Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News : Proud to be a Zionist - 5774 edition (and 7 articles)
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Posted on: Tuesday 06 May 2014 — 03:00

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's edition:

Every year, the State of Israel seems to be up against yet another unsolvable crisis. These have ranged from wars to suicide bombings to terror rockets to facing the prospect of nuclear-armed enemies. This year the threats are more political, but no less concerning, as haters of Israel attempt to move forward with their decades-old attempts to delegitimize Israel.

Yet, here she is, 66 years old and more beautiful than she was at birth.

In prayers every morning Jews recite a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, that the world rotating and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

When we step back and look at the big picture, Israel is something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like - and possibly more than - any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards. It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. The enemy has not stopped trying, and if Israel hadn't acted decisively things would look like Iraq or Afghanistan today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Today's battles are completely different. They are battles against Israel's very legitimacy. Jews know something about being singled out, about being judged with double standards. They have been attacked for being too rich and too poor, too successful and too needy, too capitalist and too socialist, too religious and too secular, too insular and too integrated. These same wildly inconsistent attacks are now targeting the Jewish state. Israel will survive and thrive, just as Jews themselves have, despite these attacks.

And the best survival technique is success.

Israel has succeeded and continues to succeed in its many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, incredible leadership in high-tech and the environment, world class universities and culture. Practically every computer and mobile phone being built today includes technology and innovations from a single small Middle Eastern country. A tiny nation, under constant siege, with almost no natural resources besides breathtaking beauty, has used its brains - and strength - to build a modern success story. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

And they are indeed starting to dream. The internal struggles throughout the Arab world are, in many ways, a subconscious cry from Israel's neighbors to be more like the Jewish state. Despite the constant incitement against Israel in their media, ordinary Arabs know that Israel treats its minorities with more respect, and gives them more civil rights, than Arab nations give their own Arab citizens.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid haters we see on the Internet and on college campuses are the aberration.

The word "Zionist" is not an epithet - it is a compliment.

05/05 Links Pt2: Jordanian Palestinian: BDSers Don't Care For My People - They Just Hate Jews

Posted on: Tuesday 06 May 2014 — 00:00

From Ian:

Daphne Anson: BDSers Don't Care For My People – They Just Hate Jews ... We Should Respect & Support Israel's Sovereignty ... as a Jewish State" (video)

A practising Muslim, the personable Mr Zahran has kind things to say about Jews and Israel, and harsh things to say about the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic terrorism, the Jordanian monarch, Arab dictatorships, and the BDS movement.
"I came to this part of Stockholm, where Israel is hated, at considerable risk to my life, to tell the truth," the exiled leader of the Palestinian Jordanians, Mudar Zahran, declares. ".... There have always been Jews in that Holy Land, for thousands of years ..."
"Israel has served as the airbag for the West... If they did not have Israel to fight, they would be fighting you. We should respect and support Israel's sovereignty over all its land, as a Jewish State ..."
"Sooner or later, the weak King of Jordan is going to fall ... As a result we are going to have a Palestinian State for the first time ..."

SJD - Mr. Mudar Zahran, Opposition-leader of the Palestinian's in Jordan)

Director of Halimi Murder Film: 'Ilan's Death Reflects a Sick Society' (VIDEO)

French Jewish film director Alexandre Arcady said the murder of Ilan Halimi, a young Parisian Jew killed by a self-proclaimed Islamist, said, "Ilan's death reflects a sick society," according to French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.
Describing the housing development where the crime occurred, Arcady said, "Among 500 families living there, some knew what happened but no one spoke… My film is a warning against indifference."
Arcady's film, 24 jours: la vérité sur l'affaire Ilan Halimi, or "24 Days: the truth about the Ilan Hamili affair," was inspired by a book with a similar title written by the victim's mother, Ruth.

"Social Inequality Does Not Explain The Anti-Semitism, Nor The Misogyny ... Many Muslims in Europe are re-Islamizing Themselves"

"I am pained to see that the French mode of European civilization is threatened. France is in the process of transforming into a post-national and multicultural society. It seems to me that this enormous transformation does not bring anything good....
It is presented to us as the model for the future. But multiculturalism does not mean that cultures blend. Mistrust prevails, communitarianism is rampant – parallel societies are forming that continuously distance themselves from each other."
So declares the famous French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, the son of a Holocaust survivor, in an interview with Der Spiegel online.

Ex-NYPD cop charged with hate crime over anti-Jewish graffiti in Brooklyn

A former NYPD cop, apparently in the throes of a mental meltdown, has been busted for spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti in one of Brooklyn's largest Orthodox communities.
Michael Setiawan, 36, who left the force in 2007 after two years of service, was accused Sunday of spraying swastikas and hate-filled words on the walls of a Jewish school, three other buildings and 15 cars in Borough Park.
Surveillance cameras filmed a bald man believed to be Setiawan wielding a spray-paint can during Saturday night's vandalism rampage that left residents terrified. (h/t Bob Knot)

Boston Professor Critiques Israel From His Ivory Tower

Bacevich's analysis that turns peace talks into an Israeli attempt to subjugate the Palestinians absolves the Palestinians of any need to make concessions or responsibility for the conflict.
When Bacevich advocates "leveling the playing field" to strip Israel of its strategic advantages, he ignores the reasons why those advantages are necessary in the first place to protect Israelis from enemies such as Hamas still advocating genocide while even the supposed "moderates" of the PA have not expressed a willingness to bring the conflict to an end.
Ultimately though, Bacevich betrays his real sympathies and bias in this description of Israel:
And it is Bacevich's use of the trope of 'Zionist control' over the U.S. that tells us what his real issues are with Israeli power and why he'd like to see it cut down to size.

Roger Waters Keeps Stoking BDS Flames

They can't get Scarlett Johansson or even Ellen DeGeneres, but at least the BDS Movement can always count on Roger Waters.
Waters, the former leader of Pink Floyd, still maintains a sizeable fan base, at least among baby boomers. And he's now expanding his reach by writing articles on Salon, the Internet's oldest web-only magazine, urging people to support the BDS movement.

The Fight Against BDS on the Left

Late in March, I wrote about an "open forum" at Vassar College, at which 200 Vasserites gathered for the purpose of denouncing a planned trip to Israel. The trip was organized by two professors with impeccable liberal credentials and included a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp. But its purpose was not the delegitimization of Israel, so representatives of Students for Justice in Palestine found it unacceptable. Perhaps it did not help that the organizers were named Schneiderman and Friedman. As William Jacobson has reported, members of the Vassar community, in the presence of the dean of students and acting dean of the college, heckled and laughed at Jewish students who attempted to speak.
Jill Schneiderman and Rachel Friedman have since written of the "climate of fear" that has "descended on campus" over the "past several years," a climate that has stifled dissent. Parts of their letter are irritating. For example, they claim that they have been denounced by both the right and the left, even though their critics come almost entirely from the left. But they make one important point convincingly: the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement that ran them over wants to make people think less, not more.

J Street belongs outside the pale

J Street may be loud, they may have strong support from some liberal Jewish leaders, but I would strongly suggest that their support lies with a small minority of the American Jewish community. It is not without cause that their attempt to supplant AIPAC as the respected voice of pro-Israel advocacy has proven an utter failure. Most Jews see J Street as an organization attempting to do an end-run around Israeli democracy, badly out of sync with our brethren in Israel.
It remains difficult to find a statement of PA President Mahmoud Abbas that J Street does not at least defend, if not explicitly endorse – even, most recently, responding "with caution" to reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, a terrorist organization still committed to the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of its Jewish residents, and urging the United States to "press forward with an even more assertive effort" to finalize a two-state solution.

Fighting back against disruptions of Israeli performances and lectures in the UK

As many readers will know, performances and lectures by Israelis in the UK have frequently been disrupted in recent years. In one serious example, a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall was interrupted by shouting and singing to such an extent that a simultaneous broadcast on BBC Radio 3 was taken off-air.
Videos show the threatening atmosphere and the risk of a serious breakdown of order which could have resulted in mass casualties and this was also confirmed by eye-witness accounts.
The problem is not confined to Israelis. Other victims have included Mohamed El-Nabawy, whose lecture on the challenges faced by Egypt to a meeting of the SOAS Palestinian Society was stormed by Muslim Brotherhood thugs; David Willetts MP, talking to students at Cambridge; and Professor Alex Callinicos, whose lecture at Warwick University was abandoned due to disruption by an unusual combination of neo-Nazis and feminists.

Civil Rights Groups Urge NYU to Discipline 'Mock Eviction' Leafletters

In a letter to President Sexton and Vice Chancellor Linda Mills, the Brandeis Center and The Lawfare Project emphasized that the mock eviction notices raised "serious issues under federal civil rights law." Specifically, the groups reminded President Sexton and Vice Chancellor Mills that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs that receive federal funds. "More broadly," the two organizations wrote, "they raise questions about respect, civility, and mutual understanding and about sensitivity for the reasonable concerns of Jewish students."

Winnipeg shul drops speaker who allowed campus 'apartheid' week

Winnipeg's leading synagogue withdrew an invitation for the University of Manitoba's president to address its Yom Hashoah interfaith service following anti-Israel events on the university campus, the National Post reported.
David Barnard, the university president, allowed Israel Apartheid Week to take place over the objections of the U of M student government who feared the series of events would exacerbate a tense political climate on campus.
While the student government stripped funding from the U of M chapter of Students Against Israeli Apartheid last year, this year Barnard allowed an outside group to host the week of events criticizing the Jewish state.
"We were … concerned that by having him here we're basically endorsing him as an individual who would be representative of the community in speaking about this," Ian Staniloff, executive director of the Shaarey Zedek congregation told the Post.

Want the Jewish state wiped off the map? Guardian approved NGO has an app for that!

Ian Black, the Guardian's Middle East editor, wrote the following in a May 2nd article titled "Remembering the Nakba: Israeli group puts 1948 Palestine back on the map':
Further in the article, Black alludes to the fact that Zochrot's plans to "build a better future" in the region include an unlimited Palestinian 'right of return':
"Zochrot's focus on the hyper-sensitive question of the 750,000 Palestinians who became refugees has earned it the hostility of the vast majority of Israeli Jews who flatly reject any Palestinian right of return. Allowing these refugees – now, with their descendants, numbering seven million people – to return to Jaffa, Haifa or Acre, the argument goes, would destroy the Jewish majority, the raison d'être of the Zionist project."
Black's use of the term "Zionist project" is of course quite telling.

Mainstreaming extremism on BBC Radio 4

The Listening Project's slogan is "It's surprising what you hear when you listen". What is most notable about this broadcast though is what audiences – despite listening – did not hear.
They did not hear the words 'Free Gaza Movement', or 'International Solidarity Movement' or 'Hamas' or 'terror attacks on Israeli civilians'. They likewise did not hear anything about Adie Mormech's involvement with both of the organisations mentioned above or his history of anti-Israel campaigning which includes support for the anti-peace BDS movement's campaign to bring about the demise of Israel as the Jewish state.
And they certainly were not informed about the interview below which Mormech gave to Iran's Press TV last year (not a one-off event, by any stretch of the imagination). Mormech's fact-free rant in that interview, and others, raises serious questions regarding his reliability and credibility as a raconteur of anything intended to be described as 'oral history' to an institution such as the British Library.

A Melbourne 'terrorist themed' play praised by Fairfax Media

What is puzzling is why the reviewer calls it a piece of "documentary theatre", which implies it is factually accurate, when it could more aptly be described as a fantasy or even a piece of pro-Palestinian propaganda.
Wikipedia tells us more about Zwaiter:
"Wael Zwaiter was a Palestinian translator assassinated as the first target of Israel's Operation Wrath of God campaign following the 1972 Munich massacre. Israel considered Zwaiter a terrorist for his role in the Black September group, while his supporters argue that he was "never conclusively linked" with Black September or the Munich massacre and was killed in retribution.
Zwaiter was the PLO representative in Rome. During his time in Italy, he was in the process of translating One Thousand and One Nights from Arabic into Italian…
Zwaiter was held for questioning by Italian police in August 1972 in relation to a bombing by the group Black September against an oil refinery, but was later released. The Israeli Mossad suspected him of being the head of Black September in Rome, and put him on an assassination list after Black September's attack in Munich. When he returned to his apartment building on the night of October 16, 1972, he was shot 11 times by two Israeli agents, killing him".

Jeremy Bowen's one-man messaging continues on BBC TV

Once again, Bowen leaves the broader issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict out of the frame.
Considering that a number of the stances adopted by the PLO during the last nine months of negotiations have had public backing from the Arab League (including the refusal to agree to security arrangements in the Jordan Valley and the all-important issue of recognition of Israel as the Jewish state), the broader picture is obviously context which BBC audiences need in order to fully understand the subject.
Notably too, Bowen continues to describe the failure of past peace-making efforts in opaque and overly generalised terms. From the Arab League refusal to accept the 1947 Partition Plan, through the 'three noes' of Khartoum and the PA's decision to start the second Intifada and right up to the Palestinian Authority's refusal to accept several potential plans over the last twenty years or so, Bowen refrains from providing audiences with the vital background which forms the foundations of the story upon which he is now reporting.
His framing of history is no less selective: once again Bowen's version of Middle East history begins in 1967 and thus denies audiences the ability to comprehend that the conflict in fact is rooted in events long before the Six Day War.

Brussels police disperse rally supporting banned far-right event

Riot police in Brussels Sunday used water cannon to disperse a crowd defying a ban on a gathering of controversial far-right figures including French comic Dieudonne, which critics called an "anti-Semitic hatefest".
Citing a threat to public order, the mayor of the Brussels district of Anderlecht banned both the meeting and any protests connected to it.
But organizers of the so-called "European Dissidents' Congress" — a Brussels bookshop and a group called "Debout les Belges!" (Belgians, Rise up!) — urged supporters to head to the venue for "a surprise", sparking the standoff with riot police.

U.S. Report: Several Mideast Countries Top List of Violators of Religious Freedom

Several Middle East countries have been identified as among the worst violators of religious freedom, according to an annual report issued by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
According to the 209-page report, Iran and Saudi Arabia are listed as "Tier 1" or "Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)." Egypt, Syria, and Iraq are listed as "Tier 1" countries that should be added to the U.S. State Department's CPC list.
Turkey is listed as a "Tier 2," for countries that do not fully meet the criteria of being a CPC but still have serious violations of religious freedom.

Obama opens Jewish Heritage Month, cites Kansas killings

The Kansas City shootings are a reminder that Americans must come together to reject intolerance, President Obama said in his Jewish heritage month proclamation.
"Jewish communities continue to confront anti-Semitism — both around the world and, as tragic events mere weeks ago in Kansas reminded us, here in the United States," Obama said in his, proclamation declaring May Jewish American Heritage Month, issued April 30.
"Following in the footsteps of Jewish civil rights leaders, we must come together across all faiths, reject ignorance and intolerance, and root out hatred wherever it exists," he said.

Biofishency offers cleaner, bigger catch for fish farmers

The world's fish stocks are depleting, matched with a growing global population and a steady appetite for fish and seafood. An important source of protein, farmed fish already comprise 45 percent of the world's catch, with that number expected to rise to 62% by the year 2030, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Since most of the cultured fish production is in developing economies, it would seem logical that fish-farming technologies would suit the needs of the people who grow the fish. But they do not, says Cobi Levanon, CEO of Biofishency.
Systems to improve yield are typically expensive and come packaged as an entire farm solution. A new monitor and filter product from Israel's Biofishency will provide an affordable "black box" to fish farmers so they can grow healthier fish using less water — without replacing the whole farm. The box works for both freshwater and saltwater fish.

350 more Nepalese students to be trained in Israel

Israel has offered the opportunity for 360 Nepali students this year to take advanced agricultural training there, according to the Embassy of Israel in Kathmandu.
The embassy has provided similar training for 205 students last year, the embassy informed during a press meet in Kathmandu on Wednesday. According to the embassy, the students will be selected through lottery and interviews.
Speaking at the press meet, Hanan Goder-Goldberger said that such training will enhance the performance of small farmers and the trained students will contribute toward the development of agricultural sector in Nepal. "Technology, skill and capital are needed for the farmers to boost agricultural production of Nepal. The training will provide opportunity to the farmers here in meeting these requirements to some extent," Goder said.

Asia to Surpass U.S. as Israel's No. 2 Export Target After Europe

The European Union, with 32% of Israel's trade remains Israel's largest trading partner, and will likely remain so for the near future.
According to the Israel Trade Mission in China, nearly 300 Israeli companies are doing business there.
One of them, Solbar, has even won an award for its management practices from the Chinese government, a rare achievement for a foreign company in China.
In addition, Asian investors are starting to show an interest in trade with Israel. According to the report, Israel's Catalyst Equity Management and Hong Kong-based Everbright Limited Investments have established a fund that invests in Israeli companies that have commercial ties with China.

A lesson of coexistence turns sour in Shfaram

Posted on: Monday 05 May 2014 — 22:00

Times of Israel has what looks like a heartwarming story:

In a remarkable response to the spate of "price tag" hate attacks by Jewish extremists, a group of youths from the northern Arab town of Shfaram teamed up with Jewish counterparts to send a very different message.

Members of the local school system's youth leadership group, together with young people from Shutafut-Sharakah — a coalition of Jewish and Arab organizations working to build inclusive Israel — joined hands on Sunday to renovate the ancient synagogue in the Galilee town.

...One of the girls who came to renovate the synagogue said Sunday that Shfaram residents' history of caring for the synagogue "is an example and a model for coexistence between our two peoples. Every form of worship in the city is part of our heritage, and comes both naturally and unreservedly," she added.

This sounds wonderful! Jews and Arabs are working together against hate and towards understanding and coexistence.

However, this same event is being reported in Arab media a bit differently, and the message is not nearly as sunny.

Al Quds al Arabi, after spending many paragraphs on how the Jewish state is not taking "price tag" attacks seriously, says that in contrast to Jews who destroy churches and mosques, Arabs are showing how much they respect synagogues.

A youth group in the town of Shfaram responded to 'price tag' attacks by restoring an old synagogue in order to deliver a message about the Arab-Islamic civilization, in dealing with the sanctities of others. National Democratic Alliance official Murad Haddad told Al Quds Al-Arabi "that he wanted to deliver a message to the world that [Muslims] preserve the holy sites of the Jews because they are not part of the conflict. He adds 'in all restoration projects and maintenance of holy sites in the city, we included the synagogue, and this time we wanted to highlight the maintenance of the synagogue at the time that others violate the sanctity of mosques and churches and convert them into animal shelters [or the like.]'

... Murad Haddad emphasizes that the restoration of the synagogue is not related to any 'coexistence' programs between Jews and Arabs and was not initiated by Jews but was a 'self-initiative linked to the core of Arab-Islamic values that has nothing to do with Zionism.

The amount of respect given to the synagogue in Shfaram by the locals is undoubtedly remarkable and praiseworthy. Perhaps this spokesperson does not represent the citizens of Shfaram.

But this is how the restoration is being reported in the Arab media, not as a lesson of coexistence but as an example of Muslim moral superiority. (We don't need to even get into the many synagogues destroyed, deliberately, by Muslims over the centuries.)

The article shows that the leftover synagogues of vanished Jews must be treated with far more respect than living, breathing Jews who want to live in peace and harmony with Arabs.

Hamas kiddie TV show: "Shoot all the Jews!"

Posted on: Monday 05 May 2014 — 20:00

From Palestinian Media Watch, the latest episode of Hamas children's TV show "Pioneers of Tomorrow."

Phone conversation between Nahul the bee and Qais, a boy from Jenin (West Bank).
Nahul the bee, (adult in a giant bee costume): "Listen my friend. Are there Jews where you are?"
Boy (Qais): "No. Not at the moment."
Nahul: "I heard they come to you every day."
Boy: "Yes, but not now."
Nahul: "Listen, friend; do like this with your hands [makes fists], and when they come to you, punch them; make their face red like a tomato."
Boy: "Allah willing, so that we can liberate Palestine."
Nahul: "Allah willing." ...

[Nahul talks to TV Host, young girl named Rawan]
Nahul: "My friend Qais - anyway, Rawan, I tell him to take a stone, and when the Jews come, to take it and throw it at them."
Child host (Rawan): "Of course, the Jewish neighbors."
Nahul: "To smash them."
Child host: "If his neighbors are Jews or Zionists? Yes." ...

[Child host Rawan talks to Tulin, a girl in the studio.]
Child host Rawan: "Tulin, why do you want to be a police officer? Like who?"
Girl Tulin: "Like my uncle."
Child host: "Which uncle?"
Girl: "Ahmed."
Child host: "Is he a policeman?"
[Girl nods]
Child host: "OK, so what does a policeman do?"
Nahul: "He catches thieves, and people who make trouble."
Child host: "And shoots Jews. Right?"
Girl: "Yes."
Child host: "You want to be like him?"
[Girl nods]
Child host: "Allah willing, when you grow up."
Girl: "So that I can shoot Jews."
[Nahul the bee claps his hands]
Child host: "All the Jews? All of them?"
Girl: "Yes."
Child host: "Good."

I once made a video about how the mascot/hosts of this show all seemed to die horrible deaths at the hand of the evil Zionists.

I'm surprised Nahul hasn't bit the dust yet. Must be the blockade - tough to get new costumes.

This unity agreement is sure improving peace prospects, isn't it?

05/05 Links Pt1: Israel's Indomitable spirit; Hamas: Do Not Believe Abbas, We Want Jihad

Posted on: Monday 05 May 2014 — 18:00

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Indomitable spirit

Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars and Victims of Terrorism began on Sunday at sundown and ends at sundown Monday. During these 24 hours, we pay tribute to the 23,169 casualties of war and terrorism who have fallen since 1860, the year marked as the advent of the modern Jewish Yishuv or settlement in the Land of Israel.
In truth, 1860 is an arbitrary date. The Jewish people's yearning to return to its historic homeland extends far back in history to 70 CE, the time of the destruction of the Second Temple. And the Jewish people's prayers and hopes for an end to exile stored up over nearly two millennia gave it unique strength.
When asked how the fledgling Jewish state, born into a state of war, managed to overcome the combined armies of the Arab states, Yigael Yadin, one of the founding fathers of the IDF, pointed to the Jewish people's pent up desire for a state of its own where it could live in freedom and independence. Yadin likened the Jews' longing to a "spring compressed... to the utmost of its compressibility" over thousands of years of exile, which "when finally released, it liberated."

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas: Do Not Believe Abbas; We Want Jihad

Abbas's words might sound heart-warming to Westerners, but they must bear in mind that he is not a Hamas spokesman. Above all, the world needs to pay attention to what Hamas itself is saying.
Abbas knows that Hamas has not changed and will not change. Abbas is seeking to avoid a suspension of U.S. and European financial aid and potential Israeli economic sanctions. Abbas is now waiting to see if the Americans, Europeans and Israelis will buy his claim that the unity government will recognize Israel and reject violence. If they do, he will take credit for ensuring continued financial aid not only to the Palestinian Authority, but also to Hamas. If they do not, Abbas will be forced temporarily to suspend the deal with Hamas to avoid losing the aid.
Hamas signed the deal because it sees it and an opportunity to restore its relations with Egypt and other Arab countries, and to benefit from the Western financial aid that is provided to the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu: The Jews would be massacred like our neighbors in Syria without the IDF

Netanyahu cited the deaths of tens of thousands in Syria, as a possible fate of the Jews, without the existence of the state of Israel and the IDF.
"A few kilometers north of Jerusalem a massacre is occurring that has killed tens of thousands that do not have the power to defend themselves. Who would doubt that that would be our fate without the IDF. The IDF is the only thing that separates us from the massacres that our people knew in the past," he said.
"Israel can defend itself against any threat, but this security is gained by the loss of our sons and daughters," he said.
He said the sacrifices of the fallen make life possible in Israel.

Yom Haatzmaut 2014: 66 Israeli Heroes Share a Powerful Message
Powerful Youtube from Nefesh B'Nefesh with the message, Am Yisrael Chai!

Peres on Memorial Day: 'Our joy is always incomplete'

The siren was followed by the lighting of a memorial flame to the fallen at the Western Wall, the site of the official state commemoration ceremony.
"It wasn't a declaration that founded this wonderful country. It was founded upon the blood of its sons and daughters, upon the sweat of the pioneers and the vision of its prophets," President Shimon Peres said at the Western Wall ceremony. "Israel today is a strong country, a miracle in the eyes of the Jews, a wonder in the eyes of the world. We, the Israelis, are not like any other people. For a generation already the sadness does not release us, even for joy. Our joy is always incomplete. A cloud of sadness envelops us. It is hidden deeply but stares out of our eyes," the president lamented to an audience of IDF soldiers and families of the fallen.

Yom HaZikaron: Moment of Silence throughout Israel

App brings stories of dead soldiers to life

Remembering Them All, an app released on the eve of Memorial Day and distributed for free by the Defense Ministry on its IDF memorial site, lets users scan the memorial stones at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery and bring up an information page on the soldier buried there. The app uses pictures, text and video to help Israelis learn the personal stories of IDF soldiers who fell in battle defending the country.
The app is similar to one the IDF distributed several years ago, which allowed users to scan bar codes on army memorial stones using a QR reader and load the official memorial page for that soldier on the IDF's "Nizkor" (We Remember) page. The new app will be able to load information from the Nizkor site and other sources as well, creating a "virtual reality" interface with photos and even videos of the soldier.

Bereaved families heckle Netanyahu at memorial event

Several angry protesters shouted at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he took the podium at a ceremony in memory of Israelis killed in terror attacks, held at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on Monday.
The demonstrators, who were apparently members of families of terror attack victims, held red flags over their heads and yelled at Netanyahu as the prime minister rose to make his speech. They then staged a walkout.

Alan Dershowitz: No Place for Kerry's Apartheid Analogy

John Kerry's misstatement about apartheid is an educational moment. He can now use it to help educate the world both as to the real meaning of apartheid and as to the true situation of Palestinians in Ramallah and other vibrant and affluent Palestinian cities on the West Bank.
The Israelis and Palestinians should negotiate a two-state solution which would end the occupation and settlements. The fault for not having yet done so lies largely within the Palestinian leadership, which constantly places preconditions on negotiations and has refused generous offers by former Israeli Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert.
The time has come for telling the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to stop using loaded and incendiary words that distort the reality on the ground.

After Failed Peace Talks, Pushing to Label Israel as Occupier of Palestine

Alan Baker, a former legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry who was involved in negotiating the Rome Statute, said that Arab states injected language referring to the "direct or indirect" transfer of populations.
"The whole idea was to declare Israeli settlement as one of the most serious crimes against humanity," said Mr. Baker, who now works at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a conservative-leaning research institute.
Yet at the same time Mr. Baker, himself a settler, and some other Israelis dismiss the risk of Israel's being prosecuted for the settlements.
They note that the court deals only with grave crimes committed since its establishment in 2002; the bulk of the settlements were established before that. The court also deals with the crimes of individuals, not governments, meaning that it would have to establish who was most responsible for the diffuse settlement project that took place over decades.

UN's Office for Human Rights lavishes praise on "Palestine" after it officially joins 5 UN treaties

What is conspicuously missing from this list are all the provisions in these human rights treaties, or their associated "protocols," that permit individuals to complain of violations of human rights by the ratifying party.
In other words, "Palestine" is only too happy to appear to be interested in human rights protection, but it won't allow Palestinians to hold them to it by empowering people to complain if it doesn't.
For instance, the Torture Convention and the Racial Discrimination Convention in theory permit individuals to complain of violations of the two treaties. But "Palestine" refused to agree to these discretionary features.
Other complaint provisions are associated with the two covenants on civil and political rights, and economic rights, and the conventions on women's rights, children's rights and disability rights. There is no indication that "Palestine" is acceding to any of them - effectively excluding any Palestinian from complaining to UN bodies about "Palestine's" violations of their new rights.

Fugitive ex-MK Azmi Bishara to head new Qatari TV channel

Former Balad MK Azmi Bishara, who fled Israel in 2007 following accusations that he had contacts with a foreign agent and aided an enemy during wartime, is set to head a new Qatari TV channel meant to act as a counterweight to the country's flagship news network, Al Jazeera, amid criticisms that the latter has become "too supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Bishara, who heads the Doha-based Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies and is reportedly close to the new Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is said to have been the driving force behind the initiative, according to a report in The National.

Gerstenfeld on why Stoltenberg is a bad choice for the NATO

As time passes, it becomes increasingly clear how absurd the choice of former Norwegian Labor Party Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg as NATO's next Secretary General is. The new Hamas-Fatah agreement brings to mind the many ways Stoltenberg, his government and Labor have directly and indirectly promoted Hamas' interests.
Hamas calls for the murder of Jews in its party platform. In January 2006, it won a majority in the only Palestinian general elections. The European Union and the U.S. classify Hamas as a terrorist group. Both ended contacts with Palestinian officials after Hamas formed a new Palestinian government led by Ismael Haniyeh in March 2006. The United States and the E.U. then also cut off aid to the Palestinians.

Israel energy supplier mulls legal action over PA debts

Israel's main electricity supplier said on Monday that it considers legal action against the Palestinian Authority (PA) due to the latter's inability to repay its accumulating debts.
In a statement, the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) said it had sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informing him that the PA owed it some 1.5 billion Israeli shekels (roughly $430 million) as of the end of April.
The company said it planned to cut power intermittently to Palestinian homes.

PMW: PA and Hamas honor Sbarro suicide bomber who murdered 15

On Aug. 9, 2001 suicide bomber Izz Al-Din Al-Masri detonated himself in a Sbarro pizza shop in Jerusalem, killing 15, 7 of them children. 5 members of one family were killed in the attack. Palestinian Media Watch has reported that the PA in the past has honored Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist who picked the Sbarro restaurant as the place for the bombing "because many people entered it", and later led the bomber there. Official PA TV has also glorified her.
Last week, Israel transferred the body of the suicide bomber to the PA and both the PA and Hamas took the opportunity to honor the murderer once again. Reporting from the official military funeral, PA TV News called him a "Martyr," the highest religious level a Muslim can reach. In calling the terrorist a Martyr - a Shahid - the PA continues to teach its people that according to its interpretation of Islam, killers of Israeli civilians in suicide terror attacks are doing such a positive act, that it overrules the general Islamic prohibition against committing suicide.

PA TV honors Sbarro suicide bomber: Funeral was "national wedding"

Hamas honors Sbarro suicide bomber: He "gave the Zionists a taste of humiliation"

Hamas official: Unity deal forbids security cooperation with Israel

Hamas is preparing to incorporate 3,000 [US trained] Palestinian Authority security men from the West Bank into its Gaza apparatus, a Hamas official has announced. He also referred to a previously unknown "security clause" in the agreement with Fatah criminalizing security coordination with Israel.
Abdul Salam Siyam, secretary general of the Hamas government in Gaza, told Palestinian media that Hamas's security agencies will remain intact pending the formation of a new unity government in June.
"The government and the [Hamas] movement in Gaza have taken a strategic decision to move forward with reconciliation and create necessary conditions for its implementation," Siyam said in a press statement Sunday.

Elliott Abrams: Chlorine, nukes, and U.S. credibility

One of the greatest Israeli concerns about a possible nuclear deal with Iran goes beyond the terms of any deal itself to the issue of enforcement. The issue is summed up in a Laura Rozen piece: "The Israelis are also deeply concerned, [an unidentified] former U.S. diplomat said, that if there is a violation by Iran of a final nuclear accord, that the violation will be seen by Washington as too ambiguous or incremental, that there 'is no smoking gun.' The Israelis are 'nervous that the U.S. will continuously say, we are checking into it, we need more proof,' the former diplomat described. 'At what point does the cumulative effect of the small things add up to a violation?'"
She describes the diplomat as "a senior former U.S. diplomat involved in the April consultations in Israel."
The Israeli concern is serious, because the pattern they fear is familiar. Officials who have gone out on a limb to negotiate a deal despite criticism of it, rejected the criticism, defended the deal, and indeed celebrated the deal as a great diplomatic achievement, do not wish to find that it has been violated and that their achievement is in tatters.

Analysts: Hezbollah Push for Lebanon Off-Shore Drilling Risks War with Israel

The Israeli daily financial newspaper Globes had already explained months ago that Israel would be "liable to lose territory if it does not object to the Lebanese acts in court, or even militarily." The Examiner noted that the Israelis have deliberately "avoided issuing tenders" so as not to inflame the situation.
Meanwhile Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah recently reemphasized that his Iran-backed terror group would seek a military confrontation with Israel and has claimed an April attack on Israeli soldiers.
The group is widely thought to be seeking a way to rebuild its shattered brand as a Lebanese organization protecting Lebanese sovereignty from Israel, and last October Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea slammed Hezbollah for trying to open "another front with Israel" by pressuring the Lebanese Energy Ministry – which it controlled by proxy – to issue drilling tenders to disputed waters. National Liberal Party leader Dori Chamoun piled on, accusing then-Energy Minister Gebran Bassil of being used by Hezbollah to among other things cause "another clash with Israel."
Observers fear that Hezbollah has been specifically setting up a naval confrontation. The group has for years been accusing Israel of stealing Lebanon's energy resources – going so far as to describe Israel's Leviathan field as inside Lebanese waters – and has even warned that Lebanon's oil and gas sector was "becoming vulnerable to Israeli piracy":

Egypt claims Israeli spy ring uncovered

According to Egyptian news reports, 12 suspects were arrested by Egyptian security services. Three of the suspects were Egyptians, and the remainder had entered the country as tourists, the Ynet news site reported.
The Egyptian newspaper Alyoum Sabaa said the suspects had gathered information on the current political climate in Egypt. Presidential elections, the first since the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi was elected into power, are expected to take place later this month. (h/t Norman F)

TV Host Slams Head of Egyptian Community in Paris for Anti-Christian Remarks

Michael J. Totten: The Conspiracy Theory Capital of the World

Conspiracy theories exist everywhere in the world, but they're especially common in the Middle East and are rampant in Egypt even by regional standards. They're generally harmless when only crackpots on the margins believe them, but when they go mainstream and infect the highest levels of government and the media—watch out.
Egypt can't even begin to dig itself out of its hole until it faces up to the fact that Egyptians—not Israelis, not Americans, not the Turks, and not the Qataris—are the authors of their own tragedy. As addiction therapists like to say, you can't change what you don't acknowledge.
The country has a host of problems, but the largest, from which so many others spring, is its ideological rejection of liberal political values. The majority of Egypt's secular parties are just as vehemently anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israeli, and anti-liberal as the Islamists. Egypt doesn't need to copy the West down to the last detail in order to flourish, but there's no getting around the fact that people who reject everything the West stands for are guaranteed to live in poverty with a boot on their neck.
And it's about time we realized that nobody in power in Egypt right now, including the most militant anti-Islamists, is our friend.

Egyptian TV: Simpsons Episode Proves Syria War Is U.S. Conspiracy

Hanan Ashrawi proves her hypocrisy again

Posted on: Monday 05 May 2014 — 16:00

Over the weekend, Binyamin Netanyahu proposed a new Basic Law for Israel:

Israel already has Basic Laws that give adequate expression to the country's democratic nature, and now needs one that articulates its Jewish character, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday, explaining his decision to promote a Basic Law defining Israel as a Jewish state.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that the law he will promote will define the national rights of the Jewish people to the State of Israel, and that it will do so "without infringing on the individual rights of any Israeli citizen."

Hanan Ashrawi, who heads an organization that had no problem pushing a blood libel against Jews until its European donors complained, is accusing Israel of "racism:"

This proposal is in itself a reflection of the behavior of racial discrimination practiced by Israel against our people, and rooted set of racist laws that prescribed by the Israeli Knesset, which is the headquarters of the only legislation in the world that recognizes the laws and regulations that are contrary to the laws of humanity and the international principles that deny racism."

Really? A Basic Law that emphasizes the nation's national character is racist?

Then why does the Basic Law of "Palestine" hammer away at the Arabness of Palestinians?

The continuous attachment of the Arab Palestinian people to the land of their fathers and forefathers, on which this people has historically lived, is a fact that has been expressed in the Declaration of Independence, issued by the Palestine National Council....

the right to establish an independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as a capital, under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole, legitimate representative of the Arab Palestinian people wherever they exist.

...Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation. Arab unity is an objective that the Palestinian people shall work to achieve.

This Basic Law takes great pains to define the "Palestinian people" as Arab, and specifically discusses the "Arab Palestinian people" multiple times.

Why?

The answer is obvious. They want to ensure that Jewish Palestinian people do not have any national rights!

As noted many times previously, before 1948 the word "Palestinian" rarely referred to the Arabs of Palestine, and nearly always referred to the Jews who lived in Palestine. You know...Zionists.

The PLO's charter, written in 1964 and modified in 1968 (to include the West Bank and Gaza among its national boundaries,) also spoke about "Palestinian Arab people" and not just "Palestinians." In those days it was still rare to speak of "Palestinians" as meaning only Arabs.

Hence, these foundational documents of the PLO and "Palestine" take great pains to define "Palestinian" as being only Arab - to the exclusion of Jews, the only non-Arab people who ever called themselves "Palestinian."

When they say, over and over again, "Palestinian Arabs," they mean "Non-Jewish Palestinians."

Is that not racist?

Not only that, but these "Basic Laws" not only deal with the national character of a Palestine in the territories, but they aim at defining the character of Israel as well, by insisting on the "right of return" not to their supposed state of Palestine but to Israel itself!

So the Basic Laws of Palestine are both racist - according to Hanan Ashrawi's own definition - and they are also aggressive against the state that they pretend to the West that they want to live in peace with.

Hamas reiterates that it will never recognize Israel and it will maintain Qassam Brigades

Posted on: Monday 05 May 2014 — 14:00

From Ma'an:

Hamas will never recognize Israel and will not accept the conditions laid out by the Middle East peacemaking Quartet, according to the Islamist movement's deputy leader.

Speaking late on Saturday, Mussa Abu Marzouq said Hamas, which recently signed a reconciliation deal with the Western-backed leadership in the occupied West Bank, would never agree to recognize Israel.

"We will not recognize the Zionist entity," he said at a press conference in Gaza City.

Recognizing Israel is one of the key conditions laid out in the 2003 peacemaking roadmap of the Middle East Quartet, which brings together the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

The other two key demands are a renunciation of violence and acceptance of all prior agreements with Israel.

Abbas, who is to head the new government, to consist of political independents, has insisted it will abide by all three principles.

But Abu Marzouq said Hamas would never accept the Quartet's conditions.

He also said the question of disarming Hamas's armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, was "never mentioned" in talks with the PLO since the unity deal was inked on April 23.

"No one asked to discuss this," he said.

On Saturday, Abu Marzouk and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visited the houses of the families of terrorist leaders who have been killed by Israel - including Fatah leaders.

Al Monitor has more details on how insistent Hamas is to keep its own, separate terror wing that will not answer to Fatah:

One factor complicating matters, Al-Monitor learned from the Ministry of Finance in the Gaza Strip, is that some 25,000 employees in the Hamas government work in the security services, and most of them belong to the Qassam Brigades. According to one Qassam military official, after the formation of the next government, these employees will take orders from the brigade's military leadership, not their current manager at the Ministry of Interior.

A Hamas leader who spoke on condition of anonymity dismissed all talk of dissolving the brigades. He told Al-Monitor, "This talk doesn't deserve a response. The Qassam Brigades were created before the PA was established and has its own independent policy in dealing with Israel, away from any tutelage by anyone, including the next government."

This is apparently what "reconciliation" means.

No one is noting that Fatah also maintains its own terror wings that it refuses to dismantle.

Al Monitor also had an important piece last week that described exactly what Hamas wanted to get out of "unity" - and it sure isn't peace:

Abbas has seemingly made a concession about Hamas' participation in the PLO and its institutions. This had long been an obstacle to the implementation of all the previous agreements, which prompted Hamas to waive the participation of any of its members or close associates in the next — likely technocrat — government.

The Hamas source said, "The reconciliation agreement cannot succeed without the activation of the PLO and Hamas' participation in it. This is a clear and explicit condition to Hamas, and this is what was signed in previous agreements and emphasized in the latest agreement."

The PA government is not independent; it reports to the PLO. Hamas' goal is to take over the PLO and thereby taking over the entire Palestinian Arab government eventually. This move is not nearly as much a loss for Hamas as it is being represented, because people forget this crucial fact. (It is the PLO that is recognized as the "State of Palestine" by the UN, not the sort-of democratically elected PA.)

The West keeps thinking that the PA's elections, presided over by Jimmy Carter, were meaningful. Dazzled by this fake display of democracy, they forget that the PA has no independence.

Musings on political correctness and Israel

Posted on: Monday 05 May 2014 — 11:30

On Sunday morning, I heard an thoroughly offensive and very misogynist song on the radio.

The singer was threatening, explicitly, to murder his girlfriend if she would be with another man. The women was referred to as nothing more than an object, one without a name, only to be disparagingly called "little girl." If caught with another man, the singer declares, that would be the end of her life. More than once the singer declares that he would rather see her dead.

The disk jockey didn't think that there was anything wrong with playing this song. No comment was made about these sickening lyrics.

What was this misogynist, hateful song?

It was "Run for your Life" by the Beatles.

In an age of extreme political correctness - where a person can be forced out of his job because of a donation he gave to an anti-gay marriage group several years previously - how can such a song be played on the radio today? Why is John Lennon's reputation clean when others who have said far less offensive things, not nearly as publicly, been viciously attacked and often lost their jobs and reputations? (A single radio station in Ottawa banned it in the early 1990s. That's it.)

What are the lines for political correctness?

It obviously has nothing to do with the offense itself - threatening to kill your significant other is certainly no more acceptable than racism is, and if, say, a basketball coach is taped threatening to kill his wife he would likely be fired.

So why is Lennon not vilified? Why is a song threatening murder getting played today?

If we are honest, the reason is because people like the Beatles. When you admire someone, you are willing to let them off the hook. You give them slack, You accept excuses for them (the 1960s were a different time, Lennon really didn't like the song, no one takes it literally....)

People feel they have a special relationship with the Beatles and John Lennon. If a brand new band (outside hip-hop, where misogyny is often considered mandatory) tried to sell such a song today they would be the object of anguished op-eds and boycotts, but people don't want to slam those they already admire.

The people who lose their jobs because of political correctness are often not well known to the public. The first that anyone has heard of them is them crossing the PC line. If they were known ahead of time as human beings, with families that they love and volunteer work they do and charities they support, the damage would be limited.

In other words, a prerequisite to demonizing people is to ensure that they are not seen as three dimensional human beings.

The Israel-haters are obviously not motivated by morality or fair play. They use the same weapons against Israelis that are used against the poor souls who are victimized by the self-righteous PC crowd.

This is why the haters are so incensed when Israel is shown in three dimensions. The bizarre logic behind the "pinkwashing" and other charges is that if Israelis are seen as sympathetic human beings, it is much more difficult for the mud to stick. So whenever Israelis do something admirable it must be silenced, using whatever methods are available.

Context is the enemy. Truth is the enemy. Anything that shows that single-minded demonization of the Jewish state is inaccurate must be blasted and belittled.

The irony, of course, is that the haters are acting exactly the same way bigots and racists have acted throughout history - dehumanizing their enemies - in an attempt to brand Israelis as bigots and racists.

Israelis have a very simple request for those who could be swayed by the haters' arguments: come and visit, speak to them, let them speak on college campuses, get to know them, listen to their side of the story. The haters, naturally, work overtime to ensure that any Israelis who could be seen as human beings be excluded from all discussion - they will do everything possible to silence them (all while they claim that their own freedom of speech is somehow being violated.)

The methods of Israel haters and those of the politically correct crowd are very similar. The way to blunt their effects in both cases is simply to provide context and allow people to see both sides of the story.

And this is what the haters are afraid of most of all.

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יום שני, 5 במאי 2014