05/03 Links Pt1: Labour secretly suspended 50 members; Hamas endorses Corbyn; The Kunduz Double Standard ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Labour has secretly suspended 50 members for anti-Semitic and racist comments

Labour has secretly suspended 50 of its members over anti-Semitic and racist comments as officials struggle to cope with the crisis engulfing the party.
Senior sources reveal that Labour's compliance unit has been swamped by the influx of hard-left supporters following Jeremy Corbyn's election.
Claudio Ranieri tells fans 'we want to improve a lot' Play! 01:40
The suspensions that have been made public so far are said to be just the tip of the iceberg.
On Monday night Mr Corbyn appeared to acknowledge there was a problem for the first time, while insisting it was "not huge". He told the Daily Mirror: "What there is is a very small number of people that have said things that they should not have done. We have therefore said they will be suspended and investigated."
There is growing pressure on the Labour leader ahead of the local elections on Thursday, in which his party is forecast to lose more than 100 seats.
Senior figures are now so concerned about the row that they are openly discussing the possibility of an attempted coup following the EU referendum.

*Satire*

Hamas says its ties with UK Labor's Corbyn 'painful hit for the Zionists'

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas praised the head of the British Labor Party for his refusal to condemn the organization considered by Western governments and Israel to be a terrorist outfit.
According to Breitbart Jerusalem, a Hamas spokesperson bragged that Corbyn’s readiness to maintain contacts with the Palestinian organization was “a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received.”
Hamas’ praise of Corbyn coincides with a media firestorm in the United Kingdom surrounding recent revelations of extremist anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expressions by Labor members, most infamously the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.
A Hamas spokesperson, Taher A-Nunu, told Breitbart that Corbyn’s insistence on maintaining contacts with the group is a sign that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), which is aimed at punishing Israel economically over its policies as they relate to the Palestinians, is making inroads.
“We welcome the declaration of the Labor chairman and see his engagement as a very important statement that is also a painful hit that the Zionist enemy received,” A-Nunu said. “It comes as part of the international boycott campaign that the enemy (Israel) is suffering from. This campaign is succeeding on both the economic and political levels and it comes at a moment that the enemy is facing difficulties in justifying its crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The Hamas spokesperson said that Labor’s willingness to engage the Islamist group sends “an important message” to the West.

Col Kemp: Britain's "Routine and Commonplace" Anti-Semitism

Battle-hardened British soldiers were moved to tears by the horrors they witnessed at the Nazi charnel house of Bergen-Belsen when they liberated the concentration camp in April 1945. Yet seventy years after thousands of troops fought and died to destroy the regime that murdered six million Jews, the scourge of anti-Semitism is again on the march across Europe.
In just one week, a British student leader, a Labour Party constituency MP, a London council leader, a member of Labour's National Executive Committee and even Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have all been accused of being mired in Jew-hatred.
It is the tip of the iceberg. Each of these people was voted into power by an electorate that knew exactly what their views were. Had they not held these views they would not have been elected.
All are on the political left, but the problem does not stop there. The cancer of Jew-hatred today spreads from right to left throughout European nations and in all supranational bodies including the European Union and the United Nations. It is led by politicians, human rights groups and the media, whose contorted worldview has contaminated ordinary people on a scale unimaginable possibly even to the arch-propagandist Dr. Josef Goebbels himself.

Julie Burchill: Labour Party "Jew-hatred" is cynical bid for Muslim vote

As someone whose autobiography was called I Knew I Was Right, I’ve never been backward in coming forward when it comes to world-class gloating.
But never on any subject have I wanted so much to be proved wrong as on the obscene level of anti-Semitism – or Jew-hatred, to give it an uglier, more accurate name – infecting the left-wing in this country.
A whopping 13 years ago, I wrote a farewell piece in the Guardian explaining that I was leaving my job on the newspaper – the established voice of the British Left – due to what I saw as its ugly, anti-Jew rhetoric and accompanying Islamophilia (the final straw was when they ran an opinion piece by Osama bin Laden).
In that year, 2003, attacks on Jews had risen by 75% and since 2000 there had been a 400% increase in attacks on synagogues.
And the EU’s racism watchdog had recently suppressed a report on the rise of anti-Semitism because it concluded that Muslims were behind many incidents.
“What sort of world do we live in, when racism is ‘allowed’ to be reported only if it comes from the white and the right?” I wondered at the time. And the statistics are far worse now.

Anti-Semitism and Labour's Hitler problem

Did you know that the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were partners of Adolf Hitler who was a Zionist? A number of members of the British Labour Party have told us that this was the case. This is the most recent manifestation of the antisemitism that has reared its ugly head in Britain.
It evokes the thought that this disease may have entered the ideological bloodstream of the British left. There is a vital need for a strengthening of the political immune system before the infection worsens.
It is a particular cause for concern, though the fact is avoided, that the virus has recently appeared in Labour Party officials most of whom are Muslims who are highly critical of the State of Israel.
There is presently an intensive battle in Britain today: the skirmish for votes in the forthcoming referendum on June 23, 2016 between those who want the country to remain a member of the European Union and those who want Brexit. At the moment, there is a close division of opinion.
However, more vicious and unpleasant is the continuing civil war within the Labour Party over the outbursts of antisemitism by some of its officials and the denials of the significance or even the very existence of the disease of antisemitism by prominent members of the Party.

Ben-Dror Yemini: A life in denial

“As a young boy,” wrote Stephen Pollard in last weekend’s Telegraph. “I used to think my grandma very strange. In her bedroom she kept a suitcase, packed and ready for use at a moment’s notice. ‘Just in case,’ she’d tell me when I asked where it was that she was always waiting to go to. ‘You never know when they’ll turn on the Jews.’”
At the time, Pollard didn’t understand what she meant, since Jews in Britain were integrated and thriving. Lately, though, as the anti-Semitism coming out of the British Left chills him to the bone, he has begun to understand her better.
Over the weekend, Britain found itself in turmoil. It was no longer possible to hide the shame. Anti-Semitism has reared its head from within the bastions of the Left.
There were telltale signs along the way. But it’s easy to live in denial. What with Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London who was suspended from the Labour party and is at the center of the current commotion, acting as official host to the anti-Semitic Muslim preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
Other Muslims warned him that his actions will encourage other Muslim extremists. It made no difference to him. Al-Qaradawi, they told him, is an anti-Semite and a supporter of Hitler. He paid them no mind. So why is anyone surprised now that Livingstone is continuing down the same path?

Niall Ferguson: The resurfacing of anti-Semitism in Britain

I am a philo-Semite. The disproportionate Jewish contribution to Western civilization — not least to science and the arts — is one of the most astonishing achievements of modern history. I am also an anti-anti-Semite. The murder and mayhem perpetrated by anti-Semites throughout history, above all in the 20th century, deserves its special place in the annals of infamy.
I had assumed that anti-Semitism had no place in British life, aside from the odious antics of skinheads and other Neanderthal types on the fringes of the far right. There are therefore few things that depress me more than the resurfacing of anti-Semitism on the British left, and not on its fringes.
In an interview on BBC London last week, Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, claimed that “when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism — this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.”
Some Nazi officials did indeed favor emigration as the “solution to the Jewish Question.” But for Livingstone to claim that this was Hitler’s preferred option is simply wrong. From as early as 1919, Hitler repeatedly stated that he saw the Jews as “the racial tuberculosis of peoples.” In a speech he gave in April, 1920, he called for them “to be exterminated.” In “Mein Kampf’’ he wrote: “If at the beginning of the [First World] War and during the war (12,000) or 15,000 of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas … the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.” Germans who voted National Socialist in 1932 and 1933 were not voting for a Zionist resettlement program.
Last week’s controversy is of course not really about the history of 1930s Germany, but about the much more recent history of the British Labour Party. Since the late 1960s — the era when both Ken Livingstone and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joined the party — a significant element of the British left has aligned itself with the Palestine Liberation Organization and other groups hostile to the state of Israel. Close to half a century of anti-Zionist rhetoric lies behind Livingstone’s complaint that “there’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticizes Israeli policy as anti-Semitic.”

Tzipi Livni: The strong reek of anti-Semitism calls British values into question

Almost 100 years ago, Britain issued the historic Balfour Declaration expressing support for the establishment of a Jewish national home.
This policy, which was subsequently endorsed by the League of Nations, not only recognised that the Jewish people were entitled, like all peoples, to self-determination but also gave expression to the profound and historic connection between the Jews and their ancient homeland.
The Balfour Declaration came to mind in recent days as I read about the furore in Britain over recent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments expressed by various political figures in the UK, many of which have left us deeply disturbed.
The statements of Malia Bouattia, Naseem Shah and Ken Livingstone represent a disturbing trend which requires urgent and comprehensive intervention.
Each questions and undermines Israel's right to exist as a national home for the Jewish people and views Israel's very existence as a problem - one which might be solved, say, by transferring its Jewish citizens to the US, or by a soft legitimisation of Hitler, a man who - in fact - tried to "solve" the "Jewish question" by extermination.

The Roots of Labour’s Anti-Semitism

Having first denied there was any problem, Jeremy Corbyn has now been forced to set up an enquiry. Setting up enquiries is what you do in politics when you want to make things disappear. But Corbyn is himself an expression of Labour’s anti-Semitism problem which proliferates among much of the grassroots of the party that voted for him, even while the more centrist parliamentary Labour party despairs of his unelectable extremism. And the question persists, how can a man who described Hamas and Hezbollah as his friends, and who invited a blood libel promoting Islamist hate preacher like Sheikh Raed Salah for tea in Parliament, possibly be taken seriously when it comes to quashing anti-Semitism.
There is no sign that the Livingstones or Galloways are about to stop saying what they’ve been saying all along. And while Ms Shah has apologized before Parliament, that apology remains hollow so long as she fails to tell us whether she now supports the right of the Jewish state to continue to exist in its rightful location of the Jewish people’s historical and spiritual homeland.
Of course, if Naz Shah were to come out with such an endorsement it is questionable whether she would ever be elected again. Shah is the parliamentary representative for Bradford that also elected Galloway. And then there was Bradford’s other infamous parliamentarian, David Ward. He was the Liberal Democrat MP who along with accusing Jews of having not learned the lessons of the Holocaust, also suggested that if he lived in Gaza he too would fire rockets into Israel.
Three anti-Semitic members of parliament, what must be in the water in Bradford? The difficult to discuss truth is that Bradford not only has a sizable Muslim population, but more importantly it is a Muslim population with elements that have struggled to integrate and that has produced several high profile cases of Islamic extremism in recent years. If communities like these, allied with the far-Left, are increasingly becoming the Labour party’s base then it is hard to imagine that this will have been Labour’s last anti-Semitism scandal.

Famed Writer Howard Jacobson: European Opposition to Zionism Amounts to ‘Chutzpah With Blood In It’ (VIDEO)

European opposition to the right of Jewish people to live in Israel amounts to “chutzpah with blood in it,” an award-winning British journalist and novelist declared in a recent BBC interview.
In conversation with correspondent Chris Cook for a “Newsnight” film on anti-Zionism, antisemitism and Israel — which aired April 29 — Jacobson condemned the continued audacity of certain Europeans in telling Jews they have no claims or rights to Israel.
Jacobson said:
When I hear people in European cultures attacking Zionism, I think, ‘What a nerve.’ We [Europe] kick you out, we say, ‘Go to hell and we don’t care where you go.’ And you’re lucky if you’re kicked out. You’re lucky if you get out. And then we [Jews] go somewhere. We go to what for a long time was considered home and what in the Jewish imagination has been home for a few thousands years. And this begs many questions I accept about the indigenous population [in Israel]. I accept all that. But the idea that we [Europe] would then say to the Jews, ‘Get the hell out of here,’ and now we’re going to tell you where you can go? I mean there’s a Jewish word for that. That’s chutzpah. That’s chutzpah with blood in it.

Labour inquiry professor has links to group that says antisemitism claims are "baseless"

The man helping to lead Labour’s inquiry into antisemitism is a named supporter of a group which has dismissed allegations of Jew-hatred in the party as “baseless and disingenuous”.
Professor David Feldman, director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism, was named by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as vice-chairman of the inquiry - led by Shami Chakrabarti, former head of campaign group Liberty - which will look into claims of antisemitism among the party members.
Prof Feldman is a signatory to Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), a group of Jewish academics who are critical of British Jewish communal institutions.
On Sunday, IJV released a statement which expressed concern “at the proliferation in recent weeks of sweeping allegations of pervasive antisemitism within the Labour Party.”
It added: “Some of these allegations against individuals are, in our view, baseless and disingenuous; in other cases, ill-chosen language has been employed.”

London Set To Elect Muslim Mayor With Ties To Extremism

London is expected to elect its first-ever Muslim mayor Thursday, despite opponents presenting evidence of his past ties to radical Islam.
Sadiq Khan, a member of parliament for the center-left Labour Party, holds a 20-point lead in polls going into Thursday’s election. If elected, Khan would become the first Muslim mayor in a major Western capital. But past dealings with radical Islam continue to haunt him.
Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, backed by Prime Minister David Cameron, has criticized Khan for giving “platform, oxygen and cover” to extremists throughout his political career.
Most notably, Khan campaigned at an event in 2004 alongside five extremist preachers while running for parliament. He simultaneously served as the chair of the Muslim Council of Britain’s legal affairs committee, which defended Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi when he was subject to a ban from entering the United Kingdom.

Top Corbynista MP Tweeted About Putting Israel in Mid-West of America

The idea that Israel should be “relocated” from the Middle East to America resulted in the suspension of Naz Shah, Salim Mulla and Ilyas Aziz. Now it emerges that top Corbynista MP Clive Lewis, a “core group” parliamentary ally of the leadership, has also tweeted on the subject. Lewis posted a quote saying that Israel shouldn’t have been located in the Middle East, but rather “put it in the Middle West” of the US:
What did Lewis hope to achieve by sending that tweet?
The very same day Lewis also exchanged very friendly tweets with Vicky Kirby, the disgraced suspended Labour member who said Hitler is a “Zionist God“.

Jeremy Corbyn defended Stephen Sizer linking to antisemitic websites as a “technical oversight”

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party has suspended various members for calling for population transfers of Israelis to America, comparing Israel to Hitler or ISIS, and making anti-Jewish comments or conspiracy theories suggesting the Jews were behind 9/11. In response, he has annouced an enquiry into antisemitism, and the people making such comments have been suspended pending investigation.
But come now, let us end the pretence and answer honestly: what does Jeremy Corbyn really think of such investigations?
Cast your minds back a few years, and you’ll remember that the Church of England decided to investigate Stephen Sizer, after he had:
Commended a call for the Jews to “get the Hell out of Palestine“
Suggested that the Jews were behind 9/11
Cited Holocaust denier Dale Crowley
Cited Holocaust denier Michael Hoffman
Cited 9/11 truther Michael Collins defending Holocaust denier Dale Crowley

In Europe, Jew-Hatred Trumps National Security

What is perhaps most conspicuous about the growth of antisemitism on the European Left, as exemplified by the current crisis in the British Labour Party, is that it is rising at a time when Europe should be busy with much more pressing issues, such as national security — particularly in London, where the terrorist threat keeps growing and security officials can barely keep up.
It has been less than two months since Islamic terrorists successfully targeted the Brussels airport and the Maelbeek metro station, killing 32 people and wounding many more. And it has been only half a year since the Paris attacks, in which Islamic terrorists killed 130 people and wounded nearly 400. These were groundbreaking, shocking events in the history of Islamic terrorism on European soil, so one would naturally assume that Israel and Jews in general, who make up such a marginal demographic group, constituting less than half a percent of the population of the EU, would be the last thing on European politicians’ minds. Another enormous immigration crisis looms, as 800,000 migrants, according to French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, are currently in Libyan territory waiting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. This means that Europe will most likely be facing even more chaos than it did last summer.
However, European politicians, instead of busying themselves with protecting their citizens from future terrorist attacks — as well as preventing another chaotic summer of migration chaos — incredibly find time to get mired in sordid squabbles about insane ideas of transferring Israeli Jews to the United States and claiming Hitler was a Zionist, as we saw in the UK, or composing elaborate peace conference initiatives to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as we saw in France. If I were a European citizen, I would wonder why my government was occupying itself with these issues, which have no vital meaning to any Europeans, at a time when Europe is facing unprecedented security threats.

Analysis: The upside of the British Labor Party’s anti-Semitism furor

It is positive that, finally, the issues of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are being debated in full daylight, and that people of influence and repute are coming out and saying that, yes, while not all criticism against the Israeli government is anti-Semitism, some of it most definitely is. It is positive that influential voices are saying that there is a line between legitimate criticism and hate speech, a line that one Labor Party functionary after the other seems to be crossing.
It is good when the issue is being discussed in the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and even in the op-ed pages of The Guardian, a newspaper harshly critical of Israel. It is positive when the BBC runs on its website a lengthy background piece under the headline “What’s the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism?” It is important that Labor’s London mayoral candidate publicly and completely repudiates these sentiments.
And it is constructive when noted British World War II historian Roger Moorhouse uses former London mayor Ken Livingstone’s implication that Hitler was a Zionist as an opportunity to school his countrymen on Hitler’s true nature and what indeed was involved in the 1933 plan to rescue German Jews and bring them to Palestine. To conclude that Hitler supported Zionism, Moorhouse wrote on his blog last week, “is not only historically inaccurate, it is historically illiterate.”
The demonization of Israel and Zionism is something that generally bothers just Israel and its supporters. It is positive to see this finally concerning others as well, especially in Britain, where, among certain circles, this demonization has, for quite some time, been not only fashionable, but also – oddly – a sign of enlightenment.

Labour councilor defends Hitler tweet; 'It's because I'm Muslim'

A UK Labour councilor recently suspended over anti-Semitism has doubled down on his tweet, in which he compared Israelis to Adolf Hitler.
He had been commenting on a discussion between two football players - Israeli Yossi Benayoun and his former teammate Joey Barton. Benayoun had criticized former teammate Joey Barton for anti-Israeli statements the latter had made during the 2014 Gaza conflict, and Hussein responded to Benayoun with the message: "Yossi, ur an idiot, looks like hartson didn’t kick u hard enough in the head, joey top man!! #FreePalestine."
Shah Hussein was one of three Labour councilors suspended yesterday for making anti-Semitic comments online. Later Monday, it was revealed Labour has suspended 50 party members in total over allegations of anti-Semitism, as the crisis within the party reaches ever greater heights.
But speaking to the BBC Daily Politics Show, Hussein denied his tweet was anti-Semitic. Instead, he insisted that Israel's war with Hamas and other Islamist terrorist groups was comparable to the Nazi genocide of Jews, and went on to claim he was being victimized because of his Muslim identity.

Israel's Labor considers breaking ties with British Labour

Israel's opposition Labour party - which is the major partner within the Zionist Union Knesset faction - said on Tuesday that it was weighing severing ties with its British counterpart after fresh allegations of anti-Semitism in its ranks.
More than 50 British Labour party members have been suspended in the past two months over comments deemed racist or anti-Semitic, according to The Daily Telegraph, including former mayor of London Ken Livingstone.
After the latest suspensions of three local councillors on Monday over comments posted on social media, a spokesman for the Israeli party said breaking off relations with British comrades was "one of the options that is being considered."
He told AFP that the Israeli party was looking for assurances from British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that he was treating the allegations with the necessary gravity.

Israeli Labor MK calls on UK's Corbyn to resign amid anti-Semitism scandal

Israeli Labor party MK Itzik Shmuli on Tuesday called on the leader of his UK sister party Jeremy Corbyn to resign amid reports that the party secretly suspended an additional 50 members for anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric.
"Instead of setting up another ridiculous investigative committee, Jeremy Corbyn should look in the mirror and be ashamed of the anti-Semitic spirit and moral slump into which the Labor party entered under his leadership," said Shmuli.
The UK Labor party secretly suspended 50 of it's members on Monday night for anti-Semitic and racist comments amid a whirlwind of controversy according to The Telegraph.
"Anyone with a little more integrity would have resigned long ago," said Shmuli.

A Guardian letter – and why anti-Zionism equals antisemitism

Hawwash’s letter in the Guardian print edition, though titled ‘A Palestinian view on the antisemitism row’, says almost nothing about antisemitism save a predictable plea that anti-Zionism (the rejection of a Jewish state within any borders) is NOT antisemitic.
Mostly, Hawwash ignores the substance of Freedland’s call to the British left to avoid antisemitism by simply ‘treating Jews the same way they’d treat any other minority’, and uses the 445 words given to him to erase the Jewish connection to the land, call for a “right of return” for “refugees” from 1948 and the end of Jewish sovereignty – an anti-Zionist position he euphemistically refers to as “reconciliation” via the implementation of a “very different political arrangement in historic Palestine”.
Even leaving aside the likely antisemitic motivation of those who call for the end of the the Jewish state (and only the Jewish state), the antisemitic impact of such an anti-Zionist view extends beyond the unimaginably injurious consequences for more than six million Jewish citizens of Israel. As Freedland pointed out in his op-ed, a 2015 poll revealed that 93% of British Jews say that Israel forms a part of their Jewish identity.
When you use tropes and narratives suggesting that Zionism represents a unique evil, one that should be purged from the world, you’re in effect saying that Jewish identity itself is essentially corrupt, immoral and malevolent.
So, as much as anti-Zionist activists in the UK likes to claim otherwise, an attack on Zionism – i.e., the rebirth of a Jewish state in their historic homeland – is necessarily an attack on British Jews.

The Big Questions: Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitic? 01/05/16 [includes some absolute lunatics]

Honest Reporting: Anti-Israel Rant or Anti-Semitic Smear?

So why indeed would anyone think that Smalley’s remarks in 2014 were anti-Semitic?
For starters, here’s a Facebook post from her show at the time:
Further, the New Zealand blog Whale Oil quoted Smalley saying:
I can’t report the situation in Gaza with balance anymore because there simply is none. Israel’s actions are abhorrent. The killing, the targeting of civilians, the toddlers and the babies who are dying every day. It reveals the Israeli regime for what it is – a callus anti-Palestinian killing machine.
Israel’s conflict should be with Hamas, but it’s not. It’s with the Palestinians. Almost two million people who live in the Gaza Strip, entrapped and caged in an area that is 40 kilometres long by ten kilometres wide. The bombardment of Gaza is akin to caged lion hunting in South Africa. There is no escape – only terror as bombs and bullets rain down.
The Israelis say they ‘regret’ when a civilian is killed. Rubbish! They regret nothing. They put no value on a Palestinian life.
This is more than criticism over a military attack in which civilians were regrettably killed.

Ali Abunimah wants proof of his anti-Semitism

However, Abunimah of course insists that he is not anti-Semitic. Most recently, he challenged Shaya Lerner of the Anti-Defamation League to “quote precisely which ‘antisemitic comments’” he endorsed after she mocked him on Twitter for his defense of Ken Livingstone’s disgraceful claims about Hitler’s support for Zionism. In the course of the ensuing exchange of tweets, Lerner asked Abunimah: “Do you agree with Livingston’s assertion that Hitler supported Zionism and [the] implication that Zionism=Nazism?” As I will show below, the only honest answer Abunimah could have given to this question would have been a resounding yes. Instead, he insisted it was indisputable “that Hitler supported 1933 Nazi-Zionist deal to transfer Jews to Palestine, the Zionist goal” and that there was “[n]othing anti-Semitic about discussing facts of Hitler-backed Haavara agreement.”
The way Abunimah insisted on using “facts” shorn of any context is typical for how anti-Israel activists proceed – indeed, Max Blumenthal is another prominent proponent of this “method.” In the context of the debate triggered by Ken Livingstone’s attempt to malign Zionism, historian John David Blake demonstrated in an excellent post on “Historical Truth” how easy but utterly misleading it is to combine cherry-picked “individual accurate facts into a something that no one remotely familiar with the period concerned could call ‘the truth’.” As Blake put it: “Historical truth is a funny thing – it lives in the whole, not in the parts.”
Thus, the modus operandi of anti-Israel activists like Abunimah – who labor every day to construct a tale of unmitigated Israeli evil from carefully selected context-free facts – is geared to demonizing the world’s only Jewish state as the despised and dangerous Jew among the nations, whose elimination will make the world a better place.

JDL-Canada Confronts the Anti-Semite Ken O’Keefe

It seems that in the newly-minted “inclusive” Canada of Justin Trudeau things are turning upside down – criticism of extremist views is condemned, while extremism is tolerated. A united front of the old Muslim fanatic Syed Soharwardy and a few gullible rabbis tried to ban a Calgary talk by the prominent scholar and critic of radical Islam Robert Spencer. At the same time, in Toronto we “enjoyed” the appearance of Ken O’Keefe, a textbook case of an anti-Semite who hates Jews and wants Israel destroyed. There were no official protests against him. His talks were widely promoted and hosted by important venues, the “Palestinian” club Beit Zatoun and the University of Toronto. The only organization that had the guts to confront him was JDL-Canada.
Unlike the armchair anti-Semites who are satisfied to trash Jews and Israel online, O’Keefe adds to the usual cocktail of Jewish conspiracies his resolve to physically attack his enemies.

UK Jews blamed again - this time for Leicester winning EPL title

According to the British press, rabid soccer fans unleashed a barrage of anti-Semitic posts directed at fans of Tottenham Hotspur, the North London side which has been traditionally identified with its considerable army of Jewish supporters.
Tottenham, the club that had the only realistic chance of catching Leicester, relinquished a two-goal advantage in their match on Monday against their inter-city rival, Chelsea. The two teams played to a 2-2 draw, eliminating any chance that Tottenham would catch up and close the gap with Leicester.
The reaction to Tottenham’s collapse on social media was harsh and vile, with some fans directing anti-Semitic abuse at the team’s supporters.
“Hitler smiling in his grave as Spurs bottle the title,” one sick British fan wrote on Twitter.
“Spurs gone from being beat by hitler too being beat in a tittle race by Leicester,” another person tweeted.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Holocaust Denier Notes Bible Suspiciously Doesn’t Mention It (satire)

Controversial historian Brane Liss pressed his case that the Holocaust was faked, citing the telling lack of any such event in the canonical Jewish texts of the Bible.
Liss, 44, combed through the Old Testament looking for any mention of the Holocaust, he told reporters today, but despite three weeks of poring over the text, was unable to find the term even once. Moreover, he claimed, not a single reference to Hitler, Nazis, Eichmann, or anything resembling the phrase “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem” were anywhere to be found in the set of books.
“I’ve been saying for years the Holocaust has been made up out of whole cloth, but this proves even the Jewish sources don’t mention it,” he contended. “It should be clear to everyone now that it’s all a conspiracy to blackmail Germany and play on Western guilt to stifle criticism of Israel and Jews.”
Scholars say that Liss has a point. “You won’t find it in the Talmud or medieval Jewish sources either, you know,” noted Simon Schama, a professor of Jewish History. “And I haven’t taken a comprehensive look, but I’d bet my academic reputation that an exhaustive search of Jewish lore and literature right into the first couple of decades of the twentieth century would garner the same result.”
A cursory look at an online concordance of Biblical terms confirmed Liss’s contention: “concentration camp,” “Auschwitz-Birkenau,” “gas chamber,” “Einsatzgruppen,” and other words or phrases so characteristic of the Holocaust as it is commonly taught appear nowhere in the Jewish Bible. The same holds true for “cattle car,” “Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,” “Anne Frank,” and “yellow Star of David.”

Troops come under fire on Gaza border, after PM visits area

Shots fired from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday afternoon struck an IDF vehicle near the northern border with the Palestinian enclave, the army said in a statement.
No injuries were reported, but heavy army engineering machinery was damaged by the volley, which came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured a southern section of the Gaza frontier.
Troops were searching the area for the attacker, the IDF spokesperson said.
Palestinian media in the Gaza Strip reported intense gunfire by Israeli forces near Nahal Oz immediately after the report of shots striking the vehicle.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility from Gaza, which has seen increased tensions with Israel in recent weeks, with Israeli officials warning of a possible uptick in violence.

Teen seriously hurt in Jerusalem bus bombing awakens

A 16-year-old girl seriously injured in a bus bombing last month in Jerusalem came to on Monday for the first time since the terror attack.
Eden Dadon was on life support for nearly two weeks at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem after suffering serious burns all over her body in the blast.
Another 19 others were injured and the bomber, Palestinian Abed al-Hamid Abu Srour, 19, was killed in the No. 12 bus bombing.
Doctors on Sunday began scaling back medication keeping her anesthetized and shortly thereafter she came out of her medically induced coma and responded to stimuli. She remained hooked up to a respirator and could only communicate through hand signs, Ynet reported.
“Every time I look at hear and she responds to me, I’m on cloud nine,” her mother, Racheli Dadon, who was also lightly hurt in the attack, told news site Ynet.

Palestinian minor convicted in murder of Dafna Meir

The IDF spokesman on Tuesday announced that a 16-year-old Palestinian minor has been convicted of murdering Dafna Meir, a Jewish mother of six, in a stabbing attack in her home in the Otniel settlement in January.
Though the announcement was made Tuesday, the Judea Military Court convicted the Palestinian, whose name is under gag order, on Monday.
The indictment specified that the Palestinian who killed Dafna Meir on January 17 returned to his home in the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Amra shortly after the stabbing, and watched a movie with his family.
The teen watched Palestinian television broadcasts that incited against Israel and said Israel was “killing young Palestinians” before he allegedly committed the crime, according to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).
He was arrested two days after the January 17 murder in Otniel, confessing to the crime during an interrogation, according to the Shin Bet.

Security forces demolish house of terrorist involved in Henkin murder

Acting on government orders, the IDF and Border Police together with the Civil Administration on Tuesday demolished the home of a terrorist who was a member of a shooting cell that shot dead the Henkin couple in front of their children on October 1, 2015.
Security forces arrived at the home of Zid Ziad Jamil Amarab in Nablus early on Tuesday and destroyed the structure.
The action comes three months after the IDF handed out a demolition notice announcing the demolition.
Separately, security forces arrested 19 terrorism suspects in overnight raids across the West Bank. Those arrested include three Hamas members in Hebron.

Man moderately hurt in Jerusalem stabbing

An Israeli man was stabbed and moderately injured in an attack in Jerusalem’s Old City Monday evening, breaking weeks of relative calm after months of roiling violence in the capital.
Police said they were engaged in a large manhunt for the assailant after the attack in the heart of Jerusalem’s ancient quarter.
According to officials, the victim said he was stabbed in the back on al-Khaldaya Street in the center of Old City and reached the Austrian Hospice hotel some 300 meters away, where he reported he’d been stabbed and asked for help.
The stabbing victim, said to be in his 60s, was transferred to a local hospital for treatment. Hospital officials described him as stable and conscious.

Suspected accomplice in Jerusalem stabbing attack nabbed

A Palestinian resident of Jerusalem’s Old City was arrested early Tuesday on suspicion of being an accomplice in a stabbing attack that moderately injured an Israeli man there the night before.
The 18-year-old will be brought before the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court later on Tuesday for a remand hearing. He will likely face charges of aiding a terrorist.
The suspected assailant, an 18-year-old Palestinian, was arrested late Monday night hours after he fled the scene of the attack.
According to police, the suspect, a resident of the West Bank, admitted during questioning to stabbing the Israeli man in the back on al-Khaldaya Street, near the Lions’ Gate.
Israel Police spokesperson Luba Samri on Monday said that officers found a knife at the scene.

The Kunduz Double Standard

If MSF has any evidence that the U.S. personnel deliberately attacked the hospital it should present it–but the claim is far-fetched and not supported by the investigation. What reason would the U.S. have to attack a hospital?
It is striking the extent to which the outrage of MSF and its defenders is one-sided: They are mad at the U.S. military but do not have similarly harsh words for the Taliban which routinely violate the laws of war by dressing in civilian clothes and targeting civilians with car bombs and other instruments of carnage. It was the actions of the Taliban, after all, in attacking Kunduz that placed the hospital at risk.
For that matter, there is not an equal measure of international outrage when MSF hospitals are destroyed in Syrian or Saudi air strikes. In the case of the Syrian air strike, carried out recently in Aleppo, the attack may well have been intentional–a part of Bashar Assad’s scorched-earth strategy of eradicating rebel-held areas. Where are the front-page headlines and protests about these strikes? Why is it that the United States military gets far more opprobrium for doing accidentally what Bashar Assad does deliberately?
It makes sense, of course, that the armed forces of a liberal democracy are held to a higher standard than the armed forces of a murderous dictatorship. I am by no means advocating that the U.S. slaughter innocents, as Donald Trump has cruelly suggested. But nor should the U.S. be held to an impossible standard where no mistakes are permitted even in the heat of battle.

After outcry, plans for Arafat center in Abu Ghosh shelved

Plans to establish a cultural center in honor of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the Arab Israeli town of Abu Ghosh have been cancelled due to popular opposition, a local source told The Times of Israel on Monday, while a town official claimed the project was never more than an idea.
The plans to establish a cultural center to pay tribute to the late PLO chief and Nobel peace prize laureate were immediately dropped once the town’s residents heard about it, Jawdat Ibrahim, the millionaire owner of the town’s famous Abu Ghosh restaurant, said by phone Monday.
Located 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of Jerusalem and with a population of around 7,000 people, Abu Ghosh is known for maintaining friendly relations with the majority Jewish towns surrounding it.

Smuggling attempt foiled: Israel seizes 4 tons of Gaza-bound chemicals used in rockets

Security forces have foiled an attempt to smuggle into Gaza four tons of chemicals that can be used to manufacture long-rang rockets, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced on Tuesday morning.
Before the Passover holiday, customs and Shin Bet officials at the Nitzana Border Crossing used by Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority seized the four tons of ammonium chloride concealed within a shipment of salt.
The Shin Bet estimates that the importer of the latest smuggling attempt is a Gaza resident associated with Hamas. The importer was believed to have been urged by the terrorist group to bring the materials into the Strip for manufacturing use by Hamas.
Ammonium chloride can be used in the production of long-range rocket and the quantity of material seized had the potential to yield hundreds of such weapons, according to the Shin Bet.

After 8 years, Israel to open Gaza’s Erez Crossing to commerce

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Monday announced the reopening of one of the main crossing points into the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which has been closed to commercial traffic for at least eight years.
However, he did not give a date for the reopening of the Erez Crossing in the north of the territory, saying only that this “will not happen tomorrow or the day after.”
“It is in our interests that a significant amount of truckloads of food continues to go to Gaza,” a spokesman for Ya’alon said in a statement.
“It is our interest that Gazans live in dignity. Both from a humanitarian point of view and because this is a way to protect the peace, in addition to existing security deterrents.”

Gaza sewage poisoning Strip’s residents, threatening Israel

Each day, millions of gallons of raw sewage pour into the Gaza Strip’s Mediterranean beachfront, spewing out of a metal pipe and turning miles of once-scenic coastline into a stagnant dead zone.
The sewage has damaged Gaza’s limited fresh water supplies, decimated fishing zones, and after years of neglect, is now floating northward and affecting Israel as well, where a nearby desalination plant was forced to shut down, apparently due to pollution.
“It’s certain that Gaza Strip’s beaches are completely polluted and unsuitable for swimming and entertainment, especially in the summer,” said Ahmed Yaqoubi of the Palestinian Water Authority.
Environmentalists and international aid organizations say that if the problem isn’t quickly addressed, it could spell even more trouble on both sides of the border.
But while Israel has a clear interest in Gazans repairing their water infrastructure, that would likely require it to ease restrictions on the import of building materials — which it fears the territory’s Hamas rulers could divert for military purposes — and increase the amount of electricity it sells to Gaza.

IS Files Reveal Assad's Deals With Militants

Islamic State and the Assad regime in Syria have been colluding with each other in deals on the battleground, Sky News can reveal.
Our exclusive investigation into leaked secret IS files suggests one piece of co-operation was over the ancient city of Palmyra.
The files also show that the militant group has been training foreign fighters to attack Western targets for much longer than security services had suspected.
The revelations underscore fears in the United States that a network of sleeper cells is spread across Europe, avoiding detection, and is planning further Paris- and Brussels-style assaults.
IS defectors, meanwhile, have told Sky News that Palmyra was handed back to government forces by Islamic State as part of a series of cooperation agreements going back years.

Jews Kicked Out of a Syrian “Peace and Democracy” Rally in Toronto

Yesterday, on May Day, in a small space in downtown Toronto we witnessed again our city’s political diversity, which Justin Trudeau always finds so fascinating. On Dundas Square an assorted multitude of socialists, plain communists, communists (Marxist-Leninists), Bolsheviks, Iranian revolutionaries, Maoists, fans of the terrorist Kurdish Worker’s Party, etc., came out with their colourful banners to demand a communist revolution in Canada. A few hundred meters to the south, at the Old City Hall, a large group of noisy Syrians demanded peace and democracy in their country (and that wasn’t Canada). Not far from them, in front of Toronto City Hall, a smaller rally opposed campus anti-Semitism in Canada.
After the Jewish rally finished, a few students passed by the Syrians and decided to join their rally to show support. After all, the demands revolved around peace and justice, values that all Canadians supposedly share. Besides, Israel has been the only country in the region, which did its best to stay out of the conflict.
syrian-rally-toronto-may-2016-3
The attempt turned into another illustration of the old proverb that no good deed remains unpunished. As soon as they noticed the Jews, the organizers took care of the situation by kicking them out. You can see in the video below how a woman shows up right away to tell the invading do-gooders that they are not wanted because their presence is against the “mandate” of the rally.

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