05/19 Links Pt2: How to Destroy Israel; 90% of Israeli Jews call themselves Zionists

From Ian:

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The Top Five Most Hilarious Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories

Last week, the British Labour party suspended Musabbir Ali, a former campaign official, for making anti-Semitic statements on social media. He joined an ignominious cast of characters punished for similar offenses, including a former mayor of London and a current parliament member. But Ali distinguished himself with his particularly creative brand of anti-Semitism.
On Twitter, among other bigoted bromides, he shared a link to a post claiming that the Jews had “financed Oliver Cromwell’s overthrowing and beheading of Stuart King Charles I after he refused them control of England’s finances.” This extraordinary assertion overlooked one minor detail: Jews were expelled from England in 1290 and could not legally return until 1657, years after Cromwell came to power.
Ali’s ahistorical absurdity highlighted an underappreciated aspect of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories: In addition to being hateful and ignorant, they are often hilarious.
In that spirit, I’d like to pay tribute to the most ridiculous anti-Jewish fulminations I’ve come across in my years covering them. These eruptions of inspired idiocy span centuries and continents, from America to Europe to the Middle East. They implicate the Jews and the Jewish state, as well as Monica Lewinsky and the animal kingdom, in their nefarious plots. And they frequently interchange “Zionist” for “Jew” in comically inept attempts to obscure their bigotry.
In other words, it’s a collection that should satisfy any connoisseur of fine anti-Semitism.

Marc Goldberg: How to Destroy Israel

In a twist of fate, the state of Israel lives and thrives (certainly in comparison with her neighbors) because of antisemitism not in spite of it.
Would a tiny country have been able to fight the Sinai Campaign in 1956 or win the Six Day War if its population hadn’t more than doubled in size?
I doubt it. But Israel haters please note that once again Jews fled when they had no choice, not because a million of them simply, collectively, woke up one morning and thought moving to Israel would be a fun thing to do.
A million Jews made it to Israel once the Iron Curtain collapsed. The most academically diverse, educated aliyah Israel had yet experienced made Israel the hi-tech powerhouse it is today. Israel hater think about that. Jews had been oppressed under the Czars, providing the forge within which Zionism was molded. Then the communists took over with an entirely different ideology and world view. And oppressed the Jews. Then decades later a million Jews moved to Israel.
Think about that. Antisemitism at work.
And now the French aliyah. Thousands more well educated and in many cases wealthy Jews from France are packing their bags and going anywhere they can. Including to Israel.
Antisemitism at work.
Israel is the solution to antisemitism not the cause of it. Some people who hate Israel hate Jews. Everyone who hates Jews hates Israel. Ending antisemitism would end Israel.
The former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone recently ranted that “Hitler was a Zionist”. He wasn’t. Clearly. He simply proved just how important, just how righteous, how necessary Zionism is.
Antisemitism at work.
Think about that.

Khaled Abu Toameh: How Terrorists and Dictators Silence Arab Journalists

That is the sad state of journalism in the Arab world: "If you're not with us, then you must be against us and that is why we need to shut your mouth." A journalist who does not agree to serve as a governmental mouthpiece is denounced as a "traitor."
Hamas shut the Gaza offices of Al-Arabiya in July 2013, under the pretext that the station broadcasted "incorrect news" about the situation in the Gaza Strip. The closure did not receive much attention from the international community and human rights organizations. Had the office been closed by Israel, there would have been an international outcry, with journalists screaming about Israeli "assaults on freedom of the media."
Al-Arabiya, like many other Arab TV stations, has a bureau in Israel, and its reporters enjoy more freedom reporting out of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv than they do in the Arab world. Today, the only free and independent Arabic newspapers in the Middle East can be found inside Israel.

Foregn journalist distaste for Israel is all the vogue

When journalists arrive in Israel, they are already convinced that Palestinian Arabs are involved in a moral struggle for independence and that Israelis exploit their power and military prowess to thwart this "noble" goal.
There was a period in the Middle East, when American journalists and editorial writers favored Israel over the Arab states because Israel is an open society. Once reassessing Israel’s policies became in vogue, many editors and correspondents adopted a “neutral” and an “even handed” approach in their reporting. Israel no longer enjoyed “the benefit of the doubt.”
Those with “little or no ideological bent” relished in debunking “myths” about the Jewish state. In their quest for a new slant on the conflict, they found one. “Arabs biting Jews had long ceased to be news; but Jews biting Arabs—that was a story.”
A number of years later The New York Times News Editor William Borders explained: “The whole point is that torture by Israel, a democratic ally of the United States, which gets huge support from this country, is news. Torture by Palestinians seems less surprising. Surely you don't consider the two authorities morally equivalent.”
Joyce Karam, the Washington bureau chief of Al-Hayat, one of the major daily pan-Arab newspapers, observed that there were no protests in Pakistan against the slaughter of 700 people in Syria on week-end, although there were anti-Israel protests in Pakistan against the Gaza war of 2014. “Syria is essentially Gaza x320 death toll, x30 number of refugees….” she said. When asked why this double standard, she answered, “Only reason I can think of is Muslim killing Muslim or Arab killing Arab seems more acceptable than Israel killing Arabs.”

Richard Landes: Secular Supersessionism: Explaining the Global Left’s Hostility to Israel

Talk given at the International Scholars Conference: “Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Dynamics of Delegitimization,” April 2-6, 2016

Elliott Abrams [interview]: Are American Jews Growing More Distant from Israel?

In a discussion of his recent essay in Mosaic, Elliott Abrams explains how the changing face of American Jewry has affected relations between U.S. Jews and their brethren in Israel. (Interview by Eric Cohen; audio, 39 minutes.)

Isi Leibler: The ADL’s moral equivalence: Israelis and Palestinians

The Anti-Defamation League’s new national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, previously a special assistant to US President Barack Obama, has begun to court the liberal glitterati and their media by following the Obama lead and creating daylight between the ADL and the Israeli government.
In what was a coup for J Street, the ADL chief last month became the first Jewish establishment leader to address this essentially anti-Israeli organization, granting it respectability and treating it as a legitimate extension of the Jewish mainstream.
J Street, which had the financial backing of George Soros – who loathes Israel – has the chutzpah to depict itself as “pro-Israel” but claims an understanding superior to Israelis of what is best for them, declaring its role as that of a parent obliged to impose “tough love” on drug-addicted children.
The hypocrisy of J Street’s repeated mantra of being “pro-Israel” is illustrated in the following examples: • During Operation Cast Lead, J Street accused Israel of an “escalation” that was “counterproductive” and “disproportionate.” Finding difficulty in distinguishing “between who is right and wrong” and in “picking a side,” J Street ascribed moral equivalency to Israel and Hamas, and noted “that there are many who recognize elements of truth on both sides of this gaping divide.”

Ben Shapiro: Trump’s Anti-Semitic Supporters

I was wrong. I’ve spent most of my career arguing that anti-Semitism in the United States is almost entirely a product of the political Left. I’ve traveled across the country from Iowa to Texas; I’ve rarely seen an iota of true anti-Semitism. I’ve sensed far more anti-Jewish animus from leftist college students at the University of California, Los Angeles, than from churches in Valencia. As an observer of President Obama’s thoroughgoing anti-Israel administration, I could easily link the anti-Semitism of the Left to its disdain for both Biblical morality and Israeli success over its primary Islamist adversaries. The anti-Semitism I’d heard about from my grandparents — the country-club anti-Semitism, the alleged white-supremacist leanings of rednecks from the backwoods — was a figment of the imagination, I figured.
I figured wrong.
Donald Trump’s nomination has drawn anti-Semites from the woodwork.
I’ve experienced more pure, unadulterated anti-Semitism since coming out against Trump’s candidacy than at any other time in my political career. Trump supporters have threatened me and other Jews who hold my viewpoint. They’ve blown up my e-mail inbox with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. They greeted the birth of my second child by calling for me, my wife, and two children to be thrown into a gas chamber.
Yes, seriously.
This isn’t a majority of Trump supporters, obviously. It’s not even a large minority. But there is a significant core of Trump support that not only traffics in anti-Semitism but celebrates it — and god-worships Trump as the leader of an anti-Jewish movement.

Labour refuses to discipline MEP who compared Israel to the Nazis, as critics call for his suspension

Labour has refused to discipline an MEP [European Parliament] who compared Israel to the Nazis, as critics accuse the Party of failing to clamp down on anti-Semitism despite promises to take the matter seriously.
MPs have called from Afzal Khan to be suspended for writing on Twitter: "The Israeli Government are [sic] acting like Nazi's [sic] in Gaza”.
A Labour spokesman confirmed that Mr Khan, who was awarded a CBE for his community and interfaith work in 2008, would not face any disciplinary action but said he had been “reminded of his responsibilities”.
Andrew Percy MP and Sir Eric Pickles MP have called on the Labour Party to suspend Mr Khan for his “deeply offensive” comments.
“It is staggering how often Labour politicians casually reference the Nazis when discussing the world's only Jewish state,” Mr Percy said.
“This is deeply offensive, causes a great deal of hurt to the Jewish community in the UK. Labour should move to suspend Afzal Khan immediately and start to take the issue of anti-Semitism more seriously.”

Labour party antisemitism

As the experience of British Labour has shown, antisemitism is very real and there remain those who reserve a unique and unwavering hatred for the dominant symbols of Jewish self-identification – the Jewish community, the Jewish faith and the Jewish nation-state.
In 2014, the Socialist Alternative was deregistered as a club by Monash University [Australia, BTW named after a Jew] following the harassment of Jewish students by its members. At Sydney University in 2015, students from the far-left shouted their support for Hizb ut-Tahrir to a predominantly Jewish audience while a senior academic, Jake Lynch, was filmed in the act of waving banknotes in the face of an elderly Jewish woman.
Incredibly, the actions of Lynch and the students were stridently defended by many on the left, including members of parliament and the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties. In 2013, NSW Upper House MP Shaoquett Moselmane railed against the ‘. . . blind[ing] power of a political lobby group that is cancerous and malicious’ in a piece of rhetoric that might have made the Iranian regime blush.
Amidst this scandal, British Labour is struggling to remain credible as an alternative government.
If a similar worldview took hold of the Australian left, it too would risk becoming un-backable, unelectable and irrelevant.

'Organization of Islamic Cooperation' blocks gay and transgender groups from attending UN AIDS meeting

More than 50 Muslim states have blocked 11 gay and transgender organisations from attending a meeting at the United Nations next month dedicated to ending AIDS.
Some 51 states, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, Sudan and Uganda, have objected to the groups attending the meeting.
Egypt wrote to the president of the 193-member General Assembly on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to object to the participation of the groups.
It did not give a reason in the letter - sparking a protest by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, wrote to General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft and said the groups appeared to have been blocked for involvement in lesbian,gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy.
'Given that transgender people are 49 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population, their exclusion from the high-level meeting will only impede global progress in combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic,' Power wrote.
U.N. officials said the European Union and Canada also wrote to Lykketoft to protest the objections by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation group, whose members include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, Sudan and Uganda.
The issues of LGBT rights and participation in events at the United Nations have long been contentious.

In pro-Israel victory, Methodists to withdraw from BDS coalition

Just days after rejecting four resolutions calling for divestment from companies that profit from Israel’s control of the West Bank, the United Methodist Church voted to withdraw from the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
By a vote of 478-318 at its general conference in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday, the church approved a petition requesting its withdrawal from the group, Religion News Service reported.
A national coalition that “works to end U.S. support for Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem,” according to its website, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has been accused of being more anti-Israel than pro-peace.
The Methodist petition called the group a “one-sided political coalition” that seeks to isolate Israel “while overlooking anti-Israel aggression.” The US Campaign promotes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and seeks to end U.S. aid to that nation.
“Blaming only one side while ignoring the wrongdoing of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran will not advance the cause of peace,” the petition added.
Not everyone was pleased with the decision.

The Presbyterian Church, BDS, and that ‘largely non-violent’ First Intifada

Two years later, the Presbyterian Church nears another General Assembly. This time, the BDS agenda is a bit more nuanced. A task force was commissioned in 2014 to examine the continued viability of the Church’s commitment to a Two State solution. Responsibility for this study fell on the Church’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), which recently issued a report titled Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Justice Peace, that it is seeking to have endorsed by the GA when it meets in mid-June in Portland, Oregon. It should surprise no one that the report that was written mimics many of the BDS arguments that have been used again and again.
It does not take even the casual reader long to realize that this report is fundamentally flawed and dishonest at its core. On the very first page, the report provides a brief history of the conflict, in which the First Intifada is described as a “largely non-violent movement that led to the Oslo Accords.” Let that sit in for a minute. The First Intifada was a non-violent movement. What the authors of the report apparently are trying to do is to equate the Palestinian resistance, then led by Yasser Arafat and the PLO as being on the same moral level as the American civil rights movement, in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference used the strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience to effect change. King led bus boycotts, sit-ins and marches to overcome legal segregation and accomplish voting rights for Black Americans in the American south.
Yet, the First Intifada included far more than boycotts of Israel by Palestinians. Arafat’s uprising consisted of widespread throwing of stones, Molotov Cocktails, and assaults on Israeli citizens. It is estimated that over 1100 Palestinians and 200 Israelis were killed between 1987 and 1991. Yes, the First Intifada was far less violent than the Second, which began in September 2000, and was characterized by suicide bombings, and ongoing acts of terrorism, but in no way was the First Intifada a non-violent movement. For a report by the Presbyterian Church’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to even use such language not only questions the intellectual integrity and honesty of the committee itself, but also calls into question the entire report that follows. The Report treats the conflict between Israel and Palestine as entirely one sided, with Palestinians always the victim, seeking justice, and Israel as always the aggressor.

Exclusive: Major French bank closes anti-Israel BDS account

The massive French bank Credit Mutuel shut down the account of La Campagne BDS France amid escalating criticism over the illegal practices of supporting financial transactions that target Israel for boycotts.
In a dramatic setback for a large Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) group, BDS France removed a link on its donor webpage in May for Credit Mutuel and added a link to PayPal as a method of contribution.
Speaking from Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the Israeli journalist Jean Patrick Grumberg told The Jerusalem Post that according to his source “BDS France used illegal ways to open its account and Credit Mutuel closed it.”
Grumberg confirmed the termination of the account through his source at Credit Mutuel. He is a reporter for the French-speaking American website Dreuz. Grumberg has reported on Credit Mutuel’s role in enabling BDS.

German politicians call for inquiry into anti-Semitic BDS hub

A widening anti-Semitism scandal involving the Protestant Church and a network of NGOs in the city of Bremen that call for a boycott of Israel prompted the Green Party to launch an investigation, at the same time saying the employment of a pastor who declared himself a Jew-hater appears to be untenable.
“As the Green faction, we are preparing a parliamentary inquiry that will deal with anti-Semitic tendencies in Bremen,” Kirsten Kappert- Gonther, the deputy head of the Green Party in the city government, wrote The Jerusalem Post by email last week.
After the Protestant Pastor Volker Keller boasted in an email to the Post that he is an anti-Semite – and the leadership of the Bremen Jewish community announced its refusal to work with Keller – Kappert-Gonther told the Post on Wednesday that “mutual trust, in the meantime, is so disturbed that I find it difficult to imagine that good cooperation in the Council for Integration is still possible.”
Keller serves on Bremen’s Council for Integration and plays a role in the absorption of migrants from Muslim- majority countries. He is the Church’s representative on the council for dialogue with religious communities, including the nearly 1,000-member Jewish community.

'Islamophobia Studies' Are Coming To A College Near You, And There Won't Be Any Debate About It

"Before I get started, I just wanted to say that we are meeting on stolen indigenous people's land. That's really important to acknowledge." So declared San Francisco State University race and resistance studies professor Rabab Abdulhadi, at the University of California, Berkeley's Seventh Annual International Islamophobia Conference in April.
Abdulhadi's seemingly disjointed declaration was typical of the post-colonial, "intersectionality"-driven jargon of the entire conference, which sought to link the mythical plight of America's prosperous, content Muslim population, with the struggles of every oppressed minority known to man. It was also an opportunity for two academic centers at opposite ends of the country to join forces and promote what was euphemistically referred to at the 2015 UC Berkeley conference as "Islamophobia studies."
While UC Berkeley Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP) director and conference convener Hatem Bazian gave the opening remarks, John Esposito, founding director of Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) and project director of ACMCU's Bridge Initiative, "a multi-year research project that connects the academic study of Islamophobia with the public square," was the undisputed star.

Contrary to Guardian claim, there are no Israeli restrictions on medicine to Gaza

First, the claim that Israeli restrictions on the flow of goods to Gaza represent a “near total closure” is absurd in light of the fact that tons of food, consumer goods and medical equipment are transported freely into the Palestinian-run territory on a weekly basis. Additionally, thousands of Palestinians leave Gaza each week to conduct business outside the territory, or to receive medical treatment in Israeli or Palestinian hospitals.
Also, contrary to Whitford’s suggestion about Israel’s responsibility for the shortage of chemotherapy drugs, there are no Israeli restrictions on medical supplies entering Gaza. Thousands of tons of medical supplies arrive in Gaza each year. Further, more than 25,000 Gazans are granted permits annually to receive medical care in Israel, the West Bank or Jordan.
The only restricted items are weapons and ‘dual-use’ items, those putatively civilian items which can be used “for the development, production, installation or enhancement of military capabilities and terrorist capacities”. Purely humanitarian supplies have never been subject to such restrictions, even during wartime.
Regarding Whitford’s specific claim that radio isotopes are forbidden “despite having no potentially dangerous application”, we contacted COGAT:

Christian Science Monitor Forgets that Hamas Controls Gaza

The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) published an article called, “Musicians raise their voices in song to help children in Gaza.”
Aside from describing a musical project, the CSM misrepresented the nature of Gaza and Israel in a way that puts professional journalism to shame.
First, the CSM got basic geography wrong, by stating that Israel controls Gaza’s border. In fact Gaza has 2 borders: one adjacent to Israel and the other adjacent to Egypt. The Egyptian border is even more restricted than the Israeli one, due to constant attacks from Gaza against Egyptians. CSM also made no mention of the constant attacks from Gaza against Israelis.
CSM misstated key facts, stating that Israel restricts imports into Gaza. In fact, Israel restricts the movement of weapons into Gaza but moves in millions of tons of food, supplies and water annually, as well as supplying electricity. The weapons that Israel restricts are used by terror organizations to attack Israeli civilians.
Then CSM practically defied imagination by discussing Gaza while making absolutely no mention of its most important context: that the Hamas terror group actually controls Gaza.

Is Israel killing Palestinian Children?


BBC’s ‘In Pictures’ showcases an anti-Israel activist

That link leads to a photo essay titled “Traditional industries in the West Bank” in which audiences are told:
“In the West Bank, several traditional Palestinian industries are still utilising historical techniques fine-tuned through generations – but once flourishing industries, such as shoemaking in Hebron or olive oil soap production in Nablus, are barely surviving, with a fraction of their former workforces.
Photographer Rich Wiles has been documenting these industries, some of which may not survive much longer in the current political and economic climate.”
Rich Wiles, however, is not only a photographer: he is also a professional political activist who uses his camera as a tool for the advancement of his chosen political cause.
In addition to his involvement with the anti-Israel NGO ‘Badil’, Wiles can regularly be found promoting his campaigning photography at outlets such as Al Jazeera, the Hamas-linked MEMO (which, interestingly, describes him as “MEMO photographer Rich Wiles”) and other Hamas-linked outfits such as the ‘Palestinian Return Centre’.

Al-Monitor Spins History

Author Uri Savir writes:
A senior PLO official in Ramallah told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that “50 years of military occupation spells to every single Palestinian that we, with whatever means we possess, have to end our humiliation and gain our independence. Strategically, June 2017 is an opportunity to place the Palestinian issue on the international agenda.”
[…]
The PLO official said that one cannot rule out a “50-year occupation intifada,” but that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas prefers to avoid it: “In 2017, the rules of the game will change. We have come to the end of our patience.”
Savir does not acknowledge that these comments amount to endorsements by Palestinian officials of the murder Jews and Israelis in terrorist projects. Savir, founder of the Peres Center for Peace and the NGO’s current honorary president, parrots incendiary PLO talking points and ignores the incitement of Palestinian violence which the PLO officials themselves unabashedly glorify.
Furthermore, he not only ignores the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank prior to 1967, he also fails to mention numerous offers of statehood made to the Palestinians by successive Israeli governments since. Instead, he chastises Israel:
“Enough with the occupation” should be the Israeli slogan instead. Occupation is the biggest strategic danger to Israel’s identity, to its security and its international relations. It is turning Israel into a binational, immoral state, and it carries severe ramifications for Israel’s democracy.
With pithy historical blindness, Savir places the weight of the conflict entirely on Israel’s shoulders, giving the Palestinians a free pass even as they admit to turning to terrorism. Al-Monitor, the 2014 recipient of the International Press Institute’s (IPI) Free Media Pioneer Award, eliminates any semblance of contextualize reporting, offering a biased perspective of the last half-century of events in Middle East.

Guatemalan protesters use anti-Semitic language to blast Israeli-owned power company

Demonstrators in Guatemala used anti-Semitic language to protest the Central American country’s major power company, which is owned by an Israeli group.
Energuate, a private power supplier owned by Israeli company IC Power, was targeted by protests last week that included congressmen, businessmen and members of the military, the Estado de Israel news portal reported.
“Jews have killed me on the cross. Now Jews from Energuate are killing my people in Guatemala with the light,” read the Spanish-language banners and posters at the protests. “Out with Jewish Energuate from Guatemala. Let’s unite for the nationalization of power electricity.”
The anti-Semitic material also included an image of a crucified Jesus and a New Testament passage about hypocritical “teachers of the law and Pharisees” neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness.
An article on the website of Redes Cristianas, or Christian Networks, defended the use of an anti-Semitic tone in the protests.

EU under fire over Czech pig farm on Roma Holocaust site

Czech anti-racism activists said Tuesday they had asked the EU to halt subsidies to a pig farm built on the site of a former concentration camp where hundreds of Roma prisoners died during World War II.
“The fact that European taxpayers’ money is heading to (the farm) runs counter to the values on which the EU was built,” said activist Miroslav Broz, a coordinator at the Konexe anti-racism association.
“When you arrive at the pig farm, you can see EU logos and flags and inscriptions saying the EU is subsidizing the operation and upgrades of this farm,” he told AFP a day after May 16, which is the international Roma Resistance Day.
Jan Michal, head of the European Commission’s representation in Prague, said it was up to EU member states to decide where subsidies were paid.

Anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne performs for Montreal fans via video link

After being barred from entering Canada, the controversial French comic Dieudonne M’bala M’bala presented a show in Montreal via video link.
Some 600 fans paid $40 a ticket to see Dieudonne on a big screen in a reception hall on Monday.
The comic has been convicted multiple times in France and Belgium for hate speech, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and defending terrorism. His latest conviction was May 10 in France for using material that included accusations of Jewish involvement in the slave trade and deriding the Holocaust.
That was the same day the Canadian Border Services Agency informed him he could not enter Canada and must return to France.

Jewelry found inside mug on exhibit at Auschwitz Museum

Curators at the Auschwitz museum have found a gold ring and necklace inside an enamel mug that is on exhibit at the museum, the BBC reported Wednesday.
The jewelry was discovered during maintenance work on the museum’s collection of enamel kitchenware. It had been concealed beneath the mug's fake bottom, which gradually eroded over time, according to the British news network.
Many Jews hid valuable items in their luggage when they were deported to Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum said the jewelry - like other objects accidentally discovered - would be carefully documented and secured, but warned that the likelihood of finding the owners was slim "because there are no traces left on the objects to help identify them".
The mug in which the jewelry was found is one of 12,000 cups, pots, bowls, kettles and jugs held by the museum. These are items looted by German forces from the luggage of people who arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War Two.
"It turned out that one of the mugs has a double bottom," Hanna Kubik of the museum's Memorial Collections told the BBC. "It was very well hidden; however, due to the passage of time, the materials underwent gradual degradation, and the second bottom separated from the mug."

US House passes bill protecting circumcision, ritual slaughter

A bill unanimously approved by the US House of Representatives would extend religious protections to advocates of circumcision and ritual slaughter as well as atheists, addressing what its sponsors describe as an increase in religious persecution in recent years.
The bill, passed Monday, would broaden the definition of “violations of religious freedom” in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to include the persecution of advocates of male circumcision or ritual animal slaughter. Atheists would become a new protected class.
The measure, which moves to the Senate for consideration, was named for retired Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., a longtime champion of human rights who authored the 1998 law.
“The world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis of international religious freedom, a crisis that continues to create millions of victims; a crisis that undermines liberty, prosperity and peace; a crisis that poses a direct challenge to the US interests in the Middle East, Russia, China and sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who authored the bill, said in a statement.

Mayo Clinic launches initiative to invest in Israeli medical tech

In the first initiative of its kind, the Mayo Clinic, one of the best-regarded medical research and practice groups in the world, will seek to partner with Israeli life science and medical technology companies.
“We recognized the amount of start-up companies generated in Israel to help clinical practice and improve patient care and we wanted to explore the possibility to partner with them,” said Dr. Amir Lerman, the medical director of the Mayo Clinic Israeli Startup Initiative.
The Israel initiative is the clinic’s first investment and partnership program of its kind focused on an entire country, though it also has an investment program in Ireland through its government.
"We have been thinking for some time how to effectively interact with Israeli companies. We think the startup community in Israel is very robust on the cutting edge, doing very creative things, and we think we should be part of that," said James Rogers, the chair of Mayo Clinic Ventures, which is leading the initiative alongside The Merage Foundation.
Though the initiative has been in the works for nearly a year, it will officially launch at the IATI-Biomed conference, Israel’s largest life sciences and technology conference, in Tel Aviv next week.

Leukemia cure could be on the way, says med-tech firm Biosight

Biosight, an Israeli pharmaceutical development company that is working on a cure for leukemia, this week closed an investment of $13 million led by pharmaceutical investment firm Arkin Holdings, run by pharma mogul Mori Arkin, and US-based venture firm Primera Capital. The money will be used to fund an advanced phase study of the company’s lead product, Astarabine, for the treatment of AML — acute myeloid leukemia, one of the two most common forms of the disease.
According to the investment terms, Arkin Holdings and Primera Capital will invest $5 million each, and additional $3 million will be invested by existing shareholders. The investment will be made in two steps, the first immediate, and the second expected in the course of the next year upon completion of several studies and milestones.
Astarabine is a special form of a compound called cytarabine that contains an amino acid harmful to leukemia cells but not to normal cells. Leukemia cells depend on an amino acid called aspargine, but they cannot synthesize it themselves, according to Dr. Ruth Ben Yakar, CEO of BioSight; as a result, they “steal” it where they can, from within the bloodstream. “We set up a molecular structure that leukemia cells recognize as being associated with aspargine, which they need,” said Bar Yakar. “But instead we fill it with Astarabine, which kills them. Thus, using this trojan horse trick, we are able to destroy the cancerous cells while preserving the healthy ones.”

Sir Elton John promises to give Tel Aviv a ‘wonderful, crazy’ night

The Rocket Man is on his way to Tel Aviv. Sir Elton John will be the bloke in shades sitting onstage behind a grand piano in Yarkon Park next Thursday, May 26, for his fourth concert in Israel and his first in six years.
This time, John is on tour promoting “Wonderful Crazy Night,” his 32nd studio album and his third straight album with co-producer T Bone Burnett and American singer/songwriter Leon Russell.
John has said that his collaboration with Russell marks a new chapter in his recording career.
“I don’t have to make pop records any more,” he said.
It’s true. Elton John is not his seventies self, with his hair far shorter at 68, but he’s still got his shades, diamond earring and glitzy suits.

From the IDF to Hollywood: Krav Maga’s meteoric rise

Krav Maga, the close-combat method conceived in secrecy by the Israeli army, has kicked its way firmly into civilian life and with Hollywood’s help, has become the ultimate form of self-defense.
“The idea is to be able to quickly hit the aggressor’s vulnerable spots and to defend yourself with whatever is available — a beer bottle or a stick,” explains Elad Nimni, who teaches Krav Maga in the Israeli army.
“Or, if you’re doing military Krav Maga, you can use a gun instead of your body, because your body can get damaged and that hurts,” he tells AFP, wearing military fatigues, his muscles rippling under a tight black t-shirt.
Although Krav Maga — which is Hebrew for “contact combat” — borrows techniques from boxing, wrestling and jiu jistu, it differs from all other combat sports in one way: there are no rules.
Krav Maga is all about saving your own skin, and anything goes.
But interest in the streetwise style of fighting has stretched far beyond Israel, notching up diehard fans from Hampstead to Hollywood, among them A-listers like Angelina Jolie and husband Brad Pitt, whose daily workouts reportedly caused him to bulk up his muscles and “dramatically” lose weight.

90% of Israeli Jews call themselves Zionists, Herzl Day poll finds

The vast majority of Israelis say Zionism is still relevant today and most define themselves as Zionists, according to a poll released by the Herzl Center Wednesday in honor of Herzl Day, celebrated on the Zionist thinker’s birthday.
Asked to what extent they define themselves as Zionists, with 10 being the most and one the least, about half (51 percent) of the poll’s respondents gave themselves a nine or 10 and 39% ranked themselves from five to eight. Only 11% of Israeli Jews gave themselves a score of one to four.
The vast majority of Israeli Jews – 82% – said the idea of Zionism is still relevant, while 9% were unsure and another 9% said Zionism is irrelevant.
Most Israelis (61%) said that Herzl’s vision has not fully come true yet, and 9% said it did not come true at all, while 24% said Herzl’s vision came true. The rest did not know.
Avraham Duvdevani, chairman of the World Zionist Organization, which Herzl founded in 1897 to bring his Zionist idea to fruition, said he agrees that Herzl’s vision has not yet fully come true, saying that even now the WZO encourages aliya, supports Jewish communities in the Negev and Galilee and fights anti-Semitism.
Most respondents also knew that Theodore Herzl wrote the book The Jewish State, with 84% guessing his name correctly, 1% giving a wrong answer and 16% saying they do not know.

IDF Blog: This Is Why We Defend Israel

The smells, the tastes, the sounds, and the people we love. This is why we are here. This is why we defend.

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Major Italian university hosts anti-Israel session at conference

The University of Turin is holding a conference about the Middle East called "From Caliphate to Caliphate: The Middle East from the Sykes-Picot Treaty to violent jihadism."

The third session of the conference was dedicated to Palestinian issues, and the only people who presented were known anti-Israel activists.


Diana Carminati, former professor of European Studies at the University of Turin, spoke on "The Contemporary Israeli project of settler-colonialism and the destruction of the Palestinian economy." She mentioned the tunnels being used to smuggle goods, but not a word about weapons.

Enrico Bartolomei of the University of Macerata spoke. He is also a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and has written of "Israeli apartheid" and is against any peace process, saying, "Any political solution must aim at decolonization of historic Palestine, rather than a supposed (peace process) or the construction of statehood or national authorities."

Two other known anti-Israel, pro-BDS professors speaking were Marzia Casolari and Michelguglielmo Towers, who has said that Hamas has a "high degree of pragmatism."

Literature at the conference included materials calling Gaza an "open air prison" and describing Operation Protective Edge as a" macabre spectacle of death and destruction on a large scale." Very scientific.

Conference organizer Marzia Casolari, Professor of History at the university, emphasized that the rabid pro-Palestinian positions of the speakers would not affect the "scientific rigor" of the seminar. Rector Gianmaria Ajani defended the conference and said any criticism was "specious", say that a conference is "not a talk show where they offer a seat to any political position."

I am told by someone who attended that there were also accusations of Jews raping Arabs in 1948 mentioned at the conference.

The good news is that only 25 people - including media.

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See the Little Bowden floods of 1912

I found this video on the Little Bowden Society website.

It combines photos of the village when it was flooded by the River Jordan in 1912 with photos of the same scenes today.

One from 1912 shows buildings close to my house that were long ago demolished. Strangely spooky.

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John Creasey, creator of George Gideon, was a Liberal candidate

John Gregson as Commander George Gideon

Writing about the Gideon's Way police series from the 1960s the other day, I suggested that John Gregson played the hero as "a world-weary liberal".

I may have been on to something because, as an article by Ian Millsted from the Journal of Liberal History once revealed, the author of the books the series was based on was himself a liberal - and a Liberal

John Creasey, who wrote the books, once said:

I have been a political animal all my life. At twelve I was organising and speaking at street corners for the Liberal Party.

Creasey fought Bournemouth West for the party in 1950, finishing third with 17 per cent of the vote. This was a very respectable vote for a Liberal candidate in this era, though the party had come second in the seat in 1945.

In the second half ot the 1960s, though he was often seen in Liberal circles, Creasey fought a number of parliamentary by-elections to promote the All-Party Alliance, He had set this up himself in 1996.

Millsted says:

Its principal aim was to see elected a government of the best people from all parties in order to sort out the problems of the day.

In the last of these by-elections, Oldham West in 1968, he beat the Liberal candidate into fourth place.

The aim of the All-Party Alliance may sound naive, but Jeremy Thorpe was to call for something similar in the general elections of 1974.

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Goodbye, Diaspora (Vic Rosenthal)

 

 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I had the good fortune to meet Tuvia Tenenbom, author of Catch the Jew and I Sleep in Hitler’s Room the other night.

He’s writing a book about America. I haven’t read it since he hasn’t finished it, but I think I can safely say that it is going to be a painful experience, because what he found isn’t pretty. To compress it into a single sentence, the American experiment of creating unity from diversity is crashing and burning.

One thing he noted was a recent explosion of hatred against Israel and Jews, coming from both the left and the right. I think he’s quite correct. 

Let’s dispose of the red herring that anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred are different. Oh, they are different concepts, but the group that hates Israel generally hates Jews, and vice versa. A distinction without a difference. And that especially includes Jewish anti-Zionists. 

It’s only natural that someone who dislikes Jews would dislike a Jewish state. And objecting to the Jewish state’s stubborn refusal to lie down and die despite the world’s protestations that the tiny enclave of Jewish sovereignty is unacceptable, just naturally leads a person to wonder what it is about these Jews that makes them so stubborn.

Stubborn is what they are, refusing the True Religion (whether Christianity or Islam) for millennia. Refusing to return to Europe after the Holocaust, and demanding – demanding – to be allowed to enter the land that had been promised to them by the international establishment, not to mention other promises from a higher authority, despite the inconvenience for His Majesty’s government. Refusing to give up the idea of a Jewish state and return to a Diaspora in which their existence would be conditional on the whims of the non-Jewish majority.

Jew hatred is sweeping the world again today, even, as Tenenbom noted, the US. The US is especially interesting, because it is the home to about half the world’s Jews. With the exception of the 10% of American Jews that are Orthodox, many of them – especially the younger ones – are embarrassed by Jewish stubbornness and believe that their liberal morality compels them to join with the ‘oppressed Palestinians’ and help them to end the Jewish state. In fact, they lead the anti-Zionist crusade there, even in Jewish organizations like Hillel.

But we have to excuse them. They are far from the action, they don’t have the facts, they are subjected to a constant bombardment of anti-Zionism in their media and from their government, their teachers, their peers and even liberal synagogues. In the universities they are intimidated by Muslim students and hard-left faculty, while receiving little or no support from administrators when faced with anti-Jewish racism. And as Diaspora Jews, they need to ‘go along to get along’ as Jews learned for centuries under Christian and Muslim rule.

On the other hand, we don’t have to excuse Israelis, even the highest IDF officers, when they react to the waves of Jew-hatred like Diaspora Jews. The recent remarks of Maj. Gen. Yair Golan were not only explicitly political – and therefore broke IDF rules – but by drawing a comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany, validated the most hateful anti-Zionists for whom such comparisons are stock in trade. 

In part, he was referring to an incident in which a young soldier, Sgt. Elor Azaria, shot and killed an already ‘neutralized’ Palestinian who had just stabbed another soldier, and to the outpouring of public support for Azaria as the Army tries him for manslaughter. Azaria is accused of violating the IDF’s principle of ‘purity of arms,’ which forbids harming prisoners of war, although he argues that he believed the terrorist had a suicide vest on. Whether or not he was justified, his action was as different from Nazi genocide as day from night.

What motivated Golan to make such a comparison? You’d have to ask him, but I think he is harkening to a typically European, non-Jewish, even Christian morality, in which love for all humanity, including enemies, is the highest value. Tribalism is the first step to Nazism. Possibly he believed that if he just beat his country up enough, the ones that hate us would realize that we are human after all.

This is Diaspora thinking. Nothing we do will ever be enough for the anti-Zionists. Their irrational hatred is not our problem and we can’t solve it for them. Psychiatrist and historian Kenneth Levin called the belief that we can fix things by accepting the criticism of those who hate us and being better according to their principles the ‘Oslo Syndrome’. As the expression suggests, it is pathological.

The Diaspora Jew is used to being powerless, so he has to beg the non-Jewish authorities to protect his community. Of course, the more we abase ourselves before them, the more they hold us in contempt. An analogy today would be an Israeli leader begging Obama to protect Israel from Iran. How did that work out for us?

Diaspora Jews worry a lot. What will the goyim think? Don’t make the goyim mad. Flatter them, pretend that we believe that they don’t hate us, and they will pretend in return. Maybe.

It is becoming harder and harder for us to pretend. And they aren’t hiding their feelings so much either. When an anonymous Obama Administration official called our Prime Minister “a chickenshit,” the statement barely made sense. Literally, the official was calling Netanyahu a coward because he didn’t attack Iran when the US pressured him not to do so. But the emotional message was as clear as a slap in the face. Take that, Jew. 

And how did our PM respond to the contempt poured on him from the White House? “The friendship between the US and Israel is stronger than ever,” and “my Congress speech [was] not intended to show disrespect to Obama or the office that he holds,” said Netanyahu in his best Diaspora diction.

But Israel isn’t powerless and doesn’t have to play this game, especially since the goyim have problems of their own. The West is losing in its battle with Islam and the forces of chaos. The Roman Empire may have taken hundreds of years to collapse, but today’s West will go down much more quickly. 

For Israel to survive the ensuing cataclysm, we have to become a successful Middle Eastern nation instead of trying to be an outpost of Western power and Western morality. And that implies that we will have to defeat our enemies decisively, not pull our punches for fear of the reaction of the hypocritical Western powers. We will need to make alliances with Arab countries and others like India and China, not with the increasingly anti-Zionist US, the traditionally anti-Jewish Europe, or our bitter enemies, the PLO.

We need to implement a truly Jewish moral system which is suitable for survival in the Middle East, and not adopt the European Christian one (which the Europeans and Americans themselves fail to live up to while trying to impose it on us). This doesn’t mean that we ought to behave like Bashar al-Assad, but it does mean that – for example – the life of a Palestinian terrorist must be counted as worth infinitely less than that of a Jew. 

Mostly, we need to stop thinking like Diaspora Jews. Western leaders increasingly can’t and won’t help us, and we don’t live or die by their favor. 

Our leaders need to come to understand this. The Israeli in the street – most of whom want Elor Azaria freed – already does.

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Famous men behaving badly

Today the Supreme Court overturned a decision by Court of Appeal and ruled that an injunction banning the naming of a celebrity involved in an alleged extra-marital relationship should stay in place.

Over to John Hemming, the former Liberal Democrat MP:

The logical conclusion of this is that gossip about anyone with children will become a criminal offence subject to a potential penalty of 2 years' imprisonment. 

It is important to note that the injunction covers people talking in pubs, gossiping over the garden fence, or twittering on the internet. All of these could potentially see an application for committal for contempt of court. That comes with large amounts of legal costs and up to 2 years imprisonment. One would assume that it would not be assumed that this would only apply to claimants who have a large amount of money, but also everyone else.

And all this despite the fact that anyone who wants to find the identity of the celebrity, or of the married actor who slept with a prostitute and has taken out a similar injunction against the British press, can easily do so.

Delivering the court's judgment, Lord Mance did at least say:

“It is different if the story has some bearing on the performance of a public office or the correction of a misleading public impression cultivated by the person involved."

But there are those who question even that.

Over on Liberal Democrat Voice, Caron Lindsay has argued that there is "nothing of public interest in lurid headlines about SNP MPs".

I find this creeping doctrine that everything printed in a newspaper must be "in the public interest" rather sinister.

Who decides what is in the public interest? Somewhere in the shadows I detect the presence of a committee of the great and good - a retired cabinet minister, the headmistress of a leading public school, a celebrity chef and Dr Evan Harris - deciding what we should and should not be allowed to know.

At its lowest, the argument against the spread of this public interest argument is that laughing at the follies of rich and powerful has always been one of the consolations of the poor and weak.

At its highest it is that character matters immensely in politics. To many voters it is more important than the parties' detailed policy platforms, and I am not sure those voters are mistaken.

The spread of privacy law in recent years has been very much a judge-led initiative with little involvement from parliament. As John Hemmings says, it is time the politicians stepped in and set sensible limits on it.

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05/19 Links Pt1: Israel, Gaza and "Proportionality"; An Israeli Echo Chamber? Haaretz and the Iran Deal

From Ian:

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EgyptAir crash debris reportedly found as officials consider terrorism

A Cairo-bound EgyptAir flight that went down in the Mediterranean Sea with 66 aboard early Thursday hours after departing from Paris zig-zagged sharply before plunging, according to aviation officials, who said terrorism was a more likely cause of the crash than technical failure.
Government officials from France, Greece and Egypt spoke at separate news conferences even as boats and ships from several countries were scouring the waters off of the Greek island of Karpathos, near where a witness reported seeing a fireball in the sky.
Ships on the scene included the British missile cruiser HMS Defender, and a Russian ship was also reportedly nearing the suspected debris field.
By midday Thursday, an Egyptian plane spotted two orange items believed to be from the missing plane, a Greek military official told The Associated Press.
The official said the items were found 230 miles south-southeast of the island of Crete but still within the Egyptian air traffic control area. One of the items was oblong, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.
Two other floating objects, colored white and red, were spotted in the same area, Greek defense sources told Reuters.

PMW: Fatah responds to PMW's bulletin, reiterates that it honors murderer of 24

Palestinian Media Watch reported yesterday that Abbas' political party Fatah had honored Japanese terrorist Kozo Okamoto for his part in the terror attack in Israel's airport in 1972, in which 24 civilians were killed and 70 were injured. Fatah's response to PMW's report was to immediately issue two follow-up posts, "in response to the Israeli media."
In the new posts, Fatah reiterated that it views the murderer of 24 as a hero, and added that if Israelis wants peace they must leave what Fatah calls "our land", the term it usually uses to mean all of Israel. As PMW has reported, PA policy is to deny Israel's right to exist on any part of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas himself calls all of Israel an "occupation."
The following are today's Fatah Facebook posts in response to PMW's exposure that Fatah glorified the murderer of 24:
"Responding to the Israeli media (i.e., PMW report):
44 years since the operation in the [Israeli] Lod Airport. Blessings to the Japanese fighter, the comrade Kozo Okamoto, hero of the operation (i.e., terror attack that killed 24 and injured 70) at the Lod airport.
The Fatah Movement is proud of all who have joined its ranks and the ranks of the Palestinian revolution for the freedom of the Palestinian people. We are proud of every fighter who has joined our mighty revolution. If Israel wants peace, it should get out of our land and we'll live in peace, for it [Israel] is the last occupation in the world." [Official Fatah Facebook page, May 18, 2016]

Belgium declines Israeli teens’ aid request after parents killed in museum attack

Belgium has turned down a request for financial assistance from the daughters of an Israeli couple killed in a 2014 attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

Mira and Emmanuel Riva were on vacation and touring the museum in May when Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman who French authorities believe left for Syria via Belgium to fight with jihadists in 2012 before returning to Europe, opened fire on museum visitors and staff.
Along with the Rivas, a French volunteer at the museum and a Belgian employee were killed in the attack.
The Riva teens, who live in Tel Aviv, filed an application for the assistance 10 months after the attack. They applied for the usual allocation of 15,000 euros, or about $17,000, which is generally provided without question, according to French-language news reports.

Israel, Gaza and "Proportionality"

It appears that several major Palestinian terror groups have begun to prepare for mega-terror attacks on Israel.
The authoritative rules of war do not equate "proportionality" with how many people die in each side of a conflict. In war, no side is ever required to respond to aggression with only the equivalent measure of force. Rather, the obligations of proportionality require that no side employ any level of force that is greater than what is needed to achieve a legitimate political and operational objective.
Under pertinent international law, the use of one's own people as "human shields" -- because such firing from populated areas is intended to deter Israeli reprisals, or to elicit injuries to Palestinian civilians -- represents a codified war crime. More specifically, this crime is known as "perfidy." This is plainly an attempt to make the IDF appear murderous when it is compelled to retaliate, but it is simply a Palestinian manipulation of legal responsibility. Under law, those Arab residents who suffer from Israeli retaliations are incurring the consequences of their own government's war crimes.
International law is not a suicide pact. Instead, it offers a universally binding body of rules and procedures that allows all states to act on behalf of their "inherent right of self-defense."

What Israel’s New Coalition Means

Where does this leave Israel?
Herzog’s leftist critics in his own party are happy about his likely demise and Netanyahu emerges again as this generation’s unrivaled champion of maneuvering. But there’s more to be gleaned from Netanyahu’s latest proof of his political skill than those conclusions.
The mere fact that a Likud-Labor coalition was not only possible but seemed the most likely scenario for some time should awaken the country’s critics to a basic fact about Israeli politics. While the competition for cabinet seats in Israel is fierce, the great dispute that foreigners imagine divides citizens of the Jewish state isn’t the locus of political debate. The world may think Israelis are still — as they were in the 1980s and 1990s — evenly split on the question of whether to trade land for peace with the Palestinians. But the election results as well as the coalition negotiations tell a different story.
Most Israelis, including many that voted for some of the right wing parties, would be willing to make such a swap and give up territory if it meant a real peace. But outside of the far left virtually no one thinks such an arrangement is possible because of the reality of Palestinian intransigence. Neither Herzog nor Lapid — the two potential replacements for Netanyahu as head of the country — really disagree with him about whether a two-state solution is desirable or if it can be implemented. All three agree it’s a good idea. All three also agree that it isn’t going to happen because the Palestinians are still unwilling to make peace and addicted to violence.
Israeli political strife is still intense but it is about economic issues and personalities since Netanyahu remains personally unpopular even though he has won three consecutive elections and would probably be favored for a fourth if it were held anytime soon. That means Americans who think the prime minister is wrong about peace should take into consideration the fact that most Israelis share his views. Though he is blasted regularly in the international and media as a right-wing extremist, he is on the left of his current coalition and smack dab in the center of Israel’s political spectrum at the moment. Netanyahu’s government may not be loved but it does represent the country’s consensus about peace. That may be astonishing to Americans, but it should also cause them to start thinking about whether it is time for them to give up illusions about the Palestinians and peace that the majority of voters in the Jewish state have long since abandoned.

Hollande's presidency: France, israel and the Jews

Interview with Freddy Eytan, expert of France's Middle East policy, distinguished diplomat and author: "France is almost obsessive about an international conference on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
“Prior to his election, François Hollande, President of France, had not developed close ties with the Jewish community, in contrast with the two previous right wing presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac. As far as Israel is concerned, Hollande follows a basic policy line similar to that of previous socialist leaders such as Leon Blum and François Mitterrand. Their guiding principle is support for the existence of a Jewish state in secure and recognized borders. At the same time, the Palestinian people should have self-determination in a state alongside Israel.”
Freddy Eytan is a journalist and former diplomat. He was Israel’s ambassador to Mauritania and also served in Israel's embassies in Paris and Brussels. He is an expert on France’s Middle East policy and has published twenty books, among them Sarkozy, the Jewish World and Israel, published in French in 2009 by the Alphée publishing house in Paris.
“One key element of Hollande’s foreign policy is that he wants a strong France closely bonded with Germany in the European Union. He is suspicious of the United States and was furious with Obama for his second thoughts on overturning the Assad regime in Syria, reversing his position on the issue at the last minute. Since then relations between Paris and Washington have remained tense. In military operations, such as in Mali, Hollande prefers that France should go it alone.

Bassem Eid: To Advance the Peace Process, First Fix the PA

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is governed by a president, Mahmoud Abbas, who is now in the twelfth year of a five-year term, who routinely uses torture and arbitrary arrests to enforce his rule, and who vigorously represses freedom of speech and assembly. In an extensive survey of the situation, the veteran Palestinian human-rights activist Bassem Eid argues that peace between Israelis and Palestinians is impossible as long as the latter live under tyranny:
In considering the critical issues that are preventing progress in moving toward reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, there has often been a failure to account fully for the detrimental role played by the PA in abusing human rights and civil liberties. The oppressive policies of the PA have undoubtedly contributed to the alienation of large parts of the Palestinian public, and pushed some further toward extremist groups such as Hamas. These abuses . . . have hardened attitudes against the process of negotiations with Israel. . . . As the PA becomes increasingly tarnished in the eyes of the Palestinian public, so too will the peace process . . . come to be seen in an ever-worse light.
In addition to the damaging effect that PA oppression is having on the attitudes of the Palestinian population, the lack of legitimate and responsible governance on the Palestinian side is likely to undermine Israeli confidence in the negotiation process and discourage further concessions from Israel. The strategic thinking currently prevalent in Israel heavily emphasizes the concern that a lawless and unstable Palestinian state could emerge on territory adjacent to Israel’s population centers and [thus] evolve into an existential security threat. Israel is particularly concerned that a weak, oppressive, and undemocratic Palestinian government would be susceptible of being overthrown, with the likelihood that this would then lead to the territory coming under the control of extremist elements such as Hamas. . . .

Netanyahu agrees with Liberman on death penalty for terrorists in negotiations

Coalition negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman were almost completed after Netanyahu agreed to the condition of setting the death penalty for those who commit terror activities.
Members from both parties exchanged a final draft of the agreement on Thursday agreeing on the death penalty, however both have not agreed on the specific conditions.
In a meeting that lasted less than an hour Wednesday afternoon, Liberman accepted Netanyahu’s offer of the defense and immigration and absorption portfolios and support for key Yisrael Beytenu-sponsored legislation.
Netanyahu updated Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon immediately after meeting with Liberman. A source close to Netanyahu said Ya’alon is likely to be compensated by becoming foreign minister, but Ya’alon’s office said he had not yet been offered the post.
Talks with Yisrael Beytenu began after negotiations with the Zionist Union failed to progress.

Blair, Kerry, Sissi said behind shattered effort to bring Herzog into coalition

An alliance of foreign leaders led by former British prime minister Tony Blair was key to the failed effort to secure a national unity government between Likud and the Zionist Union, Channel 10 news and Haaretz reported Wednesday night.
Chief among these foreign players was Blair, who had been seeking to jump-start the moribund peace process since leaving his position as Mideast Quartet envoy, Haaretz reported. Blair was said to have been coordinating his actions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, US Secretary of State John Kerry and even Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
It was this effort by Blair to bring about a new peace-oriented ruling coalition in Israel that led Sissi to proclaim his belief in recent days that there was a “real opportunity” for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, the reports said.
Blair declared his intent to renew peace efforts late last year, saying his experience and network of contacts made during eight years of Mideast diplomacy would help him.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Right-Wing Coalition Dares To Represent Like-Minded Majority (satire)

Politicians and commentators across the left side of the political spectrum reacted with anger today that the right-wing majority in the Knesset has come together to represent the democratic will of the people, sources in the parliament are reporting.
Nationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu reversed a year of refusal to join the Likud’s right-wing coalition yesterday, buttressing the slim parliamentary majority that had repeatedly threatened the coalition’s ability to govern, and angering Opposition leaders who fumed at the gall of like-minded political groups to pursue interests shared by more than half of the electorate.
“This is a dark day for Israeli democracy,” warned Labor MK Erel Margalit. “Taking the Coalition’s sixty-one seats and increasing it by six through the addition of another right-wing Coalition partner only underlines the antidemocratic, fascist-like tendencies of the current government. We need an alternative to this nightmare, in which the duly elected majority does things the majority of voters probably support.” Margalit vowed to fight the strengthened coalition by fomenting disunity and open rebellion in his own party, which leads the Opposition.
“We need to put forward a serious alternative, representative of our minority constituencies, to the policies of this government,” said Opposition leader Isaac Herzog, fresh from failed talks to join the government. “Only that way can the left and center-left use that alternative to once again attract less than half the votes.”

'Netanyahu's offer to Liberman to join coalition shows that Israel favors extremism,' says PA

Avigdor Liberman joining the Israeli government demonstrates that Israel favors extremism and reinforcement of occupation and settlements over peace, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a press statement issued on Thursday.
"The appointment of Liberman to serve as a minister in Netanyahu's government is an answer to the regional, international and French efforts to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process," the statement read.

The Mottle Wolfe Show [PodCast]: Trump and Bernie, Twin Messiahs

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are two sides of the same coin. The problem is that both are leading ‘messianic’ movements. Doesn’t often end well. Also Israel appoints a new controversial Minister of Defense. Raoul Wootliff joins Mottle to discuss.

Aaron David Miller: Six Stubborn, Essential Middle East Truths

Leaders change, and the Middle East can always surprise. But regardless of presidential preference and promises, there are a half-dozen verities that will haunt any leader, from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton -- just as they have bedeviled President Barack Obama and his predecessors.
Want a perfect friend? Get a dog. Unless the United States plans to go it alone in a region where it has vital interests, enormous challenges, and a lot of enemies, it’s going to have to make do with the friends that it has. And those friends are far from perfect. In some cases -- think of Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- Washington shares few values, particularly when it comes to democratic principles. But some interests nevertheless overlap.
In other cases, such as Israel, there is affinity on values and many shared interests. Even so, serious differences remain on issues such as Israeli settlements, the terms for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and recent American overtures to Iran -- particularly the merits of last year’s nuclear accord.
The odds of pushing these imperfect partners to see things the American way on issues that are dear to them are pretty slim. No matter how hard we insist, they have more at stake on these issues than we do. Good luck trying to impose a deal with the Palestinians on the Israelis, or telling the Egyptians or Saudis to democratize. We’re caught in an investment trap when it comes to these partners, especially as the Middle East melts down.

Lapid Praises Egyptian Peace Initiative, Warns Against Legitimizing Iran in DC Speech

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s recent push for new peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is “promising,” former Israeli finance minister Yair Lapid said Wednesday during a public Q&A at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Lapid, who for years has been promoting a regional peace summit involving Egypt and Jordan, welcomed Sisi’s speech, though he insisted that any such summit should not impose terms on Israel. Israelis would favor such a regional summit, he said, as it could open the Israeli economy up to a market as large as the European Union.
He noted that the nuclear deal with Iran, which he opposed, had caused relations between Israel and Sunni states to warm, adding that ties in the Middle East are no longer defined by the view that “you’re either my friend or you’re my enemy.” Lapid emphasized the importance of enforcing the deal and ensuring that it doesn’t legitimize the “idea that Iran is okay now,” given Iran’s continued support for terror and ongoing human rights abuses.

Daphne Anson: "We Don't Want No Two State, We Want '48": Telling the Brooklyn Bridge

On "Nakba Day" in old New York, a long stream of American Arabs and assorted Israel-haters (including a contigent of Neturei Karta nuts) tell the Brooklyn Bridge exactly what their aims are.
"We Don't Want No Two State, We Want '48" they scream over and over.
And "There is only one solution: Intifada Revolution"
The old "From the River to the Sea ..." mantra is both seen and heard too. And how.
Declares their personable and articulate leader, they are "calling for the dismantling of the Entity Israel ...." and will never rest until every city from Haifa to all of Jerusalem is theirs.
(At least they're honest about their aims!)

Israel successfully tests shipborne Iron Dome missile interceptor

Israel has successfully tested a maritime missile interception system that can shoot down short-range missiles, dubbing it the “Iron Dome of the Sea,” the navy announced on Wednesday.
The Tamir-Adir system, which the IDF said can shoot down short-range rockets similar to those fired from Gaza, successfully destroyed “several” missiles, Col. Ariel Shir, head of operational systems in the navy, said.
Shir said that during tests carried out two weeks ago, a battery mounted to a ship shot down every one of a salvo of short-range ballistic rockets fired from the shore.
He said the test “proved the Israeli navy’s ability to protect Israel’s strategic assets at sea against short-range strategic rockets.”
A video provided by the army showed a rocket launcher installed on a ship firing at targets in the sky and later intercepting a missile.

Israel Army’s Medical Corps Adapts to Knife Intifada

Frenkel said that since October 1, his medical teams have treated more than 450 people wounded in terror attacks, including 250 Israelis (both soldiers and civilians) and 200 Palestinians. He said “many” of the Palestinians, usually attackers, were killed, and 16 Israelis, four soldiers and twelve civilians died in the attacks.
Overall, 30 Israelis and four foreigners have been killed in the past six months, alongside more than 200 Palestinians, most of whom Israel says were involved in carrying out the attacks.
“We realized that we needed two systems to save more lives,” Frenkel said, speaking in his office on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem. “One is more training of our medical staff, and the other is better care of the wounded person, both physically and emotionally.”
To accomplish the first goal, 15 doctors and paramedics have embarked on an intensive training program, including at a medical simulation center at Sheba hospital. They will then train doctors and medics in the field. When it comes to the second goal, Frenkel said they are trying to encourage more resilience.
“One of the things we learned is that emotional health and resilience are very important,” Frenkel said. “When our fighters are resilient they recover from attacks more quickly.”
A pilot program has focused on physical fitness, better nutrition, and even biofeedback, which has proven itself, he said.
“The results of biofeedback are really amazing,” he said. “You need to do 7 – 10 sessions of 20-30 minutes. It’s too bad we can’t do it for everyone.”

Nakba counter-protest 'banned' at Haifa University

Members of the Likud-affiliated Lavi student society at Haifa University sought to wave Israeli flags and counter-protest a Nakba Day ceremony held on campus by members of the Arab student groups this Sunday.
However, the university's management refused their request to counter-protest, and even threatened them with expulsion. Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic) is how the Palestinians refer to the Arab states' inability to destroy the fledgling state of Israel in 1948, and consequentially Nakba events mourn the existence of the state of Israel.
Haifa University's Lavi student society chairperson Daniel Siglov told Arutz Sheva that he does not intend to let the matter pass.
"We already asked ten days ago, at a meeting of the student groups with the student deacon, to hold an event against the Nakba ceremony," said Siglov.
"We submitted the request but the university rejected the request and even threatened that those who protest will be summoned to a disciplinary committee and even suspended from studies."
According to the student group head, the university did not even permit them to wave Israeli flags at the site of the event on campus.

Erekat: IDF in West Bank an invalid legal system

When asked by The Jerusalem Post about the compromise suggestion at a conference held by the Palestine-Israel Journal in Jerusalem, he called it “playing around with” an inherently invalid legal system, instead of trying to take apart that system as should be done.
The idea was suggested to the Post in discussions with a top defense lawyer for Palestinians about what changes might be viewed as improving the objectivity of the courts short of abolishing them – as is traditionally demanded by the Palestinian side.
Mostly, the Palestinian side sticks to the claim that Israeli military courts trying them inherently violates their sovereign rights. They say this is especially true, since Jews living in the West Bank are brought to trial in Israeli civilian courts.
But the lawyer had framed the idea as a possible improvement, since the courts would likely continue to be a reality for the foreseeable future.
Erekat responded to the compromise idea, saying, “It’s not about... the Geneva Conventions or international law. There was a law invented [by Israel], the law of getting away with it. Everyone hears and sees what Israel is doing to the Palestinians over 50 years,” he continued, repeating that “the real law” is getting away with violating Palestinian rights.

Police catch 60,000 grenade springs headed to Gaza

Israeli police on Wednesday captured a shipment of 60,000 hand-grenade springs on their way to the Gaza Strip.
The springs were found hidden in a warehouse in the community of Ami’oz on the Gaza periphery. Officials arrested a man in his twenties at the scene as he was loading the springs onto his vehicle.
The man, a resident of the Bedouin town of Rahat, was believed to be on his way to smuggle the equipment into Gaza. He is suspected of procuring the springs illegally from an Israeli factory that produces such springs for the Israeli military. Two other people were arrested as well.
Officials said the man planned to transfer the springs over to terrorists in Gaza, and suspect that he eventually planned to smuggle 500,000 such springs into the Palestinian enclave.

New textbook bodes well for Egypt-Israeli relations

A textbook introduced this semester by the government of President Abdul-Fatah al-Sisi requires Egyptian pupils to memorize the provisions of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty and delineate the ''advantages of peace for Egypt and the Arab states.''
The assignments from the ninth grade book, The Geography of the Arab World and the History of Modern Egypt, are part of a change to a more robust and positive treatment of peace with Israel than that manifested in books during the three decades in power of al-Sisi's predecessor Hosni Mubarak.
Ofir Winter, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, who recently authored a study of the book, termed it ''the first buds of development'' in Egyptian educational attitudes towards peace.
''This is not a revolution but the changes are interesting,'' he told The Media Line.
''The trend is positive but there is still a great deal to aspire to.'' Winter compared the new book to a 2002 Mubarak-era textbook, History for High School Pupils, and found more explicit support for peace with Israel than in the past and more emphasis on the economic advantages of peace. At one point the new book says peace had enabled ''the promotion of economic and social development and the repair of the country's infrastructure.''
While the 2002 textbook allotted 32 pages to wars with Israel and three to peace, the new one curtails the history of the conflict to 12 pages while allocating four to peace.

Israel may forgive half of Egypt’s $1.7b gas fine

Egypt owes Israel $1.76 billion for a 2015 court judgment that found Cairo violated an agreement to supply natural gas.
Egypt cut off talks to import Israeli natural gas after the ruling, but two officials close to the case quoted by Bloomberg Wednesday said Israel may forgive half the fine, paving theway to reopening negotiations.
According to Bloomberg, payments would be spread over 14 years and talks are still underway.
There was no official confirmation of the report, which comes as Israel has been signaling other moves to warm up to Cairo, including recently upgrading embassies in Cairo and Jerusalem.
On Sunday, Israel is expected to return two Bronze-Age wooden anthropoid sarcophagus lids to new Egyptian Ambassador to Israel Hazem Khairat at a Foreign Ministry ceremony on Sunday, four years after they were discovered smuggled into the Jewish state.

Nobel Peace Prize-Winning Obama Has Been At War LONGER THAN ANY OTHER American President

This month, President Barack Obama officially became the U.S. president to have been at war the longest — longer than Lyndon Johnson, longer than Abraham Lincoln and certainly longer than George W. Bush.
Obama acquired the highly dubious honor on May 6, observes The New York Times.
He’s not done yet, either. Far from it! With eight months left to go in his presidency, and with America’s military fighting in several places far-flung, Obama is virtually certain to be the only U.S. president to spend a full eight years presiding over combat.
The Times describes Obama’s status as America’s biggest warmonger president as “an improbable legacy” because he ran as an anti-war candidate back in 2008 and promised to end the wars Bush started after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Speaking before a cadre of Hezbollah's top command, Mughniyeh then declared that Israel is a friend and a strategic ally opposite the Saudi enemy.

Mustafa Mughniyeh, who replaced Hezbollah’s slain Chief of Staff Mustafa Badreddine, has reportedly declared that Israel, at least for now, is no longer considered the enemy of the Shiite organization. According to cairoportal.com, citing a source they say is familiar with Hezbollah’s internal affairs, Mughniyeh is planning to carry out a major attack against the Saudis.
The new Hezbollah military chief, whose father was legendary terrorist Imad Mughniyeh—killed in 2008 in a car bomb blast, reportedly said that “while my father and uncle (Badreddine) failed to kill the Emir of Kuwait, I will not fail to kill the king of Wahabia (a reference to the Wahabi faith, Saudi Arabia’s state religion, which is the most viciously anti-Shiite) and cut off the hand of anyone who wishes to turn Syria Wahabi.”
Speaking before a cadre of Hezbollah’s top command, Mughniyeh then declared that Israel is a friend and a strategic ally opposite the Saudi enemy, and therefore, from this day on, there is no more war against Israel.
He also noted that Israel was the only country that liberated the Shiites in south Lebanon from the Palestinian conquest in 1982. The PLO, which had been driven out of Jordan a decade earlier, created an independent state in everything but a name in south Lebanon, and used it as a base from which to harass Israel—leading to the first Lebanon war.

Syrian Refugee at Congressional Briefing: Israeli Aid is Helping, But More Needed from West

The aid provided by Israeli humanitarian groups to displaced Syrians can serve as a lesson for how people from different countries, religions, and political perspectives can work together to ease their plight, a Syrian refugee said at a congressional briefing Tuesday.
Shadi Martini, a native of Aleppo who today serves as a senior advisor to the nonprofit Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA), became involved in relief work in March 2011, shortly after the regime of Bashar al-Assad began violently clamping down on unarmed protesters calling for democratic reforms. Martini and his colleagues organized assistance to injured civilians through an underground network, even as the regime targeted anyone suspected of assisting the Syrian opposition.
“I became a refugee for a simple reason,” Martini said during a briefing hosted by MFA. “I saw that at that point in history, it was not right for me to ignore the cries of people who are suffering injuries, and who are deprived of their ability to seek medical attention, a simple thing. But apparently, as one Syrian government official told us, ‘look, we’re not shooting them so you guys can save their lives.’ So it was obvious to us that what we were doing was very dangerous.”
Martini was forced to flee Syria when his covert aid operation was exposed in mid-2012. The Syrian civil war, now in its fifth year, has since devolved into one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes since the Second World War.

An Israeli Echo Chamber? Haaretz and the Iran Deal

"Echo chamber" — two words that Ben Rhodes uttered to the New York Times Magazine were enough to expose the media's failure. The issue has been raging in the US for over a week now, since David Samuels’s piece first appeared, but aside from some minimal coverage, it has received almost no attention in Israel. And that's very strange, because what Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications said about the gaggle of “freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal” is very serious: "They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say," Rhodes bragged.
This was primarily aimed at the American media, but it has an Israeli aspect: Haaretz newspaper.
Those who have followed the Israeli media certainly remember how coverage of the Iran Deal looked from Schocken Street’s perspective: Haaretz did not even bother hiding that it had taken a side, and its reporters constantly echoed White House talking points in Israel. Now, in light of Rhodes's confession and the storm he caused, very serious questions have arisen regarding Haaretz's conduct in the affair, its journalistic prestige, and its professional reliability.
In response to our questions, Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken explained, "I don't have the tools to evaluate if what was said in the New York Times Magazine article is true or not," but regarding which side the paper took—here he explicitly admits:
Regarding Haaretz's position on the deal with Iran, it's no secret that we supported the American agenda of reaching an agreement. We thought an agreement was better than no agreement. We thought the position of the Prime Minister was mistaken, and that if it had any effect on the outcome, it was the enlistment of Democratic Congressmen in favor of the President. As a result of the agreement Israel obtained a window of 10-15 years in which, if it takes the right steps, it can positively change its strategic situation in the longer run as well, including among states such as Iran. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Iran Must Fix Own Banks to Win Overseas Business, IMF Says

Iran must tackle problems in its banking system and bolster anti-money laundering and terrorism-financing laws if it wants to reconnect to the global economy, the second-ranked official at the International Monetary Fund said in an interview in Tehran.
“The best thing the government can do, and the banks can do, is to bring those standards up to international levels and try to reassure foreign partners, banks and otherwise that Iran’s banks are safe to deal with,” David Lipton, Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s deputy at the Washington-based lender, said on Tuesday.
Though most sanctions were lifted following Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, European lenders have said doing business is risky while other U.S. trade restrictions remain in place. Shortly after Lipton gave a speech at Iran’s central bank, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif again called on the U.S. to give adequate assurances to foreign banks wanting to do business with his country, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Too hot for Tehran: Glam couple flee Iran after model photos deemed 'un-Islamic'

A glamorous model couple from Iran has been forced to flee the country after the Iranian morality police declared their social media accounts were 'un-Islamic,' The Daily Mail reported.
Elnaz Golrokh, a professional makeup artist and her model husband Hamid Fadaei reportedly fled from Iran to fashion-friendly Dubai in January. The couple was reportedly released on bail after being arrested by Iranian morality police as part of Operation "Spider II."
President Hassan Rouhani has attempted to enforce "Islamic values" throughout Iran by targeting the fashion industry, which has seen a significant boost as of late due to social media celebrities and the budding world of Iranian fashion.
According to Iranian media, 170 people had been targeted in the operation through social media activity as being involved in the fashion industry, including 58 models, 59 photographers and makeup artists.

Picture of Turkish president Erdogan as Hitler projected onto Berlin embassy

A picture of Turkish president Recep Erdoğan dressed as Hitler has been projected onto the walls of the country's embassy in Berlin.
German artists projected a large photograph of Mr Erdoğan wearing a Nazi armband and Hitler's toothbrush moustache as a protest against the recent imprisonment of two journalists in Turkey.
Beside the picture on the walls of the Turkish embassy in Berlin were the words "He's back".
The group behind the image are German art activists Pixel Helper, who have posted pictures of the projection to Facebook.
"We as Germans know what happens in the early stages of a dictatorship. The similarities between the early Nazi regime and Erdogan’s Turkey right now are frightening," Oliver Bienkowski, a member of the group, told The Independent.

Douglas Murray: Boris Johnson wins The Spectator’s President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition

I’m pleased to announce that we have a winner of The Spectator’s President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition, and here it is:

There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

The author of this winning entry is former Mayor of London and chief Brexiteer, Boris Johnson MP.
I am sure there will be those who claim this is a stitch-up. I am aware that Boris’s entry commits two solecisms. Amid the first deluge of entries I intemperately announced (via Twitter) a unilateral ban on this rhyme for ‘Ankara’. I also think Boris should have settled either on ‘goats’ and ‘oats’ or ‘goat’ and ‘oat’. As a classical scholar himself he must know that the rhyme is not wholly perfect and that on such occasions one must find a way around the problem and simply go with the plural both times or not at all.
Nevertheless, I am the Vizier of this competition and what I say goes. Despite trying to follow Erdogan’s example I have not snaffled all the prize money for myself. And I am quite sure – though have yet to confirm with him – that the former London Mayor will happily give his prize money of £1000 to a deserving charity. There are a number of charities whose giving details I will urge on Boris in the coming days. But for myself the appeal of Boris’s entry was there from the outset. Certainly there were better poems. For sure there were filthier ones (and may I take this opportunity to congratulate the person who got the term ‘dirty trombone’ into their entry? The discovery that something called a ‘Turkey slap’ already exists also inspired several readers to new poetic heights).

Douglas Murray - The Erdogan Prize Winner Announced!

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Mixed reactions in Jordan over working in Eilat hotels

The Washington Post reported Monday:

Jordan and Israel have launched a pilot project that is so small and simultaneously so ambitious that it tells the story.

For the past six months, very quietly, Israel has been allowing Jordanians to cross the border to its Red Sea resort to work minimum-wage jobs at hotels.

The first 700 of 1,500 have started.

So far, nothing bad has happened.

“The Jordanians need work, and we need workers,” said the head of the Eilat Hotel Association, Shabtai Shay.

Getting the Jordanians work permits to cross the border from Aqaba to Eilat took three years of negotiations with 10 Israeli ministries, he said.

“It was mission impossible,” Shay said.

On the Israeli side, there were concerns about security, vetting, the checkpoint, unions, the hours and how Israeli tourists would feel about being attended — even behind the scenes — by service workers who were Muslims from the Hashemite kingdom.

Talkbacks to an article about this in Jordan's Ammon News were mixed. While some bemoaned the "normalization" and how low they have sunk to have to work in Israel (whose minimum wage is higher than the average Jordanian salary.)

But others have been more practical,

One said that the workers want a dignified life and not to have to beg for sustenance, and they should take the best option for their livelihoods rather than worry about people who insult them and have no other solutions.

Another said that he had a degree in physical therapy but had to work in Gulf hotels because of a shortage of jobs in Jordan, so the workers should not be criticized.

While there are a lot of very noisy Arabs who are quick to loudly criticize everything that has anything to do with Israel, there has always been a silent majority who care far more about raising their families in dignity than about theoretical problems with Jews in the Middle East. Unfortunately we hardly ever hear from them - even though they are the keys to real peace.

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Egyptian media continues publishing antisemitic conspiracy theories

I reported earlier this month that Egypt's most popular newspaper, Al Ahram, published an antisemitic article by Ali Gad claiming that the Talmud contains plans for Jewish world domination.

It turns out that the article was the first of a series. Part two was last week, saying that Judaism wants to destroy ethics and all other religions.

Part 3 was just published. In this article, Ali Gad brings more evidence to his theories. He quotes from a book called Talmudic Blueprints about how Jews are taking over the world.

Here's is the cover of this scholarly tome.

The entire PDF of the book is here, scanned from a copy in the Portland State University Library.

The book mentions that Jews aren't doing all the heavy work on world domination themselves, they manipulate other groups like the Masons to do their dirty work.

Ali Gad then quotes from another crazed Arabic conspiracy theory book called Secret World Government.

These bizarre theories are simply normal discourse for a major Arab newspaper.

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Academic fraud of the day: Vijay Prashad, Trinity College

Vijay Prashad is professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of 18 books, and a member of the advisory board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

He is also a provable liar.

He writes in Alternet:

Hamas does not “deny” Israel’s right to exist. Its Charter, written during the First Intifada in 1987, bears the marks of the moment. But it does not define Hamas’ politics, for which a reading of its 2006 election manifesto gives a much clearer picture. In a 2009 interview with the New York Times, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal “urged outsiders to ignore the Hamas charter,” for, in Meshal’s words, “We are shaped by our experiences.” What is the Hamas position, the Times’ reporters asked Meshal? “We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” Nothing here is outside the international consensus. Israel is not denied by Meshal, the leader of Hamas.

If one reads the rest of the same New York Times article, which the scholar doesn't bother linking to, it says

Apart from the time restriction and the refusal to accept Israel’s existence, Mr. Meshal’s terms approximate the Arab League peace plan and what the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas says it is seeking.

Let's forget about the dozens of examples that I have gathered since then showing that Hamas considers all of Israel "occupied" and that it's goal is Israel's destruction.

Let's look at Khaled Meshal's own words since the deceptive 2009 NYT interview.

First of all, Palestine – from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, from its north to its south – is our land, our right, and our homeland. There will be no relinquishing or forsaking even an inch or small part of it.

Second, Palestine was, continues to be, and will remain Arab and Islamic. It belongs to the Arab and the Islamic world. Palestine belongs to us and to nobody else. This is the Palestine which we know and in which we believe.

Third, since Palestine belongs to us, and is the land of Arabism and Islam, we must never recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation of it. The occupation is illegitimate, and therefore, Israel is illegitimate, and will remain so throughout the passage of time. Palestine belongs to us, not to the Zionists.
[...]
The liberation of Palestine – all of Palestine – is a duty, a right, a goal, and a purpose. It is the responsibility of the Palestinian people, as well as of the Arab and Islamic nation.

Fifth, Jihad and armed resistance are the proper and true path to liberation and to the restoration of our rights, along with all other forms of struggle – through politics, through diplomacy, through the masses, and through legal channels. All these forms of struggle, however, are worthless without resistance.
[...]
Politics are born from the womb of resistance. The true statesman is born from the womb of the rifle and the missile.

That's as explicit a rejection of Israel's right to exist as words can convey. The whole speech is here:



No doubt Professor Prashad knows this, and he knows he is lying. So he is yet another academic fraud.

(The rest of his article could be fisked just as thoroughly, but once Prashad is exposed as a liar, really, what's the point?)

(h/t YMedad)

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