Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Documentary on Israel's disengagement of Gaza
Anti-semitic attack roundup
Weekend links
Olympics organizers build barrier between Lebanese, Israeli judo teams
"Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordechai the Jew sitting at the king's gate"
Islamists, including Al Qaeda, increasing their role in Syrian opposition
BDSers - and the PA - furious over increased Israel/EU ties
Washington still can't decide where Jerusalem is
Video Tralier - Ameer Got His Gun

Documentary on Israel's disengagement of Gaza

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 03:00 PM PDT

Because and Shabbat and Tisha B'Av, I will not be posting until at least Sunday afternoon.

The Land of Israel website suggests that people watch this documentary about Israel's disengagement of Gaza on Tisha B'Av, the saddest day of the year.

The 90 minute film, UNSETTLED, offers a personal behind-the-scenes look, both before and during the evacuation, at the people whose lives would forever be impacted by the events which unfolded during those difficult weeks. With the ramifications of the disengagement from Gaza still very evident today, this emotional documentary film takes you back to experience the event from the perspective of both the settler and the soldier.

Anti-semitic attack roundup

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 01:00 PM PDT

US:

Jewish campers terrorized in Pennsylvania:

Crown Heights youngster attacked with an iron rod

Greece:
The Greek Jewish community in a letter to political leaders and the country's president expressed its "revulsion" to the swearing-in of an antisemitic musician as a national lawmaker.

"...The Jewish community took particular exception to Mathaiopoulos, who was a bass player in a hard rock Greek band called Pogrom, which has a "repertoire of fiercely racist, fascist, vulgar and antisemitic songs," the lettter said, noting that a song titled "Auschwitz," has lyrics like "fuck Anne Frank", "fuck the tribe of Abraham" and "piss on the Wailing Wall.""
Additional antisemitic slogans in the song Pogrom (video included the link) include: "Juden raus" and "Auschwitz, how much I love it" (translation based on http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/international/article/385/greek-jewish-community-blasts-hate-music-golden-dawn-mp-statement)

Hungary:
Hungary neo-Nazis: Cash for info on Jews at protest (with videos)

"Antisemitic website offers 100,000 Forints ($450) for data on participants in protest against suspected war criminal Csatary."
BTW: The first video showing the protest is titled (goggle translate):
"Hooked nose hung before an empty house in the Jewish mob vérszagra sink"
The link includes also videos in English

UN:
U.N.'s Richard Falk accuses "the organized Jewish community" of crimes against Palestinians

(h/t O.)

Weekend links

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 11:30 AM PDT

From Ian:

Latma Summer Series:
The callous Israel government

Mofaz seeks a partner
Dedicated to Jonathan Pollard "Close Every Door"

Video: Viral Response to BBC's Map: Olympic Team Salutes to Jerusalem

Video: CNN talks to the widow of Israeli coach Andre Spitzer. He was taken hostage and killed during the Olympics in Munich.

Cameron will attend Guildhall Munich commemoration

"David Cameron has agreed to attend the Guildhall commemoration to mark the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes at the hands of Palestinian terrorists 40 years in Munich."

Italian parliament holds a minute of silence for Munich victims

Palestinian Olympic goalie, Red Crescent staffers held for West Bank shooting

13 people allegedly planned further attacks on Israeli targets
"Omar Abu Rwayyis, 23, the Palestinian goalkeeper, obtained the two AK-47 guns that were used in the shooting, and carried out the attack together with another man, Salih Bar'al, the IDF said in a statement. Both men were said to be employees of the Palestinian Red Crescent, and Abu Rwayyis was also said to be a member of Hamas."

Is appeasement of Hezbollah now EU policy?

"In his request to the EU to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said: "It would send the right signal to the international community and the Israeli people."
But in their rejection, the only sign the EU has sent is that Jewish blood is cheap, while appeasement of terrorism is now official EU policy. Moreover, the EU has missed a golden
opportunity to strike at the heart of Iran's empire of terror."

Blockade charade: The misguided campaign against Gazan border control

Five years since Hamas took power, the international community is still more interested in falsely castigating Israel than condemning the terrorist group
"... the Palmer Report invoked Article 51 of the UN Charter precisely because "[m]ore than 5,000 [rockets, missiles, and mortar bombs] were fired between 2005 and January 2009". In light of this, it is curious that a signatory to the petition such as UNICEF should cite Article 33 without mention of Hamas, given that the latter half of the Article explicitly
prohibits "all measures of intimidation or of terrorism", tactics that Hamas insatiably employs against Israel."

5 arrested for terrorizing Pennsylvania Jewish camp

Suspects allegedly damaged property, shot paintball guns and hurled anti-Semitic slurs at Camp Bonim in Wayne County.

U.S., Lockheed reach deal on Israeli F-35s

Israel Daily Pictures:
The Jews' Wailing Place -- Photographed 150 Years Ago
Tisha B'Av -- Mourning at the Western Wall 90 Years Ago

Borat's bubbe will whip you in shape
Sacha Baron Cohen's 97-year-old grandma is an exercise instructor for the elderly

Also:

US Jewish Federations drop "Zionism" from their global plans

'We have to liberate Syria, then we'll go to Golan liberate Palestine,' refugee in Damascus neighborhood says

Al Qaeda providing instruction and guidance for Israeli wildfires? (Hebrew)

Israeli technology in F-35 fighter planes (Hebrew)

Huffington Post - on Tisha B'Av

Muslim owner of Santa Monica hotel sued for kicking out pro-Israel event

NPR notices Palestinian Arabs aren't happy with Abbas

(h/t Ishai, Yoel, Yerushalimey, Jonathan Schanzer tweet)

Olympics organizers build barrier between Lebanese, Israeli judo teams

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 10:00 AM PDT

Sportsmanship:

The Lebanese judo team at the 2012 London Olympics refused to practice next to the Israeli one on Friday afternoon, and a makeshift barrier was erected to split their gym into two halves.

According to several Hebrew sports sites, the two teams were scheduled to use the same gym and mats at London's new ExCeL center for their final preparations. However, the delegation from Lebanon would not train in view of the Israeli team, and insisted some sort of barrier be placed between them.

Organizers accepted the Lebanese coach's demand to separate the teams, erecting a barrier so that the Lebanese team wouldn't see the Israeli one.

So the Olympic organizers cave to the demands of the haters.

Which would be unusual, except when the object of the hate is the Jewish state. Then it is A-OK.

"Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordechai the Jew sitting at the king's gate"

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 08:30 AM PDT

Today, Arabic media is reporting that as many as 100,000 Muslims have gone to the Al Aqsa Mosque and the courtyards of the Temple Mount for the second Friday in Ramadan.

Israeli police are coordinating the safe passage and human traffic jams through the streets of the Old City.

As far as I can tell, there were never anything close to this number of Muslims who ever came to the Temple Mount when it was under British or Jordanian control, even though Israel is restricting some men under 40 from coming.

Bur even so, every day this week we have seen angry stories about the daily visits of a few dozen Jews who are quietly and respectfully visiting Judaism's holiest spot, in this week before Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of both Temples' destruction.

So I am reminded of the verse that is the title of this post, from Esther 5:11-13:

And Haman recounted unto them the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and everything as to how the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said moreover: 'Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and to-morrow also am I invited by her together with the king. Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordechai the Jew sitting at the king's gate.'

This is the essense of anti-semitism.

Hate for Jews (or its more recent incarnation toward Jewish nationalists) has no logical basis.

It is not because others have "lost" anything. By any objective standard, Arab Israelis enjoy more freedom than any Arabs in Middle East history. Early Zionists worked hard to ensure that their building up the land would only benefit the Arabs there at the time.

The hate is visceral.

And because of this, there is nothing that Jews can do to make them liked better by the haters. A few of the more craven ones might be happily used by the anti-semites to advance their agenda, but in the end the hate is the only constant.

So all that today's Zionists can do is what they always have done. Do what is necessary to survive and prosper; work as hard as possible to act in a moral fashion, and ignore the haters - because there is nothing that can ever appease them.

Islamists, including Al Qaeda, increasing their role in Syrian opposition

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 07:00 AM PDT

From the NYT:

It is the sort of image that has become a staple of the Syrian revolution, a video of masked men calling themselves the Free Syrian Army and brandishing AK-47s — with one unsettling difference. In the background hang two flags of Al Qaeda, white Arabic writing on a black field.

The video, posted on YouTube, is one more bit of evidence that Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists are doing their best to hijack the Syrian revolution, with a growing although still limited success that has American intelligence officials publicly concerned, and Iraqi officials next door openly alarmed.

While leaders of the Syrian political and military opposition continue to deny any role for the extremists, Al Qaeda has helped to change the nature of the conflict, injecting the weapon it perfected in Iraq — suicide bombings — into the battle against President Bashar al-Assad with growing frequency.

The evidence is mounting that Syria has become a magnet for Sunni extremists, including those operating under the banner of Al Qaeda. An important border crossing with Turkey that fell into Syrian rebels' hands last week, Bab al-Hawa, has quickly become a jihadist congregating point.

The presence of jihadists in Syria has accelerated in recent days in part because of a convergence with the sectarian tensions across the country's long border in Iraq. Al Qaeda, through an audio statement, has just made an undisguised bid to link its insurgency in Iraq with the revolution in Syria, depicting both as sectarian conflicts — Sunnis versus Shiites.

Iraqi officials said the extremists operating in Syria are in many cases the very same militants striking across their country. "We are 100 percent sure from security coordination with Syrian authorities that the wanted names that we have are the same wanted names that the Syrian authorities have, especially within the last three months," Izzat al-Shahbandar — a close aide to the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki — said in an interview on Tuesday. "Al Qaeda that is operating in Iraq is the same as that which is operating in Syria," he said.

One Qaeda operative, a 56-year-old known as Abu Thuha who lives in the Hawija district near Kirkuk in Iraq, spoke to an Iraqi reporter for The New York Times on Tuesday. "We have experience now fighting the Americans, and more experience now with the Syrian revolution," he said. "Our big hope is to form a Syrian-Iraqi Islamic state for all Muslims, and then announce our war against Iran and Israel, and free Palestine."

Although he is a low-level operative, his grandiose plans have been echoed by Al Nusra Front for the People of the Levant, which military and intelligence analysts say is the major Qaeda affiliate operating in Syria, with two other Qaeda-linked groups also claiming to be active there, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and Al Baraa ibn Malik Martyrdom Brigade.

The article includes denials from the Free Syrian Army that there are any Al Qaeda members there at all.

(h/t Yoel)

BDSers - and the PA - furious over increased Israel/EU ties

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 05:15 AM PDT

On Tuesday, the European Union put out a document detailing ongoing ties between Israel and Europe and an increased set of initiatives. Here are excerpts from the document:

The European Union (EU) warmly welcomes this 11th meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council as a demonstration of the significance the EU attaches to its relations with the State of Israel. The EU reiterates the importance of further developing our broad bilateral partnership and looks forward to a comprehensive dialogue and cooperation with our Israeli counterparts.

The EU takes note of the efforts of both parties to develop bilateral relations in the period since the previous meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council. These efforts were framed by the general EU position, as it was established on the occasion of the June 2009 Association Council, that the 2008 decision to upgrade our relations in the framework of the ENP clearly stemmed from common awareness of the traditional links, the cultural and human values, and the economic and security interests that the EU and Israel share.

On exploring the opportunities of the current Action Plan, the EU recalls the exhaustive discussions on the issue, which resulted in a comprehensive list of up to 60 concrete activities in over 15 specific fields, including cooperation with a number of EU agencies within the current policy framework.... The EU welcomes the approval of these activities by the Association Committee and encourages the two parties to actively and urgently implement them, so as to fully demonstrate the capacity of the current EU-Israel Action Plan to deliver more benefits to the EU-Israel partnership.

Israel continued to benefit from a yearly allocation through the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) in the form of institutional cooperation (twinning projects). The EU takes note with satisfaction of the successful completion in the past year of twinning projects with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and the Ministry of Communications.

The EU reiterates its fundamental commitment to Israel's security, including with regard to vital threats in the region, which is best guaranteed through peace between Israel and its neighbours. The EU is appalled by recurring rocket attacks from Gaza and condemns in the strongest terms violence deliberately targeting civilians. The EU reiterates its call on all partners in the region for the effective prevention of arms smuggling into Gaza.

The EU and Israel signed an agreement on trade in agricultural, processed agricultural, fish and fishery products in November 2009, which entered into force on 1 January 2010. The implementation of this agreement has already led to a visible increase in overall bilateral trade in these sectors.

In the field of environmental protection, the EU finds the intensification of bilateral cooperation of the highest importance.

Predictably, the BDS crowd which has been pretending that they have been making progress into turning Isrsel into a pariah state is incensed:

The Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations (PCHRO), a coalition of 11 Palestinian rights groups, Thursday strongly denounced European Union decision to upgrade its cooperation with Israel, accusing the EU of betraying its own principles.

So is the PA, which still subscribes to the zero-sum game mentality that holds that anything that helps Israel hurts Palestinian Arabs (and vice versa):

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Bargouthi joined a coalition of rights groups on Thursday expressing outrage at the European Union's expansion of cooperation with Israel.

Bargouthi said the upgrading of bilateral ties was granted in contradiction to the EU's political position criticizing Israel's illegal settlement expansion, occupation and violations of international human rights laws.

Europe's decision will encourage Israel to continue its aggression toward Palestinians and breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Palestinian National Initiative leader said in a statement.

It seems beyond comprehension of the "pro-Palestinian" crowd that Israel's feelings of security, helped by announcements like these, make it more likely to make concessions to Palestinian Arabs, not less.

But then again, if their real objective is not to help build a Palestinian Arab state but to destroy the Palestinian Jewish state, then their statements and actions are perfectly consistent with their goals.

Washington still can't decide where Jerusalem is

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 03:45 AM PDT

This video of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dodging the question of what the capital of Israel is has been exploding all over the Internet:

This recalls the even more uncomfortable press briefing from March of Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the State Department, spending a full two minutes avoiding the question of whether Jerusalem or Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel:

It will be remembered that last year, when Daniel Halper noted that the White House website had photo captions that identified Joe Biden in "Jerusalem, Israel" - but within two hours of his publishing that, the White House scrubbed all mentions of "Israel" together with "Jerusalem" on its website.

Earlier this month, Hilary Clinton seemingly accidentally referred to herself being "here in Israel" when speaking in Jerusalem.

This article is invaluable in seeing how the US position on Jerusalem evolved from 1967 to 2006. However, for the most part, the idea that the parts of Jerusalem within the Green Line are not even a part of Israel to begin with has only been emphasized in more recent years, possibly as the result of more specific questions by reporters.

Video Tralier - Ameer Got His Gun

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 02:00 AM PDT

An Israeli documentary about an Arab volunteer for the IDF:

The trailer shows some apparent racism against Arabs in the army, although the way it was edited it is hard to know if the filmmakers deliberately made it sound worse than it was - army buddies will use very dark humor, for example.

More in Hebrew here. Hebrew trailer (different scenes) here.

English-language review here.

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE: A reader emailed me: