Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 26, 2018

10/26 Links Pt1: Netanyahu makes secret visit to Oman; The “Moderate Sunni Camp” – Does it Really Exist?; Jordan Renews Its Request to Build a Fifth Minaret on the Temple Mount

From Ian:

In dramatic sign of warming ties, Netanyahu makes secret visit to Oman

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to the Gulf nation of Oman on Friday — the first by an Israeli leader in over two decades, and a sign of warming ties between the Jewish state and the Sunni Arab world.

On Friday afternoon, his office surprisingly announced that Netanyahu and his wife Sara had just returned from an “official diplomatic visit” to Muscat, during which they met with Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said.

“The Prime Minister’s visit is a significant step in implementing the policy outlined by Prime Minister Netanyahu on deepening relations with the states of the region while leveraging Israel’s advantages in security, technology and economic matters,” his office said in a statement.

The last visit by an Israeli leader to Oman took place in 1996, when Shimon Peres visited.

The Netanyahus were invited to Oman by the sultan, who has been ruling the Gulf state since 1970, “after lengthy contacts between the two countries,” the statement said.

A joint statement issued by Jerusalem and Muscat said the two leaders discussed “ways to advance the peace process in the Middle East as well as several matters of joint interest regarding the achievement of peace and stability in the Middle East.”

Netanyahu and his wife were accompanied to Muscat by Mossad Director Yossi Cohen, National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, Foreign Ministry Director-General Yuval Rotem, the head of the Prime Minister’s staff, Yigal Horowitz, and the Prime Minister’s Military Secretary, Brig.-Gen. Avi Bluth.

PM Netanyahu returned from an official diplomatic visit to Oman where he met with Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
This visit is a significant step in implementing the policy outlined by PM Netanyahu on deepening relations with the states of the region while leveraging Israel's advantages pic.twitter.com/basy7da7JS
— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 26, 2018

This is a conflict over narratives. Israel needs to tell ours to Palestinians.

Yossi Klein Halevi is senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and the author of the recent New York Times bestseller, ‘Letters to my Palestinian Neighbour’. In conversation with Fathom deputy editor Calev Ben-Dor, he sets out the main themes of his book: the need for both sides need to stop the war on the legitimacy of each other’s narrative, and the need for a radically new kind of Israeli-Palestinian conversation about the conflict based on respect and deep mutual recognition.

Telling our story

My book originated in the 1990s when I undertook a year-long journey into Palestinian society, specifically into its religious life, going to mosques and monasteries looking for shared devotional language with my neighbours. I was exposed to the Palestinian narrative and to Palestinian stories which deeply moved me and helped shape my thinking about the conflict. And in this book I’m asking my neighbours to hear my story – not through a tit-for-tat argument, but because minimal respect of the right of each side to tell its story is, I believe, a prerequisite for peace. This isn’t primarily a conflict over tangible issues like borders and settlements – those are the consequences of a deeper conflict over narratives. We’ve been fighting a hundred-year war of clashing narratives.

I felt the time had come for someone on the Israeli side to try to explain our story to our neighbours, to tell a story about who we are. So I told my own story – an American-born Jew who moved to Israel as part of a people returning home to a land that has been at the centre of its identity for 4000 years.

The book also came out of the realisation that the other side doesn’t know our story. The Palestinian media and school system overwhelmingly convey the message that Israelis and the Jewish people are not only thieves but also liars. They say we’ve invented our story, or that we have no story. That’s the message Palestinians receive on a daily basis. A young man in Hebron, the city with the longest Jewish history of any city anywhere, once told me that there were no Jews in the city until after 1967. But he was simply repeating what he’d been told his whole life.

One part of the Jewish community defends the Israeli, Zionist narrative which is under growing assault. Another part of the Jewish community defends the two-state solution and the hope for peace. The implicit premise of my book is that both these approaches are necessary and, more, they are complementary. If we don’t defend the integrity of the Israeli story and the legitimacy of the Jewish presence here, we’ll never reach peace. If the other side is convinced we have no story or roots here – which is what they hear over and over – peace will not be possible. How do you make peace with a non-existent illegitimate people?

A court ruling from the European Court of Human Rights today has very troubling implications.

I will try to keep as much context as I can from their press release:

Principal facts

The applicant, E.S., is an Austrian national who was born in 1971 and lives in Vienna (Austria). In October and November 2009, Mrs S. held two seminars entitled “Basic Information on Islam”, in which she discussed the marriage between the Prophet Muhammad and a six-year old girl, Aisha, which allegedly was consummated when she was nine. Inter alia, the applicant stated that Muhammad “liked to do it with children” and “... A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? ... What do we call it, if it is not paedophilia?”.

On 15 February 2011 the Vienna Regional Criminal Court found that these statements implied that Muhammad had had paedophilic tendencies, and convicted Mrs S. for disparaging religious doctrines. She was ordered to pay a fine of 480 euros and the costs of the proceedings. Mrs S. appealed but the Vienna Court of Appeal upheld the decision in December 2011, confirming in essence the lower court’s findings.

Relying on Article 10 (freedom of expression), Mrs S. complained that the domestic courts failed to address the substance of the impugned statements in the light of her right to freedom of expression....Lastly, Mrs S. submitted that religious groups had to tolerate even severe criticism.

The ruling is a little nuanced, and requires analysis:

The Court noted that those who choose to exercise the freedom to manifest their religion under Article 9 of the Convention could not expect to be exempt from criticism. They must tolerate and accept the denial by others of their religious beliefs. Only where expressions under Article 10 went beyond the limits of a critical denial, and certainly where they were likely to incite religious intolerance, might a State legitimately consider them to be incompatible with respect for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion and take proportionate restrictive measures.

In general, I agree with this. I don't like the "certainly" being in there because the only case where criticism goes beyond the limits of criticism is when it is incitement - without qualifying that the definition can become subject to political and not objective measures. Which is apparently what happened:

The Court observed also that the subject matter of the instant case was of a particularly sensitive nature, and that the (potential) effects of the impugned statements, to a certain degree, depended on the situation in the respective country where the statements were made, at the time and in the context they were made. Accordingly, it considered that the domestic authorities had a wide margin of appreciation in the instant case, as they were in a better position to evaluate which statements were likely to disturb the religious peace in their country.

Here's the crux of the question: Would the statements cause people to hate Islam and therefore be incited to violence, or would the statements upset Muslims and cause them to become violent?

If it is the latter, then the court is ruling that Muslims are unable to control themselves and to stop themselves from being violent, and they have special protection against people saying things that upset them.

The Court reiterated that it has distinguished in its case-law between statements of fact and value judgments. It emphasised that the truth of value judgments was not susceptible to proof. However, a value judgment without any factual basis to support it might be excessive.

Whatever the context, Muslims themselves admit that Mohammed had sex with a nine year old girl. No one should be precluded from talking about that and criticizing it unless they say "Attack Muslims because they support pedophilia." Nowhere does it appear that E.S. said anything close to that. She pointed out that his actions would be considered unacceptable today - and one can say the same about many things in the sacred texts of major religions.

The Court noted that the domestic courts comprehensively explained why they considered that the applicant’s statements had been capable of arousing justified indignation; specifically, they had not been made in an objective manner contributing to a debate of public interest (e.g. on child marriage), but could only be understood as having been aimed at demonstrating that Muhammad was not worthy of worship.

Here the formula for "statements were likely to disturb the religious peace in their country" is more clearly defined, and indeed it is protecting the feelings of the victims that is the deciding factor in whether speech is allowed.

This is a terrible mistake. Free speech is not free if one does not have the right to offend. I can find lots of web pages and cartoons ridiculing many organized religions; the court seems to say that freedom of expression is not defined by the speech itself but by the people who might be offended. This is discriminatory.

If someone would call Isaac a pedophile because of a Jewish midrashic story that he married Rebecca at the age of 3 - a direct analogy to the Mohammed story - there is no way that the ECHR would have said that the person should be fined. Because Jews wouldn't riot over that!

The Court found in conclusion that in the instant case the domestic courts carefully balanced the applicant’s right to freedom of expression with the rights of others to have their religious feelings protected, and to have religious peace preserved in Austrian society.

If people who are offended can quash speech, then it is not free speech. I do not know if there is a human right to have one's religious feelings protected; if there is then Muslims violate Jewish human rights every day that they worship in Jewish holy places that pre-date Islam.

This is a fundamentally flawed, and dangerous, decision that gives any religious group the right to limit their opponent's free speech rights by claiming that their feelings are being hurt. No, that is not what free speech means.

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Sadly, many shirtless Gaza protesters never get famous

Today, there is a new set of victims in Gaza.

As I mentioned yesterday, this photo of a "heroic" Gaza protester has gone viral.

The young man, improbably trying to use his sling when he has a flag in the other hand (how does he put the stone in while holding the flag? How can he avoid the sling hitting the flag? Why is he facing towards the sea, where the wind comes from, instead of towards Israel?) has become famous.

But what about the poor bare-chested protesters who did not get the viral treatment? How do you think they feel?

"Why didn't I think of having a sling?"

"The photographer could have waited until I stopped coughing"

Guy on right: "Teach me how to gain muscle tone."

"I thought the helmet made me look macho."

"I stepped on a nail!"

"Maybe the executioner look didn't work."

But at least the protesters have a good time:

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A member of the Revolutionary Council of Fatah movement and its spokesman Osama al-Qawasmi issued a press release saying that those who "smuggle" land to Israelis, directly or indirectly, are "spies and traitors to the religion, the land, the people, to the blood of the martyrs and to our brave families," and they will be "pursued by the curse of fate and become vile outcasts who will be haunted by their treachery everywhere they go until they reach a stage where they die."

On the other hand, those who resist the temptation to sell land to Jews instead purchase pride and dignity of his land and religion and reputation.

Al-Qawasmi also called on families of those who sold land to "repudiate the traitors who sold their consciences and who stand by the Israeli occupation against their people."

Just in case you think that he is only talking about Israelis, just imagine what would happen if an Arab in Jerusalem sold his house to an Israeli Arab.

Nothing.

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10/25 Links Pt2: The worst chapter in Palestinian schoolbooks; New Israel Fund Director: Grantees That Call Israel Colonial, Apartheid State Don’t Violate Red Lines

From Ian:

PMW: The worst chapter in Palestinian schoolbooks

If you want to know why Palestinian children believe that killing Israelis is model behavior, all you have to do is look at a chapter in one of their schoolbooks.

PA schoolbooks have been criticized ever since Palestinian Media Watch wrote the first report on them in 1998, and the newest books in some respects are the worst ever. However, one chapter stands out in its overt promotion of terrorism. This chapter, appearing in the fifth-grade Arabic Language book published in 2017, serves as a window to understanding the PA leadership’s profoundly twisted values.

The chapter starts innocently by stressing the importance of heroes to national identity and national pride: “Heroes have an important position in every nation… the people – even if they are divided over many things – they all agree regarding the pride in their heroes…”

The schoolbook continues and teaches students that feeling pride is not enough. Society takes numerous active steps to honor its heroes: “[We] sing their praise, learn the history of their lives, name our children after them, and name streets, squares, and prominent cultural sites after them…”

In short, society assures that heroes are never forgotten. They might have lived in earlier times, but by naming streets and squares after them and singing their praise, these heroes remain in Palestinian consciousness.

The next message is most important: The children are taught that these heroes are not merely memories of the past they are the role models for the future: “Every one of us wishes to be like them.”

PMW: “Zionist Christians” do “not belong to Christianity” according to Palestinian Christian leader

A Palestinian Christian leader has demonized Evangelical Christians as being "pulpits in the service of the Zionist enterprise." In fact, the Head of the Sebastia Diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem Archbishop Atallah Hanna stated that "Evangelical Christians" or "Zionist Christians" do "not belong to Christianity," and that they "have no connection to the values of Christianity":

"Head of the Sebastia Diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem Archbishop Atallah Hanna said that neither the Christian nor the church dictionary contain anything called 'Evangelical Christians' or 'Zionist Christians.' He added: 'The aforementioned do not belong to Christianity at all; they have no connection to the values of Christianity and to the evangelical principles that always prefer to identify with the deprived and ill-fated of the world. They are closer to Judaism and Zionism and have no connection to Christianity.'
Archbishop Hanna said: 'The Christian Evangelists are tantamount to pulpits in the service of the Zionist enterprise. They are enemies of the Christian values, and when they come to Palestine they do not visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity, but rather the colonies located on the stolen lands of our people as a sign of solidarity with the occupation.'" [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 24, 2018]

Palestinian Media Watch has reported on Hanna's activities in the past, among them visits to families of imprisoned terrorists and advocacy against "normalization" with Israel.

Yisrael Medad: A Jewish Polity

Who wrote:

1. Looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the East and the West

2. There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old--a republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western freedom amid the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the outraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the outraged Englishmen of America. And the world will gain as Israel gains.

3. Let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes. They have the memories of the East and West, and they have the full vision of a better...So will a new Judaea, poised between East and West--a covenant of reconciliation.

George Elliot in Daniel Deronda, 1876.

As if the British and the League of Nations didn't know what they were doing.

In a talk that former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, gave last February, he proved yet again that facts are not relevant to him.

He said that the Jewish state should still be destroyed demographically even if a Palestinian state were to be created today because of the "right of return."\

He also said that Palestinians have the "right to resist" and his context made it clear he meant with violence.

If that wasn't bad enough, afterwards he revealed how truly antisemitic he is:

Following Prof. Falk’s formal remarks, a questioner asked if in the case of Israel “apartheid” would be the correct term to apply, since the Jewish population of Israel it itself multi-ethnic and multi-racial, comprising not only Ashkenazic Jews from Northern and Eastern Europe, but Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from the Mediterranean and Muslim lands, as well as Ethiopian and Indian Jews. Falk responded that Israeli law treats all these Jews the same, entitling them to the same rights and privileges that are denied to Palestinians, such as the sacred “right of return” to Israel by Jews, most of whose ancestors never inhabited Biblical Israel. “The whole rationale of Israel is to be a Jewish state, and they don’t fragment their own identity.”

Falk, by saying that most Jews do not descend from the Jews of the Bible, is apparently a believer of the discredited and ludicrous Khazar myth - the myth that is so convenient for other antisemites to delegitimize the right of Jews to define themselves as a people.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

Author Naomi Ragen urges Diaspora Jews to “come home” to Israel, and describes her own feelings of the almost miraculous condition of being a Jew in the Jewish homeland:

I was walking down Prophets Street (Rehov Hanevi’im) in Jerusalem, thinking how lucky I was to be living my life in a place that has such a street. I was thinking how short life is, and how we live in such an incredibly special era, a time when miracles and prophecies are unfolding before our astonished eyes. You have only to read the Torah to see all that God predicted would happen to the Jewish people has happened and to realize that the time we are living in is when the good things that were promised are now coming true.

I too understand the feeling of experiencing the miraculous, even when I’m only in the somewhat decrepit shuk in Rehovot.

It’s not connected to religion, although it’s easier to observe the commandments in Israel where you are not always wondering where to find kosher food, and where people understand what Shabbat means, whether or not they keep it themselves.

From a religious point of view, the connection between the Jewish people and their land is obvious. The Torah is in large part a story about the relationship between, Hashem, the Jewish people, and the land of Israel. For secular people, especially those living in those parts of the diaspora where Jew-hatred is currently held at bay, it may not be evident. Some feel the connection and some don’t.

I have a good friend, who came to Israel from America close to 40 years ago. He is not observant. He will tell you that he is an atheist. We don’t talk about politics much, but I suspect he is significantly to the left of me. But he has a connection to the Jewish people, and for better or worse this is his home. He could have earned a good living in America or Europe, but he chose to be here. He feels the magic of living in a Jewish state, even if he wouldn’t express it like Ragen does. And he isn’t the only one that feels this way. The socialist kibbutzniks that played such a great role in the early days of the state also claimed to be atheists, but they loved the land of Israel and made great sacrifices for it.

But for some diaspora Jews, the Jewish homeland is not their homeland. There is something missing. It’s easy to find examples. Simone Zimmerman, the Jewish woman who leads the organization called “If Not Now,” accepts the Palestinian narrative of the conflict, calls Israel immoral and corrupt, and seemingly fails to notice the murderous behavior of Israel’s enemies. Jewish historian Hasia Diner feels “a sense of repulsion when [she enters] a synagogue in front of which the congregation has planted a sign reading, “We Stand With Israel.”

Zimmerman and Diner are strongly influenced by their progressive political perspective, but why did they choose it? And why did they choose to emphasize its anti-Israel aspects? I believe that it is impossible to adopt an ideology that is so one-sided, that so strongly condemns both the actions and the motives of a people, when you see yourself as a member of it. And they don’t, despite their public identification as Jews.

I greatly prefer someone like Adam Shapiro, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, the pro-Palestinian group that sent Rachel Corrie to her death under an IDF bulldozer. Shapiro believes that being Jewish is simply a matter of religion, and since he has no connection to Judaism, he is not a Jew. Hitler would have disagreed, but at least Shapiro is honest.

Zimmerman and Diner claim that they are acting in accordance with Jewish ethical principles. They are referring to the system of universalist ethics that underlies the social activism that has replaced ritual as Jewish observance for many liberal Jews. While it is certainly legitimate to practice a Judaism that emphasizes the prophetic tradition and deemphasizes ritual, it seems to me that when your ethical system elevates other groups over the Jewish people, then it can no longer be called a Jewish ethics.

And some diaspora Jews really do place the Jewish people at the bottom of their ladder of ethical priorities. Zimmerman says that “Jewish liberation is inextricably tied to the liberation of all people,” a statement which is clearly false. Is there a connection between the Jewish people and the persecuted Rohingya people of Myanmar, a country that has about 20 Jewish residents?

What she means is that in her eyes, the Jewish people are no more important than the Rohingya. Of course I agree with her that a Jewish life and a Rohingya life are equally valuable. But I care less about what happens to the Rohingya than the Jewish people, and I would expect them to feel the same about us. In any event, Zimmerman is a hypocrite: her activism is aimed primarily at opposing the state of the Jewish people, and she devotes little if any energy to helping the Rohingya.

For every Jew that supports the cause of the enemies of the Jewish people there are probably ten that are indifferent. Some just don’t think about it, some deny their Jewishness to escape antisemitism, and for some, the idea of being a part of a people that transcends politics doesn’t resonate, or is even abhorrent.

I think there is something – a spark or a gene, depending on the kind of language you prefer – that no matter where a Jew may be on the spectrum of observance, can act as a channel to the Jewish people and their homeland. You have it or you don’t. You are connected or you aren’t. And in the diaspora many people with Jewish parents, even synagogue members, simply aren’t. They are the ones who see Israel as “just another country.”

Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt thinks that there are six inherent moral foundations that serve as the basis for our decisions about right and wrong, and good and evil: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty. Cultures and individuals differ in their relative responses to these six triggers. For example, in affluent, educated Western circles, care is very important: morality is primarily about not hurting anybody. In more traditional groups issues of loyalty, authority, and sanctity take precedence.

Haidt thinks that part of the difference in attitudes of liberals and conservatives can be explained by the idea that liberals greatly emphasize the first two, care and fairness, while conservatives place more equal weight on all six. The feeling that one belongs to a people fits in the category of loyalty, which possibly explains why liberals find the universalist ethics of Reform Judaism attractive.

Naomi Ragen speaks in religious language, and she is politically conservative. But there are countless diaspora Jews who don’t fit into those categories but who still feel their connection with their people, their land, and their state.

If you feel that connection, then you should come home too.

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10/25 Links Pt1: New Evidence Shows That Iran Was Closer to Building a Nuclear Bomb Than Previously Thought; A Photo You Won’t See In the Mainstream Media

From Ian:

New Evidence Shows That Iran Was Closer to Building a Nuclear Bomb Than Previously Thought

In April, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israeli operatives had spirited a vast, secret archive relating to Iran’s nuclear-weapons program out of the country and brought it to Jerusalem. Having studied the documents that have been made public, David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, Olli Heinonen, and Frank Pabian conclude that Tehran has been carrying out research necessary for the development of a nuclear bomb at a military facility in Parchin, and that this research was more advanced than experts had believed. If so, the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal and the current regimen of inspections are not preventing the Islamic Republic from continuing on its path to the bomb:

Iran’s stark aim, in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and contrary to its signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, contradicts the finding by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December 2015 that Iran’s nuclear-weapons activities had not gone beyond feasibility and simple scientific studies. . . .

The archive provides the public its first look inside the Parchin nuclear weapons-development facility and at the type of nuclear weapons-related activities that took place at the site, [and it includes] confirmation that Iran was testing . . . a specialized, difficult-to-develop, neutron initiator to start the chain reaction in a nuclear explosion. The new information about Parchin . . . shows that Iran conducted far more high-explosive tests at the site than previously understood. It may have maintained some of the equipment for later use, and did in fact resume (elsewhere) some of those activities related to nuclear-weapons development under a new organizational structure. . . .

More broadly, at issue remains [the question of] whether Iran is simply preserving, curating, and improving its nuclear-weapons capabilities, awaiting a decision to reconstitute a full-blown nuclear-weapons program at a later date, if such a political decision is made. Its failure to destroy all of these documents, and purportedly, the equipment used in these activities, does not align with its commitment under the nuclear deal “that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop, or acquire nuclear weapons.”

Amb. Alan Baker: Why is the ICC prosecutor interfering in Khan al-Ahmar?

In a somewhat irregular statement by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court published on October 17, Fatou Bensouda saw fit to criticize Israel and voice concern over the planned evacuation of the Bedouin village Khan al-Ahmar, as well as over the continued violence at the Gaza border.

She pointed out that extensive destruction of property without military necessity and population transfers in occupied territory constitute war crimes under the Rome Statute of the ICC.

Recalling the fact that the ICC is conducting a preliminary examination of Palestinian allegations of war crimes by Israel’s leaders and military commanders (at the behest of the Palestinian leadership), she threatened to “take appropriate action, within the confines of the independent and impartial exercise of my mandate under the Rome Statute.”

Curiously, she added that such action by her would respect the “principle of complementarity.”

This statement raises a number of issues reflecting an element of ignorance on the part of the prosecutor as to the legal situation in the case of Khan al-Ahmar and the highly publicized background of repeated appeals by the residents of the village to Israel’s Supreme Court. It perhaps reflects not only a deliberate omission on her part, but also an evident and even alarming lack of the very impartiality and independence she mentions in her statement and that should guide her in fulfilling her function as ICC prosecutor.

The “principle of complementarity” which she mentioned is the basic, underlying requirement of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as set out in its first article establishing the court. It determines that the exercise by the court of its jurisdiction regarding the most serious crimes of international concern “shall be complementary to national criminal jurisdiction.”

This means that the ICC may not take action on a complaint referred to it if the courts at the national level are dealing, or have dealt with, the particular case.

IsraellyCool: A Photo You Won’t See In the Mainstream Media

The below photo shows 7-year-old Israeli Yonatan Regev from Kibbutz Mefalsim on his bicycle pedaling away from a fire caused by an incendiary balloon from Gaza. It was taken by 13-year-old Uriya Kabir, who lives in the same kibbutz, and supposedly went viral on social media.

I did not see it, so if it did go viral, perhaps it did so in WhatsApp groups in Israel. And it sure hasn’t been picked up by any of the mainstream media, which is too preoccupied showing how palestinian “demonstrators” (read: rioters) are being injured and sometimes killed – of course without the context of the violent activities they are engaged in, or how they are putting themselves at risk.

We hear about the incendiary balloons, but the way it is reported, you’d think they are more of an annoyance than anything. Sure, some have reported how thousands of acres of Israeli land have been scorched, but those reports are mostly from Israeli media outlets.

This photo shows how the fires are affecting the lives of so many Israelis, even to the point of threatening their lives. And unlike the palestinian rioters, the Israelis – like young Yonatan Regev and Uriya Kabir – are just minding their business, trying to live their lives.

Please spread this post and photo so more people out there understand the reality of the situation, and not just the distorted mainstream media version.

Wafa: The Palestinian propaganda factory

While the recent Human Rights Watch report about torture and human rights violations under the PA and Hamas touches on the topic of intimidation of journalists, as far as I can tell no one has really reported on the depth of the problem, and what it means for any desired "State of Palestine."

As in many autocratic nations, there is an official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. The writers are anonymous but are certainly on the PA payroll - paid by the governments of the world.

They regularly write what they are paid to write, much of which are anti-Israel screeds.. They talk about "the occupation" and "Jewish extremists" and "Jewish fanatics" who want to visit holy sites and the articles fawn over the wonderful leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies.

There are no bylines. There is no way to write a letter to the editor. There are no means to correct errors.

No one would consider this to be journalism - it is pure naked propaganda.

To the tune of dozens of articles every day.

Palestinian newspapers and news sites regularly reprint Wafa articles verbatim. They treat the propaganda factory the way American newspapers treat Reuters. Everyone knows it is propaganda - except for the audience.

When real journalism is forbidden, something has to fill the vacuum - and that is the propaganda of the PA, paid for by your tax dollars. They don't only decide what stories to cover up by intimidating and jailing journalists, but they also decide what lies to propagate.

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.

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

By 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.

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: 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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