Sunday, November 18, 2018

  • Sunday, November 18, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

The first comic about the Holocaust, 1955

In Friday's linkdump, there was an item about the late Stan Lee's final essay about how comic books tackled the issue of the Holocaust:

Amidst all the thrilling tales of superheroes foiling evil villains, my colleagues and I have more than once used the pages of comic books in an effort to educate readers about real-life topics.  When I wrote the storyline about drug abuse for three issues of Amazing Spider-Man in 1971, and when Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil created stories about drugs, racism, pollution, and other hot-button subjects for Green Lantern/Green Arrow from 1970 to 1972, we were no longer just comic- book creators.  We were also teachers.

I’m very proud that comic creators have taught about the Holocaust, too....

As far back as 1955, Al Feldstein and Bernard Krigstein created the astounding comic story "Master Race," about an encounter between a Holocaust survivor and a Nazi war criminal.  To this day, that story gives me chills.  As far as I know, it was the first attempt by comic creators to address the Holocaust and, appropriately, it is the first story in this volume.

I found the story. It is quite good.

Here it is:













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11/18 Links: UK Parliament hosts Israeli-hating MP despite her once praising the murderer of seven schoolgirls; What Is SJP Hiding?; Record number of tourists visit Israel in 2018

From Ian:
Parliament hosts Israeli-hating MP despite her once praising gunman who killed seven schoolgirls as 'a hero'
A Jordanian politician invited to a House of Commons event last week once hailed the gunman responsible for the slaughter of seven Israeli schoolgirls 'a hero'.

Dima Tahboub, an MP for Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, rubbed shoulders with Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the House, and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who is also Minister for Women and Equalities, at the inaugural Women MPs Of The World Conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to stand for election to Parliament.

Unusually, MPs agreed for the floor of the Commons to be used for the event, but most of the delegates from more than 100 countries would have been unaware of Ms Tahboub's support for terrorist atrocities.
Dima Tahboub, an MP for Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, had previously stated that Israel – and all Israelis – were ‘the enemy’

Dima Tahboub, an MP for Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, had previously stated that Israel – and all Israelis – were 'the enemy'

She previously stated that Israel – and all Israelis – were 'the enemy', including seven Israeli girls, aged 13 and 14, gunned down by Jordanian border guard Ahmed Daqamseh in 1997.

A military tribunal rejected Daqamseh's claims that the girls had mocked him and jailed him for 20 years.

But Tahboub, pictured, who has a PhD from Manchester University, celebrated his release last year calling him a 'hero'.
Netanyahu: Early elections could bring Intifada-level disaster
Holding an early election could have disastrous results, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday, even as his coalition partners continued to insist it was unavoidable.

“In a sensitive period for our security, we don’t need [an early election] and we know what happens when elements in a right-wing government led to the government being toppled, like in 1992 and in 1999, which brought us the disaster of Oslo and the disaster of the [Second] Intifada,” Netanyahu said at the opening of a cabinet meeting.

In 1992, Yitzhak Shamir was voted out of office and replaced by Yitzhak Rabin, and in 1999 it was Netanyahu who was followed by Ehud Barak as prime minister.

Netanyahu’s comments continued on a theme the Likud began on Thursday, warning coalition partners of the dangers of bringing about an early election.

The prime minister plans to meet with Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on Sunday evening. Kahlon was the first to call for an early election after Avigdor Liberman resigned from the Defense Ministry and pulled his Yisrael Beytenu party from the coalition.

The cabinet is expected to vote on increasing pensions for police officers, along with NIS 22bn. in cuts across all ministries to pay for the raise, to which several ministers expressed opposition. Some see the cuts as an attempt to convince Kahlon to remain in the coalition, in that police officers would vote for his Kulanu party because of the new policy.

However, some in the coalition said an election would be inevitable.
Netanyahu said set to appoint foreign minister, hand out other portfolios
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will appoint a foreign minister in the coming days, according to reports on Sunday, amid a coalition crisis that is threatening to bring down his government and hasten elections.

Hebrew-language media reported Sunday that Netanyahu would likely appoint a Likud member as foreign minister, a post that he currently holds. Channel 10 news said Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi and Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz were being considered for the position.

Shortly after the reports were published, the Likud party released a statement saying the prime minister would “appoint ministers in the coming days,” without elaborating. Currently, the prime minister holds the foreign affairs, defense, health, and immigration absorption portfolios.

Shortly after the announcement, the Jewish Home party said Netanyahu’s announcement of the appointment of a foreign minister “does not change anything” regarding its demand Naftali Bennett be made defense minister.

“This is a government that is nominally right-wing but acts left-wing,” the right-wing coalition party said in a statement. “The government is a government with leftist policies, a collapsed deterrence against Hamas, the failure to evacuate Khan al-Ahmar, a weak policy toward terrorists and their families after terror attacks.”

  • Sunday, November 18, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

Liberal Jewish women notice that Linda Sarsour may really be an antisemite. (Don't worry, they'll forgive her.)

Linda Sarsour published on Facebook the classic antisemitic meme that American Jews who support Israel's existence are guilty of being more loyal to Israel than to America:


This caused some consternation among Jewish women who may be supportive of every single critic of Israel but who still have some vestiges of pride in their Judaism and awareness of the history of that slur:








Zioness, the unapologetically Zionist feminist group, was much stronger in its criticism:


The ADL also criticized Sarsour by retweeting the AJC:


But the ADL, which has been leaning heavily left, already knew Sarsour was problematic because she had previously accused them of being Islamophobic and absurdly claims that they are responsible for SU police brutality against minorities.

Will the Jewish feminist embracers of intersectionality and supporters of the Women's March learn the same lesson the ADL did? 

I somehow doubt it.

(See also Ben Shapiro here.)





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When religious Israeli Jews demand human rights, they are just acting as immoral settler colonialists, argues another brain-dead academic paper

Here's an abstract for "Temple Mount pilgrimage in the name of human rights: the use of piety practice and liberal discourse to carry out proxy-state conquest," by Rachel Z. Feldman, published in Settler Colonial Studies last year:

Since 2010, Jewish pilgrimage to the Temple Mount/Haram ash-Sharif compound has become an increasingly popular practice within Israeli society. On the Temple Mount, pilgrimage guides and their Jewish participants subjectively perform Israeli state sovereignty, carrying out a proxy-state attempt at land annexation through the format of a piety ritual. During pilgrimages, Temple Mount tour guides filter down a new discursive regime to participants, helping them to frame their act of conquest in the language of the liberal state, claiming that Jewish access to the Temple Mount is matter of ‘human rights’ and ‘religious freedom’. Today, Temple Mount pilgrimage is becoming a public ritual of liberal-settler colonial comportment, where Jewish pilgrims act on behalf of the state, laying claim to the Temple Mount by constituting themselves as human rights victims, and strategically inverting the relationship between settler and native. On the Temple Mount, religious piety and liberal ideologies conjoin, supporting forms of settler colonial domination in Israel/Palestine.
The paper itself is interesting in a few aspects. One is that the author is herself a religious Jewish woman, showing how the religion of anti-Israel studies has infected even some who understand that Jews are the indigenous people of Israel:

While I recognize the holiness of the Temple Mount/Haram ash-Sharif compound for both Jews and Muslims, I do not condone the forced entry of Jewish pilgrims accompanied by armed guards inside the context of Israeli occupation. On a personal level, as an observant Jewish woman, this research represents my desire to address the cooptation of Jewish practice and spirituality, which I hold dear, for the use of land annexation and domination in Israel/Palestine. I wish to shift the conversation on the Temple Mount away from blaming religion and religious actors per say [sic], and instead, to reveal the particularly pernicious junctures of piety practice and liberal ideologies that embolden settler colonial regimes.
Nowhere in the paper does Feldman actually argue that the Jewish claim of equal rights to peacefully worship on the Temple Mount is not valid. The idea that religious Jews have human rights on par with Palestinians is derisively dismissed as mere politics. It cannot even be entertained. Instead. Feldman concentrates on how these Jews that she interviewed really want to build the Third Temple and to extend their "colonialism."

The most telling aspect of the paper is this part that she uses to describe Zionist Jews, but that applies to her and her Palestinian heroes far more:

The Temple Movement’s use of human rights discourse can be situated within a larger phenomenon exhibited by right wing pro-settlement organizations in Israel, who have learned how to mobilize human rights discourses to their advantage in recent years.58 Similar to the way humanitarian discourses were used by the United States to justify intervention in Afghanistan, human rights discourses, mobilized across the political spectrum in Israel, have become resources to legitimize violence and provide the moral justification for forms of settler colonialism.59 Human rights discourses are powerful tools in political projects of domination precisely because human rights appear as neutral, transcendent, and apolitical values.60 Yet, their mobilization at the local level is always political because human rights effectively ‘demarcate the borders of human’, establishing a hierarchy of civilians who fall under their purview.61
Wow. When Jews talk about their human rights, it is political and cynical. But, the implication is, when people talk about human rights of Palestinians, it is "neutral, transcendent, and apolitical."

Yet this entire paper trashes the human rights of Israeli Jews who want to worship on their holiest place, a right that is indeed enshrined in human rights laws.

Feldman's paper assumes that everything the Zionists do is oppressive, without describing why. That, my friends, is political.

(By the way every footnote in that paragraph refers to the same article. Which should be sort of embarrassing.)

It is more than disappointing to see a religious Jewish woman willing to throw her coreligionists under the bus, with a paper that has built-in biases that are obvious to anyone who is not already infected by the sickness that permeates these sorts of pseudo-scholarship. But perhaps more grating is that she uses interviews of Jews who would no doubt have trusted her not to use them as ammunition against their own human rights.

Finally, this is perhaps the most disturbing part of the paper:
This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2014–2017).
The National Science Foundation funded a woman to fly to Israel to trash her own people in a paper that has nothing at all to do with the objectivity one expects from science or academia.




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  • Sunday, November 18, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

Just an antisemitic pro-Hamas music video (update)

This video showing Hamas terrorists happily decapitating Jews was released recently as a means to terrify Israelis:



It happens to be grossly antisemitic. Here are some screenshots:





The video also makes it clear that the targets of Hamas have nothing to do with "occupation."




While the bad guys in the video look like religious Jews, here is what the good guys look like:




It is distasteful for Western media and diplomats to note the antisemitism that lies behind the groups that shoot rockets to Israel. The emphasis is that Palestinians are only against "occupation" and that this is merely a political dispute over land. 

But when videos like this are released, you have to look very long and hard to find a single Palestinian Arab on social media pointing out that this is unacceptable.

Perhaps not every Palestinian Arab is antisemitic. But virtually all of them condone naked antisemitism when shown in context of attacking Israeli Jews.

(h/t @TheMossadIL, who also points out that the music is a direct ripoff of a Bollywood song.)

UPDATE:. The video is actually from 2017. (h/t Ibn Boutros)


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Saturday, November 17, 2018

11/17 Links: Melanie Phillips: The muddled obsessions of progressive American Jews; Ben Shapiro: The Only Proper Response To Anti-Semitism; What is Europe without Jews?

From Ian:
Melanie Phillips: The muddled obsessions of progressive American Jews
Having spent the past week or so in Los Angeles, I have been struck once again by the deep anxiety in the American Jewish community over the intensifying demonization of Israel on campus and over self-styled progressive Jews.

I have also been exposed to the even more intense divisions within that community over President Donald Trump. One of the most bizarre conceits among those who hate him is that he’s an antisemite, or at the very least knowingly encourages antisemites.

A guest of the Hanukkah celebration at the White House last year told me he had the opportunity to observe the president up close.

Surrounded by Jewish friends and Republican colleagues, Trump said proudly when his family arrived: “Here are my Jewish grandchildren.” It was simply inconceivable, said my informant, that anyone could seriously believe there was an antisemitic bone in his body.

For those who hate him, however, it’s as if all the evils and problems in the world are somehow his fault. It’s not simply a question of loathing his uncouthness or finding his personality objectionable. He has become their obsession. He occupies their every waking thought. He is their personal demon.

The same people, however, are overwhelmingly silent about the antisemites and Israel-bashers in the Democratic Party, more of whom have been elected to Congress in the mid-terms.

There’s silence from such quarters over Ilhan Omar, elected in Minnesota and who has said: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

Silence over Rashida Tlaib, elected for a Michigan seat and who, asked if she would vote against military aid to Israel, replied: “Absolutely … I will be using my position in Congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S. when they still promote that kind of injustice.”

Silence, too, over Women’s March leaders Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour, despite their support for Louis Farrakhan who raves about “satanic” Jews.
Ben Shapiro: Intersectionality Leads To Ignoring Anti-Semitism. Here's Why.
On Friday, Batya Ungar-Sargon, opinion editor of the Left-wing Jewish publication The Forward, tweeted her disappointment at the behavior of Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour. Sarsour, a longtime anti-Semite, issued a statement in support of Congresswoman-elect Ilhan Omar, who is herself an anti-Semite who supports boycott against Israel designed to destroy the Jewish State; in the past, she’s tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” Sarsour, angry at Leftists who have called on Omar to recant, tore into “folks who masquerade as progressives but always choose their allegiance to Israel over their commitment to democracy and free speech.”

This charge of dual loyalty is textbook anti-Semitism; it’s also wildly illogical, given that Left-leaning people are in favor of downplaying Left-wing anti-Semitism so as to promote the intersectional ideal (Ungar-Sargon’s piece on the topic is an incredible exercise in logical pretzling to avoid the obvious conclusion that Omar is a BDS supporter). Here was Ungar-Sargon tweeting her disappointment:


Herein lies the problem for those in the Jewish community who embrace intersectionality: the very tenets of intersectionality tend toward downplaying and pooh-poohing anti-Semitism. That’s because intersectionality posits that all inequality is the result of power hierarchies reflecting differential privilege of group identities. If one group is more powerful than another in some way, that’s because the group has benefitted from a power hierarchy. The intersectional coalition is directed at destroying the hierarchy, which is presumed to be based on maintenance of white, male, straight power.
Ben Shapiro: Only Proper Response To Anti-Semitism


Linda Sarsour Accuses Jews Who Oppose Anti-Semitic Muslim Congresswoman Of Having Dual Loyalties
This week, Omar revealed in an interview with the “Muslim Girl” website that she supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) that targets Israel. As Jordan Schachtel of Conservative Review noted, “The statement marked a stark reversal from Omar’s previous position on BDS. Prior to the election, Omar told Minnesota Jews that she was opposed to the boycott movement. Aaron Bandler of The Jewish Journal reported Omar said that BDS wasn’t “helpful in getting that two-state solution … I think the particular purpose for [BDS] is to make sure that there is pressure, and I think that pressure really is counteractive. Because in order for us to have a process of getting to a two-state solution, people have to be willing to come to the table and have a conversation about how that is going to be possible and I think that stops the dialogue.”

The charge of dual loyalty against Jews goes back thousands of years to the story of Esther, when Haman, the anti-Semitic right-hand man of the Persian king Ahasuerus, who wanted to eradicate the Jews, said, “there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the poples in all the provinces of your realm. Their laws are different from every other people’s and they do not observe the king’s laws; therefore it is not befitting the king to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let it be recorded that they be destroyed.”

That slur was echoed by Flaccus, the Roman governor of Alexandria Egypt, in the first century, who tried to appease rioters targeting the Jews who were successful there. The charge persisted through the centuries; in the late 19th century he French, during the Dreyfus affair, launched charges that the Jews had dual loyalties. Ironically, it was the Dreyfus affair that convinced Theodor Herzl, a secular Jew, to realize the Jews could not live freely in Europe and spearhead the movement for the reestablishment of the state of Israel. The charge was used in the Stalinist Soviet Union; echoes of it were promulgated after the 1991 Gulf War and the Iraq war.

Friday, November 16, 2018

11/16 Links Pt2: Stan Lee's final essay, about the Holocaust; Simone O’Broin: The white supremacy of the Palestinian cause and BDS; Merkel urged Romanian president to not move embassy to Jerusalem

From Ian:
Stan Lee's final essay, about the Holocaust
Note: Legendary comic book creator Stan Lee, who passed away this week, took a strong interest in the Holocaust in recent years. His final published essay appeared as the introduction to the recent book We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust, by Neal Adams, Rafael Medoff, and Craig Yoe (IDW / Yoe Books, 2018). We Spoke Out features Holocaust-related comic book stories, including superheroes from Stan Lee’s Marvel Universe such as Captain America, the X-Men, and Captain Marvel. Arutz Sheva reviewed its predecessor, How Cartoonists Fought the Holocaust.

INTRODUCTION TO “WE SPOKE OUT: COMIC BOOKS AND THE HOLOCAUST”
People don't usually associate so profound and forbidding a topic as the Holocaust with the costumed superheroes and bombastic villains who inhabit the world of comic books. But the truth is that those colorful characters aren’t the only residents of the comic book universe, and comic books can serve more purposes than entertainment alone.

Amidst all the thrilling tales of superheroes foiling evil villains, my colleagues and I have more than once used the pages of comic books in an effort to educate readers about real-life topics. When I wrote the storyline about drug abuse for three issues of Amazing Spider-Man in 1971, and when Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil created stories about drugs, racism, pollution, and other hot-button subjects for Green Lantern/Green Arrow from 1970 to 1972, we were no longer just comic- book creators. We were also teachers.

I’m very proud that comic creators have taught about the Holocaust, too.

Sometimes we forget that talking about the Holocaust is a relatively new thing for most Americans. Sure, thirty-five states now require teaching the Holocaust in public schools. But the first of them, Illinois, adopted that policy as recently as 1990. There were very few opportunities for young people to learn about the Nazi genocide during the years before that, although comic book creators made an effort to fill that gap.

As far back as 1955, Al Feldstein and Bernard Krigstein created the astounding comic story "Master Race," about an encounter between a Holocaust survivor and a Nazi war criminal. To this day, that story gives me chills. As far as I know, it was the first attempt by comic creators to address the Holocaust and, appropriately, it is the first story in this volume.
David Collier: Simone O’Broin: The white supremacy of the Palestinian cause and BDS
The white supremacy of the Palestinian cause and BDS

The expletives deflect from the important element of the video. Simone O’Broin comes across as a racist, clearly displaying a white supremacy mindset in the words that she hurls at the Air India employees. She mentions her credentials as an ‘International Human rights Lawyer for the Palestinian people about a dozen times. A snippet:

you’re the Captain aren’t you. I am working for all ‘your’ people…. don’t get any money for it by the way….I’m leader of the f..king boycott movement, if I say boycott Air India – done….do I not have the right f..king clothes on? rich Indian ‘f**king money grabbing bastards…I’ll turn you f**king inside out…

This happens far too often to be a coincidence. Racists attached to anti-Israel activism. Many put it down to simple old-school antisemitism, but it is deeper than that. If you listen to activist-academic Ilan Pappe closely, you’ll hear desperation in his voice when he talks about Palestinians not ‘leading the way’. Pappe clearly knows what needs to be done. He looks ‘white’ and is ‘clever’. In the video it seems that Pappe is implying that people like himself in the west created BDS and gave it as a present to the Palestinians because they are not capable of directing themselves. I’ve seen Pappe speak dozens of times, he often appears to treat Palestinians as incompetents who need help.

Raw racism
But the raw racism in the Air India rant leaves little for doubt. Simone O’Broin is a ‘white person’ who gives her time to help ‘non-whites’. Those who are ‘not white’ should be thankful. She clearly expects them to do her bidding. She is ‘white royalty’.

BDS, Palestinianism and anti-Israel activity is loaded with such messaging. A racist movement that views Palestinians as lesser people who have no agency and are incapable of improving their situation without ‘white man’s’ help. The truth is that BDS was designed that way. It was built to feed from antisemitism and the white- supremacist, imperialist nature of the west. Think about it. BDS wants to impose it’s own value system and redraw borders of a far-off landscape against the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. BDS may as well just call itself Sykes-Picot 2.

All the Palestinians have to do is sit at the table and negotiate with Israel. But some feel this is clearly beyond them. The leaders of the Palestinian cause in the west tell them not to negotiate. They tell them who to talk to, when to talk and what to say. More people wave the Palestinian flag at the Labour Party conference than the Arabs do in Ramallah. How brutally obvious is this?

Antisemitism comes into play because the enemy is the ‘Jewish people’. Those poor Palestinians have no chance against the ‘chosen’ – the untrustworthy, manipulative people who secretly control the world. How can those ‘lesser-people’- possibly do it on their own. In this fashion the Palestinian cause (Palestinianism) has attracted a whole host of antisemites and white-supremacists, all willing to attack Israel in the name of ‘human rights’. Don’t believe me? Just give one of them too much to drink.

11/16 Links Pt1: Sherman: Israel’s stark option: Arabs in Gaza or Jews in Negev; Gazans plan border protests Friday to ‘thank the resistance’ for rocket fire; Muslim Brotherhood's Qaradawi Resigns

From Ian:
Dr. Martin Sherman: Israel’s stark option: Arabs in Gaza or Jews in Negev
If the Israel leadership persists with its perception of the Palestinian-Arabs in general, and the Gazan's in particular, as potential partners in some future peace arrangement rather than perceiving them as they perceive themselves – as implacable enemies, whose enmity towards the Jewish state is not rooted in what it does but what it is—it will never be able to formulate a policy capable of effectively dealing [with]... the continuing, and continually intensifying, threat emanating from the Gaza Strip.

Fatal failure of conventional wisdom

The dramatic escalation in violence on Monday—the very day after Israel permitted the transfer of millions of Qatari dollars into the Hamas- ruled- enclave, allegedly to alleviate the worsening humanitarian crisis there—underscored the futility of adhering to the dictates of conventional wisdom—i.e. that increasing humanitarian aid will work to quell the violence along and across the border with Israel, or to significantly reduce it. Indeed, recent events have only highlighted just how baseless prevailing dogmas that dominate the discourse have proved to be.

Time and again over the course of the conflict, it has been shown, clearly and convincingly, that the penury and privation are not the reason for Arab enmity toward Israel. Quite the reverse! It is Arab enmity towards Israel that is reason for the prevailing penury and privation.

Almost inevitably, the dismaying recurrence of violence along Israel’s source border brings to mind the pithy dictum attributed to Albert Einstein, who reportedly observed: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

After all, the problems of Gaza are the undeniable outcome of the ill-conceived attempt to foist self-governance on Gaza and the Gazans. As such it is aproblem that cannot be resolved by persevering with the same mode of thinking that created it. Accordingly, the failed formula of self-rule for Gaza must be set aside—since any obstinate insistence on it will only continue to exacerbate the current situation and extend the misery it precipitates—for Arab and Jew alike.

Elite officer who died heroically in Gaza may receive army's top medal
Days after a covert IDF operation inside Gaza went awry, and Lt. Col. M. was killed under heroic circumstances, officials say there are grounds to grant him and another officer the military's highest honor, the Medal of Valor, for their actions in battle.

Due to the sensitive nature of their work in the military, the names of the two officers have not been released for publication. According to information approved by the military censor, the covert squad entered Gaza in disguise on an intelligence-gathering mission and was discovered at a checkpoint near Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, where the soldiers engaged in a firefight with Hamas operatives.

Lt. Col. M. was reportedly killed while drawing fire away from his comrades and allowing them to escape.

The other officer made a charge toward M.'s position to try to save him, and after managing to kill three terrorists, reached M.'s vehicle but was badly wounded in the process.

According to various reports and statements from senior officials, Lt. Col. M. sacrificed his life to save his comrades.

Israel's highest decoration, the Medal of Valor, was last given 43 years ago. Only 40 soldiers have received the honor for "performing a supreme act of valor while facing the enemy and risking their life."
David Horovitz: The path of a piece of shrapnel: A minor story that made no headlines
Late on Monday evening, at the height of the latest round of indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel by Hamas and other Islamist terror groups in neighboring Gaza, one rocket got through Israel’s remarkable Iron Dome missile defense system and landed directly on a house in the southern working-class town of Netivot.

As documented by reporter Moshe Nussbaum and his camera crew from Hadashot TV news, the rocket caused astounding damage.

It brought down the ceiling in one of the bedrooms, it smashed a large hole in an outside wall, it devastated the living room, it destroyed furniture, it injured the family dog, whose blood was still on the floor when the TV crew entered.

The story played prominently on Israeli TV news late Monday (Hebrew video below), though it made little international impact, unsurprisingly, since mercifully nobody was killed.

Though Netivot is barely 15 miles from central Gaza, and thus a prime target for Hamas rocket fire, this neighborhood in the town, Nussbaum reported, does not have municipal bomb shelters. And these particular homes were constructed before it became mandatory to include a reinforced “sealed room” in residential buildings, where Israelis rush in the seconds after the sirens wail, to take refuge from rocket attacks.

For the Netivot family whose home was destroyed in this strike, and many more like them, therefore, the only option when the sirens ring out is to “lie down on the floor, put their hands over their heads, and pray and hope for a miracle,” Nussbaum reported. “That’s what happened here today: A miracle.” Their home was destroyed, but the family, apart from their dog, emerged unscathed.

Remember When Abbas Regularly Threatened To Quit? (Daled Amos)




During the years 2003 to 2008, Abbas threatened at least 13 times to quit as president.

Has anyone noticed that it's been a while since Abbas has made such a threat? [I found an implicit threat from 2015 - EoZ]

It kind of makes you wonder just how relevant Abbas is these days?

True, Abbas continues to be the go-to guy when it comes to making payments to the families of Palestinian terrorists.

And Abbas does love to dedicate stadiums named after Palestinian terrorists.

But those do seem to be the main -- if only -- ways for him to stay relevant to the Palestinian Arabs.

Even his victories at the UN and abroad in getting recognition of a Palestinian state don't seem to have won Abbas much recognition, let alone leverage. "Palestine" currently is recognized as a "non-member observer state." And 137 countries have recognized a Palestinian state, while according to Abbas, France is considering the possibility too.

But that does seem to have helped the Palestinian Arabs much.

Hamas, too, wants to be relevant, and to do so they have been organizing regular riots at the Gaza border with Israel -- when they are not busy launching 500 rockets at Israel.

Things have not changed much from 2010 when this video came out:



From Hamas' perspective, they have been pretty successful:
o  They got $15 million from Qatar
o  They got Israel to agree to a ceasefire
o  They take credit for Avigdor Liberman's resignation as Minister of Defence
Instead of letting the hard work of governing tame them, as people claimed would happen once Hamas took power, Hamas has stuck to what they do best -- terrorism and holding hostages (in this case, Gaza) and waiting for others to come to them.

Hamas' method seems to be working better.

Thanks to Qatar, Hamas was able to negate Abbas' leverage of withholding salaries and have not been cowed by Abbas' threats and withholding of funds.

Meanwhile Abbas, for his part, is being bypassed and played no part in this week's ceasefire.

True, like Hamas, he will not be criticized for his incompetence, corruption or incitement of hatred.
But no one is knocking on his door or rushing to infuse the West Bank with cash either.




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  • Friday, November 16, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

Antisemitism also up in Canada, Britain, Australia. Because of Trump?

When statistics on the increase of antisemitism in the US are released, the knee-jerk reaction from the media and the Left is that this is a reflection of the policies of President Trump.

If that is true, then why are antisemitic incidents up across the board in other liberal Western countries?

In Canada, antisemitic incidents in 2017 were at an all time high.

In the UK, antisemitic incidents in 2017 were also at an all time high.

In Australia, antisemitic incidents were up 10% compared to 2016.

In France, antisemitic incidents were up 69% this year so far.

In Germany , antisemitic incidents have been rising as well.

Antisemitism is a disease. It is not aligned with any specific cause - any cause given is an excuse.

On a related topic, here is a nice video of Yossi Klein Halevi explaining why anti-Zionism is today's antisemitism.



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  • Friday, November 16, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

Today's Gaza fence protests are aimed against Gulf Arab states, not Israel!



Every week, the riots at the Gaza fence have a theme. In the beginning the theme was for "right to return" but then the weekly themes branched out into other areas, like honoring Palestinian workers, or their flag, or commemorating the 1967 war, of honoring martyrs.

This week the theme isn't aimed at boosting the morale of Gazans nor demonizing Israel, but to protest Arab states who "normalize" relations with Israel.

The title of this week's riots is "Normalization with the enemy is a crime and betrayal." 

Organizers of the march - meaning Hamas -  issued a statement saying  they "condemn all steps and projects towards normalization with the occupation" calling on the people of the Arab and Islamic nation to "confront normalization" and saying that these moves towards peace will result in "looting of Arab goods."

Other officials from Gaza factions issued statements against "normalization" as well.

It is notable that the so-called "peace camp" in both Israel and the US have all but silent on the incredible meeting between Netanyahu and the Sultan of Oman, as well as recent invitations for Israeli officials to attend meetings in Bahrain and the UAE.

Perhaps they agree with Hamas that peace and "normalization" is a terrible idea, when so-called "most rightwing government in Israel's history" is the one that has been successful in moving towards those goals.

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Thursday, November 15, 2018

11/15 Links Pt2: Evelyn Gordon: Don’t Trust Middle East Experts to Predict the Future; Irish BDS lawyer arrested for drunk, racist rant; It’s Time for Natalie Portman to Take a Stand on the Women’s March

From Ian:
Evelyn Gordon: Don’t Trust Middle East Experts to Predict the Future
The Jewish state’s relations with Arab states continue to improve—evidenced most recently in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Oman and Minister of Culture Miri Regev’s visit to Abu Dhabi. Consequently, many experts on Israel and the Arab world, who long insisted that such reconciliation could not occur absent a resolution to the conflict with the Palestinians, have been forced to change their tune. But even while admitting they were wrong, their response has been simply to move the goalposts and suggest that the Palestinian issue will serve as a “glass ceiling” preventing complete normalization. Evelyn Gordon comments:

The experts [claiming normalization is impossible] generally favor Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, so they don’t want Israel to be able to normalize relations with Arab states without such concessions. Similarly, the few experts who confidently predict that normalization is possible regardless of the Palestinians are generally people who oppose such concessions.

[But more importantly], predicting change is hard. For decades, with the notable exception of the peace with Egypt, Arab attitudes toward Israel were in stasis, making it easy to predict that the future would resemble the past. But now, with Arab attitudes in flux, nobody can really know how far Arab states are willing to go. . . . That’s precisely why experts are so often wrong on so many issues—not because they’re stupid or evil, but because they’re too arrogant to admit that even experts can’t predict the future. They can’t predict whether a complex policy will succeed or fail; they can’t predict when a seemingly stable country will suddenly implode; they can’t predict when long-held attitudes will suddenly shift.

That doesn’t make them useless; experts excel at concrete tasks that don’t require oracular powers. For instance, though Israel’s intelligence agencies failed to predict the second intifada, they became very good at the day-to-day task of thwarting terror attacks once they adjusted to the new situation. But unless experts acquire enough modesty and honesty to admit that they have no special expertise about the future, they will keep getting big issues wrong. And eventually, like the boy who cried “wolf,” people will stop listening to them altogether, even on issues where they do have something to contribute.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Renewed US Sanctions on Iran are Good News for Palestinians
What the Hamas official is actually saying is that thanks to Iran's backing, Hamas continues to hold hostage the two million residents of the Gaza Strip, whose lives have been literally destroyed by the Hamas leaders' policies.

The message that Hamas and PIJ are sounding is: How dare the US administration impose sanctions on Iran, the only country that is helping us in our effort to continue our terrorist attacks against Israel?

The renewed US sanctions on Iran are good news, however, for many Arabs and Muslims who feel threatened by Tehran's actions and rhetoric. Iran has long been systematically working towards undermining moderate Arabs and Muslims in the region.

The Palestinian Authority and Abbas are actually attacking a US administration that is seeking to undermine the enemies of Abbas: Hamas and Iran. The Palestinian Authority is, thus, aligning itself with its own enemies.

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