05/13 Links Pt1: Palestinian Leaders and Child Sacrifice; Five mendacious myths make one false narrative

From Ian:

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Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinian Leaders and Child Sacrifice

The tragic death of three Palestinian siblings, killed in a fire that destroyed their house in the Gaza Strip on May 6, demonstrates yet again the depth to which Palestinian leaders will go to exploit their children for political purposes and narrow interests.
The three children from the Abu Hindi family -- Mohamed, 3 years old, his brother Nasser, 2 years old and their two-month infant sister Rahaf, died in a fire caused by candles that were being used due to the recurring power outages in the Gaza Strip.
The electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip is the direct result of the continued power struggle between the two Palestinian rival forces, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
In recent months, the crisis has deepened, leaving large parts of the Gaza Strip without electricity for most of the day. Hamas blames the Palestinian Authority for the crisis because of its failure to cover the costs of the fuel needed to operate the power plants in the Gaza Strip. The PA has retorted by blaming Hamas's "corruption" and "incompetence."
The Abu Hindi family resides in the Shati refugee camp, where Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other leaders of the Islamist movement live. But unlike the senior Hamas leaders, the Abu Hindi family could not afford to purchase their own power generator to supply them with electricity during the power outages. Instead, the tragedy-stricken family, like most families in the Gaza Strip, resorted to the cheapest alternative lighting method -- candles.
On that horrific evening, the Abu Hindi's three children went to sleep while the candles were burning. Hours later, the charred bodies of the three siblings were taken from the house while it was still on fire and engulfed with smoke.
In any other country, this incident would have been reported as a routine tragedy -- one of the kind that could happen in any city such as New York, London or Paris.
Here, however, the death of the three children is not just another personal tragedy. This was a case, rather, of child sacrifice: the Abu-Hindi children were sacrificed on the altar of the decade-long war being waged between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. And these children are far from the first or last such victims.

Caroline Glick: The fruits of subversion

From the perspective of democratic norms, the worst part of Dagan’s subversion is that he was proud of it.
By insisting his final interview be broadcast posthumously, Dagan showed that he wanted his subversion of the government to be his legacy. Dagan’s final act was to tell his countrymen that it is legitimate to place themselves above the law and above the lawful government and take independent actions that will obligate the entire country.
Ironically, there is no substantive difference between Dagan’s actions – or the generals’– and the actions of the so-called Hilltop Youth in Samaria whom the generals continuously condemn as the greatest threat to Israel.
Like the generals, right-wing extremist teenage outlaws reject the authority of the government. Like the generals, denizens of “the state of Judea” believe that they know how to advance Israel’s national security better than our elected officials.
True, the damage the generals cause the country by revealing state secrets to foreign governments and libeling the nation of Israel as Nazis is several orders of magnitude greater than the damage wrought by fanatical teenagers who vandalize Arab property. Indeed it is far greater than alleged acts of murder that a handful of Hilltop Youth stand accused of committing.
And by acting lawlessly and showing bottomless contempt for our elected officials, Dagan, Golan and their comrades tell the Hilltop Youth and the rest of us that the law is what they say it is.
Sixty-eight years ago, after declaring Israel’s independence, David Ben-Gurion set about dismantling the underground militias to ensure the survival of the state as a coherent political unit.
Sixty-eight years later, it works out there are still competing gangs trying to obligate the rest of us with their unlawful, anti-democratic and immoral behavior. If Israel is to survive for the next 68 years, we need to act firmly and forthrightly to end this state of affairs.

Martin Sherman: Five mendacious myths make one false narrative

Given the lies and distortions of Palestinian claims, what seems more credible: An offer to buy the Brooklyn Bridge or the Palestinian narrative?
Even a cursory analysis of historical events in this region will reveal that, in the case of Palestinians-Arabs, neither of these constituent elements exists: Not an identifiably differentiated people, desiring exercise of political sovereignty; nor a defined territory in which that sovereignty is to be exercised.
One need only examine the declarations and documents of Palestinians themselves to verify this, and discover that they have never really conceived of themselves as a discernibly discrete people with a defined homeland.
Accordingly, little effort is required to demonstrate that the Palestinian “narrative” – the ideo-intellectual fuel driving the demands for statehood – is nothing more than a motley mixture of multiple myths, easily identifiable and readily refutable. The inescapable conclusion is – or should be – that the entire edifice of Palestinian national aspirations is a giant political hoax, a massive sleight of political hand to serve a more sinister – and thinly disguised – ulterior motive.
What are the five constituent myths that comprise the noxious concoction of the Palestinian narrative?

Prof. Eugene Kontorovich at the House Committee on the Judiciary May 2016
examined how the Executive improperly ignored legislation pursuant to the Foreign Commerce Clause in implementing the Iran nuclear deal, also the funding of UN organizations.




Hezbollah terror chief blown up. Israel not blamed!

Mustafa Badreddine, the heir to Imad Mughniyeh as Hezbollah’s terror chief, had no shortage of enemies.
He was wanted in the US and in Saudi Arabia for his part in the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. He was the sworn enemy of opposition activists in Syria. Of Islamic State. Of Al Nusra Front. Of Israel. And that’s not the full list.
Badreddine was also involved in a great deal of the clandestine, illicit activities — drugs smuggling, weapons smuggling and more — by which the Shiite terror ground funds its various military actions.
Hard to know, then, who killed him.
In an official statement on Friday morning, Hezbollah didn’t claim to be certain. While pro-Hezbollah media had quickly pointed the finger of blame at Israel, the statement did not. It said only that “an initial investigation shows that Mustafa Badreddine was killed as a result of a large explosion at one of our bases near the Damascus International Airport. We are conducting an investigation to find out the circumstances of the explosion – whether it was caused by an aerial assault, artillery strike or a rocket. We will publish our findings soon.”
And the early reports on Al-Mayadeen, a website affiliated with Hezbollah, to the effect that Badreddine was killed in an Israeli airstrike, were subsequently taken down.

Hezbollah announces probe into killing of top Syria commander attributed to Israel

Lebanese-based terrorist organization Hezbollah said it was investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of its top commander in Syria, as media reports in Lebanon claimed he was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus on Tuesday.
“According to preliminary information, a large explosion targeted one of our positions near Damascus international airport, killing our brother, commander Mustafa Badreddine, and wounding others,” said the group, which is battling rebels in Syria alongside the troops of President Bashar Assad.
“We will continue the investigation to determine the nature and causes of the explosion and whether it was due to an air raid, a missile or artillery fire,” the group said in a statement.
Badreddine’s funeral was to take place at 5:30 p.m. Friday in Beirut, a journalist for ABC News said. A minister from the group vowed that the fight in Syria would continue despite the killing, the reporter said.

Hezbollah MP says Israel responsible for commander's death and is starting 'open war'

Nawar al-Saheli, a Hezbollah member of Lebanon's parliament, accused Israel on Friday of being responsible for the death of their top commander, Mustafa Amine Badreddine, and called the attack part of an "open war."
"We do not want to get ahead of the investigation, but there is no doubt that Israel was behind his death," the MP told Hezbollah-controlled TV station Al-Manar.
"The resistance will carry out its duties at the appropriate time," he added.
Cabinet minister Zeev Elkin, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declined to comment on the allegations in a interview with Army Radio.

BBC News amplifies unreliable source on Hizballah commander’s death

On the morning of May 13th the 14.3 million followers of the BBC News (World) Twitter account were informed that Israel had assassinated a Hizballah commander.
The BBC News website article to which audiences were directed in that (now non-existent) Tweet was titled “Top Hezbollah commander Badreddine killed in Israel strike” and it opened as follows:
“A senior Hezbollah commander has been killed in an Israeli operation in Syria, the Lebanon-based Shia militant organisation says.
It says Mustafa Amine Badreddine died in an Israeli air strike near Damascus airport.
Israel has so far made no public comment on the claim.”
Did Hizballah really issue such a statement and did the BBC independently verify its accuracy before informing millions of people around the world that Israel had killed Badreddine? Obviously not because the next version of the article – retitled “Top Hezbollah commander Badreddine killed” – revealed that the information had come from a less than reliable source.

Douglas Murray - Police Simulators Shouting 'Allahu Akbar'

Douglas Murray on the BBC making arguments so anodyne and painfully obviously, it's quite staggering they needed to be said in the first place.

Netanyahu to diplomats: Help me get a meeting with Abbas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked heads of diplomatic missions and religious communities on Thursday to encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to accept his offer to talk peace.
Netanyahu, who is also the foreign minister, said he is willing to sit down with Abbas in Jerusalem, Ramallah or anywhere else he might care to meet.
“You cannot make peace with anyone who refuses to sit down with you,” he said, adding that Israelis and Palestinians deserve enduring peace.
Speaking at the annual reception for diplomats, military attachés, honorary consuls and heads of religious communities that is traditionally held at the President’s Residence on Independence Day, Netanyahu reiterated his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, providing that a demilitarized Palestinian state recognizes the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish People.
“It’s about time,” he declared.
Vowing that Israel will never give up on peace, Netanyahu said previously hostile states in the region are now forming deep partnerships with Israel, a development that gives hope to the possibility of a solution to the conflict.

Israel as a Security Asset – for Everyone

It may have something to do with NATO member Turkey’s increasingly perilous position in the Middle East. Facing increased Kurdish restiveness, spillover from the Syrian war, ISIS imposed genocide, and increasingly strained relations with Russia over Syria and Ngorno-Karabakh, restoring security cooperation with Israel might be a lifeline for Ankara. This would account for Turkey dropping its opposition to Israel’s NATO mission.
Or maybe NATO is reverting to its previous view of Israel as a security partner and moving closer to the traditional American position, regardless of the increasingly shrill tenor of European politics (we’re not the only ones). There is history here.
In 1979, I worked on what was called a "quick reference guide" to the capabilities Israel brought to U.S.-Israel security cooperation. Israel has:
- A secure location in a crucial part of the world
- A well-developed military infrastructure
- The ability to maintain, service, and repair U.S.-origin equipment
- An excellent deep-water port in Haifa
- Modern air facilities
- A position close to sea-lanes and ability to project power over long distances
- A domestic air force larger than many in Western Europe and possessing more up-to-date hardware
- Multilingual capabilities, including facility in English, Arabic, French, Farsi, and the languages of the (former) Soviet Union
- Combat familiarity with Soviet/Russian style tactics and equipment
- The ability to assist U.S. naval fleets, including common equipment
- The ability to support American operations and to provide emergency air cover
- A democratic political system with a strong orientation to support the United States and the NATO system. (h/t Zvi)

A new Mediterranean friendship amid regional instability

Israel and Greece have in recent years upgraded bilateral diplomatic and defense relations to a significant degree, creating a new Mediterranean alliance that developed quickly following Turkey’s plunge into Islamism.
Now, with reports surfacing periodically of a thaw in Israeli-Turkish relations, the partnership with Greece, carefully built up over the past six years, faces a new test.
The new friendship with Greece has flourished under various, often ideologically opposed, governments that have risen and fallen in Athens, which was once traditionally unfriendly to Israel. The partnership appears to be immune to political changes in Athens or Jerusalem, driven by national interests and shared concerns over regional developments.
In April 2015, the Israel Air Force held a large-scale training exercise in Greece for its combat and transport helicopters, enabling aircrews to gain valuable flight experience in mountainous terrain. Such training helps the IAF prepare for a range of missions, including potential long-range operations.
It came weeks after the IAF sent fighter jet squadrons to fly with the Hellenic Air Force.

Right-wing activists held over bids to ascend Temple Mount, block Muslims

Police arrested over a dozen right-wing activists in the Old City of Jerusalem Thursday, as they tried to hold an illegal march to the Temple Mount and keep others from reaching the area in two seemingly separate incidents.
Around 6 p.m., dozens of right-wing activists begin an unauthorized procession from downtown Jerusalem toward the Temple Mount, the police said in a statement.
The police commanding officer at the scene called on the marchers to disperse, as the event was taking place illegally. When the marchers refused, five were arrested.
Later, another 10 people were arrested as they formed a human chain at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City to try to keep Muslims from entering the area.

The Waqf member pointed, the rabbi was expelled

Rabbi Shimon Ben-Tzion of Kiryat Arba in Judea was distanced from the Temple Mount on Thursday, Israeli Independence Day, after a member of the Jordanian Waqf falsely claimed that he prayed at the site.
Despite Israel having liberated the Mount - the holiest site in Judaism - in the 1967 Six Day War, the Jordanian Waqf has been left in de facto control of the site, and Israeli police kowtow to the Waqf's discriminatory ban on Jewish prayer at the site.
Rabbi Ben-Tzion, who has a custom of visiting the Mount every Independence Day, told Galei Yisrael radio that "at 7:30 a.m. I went in to the Temple Mount with a group of Jews."
"Everything was permitted and arranged, and after a few minutes Waqf members encircled us as is their way," he said.
"Only one of them thought that I was praying, he saw me concentrating and decided that I was praying. He turned to the police officer at the site and told him, indicated to him: 'here's a Jew daring to pray and on Independence Day on the Temple Mount.'"
The police officer ordered to expel the rabbi from the Mount. Rabbi Ben-Tzion tried to explain, but to no avail.

The Left Marks Israeli Independence by Trying to Make Israel More Dependent

Just when you think they’ve run out of ideas, the American Jewish left has found a novel way to commemorate Israel’s Independence Day — by trying to make Israel more dependent.
In a full-page ad in the New York Times on Thursday, the S. Daniel Abraham Center demanded that Israel withdraw to the pre-1967 boundaries and accept creation of a Palestinian state.
The Abraham Center’s solution is a recipe for total Israeli dependence — on the goodwill of the Palestinians and the assurances of the international community. Which is probably not what Israel’s founders had in mind in 1948 when they established what was intended to be a free, proud, and genuinely sovereign state.
The New York Times ad began with the usual misleading claims. For example, it alleged that “the Jewish democratic character of Israel is at risk” because “Arabs are today 50% of the population between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Jews are 49% of that population.”
Well, if that’s the case — if the Arabs are already a majority — then how is it that Israel still exists as a Jewish state?

Saudi Arabia Says Jews Living in Arab-claimed Lands is a "Terrorist Act"

Saudi Arabia, well-known for having promoted violent extremism and terrorist narratives around the world, spoke at a Security Council session on "Threats to International Peace and Security Caused by Terrorist Acts: Countering the Narratives and Ideologies of Terrorism" held on May 11, 2016. Among other things, the Saudis accused Israelis existence on Arab-claimed land as "in itself a terrorist act":
"Israel continues to resort to all forms of violence and excessive force against the lone Palestinian people... And all of that, it is basing itself on extremist terrorist racial rhetoric that calls for killing, displacement, and destruction. Turning a blind eye to the dangers of this rhetoric based on violence and on the state terrorism, failing to expressly condemn it, failing to fight it, failing to hold accountable those who promote it, is closely linked to the growing hate rhetoric, the rhetoric of violence, extremism, and terrorism... The ongoing Israeli occupation of Arab occupied territories in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon is in itself a terrorist act that denies the Arab people in this region their legitimate rights."

Update on IDF Officer Wounded in Hizmeh Bombings

The condition of the IDF officer wounded in the multiple-bombing attack near Hizmeh on Tuesday night has improved.
As of Thursday evening, the soldier is recuperating after undergoing extensive surgery at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. He was wounded in the face and head from the explosions.
He is now listed as stable and in moderate condition.
A second soldier was lightly wounded in the leg from shrapnel from one of the bombs.
Four bombs blew up, while another 5 failed to detonate at the scene of the terror attack.

ISIS terrorist snuck into Gaza Strip through Hamas tunnels, Israel says

An Islamic State operative snuck into the Gaza Strip through Hamas’ system of underground tunnels connecting the Palestinian-ruled area with the Sinai Peninsula, Israel said on Friday.
In an interview with the Saudi news site Elaph, the coordinator for government activities in the territories, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, said that the ISIS operative was due to undergo military training in Gaza.
Mordechai told Elaph that the ISIS gunman was admitted into the Gaza Strip in coordination with a senior Hamas official in Rafah, Said Abdel al-A’al.
The general said that this development is indicative of greater cooperation between the Palestinian Islamist group and the Sinai branch of the jihadist organization that has managed to capture wide swaths of Syria and Iraq in the last five years.
Mordechai said that Hamas has extended medical assistance to ISIS fighters who have recently been wounded in clashes with Egyptian security forces. In return, ISIS has given Hamas cash and weapons.

Days after terror tunnel revelation, Egypt lets cement into Gaza

Egypt reopened the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Sinai on Wednesday and Thursday for the first time in three months, and in the process allowed in cement - despite the recent exposure of Hamas terror tunnels breaching into Israel last week.
Just last Thursday Israel unearthed a terror tunnel leading under the security border to facilitate attacks in the second such tunnel found in recent weeks. Hamas fired mortars on consecutive days late last week to try and stop the tunnels from being exposed, and Gazan terrorists even fired a rocket on Saturday.
But nevertheless Egypt saw fit to allow trucks carrying cement through the Rafah crossing along with pedestrians, days after Hamas announced that new understandings had been reached with Israel to stop the clashes through Egyptian mediation.
The decision by Cairo has caused fury in the Israeli security establishment, reports Walla on Friday.
Security sources were quoted by the news site as saying the Egyptian move to allow in cement opposes the goal of the joint security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) as well as the UN, which tracks building materials entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Israel last month decided to dramatically reduce the influx of cement to Gaza, after it was documented that Palestinian factories in Gaza transferred raw building materials to Hamas's "military wing," the Al-Qassam Brigades, to build its terror infrastructure.

Hezbollah condemns US sanctions on banks that deal with it

Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc said Thursday that US sanctions on banks that knowingly do business with the militant group could threaten Lebanon’s financial sector, hinting that supporters may withdraw their money from local banks.
The bloc, known as Loyalty to the Resistance, criticized the central bank for saying it would abide by a US law that came into effect last month and which the Hezbollah lawmakers said violates Lebanon’s sovereignty.
The statement came after a Cabinet meeting Thursday in which officials discussed a decision by banks to shut down the accounts of at least two Hezbollah lawmakers, an official who attended the meeting told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the meeting with the media.
One of the two lawmakers refused to comment on the news, referring to the statement by the group’s parliamentary bloc. The other could not be reached for comment.
The official said Cabinet members are concerned the law could affect Hezbollah’s large network of social, educational and health organizations, which regularly deal with the government and provide services to needy Lebanese, not just supporters.

Morocco unravels IS plot to attack tourists, Western facilities

Morocco’s Interior Ministry said Friday that authorities have arrested a Chadian national affiliated with the Islamic State group and unraveled a “dangerous” plot to attack Western diplomatic buildings and tourist sites.
The Chadian was arrested Friday in a safe house in the northern city of Tangiers. The Interior Ministry statement did not identify him.
It said the suspect flew to Morocco from Chad on May 4, landing at the Casablanca airport. It said he had a mandate from IS to organize a terror cell comprised of Moroccans and Algerians to attack Western diplomatic buildings and tourist sites.
It compared the scope of the threat to the simultaneous bombings in Casablanca on May 16, 2003, that killed 33 people.

One Year after the Nuclear Deal, Iran remains leading financier of terrorism worldwide

One year after the Obama-backed Nuclear Deal came into effect, Islamic Republic of Iran remains the leading sponsor of international terrorism, says a policy paper published by British policy think-tank Henry Jackson Society. According to the report released on Wednesday at the House of Lords in London, Iran maintains a large and lucrative illegal financing network to bypass the remaining sanction that are in place to stop Tehran from funding terrorist outfits and regime.
The report quotes an economist close to current Iranian regime describing the extent of the network, stating that “between 5,000-10,000 people worked in the [illicit financing] network, handling deals worth between $300 billion and $400 billion over the past decade.” Even after easing of sanction by the U.S. and the West, Iran seems to have no intention of giving up this illicit financing network which also acts as a lucrative source of income for the members of the military and the regime.
The paper has been compiled by Dr. Matthew Levitt, an Associate Fellow of The Henry Jackson Society and Senior Fellow and Director of the Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Dr. Levitt, who has also worked as a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI, is a leading authority on the risks emerging from global terrorism financing.
Revolutionary Guard (IGRC), the armed wing of Iran’s Shi’a Islamist regime, exerts control over the sectors of country’s economy and industry well beyond the military and secutiry establishment. IGRC uses civil aviation assets to supply arms and equipment to terrorist outfit Hezbollah and Syria’s Assad Regime, reports says:

Clifford D. May: Obama's 'Boy Wonder'

Among the most serious charges that President Barack Obama and his supporters have leveled against former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney: They "cherry-picked intelligence." The phrase suggests that, while in office, they sorted through the information provided by America's spy agencies, selecting the tidbits that supported their policies while discarding anything that might cast doubts on their conclusions.
So what has been Obama's record in this area? Thanks to an incisive essay by David Samuels in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, we now know.
To sell the Iran deal -- which Obama considers his signature foreign policy achievement -- the public was told there was "a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country."
Samuels asks Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director in the Obama administration, "whether it was ever a salient feature of the CIA's analysis when he ran the agency that the Iranian regime was meaningfully divided between 'hard-line' and 'moderate' camps." Panetta answers without equivocation: "No."
The intelligence community clearly understood that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "ran that country with a strong arm." They faced no challenge from a rising moderate faction.

White House Angrily Reacts to Request That Rhodes Testify About Iran Deal Deception

White House spokesman Josh Earnest angrily reacted to the suggestion that embattled Obama aide Ben Rhodes testify in a hearing on the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday.
“With all due respect to the chairman, if he has an interest in a hearing about false narratives as it relates to the Iran deal then I’ve got some suggestions for people they should swear in,” Earnest said.
Earnest went on to name congressional members who either opposed the Iran deal or as the Earnest put it were “wrong or just lying.” Earnest admitted he did not know the procedure for swearing in members of the Senate to participate in the hearing. He then went on to read what a few senators have said about the Iran deal.
“Sen. Tom Cotton, who I know has a special relationship with the supreme leader, so maybe he’s got some interesting insight to the deal as well that he would like to share with the committee,” Earnest said referring to the letter that was sent to Iranian leaders and was signed by 47 Republican senators.

White House defends aide Ben Rhodes over Iran deal accusations

The White House locked horns on Thursday with a House committee chairman over whether a senior aide should testify before Congress about his role in crafting President Barack Obama’s public relations campaign in favor of the Iran nuclear deal.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest did not rule out the possibility that deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes would testify before the House oversight committee at a Tuesday hearing on “White House narratives on the Iran deal.” But Earnest tried to brush off the request from Chairman Jason Chaffetz by casting the Utah Republican’s hearing as political theater and challenging the GOP case against the agreement.
“I think there are some people who have some explaining to do when it comes to the wildly false accusations that they made about the Iran deal. And it’s not the administration. It’s Republicans who are demonstrably wrong when it comes to the Iran deal,” Earnest said, accusing several Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, of being “wildly misinformed, mistaken or lying” when they made claims about the deal’s economic benefits for Tehran.
Chaffetz responded to Earnest on Twitter. “Dear @PressSec , @SenTomCotton will testify if @rhodes44 is man enough to show. Let’s discuss the truth,” he wrote.

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UN FAO office curses at woman who complains about their antisemitic "goodwill ambassador"

An EoZ reader sent this email to the Washington DC office of the UN's FAO:

Hello:

I understand FAO has appointed Majida El Roumi as a Goodwill Ambassador. Is this correct? What type of vetting, if any, is done for candidate Goodwill Ambassadors?

I understand further that Majida El Roumi has publicly endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and stated that Zionists are responsible for the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels.

If FAO was not previously aware of Majida El Roumi's publicly expressed antisemitism, I submit that you now have notice thereof. Media clips of El Roumi's hate speech are archived and summarized here: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2016/05/un-fao-goodwill-ambassador-lebanese.html.

I call for Majida El Roumi to be removed from her position as Goodwill Ambassador immediately. Will she be removed from this position, and will you take the bold step to condemn her blatant antisemitism?

Thank you,

She called the same office later in the day. What happened next is explained in her email to one of the employees in that office:

Dear Genevie:

Thank you for speaking with me earlier. As I mentioned, I called the main line this afternoon and said that I would like to speak to someone re: the Goodwill Ambassador. The representative who answered said that she received my e-mail. I had not given her my name when I called, so it was unclear to me why your representative asserted that she received "my e-mail." I asked if she knew who I was, and she said "I do not give a shit who you are." She put me on hold and when I asked for her name, she hung up on me. Obviously this conduct is not appropriate for any public servant, much less those in the role of liaison.

I expect this individual to be reprimanded and I look forward to an earnest reply from UN FAO on the substantive issue below.

Best regards,

The FAO contact replied:

I am unsure who you spoke with but I’ve informed all staff that they are required to conduct themselves as proper International Civil Servants and to address telephone queries with utmost respect.

As for the protocol relating to UN Goodwill Ambassadors and their selection, the entire procedure and vetting process are undertaken by FAO headquarters (Rome, Italy). They reached at the following email address : GoodwillAmbassadors@fao.org.

My apologies for the delayed response.

Sincerely,

Genevie

The working day at FAO headquarters in Italy is now over, and there has been no response to my inquiry about their support of an antisemite.

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UNRWA keeps pushing Pallywood

This is the pinned photo that has been on the top of the Twitter feed of Raquel Marti, UNRWA's executive director in Spain, for months. She captioned it "Bath time in Gaza:"

The original photo was taken by Emad Nassar, with this description:

June 26, 2015 . Salem Saoody, 30, is getting his daughter Layan (L) and his niece Shaymaa 5 (R) in the only remaining piece from their damaged house, which is the bathing tub. They now live in a caravan near the rubble.

One minor question: Where did the water come from?

There is no rain in Gaza in June. The house does not appear to have running water. There is no hose visible in the picture.

What are the chances that Salem Saoody takes his daughters out of their mobile home and they carry over 100 liters of clean water with them to their former home to take a bath?

Emad Nassar saw the chance for a dramatic photo, so he staged it to win awards. And the girls were happy to play in a mini-pool on a summer day. So, it appears, Nassar and Saoody spent a morning carrying water to the old bathtub for the perfect photo.

The idea that the Saoodys are forced to give their girls a bath in their old bathtub does not pass any sanity test.

Last June, when this photo was taken, I noted that Hamas had turned the Shujaiyeh neighborhood into a showpiece to bring foreign reporters to show Israel's evil - even though thousands of Gaza homes were being repaired, Hamas left Shujaiyeh untouched. There were a series of such obviously staged photos published by Hamas-leaning and duped photojournalists. And while the terror group kept the neighborhood as a zoo for gaping Westerners, it was building tunnels underneath the very same area.

UNRWA has something in common with Hamas. Both groups wanted to keep families in Shujaiyeh homeless, and the rubble uncleared, for as long as possible so they could maximize its propaganda value and get more funds from credulous Westerners. UNRWA actually made an entire film of such staged scenes in the neighborhood last year,

Of course, if you want to paint Gazans as eternal victims and implicitly blame Israel at every opportunity, this staged photo and inaccurate caption is perfect for you - and perfect for UNRWA and its lackeys. UNRWA created an entire film of such staged scenes in this neighborhood and told kids there to act in ludicrous scenes such as creating a makeshift see-saw in the middle of rubble.

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I had no idea Hezbollah was so liberal

Early this morning, Hezbollah's top commander in Syria, Mustafa Badreddine, was announced to have been killed in a large blast at a military installation near Damascus airport.

Early reports blamed Israel, but it is not that clear who was behind the assassination.

Hezbollah's statement described Badreddine as the ultimate jihadist:

In The Name of Allah, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful

"Of the believers are men who are true to that which they covenanted with Allah. Some of them have paid their vow by death (in battle), and some of them still are waiting; and they have not altered in the least" (Al-Ahzab, 23)

A few months earlier he said: "I won't come back from Syria unless as a martyr or a carrier of the banner of victory."

He is the great Jihadi leader, Hajj Mustafa Badriddine (Sayyed Zulfiqar), who came back today wrapped with the banner of victory which he established through his bitter fight against the Takfiri groups in Syria.

Following a life full of Jihad, captivity, wounds and great qualitative achievements , Sayyed Zulfiqar concluded his life with martyrdom.

But their next sentence indicates that Hezbollah is a very liberal social justice group.

He joined the convoy of martyrs, one of whom was his beloved and life-long companion, martyred leader Hajj Imad Moughniyeh.

I didn't know that Hezbollah was so tolerant!

What a romantic story, to see how this loving couple Badreddine and Mughniyeh have finally reunited to spend their afterlife together again. They can keep each other very warm.

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Dimensions Of Family Medicine

Modernization in the present day world finds its way in every bit of the human life. The advent of new gadgets and the change in the way human beings generally conduct their activities generally sets the trend for modernization to occur. In the practice of medicine, there have been several major discoveries that have come up, and alongside with the changes in the way medical practitioners carry out their activities. Family medicine is one of the arising areas of concern.

Family Medicine abbreviated as FM refers to the specialization in the intensive or comprehensive care of patients of all ranges. Family doctors and family physicians are involved in the practice of family medicine, and they differ from the regular doctors in the intensity of care with which they handle their patients. In Europe, Family medicine is known by the name General Practice and the person in charge of the patients for treatment of acute or chronic ailments is General Practice Doctor, abbreviated as GP.

Family medicine is a three-dimensional specialty that encompasses knowledge, skills and process. The process bit focuses on a physician-patient relationship for which the patient in question receives integrated care. With other physicians, specialty is limited to a specific disease, genders or organs, but with family physicians, the care extends to all genders and covers for all ailments.

Family medicine can be ideally traced to the care of patients after World WarII, with the intent of creating a dynamic shift from the practice of general medicine to provision of personal and quality medical care to people of all walks. With time, the attempt which started way back in 1969 has borne fruits in the fact that family physicians are now responsible for the provision of health care services to rural and urban inhabitants.

Family physicians receive extensive training in a bid to ensure that they are up to the task, which is providing the comprehensive care for patients with their differing ages. The residency program put in place after the graduation of family physicians from medical school presents them with an opportunity to acquire skills in the treatment of diseases in the following six major medical areas: community medicine, surgery, internal medicine, psychiatry and neurology, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology. Family physicians, upon the acquisition of the skills, are in a position to also provide coordinated care with specialists handling specific diseases in their patients.

With family medicine, family physicians, in addition to diagnosing and treating diseases, provide preventive care. Preventive care is a wide scope in itself and covers for regular checkups, inoculation, screening tests, health-risk assessments and provision of advice on the maintenance of a quality and healthy lifestyle.

Primary care is the wider of medical care that family medicine falls under. The Institute of Medicine defines primary care as "the provision of integrated, accessible health care services by clinicians who are accountable for the addressing a large majority of personal health care needs, developing a sustained partnership with patients and practicing in the context of family and community". Other primary care specialties include pediatrics and general internal medicine. Family physicians and doctors thus fall under a wider category of primary care physicians called family care physicians. While there are several similarities between family physicians and other primary care physicians, family physicians are at edge of making an overall impact on the health of a patient for their lifetime.The intent of primary care as is with family medicine is provision of patient-centered care as opposed to physician-centered care, an act that has helped in the achievement of impressive health outcomes, translating to saving costs associated with treating chronic illnesses which could have been handled in their acute stages.

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05/12 Links Pt2: Haaretz columnist calls for a military coup in Israel; UNHRC resolution an 'assault on Israel'

From Ian:

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Haaretz senior columnist implicitly calls for a military coup in Israel

Israeli radical left Haaretz daily published on Wednesday, May 11, 2016 an article implicitly calling on the army officers to carry out a military coup in order to save the democracy.
The article was penned by Tzvi Barel, columnist, commentator for Middle Eastern affairs and a board member of Haaretz owned by Amos Schocken. Aluf Benn is the Editor-in-Chief of Haaretz.
Barel said that the military brass will have to determine what is the ultimate threat to the security and existence of Israel: “thousands of missiles and Palestinian stabbers or a government engineering the public to make them become a monster threatening to prey on the basic values of the Israeli democracy.”
According to Barel, Israel is not immune of a military coup and perhaps such a coup has already started. “The army will not be the instigator of a revolt if it happens. By pushing today the army into a spot in which it has to defend itself and its values, the political leadership is the one which will bring about the first Jewish military revolution,” Barel wrote.
Barel added that army does not have to conquer the Knesset (Parliament), the Prime Minister offices and the TV stations in order to carry out the military coup, because it enjoys the support of the Israeli people. (h/t Yenta Press)

Calling Israel an apartheid state is an insult to black South Africans (OPINION)

I am from Zimbabwe and grew up under the strictest regime of apartheid in South Africa. Today, I am an author and law student at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am an avid debater, ranked fourth globally and first in Africa in the World Universities Public Speaking Championship.
I have read the recent guest column in The Oregonian written by Alice Rothchild.
I understand that the Methodist and, later, the Presbyterian Church USA are considering proposals to boycott and divest from Israel.
I believe the Christian faith and the state of Israel are irrevocably intertwined. This is because the Christian faith flows naturally from the Judaic faith.
There are some who would seek to have the Christian churches distance themselves from the state of Israel. There is a call for the churches to join the boycott divestment sanctions (BDS) movement. It would be a big victory, indeed, for the Palestinians to convince some of the biggest allies of the state of Israel to remove their support.
This call is based on the claim that Israel is an apartheid state and, secondly, that negotiations have not been successful as a strategy for peace. These two premises are both incorrect. Allow me to elaborate.
Like Ms. Rothchild, I used to support the BDS movement, but I withdrew my support after I visited Israel and Palestine (the West Bank).

New Statesman: How 'the longest hatred' took root

Succinct analysis of the roots of antisemitism by Brendan Sims and Charlie Laderman, all the more remarkable for appearing the left-leaning New Statesman. Here is the extract from The Longest Hatred about anti-Semitism in the Middle East (with thanks: Lily):
5. Anti-Semitism and the left
As the heir of the Enlightenment and ideals of the French Revolution, the European left championed emancipation, equality and tolerance in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, it was regarded favourably by Jews. And yet hostility to Jews animated the world-view of some pioneering socialists. For instance, the late-18th- and early-19th-century utopian socialist Charles Fourier regarded Jews as “parasites, merchants, usurers”. They were agents of capitalism and commerce, personified most powerfully by the Rothschilds. Karl Marx, even though he was of Jewish descent, claimed that Jews had made money the “God of the world” and called for humanity to be emancipated from Judaism. It was these manifestations of anti-Judaism that led the German Social Democrat August Bebel to refer to anti-Semitism as the “socialism of fools”.
That Jewish leftists were heavily represented in the leadership of the socialist and communist movement, from Trotsky down, led right-wing racists to equate Judaism with Bolshevism. At first, the Soviet Union embraced this association. In 1931 Stalin declared that anti-Semitism was “the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism” and that “under USSR law . . . active anti-Semites are liable to the death penalty”. The USSR was the first state to grant de jure recognition to Israel, and supported it with arms during the 1948 conflict. However, it turned sharply against Israel and global Jewry from the 1950s onwards.
In the early 1950s, Stalin launched a major anti-Jewish campaign that culminated in the arrest of Jewish doctors accused of poisoning Communist leaders. In 1952, he told the Politburo: “Every Jewish nationalist is the agent of the American intelligence service.” America was the USSR’s principal enemy in the Cold War and its sizeable Jewish community was believed to be at the centre of a worldwide network that was doing the bidding of the new Israeli state, and which had operatives across the globe, including the USSR and communist-controlled eastern Europe.
This anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist campaign was taken up throughout the communist world. Its anti-Jewish nature was clear in the show trials of Jews and their removal from critical positions in local Communist Parties, accompanied by a barrage of openly anti-Semitic propaganda. The most notorious instance of this was the 1952 Slansky trial in Czechoslovakia, during which the state denounced the defendants, not all of whom were Jewish, as “Zionists”, “Jewish capitalists” and “Jewish Gestapo agents”.

Who’s Really Driving “Grassroots” Anti-Israel Activism in America?

“Israelis have to be bombed… it is wrong to maintain the State of Israel. It is an illegitimate creation” — Taher Herzallah, American Muslims for Palestine National Campus Coordinator
On April 19th Jonathan Schanzer, a former US Treasury Department official, testified in Congress regarding the activities of the anti-Israel boycott movement (BDS) in the United States. In his remarks, he revealed shocking details about how a number of former leaders of organizations with close ties to terrorism, “have pivoted to leadership positions within the American BDS campaign.” In particular, he established clear links between the terrorist organization Hamas and leaders of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) — a politico-religious lobby group which boasts of being “the driving force behind activism for Palestine” in the US. But Schanzer’s testimony revealed only the tip of the iceberg. At the core of this story is not only the shadowy network of religious supremacists behind AMP, but a manipulative campaign to incite hatred among the future leaders of American society.
One of the most prominent faces of BDS in America is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — a self-titled “grassroots, human rights organization” with branches at dozens of US campuses. But while it claims to be “resisting racism,” SJP’s 2014 national conference featured a keynote speaker infamous for defending public calls to “shoot the Jew!” This discrepancy between SJP’s stated principles and its conduct is no exception: funded and closely guided by AMP and other political interest groups, SJP systematically exploits the language of social justice to promote a bigoted agenda.
SJP’s ties to AMP run deep, and SJP itself has admitted that, “NGO employees are in powerful positions,” within their movement. AMP chairman and Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian co-founded SJP in 2000 and is credited with “help[ing] to construct [the] successful narrative SJP has produced over the years” (in fact, AMP supplies the infamous “wall” that SJP displays on campuses). AMP organized the first SJP national conference in 2010, and has funded the group’s national conferences ever since. AMP’s own conferences include a “Campus Track” with sessions on “How To Start an SJP”.

Paul Flynn: Anti-Semitism Suspensions are “Moral Panic”

Last month Labour MP Paul Flynn emailed a Jewish constituent claiming the anti-Semitism crisis was a “nasty smear, distorted, exaggerated, wholly untrue”. Today he’s emailed MP colleagues to inform them that the whole row and ensuing inquiry is “moral panic”.
Remember, Flynn was once hauled in by the whips when he accused Britain’s first Jewish ambassador to Israel of having“divided loyalties”. He now claims the recent spate of suspensions were “created by malicious anti-Labour forces”. Exposed, he means…

Film about Jews ‘being everywhere’ mocks French anti-Semitism

Actress Charlotte Gainsbourg is to star in a provocative new comedy that parodies deep-rooted anti-Semitism in France, its director said Thursday.
“The Jews” — titled “They are everywhere” in French — is being shot by Gainsbourg’s partner, the actor and director Yvan Attal, who starred in Steven Spielberg’s film “Munich” about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympics in 1972.
The satire follows a Jewish man, played by Attal, forced into therapy by growing anti-Jewish feeling around him in France, a spokeswoman for Wild Bunch films told AFP.
His time on the couch is cut with tragicomic episodes showing what the producers called “anti-Semitic stereotypes” that endure in France.
“The film is not about Jews — it is about anti-Semitism,” said Israeli-born Attal.

Al-Qaeda leader urged trainee to target Israelis, Americans

An al-Qaeda operative facing sentencing in a New York court next week said bomb-making instructor Anwar al-Awlaki had encouraged him to target Israeli and US nationals at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Before his death in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen, the US-born al-Awlaki had emerged as an influential preacher among jihadists living in the West, with his English-language internet sermons calling for jihad, or holy war, against the US.
Al-Awlaki was the first American citizen whose killing by drone strike without trial was approved by US President Barack Obama.
Minh Quang Pham, a Vietnamese-British man who converted to Islam before joining al-Qaeda, said al-Awlaki urged him to use his bombs against Americans and Israelis, according to documents submitted to the court and reported upon by the New York Times this week.
Pham has pleaded guilty to three terror-related charges. He will be sentenced on Monday.

Northern Ireland terror threat level raised in Great Britain

The threat level from Northern Ireland-related terrorism in Great Britain has gone up from moderate to substantial.
It means an attack in England, Scotland or Wales is "a strong possibility".
Home Secretary Theresa May said the level, set by security service MI5, "reflects the continuing threat from dissident republican activity".
The level for Northern Ireland-related terrorism in Northern Ireland remains severe, meaning an attack is "highly likely".
Despite the increase in the threat level from Northern Ireland-related terrorism in Great Britain, it remains lower than the threat to the entire UK from international terrorism.
This is set at severe - the second-highest of the five ratings used.

Lawmakers: UNHRC resolution 'assault on Israel'

US Representatives Peter J. Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA), along with Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Trade Representative Michael Froman this week, calling on them to oppose a UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
"We write to urge you to take action to oppose the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) recent resolution calling for foreign divestment from Israel," the letter began. "This latest action is unprecedented in scope and threatens significant damage to both Israel and the United States, thus warranting a vigorous response."
"The UNHRC resolution, passed on March 24th, is notable in several respects. It urges countries to pressure their own companies to divest from, or break contracts with, Israel, and calls for the creation of a “blacklist” of companies that either operate, or have business relations with entities that operate, beyond Israel’s 1949 Armistice lines, including East Jerusalem," it continued. "The UNHRC’s effort, the latest in a long history of singling out Israel for special condemnation, occurs within the larger context of ongoing political and commercial assaults on Israel’s legitimacy, known as BDS – boycotts, divestment and sanctions."
A "blacklist" attempts to "strangle Israel’s economy and coerce Israel into unilateral concessions," as had been done in decades past, they continued - and it sets a dangerous precedent.

How New York can help stop Europe’s rampaging Israel boycotters

In America, the odious boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel remains largely confined to university humanities departments, leaving Europe as the main battleground in the economic war on Israel.
And now a bill in the New York Legislature may be the key to blunting financial and political damage to Israel in Europe.
The Senate passed a robust anti-BDS bill that would penalize European companies engaged in boycott-related activity. The measure is before the Assembly, sponsored by Charles Lavine (D-Nassau).
Nearly half of US states have passed anti-BDS resolutions or laws. New York’s law will be crucial because scores of major European companies and banks are based in the Empire State. The mere threat of legislation penalizing European banks has prompted one major bank to shut down an Austrian BDS group’s account: The Vienna-based financial-services provider Erste Group closed the account held by BDS Austria.
After The Jerusalem Post exposed in February a BDS account held by the DAB Bank in Munich — a subsidiary of the French banking giant BNP Paribas — the account of BDS Campaign in Germany was closed.
Both BNP Paribas and Erste Group have branch offices in New York City. German, Austrian and French banks maintaining BDS accounts are now likely to face greater scrutiny by New York State legislators.

At the state level, US legislators tackle BDS head on

Jewish and pro-Israel groups have been increasingly focused on finding ways to counter what some say is perhaps the biggest threat to the State of Israel today: the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
On college campuses across the United States, the movement’s presence has caused much controversy after clashing with Jewish students in incidents that sometimes even turned violent.
Just last month, the Graduate Student Union at New York University made the decision to join BDS and passed a resolution calling on the institution to divest from Israeli companies and close its program at Tel Aviv University.
While Jewish student groups have taken it upon themselves to try and push back the movement on campuses, policymakers across the US have decided to take the fight to the state level.
Legislatures have introduced anti- BDS bills in 20 states, including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, California, Massachusetts, Indiana and Ohio.
In seven of the states, the bills have been signed into law: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, South Carolina, and recently, Iowa.

How to combat campus anti-Semitism

In the turmoil of any boycott, divestment and sanctions resolution or "Israeli Apartheid Week" on college campuses few things can be more dismaying to onlookers than the extreme hostility expressed toward Israel.
As the hateful protests rage, various members of the pro-Israel community offer an array of advice on how to move forward.
Sometimes, unfortunately, Israel's supporters argue among themselves, understandably frustrated about how to respond to the hate and lies being spread.
At CAMERA -- the organization where I work -- we join forces with other pro-Israel groups to address the three main actors in the problem of campus anti-Semitism: radical students, radical professors and indifferent administrators.

Mock Eviction Notices Accusing Israel of Host of Crimes Plastered Across Dorms of Connecticut College by Pro-Palestinian Student Group

Students at Connecticut College were greeted with fake eviction notices Monday night in their residence halls, put up by an anti-Israel student organization accusing the Jewish state of a series of crimes, The Algemeiner has learned.
“My original reaction was shock, but this stunt was expected after last semester’s Birthright poster campaign,” Connor Wolfe, a Jewish student at Connecticut College who sits on the board of Hillel, told The Algemeiner, referencing a similar stunt last semester by Conn Students in Solidarity with Palestine (CSSP), in which the student group plastered posters across campus stating, “Taglit-Birthright is settler colonialism.”
“Myself and fellow Hillel board members talked to the administration last semester and warned them that the Birthright posters were the beginning of things to come. We were not sure what would come next: more posters or an apartheid wall like in other schools,” Wolfe said.
“It’s not something you really expect to see walking back to your room at 1 am,” said Wolfe. On the notice, Israel is accused of “occupying” and building “illegal settlements” so that it “can expand past its borders by appropriating Palestinian land.”
“Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes is RACIST, is part of a project of ETHNIC CLEANSING and COLONIZATION, and is ILLEGAL,” the notice states.

Heavy Backlash Forces Brown University’s Hillel to Pull Sponsorship of ‘Nakba Day’ Event

The film being screened at the now private event was produced by the Israeli NGO Zochrot. According to the watchdog group NGO Monitor, Zochrot engages in raising public awareness about the Nakba and stresses the “Palestinian right of return” to all of Israel. The group calls for a “one state solution” and has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing. “This agenda is equivalent to calling for the elimination of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” an NGO Monitor report stated.
Representatives from Brown’s Hillel failed to respond to The Algemeiner’s requests for comment by press time.
UPDATE: Sources have informed The Algemeiner that after Hillel announced it would shut its doors at 7 pm Wednesday evening, precluding their scheduled screening, the student groups behind the private event moved up the time to late afternoon, holding the screening in the Hillel building, allegedly without informing Hillel officials there.

SFSU: The battle cry of the coward is "But I'm the victim".

Its enough to make George Orwell spin in his grave. In a move so cynically twisted and morally bankrupt it nearly defies description, anti-Israel students at SFSU who disrupted a speech by the mayor of Jerusalem are claiming the mantle of victimhood.
Yes, really.
At an April 6 talk sponsored by San Francisco State University Hillel Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was prevented from speaking by an unruly crowd, to the intense frustration of those who had gathered to hear him speak. University officials stood by and did nothing.
From Aaron Parker, who was at the aborted talk:
The administrators’ and police’s high profile inaction emboldened the mob, which consequently grew louder and more brazen. We waited and waited for the disruptors to be removed so the event could proceed, but it never happened. Eventually, Mayor Barkat asked us to huddle around him so he could speak to us over the mob’s chants, but it was a lost cause.

American Jewish extremists against Jerusalem

June 5th marks Jerusalem Day, the celebration of the liberation of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel. This day also marks the beginning of the 50th anniversary of a unified Jerusalem and Israel has declared it Jerusalem Unity Year, which will span the 2016-2017 school year.
While the entire mainstream Israeli political spectrum stands with Jerusalem, left-wing extremists– in Israel and the United States – shout loudly that Jerusalem is “occupied” and call for the division of the city. While Israel has yet to publicize its plans for the 50th year celebration, the leftists have created a coalition to organize protests and alternative events to further the fallacious message of colonialist and oppressive Israel. Reports indicated that the coalition against Jerusalem has raised $8 million including from the New Israel Fund.
For organizations claiming to be pro-Israel, these groups spend a lot of time criticizing the country internationally in a myriad of ways. In classic irrationality, this coalition has failed to think beyond the justice they claim to seek. NIF seeks more money from their American supporters such as The Jewish Communal Fund and others, they definitely identified a target, but their plans have been dissected in the press, have actually been tried out within the last two decades, and have been found to be remarkably poorly devised with disastrous results.

IsraellyCool: Why Is The Jewish Communal Fund Supporting BDS?

Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that promotes the boycott of Israel, has always proudly proclaimed that one need not be Jewish to be a member. The group, however, has never been transparent about its funding. Now, thanks to the work of NGO Monitor, we know that many of its funders are non-Jewish, left-wing donors.
Jewish Voice for PeaceAt Legal Insurrection, Miriam Elman’s given a great summary of the NGO Monitor report and discussed the other anti-Israel groups that have common funders with JVP, such as American Friends Service Committee.
There is, however, one notable stand-out on the list of JVP funders: the Jewish Communal Fund.

MEMRI: Anti-Israel BDS Movement In India Targets Iran, Hewlett-Packard, Group-4S, Modi Govt, CIA And Mossad For 'Jointly' Training ISIS

In recent years, an international BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel, supposedly as an expression of support for the Palestinians, has been gaining ground, and has recently also expanded to India. The Indian People in Solidarity with Palestine, an Indian BDS forum, held a two-day convention in New Delhi on August 22-23, 2015. The group also organized a convention on March 6, 2016 in New Delhi, whose prominent speakers included were Peggy Mohan, an author and linguistics professor, and several others who are cited in the paragraphs below.
Similar BDS conventions were also held in August, September, October and November of 2015 at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) near Delhi, at Chandigarh in Punjab state, at the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University, and at the Ghalib Institute in New Delhi. The BDS convention at AMU on November 23, 2015, included noted Marxist historian Irfan Habib among its speakers. At the August 22-23, 2015 BDS convention at the Ghalib Institute, prominent speakers included Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Sukumar Murlidharan, a senior Marxist journalist who also spoke on the March 6, 2016 BDS event as well. Hindi poet Katyayani recited her poem "Gaza 2015" on the March 6, 2016 BDS convention.
Although these campaigns are being organized in the name of human rights of Palestinians, the organizers do not organize similar events for human rights of, for example, the Baluchis who are brutalized, discriminated and murdered by the Pakistani military every day in Baluchistan, or the Tibetan people who were forced by China to flee their homeland and now live in exile in India. As discussed below, the BDS conventions are organized to target Israel, but the speakers outline a range of issues, including plans to target U.S. computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard and British private security firm Group-4S, accuse Iran of being an ally of Israel, and target Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's upcoming visit to Israel.

On CBC News, HRC Asserts that Even Palestinians Don’t Want a Boycott of Israel

Writing on the CBC News website on March 16, HonestReporting Canada Executive Director Mike Fegelman lauds Canadian parliamentarian’s for their overwhelmingly condemnation of BDS while calling out BDS activists for what they are: bigots, hate-mongers, and many who are virulent anti-Semites whose very efforts run contrary to the best interests of Palestinians
“No, we do not support the boycott of Israel.… We do not ask anyone to boycott Israel itself.… We have relations with Israel. We have mutual recognition of Israel.”
These words were uttered by none other than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose clarion call to his domestic supporters and to Israel’s detractors abroad sought to dissuade those who would employ this tactic due to its self-defeating and counterproductive nature.
Regrettably, boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) advocates have not paid heed to Abbas’ call. Thinking they’re more Catholic than the Pope, BDSers believe they know what’s in the best interests for Palestinians (and Israelis).
And yet, BDS efforts against SodaStream, an Israeli company which produced some of their products in an Israeli “settlement,” is suspected of having influenced the company to shut down one of its factories. BDS campaigns saw close to 600 Palestinians who were gainfully employed at the SodaStream factory put out of a job. BDS pressure tactics cost Palestinian men and women equal-paying jobs, competitive employment benefits and generous health insurance packages.

Washington Post’s Letter from Israel Should be Marked ‘Return to Sender’

The Washington Post's “Letter from Israel: Outrage and dramatics when famous writers visit hardcore settlers,” (May 8, 2016) by Jerusalem bureau chief William Booth failed to properly identify anti-Israel organizations and persons that are ostensibly the article's topic. In doing so, he defaulted to a “Palestinian-centric” perspective on Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The Post detailed a trip to Hebron by a “group of pretty famous writers” and a self-styled “human rights activist,” who helps lead an anti-Israel non-profit organization called Breaking the Silence (BTS). According to the newspaper, BTS “accompanied” the writers for a tour of Hebron to “gather material” for a forthcoming book of essays and “to see for themselves how 850 hardcore Jewish settlers, protected by 650 young Israeli soldiers, live among 200,000 angry Palestinians.”
The writers “didn't like what they saw,” The Post told readers.

The Post omitted, for starters, that this was likely the objective of Breaking the Silence's Hebron “tour.” Readers might have figured as much from an outline of the group's funding and methods. But the paper failed to provide one—as it has failed to do in other instances (see, for example “Washington Post Falls for Breaking the Silence ‘Report,'” CAMERA, May 5, 2015).

Reality Goes Missing in Anti-Israel Hill Op-Ed

Sylvia Schwarz (“Stop the tax-deductible status of the Jewish National Fund,” April 13th) misleads readers with an Op-Ed published in The Hill. Hers is essentially an omission-ridden anti-Israel slander.
Schwarz falsely claimed that Israel is “ethnically cleansing” the land of Arabs. Which land, Israel or the West Bank and Gaza Strip? In both the Arab population has grown. In Israel, it prospered.
On the same day Schwarz's fact-free article appeared, Gamil Hakroosh, an Israeli Arab, was appointed as the country's deputy police commissioner (“Amid Violence, Israel Promotes Arab Police Officer,” Associated Press). Israeli Arabs serve on Israel's Supreme Court, have command ranks in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and have their own political list in Israel's legislature, the Knesset. Israeli Arabs, including the Muslim majority, enjoy much greater democratic participation and representation than their brethren in most Arab states. Their income, upward mobility, life span and basic rights, including that of free speech, are superior to those of Arabs living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) that rules the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip, and elsewhere in the Middle East.
By contrast, the Palestinian Legislative Council has not met for nearly a decade and refuses to hold elections. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is in the eleventh year of his four-year term. There is no independent judiciary in PA and Hamas-ruled areas, where as Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has noted, Facebook posts critical of Palestinian officials can result in imprisonment. In those prisons, “torture happens” as Rami Hamdallah, the PA's prime minister, admitted in a March 16, 2016 interview with German media outlet Deutsche Welle.

Jesse Jackson ‘didn’t know’ dinner companion was far-right French politician

US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson voiced “disgust” Wednesday at the ideas of French far-right veteran Jean-Marie Le Pen, after the surprise revelation that they had dined together in Paris.
The pair traded tense Twitter posts after the National Front firebrand posted a picture of them at a restaurant in the French capital at the weekend.
“I did not know him, I’ve never met with him before, and I find his ideas xenophobic and repulsive,” Jackson told AFP, seeking to explain what he said was an inadvertent encounter.
Le Pen and his wife Jany “were invited by the other hosts at the dinner. It was not at all a political meeting,” said Jackson, in France for events commemorating the abolition of slavery.
Le Pen tweeted a first photo of the two men at a Moroccan restaurant, along with a note apparently handwritten by Jackson reading: “May 8-’16. Jean-Marie, (wife) Jany Le Pen, Keep Hope Alive, Continue.”

Dutch soccer club to punish fans who sang about burning Jews

A Dutch soccer club whose fans were filmed recently singing about burning Jews said it would attempt to track down the culprits and punish them.
In the video, which was posted online Tuesday, several dozen fans of the PSV Eindhoven soccer team are filmed at a McDonald’s eatery singing a song that last year brought another Dutch soccer team, FC Utrecht, into disrepute.
“My father was in the commandos, my mother was in the SS, together they burned Jews ’cause Jews burn the best,” the PSV Eindhoven fans allegedly sang.
PSV Eindhoven’s spokesman, Thijs Slegers, told the Eindhovens Dagblad daily that the club will study the footage to see if those filmed belong to the team.
“If that’s not the case, there’s nothing we can do,” he said.

Jewish-Muslim couple’s California cafe to fight Islamophobia suit

A California cafe founded and owned by a Jewish and Muslim husband and wife plans to counter-sue after being accused of discriminating against Muslim patrons.
Urth Caffe, an artisanal coffee shop and restaurant with six Southern California locations, was accused in a suit filed May 2 of forcing seven women to leave its Laguna Beach site in April because they were visibly Muslim.
Announcing plans for a counter-suit last week, attorneys for owners Shallom and Jilla Berkman, who are Jewish and Muslim, respectively, say the lawsuit is “a fraud and a hoax on the courts and the media,” ABC7.com reported.
The cafe has said the women were asked to leave because they violated its policy of giving up a table after 45 minutes during busy periods, while others were waiting in line. The women, six of whom wear Muslim headscarves, assert that the restaurant was not full and that no other customers were asked to leave.

Brussels, Antwerp Jews spar over Holocaust memorial cobblestones

Jews from Brussels demonstrated in Antwerp against the refusal of the city and its Jewish community to use memorial cobblestones to commemorate Holocaust victims.
In a move that highlighted the spreading of Belgium’s binational divide to its Jewish communities, a dozen protesters from the Brussels-based Association for the Memory of the Shoah, or AMS, picketed on Monday outside Antwerp’s city hall while the leaders of Antwerp’s Jewish community were attending a commemoration service with Mayor Bart de Wever at a monument elsewhere in Antwerp.
The protest was over the city’s refusal, with backing from the local Jewish community, to allow the placing of Stolpersteine — the German-language name of small brass stones set into the sidewalks in front of buildings from which Jews were deported. More than 50,000 of them have been laid in 18 countries in Europe.
Brussels received its first Stolpersteine last year, following lobbying by AMS. But Antwerp Jews, who increasingly have been seeking independent representation from Brussels, resist the Stolpersteine, citing concerns that Stolpersteine could lead to potentially undignified situations such as vandalism in heavily-Muslim areas or animals relieving themselves on the memorial cobblestones. The Antwerp-based Forum of Jewish Organizations resists the initiative also because it fears it would unfair to Holocaust victims with no relatives to arrange a stone.
Instead, they favor erecting a monument with the names of all of Belgium’s Holocaust victims.

France restores Nazi-stolen Degas drawing to Jewish owners

France has restored to its rightful owners a drawing by Edgar Degas that was stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owner in 1940.
In a moving ceremony in Paris on Monday, Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay said that “Trois danseuses en buste” — a late 19th-century charcoal sketch of three ballerinas — was found in 1951 in a cupboard in the Occupation-era German Embassy. It had since remained unclaimed in the Louvre.
Viviane Dreyfus accepted the drawing for her father, Maurice, who died in 1957 without ever speaking of the lost work.
She said she was “extremely touched,” especially because she didn’t know the work existed.
There are 2,000 unclaimed works sitting in French museums, of which at least 145 were stolen by the Nazis.

A new gauze that stops bleeding in minutes

The cloud of war constantly hanging over Israel has one shiny silver lining:groundbreaking advances in woundcare developed for the battlefield and then shared with the rest of humanity.
ISRAEL21c has featured Israeli first-aid innovations such as the world-famous Emergency Bandage that has saved the lives of many US servicemen as well as Arizona Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords after she was shot by an assailant.
Now we bring you news of another novel product designed originally with soldiers in mind but with much broader potential: WoundClot gauze, a flexible and easy-to-handle material made of highly absorbent regenerated cellulose (plant cells).
WoundClot absorbs about 2,500 percentof its own weight in fluids and forms a coagulating gel membrane with platelets from the blood on the open wound.

Israeli app to guide Olympic-goers through Rio streets

The Israeli app Moovit will guide tourists and local residents to the fastest and safest routes to and between competition venues at the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer.
Moovit will provide real-time information in 35 languages on the fastest public transportation routes – buses, trains, subway, light rail transport, ferry boats and cable cars – to some 1.5 million current local users and another 500,000 visitors, according to Rio’s official tourism website (Portuguese).
Fifty kilometers, or 31 miles, of new lines have been mapped with traffic information in order to make transit during the Rio Olympics smoother. The Israeli startup, dubbed “the Waze of public transportation,” will work based on data provided by the Rio municipality database.
“Our city advances in the use of technology through this partnership, which will allow not only the Olympic spectators but also the whole population to access a multimodal travel planner with real-time information,” said Rio’s secretary of transportation, Rafael Picciani. “This is a great achievement for the Games and will remain as its legacy.”

Thousands of African, Asian Students Study Agriculture at Israeli Institute

Israeli farmers are renowned for making the desert bloom. They’re also proving that this desolate area is fertile ground for a new crop of agriculturalists and agronomists.
Midway between the Dead Sea and Eilat, in the heart of the Arava desert, the Arava International Center for Agricultural Training (AICAT) is growing entrepreneurs.
AICAT, located in Sapir, has hosted over 10,000 undergraduates from across Asia and Africa at its 10-month agriculture work-study program over the past 20-plus years.
Students from Nepal, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Ethiopia, South Sudan, East Timor, Thailand, and Indonesia come in August of every year.
“They come at plantation time and grow with the plants,” Hanni Arnon, AICAT director, tells ISRAEL21c. “Here – where there are very harsh conditions, geographic isolation, extreme weather, arid soil and a shortage of water — they learn the importance of human capacity. If you want it, you can make a change. We teach that a difficulty is a challenge and you need to find a solution.”

PM strikes playful, conciliatory tone in #AskNetanyahu Q&A

Amid a busy Independence Day schedule of presenting prizes and attending ceremonies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made time Thursday for a Twitter Q&A session that saw him answer questions on a range of topics from whether he was human or not to Palestinian statehood.
As well as poking fun at some of the mocking responses the initiative has received since it was announced, Netanyahu struck a conciliatory tone in answers to a number of questions about the Palestinians, saying that Israel must “never give up on the quest for peace” and stressing his own personal commitment to the peace process.
Within hours of the announcement the #AskNetanyahu hashtag made it onto Twitter’s “trending topics” list in Israel, but mainly due to a barrage of negative reactions, with thousands of people posting indignant and mocking responses.
Undeterred and even “looking forward to engaging the public and spreading the truth in new mediums,” according to Netanyahu spokesman David Keyes before the event, the prime minister took to the social media platform from his official residence in Jerusalem to answer some of the 41,218 questions tweeted under the #AskNetanyahu hashtag.
Netanyahu opened the online event with a short video, filmed in front of Independence Day balloons hanging in the courtyard of the prime minister’s residence, introducing the project and inviting questions.
“Hey Twitter, I’m happy to be with you today. This is our independence day. Fire away,” he said.

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Discovering Gideon's Way

I have a new weakness - or rather I have revived an old one.

The Gideon stories were a series of police procedurals written, under the pen name J.J. Maric, by the extraordinarily prolific John Creasey between 1955 and 1976.

For some reason I took to them while I was at school even though they were already dating markedly by then.

Now I have discovered that the whole of the Gideon's Way TV series has been uploaded to Youtube. There were 26 of them made for ITV and broadcast in 1965 and 1966.

John Gregson took the title role, playing him as a world-weary liberal who sometimes had to reign in his keener subordinates - a sort of prototype for Morse and Wexford.

Gideon's family feature regularly. Political trivia fans may like to note that his younger son was played by Giles Watling, who was the unsuccessful Conservative candidate against Ukip's Douglas Carswell in the 2014 Clacton by-election.

One of the pleasures of Gideon's Way is spotting familiar actors in unfamiliar roles. I have watched only a few of the shows so far, but already I have seen Inspector Wexford masterminding a bullion robbery, Mrs Bridges from Upstairs Downstairs running a gang of pickpockets and fences, and Arthur Daley committing arson,

Then there are the pleasures of spotting actors on the way up.

This, for instance, is a young John Hurt on the run from prison. (You can see an even younger Hurt on this blog as an undergraduate in The Wild and the Willing.)

And this young man is now in the House of Lords. It's Michael Cashman, formerly of EastEnders and the European Parliament, in his first role. At this stage of his career his chief means of conveying emotion was hunching his shoulders.

Above all, though, there are the pleasures of the location footage. This is London before turbocapitalism and moral relativism. It's a city of quiet suburbs and decaying warehouses where the villains are cornered and the police inevitably round them up.

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Hamas member killed in family dispute; he's STILL a martyr

The al-Qassam Brigades announced Asalih Alian, 23, was killed by gunfire in a family dispute in the Maan area east of Khan Younis in Gaza last night.

Even though he was not killed doing anything remotely jihadist, Hamas still considers him a "shahid," or martyr.

Maybe because they didn't want to waste all of his martyrdom photos that he posed for, hoping for a much more glorious death at the hands of the Zionists.

The failed jihadist was married and had a two month old child, who will now lack a strong terrorist role model for a father. This is one of the tragedies of Gaza.

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Church Stretton points the way forward for funding local services

From the Shropshire Star today:

Church Stretton Town Council has agreed to set up a “working group” to look at the services in the area put at risk by Shropshire Council cuts. 

It will launch consultation with people living in the town over whether to raise the council tax precept to help fund such services in the future. 

The move has come in response to Shropshire Council’s proposed budget for 2017, which suggests stopping all funding of services such as libraries and leisure centres.

This report reveals the scale of the cuts the government is inflicting on local government.

For decades the Liberal Democrats campaigned for local services, but then we adopted George Osborne's economic opinions during the Coalition years. When we start campaigning for local services again, as we must, we risk at best puzzling the voters.

But there may be something interesting at work here too.

When I was a councillor my impression was that people did not worry about the level of taxes so much as whether they got value for their money.

And maybe such judgements mean more when money is raised and spent locally.

So could Church Stretton, which you can see in the photo above, be pointing the way forward for local government?

It would go against the current thrust of policy in local government, which is all about the abolition and amalgamation of authorities and the appointment of regional mayors, but I would like to think so.

Mind you, such increases in hyperlocal taxation can be controversial, as the case of Desborough shows.

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Israel’s dangerous addiction (Vic Rosenthal)

 

 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

On this 68^th anniversary of the independence of the modern Jewish nation-state, my thoughts naturally turn to the question of how long we will be able to keep that independence, purchased at such great cost.

It’s not an issue that occupies citizens of most other states to the same degree. Although the US has major problems in several areas, I don’t hear Americans talking about losing their independence. They settled that back in the 18^th century.

For us, it is never settled, despite international law and despite our successful defense of our homeland. Most of the world does not think that the Jewish people should have an independent state, in many cases because they don’t agree that there is a Jewish people (on the other hand, a ‘Palestinian’ people makes sense to them, or at least they pretend it does).

There is more than one way a sovereign nation can lose its independence. It can be conquered in war, as happened to Carthage in the 2^nd century BCE, its people killed, enslaved or dispersed, its wealth carried off and its land sown with salt. It can be invaded and then made into a colony or satellite, its people allowed to live but without self-determination, as happened to the Eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union after WWII. And it can allow its decisions to be influenced by a more powerful state or states, little by little giving up its independent volition to economic and political pressure, until it finds itself so dependent on its ‘patron’ that it has lost the ability to control its destiny. 

Israel is threatened militarily today primarily by Iran and its proxies. It would be wrong to minimize the direct threat to our existence that they represent, and our government and the IDF do take it seriously and prepare for conflict. 

But we are also at risk of a ‘soft conquest’ by another enemy, this one an alliance of supposedly friendly nations, led by one massively powerful country that is considered our greatest friend and supporter. And our leaders seem blind to this danger.

How does a soft conquest work? Here are some of the tactics:

1.       Create economic dependence by damaging the target’s relationships with rival partners.

2.       Create military dependence either directly by ‘protecting’ the target or indirectly by locking it in to you as a sole supplier of arms, ammunition or spare parts.

3.       Strengthen its enemies and weaken the target’s own self-defense abilities so that it will have to depend upon you when threatened.

4.       Take advantage of conflicts the target is involved in to demand further concessions that will weaken it. Prevent it from decisively defeating its enemies.

5.       Support politicians in the target who are friendly to you financially, and hint that if they come to power the relationship between the countries will improve. Attack less compliant politicians in the media, blame them for problems, and suggest that unless they are replaced you will lose patience and downgrade the relationship. Influence local elections.

6.       Support organizations working to destabilize the target and create internal and external conflict. The more problems it has, the more easily you can replace its government with a puppet regime; until then, the more leverage you will have with the existing government.

7.       Influence other nations to withdraw support from the target to increase their dependence on you.

8.       Work to weaken popular support for the target in your own country, so that when you apply pressure or withdraw support from the target, objections will be minimized.

9.       Support enemies of the target in your own country. They will do much of the work for you.

Does this sound familiar? It should, since every one of these tactics is or has been employed against Israel by the Obama Administration and its European allies. 

Israel’s addiction to US aid is dangerous to our independence. One of the interesting things about our army is that it has perhaps the least hawkish General Staff in the world. Army brass have recently called for turning over security control in parts of Judea/Samaria to the PA and for increased aid to Gaza. In 2012, PM Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak wanted to launch an attack on the Iranian nuclear program, something the US was dead set against. The top generals were opposed. They may or may not have had good arguments, but I’m sure they were aware that going against the US might get the IDF’s budget brutally slashed. It is not surprising that they often tend to agree with the American point of view.

The US attempts to control Israeli military strategy with its aid. Money is available (at least it has been until now) for defensive weapons like Iron Dome, but not for the bunker busters or tanker aircraft that would enable an attack on Iran. The F-35 fighter aircraft presents a whole collection of problems, with performance and range issues, software/hardware bugs and dependence on US-based computer system. There are concerns that its non-transparent software might hide a backdoor that would allow the US to keep track of what Israel does with the planes or even force the abortion of a mission that the US didn’t like. Israel would prefer to buy more F-15s, but the Pentagon is saying that it is the F-35 or nothing.

I rarely hear mainstream Israeli politicians, either in the government or the opposition, taking the position that our dependence on the US is a bad thing or that the US is not wholeheartedly supportive of Israel. The opposition, in fact, generally claims that insofar as the relationship is less than perfect, it is the government’s fault for being insufficiently compliant on issues like settlements. And the government says that things have never been better, even while the US president’s spokesperson calls our PM “a chickenshit.”

Perhaps in private they understand the situation better, perhaps not. But the correct assessment must be that while Iran and Hezbollah pose a direct military threat, the US administration and Europe are also dangerous, even though their hostility is not expressed in the form of missiles aimed at us. 

If this sounds like exaggeration to you, consider the effects on Israel of the release of billions of dollars to Iran, the inability to enforce the limitations on Iran’s nuclear program, and the acquiescence by the administration to almost any Iranian behavior in order to keep them from abrogating the entire (unsigned) deal. Are the Western powers’ actions more or less dangerous to Israel than Hamas?

The American people, by and large, are our friends. But this administration is decidedly not on our side, and we don’t know what the American political future will bring.

We can’t entirely prevent diplomatic pressure and attempts at subversion from our ‘friends’, and we can’t stop them from empowering our overt enemies. But we can reduce their leverage on us by maximizing our independence.

If defense against Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah is our top priority, then independence must also be near the top. We are investing 160 million shekels in a system to detect Hamas tunnels, but how much are we investing to become independent from US military assistance? 

It’s always a temptation to put off dealing with long-term, complicated problems when you are facing immediate dangers. Try telling a combat soldier that if he doesn’t stop smoking, he’ll ultimately die from it. But Israel’s addiction to US aid can also be fatal in the long run.

Time for us to kick the habit.

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