Spot the difference

Arutz-7:

Dozens of leading rabbis on Sunday evening took part in a special "Emergency Conference for the Security of the Nation of Israel in the Holy Land," where they spoke about the scourge of the current Arab terror wave that has claimed 34 victims' lives since last September.

"Every Arab terrorist who goes out from his home with an intention to harm Jews loses the right to exist, and they should be shot without any superfluous considerations," declared the rabbis.

Gulf Eyes, quoting Shabiba News (and other Arab media):

Rabbis calling to kill Palestinians indiscriminately

The Arab newspapers helpfully published an illustration of "rabbis".

Meanwhile, another rumor had started in the Arab media about a supposed rabbinical fatwa.

According to stories published last week, rabbis issued a ruling encouraging Jewish women to breastfeed their babies on the Temple Mount. A PA official then issued a "warning" about this terrible escalation.

Israeli PM spokesperson Ofir Gendelman denied such a call.  In fact, a woman asked a female  rabbi on Facebook if she would be permitted to breastfeed her baby if necessary on the holy site and the answer was that it was allowed as long as it was done modestly.

Last year a Jewish woman was expelled from the Temple Mount when she quietly and privately started breastfeeding her screaming baby.

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Leicester Oral History Trail 7: Causeway Lane

The latest recording in this series covers the city's former maternity hospital.

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05/16 Links Pt2: Phyllis Chesler: "Anti-racists" and feminists demonize only Israel; Greens’ anti-Israel propaganda funded by taxpayers

From Ian:

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David Collier: Antisemitism and terrorism supported by the NUT

The first story to tell is that I had trouble getting in to an event and was eventually evicted. As someone who does nothing but *REPORT* on events, I find this truly disturbing. It is something that needs to be addressed urgently by both the PSC and the National Union of Teachers (NUT). I was a Jew who was simply thrown of the NUT HQ.
As anyone who attends functions on the Israel / Arab conflict knows, security measures are required in only one direction. Any event run by a pro-Israeli group needs to be concerned about safety, and the larger and more publicised the event, the more of a problem this becomes. Just as Jewish schools are patrolled and synagogues have heavy security details, taking pride in your Jewish identity places you at risk.
The same is not true the other way around. I have been to scores of anti-Israeli events and have never seen a single policeman, never been checked at the door and never seen any violence. It is worth remembering this fact when trying to understand the source of the violence in the conflict itself.
I made it until after lunch, when two of the PSC organisers asked me to leave. I did protest, as I couldn’t fathom why my presence was such an issue. I never cause trouble and they know it. I was told it was a private party. I was told I was not welcome. I reminded them it was a publicly advertised event that placed no condition on entry. I told them I had already paid and was accepted into the event. I asked what they want to hide, what is it that I am not allowed to see? It made no difference. My day at the event was done.
The event itself was organised by PSC, but according to the website, it was ‘supported by the NUT’ and the venue was Hamilton House, the Headquarters of the National Union of Teachers, near Euston in London.
The program involved a couple of panels, a few individual speakers and 4 workshops, on BDS, media, education and refugees. The workshop on education was my choice, given a clear PSC / NUT strategy to ‘poison the well’, and infest our curriculum with the antisemitic venom. The poison which remains the central pillar of the false Arab narrative. I was never to get to see that particular workshop, by the time it started I had been evicted.

Phyllis Chesler: "Anti-racists" and feminists demonize only Israel

Interview with Phyllis Chesler about those who demonize Israel. "Most Western thinkers do not know that Islam has a long history of slavery, anti-black racism, religious apartheid, gender apartheid, colonialism, and conversion via the sword. "
“It is important to understand that it is not only feminists who demonize Israel. They are merely part of a global phenomenon in which the world media, academics, government leaders and human rights organizations drive this madness.”
Prof. Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies. She lives in New York City. She is the best-selling author of 16 books including "The New Anti-Semitism" (2003, 2015), "The Death of Feminism” (2005) and “American Bride in Kabul” (2013) which won a National Jewish Book Award. Her latest book is “Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews, 2003-2015” (2016).
“In 2003, after a rather successful lecture about a feminist topic to an African-American feminist audience at a free-standing conference at Barnard, I was asked --completely off-topic-- where I stood on the issue of the women of ‘Palestine.’ I responded: ‘I think you are asking me where I stand on the issue of apartheid and I oppose it. Islam is the largest practitioner of gender and religious apartheid in the world.’

‘Jews invented the Temple Mount lie’

The Association of Palestinian Scholars and Preachers praised the controversial decision of UNESCO, which recently denied Jewish history at the Temple Mount and referred to the area only as the religious Islamic sites "Al-Haram Al-Sharif" and “Al-Aqsa Mosque."
The Association declared this decision a victory for the religious and historical legitimacy of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is built on the Mount - the holiest site in Judaism.
The Association further declared that the term Temple Mount is an "historical lie" invented by Jews, and that history is not allowed to be established on “lies," in an ironic statement given that the First and Second Temples stood at the site, as has been repeatedly proven by archaeology.
Furthermore, according to the Association, the expression "Al-Aqsa" is the religiously, historically and politically correct word which points to the Muslims right from 1,500 years ago, indicating a period a full 1,000 years give or take after the destruction of the First Temple when Islam was created. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Greens’ anti-Israel propaganda funded by taxpayers

THE [Australian] Greens have used their taxpayer-funded allowances to print inflammatory anti-Israeli propaganda posters for organisers of a protest rally in what could constitute a breach of Department of Finance rules.
The Daily Telegraph has learned NSW Greens senator Lee Rhiannon used her Senate printing allowance to print and authorise posters to promote a pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney yesterday.
The material, which contains an endorsement by Senator Rhiannon and a disclosure that she had printed them on behalf of the Palestine Action Group, controversially called on the government to officially break ties with Israel.
The poster also tries to compare Israel with the previous apartheid policies of South Africa.
Senator Rhiannon’s office ...admitted that the word “apartheid” was not consistent with Greens policy.
But Senator Rhiannon confirmed to The Daily Telegraph that she had personally printed the posters.
Senators are allowed $103,000 for taxpayer-funded printing and communications related to their parliamentary and electoral duties.
Senator Rhiannon said she had nothing to apologise for in using the word apartheid to describe Israeli policy, despite it contradicting the Greens’ official stance and being offensive to many people in the community.

Jerusalem Post Editorial: Sykes-Picot’s demise

Yet, among all the upheaval and bloodshed that we have witnessed in the region that has led to the breakdown of Sykes-Picot, there remains one oasis of stability: the State of Israel. And this is not a coincidence.
Part of the reason has to do with the national character of Israel. Unlike artificial national constructions such as Syria and Iraq that contain diverse populations, Israel was created for a specific people with a shared history, culture and religion. With all its internal conflicts – between religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi – there is nevertheless a common denominator that brings together the vast majority of Israelis.
But Israel’s relatively homogeneous population is only part of the explanation for its success. Much more significant is the fact that Israel remains the only democracy in the Middle East. The disintegration of the old order in the region is more about the failure of corrupt, inept and violent autocratic regimes than about contrived borders that ignored ethnic, sectarian and cultural differences.
Sykes-Picot is not to blame for the disintegration of Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, rather it is the autocratic nature of these countries’ political leaderships.
The Syrian conflict began as an uprising by all Syrians – men and women, young and old, Sunni, Shi’ite, Kurdish and even Alawite – against an unfair, corrupt autocrat out of touch with or callous to his people’s aspirations. And this was true for Libyans, Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis, and Bahrainis as well in 2010 and 2011.
In the midst of this upheaval, Israel stands out as a beacon of stability, freedom and economic prosperity. An advanced military based on a people’s army that is committed to the highest level of ethical conduct is successful at incorporating a broad spectrum of diverse populations – including Beduin, Druse and Christians.

Amb. Alan Baker: Borders melt-down: 100 years after the Sykes-Picot Agreement

The “Middle East” with which we are all familiar is commemorating a curious and even sad 100 year anniversary.
The 1916 signing of the Sykes-Picot Agreement marked the division of the Middle East between Britain and France and its restructuring in its present borders. However, since then and virtually without any interval, the region has been marked by treaties and international conferences, often contradictory and rarely strictly observed and respected. Issues such as the rivalries between the powers, the control of natural resources, the arms race, arms supplies and freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal have all prompted a power battle, turning this area into a region of unending confrontation.
In dividing the area into zones of influence, neither France nor Britain took into account the demographic, socio-cultural and religious interests and aspirations of the people who lived there. Arab tribes, though nomadic, found themselves separated and dispersed into different states. They strongly rejected the artificial divisions and centralized governmental frameworks. Over the years, the region was shaken by internal uprisings, coups and revolts that continue to this day.
A century after the Sykes Picot Agreement, the Middle East has become a political powder keg and the setting for successive armed conflicts.
Boundaries drawn just a century ago by Western powers are evaporating, and in front of our eyes the whole character of the region is changing beyond all recognition.
Throughout the region from Libya to Iraq, authority has collapsed and people are reaching for their older identities – Sunni, Shi’ite, Kurdish and even tribal. Sectarian groups, often Islamist, have filled the power vacuum, spilling over borders and spreading violence.

Assessing the Growing Sympathy With Palestinians Among Millennials and Liberals

The growing partisan divide on Israel manifested itself last year when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the US Congress about the then-emerging Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu’s speech was boycotted by a number of liberal Democrats (including Sanders), who accused the Israeli leader of undermining President Barack Obama by accepting an invitation to speak from the House of Representatives speaker before the White House was aware of it.
While Netanyahu gave his speech before Iran reached the deal with world powers, US-Israel tensions only grew amid a legislative struggle that ended in Republicans’ failure to muster enough votes to defeat the agreement. As the Obama presidency winds down, the US and Israel continue to forge strong ties — especially on the security front, with robust American funding for Israeli needs such as the Iron Dome missile defense system. Yet fears persist about the growing liberal electorate’s views on Israel, especially among younger Americans.
“Over time, as the percentage of liberals among Democrats increases, the party’s support for Israel could well become more conditional on what they perceive as Israel’s willingness to support a two-state solution and perceptions related to other liberal causes inside Israel,” Rynhold said.
Rynhold believes that Israel can take a number of unilateral steps to gain more credibility among liberals, such as freezing settlement construction in order to demonstrate that it is “credible in its commitment to a two-state solution.” A settlement freeze, he said, “will not prevent liberal criticism of Israel’s security policy, but it will at least firm up liberal Americans’ understanding of the debate as a reasonable one between two sides committed to the same values.”
Taking the issue of settlements off the table, Rynhold said, would bolster the “growing sense among American liberals that the main threat or issue is Islamist radicalism in its various hues.”
“This will refocus their political attention away from Israeli policies and might also make them more understanding of Israel’s security dilemmas,” he said. “In this regard, it is interesting that between 2009 and 2015, support for the creation of a Palestinian state among Democrats fell (according to Gallup’s survey data). My sense is that ISIS’s arrival on the scene may have affected that.”

An Open Letter to Bernie Sanders

Dear Senator Sanders,
I watched with great earnest on TV your recent remarks in your national televised debate with Hillary Clinton, which was undoubtedly watched by millions, especially by many impressionable Americans who know very little about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I listened to your strong criticism of Israel for its “disproportionate” use of force in the recent Gaza war. I know you have made similar comments in recent weeks, and have been reiterating this with greater force and tone. You have called on the US to “no longer be one-sided, as there are two sides to this story.”
Many Jews have been disgusted at these attacks, seeing it almost as a psychological syndrome of extreme secularism and liberalism, the so-called “self-hating Jew syndrome.” I, for one, choose to leave any possible psychological underpinnings out of this, and just accept that this is purely your own political views based on your knowledge of the situation. However, what DOES upset me, in these recent comments is a display on your part of either a complete ignorance of what took place during the recent Gaza War, or overlooking many of the facts on the ground. I wanted to present at least seven facts which you may or may not be aware of:

Douglas Murray: Britain's Muddled Priorities?

On the one hand, the overwhelming cause of our current security problems is Islamist terror. It is the number one cause of concern to our police, intelligence services and everybody else with the nation's security at heart. The public expects to be protected from such terror and expects that protection to come from that security establishment. Yet all the time, a vocal lobby of Muslim and non-Muslim figures tries to pretend that the threat is not what it is, or that an attempt to depict any and all efforts to protect the country -- even one phrase said by one actor in one simulated attack scenario -- is some terrible crime of bigotry.
Of course, there would have been no social media backlash and no swift apology from the Greater Manchester Police if the terrorist simulation had involved a "far-right" terrorist. But there is always a backlash if the scenario reflects the real security threat that all our societies are facing. This is yet another occasion in which the general public's view of people's priorities is legitimately raised. Why would any Muslim or anyone else genuinely opposed to terror object to the realistic simulation of such an event? One can see, of course, that it may be offensive to somebody's religion. But if so, what is more offensive to their religion: one actor saying "Allahu Akbar" as part of one simulation, or countless Muslims around the world shouting the same phrase before real attacks in real time?
If I were a Muslim, I would spend every minute of my waking life trying to persuade my co-religionists not to kill people right after shouting about my Allah. I do not think I would bother for a second if a police force, trying to keep people safe, chose realistically to simulate the behaviour of my co-religionists. It is a matter of priorities, and across Britain and many other countries in the world today, our priorities are now seriously awry.

Thwarted Vietnamese-British Suicide Bomber Tells FBI He Was Instructed to Target Israelis, Americans at Heathrow Airport

A Vietnamese worker from south London was instructed by a senior Al-Qaeda operative how to build a bomb with which to attack Heathrow Airport, where he was to target Israeli and American arrivals, the UK’s Daily Mail reported on Sunday.
According to the report, based on documents obtained by The Sunday Times, Minh Quang Pham, who joined the Yemen-based terror group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), told FBI interrogators that he had spent a day training with senior AQAP member Anwar al-Awlaki, whom he had approached to offer himself as a suicide-bomber.
After pleading guilty to terrorism charges in a New York City court, the report said, Pham, 33, faces a possible 50-year jail sentence. Awlaki was killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen.
Court transcripts published in The Sunday Times revealed:

Mark Regev - Israel's Ambassador to UK on Marr Show - anti-semitism (h/t Daphne Anson)


Rabbi Sacks: Livingstone should be sacked from Labour party for Hitler comments

Former chief rabbi of the UK and prominent public intellectual Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said on Monday that former mayor of London Ken Livingstone should be sacked from the Labour party.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Sacks said that some politicians in the British Labour Party had courted the Muslim vote and had adopted anti-Israel attitudes which have morphed into anti-Semitism.
In April, Livingstone, a senior Labour figure, said that Hitler supported Zionism and that anti-Semites hate Jews outside of Israel as well as Israelis.
Livingstone and some 50 other Labour Party members, including at least one member of parliament and several local councillors, have all been suspended pending an internal party investigation.
“There’s no question there has to be zero tolerance otherwise who knows what we’re getting back into,” said Sacks. “There has to be zero tolerance otherwise Europe will cease to be Europe.”
Asked if Livingstone and others should be fired Sacks replied “of course.”

UK’s Labour Party anti-Semitism scandal is not a uniquely British issue

What is striking about the scandal over the endemic anti-Semitism in the UK Labour Party, which has led to the suspension of 50 party members, is as much the shocking extent of bigotry as the curious timeline of the scandal.
While yet another Labour Party member was suspended just days ago for claiming that “Jews control Britain and are committing genocide on us,” the anti-Semitic comments by elected Labour officials that prompted the current outrage are not new. They were made months and even years ago on social media. Some offenders posted to Facebook about destroying the State of Israel. Another that “Zionist Jews are a disgrace to humanity.” But at the time they were made, no one raised any objections.
Why is that? Because on the far left it has become an acceptable position to oppose the very existence of Israel. In the political echo chambers that social media often create, “relocating” all Israel’s Jews to America seems a justifiable position, even if an implausible one. Comparing Israel to the Nazi perpetrators of the Final Solution is a patently obvious parallel, and accusing Israel of creating or supporting ISIS is reasonable conjecture. It was only when these vile views were exposed to the wider political community that they were they called out – correctly – as anti-Semitic.
But let us not think that this scandal unearths what is a uniquely British problem; it’s a far-left problem, too. And we see similar dynamics at play in other countries across Europe and even here in the U.S.

Head of inquiry into Labour antisemitism Shami Chakrabarti reveals she has joined the party

Shami Chakrabarti has said she is confident that her inquiry into antisemitism within Labour will be independent, despite revealing that she joined the party last month.
Unveiling details at a press conference this morning of how the probe will be conducted, Ms Chakrabarti announced that she had joined Labour on the day she was appointed to chair the inquiry – April 29 – because she wanted to reassure party members that she was not looking to cause a political row.
She said: “I want to be honest. I consider myself to be independent. I’m not less independent for showing I share the values of Labour’s constitution."
The inquiry was launched by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn following a series of suspensions of activists and members for alleged Jew-hate in recent months.

Hate preachers to be banned from working with children in new extremism crackdown in the Queen's speech

A crackdown on hate preachers working with children and other vulnerable groups will be placed at the heart of the Queen's Speech this week.
The set-piece relaunch of the Government agenda is also set to include new laws for a British space port, rules on the use of drones in British air space and provisions for driverless cars.
New laws will also pave the way for higher fees at the best universities and there will be a draft bill on creating a British bill of rights.
The new laws on hate preachers will come in a counter extremism bill and will mirror a ban on paedophiles working with children.

Israelly Cool: WATCH: South African Member of Parliament On Israeli “Apartheid”

Israel haters are constantly accusing Israel of being an apartheid state.
South African Member of Parliament Kenneth Meshoe has lived through on actual apartheid, and has very strong thoughts on this.

South African Member of Parliament on Israeli Apartheid


Outrage over German university’s dismissal of anti-Semitism expert

The University of Göttingen unleashed a firestorm of criticism from scholars, students and Jewish organizations when it did not extend the employment contract of Dr. Samuel Salzborn - one of the most prominent academic experts in German anti-Semitism.
“It is a scandal! It shows that critical research on right-wing radicalism/anti-Semitism is not desired in Germany," Julius Schoeps, a leading German Jewish historian and a descendant of the 18th century philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, wrote The Jerusalem Post by email in early May. "One can only shake his head.”
An open letter supported by scores of academics, student groups, and human rights NGOs was sent to the university’s administration in late April titled, “Retain the chair of Professor Salzborn.”
The letter states: "Prof. Salzborn is one of the most distinguished anti-Semitism researchers in the German-speaking area. Considering the Presidential Board's focus on continuously being nominated as a ‘university of excellence’ (granted by a Federal research program) the decision not to extend the contract is highly inconsistent, to say the least. Prof. Salzborn is also a renowned expert on right-wing extremism, who has published many studies on the subject.”
Salzborn, who has been cited in the Post and the New York Times, also has an expertise in contemporary anti-Semitism - the loathing and de-legitimization of the Jewish state. Göttingen is a major university city in the state of Lower Saxony. During the widespread outbreaks of anti-Semitism - including violence - amid Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Salzborn told The New York Times: “There is a startling indifference in the German public to the current display of anti-Semitism.”

Lebanese BDS symposium to feature launch of Israel boycott app

The Lebanese capital of Beirut will host a symposium Friday on the Lebanese academic and cultural boycott of Israel, organized by the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel in Lebanon.
During the symposium, the treaty of the academic and cultural boycott of Israel will be displayed, and a new smartphone application to boycott products of pro-Israel companies will be launched.
Many well-known Lebanese actors and artists, including the movie star Tarek Tamim and the actor and singer Jahida Wehbe, are expected to attend the conference.
In a video posted on the Facebook page of the Lebanese campaign, Tamim said: "As an artist, I can only see myself as a part of the resistance to the Occupation."
Another well-known Lebanese figure who will attend the symposium, the actress Nidal Ashkar, stated: "I regard the art an obligation and resistance against Israel." She concluded her statement by urging the Lebanese citizens to boycott Israel and resist it.
"The resistance to Israel is not only military – it is first and foremost cultural and ideological, because after you can defeat the enemy several times and put an end to its military supremacy, it will try to enter from other places," said Pierre Abi Saab, the deputy-editor of the Lebanese daily newspaper al-Akhbar.

Israelly Cool: BDS-Hole Complains About Israeli Educational Apartheid – While Working At Israeli Company

Meet Areej Sous, a Bethlehem Univ student who has decided to bash Israel and what she describes as “educational apartheid.”
The video is for a group calling themselves The American Anthropological Association, which is voting on the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
There’s plenty of ridiculous things in this video
Besides lying about key facts, Areej Sous is also not disclosing a big one.
She works for an Israeli company!
According to her LinkedIn profile, she has been an account manager at Tradeo since 2015.

The media as a weapon in the Israeli/Arab war

Israel is engaged in a war in which the media plays a fundamental role in influencing world public opinion and government attitudes and decisions. According to Colonel David Kilcullen, an Australian expert on counterinsurgency, “It’s now fundamentally an information fight.” And it is on this “information battlefield,” Steve Fondacaro, an American military expert believes, that the struggle between the Western democracy and Islamic fundamentalism will eventually be determined. “The new element of power that has emerged in the last thirty to forty years and has subsumed the rest is information,” he said. “A revolution happened without us knowing or paying attention. Perception truly now is reality, and our enemies know it.”
The media is being used to erode support for Israel by promoting “disproportionate and unsubstantiated allegations of human rights violations, war crimes and racism,” asserts Gerald M. Steinberg, the founder and president of NGO Monitor, that documents questionable funding and actions of many NGO's that support Israel-based reporters. This strategy, which helped defeat the South African apartheid government, was embraced in 2001 at the NGO Forum U.N.-sponsored Durban Conference on racism. Since the Conference, many human rights NGOs have adopted the political agenda of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), whose members dominate the U.N. Human Rights Council. The NGO association has frequently condemned of Israel “based on false or unverifiable allegations of human rights abuses and ‘war crimes’.”
The NGO campaigns, led by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, are vital in this process. The problem is that journalists, academics, diplomats, political leaders, and Western officials frequently quote these usually uncorroborated accusations in condemning Israeli policies, “reflecting the ‘soft power’ of these NGOs acting to reinforce the Palestinian narrative and the objectives of the OIC.”
Role of the Soviets
The Soviets played a critical role in facilitating the use of language as a weapon of demonization and delegitimization against Israel by creating a political language connecting the former Soviet-styled anti-Semitism to the present one. In defining the political vocabulary about Israel and the Jewish people, the Soviets established the cultural foundations for a new type of political anti-Semitism that has become part of mainstream culture.
The communists viewed Zionism “as a utopian, reactionary, ‘petty-bourgeois’ movement. At best an unwanted diversion from the class struggle and proletarian revolution, it was also seen by leading German Marxist theorists like Karl Kautsky as being complicit in the rise of antisemitism. Kautsky even accused Zionism of putting a spoke in the wheel of historical progress.”

New York Times Article on Arab-Jewish Solar Project Turns Into Attack on Settlements

Just how bad is Sunday’s New York Times feature article about a solar energy array in a West Bank Palestinian Arab village that was built largely with funding from American Jews?
Never mind how the article deals with the perilous shoals of the Arab-Israeli conflict; it can’t even get the basic electricity facts correct. The article claims: “A typical light bulb uses 100 watts.” Maybe the Times West Bank bureau is lit at operating-room brightness, but a “typical” incandescent light bulb in my house is closer to 60 or 75 watts. That bulb’s work is nowadays likely to be done by an LED or compact fluorescent bulb that uses even less energy. The Times reporter whose byline is atop the piece, James Glanz, is a PhD physicist with a background in science writing, but he doesn’t seem to have been light-bulb shopping in an American hardware store anytime recently.
The Times article goes downhill from there. The first American Jew quoted in it is Peter Beinart, one of the Times’ favorite sources, who views the whole situation “as a sign that younger American Jews are less comfortable with Israeli control of the West Bank.” Mr. Beinart views pretty much everything as a sign of that.
In fact, the whole article is a one-sided exercise in settlement-bashing.

French groups sue Twitter, Facebook, YouTube over racism, homophobia

Two French groups say they have filed a suit against Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for allegedly failing to uphold requirements to delete content deemed racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic or defending terrorism.
The lawsuit was filed on Sunday by the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF) and SOS-Racisme, the organizations said in a press release.
They referred to a survey carried out between March 31 and May 10 by their members and those of a third association, SOS Homophobie.
In this “first mass test of social networks,” the groups uncovered 586 instances of content that was “racist, anti-Semitic, denied the Holocaust, homophobic (or) defended terrorism or crimes against humanity,” the joint statement said.
Only a fraction of these postings was deleted by the host organisations within a “reasonable time,” as required under a 2004 French law: four percent on Twitter, seven percent on YouTube and 34 percent on Facebook.

Ben Shaprio: Breitbart, ‘Renegade Jews,’ And The Anti-Semitic Wing Of The Trump Movement

On Sunday, Breitbart News posted an article by conservative thinker
David Horowitz. The headline: “Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew Prepares Third Party Effort To Block Trump’s Path To White House.”
This is surprising coming from Horowitz.
It’s unsurprising coming from Breitbart News.
I am a former employee of both Breitbart News and David Horowitz. I left Breitbart under rather public circumstances thanks to their overweening allegiance to Donald Trump, which led to them treating decent people like trash. I founded the website TruthRevolt under the auspices of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and I consider David both a mentor and a friend.
But this article is garbage.

US knocks Romania for ‘anti-Semitic’ coin

The US Embassy in Romania on Friday criticized the country’s central bank for releasing a coin bearing the image of a former bank governor who it said actively promoted anti-Semitism.
The embassy called the bank’s decision to honor Mihail Manoilescu, the former governor of the National Bank of Romania, “disappointing.” In a statement, it said he was “an active promoter of and contributor to fascist ideology and anti-Semitic sentiment.”
Manoilescu was foreign minister in 1940, when Romania was allied with Nazi Germany. A supporter of the fascist Iron Guard, he signed a diktat under which Romania lost large swaths of territory to Hungary.
It said in a statement that the coin was part of a series minted in mid-April honoring former bank governors and noted that Manoilescu had been governor in 1931, a year of economic crisis.

Speilberg's new movie based on book by 'anti-Semitic bigot'

Legendary Jewish Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg was caught off guard at the Cannes Film Festival Saturday evening after a reporter asked if he was aware of acclaimed children's author Roald Dahl's professed anti-Semitic views, according to USA Today.
Spielberg is currently in the French Riviera to debut his visually stunning children's adventure movie The BFG, based on the book of the same title written by Dahl in 1982.
Spielberg, director of Academy-Award winning Holocaust film Schindler's List and prolific philanthropist to numerous Jewish causes, said he "wasn't aware of any of Roald Dahl's personal stories."
"I was focused on the story (Dahl) wrote," Spielberg added. "I had no idea of anything that was purportedly assigned to him, that he might have said."
Following Dahl's death in 1990, then Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman penned an opinion piece in the New York Times saying that Dahl was a "bigot" and "admitted anti-Semite."

PreOccupiedTerritory: Mideast Book Fair Removes Non-Antisemitic Work (satire)

Controversy erupted at a regional book fair in the Palestinian capital this week after visitors discovered for sale a work that contained no anti-Israel or anti-Jewish content, forcing organizers to remove the book from the shelves and reprimand the booth operator.
Thousands of publishers, distributors, educators, and other interested parties gathered in Ramallah for the biannual Palestinian Book Fair, which aims to help keep the struggling Palestinian publishing industry on the regional map and showcase the city’s and culture’s vibrancy despite having only a quasi-state hemmed in by Israel. Booth operators came from Dubai, Qatar, and other places in the Arab world to both display and take in recent or perpetually popular offerings, such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a longtime favorite in the region. However, within four hours of the fair opening its doors at the Ramallah Convention Center, more than two dozen visitors came to the concierge to file complaints that one publisher was offering for sale a book that contained no theme, images, or not-so-veiled accusations painting Israel or Jews as malicious, undesirable, corrupt, bloodthirsty, untrustworthy, or unclean. As a result, all copies of the book were confiscated and the seller was threatened with closure of his display.
The seller, whose name has been withheld pending an investigation, allegedly offered for sale copies of a photography journal published as a coffee table book. The 75-page work, titled Bridges Afar, focused on images of bridges around the world, including famous landmarks such as the London and Golden Gate Bridges, as well as out-of-the-way locations such as old railroad bridges in rural Pennsylvania and Bulgaria. None of the images or commentary, however, made even a single mention of Zionist perfidy, brutality, or oppression, even by omission or implication in clear violation of the convention’s rules.

Son of Lebanese immigrants, Brazil’s new president is friend to Jewish community

The elevation of a centrist vice president, Michel Temer, as Brazil’s president amid the impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff is expected to result in a less strained relationship between Brazil and Israel, as well as its Jewish community, Jewish leaders said.
Temer, 75, the son of Lebanese immigrants, took the helm of Latin America’s largest nation on Thursday. He has been vice president since 2011.
Rousseff, who has served for 13 years, was suspended by the Brazilian Congress for 180 days as part of an ongoing impeachment process. She has rankled the Jewish community with what were seen as anti-Israel remarks, including calling Israel’s conflict with Hamas in 2014 “a massacre.”
Also, Brazil refused to accept the appointment of a former West Bank settler leader, Dani Dayan, as ambassador to Brasilia. In March, Dayan was named consul general in New York and no one has been named in his place.
“The interruption of a mandate is not something to celebrate, but the maturation of our democracy must be highlighted,” Fernando Lottenberg, president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, told JTA. “We’ll keep an effective and open dialogue with the new government regarding national, international and community-related subjects.”

Making Israel Sexy: New Instagram Account Features Hot Dudes Eating Hummus

HotDudesAndHummus is an Instagram account featuring, you guessed it, hot (Israeli) dudes eating hummus. The account was created by a group of Israeli university students to show a different – yummier? – side to Israel that has nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict, bringing a whole new meaning to the age-old adage, “make hummus not war.”
In just over a month the account had amassed more than 3,300 followers from all over the world and so far features 43 photos of ripped male Israelis enjoying the Jewish state’s signature chickpea delicacy. A selection of images appears below:
Founded by four students at Israel’s Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) as a project for their communications class, HotDudesAndHummus specifically targets millennials of the type that are likely to already be following other “hot dudes” accounts.
“We want to create a positive association with Israel,” said co-founder Betty Ilovici, 21, the Daily Dot reported. “We’re normal people living normal lives.”
The founders agree that government PR campaigns have largely failed, giving Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy) a terrible name.

Viral makeup tutorial features IDF’s ‘camouflage palette’

Move over MAC mascara and L’Oréal lipstick. The latest must-have makeup is the standard issue camouflage palette by IDF. That’s IDF as in Israel Defense Forces, not some new cosmetics company.
A viral video made by an IDF soldier parodying online makeup tutorials and featuring the camouflage palette has racked up close to half a million views on Facebook in the last week. It took off when it was picked up by Pazam, a social network for IDF soldiers.
The video is a total standout, but it seriously makes blending in with the shrubbery seem like a lot of fun and a great way to cover up zits.
The parody tutorial was made on a whim by Hannah Laskow Defore, a 19-year-old American serving in Machal, the IDF’s program for volunteers from overseas. She serves in the mixed-gender combat search and rescue brigade of the Homefront Command.
“We were supposed to do a four kilometer run, and I didn’t feel up to it, so I got permission to stay behind on base,” Defore told The Times of Israel.
“So while I was hanging around, I made the video. I’d made parody videos before, but never a makeup one. But I always thought makeup tutorial videos were funny because the people in them take them so seriously,” she added.

Digging into our lives

The archaeologist Dr. Gabi Barkay came to Israel at age 6 with his mother and father, on board the ship Kommemiyut, one of the ships that smuggled Jewish immigrants into Mandate Palestine. This was the vessel's last voyage bringing Jewish immigrants to Israel before it was sold to iron traders. As part of the events of a national conference hosted by the Israel Exploration Society, the Kommemiyut sailed past the coast one last time, possibly hinting at the future of the child it had carried from the Budapest ghetto to the land of Israel.
Since then, 66 years have passed, and it seems almost arrogant to attempt to sum up in a single conversation with Barkay the progress Israel has made in archaeology since it was founded, or his personal contribution to that progress. Barkay has been involved in so many studies, excavations and events relating to local archaeology that it's doubtful a single interview will do it all justice.
Although he has never worked for the Israel Antiquities Authority -- Barkay says he prefers a university framework that offers freedom of opinion and thought -- he has acquired an international reputation thanks to two things: The first is the historic discovery of the Priestly Blessing Scrolls, the most ancient archaeological discovery of a biblical text dating to the period the Bible is believed to have been put together. The discovery of the scrolls had wide-ranging influence on biblical research, and the assessment of its historical reliability. The second is the project of sifting dirt from the Temple Mount. Barkay describes the Mount as "a black hole in the history of archaeology in general and Israeli archaeology in particular."

Israel admits that Hebrew Vowels are just a 50 Year Prank on Olim (satire)

Government and Academic sources, speaking at a Conference held at the Academy of the Hebrew Language, made an astonishing admission today: that the use of Vowels in Hebrew is just one giant punk on Olim.
“Honestly, we never thought it would go on this long.” chuckled Professor Binyamin M. “After the Six Day War, a lot of Western Olim started showing up to volunteer, and some of the Kibbutzniks thought it would be funny to tell them that there were special invisible dots and lines underneath the letters that they can’t see but that they must say. And they went along with it! I guess the Emperor really wears no clothes.”
President Rivlin, who was on site to present an award for the best new Hebrew playwright, couldn’t contain his laughter. “It’s all a joke! Kamatz, Patach, Segol. We even wondered if we could force Olim to draw a Tic-Tac-Toe Board, so we made up the Shuruk! Good times!”

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People who celebrated 9/11 say celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut is "twisted"

You can't make this stuff up. From Palestine News Network:

Nakba, in Arabic, simply means, Catastrophe, or Tragedy; for Palestinians, it is the most tragic nightmare to happen to a whole nation in modern history.

The irony is that while Palestinian commemorating the 68th anniversary of their Catastrophe, the Palestinian exodus, Israelis celebrate what they call “independence day”.

The wonder is how people can celebrate what they call independence while they know that this was on the account of others people tragedy, a celebration that reflects the sick and twisted minds of such celebrators.

Yes, people who openly celebrated the murders of thousands of Americans,

People who hand out candy in response to the murder of rabbis who were praying,

People who name their schools and town squares after those whose only claim to fame was to successfully murder Israelis, including children,

- are complaining that a national independence day celebration is sick and twisted.

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The "experts" all agree: ISIS is Israel's fault

It looked for a while like the myth of "linkage" - that Middle East peace and, by extension, world peace is dependent on Israel allowing itself to become nine miles wide - was dead and buried.

The Arab spring, Egyptian coups, Syrian civil war, Yemen conflict, Islamic State and Iranian belligerence all prove to any reasonable human that the Palestinian problem is a relatively small issue in the Middle East, and Arab governments have much bigger - and much more real - problems than spending their time worrying about whether a Palestinian needs to wait for a half hour at a checkpoint.

Yet the idea that somehow Israel is to blame for all the world's ills keeps coming up.

French FM Ayrault says the peace conference being planned by France is important as it can help stop the advance of the Islamic State terror group in the region.

“France has no vested interest, but is deeply convinced that if we don’t want to let the ideas of the Islamic State group prosper in this region, we must do something,” Ayrault tells reporters.

They can't just sit there! They must do something! Maybe a raindance, or a strongly worded letter to ISIS leaders? Because those would be just as effective as a Palestinian state in fixing the Arab and Muslim world's problems.

In fact, history shows that Israeli land concessions empower Islamic radicals to redouble their efforts. We've seen it before - Hamas gained power after Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hezbollah gained power after Israel withdrew from Lebanon. Somehow, those Islamic fundamentalists didn't subscribe to the idea that Israeli concessions would weaken them that the experts are so sure of.

And if withdrawing from the West Bank doesn't mollify ISIS, then we just may have to reviit the entire idea of a Jewish state altogether. Isn't that the next logical step?

The French FM isn't the only foreign minister to resurrect the linkage nonsense. Jordan's FM said the same thing:

Palestinian statehood is the most important issue now facing the world and that it fuels extremism gripping the Mideast, Jordan's foreign minister said Tuesday.

Nasser Judeh made the comment at the Arab Media Forum in Dubai.

Palestinian cause represents the essence of the conflicts and crises in the region," he said.

He added that "every day of delay where the international community does not exert pressure toward reaching a fair and just settlement of the Palestinian cause will lead to another day of darkness where the forces of extremism and terrorism can act. Then humanity as a whole will pay the price."

Yet as we have seen, Jordan doesn't want to put any skin in the game to help Palestinians when it costs them more than empty words.

Actually looking clearly at the problem of Islamic fundamentalism, and the hard work necessary to eradicate it, is an enormously difficult problem. Blaming Israel for it is enormously easy - especially for people who really don't like Jews and the concept of Jewish nationhood that much to begin with.

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05/16 Links Pt1: Palestinian girl at Red Crescent event: The Jews kill worshippers; Bill Clinton’s Palestinian State

From Ian:

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PMW: Palestinian girl’s hate speech at Red Crescent event: The Jews kill worshippers

In its report on an event for children arranged by the Palestine Red Crescent, Palestinian Authority TV News chose to include a young Palestinian girl’s hate speech demonizing Jews:
Palestinian girl: "Like all the children of Palestine, I do not like the occupation. I am scared of the Jews when they come to our village. They kill worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They kill our people and imprison small children. It is my right to live in peace, like all children in the world." [Official PA TV, April 18, 2016]
The girl’s libelous statement that Jews “kill” Muslim worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque plaza is an extension of the PA libel that Israel seeks to harm and destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque - a libel the PA has been repeating for years. These two libels, presenting Israelis/Jews as murderers who threaten Al-Aqsa have been used by PA and Fatah leaders as the prime motivating forces behind the recent wave of terror attacks against Israelis, which lasted more than 6 months and in which 34 Israelis were murdered and 452 wounded.
Note that the girl spoke of “Jews,” and not “Israelis.” Her statement echoes many other demonizing statements about Jews as "enemies" and posing a danger to Muslims and the world, as exposed by Palestinian Media Watch. She echoed the PA teaching that the conflict is religious and not territorial. Similar teachings are coming from the top of the PA leadership. Abbas’ advisor, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, has described Jews historically as representing “evil” and “Satan’s project” versus Muslims who represent “good” and “Allah’s project.”

Edgar Davidson: The day the Jews of London and their friends fought back

Today, like so many days in London over the last 10 years, a group of antisemites who go under the laughable guise of 'Palestine supporters' planned to:
- March through the streets of London shouting despicable lies against Israel without being challenged
- Hand out leaflets spewing more lies, hatred and antisemitic blood libels to unwitting Londoners trying to enjoy a day out in the sunshine; and finally
- Lay siege to a modest Jewish Israeli-owned shop with the explicit intention of forcing it out of business, without a murmur of protest against them.
But NOT today. They met their match because, thanks to outstanding work by Yochy Davis, Joseph Cohen and others, Israel supporters had found out their plans and, at short notice, got together an impressive counter demo. And for over 3 hours Israel supporters were right in the faces of the antisemites ensuring that not a single Londoner or tourist heard their lies unchallenged.
It all started when the antisemites gathered in Soho Square and were about to serenade the visitors there trying to have a peaceful lunch with their classic tune "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free". They were greeted first by Ishmael Sali, who they assumed would be joining their hatefest.
The look on their faces was quite something to see when Ishmael pulled out a large Israeli flag, followed by others doing the same. Within seconds the terrorist supporting goons were surrounded by more people with Israel flags (more people in fact than the antisemites) and for the 20 minutes they stayed there singing the Israel supporters drowned out their noise with their own, including with some impressive shofar blowing.

UK: Zionists disrupt and harass peaceful Nakba Day event in London


Edgar Davidson: Read the antisemitic abuse following today's counter demo

I reported earlier on today's counter-demo against an antisemitic 'pro-Palestinian' attempt to spew lies and hatred in London and close down a Jewish-Israeli store. As this video from the anti-Israel agency Russia Today shows, the counter demo was clearly both a surprise and shock to the antisemites who normally have free rein over London's streets.
But just check our the continual stream of antisemitic abuse in the comments on the video. I have captured a few screen shots below:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The "Battle for Succession"

Hamas is convinced that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will never allow elections to take place in the West Bank because of the likelihood that Hamas would win. The PA argues that Hamas will never allow a free election in the Gaza Strip because it does not tolerate any competition.
After Arafat died, Arafatism lived on. The same applies to Mahmoud Abbas. No real changes, if ever, should be expected in the Palestinian attitude towards the conflict with Israel after his departure.
In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians will continue to be ruled by Hamas, an Islamist movement that has brought nothing but destruction and disaster to Palestinians.
The question of Abbas's successor is thus rather unimportant. The Palestinians will continue to be ruled by dictatorships that do not give a damn about their people.

Ben-Dror Yemini: The Double Nakba

Sunday was the day the Arab world commemorated the Nakba. One can and should participate in the sorrow of those who became refugees and remained so to this very day. They lost their homes and property. They were denied basic human rights. And many of them, because of what is happening in Syria, have become victims once again. Moreover, one must look bravely at history.
In the first half of the 20th century, with the fall of the empires, nation states began to take shape. The Ottoman Empire, which became Turkey, began the process of expelling minorities. It started with the expulsion of the Armenians that turned into a genocide. It continued with a huge wave of population exchanges in Europe and Asia. At least 52 million people went through that experience. That was the norm. Even the Permanent Court of International Justice, the highest international jurisdiction in those years, ruled that it was a proper arrangement. Until the adoption of the Geneva Convention. What was until then considered the norm had suddenly become a war crime.
Calls supporting transfer were also heard from the Zionist movement, but they were fewer compared to those coming from Europe. In any case, Arab opposition to the UN partition plan of November 1947, declarations of destruction and the invasion of Israel immediately after its independence was declared, led to 711,000 Arabs – at the time they were not called Palestinians - becoming refugees. Most of them fled. Some were deported.
Jews also became refugees. Many leaders in the Arab world spoke menacingly of the imminent destruction awaiting the Jews of Palestine and Arab countries if the partition plan was approved. The Arab League passed a resolution that, in practice, turned the Jews into hostages. A series of pogroms against Jews in Arab countries have made it clear that a chapter in history had come to an end. The Jewish minority in the Arab countries, which numbered one million people, was mostly forced to flee. It was the Jewish Nakba.

The Mottle Wolfe Show (PodCast): Nobody Cares About Your Nakba

Nakba, the day that Palestinians want us to feel their pain of not winning the genocidal war the waged in 1948 against the fledgling Jewish State. Also Trump dodges charges of womanizing and impersonating a public relations spokesman.

Apathy, resignation mark Nakba Day in Bethlehem

Manger Square in Bethlehem was crowded with Russian tourists Sunday. A young boy begged for money and tour guides begged to be hired. A Palestinian policeman with an AK-47 slung round his side was directing traffic. “Nakba Day isn’t today,” said a Palestinian man working as a waiter. He was confused, his friend said.
“It’s today I think, but all the events are finished.”
The argument between the two men was symbolic of an apathy across the West Bank on Nakba Day, a day that is central to the Palestinian national movement’s desire for a “right of return” for millions of refugees. The commemoration is traditionally held on May 15th, the date of Israel’s founding, which Palestinians view as a national catastrophe. “I forgot all about it,” a French photojournalist told me from Ramallah.
In years past she had been near the IDF’s Ofer Prison and other locations, but she said the day had almost come and gone without incident.

Arab lawmakers join Nakba Day ceremony at Tel Aviv University

An international peace process is necessary to stop the deteriorating Israeli-Palestinian conflict, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters on Sunday after separately briefing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Arab MKs participated in a “Nakba Day” ceremony at Entin Square in front of the main entrance to Tel Aviv University on Sunday.
The Im Tirtzu NGO held a very loud Zionist counter-demonstration, chanting “Nakba Nonsense,” waving Israeli flags, passing out flyers, and drowning out the “Nakba” ceremony speakers.
They also brought a 4.5-meter inflatable Pinocchio doll.
“You are on the side of the terrorists that kill children!” Im Tirtzu’s CEO, Matan Peleg shouted into the speaker.
A couple of hundred Nakba protesters and a few dozen Zionist counter-protesters were on opposite sides of the square, with security barriers and a strong police presence separating them.

Paul Larudee: The $10,000 Nakba Road Trip Fail

Paul Larudee has been on the outs of the social justice warrior club for quite a while. Even the regressive left knows to keep their distance from the piano tuner from El Cerrito. His ties to the Iranian mullahs, his support of the Syrian butcher Assad, and his endorsements of notorious anti-Semites have contributed to his persona non grata status in the local activist community.
The failure of his Nakba tour surprises nobody. Paul took his show on the road, and it was not a success.
A plea for money from terror apologist Paul Larudee :
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Sorry, Paul. Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on anyones part.
Incidentally, Paul's "nonprofit "Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees EIN 20-5516191 reported over $166,000 in contribution last year. Where could all that money be vanishing to? (h/t Bob Knot)

Bill Clinton’s Palestinian State

While campaigning in New Jersey on Friday for his wife, Bill Clinton was interrupted by a pro-Palestinian heckler. “What about Gaza?” the person yelled. What followed was an interesting exchange with the clearly exasperated former president that says more to inform the current attempts by both the Obama administration and the French to revive Middle East peace talks than it does about Hillary Clinton and what she might do if elected in November.
That Clinton would be heckled about the Palestinians is not a surprise. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is one of the few issues on which Sanders has not pulled Hillary Clinton to the left. She has tried, often without success, to match Sanders’ enthusiasm for massive expansions of government power and expenditures and new entitlements. But on foreign policy, she has attempted to walk a fine line between the Democratic base’s basic isolationism and her own internationalist/interventionist instincts while noting differences with her rival on temperament and experience rather than on substance. But she has not been shy about drawing strong differences with Sanders on Israel and the Palestinians.
Though she was the “designated yeller” at Prime Minister Netanyahu during President Obama’s first term, Clinton has also tried to position herself as a mainstream supporter of Israel and sharply disagreed with Sanders’ belief in U.S. neutrality and his willingness to spread canards about Israel’s attempts to defend itself against Hamas that have at times exceeded even those of the terrorists when it comes to inaccuracy.
So if Sanders’ fans are going to hound Hillary or her chief surrogate on any clear difference between them, it’s as likely to be about her not being as willing to attack the Jewish state as the Vermont socialist. That’s what happened on Friday but what Bill Clinton said in reply to the heckler’s cracks about Clinton’s unwillingness to join Sanders in condemning Israel was significant because it brought up something that is rarely discussed in the mainstream media coverage of the Middle East: Palestinian rejectionism.

Israel thanks Norway for saying aid won’t go to imprisoned terrorists

Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold thanked Norway on Sunday for stating that it will not transfer money to the Palestinian Authority that will be used to support convicted terrorists or their families.
Gold expressed “Israel’s appreciation” to Norwegian Ambassador Jon Hanssen-Bauer over the decision made by Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, according to a statement by Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon.
“It is outrageous that killing Israelis has become a source of income for many in the PA. This completely contradicts what peace is all about. These payments incentivize terrorism and must be stopped,” Gold said, according to the statement.
Earlier this month, Brende met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and brought up the issue. Abbas told Brende that none of Norway’s aid contribution was going to terrorists or their families.

The UN's deafening silence after hateful statements against Israel

As Jews around the world and in Israel prepared to commemorate the Holocaust this month, a disturbing narrative was being broadcast at the United Nations.
Speaking to the press, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour invoked the resistance fighters of the Warsaw Uprising, equating the Israeli government to the genocidal Nazi regime.
The deafening silence of the UN Secretary General, the European Union, and US Ambassador Samantha Power, among others, evidently served to encourage the proliferation of more hateful statements, when, days later, Venezuela’s U.N.'s Ambassador Rafael Ramirez suggested that Security Council members ask themselves whether Israel was planning a "Final Solution" against the Palestinian people.
After criticism by a few U.N. member states, Ambassador Ramirez released an apology for his libelous statements on May 11th that further inflamed tensions by invoking the ages-old meme of a "lobby" (code for Jewish lobby) that was "manipulating" his remarks.

Cruz: Congress Should Boost Funding for Israel’s Ballistic Missile Defense

Congress must do more to fund Israel’s missile defense systems due to Iran’s continued development of ballistic missiles and its commitment to destroy Israel, Sen. Ted Cruz (R – Texas) wrote in The New York Times on Friday.
Cruz, who recently suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination for president, criticized the Obama administration for failing to fund the David Sling and Arrow-3 anti-ballistic missile systems, which are being jointly developed with the United States.
Noting that Iran has continued to provoke and threaten the United States and Israel, Cruz observed:
The mullahs’ policy is, by their own admission, unchanged. It is the same one that inspired the so-called revolutionaries of 1979 to take 52 Americans as hostages for 444 days, and motivated murderous attacks on Israelis and Americans from Buenos Aires to Beirut to Baghdad over the subsequent decades. The only thing that is changing now is the potential scale of this violence, as they seek to replace truck bombs and roadside explosive devices with the most destructive weapons on the planet and the means to deliver them.

American Islamic Reformer: Crucial to Provide Third Path for Palestinians Faced With ‘Fascist’ Fatah and Hamas

“We have to tap into Muslims’ consciences and to tell them that they have an Islamic responsibility to protect the land that they live in, by countering the ideas that radicalize and hate the West. Among the Palestinians in Israel, It’s that much more important to empower reformists, because they have two extremes – Fatah and Hamas – each fascist in many ways, and there is no third pathway for rejecting both,” a prominent American Muslim said on Thursday.
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and author of A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith, made these comments while addressing a gathering of the Gatestone Institute, a New York-based think tank specializing in strategy and defense issues.
To hit his point home, Jasser said, “Contrast the Palestinians with the Kurds,” he said. “Why have the Kurds not been radicalized? Because the Kurdish identity has provided a secular fuel for comfort, which has never given space to the Islamist identity. The Palestinian identity has been hijacked by the Islamist radicals, which is why Palestinians living in Israel I’ve spoken to say they much prefer to live in Israel than in Hamas-controlled Gaza and the areas of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian Authority. And why is that? Because there has been no effective Muslim counter-information offensive in those areas to tell Palestinians: ‘It is your fault, not the Israelis’, that you are in your current situation.’”
In his talk — titled “Who Are the Real Blasphemers?” — Jasser said, “We have to find Muslims willing to fight to the death for ideas they don’t agree with,” referring to the famous quote by Voltaire’s biographer.

Illegal, EU-funded Arab buildings dismantled in E1

The IDF Civil Administration on Monday morning dismantled and seized seven portable structures and other building parts that had not yet been assembled in E1, a strategic corridor connecting Jerusalem with Ma'ale Adumim to the east.
The structures were set up illegally without permits apparently in the last several days, in the latest Arab land grab attempt in the key region.
Jerusalem Belt Forum praised the law enforcement, saying, "we welcome the (Civil) Administration for its enforcement activity this morning."
"At the same time, we are witnesses in recent days to a phenomenon in which the Palestinians and the European Union show contempt for the law and rush to build anew at the site of evacuated structures," said the Forum.
"We call on the Civil Administration not to make do with cosmetic activities, but rather to speed up law enforcement in a massive way against the hundreds of houses built illegally throughout the area."

ADL to recognize Ottoman Empire’s massacre of Armenians as ‘genocide’

The massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in the early years of the 20th century was “unequivocally genocide,” the head of the Anti-Defamation League said.
His added that his organization will support US recognition of the Armenian Genocide, a move the civil rights group resisted for many years.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Friday staked out the ADL’s strongest position on the subject in his blog post for Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, ahead of the organization’s national convention that began Sunday in Washington, D.C. Greenblatt tied the events to the Holocaust.
“Let me be crystal clear: …What happened in the Ottoman Empire to the Armenians beginning in 1915 was genocide,” he wrote.
“We believe that remembering and educating people about any genocide – Armenian, the Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda and others is a necessary tool to prevent future tragedies,” he also wrote.

Stabbing attack in Jerusalem: One Israeli wounded, suspect apprehended

A Palestinian terrorist stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli man on Ha'nevi'im Street in Jerusalem on Monday.
The terrorist, a resident of the West Bank, was apprehended by police.
The victim, described as a haredi youth, was treated by paramedics on the scene, before being transported to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital for further treatment.
National Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld stated that police who were stationed in the area heard yelling on Ha'Nevi'im Street in the direction of Damascus Gate.
Upon approaching they saw the suspect stabbing a Jewish man before fleeing the scene. The suspect tossed away his knife while running from police.
Police apprehended the man after a short chase and took him into custody.

Jesus’s baptismal site, long sealed off, to be cleared of landmines

Qasr al-Yehud, the site where many Christian traditions believe Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, will soon be cleared of some 4,000 landmines and other ordnance left over from the 1967 war and its aftermath.
The move, announced Monday, aims to allow pilgrims to visit areas inaccessible for nearly 50 years, blocked off by barbed wire fences intended to keep visitors from walking too close to the minefields.
Part of the site, located southeast of Jericho in the West Bank north of the Dead Sea, was cleared in 2011, allowing limited access for pilgrims and tourists, thousands of whom now visit the location each year, especially during the Epiphany holiday in January.
The mine-clearing project will be carried out by HALO Trust, a UK-based demining group that operates in 19 places around the world and has worked in the past to clear mines elsewhere in the West Bank.
The initiative has won the approval of both Israeli and Palestinian officials — a rare instance of agreement in the usually fractious relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over Israeli-administered tourist and holy sites in the West Bank — and is eagerly backed by Christian denominations who see the location, an Israel-designated national park, as a holy site.

Shin Bet: Hamas bringing weapons, rocket-making material into Gaza

Salim Jamal Hassan Naman, a resident of the al-Shati refugee camp, admitted to interrogators that he’d been involved in a naval smuggling operation for some time and had helped bring in weaponry and “materials used in the production of rockets, like fiberglass resin,” the security service said.
The Shin Bet accused Hamas of “taking advantage” of a recent change in policy concerning the blockade on the coastal Strip. In April, the Defense Ministry extended the permitted distance from the coast for Gazan boats to nine nautical miles, up from the previous six miles.
Naman, 39, was picked up by IDF sailors in April after his boat “deviated from the approved sailing area,” the Shin Bet wrote in a statement.
After his arrest, Naman was handed over to the Shin Bet for further questioning, where he provided his interrogators with information regarding Hamas’s smuggling operations and attack strategies.
Though Naman was most closely affiliated with the Hamas terror organization, he told investigators the smuggling ring brought weapons to a variety of terror groups in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, the Shin Bet said.
He also gave additional information on the terror group’s methods of using dedicated smugglers as well as Gaza fishermen to bring contraband to and from Egypt.

Palestinian Authority claims Arab majority by 2020

A report published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics on Sunday in honor of “Nakba Day” – a day of mourning marking the establishment of the Jewish state – offers the Palestinian Authority’s reckoning of the Palestinian Arab population both in Israel, and worldwide.
According to the report, there were 12.4 million Palestinian Arabs worldwide, a nearly nine-fold increase since 1948. Of the more than 12 million claimed by the Palestinian Authority, more than 6.1 million live abroad, mostly in the Middle East.
In what the report refers to as “historic Palestine” – Israel, Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip – the Palestinian CBS claims that there are some 6.3 million Palestinian Arabs, nearly equal to the total number of Jews living in the same area.
Of those 6.3 million, more than 2.9 million living in Judea and Samaria, along with nearly 1.9 million in Gaza, and more than 1.5 million inside the State of Israel.
The report also claims that by the year 2020 there will be more than 7.1 million Palestinian Arabs living between the Jordan River and Mediterranean, surpassing the number Jews in the region.
But some demographers have called the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics methodology, suggesting that the center inflates figures to perpetuate claims of a demographic threat against Israel.

Palestinians forced to pay $3,000 bribes to cross into Egypt: report

Egypt last week opened its border with Gaza for a brief 48-hour window after an 85-day closure.
Palestinians seeking to pass through the Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip into Egypt last week were forced to pay up to $3,000 bribes to make it onto the priority list to cross during the 48 hour window that the border was open.
Mustafa al-Sawaf, a Gaza based journalist close to Hamas, said that some Palestinians who wished to cross had to pay up to $3,000 in bribes to be allowed to cross, and those who couldn't pay were turned back, journalist Khaled Abu Tomeh reported.
Last Wednesday, Egypt opened its border with Gaza for 48 hours after 85 days of closure meant to prevent smuggling and the movement of Islamists in the Sinai Peninsula.
More than 25,000 Palestinians with "urgent needs" registered and waited to cross, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency said, quoting authorities in Gaza. Some 3,500 of these people were said to be seeking medical treatment.
The huge volume of people who wanted to cross into Egypt could not be processed accordingly and Gaza’s Ministry of Interior then had to evaluate which people had the most urgent need to cross, said Ma'an.

Egypt disconnects last power line, southern Gaza blacked out

Southern Gaza is in a total electricity blackout, and even the Palestinian Authority news outlet Maan admits it's not Israel's fault.
Though reports of electricity shortages in Gaza are generally accompanied by unjustified finger-pointing at Israel for the situation, today's report by Maan barely mentioned Israel at all. Instead, it implied – though did not say it straight out – that the responsibility for the new situation lies squarely on the shoulders of Egypt.
The last power line from Egypt to Gaza was disconnected on Saturday, Maan reported, without specifying clearly who did the disconnecting. A full electric blackout is now in effect in the areas of Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, and the city of Khan Yunis - adjacent to the former site of N'vei Dekalim, the largest town in what was the Jewish block of Gush Katif.
The smaller towns of Gadid and Gan-Or were also located within firing distance of Khan Yunis, and in fact often suffered rocket attacks from that city.
Gaza’s electricity company announced that the two lines that fed electricity from Egypt to southern Gaza, at a capacity of 20-24 megawatts, have now been completely disconnected by Egypt. The first one was disabled two weeks ago, leading to rationing of "six hours on, 12 hours off" for all districts in Gaza.

Can Assad keep crossing the ‘red line’?

The Obama administration has another chance to enforce its botched “red line” against the use of chemical weapons in Syria, given new reports that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has used nerve gas against extremist fighters and may be planning more such attacks.
President Obama’s decision not to retaliate against Assad’s use of chemical weapons in 2013 has become an emblem of his larger foreign policy, which critics say hasn’t been forceful enough in Syria and other places. Obama justified his restraint by citing the diplomatic agreement that was brokered by the United States and Russia to destroy Syria’s chemical arsenal. But new Israeli reports question whether Assad has complied.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, apparently relying on a government source, reported May 2 that Assad’s forces used sarin gas last month against Islamic State fighters after they attacked two Syrian air force bases east of Damascus. Stockpiles of this deadly gas were supposed to have been removed from Syria in 2014.
Given the international silence, Israeli officials are said to fear that Assad will keep striking with the banned weapons. “With the continuation of fighting in Syria, it is reasonable to assume that the regime won’t hesitate to use these weapons again, especially after already having done so . . . without any reaction,” an Israeli source told me.
The alleged use of sarin is another sign that Assad appears ready to breach any diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the war. In recent weeks, his forces, backed by Russia, have struck a pediatric hospital in Aleppo run by Doctors Without Borders and a U.S.-backed humanitarian group in Idlib called Syria Civil Defense.
Chemical weapons have become part of “the new normal” in Syria, according to a report in February by the Syrian American Medical Society. The group said that in 2015, there were 69 chemical weapons attacks in Syria, mostly chlorine bombs dropped by Assad’s air force.

Wave of Iranian Volunteer Soldiers in Syria Causing Further Destabilization

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has increasingly relied on Iranian volunteers to maintain his rule, which is only exacerbating sectarian strife in the Middle East, a report in Foreign Policy on Thursday documented.
The report centered on Asghar and Abbas Abyari, a father and son who were both members of Iran’s Basij militia. Both Abyari men wanted to volunteer to fight in Syria, having been told that they would be protecting Shiite religious sites. “We knew then that [Sunni rebels] would attack other shrines and holy sites that are respected by Muslims and Christians,” Asghar said. “We felt that if we didn’t defend these places, nobody would be safe, and they would make a government that would spread this cancer to the entire world.”
The call to protect Shiite shrines is a strong one, prompting “devout Shiites lured by the promise of martyrdom…to fight a war that they regard as their religious duty,” the article explained. Many enlistees believe that non-Sunni communities in Syria are at risk.
While Iran’s military involvement was originally only in an advisory role, the need for volunteers has increased as the civil war has devolved. An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general who spoke to Foreign Policy said that Iranian troops used to only go Syria as “strategic advisors,” but as the war progressed, Iran started sending “tactical” advisors. As many as 700 Iranians have died fighting in Syria, according to some sources. Afghans and Pakistanis have also been pressured by Iran to fight on behalf of Assad.

Inside the Pro-Iran ‘Echo Chamber’

A White House-allied group funded a private email listserv that pushed out pro-Iran talking points and anti-Israel conspiracy theories to hundreds of influential policy experts, government officials, and journalists during the Iran nuclear debate.
The contents of the invite-only listserv, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, could give a glimpse inside the “echo chamber” used by White House aide Ben Rhodes and allied lobbying groups to promote the administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Members of the list included an Obama White House adviser, senior officials at the State Department, journalists for the New York Times and the Washington Post, and fellows at prominent think tanks.
The email forum, known as “Gulf/2000,” was originally created by Columbia University professor and former Jimmy Carter aide Gary Sick in 1993.
Since 2010, Gulf/2000’s operations have been funded by the Ploughshares Fund, a group that worked closely with the White House to promote the Iran nuclear deal.
In a New York Times article earlier this month, President Obama’s foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes said the Ploughshares Fund was part of the administration’s spin operation to sell the public on the agreement.

The forum is also littered with conspiracy theories about the Israeli government and foreign affairs. In one post, retired journalist Richard Sale claimed the CIA told him that pro-Israel Christian groups were “secretly funded by Mossad.” In another, Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich speculated that the Iranian-backed bombing of the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center was actually a false flag operation by the Argentine government to cover up its complicity with the Nazis.
On March 5, 2014, the day the Israeli military announced it had intercepted an Iranian shipment of advanced rockets to Gaza, the news was greeted with typical suspicion in the forum.
“Call me a cynic, but it does seem like amazingly fortuitous timing: just when the IAEA have resisted Israel’s call to publish the claims (probably) Israel leaked, and while Bibi is tub-thumping to AIPAC in Washington ,” wrote James Spencer, a blogger for LobeLog.

UNESCO condemns Iran's Holocaust cartoon contest

UNESCO, the UN’s cultural body, on Sunday strongly condemned the “Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest”, which opened in Tehran over the weekend.
The contest features, among others, entries deriding Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government's Middle East policies.
But the organizers of the exhibition have denied that it is meant to deny the Holocaust, and Iran’s government has distanced itself from the contest, which Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said was organized by a non-governmental organization without any support from the authorities.
Nevertheless, UNESCO chief Irina Bokova condemned the contest and said in a statement, "Such an initiative which aims at a mockery of the genocide of the Jewish people, a tragic page of humanity's history, can only foster hatred and incite to violence, racism and anger."
"This contest goes against the universal values of tolerance and respect, and runs counter to the action led by UNESCO to promote Holocaust education, to fight anti-Semitism and denial,” she continued.

Israeli Satire of ISIS Performing at Eurovision Song Contest Explodes on Social Media (VIDEO)

Though Israel did not emerge victorious in Saturday night’s Eurovision song contest in Stockholm, the country’s most famous TV satirists came up with a winning skit, ostensibly performed by Islamic State terrorists.
Eretz Nehederet (a wonderful country), a weekly political satire program on Israel’s Channel 2, created the mock ISIS entry, which is garnering viral attention — hundreds of thousands of views — and lots of laughs on social media.
In English, with Hebrew subtitles, the clip opens with a French-accented “host” introducing the ISIS medley. “Good evening,” she says. “In the Eurovision, we always want more of everything – more songs, more unnecessary stages, more countries. And this year, we are welcoming another new member to the competition: the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS, who sent us their band, ABBU, with the song, “Boomzi Boom, Boomzi Bam.” (h/t Elder of Lobby)

ISIS at the Eurovision

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So where were the Muslim Yom Haatzmaut celebrations on campus?

Last week, Brown University Hillel held a "Nakba Day" event showing anti-Israel films - and the organization apparently went to some lengths to hide the fact that it was supporting an anti-Israel event.

The Jewish students who oppose, and work to undermine, Israeli policies all have the usual excuses:

“Within the Jewish community, these sorts of discussions do not happen often enough,” said event organizer Ben Williams, a senior at Brown. “[Ignorance] leads to a certain complicity in continuing systems of oppression.”

Yes, there isn't enough J-Street and "Jewish Voices for Peace" and SJP chapters and professors who advocate tirelessly against Israel on campus. It is hard to find the Palestinian perspective on campus - so hard that it must be hosted at an ostensibly Zionist venue. There are no libraries or classrooms that could possibly be adequate.

Which brings up a question I have asked before: where is this same open-mindedness on the other side? Where were the Muslim Student Association's Yom Haatzmaut parties, celebrating the only country in the Middle East where an Arab can successfully sue the state?

Where is the open dialogue in the Palestinian campus community? Where are the peace events held on campus mosques calling for a two state solution?

Why is it so inconceivable to have a pro-Israel Muslim event but practically considered mandatory to have anti-Israel events at Jewish venues?

I once created a webpage to highlight the disparity between how each side talks about "peace."

The unfortunate fact is that the As-A-Jews are happy to use their ancestry as a reason to bash Israel, instead of supporting their fellow Jews whose lives are literally in danger.

The real problem is that, despite the claims of the antisemites, Jews aren't united. And the Israel bashers are.

Maybe Jews should label Hillel their "safe space" where they can celebrate the miracle of Israel without fear of disruption. Or does that concept only apply to other minorities?

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