimed in various contradictory interviews that the stone was hurled by Jewish settlers.

Rami Mahdawi at Al Watan Voice goes through a a thought experiment of thinking what would have happened if she was a Jewish woman killed by Palestinian stones.

His story reveals how disconnected from reality the Arab world is.

In his story, the Israeli Foreign Ministry would organize an international tour for the victim's family family, launched from the UN headquarters in New York. They would visit to international and human rights NGOs.

The fantasy continues where (Jewish) Hollywood will produce a movie about her, and the Zionist lobby will push the movie to become a megahit. The film would receive an Oscar, and so the world will know who about the Israeli woman killed by the Palestinians.

Of course, in reality quite a few Jews have been killed by Palestinian stones. These include Esther Ohana, 21.

Ohana was going to be married a week later.

No Hollywood movies were produced about Ohana's life.

Nor were movies made about Adele Biton or Yonatan Palmer or Yehuda Shoham, all of them killed when they were babies.

But Arabs seem to know that Hollywood creates films at the pleasure of the Israeli government.

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.

"Israel assaulted Coptic priests in Jerusalem" - what really happened?

From Ma'an:

Israeli forces and police assaulted several Coptic Orthodox priests in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, and forcefully detained one of them on Wednesday morning.

Prior to the assault, the Coptic Orthodox Church organized a peaceful protest near Deir al-Sultan Monastery, located on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, against an Israeli decision denying the church the right to conduct the needed renovation work inside the holy site.

It is noteworthy that the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem continues to conduct unauthorized renovation work for the Ethiopian Coptic Church section without the approval of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Eyewitnesses said that Israeli soldiers and police officers surrounded the priests who were protesting, before assaulting and pushing them with excessive use of force, causing them several injuries.

Witnesses added that the Israeli police forcibly removed the priests and detained one of them, before allowing the Israeli municipality workers into the holy site.

The Islamic Christian Committee to Defend Jerusalem and Holy Sites condemned the assault on the Coptic Orthodox priests and denounced the intervention of Israeli authorities in the renovation works of the holy site.

Looks and sounds bad, doesn't it? Especially this photo:

So why is Israel insisting on renovating the church? Why are the Copts opposed? How did this get violent?

Part of the answer comes from this article last year in ESAT, an Ethiopian news site:

The St. Michael Church at the Ethiopian quarter of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem has been closed by Israeli authorities after its roof had collapsed due to construction on the roof top monastery by the Greek Church.

There is a long-running dispute among Christian sects as to the ownership of the Deir al-Sultan monastery, on the roof of the Holy Sepulchre. The Ethiopian Orthodox and the Egyptian Coptic Churches both claim ownership of the site.

The monastery is badly in need of renovation but dispute between the Churches got in the way of Israeli government efforts to move forward with the reconstruction.

On September 22, 2017, the roof of the St. Michael church collapsed due to construction by the Greek Church on the Monastery on the top that has been going on for 6 years.

Chair of the Ethiopian Community in Israel, Tesfahun Eshetu, told ESAT that the collapse had damaged relics and paintings in the Church. He said no one was hurt as it happened after services were done and everyone had left the church.

It isn't Israel vs. Copts. It is Christians vs. Christians, and because they hate each other so much, no one can fix a roof.

The ESAT story is biased towards the Ethiopian claim to the monastery. This article seems to be a bit more fair. Israel has wanted the area to be safe and since neither the Copts or Ethiopians want to allow the other to repair the roof, Israel decided to do it itself. Last year, when Israel tries, the Copts stopped them (and got the Egyptian embassy to intervene on their behalf.)

The groups have been bitterly fighting for centuries. This Telegraph article in 2002 shows how much they hate each other:

Eleven monks were treated in hospital after a fight broke out for control of the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the traditional site of Jesus's crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

The fracas involved monks from the Ethiopian Orthodox church and the Coptic church of Egypt, who have been vying for control of the rooftop for centuries.

It is not the first time monks have come to blows at Christendom's most holy place, but it is one of the most serious in recent times.

As black-clad monks threw stones and iron bars at each other, the Israeli police were called to restore order. Seven Ethiopian monks and four Egyptians were hurt and one of the Ethiopians was reported to be unconscious in hospital.

The fight erupted over the position of a chair used by an Egyptian monk near the entrance to the roof.

He sits there to assert the Copts' claim to the rooftop, which is mainly occupied by a few African-style huts which the Ethiopians, who have been evicted from the main church over the centuries, use as their monastery.

On a hot day, the Egyptian monk decided to move his chair out of the sun. This was seen by the Ethiopians as violating the "status quo" in the church, set out in a 1757 document which defines the ownership of every chapel, lamp and flagstone.

After several days of rising tension, the fists began to fly on Sunday. The Egyptians said their monk was teased and poked and, in a final insult, pinched by a woman.

Israel is responsible for the safety of Jerusalem, whether you consider parts of it occupied or not. One sect welcomes Israel's repairs. Israel is trying to save the church despite the infighting, not to attack it. But the Palestinians are using this as a pretext to say that Israel violates holy Christian sites, and the PLO issued a statement of condemnation calling Israel a "rogue state."

There is very little religion in this story. It is all politics.

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10/23 Links Pt2: Why Does The Left Give Louis Farrakhan A Pass?; Al Dura Season II on France's Channel 2; Paypal halts services for UK charity with alleged ties to terrorism

From Ian:

Why Does The Left Give Louis Farrakhan A Pass?

Recall Barack Obama grinning alongside Farrakhan in a photo that was intentionally suppressed so it wouldn’t harm Obama’s reelection chances.

Recall Snoop Dogg, Dave Chappelle, Puff Daddy and other celebrities at Farrakhan’s 25th anniversary of the Million Man March. Will and Jada Pinkett Smith made a $150,000 donation to the march.

Think of the leaders of the Women’s March, Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour, openly celebrating Farrakhan.

These people can’t have never heard his anti-Semitic comments. They must ultimately just not care.

In March, Rep. Danny K. Davis of Illinois said of Farrakhan, “The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth.”

The “Jewish question,” of course is what Adolf Hitler attempted to answer with the Holocaust and it didn’t get much bigger than that for Jews.

Davis’ comments prompted the New York Times to run a piece titled “Why Louis Farrakhan Is Back in the News” as if he had ever really left.

The piece quoted Farrakhan’s fans and gave them a chance to explain and repent. Mallory was quoted explaining she is warm toward Farrakhan because the Nation of Islam was there for her during difficult moments of her life.

No similar piece will ever be written about the lost boy who finds the white nationalist movement when things in his life have fallen apart, and then doesn’t abandon it after hearing the full noxiousness of the comments they make.

And that’s a good thing! It’s correct and moral not to focus on whatever good is accidentally done by hateful people like David Duke or Richard Spencer, on whatever lives they helped or communities they might have aided.

Duke and Spencer are rightly shunned by the mainstream. Why isn’t Farrakhan?

Al Dura Season II on France's Channel 2

A report broadcast on the program "Envoyé spécial" recently, is angering Israel and French Jews.

Elise Lucet, a journalist at France 2 presented "Gaza, a crippled youth," a documentary by Yvan Martinet.

Yvan Martinet is a great admirer of the propagandist Charles Enderlin, author of the Al Dura hoax, proven to have been a staged lie, and of Paul Moreira.

Paul Moreira with his anti-Israeli activist friends of the NGO Reporters Without Borders has turned to the International Criminal Court (ICC) concerning "war crimes committed by the Israeli army against Palestinian journalists", (Seen on RSF website ).

Yvan Martinet tweeted "Thanks" to Charles Enderlin who congratulated him.

On Wednesday, the eve of the broadcast, the ambassador of Israel in France Aliza Bin Noun asked the presidency of France Televisions to "reconsider the dissemination of the report," expressing concern "about the harmful and dangerous repercussions that it could engender on the Jewish community of France ".

Denouncing an "unbalanced point of view" on the situation in Gaza and the "very negative" vision of Israel, the diplomat asserts that "such content is likely to incite hatred against Israel" and by extension to the Jews of France, "because of a frequent and distressing amalgam between Jews and Israel".

Jordan uses "right of return" to keep Palestinian citizens in second-class status

This 1999 memo by then-ambassador David Hale, published in Wikileaks, has a lot of resonance today as well. It shows how endemic discrimination is against Palestinian citizens of Jordan and how the fictional "right of return" is used to keep that discrimination in place.

_______________________________

1. (C) Summary: The right of return for Palestinians is one of the issues at the heart of the debate over what it means to be Jordanian. Though our GOJ interlocutors insist that the theoretical option of return remains, they are now more engaged with the issue of compensation, both for individual Palestinians and for Jordan itself. For Jordanians of Palestinian origin, the right of return is either an empty (if cherished) slogan or a legitimate aspiration. For East Bankers, the right of return is often held up as the panacea which will recreate Jordan's bedouin or Hashemite identity.

The issue is inextricably linked with governmental and societal discrimination toward the Palestinian-origin community, and poses a challenge to Jordan's political reforms. Jordanians of Palestinian origin (and many, but not all, of the East Bankers we speak to) assume that an end to
the question of the right of return will lead to equal treatment and full political inclusion within Jordan. Yet neither East Bankers nor Palestinians are willing to make the first move toward publicly acknowledging this "grand bargain." In the absence of public debate -- which would be both highly sensitive and taboo-breaking -- or government action, the issues surrounding the right of return will continue to fester. In the absence of a viable and functioning Palestinian state, those who are charged with protecting the current identity of the Jordanian state will be loath to consider measures that they firmly believe could end up bringing to fruition the nightmare scenario of "Jordan is Palestine." End Summary.

Government Strategy: Compensation Trumps Return
--------------------------------------------- ---

2. (C) The Jordanian government's official stance on the right of return has changed very little over the years. The MFA's current position paper on the matter notes that "refugees who have Jordanian citizenship expect the State to protect their basic right of return and compensation in accordance with international law." As recently as January 23, the King reiterated the standard line in an interview with the Al-Dustour newspaper: "As for the Palestinian refugees in Jordan, we stress once again that their Jordanian citizenship does not deprive them of the right to return and compensation."

....
4. (C) Deputy Director of the Department of Palestinian Affairs Mahmoud Agrabawi, whose agency works closely with UNRWA in the refugee camps, told us that the most important thing is that Palestinians be given the choice of whether to go back or not. He declined to estimate how many would want to exercise that right, but he did raise a point about internal differences of status among the refugee population in Jordan. Those who are most likely to want to leave are the impoverished residents of refugee camps in Jordan - most of whom are Palestinians (or their descendants) who fled in 1948 from what became the State of Israel. (Note: Roughly 330,000 of the 1.9 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan live in camps. About half of those living in camps originated from Gaza and, therefore, do not hold Jordanian citizenship. End note.) They will not, however, want to return to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza because they would be unable to reclaim their ancestral homes inside Israel, and thus would in a sense (albeit not a legal one) merely become refugees in a new country, said Agrabawi.

Palestinian Expectations: The Dream and the Reality
--------------------------------------------- ------

7. (C) When it comes to thinking about the right of return, Palestinians in Jordan fall into roughly two camps. In the first are those who align themselves with the government approach, keeping up the rhetoric for the sake of appearances, but behind closed doors quickly abandoning return as a political and logistical impossibility. This group is more concerned about personal compensation (and doubts that Jordan would ever have the chutzpah to ask for "structural" compensation). In the second camp are those who cling to the principle. For the most part, this latter view is probably most prevalent among refugee camp residents who hope to be plucked out of landless poverty by a peace agreement and the compensation that may come with it. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the breakdown of how many people are in each group. Note: As noted in Ref B, polling on Palestinian-origin versus East Banker political preferences in Jordan is taboo, because it acknowledges uncomfortable truths about the divide within Jordan's national identity. End Note.

....9. (C) As noted, however, the principle of the right of return still holds considerable sway among others. "There is no question about the right of return. It is a sacred right," contends Palestinian-origin parliamentarian Mohammed Al-Kouz. During a meeting with Amman-resident PNC members, one contact said: "The right of return is my personal right, and my humanitarian right." Indeed, this is how many Palestinian-origin contacts in Jordan think about the right of return - as something they are owed as part of a de facto social contract supported by Arab politicians and enshrined in UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions for 60 years.

East Banker Expectations: Waiting for Their Country Back?
--------------------------------------------- ------------

11. (C) East Bankers have an entirely different approach to thinking about the right of return. At their most benign, our East Banker contacts tend to count on the right of return as a solution to Jordan's social, political, and economic woes. But underlying many conversations with East Bankers is the theory that once the Palestinians leave, "real" Jordanians can have their country back. They hope for a solution that will validate their current control of Jordan's government and military, and allow for an expansion into the realm of business, which is currently dominated by
Palestinians.

12. (C) Palestinian-origin contacts certainly have their suspicions about East Banker intentions. "If the right of return happens, East Bankers assume that all of the Palestinians will leave," says parliamentarian Mohammed Al-Kouz. Other Palestinian-origin contacts offered similar observations, including Adel Irsheid and Raja'i Dajani, who was one of the founding members of the GID, and later served as Interior Minister at the time of Jordan's administrative separation from the West Bank in 1988. Dajani cited the rise of what he called "Likudnik" East Bankers, who hold out hope that the right of return will lead to an "exodus" of Palestinians.

13. (C) In fact, many of our East Banker contacts do seem more excited about the return (read: departure) of Palestinian refugees than the Palestinians themselves. Mejhem Al-Khraish, an East Banker parliamentarian from the central bedouin district, says outright that the reason he strongly supports the right of return is so the Palestinians will quit Jordan. East Banker Mohammed Al-Ghazo, Secretary General at the Ministry of Justice, says that Palestinians have no investment in the Jordanian political system - "they aren't interested in jobs in the government or the military" - and are therefore signaling their intent to return to a Palestinian state.

14. (C) When East Bankers talk about the possibility of Palestinians staying in Jordan permanently, they use the language of political threat and economic instability. Talal
Al-Damen, a politician in Um Qais near the confluence of Jordan, the Golan Heights and Israel, worries that without the right of return, Jordan will have to face up to the political challenges of a state which is not united demographically. For his part, Damen is counting on a mass exodus of Palestinians to make room for East Bankers in the world of business, and to change Jordan's political landscape. This sentiment was echoed in a meeting with university students, when self-identified "pure Jordanians" in the group noted that "opportunities" are less available because there are so many Palestinians.

The Nexus Between the Right of Return and Discrimination
--------------------------------------------- -----------

17. (C) The right of return in Jordan is inextricably linked with the problem of semi-official discrimination toward the Palestinian-origin community. Braizat claims it is "the major reason that keeps the Jordanian political system the way it is." As long as the right of return is touted as a real solution, East Bankers will continue to see Palestinians as temporary residents in "their" country. This provides the justification to minimize the role of Palestinian-origin Jordanians in public life, since they are "foreigners" whose loyalty is suspect and who could in theory pack up and leave at any time. Note: The suspicion of disloyalty is deeply rooted in Black September, when Palestinian militants attempted to wrest political control from the Hashemite regime. Since then, Palestinians have been progressively excluded from the Jordanian security forces and civil service (Ref D). End Note. The suggestion that Palestinians should be granted full political representation in Jordan is often met with accusations that doing so would "cancel" or "prejudge" the right of return. For their part, many Palestinian-origin Jordanians are less concerned with "prejudging" the right of return, and more concerned with fulfilling their roles as Jordanian citizens who are eligible for the full range of political and social rights guaranteed by law.

18. (C) Al-Quds Center for Political Studies Director Oraib Rantawi, whose institute has been organizing refugee camp focus groups, cites widespread discrimination that is semi-officially promoted by the government. In his estimation, the prospect of a "return" to Palestine is linked to the sense that Palestinian-origin Jordanians are "not Jordanian enough to be full citizens." He asserts that this sentiment on the part of the ruling elite is increasingly trumping the idea of right of return as the primary political concern among Palestinian-origin Jordanians. According to Rantawi (and many other contacts), the sense of alienation is most widespread among the poorer, more disenfranchised Palestinians of the refugee camps, but he cited growing alienation among the more integrated and successful Palestinians in Jordan. "Palestinians feel that something is wrong, whether they live in a refugee camp or (the upscale Amman district of) Abdoun. We have to take Palestinians out of this environment," says former minister Irsheid. This tracks with the conventional wisdom which theorizes that an integrated Palestinian-origin community would have a stake in what happens in Jordan, and therefore less reason to be perceived as a threat.

20. (C) While Jordanians of Palestinian origin are not shy about their origins, many stress just as strongly their strong connections and loyalty to Jordan. Jemal Refai says, "I consider myself Jordanian. Nobody can tell me otherwise." Mohammed Abu Baker, who represents the PLO in Amman, says, "if you tell me to go back to Jenin, I won't go. This is a fact - Palestinian refugees in Jordan have better living conditions." PNC member Isa Al-Shuaibi simply notes that "Palestinians in Jordan are not refugees. They are citizens."

21. ....Many of our contacts resent the "Palestinian-origin" label that appears on their passports
and national identity cards. ....

A Grand Bargain?
----------------

22. (C) A common theme that emerges from discussions with Palestinian-origin contacts and some government officials (although not necessarily East Bankers as a group) is a "grand bargain" whereby Palestinians give up their aspirations to return in exchange for integration into Jordan's political system. For East Bank politicians and regime supporters, this deal could help solve the assumed dual loyalty of Palestinians in Jordan. For Palestinian-origin citizens, the compact would, ideally, close the book on their antagonistic relationship with the state and open up new opportunities for government employment and involvement in the political process.

23. (C) "If we give up our right of return, they have to give us our political rights," says Refai. "In order for Jordan to become a real state, we have to become one people." ...

24. (C) If a peace agreement fails to secure political rights for Palestinian-origin Jordanians as they define those rights, many of our contacts see the right of return as an insurance policy through which Palestinians would vote with their feet. Refai asks: "If we aren't getting our political rights, then how can we be convinced to give up our right of return?" Palestinian-Jordanian Fuad Muammar, editor of Al-Siyasa Al-Arabiyya weekly, noted that in the past few years there has been a proliferation of "right of return committees" in Palestinian refugee camps. This phenomenon, he said, reflected growing dissatisfaction with Jordanian government steps to improve their lot here and an increased focus on Palestine.

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10/23 Links Pt1: Abbas to Shin Bet Chief: If You Deduct Terrorists’ Salaries We’ll Cut Security Coordination; Israel Should be Uprooting Gaza’s Jew-hatred; Don't use Temple Mount to placate Jordan

From Ian:

Abbas to Shin Bet Chief: If You Deduct Terrorists’ Salaries We’ll Cut Security Coordination

“The moment Israel cuts the salaries of the terrorists, we will cancel the security coordination,” Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman, Kan, Israel’s Public Broadcasting Corporation, reported on Monday.

According to the report, the two met last week in Abbas’s home, a day or two before a Grad rocket from Gaza hit a home in Beersheba.

The talks dealt with the need for calm, but also the PLO conference next week, which is expected to yield resolutions against Hamas, Israel and the US.

Argaman reportedly sought to soften Abbas’s position and make sure he did not go too far with anti-Israel actions, including the cancellation of the Paris Economic Agreement, the security coordination and the recognition of Israel.

“The Palestinians claim that ‘we are 25 years after Oslo, on what base do the IDF forces enter the Palestinian cities in Area A?,” Argaman explained, suggesting the other side is complaining, “Whom do you coordinate with when you enter Area A and Area B? You enter whenever you want and do not ask permission.”

Last month, Abbas said in a meeting with Peace Now officials that he met regularly with the Shin Bet chief, and that they agree on 99% of the issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Paying to slay Jews is “social welfare” (says Palestinian UN rep)

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian 'Support' for Saudi Arabia

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did not wait for Saudi Arabia to admit that Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in its consulate in Turkey. Days before the Saudi announcement, Abbas decided that he and the Palestinians have "absolute confidence" in King Salman bin Abdel Aziz and this son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

As Abbas was busy praising the Saudis for their "justice, values and principles," the London-based Action Group for Palestinians of Syria issued a statement in which it accused the Saudi authorities of preventing Palestinian refugees from entering the kingdom.

"Palestinian refugees fleeing war-ravaged Syria have been denied access into Saudi territories," the group said. It pointed out that the Saudi ban excluded Palestinians heading to the kingdom to perform the Islamic hajj, or pilgrimage. The group also pointed out that Palestinians who fled Syria to Saudi Arabia "have been shorn of their right to visas, education, and health care, among other vital services." Saudi Arabia, the group added, "continues to opt for a closed-door immigration policy regarding Palestinian refugees seeking asylum in its territories."

This is only one example of Saudi discrimination against the Palestinians. The group's announcement was published on the same day that Abbas was heaping praise on the Saudi leaders.

In a statement issued by his office on October 14, Abbas, who described himself as the "President of the State of Palestine," said he "appreciated the positions of Saudi Arabia, a country that has always stood, and continued to do so, on the side of our just cause and the rights of our people." The statement quoted Abbas as expressing "absolute confidence" in the Saudi monarch and his son and said that "Palestine has always stood next to Saudi Arabia, and will continue to do so."

This announcement of blind support for the Saudi king and crown prince came as the international community was still demanding answers from the Saudi government concerning the disappearance of Khashoggi.

Al-Aqsa Mosque Address by Sheikh Abu Mus'ab Al-Hadra: Bin Salman Stupid; Saudis Cannot Even Carry Out an Assassination Professionally pic.twitter.com/gCjVJFqNTp
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 23, 2018

PMW: PA: North Korea and Palestinians are victims of US

According to the Palestinian Authority, both the Palestinian people and North Korea are victims of the United States. PA Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Malki brought a letter of greetings for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un from PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, when he held high level meetings recently with North Korean leaders. Al-Malki said the letter expressed:

"A message of solidarity with the North Korean people in similar circumstances, in which international pressure is being applied to our two peoples by the US."
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 9, 2018]

The Korean leader added in turn that the connection between North Korean leaders and the PA leaders is "a connection between comrades in arms":

"[Kim Yong Dae] emphasized that the connection between the two states is a historical connection, which the eternal presidents [of North Korea] Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il established with Martyr [PA] President Yasser Arafat and with His Honor [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas. He added that on this firm basis the connection has developed uninterrupted over the years, as this is a connection between comrades in arms, who have shared experience over the years."

The PA reaffirmed its historical friendship a few weeks ago with the human rights violating North Korean leader, when Abbas again initiated contact with Kim Jong-un and congratulated him on the anniversary of the establishment of the Korean Workers' Party: