Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts

The strange case of the 112-year old Gaza victim


B'Tselem's Gaza application lists one outrageous case:
'Aliyyah Hussein Muhammad Qanan. 112 years old, resident of Khuza'a, Khan Yunis district. Injured on 29 Jul 2014, in Khuza'ah, Khan Yunis district, by gunfire from an aircraft, and died on 02 Aug 2014. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Injured while searching for his brother how [sic] had been injured earlier. Died of his wounds on 10 October 2014.
112 years old? Looking for his brother?

If he was 112, he was one of the top three oldest men in the world. Such a death would have been all over the Palestinian - and Israeli - media.

Yet independent information about the late Mr. Qanan is hard to find. He is listed as having died on a list compiled on July 23 here. At the very least B'Tselem has the date wrong.

This list says that "he" is a woman. Nothing about her age.

Someone with that name apparently died. That's all we know. Certaainly B'Tselem is wrong on the date, and probably on the gender. Which means that the details about how "he" was injured while searching for "his" brother came only from quite unreliable Palestinian sources - the same sources that now claim, two years later, that this person was 112 years old.

The specifics are important, because B'Tselem is telling the world that it has the detailed circumstances on every death in the Gaza war, based on that information it is claiming that a certain number of people were uninvolved in hostilities, another number was over 70, and so on. If the details are shown to be wrong then how can we trust anything that B'Tselem is saying?

If it wanted to be accurate it would add the proper caveats both in each individual case and in the aggregate numbers. It doesn't. That lack of transparency indicates that the purpose of this data gathering is not to uncover truth, but to push anti-Israel propaganda.

And tomorrow I will give a possible reason why.

(h/t Bob Knot)




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B'Tselem says the building was empty. The IDF says it had a weapons cache.

Looking further at how B'Tselem reported on some specific incidents that it covered in its new website dedicated to exhaustively documenting the 2014 Gaza war, we see a curious omission.

B'Tselem's goal is to make it look like the IDF was guilty of war crimes. It does this by documenting civilians killed with no apparent militants in the area.

In the tragic case of the Abu Itta family, B'Tselem seems to be going out of its way to say that the IDF is lying.

The IDF writes:
Allegation Concerning the Deaths of Members of the Abu Itta Family in Tel Al-Za'atar (24 July 2014) –

In media reports, as well as complaints received by the MAG Corps from NGOs, it was alleged that on 24 July 2014, as a result of an air strike on the house of the Al-Ajrami family in Tel Al-Za'atar, five members of the Abu Itta family who were in an adjoining building were killed. Subsequently, and in accordance with the MAG's investigation policy, the incident was referred to the FFA Mechanism for examination.

According to the factual findings collated by the FFA Mechanism and presented to the MAG, at the time in question, a weapons cache was struck that was located in the house of a senior military operative in Hamas, Ahmad Al-Ajrami. Prior to the strike on the cache, the IDF issued a number of detailed warnings over the telephone, wherein the residents of the building in which the weapons cache was located, and the residents of a number of surrounding buildings that were expected to be damaged as a result of the strike, were asked to vacate the premises. Additionally, a warning strike was executed on the roof of the building in which the weapons cache was located, as well as on the roof of the adjoining building which was expected to be significantly impacted as a result of the strike, as part of the "knock on the roof" procedure. During this time, many people were seen leaving these buildings. The strike was carried out after it was assessed that it was possible to conclude that civilians were not expected to be harmed in the building targeted and the adjoining buildings, as a result of the strike.

After the event, it appears that as a result of the strike, five civilians, members of the Abu Itta family, were killed, and others were injured. It was not fully determined whether those deceased had been present in an adjoining building whose evacuation was specifically asked for, or whether they were in another adjoining building that had been damaged more significantly than had been expected.

After reviewing the factual findings and the material collated by the FFA Mechanism, the MAG found that the targeting process in question accorded with Israeli domestic law and international law requirements. The decision to strike was taken by the competent authorities, and was aimed at a military objective – a weapons cache. The strike complied with the principle of proportionality, as at the time the decision was taken, it was considered that the collateral damage expected from the strike would not be excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated from it, and it appears that this estimation was not unreasonable under the circumstances. Moreover, the strike was carried out while undertaking a series of precautionary measures which aimed to minimize civilian harm. Inter alia, a specific warning was provided to the residents of the buildings which were expected to be impacted as a result of the strike, and ongoing visual surveillance of the event was used to confirm their evacuation.
B'Tselem reports on each of the family members killed in this way:
Ahmad Ibrahim 'Abdallah Abu 'Aytah. 31 years old, resident of Jabalya R.C., North Gaza district. Killed on 24 Jul 2014, in Jabalya R.C., North Gaza district, by gunfire from an aircraft. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Killed together with his parents, son, and brother in their home in a strike on the neighboring house, which was empty.
B'Tselem seems to be saying that it is quite aware of the IDF report that there was a weapons cache in the house of the Hamas operative next door, and instead of reporting about it - which is what an ethical fact-finding organization should do - it chooses to pretend that there is no counter-evidence to its conclusions.

There is a reason why Amnesty and B'Tselem are choosing to do these exhaustive and misleading or false investigations into Protective Edge. I hope to discuss this tomorrow.





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Latest gimmick: Abbas to sue UK over 1917 Balfour Declaration. Sign my petition!


TOI reports:
The Palestinian Authority is preparing a lawsuit against the British government over the issuing of the 1917 Balfour Declaration that paved the way for the creation of the State of Israel.

The PA’s Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told Arab League leaders gathered in Mauritania Monday that London is responsible for all “Israeli crimes” committed since the end of the British mandate in 1948.

Signed by British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour in 1917, the declaration was seen as giving the Zionist movement official recognition and backing on the part of a major power, on the eve of the British conquest of the then-Ottoman territory of Palestine.

The decision, al-Malki said, “gave people who don’t belong there something that wasn’t theirs.”
Interestingly, Hamas had called for Great Britain to apologize for Balfour back in 2010.

Similarly, the "Palestine Return Center" started a petition to the UK Parliament to apologize for Balfour and compensate all Arabs of Palestinian descent. It compared the "nakba" with the Holocaust. It received 1,278 signatures in six months, far short of the 10,000 required for the UK Parliament to respond and the 100,000 required for Parliament to debate the issue.


This is Abbas' latest gimmick. He wants to make it appear to his people as if he is actually doing something but everything he does is symbolic.

For an honor/shame society, where appearances are more important than facts, this can play well. But the rest of the world is more and more impatient with Abbas' adamant refusal to do anything positive for the peace process or for his people.

Of course, two can play at this game.

I started an online petition demanding that the PLO and PA apologize for over a century of terror attacks aimed at Jews.
The Palestinian Authority, as the self-appointed leader of the Palestinian Arab people, must assume responsibility for the historic crimes done against Jews in the region known as Palestine in the 1800s and 1900s.
These include attacks in Rishon LeTzion in the 1880s, the Nebi Musa riots in 1920, the Jaffa and Jerusalem attacks in 1921, the massacres of 1929, the violent riots between 1936-39, the many attacks in 1947 and 1948, as well as the terror attacks that have occurred nearly continuously since 1948 including the Munich massacre that was financed by Mahmoud Abbas and the wave of suicide bombings in the 21st century. Constant antisemitic incitement from Palestinian leaders and official media since the 1920s must be apologized for as well.
Only by the Palestinians accepting responsibility for its part of the conflict can the conflict be solved.
Sign it and show that both sides can do useless gimmicks as PR stunts.


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So what's the difference between Gaza terror groups and ISIS again?

Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades announces their latest "martyr."

Bassem Fawzi Al -Lihama, 38, suffered a "mistaken" fatal gunshot wound "during the performance of a task of jihad," according to the Islamic Jihad military website.

"We call on Allah Almighty to grant the soul of the martyr Mujahid al-Lihama His mercy and eternal peace, accompanied by the prophets and the saints and martyrs and the Companions, and that he inspires his family and his comrades in his path of beautiful patience and fortitude." the statement read.

"The Al-Quds Brigades confirmed that the blood of the martyrs will remain the fuel for the lamp illuminating the Mujahideen on the trail of pride and dignity to press ahead with the resistance until the liberation of the entire beloved Palestine," the statement added.

Hamas' "martyr notices" are essentially the same flowery language extolling jihad in the name of Allah and the destruction of Israel.

Someone much smarter than I needs to explain once again how the philosophy of groups that write these words  are significantly different from that of ISIS. They both employ terrorists, they both target civilians, they both use Islam to justify their attacks, they are both murdering in the name of jihad, they both say they want to create an Islamic state they both glorify death.

I mean, they must be different, because the West considers only ISIS to be terrorist while Islamic Jihad and Hamas are "terrorist" Europeans are victims of terror attacks while Israeli Jews are victims of "what Israel considers 'terror attacks'."

I know there must be some reason why the supremacist Islamic jihadist ideology of a group literally called Islamic Jihad is considered somehow by the world to be more legitimate than the supremacist Islamic jihadist ideology of Al Qaeda or Boku Haram or ISIS.

It couldn't have anything to do with the victims, could it?



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B'Tselem says that they were civilians. The IDF says they were Hamas. (UPDATE)

Looking a little closer at the B'Tselem website that claims to catalogue the civilian status of all people killed in Gaza two years ago, we see this:

'Issam Muhammad 'Ata a-Najar. 23 years old, resident of Qizan a-Najar, Khan Yunis district. Killed on 29 Jul 2014, in Qizan a-Najar, Khan Yunis district, by gunfire from an aircraft. Did not participate in hostilities. Additional information: Killed in his home together with 15 other members of his family in a strike on the homes of the a-Najar extended family. The strike destroyed two of the family's homes, in each of which eight people were killed. Other houses were damaged.

Ata Muhammad 'Ata a-Najar. 28 years old, resident of Qizan a-Najar, Khan Yunis district. Killed on 29 Jul 2014, in Qizan a-Najar, Khan Yunis district, by gunfire from an aircraft. Did not participate in hostilities.
The IDF, in a report released last year, disagrees in a couple of aspects of this categorization:

According to the factual findings collated by the FFA Mechanism and presented to the MAG, at the time in question the IDF had attacked a Hamas military command and control center located in a building in Khan Younis, as well as senior Hamas operatives who were manning the center at that time. During the attack planning process, it was assessed that there might be a number of civilians present in the building, but that the potential harm to them would not be excessive in relation to the significant military advantage anticipated to result from the attack. The attack on the building was planned for execution by means of a precise munition, and in a manner that would allow the operational purpose of the attack to be achieved, whilst minimizing the potential harm to the surrounding buildings. As a result of the attack, eight individuals were killed, among them two Hamas operatives, Asam Mohammad Ata Al Najjar and Ata Mohammad Ata Al Najjar.

After reviewing the factual findings and the material collated by the FFA Mechanism, the MAG found that the targeting process in question accorded with Israeli domestic law and international law requirements. The decision to attack was taken by the competent authorities, and was aimed at lawful targets. The attack complied with the principle of proportionality, as at the time the decision to attack was made, it was considered that the collateral damage expected from the attack would not be excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated from it, and this estimation was not unreasonable under the circumstances. Moreover, the attack was carried out after a number of precautionary measures had been undertaken, which aimed to minimize the potential for civilian harm, particularly with regard to any civilians present in adjoining buildings. It was also found that the provision of a specific warning prior to the attack, to the persons present in the structure, was not required by law and would have been expected to result in the frustration of the attack's objective.

In light of these findings, the MAG did not find that the actions of IDF forces gave rise to reasonable grounds for suspicion of criminal misconduct. As a result, the MAG ordered the case to be closed, without opening a criminal investigation or ordering further action against those involved in the incident. Nonetheless, the MAG found it appropriate to recommend to the command authorities that a number of aspects relating to the implementation of the relevant operational instructions be clarified, with an emphasis on improving the documentation of planning procedures for attacks on targets of this type.
Interestingly, the Meir Amit center identified both Issam and Ata as members of Hamas, but could not identify them as militants.

(UPDATE): However, amazing researcher Bob Knot could. Here is Issam:


Here is Ata:



Were they legitimate targets?

The IDF says it was not only targeting the two Hamas members, but also their command and control center that they were running in their house, effectively making their civilian family members human shields. There is no way B'Tselem (or any other NGO) could know whether the house was a command center. Nevertheless, the IDF clearly was targeting Ata and Issam, or else they could not say that a warning "would have been expected to result in the frustration of the attack's objective."

It sure seems like the IDF is correct and B'Tselem is wrong in identifying whether this was a legitimate target.

This is one of the cases where NGOs who confidently publish what seem to be exact figures could easily be wrong, since they cannot possibly know all the details. The media reports the NGO figures without question. Of course any survivors would claim that the victims were all innocent, but interviews seem to be B'Tselem's main method of determining whether a target was legitimate or not.

What is clear is that B'Tselem had read the IDF account of the incident from a full year ago and chose not to even mention it as a possibility when they were writing up their data claiming that Ata and Issam were certainly civilians. B'Tselem simply decided that the IDF account is wrong and their investigation, almost certainly based on interviews, is more accurate.

It is unethical to not even mention the results of the IDF investigation into the incident. If this is B'Tselem's methodology, then the methodology is proven to be flawed from just this case. It should at the very least put these two Hamas members in their "Unknown" category for those that they were unsure about.

There is another major discrepancy between the IDF and B'Tselem accounts: the number of victims. It is possible that both are telling the truth; the IDF only referring to the specific family home that the two Najjar Hamas operatives were in, and B'Tselem including the neighboring home that was also destroyed. Yet there is a third possibility - that B'Tselem is wrong about the number of victims, since it seems to be at the mercy of Palestinian records, and we have seen exaggerations (even with names) of the number of victims of previous attacks.




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Just a reminder of what Arabs mean when they say "occupied territories"



Quds News has a triumphant article, quoting Israel's Channel 10, that says that the number of French immigrants to Israel has not reached expectations this year because of the recent wave of stabbing, car ramming and shooting attacks against Jews.

Arabs consider every Jew who doesn't immigrate to Israel a victory, because they want to make Israel free of Jews.

But one sentence is interesting:

Some Jewish immigrants now prefer to emigrate to London or Montreal instead of "Israel", which did not assimilate them well and they have suffered bad economic conditions during the period of their stay in the occupied territories.
The French immigrants moved to the "occupied territories"? I thought that they mostly concentrated in Ashkelon, Ashdod, Netanya, Tel Aviv and Raanana.

A similar article last week at Erem News is entitled "Israel encourages Jews to emigrate to the occupied territories, taking advantage of the deteriorating security and economic situation around the world." Yet the article says nothing about immigrant Jews being encouraged to move across the Green Line.

The answer is obvious: to the Arab world, the entire state of Israel is "occupied Palestinian territory."

Once that basic fact is understood, then the entire idea of peace in the Middle East being dependent on Israel ceding more land to Arabs for a Palestinian state is shown to be absurd. On the contrary, ceding more land would result in greater demands for yet more land. See Hezbollah in Lebanon and Gaza as exhibits A and B.

Unfortunately, the "experts" who make such confident claims that a Palestinian state would bring peace don't seem to have the ability to look at what Arab newspapers say every day.



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"Arab Quartet" makes a very Israeli statement

There is another Quartet.

The Arab Quartet consists of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. It met on the eve of the Arab Summit to be held this week in Nouakchott, Mauritania.

The Ministerial Committee issued a statement after their third meeting, which was chaired by UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Anwar Gargash, saying that they "noted an escalation of dangerous Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries recently, including the intensification of hostilities and inflammatory and provocative statements issued by Iranian officials towards the Arab countries. "

They called for Iran to stop incitement to violence and support for terror groups. Which is what the other Quartet did recently, to much criticism by Palestinians.

Their statement o Iran sounds a great deal like Israel's statements towards the Palestinian Authority.

Apparently, Arabs are against incitement and support for terrorism - sometimes.



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Proven liar Gary Spedding resurfaces - and Haaretz publishes him


A couple of years ago I blogged a long Twitter conversation between myself and a "peace activist" named Gary Spedding, as well as exchanges between him and Gilead Ini of CAMERA.

The text proves beyond any doubt that Spedding is a liar who enjoys scrubbing evidence of his hate. (He tried to say the Fogels were murdered by a domestic worker, not an Arab terrorist, for example. He then deleted the post, denied ever writing it, and when confronted with screen-shot evidence kept denying it.)

Later it was shown that Spedding had been involved in a violent anti-Israel demonstration in Belfast. As the Israeli embassy in London said then, “Mr Spedding’s entry into Israel was denied due to his involvement in organising a violent protest in Queens University, Belfast, in which an Israeli representative was attacked, and others were forced to take shelter to prevent being hurt. No country has an obligation to allow foreigners who have been involved in violent activities targeting its nationals to enter its territory.”

Spedding lied about this incident as well, claiming falsely that he was given a "ten year ban" to go to Israel merely for "lying" and being an unspecified "security threat."

You cannot grant Spedding any credibility after reading those posts of mine, or this other series.

But Haaretz can.

Spedding wrote an article about how he witnesses too much antisemitism on the pro-Palestinian side, and he is upset. Not so much because antisemitism is evil, but because the existence of antisemitism gives credence to the idea that most anti-Zionists are, deep down, antisemitic, which Spedding disputes. He says that "Israel advocacy groups weaponize anti-Semitism to stifle and shut down debate and legitimate criticism of Israel" and "activists will sometimes inadvertently share anti-Semitic or deeply offensive posts. This is the product of ignorance as opposed to malicious intent towards Jews."

The most hilarious part is where Spedding, who went to great lengths to delete his offensive writings from the Internet, self-righteously says "Whatever the motivation, it's the words that matter; this is what makes the public record."

The bulk of the op-ed isn't that terrible; Spedding does call out a real problem. But the entire op-ed is a pathetic way for Spedding to try to rehabilitate himself, and Haaretz is all too happy to allow this violent anti-Israel activist to use its platform to try to make him sound like a peacemaker.

Haaretz and Spedding belong together.



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Palestinian writer angry at Bibi's message to Abbas

Last week, Benjamin Netanyahu sent this message to Mahmoud Abbas:



I hadn't noticed any reaction until today.

Al Quds al Arabi, a pan-Arab site, said that Bibi had the ultimate impudence and  Zionist arrogance to mention how Abbas' people support terror. After all, the author says, Israel is a fascist terrorist state that is so racist that it is now "post-fascist" and "beyond racist."

Then he gives us a history lesson, where we learn that the Palestinians aren't Canaanites or Jebusites at all:

Palestinian Arabs live Palestine for thousands of years, and particularly since the third century BC, when they came from the island of Crete in and founded the cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod , and Ekron.
He is saying that they are Philistines, and he says the Jewish scripture proves it!

Of course, if they are from Crete, they aren't Arab....

The we learn something even more amazing. The first Jews only came to the land in the 19th century, when 1500 came to a Jew-free land in 1840! They have no relationship to the Jews of the Bible, of course - they are Khazars. He helpfully tells the readers to check out Israel Shahak and Roger Garaudy for juicy details.

He then quotes some supposed Israeli archaeologists who say that they have dug for years and still not found any evidence of Jews in Jerusalem. I guess that this artifact I photographed last week from the Second Temple in Hebrew was fake:


The author ends off with, "In the end, I demand you take your things, and get out of our land. Conditions have changed and you'll have to implement our demands."

I am always amazed how people suffering from genocide and torture and land theft and oppression have the ability to demand things from the oppressing party. Aren't they afraid that they will be wiped out by the immoral torturers for their insolence?

Apparently not.



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Surprise! New UNHRC special rapporteur slams Israel in his first statement

Barely reported earlier this month:
United Nations Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk will undertake his first official mission from 10 to 15 July to gather first-hand information on the current human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. He will visit Amman, Jordan, due to Israel’s lack of response to his request to travel to the OPT.

Mr. Lynk is the new independent expert designated by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor and report on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

“I am very much looking forward to meeting with the many representatives of civil society, government officials and UN officers to learn more about recent developments in the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory,” he said. “Their work is invaluable, and it will shape my understanding of what is happening on the ground.”
Israel doesn't let the UNHRC enter because of its extreme anti-Israel bias. So Lynk had to come to his conclusions without stepping foot in the Palestinian territories.

Which wasn't hard, because the conclusions are foregone.

Ma'an Arabic quotes him as saying exactly the same memes that the UN has been spouting for years:
"The people who live in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are suffering more and more from feelings of despair, especially among young people. It is clear that the continued occupation has become more entrenched than ever, and that this had a significant impact on a large segment on the path of development in the occupied Palestinian territory for human rights issues."

He called the Israeli authorities conduct a thorough investigation of excessive use of force and extrajudicial killings.

He expressed particular concern about recently published police procedures which state that the Israeli police forces can use live ammunition in response to stone throwing. The use of lethal ammunition should only be done in limited cases and only when facing a life-threatening risk to law enforcement.

Said Link, "The existence and the spread of Israeli settlements amounts to a serious violation of international law , which results in a host of other violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

The 50 years anniversary of this occupation in 2017 makes it obligatory for the world to pay more attention to the situation which is the heart of this seemingly intractable situation.
His other memes that he regurgitated from his predecessors based on talking to professional propagandists in Jordan included the "kids can't go to schools" meme, the "patients can't reach hospitals" meme, the "NGO law is awful" meme, and "Israel really should let me in so I can lie about them with more impunity" meme.

The lack of any coverage to this visit and his statements (at least so far) seem to indicate that the world is really fatigued with this disproportionate attention given to Israel from a human rights body that all but ignores 99.5% of the world in its zeal to zero in on one nation.


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American Studies Association sued for discrimination


I mentioned that New York attorney David Abrams filed a lawsuit against the National Lawyers Guild for discrimination, under the legal theory that an Israeli organization is considered a "person" under New York anti-discrimination laws.

He has filed a similar lawsuit against the American Studies Association on behalf of the same Israeli organization, Athenaeum Blue & White. As the lawsuit says,

In late 2013, ASA announced a boycott of Israeli organizations. Thus, because of its citizenship and origin, Plaintiff is barred from joining ASA or NYMASA; barred from sending a representative to events put on by these organizations; barred from applying for grants offered by these organizations, and barred from enjoying any other benefits offered by these organizations.
At the time the boycott resolution was enacted, ASA's president admitted that many nations, including many of Israel’s neighbors, are generally judged to have human rights records that are worse than Israel’s, or comparable, but stated, "one has to start somewhere."
In the two and a half years since that statement, ASA has not boycotted any other nation besides Israel and not even put any such other boycott up to a vote of its membership. In other words, the ASA started and finished with Israel.

Athenaeum was recently formed; has an interest in American Studies, and as part of its intended activities would like to join the ASA (and therefore NYMASA); send a representative to activities in New York; and otherwise enjoy the benefits of membership in ASA and NYMASA. 

The lawsuit only asks for $100,000 - and for the ASA to overturn its anti-Israel rules.

Why sue the ASA and not one of the other groups that proudly support BDS?

Well, one has to start somewhere.



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More "Israeli crimes" that were done by Arabs to each other

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reports:
Torching a Palestinian house by suspected Israeli Jewish arsonists in the Nablus village of Duma in the northern West Bank hit the front page headlines in Palestinian daily newspapers.

Al-Quds said a Palestinian family survived an arson attack against their house in Duma village and that ]Israeli[ settlers are suspected of perpetrating the attack.

Al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida said settlers torched a house belonging to the Dawabsha family in a fresh arson attack.

Al-Ayyam reported Palestinian Cabinet Spokesperson Yousef al-Mahmoud slamming the arson attack as a “cowardly and brutal act”.
However, it was done by locals:
An Israel Police representative told The Jerusalem Post that an initial investigation indicated that the incident did not appear to be a nationalistically motivated, but rather the result of a local village conflict. The representative later added that a deeper investigation confirmed the results of the initial investigation.

The previous day, Wafa's news roundup showed very similar behavior:
Killing a 12-year-old Palestinian boy by Israeli forces during clashes in the Jerusalem town of al-Ram hit the front page headlines in Palestinian dailies.

The three dailies said Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian by in the Jerusalem town of al-Ram.

Yet once again, the truth is much different:
Israel police spokeswoman Luba Samri said Israeli forces never opened fire. Israeli border police officers were in Al-Ram to return the body of a suspected Palestinian attacker who was killed in an incident approximately a week ago, she said.

According to Samri, protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the forces, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.
The Palestinian media, of course, doesn't report the truth. They purposefully hide the facts in order to keep their readers good and angry at Israel.

A legitimate media organization should at least mention that there is another side to the story. But Arab media has no journalistic standards and their primary purpose is propaganda and incitement, not reporting the truth.

Which means that any legitimate news organization that quotes Palestinian Arab media without mentioning the caveat that they do not have any journalistic standards are themselves betraying the trust of their readers.




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Fruits of school incitement: Educated Palestinians more likely to support terrorism than illiterates

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) released the findings of a poll last month in which they highlighted that Palestinian support for knife attacks had been decreasing:
Findings show a continued and significant drop, particularly in the West Bank, in support for stabbing attacks. The highest percentage of support for such attacks was registered six months ago before it considerably declined three months ago. ....Findings show that support for use of knives in the current confrontations with Israel continues to decline in this poll, dropping from 58% three months ago to 51%. Support for knifing attacks in the Gaza Strip stands at 75% and in the West Bank at 36%. Three months ago, support among West Bankers for knifing attacks stood at 44% and among Gazans at 82%.

Great news, right? Only half of Palestinians support stabbing random Jews! Perhaps we should reward them with a few billion dollars for such a wonderful moderation.

But buried in the results came the answer to another survey question:
Nonetheless, support for the Jerusalem bus bombing attack which took place in mid-April and cause more than 20 Israeli injuries stands at 65%; only 31% say they oppose this bombing attack. Support for the bus bombing attack is higher in the Gaza Strip (75%) compared to the West Bank (59%), among residents of refugee camps and residents of cities (72% and 67% respectively) compared to residents of villages and towns (54%), among those whose age is between 18 and 22 years (76%) compared to those whose age is 50 years and above (55%), among voters of Hamas and third parties (82% and 62% respectively) compared to Fatah voters (53%), among those who are opposed to the peace process (80%) compared to supporters of the peace process (57%), among refugees (70%) compared to non-refugees (62%), among holders of BA degree (70%) compared to illiterates (49%), among merchants and students (73% and 72% respectively) compared to the retired, laborers, and farmers (34%, 57%, and 60% respectively), among the unmarried (70%) compared to the married (65%).
Here we see the fruits of education in Palestinian schools. Palestinians who are educated are more radical than the illiterate!

Also, younger people are more likely to support human bombs than those old enough to have grown up under Israeli-approved school curricula.

This direct correlation between education and support for terror is damning to the Palestinian educational system. It is significant evidence that Palestinian schools teach hate and support for terrorism.



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Noura Erakat tries to label Israel and the West as "terrorist" in the NYT



The New York Times has a "Room for Debate" section where different people give brief arguments on a topic. The topic earlier this week was "Can we just 'live with' terrorism?"

Academic fraud Noura Erakat, whom I have proven has no problem with lying and then justifying her lies for the sake of her "narrative," spends a few paragraphs pretending that there is no difference between Western armies and terrorists killing civilians, and makes sure (as a person of Palestinian ancestry) that Israel is exhibit A:

To eradicate terrorism, we need a much more honest discussion about what terrorism actually is. If it means the use of force against civilians to achieve a political goal, than that should include all such attacks on civilians, and not merely the ones launched by nonstate actors. In practice, we limit the term to include only nonstate actors.

The victims of state-led attacks are considered collateral damage, or unfortunate but necessary killings. This framework effectively diminishes the value of their lives making it much easier for the world to tolerate excruciatingly high death tolls and absolve the states that caused them.

This paradox is not lost on most of the thinking world, especially where those losses are highest, on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in southern Yemen and in the Gaza Strip.
Erakat is saying that Western armies and Israel attack civilians to achieve political goals - meaning that they purposefully attack civilians. Then after stating her slander as fact, she implies that the idea that the civilian deaths are collateral damage is simply a cover-up for the real desire to murder civilians.

There is a glaring omission in her "highest losses" list is what proves that her polemic is meant to deceive, not enlighten.

Syria.

Everyone sees quite clearly that Syria has been using its state armed forces to directly attack civilians. No one is justifying it. And the loss of life from the Syrian civil war dwarfs that of Yemen or Gaza.

Erakat's definition of terrorism is absolutely correct. Her assertion that the word "terrorism" does not apply to state actors such as Syria is a straw man, because it is obvious that Syria is targeting civilians and is therefore guilty of state terrorism. Practically every Arab state has been equally guilty of directly attacking civilians in recent decades.

Yet Erakat wants to make the reader think that there is no difference between how Western armies act - with clear and specific rules of engagement that are compliant with the Geneva Conventions - and how her fellow Arabs act, state and non-state actors alike.

There is a huge difference. The difference is the target. Terrorists target civilians, moral armies target military targets and sometimes civilians unfortunately die, often because the targets purposefully hide among the civilians themselves.

And while Erakat and Amnesty and HRW and other "human rights" frauds like to claim that Israel and the US and European armies target Arabs, the simplest counterproof to that is the fact that the casualties are not in the tens of millions. In fact, if Erakat knew the least amount about modern Western militaries, she would know that more money and time is spent on avoiding killing civilians than on targeting valid military targets.

That is certainly not the case with her own Palestinian brethren, nor with her fellow Arabs.

Erakat knows very well that international law depends on intent, specifically how a reasonable military expert would react given available information, before labeling an action to be a war crime. She wants to hide that basic fact.

That is why Noura Erakat is an academic fraud, preferring advocacy to the truth.


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Oxfam cooks the books, credits Palestinians for hosting 2,000,000 refugees

Oxfam has a new report on how Western nations aren't doing enough to address the worldwide refugee crisis.

The responsibility for providing refugees with shelter, food and health care, as well as jobs and education, is falling disproportionately on poorer countries, which are often struggling to meet the needs of their own people or are at risk of compromising their own stability.

The world’s six richest countries, which make up more than half the global economy, host just 8.88 percent of the world’s refugees and asylum seekers. Among these countries Germany alone hosts over 736,000 people, while the US, UK, France, China and Japan are hosting the remaining 1.4 million between them.

In sharp contrast, half the world’s refugees and asylum seekers – almost 12 million people – are hosted by Jordan, Turkey, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Pakistan, Lebanon and South Africa, whose economies collectively account for less than two percent of the world’s total.
Here are the numbers they give:


These numbers are completely distorted by the addition of Palestinian "refugees."

The "refugees" in the West Bank and Gaza are not refugees by any sane definition, since they are living in the same land from which they are supposedly refugees from.

The vast majority of the "refugees" in Jordan - over two million - are Palestinian citizens of Jordan!

200,000 of the Palestinian refugees supposedly in Lebanon do not exist, and the rest are descendants of refugees - although Lebanon treats them exceptionally poorly.

Oxfam had some reason to fudge the numbers to include refugees who aren't refugees. If you would remove the 5 million fake Palestinian refugees from the calculations, then the number of refugees hosted by these six poor states (and quasi-states) goes down from nearly 12 million to around 7 million,

This doesn't really explain Oxfam's decision to include Palestinian "refugees" in the report, though.

The latest UNHCR trends report, from mid-2015, already lists the top host countries of real refugees - and they are mostly still poor countries: (note how the numbers in Jordan and Lebanon compare with Oxfam's numbers:)


Oxfam could have made its point about poor countries bearing the brunt of hosting the bulk of refugees without adding the fake UNRWA refugees.

Apparently, Oxfam wants to build a halo around Palestinians and act as if they are some kind of humanitarian powerhouse for being so magnanimous in allowing their own people to live in their land until they figure out a way to destroy Israel. 

Using UNHCR's figures, the percentage of refugees hosted by the six richest countries goes from 9% to 14%. They could have made the point they wanted to make with the real numbers but the fake Palestinian "refugees" juice up their statistics.

At the very least, this exposes how NGOs are more than willing to fudge statistics, knowing full well that the news media will blindly accept their figures. 

(h/t Gastwirt)



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Europe blaming Jews for being murdered by Arabs since 1921



The EU Observer reports:

EU states, in an internal report drafted last year, have said the outbreak of Palestinian knife and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem is due, in large part, to Israel’s occupation.

The report, drafted and endorsed in December 2015 by all the EU countries that have embassies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, said the Temple Mount developments were the “proximate cause” for the upsurge in violence that began after summer last year.

But it said the “heart of the matter” was “the Israeli occupation since 1967 and a long-standing policy of political, economic and social marginalisation of Palestinians in Jerusalem”.
Both the "proximate cause" and the "heart of the matter" are utter rubbish.

There had been no changes whatsoever on the Temple Mount and no plans at all for any changes.

The Jerusalem municipality has been pouring money into the Arab sectors of the town - housing, schools and infrastructure - for years.

However, the idea that Jews are responsible for Arabs deciding to murder Jews is just too attractive for supposedly sophisticated Europeans to pass up. After all, any "objective" inquiry must ask the Arabs why they are discontented, and they will always get a long list of perceived injustices that justify murdering Jews.

The fatal assumption is that this list has a basis in truth.

If you look at history, however, you can see many excuses given for Arab violence by similar committees.

In 1921 in Jaffa, "Arab men bearing clubs, knives, swords, and some pistols broke into Jewish buildings and murdered their inhabitants, while women followed to loot. They attacked Jewish pedestrians and destroyed Jewish homes and stores. They beat and killed Jews in their homes, including children, and in some cases split open the victims' skulls."

The Haycraft Commission of Inquiry report on the riots said "The fundamental cause of the Jaffa riots and the subsequent acts of violence was a feeling among the Arabs of discontent with, and hostility to, the Jews, due to political and economic causes, and connected with Jewish immigration, and with their conception of Zionist policy as derived from Jewish exponents."

British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel Samuel declared shortly afterwards that Jewish immigration to the region would be allowed "only to the extent that it did not burden the economy." In other words, Jews had to pay the price for being murdered.

In 1929, Arabs again massacred Jewish men, women and children throughout Israel in the most gruesome ways. The Shaw Commission went beyond the Haycraft Commission in blaming Jews for both the "fundamental" and (some of) the "immediate" causes:

The fundamental cause, without which in our opinion disturbances either would not occurred or would not have been little more than a local riot, is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future. ... The feeling as it exists today is based on the twofold fear of the Arabs that by Jewish immigration and land purchases they may be deprived of their livelihood and in time pass under the political domination of the Jews.

In our opinion the immediate causes of the outbreak were:-
 -The long series of incidents connected with the Wailing Wall... These must be regarded as a whole, but the incident among them which in our view contributed most to the outbreak was the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on 15 August 1929.
Again, the recommendations were to penalize the Jews by limiting both immigration and land purchases, eventually resulting in the disastrous White Paper that sealed the fate of hundreds of thousands of European Jews who had no place to go to save their lives - thanks to Europeans accepting Arab excuses for murdering Jews.

When seen in this context, the secret EU report is part of a century-long European tendency to blame the Jewish victim for having the audacity of wanting to live in a Jewish state. The common denominator is the Arab demand to keep Jews away from having any political power. The Arabs will use any convenient event to justify the outbreak of violence - but the net conclusion by these pompous Europeans in their reports is that Jews must give away all of their political rights, their land and ultimately their right to self-determnation in order to appease the Arabs.

There is no desire by these commissions to go beyond taking Arab complaints at face value. There is no desire to learn from history and see that there is a consistent pattern that is much more expansive than the identified pseudo-root causes.

Above all, there is no desire to tie the Arab demands for Jewish second-class citizenship with the Islamic demand that Jews be always considered humiliated, second-class citizens. "Dhimmis."

Islamic supremacist ideology, combined with traditional Palestinian Christian antisemitism, is the fundamental cause for Arabs wanting to massacre proud, unapologetic Jews, whether it is by sword, dagger, gun or rocket. It is the "heart of the matter." Blaming the "occupation" or "settlements" or the Jewish desire to visit holy places or the placement of a movable partition in the Western Wall on Yom Kippur in 1928 are simply excuses created by Arabs in the service of taking away Jewish human rights. And the Europeans are more than happy to accept their myriad excuses for terror at face value.

All the proof you need to know that "occupation" is not the "heart of the matter" is to read the many pre-1967 British reports recommending that the Jews knuckle under to Arab demands. It didn't appease the Arabs then and it wouldn't appease them now, because the Western world simply does not want to look at the real root cause of Islamic supremacism.

That willful blindness not only affects the Jewish state, but the entire world.



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Hanan Ashrawi's hypocrisy, illustrated

Here is what Hanan Ashrawi said about the terror attacks in Nice:
“The Palestinian leadership and people stand in solidarity with France and remain committed to nonviolence; we are opposed to any acts of extremism or terror targeting innocent civilians.”
Yet Ashrawi's Miftah organization praises suicide bombers:
Palestinian women have also participated in the resistance. As the conflict grew more intense and young men were recruited to carry out military operations against Israeli targets, several young women also decided to join the ranks of the resistance movement. In January 2002, 28-year-old nurse Wafa Idrees, detonated a bomb in Jerusalem’s Jaffa Street, killing one Israeli and injuring 150 others. She was also killed in the blast.

This marked the beginning of a string of Palestinian women dedicated to sacrificing their lives for the cause. Over the next two years, seven other women carried out similar operations, the most deadly of which was carried out by Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old attorney from Jenin. Hanadi detonated explosives strapped to her body in a busy Haifa restaurant, killing 19 Israelis and injuring 50 others.
Miftah also published on its website, without any caveat, a report on the "General Arab Conference to Support the Resistance" which extols suicide bombers by referring to the "Blessed Al Aqsa Intifada."

Miftah condones terror today (cached here):
Resistance in all forms against the armed colonial settlers and the army of occupation is a legitimate form of the struggle for freedom...Suicide bombing is the ultimate cry of help....

13-year old Hillel Yaffe Ariel, murdered in her bedroom, was one of those "armed colonial settlers" Miftah is referring to.

Miftah has also published an article calling terror attacks "a moral duty" - an article that is still on its website today as well: (cache)
Many of our efforts to defy the arbitrary rules of the occupier are reflexively dismissed as “terrorism,” and we are always expected to apologize for and condemn Palestinian resistance—despite the lack of agreement on a definition of terrorism, and the fact that the right to self-determination by armed struggle is permissible under the United Nations Charter’s Article 51, concerning self-defense.

There also is a trend among those who oppose Palestinian resistance to use the term “jihad” as a synonym for terrorism. In doing so, they reduce the meaning of jihad to mere death. Jihad is a rich concept which includes struggling against one’s lesser self, the effort to do good deeds, actively opposing injustice, and being patient in times of hardship. It is not about violence against God’s creatures, or not fearing death in defending the rights of God’s creations. Violence can, however, be a rational human’s means of defense. When a woman reacts violently when threatened with rape, that is a form of jihad.

Moreover, jihad is an Islamic value—and not all Palestinian fighters are Muslims. The reason why young, sincere altruistic Palestinians blow themselves up is a secret they take with them to the grave. Perhaps it is the strange fruit of revenge growing in the fertile soil of oppression and occupation, or their profound protest against merciless cruelty; or a desperate attempt at attaining equality with Israelis in death, since it is impossible for them in life.
Blowing oneself up to kill Jews is poetry.

Even though Miftah says that of course they are against killing innocent civilians, their website sure seems to bend over backwards to make those who do that seem as wonderful as possible.

And this is Hanan Ashrawi's organization, still including these paeans to terrorism on its website three years after I first exposed them.



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Abbas in Africa: "Negotiations are useless," "We condemn terror" and other lies


Bibi isn't the only person who has been looking to Africa for support.

PA president Mahmoud Abbas addressed the 27th Ordinary Session of the African Union Assembly which was attended by over 35 heads of state in Rwanda.

His speech included the usual lies.

He attempted to blunt Bibi's visit to African nations by claiming that he can also offer scientific expertise to help Africa reach its development goals.

Abbas addressed the Nice attack, saying "I call on everyone to stand united against terrorism, which has no religion; at the same time, we condemn all acts of terrorism that have occurred recently in various parts of the world." Except for those where Jews are killed, where the terrorists are heroes.

Abbas attacked the Quartet report that ascribed a small amount of responsibility to Palestinians for their incitement to terror, saying "The international Quartet mechanism has once again failed to carry out their duties in accordance with the 2003 road map. It has recently issued a report that detracts from the resolutions of international legitimacy, and twists the neck of the truth, it does not reflect the reality of our people under Israeli occupation, it has equated the victim and the executioner, which would encourage Israel, the occupying power, to proceed with the tyranny and violations of international law."

"Any negotiating process is useless," he added, before insisting that Israel must release terrorists from prison to achieve his idea of "peace."

He also presented the president of Rwanda and, I believe, the AU president with the "Star of Jerusalem" award that he gives to every major politician that deigns to meet with him.











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Gaza: Where summer camp counselors wear ski masks (video)



Around 30,000 boys are participating in Hamas paramilitary summer camps this year.

Here are some photos from the Al Qassam Brigades.

It is hard to use the viewfinder when you wear a mask.

Hold on - you mean my biggest goal in life is to end up dead like him?

I can't wait to grow up and smell like these guys in the summer heat

Our holiest site now available as a kitschy cardboard cutout


And here is the official video celebrating teaching the next generation to murder Jews.







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The newest human right: Free transportation to visit terrorists in prison

Palestinian Arabs have added a new "human right" to their ever-expanding list to stay way ahead in the world's entitlement sweepstakes.

For years, the International Committee for the Red Cross had arranged transportation for Palestinians to visit their family members in Israeli prisons twice a month. This month, however, they have reduced the number of visits to only once a month.

And the families now have to pay their own transportation costs to see their terrorist sons or fathers.

The Red Cross cited budget problems for the change, but the families could not conceive that there is any more important function of the ICRC than giving them transportation to visit convicted terrorists in prison.

The ICRC-sponsored visits to prisoners who are women or youths below 18 continue twice a month because there are relatively few of them. According to B'Tselem, there are 414 minors in prison as of the end of April.

The number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons have gone up from around 5,200 to around 6.300 since the "knife uprising" started in September 2015.

Palestinians have consistently been, by far, the largest recipients of international humanitarian aid per capita year after year. As a result they have built an entire society based on entitlement, where they believe that they deserve free services from the world forever. Whenever an aid program gets cut they start protests, often violent, and often they end up getting their way, taking money away from real humanitarian crises.











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