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Thursday, August 3, 2017

From Ian:

PMW: Abbas' Presidential Guard: "Water freedom with blood of Palestine`s sons"
Palestinian leaders have portrayed the last few weeks of Palestinian riots and protests against Israel's enhanced security measures at the Temple Mount as a "battle for the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem." When Israel ultimately removed its metal detectors and cameras, it was portrayed by Palestinians as a "victory," yet the PA warned it was only one of more "rounds of battle."
Celebrating this "victory," and possibly expecting future "wins" for Palestinians, the PA's Presidential Guards posted this comment, glorifying the sacrifice of "the blood of Palestine's sons" for "freedom":
"A people like the people of Palestine that has watered the freedom with the blood of its sons can only win
#Yasser_Arafat"
[Facebook page of the PA Presidential Guard, July 31, 2017]
Palestinian Media Watch has shown that PA and Fatah leaders are fond of the imagery of "watering Palestine with blood," and at times almost worship the "blood of Martyrs" who have "died for Palestine," as was the case during the wave of Palestinian terror attacks in 2015-2016.
The image posted with the PA Presidential Guards' endorsement of "watering with blood" shows a picture of Yasser Arafat overlaid with the colors of the Palestinian flag together with the PA map of "Palestine" that presents all of Israel as "Palestine" together with the PA areas, painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag. This designates Palestinian sovereignty over the entire area. As PMW has documented, the denial of Israel's right to exist is a consistent message of the PA.


US video against PLO state a huge hit in Israel
A 5.5-minute video in which Middle East strategy analyst Mark Langfan explains the dangers on the "two state solution" has become a viral hit in Israel, more than three years after it originally aired on CBN.
After being featured in November on a Facebook page created by grassroots Zionist activists called Kol Ha'am ("The People's Voice"), the Hebrew-subtitled clip has garnered 367,000 views to date, which – combined with its views elsewhere on social media, puts it at a total of about 500,000 total views, most of them from Israelis.
In terms of views per population, this would be the equivalent of 33 million views for a video targeting the US audience. It is currently shooting up at over 20,000 views per day.
In the video, Langfan, a New York-based attorney, pro-Israel activist and media analyst appears on Erick Stakelbeck's show, "The Watchman", to clarify what could – and probably would – happen, if Israel were ever to allow Palestinian statehood in Judea and Samaria.
Using a three dimensional map of Israel, a few pieces of colored Plexiglas and a lot of old-fashioned common sense – Langfan demonstrates the ease with which Arab control of the mountainous Biblical heartland would place 70% of Israel's Jewish populace and 80% of its industrial base within the range of truck-based chemical weapons of mass destruction.
Hebrew Subtitles - Langfan on Stakelbeck The Watchman -- Part 1




The Temple Mount Crisis Ended Trump's Palestinian Honeymoon
Although Trump was known as a longtime staunch supporter of Israel, after his election in November, the Palestinians were encouraged by his expressed desire to mediate a final-status peace deal. They were relieved when he slowly but surely walked back some of his previous pro-Israel positions — for instance when he urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements for a little bit” and when he delayed indefinitely the relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The Palestinians’ strategy seemed to be a mix of magnanimity and flattery. Recognizing that his special envoy, Jason Greenblatt, was going to great lengths to show the administration’s intention to approach the conflict evenhandedly, Ramallah opted to go along with Trump. On his visit to Israel, moreover, Trump openly contradicted Netanyahu’s assertion that Abbas was no peace partner, going off-script in his final speech at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to assert, “I am telling you… the Palestinians are ready to reach for peace.”
In that spirit of trying to stay on the administration’s good side, the Palestinians largely kept quiet as Trump became the first sitting US president to visit the Western Wall, and even, subsequently, when the White House allowed Israel to start work on the first new West Bank settlement in decades.
The first clear sign of Palestinian bitterness appeared in early July, when senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Hanan Ashrawi accused Nikki Haley, Trump’s envoy to the United Nations, of an “obsessive and targeted campaign of intimidation and threats” against Palestinians and their supporters.
Since then, the Palestinians appear to have abandoned their initial praise-the-president-and-hope-for-the-best strategy, and increasingly unvarnished criticism of the administration is being expressed.
“The fact the US administration did not declare the final goal of the peace process is to achieve two states on the basis of the 1967 borders, and its silence regarding the intensification of Israeli colonial settlement activities, are interpreted by the Israeli government as an opportunity to destroy the two-state solution and replace it with one state with two systems,” top Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat charged Tuesday.
Erekat 'surprised' by Kushner's skepticism about peace plan
The PA’s chief negotiator was “surprised” by a recent comments made by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner expressing doubt about the prospects for peace between Israel and the PA.
On Tuesday, Wired released a transcript of Kushner speaking in a closed conversation, during which he expressed doubt about the possibility of reaching a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“What do we offer that's unique?” he asked. “ I don’t know … I’m sure everyone that’s tried this has been unique in some ways, but again we’re trying to follow very logically. We're thinking about what the right end state is, and we’re trying to work with the parties very quietly to see if there's a solution. And there may be no solution, but it’s one of the problem sets that the president asked us to focus on. So we’re going to focus on it and try to come to the right conclusion in the near future,” Kushner said.
In an interview with the New York Times published on Wednesday, senior PA official Saeb Erekat, who has represented the PA in talks with Israel for roughly a quarter of a century, said that he had spoken with Kushner “more than once” and had held at least 19 meetings with US officials since February. He reportedly expressed surprise at Kushner’s comments, “not least because Mr. Kushner had emphasized how serious Mr. Trump was about seeking” a peace agreement, and noted that US officials have said “many times that they are not against two states.”
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Stokes Temple Mount Conspiracy Theories at Islamic Summit
Any hopes that Israel’s leaders might have entertained of a reduction in Palestinian incitement over the Temple Mount were swiftly dashed this week by the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, who gave a speech that once again stoked conspiracy theories across the Muslim world about Israel’s ultimate aims for the Jerusalem holy site.
Addressing a meeting of the foreign ministers of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states in Istanbul on Tuesday, Riyad al-Maliki warned that Palestinians were preparing themselves for a new round of “nasty” actions by Israel at the Temple Mount — revered by Jews as the location of the First and Second Temples, and considered by Muslims to be Islam’s third-holiest site, as it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Recent efforts by Israeli authorities to install metal detectors and other security equipment at the Temple Mount — following the July 14 murder of two Israeli policemen at an entrance to the site — were abruptly withdrawn in the face of a wave of Palestinian violence. Al-Maliki described the Israeli move as a “small victory in the long battle for freedom.”
“We know that (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is not going to accept defeat and he will try again and again with different methods and different means to impose his own status-quo over the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) and al-Quds (Jerusalem),” al-Maliki said. “We have to be prepared for the next round which could come very soon and could be very nasty.”
The meeting’s host, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, called on the OIC nations to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of an independent state of Palestine.
15 more arrested on suspicion of instigating Temple Mount riots
As part of ongoing security operations since clashes broke out some three weeks ago, police arrested overnight Wednesday a further 15 men suspected of playing key roles in recent violent demonstrations against Israeli security measures at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Officers and border guards, equipped with arrest warrants, raided homes in East Jerusalem and detained the suspects for questioning, police said in a statement.
Raids took place in A Tur, Beit Hanina, Wadi Joz and Ras Al Amoud.
The detainees are suspected of taking part in riots and endangering lives, the statement said.
Following questioning they will be brought before a court to have their detention extended.
Palestinian Media: Jews Desecrated a Muslim Site by Visiting Western Wall on Tisha B’Av
The official news agency of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Wafa, said Jews visiting the Western Wall during Tuesday’s Tisha B’Av fast “desecrated” a Muslim holy site.
“Last night, thousands of settlers desecrated the Plaza of Al-Buraq Wall, the western wall of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and held a festive event, prayers and Talmudic ceremonies on the occasion of what is called the Ninth of Av according to the Hebrew calendar, or the so-called Destruction of the Temple,” Wafa reported, using the Arabic name for the Western Wall and describing the Jewish holy site as part of the mosque situated on the Temple Mount compound.
Wafa added, “The settlers hurried to arrive to the Old City of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) in a number of processions, characterized by improper behavior, which was protected by occupation forces (Israeli security), until they reached the Al-Buraq Plaza. The imaginary-temple groups announced the organization of a large procession from one of the gates of the Old City.”
The PA media outlet’s claim that the Western Wall and Temple Mount are exclusively Muslim holy sites marks the latest example of what legal experts have described as “narrative warfare” against Israel and Jews.
Jordanian king donates $1.4 million to Waqf after Temple Mount fight
Jordan’s king on Wednesday announced that he would donate 1 million Jordanian dinars ($1.4 million) to the Waqf Islamic Trust, which administers the Temple Mount compound in the Old City of Jerusalem.
The money is seen as a major show of support for the Waqf, which led protests against Israeli security measures at the holy site last month, ramping up tensions between Israel and the Arab world.
The Waqf, a Jordan-based organization in charge of the Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount, said that the money will go to the Islamic Museum in the compound and to a cash bonus of 300 dinar ($423) to each of the Waqf workers, the Hebrew media Ynet website reported.
The donation comes amid strained relations between Israel and Jordan after recent violent clashes sparked following the introduction by Israel of walk-through metal detectors — later removed — at the Jerusalem holy site. New security equipment was set up in the days after a terror attack on July 14 in which three Arab Israelis killed two Israeli policemen using guns that were smuggled onto the Temple Mount.
What moderate Arabs can't do
Many in the U.S. foreign policy establishment believe the influence of moderate Sunni Arab states that want to normalize relations with Israel can help to steer the Palestinians toward a two-state solution. But as the recent crisis over the Temple Mount demonstrates, instead of Jordan and its moderate monarch leading the Palestinians to be more reasonable, it was the Palestinian street - fueled by lies spread by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas - that forced Jordan to escalate the conflict.
As long as the political culture of the Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim worlds is dominated by a belief in Israel's illegitimacy and hatred for Jews, even the best-intentioned Arab leaders will find themselves incapable of breaking free of this dynamic.
The toxicity of the rejectionist Palestinian ideology was far more powerful than Jordan's strategic interests or the desire of its ruler - and those of other moderate Arab governments - for peace. That's why the expectation that the Saudis, Jordan or Egypt can exert enough influence to force the Palestinians to make peace is so unrealistic.
China urges support for new Israel-Palestinian peace plan
China's U.N. ambassador urged the international community on Monday to support Chinese President Xi Jinping's new four-point proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and establish an independent Palestinian state.
Liu Jieyi said at a news conference that China's future diplomatic efforts will focus on trying to move toward a negotiated solution based on the four clauses.
Xi signaled China's increasing engagement in the Middle East when he met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing two weeks ago and outlined the plan.
The four points include advancing the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the future Palestinian state's capital; upholding "the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security," immediately ending Israeli settlement building, taking immediate measures to prevent violence against civilians, and calling for an early resumption of peace talks; coordinating international efforts to put forward "peace-promoting measures that entail joint participation at an early date"; and promoting peace through development and cooperation between the Palestinians and Israel.
China views both Israel and the Palestinians as "important partners" in its "One Belt, One Road" initiative, a mammoth Chinese-funded push to develop transport routes including ports, railways and roads to expand trade in a vast arc of countries across Asia, Africa and Europe, the ambassador said.
UN Secretary-General Guterres set to visit Israel at end of August
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is scheduled to visit Israel at the end of the month for his first trip here since taking over from Ban Ki-moon on January 1.
While Ban made the first of his 12 visits to Israel in March 2007, within three months of taking office, Guterres’s visit comes after he has already taken nearly 40 official trips abroad, including eight trips to the region: to Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Kofi Annan, who preceded Ban as UN secretary-general, serving from 1997 to 2006, first visited Israel in an official capacity in March 1998, 15 months after taking office.
Guterres, who according to the Foreign Ministry is scheduled to be here August 27-29, is expected to couple his visit to Israel with one to the Palestinian Authority. He has also expressed interest in going to the Gaza Strip, though that segment of the trip has not yet been finalized. Ban visited Gaza four times during his 10-year tenure.
Guterres is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman while in Israel, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.
Guterres is coming at a time when Israel has withheld some $9 million of its overall $47m. contribution to the UN to protest resolutions passed by UNESCO and the UN Human Rights Committee. This $47m. annual contribution includes $11m. for operational fees and $36m. for UN peacekeeping forces.
Cape Verde Pledges to No Longer Vote Against Israel at UN
Cape Verde’s President Jorge Carlos Fonseca has announced that his country will no longer vote against Israel at the United Nations.
“I welcome the decision of the president of Cape Verde,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday. “This is the result of intensive diplomatic activity between Israel and Africa.”
Located off the western coast of Africa, Cape Verde was originally uninhabited until the Portuguese discovered and colonized its islands in the 15th century. Today the country — home to around 525,000 people, mainly of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry — is one of the most successful and stable countries in Africa.
According to Netanyahu, Cape Verde’s decision comes following a meeting with Fonseca on the sidelines of the Economic Community of West African States conference in Liberia in June.
While Cape Verde has generally voted against Israel in the past, it has abstained or been absent from some major anti-Israel votes, including the 2009 UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (also known as the Goldstone Report) and the 2011 UNESCO vote to accept the Palestinians as a member state.
Times of London journo tweets deceit about Israeli reaction to Saeb Erekat’s illness
The quote was from a New York Times article by Isabel Kershner about the illness of Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, who’s suffering from pulmonary fibrosis and in need of a lung transplant, mostly likely from Israel or the US. Here’s the paragraph:
Many Israeli officials, people involved in the various rounds of failed negotiations and private citizens had called to wish him a speedy recovery and inquire if they could do anything to help, he said. But some of the messages aired on Israeli news sites were scathing, wishing Mr. Erekat a speedy death and mockingly decrying the possibility that he might be saved by the health system of the state he has disparaged….“A transplant? Forget it,” wrote one reader. “But cigarettes are on me.”
So, there were two elements of the paragraph Carlstrom could have highlighted: the fact that many Israeli officials wished Erekat well and asked if they could help, or the fact that some “messages” aired on Israeli news sites “wished him a speedy death”. He of course chose the latter.
However, if you open the link embedded in the NYT article, you’ll see that “messages” at “Israeli news sites” refers to the talk back section of Yedioth Ahronot beneath one article about Erekat’s health problems.
The Syrian Cease-Fire Deal Strengthens Iran and Threatens Israel
The U.S. and Russia implemented a cease-fire in a limited area of southern Syria last month; the two countries are reportedly in talks about how to de-escalate the conflict elsewhere. According to Yossi Kuperwasser, the agreement “tacitly gave legitimacy to the prolonged presence of Iranian and Iranian-backed forces” in much of Syria. Israel is concerned that further agreements will do the same—and that Tehran will begin using Syria as a conduit for sending arms, supplies, and troops to Hizballah. Kuperwasser points out other, even more troubling, consequences:
Iran almost assuredly wants to turn Syria into an Iranian military base. It plans to build a naval base [on the coast], and may move ground forces, missiles, and maybe even aircraft there as well so that instead of threatening Israel from 1,300 kilometers away, Iranian forces could sit on Israel’s doorstep. This would bring about a dramatic change in the nature of the threat Israel is facing. In fact, Israel’s neighbor to the north would no longer be Syria but Iran, using a Syrian façade with impunity. . . .
The Iranians may [also] take advantage of their continuous presence in Syria . . . to make progress on Syrian territory in their nuclear program. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency can monitor nuclear activities in Iran, but has no authority to monitor Iranian activity abroad. . . . Iran may use [such] loopholes to conduct research and development of nuclear-related material in Syria.
As a reminder: ten years ago, Syria nearly completed a secret nuclear facility in Deir Ez-Zor with Iranian and North Korean assistance. The facility was destroyed [by Israel] in September 2007.
US says 'grave' consequences if Syria's al-Qaida dominates Idlib province
The United States warned a takeover of rebel-held northwestern Idlib province by Syrian jihadists linked to a former al-Qaida affiliate would have grave consequences and make it difficult to dissuade Russia from renewing bombing that recently stopped.
In an online letter posted late on Wednesday, the top State Department official in charge of Syria policy, Michael Ratney, said the recent offensive by Hayat Tahrir al Sham, spearheaded by former al-Qaida offshoot Nusra Front, had cemented its grip on the province and put "the future of northern Syria in big danger."
"The north of Syria witnessed one of its biggest tragedies," said Ratney who was behind secret talks in Amman with Moscow over the ceasefire in southwest Syria announced by US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July. It was the first such US-Russian effort under the Trump administration to end Syria's civil war.
"In the event of the hegemony of Nusra Front on Idlib, it would be difficult for the United States to convince the international parties not to take the necessary military measures," the top State Department diplomat said.
Mainly Islamist rebels swept through Idlib province in 2015, inflicting a string of defeats on the Syrian army until Russia stepped in to reverse the tide of the civil war in favor of President Bashar Assad.
Idlib province, the only Syrian province that is entirely under rebel control, has been a major target of Russian and Syrian aerial strikes that caused hundreds of civilians casualties.
The agricultural region had a respite since a Russian-Turkish brokered accord reached last May approved four de-escalation zones across Syria, among them one in Idlib province.
Lebanese PM Saad Hariri Joins With Hezbollah to Con Donald Trump
The Lebanese are playing up the idea of an LAF-ISIS showdown to get the Americans to pay up. But Lebanon is not only roping us in to become complicit in their potential coordination with Assad. It’s a lot worse than that. As the CSIS report advocates, the Lebanese are out to leverage U.S. political and military power, including the presence of U.S. Special Operations personnel in Lebanon—even raising all kinds of propositions, including that the LAF request direct U.S. military involvement on their side. Otherwise, the pitch goes, both ISIS and Hezbollah will win! And that would be America’s fault, of course.
The ramifications of the Lebanese con game are as serious as they are vile, even aside from continuing the Obama-era redefining of the purpose of the aid, and re-writing UNSCR 1701 in support of a pro-Iran power configuration in Lebanon. The Lebanese are now asking the United States and the United Kingdom to increase their investment in Lebanon and to deploy more assets in the border area, effectively turning the U.S. military into the guardians of Iran’s logistical routes between its Lebanese and Syrian territories.
The Lebanese Big Con obviously also threatens Israel. Eastern Lebanon is the area through which Iran brings in arms to Hezbollah. As Hezbollah and the IRGC have dug in on both sides of the Lebanon-Syria border, turning a lot of the Syrian side into military positions, the area now serves as strategic depth for the group in any future war with Israel—and will most likely be another theater of war. As I noted last week, the Lebanese are leveraging U.S. investment in the LAF to constrain Israel in any future conflict: If Israel returns fire, it will be destroying military infrastructure and weapons paid for by the United States. Asking for the United States to increase its own direct deployment in Lebanon turns American servicemen into human shields to deter Israel.
The bottom line is simple: The Lebanese government, Hezbollah, and the LAF are running a con game together, and America is the mark.
Netanyahu: No government has done more for settlers than mine
Speaking at a cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new neighborhood in this ultra-Orthodox settlement south of Jerusalem on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that his government has been doing everything in its power to address the problems faced by Israelis over the Green Line.
“There is no government that does more for the settlement [movement] in Israel than the one under my leadership,” he said to a crowd of some 100 people.
Netanyahu cited his chief of staff, Yoav Horowitz, who was in the Netiv Ha’avot illegal outpost hours earlier, speaking with residents of the neighborhood — in the settlement of Elazar — where 15 homes are slated to be demolished after the High Court of Justice ruled that they had been constructed on private Palestinian land.
The prime minister said he was looking to find solutions “within the framework of the law that would minimize the damage” for the residents of Elazar, which is in the Etzion bloc south of Jerusalem.
Victim of Yavne Supermarket Terror Attack in Stable Condition, but Still Battling for Life
A man who was stabbed multiple times in a terror attack in a Yavne supermarket Wednesday is said to be in stable condition, but is continuing to battle for his life as doctors began performing more surgery Thursday morning.
“He underwent surgery on a main artery and he has been been put on ventilation and has been anesthetized,” said a family member. “Everyone arrived from different places in the country: Haifa, Hadera, Jerusalem. It is extremely difficult for his wife and children who are (always) crying.”
During the night, IDF soldiers, the Shin Bet and Israel Border Police conducted operations in the Arab city of Yatta where the terrorist, 19-year-old Ismail Ibrahim Ismail abu Aram, lived.
Like his victim, abu Aram also worked in the Shufersal supermarket where he carried out the attack, and was arrested after trying to flee the scene.
Earlier, the IDF also entered his family home where soldiers confiscated various items belonging to the stabber. As they investigated members of his family, it emerged that abu Aram was, in all likelihood, a lone wolf terrorist who had no connection with any terror organizations.
Yatta is known for being particularly hostile and has become a breeding ground for terrorists planning to carry out attacks against Israeli security personnel and Israeli civilians.
Employee stabbed in terror attack at Yavne supermarket
The victim, 42, was in critical condition after suffering stab wounds to his chest, neck and head. He was taken to the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, where he went into surgery. Three other employees were treated for shock.
"My wife and I were shopping. All of a sudden, a man with a backpack and an Arabic accent approached me and asked me if I worked there. I said no, and he kept walking," recounted Shlomo Brill, an eye-witness. "Ten minutes later, I heard screams from the checkout area. Everyone at the store went crazy. We thought it was a terror attack, we're all stressed out... the cashiers were screaming, the employees were shaking with fear."
One of the civilians who helped subdue the suspect recounted the incident: "I (heard) one of the employees call out 'stop him, stop him.' Another civilian tripped him, and then he and the employee neutralized the suspect. Police officers who arrived at the scene removed them but we still kept (hitting) him. We neutralized him some more until the cops handcuffed him."

The Making of a Terrorist
Such merciless stabbings of unassuming innocents in Israel are almost invariably perpetrated by young Palestinian men and women who view such barbarism against Israelis and Jews to be a noble cause. Palestinian children and teenagers are educated to dehumanize Israelis as the devil and glorify their murders. But the media rarely draws the direct line between the relentless indoctrination of Palestinian youth to murderous hate and the resulting terrorism.
Take, for example, the summer camps that Palestinian youth attend. Those who attend Fatah-run summer camp might attend the Dalal Mughrabi camp, named after one of the terrorists who perpetrated the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, in which at least ten toddlers and children were killed. Palestinian Media Watch reports that, in addition, the PA has named 28 schools after terrorists and 3 after Nazi collaborators. These camps are regularly visited by PA officials who lionize the terrorist for whom the camp is named, encouraging campers to follow in their footsteps.
Hamas summer camps, for their part, have their youth play-acting at killing Israelis. For example, the closing ceremony at a camp in Gaza this year consisted of an elaborate performance enacting the murders of Israeli security officers on the Temple Mount and the violent takeover or "liberation" of the Al Aqsa mosque. The roles of Israeli soldiers and Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam fighters (Hamas terrorist arm) were played by campers in costumes with props. Watch the filmed camp closing performance translated by MEMRI.
Jordan Confirms Attack on Guard, Reuters Conceals
The fact that multiple Jordanian eyewitnesses concur that Jawawdeh attacked the Israeli guard has not prevented Reuters from attributing the information only to Israel. Today, for example, in an article about an averted face-off between a Jordanian and an Israeli lawmaker ("Netanyahu calls off fistfight between Israeli, Jordanian lawmakers"), Reuters qualifies:
The July 23 shooting to death of two Jordanians by an Israeli embassy guard who said he was acting in self-defense has outraged Amman, stirred up pro-Palestinian sentiment in the kingdom and prompted U.S. mediation efforts.
In a July 28 article ("Jordanian protesters at Israeli embassy call for ending peace treaty"), Reuters likewise concealed the Jordanian finding that Jawawdeh attacked Moyal:
Israel said the guard had been defending himself after Jawawdeh assaulted him with a screwdriver in a "terrorist attack".
On July 27 ("Jordan's king demands Israel put guard on trial for killing Jordanians") as well Reuters attributed the information only to Israel, ignoring the Jordanian confirmation that Jawawdeh attacked the Israel:
Israel said the guard had been defending himself after Jawawdah attacked him with a screwdriver in a "terrorist attack".
CAMERA contacted Reuters about the failure to note that a Jordanian investigation found that the Jordanian worker attacked the Israel embassy guard, but the wire service stands by its reporting and continues to churn out the skewed account.
In contrast, the Associated Press has explicitly reported that Jordanian authorities confirmed that Jawawdeh attacked the Israeli:
Jordanian authorities have said the guard opened fire Sunday after a 16-year-old attacked him with a screw driver during a furniture delivery to the embassy.
Azaria appeals to IDF chief Eisenkot to lighten sentence
Elor Azaria, the former combat medic convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison for killing an already “neutralized” terrorist, has appealed to IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot to lighten his sentence to community service, and has informed Eisenkot that he will not be filing an appeal to the High Court of Justice.
Azaria, who did not express any regret for his actions in the letter, wrote that he wished “to clarify that if I had known in advance what became apparent in hindsight – that there was no explosive device on the body of the terrorist – I would not have shot.”
In his appeal to Eisenkot, Azaria wrote that his family has fallen apart and is unable to return to normal because of the case. “I am supposed to continue my life with a big stain” due to the manslaughter conviction, he continued.
“I ask that you accede to my request and to convert the prison sentence imposed on me to a sentence of community service. I want my life and my family’s life to return to normal, to rehabilitate my life and in order to mend the pieces,” his letter continued.
Everything you need to know about the Lotar Counter-Terror School
Underground warfare, tactical breaching, and robotics are just a few of the specializations that the Lotar Counter-Terror School teaches IDF soldiers. These instructors are responsible for training all IDF units in counter-terrorism. They are combat soldiers who train others and, if needed, take part in operational activities.
The school is divided into different sections according to specialization:
Lotar's "Monkeys" - Hostage Situation Pros


Where the Fight Against Terror Begins


Man arrested for threatening Jerusalem gay pride marchers
With police enforcing tight security in the run-up to the annual Jerusalem gay price parade, a man was detained Thursday for posting threats online against participants. His arrest recalled an attack two years ago by a knife-wielding extremist, who stabbed a teenage girl to death at the same event.
The man, aged 33 and from the central region of the country, made the threats in a post to his Facebook page, police said in a statement.
Police did not immediately provide information about the nature of the threats.
After being questioned by officers at the police central investigations unit, a court released the suspect on condition that he stay out of Jerusalem until Friday, Channel 10 reported.
During the parade Thursday afternoon, a demonstration against it by the far-right Lehava organization will take place some distance from the march’s route, outside a tight police cordon.
Police have informed the group that their protest — headlined “Don’t give them children,” a reference to the recently reignited national debate about same-sex adoption in Israel — would be limited to 100 participants.
IsraellyCool: WATCH: Muslim Boy Strikes Israeli Soldier
This video was posted on the Facebook group The Palestinian Information Center, which is based out of Gaza, and describes itself as “an independent Palestinian organization” that “aims to promote awareness about Palestine, the Palestinians and the Palestinian issue and to balance the often distorted picture presented in the mainstream media.”
The caption to the video reads: “A brave #Palestinian youth smacks a heavily armed Israeli Occupier on the head this past Thursday at Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound!!!”
I have a better caption: “Muslim boy foolishly strikes an IDF soldier, who lets him be, despite the clear provocation”
Granted, the soldier seems to have his hands full with the crowd, but if we were the monsters this mob makes us out to be, he would have taken a shot at the kid, without thinking twice.
Of course, the lack of a response from the soldier is nothing new.
Heck, if that kid did that to a Hamashole or PA policeman, do you believe he would still be able to walk?
Israeli spy agency uncovers Gaza-Turkey-Hebron terror money trail
A Hamas money laundering ring which funnelled hundreds of thousands of dollars from officials Gaza to the West Bank city of Hebron via Turkey has been exposed, Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency cleared for publication on Thursday.
According to a statement by the Shin Bet internal security agency the complex money-laundering operation which began last year was uncovered in a joint operation by the Shin Bet, IDF and Israel Police who arrested five Hamas members in the West Bank and identified another operative in Turkey and another in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
The scheme was run by senior Hamas activist Muhammed Mahed Bader from Hebron who was arrested in June. Bader, a member of the Palestinian legislative council recruited two other Hamas activists from Hebron, Mus’ab al-Haslom and Taha Othman, who were sent to Turkey to act as couriers under the guise of business trips.
While in Turkey the two met with Hamas activist Haroun Nasser al-Din, another Hebron resident who was released from Israeli prison as part of the prisoner exchange deal for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Al-Haslom and two others, his brother Yusri Hashalom and Umar Kimari are said to have been in contact with Majed Jaba, a Hamas activist originally from Hebron but exiled to the Gaza Strip after having been released as part of the Shalit prisoner deal. Jaba is suspected of helping to facilitate the transfer of the funds.
According to the Shin Bet Haroun gave Haslom and Othman tens of thousands of dollars. The two purchased merchandise in Turkey and imported the goods via international shipping companies in Hebron and gave the money from the sales to Hamas operatives in Hebron, minus a commission.
'Hamas won't allow a desalination facility'
The Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency claimed Hamas is hindering the construction of an enormous desalination plant southwest of the central Gazan city Deir al-Balah.
Gaza Central Region Governor Abdullah Abu Samahdana called on the ruling Hamas-appointed committee, which functions as an independent government, to remove all obstacles to building the desalination plant.
In light of the severe shortage of drinking water in Gaza, this plant is of "strategical" importance, Samahdana said.
According to him, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas publicized an order instructing Gaza to allocate one hundred dunams (24.7 acres) west of the southern city Khan Yunis for an alternate power plant which will supply electricity to the desalination plant, regardless of whether the rest of the area has electricity.
However, he said, Hamas' Lands Authority refuses to implement Abbas' decision on the subject.
10 Gaza soccer players barred from West Bank final, club says
Israel has barred 10 Palestinian soccer players from traveling from Gaza to the West Bank to play in Friday’s Palestine Cup final second leg, their club said.
Shabab Rafah are 2-0 up against Ahli al-Khalil of Hebron from Tuesday’s first leg in Gaza City but only 15 members of their squad are being allowed to travel for the return leg, club president Khaled Kwaik told AFP.
Those missing include a striker and two of the club’s three goalkeepers.
“Banning the goalkeepers will negatively affect the team’s performance in the event of an injury to the (remaining) keeper,” Kwaik said.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli authorities on why they had prevented the 10 players from leaving Gaza through the Erez Crossing.
Despite the bans, the rare game between teams from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will go ahead on Friday, the Palestinian Football Association said.
Iran Falsely Claims That New U.S. Sanctions Violate Nuclear Deal
Iran is claiming that recent sanctions imposed on its ballistic missile program by the United States violate the 2015 nuclear deal, even though the administration of former President Barack Obama repeatedly stressed that the accord only freed Iran from nuclear-related sanctions, Reuters reported Tuesday.
“Iran’s JCPOA supervisory body assessed the new U.S. sanctions and decided that they contradict parts of the nuclear deal,” Iran’s speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, told the Tasnim news agency. Larijani added that Iran would take its complaint to the commission that monitors compliance with the deal, which is formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA).
Iranian media also reported that Tehran was planning on adopting retaliatory measures in response to the sanctions, which would be announced shortly to relevant ministries by President Hassan Rouhani.
On Friday, the United States Treasury Department designated six Iranian entities for their role in supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program. That day, the U.S. Senate also passed sanctions legislation targeting Russia, North Korea, and Iran with a veto-proof majority. President Donald Trump signed the sanctions bill into law on Wednesday.
Contrary to Iranian objections over the newly imposed sanctions, at a Senate hearing in July 2015, then Secretary of State John Kerry was emphatic that Iran agreed that the nuclear deal would not bar Washington from imposing and maintaining non-nuclear sanctions against it. He said:
In Warning to Security Council, American UN Envoy Nikki Haley Highlights Ballistic Missile Danger, Growing Iranian Support for Terror
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, wrote on Wednesday to both the Security Council and the global intergovernmental organization’s secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, with a stark warning about Iran’s growing support for terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“As long as we allow the Iranian regime to violate this Council’s prohibitions with impunity, it will be a source of weapons to terrorist groups that will only grow in volume and destructive capability,” Haley wrote. “The United States will continue to raise this issue of Iranian non-compliance with international obligations at every opportunity.”
Haley’s comments on the Tehran regime’s increased financing, training and political support for terrorist groups in the Middle East came as the US joined with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in condemning Iran’s July 27 launch of a satellite-carrying rocket into space. Iran’s action was, the four countries said, a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which calls on Iran not to undertake ballistic missile activity as part of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.
The US and its allies pointed out that if Iran’s Simorgh space launch vehicle was adapted as a ballistic missile, it would have the “range and payload capacity to carry a nuclear warhead.”
“The world must not allow Iran to act in defiance of the Security Council and its resolutions,” Haley said. “The United States will be vigilant in ensuring that Iran is held accountable for such behavior.”
Proposed Trip to Israel Causes Tensions Among Iranian Cast Members of ‘Shahs of Sunset’ (not satire)
Tensions flared on Sunday among the Iranian cast members of the Bravo reality series “Shahs of Sunset” regarding a proposed trip to Israel.
In the latest episode of the hit television series, Mike Shouhed, who is Jewish, tells fellow co-star Reza Farahan that a recent breakup has made him think about his family in Israel and the fact he has not visited the Jewish state in over ten years. The duo plan a trip to Israel and also convince their friends Mercedes “MJ” Javid and Destiney Rose to join them, but problems arise when they propose the idea to their other cast members.
“Will we be safe there?” Shervin Roohparvar, who is Muslim, asks. “Am I gonna be welcome? Am I gonna show up and people are going to spit at me? No one wants to go on vacation and feel unwelcome.” Golnesa “GG” Gharachedaghi, also Muslim, chimes in and says her biggest concern is that “[Israelis] don’t accept Muslims.”
Shouhed tries reassuring them that they should not be worried, and he tells the camera, “My family is amazing [and] they are very warm, they are going to welcome Shervin and Golnesh as if they are me. There is so much more to Israel than religion.”
Shortly after Farahan hosts a “Peace In The Middle East” Halloween party — in an effort to get his friends on board with the trip to Israel — and says the vacation would be about “peace, acceptance and respect.” However, Gharachedaghi remains against the trip and says, “It’s hard for me to wanna go…when their government says it’s alright with Iran being bombed.”



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Has anyone else noticed how utterly insane this is?
Palestinians demanded Israel remove all security measures installed at the Temple Mount following the July 14 shooting. Greenblatt and Trump’s senior adviser (and son-in-law) Kushner made behind-the-scenes efforts to defuse the crisis. The Palestinians argue that the administration backed the Israeli government’s position while dismissing the Palestinian point of view.
“Greenblatt picked a side and represented Netanyahu throughout the crisis,” an unnamed senior Palestinian source told the Al-Monitor website this week.



The truly insane thing is that Israel caved on its own security in the face of Arab threats. 

(Although I believe that, behind the scenes, Israel is going to quietly put increased security on the entrances to the Temple Mount over the next year without drawing any attention to it, betting that the Palestinians won't make as much of a stink without a noisy crisis accompanying it to mobilize them, like the one day closing of all access to the area. Whether these hidden cameras or whatever are as effective as metal detectors is a separate question.)




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Remember after Trump won the election, how the media suddenly became so concerned about antisemitism? We were bombarded with editorials and op-eds about a sharp rise in Jew-hatred, insisting that Trump bore the brunt of responsibility.

You might have forgotten.

After it saw the potential in attacking Trump for alleged ties to Russia, the media apparently dropped the "Trump encourages antisemitism!" meme and decided to pursue a more promising line of attack.

But over the course of one week, from February 15 through 21, the media claimed antisemitism was on the rise because of Trump, and The Washington Post featured pieces such as these:
o Trump was asked a question about anti-Semitism. His answer was about the electoral college.
o A CNN panel debates the president’s anti-Semitism trump card: His daughter Ivanka
o President Trump thinks asking him to condemn anti-Semitism is ‘insulting.’ Why?
o Why was it so darned hard to get Trump to condemn anti-Semitism?
o A brief history of Donald Trump addressing questions about racism and anti-Semitism
Matters had gone so far that by March 8, David Bernstein wrote a piece at The Washington Post on how out of proportion the claims of a rise in antisemitism had become:
...I’ve been rather taken aback by the panic in the Jewish community over American anti-Semitism since Donald Trump won the election. The recent spate of hoax bombing threats to Jewish community centers and other Jewish institutions around the country has been a precipitating factor, but the fear is drastically out of proportion to the threat; no bombs have been found, and there are no indications that there is any real physical threat to Jews.
Meanwhile, from February 21 to 23, The New York Times chimed in with:
o At Jewish Cemetery, Seeking Answers Amid Heartbreak
o The New American Anti-Semitism
o When Hate Haunts a Graveyard
At the end of that month, Ira Stoll wrote about Trump’s Big Achievement: Making the New York Times Care About Antisemitism, noting that while there were 10 incidents of Jewish graveyard desecration from 2008 to 2016, only 2 of them were reported by The New York Times.

Well -- good news!

Judging by the media's change in focus over the last few months, antisemitism is apparently no longer a problem.

Or is it just that the media has gone back to ignoring antisemitism again?

That would explain the media's reaction to 2 actual cases of antisemitism, cases that cannot be blamed on Donald Trump.

video screenshot
Imam Ammar Shahin. Source: YouTube screenshot

On July 21, Imam Ammar Shahin delivered a sermon at the Islamic Center of Davis, northern California -- inciting hatred against Jews:
Allah does not change the situation of people 'until they change their own situation.' The Prophet Muhammad said: 'Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Jews hide behind stones and trees, and the stones and the trees say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah...' They will not say: Oh Egyptian, oh Palestinian, oh Jordanian, oh Syrian, oh Afghan, oh Pakistani. The Prophet Muhammad says that they time will come, the Last Hour will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews. We don't say if it is in Palestine or another place. Until they fight... When that war breaks out, they will run and hide behind every rock, and house, and wall, and trees. The house, the wall, and the trees will call upon the Muslims. It will say: Oh Muslim... It will not say: Oh Palestinian, oh Egyptian, oh Syrian, oh Afghan, oh Pakistani, oh Indian... No, it will say: Oh Muslim. Muslim. When Muslims come back... 'Come, there is someone behind me – except for the Gharqad tree, which is the tree of the Jews. Except for a certain tree that they are growing today in Palestine, in that area, except this form of tree, which they are growing today... That's the tree that will not speak to the Muslims. [emphasis added]
In that sermon, Shahin quotes a Hadith known for its inclusion by Hamas terrorists in their charter:
The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews." (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim)




While he does not quote the last part about the trees telling Muslims to kill the Jews, Shahin's audience that day was likely familiar with the Hadith and could guess the point he was making, based on the rest of his sermon.

Jews in the area got the Imam's point too:
“He spelled out what he wishes for every Muslim who follows the Quran and the Hadith to follow what the Hadith says which is …find the Jews hiding behind trees and stones and kill them,” said Sorele Brownstein.

“To me, it’s clear this is direct incitement,” said Shmary Brownstein.

Rabbi Shmary Brownstein and his wife Sorele are the leaders of the Chabad in Davis. They say they’ve been on guard since the video was posted online. Their family is now being harassed by drivers passing by their home, which is also a house of worship.
Following the outcry over his sermon, and before his "apology" Shahin's gave an interview to CBS News -- and Shahin was not inclined to be apologetic:



The mosque where Shahin preaches was also not in an apologizing mood:
The mosque said in a statement Tuesday: “MEMRI, an extremist agenda driven organization that supports Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, and other Islamophobic news organizations, accused Imam Shahin of anti-Semitism, quoting edited, mistranslated, passages of the sermon out of context.

“If the sermon was misconstrued, we sincerely apologize to anyone offended,” it said. “We will continue our commitment to interfaith and community harmony.” [emphasis added]
Only after the outcry persisted, did Shahin finally apologize.

Meanwhile, on the same day Shahin preached against Jews, another California Imam, Mahmoud Harmoush, was praying for the destruction of Israel:



"Between World War I and World War II, so much of the immigration that came from Europe toward the Islamic world, whether North Africa or the Mediterranean area – Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and all of this... Muslims were opening their homes and saying: Those are our brethren, persecuted by the Christians in Europe. The Jews were coming from Germany, Poland, Italy, and everywhere else, and [the Muslims] would give them rooms, shelter them, and help them out, not knowing that there was a plan. Within the thirty years between the two incidents, until 1948 and the British occupation, everything was plotted to take over that beautiful land, in the way that we all know – with killing, crime, and massacres..."One brother sent me a video, showing a naked woman walking into the holy mosque under the occupation forces, just to insult more and more the psyche, honor, and dignity of the Muslims..."Allah wants us to have jihad in our lives, no matter what and where we are and what is happening. That's until in our hearts, we accept what is true and we reject what is false..."When you happen to be in Jerusalem, for example, around the holy mosque, and people are shooting you, putting you in the hospital, or killing you, you have to resist and fight back as much as you can. Otherwise our life will be meaningless..."Dear brothers and sisters, the conflict is not only in Palestine. They are going there, and they will be demanding that next..."I promise you, it is not only Palestine. If you are going to be like that, most of the Middle East, and even, as I said, Mecca and Medina...They will say: 'Muhammad has died. He left only daughters.' Muhammad died, and he left female children, who cannot fight. Then they will call, in their fighting: 'Oh, we will take revenge for Khaybar.' Where is Khaybar? They will go back to it. They will make every Muslim pay, one way or the other. Wake up, it is time to be a Muslim. Prayer is not the only thing..."Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque and all the Muslim lands from the unjust tyrants and the occupiers. Oh Allah, destroy them, they are no match for You. Oh Allah, disperse them, and rend them asunder. Turn them into booty in the hands of the Muslims. [emphasis]
Like Shahin, Harmoush, does not directly mention Israel; he directs their hatred -- and Allah's destruction -- toward Jews.

So how did the media -- the same media that was so concerned about antisemitism early in the year -- react to these antisemitic sermons?

The reaction of the Washington Post was not to report on the antisemitic sermon when it was actually given. Instead, the newspaper waited until after Shahin finally apologized.

At Legal Insurrection, David Gerstman wrote that the Washington Post whitewashes California Imam’s “Annihilate the Jews” sermon:
For a full week The Washington Post was silent about this crude anti-Semitism. Only a week later did the Post cover it and a number of things are readily apparent.
1. The Post only reported once Shahin offered a dubious apology.
2. The Post never reported on Harmoush’s sermon. Harmoush did not apologize.
3. The Post reported uncritically a false claim made by Shahin and one of his supporters.
4. The Post got an expert to reinterpret part of his sermon so that it was somewhat less offensive.
The first two items are related. The news, which was first reported by MEMRI, on July 21 was that two California imams gave virulently anti-Semitic speeches calling for the killing of the Jews. That was the news.
The false claim referred to is that Israel supposedly closed the Al Aqsa Mosque. The truth is that it was closed at first after Arab terrorists killed 2 Israeli guards at the Temple Mount, while Israel finished its investigation. The Al Aqsa Mosque was then reopened, but Muslims were urged by the Waqf not to enter, because of the cameras and metal detectors installed for security.

The expert reinterpretation referred to was done by Nair Harb Michel, who basically substituted "desecrations of the Jews" for "filth of the Jews" and "defeat each of them" for "annihilate them".

Gerstman also notices that the reporter, Boorstein, acknowledges receiving a statement from Shahin on Wednesday -- 2 days before her article came out -- but held off until Shahin officially offered his public "apology". Again, The Washington Post appeared more interested in the damage control than in reporting about the kind of antisemitism they were apparently so keen on reporting earlier this year.

But regardless of how you translate the sermon, the fact remains that Shahin quoted a Hadith  which clearly describes, if not encourages, killing Jews.

The Washington Post was not the only newspaper to play down the threatening nature of Shahin's sermon.

CAMERA noted that the Sacramento Bee Sanitizes Anti-Semitic Sermon. Among the criticisms made about the newspaper story:
o The Sacramento Bee  reported the sermon's content as "Islamic texts about an end-times battle," deliberately concealing from its readers Shahin's actual language about Muslims fighting Jews.
o The Sacramento Bee reported that Mosque officials claimed the imam was mistranslated and thus taken out of context, yet in his sermon Shahin made statements about a "corrupted" Jewish Torah and the "Muslims fight the Jews," which were made in English and clearly illustrate his intent.
o The reporter, Anita Chabria, asked University of California, Berkeley, Near East professor Hatem Bazian to check the MEMRI translation, which he said "missed nuanced distinctions". However, CAMERA notes that Bazian:

is the founder of the radical anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine, slurs Israel as an apartheid state, and is affiliated with, and fund-raised for, groups and individuals that have illegally financed Hamas, a designated terror organization committed to Israel's destruction.

CAMERA also refers to MEMRI, which notes that Shahin's sermon from the previous week was along the same antisemitic lines:
May Allah protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the harm of the Jews. Oh Allah, protect our brothers in the land of Palestine. Oh Allah, let us pray in the Al-Aqsa Mosque before we die. Oh Allah, allow Jerusalem to be liberated. Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews. Oh Allah, show us the wonders of Your ability that you inflict upon them. Oh Allah, show us the black day that You inflict upon them. Oh Allah, show us the black day that You inflict upon those who wish ill upon [the Al-Aqsa] Mosque. Oh Allah, keep them preoccupied with one another, and make a deterrent example out of them. Oh Allah, count them one by one and destroy them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them. Oh Allah, destroy them and do not spare their young or their elderly. Oh Allah, show us the black day that You inflict upon those who occupy Palestine. Oh Allah, show us the wonders of Your ability that you inflict upon them. Oh Allah, turn Jerusalem and Palestine into a graveyard for the Jews.
On the other hand, The New York Times settled for a bare-bones report about the sermon, provided by the Associated Press. It noted:
In a July 21 sermon, Shahin condoned the annihilation of Jews and those restricting access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The truth of course is that Shahin did not condone the annihilation of Jews -- he was encouraging it. His apology is noted, but leaves unclear how an imam can talk about annihilating Jews yet can apologize -- and apparently have his apology accepted.

As opposed to The Washington Post (30 paragraphs) and the Sacramento Bee (23 paragraphs) which go into depth in their whitewash of Shahin's sermon, The New York Times uses the AP story, which amounts to playing down the incident in 9 short paragraphs, as if the whole thing is not worth the reader's attention.

How did Jew-hatred suddenly become so unworthy of being considered a news item?

Trump should only be so lucky.






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On Tuesday, I was the first one to report on a music video, produced in Hebrew, that glorified killing Jews. I pointed out that Ma'an News Agency was pushing this video on its Arabic website.

Now Ma'an has responded on its English website:

Far-right Israelis denounced Ma’an news agency on social media on Wednesday for publishing an article about a song advocating for violence against Israelis, erroneously claiming that the song itself was written and produced by Ma’an.
On Tuesday, Ma’an’s Arabic-language site posted an article entitled “A song in Hebrew for the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” reporting that a Hebrew-language video clip called “Defending Al-Aqsa” was being shared on social media, and clarifying that neither the singer nor the songwriter were identified.
The song threatened the use of violence against Jewish Israelis, with lyrics such as “Intelligence, soldier, settler, and police/ I’ll attack, stab, and smash you,” and calls to “cleanse Palestine of Jews.”
Ma’an General Director Raed Othman has confirmed that Ma’an did not produce the video, but had only written about its existence.
Both the article and the video have since been removed from Ma'an online platforms.
However, a number of Israel supporters shared a link to one of Ma’an’s Youtube accounts -- on which the news agency uploads all videos it links to on its website -- showing the video out of context and claiming that it was created and condoned by Ma’an.
I certainly didn't claim that Ma'an was behind the video. As far as I can tell, neither did anyone else. But there is no doubt that Ma'an publicized it, without a negative word about its violent, pro-terror and antisemitic content.

It acted as a marketing partner for a video that incites violence without the least moral qualm.

Every single other Arabic site I could find, that mentions the video, links to Ma'an's (now removed) YouTube post of the video, not the original, indicating that if it wasn't for Ma'an, no one would have heard of it.  It was difficult to track down the original on YouTube. That video only had a few thousand views - hardly evidence of it going viral considering the hundreds of thousands of views we've seen other videos get.

Moreover, as far as I can tell, Ma'an only mentioned the video being removed on its English website. It didn't publish this denial on its Arabic website. The reason is because Ma'an's Arabic website is the one that routinely calls any dead terrorist a "martyr" and that indeed tacitly celebrates terror attacks. In Arabic, Ma'an was clearly linking itself with the video, although not explicitly. It only denies such linkage for its Western donors who don't bother to read the Arabic site.

Ma'an didn't seem to try too hard to find out who the originator of the video was, which seems strange for a news organization that pretends that it only published the video because it was newsworthy. Without any background, any indication of how popular it is, any quotes from anyone about the video, Ma'an wasn't reporting about a newsworthy video - it was simply advertising it.

Putting all of these together, Ma'an is acting disingenuously by denying something that no one really accused it of (as far as I can tell) and by only distancing itself from the video in English, not in Arabic.

 I found another Hebrew-language music video that celebrates murdering Jews even more explicitly with similar graphics and a similar theme that was released in February, that also did not achieve any real fame. I'm not sure who created this one either, though.








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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

From Ian:

Camp Stupid USA
Ordinarily a story like this – the “Palestinian” flag flying over a Jewish camp for kids in Washington State, USA – would rate scant attention, except that it symbolizes two points: 1. Our desperate need to be loved. 2. It happened at the time when an Islamic preacher in California got caught sermonizing death to all Jews.
That imam at Davis, CA lamely apologized (to stem the bad PR), and so did the officials at Camp Solomon Schechter who explained that they won’t do it again, but that they hoisted the flag because some Arab kids were coming to visit so this would be a good time for some solidarity.
According to them at the camp, it was meant to provide “a teachable moment” and to foster “empathy…”hope”…”love”…and “peace.”
Talk like that is not exclusive to that camp where the leaders meant no harm and no disrespect to Israel. Their apology, I do believe.
They were simply caught being stupid.
Stupid is who we are when we keep pleading for acceptance against enemies who just won’t take love for an answer.
Groveling is what we do even at home in America and even with Israel at our side; blessings that ought to make us feel high spirited and invincible instead of pathetic and submissive. (Borrowed from and based upon the novel “The Bathsheba Deadline.”)
I guess it’s too late to remind (some) American Jews that the “Palestinian” flag represents nothing, zero, since there is no “Palestinian” country or nation…and if it does mean anything, it means precisely what that imam preached – “the annihilation of all Jews everywhere.”
Author of anti-Israel UN report is mixed up in antisemitic FB groups
Richard Falk, an American professor who has held multiple positions at the United Nations which he has in the past notoriously used to propel an anti-Israel agenda, was discovered to be a member of an antisemitic hate group on Facebook.
Sources close to The Jerusalem Post discovered Falk is one of 5,408 members of "Shoah," the Facebook group of an organization by the same name. The British group began operating in 2011 with the aim of ending "Zio-Nazi oppression" and the "environmental destruction of Palestine."
Although the complete members list and the true total number of members is visible only to accepted members, The Jerusalem Post obtained a screenshot of Falk's membership as of Sunday, July 30, 2017:
Screenshot of Richard Falk's membership in the Shoah: Palestinian Holocaust Facebook Group, taken in July, 2017.Screenshot of Richard Falk's membership in the Shoah: Palestinian Holocaust Facebook Group, taken in July, 2017.
The Shoah Facebook group has spread severely anti-Israel and antisemitic imagery, often depicting Israel and global Jewry as one and the same:
When questioned about his membership in the group, Falk told The Jerusalem Post, "Thank you [for] notifying me. I had never heard of this group before. I went to the link for the group, and found out that I had been added by someone named John Phoenix, whom I don't know..."
This is a curious statement, considering Falk is friends with John Phoenix (the administrator of the Shoah group) on that same Facebook account. Being "friends" on Facebook requires action by both parties:
Breaking silence, AIPAC announces support for Taylor Force Act
A day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will consider a revised version of a measure that would strip US funding to the Palestinian Authority over its practice of paying terrorists and their families, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington broke its silence and came out in support of the bill.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) urged the committee Wednesday to vote yes on the Taylor Force Act. The committee is due to meet on Thursday and the bill is on the committee’s agenda. Passage would send the bill to the entire Senate chamber.
For the last several months — since South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) introduced the motion in February — AIPAC has refrained from unequivocally endorsing the bill, instead saying simply that it supported its principle objective.
But after the Senate unveiled an updated version Tuesday, AIPAC was prepared to fully embrace the bill.
The new text incorporates some of the concerns expressed among committee members, like allowing for continued funding to the PA for humanitarian efforts and security cooperation, but it does not include a waiver that would grant the US president the ability to disregard the law on national security grounds.
AIPAC signaled on Wednesday that the provisions were critical for earning its backing.



Seth Frantzman: Secret cables reveal US efforts to prevent 2007 Hamas takeover of West Bank
It has been just over 10 years since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. The Office of the US Security Coordinator (USSC), established in 2005, played a key role in preventing the chaos there from spreading, yet key aspects of how it achieved that have gone unreported. A look at secret US diplomatic cables, published by Wikileaks, sheds some light on what happened and why it still matters today.
“The Palestinian Authority is having difficulty asserting its authority in Gaza and the West Bank,” reads a US diplomatic cable written in Tel Aviv on January 6, 2006, intended as a “scene setter” for a visiting delegation. The US Embassy said that Fatah, the ruling party of the PA, “is fractured by internal rivalries, and is being challenged by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other armed militias affiliated with Fatah,” according to the cable.
The memo also said that then-USSC head Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton had recently returned from Washington after meeting then-president George W. Bush and then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. “Dayton’s mission is to work with the Palestinian security sector reform issues and his multinational team works to ensure coordination and communication between the PA and GOI [Government of Israel],” the 2006 cable read.
Ostensibly, this was about the US “commitment to peace,” but it was really about saving the Palestinian Authority. With the death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004 and the rise of Abbas, the PA was in crisis. Hamas was on the march in the West Bank and Gaza. The Bush administration had supported Israel’s policies to defeat the Second Intifada and wanted Arafat to exit the stage.
Washington “believed that an opportunity had arrived to achieve progress on Palestinian security reform,” wrote Jim Zanotti in a 2010 report for the US Congressional Research Service titled “US Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority.”
Lt.-Gen. William “Kip” Ward was the first leader of the USSC, but Dayton left the biggest mark after taking over in December 2005. An interview request to Dayton, who is now retired, was turned down.
Palestine. Land of Promise
In 1938, the United States Department of Agriculture sent Walter Clay Lowdermilk to the “Near East” to make a survey of land use. These photos are from his book, Palestine, land of Promise, published in 1944, which examines the “geological setting of these these areas, the state of their population, and the present achievements of Jewish agriculture and industry”
He writes (p.85)
...the newcomers in Palestine became pioneers, building their own economy in a backward and neglected land...These pioneers in Palestine found the country denuded of trees and depleted of its natural fertility.
With an innovative spirit that persists even today, the Jewish community began transforming the land using scientific agrarian methods
(p.91) The Arab cow gives about 800 quarts of milk a year, but the cows in Jewish settlements average 3500 quarts, while some prize specimens among them give more than 5000 quarts yearly.
(p.92 )The native Arab hen is a scrawny fowl which lays an average of 60 small eggs a year. Jewish settlers have introduced the leghorn hen and crossed it with native breeds,The resultant new strain is heavier and lays an average of 150 large eggs per year.
(p.94) The most outstanding achievement of Palestinian agriculture is the scientific production of citrus crops... The Arabs quickly adopted the modern methods of the Jews and together the two communities have built up a citrus industry which before this war made Palestine the second largest citrus exporting country in the world.
It was not just the land that prospered- it was the people as well.
Fred Maroun: Was it ethical of Israel not to deport Arabs in 1948 and 1967?
So what next?
The ideal outcome of this conflict would be that Palestinians develop a national identity that would sideline their hatred towards Israel. This would lead to Palestinians placing their national project as their top priority, a precondition for a viable two-state solution.
This will however not happen as long as Palestinian terrorism and incitement continues without any significant challenge by the Arab world, Europe, the United States, and the United Nations. As long as the Palestinian refugee problem is maintained and nurtured by the UN. As long as the Palestinian Authority President is treated by all world leaders, including President Trump, as a legitimate leader when in fact his legitimacy has run out long ago and his funding of terrorism is well known.
The world has placed Israel in an impossible situation, and God only knows what will happen next. Can Israel continue to uphold the highest standards of ethics while its enemies have no ethics at all? The expectation that Israel would continue to do that is in fact not reasonable or even ethical, and the world must wake up to the situation that they created due to their own immorality and cowardice.
Europe: The Censored Film They Do Not Want You to See
Murderers of Jews as Honorary Citizens
ARTE, as part of its programming, broadcasts films such as "The Little Stone Thrower of Silwan" -- a report sympathizing with sweet Arab children in Jerusalem who just want to make their neighborhood "Jew-free".
Would the station ever show a serious film about anti-Semitism?, Gatestone asked the journalist Jean Patrick Grumberg, of the French-language news site Dreuz. Grumberg replied:
"France is also a country were communist mayors celebrate Palestinian Jew-killers as honorary citizens. Arte would never denounce a communist. They would instead introduce the Terrorists as "Freedom fighters"... the heads of Arte France would never - ever - be hired if they are suspected of being pro-Israelis or conservatives. As a matter of fact, being a radical is welcome."
According to Grumberg, "nearly 100% of the French media are anti-israel." Anyone who is pro-Israel must conceal it, or deal with the threat of repercussions.
"And within this hard to believe environment, France Television and Arte are the worst among the 'islamo-lefties'.
"To start with, France's Arte heads of program refused to produce a documentary about anti-semitism in Europe because they knew too well that it would underline the Muslim anti-semitism issue, and Muslim anti-semitism is taboo in France, most notably among the left and in the media.
"One has to keep in mind that France is the Western country with the largest number of Jews assassinated during the 21st century (14 Jewish people killed because they were Jewish). All of them were killed by Muslims, not by the Far right. Arte would never want you to know that."
Gil Troy: Israel’s bad PR: Our fault – and theirs...
I recently completed a week-long, 15-lecture speaking tour in London. I was impressed by how much more connected the British Jews I met feel with one another and with Israel than do many American Jews – yet distressed by how much more beleaguered they feel, scarred by European anti-Zionism. The last question asked during my last talk addressed this blight.
The questioner wondered whether this intensifying hostility toward Israel and Zionism represented Israel’s tactical failure to defend itself effectively or the antisemites’ irrational hatred. I answered: “yes, both.” We haven’t explained ourselves well, yet our efforts are doomed. Antisemitism, the world’s longest – and hippest – hatred, persists no matter how brilliant our arguments, or selfless our actions. Anti-Zionism grew in academia, and Europe, during the Oslo peace process, when Israel was conceding territory.
True, for too long, Israel too frequently defended itself abroad with unappealing bureaucrats making heavy-handed arguments. And while Foreign Ministry advancement too often reflects one’s skills at self-promotion not national defense, Israel has sent exceptional, eloquent ambassadors to the UK. Daniel Taub, and now Mark Regev, represent a new generation of media-savvy diplomats who understand that representing Israel involves winning PR wars.
Still, while worrying about Israeli PR, I reject the Diasporist critique that particular Israeli policies “don’t do us any good” abroad. That approach reflects the victim’s obsession with the oppressor. We need Israeli policies that are good, not policies to make Israel look good.
Let’s also acknowledge the massive Jewish educational failure regarding Israel and Zionism. Most Jewish day schools excel at motivating kids to get into the right college, not motivating them to defend Israel while at college. Too many Jewish educators and parents describe Israel in such glowing terms, they neglect any problems, any complexities. They transform Israel into this perfect, and perfectly fragile, vase. The first time a professor, a roommate, an author, criticizes Israel the glass shatters for the propagandized student. Many, feeling betrayed, then turn on Israel, and the Jewish community.
Elliott Abrams: Flying Over the Boycotts of Israel
How’s that movement to boycott Israel going?
Here are just a few announcements made in 2017, and I am sure I have missed many others.
“Ryanair Launches 15 New Flight Routes Between Israel and Europe.” Ryanair will add twice weekly flights to Eilat from Baden-Baden, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, Milan and Polish cities Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan, and will add seven new routes to Tel Aviv from Baden-Baden, Gdansk, Milan, Poznan, Krakow and Wroclaw in Poland, and Paphos in Cyprus.
“WOW air Announces Service to Tel Aviv.” WOW, a low-cost carrier based in Reykjavik, Iceland, has announced that it will be starting service from there to Tel Aviv, Israel in September.
“BUDGET AIRLINE RYANAIR ANNOUNCES NEW TEL-AVIV-ROME ROUTE.” The story continues, “The Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair will add flights connecting Ben-Gurion Airport and Rome to its winter 2017 schedule, the company announced on Thursday. With the addition of daily flights from Rome, Ryanair will be flying between Tel Aviv and eight Europe destinations this winter: Baden Baden (twice weekly), Gdansk (twice weekly), Krakow (twice weekly), Milan Bergamo (four times weekly), Paphos, Cyprus (daily), Poznan (twice weekly), Rome (daily) and Wroclaw (twice weekly). The company projects serving some 330,000 customers each year on these 28 weekly flights.”
Anti-Israel activists try to shut down protests over California bakery honoring Palestinian terrorist
That’s because in most states (but not in California) privately-owned shopping malls and centers can restrict free speech. Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that, unlike in the public square, like on city streets and in parks, the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee citizens the right to free speech on private mall properties.
But the San Francisco Bay Area pro-Israel group is in luck.
In an important 1980 case, Pruneyard Shopping Center vs. Robins (447 U.S. 74, 80), the SCOTUS upheld the general claim that citizens have no free expression rights in private shopping centers, but found that state constitutions could confer broader speech rights, if they so desired, permitting free speech in these private arenas.
Pruneyard involved a group of California high school students who were denied permission by the manager of a private mall in Campbell to man a table, hand out leaflets, and collect signatures for a petition against the virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which determined that ‘Zionism is a form of racism’.
The Court stated that the student group had the right to set up a table, and approach passersby in order to solicit names for their petition, discuss the issue, and distribute their literature because the broadly worded California Constitution does in fact give citizens the right to speak and assemble freely, and to petition, including in private malls.
That is, the Supreme Court recognized that state constitutions may provide more protection than the U.S. Constitution does when it comes to speech in privately-owned malls.
Michael Lumish: The Reem's Protest is Doomed
Fuggedabout it.
The protest against Reem's antisemitic restaurant and bakery at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland, California never had a chance.
There are a number of reasons for this.
The first is the absolute failure of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish leadership, including both the synagogues and Stand With Us, to stand with us.
If the people with the money and the influence do not seem to care it is exceedingly difficult to get anyone else to give a damn. Why should any non-Jew with power and influence care if even the local Jewish leadership does not?
So, the institutional support is lacking which obviously depresses potential support even in a cause as just as opposing the veneration of a genocidal Jew Hater in a public restaurant.
Another reason for the failure of the Reem's action is that the leader of the small group of elderly protesters wants anonymity retained as much as possible because standing up in favor of Jewish rights can be a dangerous game.
Our enemies are not opposed to using violence, quite obviously, in order to support their anti-Jewish agenda. Thus I have been reprimanded for mentioning the names of people at the last protest.
That is my mistake, I am sure.
New York Congressman Demands Investigation Into Iranian Funding of US Universities Through Alavi Foundation
A New York congressman is urging US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to investigate the funneling of millions of dollars by an Iranian regime-controlled foundation to Ivy League universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Princeton.
“Did this foundation attempt to subvert American academic institutions?” Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY), who represents the Staten Island borough, asked concerning the donations from the New York City-based Alavi Foundation, which critics say have funded anti-Israel and pro-Iran academics.
“We need to investigate this, and universities have to do a better job of vetting their donors,” Donovan said on Tuesday.
The Alavi Foundation has disbursed more than $50 million in grants since its foundation in 1973. It says that its goals are to promote Persian culture and interfaith dialogue and insists that it operates independently of the Iranian government.
But at the end of June, a Manhattan jury determined that the foundation was controlled by the Tehran regime following the culmination of a nine-year legal battle in which federal prosecutors successfully charged that Alavi’s management of its prestigious office building on New York’s Fifth Avenue violated US sanctions against Iran. As a result of the court’s decision, the $500 million property was seized by the American government, which now plans to sell it and distribute a large portion of the proceeds to victims of Iranian-sponsored terror outrages.
Left-wing NGO petitions court: Jewish signs destroying Palestinian Hebron
The left-wing NGO Rabbis for Human Rights has petitioned the High Court of Justice against Israeli signs in Hebron, warning that they were erasing Palestinian history in the West Bank city.
The signs in Hebrew and English direct pedestrians to Jewish areas of the city, located in the small sections under Israeli military control.
Many of the signs have been placed on Shuhada Street, whose shops have been forcibly closed by the Israel Defense Forces for over two decades for security reasons.
Palestinian vehicles are barred from that road as it connects between the Tomb of the Patriarchs and three Jewish apartment complexes.
This includes Beit Hadassah built in 1893 with money donated from the Iraqi Jewish community.
The Hebron Jewish community’s signage projects is the latest in an Israeli-Palestinian cultural war over the identity of the city that is home to 220,000 Palestinians, but whose Jewish history dates back to Biblical times.
“The settlers are trying to use the signs to change the identity of Hebron, erase Palestinian history and pretend we do not exist,” said Issa Amro, founder and chairman of Youth Against Settlements and a resident of Hebron.
“The name of the neighborhood in which I was born was changed from the Arabic name Bab el-Khan to the Hebrew name, Emek Hebron. The final intention of all this is to pressure Palestinian families to leave their homes and to make it look as though Hebron is a part of Israel."
Faculty Who Say Yes to ‘Anti-Zionist’ Conspiracy Theories
Late this May, Vida Samiian, Director of Middle East Studies at California State University, Fresno, resigned. Her complaint: “the unethical and discriminatory cancellation of the Edward Said Professorship [in Middle Eastern Studies] search.”
According to the administration, the search was canceled “because of critical procedural errors.” The search committee, the administration says, was improperly formed, and “an unauthorized party was participating” in the deliberations. Samiian insists instead that the administration caved to outside pressure applied by “individuals and forces that defend” Israel, “the last settler colonial regime.” These Zionist were racists, too—the search “was canceled based on animus toward the national origin, racial, and ethnic background of the four finalists.”
As Colleen Flaherty gently observed for InsideHigherEd, Samiian presented virtually no evidence of outside pressure. Instead, she reported second-hand details of “a handful of interactions between search committee members and—less than outside groups—other unnamed colleagues on campus.” Samiian presented no evidence at all for the charge of racism. Nonetheless, people who describe themselves as intellectuals and academics were off to the races.
The U.S. Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel decried the “bullying by Zionists” that had taken place at Fresno and agreed that the cancellation constituted “discrimination against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.” Jewish Voice for Peace sponsored a “faculty letter” which worried that “the search was canceled … in response to pressures from Israel advocacy groups.” That “could potentially qualify as national origin discrimination.” Hundreds of faculty members, supposedly accustomed to disciplining themselves to follow the evidence, signed. The Middle East Studies Association skipped the charge of outside influence. But it submitted the evidence of one Joe Parks, professor of education and the Equal Employment Representative on the search committee, to suggest that “the administration ‘caved’ to racism because the four finalists were of Middle Eastern ethnicity.”
If the anti-Israel elements on our campuses were capable of embarrassment, they might be shamed by Steven Lubet’s extensive and careful coverage of the Fresno incident. Consider what Lubet, a professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, told us about Parks, who is also cited in Samiian’s resignation letter. Parks, unschooled in the nuances of covert anti-Semitism, forgot to speak of “Zionists” and said outright that the search was derailed by “the Jewish faculty.” In 2008, he was disciplined for making “offensive comments in class related to gender, race, national origin, ancestry and religion,” and “for retaliating against a student.”
Ben & Gideon Mark Their Diaries: Australian Israel-haters to fly in the big guns
Hot on the heels of the BDS Conference that has just taken place at the University of Sydney, with the usual suspects in place, comes notification by Israel-bashers and -haters Down Under of another chin-wagging onslaught against the Jewish State.
Under the auspices of AFOPA (the Australian Friends of Palestine Association), it's due to take place in Adelaide in late November:
The Symposium will be inviting a number of Australian and international guests, each scholars or experts in their fields, including:
Mr Gideon Levy, acclaimed journalist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, who will deliver the keynote annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture;
Dr Mohammed Shtayyeh, member of the PLO Negotiation Team
Dr Peter Slezak, University of New South Wales, Independent Australian Jewish Voices
Dr Ahmad Shboul AM, University of Sydney
Mr Ben White, writer, journalist, researcher and activist
Ms Samah Sabawi, acclaimed Palestinian-Canadian-Australian writer, commentator, playwright and PhD candidate.
As reported by Rachel Baxendale in The Australian on 19 July,
'The University of Sydney has distanced itself from a controversial Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions conference being hosted by its Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, after members of the Jewish community labelled the gathering an “anti-Israel hate-fest”.
The department is holding the conference on July 28-29 in conjunction with lobby group Sydney University Staff for BDS and a range of pro-Palestinian organisations. Conference events include a speech on Palestinian rights under Donald Trump by US Campaign for Palestinian Rights executive director Yousef ­Munayyer, a paper by pro-BDS academic Jake Lynch on the pro-Israel influence in Australia, and a panel discussing anti-Semitism with pro-BDS Jewish speakers Peter ­Slezak, Marcello Svirsky and Vivienne Porzsolt....
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the obsessive focus on BDS by the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies ignored the reality that it does nothing to advance a resolution to the conflict.
“Then there is the irony that the organisers have scheduled a discussion on working with the Jewish community for a Saturday, automatically excluding ­observant Jews and demonstrating how tokenistic any attempts to understand the Jewish community actually are,” he said.
Michael Lumish: This Week on Nothing Left
This week Michael Burd and Alan Freedman speak with Emily Gian from the Zionist Federation of Australia and then hear from English-Israeli journalist political commentator and journalist Barry Shaw on the BDS movement.
After that they are joined in the studio by Hugh Kitson, producer of a new documentary called 'Whose Land?' which has its premiere in Melbourne this Sunday night, and then speak with American journalist Hunter Stuart who found his views on Israel changing after he was assigned there.
Isi Leibler is taking a break from work for a while so the fellahs play a very interesting clip on moderate Muslims from Robert Spencer.
6 min Editorial: Violence on Temple Mount
12 min Emily Gian, Zionist Federation of Australia
26 min Barry Shaw, journalist and commentator on BDS
50 min Hugh Kitson, film producer of Whose Land?
1 hr 8 min Hunter Stuart, Christian journalist whose views on Israel changed
PreOccupiedTerritory: UK Labour Says Wrist Slap For Antisemites Might Cause Bruising (satire)
Representatives of Britain’s Labour Party today attributed the organization’s reluctance to take even token measures against party figures for espousing anti-Jewish positions, arguing that a slap on the wrist might leave such persons with unsightly marks on their skin.
Repeated episodes in which prominent members of Labour echo classic antisemitic tropes, deny or minimize the Holocaust, liken Israel to the Nazis, or otherwise apply double standards in discussing Jews, have resulted in public pressure on the party leadership to take measures to discipline the offending politicians. The leadership, however, notably Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, remains hesitant to adopt such public but meaningless penalties that can later be quietly reversed, lest the move result in aesthetic damage.
“We are civilized,” explained Dianne Abbot, a senior Labour official. “It goes against our values to engage in corporal punishment, however symbolically. You might want to look in the so-called Jewish holy books for how to administer whippings,” she continued, referring to penal procedures that were last practiced under Jewish auspices centuries ago, while ignoring their rampant practice in the modern world, especially in Muslim countries.
“Some of them might be haemophiliac,” worried Stratford Councillor Ann Tissemitt. “We cannot risk endangering anyone in that fashion. It would be irresponsible.” A reporter’s research found no indication of any antisemitic Labour figures diagnosed with haemophilia.
Irish journalist accused of anti-Semitism, misogyny apologizes
An Irish journalist accused of sexism and anti-Semitism apologized Tuesday for a column that got him fired, saying, "I am the author of my own misfortunes."
Kevin Myers was fired by The Sunday Times of London over a column titled, "Sorry, ladies -- equal pay has to be earned," after the piece sparked widespread accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny.
Commenting on a campaign by female BBC workers for equal pay, Myers wrote, "I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC -- Claudia Winkelman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted -- are Jewish. Good for them. Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price."
Elsewhere he wrote, "Only one woman is among the top 10 best-paid BBC presenters. Now, why is this? Is it because men are more charismatic performers? Because they work harder? Because they are more driven? Possibly a bit of each. The human resources department ... will probably tell you that men usually work harder, get sick less frequently and seldom get pregnant."
The article was widely condemned on social media, prompting Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens to issue an apology.
Seth Frantzman: So, the ‘Sunday Times of London’ fired a man for an anti-semitic column, why was he paid in first place?
What’s really going on here is not just a question of “how many people edited this,” but an unfortunate tendency of newspapers to give platforms to offensive voices. This isn’t to be confused with critical voices. When a newspaper has a columnist, it stands behind the columnist, despite the claim that the views don’t represent the newspaper. Yes, the views do. You can’t distribute a column to thousands or millions of viewers and readers and then pretend “we don’t agree.” You do agree. A newspaper has a choice on who it runs and every word in every column ins’t “just opinion,” it is part of the newspaper and the newspaper does stand by it.
Yet, newspapers public racist trash all the time. I’ve highlighted many times how Israeli newspapers often publish racism, for instance columns claiming Russians have “alcohol and crime in their blood” (and claimed they aren’t Jewish) or articles claiming black people have skin color “stained with evil,” and have justified using racist terms for black people. They have published anti-hispanic cartoons, and called Jews of color “wannabe Jews.” But the offensive columns continue and so does the excuse that “it’s just one or two ‘crazy’ writers.”
Antisemitism in the UK is at a record level. An article notes: “In the U.K. instances rose 42 percent in a year, with 1,309 anti-Semitic incidents in 2016, compared with 924 the previous year. Of these, 24 percent involved abuse on social media.” If you do the math, the number of antisemitic incidents per capita in the UK is five times that of the US and Jews are twenty times more likely to be a victim of anti-semitism. Yet newspapers happily give columns to people who once wrote proudly of denying the Holocaust?
The reality is that we have to ask more about the venue and the audience. Recently two imams were accused of anti-semitism in California sermons, joining others in Montreal, Toronto and Denmark. Is the problem the imam, or the audience and the organization that gives him a venue? The problem of racism is not really racist columnists, there are lots of racists out there who, if given the opportunity, might like to be a well-paid columnist. The problem is the newspaper and the audience who remains silent.
Unfortunately many people have remained silent. Kevin Lynch says that it may have to do with the concept of the journalists fraternity. “We journalists are a tight bunch: we never like to see one of our own in a spot of bother. But My Arse is not one of us. His banishment from mainstream media would be a good thing.” When you critique a newspaper or a columnist you are often accused of being against free speech of “de-legitimizing” the media. But critique of racism in media isn’t against free speech. People can be racist in their home or on their personal computer. Free speech doesn’t mean a right to have a column in a newspaper (which is a privilege) and a newspaper doesn’t have an obligation to publish everything. In fact newspapers have an obligation not to publish everything and have more of an obligation to reduce hatred in society, not encourage it. It’s time newspapers take responsibility for why they keep employing hate-mongers.
I'm not shocked by Kevin Myers' anti-Semitic comment – as a Jew I hear this type of remark all too often
When we think of racism, we think of thuggish attacks in the street and you’d be right. As I read through the dire article, I was reminded to check my emails to see if any progress had been made into the police investigation into the anti-Semitic hate crime I experienced last month when a young man yelled “Heil Hitler” at me on the street.
But, there is a more insidious racism at work in the UK as reflected in Myers' writing: even in the most well lettered circles, anti-Semitism is unquestioned and tacitly accepted. I have on more than one occasion nonchalantly been reminded that it makes sense that I’m a journalist because, you know, “the Jews run the media”. It is often accompanied by a smirk and insistence that the individual is not anti-Semitic but, on one occasion, an Ivy League alumnus justified it by listing all of the Jewish Hollywood directors and actors he could call to mind.
There are real-life consequences of these comments; so many Jews I have spoken to are fearful to be open about their cultural and religious heritage because of the inevitable fear of anti-Semitic bigotry and, occasionally, violence.
It seems impossible nowadays to predict who might espouse bigoted views so, to prevent falling into a dangerous situation; it’s often easier to avoid it all together. On many occasions, I would outright lie to avoid, in a best case scenario, casual anti-Semitic jokes being thrown around in conversation or, at worst, flagrant prejudice. Be it heartless comments about the concentration camps, hooked noses or money-hoarding, I’ve heard it all – and, unfortunately, I’m not the only one.
The article now may have been removed but until the true extent and severity of the anti-Semitic crisis in our country is recognised, anti-Jewish sentiment is here to stay.
BBC changes its tune on Israeli missile defence
Mr Marcus took great exception at the time to our critique of the claims made by his source. Six weeks later, the BBC News website published filmed and written reports by Kevin Connolly on the same subject, asking “Does Israel’s Iron Dome actually work?”.
Fast forward to July 4th 2017 when an article by Jonathan Marcus appeared on the BBC News website’s US & Canada page under the title “North Korean missiles: Can the US defend itself?“
In that article, after giving some historic overview on the subject of missile defence systems, Marcus tells readers that:
“… the threat that missile defence is now ranged against is very different. It is not – despite Russian protests – aimed at weakening Russia’s nuclear forces. It is designed to protect against a very specific threat – from Iran or North Korea’s developing missile arsenals.
Against this kind of threat, the requirement is not simply to alter an adversary’s strategic calculations, but to stop each and every missile getting through.
Technology has advanced dramatically with some of the most significant strides being made by Israel. Its interceptor systems and their associated radars – funded in large part by the US – have shown themselves spectacularly successful, even though against a full-scale onslaught even Israel’s system would be sorely tested.”

Well fancy that!
96-year-old ‘bookkeeper of Auschwitz’ ruled fit to serve sentence
A former Nazi SS guard known as the “Bookkeeper of Auschwitz,” now 96, is fit to serve out his sentence, German prosecutors said Wednesday.
Oskar Groening was found guilty in July 2015 of being an accessory to the murders of 300,000 people at the camp and sentenced to four years in prison.
“The prosecutor has rejected the application from the defense for a sentence suspension,” court spokeswoman Kathrin Soefker told AFP, confirming local media reports.
A summons for the start of the sentence has not been issued, she said, adding that the prosecutor will make a decision separately on this.
Three teens identified in Boston-area Jewish cemetery vandalism
Footprint leads police to teenage suspects in toppling of gravestones at 158 year old Jewish cemetery.

Police have identified three teenage boys as responsible for the toppling of headstones in a historic Jewish cemetery in Massachusetts.
One of the teens, who all live in Melrose, a city near Boston, is facing felony charges of damaging headstones and malicious destruction of property over $250. The discovery of the vandals’ identities was announced Tuesday.
The other two teens were present when the six headstones were kicked over at the Netherlands Cemetery on Thursday morning are not being charged as of now. Only the footprints of one teen were found on the toppled headstones and other ones, according to the Wicked Local news website for North of Boston, citing local police.
The vandalism is not being treated as a hate crime, according to police.
The incident was a “bad decision by youths,” a police spokesman told the local news website, and did not include elements of bias.
Family of Kansas JCC shooting victims settles gun purchase suit
The family of two people fatally shot outside the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kansas, has settled a lawsuit with Walmart over one of the guns used in the shooting.
The Kansas City Star reported the settlement’s terms between Walmart and the family of William Corporon and his grandson, Reat Underwood, are confidential.
The two were killed in April 2014 by F. Glenn Miller Jr., who was trying to kill Jews. He also killed Terri LaManno at a nearby care center. None of the victims was Jewish.
The lawsuit contends at least one Walmart employee was present when another man bought the 12-gauge shotgun used to kill Corporon and Underwood at a Walmart in Republic, Missouri. Miller could not buy a gun because he was a felon.
Nvidia sees Israel as a key to leadership in AI technologies
Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia Corp. sees Israeli talent and innovation as an integral part of its activities as the $98 billion firm completes its transition from maker of processors for gaming and computer graphics to leader in artificial intelligence and visual computing technologies.
“Nvidia is a real deep technology company and Israel is a very deep technology country, so it is a perfect fit and perfect match,” said Jeff Herbst, VP of business development at the firm, which has seen its share price surge almost 200 percent in the past 12 months on the Nasdaq.
Nvidia has been active in Israel for the past eight years, both selling its processors locally and buying stakes in startups. The company has invested some “tens of millions of dollars” in three startups over the past five years: Zebra Medical, the maker of a medical imaging insight software using artificial intelligence; Deep Instinct, which uses deep learning to predict cyber-threats; and Rocketick, a simulation and chip testing company which was then bought by Cadence in 2016 for a reported $40 million.
Now Nvidia has set up a new 20-person research and development team in Israel and is looking for new offices in Tel Aviv and for 15-100 additional workers in the near future, Herbst said in an interview with The Times of Israel.
First Israeli whiskey to be auctioned on Scottish site
Here’s a deal: The first 100 bottles of Israel’s first single malt whisky, made by the Milk & Honey Distillery in Tel Aviv, will be auctioned off on a Scottish auction site this month.
The hooch will be available on website Whisky Auctioneer from August 11-21, for buyers interested in snagging a bottle of this experimental series. It’s also kosher, certified by the Tel Aviv rabbinate.
The golden moonshine has been aged for three years, meeting the standards of Scottish whiskey. That said, it’s an Israeli-made spirit that the distillers say is mature and complex for its young age, thanks to the warm Israeli climate.
It’s from the first barrel of the Tel Aviv distillery, which was created in January 2014 by M&H distillers Tomer Goren and Jim Swan, a consultant who passed away this past February. Swan specialized in the maturation of whiskey in warm climates, but never got the chance to taste his Sabra creation.
The Milk & Honey malt whiskey was first aged in a 225-liter American oak cask and then distilled for an additional seven months in a former bourbon barrel. The final product has hints of malted barley, cinnamon, pepper, lemon and marzipan.
Revolutionary Israeli ALS Therapy Receives FDA Approval for Phase 3 Clinical Trials
BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics of Petah Tikva is recruiting American patients for a Phase 3 clinical study of its NurOwn stem-cell treatment intended to halt progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
The announcement was made in a patient webinar last week.
The NurOwn platform grew out of a technique developed at Tel Aviv University for growing and enhancing stem cells harvested from patients’ own bone marrow. The enhanced cells, injected via lumbar puncture, secrete elevated levels of nerve-growth factors believed to protect existing motor neurons, promote motor neuron growth and reestablish nerve-muscle interaction.
A 24-week Phase 2 safety study was concluded in 2016 on 48 participants (36 treated, 12 placebo) with possible, probable and definite ALS. This study was done at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Mayo Clinic.
The Phase 3 double-blind, placebo-controlled study, to begin enrollment in August, will look at efficacy and safety of repeated doses. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has awarded Brainstorm a $16 million grant to support the pivotal trial.
This study will accept 200 randomized study participants between the ages of 18 and 60 (half getting the treatment and half a placebo) at the three previous centers as well as California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, UC-Irvine near Los Angeles and another site not announced.
Israel arranges medical delegation for sick kids in Fiji
A team of three Australian ENT (ear-nose-throat) specialists and a nurse arrived in Fiji last week to provide free health screenings and surgeries for dozens of children at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.
The humanitarian medical mission was arranged by the Israel Foreign Ministry’s MASHAV Agency for International Development Cooperation, the Israeli Embassy in Canberra and the Australasian Jewish Medical Federation.
Through August 2, the doctors are treating up to 50 children whose ENT conditions cannot be handled by hospital personnel. They are working closely with Fijian doctors through the South Pacific island nation’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services.
One of the children they were asked to evaluate was 2-year-old Florabelle Taylor Moses, who has suffered severe breathing problems since birth. They performed a difficult five-hour surgery on Florabelle on July 28 and she is recovering well.
“I’ll forever be grateful to the State of Israel for sending a great gifted team of medical professionals to Fiji. You saved my little girl’s life,” posted Florabelle’s mother, Roberta Taylor, on Facebook page of the group Fijians Love Israel. “Thank you for your love and support for our little island. May the Lord God of Israel continue to bless the work of your hands,” Taylor concluded.



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Kerem Shalom cargoKerem Shalom Crossing, August 2 - Logistics personnel handling the hundreds of tons of foodstuffs, commercial goods, medical supplies, and other essentials that move into the Gaza Strip each day from Israel remain oblivious to the fact that the Gaza Strip is under siege, with nothing allowed in or out, local sources are reporting.

Truck drivers, fork lift operators, and other cargo delivery and processing professionals on the Palestinian side of the facility handle hundreds of incoming truckloads of such goods and materials each day from Israel, receiving delivery and coordinating further distribution of the cargo throughout the coastal territory. However, not a single member of the staff at the facility, nor a single driver, clerk, or other functionary appears to know about the cruel Israeli siege that is stifling Gaza's economy, causing shortage of medical and other crucial supplies, and threatening the entire population of almost 2 million Palestinians with starvation. Instead, they continue to process the importation of thousands of tons of goods per day to deliver, to supermarkets, warehouses, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, luxury boutiques, and other establishments that have imported the goods from or through Israel, as if no siege is underway.

"I don't know how they can be so ignorant," remarked Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch. "Don't they get their news from the same sources as the rest of us, according to which Israel's blockade and control of the border with Gaza are causing rampant malnutrition, power outages, and other disasters?"

The mystery of the workers' apparent ignorance deepens when one examines official Palestinian rhetoric, notably that of the Islamist Hamas organization that runs the Gaza Strip. "There is no way they can be unaware of the barrage of 'we're under siege' and 'they are depriving us of basic necessities' talk from Palestinian sources inside and outside Gaza," observed Jacob Burns of Amnesty International. "It's axiomatic that Israel's policies are the root of all Palestinian suffering - the human rights industr- I mean community established that long ago. Its doubly confusing to have such people who must answer to the Palestinian leadership, owing to the nature of their jobs, not aware that they are supposed to be acting accordingly, not just receiving tons and tons of goods without so much as a mention of the deadly, sadistic, illegal siege."

"In fact it's so bad that Gazans have taken to desperate measures to assuage their own suffering," he added. "It's painful to watch."



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