01/01 Links: A Palestinian Defeat Is Good for All; Israel is Jewish ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: A Palestinian Defeat Is Good for All

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was photographed on December 21, carrying a copy of Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History, by John David Lewis. In that book, Lewis looks at six case studies and argues that in them all, “The tide of war turned when one side tasted defeat and its will to continue, rather than stiffening, collapsed.”
That Netanyahu should in any way be thinking along these lines is particularly encouraging at this moment of flux — when Sunni Arab states focus as never before on a non-Israeli threat (namely the Iranian one), Obama leaves Israel in the lurch at the United Nations Security Council and insurgent politics disrupt across the West. In other words, the timing’s exactly right to apply Lewis’ argument to the Palestinians. Actually, Israel successfully pursued a strategy of forcing the taste of defeat on its enemies through its first 45 years, so this would be a return to old ways.
That strategy starts by recognizing that, since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Palestinians and Israelis have pursued static and opposite goals. The Palestinians adopted a policy of rejectionism with the intent to eliminate every vestige of Jewish presence in what is now the territory of Israel. Differences among Palestinians tend to be tactical: Talk to the Israelis to win concessions or stick to total rejectionism? The Palestinian Authority represents the first approach and Hamas the second.
On the Israeli side, nearly everyone agrees on the need to win acceptance by Palestinians (and other Arabs and Muslims); differences are again tactical. Show Palestinians what they can gain from Zionism or break the Palestinians’ will? The Labor and Likud parties argue this out.
These two pursuits — rejectionism and acceptance — have remained basically unchanged for a century. Varying ideologies, objectives, tactics, strategies and actors mean that details have varied, even as the fundamentals remained remarkably in place.

Report: East Jerusalem Christmas Tree Decorated With Photos of Palestinian ‘Martyrs’ Killed While Attempting to Murder Jews Attracts Enthusiastic Visitors, Including Greek Orthodox Archbishop

A Christmas tree in east Jerusalem decorated with photos of Arab “martyrs” killed while committing terrorist attacks against Jews has been attracting prominent Arab Muslims and Christians, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Sunday.
According to the report, one such member of the Christian community was Theodosios, the Archbishop of Sebastia from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, who told passersby about the importance of the Palestinian people’s struggle for their land and holy sites.
The tree, declared Theodosios – known more commonly in the West as Atallah Hanna — constitutes a “Christmas message” from “the heart of Palestine” — that “we are one nation defending one issue…standing firm and remaining in the holy land.”
Other people who stopped by to gaze at the tree — which resembles a similar evergreen erected last year on the campus of nearby Al-Quds University – were even more outspoken in their praise for terrorists, according to Channel 2. Some went as far as to laud those who died during the “Al-Quds Intifada,” a reference to the surge in Palestinian terrorism, which began in September 2015 and has been characterized by stabbings, car-rammings and other acts of violence against Israelis.
In a video obtained by Channel 2, Israeli Border Police are seen arriving at the tree late at night and removing pictures of the “martyrs” hanging from its branches.

Israel Is Not the Occupier

This past summer, the section of the Republican Party’s platform on Israel included a key statement made in anticipation of President Obama’s betrayal of our great ally: “We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier.”
The United Nations Security Council’s passage of Resolution 2334, an outrageous act of hostility personally engineered by President Barack Obama against the state of Israel, has rightly evoked great anger across all parts of the American political spectrum.
Given the anticipated effects of Resolution 2334, this policy statement is critical as it represents the central tenet of what will now unquestionably be the policy of the Trump administration and the pro-Israel community.
“Occupier” is nothing more than a polite way of calling Israel a thief, suggesting that Jewish invaders colonized territory belonging to the Arabs — territory that therefore must be restored to its rightful, victimized owners. The term is intentionally misused against Israel in order to shape negative misperceptions of its history and legitimacy, while perpetuating a sense of Palestinian-Arab victimhood. To suggest that the Jews are occupiers in a region that has been known as Judea for over 3,000-plus years is no less ridiculous than to suggest that Arabs are occupiers in Arabia.
“Occupier” is a legal term whose definition does not apply to Israel under the law. Israel’s legal title and rights to all of its present territory stem directly from an act of international law made in the post-World War I San Remo Agreement, which was then further recognized and incorporated in subsequent binding acts — from the Covenant of the League of Nations all the way through Article 80 of the United Nations’ charter. None of the national and political rights recognized as inherit to the Jewish people have ever been revoked, nullified or superseded by a subsequent act of international law.

Abbas: 2017 will be the year of Palestinian statehood

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday told Fatah party officials that 2017 would be “the year of the independent Palestinian state.”
At a torch-lighting ceremony marking the 52nd anniversary of Fatah’s founding, Abbas hailed the recent UN anti-settlement resolution as a diplomatic victory.
“The settlements are illegal, and in recent days, we were given an unprecedented decision regarding this issue,” he told members of his party at the ceremony, held at the grave of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, Channel 10 news reported.
The PA president said the Palestinians would not tolerate Israeli efforts to fool the international community, Israel Radio reported, and said that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was building “colonies” in the West Bank and was seeking to perpetuate Israeli rule there, and racist discrimination against the Palestinians.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians were ready to work with the incoming Donald Trump presidency to achieve peace via a two-state solution based on the relevant UN decisions and the Arab Peace Initiative, the radio report said. “We want to emphasize our willingness to work with the newly-elected American administration… to achieve peace… based on a two-state solution,” he said. (h/t Jewess)

Ben-Dror Yemini: Blocking peace

Both Kerry's speech this week and the UN Security Council resolution last week enabled Palestinian intransigence. But Netanyahu's response to the resolution causes just as much damage—by undermining Israel's relations with important countries and doing BDS's work for them.
The Palestinians have been presented with three proposals to establish a Palestinian state on 95 percent—more or less—of the land Israel currently controls. They said 'no' three times.
To understand the Palestinian logic, one must listen to the comments made, for example, by Abbas Zaki, one of the PLO's senior officials, about five years ago: "When we say that the settlement should be based upon (the 1967) borders, President (Abbas) understands, we understand, and everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go ... If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall – what will become of Israel? It will come to an end ... Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Obama ... All those scumbags ... If one says that one wants to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not (acceptable) policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself."
Zaki didn't keep this strategy to himself. He presented it in an interview with Al-Jazeera. It may not be the position of the entire leadership at the Palestinian Authority, but he's obviously representing a lot more than we think.

Netanyahu said to warn of more anti-Israel UN activity

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly expressed fears Sunday that the United Nations Security Council could take fresh action against Israel during a meeting on January 17, three days before US President Barack Obama is slated to leave office.
Netanyahu told his weekly cabinet meeting that Israel is “in the midst of an event that has still not ended,” according to a report by Israel’s Channel 10 news.
White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said last week that the US would veto any further UN action against Israel, after Washington abstained last month and allowed a resolution critical of West Bank settlement building to pass, drawing fury in Jerusalem at the US and the Security Council’s other 14 nations.
The Security Council meeting is scheduled to take place just two days after a planned peace conference in Paris on January 15, which Israel says may be used to advance further measures against it after the UN Security Council resolution and US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech last week in which he condemned Israel’s “pernicious policy of settlement construction that is making peace impossible” and laid out his six principles for peace talks.
Although it was not specified what kind of additional action Netanyahu believes will be taken against Israel at the Security Council, Channel 10 reported last week that the prime minister thinks the Middle East Quartet — the US, UN, Russia and EU — will coordinate positions at the Paris summit, and then return to the Security Council in the very last days of Obama’s presidency to cement these new parameters on Mideast peacemaking.

Defund the United Nations

We pay more than anyone else to keep the U.N. in business, about 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget. As Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation notes, “the U.S. is assessed more than 176 other U.N. member states combined.”
Because nothing involving the U.N. is clean or straightforward, it’s hard to even know how much the U.S. pays in total into the U.N. system. But it’s probably around $8 billion a year. We should withhold some significant portion of it, and demand an end to the U.N.’s institutional hostility to Israel and the implementation of reforms to increase the organization’s accountability. There are individual U.N. agencies that do good work, and we can continue to support those.
Realistically, though, the U.N. will always be a disappointment. The fact is that the closest thing to what FDR envisioned in the U.N. is NATO, a like-minded group of nations that has been a force for peace, order, and freedom. This is why President-elect Donald Trump should embrace NATO and turn his critical eye to the U.N., where there is the genuine opportunity to, if nothing else, save the U.S. some money and rattle the cages of people taking advantage of our beneficence.
Charles de Gaulle dismissively called the U.N. “the thing.” The thing will always stumble on, but maybe Donald Trump can teach it a lesson or two about how we truly value our ally and its nemesis, Israel.

PMW: Message from PMW director Itamar Marcus

Dear friend,
The recent UN resolution condemning Israel is a gross misrepresentation of reality. PMW's findings prove that Palestinian Authority hate and terror promotion are the fundamental impediments to peace. PMW has exposed unremitting evidence of a PA leadership that has actively created a hate-filled Palestinian society, by its routine naming of schools and sporting events after murderers, salary payments to terrorist prisoners, instilling Antisemitism among its children, and the outlawing of peace-promoting activities.
As I am writing this, Israeli PM Netanyahu has just posted on his Facebook page PMW's recent release (see right),
writing in Hebrew:
"Does anyone need further proof that the UN's shameful decision only distances peace?"
Significantly, as more of the world is being exposed to PMW's material, greater clarity as to the true nature of the Palestinian Authority is being achieved internationally. This shift is culminating in revisions in international policy.
I am asking that you help today at this historic juncture, to enable PMW to expand the international impact we had in 2016 on governments, media, NGOs, and campuses to an even greater extent in 2017.

IsraellyCool: An Open Letter To An Israel Hater

Sometimes thoughts come in groups. That’s what happened to me after I heard about United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334. I wanted to say something to Senegal, and I did. I wanted to say something to New Zealand, and I did.
That leaves three countries that have a hand in this fiasco (and another 10 who deserve our anger and disdain). One is the Ukraine, where just a few days ago, they threw a pig’s head and red paint at the grave site of a much-loved Jewish rabbi who had the misfortune to have lived and died in the Ukraine. Another is Venezuela, whose loyalty as a major oil producer is clearly not going to be centered on little Israel. Venezuela, according to Wikipedia, has a ton of its own problems but still has time to focus on little Israel. Never mind that “Venezuela was the most murderous place on Earth in 2015” and “in Venezuela, a person is murdered every 21 minutes.”
What the UNSC resolution did was suggest that the deaths of 450,000 people in Syria is less important than Israel daring to build apartments for its citizens on land it captured from a country that attacked us. Yes, Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 and lost.
Jordan held the land from 1948 – 1967 and made zero effort to create a Palestinian entity…and not one UN resolution condemned them as “occupiers.” During that time, unlike the almost fifty years that have followed, one religion was denied access to its holiest place – Judaism. Yes, that’s right. Jews were not allowed to go up to the Temple Mount or even visit the Western Wall, and not one nation protested, not one UN resolution accused Jordan of intolerance.

Obama and the UN’s end-of-year sale

New Zealand’s obsession with Israel verges on the bizarre. If Israel were surrounded by sea, were not a mere nine miles wide, and our nearest neighbors were Australian, we too would live in peace and security.
(Kiwis anxious to right their own record regarding the Maoris should note that actually Jews are indigenous to Israel.) Perhaps, like Obama and Kerry, New Zealand was desperate to leave a legacy before its two-year term on the UN Security Council ends on December 31 – not that Obama need worry about being forgotten; the mark he made on the Middle East is inescapable.
There are battle scars everywhere.
While many Israelis are now looking forward to Trump taking over from Obama, I believe it is up to Israel to determine its own policy and redlines. That’s an integral part of sovereignty. The government must make it absolutely clear that cities like Ariel and Ma’aleh Adumim, the communities in Gush Etzion, the Jordan Valley and the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, let alone holy sites, will remain in Israeli hands. The Dead Sea resorts that Kerry raised in his speech are not his to give away.
We shouldn’t be relying on Trump or any other foreign leader to determine our own future.
My educated guess is that the Security Council resolution is more likely to mark the beginning of the end of the UN than the downfall of Israel.
But then you know where I got my education.

Dump UNRWA, Vote on 2008 Peace Agreement?

A referendum is within the realm of the reality. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was founded in 1949 and was meant to be temporary. In 1951, the agency reported, “There must be a firm goal of terminating relief operations. Sustained relief operations inevitably contain the germ of human deterioration.” UNRWA’s directors were right, but Arab states, however, hijacked the group to use it as a political hammer against the Jewish state. With time, UNRWA began to view international support as an entitlement. Today, its annual budget is $1.4 billion. If the Trump administration pushed for UNRWA’s dissolution more than six decades after its mandate was supposed to expire and channeled the U.S. contribution instead to host the referendum among those currently living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestine could be independent in a year. Jerusalem need not be an obstacle: Jerusalemites might choose to vote as Israelis or Palestinians but not both. If East Jerusalem Arabs seek to vote as Palestinians, they can forfeit their Israeli citizenship and join the Palestinian state.
Israelis will accept a two-state solution. Kerry may be optimistic when he says Palestinians would as well. What happens if Palestinians vote no? Simply put, the international community can move on. Palestinians have historically received more assistance per capita than any other people and, even in Gaza, they have a higher standard of living than many Turks, Brazilians, fellow Arabs, and Africans.
Money dumped on the West Bank and Gaza could be better spent on Yemenis, Syrians, Rohingya Muslims, Turkey’s Kurds, displaced Ukrainians, or others. If Palestinians recognize that they cannot endlessly live off of international donations, they might instead learn that the path to progress is through government and personal accountability, not handouts. Diplomats might understand that throwing money at problems more often prolongs than resolves them. So if the Palestinians vote no, it is time to declare the Oslo era—and the Palestinian Authority upon which it was built—over, give Israel an open hand to secure its borders as it sees fit, and write the Palestinians off until they reconsider.

Canada's Conservatives blast Liberals' silence on Israel

Canada’s opposition Conservatives issued a scathing criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government over its silence in the wake of the anti-Israel resolution passed by the UN Security Council.
Peter Kent, the Conservative Critic for Foreign Affairs and Member of Parliament for the largely Jewish riding of Thornhill, Ontario, issued a statement on Thursday in which he said his party “strongly rejects” the wording of the resolution.
“Conservatives will always recognize Israel’s right to exist, its right to defend itself, by itself, and the historic fact and right of a Jewish presence in Jerusalem. We strongly reject the wording of this United Nations resolution which appears to suggest that the Western Wall and East Jerusalem should become part of a Palestinian state. We are also disappointed in the actions of the outgoing Obama administration, which abandoned historic United States precedent by refusing to veto this one-sided and prejudiced resolution,” said Kent.
“Now, more than ever, Israel needs its friends and allies. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Israel had no greater friend than Canada. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. And the reasons for this are purely political,” he stated.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Titus Cites UNSCR 2334 In Demanding Besieged Jerusalem Surrender (satire)

The Roman general commanding the forces surrounding the Jewish capital sent messengers today to the leaders of the besieged stronghold urging them to comply with Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared that a Jewish sovereign presence beyond the 1949 lines is illegal.
Titus Flavius, who took over the siege when his father Vespasian received word he had been appointed Emperor of Rome, cited the relevant decision of the United Nations, noting the fact that in deeming Jewish settlement or construction beyond the armistice lines illegal under international law, the Council automatically rendered the entire Jewish stronghold currently under siege an illegal entity that must be dismantled. That could happen, warned Titus, by peaceful means if the defenders of the city simply gave up the fight and agreed to be subjugated and sent elsewhere, or it could happen by force if necessary, and the Roman Legions laying the siege were prepared to subdue Jerusalem by those means.
“Be advised that in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted December 23, 2016, this Jewish settlement of Jerusalem constitutes a violation of international law, in its consisting of Jewish settlement beyond the retroactively recognized boundaries that obtained prior to June, 1967,” read the general’s message, conveyed by courier. “Any attempt to thwart our action, sanctioned under the same international law, will be met with uncompromising force. Surrender, Jews, or face the wrath of the international community.”

Bennett vows to pursue Ma’ale Adumim annexation this month

Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett on Sunday said he plans to introduce legislation this month that would extend Israeli sovereignty to the Jerusalem-area settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
In a tweet, Bennett said his Orthodox-nationalist party would present to the Knesset what he described as a coalition-backed plan to lawmakers later this month — presumably after the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Bennett has long proposed that Israel annex large parts of the West Bank, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state in that area poses a threat to Israel’s existence.
On Thursday, he asserted the arrival of a Trump administration would see a shift in Israel’s West Bank policies, including the annexation of Ma’ale Adumim, a city with some 40,000 residents.
But on Saturday, Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, a close ally of Netanyahu, rejected suggestions that Israel may unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank, saying such a course of action would be “a disaster” for the country.
Zionist Union chairman Isaac Herzog, speaking at a cultural event in Haifa Saturday, said those supporting annexation were “brainwashing the public with lies, such as claiming that we can annex Area C and the world will allow it.” After the results of a survey commissioned by Israel Radio showed that around one-third of Israelis would like to see the disputed territory annexed to Israel, Herzog on Friday called on Bennett to support a referendum.

Zionist Union calls for referendum on whether to annex West Bank

Opposition lawmakers on Friday called on the government to hold a referendum on the fate of the West Bank, after the results of a survey commissioned by Israel Radio showed that around one-third of Israelis would like to see the disputed territory annexed to Israel.
Zionist Union chairman Isaac Herzog called on Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the head of the pro-settler Jewish Home party, to support a public poll that would decide the fate of settlements in the West Bank.
“Bennett, if you are so sure (the public favors annexation), let’s do a referendum now and decide whether we are heading to one or two states, without your mockery and arrogance,” Herzog was quoted by the Israel National News website as saying.
Echoing Herzog’s call to Bennett, Zionist Union MK Eitan Broshi noted that the Israel Radio survey — a curiously worded poll that gave respondents only three options regarding the fate of the territories — found that “60 percent of Israelis supported the establishment of a Palestinian state in some borders or others, and in maintaining the State of Israel Jewish and democratic.”

Turkey hunts for attacker who killed 39 in nightclub shooting

Turkish security forces were in the midst of a massive manhunt Sunday for an assailant in a Santa Claus hat who unleashed a salvo of bullets in a crowded Istanbul nightclub during New Year’s celebrations just after midnight, killing at least 39 people.
Foreigners were among the fatalities, including an 18-year-old Israeli woman and a Belgian national, according to the two countries’ respective foreign ministries. Close to 70 others were injured in what authorities described as a terror attack.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the attacker has not been identified and is still at large. “Our security forces have started the necessary operations. God willing he will be caught in a short period of time,” he said.
Turkey’s prime minister denied news reports claiming the terrorist wore a Santa Claus outfit.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters Sunday: “There is no truth to this. He is an armed terrorist as we know it.”

Israeli teenager, 19, killed in Istanbul nightclub attack

An Israeli teenager was killed in the shooting attack at an Istanbul club during New Year festivities.
The victim, who earlier was reported missing, was identified Sunday morning as 19-year-old Lian Zaher Nasser from the Arab Israeli city of Tira.
Thirty-nine people, including many foreigners, were killed Sunday when a gunman went on a rampage at the exclusive Reina nightclub in Istanbul where revelers were celebrating the New Year.
Dr. Ayia Ihsan Abd al-Hay, another Israeli who was with Nasser in the club, said the gunman “shouted Allahu Akbar” as he opened fire. She told Channel 2 there was “complete chaos” in the club, and that she was lucky to escape with her life.
Nasser’s father Zaher told the Walla news website that he urged his daughter not to travel to Turkey, citing the uptick in terror attacks in the country.
“She insisted on going because her friends were,” he said. Before losing contact with Lian, Nasser said his daughter to “managed to send us a few photos from there and she told us how cold she was.”

Attacker yelled ‘Allahu akbar’ as he fired, says Israeli survivor of Turkey terror

An Israeli woman who survived the New Year’s terror attack in an Istanbul nightclub said Sunday that the gunman shouted “Allahu akbar” as he opened fire and “cruelly” cut down dozens of people. Turkish police were still hunting for the attacker on Sunday evening as the death toll reached 39 with 40 more wounded. Arab-Israeli 19-year-old Lian Zaher Nasser, from the city of Tira, was among those killed.
Dr. Ayia Ihsan Abd al-Hay, a dentist, was one of a small group of Israelis who were in the club with Nasser. She told Israel’s Channel 2 News in Istanbul on Sunday that Nasser worked for her as a dental technician and that she was devastated by her death.
She said the gunman “shouted Allahu Akbar” as he opened fire, that she couldn’t identify his accent, and that his actions were “so cruel.”
Abd al-Hay said the group had not been scared to come to Turkey for a New Year’s vacation, despite the potential for terror attacks. “We weren’t afraid,” she said.
It was “the biggest blow that we lost our best friend… I’m so devastated,” she said. “She worked with me. I don’t know what to do now.”

Husband of Israeli woman killed in Berlin attack regains consciousness

The husband of an Israeli woman killed earlier this month in a terror attack in Berlin has regained consciousness to some degree from a medically induced coma, relatives said Saturday.
Family members said Rami Elyakim, 60, was breathing independently at a Berlin hospital.
“This morning they began lowering the sedatives, the respirator has been removed, and he is somewhat awake and communicating a bit, so there is improvement,” his sister Sigal Tzabari-Elyakim said.
Elyakim, 60, has not yet been told that his wife Dalia was killed in the December 19 truck-ramming attack.
Dalia was buried in the couple’s hometown of Herzliya last week. She was one of 12 people killed when an alleged Islamic State jihadist plowed into the Berlin market on December 19.

Palestinian Jihadist: Ban Christmas Celebrations in Islamic States

Abu Omar Almaqdesi, a senior Gaza-based Islamic State jihadist, said the soldiers and supporters of the Caliphate must not permit the celebration of Christmas in Islamic countries. He went on to describe the festivities as depraved, lewd and based on the “blasphemous idea” that Allah had an equal in Jesus.
“Isa (Jesus), may he rest in peace, is a prophet like all the others,” Almeqdesi told Breitbart Jerusalem “and in Islam we don’t discriminate between prophets for they are all the messengers of Allah, but the claim that Jesus is a deity represents a heresy that ought to be stamped out in Islamic states.”
“Those Christians who pay the jizya – the poll tax – and refrain from practicing these blasphemous celebrations should be given the security they deserve. But if somewhere there are Christians who insist on celebrating Christmas with the support of the heretic authorities, one must unleash upon them all one’s might and deploy all the available means.”
Asked what he means by that, Almeqdesi said that “all methods are admissible when it comes to preventing blasphemy against Allah and his commandments. Yes, including killing and blowing up. But, like I said, we believe that at first you should act politely and explain that living in Islamic countries is conditioned on accepting the Sharia and refrain from openly practicing rituals other than Islam.”

Jordan army chief: ISIS in Golan have anti-aircraft missiles

Jordanian Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mahmoud Freihat warned in an interivew with BBC on Saturday that ISIS fighters have anti-aircraft missiles.
In the interview, which was given in Arabic, Freihat referred specifically to the Syria-Jordan-Israel border, near the Golan Heights area.
"This faction is a constant and close threat to Jordan. Some of the areas its fighters are in are a kilometer away from the border," he said."They have tanks, armored vehicles, anti-aircraft missiles and machineguns that can hit the military posts on the frontline."
In truth, the ISIS was reported to have seized Russian anti-aircraft missiles a few weeks ago, when they recaptured th Syrian town of Palmyra, and they are not the first terrorist group to have anti-aircraft abilities.

'ISIS seeking to launch mass-casualty chemical attacks in Europe'

Islamic State militants have aspirations to launch mass-casualty chemical attacks on targets in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, the British security minister said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.
Ben Wallace also said British authorities feared that as the militant group was driven out of strongholds in the Middle East such as the Iraqi city of Mosul, Britons fighting for the group would return home and pose a growing domestic threat.
"The ambition of IS or Daesh is definitely mass-casualty attacks," Wallace told the Sunday Times newspaper.
"They have no moral objection to using chemical weapons against populations and if they could, they would in this country. The casualty figures that could be involved would be everybody's worst fear."

New Report: Some of 2016's Worst Antisemitic Activity Took Place on British, Canadian Campuses

Some of the past year’s worst antisemitic activities took place at British and Canadian universities, according to a new report, released by a prominent international Jewish human-rights organization.
According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s “2016 Top 10 Worst Global Antisemitic/Anti-Israel Incidents,” among the most distressing events of the past 12 months were the failure of UK school administrations to protect Jewish students, and attempts by activists at Toronto’s Ryerson University to derail a Holocaust education motion.
Citing a recent interview by British parliamentarian Baroness Ruth Deech — who, as The Algemeiner reported, decried that many institutions of higher learning have becoming “no-go zones” for Jewish students — the SWC wrote, “Antisemitism is so rife on campuses that some Jewish people are feeling threatened or unsafe.”

Israel Advocacy Group Gives ‘Worst BDS Fail of 2016’ Award to Denver U’s Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine for Using Website Developed in Jewish State

Anti-Israel campus activists earned the dubious distinction of having made this year’s greatest blunder where their efforts against the Jewish state were concerned — by advertising their endeavor on a site created by an Israeli company.
Denver University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was “honored” by advocacy organization StandWithUs for exhibiting the greatest blooper in its own anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.
In a video called “5 Worst BDS Fails of 2016,” StandWithUs mocked SJP for using Wix, and Israeli invention, to call for boycotts of Israeli-made products.
“First call of action for Denver SJP — boycott your own site,” the narrator of the video says.
This isn’t the first time anti-Israel activists have been called out for boycotting the Jewish state while utilizing technology developed by the startup nation — with Wix at the center of the BDS botch-ups on a number of occasions.

NPR Covers Up the Ethnic Cleansing of Jews

In its article, “7 Things To Know About Israeli Settlements,” National Public Radio manages to demonstrate just how little its writers know about settlements, Israel and how to practice journalism.
Our critique of this article is not about settlements, but about basic journalistic standards.
Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank
Reporters Greg Myre and Larry Kaplow begin by claiming:
When Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War, no Israeli citizens lived in the territory.
This stunning lack of context ignores that Jews had indeed lived in Hebron, Bethlehem and many other towns in the land historically called “Judea and Samaria,” until 19 years earlier – when Jordanian forces (with the help of local Palestinians) expelled or killed all of the indigenous Jews, and then re-named the entire area “The West Bank.”
The only reason the population of the West Bank was entirely Palestinian by 1967 was because they expelled the indigenous Jews in 1948.

BBC News claim of ‘illiberal directions’ does not hold water

An article by an outside contributor which appeared on the BBC News website on December 22nd discusses “2016 and the liberal story“.
“2016 has been a momentous year. The UK’s Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump confounded expectations while the wars in Syria and Yemen caused more bloodshed. BBC Radio 4’s Today programme asked top historians for their assessment of the year.”
In that article by historian Yuval Noah Harari, readers find the following:
“However, since the global financial crisis of 2008, people all over the world have become increasingly disillusioned with the liberal story.
It is no longer so clear that the Chinese Communist Party is on the wrong side of history, and authoritarian rulers such as Putin, Erdogan and Netanyahu are taking their countries in distinctly illiberal directions.”
The Oxford dictionary defines ‘authoritarian‘ as: “favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom” and ‘illiberal‘ as: “opposed to liberal principles; restricting freedom of thought or behavior”.

Disputed or occupied? How location dictates BBC terminology

With BBC audiences having read and heard terminology such as “occupied Palestinian territory”, “occupied Palestinian land” and “illegal Israeli settlements” scores of times over the last week or so in BBC coverage of UNSC resolution 2334 (see related articles below), it is interesting to take a look at the language used in an article published on December 25th on the BBC News website’s ‘Africa’ page.
Although its subject matter concerns a decades-old conflict involving an invasion, disputed territory, thousands of people living in refugee camps and more than twenty years of failed negotiations, nowhere in that article – titled “Western Sahara: Kitesurfing in the Dakhla danger zone” – did the BBC tell readers in its own words that the area is “occupied” or describe the presence of Moroccan citizens as “illegal” and at no point did the BBC endorse the narrative of one side of that dispute over the claims of the other side.w-sahara-art-25-12
In fact, readers were specifically told that the location of the story is in “disputed territory”.

IsraellyCool: Newsweek’s Nina Burleigh Tweets Out Antisemitic Article

Just over 3 months after I exposed the antisemitism of Newsweek Middle East Senior Deputy Editor Leila Hatoum comes yet another troubling example of a Newsweek reporter disseminating an antisemitic article.
The person in question this time is Nina Burleigh, the National Politics Correspondent for Newsweek, who tweeted this yesterday.

It is a link to this article on Mondoweiss, which, while not as explicit in its antisemitism as, say, something written by David Duke, is nevertheless antisemitic. Unless you subscribe to the view that spreading the notion of a powerful Jewish lobby, while questioning the need for a Jewish state, is fine and dandy.

Trump-cheering YouTube stars ‘stand with Israel’

Popular YouTube personalities and avid Donald Trump fans Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, better known as Diamond and Silk, have a message for US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry: “We stand with Israel!”
The two former Democrats, who rose to prominence as devoted — and flamboyant — Trump backers throughout the campaign, posted a new clip Thursday in which they lambasted the White House for its recent conflict with Israel over West Bank policy and for failing to veto the UN resolution criticizing settlements.
“I know that something went down with Israel because I saw Kerry on TV talking about them,” Hardaway announces, with Richardson murmuring and humming in agreement throughout her short speech. “Now I’m not quite sure as to what went down, but I do know that Kerry must be slipping in all of that Heinz ketchup, cuz he trippin’!”
Hardaway then grows more flustered: “Let me tell you something: Israel is our ally, so that means we have to have their backs! I don’t care if their back is small, and our backs our big, we still got to have their backs — period.”

Aerosmith Guitarist Wishes Israelis ‘Happy Hanukkah’ With Rendition of Hava Nagila Ahead of Performance in Israel

The lead guitarist for Aerosmith wished Israelis a “Happy Hanukkah” with a rendition of a well-known Jewish song in a Facebook video posted ahead of his band’s upcoming concert in Israel.
Joe Perry played “Hava Nagila” on his guitar for a clip by Creative Community for Peace, an entertainment industry advocacy organization, and reminded his Israeli fans that Aerosmith will be performing at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park in May.
Though musicians and celebrities continue to promote BDS — most notably Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters — and bully fellow performers to isolate the Jewish state, others continue to strike back by performing in major Israeli cities.

Israel is Jewish

At a time when Australian Christians have been celebrating Christmas and the New Year and Australian Jews marking the Festival of Light, Hanukkah, it is perhaps timely — particularly when Israel faces, relentless terrorist attacks and rocket attacks, boycott, divestment and sanctions threats and the ongoing threat of unilateral statehood declarations by the Palestinian Authority — to address Israel and the Zionist vision from an Australian perspective.
Imagine, if you will, that after the arrival of the first fleet and European settlement in Australia the Aborigines, the indigenous people of Australia, after the failure of their struggle to maintain their lands and freedoms were rounded up and expelled from Australia.
Such an event may well seem implausible and even ridiculous but a campaign of this sort could be seen as being simply and extension of the infamous “Black Line” in Tasmania in 1830 when an attempt was allegedly made to round up and eradicate the Aboriginal population of Tasmania. Bear with me and further imagine that the expelled Aboriginal population were then dispersed around our region and eventually around the world forming a substantial Aboriginal diaspora.
Given the love that Aborigines have for this land and the centrality of the land in their religion, culture and sense of identity it is surely not hard to imagine that the Aborigines in the diaspora would maintain their love of their native land, would maintain their religion, their languages and cultures and would pray for the day that they could return to the land that they loved.
Imagine that in the fullness of time these diaspora Aborigines did somehow succeed in returning to their native land — the land that they had continued to hold close to their hearts, their hopes and longings — and, through a near miraculous effort, managed to re-establish an independent Aboriginal homeland on part of the land that was once theirs.

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