06/04 Links: Accept Islamic Terror as the New Normal?; Relive the Six Day War War of no choice; ~ EoZ

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: True Lies

Air Force One had barely lifted off carrying US President Donald Trump to the next stop on his recent peace mission when the Palestinian town of Burka proudly declared it would ignore mounting requests to cease its incitement against Israel by naming a women’s center after a terrorist murderer.
The glorified murderer in question was Dalal Mughrabi, who was one of the killers in what was then the worst terrorist atrocity in Israeli history – the Fatah attackers killed 38 civilians (including 13 children) and a soldier, and wounded 71 others – in the horrific bus hijacking known as the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978.
Palestinian Media Watch reported that the village council of Burka would not budge from its decision to name its center after Mughrabi. Council head Sami Daghlas hailed Mughrabi as a hero, another “holy martyr of the resistance.”
He told reporters she was chosen by the villagers to commemorate a Palestinian hero “who sacrificed herself for her country, and therefore they have no intention to change its name regardless of the price.”
According to a May 15 report by Ma’an, which claims to be an “independent” Palestinian news agency, the center will focus on presenting the history of the “Martyr Dalal Mughrabi” to youth groups. Ma’an declared further that this constitutes “the beginning of enrichment activities regarding the history of the Palestinian struggle.”

With an army of 27,000, Hamas terror chief Deif readies for war

Deif and his “supervising minister” Sinwar — both of whom are considered radical even by Hamas standards — are cautious and in no hurry to start a war with Israel. This, despite the worsening situation in the Gaza Strip, the ongoing closure of the Rafiah border crossing, and the PA’s threats to force tens of thousands of officials into retirement and cut the salaries of the ones staying on.
As far as the old-new Hamas headed by Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Deif is concerned, the main goal, at least for now, is not another war with Israel, but rather the survival of Hamas’s regime in Gaza and a future takeover of Palestinian power centers — the West Bank and the PLO — in their entirety.
Adapting
One reason Hamas is not eager for another conflict just yet is that Gaza’s population has had its fill of war and catastrophe. The inhabitants of the Strip have adapted to the new situation of prolonged power outages, salary cutbacks, and so on, and, as always, have learned to survive.
For example, after the iftar and the tarawih — the evening break-fast meal and the prayer service afterward — the young people hurry off to Gaza’s famous cafés, such as Gahwetna, on the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood’s polluted beach, and Habiba. The nargila is the item most in demand there, along with coffee, tea, and fruit juice. These establishments are for the young men — the shabab — only. Other places — such as the Al-Deira Café (on the Rimal beach), the adjacent Roots, and Level Up, on the eleventh floor of a building in the Rimal section — have a mixed clientele.
The threats by the PA in Ramallah to decrease fund transfers to Gaza continue to loom. T., for one, is sharply critical. “I don’t know what Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is trying to accomplish with the cutbacks and reducing the payments for electricity. He wants to punish Hamas, but he’s actually punishing two million Gazans.”

Will the UK let May tackle Islamist terror?

With Britain battered by three terrorist attacks in three months, and its security services having thwarted five more in the same period, Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday morning set out the specifics of her intended strategy “to take on and defeat our enemies.”
May’s succinct and determined statement, delivered hours after three terrorists killed at least seven people in a central London murder spree, raises two questions: Does her government have the will to fight back in the way she specified, and, with general elections on Thursday, will it be given the opportunity?
Watching her from Israel, which has for so long been forced to grapple with the Islamist death cult, May gave every indication of having internalized what she, Britain, and the rest of our free world are up against.
What “bound together” the stream of terror attacks in the UK, she declared, was “the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism.”
Terrorism was now breeding terrorism, copycat style. The situation had become intolerable. Enough was enough. “We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are.”
Strikingly, she added: “There is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country, so we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society.”
To fight back, May called for an overhaul of Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy. She also demanded that terror groups be tackled on the ground in the Middle East. And she sought to battle them and their ideologues in cyberspace — to “turn people’s minds away from this violence.”

Col Kemp: Former British Commander: "We Need To Be Sweeping These People Off Our Streets"

'Detainment, deportation, and exclusion' are the measures Colonel Richard Kemp is calling for with regard to people who are on the police watch list.
The former Commander of the British Forces in Afghanistan, who is also the former Head of Counter Terrorism Intelligence in the Cabinet Office, spoke to Andrew Pierce following the London Bridge terrorist attack.
He said: "I think what needs to happen is we need to be sweeping these people off our streets.
"We will find, I would be probably 90 per cent sure, that those people who were shot dead by the police last night, were already known to the police, along with at least 3,000, or 23,000, depending on which figure you accept.
"Jihadists who are free in the UK, who we know are involved, or connected, with terrorism. Those people need to be, as many as possible, got rid of."

Accept Islamic Terror as the New Normal?

After terror attacks, we often hear from Western media and politicians that we must accept terrorist attacks as the "new normal."
For Western citizens, this phrase is dangerous.
Islam's doctrine of jihad, expansion and dawah (Islamic outreach, proselytizing) rely heavily on the use of both terror and luring. Targhib wal tarhib is an Islamic doctrine that means "seducing (luring) and terrorizing" as a tool for dawah, to conquer nations and force citizens to submit to Islamic law, sharia. It amounts to manipulating the instinctive parts of the human brain with extreme opposing pressures of pleasure and pain -- rewarding, then severely punishing -- to brainwash people into complying with Islam.
Most ordinary Muslims are not even aware of this doctrine, but Islamic books have been written about it. Mainstream Muslim sheikhs such as Salman Al Awda have discussed it on Al Jazeera TV. On a show called "Sharia and Life," Al Awda recommended using extremes "to exaggerate... reward and punishment, morally and materially... in both directions". "The use of terror under this doctrine,"' he said, "is a legitimate sharia obligation."
People in the West think of terror as something that Islamic jihadists inflict on non-Muslims, and it is. But terror is also the mechanism for ensuring compliance within Islam. Under Islamic law, jihadists who evade performing jihad are to be killed. Terror is thus the threat that keeps jihadists on their missions, and that make ordinary Muslims obey sharia.

Israel condemns ‘horrific’ London terror attacks that killed 7

Israel’s Foreign Ministry and lawmakers on Sunday condemned the “horrific” London terror attacks, with a minister saying there was now a “greater understanding” among the British of Israel’s experiences with Palestinian terrorism.
UK police confirmed earlier Sunday that six people were killed and 48 were injured when a vehicle veered off the road and mowed down pedestrians on London Bridge and witnesses told of men with large knives stabbing passersby at nearby Borough Market. The death toll was later raised to seven.
The Foreign Ministry said it was checking whether Israelis were among the injured in the attacks, adding there was currently no indication that was the case.
“Israel condemns last night’s horrific #LondonBridgeAttack. We stand with the British people at this time,” the ministry tweeted.

MSNBC Anchor’s Response to London Terror Attack: Could Police Be ‘Overreacting?’

The multiple attacks in London that occurred earlier today quick drew wall-to-wall coverage on all cable news outlets. And as information streamed in about multiple fatalities, a vehicle plowing into pedestrians and potential stabbings, MSNBC’s Richard Lui asked a remarkable question: could the London police be overreacting?
During a live telephone conversation with Mustafa Tameez, a former consultant to the Department of Homeland Security, Lui asked that, when it comes to the police dealing with apparent terror attacks if there “was any risk of overreaction.” Again, the earliest reports suggest multiple fatalities, stabbings and London police under extreme duress trying to keep their city safe. And the question asked was the risk of the police “overreacting.”
Tameez immediately dismissed the question, saying “I don’t think the response could be too large, to get enough officers and investigators there to quickly quell and find out what’s going on. It’s not a question of too many officers. It’s a question of using them adequately, smartly, getting all the help you can get.”

Theresa May writes for Jewish News: ‘I’ll be your community’s champion’

With just a week to go until the most important election of my lifetime, I am determined to build a country that works for everyone; a country where no matter who you are, or where you’re from, you can achieve your goals.
The Jewish community has made an immense contribution to British life, whether it’s in business, the arts or the charitable sector – Jewish people in Britain today set an example to us all. We have some fantastic Jewish candidates standing for the Conservatives at this election, and many more like me who are not Jewish, but understand and support both the Jewish community and Israel. I’m proud we’re a party which has representatives from every community in Britain, from council members right through to government ministers.
I know there are very real concerns in the Jewish community at this election time, not least what a newly-elected government will do about anti-Semitism. We will always take a zero-tolerance approach to such hatred, in contrast to what we have regrettably seen from Jeremy Corbyn.
In December the Conservative Government formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism. Sir Eric Pickles, the UK Government’s special envoy for post-Holocaust Issues, led the way in getting the IHRA to agreement in the first place, and Britain was one of the first countries to adopt the definition.
We will also stand firm against terrorism, whether it occurs in Manchester or Tel Aviv. In our manifesto for this election, we have pledged to establish a Commission for Countering Extremism to root out extremism and anti-Semitism in society.

Bret Stephens: Six Days and 50 Years of War

There would have been no occupation, and no settlements, if Egypt and its allies hadn’t recklessly provoked a war. Or if the “international community” hadn’t fecklessly abandoned Israel in its desperate hours. Or if Jordan hadn’t foolishly ignored Israel’s warnings to stay out of it. Or if the Arab League hadn’t arrogantly rejected the possibility of peace.
A Palestinian state would most likely exist if Arafat hadn’t adopted terrorism as the calling card of Palestinian aspirations. Or if he hadn’t rejected the offer of a state 17 years ago. Or if he hadn’t renounced his renunciation of terror.
A Palestinian state would also most likely exist if Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas — now in the 13th year of his elected four-year term — hadn’t rejected it again nine years ago, and if Gazans hadn’t turned their territory into a terrifying model of Palestinian statehood, and if the United Nations didn’t treat Hamas’s attacks on Israel as a nuisance but Israel’s self-defense as a crime against humanity.
The cover of a recent issue of The Economist purports to answer the question “Why Israel Needs a Palestinian State.” The argument isn’t wrong. It just isn’t wise.
Israel needs a Palestinian state to safeguard its democratic future — in the long term. But the character of such a state matters at least as much as its mere existence. The Middle East doesn’t need another failed state in its midst. Israel doesn’t need another Hamastan on its border. Palestinians in the West Bank don’t need it over their heads.
In 1967 Israel was forced into a war against enemies who then begrudged it the peace. Egypt, at least, found its Sadat. The drama of the Six-Day War will close when Palestinians find theirs.

Relive the Six Day War War of no choice

In the week before the start of the Six Day War, the Arab streets echoed with calls to destroy the Jewish state.
Jordan signed a military pact with Egypt and Syria. Meanwhile, Israel hoped the United States would forcibly break the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran, but the US refrained from intervening, fearing a confrontation with the Egypt-sponsoring USSR.
Israel’s army was gravely outnumbered. Poised for assault were 80,000 Egyptian troops, 60,000 Jordanian troops, and 50,000 Syrian troops, and a total of more than 850 tanks and 600 combat aircraft.
The mood throughout Israel was tense and anxious. Schools and public transportation were suspended. Teenagers worked filling sandbags. School buildings were converted to bomb shelters. Medicine and over 14,000 hospital beds were prepared.
In addition, parks throughout the country were dug up – to ready over 10,000 graves. Israelis feared a second Holocaust.
Meanwhile, Jews and non-Jews held mass demonstrations and fundraisers in New York and London. Jewish volunteers from around the world arrived to enlist in Israel’s defense.

What Made This a 'War of No Choice' | Six Day War Project #4

Historian Oren rejects report Israel planned to drop atom bomb in 1967

A government deputy minister and historian on Sunday dismissed a media report claiming Israel was prepared to detonate an atom bomb to deter invading Arab armies as a “doomsday” plan during the 1967 Six Day War.
Deputy Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office Michael Oren, author of an acclaimed history on the Six Day War, said in a statement that thousands of declassified documents from the war lend no support to the purported last-ditch plan to drop a nuclear bomb in Sinai, as reported by The New York Times on Saturday.
The NY Times report was based on an interview conducted by leading Israeli nuclear scholar Avner Cohen with retired IDF brigadier general Itzhak Yaakov, who allegedly oversaw the plan.
Kulanu party lawmaker Oren, a former ambassador to the US who is in charge of public diplomacy, pointed out that Cohen had based his report on just one source.
“Among serious researchers, that is something unacceptable,” Oren said. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Fred Maroun: As an Arab, I am embarrassed by the Six-Day War

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Six-Day War, I commemorate with my Jewish friends. Before the war, Jews around the world feared what would happen to the Jews of Israel as they were surrounded by Arab armies and as the Arab leaders drummed up anti-Semitic hatred. But Israel stunned the whole world and particularly Arab leaders when it initiated a preventative attack, and when its young army vanquished much bigger and more experienced Arab armies in the short space of six days.
I am happy for my Jewish friends, but at the same time, as an Arab, I am embarrassed. I am not embarrassed that we lost. We deserved to lose, and I cannot even think of the massacres that may have ensued if we won. I am embarrassed that we started the war in the first place. An unnecessary war that followed 19 years after another unnecessary war that we also lost.
I am embarrassed that we let hatred drive our decision to go to war. I am embarrassed that we did not take Israel’s offer right after the war to make peace in exchange for land. I am embarrassed that since then, Egypt’s and Jordan’s realization of the foolishness of war was not matched by the rest of the Arab world, particularly my own country of Lebanon.
I am embarrassed that we never made a single credible comprehensive offer of peace to Israel. I am embarrassed that still today, 69 years after our first war against Israel, we still use the Palestinians as pawns in our war of hatred.
I am embarrassed that instead of denouncing the hatred, much of the world has joined with us in attacking the Jews’ right to self-determination.

Daphne Anson: A Personal Memory of Being a Spectator of the Six-Day War, by Brian Goldfarb

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War of 1967, I'm honoured to present a very interesting guest blog by retired British academic Brian Goldfarb.
It's entitled "A Personal Memory of Being a Spectator of the Six-Day War: From a Great and Safe Distance".
Writes Brian Goldfarb:
On Monday, 5 June, 1967, the day the Six Day War broke out, I drove south from the north-east of England towards London, where I had been born and grown up, to spend the summer vacation at my parents’ home, no longer, in a very real sense, my home, although I would stay there on and off, for the next two years until I got married.
Now there’s a line for the opening of an autobiography! Which this is not.
I had just finished the first year of my first “proper” job since graduating, teaching undergraduate Sociology at a Polytechnic in the same north-east of the first sentence. I decided to stop off at my alma mater in the East Midlands, to break the journey.
I was, of course, as a Jew, a Labour voter, and a good trade unionist (had I been an Israeli citizen and voter, I would have been a natural Mapai voter), well aware of the tension that had been building up in the Middle East over the previous few weeks, as Nasser ratcheted up the tension in the region, not least by ordering the UN buffer force out of the Sinai Peninsula and closing the Straits of Tiran (leading from the Indian Ocean to Eilat), and of the fear that war might erupt at any moment. The detail, however, belongs, and can be found, elsewhere.
By early afternoon, I was sitting in what would have been, in term time, the student coffee bar, but was, now, empty of all but a few Faculty and graduate students. Among the Faculty were two Eastern European Jewish emigrés – typical of Daniel Snowman’s Hitler’s Emigrés, as his excellent book is entitled - the Professor of Sociology and the Senior Research Fellow, both pretending (as it turned out) to be disinterested in what transpired in the Middle East.

Honest Reporting: Washington Post Demonizes Israel: Sign our Petition

The Washington Post published a series on the anniversary of the Six Day War, with a special emphasis on “the occupation” and security checkpoints. They interviewed only Palestinians and didn’t talk to a single Israeli.
Then, with no balance or context, the Post painted Israelis as malicious villains who build checkpoints specifically to harm Palestinians, rather than to SAVE LIVES.
SIGN OUR PETITION DEMANDING THAT THE WASHINGTON POST CORRECT ITS ARTICLES AND HOLD ITSELF ACCOUNTABLE.
If the above link does not work, please copy and paste this link in your browser: http://ift.tt/2qFPsfC
You may also be interested in our complete critique on the Washington Post articles.

PMW: Denmark cancels aid to NGO, demands funding be returned following PMW story

Following Norway, Denmark has likewise canceled funding to a Palestinian NGO and demanded its money be returned, after Palestinian Media Watch exposed that the NGO Women's Technical Affairs Committee (WATC) named a youth and women's center in the town of Burqa after terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi who led who led a bus hijacking and murder of 37 civilians, including 12 children in 1978.
Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen expressed his indignation over the glorification of murderer Dalal Mughrabi and demands Danish funding, which has been given to WATC in general, be returned:
"I am outraged that the WATC, which claims to work for human rights, has not only glorified a terrorist but also abused the trust of a generous people like the Danish. It is completely unacceptable and I can't distance myself strongly enough from it. Denmark and Danish tax kroner must under no circumstances be used for anything that glorifies or promotes terrorists in any way. Therefore, we will now also demand that the WATC return the Danish aid." [Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, June 2, 2017]
The press release from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs also stated that the ministry has ended all cooperation with the center because it "withheld crucial information" about the naming of the women's center "after a female Palestinian terrorist."

Democrats' Ties To Linda Sarsour Raise Questions

Seeking to boost ties, Netanyahu meets with African leaders

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Sunday with West African leaders in Liberia for discussions on boosting ties.
After being greeted by Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf upon arriving in the capital Monrovia, Netanyahu met with Marcel Alain de Souza, the president of the Economic Community of West African States, to speak about how to further the relationship between Israel and the bloc, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
Netanyahu then met with Gambian President Adama Barrow, with whom he discussed bilateral ties. He also offered to send Israeli assistance to the country to help with its development.
During his meetings, Netanyahu also stressed that the improving relations between those nations with Israel should be reflected into support for the Jewish state at international bodies such as the United Nations.
Prior to leaving for Liberia, Netanyahu said he would use his trip to the ECOWAS summit to try and garner support for Israel at the UN and other international forums.

Two-thirds of Jewish Israelis don’t consider West Bank occupied – poll

Nearly two-thirds of Jewish Israelis do not consider holding on to the West Bank a form of occupation, according to a new survey. The poll also found that more than four-fifths of Israelis think US President Donald Trump’s chances of orchestrating a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians within the next two years are low.
The results were published Sunday by the Israel Democracy Institute, as part of its monthly Peace Index. The poll focused on the mood in the country as it marked the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank, along with the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip.
According to the poll, 62% of Israeli Jews do not see the West Bank, which Palestinians claim for their future state, as occupied.
Two-thirds of Jewish Israelis (65%) disagree with the statement that immediately after the war Israel should have “should have ceded conquered territories and launched negotiations with the Arab states for a comprehensive peace agreement,” the poll found. Fifty-five percent of respondents affirmed that Israel should have annexed the captured territories at the time, as it later did with East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Fifty years later, the Jewish population is evenly split on whether or not Israel should now annex territories it still holds, with 44% in favor and 45% against. Some right-wing lawmakers, among them government ministers, have urged annexing the territory as a way of consolidating Israeli control. Just over half of the Jewish population (51%) agree that the West Bank settlement enterprise is “wise.”

'There is no building freeze, no quotas'

Claims that Israel is quietly freezing construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are false, the Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday, adding that Israel’s policy across the Green Line, including the approval of 2,600 new units, had been accepted unanimously by the cabinet.
Earlier on Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) criticized the Prime Minister over the limited number of housing projects in Judea and Samaria set to be approved, claiming a quota system was in place, a holdover from the Obama-era building freeze.
“After eight years of a deep freeze, the housing shortage has become serious, and the time has come to get back to building with existing plans, and stop imposing construction quotas,” said Hotovely.
“The deep disappointment in the settlement field needs to be addressed with an increase in [building] projects.”
Shortly after Hotovely’s statement, however, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a formal response, denying Hotovely’s claims.
“There are no quotas [on construction] and no limitations on the number [of units to be built]. The cabinet unanimously decided on construction policy in Judea and Samaria. All building permits are given according to these rules.”

Joint List MK Zoabi praises Swiss war crimes probe of Livni

Joint List MK Haeen Zoabi praised Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber's office Friday for confirming that it is examining a criminal complaint of war crimes filed by a Swiss-based Palestinian group against Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni.
Livni came to the Italian-speaking city of Lugano in southern Switzerland Sunday to speak at a pro-Israel event organized by the Swiss-Israel Association. Before she left Switzerland Monday, Geneva-based Urgence Palestine filed a lawsuit against Livni for her role in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009, when she was foreign minister and a member of the security cabinet.
"Those who commit war crimes cannot travel freely in the world," Zoabi said. "War criminals and killers of children will continue to kill as long as they have international immunity."
Zoabi added that the reason the world does not condemn Israel enough is because the Jewish state has a powerful lobby that cynically takes advantage of the memory of the Holocaust.

Danny Danon exposes UNRWA's lies

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon slammed UNRWA for its use of a Syrian girl's picture in order to fundraise for Gaza, which "has long suffered a siege."
In a Facebook post, Danon wrote, "UNRWA does not let facts confuse them. In 2015, the little girl in the picture was Syrian, and lived in the outskirts of Damascus."
"But in 2017, she became a girl from Gaza, which is under Israeli siege."
Danon's post was "shared" thousands of times on the social media platform.
Last week, Danon was elected as deputy president of the UN General Assembly. He will begin his new job when the General Assembly convenes in September.

PLO: Israeli envoy’s new UN post ‘supports the occupation’

A senior Palestinian official said Saturday the appointment of the Israeli envoy to the United Nations as vice president of the UN General Assembly rewards Israel’s “lawlessness” and control over the West Bank.
Israel’s Ambassador Danny Danon was elected to the position as a representative of the Western European and Others (WEOG) group last week. He will chair General Assembly meetings when the president is absent, have a say in setting the agenda and oversee debates.
Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement the promotion is “tantamount to giving support for the occupation and rewarding Israel’s [acting with] impunity and lawlessness,” the official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported on Saturday.
“Israel is the one country that continues to maintain a cruel and illegal occupation of another nation; it has been living and acting outside the law, willfully defying international law and international humanitarian law and adamantly refusing to implement any and all UN resolutions pertaining to its military occupation and system of apartheid and colonialism,” Ashrawi said.

Jordan intensifies Anti-Israel rhetoric

Jordan, a country that has had a formal peace treaty with Israel since 1994, has seen an uptick in anti-Israel hostility.
Last month, Jordan condemned the killing of a Jordanian-Palestinian attacker who was filmed stabbing an Israeli policeman multiple times before he was shot, calling it "a heinous crime." In September, Israeli police killed a Jordanian tourist who attacked with a knife. Jordan described this act of self-defense as a premeditated and "barbaric act of the army of the Israeli occupation."
Israeli analysts disagree whether Jordan's rhetoric is a cause for concern.
Since the second Palestinian Intifada broke out in 2000, Jordan's public statements often contradict private behavior, said Elad Ben-Dror, a Bar-Ilan University Middle Eastern Studies senior lecturer. Publicly, "the Jordanian parliament and press are fierce in their denunciation of Israel... Beneath the surface, however, there is a strong link and security cooperation between the two countries, especially with regard to the war on terrorism."
Jordanian demographics drive the public vitriol, said Tel Aviv University Contemporary Middle Eastern History Chair Eyal Zisser. Palestinians comprise half the Jordanian population, "and because the population is conservative and very much Islamic, the regime lets the public...express anti-Israeli sentiments as a way to vent and reduce...pressure on the regime."

PreOccupiedTerritory: Proposal To Offer Land To Car Crashes So They Stop Killing People (satire)

Road safety activists have put forth an initiative to treat the scourge of fatal vehicle crashes with the same political urgency and creative thinking that spawned the peace process with the Palestinians, whereby Israel would conduct negotiations with the collisions in an effort to reach agreement on how much of Israel to relinquish to the crashes in exchange for no further Israeli deaths.
Advocates for the land-for-peace formula, stymied in their efforts over the last nine years to bring about a settlement with the Palestinians, have begun to focus instead on a much bigger killer of Israelis than Palestinian terrorism: car crashes. Since the Oslo formula has resulted in unprecedented peace and the end of the conflict, at least for brief periods, the same successful approach can now be applied to the hundreds of Israelis killed in car crashes each year. If offered enough land, they argue, the collisions will finally enjoy the dignity of their own sovereign territory to administer, and will stop causing the deaths of Israelis.
Advocates of the proposal observe that the number of Israels killed in car crashes far outnumbers those killed in war and terrorist attacks. “There have been years in which the number of Israelis, including soldiers, killed by terrorists is maybe in the double digits,” explained Missinda Point, founder of the Land for Vehicular Peace Foundation. “But the number of people killed in car crashes remains in the triple digits years after year, and no one has yet to suggest negotiating with car crashes to do anything about that. I mean, hello, have we learned nothing from Oslo?”

5 Palestinians accused of planning attacks at Temple Mount

Israel arrested and filed charges against five members of a Hamas-linked terror group suspected of planning to attack security forces and visitors at the Temple Mount.
The arrests of the alleged members of the group were carried out over the past few months by the Shin Bet security service and Jerusalem Police, and center around 25-year-old Old City resident Mahmoud Abed al-Wahhab Said Abed al-Latif, who the Shin Bet said was the recruiter and mastermind behind the cell.
According to a Shin Bet statement Sunday, the five — residents of East Jerusalem — were members of Al-Shabab Al-Aqsa, which was classified as a terror group in 2011 and is affiliated with Hamas.
The Shin Bet said that in addition to stoking violence on the Temple Mount to deter non-Muslim visitors, members of the group have also carried out a number of deadly terror attacks, including an October 2016 shooting in which two Israelis were killed at the capital’s Ammunition Hill light rail stop and during a subsequent shootout with police.

Hamas slams PA official for acknowledging Western Wall is Jewish

The Hamas terror organization on Sunday harshly criticized a top Palestinian Authority official for acknowledging that the Western Wall is a Jewish holy site that must remain under Jewish sovereignty.
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem slammed Fatah Central Committee member Jibril Rajoub for his statement, which departed from the formal Palestinian position branding all of Jerusalem’s Old City as occupied territory that must become part of a Palestinian state.
“The statement is a national crime,” Qassem said, which constitutes “abuse of the Palestinian people and their holy places.”
The Hamas spokesman posted on the terror group’s Arabic website that Raboub’s comments showed the national and moral decay of the Fatah party, by officially relinquishing what he called the sacred, national and historical Palestinian claim to the site. He said that such statements mock “the struggle and sacrifices of the Palestinian people.”

Arab Media: PA Cut Salaries of Freed Terrorists

Dozens of security prisoners who had been released from Israeli jails were told on Sunday that the Palestinian Authority had cut off their salaries for May – which they expected to collect in their local banks on the fourth of the month, the Safa news agency reported.
Head of the Center for Prisoners’ Information Abdul Rahman Shedid told Safa that dozens of freed prisoners had been surprised Sunday when they approach to receive their salaries from banks operating in the PA and the Gaza Strip and were told there were no checks for them.
Shedid condemned the PA’s move, saying that it came “in response to the pressure of the ‘occupation’ in the first place,” and describing it as an unpatriotic and immoral.
He called for the PA to reverse its decision, warning that his group is considering a swift response with freed prisoners and their families in both the PA and the Gaza Strip.
President Trump reportedly yelled at PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting in Ramallah, accusing him of reneging on his commitment to stop incitement and cut off payments to security prisoners in Israeli Jails and to their families.

Hamas denies Qatar is expelling its officials

The Hamas terror group on Sunday denied that Qatar is expelling several of its senior members from the Gulf Kingdom.
The denial came a day after the Lebanese al-Mayadeen television station said Hamas was recently informed of the decision by a representative of the Gulf kingdom, who gave the terror organization a list of members who must leave Qatar’s capital of Doha, citing “external pressures.”
A Hamas spokesman said the reports are false and are aimed at slandering the organization and disrupting its foreign relations, Channel 2 News reported.
The spokesman said the terror group was reorganizing its activities, following the recent appointment of a new leadership.
Ismail Haniyeh was elected leader by Hamas’s Shura Council in May. His rise was the latest sign of a power shift in Hamas from its foreign-based leaders to the Gaza Strip. His predecessor Khaled Mashaal is based in Qatar.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Gandhi Was A Wimp By Mustafa Massikr, Hamas activist (satire)

I love it. I get to kill women and children in their beds, and the world supports me!
For me, it’s never been about freedom for Palestine. Those little kids don’t know a thing about it. I do it for the sheer joy of stabbing them, of slashing their little throats. The fact that the world at large turns around and says nothing – or better yet, blames Israel – is just icing on the cake.
On second thought, I’m kinda grateful for the world’s response, or lack thereof. If they actually cared about human life they’d have stopped me and my friends long ago. But since they really don’t give a damn about life, or at least about Jews, I can get away with murder. And when’s the last time you heard that expression meant literally? The whole silence thing, to me, is an endorsement of my hobby. That encourages me to no end.
The really cool thing is that if any Jew were to do the same thing to Arabs, almost anywhere in the world, the UN would immediately issue some bombastic pronouncement against Israel. Those Zionists’ hands are tied! They actually have some scruples, so I have the advantage! They sweat over what the UN will do and other such nonsense, whereas I just do whatever the hell I want, because the UN never cared in the first place. The international community is on my side!
I am especially tickled when people talk about putting an end to the “cycle of violence”. There’s no cycle – I like to kill Jews and that’s the bottom line – but hey, keep talking about it, because it generates enough distraction that we can plan our next attack in peace. I smile every time our “leadership” denounces violence as counterproductive. At least they haven’t gone over to the dark side, arguing that killing is somehow immoral. Let the Zionists and the West worry about morals. The more they agonize, the easier I can plan my next settlement infiltration, stabbing attack, vehicular homicide, or bus bombing.

Iran says Trump’s climate pact withdrawal will isolate US (not satire)

Iran on Sunday joined the international chorus of criticism against US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, saying it would further isolate the United States.
“The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris accord indicates the government’s lack of responsibility regarding the global community and it will increasingly isolate them,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said, according to the IRNA news agency.
Trump announced on Thursday that the United States would withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change, joining Syria and Nicaragua as the only non-signatories to the agreement.
“Non-compliance with commitments in the Paris accord by a government which is the second-largest producer of greenhouse gases and is one of the most polluting countries, is unacceptable,” said Ghasemi.

Police probe ‘anti-Semitic’ heckling of Naz Shah for defending Israel’s existence

An anti-Semitic “hate incident” at an election hustings in Bradford West has been reported to police by event organisers after a man allegedly shouted “Jew, Jew, Jew” at candidates.
The shouts were audible on a live video of the hustings filmed by community group JUST Yorkshire, and came after Labour candidate Naseem Shah re-iterated her support for “Israel’s right to exist” at the event on Wednesday May 31.
She had been asked by a hustings attendee to clarify her position “on Zionism”.
“I didn’t hear it at the time because the heckling was so bad,” Ms Shah told the Press Association. “But I have seen the video now, I’ve heard it with my own ears and I’m glad it has been reported as a hate incident.”
“There was a lot of misogyny in that room,” she added. “It wasn’t a nice experience.”
Police have confirmed they are looking into the incident.

UK HOLOCAUST BALLET GETS MIXED REVIEWS
Show based on 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas' called "outrageously insensitive."

It was a controversial book, and then a controversial film. And now, "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" has become a controversial ballet, touring around northern England for a period of several months.
The plot for all three follows the tale of two young boys - Bruno and Shlomo. Bruno is the son of a Nazi commander, whose promotion moves him and his family to live outside Auschwitz. Shlomo is a young Jewish boy sent to the death camp with his entire family. The two meet along the fence and forge an unlikely friendship.
And unlikely is the key word here. While the best-selling novel and film did receive a great deal of praise, many critics pointed out the impossibility of the story. Boys of Shlomo's age were never kept alive for work in Auschwitz, they were gassed immediately upon arrival. Others pointed out the trivialization of the conditions of the camp, and the naivete that Bruno would not have known who Hitler was or what was happening.
The New York Times review of the film said it was "the Holocaust trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked for a tragedy about a Nazi family."

How this African-American Jew uses cooking to fuse his identities

When Michael Twitty dressed in the outfit that slaves wore in the American South — wool stockings, waistcoat and kerchief tied around his neck — to cook meat in an open-hearth oven on a historic Virginia plantation, more than one memory of slavery flashed through his mind.
One memory, of his African-American ancestors in the South, seems obvious. The other, of Jews enslaved thousands of years ago in Egypt, perhaps less so.
Cooking on the Virginia plantation as part of his research into black and Southern foodways, the African-American Jew by choice thought of the Passover injunction that each Jew remember the Exodus from Egypt as if he or she had been there. And passing by a colonial-style house near the historic plantation brought to mind both slavery and Nazi concentration camps.
In 2012, Twitty embarked on a “Southern Discomfort Tour” to trace the history of his black ancestors through food. On the journey, which he documents in his forthcoming book, “The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South,” he also saw parallels to Jewish history.
The book, which is set for publication in August, explores the history of soul food and its relationship to the larger category of Southern cuisine. It also documents Twitty’s personal journey as he learns about his ancestors’ fates, works on historic plantations and takes DNA tests to learn more about his heritage.

Israel’s unicorns reveal how to make it big in business

At a panel discussion last Thursday, AlmaLinks, an Israeli organization that aims to promote Birthright-like ties between the Jewish business community in the United States and Israel, brought together what audience members said was an extraordinary group: CEOs and heads of companies who lead or have led their firms to valuations of a billion dollars or more.
The conversation by Israel’s leading unicorns took place in the Tel Aviv offices of ironSource (in partnership with law firm GKH) and focused on how companies can get to the billion dollar mark from where they are now.
The panel included leading lights of Israeli business, including Tomer Bar Zeev (co-founder and CEO, ironSource), Yoav Chelouche, (managing partner, Aviv VC; former CEO and president, Scitex Corp), Gavriel Meron (founder, former CEO and president, Given Imaging; founder, chairman and CEO, HygieaCare) and Guy Sella (co-founder, CEO and chairman, SolarEdge). In an intimate and in-depth conversation, the panel members discussed the challenges and opportunities in store for growing Israeli companies in the coming years.
Over the past decade, Israel has seen a flourishing of M&A, IPO and venture activity, with several unicorn companies emerging. Still, for a “startup nation,” many in the tech industry believe, Israel should have more than the dozen or so companies that are valuated at a billion dollars. One reason cited by observers for the country not having more such firms may be that Israeli entrepreneurs tend to sell their companies to multinational corporations rather than remain independent and grow on their own.

'Wonder Woman' Makes History for Female Director with $100 Million Opening Weekend

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.’s DC Comics blockbuster Wonder Woman is riding a wave of critical acclaim and audience fanfare to a summer movie season-saving $100 million domestic opening weekend haul — a historic feat for a female-directed feature film.
After several weeks of slumping ticket sales for major film franchises, including Alien: Covenant and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the Gal Gadot-starring superheroine film has become an international sensation, thanks, in large part, to rave critical reviews, a 94 percent Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, and an A CinemaScore.
Wonder Woman highlights Diana Prince (Gadot), the Amazon princess who leaves her home of Themyscira when American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crash-lands on the island and enlists her to fight for truth and justice in a global world war.
Patty Jenkins (Monster, the Killing) helmed the high-flying latest installment in the expanded DC Cinematic Universe, which comes on the heels of 2016’s blockbusters Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad.

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