[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 09/01 Link Pt2: UK Rally against anti-Semitism; Guardian runs debunked "Jews only, red roofs" story

From Ian:

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Thousands rally in London against rising anti-Semitism

A year after his gala installation as British chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis told a crowd of up to 4,500 that he could not have foreseen needing to rally against anti-Semitism.
In response to the rise of recorded instances of anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom, Sunday’s rally was held outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
“We demand zero tolerance of anti-Semitism,” Mirvis said. After the murder of the three yeshiva students in the West Bank, “little did we realize that anti-Semitism would reach high levels around the world and here in the UK as well.”
Calling for an end to all forms of prejudice including Islamophobia, Mirvis noted the “deep esteem” in which the Jewish community of Britain is held.

Douglas Murray Speaks At #NoToAntiSemitism


Diversity, hope and strength: Why I'm proud to be Israeli

I am proud to be Israeli. I'm proud that, in Israel, a bacon-eating Jew and a beer-drinking Muslim can sit in the same parliament as devout co-religionists, and everyone can speak their minds.
I'm proud that Israel, like Australia, is a place where journalists, academics and everyone else can air their grievances without fear of retribution. Oh, they might involve themselves in an argument, but they won't be gaoled or tortured or shot.
Two weeks ago in this paper, an anonymous Israeli declared shame in her citizenship. I'm proud that she has the right to do this, and can do so safely, both here and in Israel. However, her anonymity was insulting. Australia and Israel is not Gaza or Nazi Germany. Israelis and Australian Jews can, and do, criticise Israel.
Although I'm sad that it has been forced to do so, I'm really proud that Israel has invested billions of dollars on bomb shelters and air-raid sirens and radars to detect incoming rockets and missiles to shoot down those rockets, all in the name of protecting its people.
I'm proud that I could do my small part in protecting other Israelis by serving in the army. The army consists of people just like you and me; people who would prefer to start their adult life earlier, but understand the importance of defending their country. That said, I hated the idea of fighting Palestinians.

‘Anything that happens to the Jews they will exaggerate’

What do average Palestinians think about the Holocaust, if they know about it at all? Amateur Israeli filmmaker Corey Gil-Shuster, who moved to Israel from Canada 15 years ago, set out to the West Bank to find out as part of his YouTube series, “Ask an Israeli, ask a Palestinian.”
The results, unscientific though they were, weren’t especially encouraging.
There were three types of answers that surfaced during his interviews: lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, the view that the Holocaust happened but was exaggerated or is what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians now, or the idea that Adolf Hitler was right for killing Jews.
The question “Palestinians: What do you know/think of the Holocaust?” was sent in by “Jason from Canada.” Gil-Shuster and his translator filmed on his $180 Best Buy camera mainly in Ramallah while this summer’s fighting in Gaza was still ongoing.

Palestinians: What do you know about the Holocaust?




Moral Emptiness of Holocaust Survivors Who Took on Israel

Given Hitler’s voluminous rants about Jews, it is not surprising that one aspect of his obsession is less known: the pleasure he took in the spectacle of Jews deriding and defaming other Jews. Hans Frank, one of Hitler’s top aides, quotes him as saying:
“I am an innocent lamb compared to revelations by Jews about Jews. But they are important, these disclosures of the Jew’s most secret, always totally hidden qualities, instincts, and character traits. It isn’t I who say this, it is the Jews themselves who say it about themselves, about their greed for money, their fraudulent ways, their immorality, and their sexual perversions.”
Hitler’s words about the denigrating things Jews say about themselves came to mind as I perused an ad published in the New York Times on August 23 by IJSN or International Jewish Solidarity Network. Tellingly, the very same ad appeared in the British Guardian on August 15, under the imprint of IJAN, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. For an American, and especially the New York readership, the crafters of this hostile statement must have figured it best not to make explicit their true credentials as anti-Zionists. Its signers display no interest in the misdeeds that Hitler ascribes to the Jews but focus their anger on today’s target-of-choice for Jew-haters everywhere: Israel.

The New York Times’ Holocaust Blood Libel

Since the Holocaust represents the greatest absolute evil in human history, the use of Nazi analogies, graphics, photos, and comparisons will bring many people to your side of an issue. This is especially important to understand since the other side – Zionists and Israel – cannot use Nazi ideology to describe their enemies – even though Israel’s enemies today may possibly be as bad as the Nazis. Hamas’ leaders are very similar ideologically to Adolf Hitler – the only difference is that Jews today have the power and skills to defend themselves. And there lies the problem that the world Left has with Israel. The Left does not divide humanity into Good and Evil. They divide the world into Weak and Strong; they have compassion for the weak and disdain for the strong – which is why they hate America and Israel.
The Jewish Left is even worse; and most of those 327 so called “Jewish” individuals, many of whom do not even practice Judaism, are hard Left. If we understand the Stockholm Syndrome, where kidnapped victims began to identify with and support their kidnappers on political issues, we can begin to understand the “Israel-Palestinian Syndrome,” where some Jews like J Street, begin to identify with their enemies’ issues and arguments, even though those issues include the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews worldwide.
The International Jewish anti-Zionist Network’s charge of a “massacre in Gaza” is an obscenity. Comparisons to the Holocaust actually trivialize the Holocaust. How can they have the audacity to compare a war that Hamas began and has approximately 2,000 casualties, to the burning, gassing, and torturing of 6 million Jews. The real problem is that these Leftist Jews are mostly pacifists who hate war, because part of the reality of war is that civilians will also get killed – not just the military. However, someone should tell each one of these 327 Jews that if not for war and a lot of German babies dying in Dresden and Berlin, they would not be here today. Unfortunately war is sometimes the only answer, which is an important lesson of the Holocaust.

SodaStream may leave West Bank, but BDS ‘not a factor’

Speaking to business daily The Marker, Birnbaum said that any decision on the matter would be based strictly on economics. “The European boycott on products made in the West Bank will not be a factor,” Birnbaum said.
An agreement between SodaStream and the Israeli government on the construction of a new factory in the Negev, Israel’s southern desert, indicates that the move is business-based, not politically motivated. Israel has been promoting business ventures in the mostly empty Negev for decades.
SodaStream has become a favorite target of the BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) crowd, which boycotts products made in the West Bank and/or Israel (policy varies from group to group). Although shelves of retail stores in Europe and the US are filled with products made using Israeli technology or components – Intel computers are a good example – SodaStream is one of the more prominently identifiable and successful made-in-Israel products with a West Bank settlement connection, and as such it has become a magnet for those protesting Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians

Bizarre claim in the Guardian: ‘Red roofs are mandatory in Israeli settlements’

‘What can ‘forensic architecture’ reveal about the conflict in Gaza?‘, Guardian, Sept 1, focuses on the Haifa-born, London educated architect Eyal Weizman, evidently famous in some circles as the “chief proponent of “forensic architecture”, which analyzes the “impacts of urban warfare” for clues about the crimes perpetrated there.
"When he looks out across the landscape of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, as he does in the film The Architecture of Violence, to be aired on Al Jazeera today, [Eyal Weizman] sees a battlefield. “The weapons and ammunitions are very simple elements: they are trees, they are terraces, they are houses. They are barriers.”
In the kitchen of his east London home…he says the most obvious and contentious aspect of what he calls the “architecture of occupation” is the system of Israeli settlements. Perched on West Bank hilltops, they are strategically positioned, according to Weizman, so that they look out over the Palestinian valleys and towns below, in order “to dominate”.
Then, the kicker:
Each of the uniformly suburban-looking houses – all with mandatory red roofs so that on flyovers the Israeli army know[s] not to target them – is “itself like an optical instrument,” he tells me.
As bizarre as this claim is, amazingly it has been advanced previously. Just a few months ago, the Chairman of Norwegian People’s Aid, Finn Erik, said pretty much the same thing at a lecture in Norway. But, as popular blogger Elder of Ziyon demonstrated, there are multiple reasons why this claim doesn’t withstand even the slightest scrutiny.

CiF Watch prompts correction at the Indy over Hamas executions claim

However, there were widely reported public executions in Gaza much more recently than the 90s.
- During the 2012 war (Pillar of Defense), Hamas “publicly put an end“ to at least 7 suspected ‘collaborators’.
- During the 2008-2009 war (Cast Lead), Hamas executed dozens of Palestinians in the streets, again for suspected ‘collaboration’.
- And, during their violent coup in Gaza in 2007, Hamas carried out at least eight known summary executions, mostly for ‘treason’.
So, it clearly is not accurate to claim that the recent public executions in Gaza were the first since the 1990s.

BBC’s template wording on Golan Heights fails to keep audiences abreast of events

The BBC News website’s coverage of the recent incidents involving two different groups of UNDOF personnel began on August 28th with some problematic geography.
Just over half an hour later, someone at BBC News apparently realised that the Syrian opposition group which captured UNDOF soldiers was unlikely to be located in the part of the Golan Heights the BBC terms “disputed” and that hence the automatic reflex adjective was inaccurate.
The title of BBC’s article on the topic was amended to read “Syria conflict: UN peacekeepers held in Golan Heights” and changes to that report

CBBC’s ‘Newsround’ once again misleads 6 to 12 year-olds about Israel

This is unfortunately not the first time that an inaccurate presentation of Israel-related issues has been promoted by ‘Newsround’ to young children. There is of course a vast and crucial difference between “simplification appropriate for an item intended for children” (as cited in the ECU ruling on this item from June 2013) and the presentation of inaccurate and misleading information.
Incidents such as the recent bout of conflict often prompt increased pondering of the topic of why so many educated people in Western countries exhibit a disturbing lack of factual knowledge with regard to Israel. With CBBC apparently reaching 34% of six to twelve year-olds weekly in the UK and its website having a million unique browsers a month, items such as this inaccurate and misleading ‘Newsround’ guide are clearly aiding to perpetuate that situation whilst failing young audience members and their licence fee-paying parents by neglecting the BBC’s obligation to promote “understanding of international issues”.

CNN host stunned when radical Muslim cleric makes 9/11 joke during soundcheck

The conversation abruptly ended when Stelter said, “here’s what bothers me: when we were setting up for our interview here, the audio engineer asked you to count to ten to check the mic, and you started to do that — but then you said 9/11, 7/7, 3/11. Is this all some sort of joke to you?”
“You know,” Choudary said, “if you had a sense of humor, you would have laughed at that. It was just a soundcheck. You shouldn’t take any of these things that seriously. If you want to make it a big deal, then do so, but it makes you look much more shallow, really.”
“I have nothing more to say,” Stelter responded.

Brian Stelter Battles Islamic Cleric Anjam Choudary Over Hannity , Propaganda - CNN - 8-31-14


Shin Bet head reportedly met with Abbas on Hamas coup

Shin Bet security service chief Yoram Cohen met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last month to update him on the foiled Hamas plot to overthrow the West Bank Fatah leadership, Israel Radio reported Monday, citing Lebanese media.
In addition, Abbas threatened to end Palestinian security coordination with Israel in the West Bank, and dismantle the PA if future borders of a Palestinian state are not outlined in the near future. While Abbas initially told this to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal during ceasefire negotiations in Qatar, he also conveyed the message to the Shin Bet chief, the report said.
The report was said to have been confirmed by Palestinian sources.

Jihad Comes To Europe

A few days ago, British PM David Cameron expressed concern that the Islamic State could become strong enough to "target people on the streets of Britain", but added that he was not considering military intervention. That the man who savagely beheaded James Foley on camera spoke with an East London accent prompted British authorities to search for his identity: the beheading was immediately considered a criminal case, not a barbaric act of war.
The murder of Lee Rigby, on May 22, 2013, was considered a simple criminal case: the judge who sentenced the two killers said that the "extremist views" they both expressed during the trial were a "betrayal of Islam". In the European media, the Islamic State is now defined as a "terrorist organization", never as an Islamic organization. Saudi Arabia's grand mufti recently said that "the Islamic State is the enemy of Islam". Many European newspapers immediately ran headlines obediently repeating what he said. In mainstream European newspapers, Hamas is never defined as Islamic or even terrorist; and is called a "resistance movement".
European Jews perceive the smell in the air, and many of them are packing their bags. Seeing that journalists may call them "traitors" and followers of "Beelzebub" does not inspire them to change their minds.
Europeans who are neither Jewish nor Muslim perceive that the situation is rapidly becoming extremely unsafe and unstable. They also feel, with good reason, that their political leaders are not telling the truth.

Jordan to NATO: ISIS terrorists have infiltrated our borders

Meanwhile, former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, Anthony Zinni, said the U.S. should not rule out putting "boots on the ground" to fight the Islamic State (ISIS).
"Very simply put, if you put two brigades on the ground right now of U.S. forces, they would push ISIS back into Syria in a heartbeat. And probably take less time, less cost and, I think in the long run, fewer casualties overall," said Zinni.
Even Australia joined the battle, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott acceding the U.S. request to help drop weapons and munitions to Kurdish fighters, who are at the front lines against ISIS.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabian media reported on Sunday that Jordan had handed secret intelligence over to the NATO with details about infiltrations of ISIS fighters into Jordanian territory through its borders with Syria and Iraq. The British ambassador to Jordan, Peter Millett, said the U.K. and NATO were prepared to assist Jordan in dealing with the dangers posed by ISIS.

The New York Times Censors Anti-ISIS Ad

“America reinforces its values and thus its security by being transparent about even the worst abuses of those values, not by hiding the evidence deep in a file drawer.”
This sentence is from a New York Times editorial of 30 August, 2014. The editorial was written in response to a decision by Federal district court Judge Alvin Hellerstein forcing the Obama Administration to justify why it will not release approximately 2000 photos that allegedly document abuse by the American military and investigators in Iraq and Afghanistan, which begs the question of why the New York Times forced us to remove a photograph of a hooded ISIS executioner holding a knife while standing by American journalist James Foley.
We were forced to remove the photograph and replace it with one without a knife in order to have the ad appear this Tuesday in the New York Times.
Why did the Times condemn the American government from trying to suppress images of alleged abuse on the part of the American military while seeking to suppress the horrors of the world’s most monstrous terror organization which decapitates Americans?
But even that was a lot better than the Los Angeles Times that demanded the removal also of a second image which depicted Hamas terrorists standing alongside hooded “collaborators” which they were about to execute. The Telegraph in London demanded the same in order for the ad to be published.

ISIS’s Banker, Al Muntada Trust, and senior Labour MPs

One of the Islamic State terror group’s key financier was director of a Muslim faith school in Birmingham, it emerged today.
Prominent Islamic cleric Dr Nabil al-Awadi, a naturalised Kuwaiti, was partly resident in the UK until last year, living in Brixton, south London.
Until February 2013, the Sunni was a director of the independent Al-Birr school in Nechells, Birmingham, which was founded in seven years ago.
Dr Nabil al-Awadi, a naturalised Kuwaiti, was a director of the independent Al-Birr school in Nechells, Birmingham. He is believed to have close links to the Islamic State group
Now he is president of the Kuwait Scholars’ Union, which has reportedly channelled tens of millions of dollars to the Islamic State and other jihadi groups in Iraq and Syra.
Earlier this month Dr al-Awadi was stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship along with nine other Kuwaitis, after the state cited ’security reasons’.

Turkish Jews Write Open Letter Protesting Government’s Call to Denounce Israel

Several prominent Turkish Jews have written an open letter reprimanding their government for publicly asking the Jewish community to denounce Israel’s operation Protective Edge in Gaza.
In the letter, published by the Hurriyet Daily News Friday, Jewish academics, writers and media figures stated that they do not feel obligated to express an opinion on “Israel’s latest attack on Gaza.”
“No citizen of this country is under any obligation to account for, interpret or comment on any event that takes place elsewhere in the world, and in which he/she has no involvement. There is no onus on the Jewish community of Turkey, therefore, to declare an opinion on any matter at all,” they wrote, reported the Jerusalem Post.

Turkey detains dozens in new crackdown on alleged coup

Turkish authorities on Monday detained some two dozen police officers in new nationwide raids over an alleged plot to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police conducted early morning raids in 16 cities across Turkey, including Istanbul as well as the western province of Izmir, and detained at least 20 police officers, private NTV television reported.
Among those arrested is Yakup Saygili, the former chief of the police anti-fraud unit, it added.

Islamist Group 'Secures' U.S. Embassy Compound In Libya

An AP journalist joined others invited this weekend by members of Dawn of Libya, an Islamist rebel militia group, into the recently-evacuated United States Embassy compound in Tripoli. Dawn of Libya, an Islamist rebel militia group, claims to have "secured" the embassy after taking it from a rival militia last week. The embassy was evacuated by the U.S. over a month ago. In addition to press reports, a video was posted online purportedly show the members of the militia celebrating in the compound.

Saudi religious police beat up British national

Members of Saudi Arabia’s religious police roughed up a British resident of Riyadh after they caught him paying at a women-only cash desk, local media reported on Monday.
Saudi Arabia imposes a strict interpretation of Islamic laws, notably a segregation of the sexes.
A short video posted on YouTube on Sunday shows a member of the religious police jump out of his car and attack the Briton, who was accompanied by a woman in a black abaya cloak who defended him.

It's Anti-Semites Who Cause Anti-Semitism, Not Jews

Shipman, who heads The Episcopal Church at Yale recently hosted a “Stand with Gaza” event, and whose website speaks of Occupied Jerusalem says that until the Jewish State behaves there will be anti-Semitic outbreaks. Shipman spent many years in Egypt and Turkey – yet nary a mention about churches being burnt throughout the Middle East.
The man has devoted many years to condemning Israel. While he fashions himself as a Middle East expert, his compassion doesn’t cross to the borders of Syria where hundreds of thousands have been killed, nor does he refer to the ISIS issue where Christians are being killed enmasse.
Does this educator of America’s youth similarly blame women for rape? Or blame America for the 9/11 attacks? What’s the difference?
There have been those throughout history who tell us that the Jews caused anti-Semitism in Germany. They also caused it during Russian pogroms, crusades in Spain, and also wrote Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Lest I forget, as a New Yorker with a more recent history, Jews also caused the Crown Heights riots. Across nations, cultures, religions and more, there have been entire swaths of people opposed to Jews. Few things in history have been as consistent in history as anti-Semitism.
Reverend Shipman: If there were no Jews in the world, there would not be anti-Semitism.

1954: Morocco's summer of terror

Sixty-years ago this month, Morocco was in turmoil as it struggled for independence from France. On the first anniversary of the deposing of the Moroccan sultan, who was sent into exile to Madagascar, Jews found themselves targeted by Moroccan nationalists. On 3 August 1954, a pogrom erupted in Sidi Kacem (Petit Jean), 20 km from Meknes: six Jews were killed.

More on the 1954 massacre at Petit Jean

The massacre of Petit-Jean (now known as Sidi Kacem) took place against a background of unrest and violence as Moroccan nationalists struggled for independence against French colonial rule. The tension was palpable during that fateful August of 1954.
What happened exactly on 3 August ?
Petit Jean was a commercial hub 20 kilometres from Meknes. Jewish shopkeepers prepared to shut their stores to comply with a nationalist boycott. But the French authorities told them to remain open and guaranteed them 'total protection'. The Jews paid dearly for such a lie.

Hitler House May Become Holocaust Museum

Debate is continuing over the fate of the 'Hitler Birthplace' in Austria, with yet another potential use for the controversial house having been mooted by the local government, this time proposing a 'House of Responsibility' museum, potentially saving the location from demolition.
The large, €2.2 million town-house at Salzburger Vorstadt, Braunau was the subject of a 'birthplace summit' in which Braunau councillors debated the long contested future use of the building in May. It is now reported by TheLocal.de they have settled on a proposal by a local historian to turn it into a museum and cultural centre focussing on war crimes committed by the Third Reich.
While legislators remained unable to agree, the building has stood empty at public expense for two years. Although the house is privately owned by a local, the Austrian government is determined to prevent it being inhabited by neo-Nazis and rents the building for €4,000 a month to keep it empty or rented to vetted groups, in a situation that has prevailed for decades.

Answer to Zara’s ‘Concentration Camp’ Togs? H&M Launches T-Shirt Quoting Jewish Sage

Swedish international apparel chain, H&M, has come out with a svelte tank top sporting a partial quote by Talmudic sage Hillel, “If not now, when?” according to Israel’s NRG News.
And the firm’s Manhattan outlet can’t seem to keep the $9.95 frock in stock, one salesperson told The New York Jewish Week.
“That’s been one of our most popular items this summer,” said Kiera Elliott, H&M saleswoman in Times Square. “We sold that item out weeks ago, but people keep asking me about it. It obviously made a lasting impression.”

American Tech Mag Looks at Israel’s Start-Up Success

Israel is an environment where “there’s zero tolerance for work-arounds,” Loven said. Part of what’s pushing the country’s tech boom, he said, is that “there’s a lot of pressure to develop something something that actually works, and not just in lab environments.” This provides a primal urgency that headquarters in Silicon Valley strewn with kegs and Ping-Pong tables can lack.
“Look at the recent conflict,” Loven said, referring to July’s deadly flare-up between Hamas and Israel. “The Iron Dome performance is like nothing you can develop in an R&D environment without a threat.” The anti-missile system is designed to blow up incoming missiles before they land, and has been deployed frequently in the last month. Despite concerns the Iron Dome is actually less effective than the IDF claims, and setting aside much debate about the imbalance of force between the two sides of the conflict, the Iron Dome is far more sophisticated than alternative anti-rocket systems.

Zapping brain may cure heavy smokers, study finds

A machine that pulses deep regions of the brain with magnetic current may help heavy smokers quit the habit, an Israeli study shows.
In the study, which experts say is the most rigorous test of the technology to date, 44 percent of a group of heavy smokers who had failed to quit using other methods were finally able to stop after a few weeks of treatment. One third of the smokers who were treated had still not lit up six months later. It may not sound like a high success rate, but failure rates of other anti-smoking methods can reach about 90 percent.
The magnetic current method stimulates regions of the brain that are central to addiction, using a specially designed helmet. It’s is able to turn the brain regions’ electrical activity up or down – apparently making quitting easier.

Canada's PM to be Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

B’nai Brith Canada has announced that it will nominate Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, for the Nobel Peace prize.
In a statement released on Friday, B’nai Brith CEO Frank Dimant said that “with recent developments across the globe posing new and difficult challenges, only one leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has maintained the moral clarity needed to face them.”
“Moral clarity has been lost across much of the world, with terror, hatred and anti-Semitism filling the void,” he said.
“Throughout, there has been one leader which has demonstrated international leadership and a clear understanding of the differences between those who would seek to do evil, and their victims. More than any other individual, he has consistently spoken out with resolve regarding the safety of people under threat — such as opposing Russian aggression and annexation of Ukrainian territory — and has worked to ensure that other world leaders truly understand threat of Islamic terrorism facing us today.”

Israel Daily Picture: Skip to the End -- How Did WWI End in Palestine?

World War I began 100 years ago in the Middle East with the Turkish assault on the British-held Suez Canal.
Let's skip to the end and view how the war concluded in Jerusalem in December 1917.
The British forces stalled in their attempt to capture Palestine through Gaza. A daring attack across the desert to Be'er Sheva in October 1917 opened the path to Jerusalem.

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 9/01/2014 06:00:00 PM