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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Sarsour and the progressive zeitgeist
In US academic tradition, university administrators choose commencement speakers they believe embody the zeitgeist of their institutions and as such, will be able to inspire graduating students to take that zeitgeist with them into the world outside.
In this context, it makes perfect sense that Ayman El-Mohandes, dean of the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy at City University of New York (CUNY), invited Linda Sarsour to serve as commencement speaker at his faculty’s graduation ceremony.
Sarsour embodies Mohandes’s values.
Mohandes’s Twitter feed makes his values clear. His Twitter feed is filled with attacks against Israel.
Mohandes indirectly accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of wishing to commit genocide. Netanyahu, he intimated, wishes to “throw the Arabs in the sea.”
He has repeatedly libeled Israel as a repressive, racist, corrupt state.
Mohandes has effectively justified and legitimized Islamic terrorism and the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza. The Islamic terrorist assault against Israel, led by Hamas from Gaza, is simply an act of “desperation,” he insists.
By Mohandes’s lights, Hamas terrorists are desperate not because they uphold values and beliefs that reject freedom, oppress women and aspire to the genocide of Jewry and the destruction of the West. No, they are desperate because Israel is evil and oppressive.
Ben-Dror Yemini: Arab leaders did plan to eliminate Israel in Six-Day War
During the 1967 war, Israel seized Egyptian and Jordanian operational documents with clear orders to annihilate the civil population. Nevertheless, different academics are distorting the facts in a bid to turn the Arabs into victims and Israel into an aggressor. Here’s the real story.
More than anything else, the Six-Day War has turned into a rewritten war. A sea of publications deal with what happened at the time. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, the revisionists assert, had no ability to fight Israel, and anyway, he had no intention to do so.
It’s true that he made threats. It’s true that he sent more and more divisions to Sinai. It’s true that he expelled the United Nations observers. It’s true that he incited the masses in Arab countries. It’s true that the Arab regimes rattled their sabers and prepared for war. It’s true that he closed the Straits of Tiran. It’s true that Israel was besieged from its southern side. It’s true that this was a serious violation of international law. It’s true that it was a “casus belli” (a case of war).
All that doesn’t matter, however, because there is a mega-narrative that obligates the forces of progress to exempt the Arabs from responsibility and point the accusing finger at Israel. And when there is a narrative, who needs facts? After all, according to the mega-narrative, Israel had expansionist plans, so it seized the opportunity. Different scholars are distorting the facts in a bid to turn the Arabs into victims and Israel into an aggressor. (h/t Elder of Lobby)
Daniel Pipes: 6 days and 50 years
Israel's military triumph over three enemy states in June 1967 was among the most successful wars in recorded ‎history. The Six-Day War was also deeply consequential for the Middle East, establishing the permanence of the ‎Jewish state, dealing a death-blow to pan-Arab nationalism, and (ironically) worsening Israel's status in the ‎world because of its occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem. ‎
Focusing on this last point: How did a grand battlefield victory translate into problems still tormenting ‎Israel today? ‎
First, because of rejectionism -- the refusal to accept anything Zionist dominates the Palestinian attitude ‎toward Israel and renders Israeli concessions useless, even counterproductive. Rejectionism crystallized with ‎Hajj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974), a malign figure who dictated Palestinian politics from 1921 until his death. He ‎so absolutely abhorred Zionism that he collaborated with Hitler and even had a key role in formulating the ‎Final Solution. Husseini's legacy remains a powerful force in Palestinian life -- its latest manifestations include the ‎‎"anti-normalization" and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movements. Assorted Israelis and do-‎gooders, however, ignore rejectionism and instead blame Israel's government for not making sufficient efforts. ‎
Second, Israel faces a conundrum of geography and demography in the West Bank. Its strategists want ‎to control the highlands, its nationalists want to build towns, and its religious want to possess Jewish holy sites; ‎but Israel's continued ultimate rule over a West Bank population of 1.7 million mostly hostile Palestinians takes an immense toll both domestically and internationally. Various schemes to keep the ‎land and defang an enemy people -- by integrating them, buying them off, dividing them, pushing them out or ‎finding another ruler for them -- have all come to naught. Israelis are stuck in an unwanted role they cannot ‎escape. ‎
Third, the Israelis in 1967 took several unilateral steps vis-a-vis Jerusalem that created future time bombs: They vastly expanded its borders, annexed it, and offered optional Israeli citizenship to the city's Arab ‎residents. This led to a long-term demographic and housing competition that the Palestinians are winning, ‎jeopardizing the Jewish nature of the Jews' historic capital. Furthermore, 300,000 could at any time choose to apply for ‎Israeli citizenship. ‎



Anti-Semitism Is Older Than You Think
Christians in Rome would be targeted by the Empire for some of the same reasons. But when Christianity became Rome’s official religion, it absorbed the Roman state’s position against barbara superstitio as its own. During the latter years of the Empire, Rome would promote some of the very same religious conspiracy theories against Jews that were once used against Christians themselves. Ancient rhetorical devices against Jews that accused them of being untrustworthy, isolationist, corrupt foreigners merged with new accusations that designated Jews as scapegoats for the death of Jesus Christ. This would eventually form an even more pervasive, violent, and destructive anti-Semitism that spread throughout medieval Europe, pervaded the Renaissance Inquisition, and reached a horrifying peak in Nazi Germany.
Perhaps ironically, people who aware of the long lineage of anti-Jewish rhetoric today are not always allies in the battle against it. For example, Cicero and Tacitus are both popularly quoted in neo-Nazi forums. The Daily Stormer posts articles about “The Roman Empire’s Jewish Problem.” Neo-Nazis even use ancient Roman testimony to argue that anti-Semitism isn’t religious discrimination, it’s ethnic, which—in their warped view—makes it justifiable.
To this day, ancient writers have a sort of intellectual cachet; we tend to see them as unusually enlightened—often more than they deserve. We forget that, like many modern politicians and rhetoricians, Romans had selfish agendas. They were more than willing to sacrifice the safety of a resistant, rebellious group of people if it would earn them power, wealth, or the favor of fervent supporters.
Today, anti-Semitism is more often encoded as screeds against “global powers,” “globalist media,” or “international bankers” than blatantly trumpeted in outright Holocaust denial. But anti-Semitism remains a tool employed by the powerful to gain power and influence, and to rile up the angry masses for their own gain. This is one truth that, particularly in our “post-fact” environment, we must never, ever forget.
Permalink to Congress to Host Anti-Israel Forum, Sparking Outrage on Hill
Congress is scheduled to host an anti-Israel forum that takes aim at the Jewish state's military, accusing it of "systematic discrimination" against those living in the "occupied Palestinian territory," according to an invitation for the event circulating on Capitol Hill that has sparked outrage among pro-Israel lawmakers.
The event, which is sponsored by a member of Congress who has chosen to remain anonymous, will feature several anti-Israel organizations that back boycotts of the Jewish state and distribute propaganda accusing the Israeli military of human rights violations, according to an invitation to the June 8 briefing obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The event, "50 Years of Israeli Military Occupation & Life for Palestinian Children," has riled several pro-Israel offices on the Hill and sparked a search for the anonymous lawmaker who has provided the organization space in room 122 of Capitol Hill's Cannon House Office Building, according to conversations with multiple sources.
A number of anti-Israel groups have attempted to hold briefings on Capitol Hill in the past months, with one group of Israel-boycott backers being forced to cancel a briefing after news of the event spilled into public following a report by the Free Beacon.
That event was sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas), who only stepped forward publicly after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) learned about the forum and demanded it be cancelled.
Corbyn Repeatedly Shared Platforms With Plane Hijacker
Jeremy Corbyn has shared multiple platforms with a PFLP terrorist who carried out the Black September plane hijackings. Guido can reveal Jezza has attended numerous anti-Israel events alongside Leila Khaled, a senior leader of the PFLP terror group which murdered children and civilians. Khaled blew up one aeroplane and threatened to detonate grenades on another.
In August 1969 Khaled was part of the team of PFLP terrorists which hijacked TWA Flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv. The terrorists blew up the nose section of the aircraft. During the hijacking Khaled was photographed brandishing an AK-47.
In 1970 Khaled attempted to hijack a plane flying from Amsterdam to New York. When her accomplice was shot by an air marshal, Khaled produced two hand grenades and threatened to blow up the plane. She was subdued and arrested.
Khaled served as a senior leader of the PFLP while the terror group murdered scores of civilians. Their crimes included stabbing children to death and killing rabbis with meat cleavers. Khaled’s PFLP praised their murderous terrorists as “heroes“. Khaled herself never renounced violence and continues to call for terror attacks on Israel.
In July 2011 both Corbyn and Khaled were keynote speakers at a pro-Palestine conference organised by George Galloway in Lebanon. On 18 May 2002, Corbyn and Khaled spoke on the same stage at a pro-Palestine protest in London. At the event Corbyn called for a full trade boycott of Israel, insisting there should be “no trade” with the country at all. On the same stage where Corbyn spoke, Khaled is quoted calling for “victory” over Israel and claiming Zionism had “exceeded Nazism“. “Searching for peace” again, were you Jezza?

Jeremy Corbyn describes banned terror group Hamas as 'serious and hardworking' and calls for trade deal with Israel to be suspended
Jeremy Corbyn described the Palestinian terror group Hamas as 'serious and hardworking' and called for the EU trade with Israel to be suspended.
The Labour leader also said Hamas should not have to recognise the state of Israel before peace talks can begin, according to the newly-resurfaced 2010 radio interview.
The comments will alarm members of his party, and come just a day after it emerged that Mr Corbyn visited a wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of one of the terrorists behind the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.
Mr Corbyn has previously described Hamas - a terror group banned in Britain which runs the Gaza strip in Palestine - as 'friends'.
During the recording, broadcast by LBC, he said: 'It is not a question of whether one agrees or disagrees with Hamas on its political strategies or indeed its social strategies.
'You have to recognise that the reality is they have a great deal of support, they have a great deal of respect from a lot of Palestinians who wouldn't necessarily politically agree with them but recognise they are serious, hard-working and they are not corrupt.
'But they want to be part of a process.'
Hamas, which has carried out a wave of deadly bombings against Israelis, has said it will never recognise the state of Israel.
But in the interview, Mr Corbyn criticises the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for not entering peace talks with them anyway.
UK's Corbyn denies honoring Palestinian attacker of 1972 Munich massacre
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, denied reports that in 2014 he honored a Palestinian perpetrator of the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
Corbyn, who became the head of Labour in 2015, is a hard-left politician whom the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews said “most people in the Jewish community can’t trust” because of his praise for Hezbollah and Hamas and perceived failures in addressing anti-Semitic rhetoric by some of his supporters.
An article published in the Sunday Times this week quotes an October 2014 column Corbyn wrote for the Morning Star in which he recounted attending a ceremony in Tunisia “where wreaths were laid … on the graves of [those] killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991.”
This prompted speculation that Corbyn, whose party will contend in the general election on June 8 against the ruling Conservative Party, had honored the memory of Atef Bseiso, who was head of intelligence for the PLO and was involved in the murder of the Israeli athletes as part of the 1972 Black September terrorist operation in Munich. Bseiso was killed in Paris in 1992.
Corbyn condemned by his own party for attending wreath-laying ceremony for Palestinian terror chief
Jeremy Corbyn has been condemned by his own party after admitting he attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of a Palestinian terrorist involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
Less than a year before becoming Labour leader, Mr Corbyn visited the cemetery in Tunisia where members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation are buried, including Atef Bseiso, who was directly involved in the Munich attack, prompting outrage from Jewish groups.
Labour Friends of Israel – which represents 100 Labour peers and former MPs who are currently trying to be re-elected – condemned the news, saying it was part of a “a very disturbing pattern of behaviour."
Labour support just 13 per cent among UK Jews
Just 13 per cent of British Jews plan to vote for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party next week, an exclusive JC poll has revealed.
Theresa May’s Conservatives have the support of 77 per cent of Jewish voters.
Labour’s overall 13 per cent voting intention figure represents an increase of 4.5 per cent since the question was last asked, in May 2016, by Survation, the polling company which questions Jewish voters on behalf of the JC.
Asked the same question then, just 8.5 per cent of British Jews said they would vote for the party if an election took place. That result however immediately followed months of suspensions of party members for alleged antisemitism, and with no prospect of an imminent election.
British Jewish Journalist Trolled Online by Corbyn Supporters, Called ‘Zionist Shill’ After Flummoxing UK Labour Leader in Radio Interview
A British Jewish journalist is being trolled online following a BBC radio interview on Tuesday in which Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was stumped by her questions about childcare policy.
Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s “Women’s Hour” program, Corbyn — who is seeking to upset Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party in next week’s parliamentary elections — was unable to provide host Emma Barnett with figures on the price of Labour’s free childcare plan.
“It will cost… it will obviously cost a lot to do so, we accept that,” Corbyn stammered, according to the BBC.
After the interview, Corbyn supporters attacked Barnett on social media, the Daily Mail reported.
On Twitter, one commenter, Steven McNamara, called Barnett a “Zionist shill” and compared her looks to those of the Muppet character Miss Piggy.
Another Twitter commenter, Mary-Anne Penniman, questioned Barnett’s motives, writing, “You honestly think someone who routinely tows Israeli line this (sic) is an impartial and appropriate person to interview a left wing politician?”

Sanders campaign team members helping UK’s Corbyn
Members of former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders campaign team are in Britain helping out Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn in his attempt to become the next UK prime minister, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Momentum, described as a “left-wing pressure group,” is holding training sessions for Labour activists to teach them how to effectively campaign and some of the instructors are from Sanders’s 2016 team.
Although he didn’t win the Democratic nomination, losing to rival Hillary Clinton who had the support of her party’s state committees, Sanders the outsider did win the vote in key states such as Indiana, New Hampshire and Michigan during primaries. Corbyn is trailing in polls behind Prime Minister Theresa May of the Conservative party.
Uyterhoeven explained that she was drawn to Corbyn by his sincerity, a trait she said he shares with Sanders.
“One thing for Bernie, and I think this applies for Corbyn too, is there is a certain integrity behind it,” she said.
No, I’m serious. Just what must I do to get kicked out of Labour? By Jeremy Corbyn, MP (satire)
Then there is my bicycle, which continues to break at the most inopportune moments, like when I was on my way to the Marwan Barghouti Benefit Concert in Tower Hamlets last week. Of course, one would be remiss without mentioning my garden allotment. Ms. Bannister insists that it was my kale crop that introduced the weevils that seem poised to make quite a snack of her corn crop. Incidentally, a certain Mr. Goldstein continues to illegally occupy encroach upon my radishes with his rather arcane crop of chick peas and red peppers. So you can see, Mr. Corbyn’s (very vegan) plate is rather full. I am burning the (vegetable oil) candle at both ends. Jezz needs a break.
With all of my responsibilities, I simply do not have time for all of the nonsense in Parliament. “Votes“. “NATO”. “Protecting the citizens of the United Kingdom“. Therefore, for the past several months I have done everything in my power to get myself removed from office so that I may return to focusing on the important things, like the problematic gear shift on my Schwinn. And the sorry state of my lettuce crop. And improving my attendance for the Yoga Classes at the Leisure Centre. But it appears to be all for naught. I have tried everything.
So visiting Syria as the guest of Bashar Assad was not enough? How about if my travel-mate was Jenny Tonge? How about that I attended a wreath laying ceremony for the lead architect of the 1972 Munich Olympics….misunderstanding? Then I refused to apologize for inviting the Irish Republican Army for tea at the height of their 1980’s bombing campaign. For goodness sake, I blamed the Manchester attack on British Foreign Policy
Now it appears that even if Labour loses next month’s election, I still won’t be allowed to step down. I am simply at my wit’s end. Once again…. Just what must I do to get kicked out of Labour?
UK Government to Hold Pro-Terrorism Expo in London?
"'Friends of Al-Aqsa' is one of the more extremist Islamist organizations at work in Britain today. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity 'Interpal' (proscribed by the US Treasury) and advertises it on its website. It collaborates with the Khomenist Iranian-funded faux human rights organization known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission in organizing events such as Al Quds day at which public support is expressed for the Iranian proxy militia Hizbollah." — UK Media Watch.
Under these definitions, Hamas is exposed as a terrorist organization both by its repeated use of indiscriminate killing and the contents of its two Charters from 1988 and 2017.
"There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except through jihad..." — Hamas Charters of 1988 and 2017, Articles 18 and 21.
Hamas is not the only extremist organization to which Friends of Al-Aqsa has lent its support.
University of San Francisco to deify an Arab mass murderer
University of San Francisco, a Jesuit school, no less, is presenting a lecture event on June 2, that will feature Aarab Barghouti as the guest speaker. Marwan, his father, is currently serving five life sentences in prison in Israel for specific murders, but bears responsibility for the murders of over 100 men, women and children in terrorist attacks in the Jewish state, some of them U.S. citizens.
“Only Israeli propaganda presents him as a terrorist," Aarab, the terrorist murderer's youngest son, is quoted as saying. "Nelson Mandela was also portrayed as a terrorist. He spent 27 years in prison. And then he became a hero and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. My father is a terrorist exactly like Nelson Mandela. To the Israelis I want to say: If you admire Mandela, you should know that my father is repeating Mandela’s story. And if you do not esteem Mandela, I don’t care what you think. I am certain that one day the Israelis will reach the conclusion that the only solution is peace, and you will never have another partner like him. One day, the Israelis will see who Marwan Barghouti is.”
Marwan, Aarab’s father organized a hunger strike of Palestinian terrorist prisoners that just ended. Barghouti was filmed on a hidden camera eating food after he urged his fellow killers to continue to starve themselves. The strikers were demanding "necessities" like more cable TV channels, unlimited access to cell phones and increased visitation, plus free enrollment and courses for Master’s Degrees and PhD’s that Israeli taxpayers would cover. Ending the strike after he was caught on hidden camera surreptitiously eating in the bathroom, Barghouti - who was not allowed to attend the meeting with prison officials - and his acolytes were given only a renewal of the one extra visit per month by family that had been paid for by the Red Cross and will now be paid for by the Palestinian Authority.
No demands of Israel or the Israeli prison system were met.
Barghouti’s son would have University of San Francisco bands of youthful useful idiots believe that his father is another Nelson Mandela who is being politically persecuted. USF might just as easily stage a tribute to Charles Manson. Manson, however, didn’t murder as many people though he also murdered a pregnant American woman.
Michael Lumish: The Week on Nothing Left
This week Michael and Alan speak live from the San Francisco Bay Area with blogger Mike Lumish, and then speak with Egyptian-born Australian Coptic Christian Nadia Ghaly on the plight of Christians in the Middle East.
They have an extended interview with French politician Phillipe Karsenty who, in his former life as a journalist, was instrumental in exposing the Muhammad al-Durrah hoax at the time of the second intifada.
And Isi Leibler joins them as usual from Jerusalem to discuss the ramifications of the Trump visit.
3 min Editorial: Islamic terrorism
11 min Mike Lumish, blogger, live in USA
33 min Nadia Ghaly, Egyptian Coptic Christian
51 min Phillipe Karsenty, French politician and journalist
1 hr 25 Isi Leibler in Jerusalem
Northeastern Spanish City Council Rejects Motion to Boycott Israel
The City Council of Lérida, Spain, rejected last Fridau a motion to boycott Israelis and companies doing business with the Jewish state.
The Lawfare Project, a think tank describing itself as the “legal arm of the pro-Israel community,” said it “provided court decisions and legal reasoning, which were discussed during the council’s debate, demonstrating that the boycott motion was unconstitutional and in breach of anti-discrimination laws.” Angeles Ribes, a member of the City Council, affirmed that “boycotts by public offices are simply illegal.”
Last November, the Lawfare Project took legal action that successfully reversed a decision to boycott Israel by a different Spanish city council, in Sant Adrià de Besòs.
Filmmakers pull out of Tel Aviv LGBT film festival citing BDS
Several filmmakers scheduled to participate in an LGBT film festival in Tel Aviv have pulled out, citing pressure from the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.
The Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival is scheduled to open on Thursday and run through June 10.
Among those who have pulled out in support of the cultural boycott of Israel are: South African director John Trengrove, whose film “The Wound” is the festival’s opening-night production; Canadian-Pakistani screenwriter and actor Fawzia Mirza, whose film “Signature Move” will be shown at the festival; Nadia Ibrahim, a Palestinian living in Denmark who was to serve as a member of the festival jury and appear on a panel; and Swiss actor Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Haaretz reported.
Trengrove reportedly decided to cancel his participation after his arrival in Israel, which was paid for by the cash-strapped festival, according to Haaretz.
Jewish Conspiracy Behind US-Saudi Arms Deal?
It’s hard to see exactly what Frederikse believes links Dermer, Friedman and Kushner to an arms deal except their American Jewish backgrounds. Is Frederikse insinuating the classical anti-Semitic trope of dual loyalty whereby Jews prioritize the interests of each other (and Israel) ahead of the interests of the states in which they live?
Or is it the case that Jews are the driving force behind the “US military-industrial complex?” Given the widespread concern within Israeli political and security circles at the US-Saudi arms deal, it’s clearly a stretch to suggest that it had the blessing of Benjamin Netanyahu.
In his final sentence, Frederikse arrives at the point of his opinion piece:
Iran is being used here as a convenient bogeyman by the US to justify the Saudi arms deal.
So if this is his conclusion, how and why did he reach it by way of highlighting the Jewish backgrounds of three political players (out of many) linked to or with access to the Trump administration?
Washington Post's Jerusalem Bureau Chief Peddles Anti-Israel Fake News
He also adopts Palestinian propaganda talking points, referring to Israel’s security fence as either a “barrier wall” or “separation barrier.” In fact, most of the so-called “barrier wall” consists of fencing. The pejorative term “separation barrier” is meant to imply the imposition of two separate systems, one for Israelis and the other for Palestinians – a subtle attempt to peddle the anti-Semitic apartheid narrative. Of course, the security fence did not exist prior to the Oslo War and concomitant deterioration of the security situation; again, cause and effect.
Booth pays scant attention to the 1967 Six-Day War and events preceding it. The history of the Six-Day War is well known and the aggressors, well established. It was not Israel who threatened to destroy the Arabs but rather vice versa. Arab anti-Semitic invective and blood-curdling shrill in the weeks preceding the war would have put the most ardent Nazi to shame.
Booth refers to Kiryat Arba, a Jewish community in Judea, as a “Jewish settlement infamous as the home to the American-born physician Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Muslim worshipers with a machine gun at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994.” But he fails to note that the city of Hebron which abuts Kiryat Araba is the place where Arabs, inspired by ancient hatred, massacred 67 Jewish residents, including women and children. In fact, the 1929 Hebron massacre was so transformative and so etched in the collective psyche of Jews that at least one scholar has referred to it as “Year Zero” of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Why Booth notes one massacre without addressing the arguably more impactful other is anyone’s guess.
Booth also notes that the Tomb of Rachel, which is located near Checkpoint 300, is “a shrine sacred to Muslims and Christians and considered one of the holiest for Jews.” In fact, until very recently, Rachel’s Tomb held no significance for Muslims. It has always been recognized, even by Muslims, as a revered Jewish site, where Jews have prayed for 3,000 years. Nadav Shragai of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs notes that the sixteenth century Arab historian, Mujir Al-Din, wrote that Rachel’s Tomb was a Jewish holy place. During their occupation, the Muslim Ottoman authorities also recognized Rachel’s Tomb as a Jewish holy site. Indeed, the outrageous claim that the site operated as a mosque first surfaced barely 20 years ago.
South African student apologizes for anti-Semitic taunts at Holocaust play
The high school student who interrupted a South African Jewish school’s performance of a play about the Holocaust with chants of “Heil Hitler!” and other anti-Semitic taunts has expressed remorse.
The principal of the Edenvale High School, Larry Harmer, also apologized for the incident during a meeting Monday with the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, though he reportedly told parents in a memo sent home the same day that he believes that “there has been much that has been incorrectly reported in the media‚ which has blown the incident out of all proportion.”
Harmer also told parents that the teen heckler “apologized several times‚ pleading it had not been meant in a malicious or hurtful way. The ‘Heil Hitler’ was merely in recognition of the Nazi uniform worn by the King David learner.”
He also said in the letter to parents that the school strongly condemned anti-Semitic or racist behavior, and will expand its teaching program to include sensitivity behavior.
Kent Police Under Fire for ‘Appalling’ Non-Response to Scene of Antisemitic Rock-Throwing Assault on Jewish Family at Beach
A British NGO is calling for an investigation following a reported incident at a Kent beach on Sunday in which a Jewish family was pelted with stones by a group of teenagers and police failed to respond.
According to reports, the assault took place at Minster Beach on the Isle of Sheppey. Members of a London Jewish family — including two parents and their five daughters, between the ages of eight and 15 — were targeted by five teens who ran toward them throwing rocks and shouting, “Jews.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) said in a statement, “As the attack continued and the parents tried to shelter their children, the family called Kent Police, but the emergency operator advised them that no officers would be dispatched, despite the assailants remaining at the scene. Instead, they were told that an officer would contact them the following week to ‘investigate.'”
The CAA continued, “The failure of Kent Police to attend the scene of an active antisemitic attack is appalling and must be investigated thoroughly. Normally, police officers should be deployed to an ongoing incident or an incident where suspects remain on the scene.”
Austrian Jewish Student Organization Seeking Legal Action Against National Student Leaders Who Participated in Chat Group Mocking Holocaust
Following the exposure of a secret chat group in which top Austrian student leaders engaged in Holocaust denial, the president of the country’s leading Jewish student organization told The Algemeiner on Monday his group has decided to pursue criminal charges.
Benjamin Hess — of the Union of Jewish Austrian University Students (JÖH) — said those behind the pro-Nazi content posted over four years in the Facebook group “FVJUS Men’s Collective” and the WhatsApp group “Badass warlords” should be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The content of the chats included a picture of a pile of ashes, with the caption: “Leaked Anne Frank nudes!”
In another post, a picture of Adolf Hitler was uploaded alongside the words: “Hey. I just met you and this is crazy, but here’s your number… So Auschwitz, maybe?”
The chats were also filled with degrading comments about women and Muslims.
Hess said many of the chat groups’ 32 participants were members of the student chapter of the Conservative Austrian People’s Party at the University of Vienna’s Faculty of Law (where Hess is a student himself), a school and student group from which many of the country’s premier politicians and lawyers have ascended to prominence.
Germany detains teen allegedly planning Berlin attack
German state police were questioning a 17-year-old asylum-seeker Tuesday after a tactical unit took him into custody outside Berlin on suspicion that he was planning a suicide attack in the capital.
Police in the state of Brandenburg said the teenager was detained Tuesday in the village of Gerswalde, 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Berlin, after they learned he had sent a farewell message to family members and told them that “he had joined the jihad,” or holy war.
The WhatsApp message talking about jihad to the suspect’s family was sent within the last week and Brandenburg authorities were told of it late Monday night by two other German states, Brandenburg police spokesman Torsten Herbst told The Associated Press.
He said police were investigating but so far “evidence of the planning of a concrete act has not yet been identified.”
Holocaust-era Torah scroll fragments returned decades later
Sheets of a Torah scroll used around the time of the Holocaust in a Polish city were returned to Jewish hands this week thanks to an Israel Hayom report.
The decision to return the sheets, which include passages from the book of Genesis, was made after Israel Hayom reported on a 1925 medallion found in Poland. The medallion, issued to mark the inauguration of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, features a Star of David and Hebrew writing.
A Polish woman saw the translated article and told Mimaamakim (From the Depths) -- an organization dedicated to Holocaust remembrance and education -- that her grandmother in Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Poland had an item that could be of Jewish significance. The head of the organization, Jonny Daniels, told Israel Hayom that he arrived at her grandmother's home in Poland and she told him that her late husband, who was a historian, had collected historical artifacts.
Twice as many religious women volunteering for IDF
The number of women from national-religious backgrounds joining the IDF has doubled in recent years, according to a new Knesset-commissioned study released Monday.
According to figures released by the Knesset Information and Research Center, the annual number of women from the national-religious education system who have voluntarily enlisted to serve in the IDF has increased from 930 in 2010 to just over 2,000 in 2015.
That figure constitutes 26 percent of the entire female graduating cohort from national-religious schools in 2015.
The findings come despite several high-profile and controversial calls from religious leaders in the community against religious women joining the military. In the past, most chose to do a national service instead.
These US soldiers liberated Dachau while their own families were locked up back home
Sioma Lubetzky and his teenage sons Larry and Roman huddled near the Dachau concentration camp in late April of 1945. The three Lithuanian Jewish inmates had been led on a death march into the mountains, where Nazi guards planned to push them off the edge. They were saved by a freak blizzard. In the morning, the guards had disappeared — but when the abandoned survivors made their way to a nearby village, soldiers approached on tanks.
The soldiers were from a unique American unit — the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. It was the only unit in the US armed forces during World War II whose enlisted men were all of Japanese ancestry.
“They had never seen what a Japanese-American person looked like,” said Larry Lubetzky’s son, Daniel Lubetzky, whose late father had shared memories of the rescue. “They showed a kindness, love, tenderness that had not been seen in 1945.”
Events across the US are honoring the Japanese-Americans of the 522nd who rescued Jewish survivors of a Dachau subcamp and death marches. The brave soldiers’ recognition is tied to another observance of sorts: This year marks 75 years since Executive Order 9066, under which a suspicious US government at war with Japan relocated Japanese-Americans — citizens and non-citizens alike — to sites now called “internment camps.” In an ironic twist, Japanese-Americans who rescued Jews from Dachau often had family members in US “concentration camps,” as they were called back then.



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Wishing all my Jewish readers a chag sameach!


I will not be blogging until probably Friday.

Don't OD on the cheesecake!



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From Asharq al-Awsat:
Iran is holding meetings with Hamas and will allegedly resume its financial support for the organization, Palestinian sources said on Tuesday. Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and senior Hezbollah figures were among those at the talks in Lebanon.

The move came after representatives from the Islamic Republic and the Palestinian terror group conducted intensive discussions in Lebanon over the last two weeks.

According to the sources, Iran and Hamas agreed to resume diplomatic relations to the level at which they were, before the Syrian civil war, when the sides broke off their close ties. It was also reported that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is expected to visit Tehran in the near future.

The agreement was supported by commander of IRGC’s al-Quds Brigades Kassam Soleimani, Ismail Haniyeh, and Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.

Hamas reduced its staff and members by 30 percent including the Qassam Brigades because of difficult situations. Iran took advantage of Haniyeh’s elections as head of the organization to reinstate the relationship.

Iran supported Haniyeh reaching the leadership and didn’t support senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk because of disagreements after Tehran accused Marzouk of falsifying truths when said that Iran was not transferring financial aid to Hamas or the Gaza Strip, and that relations between Hamas and Tehran were frozen.

Since the beginning, Iran was relying on Haniyeh’s diplomacy who leans towards reconciliation with Tehran unlike former leader Khalid Mashaal.
 Thanks, Obama! Iran can afford to return to its funding of the major Palestinian terror group (they never stopped funding Islamic Jihad.)

There is a small silver lining here.

This article in a pan-Arab newspaper refers to Hamas flatly as a "Palestinian terror group." Not a "resistance group," not even a "militant group." Asharq al Awsat uses the T word that Western news agencies are afraid to use.

Which means that Hamas has really lost the Sunni Muslim world.



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From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: What Trump not signing a Jerusalem embassy waiver would really mean
On Thursday, President Barack Obama’s last waiver pursuant to the Jerusalem Embassy Act will expire. Absent a new waiver by President Trump, the provisions of the law will go into full effect. Trump promised during his campaign to move the embassy, a policy embodied both in federal law and the Republican Party platform. But since he came into office, Trump’s promise seems to have lost some momentum.
This piece will examine the mechanics of the Embassy Act waiver — it is not actually a waiver on moving the embassy. The details of the law make it a particularly convenient way for Trump to defy now-lowered expectations and not issue a waiver on June 1.
First, some context. Many commentators have sought to cast a possible Trump waiver as proof that Obama’s Israeli policy is really the only possible game in town. But whether or not a waiver is issued, Trump has succeeded in fundamentally changing the discussion about the U.S.-Israel relationship. Waivers under the 1995 act come twice a year, and for the past two decades, they have hardly warranted a news item. Under the Bush and Obama administrations, they were entirely taken for granted.
Now everyone is holding his or her breath to see whether Trump will sign the waiver. If he does, it will certainly be a disappointment to his supporters. But it will not be the end of the show — he will have seven more waivers ahead, with mounting pressure as his term progresses. Under Obama, speculation focused on what actions he would take or allow against Israel (and even these waited until very late in his second term).
The waiver available to the president under the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 does not waive the obligation to move the embassy. That policy has been fully adopted by Congress in the Act (sec. 3(a)(3)) and is not waivable. Of course, Congress cannot simply order the president to implement such a move, especially given his core constitutional power over diplomatic relations.
But Congress, having total power over the spending of taxpayer dollars, does not have to pay for an embassy in Tel Aviv. The Act’s enforcement mechanism is to suspend half of the appropriated funds for the State Department’s “Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad” until the law’s terms are complied with. The waiver provision simply allows the president to waive the financial penalty.
What this means is that by not signing a waiver, Trump would not actually be requiring the embassy to move to Jerusalem, moving the embassy or recognizing Jerusalem. That could give him significant diplomatic flexibility or deniability if June 1 goes by with mere silence from the White House.
Obama treated Israel ‘as part of the problem,’ says ex-envoy Oren. With Trump, ‘it’s love, love, love’
As a noted historian, former Israeli ambassador to the United States and current Knesset member, Michael Oren has been grappling with the question of how Israel should be presented to the world for years.
Last year, shortly before being appointed deputy minister for public diplomacy, Oren was invited for a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss just that.
“Delegitimization, the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement… What are we doing wrong? What could we be doing to present Israel better?” Oren, speaking to a crowded auditorium of English-speaking Israelis at a Times of Israel event Sunday night, recalled Netanyahu asking him.
Oren said he told the prime minister that he believed Israel was fighting the war of words with the wrong weapons. While “the other side” has a simple narrative peppered with buzzwords like “occupation,” “colonialism,” “oppression,” and “apartheid,” Israel, according to Oren, had yet to work out how to present a succinct and salient argument to counter its critics. Israel was falling behind in the battle for hearts and minds because it has not succeeded in creating a positive counter-narrative, Oren argued.
Tasked by Netanyahu with forming that narrative, Oren at first approached public relations experts, he recounted, but soon realized that traditional PR methods were the wrong approach to hasbara, or pro-Israel advocacy.


JCPA: The Psychological Profile of the Palestinian "Lone Wolf" Terrorist
A series of psychological measures was administered to Palestinian residents of a refugee camp as well as a neighboring village, with subjects asked to rate both themselves as well as how they imagined actual perpetrators of "lone wolf" violence would see themselves. Our sample included many in both groups who actually knew "lone wolves." Our goal was to construct a psychological profile of the young Palestinian "lone wolf" based on the descriptions of those who knew him or her best, namely peers.
We found distinct differences between the Al-Aroub refugee camp and the nearby village of Beit Ummar. The Beit Ummar subjects saw themselves no less "nationalistic" regarding the rights of Palestinians than they saw terror operatives being, while at the same time were more tolerant of Jewish rights and less tolerant of violent behavior towards Jews.
The refugee camp residents appear to have more closely identified with those that perpetrate attacks, while Beit Ummar residents see themselves as more psychologically intact, less hopeless, less violent in school settings and more moderate in their beliefs related to incitement. We found that many Palestinian Arabs see the "lone wolves" as psychologically distressed individuals who are not solely driven by ideology.



AMIA Bombing Investigator Alberto Nisman Was Murdered, New Official Argentine Report Concludes
A forthcoming report from one of Argentina’s top security agencies will confirm that Alberto Nisman — the special prosecutor who investigated the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed — was murdered in his apartment on January 18, 2015.
Nisman was found dead one day before he was due to present a complaint to the Argentine Congress accusing leading politicians, including former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, of colluding with Tehran to cover up Iranian culpability for the atrocity. A team of investigators appointed by the Kirchner government concluded — following a controversial investigation that was heavily criticized by Nisman’s family — that the special prosecutor committed suicide using a gun supplied to him by Diego Lagomarsino, a computer specialist employed by Nisman.
But a new report from the Gendarmeria, a federal security force, will put the suicide theory to bed once and for all and show that Nisman was murdered, according to Argentine news outlets. The report’s publication is expected within the next thirty days, the Clarin newspaper said.
“This is a major development,” Eamonn McDonagh — an expert on Argentine politics who has written widely on the Nisman case — told The Algemeiner. “Once Eduardo Taiano, the fiscal, or prosecutor, has the report in his hand, he’ll be able to say that this is a murder investigation.”
France is being mental about anti-Jewish hate crime
Last week, after the police announced the results of their inquiry, the Jewish community seemed to have taken up the Sarah Halimi case with renewed vigour. Mme Halimi’s brother, William Attal, has been deploring the unbearable silence surrounding his sister’s murder. A Jewish parliamentarian, Meyer Habib, has made representations to the government; two lawyers, one civil and one criminal, have been appointed to represent the Halimi family in Traoré’s trial. One, William Goldnadel, remarked: “if the murderer had been blond-haired and blue-eyed, all of France would have marched in the streets: he is an islamist, so all of France hides in the woodwork.”
On 25 May the public intellectual Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine wrote an impassioned open letter, posted in Atlantico, to Gerard Collomb, the minister of the interior in the new Macron government. She pleaded with him to join the dots between the murder of Ilan Halimi in 2006 and Sarah Halimi 11 years later (despite having the same name they were not blood relations). Ilan Halimi was the young man abducted by a gang called the Barbarians, tortured for three weeks and found dying by the roadside – because he was a Jew. Both acts were antisemitic, both were proof of a moral failure of French society, a catastrophic failure to call a spade an ideological spade.
The Halimi cases recall another antisemitic murder, earlier still: that of Sebastien Selam, by a neighbour. “I have killed my Jew,” the murderer shouted triumphantly. A recent convert to Islam, he believed his act assured him of a place in heaven.
The killer of Sebastien Selam, too, was declared a mental case, and was allowed out of hospital at weekends to visit his parents in the same block where the murder was committed, and Selam’s mother Juliette still lived. His parents were rehoused; Juliette was not.
Will the Macron government break with the past and begin to take Islamist anti-Jewish hate crimes seriously? We shall see.
French Jewish Anger Grows Over Savage Antisemitic Murder of Pensioner at Hands of Muslim in Paris Suburb
Halimi’s murder robbed the Jewish community in Paris of one of its most loved figures, known for her work as a doctor and as a kindergarten teacher. “She was very well known and respected, a great person,” Gurfinkiel said. “The tragedy is that she was living in that part of Paris where Jews are gradually leaving, since the security doesn’t exist anymore.”
It also brought forth reminders of the 2006 kidnapping and murder of a young French Jew, Ilan Halimi — no relation to Ruth Halimi — whose body was left for dead by a mostly-Muslim gang who seized him out of the belief that Jews were wealthy and willing to pay ransom money.
“The French police were of no help during the whole (Ilan Halimi) episode, rejecting any idea that antisemitism could have played a role in the affair and preferring to believe the absurd notion that this was the result of some war between rival gangs,” Laignel-Lavastine noted in her letter about Ruth Halimi to French Interior Minister Collomb. “Ten years later, we have reached the same point.”
Traore is currently undergoing psychiatric tests and Jewish communal leaders are impatient for more information from authorities. “The more time passes, the more the community feels that there is something you do not want to tell us,” commented Joel Mergui, head of the Consistoire — the governing body of French Jewish communities.
Exclusive — Taylor Force Family’s Attorneys: Cut U.S. Funding to Palestinian Terrorists, Suicide Bombers’ Families Now
Israel Law Center founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told Breitbart News Daily in an exclusive Memorial Day radio special on SiriusXM 125 The Patriot Channel that it’s past time for the United States to cut funding to Palestinian terrorists and their families.
Darshan-Leitner’s organization, an Israel-based law group, is representing the family of Taylor Force, a U.S. Army veteran who was murdered in cold blood by a Palestinian terrorist last year in Israel after serving the U.S. in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Force was in Israel as part of a school mission trip, and was killed by a Palestinian terrorist who thought he was attacking Jews—even though Force was not Jewish but Christian.
“Taylor Force was a serviceman and he went with his school on a mission to Israel, a seven days tour,” Darshan-Leitner said in the interview, which aired Monday morning. ”One of his visits in Israel was on Jaffa. It was nighttime, and a Palestinian young man came and stabbed him and many, many others with a knife. He killed him and also injured many, many others… He did a great service to his country. He served in Iraq and served in Afghanistan. And he came to Israel on a tour in the framework of his school.”
Force was a 28-year-old West Point graduate who served as a U.S. Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan before enrolling in graduate school at Vanderbilt University. He was killed in a tourist area in Jaffa Port. At the time of the terrorist murder, then-Vice President Joe Biden was meeting with then-Israeli President Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv when the 21-year-old Palestinian terrorist went on the stabbing spree claiming Force’s life and injuring many others.
Former Top Israeli Diplomatic Official: Palestinian Authority Terror Payments
The Palestinian Authority’s practice of providing monetary payments to terrorists and their families is “unacceptable and contradicts all common sense,” a former top Israeli diplomatic official said on Monday, the Hebrew news site nrg reported.
Appearing at a special meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Dore Gold — a former Foreign Ministry director general and Israeli UN envoy — said the issue has come up in recent meetings between US President Donald Trump and PA President Mahmoud Abbas “because the Americans are not willing to forgive this thing.”
Referring to the Taylor Force Act — which was introduced in February by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado but has made no legislative progress since — Gold said, “We hear from officials in America that they’re not sure what Israel’s position is on it, so they don’t want to support [the bill]. Therefore, it’s very important that Israel’s position be clear.”
Gold noted that during his time at the Foreign Ministry, it published two reports, with the approval of the Prime Minister’s Office, that the Palestinian Authority must stop the terror payments. “That’s the official position,” he said.
PreOccupiedTerritory: But Withholding Funds Because We Glorify Terrorists Is Suppression Of Our Culture! By Mustafa Massiqr (satire)
Just give us your money and leave us alone to define our values for ourselves. Who are you to judge? Your weakness in failing to fully embrace the extermination of the Jews of Europe played a direct role in the establishment of Israel, leaving us no choice but to assume for ourselves the mantle of genocidal Jew-hatred that you cast down in such a blase fashion. Now that we have internalized that value and made it the entire focus of our national identity (as we lack any other distinctive elements of identity beyond the happenstance of geography), it represents the height of hypocrisy to demand that we abandon the pursuit you so heartily adopted for a few years not so long ago. We Palestinians do not demand that you drop your antisemitism, and you may not demand that we drop our unique brand of it. Imperialists.
This is hardly the first time the problematic dynamic of you cultural imperialists suppressing our indigenous culture. the authentic, robust expression of our culture already faces suppression in the form of Zionist limitations and prevention of honor killings – you should all know better than to contribute to further such endeavors.
Killing Jews is an ancient element of our culture, and the one thing we should be able to agree on. Pity.
Manchester bombing highlights UN hypocrisy on terror
As thousands of teens and young adults enjoyed an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena, Salman Abedi, a 23-year-old detonated a bomb he had strapped to his body. That he packed the bomb with nails made his goal clear: He not only wanted to kill as many innocents as possible, but maim many times more.
The Manchester attack is terrorism, plain and simple. There is no justification nor would any self-respecting politician nor diplomat even attempt to offer one.
But what if someone detonated a nail-packed bomb amidst a crowd of children and other civilians and both the human rights community and European diplomats said it was justified?
That's exactly what happened 15 years ago when the United Nations Human Rights Commission, operating under the leadership of former Irish President Mary Robinson, did just that against the context of a wave of suicide bombings in Israel.
In an April 15, 2002 vote, 40 countries — including Austria, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain and Sweden — argued that Palestinians could engage "all available means, including armed struggle" to establish a Palestinian state. That U.N. Human Rights Commission resolution enshrined the right to conduct suicide bombing in international humanitarian law. After all, many academics, diplomats, and human rights activists argue that the U.N. and its human rights wings set the precedent that becomes the foundation for international humanitarian and human rights law.
Kevin Williamson: Terrorism Is Not Random
Tim McVeigh was God’s gift to the Left, and the Left will forever keep his memory alive, tending it like a kind of sacred flame. Al-Qaeda attacks the United States on September 11, 2001? Yes, but don’t forget about McVeigh. Omar Mateen lets loose an “Allahu akbar!” before massacring 49 people at a gay bar in Orlando? Yes, but remember McVeigh. Salman Abedi and his pack of “lone” wolves get a jump on Ramadan by nail-bombing a bunch of little girls and their grandmothers at a concert in Manchester? Terrible, of course, but let us not forget about the real threat: right-wing terrorism on the McVeigh model.
The more you know about McVeigh, the less he fits the mold of right-ring extremist. He was an agnostic who declared “science is my religion,” who held views on U.S. foreign policy that fell somewhere between those of Noam Chomsky and those of Oliver Stone, and who had a weakness for adolescent Nietzschean posturing, whose final statement was William Ernest Henley’s poem “Sol Invictus,” with its romantic conclusion: “I am the captain of my soul.” But there was also the militia stuff and the Waco obsession and other aspects of his worldview that had more than a whiff of right-wingery about them. Jared Lee Loughner was obsessed with monetary policy, as was John Salvi, who feared that the Vatican was planning to issue its own currency. Lots of loons are sui generis.
But lots of them aren’t.
The Venn-diagram overlap between the world’s Muslims and the world’s terrorists may be small, but it is not trivial, and the confrontation between the Islamic world and the West puts a cold light on areas of concern beyond political violence. In the Islamic world itself, we see a heritage of high culture and great civilizational achievements, but a great deal of it looks like Karachi at the high end and rural Yemen at the low end: violent, backward, cruel, and uninterested in progress to the extent that “progress” is synonymous with Westernization — which, multiculturalist pieties notwithstanding, it is. Even if you set aside the propensity of certain Muslim fanatics to bomb pizza shops and to name public plazas in celebration of fanatics who bomb pizza shops, there’s still a lot of real life as lived in Afghanistan or Egypt that just isn’t going to fly in Chicago. In places such as Minneapolis, we have done a fairly poor job integrating the relatively small number of Muslim immigrants we already have.
Ex-UN envoy Bolton to JPost: Trump has no chance at ultimate peace deal
There is no chance President Donald Trump will secure a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Speaking just before he received the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University’s Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Bolton said Trump “is an optimistic man and can take a good shot at it, but I don’t think the conditions exist. I don’t think the two-state solution is viable anymore.”
“It is not a question of personality or effort, it is just undoable. There has been a 70-plus year effort for the two-state solution,” which has failed, he said, adding, “You can’t put it back together again.”
Bolton said both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were not viable interlocutors for peace and that any two-state solution would lead to “a terror state or an anarchic state.”
ARIEL SHARON'S LEGACY REVISITED ‘Israeli-Palestinian peace isn't a real estate deal’
Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 is not a blueprint for the West Bank, the son of late prime minister Ariel Sharon told a group of diplomats, including officials from the US, Spain and France.
“The Gaza Strip is a completely different story from the West Bank,” said Gilad Sharon as he stood by the grave of his parents on a small sandy hilltop on the outskirts of their home in Sycamore Farm in the Negev.
The youngest of Sharon’s three sons, Gilad penned a book on his father called "The Life of a Leader" and has already announced that he is running in the next Likud primary election, for which a date has yet to be set.
Any discussion of territorial concessions in the West Bank is premature until such time as the Palestinians and the Arab world recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, Gilad said.
BESA: Israel Is Not Facing a Dilemma over the West Bank
Israel does not now have a choice about giving the Palestinians land or creating a Palestinian state. While there are undoubtedly peace-seeking Palestinians, as a community, the Palestinians have not even begun to discuss the possibility of making a peace that accepts Israel and ends the Palestinian effort to gain all the land "from the river to the sea."
Nor have they begun public discussion of the possibility of most of the "refugees" settling outside Israel. Without that discussion, there is no way the Palestinians can give up their determination to destroy Israel and make a genuine peace.
The Palestinians see peace with Israel as defeat in their 100-year struggle. The choice they have made is to force Israel to "occupy" them, because they want to keep up the struggle to destroy Israel. This reality means that the question of what land we should give up is a question for the fairly distant future.
We should do whatever we can to make the Palestinians and the Arab world more willing to give up their determination to destroy us. Being nicer to them might help, although that is not usually a very effective strategy in the Middle East.
The U.S. could help by replacing false "even-handedness" with a truth-telling strategy that shows the Arab world that the U.S. will not help them destroy Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli land swaps with Palestinians won't bring peace
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on Tuesday that any future peace agreement reached with the Palestinians must include an Israeli military presence in the West Bank and offered insight on security concerns the government may have following a prospective deal.
During an interview with Army Radio, Netanyahu said that "In any peace agreement we [Israel] will have to maintain military control of all the territory west of the Jordan River. This is the truth and I will continue saying this truth."
Netanyahu indicated that an Israeli military withdraw from all areas of the West Bank would likely create a vacuum prone to takeover by extremists, who could pose a threat to Israeli security.
"Why is there no peace?" the premier asked rhetorically. "It is not because of the territories or the settlements. For about 50 years, from 1920 until 1967, we did not hold the territories or have any settlements and they wanted to throw us out of Tel Aviv."
Netanyahu: We must retain full military control of West Bank
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that Israel must maintain its military control over the West Bank in the event of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
“The idea that we can give up territory and achieve peace is not right,” Netanyahu told Army Radio in a pre-Shavuot holiday interview.
“In order to assure our existence we need to have military and security control over all of the territory west of the Jordan [River],” he said, reaffirming his commitment to a policy that is rejected by Palestinians, who seek a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
In the radio interview, Netanyahu asserted the root of the conflict lies not with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but rather in Palestinian intransigence regarding recognition of Jewish rights to any part of the land.
Netanyahu’s comments came after visiting US President Donald Trump last week impressed on the prime minister and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that he is determined to work on a peace agreement.
“It is not because of the territories and the settlements,” Netanyahu said, noting the history of conflict between Jews and Arabs in the area from 1920, long before the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the capture of the West Bank in 1967.
Anne Bayefsky ($): Why Is U.S. Funding UN Human Rights Council's Israel Blacklist?
The UN Human Rights Council is preparing a blacklist of American and other companies doing business with Israel - and U.S. taxpayers are paying a quarter of the bill. The council's move embraces the "boycott, divestment and sanctions" campaign. Successive White Houses have tried and failed to correct the entrenched anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias of the council.
Under a sanctions resolution adopted in March 2016, the council is creating a database of companies that "directly or indirectly" do business with Israeli settlements. This means that an ATM in Arab-claimed territory could be enough to land a bank and its business associates on this database. The blacklist threatens to tarnish business reputations, make companies targets for lawfare in European and U.S. courts, and provide fuel for the boycott-and-divestment machinery on college campuses. Meanwhile, the council has no boycott policy for the world's most ruthless regimes. The writer is director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.
UN Pulls Support for ‘O.J. Simpson Palestinian Women’s Center’ (satire)
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has once again dissociated his organization from a controversial Palestinian women’s center, after Palestinian officials changed the facility’s name to the “Martyr O.J. Simpson Palestinian Women’s Center.”
The center’s new name caused embarrassment for both the UN and for Norway’s foreign ministry, which had sponsored the project. The controversy comes a week after the Palestinian Authority named another center after Dalal Mughrabi, who killed 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, in a 1978 terror attack.
“At this point, it kind of feels like they’re just trying to embarrass us,” Guterres said, referring to the PA. “We’re really starting to get tired of their sh!t.”
As of press time, Palestinian officials were set to announce the opening of the “Jared Fogle Children’s Center.”
An Arab NATO? Be Careful What You Wish For
President Donald Trump reportedly landed in Saudi Arabia earlier this month with dreams of forming an "Arab NATO" to fight the Sunni Islamist terrorists in the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda (AQ) as well as Shi'ite Islamist Iran.
In an historic speech at the first Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh on May 21, he rightly named the main enemy as Islamist ideology, and boldly rallied the heads of the Arab and Muslim worlds to unite to take up the fight themselves.
Though his "Arab NATO" idea was getting a lot of media buzz for some weeks prior to his maiden trip abroad as president, he did not mention it in his address to the 55 leaders in Riyadh.
However, according to the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Trump pushed the concept with "several Arab leaders."
The idea apparently aroused interest at Thursday's NATO summit in Brussels, which Trump attended.
Jerusalem’s Arab population growth slowly decreases
The population in Jerusalem has been steadily increasing since 1967 while the increase in the city's Arab population is on a steady decline, according to new research,
"The Jewish populace is, of course, the majority, and although that majority is diminishing, the rate in which it is doing so is slowing down," said Yair Assaf-Shapira, a researcher in the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. "Now, we are at a state where the changes are becoming very small."
Assaf-Shapira also spoke about the possibility of an Arab majority in Jerusalem, saying that "this subject was very popular about 5-10 years ago. I think that as long that this trend is becoming more certain, you can see that it's not data errors—the number of children per mother in the Arab community is dramatically decreasing due to modernization, education and other factors.
"I think that the subject on when Jerusalem will lose its Jewish majority, and what is needed to be done in order to prevent it—questions that have led in the past to the establishment of big neighborhoods and annexation—is slowly losing ground," he added.
Netanyahu praises Norway for defunding women’s center named for terrorist
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday praised Norway for withdrawing funding from a Palestinian women’s center named for a terrorist who took part in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre.
The prime minister said Israel had made a point of pressing nations and organizations over this issue and would continue to do so.
Dalal Mughrabi and several other Fatah terrorists landed on a beach near Tel Aviv, hijacked a bus on Israel’s Coastal Road and killed 38 civilians, 13 of them children, and wounded over 70. The new West Bank center, which opened last month and was funded in part by the Scandinavian country, was named in her honor.
The prime minister revealed during the weekly meeting of his Likud parliamentary faction that he instructed Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem several days ago to press Norway and the United Nations to pull their donations from the West Bank project.
With eyes to Hezbollah, IDF unveils ‘Lebanese village’ training center
The army on Monday laid the cornerstone of a new training facility in the Golan Heights that is meant to simulate a Lebanese village of the type Israeli soldiers might find themselves in should war break out with the Hezbollah terrorist group.
The Snir facility, which gets its name from a nearby kibbutz, is meant to prepare Israeli soldiers for urban warfare, including subterranean combat, according to Brig. Gen. Einav Shalev, commander of the army’s Ground Forces Division. (This is not to be confused with the Ground Forces itself, which is led by Maj. Gen. Kobi Barak.)
The army plans to have the training center ready for soldiers by the end of next year and construct three similar facilities in the coming years, a senior IDF official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Snir facility will take over as the army’s most advanced urban combat training center — “we have nothing like this in the State of Israel,” the officer said — superseding the Urban Combat Center, which was built a decade ago, in the Tzeelim training base in southern Israel.


PMW: PA prohibits eating in public during month of Ramadan
The PA has called on the Palestinian police to arrest anyone who eats in public during Islam's month of Ramadan, which started this week. The Grand Mufti, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the highest PA religious official, called on the PA police "to act against anyone who breaks the fast in public, in preparation for legal steps against them."
District Governor of Jenin Ibrahim Ramadan, likewise announced a prohibition against eating in public. Both called on cafés and restaurants to be closed during the daytime.
Although it was not mentioned specifically, in previous years these PA religious restrictions against public eating, were enforced against Christians as well.

Poll: 70% of Palestinians admit prisoners' hunger strike failed
A day after Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails ended a 41-day hunger strike Saturday, an online survey conducted by the Palestinian Maan news agency found that 70.5% of Palestinians believe the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike succeeded in meeting only minimum demands, contrary to Palestinian claims of victory.
According to the survey, only 16.5% believe the strike achieved most of the prisoners' demands, with some 13.1% answering that they were unsure of whether the minimum or maximum demands were met.
The prisoners demanded access to public telephones, eased restrictions on family visits and better transport conditions, among other demands.
Citing the Maan poll at a meeting with senior Israel Prison Service officials Monday, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan declared that "the strike failed."
PA admits: Gaza now an independent entity
The Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Ramallah has admitted that Hamas-ruled Gaza has turned into an independent entity.
The government on Sunday condemned the unilateral steps taken by Hamas to effectively control Gaza, further deepening the rift between the sides.
Yusuf al-Mahmoud, the official spokesman for the government in Ramallah, said that the appointment of a deputy minister of justice in Gaza and the establishment of a special ministry by Hamas constituted a further violation of Palestinian law and was a step towards deepening the split between Hamas and the Ramallah government headed by Fatah.
Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since 2007, when Hamas took over Gaza from Fatah in a bloody coup. All attempts to reconcile the sides have thus far failed.
Iran agrees to renew funding to Hamas — report
Iran has agreed in principle to renew its funding for the Hamas terror group, according to a report published in a London-based Arabic daily Tuesday.
Palestinian officials told Asharq al-Awsat that Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Gaza-based terror group, will visit Tehran in the near future to bridge gaps between the parties and resolve old disagreements.
The deal to restore Hamas’s financial support came after marathon meetings in Lebanon between officials from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hamas, and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror group, the report said.
Relations between Iran and Hamas have been rocky since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, when the Palestinian terror organization came out against Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is backed by Tehran.
The report also said Iran wanted Haniyeh to be the new head of Hamas, and would have refused to work with the terror organization had former deputy head Moussa Abu Marzouk won the elections earlier this month.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Car Bomb Means ISIS In Baghdad Really Hates Cars (satire)
Another vehicle laden with explosives went off this morning in the Iraqi capital, driving home the point to military and political experts that the Islamic State, responsible for the bulk of such incidents, harbors an intense animosity for cars.
The latest attack in downtown Baghdad destroyed yet another motorized passenger vehicle, making it the nine hundredth such explosion of a car by ISIS since its Iraqi insurgency began, and prompting analysts to observe that the Islamist movement must really, really hate those vehicles.
In a telephone interview, Professor Tiyenti Siffor of the University of Helsinki, who studies Islamic State ideology and strategy, described how he and his colleagues independently arrived at their disturbing conclusion. “At first we thought, based on visual and other evidence, that Daesh favored Toyota pickup trucks,” he explained, referring to infamous images of the group’s fighters riding along in a procession of many such vehicles. “But it turns out, after several years’ observation, that they will blow up any kind of car.”
“It’s not just that they destroy cars,” agreed Sue Wisside of the TNT Institute, a Washington think tank, who collaborated with Professor Siffor on the research. “It’s that they insist on such thorough dismemberment of these vehicles that one cannot help concluding these beasts have some intense obsession with destroying cars and trucks. It can’t be healthy to go through life like that.”



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There are lots of articles being published in recent and upcoming weeks about the Six Day War and its legacy.

Any article that talks about "occupation" and "colonialism" and all the other evils that are ascribed to Israel, that do not mention the Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 1967, is an example of deceit.

The main paragraph of the Khartoum Resolution said:
 The Arab Heads of State have agreed to unite their political efforts at the international and diplomatic level to eliminate the effects of the aggression and to ensure the withdrawal of the aggressive Israeli forces from the Arab lands which have been occupied since the aggression of June 5. This will be done within the framework of the main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.
That last sentence means "destroy Israel," by the way. It was not referring to the territories in any way. Nobody at all demanded a Palestinian state in the territories in 1967.

As Michael Oren writes in an abbreviated history of the Six Day War published on Sunday:
A month after the war, Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem, but it also offered to return almost all of land captured from Syria and Egypt in exchange for peace.

The Arabs responded with “the three noes”: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace.
I don't think that returning the lands would have been a good idea, but the fact is that Israel did offer land for peace - a much more generous offer than the Palestinian Arabs are likely to ever receive.

And the Arab leaders said "no."

Who can blame Israel for holding onto a small percentage of the territory it won in a defensive war, on a front where it warned its enemy to stay out of the fighting to no avail? Where the alternative is a state that is only nine-miles wide that is literally indefensible?

But Israel did make the foolhardy offer. And the Arabs responded that they would prefer war to peace - an attitude that the Palestinian Arabs have maintained and demonstrated very bloodily on multiple occasions, most notably in 2001 but also by encouraging the more recent "knife intifada."

If someone thinks that "occupation" is the ultimate evil and doesn't have a word to say about the Arab leaders' decision to reject peace in exchange for virtually all the land Israel gained in 1967, then that person doesn't care about "occupation" or peace - they support the old Arab genocidal attitude towards Jews in the Middle East.





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YNet reported yesterday that the Lebanese BDS campaign to ban the "Wonder Woman" movie because it stars Israeli Gal Gadot was unsuccessful.

It may have been premature.

From the Daily Star Lebanon, today:

Highly anticipated DC Comics American superhero film “Wonder Woman” will be banned in Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported Monday.

The movie’s casting, with the superhero played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, prompted the Ministry of Economy and Commerce “to take necessary measures” to prevent the film’s screening in the country.

The ban is in alignment with Lebanon’s attempts to boycott supporters of Israel and Israeli-affiliated businesses.
But it isn't quite over. Arab News reports:
According to a circulated information poster released by the ministry, on Monday it “prepared a directive for the General Directorate of Public Security to take the necessary measures to prevent the screening of this film.”
However, despite stirring up a social media frenzy, the reported ban has yet to be enforced and when contacted by Arab News, a representative of one cinema chain in Lebanon — who spoke on condition of anonymity — said that a premiere screening has been planned for Tuesday evening, pending an official announcement.

Significantly, the Saudi-based Arab News includes the trailer for the film in its article.

Last year, Lebanese boycotters attempted to ban "Batman v. Superman" where Gadot's character was introduced, but apparently that was not successful.




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In its new General Principles and Policies, Hamas proclaims:
Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.
This is actually something new for Hamas that is not found in the actual Hamas Covenant.

But the claim that the Palestinian Arabs have a right under international law to "resist" Israel "with all means and methods" -- implying including the targeting of civilians as well, is not specific to Hamas terrorists.

This latitude was already made in a 2004 post on the Electronic Intifada website by John Sigler, Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism:
However, among these legal forms of violence there is also the right to use force in the struggle for “liberation from colonial and foreign domination”. To quote United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/33/24 of 29 November 1978:
“2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle;”
Electronic Intifada also notes that the United Nations applies this concept to the Palestinian Arabs, and goes one step further:
This justification for legitimate armed resistance has been specifically applied to the Palestinian struggle repeatedly. To quote General Assembly Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX) of 29 November 1974:
3. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle; [emphasis added]…

7. Strongly condemns all Governments which do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people;
Sigler does make 2 concessions:
o He admits that General Assembly Resolutions do not have the force of law, though he then goes on to claim, "when they [UNGA resolutions] address legal issues they do accurately reflect the customary international legal opinion among the majority of the world’s sovereign states." (Keep in mind that international law is not decided by a poll of countries)

o Sigler also will agree that civilians are off-limits. (Pity that Hamas do not make that distinction and that most of their targets actually are civilian, not military)
photo
United Nations. Credit: Neptuul, Wikipedia


One problem -- with both Sigler's and the United Nations approach -- is that the language adopted in the resolutions do not apply.

To claim that the Jewish State of Israel constitutes "colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation" ignores the fact that Jews are indigenous to the land and have been living there uninterruptedly for over 3,000 years. Since when is a people with historical, cultural, and religious ties to the land considered "colonial" or "foreign"? When archaeologists uncover finds that reveal the earlier history of the land, it is the history of the Jews -- not the Arabs. The name "Jew" comes from Judea, while the Arabs come from and are indigenous to Arabia.

But there is another issue here: since when does the United Nations sanction violence?

Article 1 of the United Nations Charter clearly states that its purpose is
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
Article 33 adds
The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
Nowhere does the charter say that in the event that you just cannot resolve your differences -- go ahead and have at it.

photo
The aftermath of a bus bombing in Haifa in 2003. Credit: Wikipedia, B. Železník


This discrepancy between these language of the UN resolutions and its original charter is the point made by Joshua Muravchik in The UN and Israel: A History of Discrimination. Muravchik sheds light on some of the history behind those UN resolutions that Electronic Intifada quotes. On the UN apparent sanctioning of violence, Muravchik writes:
This stance, which contradicts the UN Charter, originated in the struggles for African independence and then was carried over to the Arab-Israel conflict. In the 1960s, the General Assembly passed several resolutions regarding Portugal’s colonies and the white-ruled states of southern Africa, affirming “the legitimacy of the struggle of the colonial peoples to exercise their right to self-determination and independence” (e.g., Resolution 2548). In 1970, an important modification was added in the phrase “by all the necessary means at their disposal” (Resolution 2708).

The PLO, backed by the Arab states and the Islamic Conference, was to cite this language as sanctioning its deliberate attacks on civilians. In his famous speech to the General Assembly, Arafat claimed that “the difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. Whoever stands by a just cause?.?.?.?cannot possibly be called [a] terrorist.”

Just a week after Arafat’s appearance, the General Assembly affirmed “the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means” (Resolution 3236). Any ambiguity in this phrase was wiped away in a 1982 resolution that lumped the Palestinian case together with lingering cases of white rule in southern Africa and affirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples against foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle” (Resolution 37/43). Since the Palestinians were engaged neither in conventional nor even, for the most part, guerrilla war with Israel, but rather a campaign of bombings and murders aimed at civilian targets, this is what was meant by “armed struggle.” [emphasis added]
From Portuguese territories to Israel is a slippery slope.

Leave it to the UN to go from UN Resolution 3236 recognizing "the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations" to using all available means, including armed struggle.

The bottom line is that just as there is no unalienable right of the remaining Palestinian Arab refugees to return, neither is there a right under international law to allow Palestinian Arab to violently attack Israelis.



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