03/27 Links Pt2: The 100 year betrayal of Israel by the West; Canada’s Misguided ‘Islamophobia’ Fixation ~ EoZ

From Ian:

The 100 year betrayal of Israel by the West - Canada Free Press

Obama Era
Because of the pressure put on Israel by the US to create a Palestinian state, PM Sharon thought he had to initiate solutions before he was forced to do what the west wanted. Thus he proposed the Disengagement Plan. Bush gave him a letter in 2004 in support which committed the US to certain things including US support for the retention of the settlement blocs and a solution based on Res 242 rather than the API. It also committed the US to not allow any other Plan to be imposed. This letter was carefully drafted as it was considered to be binding on the US. One of the first things Pres Obama did after his inauguration was to disavow this letter so he would be free to impose terms on Israel if not a full plan. I would say that was a major betrayal.
Pres Obama betrayed Israel in many ways during his presidency including forcing Israel to institute a settlement freeze and to support a two-state solution which she wasn’t legally obligated to do. Rather than leave all final status issues to be negotiated directly as had been agreed upon, he attempted to influence the parameters of an agreement by insisting on a division of Jerusalem and the ‘67 lines as the borders. His parting shot was to refrain from casting his veto to UN Res 2334 which thoroughly attacked the settlements and demanded a permanent freeze. If that weren’t bad enough, it went on to apply these demands to communities in Jerusalem east of the ceasefire lines.
The Iran Deal requires special mention as a betrayal of major proportions.
The driving force behind all these betrayals is the desire on the part of the West to appease the Arabs due to their 300 million population, their oil and gas exports and to their one billion co-religionists. It matters not, what the facts, history, agreements, values, guarantees are.
It remains to be seen whether Pres. Trump will put an end to this 100 year betrayal.

Melanie Phillips charts her journey from ‘Miss Guardianista’ to ‘neoconservative Jeremiah’

Growing up in West London a distance away from the city’s thriving Jewish communities, Melanie Phillips did not have a particularity deep relationship with Israel. The veteran journalist describes her childhood family as “three times a year Jews” based on the frequency of their synagogue visits.
Israel “didn’t figure large in our lives at all. It was not really talked about. It was there, we approved of it but we never went there,” Phillips told the audience in Jerusalem’s Beit Shmuel Hall on Sunday night.
“Israel was fine for other Jews. Other Jews needed it, that was great and we supported that, and we cared about its fate and its future — at a distance. But it wasn’t for Jews like us because we were absolutely fine because we lived in Britain,” said Phillips.
Now sharing her time between Israel and her native UK, the veteran journalist has undoubtedly changed her views both on the necessity of the Jewish state and on the future of the Jewish community in Britain.
In conversation with fellow UK journalist Matthew Kalman in the latest in an ongoing series of events sponsored by The Times of Israel, Phillips described how Israel had played a key role in her journey from long-time liberal correspondent and columnist at the left-leaning Guardian newspaper to assuming the mantle of an ultra-conservative heavyweight frequenting the pages of the Daily Mail and the Spectator.
Phillips said it was the 1982 Lebanon War which first burst the bubble of her “seventh heaven” on the Guardian’s high-brow editorial team.

Rebel Media's Faith Goldy in the Israel Today Studio (h/t Yoel)

Douglas Murray: When the Law Opposes the Truth Rather Than Protects It

The Canadian government suffers from many things. Among them is bad timing.
On Thursday of last week, the Canadian Parliament voted through a blasphemy law specifically designed to protect Islam. As Al-Jazeera was happy to report on Friday, the previous day's vote condemned "Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination." The non-binding motion that the Parliament passed also requested that a Parliamentary committee should launch a study to look at how to "develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia". The motion passed by 201 votes to 91.
It is just as well for those 201 Canadian legislators that they were debating all this in their distinguished national Parliament rather than the mother of all Parliaments. For had these legislators been in the House of Commons in Westminster, their thoughts may have taken on a sharper focus.
For one day earlier, the British House of Commons lived through an example of rampant Islamism rather than "Islamophobia". And although nobody in Westminster decided to turn into a crazy Muslim-hating bigot, they did manage to see what a hateful Muslim bigot could do when armed with the simple weapons of a knife and a motor vehicle.
The Canadian Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, who introduced the motion in Canada, proclaimed that the introduction of a de facto Islamic blasphemy law in Canada was needed because "We need to continue to build those bridges among Canadians, and this is just one way that we can do this." Hours before she said that, one of Khalid's co-religionists was using a bridge built more than a hundred and fifty years earlier for a very different purpose.

Niall Ferguson: Dawa: the Islamist mind poison that turns lost souls into ‘lone wolves’

To see how this poison works, read the recent Policy Exchange study of Britain’s Muslim communities, Unsettled Belonging. At first sight, the news is good. Altogether, 90% of those surveyed condemned terrorism. Most British Muslims, we read, have “fundamentally secular interests and priorities”. Only 7% said they did not feel a strong sense of belonging to the UK.
But read on. Nearly half said they did not want to “fully integrate with non-Muslims in all aspects of life”, preferring some separation in “schooling and laws”. Asked whether they would support the introduction of sharia, 43% said yes. And 1 in 10 British Muslims oppose the prohibition of tutoring that “promotes extreme views or is deemed incompatible with fundamental British values”.
Worst of all, nearly a third (31%) of those surveyed believe that the American government was responsible for 9/11. Get this: “More people claimed that the Jews were behind these attacks (7%) than said it was the work of al-Qaeda (4%).”
After 7/7, the government’s anti-terrorism strategy was designed to “Prevent” people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 even placed a duty on the police, prisons, local authorities, schools and universities to stop people “being drawn into terrorism”. When she was home secretary, Theresa May vowed “systematically [to] confront and challenge extremist ideology”. For this she was denounced by the usual suspects, notably the Muslim Council of Britain, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Cage and the Islamic Human Rights Commission. But the reality is that Prevent has not prevented enough.
The problem is that it’s very hard to stop a network such as this one flourishing when it can operate even in jails. Figures published by the Ministry of Justice show the number of Muslims in prison (for all types of offence) more than doubled to 12,255 between 2004 and 2014. One in seven inmates in England and Wales are Muslim. Guess what goes on inside. Clue: it’s not like an episode of Porridge.
This problem isn’t going away. Ask the French. About 8% of the French population is Muslim, which is roughly the proportion the Pew Research Centre projects it will be in Britain by 2030. The French authorities estimate that they have 11,400 radical Islamists. And about 60% to 70% of the French prison population is Muslim.
If you haven’t read Michel Houellebecq’s Submission, about an Islamist takeover of France, now might be a good time. Alternatively, you can “drink tea and jolly well carry on” — though it’s hard to do that when your head’s in the sand.

Michael Gove: Islamist Rage against Democracy Is a Tribute to Democracy’s Strength

In choosing their targets, terrorists are making a statement. Whether it’s the Christmas market in Berlin or the Jewish museum in Brussels, the site of an atrocity is never an accident. And the decision on Wednesday to attack Westminster, and in particular to target an unarmed police officer, was an assault on institutions and values that embody special virtues. . . .
Britain’s history may have its shameful episodes and our present state may be far from perfect, but parliamentary democracy is our greatest gift to the world. The principle that our conflicts should be settled by debate, that rules govern how we disagree, that opposition to the government is nevertheless always loyal, that all authority derives from the people and power is transferred peacefully whenever the people decree is a very special inheritance.
For terrorists and totalitarians, and especially for Islamist fundamentalists, our democracy is a blasphemy and a crime. Power for them derives from being a member of an elect, whether racial, religious, or ideological, rather than being elected and accountable to the people. Laws are matters of fiat, enforced by savagery, rather than by agreements which help cement civilization. That is why the most extreme Islamist organizations declare that the very act of voting is haram—unlawful, impious, and forbidden. And that is also why our democratic creed that every single voter, whatever his birth, background, or belief, is of equal value—is so precious.

BBC Brazil: London Terrorist Might Be a Freedom Fighter

Rarely, if ever, does the BBC refer to politically or nationalistically motivated acts of violence against Israelis as terrorism. Yet, the BBC has less of a problem when it comes to attacks on British soil, whether carried out by Irish republicans or Jihadi-inspired ‘lone wolves.’
Given the need to cater for its domestic audience, it was hardly a surprise that the BBC covered last week’s appalling terrorist attack on London’s Westminster Bridge and Houses of Parliament by actually referring to terror. Would the British audience have accepted any less?
So UK license fee payers who keep the BBC in business along with those very same politicians who found themselves in lock-down for several hours during and after the attack on the symbol of British democracy might be outraged at the policy of the BBC’s Brazilian subsidiary.
When one concerned news consumer questioned on BBC Brasil’s Facebook page why the London terror attack had been described as an “incident,” the response was shocking:
Translated from the Portuguese:
Terrorism is a word full of connotations, so we avoid using it. The terrorist for some is the defender of freedom for others. The terrorist for others is the avenger of injustices against others. It is not up to the BBC to judge the motives of those who execute attacks, as cruel and bloody as they are.
Ironically, the BBC license fee, paid by the British public, is set by the British Government, agreed by the very same Parliament that came under terrorist attack. While the license fee does not fund much of the BBC’s foreign language services, these are considered an important arm of spreading British influence and culture abroad.

Jews are safer in Israel’s bunkers than in French ghettos

Abdelghani Merah, the brother of the terrorist who, five years ago, killed a little girl, a rabbi and two of his children in front of Toulouse’s Jewish school Ozar Hatorah, is busy these days with a kind of “journey” of tolerance to preach against his brother’s deeds. That massacre was the first of a long series of anti-Semitic attacks, culminating in the attack at the supermarket Hyper Kasher in Paris.
But Merah’s victims, the Jewish community, is busy with another kind of “trip”. Le Figaro newspaper reported the data on the situation in the French city. 300 Jewish families have packed and left Toulouse since the killing spree. The French newspaper speaks openly of “exile”.
Jean-Michel Cohen was among the first to rush to the site of the massacre, where the Muslim extremist killed Jonathan Sandler, his two sons Gabriel and Arieh, and Myriam Monsonego. “The situation has become unbearable and I was afraid for my family”, he says today from Israel. “Toulouse is the French city most affected by departures”, says Marc Fridman, vice president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in the Midi-Pyrenees. “It is a paradise for us”, says Cohen from Tel Aviv. “Here we are safe. My children walk to school. We have no concern for them. They are freer than in France”. His wife now works as educator in the city of Netanya, the “French Riviera” as it is called for its high number of immigrants from France.

Muslim Brotherhood Front Group Seeking Removal of Listing as a "Terrorism Entity"

The application for judicial review made by IRFAN and Majid also attempts to distance themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood. This seems a bit difficult. Hamas itself was founded as the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to Article Two of the Hamas Charter.
Funding Hamas since 1992
In February 2001, IRFAN-Canada assumed the activities and pursuits of the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services (JFHS) according to the Canada Revenue Agency. This included keeping the same General Manager, Rasem Abdel Majid (AKA Abou Basem).[2] The terrorism funding money in question was sent to Hamas.
This support for Hamas goes back to at least 1992. On October 2-3, 1993, five leading members of the U.S. Palestine Committee met at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Philadelphia USA for a conference. As it turns out, the meeting was monitored by the FBI, which was already deeply suspicious of the intent of the individuals involved in the meeting. Wiretaps of this meeting were entered into evidence at the 2007 trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), which resulted in convictions and heavy sentences for funding terrorism. The recipient of the funding was Hamas. At the meeting, the role of the Canadian-based Jerusalem Fund for Human Services was discussed.
A Canadian present at this meeting, Rasem Abdel Majid/Abou Basem discussed the fund-raising for Hamas in Canada, which had already been successful. It should be noted that Rasem Abdel Majid was the manager of the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services as well as being the manager for IRFAN throughout the life span of both organizations. The following conversation which concerned funding for Hamas was wiretapped and placed into evidence[3] at the HLF trial:

EXCLUSIVE: Days after the carnage in London, this is the moment we catch a firebrand Islamist leader on camera saying all former Muslims should be put to DEATH... in Sydney on Saturday night

A leader of a hardline Islamist group which campaigns for sharia law says Muslims who leave the religion should be put to death.
Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar was frank when asked about the group's policy at a forum in Bankstown, in Sydney's south-west, on Saturday night.
'The ruling for apostates as such in Islam is clear, that apostates attract capital punishment and we don't shy away from that,' Badar said in the presence of children. An apostate is someone who decides to leave Islam.
His extraordinary admission was exclusively captured on camera by Daily Mail Australia and the matter has now been referred to the Australian Federal Police by Justice Minister Michael Keenan.
Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia removed references to that apostasy policy from its website as Alison Bevege, a freelance journalist, sued the group for making her to sit in a women's-only section at a separate talk in October 2014.

Once Again, NGOs Are at the Center of a UN Blunder

The close alliance between United Nations frameworks that demonize Israel and politicized non-governmental organizations (NGOs) keeps coming to the surface. The latest case materialized on March 15, 2017, when a little known agency — the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) — published a report alleging that beyond “reasonable doubt” Israel is an apartheid regime. The report, authored by the notoriously anti-Israel Richard Falk (also a 9/11 conspiracy theorist) and Virginia Tilley (author of The One State Solution), was subsequently revoked by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, prompting the resignation of the head of UNESCWA.
The decision by Guterres showed more moral spine than the UN is accustomed to, but significant damage was already done. Indeed, the infamous 1975 UN “Zionism is racism” resolution, revoked in a motion supported by 111 member states in 1991, is still cited today as if it were international writ. Groups like “Students for Justice in Palestine” and “Jewish Voice for Peace” at Columbia University, for example, hosted a February event this year entitled “Zionists are Racists” referring to the revoked 1975 UN resolution.
The ESCWA report is the latest example of how anti-Israel activists exploit UN frameworks and rely on biased NGOs to invent “legal” accusations against Israel.
Many of the 90 citations in the ESCWA document reference Tilley’s own book, Beyond Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. (So much for the pretense of objectivity.) One footnote acknowledges that an entire section of the UN report, “Apartheid through fragmentation,” is largely a cut and paste from Chapter 4 of her book, titled “Review of Israeli Practices Relative to the Prohibition of Apartheid.”

Why Don’t Supporters of Palestinians Care About PA Abuses?

If a Palestinian is persecuted, raped, or murdered in the forest and no Jews are around, did it happen?
Not according to the human rights community and supporters of the Palestinians who have been silent while Palestinians in Syria are slaughtered and displaced, and disinterested in the daily abuse of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza by their fellow Palestinians.
If the Palestinians ever agree to live in peace with Israel, will human rights advocates turn their attention to these deprivations? Don’t count on it. They don’t care. Their focus will simply shift to attacking Israel’s treatment of its Arab citizens, complaints about the size of the Palestinian state, the limitations placed on its sovereignty and any other Palestinian grievance that can be blamed on their favorite victims. There’s a term for people who use Jews as scapegoats, which concisely summarizes the motivations of the myopic crusaders for Palestinian rights – anti-Semites.
Dr. Mitchell Bard is the author/editor of 24 books including the 2017 edition of Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict, The Arab Lobby, and the novel After Anatevka: Tevye in Palestine.

Board president does a disservice to Jewish students at LSE

Jonathan Arkush’s public suggestion that Jewish students should avoid the London School of Economics (LSE) troubled me as the President of Union of Jewish Students, as a representative on the Board of Deputies, and also as a proud alumnus of LSE.
What happened at LSE this week was appalling. It is unacceptable that the School allowed the events to unfold in the way that they did, with Jewish students being the target of antisemitic abuse. It is even worse that the School ignored the concerns raised by the Jewish Society President on behalf of LSE’s Jewish student population.
We know the result of this lack of care: A supporter of Mr Falk, Gilad Atzmon, made horrifying comments about Jews at the event in the audience. The one that sticks out for me was the statement that ‘Jews were expelled from Germany for misbehaving.’ Undeniably, the concerns of Jewish students at LSE were legitimate and the university failed in its duty to protect Jewish students by allowing him to speak.

My question to Jackie Walker: Setting the record straight

On 25th February there was a conference at UCL to mark the 50th Anniversary of the publication of a Noam Chomsky paper. Jackie Walker was one of the speakers. I asked Walker (8:05 here) how she could claim to be an anti-racist when she does not accept the IHRA Definition of anti-semitism.
Jackie Walker and her supporters are absurdly suggesting that her responses “utterly destroyed” me (“Jewish anti Zionist Jackie Walker utterly destroys pro Zionist Jonathan Hoffman”) so I feel obliged to respond.
Let’s look at what she said.
Walker said that the IHRA Definition is a ‘new definition’ – then when I corrected her (it isn’t new, it is virtually identical to the EUMC Definition which has been around for years) told me I am not “showing her any respect”.
Then JW: “Anti-semitism has nothing to do with the Israeli State”.
But it is not up to Jackie Walker to define what Jews find offensive. The IHRA Definition is almost identical to the EUMC Definition. That was drawn up by Jewish NGOs working with representatives of all the governments of EU Member States. It says (for example) that to compare the actions of Israeli Jews to Nazis is anti-semitic. And to claim that Israel is a ‘racist endeavour’ is anti-semitic.

AGAINST AYAAN Compliant, man-obeying Muslim women condemn Ayaan Hirsi Ali, soon to visit Australia.

Compliant, man-obeying Muslim women condemn Ayaan Hirsi Ali, soon to visit Australia.
SBS reports:
She’s female, black and grew up Muslim. Now, a group of Muslim women in Australia are petitioning her upcoming speaking tour to the country.
The group, which includes a number of high-profile writers, academics and activists, have expressed “disappointment” over Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s invitation to speak in Australia as part of a tour organised by event group Think Inc.
In an online petition, titled "Ayaan Hirsi Ali does not speak for us," the group stated that ,"Hirsi Ali’s sheer presence in Australia undermines both intra and inter-community efforts toward social cohesion and in providing platforms for Muslim women to champion their own causes.”
Damn right she doesn’t speak for them. Ali speaks for women who prefer to not be enslaved. Even then, western feminist types believe Ali’s view on Islam “is too much coloured by her own experience."

Canada’s Misguided ‘Islamophobia’ Fixation

Discrimination against an individual due to religious belief is prohibited by Canadian law, as is advocating genocide or promoting hatred and violence against individuals of a particular religion.
Which is exactly what seems to be occurring with alarming frequency in some Canadian mosques, and about which our government seems unconcerned.
Also, last Thursday, when the House voted on the Islamophobia motion, it was reported that in a recent sermon at a Montreal mosque, the Imam spoke of the “disease of the Jews.”
There is no ambiguity in the Imam’s words: “At the end of time when the Muslims will triumph over the most evil of mankind [and] the human demons, the stone and the tree will say: O Muslim, O servant of Allah, O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.”
In other words: Kill all Jews.
One day later, on Friday, the Canada-Israel Jewish Affairs Committee (Canada’s equivalent of AIPAC) issued the following statement: In light of similar incidents recently exposed in Montreal and Toronto, there is a real concern that the airing of hateful rhetoric – including antisemitism – has become routine at some mosques. The mosque has posted the sermon on YouTube. A dearth of evidence is not the problem.
In 2014, the most recent year for which there are statistics, there were 99 reported hate-based incidents involving 1.2- million Canadian Muslims; and 1,627 such incidents targeting Canada’s 375,000 Jews.
You do the math.

Resume the Fight against the Terror Charities

After September 11, 2001, federal officials began concerted efforts to crack down on ostensible charities that were in fact schemes to raise funds for Hamas, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. The most notable was the Holy Land Foundation, which had supplied Hamas with over $12 million. But during the eight years Barack Obama was in office, action was taken against only one such organization. Jonathan Schanzer writes:
[I]t is hard to believe that [no more than] one charity has run afoul of our laws. A more likely explanation is that President Obama’s “Countering Violent Extremism” initiative, despite claims of community successes, sidelined law enforcement by working to co-opt rather than confront bad actors. This approach called upon nonprofits to renounce extremism and financing terrorism, even when officials strongly suspected them of engaging in that activity. . . .
Meanwhile, the Treasury Department’s domestic investigations withered, primarily due to mounting legal challenges over the constitutionality of these actions. Indeed, the risk of drawn-out litigation over every designation appeared to outweigh the rewards. . . .

NGO Monitor: What’s Missing? War on Want Erases BDS Leader’s Arrest for Tax Evasion

On March 22, 2017, War on Want, a leader of anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns in the UK, published a press release concerning BDS activist and co-founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACTI) Omar Barghouti. Barghouti is a resident of Israel. The statement accuses Israel of interrogating Barghouti for four days and claims that this interrogation is a form of “repressive treatment” part of Israel’s “system of violence and discrimination towards Palestinians.”
There is just one small detail missing from War on Want’s account. The reason for Bargouti’s March 19 arrest – tax evasion.
Barghouti is suspected of hiding $700,000 in unreported income, some from his company “National Computing Resources” and some from honorarium payments for lectures and proceeds from a book. The money was allegedly hidden in a Ramallah-based bank account.
In addition to being co-founder of PACBI, Barghouti supports a one-state solution; uses Nazi rhetoric in describing Israel; supports a “right to resist,” including armed resistance; calls for a “right of return,” which is equivalent to calling for the elimination of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people; and makes false accusations of ethnic cleansing and apartheid against Israel. Barghouti is very active in speaking on behalf of BDS on campuses around the world.

Pro-BDS contributions to Jewish groups — a Trojan horse?

Soon after the first round of religious-based hate crimes targeting Jews and Muslims, something unexpected happened: Muslims started raising money to help fix damaged Jewish institutions. Elsewhere, Muslim veterans offered to stand sentinel at cemeteries, and Jews raised money to repair mosques damaged in arson attacks.
For many, the support heralded a new era of welcome increased cooperation. But the thorn in this rosy scenario is that some of those who are helping Jewish communities are also vocal supporters of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). A movement that seeks to delegitimize Israel, BDS targets Jewish groups and students, calls for the death of Zionists and hosts Israel Apartheid Weeks on campuses across the United States.
Far from a marginal concern, BDS is perhaps “the” hot-button issue among pro-Israel advocates and on March 29, Jewish leaders from across the Diaspora will gather to discuss it during the Israeli Mission to the UN’s third-annual “Ambassadors Against BDS” conference. It is therefore no surprise that when BDS-supporters condemn hate crimes against Jews, the community looks askance.
The issue of blurring BDS boundaries recently took on more resonance after Linda Sarsour, former executive director of the Arab-American Association and a strident BDS supporter, initiated an online fundraising campaign to repair the desecrated Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Sarsour and her Muslim activist colleagues raised nearly $150,000 towards the repairs.
CAIR, another group that supports BDS, also donated $5,000 to the cemetery repair effort. It declined to comment for this story.

Rasmea Odeh was offered similar plea deal three years ago – why is she taking it now?

Thus, Rasmea was offered a plea deal which she rejected in May 2014 which held a very high likelihood of zero jail time, plus six months to stay in the U.S. after the plea to arrange her affairs before leaving the country.
Rasmea rejected that deal, and now she’s accepting a nearly identical deal. The only difference (based on what’s been disclosed) being that Rasmea now is guaranteed no jail time, whereas before jail time was highly unlikely and at worst would be a few months.
So why did Rasmea take the deal now and not earlier?
The prosecution, under the expanded Superseding Indictment, was going to expose all of Rasmea’s terrorist activities, including with regard to the supermarket bombing.
The prosecution almost certainly has more evidence than has been disclosed in open court, and even has requested court permission to take testimony from Rasmea’s co-conspirators who now live in the West Bank. Those co-conspirators have stated on video interviews long after release from prison that Rasmea was involved both in the PFLP and in the supermarket bombing.
In short, Rasmea likely took the deal this time because she now understands that her charade is up, that the prosecution was going to burst the bubble of Rasmea the Victim.
Rasmea would lose not just her liberty and citizenship in the re-trial, she would lose her life narrative of victim.

UK Expert: Universities Must Be ‘Firm, Explicit’ in Condemning Antisemitism When Tackling Anti-Israel Activity on Campus

The head of a UK enforcement and education charity told The Algemeiner on Friday that universities must be firm and explicit about condemning antisemitism when confronted with anti-Israel activity on campus.
Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said, “Numerous events during so-called ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ [IAW] were cancelled this year because of concerns that they were a vehicle for antisemitic hatred. In almost all cases, though, the universities banning the events said that they were doing so on safety grounds, or because proper room-booking procedures had not been followed.”
He welcomed administrations refusing to allow IAW programming to go forward, but said they need to “disentangle antisemitism from political discourse” and use “franker language” (as he recently tweeted) when they take such action.
Falter said college administrations adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism — as the British government has done, and as Prime Minister Theresa May recently encouraged universities to do — would be a step in the right direction, because it includes demonization of Israel.
“That would clearly set out the rules on antisemitism by which students and staff must abide, and it would also help Jewish students to understand exactly where the red lines are, and when they can avail themselves of the protection of their university,” he added.

Annual Anonymous cyber attack against Israel April 7

This year, too, the hacker organization Anonymous has prepared for its annual OpIsrael attack, or its new name, OpIsrahell, scheduled for April 7, next Friday, for the fifth consecutive year. In a series of videos distributed on social networks and on YouTube in English, Arabic, and German, hacker groups associated with Anonymous threaten Israel with "attacking government sites, servers and databases, and disconnecting from the global Internet." The videos also call upon "activists and other subgroups of Anonymous to join us."
Cyber security corporation Celestya, developer of the Q-log system for simulating cyber attacks, has tracked and identified hundreds of groups that have confirmed their participation in the attack. The hacker group has distributed attack tools, with an emphasis on tools for DDoS attack and corruption, and attack targets designed to concentrate the attackers' efforts to achieve maximum impact - with an emphasis on government ministries and government agencies.
The groups leading the offensive this year include Anonymous groups from the Arab world, such as Anonymous Palestine, Anonymous Gaza, and others, and Western groups such as Anonymous Germany, Anonymous RedCult, AnonGhost, and MinionGhost.
The April 7 Anonymous attack was first carried out in 2013, and represents the organization's annual campaign to attack Israel in protest of what the organization calls "Israel's aggressive behavior toward the Palestinians." During the attacks, hackers and other organizations join cyber attacks against the country's Internet infrastructure, official State social media platforms, and government, public, and business websites. Most of the attacks comprise denial of service or destruction of websites, but during the day of the attack hacker groups often publish information from databases that they broke into before the attack - such as email addresses, credit card numbers, and more. In most cases in the past, the attacks were successfully repulsed and were found to have a relatively low level of sophistication, so their impact on Israel Internet activity was very low.

As a Muslim, I am Shocked by Liberals and Leftists

It is the fear of this violence, torture and death, wielded by extremist Muslims, that keeps every person desperate to obey.
If liberals are in favor of freedom of speech, why do they turn a blind eye to Islamist governments such as Iran, which execute people for expressing their opinion? And why do they not let people in the West express their opinion without attacking them or even giving them the respect of hearing what they have to say? They seem, in fact, like the autocratic people from whom I was fleeing, who also did not want their simplistic, binary way of thinking to be threatened by logic or fact.
As, in Islam, one is not allowed to attack except to defend the prophet or Islam, extremist Muslims need to keep finding or creating supposed attacks to make themselves appear as victims.
Finally, a short message to liberals might go: Dear Liberal, If you truly stand for values such as peace, social justice, liberty and freedoms, your apologetic view of radical Islam is in total contradiction with all of those values. Your view even hinders the efforts of many Muslims to make a peaceful reformation in Islam precisely to advance the those values.

BSA rules Gaza blockade cannot be reported as “illegal”.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has upheld a complaint concerning TVNZ’s coverage of the Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza, on the basis that it breached the required standard of accuracy by stating the blockade of Gaza is “illegal”. In doing so it set out some important expectations:

Broadcasters should refrain from making unequivocal statements of fact on issues that are the subject of international dispute, to ensure viewers are not misled. This is particularly so in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where a broadcaster’s use of labels and descriptions can have a significant impact on the audience’s understanding, and views on, the conflict.
NZ Broadcasting Standards Authority Ruling 2016-087
In September 2016, Green Party MP Marama Davidson participated in the “Women’s Peace Boat” to Gaza, whose purported aim was to break the blockade and highlight Gaza’s humanitarian issues. Ms Davidson and her Kia Ora Gaza-facilitated mission was covered on at least three occasions by Te Karere, a Maori language news and current affairs programme broadcast by New Zealand’s state-owned television broadcaster TVNZ. Her subsequent detention by Israel, in anticipation of which Ms Davidson had pre-recorded an emotionally-charged statement about the “Israeli oppression forces” taking the group “hostage” and “kidnapping” it, garnered political reactions and extensive media attention.
Juliet Moses complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) that the first and second items aired by Te Karere breached the standards of “balance” and “accuracy”. There were no views expressed in either broadcast contrary to Ms Davidson’s and the Green Party position. Further, Te Karere reported on “the illegal blockade of Gaza” and referred to Gaza as being a “daily war zone”, with unexplained wallpaper footage of buildings being bombed.

New York Times Reviewer Insists Jihadist Attacks in US Are ‘Relatively Few’

Writing about a Showtime documentary titled “American Jihad,” a television reviewer for the New York Times reports that the film “examines several of the relatively few instances of jihad-inspired terrorism in the United States.”
“Relatively few”?
The phrase stopped me in my tracks.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The 1994 murder of Ari Halberstam on the Brooklyn Bridge. The 2001 World Trade Center bombing. The 2009 Fort Hood shooting. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. The 2015 San Bernardino attack. The 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting.
How many people have to die before the Times stops describing these attacks as “relatively few”? There might be even more such attacks except that the government, over the objections of the Times, has taken certain steps to try to prevent them.
“Relatively few” is Times code for “not a problem that you should worry much about.” It’s not language you’ll often see in Times coverage of, say, school shootings, or Trump-era anti-Semitism and xenophobic violence.
The jihad-inspired attacks aren’t few relative to, say, Torah-inspired terrorism in the United States, which, thankfully, is pretty much nonexistent. In fact, relative to that, radical Islamist terrorism is relatively plentiful. The Times reviewer doesn’t explain what the jihad-inspired attacks are few relative to, he just says that they are “relatively few.” Forgive me if I find that less than totally reassuring.

Indy article about (nixed) UN apartheid report fails to reveal the extremism of its author.

However, Falk is not merely “critical” of Israel and the US. As even the Indy acknowledged in a previous report on the row, he’s a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. He’s also an anti-Israel extremist who’s compared Israel to Nazi Germany and has engaged in or legitimised antisemitism. Falk, for instance, provided an endorsement for the cover of a book by extremist Gilad Atzmon – a book characterised by the CST as one of the most antisemitic books published in the UK in years.
Farand finishes her article with several paragraphs contextualising the cancellation of the talks by Falk as part of a wider trend limiting academic freedom pertaining to criticism of Israel. But, this is exactly why the latter omission regarding Falk’s extremist views is so egregious. Indy readers are left with the false impression that opposition to Falk’s presence on campus is based merely on the fact that he’s been “critical” of Israel, rather than on his well-documented history of expressing or endorsing views which are antisemitic per the British government’s definition of the term.
Once again, the Indy fails to include information that would undercut their desired narrative about the UK debate over Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, mischaracterising efforts to no-platform extremism as a cynical effort to stifle criticism of the Jewish state.

Holocaust memorial vandalized in western Ukraine

Nazi symbols were spray-painted on a monument to Holocaust victims in Ukraine that was erected near their mass graves.
The letter X was painted on the Star of David emblazoned on the monument near the western city of Ternopil. A swastika was drawn on the Hebrew-language section of the monument and the SS symbol on the part in English.
Police have no suspects in connection with the incident, which occurred earlier this month.
Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, described the vandalism in a post Friday on Facebook.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, building contractors helped the Jews of Kovel remove tons of debris made up of headstones from the former graves of Jewish residents in the town, which is located about 150 miles north of Ternopil. The headstones were smashed during the time of communist rule to be used for building roads.
Thirteen trucks delivered the debris to the office of Ilya Miretskiy, the head of the Jewish community of the district of Volyn, where Kovel is located. The community wants to piece together whatever headstones are salvageable.

Pakistani man wins right to change religion from Islam to Judaism

Many people embrace Islam, but vice versa seldom known. Fishel Benkhald, 29, has finally won the right to confess the religion of his choice – Judaism.
The ministry of interior has recently given the green light in response to his application where he had sought ‘conversion/correction’ of his religion from Islam to Judaism in his national identity documents.
In the record of the country’s top database authority, Behkhald is registered as a Muslim. Faisal, as he is known in his current identity documents, was born to a Muslim father and a Jewish mother in Karachi in 1987. He was registered as a Muslim due to his father’s religion.
British woman’s parents killed her for converting to Shia faith: husband
However, recently he made an appeal to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to allow him to return to the religion of his choice, Judaism, by correcting his faith in a Smart Card he had applied for last year.

Cathay Pacific's Tel Aviv-Hong Kong route takes flight

The first Cathay Pacific airline flight from Hong Kong to Israel landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Sunday morning.
The landing followed the October 2016 announcement by the Hong Kong-based airline that it would begin operating four weekly direct flights between Israel and Hong Kong International Airport in March 2017.
Paul Loo, director of corporate development at Cathay Pacific, who arrived in Israel to inaugurate the route, announced Sunday that growing demand has prompted the carrier to add a fifth weekly flight, starting from Sept. 1.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz and Tourism Minister Yariv Levin attended the inauguration event.
"This is a day of celebration for the Israeli aviation industry: The skies are opening eastward lowering flight prices for Israelis and boosting incoming tourism," Katz said. He said the new Israel-Hong Kong route is expected to lower flight prices by 10% to 15%.
"Cathay Pacific is considered one of the leading airlines in the world, and launching the route will see many Israelis enjoy flying to the Far East at attractive fares and high quality service," he said.

Champions of the Flyway fundraises for Birdlife in Turkey

The Champions of the Flyway (COTF) contest gets underway on March 28 in Eilat with 17 multinational teams (including an Israeli-Palestinian team) setting out to document as many bird species as possible in the 24-hour race period.
The conservation race – dubbed the de facto world cup of birdwatching – raises awareness and funds for the safety of migratory birds as they cross the Middle East.
Now in its fourth year, COTF is organized by the Israel Ornithological Center and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) to celebrate bird migration and raise money to support a national BirdLife partner in their fight against the illegal killing of migratory birds along a major Flyway.
This year’s funding is being earmarked for Doğa Derneği (Birdlife in Turkey), where hunting and trapping songbirds is still rife.

Israel turning garbage dump into energy resource

Transformed in recent years into a blossoming oasis, the former eyesore of the Gush Dan region is now not only hosting hikers on its lush green paths, but is also generating usable energy.
This week, officials launched a refuse derived fuel (RDF) plant at the Hiriya Recycling Park – a waste sorting and recycling plant that sits at the foot of the region's towering former garbage dump. The largest such project to date in Israel, the facility will be producing alternative fuel to provide a source of energy for cement production at the nearby Nesher plant.
"The RDF plant is an innovative, flexible and modular plant, which serves as successful model for a collaboration between industry that needs raw materials for energy and an urban sector that needs a solution to the waste problem and a technological body that is ready to take a risk despite the challenge," Doron Sapir, chairman of the Hiriya Recycling Park, said on Sunday.
The NIS 400 million RDF plant will be absorbing about 1,500 tons of household waste every day, or approximately half the garbage from the residents of the Gush Dan region – amounting to a total of half a million tons of trash each year, according to the project. Behind the facility's launch was a team of partners, including the Hiriya Recycling Park, the Dan Municipal Sanitation Association, Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises and the Veridis environmental service corporation.
"The RDF plant is one of the most advanced and largest in the world – spearheading a steadfast and diligent effort of the Dan Municipal Sanitation Association to improve and advance waste management in Israel, and in the Dan Region in particular," Sapir said. "I believe that the combination of resources, technologies and the public's willingness to change consumption and recycling habits is key to a sustainable future and the preservation of environmental resources."

At AIPAC, Dershowitz pulls water out of thin air

Harvard Law professor and Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz took the stage at AIPAC’s annual policy conference Sunday to showcase a new Israeli technology that can seemingly create water out of thin air.
He touted the innovation, which could provide humanitarian aid to remote parts of a world in which two-thirds suffer from water scarcity, as an instrument to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
“There is no weapon more powerful in the fight against BDS than for Israel to develop technologies that the world cannot live without,” the BDS critic told the crowd of nearly 18,000. “You cannot boycott products that you can’t live without.”
Standing onstage inside the Washington Convention Center, Dershowitz and AIPAC National Managing Director Elliot Brandt unveiled the technology from the Israeli company Water Gen — a contraption that is able to pull water from the air and purify it.
The device, they said, can produce 15-20 liters of drinkable water a day without the environmental costs of bottled water.
Brandt noted Seth Segal’s 2015 book “Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World,” which detailed the “Zionist dream to overcome water scarcity.”

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