| NYU responds about Lisa Duggan's anti-Israel ASA conference Posted: 25 Feb 2014 08:41 PM PST  JTA picked up on my scoop about the anti-Israel ASA conference scheduled for NYU this weekend: The New York University American studies program's annual conference this year is focused on the boycott-Israel movement and dominated by its supporters.
The student-organized conference is scheduled to take place this Friday and Saturday and is titled "Circuits of Influence: U.S., Israel and Palestine."
A flyer advertising the conference promises discussion on how "recent American Studies scholarship on the political economy of racialization, empire, and settler colonialism led the highlighting of this particular 'triangle.'"
The flyer notes the American Studies Association's decision in December to boycott Israeli educational institutions.
Lisa Duggan, a professor of social and cultural analysis at NYU who is the president-elect of the ASA, is moderating one of the conference's panels, on the "History & Efficacy of Boycotts."
Individuals and organizations identified with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement feature throughout the conference.
The conference's three workshop sessions are all led by representatives of groups that advocate for various Israel-related boycotts: Adalah-NY, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. These sessions focus on activism, with titles like "Movement Building," "Student Organizing" and "Public Engagement."
A pro-Israel blog, Elder of Ziyon, on Sunday re-posted the conference flyer after Duggan posted it on Facebook. In a comment below her Facebook post, Duggan asked that the flyer not be widely distributed, writing, "We are trying to avoid press, protestors and public attention." NYU downplayed the event: In a statement issued to JTA, New York University said that the conference was intended for academics, not the press or the public.
"This weekend's American Studies Program Annual Conference is an annual academic conference that is organized by graduate students in NYU's American Studies Program and designed for faculty and students in this and related disciplines," said Philip Lentz, the university's director of public affairs. "Given the purpose of the conference and space considerations, it is not open to the general public or the press."
Duggan told JTA in an email that nothing was unusual about how the conference was planned or announced.
"It is not 'secret,' it is simply a limited registration academic conference, not a public event," she wrote in her email.
She said that the student organizers did not deserve to be caught up in "the maelstrom of publicity surrounding the ASA boycott vote."
"I wish our students could have their conference in relative peace and obscurity, as is usual for their conferences," she wrote. This is somewhat contradicted by Duggan's Facebook post about the conference, where she urged like- friends, colleagues and grad students." She said nothing about limiting it to faculty and students only. minded Israel bashers to "Feel free to share [the conference invitation] with Likewise, the registration page says nothing about the conference only being intended for academics and students. And neither did the flyer. It appears that this limitation on who could attend was created after the publicity from my scoop. I am quite certain that if Mondoweiss or Electronic Intifada wanted to send someone to report about the conference, no one there would have objected. In fact, I still expect them to post articles about the conference afterwards. NYU is simply covering for its American Studies Program and trying to avoid bad publicity.  |
| BDS News from 1930 Posted: 25 Feb 2014 05:00 PM PST |
| 02/25 Links Pt2: German Paper Depicts Zuckerberg as Hook-Nosed Octopus; Harold Ramis dies at 69 Posted: 25 Feb 2014 03:00 PM PST From Ian:
Palestinian State of FailureA fascinating discussion from Jonathan Schanzer on the John Batcheler show.
Listen to the whole thing and learn yourself something.
I was not aware, until Batcheler's introductory comments, about the NYC bomb plot targeting Golda Meir. Guess who uncovered the plot. The NSA.
Note how Fatah was formed in 1959, 8 years before the "occupation" of the West Bank. It's never been about the West Bank, it's been the failure to recognize Israel, and the use of the "peace process" as just a stepping stone.
Schanzer's book is State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State. The punching bag bigots of anti-Israel boycottsThe question worth asking would be; what drives elements like Hamas and Hezbollah to hate Israel. It is not about the "settlements", the "refugees" and the "occupation". It is about the very existence of Israel; the existence of a free, humane and enlightened society in a neighborhood of bigotry, despotism and tyranny.
The contempt and hatred of Israel is in fact contempt and hatred of Western Democracy and Civilization. The radical Left in the West hates the values signified by Israel just as much as the religious supremacists in the Arab world do. It is a match made in hell in which the BDS campaign plays cupid bringing these sadists and masochists together to form an unholy alliance.
It would be hilarious, if it wasn't so tragic. The BDS campaign uses the avenues and free spaces provided by the liberal and open societies to hit at the very core of values that built them in the first place. It uses University campuses, faculty unions and student bodies to divide and polarize. It targets trade unions, local communities and churches to spread the mean-spirited gospel of BDS.
The BDS campaign will never achieve its intended goal of "bringing Israel to its knees". However, it is bound to have unintended consequences.
The practitioners of BDS are bent upon disrupting the free flow of knowledge, academic discourse and civilizational advancement in the Western World. They must not be allowed to do so, for we are all in peril if they are. Stand With US "Divestment" in Action on Campus Farrakhan's anti-Semitism continuesSpeaking in Detroit's Joe Louis Arena to a crowd of 18,000 people mostly African American, Nation of Islam "Honorable Minister" Louis Farrakhan resumed his decades-old diatribe of slander towards the Jewish people at the annual "Saviours Day" convention.
The paranoid leader of the Chicago based all-male black militant organization did not hesitate to further trash his reputation. The 80-year-old "Minister" said he was in good company to be mentioned alongside Henry Ford, when he brought up how they were both accused of being anti-Semitic.
In his own words: "A great man who was called an anti-Semite. I feel like I'm in good company." Jewish museum reinstates invitation to John JudisOn Sunday, museum director David Marwell posted an item on the museum's website announcing that the June 1 event with Judis, author of "Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict" and a senior editor at The New Republic, would go forward.
Last week, the museum reportedly nixed the event amid concerns, according to a museum spokeswoman, that "the controversy would overshadow the content."
Marwell said he had not wanted to invite Judis in the first place, but his staff had done so without his approval. Rescinding the invitation, Marwell wrote, would have raised the "ugly specter of succumbing to pressure and giving in to outside influence," and therefore the museum would go ahead with a Judis event. Darshan-Leitner: Oxfam Still Hasn't RespondedWith a little effort, Israel can fight back, and even win, against the attempts to deligitimize it, said attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner. Speaking to Arutz Sheva Monday, Darshan-Leitner said that her organization, Shurat Hadin, had not yet received a response from Oxfam, after Shurat Hadin accused the international group of having ties to terror groups.
In a letter to Oxfam, Shurat Hadin wrote that the group had "provided financial aid and additional forms of material support to the Union of Health Workers Committees (UHWC) and the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees ("UAWC"), instrumentalities of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ("PFLP") in the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority." Jewish-American Student Leader Rebukes 'Israel Apartheid Week 2014′ for Using His Image in Promotional Video (VIDEO)A Jewish-American student leader on Monday called for 'Israel Apartheid Week 2014' to retract a promotional video that he said "fraudulently edits" his appearance on a televised Fox network program, where he denounced a previous anti-Israel event, as promoting their cause.
In an interview with The Algemeiner, Brandeis University senior Joshua Nass said, "I am disgusted with this video."
"This is all faked. They fraudulently edited in my image to make it seem I support their anti-Israel smears, when I am one of the student leaders speaking out the most loudly in favor of Israel." American Studies Assoc. tells Regional Chapters not to communicate with meWe reported yesterday how incoming American Studies Association President Lisa Duggan of NYU organized an anti-Israel conference through NYU, but didn't want those who disagree to know about it (via Elder of Ziyon). The Facebook post about the event since has been taken down.
It appears that secrecy is the new policy at ASA.
Earlier this month I wrote to ASA Regional Chapter Presidents asking for their position on whether the ASA academic boycott of Israel applied to Regional Chapters and their events, such as regional conventions. This is an important issue because much of ASA's presence — other than its Annual Meeting — takes place through the Chapters. To understand the scope and application of the boycott, we need to know whether the Regional Chapters will follow the boycott.
Apparently the ASA Exceutive Committee is not happy about this inquiry, and has told the Regional Chapters not to communicate with me other than to refer me to the ASA boycott resolution itself (which, of course, I already have). This amounts to a complete non-communication strategy. Anti-Israel activists pan Israeli gay pride floatA handful of protesters dressed in pink and bearing placards protesting "Israeli apartheid" tried to approach the float organized by Israel's embassy at the beginning of the parade in Auckland on Saturday night. They said they were criticizing Israel's "pinkwashing" of human rights.
But Patricia Deen, the embassy's spokesperson, said: "We were just there because we are proud of who we are, the fact that we are the only country in the Middle East where gay people are accepted."
"We were also there to promote the Tel Aviv gay parade…Their pride parade is one of the biggest parties in the whole wide world. We have a proud Israeli and Jewish gay community in New Zealand and in Israel," Deen said.
She also told GayNZ.com: "Even though we were being disrupted it was in the beginning of the parade. But through the whole parade we were being cheered, people were saying 'shalom.'" Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by deathYemen, Iran, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates Who Is to Blame for "Islamophobia" in the UK?If you look at the London Tube Bombing of 7/7; the Madrid Train Bombing; two attacks on the World Trade Center; the murders of Lee Rigby, Theo Van Gogh, Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Ilan Halimi, and countless other attack and threats, how can we honestly expect people not to be "Islamophobic"? It would appear we have no one to blame but ourselves.
If we Muslims are actually opposed to these Islamist hate preachers, why are we failing to take a unanimous public stance against them, to disown and isolate them from our community? Sanitation Truck Kills Crown Heights Jew; Community Doesn't Violently Riot For Some Reason (satire)New York City officials are puzzling over the Crown Heights Jewish community's non-violent reaction to the killing of one of its members by a Department of Sanitation trash collection truck yesterday morning.
A 25-year-old Rabbinical student was crossing Carroll Street when the truck turned right from Kingston Avenue and struck him. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. In reaction, the local Jewish community, primarily members of the Lubavitch sect of Hasidim, expressed their collective anger by not going on a murderous rampage through the streets. BBC's Alkashif slips gratuitous Israel mentions into Gaza Greek god story Whatever the truth behind the discovery of the statue and whatever the reasons behind the timing of the story's sudden extensive promotion in the international media some six months after its initial discovery, one thing is certain: Shahdi Alkashif's context-free introduction of Israeli 'restrictions' on the entry of building materials to the Gaza Strip into the story and his claim that "people cannot move out of Gaza" are both misleading and gratuitous and can only be seen as being politically motivated insertions. Guardian film critic downplays Hitler comments of director Lars von Trier Though Von Trier apologized after the row, he later retracted his apology during an interview with GQ.
Moreover, as you can see in the clip, the director may have attempted a bit of humor towards the end to break the tension, but seemed quite serious when stating that he sympathized with Hitler "a little bit". And, the French Police evidently didn't think it was merely a joke when they investigated Von Trier for a possible violation of French laws against the justification of war crimes. Jews told to get lost at Toulouse anti-racism rallyParticipants in a march against anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in the French city of Toulouse hurled anti-Zionist insults at Jewish fellow demonstrators.
Some of the insults were directed at Nicole Yardeni, who heads the local chapter of the CRIF umbrella group of Jewish communities, during the march on Saturday by 2,000 people. The march was organized by a gay group, Arc-en-Ciel, following the spraying of anti-Semitic and anti-gay slogans in several locales last week in Toulouse.
At one point, a group of demonstrators started chanting "Yardeni, get lost" and "CRIF, fascists, Zionists, get lost." Thessaloniki Jews suing Germany in European courtThe ransom was paid to free some 9,000 of Thessaloniki's Jewish men, aged 18 to 45, from forced labor by the Germans, who took control of the city in 1942. The German civilian administrator of the Thessaloniki , Max Merten, demanded some 2.5 billion drachmas to release them.
"They were sick and dying and starving and working without food, so the community collected the money to pay," said Saltiel.
In total, 1.9 billion drachmas, or nearly $69 million, was paid before the Germans began transporting Thessaloniki Jews to the death camps. More than 49,000 Jews out of the city's prewar Jewish population of 55,000 were deported. Fewer than 2,000 survived. German Paper Depicts Zuckerberg as Hook-Nosed OctopusThe Süddeutsche promptly apologized—on Twitter, naturally, in the form of a simple Twitter message, declaring "We are sorry!" But the fire continued, fueled by the fact that it wasn't the first time the SZ has been at the receiving end of recently public disapproval for a caricature that related negatively to the wider Jewish theme: Less than a year ago, in July 2013, the newspaper published a drawing by Ernst Kahl showing a hungry Gruffalo-like monster, a true Moloch, being served by a waitress with a full plate, with the subtitle: "Germany serves!" The picture was supposed to illustrate "nearly free servings of German arms" to the insatiable monster that is the State of Israel. The outrage was great. The president of the Association of German Jews, Dieter Gauman, responded that the cartoon was on the level of Stürmer, the infamous Third Reich magazine that frequently depicted Jews as world ruling monsters. "I am most surprised that anti-Semitic associations are so superficially permitted to happen, given the seriousness of this paper otherwise," he wrote. German Paper Apologizes for Yet Another Anti-Semitic Cartoon Forced to explain himself, Mohr told the Jerusalem Post the cartoon was his take on Facebook acquiring WhatsApp. The caricature, he said, wasn't intended to be viewed as an expression of anti-Semitism or as a personal attack on Zuckerberg, adding, I am sorry that it led to this misunderstanding and hurt the feelings of some readers.
Mohr subsequently revised the cartoon. Ukrainian Jewish Center Attacked With Molotov CocktailsThe Chabad Jewish center in the southeast Ukrainian city of Zaporozhye was firebombed with Molotov cocktails on Monday. The masked perpetrators managed to escape, but their images were caught by security cameras.
Although no one was hurt and the damage to the building was minimal, Chabad Rabbi Nachum Ehrentrau, the chief rabbi of the city and the surrounding region, expressed concern that police would not make it a priority to investigate the incident due to the protests that engulfed the country in the past week, culminating Saturday with the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych by the Ukrainian Parliament. Israel, Germany to sign work-visa dealAmong the numerous bilateral pacts Israel and Germany are set to sign at their annual government- to-government meeting on Tuesday is one that will enable Israeli youths to work for up to a year in the central European country.
The program will be reciprocal, and German youths will have the opportunity to do the same in Israel.
Under the plan, young adults aged 18-30 can apply for the visas and look for work to help them pay for travel or gain experience in a particular field. Jewish actor, writer, director Harold Ramis dies at 69Harold Ramis, the bespectacled "Ghostbusters" sidekick to Bill Murray whose early grounding in live comedy led to blockbuster movies such as "National Lampoon's Animal House," "Caddyshack" and "Groundhog Day," died Monday. He was 69.
Ramis, who suffered for several years from an autoimmune disease that caused inflammation and damage to his blood vessels, died at his home in the Chicago suburbs, surrounded by family and friends, his talent agency said.
Perhaps his greatest legacy is his influence on generations of comedians, actors and directors due to his ability to infuse comedy with a broader, sometimes spiritual message, said Andrew Alexander, president and CEO of The Second City. Ramis got his start with the Chicago-based improvisational comedy theater, along with future co-stars Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and Murray.  |
| Naftali Bennett on BBC Hardtalk (video) Posted: 25 Feb 2014 01:00 PM PST (h/t Yerushalimey)  |
| The truth behind Palestinian water libels Posted: 25 Feb 2014 11:00 AM PST Two weeks ago I noted how the PLO was successfully using water as a weapon against Israel.Here is the beginning of a must-read paper by Prof. Haim Gvirtzman showing the truth about the water situation in the territories. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Water shortages in the Palestinian Authority are the result of Palestinian policies that deliberately waste water and destroy the regional water ecology. The Palestinians refuse to develop their own significant underground water resources, build a seawater desalination plant, fix massive leakage from their municipal water pipes, build sewage treatment plants, irrigate land with treated sewage effluents or modern water-saving devices, or bill their own citizens for consumer water usage, leading to enormous waste. At the same time, they drill illegally into Israel's water resources, and send their sewage flowing into the valleys and streams of central Israel. In short, the Palestinian Authority is using water as a weapon against the State of Israel. It is not interested in practical solutions to solve the Palestinian people's water shortages, but rather perpetuation of the shortages and the besmirching of Israel.
A significant public debate has been sparked by the assertion of European Parliament President Martin Schulz that the amount of water available to the average Israeli unfairly overwhelms the amount of water available to the average Palestinian. The main issue that should be discussed – and has not been sufficiently analyzed – is: What are the causes of Palestinian water supply problems?
The discussion must be informed by the following basic facts:
1. The Oslo agreements grant the Palestinians the right to draw 70 million cubic meters from the Eastern Mountain Aquifer (ground water reservoir). Yet this water resource is not currently being capitalized on by the Palestinians; the waters spill untapped underground into the Dead Sea. As per the Israeli-Palestinian agreement, some 40 sites were identified for drilling into this aquifer in the eastern Hebron hills region, and permits were granted to the Palestinians by the Israel-PA Joint Water Committee. Nevertheless, over the past 20 years, the Palestinians have drilled at just one-third of these sites, despite the fact that the international community has offered to finance the drilling of all sites. If the Palestinians were to drill and develop all these wells, they could have completely solved the existing water shortage in the Hebron hills region. But the Palestinians have preferred to drill wells on the Western Mountain Aquifer, the basin that provides groundwater to the State of Israel. Instead of solving the problem they have chosen to squabble with Israel.
2. The Palestinians do not bother fixing water leaks in city pipes. Up to 33 percent of water in Palestinian cities is wasted through leakage. Upkeep on the Palestinians' urban water infrastructure has been completely neglected. By comparison, leakage from Israeli municipal water pipes amount to only 10 percent of water usage.
3. The Palestinians refuse to build water treatment plants, despite their obligation to do so under the Oslo agreement. Sewage flows out of Palestinian towns and villages directly into local streams, thereby polluting the environments and the aquifer and causing the spread of disease. Despite the fact that donor countries are willing to fully fund the building of treatment plants, the Palestinians have managed to avoid their obligations to build such facilities. (Only over the past two years has Israeli pressure moved the PA forward a bit on this matter.)
4. The Palestinians absolutely refuse to irrigate their agricultural fields with treated sewage effluents. By comparison, more than half the agricultural fields in Israel are irrigated with treated waste water. Irrigating Palestinian agricultural fields with recycled water instead of fresh water would free up large amounts of water for home usage. This would greatly reduce the water shortage in many places.
5. Some Palestinian farmers irrigate their fields by flooding, rather than with drip irrigation technology. Drip irrigation, as practiced in Israel, brings water directly to the root of each plant, thereby reducing water consumption by more than 50 percent. Flooding fields causes huge water evaporation and leads to great waste.
6. The international community has offered to build a desalination plant for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have refused this gift. A desalination plant could completely solve the Gaza Strip's water shortages. The Palestinians refuse to build this plant because they claim they have the right to access the fresh groundwater reservoir in Judea and Samaria, and they are prepared to suffer until they realize this dream. In the meanwhile, Gaza residents suffer from severe shortages of water.
These basic, undeniable facts are extremely important because they have wide-ranging consequences.
Today, the Palestinians consume some 200 million cubic meters of water per annum in Judea and Samaria. The Palestinians could easily raise that amount by at least 50 percent, without any additional assistance or allocation from the State of Israel. This would require several simple actions:
If the Palestinians were to begin drilling the Eastern Mountain Aquifer, at the sites already approved for drilling, they very quickly would secure an additional 50 million cubic meters of water per year.
If the Palestinians were to reduce urban water waste from 33 percent to 20 percent by fixing the main leaks in their urban water pipes (something that can be done without great effort), they would immediately benefit from 10 million additional cubic meters of water per annum.
If the Palestinians were to collect and treat their urban waste water, they would gain at least 30 million cubic meters of water a year. This would free up 30 million cubic meters (per annum) of fresh water, currently used for agriculture, for home usage. This would allow them both to improve their urban water supply and to expand agricultural lands.
If the Palestinians were to adopt drip irrigation technology, they would save 10 million cubic meters a year. This would allow them to expand their irrigated lands.
In the Gaza Strip, too, the Palestinians could easily double the amount of water available, without additional assistance from the State of Israel. If the Palestinians agreed to build a desalination plant on the Gaza coast (funded entirely by the international community), they would increase the amount of water available by 60 to 100 million cubic meters a year. If they fix leakages, treat and recycle sewage, and adopt drip irrigation, they would double their water allocation, as well.
...The sum total of the situation described above is that the Palestinian Authority is using water as a weapon against the State of Israel. It is more interested in reducing the amount of water available to Israel, polluting natural reservoirs, harming Israeli farmers, and sullying Israel's reputation around the world than truly solving water problems for the Palestinian people. The Palestinians are not interested in practical solutions to address shortages; rather, they seek to perpetuate the shortages, and to blame the State of Israel.
Unfortunately, President Schulz's Knesset address, with its seemingly straightforward but baseless accusations against Israel, suggests that the PA is succeeding in this effort to befuddle international observers and besmirch Israel.
An astonishing 150-200 million cubic meters of water a year are available to Palestinian Arabs, virtually for free, with only changes to policy and accepting help from the West. They are refusing to take it. This proves two things: - Palestinian Arab leaders don't care about their own people.
- Rather than act as a peace partner, Palestinian Arab leaders prioritize demonizing and damaging Israel in the international arena.
The water issue is merely a symptom, albeit a very important symptom, of a much larger problem, a problem that the international community refuses to recognize. Every single action that the Palestinian Arab leaders - namely, all of their "red lines" in negotiations with Israel - adhere to these same two principles. And the world closes its eyes.  |
| 02/25 Links Pt1: The Myth of Israel’s Refusal to Make “Tough Decisions” for Peace Posted: 25 Feb 2014 09:00 AM PST From Ian:
The Myth of Israel's Refusal to Make "Tough Decisions" for PeaceThe relentless calls for Israel to take difficult decisions for peace not only neglect to account for the attitude of the Palestinian side but also of the extensive concessions already offered by the Israelis. Both under Ehud Barak during the Camp David talks in 2000 and certainly under Ehud Olmert in 2008, Israel's offers for peace went just about as far as possible without Israel either ceasing to exist as a Jewish state or rendering its remaining territory indefensible. Similarly, the current Israeli negotiating position does not appear to be measurably different from that of Barak or Olmert's. Certainly, if Prime Minister Netanyahu's negotiating stance was falling significantly short of previous offers then his dovish chief negotiator, Tzipi Livni, who served in the Olmert government and remains a political rival to Netanyahu, would doubtless call him out on this. Israel is once again offering as much as it can without ceasing to survive as Israel. But then this is the crux of the matter. It really looks as if it may just be the case that no offer that leaves the Jewish state in existence will be acceptable to Palestinians. (h/t Bob Knot) Challenging the Long-Held Notion That Israeli Settlements Are 'Illegal'In a 2010 column for the American Interest, Nicholas Rostow, then-counsel and vice chancellor for legal affairs at the State University of New York and today director of the Center for Strategic Research at National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies, described five of the arguments made by those who disagree that the Geneva Convention prohibits Jewish Israelis from living legally in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
In their view, the Geneva Convention is inapplicable because under Article 2, the Convention applies only to territory that is occupied by "a High Contracting Party." Because no country has a legally recognized claim to the "occupied territories," the argument goes, the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem do not belong to any contracting party.
Rostow wrote: "In making this argument, advocates of legality stress that the international community did not recognize Jordan's annexation of the West Bank and that now Jordan has withdrawn its claim." Terrorism pays – literallyNor is jail time a deterrent. "Nobody believes they're going to serve [a full] sentence," he said, "because they are going to be part of the next prisoner release, or of the next discussion even to have a discussion about a prisoner release."
Indeed.
This travesty is supervised by the Palestinian Ministry for Prisoners and written into PA legislation. The law determines an ascending pay scale for terrorists: The more the carnage and the longer the prison term, the higher the salary.
According to [Edwin] Black, "This takes up $5-7 million a month – approximately six percent – of the PA budget. If you add in the other payments [to terrorists] for weddings, social events, special bonuses, academic scholarships, it comes to 16% of the Palestinian budget.
"And where does the money come from? From American and European taxpayers."
Until the blood-for-money law is rescinded, he said, "There can be no peace between Palestinians and Israelis." Unstable Neighborhood: Terrorist Groups Encircle IsraelA breakdown in state sovereignty among Arab countries bordering Israel has created a vacuum eagerly filled by radical non-state actors.
In lawless areas around Israel, both Sunni and Shi'ite terrorist organizations are reaching out across borders and moving personnel and weapons. This means that an eruption of violence in one area carries the potential to ignite other arenas around Israel.
To Israel's south and west, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist networks are growing. They operate in both the Gaza Strip and in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and maintain a relationship with Gaza's rulers – Hamas – as well as with Islamic Jihad.
Smaller Gazan terror groups, such as the Popular Resistance Committees (which are heavily involved in firing rockets at Israel) have taken to "sub-contracting jobs" to terrorists in the neighboring Sinai Peninsula, to avoid exposing Hamas in Gaza to Israeli retaliation. The Politics of the Palestinian Right of ReturnThe 'right of return' is sometimes explained away as being symbolic rather than practical, an element of the Palestinian 'narrative' regarding the blameless circumstances of their diaspora. Israelis are demanded to accept both the narrative, in which they are the villains, and the possibility of the mass return of Palestinians that would, by design, end Israel as a Jewish state.
In contrast, the demand that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state would have no practical costs for Palestinians. But it would be acknowledgment of the character and permanence of Israel, and thus is rejected outright. This cannot be admitted, indeed, the entire thrust of Palestinian public culture, from education to summer camps to TV programming, relentlessly pushes the idea that Israel is temporary and illegitimate. Statements, such as the Palestinian Authority's Religious Affairs minister Mahmoud al-Habash's recent demand that "every inch" of the pre-1967 territory must be turned over by Israel, including the "Buraq Wall" – better known as the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest place – make deep impressions on Israelis. But they pass unnoticed by Kerry and his associates. (h/t Bob Knot) 'We Don't Want a Palestinian State, We Just Want to Live Well'Abu Muatz, a resident of Dir Isatia located just south of Nablus, said local Palestinian-Arab issues have become an international cause célèbre with dire results.
"It's frustrating to have politicians from the Arab League and Muslim countries meddle in my life." Muatz said. "I have this to tell them: do whatever needs to be done in order that the quality of our lives improves. Instead, they expect me to fight on their behalf in order to liberate Jerusalem and the Palestinian people."
Muatz also dismissed the PA's claim that it wont sign a peace treaty with Israel until Jerusalem allows all Palestinian-Arabs considered by the UN to be refugees the right to live in Israel proper, Ma'ariv reported.
"I have a brother who lives in Jordan. He lives there with his wife and children. He is still considered a refugee. Do you really think that he plans to ever return to this village?" Muatz said. "All he's interested in is in being compensated financially for his refugee status. He as well as all the other refuges living in Jordan, Lebanon and anywhere else will never return [to lands currently administered by the Palestinian Authority]." Analysts: Palestinian State Collapse "Liable to Become a Subversive and Hostile Entity and Develop Into Grave Security Threat to Israel"Whatever elements are mobilized to bolster its viability, analysts have long identified at least four critical dynamics that would have to be addressed to prevent a Palestinian state from collapsing into a failed state: the absence of political legitimacy, the absence of economic stability, the absence of a monopoly on the use of force, and the existence of rival governments in some of the territories that Palestinians reserve for a future state. Despite the peace process, it is difficult to find evaluations citing progress along these four dimensions. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is currently in the ninth year of his four-year term, Palestinians are scrambling to avoid an economic collapse due to donor fatigue, there is a growing jihadist presence throughout territories controlled by Palestinian governments, and efforts to unite the Fatah-controlled West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip have again stalled. The latter factor has often been left unaddressed in peace talks, but a single state under two governments is almost by definition a failed state. Qatar's true colorsOn the one hand, Qatar is funding the Hamas terrorist organization, whose mission is to eradicate Israel, while on the other hand it is promoting the Arab League's Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative -- all while Al-Jazeera "documentaries" incite the Palestinians against the Zionist enemy and warn them against compromising on "the right of return."
This political zigzag, which is reminiscent of the world's oldest profession, allows Qatar's rulers to use the various regional players for their own protection. The Egyptians and Syrians, it seems, are getting tired of this game. The Jewish Demographic Bomb: Judea and Samaria Up 4.3% in 2013These days the work on analyzing the figures of the 2013 population census is being concluded, and once again the Jewish Settler communities are showing a resounding increase, according to Srugim. Based on these figures, 2013 has seen a 4.3 percent population growth in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan valley.
As of last December (which means the real figures for today are even higher), the Jewish settler population in Judea and Samaria is about 375,000, with an addition of some 15,400 new residents. The Judea and Samaria annual growth rate is more than twice the average in Israel west of the 1949 armistice line—aka the green line—which is 1.9. After reported strike on Hezbollah, PM says Israel will defend itselfSpeaking at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Netanyahu said he would not speak to the reports that Israeli planes struck a missile shipment or missile base in the Baalbek region on the border between the Syria and Lebanon.
However, he added that Israel would defend itself through whatever means necessary.
"Our policy is clear," he said to a reporter's question about the reported strike. "I won't speak about what is being claimed or not being claimed. However, we will do everything we need to in order to defend the security of our citizens." In no mood for fight, Hezbollah downplays reported Israeli strikeThe most overt reference on the al-Manar website to the reported Israeli attack was that "senior security officials did not confirm that there was an attack."
Earlier, the network said there had been "no raid on Lebanese territory," reporting only the "strong presence of enemy planes over the area north of Bekaa" in eastern Lebanon.
The al-Mayadeen channel, considered close to Hezbollah, also buried news of the attack late Monday. Its headline emphasized that "there were no injuries or damage" in the raid, contradicting reports of Hezbollah casualties in al-Arabaiya. The report seemed to telegraph to the Lebanese public how inconsequential the attack was. Police pelted with stones and firecrackers in Temple Mount clashIsraeli police forces in Jerusalem were showered with stones and firecrackers Tuesday morning, as Palestinian youth seemingly protested an upcoming debate on Israeli sovereignty of the contested holy site.
The clashes began when officers opened the Mughrabi Gate, an entrance to the Temple Mount next to the Western Wall which is the only access for non-Muslims to the Mount.
The perpetrators, whom police said were a group of young men, some of them masked, were dispersed by the officers with the use of stun grenades. The Return of West Bank Terror?Given the way these public displays by terror groups and their affiliates appear to now be tolerated in PA-controlled areas, it is certainly plausible that even if the PA isn't actively instigating such activities, it may have made a decision to somewhat loosen its measures against such groups. Alternatively, this could simply be an indication of the growing weakness of the Palestinian Authority under Abbas. All of which must be taken into consideration when it comes to the current negotiations. From the start of the resumption of peace talks there have been ongoing concerns that were talks to collapse under particularly unhappy circumstances, this could trigger a new wave of Palestinian terror attacks. Equally, were the talks to lead to Israel making further territorial concessions in the West Bank, this would also be deeply concerning in light of a resurgence of Islamist groups in these areas.
To be clear, the present situation in the West Bank is far more secure and stable than in those territories Israel has withdrawn from. But given the partial control of the PA over the West Bank the situation remains mixed and the current trend does not appear to be in a promising direction. Hamas cell planned bomb attack on major J'lem-TA roadA Hamas cell planned to detonate a roadside bomb against Israeli army troops along a major route linking Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, the Shin Bet security service revealed Monday.
Member[s] of the cell were among a larger group of 15 suspects, all from the West Bank village of Bayt Ur a-Tachta, who were arrested recently. The other suspects are being held for throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at passing Israeli cars on Route 443, part of an upsurge in attacks on the road.
The highway, one of only two arteries linking Tel Aviv and the capital, runs through the West Bank for 16 kilometers, from the Maccabim Checkpoint to the outskirts of Jerusalem.
After months of near total quiet, the route has witnessed a flare-up of violence, including 20 Molotov cocktail attacks during the first two months of the year. The Deadly Reality of Palestinian Rock ThrowingRock throwing is common in Judea and Samaria, and along with Molotov Cocktails and booby-trapped tire throwing, is a terror act that comes under the definition of 'popular terror'. These incidents happen daily and are easily ignored by the mainstream media. But did you know that a simple rock can kill?
In 2013, there were more than 2,400 Palestinian rock throwing attacks in Israel. Of these, 30 percent were directed at civilian vehicles. 116 civilians were injured due to these incidents. They may appear inoffensive, but rocks threaten lives. Abbas Refrains from Condemning Syrian War CrimesNabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, declared Monday that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is not only not taking a stance on the Syrian civil war, but that he is adamant about sticking to a non-interference policy in internal affairs in the Arab world.
According to Abu Rudeineh, Abbas does not want to put the "Palestinian refugees" at the heart of conflicts that do not directly serve the interests of the Palestinian people or the Arab world. In addition, the "official" PA policy is to distance itself from societal conflicts in the Arab world at large, according to the official. Bayit Yehudi MK: West is financing 'bile' and incitement by supporting UNRWA's projectsChetboun opened the event by describing a recent visit to a tunnel built by Hamas "with concrete and cement that had been delivered to UNRWA by donor countries" that was used by terrorists and screened examples of incitement shown to children in UNRWA schools.
"This bile is being financed by the countries you represent," Chetboun said. "Irrespective of how the current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are viewed, everybody can agree that the future does not bode well if the next generation is consistently exposed to ideas that would not be out of place in 1935 in Berlin."
"Would you tolerate this state of affairs in your own countries? Is it not reasonable to suggest that the aid the world sends should not enable the hate which is the cause of this incitement and terrorism in the first place?" the Bayit Yehudi MK asked the representatives from the embassies of the EU, UK, Canada, Norway, France, Turkey, Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, Belgium, Bulgaria and the Philippines. IDF Blog: United Nations Textbooks too Peaceful for HamasHamas' education ministry recently denounced the use of UN textbooks in Gaza's schools, saying the materials "contaminate the minds of our dear students" and deceive them into accepting peace with Israel.
"There is a tremendous focus on the peaceful resistance as the only tool to achieve freedom and independence," Motesem al-Minawi, spokesman of the Hamas Education Ministry, complained about the latest UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) textbooks for high school students in Gaza. Relatives arrested over suspected 'honor' killing in GazaGaza police have arrested family members over the deaths of two Palestinian teenage girls, one of them the victim of a suspected "honor" killing, an official said Monday.
Authorities caught relatives of one of the girls as they were trying to bury her in a cemetery near Jabaliya, north of Gaza City, on Thursday, police spokesman Ayyub Abu Shaar told AFP.
The girl's father had "beat her days before her death," Abu Shaar said.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said a post-mortem showed signs of "torture" all over the girl's body as well as signs of untreated gangrene from years of physical abuse. Iran studied IDF tactics after 2006 war, official saysA team of Iranian experts carefully analyzed Lebanese targets demolished by Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Second Lebanon War to gain a better understanding of Israeli assault strategies and ammunition capabilities, a senior Iranian defense official announced on Monday.
"After Hezbollah's 33-day war, we sent a team to Lebanon and studied the models of Israel's assault on the Lebanese buildings and collected 5,000 images of all the destroyed buildings," Civil Defense Organization head Gholam Reza Jalali said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Speaking at a conference in Tehran dedicated to the defense strategy of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Jalali said the damage sustained to Lebanese targets in 2006 had more to do with the engineering strategies the IDF employed than the strength of their artillery. Iran FM summoned for calling Holocaust 'cruel'The foreign minister of Iran was summoned to a closed session of the country's parliament Monday to clarify public comments he made condemning the Holocaust.
Some 54 hard-line lawmakers signed the petition summoning Mohammad Javad Zarif to the session, Reuters reported, citing the official Iranian news agency IRNA.
The Holocaust was "tragically cruel and should not happen again," Zarif said earlier this month at the Munich Security Conference.
Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often practiced Holocaust denial in public speeches.  |
| Ukranian, Arab, Iranian, French antisemites together blame Jews for Ukraine violence Posted: 25 Feb 2014 07:05 AM PST It seems to have started with an Iranian PressTV reporting:Ukrainian media have reported that a former Israeli army officer is playing a leading role in the anti-government protests in the former Soviet republic.
According to reports, the unnamed Israeli commands a group of 20 Ukrainian militants.
Four other Israelis, who had previously served in the army, were recently reported to have taken part in opposition rallies in Ukraine's capital, Kiev.
They were born in Ukraine but migrated to Israel and joined its armed forces before returning to the European country for the demonstrations.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian media said that an Israeli tycoon provides financial support to the opposition in Ukraine, adding that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency is one of the instigators of the unrest in the country. That's it. No names, no source listed, nothing. Yet it was quoted by International Business Times (UK). (UPDATE: There are sources for this.) Then a little known French antisemitic website named " PlanetNonViolence" claimed that "the Jewish mafia" is behind the Ukrainian protests, that Israel is sending "surveillance equipment and other high tech gadgets ostensibly to protect Jews" to the region, and that Israel is fomenting violence in order to get Jews to leave the Ukraine and move to Israel. Now mainstream Arab media is reporting all of this as fact, adding that a Jewish Ukranian businessman, Viktor Pinchuk, is also acting behind the scenes to foment revolution so he can get the Ukraine to get into the orbit of the EU to help his fortune. No doubt the Jew-haters will claim that the Mossad was behind this Molotov cocktail attack on a synagogue in Zaporozhye on Monday, captured by security cameras.  |
| State Dept envoy met with viciously anti-Israel Palestinian Christians Posted: 25 Feb 2014 05:09 AM PST Yesterday I reported that the US State Department silently sent its new head of Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives, Shaun Casey, to meet with Palestinian Christian leaders, although apparently not to meet with Jewish leaders. The leaders that Casey chose to meet with are anti-Israel (and antisemitic) extremists.Yisrael Medad points out that Bishop Munib Younan of the Lutheran Church, who Casey met, signed the Kairos Palestine document which argues, on theological grounds, that the concept of a Jewish state is illegitimate and an affront to human rights. It also implicitly supports anti-Israel terror and it implies that the "occupation" is over all of British Mandate Palestine, not just the portions over the Green Line. However, Younan is not only a signatory to this anti-Israel screed - he was one of the authors. He later asked to have that role erased so he could maintain his relationship with Israeli and Jewish leaders. Another bishop that Casey met with is even worse. In an interview with Famiglia Cristiana he said:The Talmud, the holy book studied by the ultra-orthodox, more highly venerated than the Bible itself, invites religious hatred, speaks badly of Jesus, and even worse of Mary and, in general, of Christians" he said, adding that "in Israeli schools love for the other is not taught but rather the destruction of the other. His statements on the Talmud echo those of the most vicious antisemites through history, and his blanket statement that Israeli schools teach genocide is reprehensible. And this is one of the people Casey decided to meet. The fact that Casey chose these people to meet, combined with the secrecy over the trip altogether, is concerning. If he would have met with any Jews who would argue that non-Jews should have no political rights between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river he would be universally condemned, yet the people he met with make the same argument about Jews, and worse. What is Casey's - and the State Department's - objective in choosing to meet with these anti-Jewish extremists?  |
| Egyptian siege on Gaza continues; Rafah open only 5 days in February Posted: 25 Feb 2014 02:30 AM PST Egypt said it will close the Rafah crossing "indefinitely" after opening it for limited travel on Sunday and Monday. It had been closed for over two weeks beforehand. Here is my best approximation for days when Rafah has been opened and closed since October: Rafah Crossings calendar 2013-2014
S | M | Tu | W | Th | F | S | Oct 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | Nov 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | Dec 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
| 8 | 9 (only one bus) | 10 (computer problems) | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 (very few) | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | Jan 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 Pilgrims only | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | Feb 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | Mar 1 |
Egypt is letting far fewer Gazans into Egypt than Israel is allowing Gazans into Israel. In January, 15,000 people traveled through the Erez crossing, while only 4,400 people crossed Rafah.
But if you do a Google News search on "Egyptian siege" you will find only a tiny fraction of the articles that mention "Israeli siege."
 |
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה