יום שבת, 11 במאי 2013

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder of Ziyon

Shabbat open thread (updated)

Posted: 10 May 2013 02:10 PM PDT

This was a very busy week at EoZ.

My "Israeli peacenik meets the reality of Palestinian Arab intransigence" article received a bit of attention, and for good reason. But that paled next to my other major post yesterday, "Why are human rights organizations silent about Arab and Muslim anti-semitism?", which received over 500 Facebook Likes and was republished in The Algemeiner. Lost in the glare of those two posts was my article, also Thursday, about B'Tselem's bias in their latest report.

Another notable post was about the BBC's biased headline on the apparent Israeli airstrike - a headline which ended up being changed because of all the complaints.

I wish the same could be said for my other post about extreme British media bias, where The Economist falsely claimed that some 400 Arabs were evicted from the West Bank. I emailed, tweeted and commented on their site multiple times, and yet they kept their erroneous statistic in the article. (Even an anti-Israel commenter at the site agreed I was right.) It is a shame that a prestigious magazine refuses to correct its glaring error. If anyone else wants to complain to them, feel free - even though it is way too late to make a difference to the readers, The Economist should know that it cannot lie about Israel with impunity. Right now, apparently, it can. (That post of mine was also reproduced in The Algemeiner.)

This week, one of my most-read posts was actually from 2011. It is gratifying to see that every time some idiot on Facebook posts "the map that lies," one of the good guys can easily find my post to debunk it.

Also this week I managed to squeeze in some history , some marketing and some more proof that lazy journalists often just play telephone with each other. And a few dozen other posts, besides.

Thank God for Shabbat!

Here's a very inside Shabbat joke/pun:


UPDATE: I just saw this nice Yom Yerushalayim video - on an Arab site, meant to make their readers angry at how much Jews love the city. (Apparently, they also had a rally for kicking the Jews out of Jerusalem on Friday morning, so this is a wonderful contrast:)



So who deserves the City of Gold more?

One thing is for certain: there were never any celebrations like this praising Jerusalem when Jordan occupied the city.

Friday Links Part 2

Posted: 10 May 2013 01:00 PM PDT

From Ian:
Latma: A song to Jerusalem and everything's really cool in Judea and Samaria



Blaming America
Those commentators who ascribe victimhood to the perpetrators of terror instead of its casualties share an essential idea with those responsible for the Boston bombings. Although one faction justifies its view with blood and the other with ink, their message is the same: that terrorism can be justified.
If there is one consistent response that should unite people across the Western world, it is that those who commit acts of terrorism or support terrorist groups are alone responsible for the murderous result. By painting such atrocities as a question of moral ambiguity, rather than as an outrage to be condemned and as a threat to be fought, these opinion writers and cartoonists only embolden terror and weaken the West's ability to defend its freedoms.
UN Watch: UN's Richard Falk Again Calls Boston Attack "Resistance" to U.S. "Military Undertakings"
UN official Richard Falk, who was condemned for blaming the Boston terrorist attack on U.S. and Israeli policies, has once again justified the bombings as a form of "resistance" that was "bound" to result from U.S. "military undertakings," in an interview he gave to The Daily Princetonian newspaper.
Anti-Israel UN human rights official can't be fired, State Department says
Richard Falk, the United Nations Human Rights official who said last month that the Boston Marathon bombings were connected to the "American global domination project," apparently can't be fired from his position, according to the U.S. State Department.
Caroline Glick: NGOs vs those who serve
Support for those who serve in IDF, national service without reference to their religion, race or gender stymied by some NGOs.
A study completed this week by Im Tirtzu exposes the vast array of NGOs generously funded by the supposedly pro-Israel New Israel Fund as well as by foreign governments which are running a campaign to oppose Cpl. Joseph and her comrades – Arabs and Jews alike. Since 1999, these groups have been conducting a campaign to undermine Arab integration into Israeli society specifically and to demoralize and reduce the social standing of those who serve in the IDF, national service and IDF reserves generally. The campaign is being carried out on a dual track of discouraging Israeli Arabs from serving in the IDF or national service, and of opposing government benefits to IDF veterans, reservists and those who undertook national service by claiming that these benefits unjustly discriminate against Israeli Arabs.
Washington "Newseum" to honour Hamas terrorists
One think-tank is reconsidering its use of the much-loved "Newseum" in Washington DC after its decision to honour Hamas terrorists
The famed Newseum, the museum of journalism and news located in Washington, D.C., has found itself in the middle of a major argument over the honouring of two dead Hamas terrorists that some claim were simply journalists in the Palestinian territories.
The Newseum plans to add Mahmoud Al-Kumi and Hussam Salama to its "Journalists Memorial" which honours those killed while reporting the news. But the two men were cameramen for Al-Aqsa, Hamas's propaganda network, and thus qualify as Hamas operatives and therefore terrorists.
Israel's UK Ambassador Condemns Offensive Church Paper
Israel's ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, condemned on Thursday a report by the Church of Scotland that questioned the divine right of Jews to the land of Israel.
Israeli hackers ready to defend US sites, as #OpUSA flops
Anonymous had planned to follow up its #OpIsrael attacks with a mass hacking of American sites
It was supposed to be Anonymous's glorious followup to #OpIsrael, but a scheduled May 7 "attack day" for Operation USA turned out to be a flop. Security experts prepared themselves for massive denial of service (DDOS) attacks, overwhelming banking, government and business sites with a flood of traffic. And Israeli "white hat" hackers were ready to lend a hand to deflect attacks on American sites, or to counter-attack sites in countries where the attacks originated.
Wiesenthal Center calls for zero tolerance for terror online
As terrorist groups expanded their presence on the Internet, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on social networking sites to adopt a policy of zero tolerance.
Harvey Weinstein to Elie Wiesel: Without You There Would be no 'Schindler's List' (VIDEO)
"I think there would be no 'Schindler's List,' no 'Life is Beautiful,' no 'Reader,' so many of the movies that us in the industry have been involved in about the Holocaust, came from that first seminal book which was 'Night,' which continues to inspire me," said Weinstein.

Followup on Church of Scotland report

Posted: 10 May 2013 11:45 AM PDT

Last week I fisked a paper written by the Church of Scotland that denied any Biblical basis for the right of Jews to have a state in the Middle East.

Of course, I wasn't the only critic of the incredibly biased (and self-contradictory) screed.

Now, the Church is backtracking - slightly:

The Church of Scotland has moved to defuse a furious row with Jewish leaders and the Israeli government after agreeing to change a controversial report on Israeli settlements.
Senior figures in the church met Jewish leaders on Thursday after an official report entitled the Inheritance of Abraham?. suggested the church consider political action including boycotts and disinvestment in Israel in protest at illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
The church and society council, which is to present its report to this year's meeting of the Church of Scotland's governing body, the general assembly, later this month, has agreed to reword the paper's introduction to make clear the church has never challenged the right of Israel to exist.
The original report, which will be debated and then voted on by 723 general assembly commissioners, or delegates from across Scotland, has also been taken down from the Church of Scotland's website until it is rewritten.
The concession emerged after Daniel Taub, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, accused the church of perpetuating anti-Semitic views by challenging the basis of Jewish ties and belief in Israel, and distorting the basis of Zionism.
"This report not only plays into extremist political positions, but negates and belittles the deeply held Jewish attachment to the land of Israel in a way which is truly hurtful," Taub said.
"If a document of this nature is adopted by the Church of Scotland it would mark a significant step backwards for the forces of tolerance and peace in our region."
The Anti-defamation League in New York said the paper was "stunningly offensive" and "negated the beliefs of Judaism", while one columnist in the Jerusalem Post, Seth Frantzman, described it as a "vicious and defamatory text."
The newspaper said the report was distorting arguments about the Holocaust by "pretending Jews manipulate the Holocaust in order to make Christians feel guilty."
The problems with the report were far deeper than just what is mentioned here. A Christian blog destroys the Church's main arguments nicely:
Christians should not believe those parts of Scripture where God promised that a virgin would conceive: Isaiah 7:14 didn't really refer to a promised messiah: it was just about a general plan of salvation. And he wasn't born in the long-promised Bethlehem either - that's just a metaphor for anywhere, like Slough. And he didn't have to be a 'he' either - that's just a metaphor for all humankind. And his name didn't have to be Jesus (Mt 2:21) - meaning 'The Lord saves', because it could have been Brian or Steve: there's no real promise that the Lord will save us from our sins (Zech 3:9). He is not 'God with us' (Mt 1:23), and he didn't need to suffer (Is 53:7) because there's no real reward for obeying the word of God (Lk 11:27). Jesus isn't the visible image of the invisible God through whom all things were created (Col 1:15f) - that's just silly. He didn't reconcile us to himself through the cross (v20), and he's not the glory of the nations (Ps 96:3; 39:21). And when God promises that nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8:35), he didn't really mean 'nothing' - he meant God's love is completely dependent on the which side of the bed he gets out of in a morning.

Oh, hang on. His Grace has got it wrong.

Sorry.

It's only the Jews who shouldn't take God's promises literally.

That's alright, then.

And neither should Christians when they relate to Jews and Israel. Ah, now it's becoming clearer.

If God makes a promise to Jews, it's a metaphor. If He makes a promise to Christians, it's literal except where it refers to the Jews and Israel.

Yes, that's right. According to a report by the Church of Scotland, 'Israel' and the 'Promised Land' is all just one big mushy metaphor for... well, something like the fuzziness of promises that aren't promises. God's promises are just pictures, without precise meaning, and certainly could never apply to matters of geography. The 'Promised Land' in Scripture is not a literal land - it's more 'a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This "promised land" can be found, or built, anywhere'.

Except, of course, in Israel.
(h/t JH)

Friday Links Part 1

Posted: 10 May 2013 10:20 AM PDT

From Ian:
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians in Syria Killed, Injured, Displaced
Arabs, Human Rights Organizations, Media Yawn
The Arab League foreign ministers who recently met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington did not even bother to raise the issue of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes in Syria.
For these ministers and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, construction in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank is more urgent than the lives of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians.
But it is not only the Arabs and the Palestinian governments who are turning a blind eye to the mass displacement of Palestinians. Human rights organizations and the mainstream media in the West are also ignoring the plight of the Palestinians. This is, after all, a story that lacks an anti-Israel angle.
Sarah Honig: Another Tack: The inconvenient truth
Indisputably, no national collective can afford the lackadaisical lunacy of waiting till after its own death. Definitive proof supplied by our demise would be of little use to us posthumously. The unavoidable bottom line for a sovereign state can only be self-reliance. No one else will come to our aid, not when it still matters.
Some things never change. It may be an inconvenient truth but what was, still is. We still upset the fine sensibilities of European and American self-styled adjudicators of international morality. To paraphrase Weizmann, the Jewish state's squawks about Iranian nuclear designs "are regarded as provocation. Our very refusal to subscribe to our own death sentence becomes a public nuisance."
Fellow ALS sufferer to 'hero' Hawking: Reconsider Israel boycott
Photojournalist Esteban Alterman, who met and photographed the astrophysicist before a 2006 lecture in Jerusalem, says misguided decision undermines battle against their shared disease
An Israeli photojournalist who suffers from ALS, the same disease as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, has written a letter urging the professor, who he says was his hero, to reconsider his decision to boycott Israel.
UJS praises NUS vote against BDS
Today, a motion calling for the National Union of Students (NUS) to join the international Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) Campaign was voted down by the National Executive Council (NEC).
The voting record showed: 5 in favour, 15 against, 3 abstentions
The failure of this motion to pass reinforces the lack of support for the BDS within the student movement.
Cal. Univ. Pro-Israel Professor Harassed and Defamed
In the snake pit of academia, where unfashionable explicit Jew-hatred has morphed into enthusiastic and widespread over-the-top anti-Zionism, Professor Tammi Rossman-Benjamin stands out.
It is no longer remarkable that supporters of the most racist, misogynist, homophobic, intolerant, anti-free-speech and violent forces in the world today — for example, Hamas — take shelter behind Western concern for the complete opposite of all of those. They are expert at the game of political correctness (here is another example). At the same time, their behavior conveys veiled physical threats against their targets.
BBC Radio 4 programme on Jerusalem erases Jewish presence
In his diary account of the trip he made to Jerusalem in 1862, Albert the Prince of Wales recorded his meetings with Jerusalem's Jews.
However, a listener to John McCarthy's programme on Jerusalem from the series "In a Prince's Footsteps" which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on May 8th (available here for a limited period of time) would have no idea that any Jews lived in the city at all when Prince Albert visited it in 1862 – or indeed before or after that date.
Radical Muslim Cleric in Gaza: 'Palestine' Was Never Jewish
Israel has no right to exist, a radical Muslim cleric visiting Gaza declared on Thursday, encouraging rocket attacks on the Jewish State.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi warned that nobody was allowed to cede "any part of Palestine" during his visit to the Hamas-controlled region, according to AFP.
Israel's Game-Changer with Hezbollah
Israel's recent strikes in Syria, then, are not just about preventing the transfer of game-changing weapons — they are about changing the rules of the game in how it engages with Hezbollah and Syria. Furthermore, the strikes represent an eye toward a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program in which Tehran may look to use Hezbollah as a tool in its arsenal.
Despite analyses to the contrary, Israel has not entered the conflict on behalf of any side. Israel has not attacked regime headquarters, its airfields and tank positions in a bid to assist the Free Syrian Army. The available intelligence does not suggest that Israel has attacked chemical weapons facilities in order to remove those weapons from the equation.
IHH president seeks at least $1 bln from Israel for flotilla victims
Turkey should demand a biting sum of $1 billion from Israel as compensation for its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla ship in 2010, according to the chairman of the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH).
The farce is complete – Gilbert too gets his commander of the Order of St. Olav
It really sucks, and I am quite frankly unwilling to conceal my disappointment that persons who have worked tirelessly to propagate foul lies and contributed greatly to anti-Semitic attitudes in the general Norwegian population.
Purportedly Gilbert has gotten his prize for his surgical prowess, a claim hard to believe since he has celebrated the attacks against the twin towers in 2001 and other very questionable attitudes, among them hiding armed combatants in a medical compound and allowing them to carry out acts of war from said compounds.

PalArabs prefer terror to negotiations 3-1

Posted: 10 May 2013 08:39 AM PDT

The latest Pew Research Global Attitudes report has this revealing statistic:


Three times as many Palestinian Arabs believe that terrorism is the best way to achieve a state than negotiations.  Anther 22% believe that terror can work together with other methods, meaning that far more than half support terror as a key way to achieve statehood.

Of course, we cannot expect Western media to highlight this very important finding, can we?

(h/t PMB)

"Researcher" warns that Egypt may seek loan from a "Jewish bank"

Posted: 10 May 2013 07:30 AM PDT

Another day, another antisemitic diatribe in mainstream Egyptian TV...

Keshef Abdul Rahim, a "researcher," discovered that the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egyptian government was negotiating with JP Morgan Chase to secure a desperately needed loan for Egypt, in case the International Monetary Fund cannot provide a loan.

Speaking on Al Tahrir TV, Rahim darly wanred that JP Morgan is a "Jewish-controlled bank."

Rahim is apparently a secular opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he hates Jews just as much as the Islamists do. He also knows that antisemitism is a winning argument in Egypt.

Oh, JP Morgan is not owned nor controlled by Jews, although some neo-Nazi sites claim that its embattled chairman, Jamie Dimon, is a "crypto-Jew." (His wife is apparently Jewish, however.)

Preacher at Egypt's Al Azhar: "War between Muslims and Jews is inevitable; Muslims will win" (update)

Posted: 10 May 2013 06:00 AM PDT

Sheikh Mohamed Mukhtar al-Mahdi, a prominent cleric and teacher at Egypt's Al Azhar University, said in his sermon today that war between Jews and Muslims is inevitable.

He said that all Muslims are affected by Israel allowing Jews to visit the Temple Mount, and this will lead to the war, "and the Muslims will win," he stated.

Al-Mahdi stressed that Muslims must be patient, and ensure that they strengthen sufficiently before the ultimate battle, quoting Islamic sources on the virtues of patience.

The sheikh added that the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to all Muslims and the responsibility lies on every Muslim to free it from "the Zionist abomination."

Al Azhar is considered a relatively moderate Islamic institution in Egypt.

UPDATE: It appears that this may have been part of an official anti-Israel rally organized by the Muslim Brotherhood:

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is staging an anti-Israel rally in Cairo to protest Israeli airstrikes in Syria and the detention of a Muslim cleric.

Chants of "the people want destruction of Israel" rang out Friday inside Al-Azhar mosque, the centuries-old seat of Sunni Muslim learning.

The rally is the first such protest by the Brotherhood, from which Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi hails, since it gained prominence after 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

Group officials say they are protesting the Israeli detention of top Palestinian Muslim cleric in the Holy Land in a rare crackdown on a leading religious figure that drew fierce condemnation from Palestinians. The demonstrators also were denouncing Israeli airstrikes in Syria that targeted alleged shipments of advanced Iranian missiles thought to be bound for Hezbollah.
(h/t Ian)

UPDATE 2: A different preacher in Egypt today said that it would be preferable to demolish the Al Aqsa Mosque than to let Jews pray there.

Group claims to have shot rockets at IDF positions in Golan

Posted: 10 May 2013 04:30 AM PDT

Arabic media are reporting that a group called the "Abdel Kader Husseini Martyrs Brigades" has shot a
series of rockets at a "Zionist radar station" in the Golan Heights.

The group, which says it is Palestinian,  claims to have caused "casualties in the ranks of the enemy."

Apparently, the purported rockets came from Syria.

Some sources say they fired rockets; others that it was an RPG attack.

The unknown group promises to release a videotape within a few hours of the alleged operation.

UPDATE: Afternoon came and went, and no video.

Hebron Arabs meet with Jews to discuss co-existence - despite danger

Posted: 10 May 2013 03:21 AM PDT

YNet (Hebrew) reports on monthly meetings between yeshiva students in Efrat and Muslims from Hebron to discuss co-existence.

Ma'an translates:
"For a short hour, two completely different worlds would meet here. Young Palestinian men from Hebron and Jewish Yeshiva students from Efrat settlement have been involved in monthly meetings.

"However, to document these meetings was not an easy job as the participants at the beginning refused to let us take photos of them, and asked us blur their faces because revealing their identities may create serious problems within their societies," the report said.

"The Palestinians have enough reasons to fear joining such meetings with settlers because such dialogue is illegal in the eyes of their society. If they are stigmatized as collaborators, they will be in real danger," the report quoted chair of the Jewish organization of religious dialogue Yehuda Stolov as saying.
This is the sort of thing that should be celebrated by the so-called "progressive" Western liberals.

Instead it will be ignored, or worse, condemned as "normalization" - a positive word that has become as toxic in certain circles as "Zionism" itself.

People who live together wanting to cooperate. How awful!

Video can be seen at the linked sites.
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