| Donate to EoZ! Posted: 19 Mar 2014 06:25 PM PDT It is time for my quarterly appeal and review of things that have happened on the blog since my last roundup. . A week or so ago, I wrote the 19,000th post in this blog. My most popular post over the past quarter was, hands down, my updated poster page for "Apartheid Week." Over 50,000 views for that page alone, showing that many people were looking to counter the Israel-haters and found these posters to be among the most effective debunking of the myth. Among the other popular posts were my exposure of the lies behind the St. James Church wall stunt in Piccadilly, the Meltdown Girl post, the PLO minister admitting "If Jews have a history in the land - then we don't," my Great news from the Arab World post, my Sodastream poster which went viral, my proof that Saeb Erekat's family came from Howeitat, not Palestine, " I was wrong. There really were a Palestinian people," and the secret ASA conference at NYU. On my sidebar are three additional posts that my readers voted as being among my best this year: Why HRW is racist, Belgium's new poet laureate not happy I called him an antisemite, and "Zionists trying to hide Canaanite-Palestinian civilization."Of course, I also made posters, infographics and videos, including one I copied from Facebook that went viral. I was reprinted or quoted in The Jewish Press and the Algemeiner many times, The Blaze a few times, The Forward, The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Golden Gate Express, JTA, Jweekly, Commentary, and others. It looks like a version of this post from last night may be published in a Boston Jewish newspaper as well. I also have over 6500 followers on Twitter now. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the superb job Ian does with the linkdumps every day. The blog is worth reading just for that; no one puts together as good a collection of daily articles like he does. I also want to thank the quarters' occasional guest posters. Zvi always has a great perspective and "Bob Knot" did an amazing job of investigative journalism that no "real" reporter bothered to do, debunking a libel that was widely reported. The blog takes lots of time and some money. But it gives a lot more than it gets. I get emails regularly from people who say that they use this blog often to show people the truth about Israel and her neighbors. If you find value in EoZ, please donate or consider a monthly subscription. PayPal is the easiest (click buttons in upper corner of the webpage, or just at the end of this post) but you can also email an Amazon gift card if you prefer. Thanks again for your support, your comments, your emails, your FB Likes and your retweets!  |
| 03/19 Links Pt2: The Problem with Judith Butler; Two Year Anniversary of the Toulouse Murders Posted: 19 Mar 2014 03:00 PM PDT From Ian:
The Problem with Judith Butler: The Political Philosophy of the Movement to Boycott IsraelWhen American Studies Association President Curtis F. Marez gave his absurd "one has to start somewhere" answer to a New York Times reporter's question as to why one should single out Israel's universities for a boycott, one might have thought he had set the gold standard for empty boycott advocacy. But soon a still more vacuous contestant arrived. At the pro-boycott session on January 9 at the Modern Language Association's 2014 annual meeting, University of Texas professor and panelist Barbara Harlow offered her own concise answer to the "Why boycott Israel?" question: "Why not?"
With advocates like these, one might think the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel would need no opponents. Certainly the public image of the humanities is not enhanced by remarks of this sort. But in truth many boycott supporters do not look for adequate reasoning. They want their existing passions inflamed still further. Palestinian BDS entrepreneur Omar Barghouti, who lectures regularly on US campuses, is adept at generating moral outrage in susceptible audiences. But the BDS movement also has more sophisticated spokespersons at its disposal. Judith Butler, who has become the movement's premier philosopher and political theorist, is perhaps the foremost among them. Her work, which carries significant authority among humanists, helps us get to the heart of the movement's guiding principles. The critique I will offer thus addresses the theoretical framing of the whole BDS movement by way of Butler's approach to Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She has complained that pro-BDS arguments do not receive detailed analysis. I will make every effort to provide that here. Zionism is moral and necessaryFinally, Mahmoud Abbas also wants a nation-state, for the 'Palestinian people'. It's pretty clear that, like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there would be no Jews in 'Palestine'. The proposed constitution for Palestine states that "Islam is the official religion of Palestine." I have never heard Levy or anyone else on the Left object to this, or compare the Palestinians to Nazis. Even the usual concerns for human rights (don't forget women, gays, etc.) are elided where the Palestinians are concerned.
The Left's vision of a borderless world in which every nation is a "democratic state of all its citizens" is being tried now, in Europe, and it is failing badly, economically, socially, and — most important — demographically, with native fertility rates far below what's needed for the society to survive. Israel's Jewish fertility rate is a healthy 2.8, well above the replacement rate of 2.1. Perhaps Israel's social and economic vitality has something to do with the national pride and religion that still exist there, despite what is written in Ha'aretz?
Without Jewish nationalism, that is, Zionism, there would be no Israel, and no reason for one — which is why psychopathic Jew-hater Gideon Levy advocates against it. Leaked report: Israel acknowledges Jews in fact Khazars; Secret plan for reverse migration to Ukraine (satire)Followers of Middle Eastern affairs know two things: always expect the unexpected, and never write off Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has more political lives than the proverbial cat.
Only yesterday came news that Syrian rebels plan to give Israel the Golan Heights in exchange for creation of a no-fly zone against the Assad regime. In an even bolder move, it is now revealed, Israel will withdraw its settlers from communities beyond the settlement blocs—and relocate them at least temporarily to Ukraine. Ukraine made this arrangement on the basis of historic ties and in exchange for desperately needed military assistance against Russia. This surprising turn of events had an even more surprising origin: genetics, a field in which Israeli scholars have long excelled. Bethlehem's 'Christ at the Checkpoint' Conference: A Personal ReportIn that first session, our teacher, Reverend Alex Awad, instructor and Dean of Students at BBC, put up a photo of carnage from a suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem that took place during the Second Intifada. He said, "We renounce the horror of atrocities committed by both sides."
My hand went up. "I see horror in the picture we are looking at, the horror of innocent civilians slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists. You say that Israel is guilty of equal atrocities? Specifically, what has Israel done that is comparable to this?"
Awad hemmed and hawed, then said, "Well, there is the Apartheid wall, the dehumanizing checkpoints and, of course, so many Palestinians killed by Israeli armed forces." The entire classroom of about 200 erupted in cheering and applause.
When the room quieted, I followed up. "Are you saying, then, that Israeli military operations in response to terrorism are an atrocity equal to or even worse than the carnage of Israeli bodies we are looking at on the screen?"
"Yes," Awad replied, "they are." More cheers and applause exploded from the class. Campus Israel-Bashers Practice Intimidation, Not Free SpeechThe activists in question are now attempting to fight the suspension by invoking the most disingenuous arguments about the First Amendment and the importance of free discussion. The Jewish leader and spokesperson for Northeastern's SJP group, Max Geller, has been at the forefront of speaking out against the suspension. During an interview with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, who was eager to emphasize Geller's Jewishness, the talk was all about how Jewish students identify with universal human rights and equality. Geller claims that he is "troubled" by attempts to stifle debate of the "Israeli-Palestinian question." According to him his activities are just about helping students make "informed decisions," claiming that it is actually his group's "viewpoint" that is being demonized.
Yet, this peace and love act couldn't be more cynical, for Geller himself cuts a pretty macabre figure. This student's apparent affinity with the most murderous forms of anti-Semitic terrorism is truly chilling. As well as having been photographed in the West Bank posing with a PK-class machine gun and sporting a bullet-belt strung around his neck, Geller has attended demonstrations and campus wearing an Islamic Jihad headband and a Hezbollah T-shirt. By all accounts he favors a bipartisan approach to the glorification of terror groups, yet the indiscriminate murder of civilians is the defining characteristic that both of these Islamist factions hold in common. And perhaps most disturbing of all is the photograph of Geller boldly showing off his T-shirt emblazoned with an image of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nazrallah, a man who has said he welcomes Jews gathering in Israel so as to save Hezbollah the trouble of having to pursue them worldwide. Are all boycotters of Israel anti-Semitic?No doubt some of those who call for a boycott are not, or believe they are not, anti-Semitic. They may be true believers obsessed by the fallacious Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood, with its one-sided presentation of the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus they appear to observe the Israeli-Palestinian issue as a struggle between good and evil, in which Jews embody the latter, responsible for both the problems encountered by Palestinians and for the failure of any peace process.
They accept in unchallenging fashion the imaginary fabricated facts presented to them by Palestinian pressure groups. The best that can be said of them is that by swallowing this propaganda without serious questioning they are in the words of James Madison (Federalist 62) "monuments of deficient wisdom."
Let there be no mistake. There is a world of difference between rational, objective criticism of specific actions of Israel, such as checkpoints and roadblocks, or settlements, or the conduct of individual personnel on the one hand, and wholesale criticism of the State of Israel, refusal to acknowledge its legitimacy, dismissal of any Israeli claim to disputed territory, or persistence in calling Israel an "apartheid state" in the manner of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Alice Walker. The mystery of the Left and IsraelOne of the strange things about the left's animosity to Israel is that it absurdly goes against most of the values it purports to believe in.
Try this: those on the left talk about their love of democracy, about their passion for women's' and gays' rights and about their concern for the rule of law.
Yet it's only Israel that has a robust democracy, an independent judiciary, and civil and political rights for women and for gays in the Mid-East. Liberal pro-Israel academics reject boycottsMore than 50 Jewish academics joined an initiative rejecting academic boycotts of Israel as well as legislative attempts to inhibit such boycotts.
"Academic boycotts and blacklists are discriminatory per se and undercut the purpose of the academy: the pursuit of knowledge," said the statement posted Monday by "The Third Narrative," an initiative of Ameinu, a liberal Zionist group.
"Likewise, we are against legislative and other efforts by domestic or foreign interests that seek to diminish the academic freedom of those scholars who might propose, endorse, or promote academic boycotts, even if we strongly disagree with these tactics," the statement said. Beware of Zionists with Iranian rockets: Snapshot of bias at the Irish TimesThough the story received wide coverage, the Irish Times chose an especially interesting photo to illustrate their story centering on Ya'alon's comments and recent White House talks:
There's one problem with the photo of Ya'alon. The caption conveniently fails to note that the rockets in the background – evoking the malevolence befitting such a right-wing ultra-Zionist – were not Israel's. The EPA photo was taken on March 10 during an IDF presentation of an Iranian shipment of advanced Syrian missiles seized on the Klos-C container ship, which were intended to be delivered to Gaza. Gilad Atzmon slams the Guardian as a 'Lame Zionist Mouthpiece'Before we realized the identity of the author of the an essay published a various fringe websites on March 17th, it almost seemed to us like a Purim Spiel.
Here's the classic opening passage: The once well-respected Guardian has been reduced in recent years into a lame Zionist mouthpiece – a light Jewish Chronicle for Gentiles consumption. So, what did the Guardian do to run afoul of the sensibilities of the following prolific critic of international Jewry? Lessons from a 1940s anti-Semitic filmOn November 29, 1940, the film Der Ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew") opened in theaters across the Third Reich. It was a product of Josef Goebbel's Ministry of Propaganda and was produced by Fritz Hippler. The film was formulated as a documentary about Jewish history.
The Nazi party publication Unser Wille und Weg lauded it as "providing a broad treatment of the life and effects of this parasitic race using genuine material taken from real life."
The film can be easily found online with English dubbing and its timeless importance, as an artifact of anti-Semitism, should not be ignored. To be sure, it formed part of a larger propaganda effort, along with anti-Semitic films such as Jude Suss and other pieces of Nazi "education." But what makes Eternal Jew important for us today is that it provides an immediately accessible lens through which we can analyze current debates, to better understand that anti-Semitism remains a potent force. What will surprise many is the degree to which the Nazi stereotypes of Jews are not so different than current stereotypes alive and well in polite society today. Minnesota restaurant hosts Nazi-themed dinnerDressed in SS uniforms and surrounded by Nazi flags, members of a World War II reenactment group attended a Third Reich-themed Christmas dinner last December at a Minneapolis restaurant, City Pages reported.
The organization has held the event for 16 years running, the last six of which were at the Gasthof Zur Gemutlichkeit restaurant, a participant at the event said.
"All of the German [reenactment] groups in Minnesota have a Christmas party because we don't typically have events going on in the winter," Jon Boorom, a member of the WWII Historical Re-enactment Society Inc said. "It's just like any club that has a party. Because they dress up like Germans from World War II, it's cool to go to a German restaurant, eat German food, and drink German beer." On two year anniversary of Toulouse shooting, Europe's Jews still wary of terrorismMoshe Kantor, the head of the European Jewish Congress, said that communities on the continent remain targets for potential terrorists.
"There remains a huge motivation by extremists to harm or murder Jews regardless of their age or beliefs," Kantor said. "There is no reason why the most mundane acts of going to school or attending a synagogue should cause Jews or any European citizens to fear for their very lives."
"Unfortunately, since the savage murders in Toulouse, there have continued to be physical attacks against Jews in Europe, as well as many very real threats which were thankfully averted." Alarmed by anti-Semitism, French Jews consider flight"I am French, born in Paris, says Salome Roussel. "I'm thinking about moving to Israel, because French people are more and more against Jews. They say we are a lobby, that we are the masters of the world, and it's not so!"
Roussel, 38, is not alone. Growing numbers of French Jews are not just thinking about starting a new life in Israel: Record numbers of them are taking action. Last year 3,120 French Jews moved to Israel, according to the Israeli Immigration Ministry, a jump of 63 percent on the previous year. They even outnumbered US immigrants to Israel. Another Teenage Holocaust Diary DiscoveredWhile Anne Frank and her diary have become something of an emblem of early Holocaust education for students, another diary written by a teenager during the Holocaust has surfaced that can perhaps offer a different perspective of the atrocities. JWeekly reports that the diary of Rywka Lipszyc, which chronicles six months of life in the Lodz Ghetto through the eyes of a 14-year-old, has been discovered—and, after an extensive authentication process, published.
The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc has a strange provenance. The pages were reportedly discovered outside an Auschwitz crematorium by a Red Army doctor named Zinaida Berezovskaya during the concentration camp's liberation in 1945. She then held onto the diary until her death—at which point her son did the same. The diary was brought to light by Berezovskaya's granddaughter, a therapist living in San Francisco, in 2008. Refugee who rescued husband from Dachau dies at 111Gisela Kohn Dollinger tricked death twice.
Soon after Kristallnacht, when she was 36, Dollinger persuaded the Gestapo to release her husband from the Dachau concentration camp, and the two of them fled Austria for Shanghai, where she almost died of typhoid.
After that, death seemed to forget all about her — until last week, when Dollinger passed away peacefully at Manhattan's Beth Israel Hospital. She was 111 years old. Blind can 'see' using sound, Hebrew U team showsIf there's a credo that Hebrew University's Dr. Amir Amedi lives by, it's that blindness is no reason for not seeing. "The fact that the visual pathways for blind people are blocked doesn't mean that their brains don't function," Amedi said in a recent TED talk in Jerusalem. "Their brains work just fine."
And for most, so do their other senses – specifically hearing, which, with the help of modern technology and a unique training program, can enable the blind to use sound to "see." By using a combination of sounds, tones, and noise bursts, blind people can be taught within weeks to identify everyday items, and even concepts like colors, using Google Glass-type devices that contain a camera that scans items and translates them into a special musical code. WhatsApp Deal Has MagicJack CEO Talking Billions: Israel MarketsMagicJack can differentiate itself from WhatsApp and Viber because its service allows users to call any fixed or mobile phone line, not just people who are using the same application, according to CEO Vento, who previously headed TeleCorp PCS Inc., which was sold to AT&T Inc. in 2002 for $5.7 billion.
The shares rallied 20 percent to $21.04 on March 13, a day after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates and forecast revenue of $163 million in 2014, surpassing analysts' average projection of $148 million. MagicJack is the biggest gainer on the Bloomberg Israel-US Equity Index of the largest New York-traded Israeli companies this year. The stock gained 1.4 percent to $23.99 at 10:53 a.m. in New York. Novartis Reportedly in Talks to Acquire Israeli Stem Cell Developer for up to $600 MillionIsrael stem cell treatment developer Gamida-Cell Ltd. is in talks to be acquired by Novartis, the pharmaceutical giant, for up to $600 million, according to Israel's Globes business daily, citing sources familiar with the deal.
Gamida-Cell has proprietary technology for growing the number and density of stem cells within a specific blood sample, increasing stem cell activity, Globes said. The company's work could be used to cure blood cancer in adults. Israeli mobile firm takes on Google for top industry prizeOn Track Innovations (OTI), an Israeli payments platform and app maker, is up against the top dog in the mobile payments field — Google Wallet — with both apps vying to win the 2014 NACHA Payments Systems Award, at the Payments 2014 event in April. The event is sponsored by Pymnts.com, a news and intelligence site for the cashless payments industry.
Rosh Pina-based OTI has developed cashless mobile payment solutions for hundreds of customers, chiefly using two technologies — smart payment cards that are linked to a bank account, cellphone account, or other source of funds that allow users to transfer money electronically, as well as NFC (near-field communication) systems for phones that support it. With NFC, users can pay for items in retail settings simply by waving their phone at a sensor, with the payments transferred from the user's cellphone account to the vendor. Tunisian Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki Visits Jewish Exhibitioon on Purim  |
| Blonde hair and pink clothes nearly cause riot at Cairo U Posted: 19 Mar 2014 01:00 PM PDT From Al Arabiya: A video of a young Egyptian woman with long blonde hair being aggressively sexually harassed by a group of university law students has sparked country-wide controversy.
In the video, the female university student can be seen with long, platinum-blonde hair wearing a pink top, matching pink shoes and fitted jeans, quickly attracting the attention of scores of male students.
While the woman appears to be walking fast to get away from the growing group of men following her, a shot of her face is not available.
Cairo University guards escorted the student off campus after she hid in the toilets from the dozens of male students who were allegedly trying to remove her clothes.
The bellicose harassment at one of Egypt's largest universities sparked outrage after the video went viral on social networking sites and was picked up by local media.
Fathi Farid, found member of the anti-sexual harassment group "I saw harassment," said male students had verbally attacked the woman and attempted to undress her, AFP reported. Last year an actor dressed up as a woman to see how bad sexual harassment in Egypt really was.  |
| How Abbas looks at the "negotiations" (ElderToon) Posted: 19 Mar 2014 11:00 AM PDT |
| 03/19 Links Pt1: Kerry: I Was for a Jewish State Before I Was Against it; Yaalon: US Projecting Weakness Posted: 19 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PDT From Ian:
Obama Setting Israel Up to Take the BlameAbbas's refusal to take the steps necessary to make peace is nothing new when you consider that he and his predecessor Yasir Arafat have already turned down three Israeli offers of peace and statehood. This has been a consistent pattern for the PA. As the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl noted on Sunday, Abbas thinks he can get away with this because the Obama administration has no intention of pressuring him or holding him accountable for Palestinian incitement, terror connections, or diplomatic intransigence.
If the president were genuinely interested in pursuing peace he would be hammering the Palestinians for their behavior and making it clear they would pay a high price for saying no to Kerry's framework. Instead, he has given Abbas carte blanche to maintain the same obdurate stance he has taken since he took over the PA from his longtime boss Arafat.
What will this accomplish? It won't advance the cause of peace. But it will make it easier for Israel's critics to blame Netanyahu for the inevitable collapse of Kerry's effort and serve to rationalize the violence and the boycotts the secretary threatened the Jewish state with. All Obama is doing is setting up Israel to take the fall for a fourth Palestinian "no" to peace. Caroline Glick: Do Palestinians Really Want to Live Next to Israel? (Starts 1:50) (h/t Daphne AnsonJ.J. Goldberg Attempts To Bully Caroline Glick- J Street Chimes InOn March 17th, J.J. Goldberg opined in The Forward that Caroline Glick's appearance at Hillel violates the National Hillel Guidelines for Campus Israel Activities due to her right-wing views on Israel. In an article titled "N.J Hillel Hosts right-wing views of Israel 1-Stater. Relax, She's Right-Winger," he labels Glick as a "militant one-stater" who is a "fiery right-winger."
After labeling Glick and portraying her as extreme, Goldberg attempts to argue against her new book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East: Israel's Defense Chief Says U.S. Projecting WeaknessYaalon said that although "people know Iran cheats", the United States and other nations chose to negotiate with Tehran on restricting activities they fear are aimed at developing atomic arms.
"Therefore, on this matter, we have to behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves," Yaalon said, echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's veiled threats of unilateral military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
"Unfortunately, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians are better," said Yaalon, a former armed forces chief and a hawkish member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party. Jeffrey Goldberg: Obama Treats Netanyahu Worse Than PutinJeffrey Goldberg, the prominent foreign policy writer and Obama loyalist, admitted that President Obama treats Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an "adversary" who he seeks to "destabilize," and lamented that the president does not treat Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in a similarly hostile manner.
After recounting negative comments about Netanyahu and Israel the president recently made, Goldberg concluded, "I just wish that Obama could do that with Putin. 'Bomb-maker' brags about El Al blast, posts Lockerbie photosThe man investigators initially believed built the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie 25 years ago maintains a Facebook page on which he recently posted pictures of the Lockerbie bombing and promised to write about the circumstances of the attack.
Marwan Khreesat, who now lives in Jordan, was arrested but bizarrely released by German police two months before the Lockerbie bombing as part of a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command cell found in possession of bombs designed to blow up airliners.
He writes frequent posts condemning Israel, the Palestinian Authority for dealing with Israel, the Assad regime and others. Late last year, he also castigated PFLP-GC leader Ahmad Jibril, for whom he allegedly built several bombs used to blow up airplanes in the 1970s, accusing Jibril of abandoning the Palestinian cause in siding with the Assad regime.
Last week, Khreesat posted an entry boasting about the PFLP-GC's bombing of an El Al plane from Rome to Tel Aviv in 1972, describing the attack as "a challenge to the Israeli intelligence agents who are responsible for searching luggage and everything that goes on a plane. The Truth About Israel's Demand To Be Recognized as the Jewish StateThe Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish State has become a hot issue over the past week. Media outlets such as the AP, Reuters and the Christian Science Monitor have all written commentary about the history of, and the reasons for Israel's demand to be recognized as the Jewish State. Most of the facts presented have been wrong.
Despite what some commenters say, the demand that Israel be recognized as the Jewish State was not a Netanyahu invention. It actually predates the first "official" Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians during the Rabin administration in 1992.
Reversing policy the President outlined a year ago, Secretary of State Kerry said last week that Israel's insistence the Palestinians officially recognize Israel as a Jewish state is a mistake, he added the issue should not be a critical factor in whether the current round of Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations succeed or fail. Kerry: I Was for a Jewish State Before I Was Against itSecretary Kerry is hardly alone in his eagerness to ignore the increasing dangers of this Jew hatred. He, like most members of polite Washington society, is devoted to, and an acolyte of the lavishly funded Middle East peace industry whose objective seems to be less "peace" per se, than making sure the "peace process" it feeds off can keep functioning. That can't happen if new deals can't be reached.
But to ask that Israel accept proclamations long since buried under an avalanche of anti-Jewish incitement is to ask Israel to ignore the militant Islamic fundamentalist revival that has transformed and destabilised the entire Arab and Muslim worlds. It is to ask Israel to ignore the rise and status of groups like Hamas, whose self-defined purpose is built upon its promise to annihilate the Jews as per Koranic command. It is to ask that Israel acquiesce in its own destruction.
To clear minds, the adamant Palestinian refusal to even consider recognising Israel as a Jewish state can only mean one thing. Palestinians demand their own state not as a means to end the conflict with Israel, but as means to continue that conflict to end Israel. Deputy defense minister threatens to resign if government frees Palestinian prisonersDeputy defense minister Danny Danon threatened Wednesday to leave his post by the end of the month if the fourth round of Palestinian prisoner releases takes place - as planned - on March 28.
Danon sent the threat to Netanyahu and revealed it in a meeting with mothers of terror victims in the Knesset.
"I believe that by working together, we can stop the unnecessary release of terrorists and prevent it," Danon told the mothers. "There is no reason to release these murderers. If there will be a fourth round, I won't sit in the government anymore." Livni: Terrorist Release Depends on AbbasJustice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinian Authority (PA), said on Tuesday that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's behavior will determine whether Israel goes through with the release of the fourth batch of terrorists that it agreed to release.
Livni, who spoke at a conference and was quoted by AFP, made the comments after a senior diplomatic source said earlier Tuesday that if it turns out that talks with PA have reached a dead end, Israel will reconsider the terrorist release.
She said that Abbas would have to show he is serious about negotiating peace in order for the terrorist release to go ahead. Concerns mount over Israeli visa rejectionsAnother federal lawmaker on Monday joined the growing chorus of criticism over a dramatic increase in State Department refusals of Israeli visa applications.
Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting detailed information about the rejection rate for U.S. visa applications filed by Israeli nationals between the ages of 21 and 27.
Her inquiry follows a near 400 percent spike in Israeli visa refusals in recent years.
The concern centers on young Israelis planning to travel in the United States after the completion of their compulsory military service but before they complete their educations. (h/t Jewess) Israel threatens Syria after border bombingIn a sharply worded statement, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon confirmed that Israeli warplanes had bombed "several targets associated with the Syrian army and defense establishment that aided and abetted yesterday's terror attack," and issued a pointed warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom he blamed for the attack.
"We won't tolerate any breach of our sovereignty or attacks against our soldiers and civilians," he said. "We will react with might and resolve against anyone who acts against us, no matter where and when, as we demonstrated last night. Anyone who tries to attack us will be signing their own death sentence."
The defense minister went on to declare that if the Syrian president "will continue to cooperate with terror elements that aspire to harm the State of Israel, we will continue to exact from him a heavy price in a manner that will make him regret his actions." Syrian army: Israeli airstrikes killed 1 soldierIsraeli air raids on Syria on Wednesday killed one soldier and injured seven, Syria's army said, warning that the strikes endangered regional security and stability.
The army command in a statement said the strikes targeted military bases in the Quneitra region "leading to the martyrdom of one soldier and the wounding of seven others." Crime pays ‑ for Palestinian terroristsThe more serious the crime the more money the criminal receives after going to prison.
Absurd? Yes. True? Yes again.
When a Palestinian Arab terrorist murders an Israeli or an American in Israel, they can wind up receiving a generous salary, in excess of $40,000 a year, for their crime. And if you are a US taxpayer, you are footing part of the tab.
As chairman of House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, I recently held a hearing on "Threats to Israel: Terrorist Funding and Trade Boycotts."
One of the expert witnesses who testified before the committee was Edwin Black, an investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author. In his detailed and heavily documented account Black explains how this morally outrageous system works. PA Wants to Drill for Oil in Judea and SamariaThe cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA) is looking for oil in Judea and Samaria, but in areas under Israeli control.
According to the PA-based WAFA news agency, Mohammad Mustafa, the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, announced on Tuesday that the PA is requesting proposals from interested firms to explore and develop oil in the region.
The license area extends over 432 square kilometers, from north of Qalqilya to the west of Ramallah. Hamas calls Egypt blockade a 'crime against humanity'The closures, that Egypt says were introduced because of security concerns, have cut off imports of medicine and aid to the impoverished coastal enclave and prevented travel by thousands of Gazans and patients seeking treatment abroad.
Usually open for four to six days per month, the Rafah crossing has now been shut to normal passenger traffic for 40 straight days - although Egyptian authorities have opened it twice in that period for pilgrims to Mecca.
"Egyptian authorities' insistence on closing the Rafah crossing and tightening the blockade of Gaza ... is a crime against humanity by every criteria and a crime against the Palestinian people," said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the Islamist movement which rules Gaza. Syrian Embassy in Washington Closed, Diplomats ExpelledThe United States closed the Syrian Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Israel Hayom reports. Diplomats and consulates stationed there were asked to leave the country.
U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Daniel Rubenstein blamed embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose regime has now entered the fourth year of a civil protest turned violent rebellion that has claimed the lives of over 140,000. Jordanian killer of seven Israeli girls hospitalizedA Jordanian soldier jailed for life for the murder of seven Israeli schoolgirls was hospitalized on the fifth day of a hunger strike Wednesday after his health deteriorated, police said.
"Ahmad Dakamseh is currently being hospitalized after his health deteriorated because he had been refusing to eat or take medicine since Friday," a statement said. Leading Iranian ayatollah: Islamic messiah 'will behead Western leaders'A leading ayatollah of Iran's Islamic regime is promising that Western leaders will be executed by the Islamic messiah, the state-owned media outlet Mehr news reported Saturday.
"When Imam Zaman ['Mahdi,' the last Shiite Imam] comes, he will behead the Western leaders," warned Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, the interim Friday prayer leader of Tehran and a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that chooses the supreme leader. "However, Imam will not harm the oppressed nations," he said. 395 House Members to Obama: Iran Must Be Transparent About Nuclear ProgramA new letter to President Barack Obama signed by 395 members of the U.S. House of Representatives stresses that a permanent nuclear deal with Iran "should include stringent transparency measures to guarantee that Iran cannot develop an undetectable nuclear weapons breakout capability."
The Islamic Republic "must fully and verifiably implement its Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, ratify and implement the Additional Protocol, answer pending IAEA questions, and comply with the transparency measures requested by the Director General of the IAEA, as well as with any additional verification and monitoring measures necessary to ensure Iran is abiding by the terms of any agreement," said the letter, which was initiated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD). 83 US Senators Sign Letter Articulating 'Core Principles' for Final Iran Nuclear DealA new letter to President Barack Obama signed by 83 of 100 U.S. senators outlines "core principles" that the senators believe must be part of a final deal on Iran's nuclear program.
The senators wrote that any agreement "must dismantle Iran's nuclear weapons program and prevent it from ever having a uranium or plutonium path to a nuclear bomb." Iran "has no inherent right to enrichment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," and also has "no reason to have an enrichment facility like Fordow," which is located underground, they wrote.
A nuclear deal should force Iran to give up its heavy water reactor at Arak, and make the country "fully explain the questionable activities in which it engaged at Parchin and other facilities," according to the senators. VIDEO: Blonde Woman 'Molested' On Egyptian CampusArabic news sources are reporting a 'viral video' published yesterday which purports to show a young blonde girl being 'harassed' and even 'molested' on a university campus in Cairo, Egypt.
The video (below) shows a girl with peroxide blonde hair wearing a pink top, marching through the university. She reportedly attracted the attention of dozens of male students who can be heard shouting and wolf-whistling in the clip.  |
| An Israeli leftist's lonely search for a moderate Palestinian Arab Posted: 19 Mar 2014 07:00 AM PDT From Einat Wilf in Al-Monitor:I was born into the Israeli left. I grew up in the left. I was always a member of the left. I believed that the day that the Palestinians would have their own sovereign state would be the day when Israel would finally live in peace. But like many Israelis of the left, I lost this certainty I once had.
...But one of the most pronounced moments over the past several years that has made me very skeptical toward the left were a series of meetings I had with young, moderate Palestinian leaders to which I was invited by virtue of being a member of Israel's Labor Party.
I had much in common with these young Palestinian leaders. We could relate to each other. However, through discussion, I soon discovered that the moderation of the young Palestinian leaders was in their acknowledgement that Israel is already a reality and therefore is not likely to disappear. I even heard phrases such as, "You were born here and you are already here, so we will not send you away." (Thank you very much, I thought). But, what shocked and changed my approach to peace was that when we discussed the deep sources of the conflict between us, I was told, "Judaism is not a nationality, it's only a religion and religions don't have the right to self-determination." The historic connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel was also described as made-up or nonexistent.
Reflecting on the comments of these "moderates," I was forced to realize that the conflict is far deeper and more serious than I allowed myself to believe. It was not just about settlements and "occupation," as Palestinian spokespeople have led the Israeli left to believe. I realized that the Palestinians, who were willing to accept the need for peace with Israel, did so because Israel was strong. I realized that, contrary to the leftist views in Israel, which support the establishment of a Palestinian state because the Palestinians have a right (repeat: right) to sovereignty in their homeland, there is no such parallel Palestinian "left" that recognizes the right (repeat: right) of the Jewish people to sovereignty in its ancient homeland.
...So, it was somewhat ironic when, just several months ago, I received an email from the Israeli-Palestinian meeting's organizer to write a response to one of the program's core funders as to whether the program had an "impact on anything or anybody." I was asked to "reflect back a few years" and to write whether the program "had any impact on you — personally, professionally, socially, politically … " Naturally, I responded. I wrote that the program had a "tremendous impact on my thinking and I continue to discuss it to this day in my talks and lectures." I shared the above story with the organizer, recognizing that "it is probably not a perspective you want to share with your funders."
In response, the organizer sent me an email saying that there are "many, not one, grass-roots and political Palestinians who truly believe that Jews have a right to part of the land." I responded enthusiastically that meeting even "one Palestinian who believes that the Jewish people have an equal and legitimate claim to the land would be huge for me," and that "I've been looking for someone like that ever since I participated in the program many years ago."
...I was then asked to write precisely what would convince me that we have a true partner for peace in the Palestinians. So, I drafted the following phrase:
"The Jewish people and Palestinian people are both indigenous to the Land of Israel/Palestine and therefore have an equal and legitimate claim to a sovereign state for their people on the land." I added that this sentence could be expanded to say, "Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people around the world have an equal and legitimate claim to settle and live anywhere in the Land of Israel/Palestine, but given the desire of both peoples to a sovereign state that would reflect their unique culture and history, we believe in partitioning the land into a Jewish state, Israel, and an Arab state, Palestine, that would allow them each to enjoy dignity and sovereignty in their own national home." I would also add here that it should be clear that neither Israel nor Palestine should be exclusively for the Jewish and Palestinian people respectively and both should accommodate minorities of the other people.
The organizer promised to get back to me. Weeks and months passed, and I was about to publish this piece, opening up the conversation, hoping to find partners who share my belief, so that I could rekindle my hope that peace is possible. At the last minute, I was contacted by professor Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, the head of American Studies at Al-Quds University and founder of the Palestinian centrist movement, Wasatia. All he asked was to change the word "claim" to "right," and "partition" to "sharing," saying that "right" was more positive, and "partitioning" had in the deep psyche of the Palestinians the negative connotation of the 1947 UN partition plan recommendation. He emphasized that 67 years later, he hopes that Palestinians would realize that sharing the land by a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, as envisioned by the UN resolution, was "the right thing to do" in 1947, since both people do have a legitimate right to the land, and remains "the right thing to do" today. I found these changes wholly acceptable and welcome. So the statement we share now reads as follows:
"The Jewish people around the world and Palestinian people around the world are both indigenous to the Land of Israel/Palestine and therefore have an equal and legitimate right to settle and live anywhere in the Land of Israel/Palestine, but given the desire of both peoples to a sovereign state that would reflect their unique culture and history, we believe in sharing the land between a Jewish state, Israel, and an Arab state, Palestine, that would allow them each to enjoy dignity and sovereignty in their own national home. Neither Israel nor Palestine should be exclusively for the Jewish and Palestinian people respectively and both should accommodate minorities of the other people."
Who else will join us in our journey to find true partners on both sides? So after months of searching, Wilf found a single Palestinian Arab willing to concede that Jews have a right to live in the land. At that rate, with no natural growth in the Arab population, it will only take 250,000 years to gain a significant minority who believes in real peace. Wilf is not stupid - she recognizes the prevalence of the Israeli "self-flagellating left" and she is a member of NGO Monitor's advisory board (an infraction that led to her being banned from speaking at the Peace Now conference last year.) And there is nothing wrong with trying to find real Palestinian Arab partners for peace and to encourage them. It would be wonderful if European governments would fund Wasatia rather than the BDS-supporting NGOs they seem to favor. But the Wasatia movement that Daoudi founded in 2007 gets essentially zero coverage in the Arab media. The existence of Daoudi (and his brother) is not an encouraging sign - it is a clear indicator that probably more than 99% of Palestinian Arabs disagree with the idea that Jews have rights. Finding a dollar bill after searching for months in a ton of manure is not exactly a cause for celebration. It means that it may be time to re-evaluate the best way to spend one's time.  |
| Jordanians warn that "Jordan option" for Palestinians already being implemented Posted: 19 Mar 2014 05:00 AM PDT Al Monitor shows yet again how much Jordanians hate their Palestinian majority. A delegation from the Jordanian Council on Foreign Relations visited Lebanon from March 9-11. The delegation, comprising representatives of a number of leftist, secular and nationalist parties in Jordan, visited Lebanese officials, before heading to Damascus where they met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The delegation then returned to Beirut to voice its concerns and raise the alarm: Jordan, as an independent state, is facing an imminent risk. The displacement of Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories has indeed begun and is auguring an impending change in the region's map. What information and facts have led them to raise the alarm?
Al-Monitor met with the members of the Jordanian delegation, among whom were representatives of political parties, former members of parliament, retired officers, academics and unionists. According to them, Jordanian identity may be threatened by a "Jordan option" that may already be in process. The country's population is 6.5 million people. According to official figures, while the inhabitants are Jordanians, 43% of them are of Palestinian origin. This phenomenon is the result of the historical intertwining between the Emirate of Transjordan and neighboring historical Palestine. Since this first started, half of the population of Palestine developed a different identity and national cause as the result of the loss of their territories and homeland. Yet, they practically became citizens of the Jordanian state. "Practically"? They have been full citizens since 1949! Yet they are still considered to be second-class citizens even though they have lived in Jordan since it was renamed Jordan. After the establishment of the Jordanian state, and notably after the Arab-Israeli wars that took place from 1948 to 1967, the displacement of Palestinians in Jordan continued, until Jordan was hosting around half a million Palestinians who are not included in the statistic of 43%, as mentioned above. This means they were not official Jordanian citizens and were placed in camps built on Jordanian territory. This is flat-out wrong. The Palestinians who decided they didn't want to live under Jewish rule in 1967 were already Jordanian citizens, except for tens of thousands - not close to half a million - Gazans who were not given citizenship. Jerash camp is the most well-known and it only has 24,000 people. They noted that all information and facts indicate that the process of transforming Jordan into an alternative homeland for Palestinians has started. They believe that the principle of Israel as a Jewish state is now being carried out at the expense of Jordan as a state. The members of the delegation affirmed that Jordanian official statistics showed that a regular displacement from the occupied Palestinian territories to Jordan has been registered over the past few years, at a rate of 70,000 displaced Palestinian per year, due to economic hardships and the attempts of Palestinians to find jobs and make a living. According to the members of the delegation, there is a far worse and more dangerous scenario, which is the systematic and clandestine Israeli-Jordanian plan to move all Arab citizens of Israel — who number 1.4 million Palestinians — into Jordan in the coming years. I don't know about the 70,000 Palestinians moving to Jordan a year. Even if it is true, saying that this is part of an Israeli conspiracy is lunacy. But even crazier is the idea that Israel and Jordan are colluding to move Israeli Arabs into Jordan. Yet Jordanian "representatives of political parties, former members of parliament, retired officers, academics and unionists" are making this bizarre claim. What is their proof of this conspiracy? In this context, the representatives of the Jordanian parties revealed what they deemed dangerous indications of the implementation of this plan. The first indication is the new measure ratified by the Jordanian government a week ago, allowing those who live in Jordan and do not have the Jordanian nationality to be granted temporary passports for five years. According to the delegation, this measure underlines a silent and gradual process of nationalizing and settling Palestinians in Jordan. The second indication is adopting new measures facilitating the process of Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians granting the Jordanian nationality to their children knowing that this measure, which has a humanitarian aspect, means granting nationality to a large number of Palestinians. The third indication is the talks about passing new laws for municipal and parliamentary elections, which are observing the possibility of granting non-Jordanian residents and those who have temporary passports certain electoral rights. This means that they would have new civil and political rights, which would eventually turn them into official citizens. Jordan has stripped citizenship from thousands of Palestinian Jordanians in recent years. There is zero chance that they will offer citizenship to additional Palestinians. The delegation is also lying about the proposed law for Jordanian women married to Palestinian Arab men. The law would provide limited rights to their children, but not citizenship.The hate that "native" Jordanians have of Palestinians is built into Jordanian society. It is real apartheid, as Palestinian Arabs make up the majority of Jordan's citizens according to many estimates. But since there are very few Jordanians who are campaigning for Palestinian rights - and the ones that do are threatened by the king himself - no one talks about this.  |
| UNRWA official implies that Israel should be forced to buy goods from Gaza Posted: 19 Mar 2014 02:30 AM PDT The Huffington Post published an article a few days ago by Robert Turner, Director of UNRWA in Gaza. He makes the incredible claim that Gaza is not getting enough media coverage. Turner admits he wants the media coverage of poor Gazans in order to raise more money: It is impossible not to be touched by the apocalyptic scenes emerging from the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus, besieged and cut off for months. The images are at once epic and personal....While the cameras have followed the conflict as they ever do, aid budgets have followed the cameras. International funding abhors a news vacuum. Donors like their cash to be in the news headlines and so UNRWA's appeal to the international community to fund our emergency work in Syria to the tune of over 400 million U.S. dollars, has found a generous response among donor governments. That's the relatively good news and we are grateful.
The bad news is that UNRWA works in other places where, like Syria, there are emergencies that have become protracted, but from where, unlike Syria, the cameras have moved on. Gaza is one of those places. Google News search for the past month finds Yarmouk mentioned about 5000 times in the media. Gaza is mentioned 128,000 times.
...While there are no images from Gaza as compelling as those from Yarmouk -- nor is the situation that desperate -- the people here having been living under siege-like conditions for more than six years.
Yes, Turner is trying to compare Gaza with Yarmouk. You know...the Gaza that we can see in this video from two weeks ago:Turner isn't interested in the truth, of course - he wants to grab a larger chunk of limited worldwide aid money, money that would otherwise go to people who are really starving, who are really being slaughtered, people who are truly poor. Besides the obvious lies, Turner says something that reveals a bit more about how anti-Israel NGOs like UNRWA think: Until the blockade is lifted and access to Gaza's traditional markets -- the West Bank and Israel -- is secured, any sustainable recovery of the local economy remains elusive. Turner is saying that Gaza cannot be economically viable unless it is allowed access to Israel and the WB markets. I don't have numbers from Gaza specifically, but in 2005, Israel was by far the PA's biggest market - some 88% of all PA exports went to Israel. It can be safely assumed that the vast majority of Gaza goods were sold to Israel then, and the amount of trade between Gaza and the WB was probably limited. Israel, of course, decided that buying goods from Hamas -ruled territory is not in its best interests. But UNRWA seems to be saying that Israel must buy Gazas' strawberries, tomatoes and other produce - goods that Israeli farmers also grow - if Gaza is to become economically viable. He's not saying Egypt or Jordan or France must buy Gaza goods - but Israel must! The demands on Israel by NGOs and governments and the media have always been out of whack compared to anywhere else. But this is a new one.  |
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