יום שלישי, 14 בינואר 2014

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Link to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Great news from the Arab world

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 06:22 PM PST

Philippe Assouline made this excellent poster a while back:


An Al Jazeera TV host named Faisal Al-Qassem uploaded this to his Facebook page less than a day ago, and translated it to Arabic.

It is going viral. 

As of this writing, it has over 19,000 "Likes" on Facebook - from Arabic speakers!

(h/t Yenta Press)

01/13 Links Pt2: Tom Gross: Holocaust amnesia, Israel ranked 2nd in Philanthropy, ASA plays Victim

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 03:00 PM PST

From Ian:
Israel is the Second Most Philanthropic Country in the World
The Data shows that: in 2012 Israeli households and businesses donated 7.6 billion Shekels to nonprofits, an increase of 8.8% as compared with 2011. Israeli philanthropy made up 0.76% of the country's GDP, taking second place in world philanthropy after the USA, which saw 2.1% of its GDP donated to nonprofits in 2012. Australia follows Israel with 0.69% of its GDP in donations; the UK with 0.65% of its GDP; South Africa with 0.64%; Canada with 00.48%; Ireland with 0.47%, Holland with 0.45%; New Zealand with 0.29%; Germany with 0.22%, and France with 0.19%.
According to Yonatan Ben-Dor, CEO of IsraelGives, which facilitates online fundraising for over 600 nonprofits in Israel: "A large portion of the increasing amount of money donated to nonprofits in Israel stems from the rise of online philanthropy. Online donations grew by 66% in the past year, 8 times that of traditional philanthropy. As an example of this rise in online giving, in 2013 627 nonprofit organizations received donations through IsraelGives.org, Israel's online donation portal.
Tom Gross: Holocaust amnesia
Holocaust Memorial Day falls again on January 27. It is the ninth consecutive year that this (in many ways uniquely) evil event is being officially commemorated in Britain and the EU.
Predictably there are voices — including some Jewish — who say, haven't we heard enough about the Holocaust? What more is there to learn?
I take the opposite view — that collectively the world has not studied it nearly enough, and has not properly learned its lessons. If it had,
anti-Semitism wouldn't once again be rife in so many countries, including European ones.
Europe's New Crowd-Pleasing Jew-Hate
It is an anti-Semitism that seems to come mostly from people affiliated with the French radical "left": members and sympathizers of Trotskyist movements, of the neo-communist French "Left Front", and of "pro-Palestinian" organizations such as Europalestine. Its followers accuse the Jews of having "monopolized" human sufferings, of having "rapaciousness" behind the "Holocaust industry" and of being complicit in the "imperialist crimes" committed by Israel against the "Palestinians". Unsurprisingly, a growing number of young Muslims identify with these arguments.
Members of the politically right-leaning "nationalist revolutionary" parties, and other Neo-Nazi organizations see all this as a boon and an exoneration. They hate Islam, but they hate Jews and Israel even more, and when people such as Dieudonné say that "Zionists" in the Middle East are worse than Nazis, or that Holocaust commemorations are "memorial pornography," they exult.
When Dieudonné invites a famous Holocaust -denier such as Robert Faurisson on stage, and then praises the gas chambers, members of the audience are full of joy. When Dieudonné sings "Shoah-Ananas" ["Holocaust Pineapple"] in the company of Faurisson, the audience sings along with gusto. "The Anti-Semite," a movie Dieudonné made with Iranian money to mock the Auschwitz concentration camp, was never released in theaters, but has became an on-line success anyhow.



Will accepting Palestinian 1967 "Border" Demand Make Peace More Likely?
The Palestinian peace effort so far has been a combination of failing to abide by previous agreements (Arafat committed to stopping incitement against Israel, a phenomenon that continues until today); impose new terms on Israel (prisoner releases were meant to apply only to non-violent prisoners and was a confidence building measure not a requirement); and ensure that grievances remain (claiming that Israel "occupies" their territory when over 90% of Palestinians have lived under the PA since the end of 1995.)
The record suggests that accepting the Palestinian demand for a return to the 1949 armistice lines won't bring Israel any closer to peace. The Palestinians are looking for concessions, not an agreement.
David Singer: Abbas Dismantles Kerry's Framework Agreement
The narrative issues raised by Abbas's latest comments underscore the two very different Jewish and Arab perspectives of their 130 years old conflict which appear certain to continue to remain irreconcilable.
These issues goes to the very heart of the conflict – and short of a complete retraction by Abbas – will continue to be the quicksand into which Kerry's framework agreement will collapse into political oblivion.
Abbas has clearly signalled the continuing refusal of the PLO to accept the unanimous decision of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922 legally sanctioning the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in its ancient and biblical homeland – as promulgated in the Mandate for Palestine. (h/t Bob Knot)
Do not say 'transfer'
"Ethnically homogeneous states must be created… Creating homogeneous states would require drawing new borders and transferring populations."
"The great powers should organize and finance the transfer of the remaining populations behind the new national borders."
These statements were not made by a right-wing extremist or a member of an Israeli party which supports 'transfer', even though no such party exists. They were also not made in the 1940's, when the concept of transfer was normative.
These statements were made by two leading professors. At least one of them even became a hero of the anti-Israel camp. I am referring to John J. Mearsheimer, the co-author of a book which slanders the pro-Israel lobby. The second quote belongs to Professor Stephen Van Evera of MIT.
The Emergent Palestinian Imaginary
UN "expert" and professional antisemite Richard Falk has been allowed to serve out his entire 6-year term as the UN's top human rights investigator on Israel. His term expires in 2014, and he is choosing to bring it to a close by declaring exactly what he stands for - and why he was appointed. He rejects the legitimacy of the state of Israel. He supports violence as a legitimate tool of resistance against Israel, he blames Muslim vs. Muslim violence in Syria, and Egypt on Israel, and he refuses to accept a Jewish state period.
The UN "Human Rights" Council appointed Richard Falk and it could have terminated him at any time. Instead, President Obama joined the Council after Falk was appointed, insisted the United States enter a second 3-year term despite the fact that Falk remained in office, and has become one of the Council's leading cheerleaders.
Without any fear of being denied UN credentials despite voicing hatred for Israel across the globe, here is Richard Falk's latest statement- delivered in Doha, Qatar in December, and posted on his own blog on January 10, 2014.
The EU's "covert" boycott of Israel starts to kick in
Israel is involved with Mexico in high-tech irrigation and cyber security. The EU might note that the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, through his telecommunication company America Movil, is investing $60 million in Mobli, the Israeli photo and video sharing platform startup company.
The EU might also note that investors in Mobli, who include Leonardo DiCaprio and Serena Williams, have not succumbed to Palestinian pressure to boycott any Israeli places or businesses.
Now that relations between Israel and the Obama administration have become less warm than in previous years, Israel is adroitly cultivating political as well as economic ties with countries in different parts of the world, including Russia, Asia, the Gulf states, and Saudi Arabia.
The pettiness of the academic Boycott Israel movement revealed
For example, removing the word "Gaza" because the resolution presenters were not even aware of the simple fact that the entry to Gaza is in Egyptian and not Israeli control. What else did they not tell and what else do we need to know to make an informed decision? They also said there is a State Department warning not to visit Israel. Not true. The warning is not to visit Gaza because it's run by a terrorist organization."
Israel's visa requirements are similar to those of other liberal democracies, though Israel is forced to be more vigilant because of the dangers of ongoing terrorism. The resolution never acknowledged this reality. Israel's visa denials can be appealed in Israel's courts. Nonetheless, in 2012, Israel rejected only .02% of the 626,000 Americans who sought visas while the U.S. denial rate of Israeli applications for B-visas was 5.4 percent. Furthermore, Palestinian universities themselves boast about the number of foreign professors, including Americans, who teach at their schools.
Anti-Israel academic boycotters demand Freedom From Criticism
Rather, it appears the boycotters cannot withstand the withering criticism from American civil and political society.
The academic boycotters have lived for too long in a bubble in which their views predominated because students were too intimidated to speak up, other professors didn't want to take on single-issue fanatics, and administrators were intimidated.
But we are not intimidated. As I stated before, this is the hill we will fight on. Lawfully. Intellectually honestly. And without allowing the academic boycotters to play victim.
The days of the hateful BDS ideology going unchallenged on campuses and in academic organizations are over.
American Studies Association's new tack: Cry Victim
In response to these alleged "threats" and "intimidation" ASA members have set up a blog, BDS Love letters: Hate Mail to BDS Supporters aimed at "tracking the (unsolicted) communications directed at supporters of the Israeli BDS movement" and publishing what we can only assume are the worse of what they have received. You can count the postings on both hands. Its not much of an avalanche.
There are no actual threats published, and there is nothing on their site that holds a candle to what Israeli students, and supporters of Israel have faced.
Partial victory over anti-Israel efforts at 2014 MLA Convention shows battle winnable
In a severe blow to BDS advocates, only 41% of the delegate assembly voted to send the Radical Caucus resolution to the floor for debate. This fell far shy of the 75% requirement to consider an "emergency resolution.
Despite delegate refusal to even debate the resolution, the chair of the session assured the Professor Furr that his resolution would still be referred to the MLA's Executive Committee for consideration.
The chair who chose to circumvent the delegate assembly is Margaret Ferguson, professor from UC Davis. She is a public supporter of BDS and the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Who Won at the MLA?
The tweet I just linked to quotes one Grover Furr, of Montclair State University. Furr is a defender of Stalin (perhaps one of the last remaining on the left), a retailer of disgusting allegations of Zionist complicity in the Holocaust, and a critic of non-violent protest (BDS is apparently too soft for him). Don't take my word for it. He says it all on his own website here and here.
Furr, by the way, proposed the emergency resolution on behalf of the Radical Caucus.
While I am not given to optimism, perhaps it is not too much to hope that the overwhelming rejection of Furr's resolution means that the MLA is starting to notice that the variety of Israel criticism that has been on display this year, most prominently in the BDS movement, is an embarrassment and a liability.
Supermodels love Livne designs
And it was Campbell's stylist who saw and snagged one of Livne's dresses during New York's fall Fashion Week, following up several months later with an official invitation for his black tap-pants-plus-chiffon piece. Once Campbell settled on Livne's work for the show's promo photo, her fellow models, Anne V and Hearst, also opted for Livne designs.
It's been a successful year for the 28-year-old designer, whose first brush with fame began when performer Beyoncé commissioned the Project Runway winner's cherry red cutout-gown for her "Freakum" outfit in the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour.
Israeli students' experiments to be performed in space
Two scientific experiments planned by Israeli school students were launched to the International Space Station Wednesday, where they will be performed by zero-gravity astronauts.
The grade 8 to 10 students from schools in Holon and Mateh Yehuda Regional Council have gone through a long learning process in the past year, in which they learned about space, science and experimentation.
Unique syringe keeps hospital staff safe from fatal drug residue
It's been said that hospitals are a great place to get sick – not for those who are already ill (although they, too, risk exposure to all sorts of germs and viruses during their stay), but for the healthy, especially for hospital workers who are exposed to hazardous substances all day long.
Of course, safety precautions are taken, but there are some procedures that by nature put workers' health at risk, such as the administration of powerful and dangerous drugs, like those used in chemotherapy. Workers who prepare these drugs for injection risk exposure to dangerous substances that could make them sick – even a wayward drop that escapes from a needle as it is removed from a vial of antineoplastic drugs could be bad news. "It's a major problem," said Eric Shem-Tov, CEO of Israeli biotech company Equashield. "The only way to avoid this is with a sterile transfer system that ensures that the medicine remains uncontaminated, as do workers, and our product helps accomplish this."
Israeli Company's Futuristic Back Implant Can Repair Damaged Spines
Bend. Flex. Extend. Rotate. Though these words are ordinary to most people, they (literally) send shivers down the spines of the millions around the world who suffer from chronic lower back pain. Premia Spine is an Israeli company looking to once again render these words innocuous to patients with their revolutionary spinal implant.
The Israeli company is offering an alternative treatment for patients who have been prescribed spinal fusion operations. Rather than attach a rigid structure of bolts and rods to the patient's spine, Premia Spine's TOPS (Total Posterior Solution) system is a spinal implant that recreates the natural motions of the back, giving patients not only a greater range of motion, but also claims a more reliable and faster recovery.
New implant brings high hopes for back pain relief

The amazing Biblical archaeological find no one talks about

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 01:00 PM PST

I had never heard of this 1967 find, and it is fascinating:

It is probably one of the greatest finds of all time and, by the bizarre rules of biblical archeology, it's also one of the least reported. Basically, in 1967, in Deir Alla, Jordan, Dutch archeologists discovered some kind of pagan house of worship or seminary. On its walls, there was a 2,800-year-old inscription in black ink. Key phrases are highlighted in red ink and the whole writing is framed in red.

First of all, this is the oldest Aramaic inscription ever found. But if that's not enough to make it a world-headline, the inscription is 600-800 years older than the Dead-Sea Scrolls. And if that's not enough to merit international attention, the inscription mentions a prophet, or "seer", named "Balaam son of Beor". This is the exact name mentioned in the Torah/Bible (Numbers 22:2–24:25). This is the only instance where a specific individual mentioned in the story of the biblical Exodus can be pointed to in archeology. So who is Balaam, and where is this inscription now?

Balaam is the bad guy of the Torah. He is the Darth Vader of the biblical Exodus. According to the Talmud, Balaam had the potential to be Moses, but he turned to the dark side (Av. Zar. 4a–b; Sanh. 105b; Avot 5:19). In a famous incident, as the Israelites are about to enter the promised land, Balak King of Moab asks Balaam to curse the children of Israel. Balaam is unable to do so. The Talmud explains that he looked at the Israelite tents and saw an amazing thing. The tents were rotated so that people could not see into each other's bedrooms, so to speak. At that point, Balaam realized that the only way to weaken Israel was to corrupt them through sex.

According to the biblical narrative, Balaam was in charge of sex priestesses made up of Moabite and Midianite women. These women successfully seduced the Israelites in an orgy of sex and idolatry (Numbers 31:8, 16). 24,000 Israelite men were punished by God with death. At one point, the Israelite prince, Zimri son of Salu, publically fornicated with a Midianite princess named Cozbi, daughter of Zur, in the name of some kind of fertility rite. Apparently, these rituals were drawing big crowds until Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the High Priest (brother of Moses), picked up a spear and killed Zimri and Cozbi with one thrust while they were, so to speak, thrusting. This act ended Balaam's attempt to subvert Israel through pagan sex (Numbers 25; 6-15). According to the book of Joshua, Joshua took revenge by killing Balaam during the Israelite conquest of Canaan (Joshua, 13:22).

So… back to the Deir Alla inscription. The amazing thing is that it is found on the border of ancient Israel, exactly where you would expect to find it given the biblical narrative. The people writing it are Balaam's people. Meaning, for them he's a hero, not a villain. So we're getting the opposition point of view. They refer to him, just as in the Torah, as "Balaam Son of Beor". Meaning, there is a letter-perfect synchronicity between the archeology and the Bible. But it gets better. According to the Torah, Balaam does have prophetic powers. According to the inscription, he is a prophet. According to the Torah, he gets his visions at night. According to the inscription, he gets his visions at night. According to the Torah, he worships false gods, but also dialogues with the God of Israel. According to the Deir Alla inscription, Balaam speaks to the "gods" and to "El" i.e., the God of Israel. But more than this, Balaam seems to be devoted to a goddess of fertility. Lest anyone think that the orgy episode in the Torah is exaggerated, the Deir Alla inscription refers to a "girl" or priestess who is "used" for the purpose of making one "saturated with love" (Combination 2, ii 4). It talks about God himself being "satisfied" with love making (Combination 2, ii 6).

So here you have a perfect synchronicity between the story in the Bible and the story that archeologists have discovered in a pagan temple in Jordan. But except for a few scholars, very few people have even heard of this discovery. More than this, the inscription has been removed from Deir Alla and put in drawers – I'm not kidding, drawers – in the Archeological Museum of Amman, capital of Jordan. Meaning, you could be standing right next to the greatest archeological match to the Bible and not know it.

The ultimate irony: in the Archeological Museum of Amman, they have a fragment of the Dead-Sea Scrolls. It is a quote from the Bible – the story of Balaam! So the amazing thing is that about 20 feet from each other are the Deir Alla inscription and the Dead-Sea Scroll, both quoting the exact same story – and both matching the Bible perfectly.

Isn't it incredible? You don't have to go into the realm of "DaVinci Code" style fiction to discover biblical cover-ups. They're happening as I write – and it's not fiction, it's all too real.
Wikipedia has an entry on it, and its translation doesn't seem to necessarily refer to a fertility goddess, but is it the clear mention of a prophet Balaam son of Be'or is one of the few extrabiblical references to Biblical characters by name.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

UPDATE: The story has gone around before.

Hospitalized Gazans forced to pay for medicines that were donated

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 11:00 AM PST

Palestine Press Agency reports that Gaza hospital patients are being forced to pay out of their own pocket for drugs - because their doctors say that the hospitals don't have enough supply.

Often, the medicines that they buy are labeled "Not for resale" or that they were a gift from an Arab country.

The PA  as well as Arab countries and NGOs send massive amounts of medicine to Gaza, but they do not seem to be reaching the hospitals they are meant for.

The article claims that drugs donated by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are often expired, though.

In previous years Hamas was accused by both individuals and by the PA itself of diverting the donated medicines to their own pharmacies so they could profit from reselling them. This article implies that this is happening now but doesn't quite say it, perhaps because the newspaper had been banned in Gaza for a while and wants to ensure that it is not shut down again.

01/13 Links Pt1: Ariel Sharon's Funeral, Bush: he was a ‘man of courage’, Iran deal starts 20th Jan.

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 09:00 AM PST

From Ian:
Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Is Hamas Courting Iran and the Palestinian Authority?
If Hamas is so strongly opposed to the peace talks, why are its leaders saying that they are prepared to join forces with the Palestinian Authority?
The answer is obvious: Hamas wants the Palestinian Authority to continue channeling funds to the Gaza Strip.
More than half of the Palestinian Authority's annual budget goes to pay salaries and support various projects in the Gaza Strip despite the rivalry between the two sides. Abbas told Jordanian parliamentarians during a meeting in his office that 58% of the Palestinian Authority budget goes to the Gaza Strip.
Hamas's efforts to restore ties with Iran and the Palestinian Authority are nothing but a ploy to ensure its continued presence in power. Hamas is definitely not headed toward any change. Now that it is back on the payroll of Iran, Hamas will feel more confidant than ever to pursue its efforts to foil any agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
Dignitaries from 19 states due for funeral, but no heads of state
US Vice President Joe Biden, Czech Prime Minister Jiří Rusnok and the foreign ministers of Australia and Germany are among the top foreign officials scheduled to attend the funeral of former prime minister Ariel Sharon on Monday. The list of dignitaries includes senior ministers and top officials from 19 countries, but not a single head of state.
The countries sending senior government officials to the funeral roughly correspond with a list of Israel's closest allies on the international stage. No senior officials from the two Arab states with which Israel has diplomatic relations — Jordan and Egypt — are scheduled to attend.
Bush remembers friend Sharon as 'man of courage'
Former US President George W. Bush remembered late Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon Saturday as "a warrior for the ages."
In a statement, Bush called Sharon a "partner in seeking security for the Holy Land and a better, peaceful Middle East."
"I was honored to know this man of courage and call him friend," he said.



Despite Israeli warning to Hamas, 2 rockets fired from Gaza
An Israeli security source said Israel had "passed the message" to Gaza authorities to prevent any rocket fire during the funeral.
"It was made clear to them that [Monday] would be a very bad day for anyone there to test Israel's patience," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
World Leaders Praise Ariel Sharon, Abbas Mum on Former Israeli Leader
The leaders of Israel's top allies praised former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon following his death on Saturday.
U.S. President Barack Obama sent his "deepest condolences" to Sharon's family and the people of Israel.
BBC TV News Coverage of Ariel Sharon Death
The programme was a perfect textbook implementation of the Rules and Guildeines for Reporting about Israel. The program stated as 'facts' a catalogue of blood libels that have long been comprehensively debunked (see Honest Reporting's coverage for example). What was ignored was the fact that, in total contrast to the narrative presented, Sharon was ultimately so desperate to achieve peace at any price that he uprooted the entire Jewish population from Gaza and that these 10,000 Jews were therefore his most unfortunate 'victims'. What has also been ignored in all the main stream media reporting is that it was Sharon who, in 2004, secured from the US President George Bush a binding commitment from the US that in any future agreement with the Palestinians Israel would keep the major settlement blocks, and there would be no 'right of return' to Israel of Palestinian 'refugees'. This was a written agreement that Obama has now decided to tear up.
Loving the hate: BBC coverage of Sharon's death
But apparently the BBC policy of amplifying the hate-speech of anyone and everyone – from the Tweeter in the street to members of terrorist organisations and tame editors of newspapers from theocratic dictatorships – when statesmen and politicians pass away is selective. We certainly saw no evidence of such policy when Mandela recently died and it will be remembered that the BBC saw fit to censor a song about former British PM Margaret Thatcher at the time of her passing on the grounds that it was an inappropriate "celebration of death".
One wonders how the licence fee-paying public would react if, when their time comes, former British statesmen were treated according to the version of those selective criteria deemed appropriate for a former Israeli Prime minister and their families exposed to BBC-sponsored tirades of hatred before they are even buried.
Multiple breaches of editorial guidelines in Sharon report by BBC's Paul Adams
BBC audiences learn nothing from Paul Adams' report of Ariel Sharon the man – who lost his first wife and eldest son in separate tragic accidents and his second wife to cancer. Neither will audiences learn much about Sharon the soldier and statesman because what little cherry-picked information is provided is presented without the vital historic context necessary to understand the man and his deeds.
In fact it is all too obvious that Adams' real aim in this pre-prepared film was not to tell BBC audiences about the life of Ariel Sharon, but to use the occasion of his death as a vehicle from which to advance a collection of myths and memes originating from a specific political viewpoint of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In that mission, he has undoubtedly reached his target. The fact that in order to do so, BBC editorial guidelines – including those on the proper presentation of interviewees – were trampled is clearly not of interest to either this particular BBC correspondent or his editors, just as long as audiences have got the 'right' message.
Swedish Mosque Claims Ariel Sharon Used Blood of Palestinian Children To Make Pudding…
The Mosque spokesman says to NA that the blood pudding story is something that he was told, and that he possibly expressed himself poorly, "I don't know whether I believe that Sharon drank blood or not... My point is that he is responsible for many massacres."
To Swedish TV the spokesman says he can understand if people react to his claim, but that he did not write about Jews in gernal, just about someone in particular. "I got very emotional when Sharon was praised by Sweden's foreign minister. It's not a good idea to write anything when you're upset... It was unprofessional."
Major IDF base to be named after Sharon
IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz officially accepted a recommendation by the Government Names Committee to commemorate Sharon by dedicating the base to the late prime minister, an IDF statement said.
The military complex building site, known colloquially as "Instruction Base City" is located several miles south of Beersheba and is set to be completed in late 2014 or early 2015. It is expected to be the country's largest base, combining a number of smaller training camps currently spread around the country.
Guardian publishes letter by Gilad Atzmon ally Karl Sabbagh
Even by Guardian standards, this is an especially egregious distortion of historical reality.
First, contrary to what Sabbagh implies, there was never an "existing state of Palestine". Further, the suggestion that Jews were the belligerent party in 1947-48 represents a remarkable inversion, as it was the Jews (and not the Arabs) who accepted partition, despite the fact that it gave them only a small portion of the land previously promised to them. (Indeed, 77% of the landmass of the original Mandate for the Jews was excised in 1922 to create a fourth Arab state – today Jordan.)
Arab leaders didn't unleash their armies merely to adjust the borders, but were completely clear that their goal was the total annihilation of the nascent Jewish state.
Abbas vs Facts: Jews 'Weren't Attacked' In Kusra
Abbas's wild claims come in direct opposition to documented fact, as video filmed by Arab residents clearly shows Arabs chasing the Jews, stooping to pick up rocks, and hurling them at the running Jews. The video, despite being edited to suit Arab propaganda needs, also shows the serious wounds inflicted:
The statements by Abbas, who in the past has had unfortunate encounters with historical fact, including a recent occasion in which he claimed Jesus was a Palestinian, are also belied by death threats uttered by the "cultured" residents of Kusra just before the lynching.
Ex-resident of UAE allegedly stabbed to death by husband in Palestine
"The cousin and his family were forced out of the house but the husband became suspicious and could not stand the claim that his wife had been photographed with him," said the sources. The picture was apparently just a general one taken with the cousin as they had all been living in the same house and was taken without the victim noticing.
As a result of his distress, the husband did not go to work for five days. The family elders, meanwhile, summoned the two men for a reconciliation and the issue of the photograph was resolved.
However, the husband could not overcome his suspicion so allegedly grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed his wife several times. The woman was taken to Yasser Arafat Hospital in Salfit where she was declared dead.
Geneva deal begins Jan. 20, allows Iran to continue centrifuge research
The Joint Plan of Action allows Iran to continue research and development on nuclear centrifuge technology, senior US administration officials said on Sunday, announcing the conclusion of technical talks on the implementation of an interim deal pausing Iran's nuclear program.
The deal, brokered by world powers in Geneva in November, is to go into effect on January 20 and to last for six months while Iran and the P5+1 – the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany – attempt to negotiate a comprehensive agreement to end the long-standing crisis.
"[Iran's] commitment is to continue their current enrichment R&D practices," a senior official told journalists in a phone conference on Sunday, detailing the agreement. "That's been documented. That's what they'll continue to do."
Veto-Proof Majority of Senators Support Iran Sanctions
The President has already declared that he would veto the Iran sanctions bill. Press Secretary Jay Carney said of the bill, "We don't think this action is necessary; we don't think it will be enacted. If it were enacted, the president would veto it." Two thirds of both houses of Congress are needed to overturn a veto.
The 77 Senators reportedly in favor of the bill are more than enough, and it is widely acknowledged that the House would vote overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation.
Pakistani Jew Tries to Restore Karachi Community
A campaign has been launched to restore the Jewish community of Karachi in Pakistan. A young member of the tiny persecuted Jewish community has turned to the courts, asking for the re-establishment of a synagogue and the restoration of a Jewish cemetery in the city.
The Jewish community has largely fled Pakistan, becoming refugees in Israel, India and the West, due to the rampant local anti-Semitism and raging Islamic fundamentalism. Terror groups such as Al Qaeda and Taliban have plagued the country, as demonstrated in the death of a 15-year-old who tried to stop a suicide bomber from blowing up his school.
Nevertheless, Fishel Bhenkhald has decided to fight to return a Jewish presence to Pakistan.

Under Palestinian law, if Abbas signs a peace agreement with Israel he would be subject to the death penalty

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 07:00 AM PST

I've discussed how central the bogus "right of return" is to Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Arab leadership, and how the West ignores this fact. Mahmoud Abbas and the entire Palestinian Arab leadership (not to mention their friends in the anti-Israel community) have turned this fake "right" into a key component of their demands for any "peace" agreement - and have elevated this demand to damn thousands of Syrians to death.

Palestinian Arabs make no secret that the purpose of this "right" is to destroy the Jewish state demographically, and this is exactly why they refuse to recognize that Israel is in fact the Jewish state. The end game is to create three or four Palestinian states - in Jordan, which is majority Palestinian; in the West Bank, possibly in Gaza and (of course) in Israel.

It turns out that Abbas signed a law in 2008 to enshrine this "right" to destroy Israel in PA law. Not only that, but this law ensures that any agreement that modifies this "right" is null and void, and high treason.

Under PLO law, if Mahmoud Abbas signs a peace treaty with Israel that doesn't pave the way for the destruction of Israel, he is guilty of high treason and is subject to the death penalty.

Western diplomats who think that there is a possibility of peace with the PLO must read this.

Here is the bulk of the law:


The law of the right of return for Palestinian refugees No. (1) for the year 2008

The right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homes and property and compensation for their suffering is a sacred and inalienable right that cannot compromised or exchanged; it is beyond the scope of jurisprudence or interpretation or referendum.

The right of return is the natural individual and collective civil and political right that moves from parents to children and does not disappear over time, by the signing of any agreement, and it may not be disposed of or waived in any way.

The Zionist occupation bears full responsibility for the political, legal and humanitarian and moral suffering of the Palestinian people and the non-recognition of the right to self-determination. Britain bears historical responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinian people. The international community bears full responsibility to lift and remove the suffering of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians have the right to sue the Zionist occupation for their suffering caused to the Palestinian people and their demands for compensation for damage to their emotional or material damage.

Resettlement of Palestinian refugees may not be a substitute for the right of return.

Anyone who violates the provisions of this Act shall be guilty of the crime of high treason against him and subject to all criminal and civil penalties prescribed for this crime.

Anything that is contrary to the provisions of this law is canceled, null and void and any legislation or agreement that detracts from the right of return violates the provisions of this law.

Issued on: 01/08/2008 AD
Mahmoud Abbas
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization
President of the Palestinian National Authority

Is that clear enough?

(h/t Bob Knot)

I was wrong. There really are a Palestinian people.

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 05:00 AM PST

Mea culpa.

Years of historical research on this blog has been rendered utterly useless by a concise yet brilliant post on Mondoweiss - by Mondo himself.  Here it is in its entirety:



I had no idea there was a coin that said "Palestine" on it! That proves that today's Palestinians had a free and independent nation in 1927!

Now, some residents of Palestine did not like the idea of a Palestinian currency and their leaders called to boycott it and to keep using the Egyptian pound - but, luckily, other Palestinians who were more forward thinking supported the idea, and it became the official currency of Palestine.

Further research into the issue, once my eyes were no longer blinded by propaganda, shows that these forward-thinking Palestinians didn't just stop there in their quest to build their nation. No, they built up other Palestinian institutions.

For example, the Palestine international soccer (football) club, recognized by FIFA, played five international games in the 1930s. Unfortunately, they only won one, against Lebanon, 5-1. Goals in that game were scored by Palestinian players Herbert Meitner (2), Avraham Schneiderovitz, Gaul Machlis and Werner Kaspi.

Time magazine in 1937 had a feature story on the inaugural performance of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. The article starts off with "As a full Palestine moon rode one evening last week over Tel Aviv... thousands ... began to move toward the Levant Fair Grounds. There they packed the Italian Pavilion to capacity to hear great Arturo Toscanini lead Palestine's first civic orchestra through its first performance." Yes, the Palestinians of 1937 were cultured and were lovers of classical music. A Palestinian opera was even performed in New York in 1934.

There were, of course, Palestine stamps as well. This one shows an ancient Palestinian holy site in Bethlehem. (Unfortunately, it is not visible today, because there is an ugly tall wall that turned it into a fortress.)


Palestinians worked hard to attract tourists to Palestine so they could proudly show off their country.


The same Palestinians also created regional fairs to show off their products and to trade with their Arab neighbors:


Palestinians even exhibited at the World's Fair in New York in 1939.


There was a Palestine Post newspaper, as well as the earlier Palestine Bulletin, written by the most prominent Palestinian journalists of the day.

My research found that Palestinians were not only active in the 20th century, but they had been there through the millennia. This entry from an encyclopedia describes a stunning and encyclopedic work of Palestinian scholarship from the 4th and 5th centuries CE, written by hundreds of the brightest people in Palestine, known as the Palestinian Talmud. This work has been referred to by Middle Eastern and European scholars throughout the ages. That one work alone shows how strong the ties are between Palestinians and their land.



There are plenty of other examples of scholarship researching the ancient culture of Palestine. Here. for example, is a 19th century book about the customs and traditions of Palestine over the ages.

All in all, there is a massive amount of evidence and literature that all proves that throughout the centuries, there has been a people living in Palestine as well as their kin who longed to return to Palestine from their diaspora. In the 20th century, they became known to the Western world as Palestinians. These people ranged from the ordinary to the clerical to the political, always trying to improve the land of their ancestors which they held sacred. They never forgot Palestine and when they were given the chance, they jumped at building their nation in the land of Palestine.

There are outsiders who invaded Palestine, though. They came in waves. Some settled there, some moved on, but none of them have been there as long as the Palestinians who were there originally. They often persecuted the people who identified as Palestinians, both the natives of Palestineand their cousins who came to rejoin them. They never identified as Palestinian themselves in the era of the coins, stamps, and orchestras. Yet this other group, which used to call themselves Southern Syrians or simply Arabs, makes claims today that they are the real Palestinians!

Of all the peoples of the world, the Palestinians who deserve most to live there are the ones who have the strongest ancient historic ties to the land as well as the people who worked hardest to build a modern state in Palestine in the first half of the 20th century - against the wishes of the invaders.  These Palestinians have an unbroken chain of history and culture from their ancestors living there in ancient times through today.  The Palestinian people who worked to rebuild their nation are the ones who deserve to live there the most, from a historical, legal and moral perspective.

Every modern, liberal person must support the human rights of these indigenous Palestinian people to live, in peace and security, in the land that they have lived in and longed for throughout the ages.

Yes, there was a geographical area called Palestine for 2000 years. It might not have been the original name, but the residents who identified with it the most throughout that time are the ones who are the real Palestinian people.

(h/t Max)

PressTV's new "expert:" David Duke

Posted: 13 Jan 2014 02:00 AM PST

White supremacist and antisemite David Duke seems to have found a kinship with fellow Jew-haters at Iran's state-run PressTV.

Duke has now been interviewed twice in two weeks. PressTV, which has a stable of Jew-hating columnists, often gives new potential writers a try-out by interviewing them. When they are found to fit the standards of hate that PressTV demands, they get promoted to columnists.

David Duke may be on his way to join them.

Here are some lowlights of his current interview.
Zionists dominate banking, media and politics: D. Duke

...Obviously AIPAC is an organization that is a Zionist organization that's working for the interest of Israel and for the radical Jews who control the Jewish community in America. There are a few dissenting Jews, which we should be very happy for and I'm glad there are some Jews there to challenge some issues.

But every major Jewish organization in the United State of America is pushing for war and sanctions against your country (Iran) when the true nuclear rogue state of course is Israel and Israel is a real threat to world peace.

I hope that Iran and the world doesn't misunderstand the fact that the Jewish community, the organized Jewish community – that doesn't mean every Jew – but the organized Jewish community is very, very strongly pushing for war – a war that would be catastrophic for the people of Iran and around the world.

Zionism is a worldwide phenomenon. It is a globalist phenomenon. They dominate international banks with enormous financial power; they dominate the world's media; and they dominate the political structure.

In America they do it by controlling campaign financing and basically because of the power in the media if you combine the campaign financing influence with the media they are able to blackmail every politician.

Every politician knows that if they support Israel they will get positive response in the media. If they dare to put America first and the interests of the world first and the interest of peace and decency and humanity first, they will be condemned and thrown out of Congress.

There is simply not one American Congressman truly willing to stand up to the Zionists in this country. They have been bought off. It's the best Congress money can buy and it's shameful to the American people.

he control of the media and the control of the political processes around the world, they are behind what we call globalism, which is really an effort toward world government; towards a...extremist Messianic vision of the world. Now, that might sound radical and strange.

But Ben Gurion himself said that Israel would become the Supreme Court of mankind; that all nations and armies would be abolished...It's talking about world domination.

And they really do dominate the world in many ways, in media, in international banking and in politics.

And by controlling America they control a great deal of the military force of the world.
It is notable that David Duke and other white supremacists now align with Muslims because of their common hatred of Jews. In a weird way,this alignment helps inoculate Duke and similar extreme right Jew-haters from charges of antisemitism, because those liberals who find Jew-hatred distasteful never want to condemn Muslim antisemitism. By using an Islamic publication to spread their hate, Duke and his pals can avoid criticism from those who are paralyzed by the fear of being labeled Islamophobes, a fear that allows Jew-hatred to flourish among the very people who pretend to be against all forms of bigotry.
פורסם על ידי zoom ב- 0:30

אין תגובות:

הוסף רשומת תגובה

הירשם ל- תגובות לפרסום (Atom)