Mahmoud Abbas pays tribute to terrorists by name in Fatah speech

Mahmoud Abbas gave a three-hour long speech the the seventh Fatah conference in Ramallah on Wednesday.

Although he mentioned many times that he only supports "peaceful and popular resistance" he did say "at this stage," meaning that he has no moral qualms with terrorism, but only tactical issues with it at this time.

And he proved that he is not against terrorism by calling out terrorists by name as "martyrs" in his speech. These included:

Dr. George Habash - founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, pioneer of airplane hijackings
Abu Ali Mustafa - also of the PFLP, responsible for ten car bomb attacks in Israel
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin - founder of Hamas terror group, responsible for many suicide bombings and other attacks
Fathi Shikaki - cofounder of Islamic Jihad terror group, also responsible for numerous suicide bombings and other attacks
Muhammad Zaidan (Abu Abbas) - Founder of the Palestine Liberation Front terror organization, responsible for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship where Leon Klinghoffer was murdered
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem who instigated deadly riots against Jews in the 1920s and 1930s and worked with the Nazis during World War II

Abbas said of all these "martyrs" that "they are all our heroes, you will not forget them, they are immortal in our people's memory, and the homeland of Palestine. Their sacrifices will not be in vain."

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11/30 Links Pt2: NYU President Slams BDS as ‘Affront to Academic Freedom’; Keith Ellison Said Israel Controls US Policy

From Ian:

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JCPA: The War of a Million Cuts: The Struggle Against the Delegitimization of Israel and the Jews, and the Growth of New Anti-Semitism (free book)

The War of a Million Cuts explains how the delegitimization of Israel and anti-Semitism can be fought. The book describes the hateful messages of those who defame Israel and the Jews, details why anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism have the same core motifs, and discusses the main groups of inciters, including Muslim states, Muslims in the Western world, politicians, media, NGOs, church leaders, those on the extreme left and the extreme right, Jewish self-haters, academics, social democrats, and many others. It explains how the hate messages are effectively transmitted to the public at large, and discusses what impact the delegitimization has already made on Israel and the Jews.

Revealed: In Private Fundraiser, Keith Ellison Said Israel Controls US Policy

Congressman Keith Ellison’s announcement earlier this month that he wants to be the Democratic National Committee’s next chairman drew quick support from several key lawmakers, including Jewish senators Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders.
Ellison’s backers have also defended him against claims that he may hold antisemitic views, as well as being anti-Israel. A column in Israel’s liberal daily Haaretz quotes two rabbis praising Ellison, as “the best of our constitutional democracy and the best of America” and “an extraordinary leader. Anyone who would associate him with any kind of hatred hasn’t met him and certainly hasn’t worked with him.”
But a 2010 audio of Ellison speaking at a private fundraiser obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism calls such praise into question. In a fairly intimate setting, Ellison lashed out at what he sees as Israel’s disproportionate influence in American foreign policy. That will change, he promised:
The United States’ foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people. A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? Is that logic? Right? When the Americans who trace their roots back to those 350 million get involved, everything changes. Can I say that again?
The fundraiser for Ellison’s re-election campaign was hosted by Esam Omeish, a past president of the Muslim American Society (MAS), who was forced to resign from a Virginia state immigration panel in 2007 after an exclusive IPT videotape showed him praising Palestinians for choosing the “the jihad way … to liberate your land.” Omeish was a candidate for Virginia’s general assembly the previous year, and Ellison spoke at a fundraiser for that losing effort.

Keith Ellison’s Saudi Arabia Trip Included Meetings With Radical Cleric, Bank That Funds Suicide Bombings

Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) during a 2008 trip to Saudi Arabia met with a radical Muslim cleric who endorsed killing U.S. soldiers and with the president of a bank used to pay the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.
Ellison, now a leading candidate to head the Democratic National Committee, was brought to Saudi Arabia for a two-week trip by the Muslim American Society (MAS), a group founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood to act as its “overt arm” in the United States.
Details of Ellison’s religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia are scarce, but photographs discovered by the Washington Free Beacon show that Ellison met with controversial figures during the trip.
A photo album of Ellison’s hajj trip posted by MAS’s Minnesota chapter includes a picture of the congressman meeting with Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, who was vice president of a Muslim Brotherhood-created group that in 2004 issued a fatwa urging “jihad” against U.S. troops in Iraq and supported the Palestinians’ Second Intifada against Israel.
“The Jihad-waging Iraqi people’s resistance to the foreign occupation … is a Shari’a duty incumbent upon anyone belonging to the Muslim nation,” the fatwa said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Bin Bayyah’s group, the International Association of Muslim Scholars, issued the fatwa after a conference in Beirut, Lebanon.

Michael Lumish: The Obama Administration is concerned about random acts of violent extremism done by no group in particular and for no reason that we can discern

After this latest Jihad attack at Ohio State University, president Barack Obama took the bull-by-the-balls and trotted out White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest to tell us:
There’s still a lot of information to review and collect but obviously this is a difficult situation and our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Columbus and OSU at this time.
This is, indeed, a difficult situation and, speaking strictly for myself, I am just pleased that it had nothing whatsoever to do with "radical Islam" or "political Islam" or "Jihadism" or "Islamism" or the "Qu'ran" or the "Koran," or anything whatsoever do to with Islam or what President Barack Obama calls "violent extremism."
Like 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing, the gay nightclub murders in Orlando, the shooting up of US military personnel at Fort Hood, TX, the San Bernardino attack, or the beheading in Oklahoma - and on and on and on and on - we should be grateful that the OSU misunderstanding was either completely accidental, the act of a random psychopath, or the direct result of our own shameful behavior as a people and a nation.
We have to understand that when goodhearted folk are morally aggrieved by the United States (if not Americans, more generally) that they have every reason to feel this way because we earned their contempt due to our own misbehavior. It is for this reason, sadly, that we deserve whatever beating they wish to give us, our children, and our family and friends.

Michael Lumish: This week on NOTHING LEFT (Nov 29, 2016)

Hosts Michael Burd and Alan Freedman tell us:
Here is this week's episode of NOTHING LEFT (29 Nov 2016), and apologies for the lack of FM transmission this morning which was caused by an external internet problem.
Nothing_Left
4 min Editorial: Avi Yemeni & One Nation controversy
10 min David Southwick MP
33 min Avi Yemeni, Independent Jewish Council of Aust
51 min Nonie Darwish, former Muslim activist
1 hr 43 min Asra Nomani, Muslim journalist

When it comes to Israel, is François Fillon friend or foe?

This Sunday, some 4.6 million French voters at 10,228 poling stations across France paid two euros each and signed a “charter of right-wing and centrist values” to cast their ballots in a decisive French center-right presidential primary election.
By evening, François Fillon was declared winner with 66.5 percent of the vote, beating his rival, Alain Juppé, nearly two-to-one. Fillon is now the favored candidate ahead of the May 2017 French presidential elections.
During his tenure as minister and prime minister, the current member of parliament from Paris expressed himself on many occasions on a variety of topics of interest to the greater Jewish world, including the French Jewish community, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the war in Syria. His statements could at times be described as hostile, at other times as ambiguous, and sometimes as firmly supportive.
On Wednesday morning, a new controversy broke out when Fillon, who was invited to speak to Europe 1 radio [all links are in French], compared the French Jewish community with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the country.

Report: German Intelligence Officer Arrested Over Suspected Terrorist Attack

A German intelligence officer was recently arrested on the suspicion he was plotting to bomb the headquarters of Germany’s domestic spy agency in Cologne.
The 51-year-old, who converted to Islam two years ago, admitted in a “partial confession” that his goal was to “infiltrate” the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Der Spiegel reported Tuesday.
An official with the intelligence agency said the man attempted to pass on “sensitive information about [the agency], which could lead to a threat to the office.”
The suspect also used online chat rooms in an attempt to recruit radical Islamists to the spy agency to mount attacks against “non-believers.” The man was caught after chatting with an undercover agent from the office, according to Der Spiegel.

Islamic State Claims Its "Soldier" Carried Out Ohio State Attack

The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency has released a short statement claiming that yesterday’s attack at Ohio State University was the work of its “soldier.” Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali refugee, drove his car into a crowd of people before exiting the vehicle and using a knife to assault his victims. Eleven people were hospitalized as a result. Artan was quickly shot dead by a campus police officer.
Amaq claims that Artan “carried out the operation in response to calls to target the nationals of the international coalition countries.” Amaq has used the same phrasing after previous attacks in both Europe and the US.
For instance, Amaq released a nearly identical statement after another native Somali, Dahir Adan, stabbed multiple people at a mall in Minnesota in September. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, Islamic State claims its ‘soldier’ was responsible for stabbings in Minnesota.] US officials contacted by The Long War Journal in October said that Adan’s digital trail was still being investigated.
Prior to his demise in August, Abu Muhammad al Adnani repeatedly called upon the so-called caliphate’s members and supporters to strike the coalition of nations targeting its territory in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Adnani was the Islamic State’s spokesman and oversaw the group’s external operations before he was killed in an American airstrike.
The language in Amaq’s claims is intended to emphasize that the terrorists are acting in accordance with Adnani’s and the Islamic State’s directives.

Vile Antisemitism At Ryerson University With Student Walkout

Last night, Aedan O’Connor, Vice President of programming at Students Supporting Israel at Ryerson University, uploaded the following Facebook Post:
Today at the Ryerson semi-annual general meeting a member of Hillel Ryerson presented a motion to have a Student Union sponsored Holocaust education week. This was primarily going to be organized by Jewish groups on campus to combat the growing anti-semitism and raise awareness on possibly the greatest tragedy in the history of man kind. When presenting the motion we were snickered at and told to sit down and not present by other students. When it approached the time to vote on this motion a large group of students started messaging each other and coordinated a walk out to rid the assembly of quorum. This was done to silence Jewish students. I wish I could say that that I am aghast or distressed. But I could not muster the tears that were falling from my friends' faces. I have grown despondent from the abundant anti-semitism present in the diaspora. I have grown accustomed to being silenced because of my Judaism. That does mean that it is fair or all right. So tonight I take my voice back. I condemn in the strongest terms what my peers did. We will take this motion further and I promise that we will ensure that there is something to allay anti-semitism at Ryerson and in the greater community.
At the Annual General Meeting at Ryerson University in Toronto Canada, dozens, if not hundreds, of students walked out of the auditorium with the purpose of breaking quorum. They filled these seats so that other students who wanted to come couldn’t make it in. Looks like the typical action of Students for Justice in Palestine during a pro-Israel resolution.
Here’s the catch though: the resolution had absolutely nothing to do with Israel. It was about condemning antisemitism and promoting Holocaust remembrance and education. Yet it angered a group of students to such an extent that they felt they had to leave in protest, to sabotage the vote.

NYU President Slams BDS as ‘Affront to Academic Freedom’

The president of New York University (NYU) had some harsh words for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, slamming the global initiative in a recent interview as “an affront to academic freedom.”
Speaking to the student newspaper NYU Local on a host of campus issues, Andrew Hamilton said the anti-Israel movement aims to “restrict…the flow of students or faculty from universities anywhere” in engaging with Israeli institutions.
“[If] we are going to defend what we do in research, in areas of political science, in areas of gun violence, in areas of reproductive health, if we’re going to defend that to our own government, we will certainly defend that when it comes to our engagement with other governments, and so for me that speaks to BDS,” he said.
Hamilton’s comments are in line with the position of the school’s Board of Trustees, which has come under continual pressure by anti-Israel activists to cut all ties with the Jewish state.
NYU has a long history of BDS activity, led mainly by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, which describes itself as an “anti-Zionist group” working to end the “Israeli system of Apartheid and discrimination against the indigenous Palestinian population.”

Unintended Irony Over French Settlement Labeling?

The Independent reports that France is the first EU state to implement labeling of items from Israeli settlements. One can posit that The Independent is probably fully behind anything that singles out settlements.
So it is safe to assume that the illustrative photo in the story was not quite what the media outlet had in mind:

Firstly, the caption erroneously states that the Golan Heights “overlooks Israel’s controversial separation barrier.” This is geographically incorrect.
But the choice of photo itself is ironic. The Hebrew on the cardboard box in the foreground reads “Abu Jabal” and to the left, it is possible to make out that the location of the apple factory is Madjal Shams, a Druze Arab town on the Golan Heights.
Did The Independent mean to illustrate just how potentially damaging labeling or boycotting of settlement goods is for Arabs as well as Jews? Probably not.

UKMW prompts Economist correction – retracts false claim on ‘Arabic song ban’

Yesterday, we posted about an Economist article (‘The Economist Explains: The status of Arabic speakers in Israel‘, Nov. 24) which included the bizarre claim that “Arabic songs were banned from Israeli radio for several decades.”
However, as we clearly demonstrated in our post, there is absolutely no evidence that there was ever anything resembling a ban on Arabic songs in the history of the state, yet alone one lasting “several decades”. Indeed, there have been Arabic programs (including music) on Israeli radio since the state’s founding.
We contacted the editor responsible for the article, who promptly responded to inform us that they upheld our complaint and removed the sentence in question.

Fact-Check Fail Fixed: Israel Never Bombed Morocco!

Israel has never bombed Morocco. Period.
It is safe to assume that this is a simple fact-checking error that had no malicious intent on the part of the newspaper although the lack of context is unhelpful.
For the historical record, Israel bombed the PLO headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia in October 1985 in response to a wave of terror, while the Jewish-American referred to is most likely Leon Klinghoffer, murdered by Palestinian terrorists who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship that same month.
Thank you to the Daily Telegraph for making a correction shortly after we brought the error to its attention. Most of the paragraph has now been removed.

Does said threefold rise in German antisemitism signal a 'new era'?

A top European rabbi has warned that the world has entered a new era of antisemitism, in response to a report released Tuesday about rising antisemitism in Germany.
The UK Times reported that antisemitism in Germany has risen threefold in one year, citing data published by the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. According to the report, the German Justice Ministry revealed that there had been 2,083 cases of attacks on Jews, Jewish property and hate speech against Jews last year, in contrast with 691 in 2014.
"There is a rejection of mainstream politics and we need to be aware of the waves of antisemitism sweeping across Europe," said Conference of European Rabbis President Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. "As a society we must take measures to reject antisemitism and ensure that it does not become a new norm.”
“What we see right now is a revolution happening in the world,” Goldschmidt told The Jerusalem Post earlier this month, following the victory of US President-elect Donald Trump. “Europe has been weakened with Brexit and we fear now that with new winds blowing from the US, Europe is going to change as well. And not for the better.”

‘It could happen again,’ says hero of Holocaust escape film for kids

French director Lola Doillon knew that she had three ideas for her third feature film. She wanted to make a road movie, with and for children, about World War II. She just needed to find the right story. Then her producer discovered the autobiography, “The Journey of Fanny Ben-Ami.” It became the inspiration for her latest film.
“Fanny’s Journey” (“Le Voyage de Fanny”) is a compelling, wartime survival tale set in 1943 Vichy France. Its protagonist is 13-year-old Fanny (Léonie Souchaud), who finds herself in charge of a group of Jewish children as they set off on a dangerous journey, traveling through occupied France in order to reach the Swiss border. Away from any trusted adults, they learn resilience, teamwork and independence.
Since its release in France in May, it has screened at film festivals throughout Europe and, in October, was shown at the Haifa Film Festival. “Fanny’s Journey” was the closing gala film at the 20th UK International Jewish Film Festival, which ran in November.
After she had read the book, director Doillon went to Holon, Israel, to meet Fanny Ben-Ami, now 86.
“I filmed her for a few days because I really wanted to know more about the story, the facts, where she lived and the thoughts and feelings she had as a kid,” Doillon explains over the phone from France.
Ben-Ami was very open with her.
“This is a woman who gives talks in schools [about her experience]. She wants to tell her story,” says Doillon.

100 anti-Semitic incidents reported in US post-election

One hundred anti-Semitic incidents occurred in the 10 days following the presidential election, representing about 12 percent of hate incidents in the US recorded by a civil rights watchdog.
The report released Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center looked at 867 hate incidents that occurred in the 10 days following the election of Donald Trump. The incidents targeted various minority groups, including Jews, immigrants, African-Americans, Muslims and the LGBT community. Incidents counted had been submitted through the watchdog’s website or reported in the media.
Of the 100 incidents classified as anti-Semitic, 80 were “vandalism and graffiti incidents of swastikas, without specific references to Jews,” while others targeted Jews more overtly, such as the harassment of individuals or vandalism of a synagogue, the report said. Many of the vandalism incidents included references to Trump, the nonprofit said.

Guatemala’s president arrives here on historic visit

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, an evangelical Christian whose election last October was seen by some diplomatic officials as a harbinger of closer ties with the Central American state, began his state visit Monday by meeting with President Reuven Rivlin.
“I want to thank you, Mr. President, for your personal support and for the support of your country for Israel on the international stage,” Rivlin said to Morales, making his first visit outside the Americas since taking over as president in January. “Israel can help greatly in development and innovation in your region and around the world, and we are committed to doing so.”
Morales, who arrived with his wife and four cabinet ministers, is scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is expected to raise the issue of voting patterns in international forums with the Guatemalan president. In recent years Guatemala has generally abstained on votes in the UN of importance to Israel.
One diplomatic official said Jerusalem has felt an improvement in ties with Guatemala since the election of Morales – a former television comedian with no governmental experience – both in terms of bilateral cooperation and support in international forums where Guatemala has spoken out on Israel’s behalf.
The official noted that Israel has had good relations with Guatemala under previous presidents as well, and that Otto Perez Molina was the first Guatemalan president to ever visit Israel when he did so in 2013. At the same time, the official said, Perez was not “committed to Israel to the same extent” as Morales.

At Knesset, Guatemalan president speaks of bolstering Israel ties

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales on Tuesday visited the Knesset, where he took part in a ceremony marking the anniversary of the 1947 vote on the United Nations partition plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate for Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein thanked Morales for Guatemala’s activism in favor of the plan 69 years ago.
“The ties between Israel and Guatemala are deep and historic. Before Israel’s establishment, on the eve of the UN decision on November 29, we still remember and appreciate the actions of Guatemala’s ambassador to the UN, Dr. Jorge Garcia Granados, who enlisted Latin American states to vote in favor of the partition plan. It could be that without Guatemala, the resolution on that fateful day would not have passed, and history would be very different,” Edelstein said.
Edelstein thanked Morales for his country’s continued support for Israel and said the visit expresses both states’ readiness to increase cooperation and strengthen ties.
The Guatemalan president said he was happy that Guatemala was among the first countries to recognize Israel upon its establishment in 1948.

Israel marks expulsion of Jews from Arab lands and Iran

The event, which will take place at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, will be attended by ministers, members of Knesset and other public figures from Israel and abroad. Foundations and organizations for Jews from Middle Eastern countries will also be represented.
During the ceremony, stories will be recounted of the tribulations faced by the Jewish communities in Arab countries and Iran -- the pogroms, persecution, expulsion and their road to Israel. These stories, which have never been told, will be told in first person by the men and women who experienced the ordeals themselves.
"For 68 years, the chapter of Mizrahi Jews has been omitted from the annals of the Jewish people," said Gamliel.
"The time has come to amend this, and we will. This is the essence of the day to mark the exit and deportation of Jews from Arab lands and Iran. This is not just in the interest of Mizrahim; it is a national, Jewish and Zionist interest. It is the right of the Jewish nation to know its heritage, and historically this is also its obligation."

16th century painting looted by Nazis returned to victims' heirs

France on Monday officially returned a rare painting sold to the Nazis under duress in 1938 to the descendants of its rightful owners.
Then-Paris residents Henry and Hertha Bromberg sold the painting, a 16th century portrait attributed to Dutch artist Joos van Cleve, as they were fleeing Nazi Germany for the United States. Henry had inherited the painting from his father, Martin, who acquired it at an auction in Berlin in 1912.
On Monday, French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay returned the portrait to the German-Jewish couple's grandchildren, Henrietta Schubert and Christopher Bromberg.
Azoulay said she was "very happy" to return the painting to Bromberg and Schubert. "I measure the importance of this gesture in the eyes of history," she noted.
"You never expect something like this," Schubert, 67, told Canada's CBC News. "The Nazis are dead, and this can help our wounds heal."
"The painting doesn't even have to have any monetary value. It's about connecting us to our past and the story of our family that was lost," Bromberg added.

Just a little more patience: Guns N' Roses coming to Israel

It's official: Guns N' Roses will perform in at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv on July 15.
Negotiations with the band, as first reported by Israel Hayom, began several months ago. An official announcement of the concert date is expected to be issued next week.
Unlike previous performances in Israel, the band will perform with its original members: singer Axl Rose, bassist Duff McKagan, and legendary guitarist Slash. The group has been performing together across the globe for the past half year.
In 1993, the original band put on a show in Tel Aviv as part of its Use Your Illusion tour. Axl Rose last performed in Israel in 2012 with different bandmates.
In more music news, new details have emerged hinting at a Coldplay concert in Israel.

Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson adopt military's Kfir Brigade

A delegation of some 70 members of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, currently in Israel, met with soldiers and officers from the IDF's Kfir Brigade on Yiftah Base in southern Israel last week.
A moving ceremony marked the brigade's formal "adoption" by the FIDF, which was made possible thanks to a donation by Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson.
The donors take care of the lone soldiers serving in the brigade and members of the brigade whose families struggle financially, and provide weeks of rest and relaxation and other activities for the soldiers' benefit.
Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson were the guests of honor at the FIDF's annual gala, held in New York this past March. In addition to adopting the Kfir Brigade, the Adelsons have also adopted the Golani and Givati infantry brigades, and have lent their support to other programs and projects that the FIDF organizes for IDF troops.

African diplomats go on rare, ‘enlightening’ tour of Old City’s Jewish sites

After trekking through a narrow 600-meter, 2,000-year-old tunnel believed to have transported water from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount out of the city, the African diplomats were ushered into a small area where they could see and touch the foundation stones of the Western Wall, underneath the area known as Robinson’s Arch.
“Up there, at the main section of the wall, you compete with hundreds of visitors for God’s attention,” said Ze’ev Orenstein, who led the envoys’ archaeological tour through parts of the Old City. “But this is what I call the VIP room of the Western Wall.”
The 11 diplomats, all members of the Christian faith, were taking part in a highly unusual tour of Jewish archaeological sites in the Old City, sponsored by the Federation of Israeli Chambers of Commerce in a bid to foster Israeli-African business ties. Monday’s visit, which also included a meeting with Israeli officials in the eastern part of the city, started at the City of David archaeological park and led the group, through the drainage tunnel, to the Western Wall.
Looking at the ancient stones, the diplomats took a few long moments to reflect on the holiness of the place. Many stretched out their arms and touched the stones, bowing their heads silently; some whispered a brief prayer.
But beyond its spiritual meaning for the foreign dignitaries, the tour also marked an unusual deviation from standard diplomatic etiquette for foreign diplomats stationed in Israel.

Tom Watson Sings in Celebration of Israel

The words mean “the nation of Israel lives” and are the same words Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a visitors book when he visited Germany. The contrast with Corbyn & Co. is striking, this is not merely a much appreciated symbolic difference, it is ideological…

Tom Watson Singing Am Yisrael Chai

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Arab Arson: Choosing the Path of Hate (Judean Rose)

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Video: Niece of top Arafat aide tattooed "Israel" on her back

The story is from October:

The niece of a top official in the Palestinian Fatah party and a close confidant of the late leader Yasser Arafat says she loves the State of Israel so much, she had the word “Israel” in Hebrew tattooed across her shoulder blades.
Sandra Solomon, 38, was born a Muslim in Ramallah under a different name, but grew up in Saudi Arabia before moving to Canada where she converted to Christianity.
Solomon is the niece of Saher Habash, one of the founders of the Fatah party, a member of its Central Committee and a leader of the Second Intifada.
“I grew up in a home that hated the Jews, hailed Hitler and praised the Holocaust,” she told Channel 2 in an interview Wednesday.

Here's her interview, subtitled in English:



Right after this was shown on TV, her family disowned her.

(h/t Yoel)

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Mideast Countries Regret Not Leaving Some Jews For Their Kids to Expel (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory. 

Check out their Facebook page.

Baghdad, November 30 - Community elders throughout the Muslim Middle East voiced wistfulness today at the realization that present and future generations in their countries will never know the pleasure of kicking Jews out, since almost none remain anymore.

Once-thriving Jewish communities across the region suffered precipitous decline in the decades since the establishment of the State of Israel, as local Muslims, with government sanction, made Jewish life all but intolerable, and official policy led to the confiscation of Jewish-owned property and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the lands that had been home to them for thousands of years. Now all but bereft of Jews to persecute and expel, Muslims in Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, and elsewhere who remember what it was like to participate in pogroms, looting, or random anti-Jewish mayhem against their Hebraic neighbors expressed some regret that because of their thoroughness in conducting such activities, their children and grandchildren will never know the visceral pleasure of raping Jewish women and beating their husbands and fathers to a pulp for trying to prevent it.

"The people of Iran are fortunate," opined Mustafa Massikr, 78, of Sanaa, Yemen. "They have thousands of Jews they can still dump on, and against whom they can take out whatever frustrations they might have. But here in Yemen we have maybe a few hundred, and they're hardly worth the trouble. I wish I could give my descendants the same thrill and sense of vitality I felt when I helped my older brothers torch those Jewish shops in response to Israel's declaration of statehood. Good times."

In Egypt, where fewer than a dozen openly practicing Jews are known, older folks gave voice to similar sentiments. "It's not the same, persecuting Copts," observed Aiwil Qillemal, 80. "They're just everyday dhimmi, not the very embodiment of every kind of evil against which any and all violent measures are not merely justified, but a sacred duty. I miss having Jews to kick around." He noted that the handful of Jews remaining in the country have enjoyed official protection for many years so that the government can claim not to be antisemitic.

"Maybe for old times' sake we can knock off one or two of them?" he suggested. "You know, so the children can experience it in an authentic, close-up way, not the fake opposition to Israel that so many so-called Muslim countries have maintained since 1973."

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11/30 Links Pt1: Where Talking to Israelis is Taboo; Glick: Castro's Greatest Victory

From Ian:

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America’s Middle East Policy, From Eisenhower to Trump

Few American presidents have done so much to shape U.S. relations with the Arab world as Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, like many of his successors, believed that the Arab-Israeli conflict was central to the region and that he could win the respect of Arab leaders by demonstrating “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem. But unlike subsequent presidents, he eventually learned that these and other assumptions were wrong. Michael Doran, Walter Russell Mead, and Ray Takeyh discuss several decades of American policy makers’ failures to understand the Middle East, and what the Trump administration can do to avoid making the same mistakes. (Moderated by Lee Smith. Video, 90 minutes.)

Where Talking to Israelis is Taboo

The indoctrination effort is assisted by the fact that most Palestinians today have no firsthand knowledge to counteract the vicious incitement churned out daily by Palestinian schools and media. That’s a result of the escalating terror that followed the PA’s establishment in 1994 severely curtailed the daily interactions between Israelis and Palestinians that were commonplace until then. Those interactions made it easier for both sides to at least view the other as human beings.
Today, outside the construction industry, most Israelis never encounter a Palestinian unless they’re doing army duty, and most Palestinians never encounter any Israelis other than soldiers. In other words, the only Israeli-Palestinian interactions that take place today are the kind that reinforces each side’s view of the other as an enemy. That is precisely what the “anti-normalization” campaigners want, and why they castigate any other type of contact with Israelis as tantamount to treason.
It’s going to take a long, long time, and probably a lot of pressure from the PA’s Western donors, to reverse these decades of hate education. But until that happens, the chances of Israeli-Palestinian peace are considerably less than a snowball’s chance in hell.

Caroline Glick: Castro's Greatest Victory

The Soviets also viewed their ideological assault on Zionism as a means of demonizing the US. The Jews’ native rights to the land of Israel were as old and wellknown as the Bible. If Westerners could be convinced that the Jews were colonial usurpers in Israel, they could be convinced that Western civilization was evil.
According to Pacepa, by 1968 the KGB completed its control over the PLO. It used Castro and his DGI agency as a means to promote the Palestinian political war against Israel. According to Cuban American researchers, Castro was a conduit for promoting anti-Zionism and support for Palestinian terrorists among Western radicals. For instance, the DGI introduced PLO terrorists to African American radicals like the Black Panthers, who were trained by Castro’s forces.
Castro’s lionization by the Palestinians and the international Left alike shows that 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the legacy of the Soviets’ political war against the US-led West was not only successful during the Cold War, but is still very much a part of our world.
Castro never taught the Palestinians how to live in peace. He never taught them how to raise crops. He taught them how to murder and libel. He taught them how to indoctrinate others to believe lies about themselves and about their perceived enemies.
The fact that these lies are still believed by so many in the Left shows that Castro died a victor. The fact that the terrorist methods he developed with Arafat under the guiding hand of Moscow are still viewed by Western intellectuals as legitimate “tools of resistance” shows that he won.
And the fact that Palestinian murderers who learned the trade at his knee are still viewed as legitimate forces in world politics shows that together with his KGB bosses, Castro was able to get away with his crimes.
The West managed to defeat the Soviet state, but not the Soviet cause. And the flags at half-mast for Castro in Ramallah are proof of the Castro-executed Soviet victory over morality and over truth.

An Obama Post-Presidency and Israel

Since then, Carter has stooped to false comparisons between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa and become a reliable apologist for anything the Palestinians do no matter how awful while never failing to attack Israel any chance he gets.
Carter left office as a defeated president and was labeled a failure. His presidency is chiefly remembered now, if it is remembered at all, as a prelude to the Ronald Reagan’s successful two terms, in which he presided over a robust recovery from Carter’s “malaise” and the defeat of the Soviet Union. Good works restored his reputation to some degree, but Carter’s standing at home and abroad has never been sufficient to lend the kind of weight to his attacks on the Jewish state that would have had an impact on American opinion or that of an international community already prejudiced against Israel.
That won’t be true of ex-president Obama.
Leaving office will not diminish Obama’s historic status as our first African-American president. History’s verdict on Obama’s major initiatives—ObamaCare and the Iran nuclear deal—may be that both were flops. But he exits the White House with sky-high approval ratings. Those numbers may grow in the next four years due to constant comparison with the mercurial Twitter-addicted Donald Trump.
That will place him in a unique position to influence a Democratic Party that has a growing faction that is unfriendly to Israel (as evidenced by the rise of Representative Keith Ellison as a likely next chair of the Democratic National Committee) and to sway international forums where his prestige will eclipse that of Carter or any other living president or world leader. Should Donald Trump keep his promises to stand by Israel, Jerusalem will not have to worry as much about its sole superpower ally as it has in the last eight years. But if Obama chooses to use the coming years of relative leisure to pursue his vendetta against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to push for pressure on Israel or even to isolate it in the same manner as Carter, he could be almost as much of a problem for the Jewish state out of office as he was in it.

UN Watch: Today: 6 UN resolutions on Israel; texts ignore Jewish ties to Temple Mount, urge transfer of Golan to Syria

Today the UN General Assembly is marking “Palestine Day” with the scheduled adoption of six resolutions against Israel, part of its annual ritual of enacting 20 Arab-sponsored resolutions singling out the Jewish state. See chart below of today’s resolutions.
One resolution calls on Israel to transfer control of the Golan Heights to Syria, oblivious to the mass killings now being perpetrated by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Another resolution condemns Israel for actions in Jerusalem, and uses only the Islamic term for the Temple Mount, ignoring the site’s biblical role in Judaism and Christianity.
“The UN’s assault on Israel today with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog organization.
“On a day when forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad are attacking Syrian civilians in Aleppo, causing thousands to flee, it is obscene for the UN to adopt a resolution mentioning Syrian territory and invoking the Geneva Convention and the ‘protection of civilians’ — yet only to condemn Israel,” said Neuer.
“It’s astonishing,” said Neuer. “At a time when the Syrian regime is killing its own people by the hundreds of thousands, how can the UN call for more human beings to be placed under Assad’s rule? The timing of today’s text is morally galling, and logically absurd.”

Phyllis Chesler: US Intifada: A fire-storm of lies is setting US campuses ablaze

Have you ever escaped a raging fire? I have--twice, and one never, ever forgets the heat, the smell, the bright red-and-orange flames, the horror, the near-brush with death, the loss of one's possessions or of one's home--and the overwhelming gratitude that one's life has been spared.
Israel has been on fire--literally, and for days, in yet another series of fiendish, co-ordinated arson attacks, otherwise known as #ArsonJihad, #Pyro-terrorism, or #BushfireJihad. Daniel Pipes has kept a running record of just such arson Jihad attacks.
In addition to Arab suicide bombings, continual rocket bombardments, kidnappings and murders via tunnel, rock throwing, stabbing, and car ramming Intifadas, fire has long been a weapon of choice for Islamists in Europe, Australia, and Israel.
In Israel, Arab Israeli Jihadists take advantage of smaller, naturally occurring forest fires to purposely set multiple additional fires. Who can forget the fires in northern Israel in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015? Or the fact that, in addition, Arab Israelis attempted arson "at a staggering rate of two per day" in 2010?
"Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus," an important new film, brought to us by Americans for Peace and Tolerance on Campus (Charles Jacobs and executive Producer and Director, Avi Goldwasser), is about another kind of Jihad arson: the way in which the American campuses have been set ablaze by a well-choreographed and well-funded propaganda campaign against Jews and the Jewish state.

Israel honors foreign firefighters for ‘bravery in our time of need’

More than 70,000 people were forced out of their homes by the recent wave of fires that swept Israel, but no lives were lost thanks to local and foreign emergency personnel, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Tuesday at a ceremony at Hatzor air base in southern Israel to thank the departing foreign firefighters.
Firefighting planes from countries including Russia, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain, and the US helped dump tons of water and retardants on some of the fires that blazed across Israel for nearly a week, fanned by unseasonably dry easterly winds. The Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus and Italy also contributed personnel and equipment.
“The number [of casualties] was zero because of the bravery of the Israel Police and the firefighters, as well as are friends from abroad who arrived to help us in our time of need,” Erdan said.
The minister hailed the foreign crews who rushed to Israel for “carrying out your mission professionally and heroically, without hesitating to endanger your lives in order to save others,” Channel 10 reported.

Let He Who Is Sinless Throw The First Stone

Writing in Haaretz ("Netanyahu Fights Fire With Ire", 28.11), Odeh Bisharat warns readers that "Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.” The Op-Ed is a warning to Israelis not to hurl premature accusations against Palestinians and Arab-Israelis. Fair enough. However, Bisharat then employs some reductio ad absurdum to psychoanalyze the Israeli public:
"After all, if you don’t steal your neighbor’s land and don’t embitter his life, you have no reason to suspect that he will “rise up against us and annihilate us” – as the extremists here like to repeat day and night.
But if you feel deep down that, despite assuming the identity of the victim, you are harming your neighbor, then even if there’s an earthquake you’ll blame him for deliberately playing with some underground button. And if there’s a deluge from the heavens that will close the country’s highways, you will say he deliberately left the tap in the skies open. Truly, “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.”
Would Israelis really blame Palestinians for an earthquake or a flood? Doubtful. However, what isn't in doubt is that the reverse has certainly happened.
A conspiracy theory that Israel might generate an artificial earthquake to harm the Al-Aqsa mosque has been making the rounds for years. For example in 2011:

Palestinian arrested in connection with Nataf fire

Police arrested a Palestinian man and handed him over to the Shin Bet security service for questioning Wednesday in possible connection with a fire that broke out last week near Nataf, outside Jerusalem, officials said.
The Israel Fire and Rescue Services reportedly believe the fire in Nataf, which destroyed dozens of homes, was caused by a Molotov cocktail thrown over the security fence from the nearby Palestinian village of Qatane.
A spokesperson for the fire department would not confirm the allegation, directing The Times of Israel to the office of Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who also declined to comment.
The police were similarly tight-lipped on the arrest, but the Shin Bet security service acknowledged that a Palestinian from Qatane had been picked up and brought in for questioning.

PA says it will submit anti-settlement UN resolution within days

Just hours after the Palestinian leadership said it plans to move forward a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he expects US President Barack Obama will not support action against Israel at the world body.
“[We will] begin to submit a resolution condemning settlements to the UN Security Council in the coming days,” Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told the Voice of Palestine, the official PA radio station.
On numerous occasions over the past few months, the leadership, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas, said it intends to submit a resolution.
If such a resolution is brought before the Security Council, all eyes will be on Obama to see how the US acts.
In 2011, the US vetoed a UNSC resolution condemning the settlements. By contrast, in 1979 – under president Jimmy Carter – it abstained on an anti-settlement vote, allowing it to pass.

IsraellyCool: Stop Saying The UN Created Israel

On this day 69 years ago, November 29 1947, the United Nations voted in favor of partitioning the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. This legal recognition of Jewish statehood was important but despite what you will hear throughout the day, even from many Israel-supporters, this did not create the Jewish State!
While the UNGA did vote for partition (33 for, 13 against, 10 abstentions) it was never enforced because even though the Zionist leadership accepted it, the Arabs, both inside and outside the Mandate, rejected it. Riots by local Arabs began almost immediately, but the Arab states held off on attacking until after the British officially withdrew on May 15, 1948, one day after Israel declared independence.
The only reason why Israel was created and survived was because Zionists declared statehood and defended it with their lives. The UN did give legal backing to Jewish statehood (just the latest in a long list of legal foundations for Israel as seen in the video below), but it was unwilling to do anything to make this happen.
One of the central tenets of Zionism has always been Jewish self-reliance because, when the chips are down, the only one Jews can count on to defend us is us, the Jewish People. This was true throughout history when well-meaning non-Jews looked the other way at anti-Jewish violence, it was true when many good people in Europe said nothing during the Holocaust and it was true when the UN said it favored Jewish Rights but then didn’t lift a finger to protect them.

Reviewing BBC portrayal of the 1947 Partition Plan

The BBC’s inconsistent portrayal of the Partition Plan is obviously relevant from the point of view of the accuracy of information provided to audiences but it also has wider implications. As readers may be aware, the corporation bases its enduring refusal to describe Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on the misguided claim that:partition-plan-3
“…a UN resolution passed in 1947 has not been rescinded. It calls for the whole of Jerusalem to be an international city, a corpus separatum (similar to the Vatican City), and in that context, technically, West Jerusalem is not Israeli sovereign territory.”
Ahead of next year’s 70th anniversary of that UNGA resolution, it is clearly high time for the BBC to ensure that all its available related content meets editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality and that its audiences – as well as journalists and other staff – are given an accurate understanding of the relevance of the resolution today.

Elliott Abrams: Jimmy Carter Blames Israel One More Time

The former American president wants the U.S. to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state.
Jimmy Carter is 92 now, and it has been 36 years since his landslide defeat for reelection. But neither the passage of time nor the debilities of age slow him from making proposals that will do real harm to the State of Israel — and he has just tried one more time.
In Monday’s New York Times, he writes that “America must recognize Palestine” and presents a version of Israeli reality that simply takes leave of the facts. Carter tells us that “the simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.”
Now, granting diplomatic recognition to “the state of Palestine” will no more make it a legitimate and genuine country than granting diplomatic recognition to Plains, Ga., would make it one. The fact that 137 countries have done so — to no effect whatsoever — ought to make that obvious. So, what is Carter’s real goal here? He writes that it is peace, but the steps he proposes and the analysis he offers would leave Israel and the Palestinians further from peace than ever.
The “facts” Carter adduces are not only wrong, but tricky and misleading. For example, he writes that there are “600,000 Israeli settlers.” That number can only be reached by counting every Israeli living in Jerusalem — including in the Jewish Quarter, and the parts barred to Jews by Jordan before 1967 — as settlers. He writes that “Israel is building more and more settlements, displacing Palestinians and entrenching its occupation of Palestinian lands,” but he offers no data — because there is none to support his claim. Anyone who has visited the West Bank knows that virtually all settlements have not displaced Palestinians but have been, instead, built on fallow land, and the number of settlements and the land they take up rises very slowly indeed. The actual land area taken up by settler buildings themselves covers perhaps 1 percent of the West Bank, though far more falls within settlement boundaries. Roughly 12 percent of the West Bank lies to the west of the security barrier built by Israel to stop Palestinian terrorism. That barrier is not moving, or creeping, or taking up more land.

The UN's Palestine Language

For decades, UN agencies have slandered the Jewish state, most recently with the April 2016 accusation that it has been "planting Jewish fake graves" in Palestinian territory, and with UNESCO declaring last year that the ancient Jewish Biblical sites Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs are actually Muslim holy sites, and last month that the Temple Mount, where the Jewish Temples were destroyed in 587 BCE and 70 CE, is an Islamic site with no connection to Judaism.
West Bank: This territory was for millennia called Judea and Samaria. After the 1948 War of Independence, Transjordan annexed it, renamed it the "West Bank," and occupied it for nearly two decades. In the Six Day War, after Jordan attacked Israel, Israel entered the territory and administered it until the Oslo Accords era, when Israel turned over much of the area to the Palestinian Authority.
Occupation: When it comes to Israel, the UN is obsessed with the word "occupation." A recent Wall Street Journal article documents 530 General Assembly references to Israel as an "occupying power" versus zero for Indonesia (East Timor), Turkey (Cyprus), Russia (Georgia, Crimea), Morocco (Western Sahara), Vietnam (Cambodia), Armenia (Azerbaijan), Pakistan (Kashmir), or China (Tibet). Saying that Jews are "occupying" Judea is as nonsensical as saying Arabs are "occupying" Arabia or Gauls are "occupying" France.
Settlement: The UN uses the term to insinuate Israeli theft of "Palestine." The Obama administration eagerly embraced this terminology. If there is an occupying force in Gaza, it is Hamas. The West Bank is "disputed territories" to anyone claiming a modicum of neutrality. As Elliot Abrams put it, "the term 'settlement' loses meaning when applied to Jews building homes in their nation's capital city."

UNGA head wears Palestinian scarf marking solidarity

UN General Assembly president Peter Thomson was criticized Tuesday for wearing a Palestinian flag scarf on the occasion of International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People at the UN.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon reacted shortly after Thomson was seen with the scarf, saying he is “supposed to stand for diplomatic neutrality.” “It is unfortunate that [Thomson] chose to wrap himself in the Palestinian flag at an event whose sole purpose is to spread lies and deceit about Israel,” he said. “This is proof of the bias against Israel and the slander spread about us on a daily basis at the UN.”
When asked by The Jerusalem Post about Thomson’s choice to wear the scarf, Thomson’s office said he did so simply to “support the day,” as it is an official event marked by the United Nations. The word “Palestine” was also printed on the scarf.
The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed November 29, the date of the General Assembly vote on Resolution 181 in 1947, recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states in Mandatory Palestine.
The day started with a meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which included dozens of representatives of the UN and of UN member states. The Palestinian mission to the UN also hosted the exhibit “Palestinian Embroidery: Threads of Continuity, Identity and Empowerment” and envoys participated in the annual General Assembly debate on “the Question of Palestine.”
The event has also been used as an annual occasion for the Palestinian representatives to pass anti-Israel resolutions.

The UN Blames Israel...for Saving the World

The UN's World Health Organization just gave Israel it's highest honor. So why did they also single out Israel for condemnation, while ignoring the whole rest of the world?

Initial: Attempted shooting attack on IDF in West Bank

A gunman fired shots at an IDF base in an attempted shooting attack Monday evening in the West Bank, according to initial reports. During the incident, shots were fired from a vehicle passing an IDF base near the Ofra settlement. The shots were fired toward the back gate of the base.
No injuries or damage were reported, the terrorists fled the scene. Security forces are currently searching for the gunmen near Silwad.
Overnight on Sunday, IDF forces arrested 11 suspects in the West Bank.
Six of the wanted men were suspected of involvement in terrorism, mass disturbances and violence towards civilians and security forces, and five of the suspects were members of the Hamas terrorist organization. All were taken in for questioning by security forces.
Additionally, during the operation, police officers seized two pipe bombs, which were handed over to security forces.

Soldier lightly wounded after mistakenly entering Palestinian town

An IDF soldier was very lightly wounded when rocks were thrown at his vehicle on Monday afternoon, after he and three other servicemen “mistakenly entered” a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, the army said.
The army did not say how the soldiers accidentally entered Anabta, a town east of Tulkarem. In the past, however, such incidents occurred due to troops relying on smartphone navigation apps.
As the soldiers were exiting the Palestinian city, local residents began throwing rocks at the military vehicle, the army said.
The four soldiers, some of them reservists, were escorted out of the city by Palestinian police and in collaboration with the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration.
The IDF would not say where the soldiers had been traveling from or what was their destination. According to Channel 10 news, however, the soldiers had been traveling from their West Bank base to the coastal city of Netanya when they strayed into the village.
“The incident is being investigated,” an army spokesperson said.
This was at least the sixth case this year of soldiers accidentally driving into areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Hackers take over Israeli television

Newscasts on Israeli Channels 2 and 10 were temporarily disrupted on Tuesday evening by hackers suspected to be pro-Palestinian Arab activists, Haaretz reports.
During the disruption, which lasted about half a minute, images of Muslim holy sites were shown with Muslim prayers playing in the background.
Images from the recent fires in Israel were also shown, along with the words "Allah is great" written in Hebrew.
The disruption only affected the broadcast being streamed from an open satellite link. Subscribers to Israel's YES satellite television were not affected by the incident.
Israel's broadcasting authority said in response that "this is a hostile takeover of the satellite carrying the broadcast. We view this with the utmost severity and consider an act of sabotage."

World’s most advanced fighter jet a boon for IAF

The acquisition of the US-made F-35 stealth fighter jets will give Israel complete air superiority in the Middle East for the next 40 years, according to senior Israeli officials.
With the skies in the region becoming more crowded than ever due to the ongoing conflict in Syria, and neighboring countries like Egypt receiving Rafael fighter jets more advanced than Israel’s current air fleet, the Israeli Air Force has been waiting with baited breath for the world’s most advanced fighter jet.
As Israel plans to take delivery of its first jet, nicknamed “Adir” or “mighty” in just under two weeks, the security cabinet unanimously decided to purchase an additional 17 F-35s, bringing the total number to 50 over the next few years, and giving the IAF two squadrons by 2022.
After the first two F-35 jets arrive, Israel will receive six to seven per year, until the first batch of 33 jets is delivered.
According to senior Israeli officers as well as senior US officials, the jet defined by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman as “the most advanced in the world and the best for safeguarding Israel’s aerial superiority” is able to evade enemy radar, while providing close air-support capabilities and a massive array of sensors, giving pilots an unparalleled access to information while in the air.
Air force officials state that with all the capabilities of the advanced jet, it can “protect itself, stay in the air for a long time, and has tremendous firepower which give it the ability to hit the most advanced ground missiles.”

PreOccupiedTerritory: Kosher Meals Unavailable On Board F-35 (satire)

The most expensive and advanced fighter aircraft in the world is still unable to provide accommodation for kosher-keeping Israel Air Force pilots, an investigation has found.
According to information gleaned by journalists, the F-35 Lightning II series, of which Israel will begin to take delivery this month, lacks some of the basic amenities that Israeli air travelers have come to take for granted when they leave the ground. Most egregiously, they note, no provision for kosher in-flight cuisine exists in the model that the IAF will receive, potentially saddling the Israeli military with the need to develop a package of its own to adapt to the fighter.
The US Air Force, as well as the military aviation arms of other countries expected to receive the F-35, have no need for such a package, but for the IAF, the availability of kosher food for all personnel is one of the hallmarks of the IDF as an institution of the the Jewish state, explained incoming IDF Chief Rabbi Eyal Karim. “Beyond defending the country and its people, the IDF carries an extra layer of symbolism as an institution of the Jewish people and the Jewish State,” he remarked. “In keeping with that aspect of its character, the Israeli military has accepted upon itself the responsibility to provide for all the religious trappings a soldier might need. For better or for worse, that means developing a way to include kosher meals in whatever in-flight cabin service the F-35 has.”
Other recipient nations have noted the limited entertainment options available on current F-35 models, such as music, movies, and magazines, as well as the lack of carry-on storage space. “It’s all part of a general cost-cutting trend in aviation that’s been going on for years already,” observed Trey Tables, an analyst at Jane’s. “Just because an F-35 costs a hundred million dollars a pop, don’t go thinking it comes with all the old-fashioned bells and whistles. The expensive on-board systems actually make it even more important to save on other features.”

Arab-Israeli MK: 'Islamophobic' Netanyahu, Trump fueling muezzin bill

In the shadow of the so-called muezzin bill, politicians on either side of the dispute traded accusations on Wednesday of incitement to religious war over the controversial legislation.
The bill would ban religious institutions from using loudspeakers and is primarily designed to prevent mosques from broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers, in particular during the early hours of the morning.
Residents of Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Pisgat Zeev and Neve Yaakov have long complained that the call to prayer from mosques in the nearby neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina are excessively loud and wake people up at 4:30 in the morning when the first of the five calls to prayer are issued.
The bill was scheduled for a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum on Wednesday but the vote was postponed.

Terrorist gets 16 years for stabbing attack in Jerusalem

A Jerusalem district court handed down a 16-year jail sentence to Muhammad Badar, the terrorist responsible for a May, 2015 stabbing attack on HaNevi’im Street in Jerusalem.
In the attack, Badar, a resident of Abu Dis east of Jerusalem and part of the Palestinian Authority, stabbed an Israeli, lightly wounding him.
As part of a plea bargain agreement, Badar admitted his crime and was convicted of attempted murder, illegal possession of a knife in public, and illegally staying inside the pre-1967 borders for which a permit is necessary for Judea and Samaria's Arabs..
In addition to his 16-year prison term, Badar has been ordered to pay his victim 80,000 shekels ($21,000).
According to the indictment against Badar, on May 16th, 2015 he sneaked into capital illegally, with the intention of murdering random Jewish civilians.

Pro-regime Palestinian leader killed in Aleppo

A top leader in the pro-regime Liwa al-Quds (Jerusalem Brigade) has been killed in fighting in east Aleppo, months after receiving a military medal from Russia.
The Palestinian fighting force announced that its military commander Mohammad Mahmoud Rafeh died on November 27 while leading troops in the Baydin Roundabout, one of the areas in the divided city seized by pro-regime forces in the past 48 hours amid a collapse of rebel lines.
“Today, he was chosen by God to stay next to him as a martyr after achieving the mission of controlling the Baydin Roundabout,” the elegiac death notice issued by Liwa al-Quds said.
Rafeh, who was nicknamed the “Godfather,” was feted by Russian officers only three-months ago when they awarded him a medal.
In a ceremony in early August, the casually dressed Rafeh was presented Russia’s medal for “Strengthening Military Cooperation,” an award created by the Ministry of Defense in 1995.

Report: Israel Attacks Syrian Arms Depot, Hizbullah Arms Convoy

The Israeli Air Force reportedly attacked a Syrian army outpost and a Hezbollah arms convoy not far from the highway connecting Damascus and Beirut early Wednesday, according to the Syrian government and reports on Arab media.
Both attacks were reportedly carried out by aircraft flying over Lebanese airspace.
According to reports that originated on social media accounts affiliated with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, at 1:15am four explosions were heard in Damascus.
Officials quoted by the London-based newspaper Rai al-Youm said the explosions were caused by four missiles fired in two different targets.
The first target, the officials said, was an arms depot that belongs to the 38th Brigade of the 4th Division in the Syrian army. While damage was caused to the arms depot, no one was reported hurt.
The second target was several vehicles that were believed to be part of a Hezbollah arms convoy travelling near the highway connecting the Syrian and Lebanese capitals. The officials stressed that the attack did not target any political or military leader.

Syria confirms airstrike outside Damascus, blames Israel

The official Syrian news agency on Wednesday confirmed there was an airstrike near Damascus overnight, and blamed Israel, saying the attack was an attempt to bolster the morale of rebel fighters as they suffer the successes of regime forces.
Arabic-language media had reported earlier that Israeli aircraft struck a Syrian military target as well as a Hezbollah weapons convoy.
“In an attempt to divert attention from the successes achieved by the Syrian Arab army and to raise the deteriorating morals of the terrorist gangs, warplanes of the Israeli enemy launched two rockets on Damascus countryside at dawn on Wednesday,” SANA reported, citing a military source.
According to the source, the attack caused no casualties. He confirmed reports that said the missiles were launched from Lebanese airspace and hit the al-Sabboura area to the West of the capital, Damascus. He did not specify the target.
The second reported raid, on the Hezbollah weapons convoy, was said to have taken place on the Damascus-Beirut highway. The Syrian official made no reference to it.

Iran Offers to Help With US Election Recount (satire)

Iranian President Rouhani has offered to help the Stein campaign with its efforts to hold ballot recounts in the states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, sources say. Iran is, understandably, gravely disappointed at the prospect of a Trump presidency and the possible dismantlement of the nuclear deal.
“The Iranian people see eye to eye with moderate America in our disdain at the election results and fear of what is to come,” Rouhani stated. “Iranian-American relations could have had a bright, uranium-enriched future under a Clinton presidency. Though we do understand there is not much hope for a margin large enough to change the results, Iran will nonetheless do everything in its power to ensure every vote was counted accurately.”
Iran reportedly contributed a half million dollars to the Green Party’s campaign to raise money for the recount, helping them reach a record six million dollars in just a few days. However, it vehemently refused to contribute to the Clinton campaign, saying it will not fund an organization with known ties to Saudi-Arabia.

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Palestinian Arabs went on a murderous rampage within hours of the Partition vote

Today is the anniversary of the beginning of Israel's War of Independence.

Because in the hours immediately following the UN partition vote, Palestinian Arabs started attacking Jews wherever they could find them.

Here are articles from the Palestine Post the next day:

The descendants of these people are now pretending at the UN that they deserve a state based on the resolution that they so violently rejected.

And the UN now whitewashes the facts that the entire Arab world, and specifically the Palestinian Arabs, opposed the resolution in its video about the resolution. (As well as how Jordan and Egypt occupied "Palestinian land" in 1948.)

This year's #PalestineDay observance in NYC will feature embroidery, a Dabka performance + more. http://pic.twitter.com/TVEqofcVCa

— United Nations (@UN) November 29, 2016

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"Rabbis for Human Rights" calls Abraham, Sarah - and God - cruel

Rabbis for Human Rights' Amy Klein wrote a commentary on last week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, which she felt was very important because it describes how Abraham bought the Tomb of the Patriarchs and RHR wants to ensure that Jews have no rights to the place that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives are buried.

I was struck by this part of Klein's description of the story of Abraham:

There are those who believe that the story of Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Mahpelah established eternal rights to the land of Israel. ... Limiting the interpretation of the text to a record of land deeds strips the text of its heart. It is a text of human and social complexity. It is a story that brings to a close two overlapping triangles of tragedy: Abraham – Isaac – Ishmael and Abraham – Sarah – Hagar. Their tragedy is personal and national. It is the cruelty endured by Hagar at the hands of Sarah with Abraham’s acquiescence and the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael and with them, any threat to Isaac’s inheritance. 

Is that how she reads the story of Hagar's banishment?

Because the actual text (Genesis 21) shows that Abraham was reluctant to send off his son with Hagar - until God told him to listen to Sarah, assuring him that Ishmael will grow into a great nation:

9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, making sport.
10 Wherefore she said unto Abraham: 'Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.'
11 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight on account of his son.
12 And G-d said unto Abraham: 'Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall seed be called to thee.
13 And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.'
14 And Abraham arose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away; and she departed, and strayed in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
15 And the water in the bottle was spent, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.
16 And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said: 'Let me not look upon the death of the child.' And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.
17 And G-d heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of G-d called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her: 'What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for G-d hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.
18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him fast by thy hand; for I will make him a great nation.'
19 And G-d opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

Sarah was protecting her son from the influences of Ishmael, who was tormenting Isaac, a toddler.

Abraham loved Ishmael, and didn't want to send him away - but God told Abraham that Sarah was right. 

Rabbi Amy Klein is calling God cruel! Apparently, the Lord doesn't satisfy her definition of human rights.

Indeed, we can learn a lot from the story about the difference between the love that the mother of the Jewish people had for her child and how the mother of the Ishmaelites treated her son.

Hagar threw her son under a shrub and left him to die alone. She didn't pray for him. She didn't comfort him. She simply felt sorry for herself at the possibility of watching him die, so she abandoned him.

This is not the first example of Hagar's cruelty. Sarah, selflessly, gave Hagar to Abraham as a wife when she couldn't have any children. Hagar repaid her kindness by despising Sarah and mocking her (Gen. 16) Sarah knew exactly what Hagar and Ishmael were like and she did not want these selfish, cruel people in her household while she was raising the most important person in the world, based on God's promise to Abraham.

Is there a better analogy between Sarah and Israel, and Hagar and the Palestinians? Sarah is willing to do whatever it takes to protect her family and her people's future, beyond even Abraham's wishes. Her motherly instinct is vindicated over Abraham's legendary kindness - God tells Abraham that too much kindness can endanger his own future.

Hagar cares only about herself, not caring who gets hurt along the way and not even lifting a finger to help her own son, whose impending death is an inconvenience to her.

But Rabbi Klein doesn't call Hagar cruel. Oh, no - that would be Arabophobic. Klein thinks Sarah is the cruel one, for not wanting her son to be influenced by a mother who cares so little for her own son, and who treated her like dirt. It is Sarah's love and protection for her miraculously-born child that Amy Klein considers cruel, while the truly odious Hagar - whose evil personality was already clear to Sarah some 15 years prior - is considered the victim.

Which is exactly consistent with how "Rabbis for Human Rights" views the Israel-Arab conflict, today.

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Jordan practically boycotting Fatah conference - and threatened Jordanian Palestinians who wanted to attend

We have heard about tensions between Jordan and the Palestinian Authority before, but this is stunning:

The Nov. 24 report in the Gaza-based Donia al-Watan website caught some by surprise. It stated that Jordan’s 26 delegates to Fatah’s seventh congress due to open Nov. 29 are no longer attending the congress due to “technical, logistical and security reasons.” The exclusive report stated that the Fatah leadership reassigned the seats to Syrian and Lebanese delegates to the congress.

Najeeb Qadoumi, who was to lead the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to the congress, confirmed the report to Al-Monitor. “It was a request by the Jordanian government, and the Palestinian leadership accepted it,” he said.

Omar Kallab, a Jordanian Palestinian political activist from Gaza, told Al-Monitor that the decision follows rising tensions between Ramallah and Amman. “The last years have seen a cooling of relations for a variety of reasons. … The controversy over the FIFA [presidency] vote for Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan [Jordan claimed the head of the Palestinian Football Association did not vote for Prince Ali] and the disagreement over the installation of cameras in Al-Aqsa Mosque were some of the problems that have caused this tension,” he explained.

Kallab said that Palestinian rejection of a recent push by the Arab Quartet (Jordan, the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia) was the final blow in the relations. “The Palestinian delegates were unable to answer in the affirmative when asked if they can guarantee that the results of the Fatah congress would be to the liking of the Quartet,” he said.

In the internal discussion between Jordan and the Palestinians, the issue of divided loyalty was brought up. According to Hani al-Masri, a leading independent Palestinian strategist, the issue of citizenship was used in the discussion to persuade the delegates to stay away from the conference in Ramallah. “Delegates to the Fatah congress were told that they risk losing their citizenship in Jordan if they chose to attend the congress,” Masri said in a column published Nov. 22 in the Lebanese daily As-Safir.

Abbas said that there were some 60 delegations from more than 20 countries at the conference. There are at least three lawmakers from Jordan there, but this article appears to say that the kingdom has banned any Jordanians of Palestinian descent from attending and it greatly reduced the original delegation of 26.

The conference is being shown live on Facebook.

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Major UN official praises boycotts of Israel, Arab refusal to make peace, and Palestinian "resistance"

We all know that the UN is biased against Israel. All you have to do is look at one of UN Watch's many articles. One egregious example from Tuesday:

 The U.N. General Assembly adopted 10 resolutions singling out Israel today, with only 4 expected to be adopted later this week for the entire rest of the world combined, with one each on Syria, Iran, North Korea and Crimea. See UN Watch’s full list and voting records below.
The resolutions were adopted in their first reading today before the UNGA’s Second and Fourth Committees. All 193 UN member states participate in the committee stage, and then almost always vote the same way when formally adopting the texts at the GA plenary in December.

But UN officials themselves are usually careful not to sound too one-sided. They will happily allow special days, months or years, and countless committees and special sessions,  dedicated to bashing Israel - but they will almost always insist that they want peace and that Israel has the right to exist in safety. They do not want to lose that little shred of a pretense of objectivity, because to say outright that Israel should be destroyed or that they are against peace would be an explicit violation of the UN Charter. They are professional diplomats and they are usually careful with their words.

For example, Ban Ki-Moon has said "Israel is one of the 193 Member States, thus Israel should have equal rights and opportunities without having any bias, any discrimination. That’s a fundamental principle of the United Nations Charter and thus Israel should be fully given such rights.”

Some UN agencies are not quite so circumspect, though.

Meet Rima Khalaf. executive secretary of UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA).

From the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA):

A growing number of individuals and institutions from four corners of globe are joining solidarity movement with Palestinian people, said Executive Secretary of UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA) Rima Khalaf.

Speaking at an event held in Beirut to mark the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, Khalaf said that the organized campaigns to boycott Israeli occupation authorities are gaining momentum and new grounds every day all over the world.

In the Arab region, there are much fiercer popular campaigns against those who naturalize relations with Israeli authorities, she said.

Rima Khalaf is praising boycotting Israel, which is bad enough, since the boycott movement's goals are not to end the "occupation" but to end Israel.

Beyond that, though, this major UN official is praising Arab nations that punish those who have any sort of relationships with Israelis. Khalaf is essentially saying that Israel does not belong in the family of nations and anyone who treats them equally - as Ban Ki Moon insists - should be ostracized.

Arabic reports add that she also accused Israel of being an "apartheid" state in setting itself up to be ethnically pure, she claimed that 850,000 Palestinians have been arrested by Israel, and any Palestinians who are killed - including terrorists - are murdered by Israel simply "because they are Palestinians who refuse to give up their rights and refuse to surrender to injustice."

"The years have proven that the Palestinian people did not get used to injustice, but chose resistance," Khalaf stated, using a code-word for terror attacks.

Khalaf is justifying terror and making up facts. By any yardstick, Khalaf is directly calling for nations to violate the UN Charter. This goes beyond even what Israel complained about her saying in 2015. 

And, just like last year, Khalaf will not suffer any consequences for her public display of hate that violates the charter of her employer. 

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