[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] Elder gets results - but the amount of stupidity in BDS is infinite

On Tuesday I mocked an incredibly stupid BDS campaign whose backers honestly thought that Sabra hummus was named after the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

The people behind it must have gotten a lot of WTF messages, because they pulled the graphic and gave this hilarious explanation where they don't admit that they are clueless:

Ah, it was "misleading."

It turns out that there are plenty of other Israel haters who are just as stupid.. Here an angry, clueless tweet from 2013:

Here's another hater, quoting yet another, on Tumblr:

Can you feel how much they want to see a peaceful Middle East?

It is possible that this entire ridiculous meme was started by anti-Israel activist Helena Cobban, who blogged the idea in 2012:

I’m thinking that maybe this year in particular, the BDS folks might start calling the hummus brand “Sabra and Shatila hummus”, to make even clearer the connection between the hummus brand and the excesses/atrocities committed by, or under the close supervision of, the Israeli military….

But she adds a caveat:

What I would not want to do, however, is stigmatize the use of the term “Shatila” in a brand name. The Dearborn, Michigan-based Shatila Food Products bakery produces the very best baklava there is in the whole of North America…

What? American Arabs named food after a massacre???

The lesson is that the stupidity of the anti-Israel crowd is infinite. Lighting a candle might be enough to illuminate a room but it does nothing against an infinity of darkness

All we can do is point out their conscious decision to live in the blackness of their hate.

(h/t L)



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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/30/2015 11:00:00 AM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] "Jews are buying Libyan land, will transfer a million settlers"

The Libyan correspondent of Egypt's Albawabh reports that Jews are planning to take over Libyan land.

The article claims that Voice of Israel had a guest who was the head of the Jewish community in Libya. He made a secret trip to Triploi to start buying up large parcels of land in the Green Mountain area of eastern Libya.

The report says that the lands were originally owned by Jews and it was confiscated by Moammar Qaddafi after the Libyan revolution, taking their shops and farms and businesses.

A separate story, also supposedly from Voice of Israel, says that a Jewish businessman with investments in various countries around the world said that Libyan Jews Libyans are returning to their homeland Libya very soon, and we will see the Jewish return to Libya in 2015, along with the the resettlement of the Jews of the Arab Maghreb countries of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.

The unnamed businessman says that the transfer of a million Jews to Libya wil occur with the help of the international community and the United Nations and human rights organizations around world, and with the help of America, Britain and France.

As always, Arab media is beyond parody.

You know how Arab claim that the blue bars of the Israeli flag represent the Nile and the Euphrates rivers? Clearly, they had it wrong. They stand for the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans!

In 2011, hundreds of Libyans protested a single Jew who returned to the country to try to re-open a synagogue that had been sealed in 1967, saying "There is no place for Jews in Libya."

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/30/2015 09:30:00 AM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] German teacher suspended for saying Holocaust victims less important than cattle

Daniel Krause, a 34-year old school teacher from the town of Unna in Germany, called into a radio show on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

During the show, he said, "Personally, I'm not interested in Auschwitz at all... Even industrial livestock farming emotionally affects me more."

He was suspended from teaching, and officials are trying to get him fired. Dr. Gerd Bollermann said "I am appalled by the tasteless and dehumanizing utterances. The Arnsberg District will not tolerate anything that denigrates the memory of the murdered Jews during the Nazi era."

No doubt, Muslims will seize on this is evidence that free speech is suspended only for anti-Holocaust speech, and that anti-Muslim speech would be celebrated.

They would be wrong. Krause was suspended once before.

In 2012, during a rally for the far-right "Pro-NRW" group, Krause grabbed the microphone and declared, "As a practicing homosexual I have more fear of Islamists then, for example, [I would have at the time of] the Nazis."

Krause was suspended from teaching as a result of that little speech.

(h/t J_April)

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/30/2015 08:00:00 AM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] The well-choreographed settlement outrage game

This article shows what a joke the anti-settlement NGOs are:

The Israeli government on Friday published tenders to build 430 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, the head of an NGO that monitors settlement activity told AFP.

"It's the opening of the settlement floodgates," said Daniel Seidemann, head of the Terrestrial Jerusalem group, adding that the announcements were the first since October 2014 and unlikely to be the last before the March 17 general election.

He said that the new homes were to be built in four existing settlements across the West Bank -- 112 in Adam, 156 in Elkana, 78 in Alfei Menashe and 84 in Kiryat Arba.

Seidemann, whose group particularly monitors settlement in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, predicted that building plans there were likely to be announced soon.

"I don't think it's over," he said. "I would be very concerned."

He linked the new tenders to the election in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud is competing with other right-wing parties for the settler vote.

"This could hardly be an accident," he said. "It could not have taken place without Netanyahu's knowledge and consent."

Seidemann is lying, and lying big time.

He is an expert in the procedures involved in building homes across the Green Line. He knows that there are multiple stages towards actually building a home - as many as eight different steps. Except for the initial plans, each stage is part of a bureaucratic process that does not involve high-level decision making. This is how governments work, and Seidemann knows this.

But Seidemann gets his funding based on publicity. And the real boring facts about how the same home can be "approved" or "promoted" many times aren't as likely to produce the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Terrestrial Jerusalem gets from the EU. So he has to make each stage sound much more dramatic than it is.

And in this case, here is what he knows and didn't bother to tell AFP:

The Housing Ministry told Israel Radio that the tenders in question had been issued in the past, and were renewed automatically since construction did not take place after its initial approval.

No high-level decision by Netanyahu to get votes. In fact, no decision whatsoever - it was all automatic.

One thing you have to give credit to the anti-settlement NGOs: They are very good at recycling. The huge outrage that occurred before over these exact same nonexistent structures are being be recycled over and over. Very green.

The whole drama  a great scam for Seidemann and other groups to get more money from their donors, who don't bother to research the chasm between the tens of thousands of housing units that T-J and Peace Now breathlessly announce every few months and the few hundred that actually get built.

Of course, Seidemann and the other NGOs aren't the only ones to profit off of this highly choreographed charade.

Meanwhile, a senior Palestinian official said the measure constituted a “war crime.”

“What the Israelis announced is part of a wider war… against the Palestinian people,” Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Wassel Abu Yusef told AFP.

“This is a war crime which should push the settlements issue to the International Criminal Court.”

If we could harvest the Middle East's dramatized outrage as an energy source, the oil wells would dry up tomorrow.



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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/30/2015 05:41:00 AM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] Iranian Revolutionary Guard website calls for assassination of Netanyahu's sons

Mashregh News is a news website affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

An article published Thursday started off with the obligatory text about how Zionists are cowards.

It then urged terror groups like Hezbollah to target Binyamin Netanyahu's sons.

The article gives a brief biography of two of Bibi's kids, along with various things they've done that were newsworthy or controversial.

Here is the article's illustration:

Any questions?

(h/t Martin)

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/29/2015 10:38:00 PM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 01/29 Links Pt2: Israeli deaths glorified at LSE on Holocaust Memorial Day; Nisman buried with AMIA victims

From Ian:

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Richard Millett: Israeli deaths glorified at LSE on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Tuesday was the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau but that same night at the London School of Economics at a joint Palestine Society and Feminist Society event Israelis were portrayed as rapists and those who killed Israelis were applauded.
In front of a banner that read “Towards Freedom and Independence the Uprising Continues” a panel of four women described the role Palestinian women should play in the “uprising”.
Rana B. Baker, a student at SOAS who also writes for the Electronic Intifada, said Leila Khaled‘s “hijacking of planes was amazing”. The only problem, Baker said, was that Khaled had now aligned herself with the Assad regime.
Baker reserved her highest admiration for Sana’a Mehaidli who she said “deserves a standing ovation”. She told how, in 1985 in south Lebanon, Mehaidli “drove a car full of explosives and blew it up near an Israeli convoy killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring between 10 and 12 more.”

Israel praises German prosecutor for rejecting Mavi Marmara complaint

The Israeli Embassy in Germany on Monday welcomed a decision by the federal prosecutor to dismiss a criminal complaint filed by a Left Party MP alleging illegal imprisonment and war crimes during the seizure of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara when it tried to run the Gaza blockade in 2010.
The embassy wrote in an email to The Jerusalem Post that it “takes positive note of the decision taken by the general federal attorney (Generalbundesanwalt) to reject the complaint of Ms. Inge Höger.
The same stance was reflected by the decision of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to close the preliminary examination into the Mavi Marmara incident that was opened following a referral submitted to the ICC in the name of the Union of the Comoros in May 2013.
The prosecutor decided to close the file without seeing a need to address the issue of self-defense by IDF soldiers who were attacked by activists of the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), as it occurred in the context of a flotilla which the prosecutor considered as not constituting a humanitarian mission.”

Gaza flotilla lawyers ask ICC to reconsider probe

Lawyers representing the Comoros on Thursday asked International Criminal Court judges to order its chief prosecutor to reconsider her decision not to probe Israel’s deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
The Comoros, which has referred the case to the ICC, “asks the Chamber to request the Prosecutor to reconsider her decision not to open an investigation,” its lawyers said in papers filed before the Hague-based court.

Rivlin at 9-11 Memorial: We Will Continue to Fight Terror

At Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Towers, Rivlin laid a wreath on the newly built memorial.
“Once to stand at this place, was to stand in the shadows of two magnificent towers, examples of modern development and human achievement. But now, we stand in the shadow of the valley of death.”
Rivlin, echoing his speech to the United Nations earlier Wednesday in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, called on the international community to unite in the fight against terrorism.
“We stand here, united as those who choose life, freedom, and equality, and understand the horror of what occurred here, and the enormity of the task before us. We will continue to fight terror. We will continue to fight fundamentalism. This is an obligation for the whole world, for its leaders, those who believe in peace, and all citizens of the world."
"Terrorism is not an Israeli or American problem. Extremism is not a destined decree. The free world, democracy, the value of life, will endure, and stand strong in the face of this threat. I take from this place not anger, but hope. I take from this place, not hatred, but a desire for peace. May the memories of those who died here be a blessing.”

Rivlin calls on UN to do more to prevent atrocities

Speaking Wednesday at the organization’s ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Rivlin said that it was the duty of the international community to lay down a bottom line when defining genocide and to make clear that crossing that line means intervention.
“We must remember that definition of the red lines requires putting an end to the devaluation and the cynical, supposedly objective usage in rhetoric on human rights of concepts such as ‘genocide’ for political purposes,” Rivlin said.
“[I]s our struggle, the struggle of this Assembly, against genocide, effective enough?” Rivlin asked. “Was it effective enough then in Bosnia? Was it effective in preventing the killing in Khojaly? Of Afghans by the Taliban? Is it effective enough today in Syria? Or in the face of the atrocities of Boko Haram in Nigeria? Are we shedding too many tears and taking too little action?
“I am afraid that the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that came into force as long as 64 years ago has remained a merely symbolic document.”

‘Night Will Fall’ Holocaust Documentary Omits the Word ‘Jewish’

Last night, I prepped myself mentally for the difficult visual experience ahead and sat down to watch the much-anticipated Night Will Fall documentary, which premiered Monday on the HBO network just before International Holocaust Memorial Day.
The film tells the story of another documentary made in 1945 with the involvement of famous director Alfred Hitchock, using real footage taken by Soviet and British soldiers while liberating concentration camps such as Bergen-Belsen.
I believe this documentary—perhaps more so the original 1945 production, if and when it is publicly released—should be viewed by all around the world as a reminder of what happened during the Holocaust and what could happen again. But I was troubled by one seemingly small, but in my view major, faux pas.
In addition to Jews, the Nazis persecuted a variety of groups such as the Roma (or Gypsy) people, homosexuals, people with disabilities, and dissidents. While these victims of the Holocaust are notable, no one can deny that the Nazi system, from the Nuremberg Laws to the Final Solution, primarily targeted the Jewish people. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
As such, it surprised me greatly that the narration of “Night Will Fall” never once mentioned the word “Jewish” when describing the victims seen in the footage. This word is uttered only once, well into the film, by a Jewish survivor.

Auschwitz Survivor: ‘We Do Not Want Our Past to Become Our Children’s Future’

Holocaust survivors do not want the atrocities they faced to be repeated in future generations, Auschwitz survivor Roman Kent said in an emotional speech on Tuesday at a memorial marking 70 years since the concentration camp’s liberation.
“We do not want our past to be our children’s future,” Kent explained, holding back tears before being cut off by applause from the audience. Wanting to reiterate the importance of what he said even though he was interrupted, he continued, “I will still repeat it because that’s the key to my existence.
“We survivors do not want our past to be our children’s future. I hope and believe that this generation will build on mankind’s great traditions and understanding that these traditions must embrace pluralism and tolerance; decency and human rights for all people. And must include opposition to antisemitism and to racism of any sort. It should be commonplace rather than exceptions.”

At Terezin, passing the torch on commemoration

En route to Terezin, the bus marked “survivors” is mostly empty.
Arriving at the site of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, several dozen children lay candles in the shape of a Jewish star over the graves of their slain relatives at a more modest ceremony than the one taking place at Auschwitz, where the world’s eyes are turned as leaders mark 70 years since its liberation.
Weighing heavily in the air here is the dread that the survivors may not see the next round anniversary.
The candle-laying ceremony is “the best evidence, the best proof that there is a chance for a better life and future,” says Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, a former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel and survivor himself.
At Terezin, some 33,000 Jews were killed, and some 90,000 were deported to Auschwitz and Treblinka — the majority of which were subsequently murdered.

Nightmare for Italian Jewish leader and TV crew after being locked inside Auschwitz

The head of Rome's Jewish community and a TV crew spent a horrifying night in Auschwitz on Tuesday after being locked inside, following the official ceremony held there commemorating 70 years since the camp's liberation.
Riccardo Pacifici, the head of Rome's Jewish community, was trapped inside the infamous death camp alongside journalist David Parenzo and three members of an Italian film crew, according to Italy's ANSA news agency
They were at the site filming a live episode for the Italian TV show Matrix and had already acquired the necessary authorization to film there.
Around 11:00 p.m., however, as taping finished up, it became clear that they were locked inside the camp and that security guards had already left for the evening.

'Turkish criticism inappropriate at Holocaust memorial'

Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek late on Wednesday addressed members of Turkey's tiny Jewish community and others at a Holocaust Memorial Day event and said rising anti-Semitism was linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"As we remember the pain of the past, no one can ignore the last attacks on Gaza, in which 2,000 innocent children, women were massacred," Cicek said, referring to last summer's Operation Protective Edge. "We need to see the picture as a whole."
Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told Reuters that Cicek "unjustly and harshly criticized [Israel] at a moment that is absolutely inappropriate."
"Israel expresses its disappointment that a solemn event of an international nature dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust victims was misused in order to criticize Israeli policies," Nahshon said.

Clifford May: Cry for Argentina ?

"When heads of state become gangsters, something has to be done." Winston Churchill said that. It's a proposition not many people nowadays endorse. Fewer still take it upon themselves to stand up to the thugs-cum-statesmen.
Alberto Nisman was an exception -- right up until last week when he was found dead, a .22-caliber bullet in his brain. Shocking? Yes. Surprising? Hardly. He and those who knew him (myself included) were always keenly aware that this was possible -- perhaps likely. To say he was courageous would be a gross understatement.
A little background: Nisman, 51, was an Argentine federal prosecutor, chief investigator of the 1994 bombing of AMIA, a Jewish cultural center, in Buenos Aires. Eighty-five people were killed in that terrorist attack.
In 2006, Nisman formally accused the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran of directing the bombing, and of deploying Hezbollah, Tehran's terrorist foreign legion, to carry it out.

Nisman buried in same cemetery as victims of AMIA bombing he probed

Alberto Nisman was buried in the same section of the main Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires as the victims in the 1994 AMIA bombing that he was investigating.
On Thursday morning, a police escort led the funeral procession to the Tablada Jewish Cemetery. Along the procession route, people waved Argentine flags and held signs that said “Justice,” “Thank you, Nisman” and “We all are Nisman” in Spanish. Some chanted Argentina’s national anthem.
Nisman’s grave was located in the “Martyrs Section,” where the victims of the AMIA Jewish center attack are buried. Eighty-five people were killed in the Buenos Aires bombing; some are calling Nisman the 86th victim.
Eulogies were presented by the writer and philosopher Santiago Kovadloff and Waldo Wolff, vice president of the DAIA umbrella Jewish communal organization in Argentina. The mourners included Nisman’s two daughters, Lara and Kala; Nisman’s mother, Sara Garfunkel; and his ex-wife, Sandra Arroyo Salgado.

Nisman was wary of own bodyguards before death, assistant says

The Argentine prosecutor whose sudden death has set off a crisis for President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner no longer trusted even his bodyguards at the end of his life, an assistant said Wednesday.
A tense Diego Lagomarsino, his voice breaking at times, recounted at a news conference here how he came to give Alberto Nisman the .22-caliber revolver used to put a bullet through his head.
The 51-year-old special prosecutor was found dead at his home January 18, a day before he was to go before a congressional committee to accuse Kirchner of shielding Iranian officials implicated in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center.
Lagomarsino, a computer expert who is the last person known to have seen Nisman alive, said the prosecutor asked him for the gun, saying: “I no longer trust even the guards.”

Argentinian President Accused of Nisman's Murder

Kirchner has tried her best to stifle an investigation, asking the congress to dissolve the intelligence services. She said Nisman’s death was due to “rogue elements” in the intelligence service who were opposed to her. Nisman was found dead with a bullet wound in the head on January 18, the day before he was to accuse Kirchner of a cover-up.
Nisman claimed that after Kirchner fired the intelligence director John Stiusso in December for his close relationship with the U.S. and Israel, Kirchner’s Peronist faction took control of the service. Stiusso reportedly fed Nisman telephone intercepts in which Argentinian government officials dealt with Iranian agents.
The former senior counter-terrorism official stated that the intelligence service, now run by those headed by Kirchner's son, Maximo, had been tailing Nisman home and abroad. He added that Nisman normally had 12 federal bodyguards outside his apartment, but when he was murdered they were absent. He said of the assassins, "They would have known when his federal police protective detail were off duty and when Nisman was alone in this apartment.” He also claimed that Damian Pachter, the journalist who reported Nisman’s murder and left Argentina, is being tailed by the same loyalists.

The Future of Jews in France, the Land of Apartheid

The 2012 Toulouse killings of three French soldiers and four Jews perpetrated by Mohammad Merah were of a different nature, however, and the recent round of terror attacks in Paris had a similar structure. They first targeted specific French citizens, and thereafter, the Jews. It may very well be that future attacks against French targets will be accompanied by attacks against the Jews. The Jewish community only represents one percent of the country’s population, and is likely to continue to be targeted disproportionately.
One can see the degradation of the situation for the Jews since the beginning of this century. Besides the frequent anti-Semitic attacks, a trend developed where many committed Jews took their children out of public schools where they had been harassed because of their religion. The children were then placed in Jewish or private schools. Now the children who go to Jewish schools face armed soldiers on a daily basis, who are guarding the school gates from possible attack and stationed there to protect the lives of the students, staff, and parents. The soldiers serve as a reassurance but are also a daily reminder of the problematic realities facing French Jewry.
Any structural efforts made by the French government to solve the many problems coming from elements within the Muslim community are likely to lead to increased tensions. The unrest to follow is likely to affect Jews disproportionally. A strengthening of the far-right National Front, with its many anti-Semites, may intensify the general atmosphere.

Voltaire's book on tolerance climbs French bestseller lists

A 250-year-old book by the Enlightenment anti-establishment writer Voltaire is climbing best-seller lists in France weeks after the attacks by French-born Islamic extremists that left 20 people dead, including the gunmen.
The “Treatise on Tolerance” is a cry against religious fanaticism and stemmed from Voltaire’s conviction that religious differences were at the heart of world strife. He wrote at a time of bloody tension between French Protestants and Catholics.
The Jan. 7-9 attacks started when two gunmen stormed Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that had received death threats for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, decimating the paper’s staff. Also attacked was a kosher supermarket, where four hostages died.
Voltaire’s book came out in 1763 and now has a place among the bestsellers for Amazon, FNAC and French bookseller Gibert Joseph.

France prayer rug artwork pulled over Muslim concerns

An art installation showing high heels on Islamic prayer rugs was pulled from an exhibition near Paris after a Muslim group complained the work could provoke “uncontrollable” reactions, the artist said Tuesday.
“Silence,” which has already been shown in Paris, Berlin, New York and Madrid, was supposed to go on display in Clichy La Garenne, which is just north of the capital, in a woman-themed art show.
But French-Algerian artist Zoulikha Bouabdellah decided to replace the work after a local Muslim group told Town Hall last week that “uncontrollable, irresponsible incidents could result” if the installation was shown there.
Bouabdellah said she was surprised by the “incomprehension” her work has met, but added she believes it is tied to emotions stirred by the jihadist attacks in France earlier this month that left 17 people dead.

 Teacher suspended for defending Paris attacks

The man, who teaches at a school for ten to 14-year-olds, reportedly told his students that it is acceptable to hurt somebody if they have offended Allah.
The school board told the Austrian Press Agency (APA) that his students also said that he told them in a conversation outside of school that he considered killing someone to be a legitimate form of punishment for insulting Islam.
His students reported him to social workers and the school principal.
The case has been handed over to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT). If the allegations are confirmed the man will be banned from teaching, the president of the school board told APA.

Terrorism: 53% of French think country is 'at war'

Some 53% of French citizens believe the country is ''at war'', according to a survey carried out by the IPSOS/Sopra Steria institute for the daily Le Monde and Radio Europe 1 about three weeks after jihadist attacks in Paris. The survey shows that 51% of respondents feel that Islam is ''incompatible'' with the values of French society (12% fewer than in January 2014 and 23% fewer than in January 2013) and 66% believe that Islam is a ''religion that is as peaceful as others'' and that Islamic fundamentalism is a ''perversion of this religion''.
However, 90% want anti-jihad measures stepped up, while only 9% say that they are against ''the publication in the press of satirical caricatures on religion''.

At least five held in 'anti-jihadist' raid in France

The operation took place in the small town of Lunel east of Montpellier in southern France, from where around 20 young people have left for Syria. Six of them, aged 18 to 30, have been killed since October.
Crack French security forces launched the operation at 6am in a building in the centre of the town, according to witnesses that spoke to AFP.
"Several unmarked cars drew up. Masked men got out and smashed in the doors to the apartments in the building," said one resident of the block, who said they had threatened him.

 Bulgaria extradites suspect linked to Paris attacks

A Frenchman wanted in connection with deadly terrorist attacks in Paris has been extradited from Bulgaria to France, where he is facing charges of links to terrorism.
Fritz-Joly Joachin was arrested January 1 on an unrelated warrant while trying to cross from Bulgaria into Turkey. French police say that Joachin, 29, was an associate of the Kouachi brothers, who killed 12 people in an attack January 7 against newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Joachin is accused of participating in an organized crime group with a terrorist aim, and having links to a network feeding fighters to Syria. A judicial official said he arrived in France on Thursday, and is expected to appear before a judge imminently. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

Anti-Israel BDS movement is fashionable in academia, but far from invincible

Several conclusions can be drawn from these events. First, BDS is well-organized and well-orchestrated. BDS activists often belong to several different academic organizations, and they push their agenda in each one. They also put on one-sided panels featuring major BDS activists who are not scholars in the association’s field.
Second, these resolutions degrade academia. They do not meet elementary scholarly standards. They are cookie-cutters of one another, repeating the same false claims and suspect sources. It is extremely disappointing to see scholars supposedly trained to weigh evidence and examine context stoop to supporting what amounts to little more than propaganda. In passing these resolutions, they sacrifice their scholarly and moral standing. But we have seen it happen before: academics provided justification for the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime.
Third, BDS does have momentum. Being anti-Israel is fashionable in academia, and many scholars sincerely worry about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Young and even well-established scholars need courage to stand against the anti-Israel consensus, and can risk losing promotions, career opportunities, and respectability if they speak against this prevailing zeitgeist.
Fourth, the BDS movement can be halted. Many academics worry about the politicization of their scholarly associations, which were founded to deal with matters of concern in their fields and not to make pronouncements on international affairs. Furthermore, most attendees of annual conventions are simply not interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They attend the conventions to present papers, to keep up in their field, and to network. When a core of scholars mobilizes and resists the hijacking of their organizations by anti-Israel ideologues, they can prevail, as they did at the American Historical Association.

Steven Salaita files federal lawsuit over non-hiring (Update: Glaring defect)

Steven Salaita, the controversial former professor who was denied a tenured job at the University of Illinios at Urbana-Champaign, has filed a lawsuit against the university trustees and unnamed (“John Doe”) donors who allegedly pressured the university. The one trustee who voted in favor of hiring, James Montgomery, was not named as a defendant. Chancellor Phyllis Wise also was named as a defendant.
The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of Illinois, rather than the Central District where the campus is located, based on the Trustees having voted not to hire Salaita at a meeting in Chicago. Strategically, Salaita presumably prefers a Chicago jury, if it gets to that.
There is a glaring defect in the Complaint which at least would go to Salaita’s contractual claims and perhaps even his free speech claims. Salaita never says in the Complaint that anyone ever told him that Board of Trustee approval was a formality and certainly would be obtained. That was a condition of the offer, yet in the Complaint Salaita only says he assumed Trustee approval was a formality:

Legal Insurrection: Boycotting Israel – The insidious threat of the BDS movement

In my speech I put the aggressiveness of anti-Israel student groups in context.
I focused on the academic boycott movement pushed by faculty professional organizations, which deprives faculty, students and the greater academic community of academic freedom.
There also were some really good questions about what can be done, how we got here, and how to respond on campus.
I had a chance to talk with some crowd members one-on-one, including Legal Insurrection commenter Philly Guy.
Thanks to Roc4Israel for the invite. The group can serve as a model for how Christians and Jews can come together to promote and defend Israel in a positive way.

Boycotting Israel - The insidious threat of the BDS movement


Has the United Methodist Church Rejected Divestment?

Recently publicized guidelines by the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits of the United Methodist Church seem specifically designed to ward off the BDS movement’s near pathological obsession with Israel. The pension board manages over $21 billion in assets for over 91,000 participants, including clergy and lay staff.
The General Board and its Wespath investment management division have recently announced the implementation of new investment guidelines, using environmental and human rights factors for determining ethically sound investments
The board will scrutinize companies that operate in nations with the worst ranking in Freedom House's annual “Freedom in the World” In 2014 report, the lowest scores went to the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
According to Freedom House, Israel consistently is ranked as the only free country in the Middle east. These new rules make divestment from companies doing in business in Israel, including Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar highly improbable.

Anti-Semitic Right-Wing Politician Now Greek PM's Key Ally

Panos Kammenos, who recently accused Greek Jews of not paying their taxes, is now an unlikely but crucial ally of Greece's new leftist PM.
Panos Kammenos, whose nationalist Independent Greeks party has entered into an unlikely coalition government with the radical left-wing Syriza, once walked the corridors of parliament wearing a T-shirt that read: "Greece is not for sale."
At first glance, the bombastic 49-year-old leader of the ANEL party and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Syriza may seem strange bedfellows, but both are vehemently anti-austerity and equally determined to renegotiate the country's international bailout.
The burly politician's decision to immediately ally his party with Syriza following Sunday's election saw him rewarded with defense minister's post in the new government unveiled on Tuesday.

Dieudonne trial over ‘gas chambers’ remark starting

The French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala is standing trial for saying that a Jewish journalist should have died “in the gas chambers.”
The trial in criminal court begins Wednesday for Dieudonne, who has been convicted seven times for inciting racial hatred against Jews.
He was filmed with a hidden camera in 2013 making the comment about Patrick Cohen, according to The New York Times. The footage, which was broadcast on French television, led the French government to investigate Dieudonné and ban his show.
If Dieudonne is found guilty of violating France’s laws banning racist speech, he faces a fine of up to $45,000 and one year in prison. He has been charged almost 40 times under hate-speech laws.

Topless, on a camel, for peace

Ever the provocateur, professional funnywoman Chelsea Handler enlisted two Zionist assistants during her recent trip to the Jewish state: Israeli flag pasties.
The bestselling author and television presenter landed in Israel on Sunday and has been documenting her visit on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
She’s uploaded pictures of herself at the Western Wall, with a disgruntled, yarmulke-wearing man in the background, and in Old Jaffa “with [her] jugs in [her] jacket.”
On early Thursday morning, despite the Israeli winter chill, Handler took her “jugs” out of her jacket and uploaded a photograph of herself on a camel, topless, with only Israeli flag pasties covering her nipples.

Israeli company eager to solve Texas’ water woes with desalination

A well-established Israeli water treatment company has opened its first U.S. office in Austin with plans to market its desalination services to water utilities in Texas and across the nation.
The company, Kadima, Israel-based IDE Technologies Inc., has brought on Mark Ellison – who most recently served as former Gov. Rick Perry's manager of strategic water initiatives in the Texas economic development office – to establish the company's presence here.
Ellison makes no bones about it: The reason IDE is expanding here is because Texas' water infrastructure faces serious challenges to meet the needs of the Lone Star State's booming population.

No ‘Queen of Mean,’ Leona Helmsley’s billions help Israelis

Leona Helmsley may have had a reputation as a tough boss – and a conviction for failing to pay taxes in a timely manner – but the wife and sole heir of hotel magnate Harry Helmsley left behind a legacy that has gone to help millions of people around the world, as well as in Israel. Israel, in fact, gets a special section all of its own in the Helmsley estate, which is valued at $5 billion and is being given away on a daily basis by a group of four trustees whose job it is to disburse the late Mrs. Helmsley’s money.
“Mrs. Helmsley had a vision of her money being used to improve the lives of people around the world,” said Sandy Frankel, Leona Helmsley’s attorney for nearly two decades and now one of the trustees charged with giving away her money. “I am often asked questions about what she did or didn’t during her lifetime, but I prefer to concentrate on her legacy, and that, I think, is what she should be remembered for.”
In the the past five years, Frankel and his fellow trustees have given away nearly a billion dollars, almost $150 million of it just in Israel. Currently, the Leona B. and Harry M. Helmsley Charitable Trust is one of the top ten such trusts in the world. “It’s a pretty unique job,” said Frankel of his task of giving away the Helmsley fortune. “Not everyone has the chance to do something like this.”

Portugal approves Sephardic Jew citizenship plan

Five centuries after burning thousands of Jews at the stake, forcing them to convert to Christianity or expelling them, Portugal is granting citizenship rights to their descendants as part of an attempt to make amends.
The Portuguese Cabinet on Thursday approved a law offering dual citizenship to the descendants of those Sephardic Jews — the term commonly used for those who once lived in the Iberian peninsula.
The effective date of the law will be made public soon and similar legislation in Spain is awaiting final legislative approval.
The Portuguese rights will apply to those who can demonstrate “a traditional connection” to Portuguese Sephardic Jews, such as through “family names, family language, and direct or collateral ancestry.”
Like Spain, Portugal says its sole reason for granting citizenship is to redress a historic wrong.

Ancient skull found in north sheds new light on journey out of Africa

A crucial piece of the story of humankind’s exodus from Africa was recently found near the northern Israeli city of Nahariya — a 55,000-year-old skull of an anatomically modern human, among the first to leave the cradle of humanity and populate the globe.
Scientists from Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University and the Israel Antiquities Authority who found and studied the fossilized skull said the rare find was a “connecting link” between Homo sapiens worldwide and the core population that left the cradle of humanity around 60,000 years ago and began replacing other hominin species.
A paper detailing their findings was published Wednesday in the scholarly journal Nature.

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/29/2015 06:00:00 PM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] HRW's anti-Israel bias, illustrated, from their annual report

Human Rights Watch has released its 2015 World Report, a 650 page document that goes through the human rights records of every country.

Here is a chart for how often some nations are named in the report:

This gives you an idea of how skewed HRW is when dealing with Israel, placing its importance as a human rights violator somewhere between Syria and Russia.

This isn't a perfect metric. For example, I didn't include the United States (83) because many of its mentions have nothing to do with human rights. "Palestine" or "Palestinians" are mentioned 98 times, but the vast majority of those mentions were regarding them as victims of human rights violations, not violators.

Even with those flaws, this chart is a fairly accurate view of HRW's thinking on who are the biggest violators of human rights, and therefore it is a good indicator of HRW's anti-Israel bias. To think that Israel's human rights posture is deserving of more attention  than those of, say, the DRC or Saudi Arabia or Mexico is the height of absurdity. However, it fits in very well with the patterns we have seen in HRW reports and Ken Roth's tweets being heavily weighted to damn Israel far out of proportion to any human rights issues it has..




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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/29/2015 04:00:00 PM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 2015 Hasby Award - Best Own Goal

A new category this year, and definitely one of the most fun to choose.

The nominees for the Hasby for Best Own Goal are:

Max Blumenthal and David Sheen - ToiletGate

George Galloway - everything

Hamas - "Tkof Taaseh Biguim" (explanation)

UCLA Student Meltdown

Kat-Yang Stevens "colonialist whtsprmcst cisheteropatriarchy"

And the winner of the 2015 Hasby for Best Own Goal is...

Max Blumenthal and David Sheen - ToiletGate

What is brilliant about ToiletGate isn't so much the specter of these two supposedly respected anti-Israel activists badgering and chasing a 60-something year old man into a toilet. It isn't the fact that they were banned from the Bundestag for their antics. It isn't even that the German Left party, which should be their natural allies, turned against them in disgust after this scene.

What is brilliant about it is that they are, even today, clueless as to how ridiculous they appeared to the world. Sheen and Blumenthal are still proud of how they acted! Their obliviousness to what jerks everyone sees them as is what makes this so great.

In the extended video of the incident, starting at 5:45 after the third time that the pair tried to confront Gysi,  even Sheen and Blumenthal's sympathetic German Left hosts try to politely explain to them that this is not how one acts in Germany. Sheen just brushed that off, saying that this is how Israelis act, and if Germans love Israelis they should accept his rudeness. Sheen is then seen laughing afterwards saying that he wants to put this video on the Internet as if he is going to be the one who looks good.

Israel-haters like Blumenthal and Sheen live in a bubble where they think that their ever-more irrational positions and actions are being cheered by the world when in fact their fans are dwindling to the hardcore Israel haters. When they are not treated like royalty they get insulted, as if their articles in Mondoweiss make them into major journalists. And even today, when their ostensible friends in Germany are trying to tell them that they went off the deep end, they simply cannot wrap their brains around the idea that they look like complete idiots.

That is the reason that the pair so richly deserve this award.

Mazel Tov, Max and David! And don't worry - my rule of not giving repeats of awards does not apply to this category, so feel free to do more of your wacky antics in 2015!

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/29/2015 02:00:00 PM

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[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 01/29 Links Pt1: PLO tournament named after terrorists who killed 46; Jeffrey Goldberg's libel

From Ian:

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Is Israel Guilty of War Crimes?

It seems that half the world supports demands for Israel to lift its entirely legal weapons and dual-use materials blockade of Gaza, so that Hamas can get down to seriously importing long-range missiles from Iran and its other allies, as well as large quantities of cement to build more terror tunnels. In a recent interview between a Reuters reporter and a Hamas leader, the Hamas official stated openly that "the group would press on with restocking its arsenal or [sic] rockets and other weaponry and shoring up its underground network. In peace we make preparations, and in war we use what we have readied."
Calls for an end to the blockade (which does not block the import of genuine humanitarian goods at all) amounts to a policy of arming terrorists. Hamas has already diverted billions of dollars of aid money to build concrete-lined tunnels and purchase missiles and other arms, leaving ordinary Gazans without the basic necessities of life, while the Hamas elite drives expensive cars, shops at a mall selling designer goods, and builds luxury apartments.
After the premature end Operation Protective Edge, the international community promised to pour in more billions to rebuild Gaza. If there is no blockade, those billions will build another arsenal, and with that arsenal, Hamas will start another war in which even more Gazans and Israelis will die or fall injured.
The simple solution to this is peace -- which Israel has always asked for. But Hamas, as stated in its Charter, rejects peace out of hand and for all time. What is needed is a government in power in Gaza that cares about the well-being of all its citizens, and that might see permanent peace with its neighbours as the right way forward for everyone.

Fatah and PLO tournament named after terrorists who killed 46

Earlier this month, a sports festival organized by Fatah and the PLO included a tournament named after two terrorists who planned and carried out some of the most lethal terror attacks in Israel's history:
The Martyr Raed Al-Karmi and Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Tournament
Raed Al-Karmi was responsible for the murder of 9 Israelis from 2001-2002 and Dalal Mughrabi led the killing of 37 in 1978. (See more below)
PLO representative Mazen Abu Zaid said that the recent festival's purpose was to "renew our commitment and loyalty to the blood of the Martyrs, and to show support for President Mahmoud Abbas." He praised terrorists Raed Al-Karmi and Dalal Mughrabi as "Martyrs" and stated that their blood had been spilled to "draw the map of the homeland" and to deliver the message that "Palestine is one, indivisible unit":
"[PLO representative Mazen Abu Zaid] added that the blood of Martyr Raed Al-Karmi... and the blood of Martyr Dalal Mughrabi... had been absorbed into the soil of the homeland, and embraced the blood of the Gazan Martyrs, in order to draw the map of the homeland for us and to serve as a message: Palestine is one, indivisible unit." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 18, 2015]

Thousands attend funerals of IDF officer, soldier killed in Hezbollah ambush

Maj. Yochai Kalangel, 25, who was killed in Wednesday's Hezbollah attack against IDF soldiers near the Lebanese border was laid to rest at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Thousands of people arrived to honor Kalangel who was killed along with St.-Sgt. Dor Haim Nini when Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon attacked IDF vehicles traveling in the village of Ghajar in the Galilee panhandle with Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles.
Kalangel grew up in the West Bank settlement of Elazar in Gush Etzion, and leaves behind a wife, Tali, and their one-year-old child. He is one of six siblings, and on Independence Day this year he was awarded a General Staff commendation for excellence.
Tamir, Yochai’s brother, told reporters that Yochai, or “Joha” as the family knew him, “was a giant of a man, salt of the earth, a great warrior.”

Update on Wounded Soldiers’ Conditions

Ziv Hospital in Tzefat (Safed) reports that the medical condition of five of the IDF soldiers wounded in yesterday’s Hezbollah attack have improved.
All five are now listed as lightly injured.
Later today they will undergo additional medical examinations, and the hospital will decide if they need further treatment, or if they can be released.
The soldiers jumped from their vehicle after witnessing the first vehicle blown up by the long-range anti-tank rocket, and thus saved their lives.

Netanyahu blames Iran for northern border attack

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid the blame on Iran for Wednesday’s multipronged attack by Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border that killed two IDF soldiers and wounded seven others.
“For some time, Iran – via Hezbollah – has been trying to establish an additional terrorist front against us from the Golan Heights,” said Netanyahu. “We are taking strong and responsible action against this attempt.”
The governments of Lebanon and Syria also bear responsibility for attacks against Israel in the North that emanated from their territory, he added. “Those behind today’s attack will pay the full price.”
Netanyahu spoke Wednesday evening, just before he held security consultations with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Yoram Cohen and other defense officials.
“In all of these events, our mission is to defend the State of Israel,” said Netanyahu.
“Our only consideration is the security of the State of Israel and its citizens. Thus we have acted and thus we will continue to act.”

New details emerge: At least 5 Kornet missiles fired in Hezbollah ambush of IDF soldiers

A preliminary military investigation following the Hezbollah attack on Israeli military jeeps near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday revealed that terrorists with the Lebanese Shi’ite group launched anti-tank missiles from a distance of at least four kilometers.
The military vehicles travelled on a civilian road in the village of Ghajar two kilometers away from the border when they came under a heavy Hezbollah ambush, consisting of five to six Kornet missiles, a senior army source said. He estimated that the attackers were four to five kilometers away from the vehicles.
A military D-max vehicle was the first vehicle hit in the attack, prompting all of those inside an IDF jeep behind it to quickly evacuate the vehicle before it too was hit with missiles. The subsequent injuries came from military vehicles nearby.
The source stressed that the vehicles travelled on a road used jointly by military and civilian traffic, and that civilian cars were also in the vicinity of the attack. One house in the village was also struck by a missile in the attack.

IDF Blog: What is UN Resolution 1701 & Why is it Important?

The international community, through the UN Security Council, has demanded multiple times that Hezbollah disarm. Instead, Hezbollah has continually ignored these demands. They ignored UN Resolution 1701, which called for a zone free of armed personnel besides the army of Lebanon. They ignored UN Resolution 1559 and the Lebanese Taif Agreement, which ended the Lebanese Civil War and called for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. Hezbollah clearly shows it has no intention of ever laying down its arms.
Yesterday, January 28, Hezbollah fired five anti-tank missiles at a military vehicles near Mt. Dov in northern Israel, killing two soldiers and injuring seven others. Maj. Gen. Luciano Portolano, Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) strongly condemned the serious violation of Resolution 1701 of the Security Council.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Calls on Security Council to ‘Unequivocally’ Condemn Hezbollah

In a letter to UN Security Council President Cristián Barros Melet, Ambassador Ron Prosor said that “for years, Hezbollah has been stockpiling weapons in Southern Lebanon in violation of Security Council resolution 1701. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah regularly threatens Israel and his terrorist organization took responsibility for this morning’s attack. Hezbollah has the military capabilities, it has made its intentions clear, and this morning we saw the results.”
Resolution 1701, passed in August 2006 after Hezbollah launched its last war against Israel, demands “the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that…there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State.”
“The international community cannot ignore the threat any longer,” Prosor asserted. “Israel will not stand by as Hezbollah targets Israelis. Israel will not accept any attacks on its territory and it will exercise its right to self-defense and take all necessary measures to protect its population.”
Prosor ended his letter by urging the Security Council “to unequivocally and publicly condemn Hezbollah. The terrorist organization must be disarmed and the Government of Lebanon must abide by its international commitments and fully implement Security Council resolution 1701.”

Israeli UN Ambassador Not Invited to Discussion on Attack

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting late Wednesday night to discuss a flareup in violence between Israel and Lebanese terror group Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Along with IDF soldiers Major Yochai Kalengel and Sgt. Dor Nini, who were killed when Hezbollah fired antitank missiles at two IDF vehicles, a Spanish UNIFIL peacekeeper was killed in Israel's retaliatory fire.
During the meeting - to which Israel was cordially not invited - the UN Security Council discussed the implications of the attack.
On Wednesday, the Spanish Ambassador to the UN blamed Israel for the death of the soldier. While an investigation is ongoing, it is likely that the soldier died in an IDF response to the Hezbollah terror attack.
"It is clear that this was because of the escalation of the violence and it came from the Israeli side," Spanish Ambassador Roman Oyarzun told reporters, according to the AFP news agency.
Oyarzun was referring to Israel's elimination last week of Jihad Mughniyeh, said to be Hezbollah's “commander of the Golan Heights area,” along with a crew of Hezbollah terrorists, and Iranian general Abu Ali Tabtabai, as they were touring the Golan border area with the intention of planning terror attacks against Israel.

UNIFIL Confirms ‘Rocket Fired From Lebanon First, Israel Retaliated’

The Spanish Ministry of Defense has confirmed that rockets were fired first from Lebanon, provoking Israel into a defensive attack.
“At the moment we are still looking into the causes of the event,” Andrea Tenenti, UNIFIL spokesman in Lebanon, told The Spain Report by telephone. “What I can say is that today there were rockets launched from Lebanon into Israel, and the Israeli forces began retaliatory fire. Major General Portolano (UNIFIL commander) was immediately in contact with both parties to prevent further escalation.”
Spanish Army Corporal Francisco Javier Soria Toledo, 36, was killed during the clash while on patrol for UNIFIL. The corporal, who was born in Andalusia, was married and assigned to a mechanized infantry regiment after enlisting in 2004. His unit has participated in UNIFIL in southern Lebanon since November 2014. The soldier’s position when he was killed was not released.

Will an eye for an eye suffice?

Further evidence of Hezbollah’s desire to draw blood but not spark a war came in the nature of the attack: it was not, as initially feared, an abduction operation. The mortar fire on the Hermon was not part of a deception. The attack was launched from a distance at an army convoy.
An abduction, a strike on a school bus, a city, a village: all of those would have signaled a desire to drag Israel into an all-out war.
Instead, as Orit Perlov of the INSS think tank noted on Twitter, “it was symmetrical eye 4 eye.”
And yet, clearly, the situation is flammable. Israel has convened the brass of the IDF’s General Staff and the security cabinet. Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, a cabinet member, called for “a change in Israel’s approach up until now,” saying that the Israeli response should be “very harsh and disproportionate.”
The options that the army fans out, and the approach chosen by the cabinet, will decide, within the coming hours, if Israel is headed toward de-escalation or war.

Hezbollah not interested in escalation, UN tells Israel

Israel said on Thursday it received a message from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that it was backing away from further violence, a day after the worst deadly clashes in years erupted along the border.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Israel had received a message from a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon that Hezbollah was not interested in further escalation.
"Indeed, a message was received," he said. "There are lines of coordination between us and Lebanon via UNIFIL (the UN force) and such a message was indeed received from Lebanon."
In Beirut, Hezbollah officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Ten Lessons Learned by Hezbollah From Israel’s Summer War in Gaza

Highlighted by recent skirmishes on the Israeli-Lebanese and Israeli-Syrian borders, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are high, and the possibility of a more sustained outbreak of violence, intentional or not, is becoming increasingly likely.
Below is a list of the top ten lessons Hezbollah likely learned from Operation Protective Edge, as well as what can be expected from them as a result, in a future conflict with Israel. Hezbollah is now significantly more battle hardened as its fighters have been engaged in deadly fighting in Syria for years. Pre-occupied with fighting in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, it is not interested in another conflict with Israel at the moment. Yet it is willing to open another front with Israel if it deems such a move necessary to improve its deterrence, rally its base, or otherwise defend its core interests. Expect the next round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah to be much bloodier, with more unintended consequences than previous conflicts with the Jewish state.

Canada Backs Israel’s Battle Against Hezbollah Terror

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird issued a strong statement of support for Israel Wednesday night, roundly condemning Hezbollah’s attack on the north after a recent trip to the Jewish State.
“Canada condemns the assault by Hezbollah on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that tragically killed two IDF members. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of those lost and injured,” Baird said, noting that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon also suffered a loss as a result of Hezbollah terror.
“Canada also extends its condolences to the family and friends of the Spanish UN peacekeeper killed in the exchange.
“Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, is a brutal terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel. Canada fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself by itself,” he said, criticizing the “destructive force” of Iran and directly accusing the Islamic Republic of intent to wipe out Israel.

US says Hezbollah 'in blatant violation' of UN resolutions

The United States "strongly condemned" Hezbollah's rocketing of Israeli territory on Wednesday with anti-tank munitions, killing two IDF soldiers and wounding seven others.
"The United States strongly condemns Hezbollah’s attack today on Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) near the border between Lebanon and Israel," said Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, "in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701."
"We don’t have information on what munitions were used by Hezbollah," Vasquez added, when asked for comment on Hezbollah's alleged use of sophisticated anti-tank, Russian-made Kornet rockets.
On Tuesday, the State Department warned against "escalation" on Israel's northern border, after Syrian positions fired into the Golan Heights. The Israeli air force returned fire on Syrian Army positions overnight.

EU calls for halt to attacks against Israel's northern border

The European Union called on Hezbollah and any other group to stop attacking Israel along its northern border warning that such violence threatened to break the 2006 cease-fire with Israel.
“The threats to Israel on its Northern border must stop,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Wednesday.
She spoke after Hezbollah hit two Israeli military vehicles with anti-tank missiles, killing two IDF soldiers and wounding seven on the Israeli side of the Lebanese border, near the village of Ghajar.
“The attacks on the Lebanese-Israeli border are undermining the cessation of hostilities established by UNSC Resolution 1701 and the peace building efforts along the Blue Line [a UN border demarcation set in 2000]," she said.
Mogherini called for an immediate end to all violence, which she warned could be detrimental to the region.

Lebanese rebuke Hezbollah for dragging country into clash

Former president Michel Sleiman said Beirut should avoid being dragged into the conflict, which he said was only being waged to score points for Israel’s ruling Likud party ahead of parliamentary elections.
“Where is Lebanon’s interest in being dragged into a war that Israel needs? Netanyahu, for domestic electoral reasons and due to his clear alliance with US President Barack Obama, is trying to cause Lebanon to violate [UN Security Council Resolution] 1701 and initiate battles from which Israel stands to gain,” he wrote on Facebook.
Hezbollah’s attack on an Israeli patrol in the northern Mount Dov region along the border came amid a deep political crisis in Lebanon.
Caretaker Prime Minister Tammam Salam bemoaned the political stalemate preventing Lebanese national elections in an interview with Al-Akhbar daily Wednesday, as his term in office nears the one year mark in February. Disagreements between Hezbollah and Saad Hariri’s March 14 Alliance have left the country without a president for the past seven months.
He also accused Israel of sparking a “dangerous escalation.”

Lebanese Christian Leader Slams Hezbollah for Attack on Israel

Samir Geagea, a prominent Lebanese Christian leader and senior figure in the country’s anti-Hezbollah political alliance, denounced Hezbollah’s attack on Israel on Wednesday.
“Today’s development indicates that Hezbollah is more and more expanding its regional schemes against the Lebanese state,” Geagea said, Lebanon’s Daily Star reported.
“Hezbollah has no right to implicate the Lebanese people in a battle with Israel,” he added. “There is a government and a parliament which can decide on that.”

Lebanese Celebrate IDF Deaths With Candy

Hezbollah suppporters pass out sweets to passing motorists to celebrate the deaths of IDF soldiers in an attack on northern Israel.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah supporters passed out candy Wednesday to celebrate the killing of two IDF soldiers and wounding of seven others by the terror organization in an attack on northern Israel earlier in the day.
A photo of the happy Lebanese citizens offering sweets to passing motorists was posted on the Twitter social networking site by the Middle East News outlet.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups praise Hezbollah attack

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that Hezbollah “has the right to respond to Israeli occupation, especially following the last aggression on Syria.”
Abu Zuhri was referring to an air strike on the Syrian side of the Golan, which killed a number of Hezbollah and Iranian operatives.
Hamas representatives in Lebanon issued a statement welcoming the Hezbollah attack. The statement described the attack as a “natural response to recurring Zionist aggressions.”
The Islamic Jihad organization’s armed wing, al-Quds Brigades, praised the “blessed” Hezbollah attack, saying it would “deepen the crisis” in the IDF.
Islamic Jihad leader Khaled al-Batsh said that the attack came as a “shock” to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF commanders.
The attack, he added, is a “natural response to the crimes of the enemy.”
Two other Palestinian groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, also welcomed the Hezbollah attack and called for stepping up the resistance against Israel.

U.S. Must Connect the Dots Between Iran Talks and Hezbollah Violence

The border violence is generally being reported as part of a tit-for-tat exchange between Hezbollah and Israel. Today’s incident, in which anti-tank shells were fired at Israeli vehicles travelling on a civilian road from three miles away inside Lebanon, is seen by many as retaliation for Israel’s strike at a Hezbollah missile base inside Syria last week in which, among others, an Iranian general was killed. Iran has warned Israel that it would retaliate and it is thought that today is proof that they meant what they said.
But there is more to this than the need for Hezbollah to do the bidding of its Iranian paymasters or even for it to gain revenge for the death of the terrorists slain with Tehran’s ballistic missile expert, one of whom was the son of a slain commander of the group. The point of setting up that base in Syria, near the Golan Heights, was to create a launching pad to hit the Jewish state without bringing down the wrath of the Israel Defense Forces on Lebanon, as was the case during the 2006 war that was set off by similar cross-border raids. But the reason why Hezbollah and Iran were so interested in strengthening their ability to rain down destruction on Israeli civilian targets is that Tehran sees itself as being locked in a permanent war with Israel as well as with Arab states in the region.
This is more than obvious to anyone who pays the slightest attention to Iranian policy as well as its use of terrorists to advance its policy goals. Hezbollah is an arm of Iranian foreign policy as proved by its use as shock troops in the effort to preserve the rule of Tehran’s ally Bashar Assad in Syria.

Video shows Hezbollah Brigades convoy transporting American M1 tank

A video uploaded to YouTube appears to show a large Hezbollah Brigades convoy transporting weapons, troops, and armored vehicles to the front to fight the Islamic State.
Several American-made military vehicles, including an M1 Abrams tank, M113 armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP), as well as Iranian-made Safir 4x4s and technicals (armed pickup trucks) are in the convoy.
The Hezbollah Brigades is US-designated foreign terrorist organization that has been involved in killing American soldiers in Iraq.
At one point in the video, a transport truck is shown carrying an M1 Abrams tank. The Hezbollah Brigades' flag is flying over the tank and other US-made vehicles. The M1, which is the main battle tank of the US Army, has been sold to and utilized by the Iraqi Army.
The screen shot above marks the first evidence of Iranian-backed militias having M1 tanks at their disposal. It is unclear if the Hezbollah Brigades seized the M1 from an Iraqi Army unit that dissolved in the face of the Islamic State's onslaught, or if the Iraqi military gave the militia the tank. Several Iraqi M1s have been photographed after being destroyed by the Islamic State.

Patchy BBC reporting on Hizballah attacks in northern Israel

Just before 1 p.m. on January 27th incoming missiles from Syria triggered air-raid sirens in the northern Golan Heights. Local residents took cover in their air-raid shelters and over a thousand visitors to the Mount Hermon ski resort had to be quickly evacuated. At least two projectiles were determined to have landed in Israeli territory and the IDF responded with artillery fire directed at the launch site in Syria and later on in the evening with strikes on Syrian army artillery posts. Both Israeli and foreign sources attributed the missile fire to Hizballah acting from Syrian army positions.
Despite at least one of its journalists in the region being aware of the incident, the BBC News website elected not to report those events at the time.
A day later – Wednesday, January 28th – an additional incident took place when Hizballah conducted a cross-border attack in the Har Dov area, firing anti-tank missiles at Israeli army vehicles. Mortars were also fired at an IDF position on Mount Hermon and reportedly at the village of Ghajar. Two soldiers were killed and seven wounded. Israel responded with artillery and air strikes.
In the BBC News website’s report on those events – originally headlined “Israeli soldiers wounded in Lebanon border attack” and later retitled “Israel fires into Lebanon after attack on troops”, followed by “Israel fires shells into Lebanon after attack on troops” and then “UN peacekeeper killed after Hezbollah-Israel clash” – the previous day’s events were described in one sentence.

Israeli Minister: ‘Only Europe Gives Us a Hard Time,’ EU Doesn’t Understand Terrorist Threat

Europeans are the only ones being difficult and not understanding the terrorist threat Israel faces, an Israeli minister told Daniel Hannan, a British member of the European Parliament, last week.
“It’s only Europe that gives us a hard time,” said the Israeli minister. “Yesterday, I had the Canadian foreign minister sitting where you’re sitting now. I had a cross-party delegation from the US Senate. I had ministers from India and Japan. All of them understood that Israel was facing a terrorist threat. But the EU starts from the assumption that we’re in the wrong. Why?”
Hannan revealed his conversation with the unnamed Israeli minister in a piece he wrote for the Washington Examiner, which was published on Monday. The Israeli official was only identified as a “Likud minister.”
In the article, titled, “Why Israel rankles Europeans so much,” Hannan tries to answer the Israeli minister’s question and says “one thing above all” makes Europe different: The EU’s ruling ideology of “supra-nationalism.”
“[EU] founders detested the national principle, which they regarded as one step away from fascism and war. They were wrong: The misalignment of national units with state frontiers is arguably the chief cause of conflict in the world, from Chechnya to Kashmir, from Sri Lanka to South Sudan,” Hannan explained. “But they sincerely believed that national loyalties were irrational, transient and dangerous, as do their successors today.”

Joel Pollak: The speech Netanyahu should give Congress

The speech that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver to a special joint session of the US Congress in March will be the most important address by an Israeli leader in the history of the Jewish state.
With Iranian soldiers literally on Israel’s borders, and the Iranian regime closer than ever to a nuclear weapon, plus the renewed danger of Islamist terror at home and abroad, there has never been a more important time to make Israel’s case – wherever it can be heard.
Much ink has been spilled over the controversial circumstances in which Netanyahu was invited. Those who fault Netanyahu for accepting Speaker of the House John Boehner’s invitation tend to overlook the extent to which President Barack Obama has deliberately undermined relations both with Congress and with Israel.
Far better for Netanyahu to have this opportunity to plead Israel’s case now, before war with Iran, than to follow the Ukrainian president in beseeching Congress to send help after his country has already lost.
Regardless, there is no sense in canceling the speech now. Such indecision by Netanyahu on the world stage would have real geopolitical consequences.

Jeffrey Goldberg's libel

Regarding Iran, as with talks with the Palestinians, the root of the dispute between the Israeli government and the Left, both in Israel and around the world, is the question of whether to believe the other side or not. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not believe the other side, and neither does most of the Israeli public. We are fed up with this laboratory experiment called the peace process.
But Jeffrey Goldberg does believe the other side. So for Goldberg, an effort by Netanyahu to influence Congress against President Barack Obama's position represents a terrible threat.
Netanyahu is not seeking to alienate the Democratic Party. Rather, he is committed to Israel's ongoing existence, even if this means friction and disagreements with the Obama administration.
Here is Goldberg's logic: Because Israel is dependent on the U.S., Netanyahu must pay Obama to be able to influence the agreement with the Iranians. How to pay Obama? By "advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process."
Ah, Israel must abandon its future on one front so as to save itself on another. Under the current circumstances, a Palestinian state is no less dangerous than an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Boehner: Obama Administration Has Deep Antipathy for Netanyahu

Boehner raised eyebrows last week when he announced that Netanyahu had accepted his invitation to address a rare joint session of Congress early this year – an invitation extended without consulting Democratic leaders in Congress or the White House.
Boehner defended the action, saying Congress has every right, as a separate branch of government, to operate without the administration's input.
When asked by Baier if the Obama administration harbors a deep antipathy against Prime Minister Netanyahu, Boehner answered in the affirmative.
"Of course," he said, "they don't even try to hide it."
Boehner stressed that he has no regrets over his invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress, but added he is not surprised by the pushback and criticism he's received for the move.

Watchdog Slams Use of American Taxpayer Funds to Finance Anti-Netanyahu Campaign

The head of Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor has blasted the US State Department for funding an Israeli election campaign aimed at ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointing out that this is not the first time that US taxpayer funds have been used to finance organizations on the Israeli left.
“US State Department funding provided to this ostensibly non-governmental organization is another example of the lack of due diligence and accountability in the dispersion of taxpayer funding,” Professor Gerald Steinberg, whose organization tracks foreign funding of radical NGOs in Israel, told The Algemeiner. Steinberg was responding to reports that OneVoice International, which describes itself as an “international grassroots movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis and Palestinians,” and which has received two grants from State over the last year, is working with an Israeli group, V15, in an anti-Netanyahu campaign ahead of the Israeli elections in March.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, which broke the story, former Obama aides are also involved in the campaign. However, OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler told the paper that “no government funding has gone toward any of the activities we’re doing right now whatsoever” – though she added that her group had used the State Department grants to “build public campaign support for the [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations” launched by Secretary of State John Kerry last spring.

White House embarrasses itself with claim Taliban is not a terrorist group

While the White House is keen to pretend as though the War on Terror is over, the Cold War is ancient history, and the War on Poverty has been a glittering success, there is one war that the administration continues to prosecute vigorously: A war on the English language.
During the White House daily press briefing on Wednesday, Deputy Press Sec. Eric Schultz was asked why, if the administration opposes its allies negotiating with ISIS for the mutual release of captives, that it routinely enters into negotiations with the Taliban. The dissembling response that followed is stranger than fiction.
Schultz protested that the controversial prisoner swap in May of 2014, when Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was retrieved from Taliban custody in exchange for five ranking Taliban commanders held prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, was a traditional element of all concluding wars. ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl observed, however, that the Taliban is still conducting “terrorist attacks” both during and after hostage swap negotiations.
“I would also point out that the Taliban is an armed insurgency. ISIL is a terrorist group,” Schultz said. “So we don’t make concessions to terrorist groups.”

'Israeli who joined Syria al-Qaida group was urged to return and carry out attacks on Jewish state'

Security forces arrested an Israeli Arab resident of Kfar Yassif on suspicion of fighting with radical rebels in Syria, including Jabhat Al-Nusra, al-Qaida's official branch in Syria.
The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) named the suspect as Amin Ahmed Salah Snobar, 24, who was arrested on January 2 at Ben Gurion Airport after returning from Syria via Turkey.
During questioning, the ISA said, Snobar confessed to leaving Israel for Turkey on July 7, 2014, and continuing on to Syria to join the rebels fighting the Assad regime.
According to an indictment filed on Thursday, jihadi elements in Syria urged him to return to Israel and carry out terrorist attacks from within the country.
Snobar allegedly arrived at a Syrian base belonging to the Ansar Al-Sham rebel group, and later spent time at the headquarters of Jabhat Al-Nusra as well, undergoing military training with both organizations.
The ISA said Snobar received weapons and bomb making training, as well as undergoing physical fitness programs, before taking on missions on behalf of the organizations.

IEC Finally to Shut Off Power to PA Over Debt

The Israel Electric Company said Wednesday that it would shut off power to some communities in the Palestinian Authority this week, unless the PA paid off its enormous debt. According to IEC officials, the PA owes it over NIS 1.8 billion ($450 million).
The IEC has long tried to collect its money, with the PA adamantly refusing to pay, saying that various agreements with Israel qualify it for free electricity. The IEC has tried to sue the PA, and to collect its debts via the cash Israel transfers to the PA. Both approaches have been rebuffed by the courts.
In order not to exacerbate tensions, shutting off the power to the PA was always seen as a last resort – and the IEC said Wednesday that at this point the company had reached that last resort. Instead of shutting off the power altogether, the IEC would limit electricity flows to the PA. “Hopefully a solution will be found” as a result – and if one isn't found, the company will take more drastic steps.

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 1/29/2015 12:00:00 PM

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