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Thursday, April 2, 2015

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Anti-Israel academics: the world’s least convincing free-speech warriors
However - and this is a very big however - the conference organisers and their sympathisers in the media, the academy and on Twitter must be the least convincing defenders of academic freedom in living memory. These anti-Israel thinkers and campaigners are currently crying ‘Censorship!’ as loudly as they can, depicting themselves as a persecuted minority silenced by powerful political actors (You Know Who). A professor of law at Southampton, and a co-organiser of the conference, said ‘the controversial nature of the conference is precisely where [the principle of] freedom of speech leads – that’s where the commitment to freedom of speech is tested’. He’s right about that; but he’s wrong if he thinks we’re going to buy the idea that today’s shrill and many opponents of Israel are glorious defenders of free speech or controversial discussion. On the contrary, the anti-Israel lobby is possibly the most censorious mob on British campuses today, practising, week in, week out, the very same censoriousness it now cries about being victimised by.
Whether they are No Platforming Zionist speakers and representatives of the Israeli government, or demanding an academic boycott against any professor or thinker or book that comes from Israel, or agitating for the removal from Britain of Israeli dance troupes or theatre groups or filmmakers - as if they were all diseased with contagious Zionism - anti-Israel campaigners have become dab hands at shutting down debate, at silencing those they (irrationally) hate. Their everyday currency is censorship. In recent months, Israel societies on campus have had to cancel events following loud and censorious disruptions and have even faced demands that they be shut down on the basis that they make their campuses into Unsafe Spaces - which means they hold views that small numbers of student-union bureaucrats consider foul. Indeed, in the Guardian article that sympathises with the silenced Southampton discussants it is casually mentioned that the organisers of the conference have ‘voiced support for an academic boycott [of Israel]’. So these self-styled warriors for academic freedom back the highly illiberal and discriminatory tactic of never exchanging thoughts or ideas with Israeli thinkers and instead banning them from British campuses. You couldn’t make it up.
Edgar Davidson: Southampton University's disgraceful statement on cancelling anti-Israel hatefest
"We are sorry but we have had to cancel this excellent unbiased event due to threats from the Zionists"
Southampton University has cancelled the planned anti-Israel hatefest. That ought to be a cause for a small celebration. However, the statement the University has issued is a disgrace, and probably far more damaging than the planned conference itself would have been. It does not mention any of the multiple arguments explaining why the University should never have supported the event in the first place, but instead justifies the cancellation on the grounds of public safety, implying that the planned protest by those opposed to the event (i.e. 'Zionists') posed too great a risk to University personnel and visitors.
The University is effectively promoting the idea (already prominent in the main stream media and not just among Israel haters) that threats from 'Zionists/Jews' have put a stop to free speech. But it is even worse. Instead of criticising the blatant bias and antisemitism of the organisers of the conference (almost every single one of the scheduled speakers was an advocate of boycotting Israel) , the statement goes out of its way to actually praise them and invert reality:
"The University ... has been impressed by the commitment of the organisers to include a broad spectrum of views, and indicated to the organisers that it will work with them to find a venue suitable for a conference of this nature at a later date."
Joke Street
Other speakers included Maha Mehanna, who called Israel’s actions against Hamas this past summer a “crime against humanity”, while remaining silent about Hamas’ actions that provoked the Israeli response. There was Matt Duss who compared Israel’s blockade against Hamas to segregation. There was (of course) Peter Beinart, who called for Obama to take punitive actions against Israel, such as freezing assets.
To top it all off, there was Marcia Freedman, who basically called for the end of Israel as a Jewish state, saying that Israeli Jews should instead live as a “protected minority” in an Arab-controlled Palestinian state instead. She believes this despite the way non-Arab minorities across the Middle East are treated by Arabs. She believes this despite a study conducted by the ADL finding that 93% of Palestinians harbor anti-semitic views and that all 10 of the most anti-semitic countries are all Arab countries. After she gave her speech, Freedman was applauded, by people who are supposed to support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. It is amazing that an organization that claims to be for two states gives a platform for someone who calls for one state. Yet, J Street has declined to allow many other supporters of the two state solution, such as Alan Dershowitz, to speak at their conference.
The mask has finally slipped off. Happy April Fools Day J Street, you aren’t fooling anybody but yourselves!



Lethal anti-Semitism originated on the Left
The Marxist Left has a long and sordid history of anti-Semitism. The core belief was that Jews must cease to be Jews in order to be liberated. That has now been extended to virulent hostility to the Jewish State of Israel
Even before Marx, however, there had been in socialist thinking a powerful strain of anti-Semitism. From the stereotypical Jewish street pedlar to the Rothschild banker, both were seen by socialists as rapacious agents of capitalism. The French socialist Proudhon (whom Marx met) provides a good example of such anti-Semitism.
In his latest book From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel, Robert Wistrich (Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) makes the point: “Socialist thought was tainted from its very origins with the heavy baggage of anti-Jewish stereotypes”.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that early socialists imbibed the wider and deeply ingrained stereotype of the Jew as the money-grubbing outsider.
After all, the emancipation of Europe’s Jews in the nineteenth century was held to mean that Jews should lose much of their Jewish identity. They would no longer be outsiders, and would no longer need to be Jewish.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Beware of Michiganistan
Since the massacre at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January, the U.S. media has understandably devoted attention to the problem of radical Islam in Europe. The fact has been widely reported that thousands of European Union citizens have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the self-styled Islamic State. Almost as much coverage has been given to stories of French Jews emigrating to Israel. And there have been numerous articles about Michel Houellebecq’s diabolically timed novel Soumission, which imagines France in 2022 with a Muslim president introducing sharia law and being fawned over by the Parisian establishment.
The implication of many of these articles is: “How utterly terrifying. Thank heavens it couldn’t happen here.”
True, there are no American equivalents of the alarmist books about Europe with titles like Eurabia or Londonistan. Apparently it is not quite time to warn about the “United States of Sharia” or “Michiganistan.” But are we underestimating the speed with which this country could develop substantial and influential populations of Islamic extremists? A growing, if still small number of cases like that of Abdi Nur — the 20-year-old student who left south Minneapolis to join IS last year — suggests we may be.
Ryan Bellerose: Another History Lesson
The Arabs think they are tough people. They play at being stoic and believe that they have had a policy of “patience” where they seem to think if they make life hard enough for the Jews, that one day the Jews will just give up and go away. Perhaps they got this idea from how the Jews achieved their independence from the British. The Arabs are famous after all for copying or co-opting Jewish experiences and culture (and some would say history and identity). The Jews basically made occupation so difficult for the British that even though they were one of the greatest empires in the world , they finally just said “screw it, these Jews are crazy, we are outta here.” It didn’t happen easily, but it happened. It just took patience. The Arabs of course saw this and probably think they can do the same thing. They look at the history but they do not understand it. They ignore the context. And in history, CONTEXT is everything.
The simple truth is that the Arabs just cannot understand that not only are the Jews a stiff-necked, stubborn people who managed to resist assimilation even in the Diaspora for over two thousand years, but they have a trait that is common to all indigenous people – an almost inhuman tolerance for hardship when it comes to their ancestral lands. For some it’s religious, which adds yet more strength, but for many it is simply the fact that Israel is their ancestral land and they will never be willing to give it up. You see this in studying Jewish history; the fact that many Jews remained despite incredible hardship under Muslim rule, and you see it in other aspects of Zionism and the way that the Mizrachi Jews were expelled from Arab lands yet became integral parts of Israel and the Jewish nation. Colonisers and imperialists do not share this sort of connection. They may feel connected to the land, but it’s not a deep and abiding connection. It is not something they would die for, so it’s almost impossible to explain it to them in terms they will understand. Indigenous people are used to being marginalized and oppressed, while we do not like it. We aren’t overly impressed by it anymore either.
Trevor Noah, Lena Dunham and Anti-Semitism For Laughs
Don Imus, the famous radio/TV talk show host, was caught making a joke insensitive to Blacks and it nearly finished him off. He was taken off the air, spent years being rehabilitated, and now he’s back, but careful – very careful. Zero tolerance!
Schooled by people like Al Sharpton, Imus learned the limits to humor – and so did every other comedian. Don’t go there is the message.
But for Jews, the jokes keep on coming…tasteless, offensive, hurtful, harmful, doesn’t matter. Fair game to be Jewish and we’re into a trend.
So now it’s Trevor Noah and who is this, you ask? I asked the same question and the answer is that if you thought Jon Stewart was obnoxious when it came to Israel, wait till you meet this creep. Trevor (no Noah this guy) is a 31-year-old South African who is slated to take Stewart’s place on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show.
Comedian Trevor Noah Has a Friend Named Hitler
In a Daily Show podcast earlier this year, Mediaite reported, Noah casually mentioned to one of the show's writers, Dan Amira, that he had a friend named Hitler, interrupting a discussion of how South Africans view America.
Taken aback, Amira asked the comedian: “What do you mean your ‘friend Hitler?’”
“This is not a nickname. We don’t call him, ‘AKA Hitler. His name is Hitler,” Noah explained, before describing his friend as a “very good-looking, young black man, charismatic” with a “great smile.”
“Why on earth would a mother name her child Hitler?” Amira asked him. “What kind of mother would do that?”
“Well, Hitler’s mom did it,” Noah said, adding that he "never questioned" the name until he traveled outside of South Africa and realized the hugely negative connotation the name has.
“In many parts of Africa… people would name their children after great leaders,” Noah said, emphasizing that “great” does not necessarily mean “good,” but rather someone who has “really changed the world.”
“Hitler was so big that he forced white South Africans, who at the time were racist, to ask black South Africans to go to war with them to help fight,” Noah added.
And for blacks, he explained, there is a feeling, “who is it that scares the man who oppresses me? Who’s that dude? Because that’s the guy I want to meet.”
JCPA: The Saudi Military Intervention in Yemen
The conclusion is obvious: The Saudis have little trust in the U.S. administration and suspected that the Obama Administration’s Iranian agenda would lead it to stop the Saudi coalition acting against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen. The Saudis have expressed very clearly on many occasions their opposition to a nuclear Iran and, as noted by Israeli leaders, see the Administration reaching a “bad agreement” with Iran.
The Saudis are exasperated by the Obama Administration’s courtship of Iran — the same Iran that supports their enemies in Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen and Iraq, and claims control of four Arab capitals (Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sana’a). Saudi Arabia decided it was time to draw the line between the main two camps fighting over hegemony in the Middle East (the Iran-led axis versus the moderate-Arab camp led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia) and demanded that the U.S. choose sides in the war.
This may explain why the Saudis discussed with the U.S. different options in Yemen but never went into details about their military intentions. It is evident that the Saudis perceived that the U.S. did not approve of such a move after the Americans expressed reservations about such intervention.
This could explain the low-profile U.S. “logistic and intelligence support” given to the operation. As in the “lead-from-behind” 2011 Libyan war strategy, the U.S. chose to stay “under the radar” to avoid openly associating with the operation it had to accept after the fact as a reality. The U.S. administration, taken by surprise, did not react immediately. Only two days later Obama called the Saudi king to express half-hearted U.S. support.
Unidentified Troops Land in Aden After Houthis Seize Center
Dozens of unidentified troops landed by sea in Aden in an apparent last-ditch effort by a Saudi-led coalition to shore up a foothold in the southern Yemeni port city after Shi’ite Houthi fighters seized control of its center on Thursday.
The soldiers arrived in a single vessel a few hours after the Iran-allied Houthis and their supporters swept into the heart of Aden despite an eight-day air campaign led by Riyadh to stem their advances.
The southern port city has been the last major holdout of fighters loyal to the Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled Aden a week ago and has watched from Riyadh as the vestiges of his authority have crumbled.
It was not immediately possible to verify the nationality of the troops, but the Saudi-led coalition says it is in control of the waters around Aden. If confirmed as a coalition move, it would be the first reported deployment of ground forces since Saudi Arabia launched the campaign a week ago.
Houthi children vow 'Death to America, death to Israel'
A new video posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute shows a group of Houthi children in Yemen calling for the destruction of America and Israel.
In a report which aired last week on the Houthi-owned Al-Masirah TV network, Houthi children called "Death to America! Curses upon the Jews!"
"We long for martyrdom," one boy told the reporter. "Don't you know that killing is what we are accustomed to, and that martyrdom is a blessing bestowed upon us by Allah?"
Houthi forces pulled back from positions in central Aden after air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition at dawn on Thursday, residents of the southern Yemeni port city said.
They said a unit of Houthi and allied fighters, who had advanced in tanks and armored vehicles through Aden's Khor Maksar district 24 hours earlier, pulled back, although they remained in parts of the neighborhood.
Houthi Children Threaten America on Houthi TV


British MP Galloway Slams Anti-Houthi Campaign on Iran TV: The Saudis Are Treacherous Snakes
British MP George Galloway recently criticized the Saudi-led campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, saying that the Saudis were treacherous snakes, who belly-danced for Netanyahu in the casinos and bordellos of London. Galloway was speaking on his regular program on the Iranian English-language Press TV channel on March 27, 2015.


Mob Rule at Sydney University
The intellectual arrogance of the campus BDS supporters, articulated by Lynch and Riemer, is quite astounding.
No postmodern questioning of objective truth here; not only is the truth “out there” but Lynch and Riemer are in possession of it and are able to distinguish it from lies and deceit. No need to allow people to actually hear the contending cases presented fully and effectively, even in contexts such as the Kemp lecture where they can be challenged. Defend Israel in any respect and you are a warmonger, callously indifferent to the fate of oppressed people. You need to be silenced.
This is a truly sinister development, and one not confined to Australian universities. Jewish students at Sydney University with whom I corresponded report feeling increasingly insecure and fearful on campus. My sense is that increasingly anti-Zionism is a mask for occulted anti-Semitism.
Will the university administration, led by vice-chancellor Mich­ael Spence, act decisively to defend free speech on campus in response to this outrage? Time will tell, but at this stage the portents are not encouraging.
Ali Abunimah #Fail At University of Michigan
Proponents of the hate-spewing, anti-Semitic BDS movement apparently pulled out all the stops at yesterday’s vote at the University of Michigan’s Central Student Government, bringing Electronic Intifada co-founder and Hamas supporter Ali Abunimah to agitate in favor of a divestment resolution. Michigan students, however, saw through Abunimah’s hatred and lies, and rejected the resolution by a vote of 29-15.
Edinburgh University students accused of anti-Semitism over Passover BDS vote
Edinburgh University’s Students Association (EUSA) has been accused of anti-Semitism after it refused to reschedule a debate on boycotting Israel timed for the day before Passover.
The university’s Jewish Society president Emma Dubin registered a strong protest at the last-minute arrangements to hold the debate on Thursday, pointing out that most if not all of the 50 Jewish students belonging to the society would be traveling home to prepare for the festival and thus unable to speak against the BDS resolution.
Having been notified of the forthcoming debate only on Monday, Dubin was told by EUSA that the only way the date could be moved was by agreement with the proposer of the motion, Fatima Osman of the student body’s Black and Ethnic Liberation Group (BME). However, Osman refused and declined a compromise suggestion to hold the debate later this academic term.
Dubin told the Jewish Chronicle that she was not just worried that the BDS motion might pass, “I am worried that this is a framework that makes it impossible for Jewish voices to be heard. It is an anti-Semitic process to not have Jewish students’ voices being heard at this stage.”
Sufyan Ismail of MEND on the 300 year old Israeli lobby
Sufyan Ismail is the CEO of MEND, the Islamist political group. MEND says it “helps to empower and encourage British Muslims within local communities to be more actively involved in British media and politics”.
Bashing Israel and its British supporters again and again is a very important part of its mission.
Mind how MEND does that.
Here you can see the mask slip from Mr Ismail. In a talk last October at a mosque in Bolton, this is how he recounts the vote in Parliament on recognising Palestine as a state:
"The other night in Parliament, for the first time in British history, first time in 300 years of the Israeli lobby’s presence in the United Kingdom, first time in British history they lost a vote in Parliament. Do you know this? And the Muslim community didn’t just beat the Israeli lobby, we battered them by 274 votes to 12."
Tufts Prof Thomas Abowd: Jews Colonial Usurpers in Jerusalem
Israel “has built a whole national mythology out of the City of David” in a “weaponization of myth,” stated Israel-hating Tufts University professor Thomas Abowd on March 17 at Washington, DC’s anti-Israel Jerusalem Fund think tank. Condemnation of “Israeli Colonial Racism” described in a Powerpoint presentation formed his lecture’s central theme, which incongruously presented Jews as colonial usurpers in their own ancestral national homeland before an audience of about twenty.
Abowd presented material from his bizarrely titled book, Colonial Jerusalem: The Spatial Construction of Identity and Difference in a City of Myth, 1948–2012. An opening slide of a map depicting “Jerusalem from 1948-1967” portrayed Israeli Jews as imperialists in a Zion where the “new Israeli state occupied the west side, the Jordanian state the east side.” Although Hebrew-founded Jerusalem is of central importance to Judaism and has had a restored Jewish plurality/majority since the mid-nineteenth century, he rejected calling Jerusalem Israel’s “eternal, immutable capital.” Quoting the late anti-Israel charlatan Edward Said, Abowd dismissed this claim as among “representations that exist outside of history.” Carrying revisionist history to absurd heights, he speculated during audience questioning that the centrality to Judaism of the Western Wall, a remnant of the Jewish temple destroyed in Jerusalem in 70 A.D., is an “invention of relatively recent construction.”
Political correctness may end Virginia State Bar international conferences
We continue to investigate the strange cancellation of a mid-year legal seminar in Israel by the Virginia State Bar (VSB). With the help of Judicial Watch, we have served a FOIA request on VSB, and will pursue the facts no matter how long it takes, including FOIA litigation if there is no alternative.
The cancellation of the Israel trip came after an email was sent by 36 VSB members to the VSB Council on Friday morning, March 27, alleging that the members would be prohibited from attending or face discriminatory interrogation by Israeli border officials on the basis of religion and ethnicity. None of the 36 said that they actually wanted to go on the Israel trip; instead they argued that VSB should boycott Israel because of its border security policies.
George Washington University Students Request More Cameras After Swastika Incident
On Monday, the Student Association Senate at George Washington University (GWU) passed a resolution asking the school to install more cameras on campus after swastikas were placed on hallway walls twice in the last month.
In February, several swastikas were painted on the walls inside a GWU dorm which houses a group of sororities and fraternities.
A few weeks later, another swastika ended up on a bulletin board belonging to a Jewish fraternity. That incident, though, proved to be a hoax.
Regardless, the incidents surprised and dismayed many, prompting the Student Association Senate to act.
Temple Beth Israel’s mates believe Jews responsible for 9/11
It’s great when people from diverse backgrounds come together. Last year, Temple Beth Israel treated their guests to a rich cultural experience when they staged an Interfaith Sacred Concert
The second half of the concert brought “something new to TBI’s sanctuary, the Muslim call to prayer, and a chanting of the 55th Surah of the Koran. With this recitation Abdul Aziz al Mathkour and Brother Waseem Razvi of the Islamic research Education Academy (IREA) revealed many points of commonality between Judaism and Islam in its languages and texts”
Temple Beth invited concertgoers to “participate in this opportunity to get to know and to de-mystify the “Other” in our “Sacred Music “.
If Temple Beth needed further de-mystification of the “Other” they should have hastened to Waseem Razvi’s Australian Islamic Peace Conference at the Melbourne Convention Centre. The Australian reported:
Children, including a five-year-old girl, took to the stage at a controversial Islamic conference that also listed on its program a speech from a Malaysian cleric who believes Muslim terrorists were not responsible for the September 11 attacks on the US.
Keynote speaker Hussain Yee, who … was on the program, has attracted controversy for comments implying Jewish people were behind the 9/11 ­attacks of 2001.
More enablement of Hamas propaganda from BBC’s ME editor
In addition to the previously discussed written and filmed reports based around Jeremy Bowen’s recent interview with Hamas’ Khaled Masha’al in Doha published on the BBC News website’s Middle East page on April 1st, other filmed reports appeared on BBC television news programmes on that date.
In one report viewers yet again saw Masha’al being given a platform from which to promote the notion that his organisation is different from other Islamist groups operating in the region. Bowen’s failure to challenge the statement “There is no Daesh [ISIS], no IS or Al Qaeda in Palestine. There are some lone wolves but they are isolated. We don’t allow such thoughts in Palestine” should of course be assessed within the context of the fact that a BBC reporter was kidnapped by the Al Qaeda affiliated group Jaish al Islam in Gaza in 2007 and in light of the history of Hamas’ relations with that group and others.
Edgar Davidson: Jeremy Bowen in new BBC interview surprise (satire)
Following Jeremy Bowen's cosy BBC interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal (in which they agreed that Israeli extremism ruled out the possibility of a two state solution) the BBC today released rare footage of Jeremy Bowen's fireside chat with Adolf Hitler in 1944.
In the interview Bowen asked about Mr Hitler's well-known vision of a post-war Germany in which Jews lived safely and prospered in all professions. When Mr Hitler pointed to recent acts of appalling Jewish extremism (such as their defiance during the Warsaw Ghetto destruction) Bowen agreed with Mr Hitler that, despite his best intentions, the Jews had ruled themselves out of playing any useful role in a future Germany.
Report: Anti-Semitic attacks rise significantly in Netherlands
An anti-Semitism watchdog group in the Netherlands said that incidents involving acts against the Jewish community rose 71 percent last year, adding that some police officers were unwilling to intervene in such matters.
The Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, or CIDI, recorded 171 incidents in 2014 compared to 100 in 2013, CIDI wrote in a statement sent to the media on Wednesday about the group’s annual report on anti-Semitism.
The report noted a "worrisome phenomenon" amongst police officer's behavior towards the Jewish community, with some preferring to "look the other way" in such cases.
“The filing of a complaint was sometimes discouraged in contrast with the policy that indeed seeks to enhance reporting,” according to the report.
Argentine union leader calls politician ‘little Jew boy’
An Argentine union leader who called a government minister “little Jew boy” defended himself by saying “Everybody calls him this.”
In a radio interview Wednesday, Luis Barrionuevo, who heads the Blue and White CGT union, in discussing a national general strike initiated the previous day by his union, said the Minister of the Economy, Axel Kicillof, that “the little Jew boy gives no answer” to workers’ demands.
Barrionuevo used the term “el Rusito,” or “the little Russian,” to refer to Kicillof — “Russian” is a popular slang term used to refer to Jews in Argentina.
Tech giants take a byte of the Start-up Nation
Major technological companies capitalizing on Israel’s knack for innovation and diverse makeup is nothing new: Intel Israel, for example, was founded in 1974 and now employs more than 7,800 people. The top Intel processors have been developed in Haifa and Yakum for years. Apart from their R&D center, Intel has opened Computational Intelligence Institute, which is helping to realize many of the Ministry of Education’s strategic programs. “Intel Israel was responsible for designing the chip in the first IBM personal computers, the first Pentium chips, and a new architecture that analysts agree saved Intel…” “In the southern Israeli town of Qiryat Gat, Intel built a $3.5 billion plant where Israelis designed chips with transistors so small that thirty million of them can fit on the head of pin.”
Google also boasts 2 R&D centers in Israel. Google first opened its office in Israel in 2006. Live results, person finder application, Google Suggest, Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project, Google Insights for search, In-page analytics and interactive videos on YouTube were all developed in Israel.
“Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has called Microsoft “an Israeli company as much as an American company” because of the size and centrality of its Israeli teams.” Steve Ballmer said, “Microsoft employs more workers per capita in Israel than anywhere else on earth.”
Check Point acquires Israeli cyber start-up Lacoon
Check Point, the Israeli cyber-security company that invented the firewall, on Thursday announced that it was acquiring another Israeli cyber-firm, start-up Lacoon. The deal, according to industry sources, is worth some $80 million.
With Lacoon, Check Point hopes to increase its presence in the mobile world. While the company has mobile protection products already, it does not dominate that business the way it does the server business, where corporate networks require the firewalls Check Point is known for.
Laccoon uses a behavior-based model to detect anomalies – behavior that is atypical and indicates that malware and viruses are present – and can immediately shut down a connection to a user whose device is misbehaving. Users whose devices have malware, viruses, trojan horses, and other undesirable features are thus kept off the corporate network, preventing them from spreading their malware to others.
Israel joins China-based fund boycotted by US
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an agreement Tuesday to join the newly formed China-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, despite a US snub to the initiative.
Analysts believe geopolitical trends are leading Israel to increasingly pivot east toward Asia, amid growing hostility toward the Jewish state from its principal trading partners in Europe.
A slew of countries in Europe and the Middle East filed petitions to join the fund, including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar, among others.
PreOccupied Territory: Market Report: Chametz Futures Down (satire)
Commodities traders in Israel have noticed a recent decrease in the price of futures for potentially leavened grain products, a seasonal dip that almost always occurs in the late winter and early spring as holders of the goods tend to sell off their inventories.
Bread, pizza, and cookie futures began falling late last week, followed more modestly by cakes, pies, crackers and pretzels. This week has seen those prices continue their decline, joined by those of brownies, breaded chicken, batter-dipped fish, bechamel sauce, quiche, and various specialty pastries such as rugelach. Investors also rushed to arrange the sale and delivery of their existing stocks of pasta, pancakes, waffles, muffins, breakfast cereals, dumplings, and other flour-based foodstuffs.
Commodities market indexes reported that pita, sliced white bread, baguette, and roll futures began dropping as of last Tuesday, losing 4% of their value from the day before. Each successive day bought a further decrease in price, falling a full 60% as of yesterday to only NIS 11.58 per tonne. The precipitous decline, rather than indicating an industry-wide collapse, represents an annual event that occurs around the same time each year, in the transition of winter to spring, explains Haggai Pesach of Balye-Raeh, a clearinghouse for leavened goods.
Observing Passover as the Last Jew in Pakistan
I am a 27-year-old Jew living in Pakistan.
It's a statement that has elicited shock, warnings, threats and intense curiosity ever since I moved from Morocco to Karachi, the country's largest city in the homeland of my parents.
I understand the questions. I've faced them all myself leading up my decision to make my home here.
That Pakistan isn't friendly toward Jews won't surprise anyone. Anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment is rampant. I'm the only openly Jewish person here that I know. I'm sure there must be others in hiding, passing as Zoroastrian, Muslims and other faiths. They're on my mind as we enter Passover, when we commemorate the ancient Israelites' freedom from slavery in Egypt.
Jewish tribe in India celebrates pre-Passover seder, hoping next year will be in Jerusalem
The Shavei Israel Hebrew Center in Churachanpur, India hosted a pre-Passover "Model Seder" for over 550 members of the Bnei Menashe community Thursday.
One of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the Bnei Menashe are descendants of the tribe of Manasseh who were banished from Israel over 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire. Over 3,000 Bnei Menashe have immigrated to Israel through Shavei Israel, with another 7,000 still waiting in India to make Aliya.
“Passover symbolizes the Jewish people’s deliverance, and the Seder embodies the deepest hopes of the Bnei Menashe community, which has been dreaming for so long to make Aliyah,” said Shavei Israel Founder and Chairman Michael Freund.
“In the past two years, we have brought 1,000 Bnei Menashe to Israel,” Freund said. “We hope the remaining 7,000 members of the community still in India will soon experience the same taste of freedom -- next year in Jerusalem!”


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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/02/2015 06:00:00 PM
A few days ago Hamas police broke into a gathering of Fatah activists in the Jabalya camp in the northern Gaza Strip meant to memorialize the six Fatah members killed in the first intifada. The Hamas gunmen beat the participants and arrested a number of them while firing their weapons in the air.

Yesterday, Hamas prevented another Fatah gathering in Rafah to commemorate the death of ten more of its own terrorists. Fatah had planned to hold a concert and show a documentary on the lives of their "martyrs" and informed the Hamas leadership ahead of time.

Meanwhile in Fatahland, the PA security forces have arrested five Hamas students at the Palestine Polytechnic University in Hebron over the past two days. They have also arrested two former prisoner in Israeli jails associated with Hamas, one in Jenin and one in Ramallah, in recent days.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri emphasized yesterday that Mahmoud Abbas' presidency is constitutionally over according to Palestinian law.

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/02/2015 04:00:00 PM
Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:


Get up, stand up, stand up for your right
Get up, stand up, don’t give up the fight
Get up, stand up. Life is your right
So we can’t give up the fight
Stand up for your right, Lord, Lord
Get up, stand up. Keep on struggling on
Don’t give up the fight —
Bob Marley, “Get up, stand up”

I am sure the planners in Israel’s Defense Ministry have given priority 1 to the nuclear threat from Iran. As the ridiculous ‘negotiations’ with Iran pass yet another meaningless ‘deadline’ and Western negotiators, led by the foolish John Kerry, make concession after concession, it must be 100% clear to the folks in the kiriya that if Iran is to be stopped, Israel will have to stop her.

The Iranian question is no longer a political and diplomatic one; it is now a military one. The generals will decide how to do what must be done, and the politicians will decide when is the best time to do it. We can only hope they do their jobs competently. Ordinary Israelis will start cleaning the junk out of our bomb shelters again.

So now I want to turn to the other, somewhat lesser, threat that Israel faces today — also brought to us by courtesy of our ‘friend’ in the White House — which is the diplomatic offensive for the UN Security Council to impose a ‘solution’ in the form of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. Obama, feckless in his second term and armed with the convenient lie that it is Israel’s fault (the multiple Arab rejections of partition proposals notwithstanding) that there isn’t ‘peace’, will likely withhold the US veto of such a resolution.

What happens if a resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from the territories passes? Most resolutions are only advisory, unless one is passed under Chap. VII of the UN charter, which can be invoked if the UNSC determines that there is a “threat to peace” or “act of aggression.” In that case economic or even military sanctions can be applied if the target doesn’t comply. A precedent could be the sanctions adopted against the Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia in 1966. Of course even an advisory resolution can be used as a reason for a nation or group of nations to independently sanction another nation.

Israel finds itself in this position for several reasons, but it can’t help that over the years we haven’t made our own case for the legitimacy of our control of the territories. Much of the time we have accepted the narrative of our enemies that we are ‘occupiers’ of ‘Arab land’. If this were true, then it only would make sense that we ought to return the land to its ‘owners’ in return for adequate security guarantees.
But in fact it is not true. The Palestine Mandate as finally ratified by the League of Nations in 1922, granted the Jewish people the right of ‘close settlement’ on the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. In 1948, Jews were ethnically cleansed from the eastern part of the former Mandate, in a war crime committed by the Jordanian army.

For the 19 years until 1967, a racist occupation was maintained by Jordan. Jews were forbidden to set foot in the so-called ‘West Bank’, including Jewish holy places in eastern Jerusalem, synagogues were made into stables and cemeteries into latrines. It is absurd to say that this illegal act somehow transformed Judea and Samaria into ‘Arab land’ that we now ‘occupy’. As Naftali Bennett has said, you can’t be an occupier in your own land.

But didn’t Israel ethnically cleanse the western part of the former Mandate? Actually, no. With a few exceptions, generally in response to hostile actions by Arab populations, the Arabs who left fled because they feared the coming war or because they expected that the Jews would massacre them in revenge for what they had been doing to Jews since 1920. The Arabs that stayed put and did not engage in hostilities are still here.

Arabs in Palestine began the hostilities of our War of Independence, the Arab nations intervened in support of them, and the Jews prevailed. There certainly were injustices, but there is no comparison to what would have happened to Jews if the Arabs had won. Starting wars and losing them has consequences.

A whole industry of Israeli ‘revisionist’ historians and journalists has arisen to tell the story from the Arab point of view. Some are simply anti-state propagandists like Ilan Pappé, while others, like Ari Shavit, are Zionists obsessed by pathological feelings of guilt for being on the winning side. Their faults range from deliberate and wholesale invention of Jewish crimes to an exaggerated propensity to believe hostile sources uncritically.

The facts are known and documented by historians like Ephraim Karsh. There is no reason for Israel to adopt the Arab narrative. For example, the concept of ‘pre-67 lines and land swaps’ assumes that all of Judea/Samaria belongs to the Arabs. Therefore, the argument goes, if Israel is allowed to keep settlements over the Green Line then it must transfer an equal amount of land from this side of it to the Arabs. But the only claim that the Arabs have on this land is the illegal Jordanian occupation! And the Green Line, the boundary that is given so much significance, is just the 1949 armistice line — which the agreements made at the time specifically state is not a border and does not have any political significance.

Israel does not owe the ‘Palestinians’, led by the violent Jew-haters of Hamas and the PLO, anything. They have no a priori right to the land over the Green Line, nor do the descendents of Arab refugees have a ‘right of return’ to the Israel that their grandparents left.

It could be that nevertheless it is desirable for Israel to facilitate some kind of demilitarized Palestinian state in some part of the territories. But the starting point for negotiations must be the legitimate right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, and not the nonexistent ‘occupation’.

The deck may be stacked against us in the international arena. But we certainly won’t get our rights if we don’t stand up for them.

--
Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/02/2015 02:00:00 PM
From Ian:

Colonel Richard Kemp Defends Israel’s Military Response
Former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, explains the concept of proportionality in war and how the term is being misused to criticize Israel.
A common criticism made against Israel is that during last year’s war against Hamas in a battle known as Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli military used “disproportionate response.”. During the war, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at civilian targets mainly in Israel. Despite their best efforts to kill and maim innocent civilians, Israeli casualties were minimal. In response, and in accordance with international law, Israel fired at military targets in Gaza, killing a large number of terrorists. It is important to note that Israel took extraordinary measures to protect innocent lives in Gaza by dropping leaflets, phoning residents and sending warnings to civilians before attacking a Hamas target.
Hamas committed a double war crime: they fired from behind innocent Palestinian civilians while firing indiscriminately at innocent Israeli civilians. By doing so, they were directly responsible for the deaths of innocent Gazan and Israeli civilians. Because of Hamas’ war crimes, numerous innocent Palestinians were killed. Many human rights activists and governments pointed to the number of killed on each side and came to the mistaken and wrongful conclusion that the higher number of deaths on the Palestinian side meant Israel was using disproportionate force in Gaza. In fact, this is not true at all. And according to Colonel Kemp, this is not how one measures disproportionate response.
Colonel Richard Kemp debunks "Disproportional Response"

Caroline Glick: Annex Judea and Samaria Now
Journalist and writer Caroline Glick, author of the book "The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East", says Israel should annex Judea and Samaria now, in response to President Barack Obama’s statements that the United States will “re-evaluate” its support for Israel at the United Nations.
Seeing as Obama is planning to change American policy and “force Israel into completely indefensible borders”, Glick told Arutz Sheva, “the time has come for Israel to come out with an alternative policy, and the alternative policy that we have to put out is applying Israeli law and sovereignty to Judea and Samaria”.
“The question couldn’t be more urgent,” said Glick, whose book deals with this very issue and of which a Hebrew edition was recently published.
“The government has got to put forward a new policy regarding the Palestinians,” she continued. “The two states failed, we all know it, [and] we can’t resurrect it because it wasn’t we that made it fail.”
“The world doesn’t like us now,” Glick pointed out when asked about the world’s reaction if Israel does indeed annex Judea and Samaria. “We’re in a situation now where all the things they said will happen to us if we do X, Y, or Z are happening to us now when we’re saying, ‘No, no, no, we’ll support the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel’s heartland.”
Caroline Glick: Annex Judea and Samaria Now - in Wake of US Policy


An-Najah Poll: 73.5%:18.4% Palestinians support armed intifada, 46.2% of Gazans want to emigrate
Following are the results of the Palestinian Public Opinion Poll no. 50 conducted by the Center for Opinion Polls and Survey Studies at An-Najah National University during the period from 26-28 March 2015. The University sponsors all polls conducted by its Center.
The sample included 1360 persons whose age group is 18 and above and who have the right to vote. The enclosed questionnaire was distributed on 860 persons from the West Bank and 500 persons from the Gaza Strip. The sample was drawn randomly and the margin of error is about ±3%; still 2.4% of the members of the sample refused to answer the questionnaire. (h/t Bob Knot)



Isi Leibler: Uniting to resist Obama's unprecedented hostility
It is ironic that as we prepare to celebrate Passover, the festival of freedom, we are facing vicious efforts by the vindictive leader of the United States, our greatest ally, who is abandoning us – the only democratic state in a region suffused with barbarism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is obliged to respond diplomatically to the outrageous provocations directed against him by President Barack Obama. But we Israeli citizens must rise above political correctness and come to terms with an unpleasant reality.
The president of the United States, the leader of the free world and of Western civilization, is not merely venting his personal frustration against Netanyahu or having tantrums over the decision of Israelis to reelect him. Obama himself stresses that he is motivated by ideological reasons that can be traced back to the Cairo speech he delivered after his first election.
He has escalated his hostility to Israel while simultaneously endearing himself and even groveling to Iran.
Mordechai Kedar: In Our Neck of the Woods, Actions Speak Louder than Words
Israel, too, is in possession of many promises on crucial issues from various American presidents. These include stopping the Iranian nuclear project, support for Israel's suggestion to retain settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, and for its opposition to the recognition of a Palestinian state in the Security Council. All these were simply words. What is happening to the assurances and all the words Israel has received? Iran continues its nuclear project - and will be doing so after signing any agreement - and America is establishing a Palestinian State in Judea and Samaria even though no one in Washington can be sure or can promise that it won't turn into a Hamas state.
Israel must draw a clear and sharp conclusion: stop talking and start doing what should be done. It must put an end to the Palestinian Authority before it turns into another Hamas state and establish eight Emirates on its ruins: the one in Gaza has been in existence for eight years,but another seven must be established in Arab cities in Judea and Samaria - in Jenin, Shechem, Tulkarem, Kalkilya, Ramallah, Jericho, Arab areas of Hevron - ruled by local hamoulot (powerful, extended families), while Israel remains a force in the countryside with all its Jewish "settlements" intact.
Israel has to learn from Sisi, the man who succeeded in forcing the correct course of action on America, Europe and all those who opposed him. Only actions have an effect on reality in the Middle East, and for everyone who has a short memory: Israel, too, was established when the Jewish People got sick and tired of words and began to act.
In our neighborhood, we don't talk. We act. Those who talk usually don't do anything and have no desire to do anything, hoping that their words will cover up for their lack of action. Israel's new government must work together on a practical plan, not one that is all verbiage and "agreements" - and start acting to put facts on the ground. In the long run, the world accepts Middle East reality, even unpleasant reality, because that is how this region operates.
Jewish Leaders Are Turning Against Obama on Israel
American Jewish leaders who supported the Oslo Accords or have criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are now strongly challenging the Obama Administration’s policy toward Israel. It’s the latest sign of a growing consensus in the Jewish community that the President’s vindictive approach toward Israel is unfair and overreaching.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, head of the Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue and the Ramaz Day School in Manhattan, was an early supporter of the left-leaning Israeli party Meimad, and its American equivalent, Shvil Hazahav, which supported the Oslo Accords.
But last week, in an email to his Upper East Side congregants, Lookstein criticized President Obama’s plan for “reassessing the Israel/United States relationship.” Rabbi Lookstein then strongly endorsed an article by syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote that “there is zero chance” that a peaceful Palestinian state could be established “now or even soon.” Krauthammer derided “the crushing disappointment of the Obama administration and its media poodles at the spectacular success of the foreign leader they loathe more than any other on the planet. The consequent seething and sputtering are understandable, if unseemly. Blaming Netanyahu for banishing peace, however, is mindless.”
Rabbi Lookstein wrote that the Krauthammer column “presents with utmost clarity an assessment of the reassessment. It deserves the attention of all of us.”
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, was outspoken in his criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plan to address Congress. But this week, Foxman said he was “even more troubled” by the “statements now coming out of the White House calling for a reassessment of policy toward Israel.” While disagreeing with some of the prime minister’s statements and actions, Foxman emphasized that “none of this, however, justifies what we are hearing from the Obama Administration. Their reactions raise deeper questions about their intentions and perspectives.”
Foreign Ministry: PA's ICC Bid 'Hypocritical'
Israel denounced as "hypocritical" Wednesday the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s decision to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the purpose of seeking to prosecute officials from the Jewish state.
"The Palestinian decision to join the ICC to initiate judicial proceedings against Israel is political, cynical and hypocritical," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Unilateral Palestinian actions such as joining the ICC are "violations of the principles established between the two parties with the support of the international community to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," it added.
Abbas: We Will Take Case to ICC if Israel Deducts from Tax Funds
If Israel plans to give the Palestinian Authority the tax money it is owed, then it must be under the conditions the PA sets.
But, if Israel insists on transferring the funds under the conditions of its own government, it can keep the money, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said.
Speaking at a meeting of the Central Council of the Fatah party, Abbas said that Israel had agreed to release the funds that it froze four months ago, after the PA applied to join the International Criminal Court, but was planning to deduct money the PA owes Israeli suppliers of electricity, water, and other utilities and products.
Abbas made the claim based on news reports that said Israel was planning to make such deductions.
“Israel intends to make these deductions without Palestinian supervision, even though it is Palestinian money. This is unacceptable, and we will refuse to accept the money under these circumstances.”
The PA will fight to get its money, if necessary taking the case to the ICC, which the PA became a member of this week, Abbas added.
Killer Allocations
Over the past week, the Israeli prime minister authorized the transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels to the PA. This budget was allocated to fund activities by the PA, to pay salaries, to pay off debt to suppliers, and to pay ongoing miscellaneous expenses.
This same budget is also used for monthly payments to those who have been tried and convicted in the act of murder or attempted murder.
According to previously released data, every month, the Palestinian Authority transfers 17 million shekels to those ho have been convicted of first degree murder or attempted murder who now serve their sentences in jail. Allocations are also made to the families of killers, with special grants for families of killers who die while committing an act of murder. According to the PA distribution formula, the more severe the attack conducted by the killer and the longer the resulting prison sentence, the more the stipend is increased proportionately.
Ziad Awad, who murdered Baruch Mizrachi on Passover Eve last year has received stipends from the PA totaling about 20,000 shekels. These stipends followed those he received for his previous imprisonment before he was released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, when he received about 300,000 shekels.
Palestinian debate: Should Jews be called descendants of apes and pigs?
Fatah official: Calling Jews "descendants of apes and pigs" is “not part of our values”
Fatah Revolutionary Council member, Muwaffaq Matar: "They [Hamas] said [about me]: 'It seems that Muwaffaq Matar is a descendant of apes and pigs, physically and mentally.' This is racism... Naturally, they use this expression [to refer] to the Jews. This is unfortunate. We also reject these expressions, because they are not part of our values, absolutely not."
[Fatah-run Awdah TV, Feb. 23, 2015]


Marathon talks with Iran continue toward an unclear endgame
Continuing a bout of diplomacy unprecedented in the modern era, US Secretary of State John Kerry is now personally engaged in the eighth consecutive day of talks with Iran over its nuclear program still unclear on the path forward.
Kerry hopes to convince Iran to provide more than just a press statement from nearly two years of talks over its nuclear work. But success remained far from clear midday on Thursday, as journalists and delegates alike grew restless in the Beau Rivage Palace here on the shores of Lake Geneva.
After negotiating through the night until 6:00 am, two days after blowing straight through a deadline set by the US and its allies, diplomats presented little to the press to show for their efforts.
Asked by The Jerusalem Post whether diplomats would provide anything more than a press statement today, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi said it was" still too early to say."
No deal by day’s end, only a ‘formal statement,’ Zarif says
Zarif made clear on Thursday afternoon that “no agreement will be signed today,” telling reporters in Lausanne that only a statement may be released later in the day, the semi-official Iranian Fars news agency reported.
“If everything goes well, there will be a formal, public statement by midnight,” he reportedly said.
He further told reporters that the negotiating sides have said “right from the beginning” that no agreement would be signed by the end of Thursday. “We have always stated that there could be only one agreement which could go into effect at the end of the talks on July 1 if everything goes well,” Zarif added.
Iranian Foreign Minister ‘All Smiles’
Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said late Wednesday that he is “all smiles” as talks with Western powers over the country’s nuclear weapons program run past a self-imposed deadline and Tehran pushes the United States to make more concessions.
When asked by a reporter whether he was feeling less optimistic following tension in the negotiating room, Zarif responded, “I am all smiles.”
Zarif also demanded that negotiators stop pressuring him and the Iranian side lest the talks stall without an agreement.
“Any agreement and pressure will not go together,” Zarif said. “They are mutually exclusive. So our friends need to decide whether they want to be with Iran based on respect or that they want to continue based on pressure. They have tested the other one. It’s high time to test this one.”
Iranian Defense Minister: We're Ready for War with America
Iran is stepping up its aggressive invective against the US, even after negotiations with world powers over its nuclear program held in Lausanne, Switzerland, inconclusively passed a March 31 deadline and continued with no outline of a deal in sight.
Iranian Defense Minister Hussein Dehqan responded sharply after US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday that if a deal isn't reached regarding Iran's nuclear program, “the military option certainly will remain on the table."
The comment was an "empty statement," according to Dehqan, who said the US has repeatedly made such threats out of a feeling of weakness over its ineffective attempts to steer the nuclear talks and limit Iran's nuclear aspirations.
Dehqan claimed Carter's statements reinforce the Iranian lack of trust in America, and do not in the slightest influence Iran's positions in the talks about its controversial nuclear program.
Iran extensions underscore Obama’s dilemma in talks
President Barack Obama’s willingness to extend Iranian nuclear talks at least twice this week has laid bare the dilemma he faces as he pursues a high-stakes accord.
Walking away from negotiations would strip Obama of a legacy-shaping deal, deeply complicate international efforts to stop Iran’s suspected pursuit of a bomb, and perhaps raise the specter of U.S. military action against Tehran’s nuclear installations. But by blowing through self-imposed deadlines, Obama risks further antagonizing lawmakers in both parties who are poised to take their own action to upend a deal if they feel the president has been too conciliatory to Tehran.
The initial response to the extensions from Republicans suggested they had already come to that conclusion.
“The longer the Obama administration stays at the negotiating table with Iran, the more concessions it makes,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
Republican Sen. Steve Daines said the desire for successful negotiations “should not blind the Obama administration from the reality that only Iran is benefiting from the current approach.”
US and Iran said to have played chicken with deal deadline
US negotiators were instructed by President Barack Obama to ignore Tuesday’s midnight deadline for reaching a deal with Iran over its nuclear program, in order to indicate to Tehran that the US was prepared to leave all sanctions in place and walk away from the table if an agreement was not achieved, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Obama hoped his initiative would pressure Tehran to accept US positions on its nuclear program, leading to a change in the dynamic at the negotiations taking place in the Swiss resort town of Lausanne, the report said.
During a conversation with the president Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry, who is representing the US in the talks, stated that it would be impossible to reach a deal by the designated deadline, the report said. “They were turning our own deadline against us to see if we would give ground,” a senior US official was quoted as saying of the Iranian delegation to the talks.
Friends of Iran in the United States
On February 19, 2015, a full-page ad was published in the New York Times by the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) opposing the invitation given to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress. It asked the question: “Will Congress side with our President or a Foreign Leader?”
The ad did not disclose that the founder and president of the organization, Trita Parsi, was an Iranian-Swedish citizen who holds a Green Card and has had links with Iranian authorities, especially the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif.
Those links were held to be extremely close by a critic, Hassan Daioleslam, an Iranian-American journalist and human rights activist who left Iran in 1981 and lives in Arizona. He wrote that NIAC, and its leader Parsi, are an organization engaged in lobbying Congress on behalf of a foreign government – namely, that of Iran.
The invitation to Netanyahu and his speech to Congress became the occasion for dramatic political theater by Team Obama and its supporters, who disliked the Israeli’s criticism of the Obama administration’s attitude toward Iran. Nothing was said by that team or in the mainstream media on the question of whether the NIAC had lobbied or tried to lobby Congress or had any impact on the current policy of the Obama administration in negotiating with Iran.
In his articles, Daioleslam (Dia) claimed that the NIAC, and former Congressman Bob Ney, who was associated with it, were helping Iran to manipulate U.S. policy on Iran’s behalf. Among other issues, in 2007, the organization had lobbied to prevent U.S. funds going to democratic elements in Iran.
As nuclear talks resume, Israel threatens military option
Speaking to Israel Radio as crunch talks on Iran’s nuclear program continued in Switzerland, Steinitz said Israel would seek to counter any threat through diplomacy and intelligence but “if we have no choice we have no choice… the military option is on the table.”
Asked about possible US objections to Israeli military action, Steinitz pointed to Israel’s unilateral attack against the Osirak nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1981.
“That operation was not carried out in agreement with the United States,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz (L), at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, November 23, 2014. (photo credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/POOL/FLASH90 )
Steinitz, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Israeli leader had left no doubt as to the country’s response to nuclear-armed Iran.
“The prime minister has said clearly that Israel will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power,” Steinitz said.
Andrea Mitchell on Iran Talks: ‘The Iranians Are Running Circles Around the Americans Here’
Two days after the deadline to reach a Iran nuclear deal, Andrea Mitchell reported that some sort of compromise for the framework would be met by the end of Thursday.
Mitchell also reported from Switzerland that the deal might be less than what many Americans hoped for, and that Iran is the speaking substantively while the United States is not speaking at all.
“The Iranians are running circles around the Americans here in terms of public diplomacy,” Mitchell said. “They are setting the expectations.”
Bernard Lewis explains why MAD doesn't work with Iranian Leadership
A passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook, is revealing. "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."
In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead -- hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.
How then can one confront such an enemy, with such a view of life and death? Some immediate precautions are obviously possible and necessary. In the long term, it would seem that the best, perhaps the only hope is to appeal to those Muslims, Iranians, Arabs and others who do not share these apocalyptic perceptions and aspirations, and feel as much threatened, indeed even more threatened, than we are. There must be many such, probably even a majority in the lands of Islam. Now is the time for them to save their countries, their societies and their religion from the madness of MAD.
Federal Judge Holds Iran Liable For USS Cole Bombing, Awards $75M In Damages
A federal judge in Washington held the Iranian government liable for the USS Cole bombing in Yemen in 2000, along with the government of Sudan. The judge awarded $75 million in damages to the family of Kevin Shawn Rux, one of the 17 sailors who was killed in the attack.
The tab for the Cole attack is piling up for Sudan, according to the Washington Post: “Other federal judges – in Norfolk two weeks ago and in Washington in 2012 – have ordered Sudan to pay $48 million and $315 million, respectively, to victims of the Oct. 12, 2000, attack or their survivors. But Tuesday’s ruling is the first to find Iran partly responsible for the incident, in which an explosive-laden boat struck the guided-missile destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden.”
This particular case, said to be one of the last claims brought against the perpetrators of the Cole bombing, has been in progress since 2010. Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote a 50-page opinion citing a variety of evidence, including U.S. intelligence reports, to conclude that Iran helped establish al-Qaeda’s network in Yemen, using Hezbollah in Lebanon as its “primary facilitator,” and had been conspiring against America and Israel since 1991.
IDF soldier suffers stab wounds near West Bank checkpoint
An Israeli soldier suffered light stab wounds at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank on Thursday.
The attack took place near the West Bank settlement of Oranit. The assailant, most likely a Palestinian, was apprehended.
Israeli security forces are on their way to the scene of the incident.
Magen David Adom paramedics treated the soldier, 22, at the scene of the incident. They said that the soldier was stabbed in his head and limbs.
IDF soldier suspected of spying for Syria
Corporal Halal Halabi, a resident of the Druze town of Daliyat al-Karmel, was detained in February. He is accused of passing information to a Golan Heights man, Sidqi al-Maqt, who was indicted on charges that he spied for the Syrian government.
Maqt, 48, of the Druze town of Majdal Shams, was accused of handing over photographs and written reports of IDF positions to Syrian intelligence officials, including a government official named Midhat Saleh, the Ynet news site reported.
According to Channel 2, the prosecution stated that Maqt approached an IDF guard post in a northern army base where Halabi was stationed, and requested that the soldier assist him in gathering information for an article he intended to publish on IDF activity on the Syrian-Israeli border. Maqt told Halabi that his publication would aid the Druze residents of Syria, and the two exchanged phone numbers.
A day later, Maqt called Halabi, who provided him with information on the IDF’s activity in the area. Halabi urged Maqt to observe the activities and guided him on how to respond to soldiers should they try to remove him from the area.
Maqt was arraigned in the Nazareth District Courthouse on counts of espionage, aiding the enemy during wartime, supporting a terrorist organization, and contact with a foreign agent.
Top IDF Commander: Hamas Again Digging Tunnels into Israel
In a weekend interview with Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, IDF Southern Command head General Sami Turgeman said that Hamas is back at it – attempting to dig tunnels into Israel.
While the IDF destroyed most, if not all, of the tunnels Hamas had dug into Israel in previous years during Operation Protective Edge, it appeared that the terror group was using the resources that are now pouring into Gaza to rebuild homes and businesses to instead rebuild its terror network, said Turgeman.
“We are keeping a close eye on Hamas,” Turgeman said. “It is clear that they have gone back to digging tunnels, and they apparently hope to reach at least the numbers they had before the war last summer.”
Although the destruction of the tunnel network was a major blow to Hamas, because it had poured so much money and energy into building it, the tunnels had proven themselves an effective weapon against Israel from terror group's point of view, Turgeman said, so it was decided that the network be rebuilt regardless of the cost – in money or, as is likely to happen, in further damage to Gaza when Israel is forced to once again bomb Gaza in order to prevent tunnel attacks.
Despite Hamas's continued enthusiasm attempts to destroy Israel, Operation Protective Edge was a success, Turgeman said.
Hamas arrests Gaza merchants for refusing to sell lumber for tunnels
Hamas security forces recently arrested a group of lumber dealers in a Gaza refugee camp after they refused to sell the group wooden beams out of concern they’d be used in the reconstruction of the group’s attack tunnels.
Concerned they’d be accused of collaborating with the terror organization, the retailers refused the sale, resulting in their arrest by Hamas forces.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the arrests took place.
The Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, recently banned the entry of certain types of wood into Gaza after officials said it was being used to reinforce terror tunnels.
Syria rebels take last border crossing with Jordan
Al-Qaeda-backed Syrian rebels took control of the last border crossing with Jordan still controlled by Syria’s Assad regime, according to new reports.
The Nasib crossing in Syria’s Daraa province was the last holdout of Syrian military forces on the border with Jordan, and its fall marks a psychological victory for anti-regime rebels. Jordanian authorities reportedly closed the crossing before the battle.
The offensive for the crossing began Tuesday, and was joined by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front on Wednesday.
According to a pro-Assad source quoted in the British daily The Telegraph, the “Syrian army withdrew from the Nasib border crossing.”
IDF arrests female Palestinian lawmaker for alleged involvement in terrorism
The IDF on Thursday arrested a female Palestinian legislator for violating a military edict forbidding her from leaving the West Bank town of Jericho, according to Israel Radio.
The lawmaker, Khalida Jarrar, is a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Marxist-Leninist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Jarrar was arrested in the Palestinian town of Al-Bireh, not far from Ramallah.
According to Israel Radio, Jarrar is being accused of violating a military decree handed down by the GOC Central Command confining her to the municipal boundaries of Jericho.
40 Percent of Palestinians Believe ISIS Will Come to Palestinian Territories
40 percent of Palestinians believe that the Islamic State terror group will reach the Palestinian territories, according to a new poll conducted by An-Najah University.
According to the poll, these respondents voiced their fears that ISIS would mainly aim for taking over territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority, namely the West Bank.
The poll also revealed that 77 percent of the respondents felt that the presence of ISIS would be detrimental to the Palestinian cause, and very negative effects would develop in its wake, Israel’s NRG reported.
The poll also queried Palestinians on other issues, revealing that 60 percent would like to see security cooperation with Israel halted, and that similar numbers thought that this security cooperation was the root of the tensions between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.
Palestinians Repel ISIS in Syrian Refugee Camp
Palestinian fighters and Syrian rebels retook control Thursday of large parts of a refugee camp in Damascus that had been seized by Islamic State terrorists, a monitoring group said, according to AFP.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a number of armed groups in the Yarmouk camp in south Damascus "were able to regain control over all of the areas that ISIS had taken over."
The terrorists overran the camp on Wednesday, raising fears for thousands of civilians inside and giving ISIS a potential beachhead inside Syria's capital.
But armed Palestinian groups, backed by local rebels, launched a fightback later in the day.
The most powerful passports in the world revealed (and the ones that barely let you travel anywhere)
The score was calculated based on visa regulations of all countries and territories in the world, and the number of other countries that their citizens can travel to without having to obtain a visa.
Taking the lowest spots were Afghanistan (ranked at 94 and able to visit 28 countries visa-free), Iraq, (able to visit 31 countries), Pakistan and Somalia (able to visit 32 countries) and the Palestinian Territory (able to visit 35).
This was juxtaposed by Finland, Germany, Sweden, the UK and the US, in first position, who are able to access 174 countries visa-free. [Israel was ranked 20th score 147]


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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/02/2015 12:00:00 PM
Last month, as well as for the two previous months, the Palestinian Authority was only able to pay 60% of normal salaries to its workers because of its precarious financial situation.

Yet today, the PA announced that the families of "martyrs" will receive their full stipends this month, just as they did last month. The decision was made by the minister of finance, Shukri Bishara.

At the same time, the EU and the Netherlands announced that they are giving some $34.2 million (€31.6 million) to the Palestinian Authority for payment of its civil servants’ March salaries and pensions. It is unclear whether those funds are being channeled to the families of "martyrs" directly, although of course they allow the PA to have latitude to spend more on their terrorist heroes.

It is estimated that some 6% of the PA budget is allocated to paying salaries and stipends to terrorists (both in Israeli jails and after they are released) as well as to their families.



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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/02/2015 10:00:00 AM
On March 31, Jordan's Ministry of Culture honored film director Mohammad Azizieh, who was behind the antisemitic miniseries "Khaybar" that was shown throughout the Arab world in Ramadan of 2013.

During the ceremony, the ministry screened a new Khaybar movie that Azizeh edited from the mini-series. The description on their website leaves no doubt that the subject of the movie is the "treachery of the Jews from the beginning of the Islamic Dawah."

Newspaper Arab al-Yawm expanded on this, describing the film as being about "Jewish hostility against all that is Arab, and how they would stand against the Islamic Dawa, and the ethics of the Jews in their dealings, conspiratorial and filled with hatred, betrayal and breaking agreements."

Minister of Culture Dr. Lana Mamkegh praised Azizieh as a Jordanian cultural treasure.

Jordan's Culture Ministry also has a paper by a University of Petra professor claiming to prove that the Jewish Temples were a myth.

(h/t Shawarma News)

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/02/2015 08:00:00 AM
Ha'aretz keeps publishing idiotic op-eds. This one by By Salman Masalha does a spectacular job of misunderstanding Mizrahi Jews.

There was an uproar over remarks made by Prof. Amir Hetsroni against those who voted for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, including Hetsroni’s suggestion that it would not have been so awful if Moroccan Jews had been “left to rot” in North Africa rather than coming to Israel. But if we translate his statement into the more nuanced official language of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, it sounds very familiar.

“We are Europeans. We are refined [and] don’t eat as much as you Moroccans do.” This comment was reportedly directed by First Lady Sara Netanyahu at one particular Moroccan, Meni Naftali, former chief caretaker of the Prime Minister’s Residence, who is suing the Netanyahus. Nevertheless, a lot of Meni Naftalis showed their support for the First Family by going to the polls on Election Day to fill the ballot boxes with Likud ballots.
Masalha, writing for Haaretz, is convinced of course that the Likud is more racist against Mizrahi Jews than the Left, and cannot understand why they tend to vote right wing. It never occurs to him that his premise might be wrong. (Or that the Prime Minister's wife isn't a Likud official.)
One should remember that Zionism is a white European national movement. This Ashkenazi Zionism, which established the country in an ongoing confrontation with the Arab world, created a serious emotional crisis for Jews from Arab countries. The more the Arab-Israeli conflict intensified, so did the complexity of the situation faced by Jews from Arab lands.

The people with the political, economic, social and cultural clout have no problem declaring proudly, “We are Europeans. We are refined, not like you Moroccans.” On the other hand, what are Jews whose entire existence is Arab supposed to do? In the intensifying national confrontation between European Zionism and the Arab world, Jews from Arab countries were pushed aside. They therefore began referring to themselves as Mizrahim (literally “Easterners”) among other things. Anything to escape the term “Arab,” which connotes national enmity. A few years ago such emotional pressures pushed a Jewish Likud Knesset member at the time, Carmel Shama, to ask the Interior Ministry to add “Hacohen” to the end of his name because he was sick of people always thinking that he was Druze, in other words, Arab.
Notice how Masalha is himself bigoted against Mizrahi Jews. He assumes that they are conflicted about their identity while European Jews have pride in their not being from the backwards Middle East (that they risked their lives to move to.).

This last anecdote is a fantasy that Masalha published five years ago in Haaretz as well. There is no evidence that Shama-Hacohen was embarrassed by his last name; many Ashkenazic Jews also change their names in Israel from German or Polish surnames to Hebrew ones. If "proud, refined" Europeans and Americans change their names just like the Jews from Arab countries that Masalha considers emotionally disturbed, then that sort of blows apart Masalha's theory.
The flight from Arabism, even the wearing of Eastern European shtetl clothing (as one sees in Shas) will not lead Mizrahim, meaning Arabs of the Jewish faith, anywhere. Netanyahu and the white right wing in general will continue to fan hatred towards Arabs. This hate will ensure the continued flight of Arab Jews from their Arabness and the right’s continued manipulation of Jews who are estranged from it.
The only Ethiopian Knesset member at this time is a Likud member. Likud also has a Druze member. Silvan Shalom, #6 on the list this time, was born in Tunisia.

So much for the "white right wing."
As a result, it is only when the descendants of Jewish Arabs proudly and confidently proclaim to the refined, arrogant European Israelis that they are Arab, and proud of it, that perhaps there will be an end to their tribulations. This could also constitute a first step on the road to a historic reconciliation with the Palestinians.
I asked the blogger at Point of No Return to comment, since she is far better qualified than I am to respond to this:

It's a puzzle. Mizrahim ('Jews of the East') get insulted by Mrs Netanyahu. (Or was it that foul-mouthed professor with the long hair, Hetzroni, who wished they could have rotted in Morocco?)

Yet, like victims of long-term abuse, they come back to vote for Mrs Netanyahu's husband.

Masalha performs logical acrobatics to conclude that Jews from the East are denatured from their 'Arab' identity. So desperate are they to be loved by their 'European superiors' that they imitate them and vote for parties that take a hard line against Arabs.

How does Salman Masalha explain this curious phenomenon?

Well, let me provide an explanation.

The confrontation with the Arab world did not create a serious emotional crisis for Israel's Mizrahim. Despite the arrogance of some members of Israel's elite, they have, with the exception of a few fringe communists, always been able to see the unvarnished truth.

The truth is that Israelis surrounded by enemies, some with serious psychopathic tendencies. Were Israel to show weakness, as advocated by Herzog's Zionist Union, Hamas, Hezbollah, the jihadists of Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra and Da'esh, would make mincemeat of Israel's Jews. To say nothing of the Iranian nuclear threat. And so they vote for parties that will stand firm against Israel's enemies.

What Masalha and his ilk cannot, or will not, acknowledge is the Arab and Muslim antisemitism that drove the Mizrahim to the Jewish state in the first place. Mizrahim view today's threats with a sense of perspective and history that even many Ashkenazim do not have.

Mizrahim know full well that had they stayed in Iraq, Libya or even Morocco, they would have been at best marginalised, worse, oppressed, at worst massacred.

They fled not Arabness, but Arabism and Islamism.

Zionism has never been the sole preserve of white Europeans. Mizrahim prayed 'next year in Jerusalem' along with the rest.Through the centuries, Eretz Yisrael has always attracted a steady inflow of Sephardim and Mizrahim.

As for being proud Arabs, perhaps the Tunisian writer Albert Memmi puts it best:

"We would have liked to be Arab Jews. If we abandoned the idea, it is because over the centuries the Moslem Arabs systematically prevented its realization by their contempt and cruelty. It is now too late for us to become Arab Jews."



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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/02/2015 05:30:00 AM

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Two stories in Ammon News, posted an hour apart:

Jordan has received USD 75 million worth of grant, part of pledged USD 184 million, from the United States, Jordanian Ministry of Planning said on Tuesday,KUNA reported.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has transferred the grant to the Jordanian State Treasury, as part of the regular American financial support for the 2014 Jordanian State budget.

Amman received a previous installment amounting to USD 127 million in the end of last year, according to a deal signed with the American agency in September.

Washington allocated USD 633.20 million worth of aid for Jordan last year. The assistance includes USD 436 million in the form of regular grants in addition to USD 197.20 million for funding vital projects, executed by the American agency, and government ministries.
And:
His Majesty King Abdullah II has sent a cables to Supreme Leader of of Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President of Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rohani, congratulating their on the anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Yes, I know that Jordan and Iran maintain diplomatic relations and the congratulations on national anniversaries is almost automatic, but the juxtaposition was interesting. Especially since I couldn't find  stories about any other nations congratulating Iran yesterday.

In February, however, there were a number of countries that congratulated Iran on the anniversary of its revolution, including Jordan, India, and Venezuela.




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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 4/01/2015 08:00:00 PM

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