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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

It isn't just Arab leaders who are leaning to Israel - the people are, too.

A tweet by Avi Mayer:

Over 23,000 of al-Kasim's followers voted in this poll.

Obviously, it is not a scientific poll, and there would be bias towards al-Kasim's own opinions if they are pro-Israel (I have no idea if they are.) But it is still astonishing that Arabs prefer Israel over their fellow Muslims by such a margin..



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When does diplomacy mean naivete? US outreach to Gaza, 2008



There is an amazing page at the US Consulate General in Jerusalem site:

American Corner Gaza

The American Corner in Gaza is located in Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, Gaza. The American Corner in Gaza was launched in May 2006.

Purpose of the American Corner

The goal of the American Corner is to share the story of the United States with friends, maintain an open dialogue on issues of mutual concern, and build bridges of understanding. Through the American Corner in Gaza, the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem and the Palestinian people are able to share information, experiences, and events. The Consulate and American Corner-Gaza’s very active director work closely together to develop a range of cultural, academic, and capacity-building programs to host at the American Corner. Since its opening in May 2006, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem has provided a wide collection of American books, movies, and posters, as well as IT equipment, to the American Corner in Gaza.

Programs

In 2008 American Corner Gaza held 21 events. These events included DVCs on a wide variety of topics, including non-violent approaches to conflict resolution, the Civil Rights Movement, Arab-American activism, the 2008 Elections, and a discussion and jam session with the American Jazz legend Branford Marsalis. The American Corner in Gaza also offered English Language classes for non-English majors and a video-based, conversational English language and American culture class for English majors, Poetry readings, Movie-screenings, Presentations and discussions led by alumni of US programs, and a series of in-house lectures on American literature, as well as a Ramadan Iftar and a Jeopardy-style U.S election game.

Somehow, after hearing American poetry and jazz and learning about non-violent approaches to conflict resolutions, Gaza still descended into the hellhole it is now where violence is considered the best way to solve any issue.

What were the goals of this American Corner? What exactly was it meant to do?

And the Jerusalem consulate does very similar programs throughout the West Bank. What does it accomplish? Who gets converted to American style thinking? Where is even one "success" story?

It is more than a little bizarre.

(h/t Irene)





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Parts of Trump Middle East plan supposedly leaked



Asharq al Awsat that French diplomats have leaked parts of the peace plan that Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt supposedly are drafting for the White House.

According to the leaks, Washington  intends to present its plan within the framework of an international conference held in one of the Arab capitals, most likely in Egypt, with Israel attending.

The plan supposedly says that Washington and other countries can recognize the state of Palestine and do not exclude East Jerusalem as its capital if Jerusalem is under some sort of "international jurisdiction."

The plan is supposed to provide for Palestinians in Arab countries to be naturalized citizens and be compensated, but there would be no "right of return."

There would be a sovereign, demilitarized Palestinian state, but not on the 1967 lines. The Jordan Valley would remain under Israeli control. Some settlements would be dismantled.

The plan did not say anything about larger settlements far from the Green Line.

In return, the PA will have additional security and administrative powers in Areas A and B, and Washington plans to raise $40 billion "not to buy Palestinian acceptance but to help build state and Palestinian institutions."

Border security in the Gaza Strip will be assigned to the Egyptian side, according to the leaked plan.

This plan is largely in line with Israeli demands for peace, and seems unlikely to get any traction unless the US convinces Arab governments and the EU to support it, which seems unlikely since it violates a number of Palestinian red lines and EU positions.

The news story says that an Arab ministerial delegation which recently visited Brussels and met with its European counterparts has been briefed on this information. The Arab ministerial delegation included the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the PA, as well as the Secretary General of the Arab League, as we reported previously.

It is possible that the leak was engineered to elicit Palestinian anger and to quash it ahead of any conference.

Something like this, if true, would be a long shot under any circumstances, and it would require incredible diplomatic finesse that seems unlikely to come from this administration.


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Tuesday, February 27, 2018

An IDF joke for Purim

Just saw this on a Hebrew website:
----------------------

Two officers lost their personal weapons one day.

After searching and not finding them, they decide to judge each other.

They arrange a room with a flag to serve as a courtroom, and start the trial.
.
The first officer who serves as a judge asks the other, "Do you plead guilty?"

"I do," replies the "defendant."

"If so," says the judge, "I will give you a severe rebuke on your personal file."

They change roles and the officer who is tried becomes a judge.

The second officer "judge" asks, "Do you plead guilty?"

"I do" replies the other officer.

"If so," the judge says, "I am sentencing you to three years' imprisonment."

"How can that be?" asks the defendant. "After all, you got only a rebuke."

The judge answers, "Yes, but this is the second time it has happened in your unit ..."
------------------------

While it is funny, the joke's very existence proves the morality of the IDF, where it is expected that losing a weapon would bring one to court, and where multiple offenses per unit are considered serious.


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02/27 Links Pt2: How the Left Became its Own Worst Enemy; Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray; Honoring Yoni Netanyahu; Guardian 'Sat on Charity Sex Abuse Scandal Stories'

From Ian:
How the Left Became its Own Worst Enemy – Part I
One subtle shift has been the emergence of political correctness, a form of Cultural Marxism (the theory that culture more than politics drives inequality between races and classes in Western societies). Political correctness started as a reasonable exercise to protect vulnerable members of society -- blacks, women, Jews, gays, the disabled -- from offensive speech and action but ended as a modern totalitarianism that blocks free speech and open debate on just about everything.

Today's youth, particularly on university campuses, have adopted ways of thinking and behaving that contradict all the ideas that were the fundamentals of classic liberalism. There are many examples, but the one that stands out above the rest is support for radical Islam and hard-line Muslims.

The most famous instance in the UK was Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's embrace of members of the terror outfits Hamas and Hezbollah, which he described as his "friends". It took him until the summer of 2016 to say that he regretted his engagement with the terrorists.

In several European countries, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and parts of Italy, governments have banned fully or in part the wearing of the Islamic veil; above all, the niqab and burqa, the full-face forms. One might have thought that Western feminists would be in the vanguard of such movements, as it could not be clearer that Islamic law oppresses women far more than ever happened in the West. A British Muslim physician, Qanta Ahmed, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown have openly and repeatedly called for the abolition of all forms of veiling. Muslim women reformers across entire the Islamic world have called for an end to veils of all kinds.[1] In Iran this year, young women have been demonstrating on the streets without their compulsory hijabs, and at least 29 have been arrested as the regime clamps down again.
Joe Rogan Experience #1084 - Douglas Murray (NSFW)


Caroline Glick: What America Can Learn from Israeli Gun Laws
When mass shootings take plan in the U.S., commentators routinely raise Israel as a case study to prove that guns in the hands of citizens save lives.

Israel, with its long and painful history of contending with terrorism, is rich with examples that prove this contention. In recent years, armed citizens have stopped dozens of terrorists. In some cases, those citizens acted when cowardly police officers shrank from danger.

For instance, on March 6, 2008, a terrorist disguised as a delivery man entered the Merkaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem with an assault rifle hidden in a television box. He opened fire on students studying in the library.

Two beat cops arrived on the scene but failed to enter the building to stop the killing.

In the event, a seminary student armed with a handgun, and an off duty infantry officer who lived in the neighborhood, heard the shots and ran to the seminary. The student, a young rabbi, was armed with a handgun; the officer was carrying his assault rifle. Both men ignored the police officers who told them not to go inside. They entered the building and killed the terrorist, ending the massacre. By the time they arrived, eight students, including five high school students, had been killed, while eight more were wounded.

The most recent Palestinian terror campaign, which lasted more or less from October 2015 through April 2016, showed the need for an armed citizenry. In two major attacks in Tel Aviv, the terrorists, armed with rifles were able to kill at will for several minutes because none of the civilians at the sites of the attacks were armed.

In contrast, terror attacks in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, which took place during the same period, were repeatedly stopped at their outset by armed civilians who ran to the scene within moments.

In response to the public outcry, Public Security Minister Glad Erdan slightly loosened restrictions on eligibility for gun licenses and encouraged citizens with gun licenses to carry their weapons wherever they go.

Erdan’s move to loosen restrictions on eligibility for gun permits shone a light on an aspect of Israeli life of which foreigners are largely unaware.



Shmuley Boteach: Honoring Yoni Netanyahu
Israel’s 70th birthday will be celebrated in a few weeks, and to commemorate this momentous anniversary, my organization will be presenting the World Values Network’s Second Annual Elie Wiesel Award — posthumously — to Yoni Netanyahu.

We chose Yoni because we wanted to recognize someone who symbolized the best values of the Jewish people — courage, humility and sacrifice. Yoni exemplified all three. He also represents the thousands of Israelis who gave their lives to protect the Jewish people in Israel and abroad.

Yoni Netanyahu was born in New York City on March 13, 1946, the son of Benzion and Cela — who had moved to the United States to work for the New Zionist Organization. After Israel’s independence, the Netanyahus returned to Israel, where Yoni’s brothers Benjamin and Iddo were born.

There was no assurance that they would have a state to live in — because five Arab states attacked the newly-declared nation on the day of its Declaration of Independence. Israel’s military leaders thought their chances were at best 50-50, and American defense experts thought those odds were overly optimistic.

But the Jews prevailed against those odds because they knew victory was the only option. The Arabs had made clear their objective when the secretary-general of the Arab League declared: “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.”
How Israel and America Worked Together During the Cold War
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Middle East served as a combat testing ground for Soviet military doctrine and advanced weaponry. But the experience amassed by Israel in its wars against the Egyptian, Syrian, and Iraqi armies — who were trained by Soviet advisers and equipped with Soviet weapons — provided the US military with operational lessons; information about new Israeli technologies to neutralize the Soviet weaponry; and direct access to Soviet weapons systems captured by Israel.

Within this framework:
  • In 1966, an Iraqi pilot defected to Israel in a MiG-21 fighting aircraft.
  • After the June 1967 War, Israel transferred to the US a SA-2 surface-to-air-missile battery seized by the IDF.
  • In August 1968, two Syrian MiG-17s landed by mistake in a Galilee landing site.
  • In December 1969, during the Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition, Israeli paratroopers raided an Egyptian radar station in Ras Gharib, near the western shore of the Gulf of Suez, bringing back an advanced radar unit of the P-12 model.
  • According to Professor Yuval Neeman, who, during the Yom Kippur War attended meetings of the cabinet and the IDF General Staff, Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon’s division seized (on October 18) a complete Egyptian SA-6 surface-to-air-missile battery.
  • Similarly, during the 1967 and 1973 wars, the IDF seized over a thousand Egyptian and Syrian T-54 and T-55 tanks. A large number of T-62 tanks, some of them intact, were captured on the Syrian front during the 1973 war.
  • In his book Red Flag over the Mediterranean (2017), Pesach Malovany noted that during the 1982 Lebanon war, Israel reportedly obtained unknown information concerning the Russian T-72 tank.
  • Finally, in October 1989, a Syrian MiG-23 defected to Israel.

An especially valuable Israeli contribution, however, involved a mysterious intelligence episode related to an issue of existential significance for the US: the Soviet nuclear threat to the American homeland, and, indeed, to the survival of the Western world as a whole.
War or peace? IDF brass debated the meaning of Sadat’s 1977 visit to Israel
The sequence of events leading to Israel’s landmark peace agreement with Egypt is, today, fairly well known: On November 19, 1977, then-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem and spoke in the Knesset; less than a year later, then-prime minister Menachem Begin met with Sadat at Camp David in the United States; and in 1979, Begin and Sadat met again on the White House lawn to sign the deal.

But on the morning of November 22, 1977, the IDF’s top generals were thoroughly flummoxed by the meaning of Sadat’s visit, picking apart the nuances of the words he used — and didn’t use — in his speech to the Knesset in an attempt to divine whether it was a true olive branch or an elaborate ruse ahead of a war.

The extent of the generals’ confusion can be clearly seen in previously top-secret transcripts of that November 22 meeting that were released for publication — with a few redactions — by the Defense Ministry archive on Sunday.

In the meeting, Mota Gur, the IDF chief of staff at the time, said the opinion shared with him by the political echelon following the speeches in the Knesset by Sadat and Begin was not one of optimism.

“What was the instruction that the chief of staff received from the Defense Ministry, from the members of the security cabinet, from many members of the Knesset? Get the emergency warehouse units ready for war,” Gur said, speaking of himself in the third person.

In their meeting, the generals debated the meaning of Sadat’s speech, if it had one at all.
Ryan Bellerose: Why I Am Not Going to AIPAC
First I am going to say this: I enjoy going to AIPAC. I get to hang out with my friends, talk about Zionist things with other actual Zionists face to face, and it’s nice to be around people where the default position is strong support of indigenous rights and Zionism.

But it’s the attendees who make AIPAC fun and worthwhile because frankly some of the people AIPAC brings in to speak, are not only counterproductive if you are building support for Israel, but frankly, I don’t even believe many of them are Zionists at all.

I was actually torn. I wanted to go, do some networking, talk about some projects I’m working on, spread the message of indigenous rights, listen to some of the speakers I respect, and attend the amazing Judea and Samaria event (which has easily become the highlight event of the conference). But I started crunching numbers and looking at who was speaking. I remembered being threatened that if I engaged the screaming protesters outside I would have my pass taken away, I remembered seeing J Street and other non Zionist speakers being given the stage, while actual Zionists are not. I saw how they marginalize any pro Judea and Samaria voices by not including them on panels that are about Judea and Samaria. How they pander to leftist and “progressive” voices, and I decided that since I am headed to Israel in a few months anyway, my money would be better spent in Israel where it will support actual Zionism, not this virtue signalling wannabe Zionism.
Sarah Silverman – we are not in Poland anymore
Funny she should bring up Poland. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

So here’s another Jewish American ready to teach the Israelis proper etiquette. This time it’s comedian Sarah Silverman, and she’s not joking on the matter of Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian Arab “teenager” being detained for trial for repeatedly provoking Israeli soldiers – and thinking it’s cute. Slapping is her specialty.

Silverman thinks it’s cute.

Along the Internet, Tamimi is described as “best known for appearances in images and videos in which she confronts Israeli soldiers.”

In other words, she does it for publicity. She does the filming to heap scorn. She does it to humiliate. The rest of her family does it differently. They commit murder.

Tamimi comes from a long line of killers and this clan has its fingerprints all over various atrocities, including the Sbarro Jerusalem restaurant massacre, 2001.

On cue from Amnesty Int’l, Silverman has rushed to Tamimi’s defense…and she’s doing so using Tamimi’s tactics – going public to yell injustice.
Antisemitic Images, Cartoons, Flood Polish Press as Holocaust Law Dispute Festers
Antisemitic images and cartoons continue to flood the Polish press, as the country’s right-wing nationalist media becomes increasingly angry with international opposition to new legislation that makes any discussion of Polish collusion with the Nazi occupation during World War II a criminal offense.

On Monday, the cover of Do Rzeczy — one of the Poland’s biggest and most influential news weeklies — showed the face of a cherubic Polish child wrapped in the colors of the national flag. The accompanying headline read, “Attack on Poland: How to stop this brutal wave?” with a Star of David superimposed over the word “Attack.”

A cartoon in the same magazine by artist Cezary Krysztopa openly invoked alleged Jewish responsibility for the massacres and deportations of Polish citizens by Soviet forces.

The cartoon showed a slumped figure wearing an armband in Polish national colors about to be executed by both a Nazi and a Soviet officer. However, the red star worn by the Russian figure is shaped as a Jewish Star of David, rather than the traditional, 5-pointed communist symbol.

Another ultranationalist magazine, Najwyższy Czas, descended into medieval antisemitism with a cartoon featuring a hook-nosed Jewish figure wearing sidelocks and a kippah.
Polish priest: Truth for Jews is whatever’s beneficial to them
Representatives of Polish Jews complained to the state watchdog on media over a public broadcaster’s airing of an interview with a priest who said Jews have a unique understanding of the concept of truth.

Henryk Zielinski, editor-in-chief of the Catholic weekly Idziemy, said this on Feb. 24 during an interview with TVP, according to the complaint that the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland filed on Monday with Poland’s National Council of Radio and Television.

Jews have “a completely different system of values, a different concept of truth,” Zielinski said. “For us, the truth corresponds to facts. For the Jew, truth means something that conforms to his understanding of what’s beneficial. If a Jew is religious, then truth means something God wants.”

In non-religious Jews, “the truth is subjective or whatever serves Israel’s interests,” he added. Zielinski cited the Haggadah — a text read by Jews at the Passover Seder, which contains the story of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. “Often these stories have nothing to do with facts,” noted the Catholic priest.

The interviewer, MichaÅ‚ Karnowski, did not contest Zielinski’s assertions, according to the complaint.
Envoy: Polish Holocaust law won’t be enforced without Israeli coordination
The controversial law outlawing public discussion of Poles’ collaboration with the Nazis will not be enforced in the near future, Polish Ambassador to Israel Jacek Chodorowicz told the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee on Monday.

“The Polish Justice Ministry committed to not enforcing the new law before there is an in-depth examination of all of its components, including a discussion with Israeli representatives,” Chodorowicz said.

The ambassador acknowledged that for the past month, Poland and Israel have been “in the eye of the storm,” but said the two countries have agreed to discuss the matter.
Israel urges Poland to change bill regarding its role in Nazi Holocaust, January 28, 2018 (Reuters)

“We will talk about the subject more quietly and peacefully. Too much has been said that was criticized by Israelis,” he stated.

Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee chairman Avraham Neguise (Likud) called for the law to be canceled immediately, and said the Foreign Ministry needs to take steps to fight Holocaust denial.

Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovski said, “You can legislate whatever you want, but no one can change history. We appreciate those who helped and saved Jewish lives, but there were also people who participated in the Jewish genocide, and no one has a right to say anything else. It pains me... that there are many who can no longer tell the story of what happened to them.”
Polish Antisemitism
The disturbing trend of antisemitism in Poland is nothing new, and unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be getting any better. Here's what happened:


Dutch groups cancel speeches by Palestinian ex-terrorist
Following protests over the planned speech in the Netherlands by a Palestinian ex-terrorist, two organizations that had intended to host her cancelled their invitations for her to speak.

A labor association for Turkish immigrants, HTIB, told De Telegraaf on Tuesday that it is bowing out of hosting Rasmea Odeh this week. HTIB Chairperson Mustafa Ayranci said this following the publication of a report that called into question the move, in light of HTIB’s receiving state subsidies.

HTIB had volunteered to host Rasmea after Amsterdam’s Nasau Church rescinded its invitation to Odeh, who is visiting the Netherlands as the guest of two Marxist groups, Anakbayan-Europe and Revolutionary Unity.

She spent 10 years in an Israeli prison for her role in a 1969 bombing attack at a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two Hebrew University students, Leon Kanner and Eddie Joffe. Israel jailed Odeh for life, but she was released in a prisoner exchange with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1980 and immigrated to the United States from Jordan. She has said her confession to the bombing was the result of severe torture by Israeli security forces.

Odeh obtained her U.S. immigrant visa in 1994 and her citizenship in 2004. In both applications, she failed to disclose her arrest and convictions in the bombings. She pleaded guilty to falsifying her immigration applications and was deported to Jordan in September.
Opposition leader Herzog asks EU event to disinvite BDS head
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog asked a European Union parliament member to rescind an invitation to the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, Omar Barghouti, to speak at an event on ‘The Israeli Settlements in Palestine and the European Union" set for Wednesday at the EU parliament in Brussels.

Barghouti was invited by Ana Maria Gomes, a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament and a former diplomat. Herzog wrote Gomes that giving a stage to Barghouti undermined efforts to advance Middle East peace and help the Palestinian people.

"On the basis of my commitment to a peaceful two state solution, I am deeply concerned by your plans to include BDS activist Omar Barghouti in your event," Herzog wrote Gomes. "The BDS movement promotes an extreme and entirely one-sided position. This movement not only promotes unjust discrimination against Israel and its citizens, but its supporters unashamedly call for dismantling Israel and replacing it with a single Arab majority state. This is against the policies and values of the EU and its members, and in opposition to the preferences of a majority of Israelis and Palestinians who favor a two state solution."

Herzog wrote Gomes that BDS is an ineffective tool for promoting Palestinian rights in the West Bank. He explained that boycotts targeting settlement industries in particular hurt those they claim to support, because tens of thousands of Palestinians rely on these industries for their livelihood, enjoying salaries and benefits far greater than average Palestinian incomes.

He added that BDS activities in Europe harm primarily European Jews, who are frequently confronted by attempts to intimidate and ostracize those who wish to engage and identity with Israel. Herzog wrote that BDS activities have become platforms for legitimizing outright expressions of antisemitism.

"For Israelis and Palestinians who want to promote peace, BDS is a hindrance, since it undermines moderates who want to build bridges of understanding and find solutions that address the legitimate national rights of both peoples," Herzog wrote. "In addition, any association of the EU with BDS undermines its credibility in the eyes of Israelis as a balanced third party."


Knesset advances bill banning Breaking the Silence from schools
The Knesset has given initial approval to legislation that would grant the Education Ministry the authority to ban organizations deemed as acting against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from entering schools.

The proposed amendment to the State Education Law, initiated by MK Shuli Mualem-Rafaeli (Habayit Hayehudi) passed a first reading on Monday by a vote of 35 in favor and 23 opposed.

The bill seeks to grant the education minister “the authority to prohibit individuals or organizations that are not part of the education system from engaging in activities within an education institution when the nature of the activity undermines the goals of the state education system or one that works to harm IDF soldiers who are a consensus in Israeli society.”

It further proposes to add to the goals of the state education system the education for a meaningful service in the IDF or national service.

The bill will mainly target organizations such as Breaking the Silence and other extreme left-wing NGOs and will prevent them from speaking or entering schools.
Guardian 'Sat on Charity Sex Abuse Scandal Stories'
The Guardian sat on stories from charity sex abuse victims, according to claims made by an industry insider. An ‘overseas aid expert’ writing under a pseudonym told the OpenDemocracy website:
“Why didn’t the complainants go to somewhere like the Guardian? They did.

“These victims are not typical Mail and Telegraph readers and they understood that a story about a lack of accountability in an aid organization will likely be followed in those newspapers by calls for less foreign aid. None of the victims support that goal. What they want is aid plus accountability.

“Almost all of the complainants went to the Guardian first. Different Guardian journalists were contacted, but all went quiet. One told me: “I just wanted to say I haven’t forgotten about this. Unfortunately the decision to work on the story or not is above my station, so I’m just waiting for a decision either way…” Later, when I asked if they had heard back the same journalist said: “I haven’t unfortunately. It was passed onto powers that be. At the moment it’s looking like it’s not going to run… I presume after some weighing of pros and cons.”

The writer then claims the whistleblowers turned to the right-leaning press: “When the Guardian sat on the story a subsection of the whistleblowers went to the Mail and the Telegraph, who ran it with many fewer sources.” The importance of a plural media…
Jewish anti-Israel activist loses court case against German Jewish leader
A Jewish anti-Israel activist has lost his case against a German Jewish leader who had labeled him as “notorious” for anti-Semitic remarks.

Jewish blogger Abraham Melzer had sued Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community in Munich and Bavaria, over comments that he said violated his “personality rights.”

The court’s decision favoring Knobloch came down in January, and Melzer had until last week to appeal. He did not do so.

Melzer, 71, publishes an online magazine that claims to “deal exclusively with the Mideast conflict, with the oppression of the Palestinians, but above all with the self-serving, arrogant and nationalist Israelis and their promoters in Germany.”

In September 2016, Knobloch wrote a private email to groups that had made rooms available for an event featuring Melzer as a speaker on anti-Semitism. Melzer has claimed that charges of anti-Semitism are often exaggerated.

Several events with Melzer as speaker reportedly were canceled following Knobloch’s message.
King’s College London Students Threaten Legal Action After Union Promotes ‘Discriminatory’ BDS Events
Students at King’s College London (KCL) are considering taking legal action after their elected representatives promoted “Israeli Apartheid Week” (IAW) events in a mass email to peers.

In an “Officers Update” sent to students on February 23, the KCL Students’ Union (KCLSU) described IAW as an effort to raise “awareness of Israel’s apartheid system over the Palestinian people and [build] support for the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.”

The week-long campaign — organized by the KCL Action Palestine Society — began on Monday and includes events on “Football and Whitewashing Apartheid,” as well as “the Politics of Racist Detention: From Palestine to the UK.”

KCL’s Israel Society denounced the newsletter’s inclusion of IAW as an expression of bias and a violation of KCLSU’s mandate.

“This is the only student society event of the entire year that KCLSU has advertised and endorsed, with absolutely no right to do so,” Tamara Berens — president of KCL Israel Society — said in a statement shared by the advocacy group CAMERA on Campus UK, with which she is affiliated.

Berens indicated that promoting IAW “is not within KCLSU’s usual charitable objects, and is therefore unlawful.”

“It also contravenes the commitment of KCLSU as a charity not to run a political campaign,” she added, urging the student body to apologize for advertising a “discriminatory” series of events in a way that left Jewish and Israeli students “shocked and confused.”
S. African VP candidate lashes out at Jewish Board of Deputies
South Africa’s Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor, a top contender for the country’s vice presidency, lashed out at the SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) during a memorial service at Temple Israel in Cape Town on Friday.

“It is a very interesting moment. I am [a] Muslim South African in a synagogue in a temple which has just made the Jewish Board of Deputies very angry with her,” she said.

“They have written to me, they say, on behalf of all the South African Jewish community, which I don’t quite believe. Nevertheless, I am a recipient of such a letter.”

The SAJBD requested a meeting with Pandor after she stated in parliament last week, “The majority party [the African National Congress] has agreed that government must cut diplomatic ties with Israel, given the absence of genuine initiatives by Israel to secure lasting peace and a viable two-state solution that includes full freedom and democracy for the Palestinian people.”

SAJBD national director Wendy Kahn responded, “We wrote to her requesting a meeting to discuss and clarify certain remarks she had made in parliament concerning the South Africa-Israel relationship. Our letter was respectful and non-confrontational.”

In the letter, which The Jerusalem Post obtained, the SAJBD wrote: “We noted your comments in parliament yesterday... This statement has caused great distress amongst members of the local South African Jewish Community. We request a meeting with you to discuss this issue.”
UK Labour party to launch new inquiry against Livingstone
The National Executive Committee (NEC) of Britain’s Labour party is planning to launch a new inquiry into allegations of anti-Semitism against former London mayor Ken Livingstone, The Observer reported Saturday.

News of the new inquiry came after MPs reacted furiously to information from party insiders who said Livingstone was likely to be readmitted to the party within weeks.

Livingstone has been suspended since April 2016 when he claimed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism.

He has repeatedly refused to apologize for the comments, even after being harangued as a "racist, Hitler-apologist" by an MP from his own party.

On Saturday, Labour officials said that an NEC inquiry first announced ten months ago by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but never begun, would probably be opened next month – just weeks before the former London mayor’s two-year suspension is due to end on April 27.

The about-turn by Labour came after The Observer contacted party sources on Friday and was told in repeated exchanges that no further action was in the pipeline and that the former London mayor was likely be allowed back in as a full member. When this was reported on Guardian.co.uk there was a furious reaction from Labour MPs and members.

Five hours later, noted The Observer, the party changed its line and said it would be inaccurate to suggest either that no further investigation was planned or that Livingstone was on course to be readmitted. It said the NEC would probably begin looking at uninvestigated claims against him next month.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Another Harry Potter Metaphor Is What This Debate Needs (satire)
Our discussion of this set of important issues has proceeded well enough, ladies and gentlemen, but no one is going to change his or her mind based merely on a rehashing of familiar points, as cleverly as they might be rephrased. No, my friends, if any of us is going to make a compelling case for a particular position or party, it will have to come in the form of another analogy to characters, relationships, or incidents in the Harry Potter series.

We must be honest: each of us has enough familiarity with the claims and arguments of the other side, and has accumulated enough practice to counter those claims, and we remain at an impasse, as always. The time has come to invoke Dumbledore, Voldemort, Hermione, the Death Eaters, and the Order of the Phoenix, among others, to make a point. Otherwise, I am afraid the other side will remain as unconvinced as always of the opposing position.

If we continue to eschew the power and utility of Harry Potter analogies when employing them would tip the scales, that would be akin to Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge maintaining his denial of the Dark Lord’s return despite the preponderance of evidence indicating it. We deny the reality of our situation at our peril, and risk painful failure, not to mention defeat, much in the way he-who-must-not-be-named disregarded love, elf magic, and other realities, leading to his eventual demise.
BBC again amplifies church leaders’ PR hyperbole
Back in November 2017 the BBC Radio 4 religious affairs programme ‘Sunday‘ presented a highly partisan and inaccurate account of a story involving Israel and the Greek Orthodox Church which listeners were erroneously led to believe is about ‘religious freedom’.

On February 25th 2018 the BBC News website published an article relating to the same story under the headline “Jerusalem: Christianity’s ‘holiest site’ closed in protest” which opened with amplification of a baseless claim that is part of a PR campaign launched by church leaders last November.

“Christian leaders in Jerusalem have taken the rare step of shutting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in protest against a new Israeli tax policy and a proposed property law.

Church leaders have described the legislation as an attack on Christians in the Holy Land.”

Additional PR messaging – complete with a poorly veiled Nazi analogy – was amplified later on in the report.
Newsweek: Fake Traffic, Fake News
Earlier this month, Newsweek fired senior editors and reporters after they reported on accusations that Newsweek Media Group had purchased fraudulent web traffic to secure significant advertising at the International Business Times, a sister publication.

In the wake of massive legal troubles, along with the departure of editor in chief Bob Roe and executive editor Ken Li, misreporting about an Israeli bill which has yet to come to vote is barely a blip in Newsweek's turmoil. But Newsweek's real readers -- as opposed to the fake bots -- may actually care to know when Newsweek fails to deliver real news.

This brings us to Tom Porter's Feb. 25 article ("Jerusalem Church Where Jesus is Said To Be Buried Closed After Tax Dispute With Israeli Government"), in which he falsely wrote that Christian leaders in Jerusalem issued a joint statement criticizing a "recent bill passed by the Israeli parliament that allowed the Israeli state to take over Christian buildings leased to private companies, and plans to begin imposing taxes on Christian church properties."

First, the bill was not passed. In fact, Sunday, after church officials decided to close the holy site, the Israeli Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee postponed a discussion of the bill.
BBC News again claims Israeli involvement in Syria’s war
On February 22nd an article by the BBC’s Arab affairs editor Sebastian Usher appeared in the ‘features’ section of the BBC News website’s Middle East page under the title “Syria conflict: Will powers end up in direct war?“.

Although the article is tagged ‘Syrian civil war’ – a conflict in which Israel is not involved – readers find the following statement:

“To the south, Israel has sat out most of the conflict, loath to be drawn in – to the disastrous extent that it was during the 16 years of the civil war in Syria’s neighbour, Lebanon. It has mostly limited itself to targeted attacks on alleged Iranian bases and suspected Hezbollah arms supplies.”

Apparently the BBC’s Arab affairs editor would have his readers believe that Israel carries out strikes on the strength of allegations and suspicion. Notably, Usher’s claim of Israeli involvement in the Lebanese civil war omits all mention of the frequent attacks against Israel launched by the PLO from Lebanese territory – attacks which sparked Operation Litani in 1978 (three years after the civil war began) and Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982.
ADL: Antisemitic incidents in 2017 more than double U.S. total from 2015
The number of antisemitic incidents was nearly 60% higher in 2017 than 2016, the largest single-year increase on record, according to a report released by the Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday.

There were 1,986 antisemitic incidents reported across the United States in 2017, including 1,015 incidents of harassment, 952 incidents of vandalism, and 19 physical assaults, reported in ADL’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents.

That figure represents a 57% increase over the 1,267 incidents in 2016. Every part of the country was affected, with an incident reported in all 50 states for the first time in at least a decade.

The number is the second highest ever reported since ADL started tracking incident data in the 1970s.

The incidents of harassment included 163 bomb threats against Jewish institutions, many of which were found to be the doing of an Israel teenager, who was arrested.

The sharp rise in overall incidents was in part due to a significant increase in incidents in schools and on college campuses, which nearly doubled for the second year in a row. There were 457 antisemitic incidents reported in non-Jewish schools, up from 235 in 2016 and 114 in 2015. Jewish institutions and schools also saw incidents double, jumping from 170 in 2016 to 342 last year. Meanwhile, college campuses saw a total of 204 incidents in 2017, compared to 108 in 2016.
German Village Votes to Keep Nazi-Era 'Hitler Bell' as Memorial
A German village has decided to keep a contentious Nazi-era church bell that bears a swastika and the words “All for the Fatherland – Adolf Hitler”, arguing it serves as a reminder of the country’s dark past.

The parish council of Herxheim voted 10-3 on Monday that the bronze bell from 1934 should remain as “an impetus for reconciliation and a memorial against violence and injustice”.

The council rejected an offer by the regional Protestant Church to pay for taking down the 240 kilogramme (530 pound) bell and replacing it.

A memorial pointing to the bell’s history will now be fixed on the heritage-listed church, the Jakobskirche.

The village of just 700 people has repeatedly caught national attention for the controversial “Hitler bell” since a former church organist complained about the inscription.

Some church-goers were dismayed to find out that they had got married, baptised their children or joined other religious ceremonies and events under the Hitler bell.
New Holocaust museums draw connections to local history to inspire ‘upstanders’
As the atrocities committed during the Holocaust recede from living memory, a new crop of museums around the world is attempting to link the Shoah with current events and the self-identity of visitors.

From Ohio to Macedonia, these institutions are telling the story of the Nazi genocide in World War II, but also encouraging people to “participate in repair” by examining the history of human rights in their own countries, and what it means to stand up for victims.

Holocaust museums — of which there are 21 in the United States alone — have traditionally been conceived around the testimony of survivors, with a scope confined to the Nazi period. No longer, according to Edward Jacobs, a leader in the conceptualization and design of these installations.

Based in Jerusalem, Jacobs advised on pedagogy at Yad Vashem for 15 years. According to the one-time stage performer, visitors to Holocaust museums should leave with a sense of purpose, or, as Jacobs told The Times of Israel, “feeling that there is a call for action I can realize within myself.”
West Pharma sets up new R&D center, sees Israel as regional hub
West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., an Exton, Pennsylvania-based US manufacturer of packaging components and materials for injectable drugs and other healthcare products, relocated its existing Israeli offices last week, combining its former product development and administrative facilities from Raanana and Or Yehuda into one Raanana location.

West acquired Israel-based Medimop Medical Projects in 2005, which has grown into a regional office with nearly 100 employees.

The 2,750 square meters of open space and offices serve as a regional technology center for the company’s drug delivery products and as an administrative hub for engineering, operations, order fulfillment, and regulatory filings, the company said in a statement.

The company’s Israeli team created a SmartDose drug delivery platform that got approval by US Food and Drug Administration last year. The product is a wearable device that allows patients to self-administer precise doses of medications by attaching it to their abdomens. The data collected is then transmitted to the smartphones of the users, so they can be reviewed by healthcare professionals.

The US firm reported a full year of net sales of nearly $1.6 billion — year-on year growth of 5.2 percent — and forecast net sales to grow 6 to 8 percent to more than $1.7 billion in 2018, on its earnings call earlier this month.
Report: Nigerian Air Force Special Forces Soldiers Receive Counter-Terrorism Training From Israeli Military Team
A group of 150 Nigerian Air Force special forces soldiers have received counter-terrorism training from a team of Israeli military officers, a Lagos-based TV station reported on Sunday.

According to Channels TV, the troops will likely be deployed to northeastern Nigeria, where the government is battling Boko Haram jihadist insurgents.

This past Tuesday, an Israeli man was freed unharmed after being kidnapped for ransom near the Nigerian capital of Abuja several days earlier.
Warren Buffett: “I’m a Big Believer in the Israeli Economy”
In an interview about his growing portfolio of Israeli businesses, American billionaire investor Warren Buffett said that he views Israel now as being similar to the United States “after its birth,” praised Israel’s “determination, motivation, intelligence and initiative,” and declared, “I’m a big believer in Israel’s economy,” according to an article published Monday in Forbes.

Buffett’s initial investment in Israel was in 2006, when his company Berkshire Hathaway bought an 80% stake in Iscar, an industrial toolmaker for $4 billion. In May 2013, Berkshire Hathaway bought the remaining 20% of the business for $2 billion. At the time he called Israel the “most promising investing hub outside of the United States.”

According to Berkshire Hathaway’s most recent filing, Buffett has invested in Israel’s pharmaceutical giant, Teva, which has been struggling of late, breaking with a longtime hesitation to invest in biotech stocks. Berkshire Hathaway bought a 1.9% stake in the company for $358 million. The value of the stock has risen to $400 million as share prices went up with news of the purchase

Buffett has promoted Israel Bonds, and purchased $5 million worth of bonds at a 2016 event in Omaha, at which $60 million in bonds were sold. At the time, Buffett said that if you’re looking for “brains, energy and dynamism,” Israel was the place to go.

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Uh-oh....the dreaded "normalization" continues under the radar



While the Palestinian Authority is saying that it does not want anyone to cooperate with Israelis (except for anti-Israel activities,) the IDF's COGAT continues to offer services for Palestinian Arabs:

Last week, 22 Palestinian medical experts underwent 5 days of advanced training under the supervision of the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Israel. The Palestinian medical experts acquired experience in the field of patient care, explanations regarding hyperbaric medicine and received lectures by senior physicians. This project was a joint initiative of the Training Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Health Coordinator in the Civil Administration, Dalia Bassa.


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Palestinians blame Israel for saving their students $400 a year



The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education issued a 250 page Strategic Plan, in English, last year.

When they talk about how awful it is that Israel forces Arab schools in Jerusalem to use the Israeli curriculum, they include this horrible fact:

The Israeli occupation authorities constantly aim to erase the Palestinian identity in Jerusalem. They also do their utmost to change the reality of the city and fabricate its history and origin by censuring [sic] the Palestinian curricula and depriving Palestinian students of their right of access to their Palestinian curricula in its original form, as other Palestinian students. In addition, Israel has done everything possible to separate the Jerusalemite students from the rest of the Palestinian students. In implementing these policies, Israel has taken the following measures:
....
5) Distributing the censured [sic]  textbooks to the municipality and private schools free of charge whereas each package is sold for Jewish students for (NIS 1200-1500); an example of their political intentions towards Palestinian students in Jerusalem. 
Yes, saving Palestinian students in Jerusalem some $400 each - costing the Israeli government millions of dollars - is an example of Israeli evil!

By the way, if the Palestinians are so upset over losing their "right" to study their anti-Israel curriculum, they can always set up private after school programs to study their fake history and culture to counteract the evil Zionist narrative.

Teachers and students would certainly volunteer for such a project, and NGOs would happily pay for it.
I wonder why it doesn't happen?


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02/27 Links Pt1: PLO declares economic war on the United States; PLO Gives Apartment To Family Of Terrorist Who Murdered An Israeli; The embassy will move . . . and the world won’t end

From Ian:
PLO declares economic war on the United States
Saleh Rafat, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, on Sunday said that the committee would convene in the coming days to discuss the latest developments on the Palestinian issue and to follow the implementation of the decisions of the PLO Central Council, which called for the severing of ties with Israel.

In an interview with Voice of Palestine Radio, Rafat backed an appeal by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the International Criminal Court in The Hague which would demand that a legal investigation be launched against Israel for its "crimes" against the Palestinian people. He also backed the idea of "Palestine" joining 22 more international organizations.

He called on Arab countries not to agree to the American administration's peace plan which will be presented soon, to withdraw their investments from the U.S., to boycott American products, and to adhere to previous summit resolutions that cut off ties with any country that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Rafat called for the continuation of the "mass demonstrations of anger" in “Palestine” and the Diaspora in order to deal with the American position that is biased in favor of Israel.

The PA officially joined the ICC on April 1, 2015, and immediately filed a series of legal complaints with the court. In addition to claiming that Israel committed war crimes during the 2014 Gaza war, it also claimed that Israeli “settlements” are “an ongoing war crime”
PMW: PA Mufti warns of “disasters of wars,” if US embassy is moved
After the announcement by the US State Department last week that the US embassy will be moved to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018, the Palestinian Authority's Grand Mufti warned that such a move will lead to "disasters of wars" in the entire world, as it is perceived as an "attack" on all Muslims:

"He [the Mufti] explained that the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem, if it is carried out, will not be an attack on the Palestinians alone, but rather a blatant attack on the Arabs and Muslims throughout the world, ...and that it will not serve peace and security in the region, but rather bring upon it disasters of wars, anarchy, and instability." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 26, 2018]

He further implicitly encouraged Palestinians and Muslims to use violence and seek Martyrdom, stating that they will "sacrifice all that is dear to them":
"[The Mufti] added that the residents of Jerusalem and all of the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims will not submit to this blatant attack, and will sacrifice all that is dear to them in order to confront the American stubbornness."

The PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the embassy move "a direct aggression towards our people," regarding it as "a provocative declaration and a blow to the sensibilities of the Arabs and Muslims." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 26, 2018]

MEMRI: PLO Fatah Faction Gives Apartment To Family Of Terrorist Who Murdered An Israeli
Palestinian media are reporting that the PLO faction Fatah in the Jenin area had given an apartment to the family of Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, 22, commander of the Hamas squad that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach on January 9, 2018 near the Havat Gilad junction in the West Bank. Jarrar was killed by Israeli troops a month later, in a February 6, 2018 raid.

Fatah representatives noted that the donation of the apartment constituted fulfilment of the national obligation to the family of a martyr who had sacrificed his life for Palestine and whose home the occupation had razed. Jarrar's mother and brother thanked Fatah for its support.

The following are translated excerpts from reports on the matter in the Palestinian media, and expressions of esteem for the martyrs by Palestinian Authority (PA) officials.

Fatah Jenin: This Is The Fulfillment Of A National Obligation Towards Families Of The Martyrs

On February 24, the Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported: "The Fatah movement in the Jenin region has given a fully furnished apartment to the family of the martyr Ahmad Nassar Jarrar...

"Fatah Jenin secretary Nour Al-Din Abu Al-Rab told Wafa that the donation of the apartment to the Jarrar family was aimed at underlining that the Fatah movement was fulfilling the national duty towards the families of the martyrs whose homes were razed by the Israeli occupation. He noted that the apartment was fully furnished and praised the part played by all those who had contributed to this national task that, he said, proved that our people is united and consolidated and does not forget its martyrs who gave their lives for Palestine.

"The martyr's mother, on her part, praised Fatah for providing her family with an apartment after the occupation destroyed their home."

On its official Facebook page, Fatah posted a video showing Jarrar's mother thanking Fatah for its support of the family.



The embassy will move . . . and the world won’t end
On Friday, the Trump administration said the ceremony converting a U.S. consulate in Jerusalem into an embassy would coincide with Israel's 70th birthday celebrations in May. Unlike Trump's initial announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the reaction to this latest one turned out to be substantially low-key.

By creating a fact on the ground that does nothing to impede a theoretical peace agreement, the U.S. has exposed the hollow nature of the anti-Israel consensus that holds that any Western recognition of reality that forces the Palestinians to give up their illusions is inadmissible. If peace is ever to come, it will be built on realism, not on the appeasement of Palestinian fantasies.

The world held off on recognizing western Jerusalem as Israel's capital in part because of the expectation that a peace treaty was inevitable. The problem with waiting was that holding off only served to reinforce Palestinian rejectionism.

To this day, the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority continues to deny Jewish ties to the city, or that the Temple Mount and the Western Wall are ancient Jewish holy places. In that sense, they are little better than their Hamas rivals.

By holding off recognition of Israel's capital, the world ensured that the Palestinians were not forced to rethink their rejectionist political culture. Yet it has been the willingness of everyone else to indulge Palestinian fantasies that has been the problem.

Nothing Trump is doing precludes the possibility of a two-state solution. But peace will have to await a sea change in Palestinian culture that will make it possible for their leaders to choose peace, rather than, as Abbas has consistently done, to pander to religious and nationalist fantasies that preclude it.
Former Israeli and U.S. top diplomats express admiration, caution on embassy move
After much speculation over when U.S. President Donald Trump would make good on his campaign promise, the United States announced on Feb. 23 that it will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert released a statement saying, “In May, the United States plans to open a new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. The opening will coincide with Israel’s 70th anniversary. … We are excited about taking this historic step, and look forward with anticipation to the May opening.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump during Sunday’s cabinet meeting. “This is a great moment for the citizens of Israel, and this is an historic moment for the State of Israel,” he said. “This will have significant and historic long-range implications. On behalf of the entire government and people, I would like to thank President Trump for both his leadership and his friendship. President Trump, you are a great friend of the State of Israel, and we all thank you.”

America’s announcement in December that it officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and that it planned to move its embassy to Jerusalem sent shockwaves around the world. The news caused joy or dismay, depending on who was asked.
Longtime Israeli diplomat Dore Gold, currently president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Longtime Israeli diplomat Dore Gold, who most recently served as Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is now president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS: “All I can do is voice my tremendous admiration for the determination of the Trump administration to move forward with moving the embassy.”

“In some respects,” added Gold, “this is a continuation of the U.S. policy from the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which was supported by both parties but never implemented. Trump is acting to move forward on something that he had promised.”
Scheer says Tories will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital if elected
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says if his party forms government in 2019, it will follow Donald Trump's lead and recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Scheer's declaration comes in the form of a pledge posted to the Conservative party website designed to gather signatures from members of the public.

"Canada's Conservatives led by Andrew Scheer will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital when we form government in 2019," the pledge says, describing the party as "a strong voice for Israel and the Canadian Jewish community."

It marks Scheer's first definitive statement on the issue since it became a renewed matter of public debate late last year.

That debate was prompted by the U.S. president's decision in December to not just recognize Jerusalem as the capital, but to promise to move the American embassy there as well.

It's a contentious move: while Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, so do the Palestinians and the status of the city is part of ongoing peace negotiations. The U.S. decision was seen as taking sides in the debate and upending years of American diplomacy.

In the aftermath of Trump's announcement, the federal Liberal government said the issue must be resolved through negotiation.

The pledge from Scheer sides squarely with Israel. "Canada's Conservatives recognize the obvious fact that Israel, like every other sovereign nation, has a right to determine where its capital is located," it says.
INSS: The Munich Security Conference: Main Points and Implications for Israel
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The Palestinian issue was marginalized, given its low influence on Middle East problems in general. It was barely preserved in the talking points of outdated actors, such as the Arab League, or manipulative ones, such as Lebanon. Prime Minister Netanyahu called for giving peace and a Trump plan a chance, despite Abu Mazen’s refusal, and presented his own outline for a settlement: less than a Palestinian state, with maximal self-rule but with no compromises on Israeli control over security. Netanyahu responded to Palestinian attempts to shift the negotiations setting to a new international forum by insisting on the vital role of the United States in the process.

Technology
In addition to the classical security components, the conference also dealt with information technologies, with emphasis on artificial intelligence, and on the disruptive effects of social media, and cyberattacks on politics, government systems, and international security. Particular note was made of the tremendous impact of disinformation in social media on political atmospheres and internal divides; the concern that trust in the political system, elections, and liberal democracies is being eroded was loudly voiced. AI and robotics applications are profoundly changing the battlefield, with some comparing this to the nuclear weapons revolution. At the same time, senior hi-tech and cyberspace figures noted that an AI-controlled war machine is still far in the future; one individual said that people have been watching too many science fiction movies, and that he wasn’t even willing to fly in a passenger plane piloted by a learning robot.

Implications for Israel
The strategic environment sketched by the conference’s senior participants has two primary implications for Israel. First, the Middle East is a secondary focus of attention for the international community, currently occupied with the urgent crisis in the Korean peninsula and the potential for nuclear war. This is particularly true for the United States, whose attention is now almost entirely on East Asia, greatly limiting its interest in and influence on the theaters closer to Israel, including Syria and Lebanon. Thus the Palestinian issue has, for better or worse, been sidelined. This leaves Israel significant scope for presenting its own initiatives to shape its future and environment, with emphasis on its relations with the Palestinians. The field of common interests with regional and international players, especially those designed to curb Iran and Sunni terrorism, signifies real potential for progress; positive movement vis-à-vis the Palestinians would help remove obstacles to the fulfilment of such progress. On the other hand, the path to a direct collision given the vector of Iranian influence in Syria and Israel’s resolve to stop it is highly evident.

Two, information technologies, AI, and social media are emerging as the “next big thing” in terms of national security. The downside is the need to prepare for the large scale use of these capabilities by enemy states and forces, in their attempt to destabilize the government system in Israel and to damage the state’s national security, inhabitants, and interests. The upside is Israel’s clear advantages in these fields, which represent the potential for the nation to position itself globally in the technological-operational forefront of military applications – both offensive and defensive – as it did in the past with regard to unmanned platforms.
WHAT'S GOING ON? Poll Shows Arabs Support Israel Over Iran
Now this is an altogether amazing development: on February 10, Faisal al-Kasim, a British-Syrian television personality based in Qatar who has five million followers on Twitter, asked them which side they would support if war broke out between Israel on one side and Iran and its militias in Syria on the other.

Here are the astonishing results:


Al-Kasim reportedly said in 2001 that he is Druze; his show, “The Opposite Direction,” which airs on Al-Jazeera, is considered highly controversial, as it has featured guests who are violently opposed to each other’s positions.

The seeming shift in the Arab World toward Israel owes less to any love for Israel than the fear of Iran and its surrogates; as Evelyn Gordon wrote in Commentary, “As one Syrian wrote, ‘no Syrian in his right mind' would support Israel in most situations, 'but you will find millions of Syrians queuing up with the blue devils’ — his charming term for Israel — ‘against the fascist sectarian regime that has surpassed all the monsters on earth in killing Syrians.’”

Gordon added, “Today, the Arab world still has the numbers and the oil, but it’s siding with Israel against Iran. So for any realist who holds that America should align itself with Arab concerns because numbers and oil are crucial considerations, the top priority now shouldn’t be another fruitless Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but reining in Iran’s malignant behavior. To its credit, that is something the Trump Administration is trying to do. …”
EU Sides with Arab League Against Israel and Trump in Jerusalem Dispute
European Union and Arab League countries insist that Jerusalem must be the joint capital of Israel and a future Palestinian state, as the U.S. prepares to move its embassy there in a step angering the Arab world.

Speaking after talks Monday between EU and Arab League foreign ministers, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the “special status and character of the city must be preserved.”

She said the two blocs also “see eye to eye” that there can only be a two-state solution to the conflict, with Israel and the Palestinians living side by side in peace.

The talks come as Washington prepares to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to a scaled-down, temporary facility that will open in Jerusalem in May.
Do We Have to Support the Palestinian Authority?
It has become a platitude repeated ad nauseam by former Israeli security officials — the Palestinian Authority (PA) must not be weakened, because this might imperil Israel.

The reasoning is that even though the PA is bad, at least they cooperate — to a greater or lesser degree — with their Israeli counterparts, whereas Israel does not know what radical monster would take over if the PA falls.

Last week, the Knesset’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill that would deduct the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) salaries to convicted terrorists and their families from the tax revenues that Israel transfers annually to the PA.

As background, Israel transfers millions of dollars each year to the PA in customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that travel through Israeli ports. If passed by the Knesset, the proposed legislation would enable Israel to either deduct the funds from the revenues or “freeze” the payments.

“Soon, this theater of the absurd will come to an end, and the salaries of the terrorists that we will withhold from [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas will be used to prevent terrorism and compensate victims,” Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman said about the proposed bill.
Entire US Senate calls for Israel to be added to expedited screening program
All 100 US senators have reportedly signed a letter calling on the administration to allow Israelis to participate in an accelerated screening travel program, in recognition of the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence and of diplomatic relations between the countries.

The Senate letter, sent on February 20 to the Department of Homeland Security, calls for adding Israel to the Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program, which enables travelers to the US from select countries to quickly enter the country via self-service kiosks at airports, USA Today reported Tuesday.

To participate, travelers are required to provide biographical and travel information, including fingerprints, and pay a $100 fee every five years.

“We strongly support Israel’s membership in CBP’s Global Entry program and urge the efforts towards this goal be accelerated as much as possible to help ensure the best travel experience to strengthen the bonds between our two great democracies,” senators wrote in their letter.

“Israel’s membership in Global Entry would not only provide its passport holders a smoother visit to the US but would also help to make our country safer by enhancing bilateral law enforcement cooperation,” the senators said.
After Church of Holy Sepulchre shut, Jerusalem suspends church tax collections
The Jerusalem municipality will suspend a controversial move to tax church-owned properties until a new government committee finds a solution to the issue, which has sparked angry protests from the churches, including the shuttering of Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Prime Minister’s Office said Tuesday.

The government will also suspend all pending legislation regarding church land until the committee examines the issue, the statement said.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat have agreed to establish a professional team led by Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, with the participation of all relevant parties, to formulate a solution for the issue of municipal taxes on properties owned by churches that are not houses of worship,” the statement said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat (right) hold a press conference at the Mamilla Hotel in Jerusalem, February 23, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

“The team will negotiate with the representatives of the churches to resolve the issue,” it said, adding that “as a result, the Jerusalem Municipality is suspending the collection actions it has taken in recent weeks.

“Israel is proud to be the only country in the Middle East where Christians and believers of all faiths have full freedom of religion and worship,” the statement said. “Israel is home to a flourishing Christian community and welcomes its Christian friends from all over the world.”
Defense minister: Israel foils 20-30 terror attacks per week
The IDF's Central Command has been carrying out massive operations to thwart planned terrorist attacks, particularly in and around Hebron, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced Tuesday.

"We are thwarting 20 to 30 terrorist attacks each week, facing ever-increasing terrorist efforts," Lieberman said.

He attributed the successful anti-terror operations to "quality intelligence and a combination of smart deployment of forces and advanced technology," and emphasized that the IDF had prevented "the vast majority of terrorist activity."

Lieberman spoke during a tour of the Jewish quarter of Hebron, where he was accompanied by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Roni Numa, and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai.

The delegation toured defense installations around the Jewish section of Hebron and at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and met with defense officials for a security assessment.
Jordan foils IS plot to attack Israeli businessmen, US embassy
A terror cell affiliated with the Islamic State jihadist group planned to attack Israeli businessmen, the US embassy in Jordan and other Western and Jordanian targets in Amman, the country’s daily Al Rai newspaper revealed on Tuesday.

Jordan’s security forces uncovered the plot last November and arrested 17 members of the terror cell before they were able to carry out the attacks, the report said.

It said the targets chosen by the terrorists also included the French Institute of Jordan, the private Ro’ya TV channel, a nightclub, tunnels belonging to the country’s Phosphate Company, and a church.

The Israeli businessmen who were slated to be attacked had repeatedly visited a local clothing factory, the report added.

The terror cell, it said, was divided into three groups. The first group’s mission was to preview the targets, the second was to provide technical support and carry out minor attacks, and the third would carry out major attacks and suicide bombings.
Family of Itamar massacre victims sues terrorists, PA for NIS 400 million

IsraellyCool: Promising Development in UK Terror Financing Case
Some positive news from the UK, thanks to the hard work of our own Kay Wilson, with a formal complaint being lodged with the British Police, calling upon them to investigate two MPs, who it is alleged, have breached the terrorism act by giving “aid” to her would-be murderers.

SCOTLAND Yard has been asked to investigate whether the Department for International Development (DfID) and two ministers breached terrorism legislation by giving aid money to the Palestinian Authority.

A complaint made directly to the head of the Metropolitan Police Cressida Dick claims international aid handed to the Palestinian Authority has been used to pay terrorists in prisons, contravening the Terrorism Act 2000.

The allegation made by Ken Miller, on behalf of pro-Israel group Israel Britain Alliance, follows concerns raised by Kay Wilson, a British citizen attacked and left for dead, while her friend American Kristine Luken was murdered in 2010 by Palestinian terrorists.

Ms Wilson alleged that her attackers are now receiving thousands of pounds in payments from the Palestinian Authority while in prison.

She claims this comes from British government aid money.
Israeli Man Who Received Heart Transplant From IDF Soldier Killed in Road Accident: I Got My Life Back
“I got my life back,” Nissim Cohen — who last week received the heart of an IDF soldier killed in a highway accident — told the Hebrew news site Walla in an interview published on Monday.

Cohen was one of six individuals to receive organs from 23-year-old Staff Sergeant Shilo Siman Tov — who was among the three IDF soldiers who died as a result of a Feb. 13 collision on Highway 6 near the Nitzanei Oz interchange.

“I was at synagogue when my wife called to tell me a heart donor had been found for me,” Cohen recalled from his bed at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer. “With his death, Shilo saved my life.”

“We had been waiting for this heart for almost three years,” Cohen’s son, Ofir said. “We thank the family of Shilo Siman Tov, and we wish them only happiness, and no more sorrow.”
Tamimi family and IDF spar over truth in teen’s skull injury
The Tamimi family turned to the media on Tuesday to dispute the Israeli army’s claim that their 15-year old son Mohammed had been injured in a bicycle accident and had not been shot in the head by an IDF rubber bullet as they contend.

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Major-General Yoav (Poli) Mordechai posted in Arabic on his Facebook page on Monday night that the family was “lying and inciting” against Israel.

The Tamimi family is part of a large clan that lives in the Nabi Saleh village in the West Bank.

Mohammed’s cousin Ahed, 17, is standing trial for assault after a video that showed her slapping a soldier during a December riot went viral.

The family claims that Mohammed was shot in the head during that same riot and then underwent surgery in which the rubber bullet and a portion of his skull were removed.

Mohammed was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on his home Monday along with eight other people in the village on suspicion of involvement in public disturbances and nationalistic terrorist activity, according to an IDF spokesperson.
PA plans to renovate the Cave of the Patriarchs
Rami Hamdallah, who heads the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Ramallah, on Monday toured the city of Hevron and announced his intention to carry out development projects in the city at a cost of $17 million.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the projects would include the renovation of the Cave of the Patriarchs, the paving of roads and the opening of an intensive care unit at the Hevron government hospital.

Hevron Mayor Tayseer Abu Sneineh, a convicted terrorist, asked the PA leader to support the residents of Hevron and to support the struggle against Israel's plan to unilaterally expand the H2 area, as he put it.

The PA claims ownership of the Cave of the Patriarchs. Last year, the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization declared that site and the surrounding Old City of Hevron would be declared Palestinian Authority heritage sites.
Deposed Fatah strongman slams ‘fascist, corrupt’ PA
Mohammad Dahlan, the ousted Gaza leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement, on Monday launched a scathing broadside on the Palestinian Authority leadership, saying it has become an “additional burden” on the people.

Palestinians should not blame Israel alone for all their disasters “because this exonerates us from responsibility,” Dahlan said.

He denounced the PA government as “corrupt and fascist” for “punishing” the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and called for the formation of a “national salvation leadership.”

“I can understand the hardships facing the Palestinians,” Dahlan said in an interview with Egyptian television channel Ten. “But I can’t understand the Palestinian leadership becoming an additional burden on the Palestinians.”

The Palestinian leadership’s duty is to provide solutions, and not explanations, he said. “I can’t understand what the moral and national logic is in punishing the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip because they did not revolt against Hamas.”


Brazil and Paraguay Are Letting Hizballah Operate Unhindered in Their Territory
Following a series of social-media postings commemorating the recent death of a Hizballah operative in Syria, Emanuele Ottolenghi finds evidence of its activities in South America’s tri-border area where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. This region, with its weak border control and law enforcement, has a sizable population of south Lebanese origin, among whom are many Hizballah operatives involved in money laundering, drug running, and other activities that finance the terrorist group. Ottolenghi explains why the Hizballah favors the area:

Countries like Brazil and Paraguay . . . do not seem interested in acting on U.S. terror-finance designations. . . . The lack of interest in enforcement is aggravated by the unusually low threshold for acquiring citizenship in both countries. . . . [H]aving multiple passports facilitates the efforts of these operatives to move seamlessly across borders in pursuit of their goals. And their unfettered presence, as citizens, in countries with weak law enforcement, corrupt political elites, and rampant organized crime enhances their ability to conduct business and raise money for their cause. . . .

[T]he Paraguay-Brazil boundary is largely fictional. Of the numerous individuals whose business activities the United States targeted with terror-finance designations in 2004 and 2006, most have residences on both sides of the border, hold both citizenships, bank in both countries, and play each jurisdiction’s weaknesses to their own advantage.

Unlike the United States, neither Brazil nor Paraguay has designated Hizballah as a terrorist organization, although both have antiterrorist legislation in place which would allow them to do so. If Brasília and Asunción chose to designate Hizballah, they could revoke citizenships, seize assets, and preemptively detain the group’s operatives. The United States would not be the only beneficiary of such moves, since Hizballah operatives were arrested in 2014 and 2017 for scouting high-value targets in Latin America. Clearly the region remains vulnerable to attacks, despite a long period of quiet since the 1994 bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, which bore Hizballah’s fingerprints. . . . Yet not even Buenos Aires has designated Hizballah a terror entity.
Britain may join U.S. strikes against Syria if chemical weapon use proven
Britain would consider joining US military strikes against the Syrian government if there is evidence chemical weapons are being used against civilians, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Tuesday.

Johnson said he hoped Britain and other Western nations would not stand by in the event of a chemical attack, voicing support for limited strikes if there is "incontrovertible evidence" of the Syrian's government involvement.

"If we know that it has happened, and we can demonstrate it, and if there is a proposal for action where the UK could be useful then I think we should seriously consider it," Johnson told BBC radio.

Over the past week, Syria's army and its allies have subjected the rebel-held enclave of Ghouta near Damascus to one of the heaviest bombardments of the seven-year war, killing hundreds.

Britain is part of the US-led coalition involved in air attacks on Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but the government lost a parliamentary vote on the use of force against Syrian government in 2013.
Russian TV Caught Trying To Pass Off Video Game Footage As Combat Footage In Tribute To Its Troops
Russia’s state propaganda arm honored the country’s troops Sunday, but something wasn’t quite right about some of the combat footage.

In a special broadcast for Defender of the Fatherland Day, Channel 1 celebrated Russian soldiers “who value duty and honor above their own lives.” Combat footage from Syria showed Russian airstrikes followed by the explosion of military vehicles seen through a sniper’s scope. It turns out one of the image came from a video game, according to the BBC.

Apparently, the image was from one of the games in the popular Arma series.

“Mistakes happen,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said Monday in response to the incident. The person responsible has reportedly been punished, according to The Washington Post.

This is not the first time Russia has “mistaken” video game footage for actual combat footage.


Israeli hospital treats Syrians suffering from emotional trauma
Given the enormous death toll of the ongoing war in Syria, it is easy to overlook—or fail to attribute importance to—the psychological well-being of those who have endured. But the severe trauma faced by so many Syrians has left an entire generation with intangible scars. It is an issue that, somewhat counter-intuitively, Syria's arch-enemy, Israel, is addressing.

The Galilee Medical Center in northern Israel has treated more than 2,300 Syrians over the past five years, almost half of whom were women and children; this, as part of the Israeli army's Operation Good Neighbor, which grants wounded Syrians access to Israeli health facilities. While patients are generally in need of physical care due to injuries sustained in fighting, the center still places an emphasis on their emotional condition.

Hana Solomon, Director of the Social Work Department at the Galilee Medical Center explained to The Media Line that the hospital “absorbs the bulk of injured Syrians, whereas other Israeli medical institutions such as Ziv, Rambam and Poriya accept smaller amounts.”

Solomon stated that while most of the Syrians at the center have “never had the serious problem of classic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), there have been those experiencing suicidal tendencies and acute stress reactions. We have had children with depression who were seen by our psychiatrists.”

Solomon explained that “the acute stress reactions are normal responses to trauma, and include anxiety, difficulty sleeping and flashbacks. With counseling, this usually passes within a month. If it doesn’t, it is usually considered PTSD.


MEMRI: Khamenei Advisor Ali Akbar Velayati: 'Our Presence In The Region Is Inevitable; We Will Continue This Process, So As To Become The Most Decisive Force In The Region'
Speaking on February 1, 2018 in Mashhad, at the Conference for Support of the Palestinian Intifada, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, responded to Iranian critics of the regime who, during last month's uprising, protested against Iran's involvement in various battlefronts in the Middle East. Addressing an audience of students, he stated that Iran would maintain its involvement and presence in the region, in order to thwart the plots of Israel and the U.S., among other goals.

The following are his main points, as reported by the Iranian news agencies ISNA and Fars.
According to Fars, Velayati said: "Let me tell you, you don't have to worry about that mess [i.e. last month's popular uprising], some of whose [participants] stupidly became a tool in the hands of the mercenaries and speak against the sacred goals of the revolution. The call 'Neither Gaza nor Lebanon' conceals a misunderstanding of the developments in the world. Can someone sit at home and say that the conflagration at his neighbor's home does not concern him?

"Everyone wants a foothold in our country. That is the essence of the global developments.

"Let's assume we aren't Muslims. [Even so], could we conceivably [watch] the Israeli flag being raised near our border, in the Kurdish region of Iraq, and remain silent?

"The Lebanese Hizbullah has grown stronger thanks to Iran, and we are proud of this. Hizbullah is now in a situation similar to [its situation in] the 2006 Lebanon war: The Israeli leaders are fleeing from it.

"In the Gaza war [presumably the 2014 war with Israel], the leaders of the resistance in Palestine said, 'Iran supplied us with everything, from bread to bullets.' After the war, [Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader] Ramadan [Shalah] declared this at a press conference. We are proud to sit here and help the Muslims against the Zionists.[1] For 22 days, Gaza, only 300 [square] kilometers in size, was under attack from all directions, yet managed to resist. This attests to the will of the Palestinian people, and to the support we extended. We are proud to have paralyzed Israel...
US Threatens Action Against Iran After Russia UN Veto
The United States threatened unilateral action against Iran on Monday after Russia vetoed a Western bid for the United Nations Security Council to call out Tehran for failing to prevent its weapons from falling into the hands of Yemen's Houthi group.

"If Russia is going to continue to cover for Iran then the U.S. and our partners need to take action on our own. If we're not going to get action on the council then we have to take our own actions," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley told reporters.

Haley did not specify what kind of action could be taken.

The Russian veto was a defeat for the United States, which has been lobbying for months for Iran to be held accountable at the United Nations, while at the same time threatening to quit a 2015 deal among world powers to curb Iran's nuclear program if "disastrous flaws" are not fixed.

"Obviously this vote isn't going to make the decision on the nuclear deal. What I can say is it doesn't help," Haley said. "That just validated a lot of what we already thought which is Iran gets a pass for its dangerous and illegal behavior."

U.S. President Donald Trump warned European allies last month that they had to commit by mid-May to work with Washington to improve the pact. Britain drafted the failed U.N. resolution in consultation with the United States and France.
French FM Calls Iran’s Ballistic Missile Ambitions Very Worrying
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Tuesday that Iran’s ballistic missile ambitions were very worrying and ran counter to a UN resolution.

Le Drian, speaking at a news conference after talks with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, said it was necessary to avoid the Iranian ballistic program becoming a factor that threatened its neighbors.
Iranian Officials Push Back Against McMaster for Warning Against Doing Business with IRGC
Two top Iranian officials pushed back against comments recently made by American National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster urging the world to stop funding Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which he said played “a central role” in Iran’s becoming the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism, accusing the United States of violating the 2015 nuclear deal reached with Iran, the Washington Free Beacon reported last week.

“Every statement that has been made by President Trump that he wants to undermine this deal is a violation of the same paradigm,” Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif said in a response to McMaster’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. “The U.S. is in violation of the deal, that doesn’t mean the deal is broken.”

“So we believe the U.S. is already in violation,” Zarif said, adding that he demanded that Trump “respect” the obligations agreed to by the Obama administration.

Similarly, last week, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, in an apparent reaction to McMaster’s speech also accused the U.S. of violating the nuclear accord and threatened that Iran would walk away from the deal.

“If the same policy of confusion and uncertainties about the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) continues, if companies and banks are not working with Iran, we cannot remain in a deal that has no benefit for us,” Araqchi told an audience in London, adding, “that’s a fact.”
Erdogan to Five-Year-Old in Uniform: ‘If She’s Martyred, They’ll Lay a Flag on Her, Allah Willing’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was holding a televised rally for his AKP party on Saturday to build support for his military incursion into Syria when he noticed a girl of about five years old wearing a military uniform in the audience.

He called the little girl on stage, admonished her for bursting into tears, and assured her she will be honored with a flag-draped casket if she is “martyred” in service to the Turkish government.

“Look what you see here! Girl, what are you doing here? We have our maroon berets here, but maroon berets never cry,” Erodgan said when the little girl was overwhelmed by the attention from a raucous crowd of flag-waving spectators — not to mention Erdogan hugging and smooching her — and started to cry.

The Maroon Berets are Turkey’s special operations military unit, which has reportedly been deployed into Syria for the Afrin campaign. In less complicated times, they were noted for helping train Kurdish militia forces to fight against the Islamic State. The little girl was wearing such a beret to the rally, which caught Erdogan’s attention and prompted him to salute her as a member of the unit.

“Mashallah, she has a Turkish flag in her pocket, too,” Erdogan told the crowd. “If she is martyred, they will lay a flag on her, inshallah. She is ready for everything, isn’t she?” Mashallah means “as Allah willed,” while inshallah means “if Allah wills it.”

Gulf State Arabs Unimpressed by Israeli “Corruption” (satire)
A survey conducted by The Mideast Beast of Arabs living in the Gulf states has revealed that they are not impressed by what passes for corruption in Israel. This follows ongoing (and ongoing, and ongoing) investigations into allegations of corruption on the part of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While the charges are deemed scandalous in Israel, neighboring countries and their citizens simply aren’t impressed.

When asked about the corruption charges, alleging gifts amounting to hundreds of thousand dollars, one Saudi citizen said, in between fits of laughter, “If we prosecuted every government official who took a few hundred thousand dollars’ bribe, there’d be no one left,” while wiping away tears. “But seriously,” he continued, still chuckling “you Jews are funny; I loved Seinfeld”.

When asked about Netanyahu allegedly receiving cigars and other material bribes, one anonymous Qatari prince responded: “Oh he got a bunch of cigars? That’s cute,” before getting into a gold-plated Lamborghini with a white tiger in the passenger seat wearing the diamond from Titanic as a collar.

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