05/20 Links Pt2: The Israel That Arabs Don’t Know; A week of ordinary French anti-Semitism

From Ian:

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IDF-critiquing NGO faces court debate on revealing its sources

The State Prosecutor’s Office has demanded that Breaking the Silence name its sources, saying anonymous witnesses allow potential lies to spread and make it impossible to investigate alleged abuses.
According to Israeli media reports earlier this year, the army is demanding testimonies that primarily relate to evidence of alleged war crimes and compliance by IDF troops with illegal orders. The State Prosecutor’s Office — officially acting on behalf of the army as the matter pertains to a civilian organization — presented the petition to the court.
Breaking the Silence co-founder Yehuda Shaul said the hearings were aimed at closing down the NGO, and insisted the group is determined to protect the identities of its sources.
The NGO provides a platform for military veterans to describe what they say were disturbing aspects of their service in the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip and in operations in the West Bank.
It has faced increased political pressure in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presides over one of the most right-wing governments in the country’s history.
In March, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who on Friday morning announced his resignation, accused the NGO of “treason” by asking discharged soldiers to reveal classified information, a charge denied by the group.
The Military Police have also demanded the names of the NGO’s sources — a request it refused.

The Israel That Arabs Don’t Know

On my flight from Rome to Tel Aviv on Israel’s El Al airlines, I thought about what awaited me and what I would see. Although I had an idea of what Israel was like and friends who have told me of their experiences working there, memories of the accumulated assumptions about the place that I had gained throughout my childhood in Egypt presented a conflicting counter narrative. I wondered which was the truth: what I now knew, or what had been instilled in us Egyptians as children. Do the “Jews” in Israel actually hate Arabs? If they found out I was Egyptian, would treat me poorly? Would I be verbally or physically abused if Israelis heard me speaking Arabic?
Halting my train of thought, a man sitting next to me with his wife asked me something in Hebrew. In English, I explained that I didn’t understand the language. The man then apologized and asked in English, “Where are you from?” When I answered that I was from Egypt, he and his wife smiled genuinely and welcomingly. These were not the fake smiles our schools, society, television, and film had attributed to Israelis and Jews.
When I arrived in Israel’s financial capital, Tel Aviv, the airport’s clean atmosphere and facilities left me wondering whether I had left Europe. Its modernity left little doubt that I had entered a developed country.
On the road from the Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem (al-Quds)–Israel’s political capital–I saw wide, clean roads, filled with trees and captivating natural scenery. I took notes on everything, in line with my mission to relay the truth of life inside Israel. Once I had arrived in the political capital, I visited the Ministry of Exterior, the Knesset, and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.
I met with both Arabs and Jews of Arab origin, and they recounted their memories of life in Iraq, Egypt, and the other countries from which they had come. I listened to how they had left those countries after bitter experiences of incitement and hatred. Life had brought them to a place where they peacefully coexisted. Unfortunately, the truth of coexistence has been muddled with the help of many media organizations. (h/t IsraellyCool)

A week of ordinary French anti-Semitism

September 1972, Munich’s Olympic Village, “31” block. Some of the Israeli athletes were Holocaust survivors. The Black September Palestinian terrorists took them hostage demanding the release of 234 terrorists in the Israeli jails. But Black September was not there for an exchange or negotiation, what they wanted the killing of Jews, the young representatives of the Israeli people hosted by the nation which once planned the Holocaust.
The Olympic Village was located a few kilometers from Dachau.
The Cannes Film Festival has now hosted “Munich: A Palestinian Story” by the Lebanese filmmaker of Palestinian origin Narsi Hajjaj. Ilana Romano, widow of Yossef Romano, who was murdered in the massacre, has refused to cooperate with this film because the director insisted on defining as “freedom fighters” the Black September terrorists who killed her husband, while the murdered Israelis are called “representatives of an occupying country”.
A year ago, it emerged that at least one of the athletes, Yossef Romano, was castrated bythe Palestinian kidnappers in front of his companions. Hajjaj, however, called the massacre not a terrorist act, but an “international incident”.
Roger Cukierman, president of the Council of Jewish Organizations in France, voiced “anxiety and deep concern” over the viewing in a letter to Cannes Film Festival President Pierre Lescure and French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay.
Resoundingly ghastly is the fact that the Cannes Festival agreed to host and commercialize this anti-Semitic movie.
But this has been a week of ordinary French anti-Semitism.

Combating Anti-Israelism and Boycotts

An earlier article defined and classified various strategies for combating both boycotts directed against Israel other kinds of hostile activity. Not discussed, however, were questions about who or what bodies should be implementing which strategies.
Such questions have become more acute, now that the Israeli government has designated substantial means for defending Israel from boycotts. We shall consider these questions after briefly reviewing the range of available strategies.
Kinds of Strategy
Up to now, most of the anti-boycott activity has been basically defensive. It assumes that Israel can be vindicated by providing relevant information. Either one complains that the anti-Israel activists are misrepresenting reality, by lying or omitting relevant facts or whatever. Or one complains that there are other countries that obviously deserve to be targeted in the alleged respects, but Israel alone is picked out for criticism and attack. Both strategies fall under the rubric "It's not fair!" They are so familiar as to need no further elaboration here.
Unfortunately, such strategies are of limited utility: they work only with institutions that are obliged to be fair. Thus misleading reports in foreign media can be combated if those media are committed to standards of fair reporting. Likewise, foreign governments and parliaments can be held to standards laid down in their own legislation. Much excellent work is being done in both regards, often by organizations making the most of limited means (see the list in the earlier article). This sort of work is also essential for keeping Israel's friends on board, reassuring them that the accusations against Israel are undeserved.

Caroline Glick: The Koch Brothers meet the crackpots

Led by Mearsheimer and Walt, the disparate band of experts that Ruger assembled share but one common position. And to advance that position, they have advocated policies that stand in open contradiction of the very foreign policy doctrines on which they built their careers.
That common position is hatred of Israel. All of them oppose the US alliance with Israel, and to varying degrees, maintain the bigoted view that Jews who support Israel have undo and malign influence on US foreign policy.
In other words, they are anti-Semites.
Ruger invited several other prominent haters of Israel with records of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish pronouncements to speak at the Koch brothers’ conference.
These include former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman.
Since retiring from government service in 1992, Freeman has been a hired gun of the Saudi government and the Chinese politburo. His public statements have involved vitriolic assaults on Israel and American Jews. Among other things, Freeman blamed the September 11 attacks on US support for Israel.
In 2009, Obama nominated Freeman to serve as chairman of his National Intelligence Council. Freeman’s appointment was shot down by then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi due to his contemptuous remarks against Chinese democracy activists. But Freeman blamed the Jews, and their malign control over US foreign policy, for torpedoing his appointment.
Other invitees to Wednesday’s conference were Prof. Andrew Bacevich from Boston University and Prof. Michael Desch from Notre Dame. Both men have made public statements claiming that Israel controls US foreign policy to the detriment of American interests.
Ruger’s decision to invite so many outspoken opponents of Israel and American Jewry was made more notable by the fact that he failed to invite any serious champions of the US-Israel alliance. For instance, as Lake noted, no members of the neoconservative foreign policy school were invited to participate in the Koch brothers’ maiden voyage into foreign policy waters.

The Next Anti-Israeli Temper Tantrum

The book, Chabon and Waldman explained, "is not an analysis of the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It asks a simple question: What does occupation look like? What does it feel like to live under occupation?" So while raising consciousness to end the occupation, the book will offer no words about why it's lasted a half-century, why Israeli hasn't succumbed to such pressure before, and what might happen if it did.
Readers, then, won't learn that Palestinians leaders have rejected peace with Israel that would end the occupation multiple times, most recently in 2008 when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Ohmert offered Palestinians 93.7 percent of the West Bank, land to almost fully compensate for the other 6.3 percent, a link to Gaza, Israeli withdrawal from Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and international control over the Old City (where Jerusalem's most sensitive religious sites are located). They won't learn that Palestinian leaders reject peace with Israel because Palestinians largely reject the vaunted "two-state solution" – that is, the reality of a Jewish state in the historic Jewish homeland.
They won't learn that the Palestinian side is divided between the Palestinian Authority (which runs the West Bank) and Hamas, the terrorist group dedicated to Israel's destruction (which runs Gaza); that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005; that Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in a violent coup in 2007, turning it into a terrorist haven from which the group launches missiles and builds tunnels to attack Israel; or that Israel legitimately fears that withdrawing from the West Bank could bring the same thing there.
They won't learn that Palestinian leaders indoctrinate their people in the ethos of endless war and boundless hostility to Israel; that "moderate" Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pays homage to Palestinian "martyrs" who spill Jewish blood; and that Palestinian media feed their people a steady diet of content urging them to retain the "resistance," kill Jews and oust Israel from its land.
They won't learn that the recent deadly Palestinian knifings in Jerusalem and the West Bank are predicated on myths, perpetuated by Palestinian leaders – that Israel planned to close the Temple Mount and that, rather than respond to the knifings, it's targeting Palestinian children for slaughter.
Thus, this book will be another anti-Israeli temper tantrum that criticizes the occupation while offering nothing useful to end it.

Michael Chabon and Israel’s ‘Occupation’

Author Michael Chabon’s traveler’s tale based on his recent trip to Israel reminds us that being a celebrity does not remotely qualify one as being an expert on the Middle East, and being a best-selling author does not restrain one from indulging in mindless hyperbole.
Mouthing anti-Zionist shibboleths and being a celebrity will get you a spread in the anti-Zionist, Zionist Forward, and if your ego is as large as Chabon’s, I would imagine that when you read your own words in the newspaper, you end up believing you really had something profound to say.
“Most grievous injustice I have ever seen in my whole life,” Chabon says about Israel’s “cruel” occupation. Really, the most grievous injustice you have ever seen, Mr. Chabon?
I guess you missed the Tiananmen Square Massacre. How about the Soviet invasion of Georgia or the Crimea? The leveling of Grozny? The butchery of Bosnian Muslims? The routine hangings of homosexuals from cranes in Tehran? The slaughter of Egypt’s Coptic Christians after the Muslim Brotherhood came to power? Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons attack against the Kurds? Maybe you missed the recent scenes of carnage in the streets of Aleppo or Syrian refugees struggling for life in the seas off the coast of Greece?
The wanton violence against innocent Jews generated by Palestinian incitement and glorification escapes your notice. But not your wife, leftist terror apologist Ayelet Waldman, as she tweets that the Jews have it coming. It’s the occupation, you know, because before the occupation there never was Palestinian violence, pogroms, or promises to throw all the Jews into the sea. And the Palestinians have always sought to embrace a peace plan that would lift the occupation. You do remember Arafat’s outreach at Camp David and Abbas response at Taba?

IsraellyCool: Know Your History: Those Palestine Mandate Coins 1927-1948

A series where I use history to debunk common misconceptions about the Middle East conflict.
One of the popular memes of the antisemites and Israel haters involves showing a coin from pre-1948 Palestine, somehow as proof there was a state of Palestine.
The Hebrew on the coin is פלשתינה – Hebrew for “Palestine” – followed by (א”י).

What is this א”י?
It is none other than the abbreviation for ארץ ישראל – Hebrew for the land of Israel!
This was added to the coin to conform to the Balfour Declaration. In fact, the coins were officially introduced on November 1, 1927 – the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
And what was the Arab response to this abbreviation on the coin?
This infuriated the Arab citizens who rioted in protest.
But of course.

Anti-Israel students ambush, attack Jewish Movie Screening at UC-Irvine

Two student groups at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), ambushed a movie screening held by Students Supporting Israel (SSI).
The protesters belonged to the Muslim Student Union and the Students for Justice in Palestine. Apparently, the presence of two former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers sent them over the edge and feared for their safety.
Yes, the group actually believed that the two former IDF soldiers “threatened our coalition of Arab, black, undocumented, trans, and the greater activist community.”
But their protest left those in the event fearing for their life as the demonstrators blocked the exits and would not let people leave. People frantically called campus police for help, who “had to escort Jewish students away from the scene.”
Kevin Brum, SSI’s vice president, said the police only escorted them away because the protesters had a right to be there.
The Jewish Federation & Family services and Hillel at UIC said the protesters “physically intimidated and threatened on student attempting to enter the event.” The incident will not deter the groups from moving forward with more events:

UC Irvine chancellor: Anti-Israel protesters ‘crossed the line of civility’

Anti-Israel student protesters this week disrupted the screening of a film about the Israel Defense Forces at University of California, Irvine, leading to police intervention to protect the Jewish students at the event.
In a campus-wide message sent Thursday, University of California Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman said the disruption, which appears to have been coordinated by the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine, “crossed the line of civility.”
The attendees at the screening of the Israeli documentary “Beneath the Helmet” Wednesday night, under the auspices of the campus Hillel, had to be escorted away from the scene by campus police, the Orange County Register reported.
Anti-Israel protesters have disrupted numerous pro-Israel events and Israeli speakers at campuses and other venues around the world in the past year. The incidents include demonstrators at London’s Kings College in January smashing a window during a speech by former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon; protesters at San Francisco State University shouting down Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat during a speech there in April, and activists drowning out Hebrew University Professor Moshe Halbertal as he delivered a speech at the University of Minnesota in November.

The Last Pro-Israel Democrat?

In his Haaretz column Beinart acknowledges that the two did highlight their disagreements over Israel at their Brooklyn debate in April. He might have also pointed out that this contrast was apparent even before that, in their contrasting Middle-East-policy speeches earlier in the campaign. Clinton gave a standard issue stalwart pro-Israel speech at the AIPAC conference. Sanders, who has gotten closer to winning a major party presidential nomination than any other American Jew in history, chose to boycott AIPAC and then gave a policy speech on the Middle East that was highly critical of Israeli policies while still reflecting support for Israel’s right to exist.
Yet Beinart is correct that aside from those two moments and the Vermont senator’s slanderous exaggeration of Palestinian casualties during the 2014 Gaza war, Sanders’s equivocal approach to Israel didn’t play a role in the campaign. It’s Beinart’s thesis that this was a mistake because of the way most liberals feel about the issue. Though I seldom agree with Beinart, he may be right about this. As I noted last week, Hillary Clinton’s decision to take a stand against the BDS — boycott, divest, sanction — movement against Israel before the convention of the Methodist church where a resolution on the topic was to be voted on, put her at odds with the base of the Democratic Party.
Like Beinart, I cited a new Pew Research Center poll that showed that while most Americans remained solidly pro-Israel, there were two groups that were not: liberals and Bernie Sanders voters. However, if we take it as a given that the left represents not only the base of the Democratic Party but its future — due to the fact that Sanders has captured the enthusiasm of younger voters — then there may be some truth to the thesis. He believes that just as Donald Trump won the Republican nomination by telling the GOP base what it wanted to hear about immigration (but wasn’t getting from other candidates) about immigration, trade, and isolationist positions in foreign policy, so, too, is there “an unserved market among grass roots Democrats for a candidate that is critical of Israel.”
Is he right about that? He might be.

Members of Wealthy Saudi Family Emerge as Clinton Foundation, Dem Donors

A wealthy family closely aligned with Saudi Arabia’s ruling family has emerged as a key donor to both the Clinton Foundation and prominent Democrats, despite the clan’s involvement in a domestic violence case that it has sought to sweep under the rug, according to police reports and funding documents viewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Nasser al-Rashid, one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest figures and an adviser to the country’s royal family, has donated somewhere between $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, putting him in an elite category of prominent donors.
Al-Rashid’s children—including one who pled guilty to assaulting his estranged wife—have poured almost $600,000 into Democratic coffers during the past several years, raising questions about influence peddling by prominent foreign families.
The controversy has already rippled through Florida’s contentious race for a Democratic Senate seat and threatens to further entangle presidential contender Hillary Clinton, who has already faced questions about her close ties to foreign governments.
“This raises a very simple question in my mind—why is this family of one of Saudi Arabia’s richest billionaires and a key adviser to the royal family pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into our political system to elect and influence these Democrats?” asked Ian Prior, a longtime Republican political operative and current spokesman for the Senate Leadership Fund, which advocates the election of Republican candidates.
Nasser Ibrahim al-Rashid, the family’s patriarch, is the founder and chairman of the Riyadh-based Rashid Engineering, making him one of the country’s top five wealthiest men.

Jewish Students Intimidated on Campus (h/t Daphne Anson)

Dr Alan Mendoza engages with a panel to discuss the rise of anti-Semitism on campus, often disguised as anti-Zionism. Alan is joined by Jonathan Neumann from Jewish Human Rights Watch, Ben Hayton from University College London and Devorah Khafi from Queen Mary University. Current Affairs | J-TV

The Media Platform For BDS Lies

Rafeef Ziadah, a Palestinian-Canadian BDS activist who co-founded Israel Apartheid Week, writes in the Irish Times about being invited to “tour Ireland during Nakba commemorations and the 1916 Easter Rising centenary.”
As she is in Ireland, she refers to the ”historic example of the workers at Dunnes Stores” who refused to sell fruits from South Africa in the apartheid era, as an inspiration to BDS activists.
Her description of BDS is that it
upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. It aims to end international support for Israel’s regime of apartheid and settler colonialism that began with the Nakba.
She uses the language of human rights, but she is actually – whether intentionally or not – revealing that the BDS movement’s true goal is ending Israel in its entirety. By saying that Israel’s “regime of apartheid and settler colonialism” began with the Nakba in 1948, she is denying Israel’s very right to existence. While the Nakba may have been a catastrophe for the Palestinians, it was the result of an Arab-initiated war that failed in its goal of wiping out the Jews in the newly established state.

Indy seeks the ‘wisdom’ of Juan Cole in story on Israeli government shake-up

As we’ve noted previously, Juan Cole is an American academic and blogger who has called Israel a fascist state whose behavior was partly responsible for 9/11. He’s also advanced antisemitic narratives about dual loyalty, and has warned his followers about the dangers of unchecked ‘Jewish power’. (He also has been a Guardian contributor)
Naturally, the Independent highlighted his ‘analysis’ – and only his analysis – in a story about the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Israel’s new defense minister.
Here are the final two paragraphs of the report, by Matthew Payton.
Professor Juan Cole from the University of Michigan, an expert on Middle Eastern politics, described him as a “far-right extremist”, telling the Salon: “There is no European cabinet minister who comes close to Lieberman’s far, far right positions, and if there were he or she would be boycotted by the other Europeans.”
He added that in his opinion the current politics of the Israeli government has no real comparison other than in Hungary’s neo-fascist party.
And, when it comes people with a visceral hatred of Israel, Cole ‘has no real comparison’ other than bloggers at places like Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada.

BBC Monitoring uses Sykes-Picot anniversary to promote conspiracy theory

The 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement this week produced a rash of journalistic commentary, much of which succumbed to the fashion of lazily blaming that agreement for the Middle East’s contemporary ills.
That trend was not however confined to Western commentators and BBC Monitoring produced a report titled “Sykes-Picot marked with bitterness and regret by Arab media” which appeared on the BBC News website on May 16th.
Not for the first time, readers found BBC Monitoring using its platform for the amplification of baseless conspiracy theory.

Twitter user @Pencil192 also suspects a conspiracy: "There is a new Sykes-Picot planned for Arabs, using the argument that dividing them along sectarian and national lines will protect them from infighting and conflicts that are in reality staged by the West and Zionists."

One of course presumes that before deciding that the above comment was worthy of translation and amplification to audiences worldwide, BBC Monitoring exercised due diligence and took the time to check out that Twitter feed. If so, then it would have realised that the so-called ‘Pencil192’ has something of a pathological obsession with ‘Zionists’.

BBC’s soundbite journalism conflicts with its public purposes

In other words, the BBC is perfectly aware of the fact that the soundbite “occupied West Bank” is not neutral terminology.
In the written report readers are told that:
“When it is up and running, the Palestinian Museum will chronicle the story of the Palestinian people and their displacement by the conflict which followed the establishment of the state of Israel at the end of the 1940s.”
In the audio report Razia Iqbal interrupted her interviewee Omar al Qattan with the following remarks:
“Sorry to interrupt you Omar; you mention the Naqba. This month marks the 68th anniversary of the Naqba which – in translation it means the catastrophe – which was the…the monumental displacement of Palestinians…ahm…in the immediate aftermath of the creation of the State of Israel.”
Clearly that editorialized soundbite conceals from BBC audiences the fact that the departure of Arab residents began before the State of Israel came into being (for example in Haifa and Tiberias) and that in many cases they were told to leave their homes by the Arab leaders waging war on the nascent Jewish state: a war which is completely erased from this context-free BBC soundbite.
The public purposes laid out in the BBC’s current charter include the remit of “Build[ing] a global understanding of international issues”. However, through its frequent use of soundbites including (but by no means limited to) those above, the corporation is instead actively limiting audience understanding by prioritising editorialized slogans which re-frame the story over essential background and context.

Bias at NYT Arts/Cultural Desk

Worse, though, was that elsewhere, the authors themselves adopted the Palestinian narrative and presented it as fact in their own voices. They wrote:
In the West Bank, where Palestinians have for years struggled to build political and civic institutions while resisting Israel’s occupation of the territory, the fate of the exhibition may say as much about the realities of Palestinian society as any art collection could.
Objective and knowledgeable readers may well recognize that "resisting Israel's occupation" is the justification invoked by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups for carrying out murderous attacks on civilian targets in Israel, but others may be misled by what amounts to the reporters' own stamp of approval on the biased language.

Former Diplomat: Venezuelan Regime Uses Anti-Semitism to Distract from Power Grab, Failures

The regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela has promoted anti-Israel and anti-Semitic themes in an effort to distract from the damage it is doing to the country, a former Venezuelan diplomat wrote Wednesday in the New York Daily News.
Diego Arria, Venezuela’s former ambassador to the United Nations, cited a recent instance where the country’s current UN ambassador, Rafael Ramirez, asked rhetorically in a speech, “What does Israel plan to do with the Palestinians?” and whether Israel was “trying to impose a ‘final solution’ on the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Arria criticized the envoy for making an “obscene comparison” between Nazi Germany and the Jewish state, where many survivors of the Holocaust found refuge. The false comparison was so egregious that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and representatives of the United States, United Kingdom, and France publicly denounced it.
Arria charged that Ramirez’s comments on Israel, made during a session on the protection of civilians affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, were meant “only to fuel hatred.” Making matters worse, Ramirez was speaking at a process “designed to increase dialogue and understanding, rather than boosting hatred and polarization.”

Brazilian senator likens current political crisis to Holocaust

Two leftist Brazilian senators compared Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to Brazil’s political environment in light of President Dilma Rousseff’s suspension as part of an ongoing impeachment process.
“In times of crisis, the Jewish people are historically designated as 'guilty' for the evil that does not concern it. And history is repeated,” Israel’s honorary consul in Rio, Osias Wurman, told JTA on Thursday.
The Brazilian Israelite Confederation, the country’s umbrella Jewish organization, condemned the comparison in a statement.
Sen. Roberto Requiao proposed last week that Brazil follow Nazi Germany’s example to handle the economy. He used the Adolf Hitler archetype to defend Rousseff’s illegal maneuvers to mask a perilous budget deficit, which led last Friday to her suspension for 180 days and the naming of her centrist vice president, Michel Temer, to replace her.
On May 16, far-left Sen. Lindbergh Farias suggested on his Facebook page that Temer inspired his debut speech last week in Parliament in which he mocked the “Arbeit macht frei” (Work will set you free) sign over the entrance gate at Auschwitz.

Anne Frank’s Step-Sister to Recount Harrowing Holocaust Story on Irish Talk Show

Eva Schloss, step-sister of Anne Frank, is appearing on a talk show in Ireland on Friday night to describe surviving the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the Irish Examiner reported.
Schloss will be a guest on the Late Late Show, which is broadcast on RTÉ One.
Born in Vienna, Schloss and her family immigrated to Belgium and eventually to Holland in 1938. After the Germans invaded Holland in 1942, her family went into hiding, but were betrayed two years later. They were captured by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz on Schloss’ 15th birthday. It was at the concentration camp that her father and brother were killed.
Schloss and her mother were liberated by the Russian army in January 1945. She has since written two books and spoken to thousands of audiences about her experiences, according to her website.

Salvadoran savior of tens of thousands of Jews honored in Germany

An army colonel and diplomat from El Salvador who helped save tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II by providing them with false Salvadoran identity papers was honored in Germany.
The tribute to Jose Arturo Castellanos, who served as El Salvador’s consul general in Geneva, was held last week by Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Relations and the Berlin Jewish Center, the Elsalvador.com news portal reported.
The film ‘The Rescue,” which documents Castellanos’ little-known but heroic acts during the Holocaust, was screened to the audience, which included El Salvador’s ambassador in Germany, José Atilio Benitez Parada.
Yad Vashem representative Sandra Witte said that Castellanos, who was recognized posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial and museum in 2010, is a distinguished icon among all saviors.
“We can say that very few are like Jose Castellanos or Raoul Wallenberg, who have saved several thousands. And it happened in times that they say there was no margin for action and nothing could have been done. Castellanos proved something can be done,” Witte said.

First class of Technion-Cornell program set to graduate

After three years, the first class of students at the joint Technion-Cornell University program are set to graduate. Heads of the program, along with Israeli education officials and diplomats, gathered Thursday night in New York to mark the event, which will officially take place on May 29.
The graduating class of the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute will mark the first time an international university has ever granted an accredited degree for studies on US soil. Graduates will receive two degrees, one from Israel’s Technion and one from Cornell University. The degrees are being granted to 12 graduates in the area of connective media — technically an MS in information systems.
“These graduating entrepreneurs are armed with the knowledge and experience in areas that are vital to the city’s economic health, and the betterment of society as a whole,” said Professor Adam Shwartz, director of the Jacobs Institute. “We look forward with anticipation to the great things they will accomplish and their impact on the economy, as well as the start-ups they will launch in New York City and beyond.”
The graduation event is the fulfillment of a vision to integrate Israel’s start-up spirit and advanced scientific skills with the vast educational resources of one of the world’s top universities, according to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was mayor when the program was established.

Israeli actors make their debuts in Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones’s Melisandre has some competition as the latest season of the hit fantasy TV show gallops on, in the form of a fellow Red Priestess played by Israeli actress Ania Bukstein, who makes her first appearance in the show next Sunday.
Bukstein, a Tel Aviv-based actress who moved to Israel from the former Soviet Union when she was eight years old, plays Kinvara, a devotee of the fire god R’hllor who encounters key characters Tyrion Lannister and Varys the eunuch in Meereen, and who could well be a significant new player in the epic saga.
And Bukstein is not the only Israeli to pop up across the Narrow Sea in this season’s song of ice and fire. Fans of the show will have already encountered Haifa-born actor Yousef Sweid with his portrayal of former Meereenese slave Ash.
Sweid, who appeared in last week’s episode, wrote on Facebook that while his appearance in the show is very limited, he did at least get to meet Peter Dinklage, who plays fan favorite Tyrion.

Rapper LL Cool J talks Israel and Jewish friendships at event for trauma

American rapper LL Cool J was the guest of honor at a symposium of Jewish community leaders that focused on employing methodologies for treating trauma in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, the Jewish Journal reported.
The event, hosted by the California-based Ulmer Institute, brought together members of the international Jewish community and the African-American community in discussion of techniques developed by Israeli psychiatrists for treating trauma relief.
In addition to Dr. Eyal Fruchter, former head of the mental health division of the IDF medical corps., and the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbis Marvin Hier and Yitzchok Alderstein, the event featured a surprise guest, LL Cool J.
The rapper-turned-actor spoke fondly of the cause, and in general of the importance of strong connections between the Jewish and African-American communities. "I always had people in my life that were Jewish and it was always a big part of everything I did."
Cool J even reminisced about some of his memories of growing up in a Jewish area of New York, "My grandfather was from the Bronx and he came home with gefilte fish every week."

Israeli Physicists in Multinational Research Team Help Develop More Efficient Solar Cells

A team of scientists from Israel, Singapore, and Switzerland has reported a major advance in the physics of perovskite solar cells – a new class of hybrid materials that is creating a revolution in solar energy technology.
Unlike most other solar devices, where efficiency worsens as temperature rises, the research team—including Profs. Jeffrey M. Gordon and Eugene A. Katz of the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research and Alexandre Yersin of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev—produced high-performance cells whose efficiency surprisingly improved as the cells heated up.
The researchers used experiments that varied the intensity of light and cell temperature, helping to better understand the molecular mechanisms that allow these solar cells to discharge surprisingly high voltage while maintaining high current density and low internal resistance, which are essential for their superior performance.
“Perovskite” refers to a specific type of crystal structure, originally identified by the 19th century Russian mineralogist L.A. Perovski. Perovskite solar cells are far less expensive than those made by silicon, and are relatively easy to manufacture since they can be processed at temperatures 1000°C below what silicon requires.
The new study, which was recently published in Advanced Materials, suggests deploying perovskite solar cells under concentrated sunlight in order to realize even higher efficiency—one of the next tasks in their planned experimental studies.

Israeli life expectancy among highest in world, WHO finds

A World Health Organization report on global life expectancy has found that Israelis have one of the highest life expectancies in the world. According to the report, released Thursday, Israel ranks sixth in the world, with an average life expectancy of 82.5 years.
The report found that life expectancy around the world has increased dramatically over the past 15 years, with the global average rising by about five years. Such an increase has not been recorded since the 1960s.
Worldwide, the average life expectancy for a baby born in 2015 is now 71.4 years of age -- 73.8 for women, and 69.1 for men.
Topping the list is Japan, with an average life expectancy of 83.7 years, followed by Switzerland, with 83.4. Broken down by gender, Japan tops the list for women, with an average life expectancy of 86.8 years, while Switzerland has the highest life expectancy for men, 81.3 years.
In third place overall is Singapore with 83.1, followed by Australia and Spain in equal fourth place with 82.8, and Iceland and Italy in equal fifth place with 82.7.
Israel comes in sixth place overall. When the results are split by gender, Israel has the fifth highest male life expectancy, with 80.6 years, and the ninth highest for women, 84.3 years.
The United States comes in at no. 25 overall, with 79.3. At the bottom of the list, babies born in Sierra Leone are only expected to live to the age of 50.

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Loading and hauling ironstone in Corby, 1968

Another glimpse of the industrial steam railways of the Northamptonshire ironstone belt in their last years.

The music is no better than before.

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Tim Farron backs Kirsty Williams's cabinet post plan

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And he's right.

In the elections earlier this month Kirsty Williams was the only Liberal Democrat to win a seat in the Welsh Assembly.

She increased her majority over the Conservatives in Brecon and Radnor to more than 8000. It's strange to recall that the 1985 by-election, when the seat first turned Liberal, was a neck-and-neck contest with Labour. (I was there.)

Beyond Kirsty's victory, our results in Wales were universally dismal. We are firmly established as the country's fifth party - that rumbling sound you can hear is Lloyd George turning in his grave.

Though I can't find the figures, I believe we finished behind the campaign to abolish the assembly in a couple of regions.

So the opportunity for the only Lib Dem AM to take up a high-profile position like education secretary is a godsend.

The Welsh Lib Dems are holding a special conference tomorrow to vote on whether Kirsty should take up this appointment.

If they do anything other than welcome it with open arms, they are madder than Mad Ianto Ap Mad, the winner of this year's Mr Madman competition.

Before we finish, let us pause a moment to mark the defeat of Leighton Andrews, Liberal Gillingham Town fan turned Labour Cardiff City fan, in Rhondda.

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Today's PLO hypocrisy

From the PLO "Department of Culture and Information" website:

[PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan] Ashrawi commented on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Avigdor Lieberman as the defense minister: “Such a decision is extremely dangerous—Lieberman, who has called for the beheading of Palestinians and for their transfer outside the state of Israel, is a serious threat to peace and stability, and his appointment will generate a culture of lawlessness, extremism, violence, and hate in Israel.”

In 2011, Ashrawi went on CNN to defend Hamas terrorists joining the Palestinian government.



Hypocritical much?

By the way, despite all the hysterics that we are reading today about Lieberman painting him as an ultra-right extremist, he supports a two-state solution. He supports (under the right conditions) Israel dismantling some settlements.

For a decade now, Avigdor Lieberman has taken on the mantle of Ariel Sharon before him - a crazed ultra-right nationalist who wants to kill all Palestinians. As with Sharon, the reality is not close to the rhetoric. Yes, Lieberman says some outrageous things, but when he calls to "behead" those Israelis who actively act against the state he is obviously not speaking literally, even though it is in the interests of many to pretend that he is. (He also doesn't call for "transfer." He calls to redraw the borders so Jewish sections outside the Green Line become part of Israel and Arab sections inside become part of a Palestinian state. It will never happen, but redrawing borders is not "transfer.")

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Happy birthday John Stuart Mill

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Time to post a link to an old Liberator article of mine:

So read Rorty, Popper and Berlin. Read L.T. Hobhouse if you want and pretend to have read T.H.Green if you must. But above all read the Mill of On Liberty.

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...And here's the final proof that Prashad is an academic fraud.

There are two ways of proving that someone is an academic fraud.

One is to prove that he or she knowingly lies.

Yesterday I proved with a high degree of probability that popular Trinity College professor Vijay Prashad lied, by claiming that Hamas does not deny the right of Israel to exist. He quoted selectively from a 2009 New York Times article and used Khaled Meshal's words to pretend that he accepted Israel's existence, but he didn't bother to mention that the article itself said explicitly that Meshal refused to accept Israel's existence.

I then brought a much stronger proof using Meshal's own words, on video, that leave absolutely no doubt about his opinion.

But perhaps Prashad was just being sloppy, and he didn't notice the part of the NYT article where Meshal was shown to hold the opposite view. Or maybe he read about it secondhand. And perhaps this Middle East scholar was unaware of the many other statements in Arabic by Hamas that explicitly denies Israel's right to exist.

That possibility, that Prashad is just a sloppy professor and not a malicious liar, was put to rest when he sarcastically responded to my tweet about his article:

This means that he read my post and decided that proof that pushing anti-Israel propaganda is more important than truth. The Alternet article he wrote remains unaltered; he did not issue a correction or change the words.

Any person who claims to be a scholar, who works in academia, and yet who consciously decides to lie is simply a propagandist and should not be allowed to work at any self-respecting institution of higher education.

Unfortunately, today's colleges think that free speech includes the right to teach lies.

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05/20 Links Pt1: Poking a gaping hole in the Palestinian narrative; Has the UN Human Rights Council become Frankenstein?

From Ian:

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IDF Blog: ISIS threatens to wipe out Israel. Here’s why we’re taking them seriously.

Facts at a glance:
- ISIS in Egypt started out targeting Israeli targets, such as Israeli pipelines carrying gas between Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.
- The most dominant terrorist organizations in the Sinai have ties to Hamas. ISIS fighters train in Gaza before returning to the Sinai. Hamas helps with training, medical care, transferring funds, and assisting with communications.
- In 2012, the Egyptian Army started Operation Sinai to destroy tunnels between Hamas in Gaza and militants in Sinai. These same tunnels were used to smuggle weapons into Gaza to attack Israel.
- Top ISIS leaders have repeatedly threatened major attacks against Israel. We take their threats seriously.
Israel’s border with Egypt has long been volatile, with terror groups shaking the stability in Northern Sinai. Our newest threat in the region is an offshoot of a deadly international terror organization: ISIS in the Sinai. The terror capabilities of ISIS’s Sinai branch are cannot be ignored. Their shootings, bombings, projectiles, and other attacks have killed both civilians and soldiers. Israel has always been a primary target of the group from its inception. Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (ABM) and their anti-Israel rhetoric has only increased since their incorporation into the Islamic State.
The situation in the Sinai has undergone serious changes over the last five years. Here are some key points in the evolution of the ISIS threat in the Sinai:

ISIS threatens global war with Israel

Islamic State threatens Israel in an article in its weekly newsletter this week, saying that unlike Hamas, the “war on Israel will not be limited by geographical boundaries or by international norms.”
According to the article in the Al-Naba newsletter identified by the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor of MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) and shared with The Jerusalem Post, Israel feels threatened by ISIS because of the “collapse” of neighboring states and the Sunni terrorist group’s advance toward the borders of the Jewish state.
For this reason, Israel has started to fight against Islamic State in Sinai and Syria, it says, adding that the entire world is now an arena for the fight against all the “polytheist combatants, including the Jews,” who are legitimate targets. Israel is using jets to attack Islamic State in Sinai, the article claims.
“The collapse of the Sykes-Picot statelets, which were tasked with protecting the Jewish state; the approach of ISIS mujahideen toward its borders; [Israel’s] fear of the spread of its [ISIS’s] methodology among the oppressed Muslims inside those borders [i.e. fear that ISIS ideology is spreading among Israeli Arabs]; and the manifest failure of the Crusader states who protect the Jews to win the battle against it [ISIS] – all these are factors that caused the Jewish state to not sit idly by in face of this danger,” it says.

Poking a gaping hole in the Palestinian narrative

Most people have never heard of the Eshkol plan, and you might be wondering why.
The answer is really very simple: it pokes a gaping hole in the narrative put forward by the Palestinians and their supporters, who assert that the root of all Israeli-Palestinian discord lies in the events of 1967, rather than in the long-standing and deep-seated Arab desire to wipe Israel off the map.
The fact is that had the Arabs and the Palestinians sincerely accepted Eshkol’s proposal, regional peace in the Middle East would be entering its sixth decade already and the so-called Palestinian question would have been resolved long ago.
Going back still further, if they had come to terms with Israel’s establishment in 1948 rather than choosing war, the entire region might have flourished.
At this point, there is no turning back the clock, and in light of subsequent developments, Eshkol’s plan is as unworkable now as it might have been sensible back then.
But even after so many decades, it is worth recalling his audacious proposal, if only to highlight where the underlying fault truly lies for the ongoing conflict: with the Palestinians and their defenders.
So next time you hear someone blathering about how the “occupation” is the cause of all our troubles, just think back to the grandfatherly figure of Levi Eshkol, the peace he offered to make in 1965, the Arab hatred and enmity with which it was greeted and just how different things could have been.

UN Watch: Has the UN Human Rights Council become Frankenstein?

Who selects this rogues’ gallery? Last year, the head of the council panel that shortlists candidates was the representative of Saudi Arabia, Faisal bin Hassan Trad.
We are actually about to mark a third anniversary. Next month, Geneva will celebrate 200 years since Mary Shelley and her husband, the great Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, joined Lord Byron and a few others at Villa Diodati, nestled in the beautiful hills of Cologny, just above Lake Geneva.
In that cold and dark June of 1816, amid storms of thunder and lightning, they exchanged ghost stories. Mary Shelley then had a nightmare, which she famously published: the story of an idealistic student who tried to create life, only to be horrified by the result – the story of Frankenstein.
When I walk past Villa Diodati, gazing across Lake Geneva to see the majestic UN building that houses the council, I cannot help but wonder: If Eleanor Roosevelt and René Cassin were alive today, and beheld a body that grotesquely legitimizes murderers, dictators and anti-Semites, would they not be revolted by what has become of their creation? Would they not conclude that today’s UN Human Rights Council has become Frankenstein’s monster, and their dream become a nightmare?

Arabs demand UN remove Jerusalem panel from Israel exhibit

Arab and Islamic nations are demanding that the United Nations remove a panel from an Israeli exhibition that calls Jerusalem “the spiritual and physical capital of the Jewish people.”
A letter from the Palestinian UN mission to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft circulated Thursday evening expressed “vehement rejection” at the description, echoing protests by Arab nations at the UN and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
The letter said any references “which purport to assert Israeli sovereignty on this land … are legally, politically and morally incorrect and unacceptable.”
Jerusalem is the historic capital of the Jewish people, and the west of the city has been under Israeli sovereignty since the foundation of the modern state. Israel annexed the Old City and east Jerusalem after capturing the territory in the 1967 Six Day War.

State Department Misleads Congress on Extent of Anti-Israel Bias at United Nations

The State Department is using misleading statistics to make the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) seem less anti-Israel than it truly is, according to a leading watchdog of the international body.
The HRC was put under the microscope this week on Capitol Hill during a Human Rights Commission hearing that examined its first 10 years of existence, which has been marred by anti-Israel bias and membership by some of the world’s worst human rights abusers.
The HRC was founded in 2006, but the Bush administration withdrew from the body in hopes of starving it of legitimacy. That policy was reversed by the Obama administration in 2009. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the administration “believed [it] could make a difference by working with [the council] on the inside rather than standing on the outside merely as a critic.”
Seven years later, the State Department is trying to prove that the 2009 decision has improved the council and made it less anti-Israel.
While acknowledging that the council remains an “imperfect body” with a “strong bias against Israel,” the State Department’s Erin Barclay testified to Congress that the hyper-focus on Israel has greatly decreased since 2009.
“Prior to our joining the HRC, over one-half of all country-specific resolutions the council adopted concerned Israel,” Barclay said. “Today, about one-fifth of the HRC’s country resolutions deal with the Palestinian territories.”
Hillel Neuer, the executive director of U.N. Watch, testified after Barclay and said that the statistic she used was “entirely inconsistent” with numbers calculated by his group.

IsraellyCool: The Whole Two State Solution Dead Or Alive Debate

I posted earlier just my part in the Campaign4Truth’s Great Debate on the Two State Solution: Dead or Alive.
If you want to watch the complete event from start to finish as a YouTube playlist I’ve put that together for you and I’ll embed that at the end.
First up we have Ambrosine and Sharon from Campaign4Truth introducing the event and the speakers:
Moderator James Sorene from BICOM gives his introduction.
He was followed by headline act (and she obviously deserves the billing) Melanie Phillips. I think this will be a much talked about talk when people internalise what she said.
David Hirsch, UK academic and firm proponent of the two state solution came next. I don’t have a lot in common with many of his views.
Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian from Jordan who lives in exile in London came next.
Then came David Collier who was sitting (only just) to my left but I agreed with almost everything he said. To the point that by the time he and Melanie had spoken, much of my talk needed to be changed.

IsraellyCool: In Which Brian Gets The Final Word

I’ve already had two posts of videos from the Campaign4Truth’s Two State Solution: Dead or Alive debate in London. This should be the third and final one. This is a summary of all the times I spoke during the (long) question and answer session that I posted in the last post.
On to the end I’ve added my answer to the final question from one of the panelist’s children. She asked me if I was denying the Human Rights of Palestinians and I wanted to get my answer out.
If you want to more about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, click on that link to see them both, side by side.

IsraellyCool: Brian Answers A Tricky Question

After yesterday’s video, I decided to go back and give a fuller answer to the question that James Sorene, CEO of BICOM asked me. He thinks I shouldn’t say that the Palestinians are identity thieves because it will make peace less likely.
BICOM is the UK’s sort of AIPAC type lobbying organisation but they’ve historically been hugely committed to the “Peace Process and the Two State Solution. They haven’t quite come to terms with the near complete realisation within the Israeli public that the Two State Solution is not coming about and its pursuit so far has brought nothing but pain. I’m not sure, except for moving to Israel, that people like that will ever really “get it”.
I firmly believe the vast discrepancy between the way Israel is reported outside Israel, and the awareness of being attacked that Israelis feel, contributes to the separation of views of Jews in Israel and in the diaspora.

Douglas Murray: Anti-Semitism in Britain's Labour Party Rotting from the head down

Anti-Semitism isn't new to the UK Labour Party, and its recent anti-Semitic outbursts shouldn't surprise anyone. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has ordered an "independent inquiry" into the party's anti-Semitism. Douglas Murray, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Gatestone Institute, explains in the video below how Labour's anti-Semitism problem starts at top of the party, and why this inquiry won't solve anything.

Anti-Semitism in Britain’s Labour Party: Rotting from the head down


Rod Liddle: Rod Liddle: Labour’s putting me on trial for thought crime

The blog to which Mr Stolidity took exception was about anti-Semitism in the Labour party. I had suggested that it was indeed rife among sections of the infantile white middle-class liberals and also among the increasing number of Labour Muslim activists and councillors. Perhaps it is my suggestion that many Muslims are not favourably inclined towards Jews that provoked my suspension from the party — certainly it provoked a furious diatribe from the congenital idiot and Guardian journalist Owen Jones, who described it, with his usual semantic flair, as ‘rampant racism’. Or perhaps it was my assertion that if the Palestinians were given Israel they would turn it very quickly into Somalia that enraged these new commissars. If so, then they themselves are guilty of racism and cultural imperialism. Obviously I meant that this would be a good thing, Somalia being an exciting and vibrant state with ever so much to commend it. I would live there tomorrow, given the opportunity. As would we all.
Listen: I see this interview as an opportunity. An opportunity to meet Shami Chakrabarti, who, having joined Labour a couple of days ago, is now leading its investigation into ‘racism and Islamophobia’ within the party while also trying to run the UK through her various other posts. And also a chance to apologise for having dared to suggest that any Muslim anywhere could ever be accused of anti-Semitism and to insist that my reference to Somalia was a dreadful mistake, for which I am terribly, grovell-ingly, sorry — I meant that they would turn it into Switzerland. I sometimes get countries beginning with ‘S’ confused.
I just hope that during this interview with Harry and the boys, which reminds me a little of the British Communist party’s disciplinary sessions in the mid-1950s — nobody mentions the word ‘Corbyn’. If they do, my silent friend — Jessie the Dog — will leap up and begin snarling and barking and may bite someone. It’s just how she is. Anyway, I will let you know how I get on.

France to hold summit on Israel, Palestinians on June 3

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Thursday he’s called for a planned Israeli-Palestinian peace conference to be held in Paris on June 3.
“So that everyone can attend … I have suggested that the conference initially planned for May 30 be held on June 3,” Ayrault said after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels.
“We reviewed again the position concerning France’s initiative to hold a ministerial-level meeting in Paris to relaunch the Middle East peace process,” Ayrault told reporters.
This would also provide the opportunity “for Israel and the Palestinians to resume [talks] on the basis of a two-state solution,” he said.
“We are in a crisis situation and every day the situation on the ground gets worse,” he added.

How Bibi Outfoxed Kerry. Again.

The first is the illusion that anyone in the State Department, even with the assistance of the former British prime minister and the Egyptian leader, has a clue as to how Israeli politics works. President Obama’s first months in office were spent with his foreign policy team trying to undo the results of the February 2009 Israeli election that brought Netanyahu back to power. At that time, the goal was to somehow get Tzipi Livni to topple the prime minister, but she never had a chance. And the more they tried, the firmer Netanyahu’s grip on power became. The pattern repeated itself in subsequent years as Obama picked pointless fights with the Israeli over settlements, the 1967 lines and Jerusalem. Each spat was an attempt to weaken Netanyahu, but it always backfired as the prime minister gained domestic popularity by standing up to Washington especially on consensus issues like Jerusalem.
After so many failures, any fool could have come to the conclusion that the harder the U.S. tries to openly muscle or outmaneuver Netanyahu, the stronger he gets. But Kerry is not just any fool; he’s a uniquely clueless diplomat with little understanding of the ins and outs of Israeli coalition politics and no interest in learning from his mistakes. As Haaretz reports, they understood that the passage of a two-year budget plan meant there was little chance of toppling Netanyahu by normal parliamentary means until 2019. So they sought to push forward Herzog with a plan to supposedly tempt the prime minister with the prospect of a broad coalition with an unchallengeable majority. Their leverage was the idea that Kerry would hold off on the release of a Quartet report that sharply criticized Israel about settlements.
But neither Kerry nor the equally clueless Blair understood that Netanyahu was playing three-dimensional chess while they were attempting to win at checkers. Instead of establishing an Israeli government with a weak link determined to gain their favor at the foreign ministry, Netanyahu used their maneuver to create one more to his liking.

Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick slated to be next Likud MK after Ya'alon resignation

Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick is slated to become the next MK for the Likud party after Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon announced his resignation from the ministry and the Knesset Friday morning.
Glick is a controversial figure in both the religious and political sphere in Israel, becoming the face of the Jewish struggle for prayer rights at the Temple Mount, the most sacred holy site in Judaism and third holiest in Islam.
His activism almost lead to his death in late 2014, when he sustained four gunshot wounds outside the Menchem Begin Hermitage Center in Jerusalem from the gun of convicted Palestinian terrorist Moataz Hejazi.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Incoming Defense Minister Has Never Denied Eating Palestinian Children (satire)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to announce in the next day or two that he has appointed as Minister of Defense a man who has never, according to media records, denied feasting on the bodies of Palestinian boys and girls as a weekly ritual.
Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Liberman will replace Moshe Yaalon, who resigned today, as part of the agreement covering the addition of Liberman’s party to the governing coalition. The Soviet-born party leader is often described as ultranationalist, a term that ignores his stated willingness to leave the settlement he inhabits in exchange for real peace with the Palestinians – but that also does nothing to negate or refute the idea that he regularly dines on the flesh of helpless Palestinian youths, a claim he has never addressed.
Activists and commentators expressed outrage that such a man could be placed in charge of Israel’s largest government apparatus, with a budget exceeding 70 billion shekels. “I have never seen Liberman in the same room as the infamously bloodthirsty Vlad Dracula, and that already raised my suspicions,” charged Amnesty International contributor Jacob Burns, referring to a medieval aristocrat of notorious brutality who lent his name to the title character in Bram Stoker’s nineteenth-century novel about a vampire. “Forget trafficking in Palestinian organs; this guy would eat them with fava beans and a Chianti – I mean, he’s never denied that he does that all the time, basically every night, right? And he speaks Romanian. Need I say more?”

How the U.S. Could Help Foster Real Peace in the Middle East

The White House is reportedly anxious to support a last-ditch effort at getting Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiation table. John Hannah argues that since such efforts are doomed to fail, the U.S. should pursue more realistic goals:
President Obama might more productively direct his energies during his waning months in office to the slightly more auspicious diplomatic ground of Israel’s thickening links with a handful of key Arab states. While the fact of such contacts is nothing new, there’s now a palpable sense that both the frequency and quality of the interactions, mostly conducted in private, have intensified considerably over the past few years. . . .
[While most] of the interactions remain covert, there’s also been a slow but steady series of important public milestones. . . . The degree of progress shouldn’t be exaggerated. Nor should it be dismissed. . . .
The United States should have a profound interest in testing how far the budding strategic rapprochement between Israel and the Sunni Arab states can go. Given its role as the most important, powerful, and trusted outside partner on both sides, there’s no doubt the United States could serve as a catalyst, organizer, and patron of this emerging coalition—mediating, prodding, strategizing, and providing reassurances, guarantees, and resources. Although the current contacts between Israel and some of its neighbors is heartening, that contact won’t reach its full potential absent active U.S. assistance and protection. The historical antagonisms, suspicions, and risks—especially for a religiously conservative monarchy like Saudi Arabia, the self-styled epicenter of worldwide Islam—may simply be too great for the parties to overcome on their own.

Elliott Abrams: The military aid standoff: An argument, not a crisis

Would all that be different, and worse, next year under a new president? That seems unlikely. Does anyone expect peace to break out, to see the deadly Syrian civil war ending, to see Iran and Hezbollah withdrawing support for Assad, to see crises between Israel and its neighbors Jordan and Egypt? In fact, if the regional picture is worse, the argument for more aid to Israel is as strong as ever and maybe stronger. If there is a “hot summer” between Israel and Hamas, or Hezbollah attacks Israeli towns, or ISIS gains more in Syria, the argument for more aid to Israel is even more powerful.
If Rand Paul had been the Republican nominee, and if Bernie Sanders were going to be the Democratic nominee, there would be an argument that the military aid deal must be wrapped up immediately.
Neither man was ever a great enthusiast about US-Israel military relations.
But those two are not going to be the nominees, and whatever criticisms can justly be offered of Trump and Clinton neither one will want to start his or her presidency with a great big fight over aid to Israel. Moreover, whether Congress is led by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, or by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, there will be strong pro-Israel leadership on Capitol Hill.
So it would be great to do the military aid deal now. But this is an argument, not a crisis. If an agreement cannot be reached with Obama, it can and will be done when Obama is gone.

How Independent Is Israel?

Such words from an Israeli prime minister would be unthinkable today, when Israelis have become accustomed to a degree of dependence on the United States that Begin’s generation could never have imagined. The self-sufficient Zionist and Israeli “resistance” to which Begin alluded is a thing of the distant past. Today, it is hard for most Israelis to remember life outside the Pax Americana, before the era of the “unshakable bond” between the two countries.
But this is why, as Israel celebrates its nearly seven decades of independence, it is worth recalling that things were not always like this—and that during its first two decades, when it didn’t depend on the United States, Israel’s very lack of dependence served it well. Despite Washington’s disapproval and admonitions, Israel achieved a number of crucial goals that still form the bedrock of its national security as a viable sovereign state. Had it instead become an American client earlier in its history, it would likely be a far weaker state today.
In this perspective, the Iran deal concluded by the Obama administration last year, and vigorously but futilely opposed by Jerusalem, leaves one wondering whether a scenario might yet arise, possibly sooner than the deal’s expiration, in which Israel will wish it still possessed the freedom of action it enjoyed in its earliest years. Without the tools afforded by its American alliance, Israel would have very few options against Iran. But that very alliance may well foreclose even those options.
Israel declared independence 68 years ago, but being independent is a process, not a moment. That process is still unfolding, and it is still incomplete.

Spinning the Clinton Parameters On Al Jazeera

Spurning Peace and Undermining a Narrative
In short, Martin Indyk was correct when he said Palestinians failed to accept a generous peace offer during Ehud Barak’s tenure and again during Olmert’s tenure. (Hasan’s article conveniently ignores Indyk's reference to Olmert.)
Hasan, on the other hand, was wrong. His claims that Arafat accepted and Barak rejected the Clinton Parameters are irreconcilable — Arafat’s reservations, as many noted, were incompatible with the Parameters. And his appeal to Bill Clinton’s authority flopped — the former president couldn’t be more clear about his view that Arafat rejected the peace plan.
Even Hasan’s citation of Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, who initially seemed on Twitter to side with the al Jazeera host, was a pyrrhic victory. True, Ravid said it was wrong for Indyk not to mention Barak’s reservations. (And indeed Indyk didn't mention them, presumably because like so many others he understood those reservations to fit within the contours of Clinton's Parameters.) But Ravid also acknowledged that Hasan’s "both sides had reservations"-formulation was misleading; that Arafat said no; and that Barak, unlike Arafat, wanted to move forward on the plan.
And neither Ravid nor anyone else cited by Hasan took issue with the claim that the Palestinians could have had 95 to 97 percent of the West Bank. That’s because it is true.
It’s easy to understand why an anti-Israel activist might want to strike from the record numerous Palestinian opportunities to have a state. These rejections of statehood undermine the claim that Palestinians are fighting only for freedom, and not against Israel per se. So some activists carefully avoid mention of the rejections, and let the omission silently bolster their case. Hasan’s type of revisionism, though, was loud and brash. To paraphrase from a recent Al Jazeera article: Let him believe it. But the historical record says otherwise.

Fatah Official Zakaria Al-Agha: Right of Return to Israel, Not to the Palestinian State

Zakaria Al-Agha, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and of the PLO Executive Committee, said recently that the Palestinian Right of Return, as formulated in U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194, was indisputable, but that "someone who returns also has the right to receive compensation." "It is about return, as well as compensation," said Al-Agha. He added that the refugees must return "to their cities, villages, and homes," and not the Palestinian state that will be established. The interview aired on Palestine TV on May 11, 2016.

Terror attack thwarted after teen caught with knife on Jerusalem light rail

A stabbing attack was prevented Thursday evening in Jerusalem, after Police and Border Police officers on patrol along the light rail line in the Shuafat neighborhood of east Jerusalem found a butterfly knife on the body of an Arab-Israeli teen.
The 16-year-old was boarding a bus towards the Damascus Gate of the Old City when he aroused suspicion.
Authorities searched the boy's belongings and found a butterfly knife on his person. He was taken for questioning shortly thereafter.
Initial investigations indicate that the teen, a Jerusalem resident, was intending to attack police.
This incident comes days after a Palestinian man stabbed and slightly wounded a Jewish youth near the Old City’s Damascus Gate in east Jerusalem before being overpowered and arrested by Border Police officers after a short pursuit on foot.
According to Ch. Supt. Asi Aharoni, spokesperson for the Jerusalem Police District, a team of Border Police officers were on special patrol outside Damascus Gate at around 9:30 a.m. on Monday when they heard shouting coming from Hanevi’im Street nearby. The officers ran to the scene and saw a suspect who had just stabbed a Jewish man in the back and was fleeing toward Ben Shadad Street.

Palestinian activist suspected of Hamas ties released after 94-day hunger strike

Israel released the Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Kik on Thursday after a 94-day hunger strike.
The 33-year-old resident of Ramallah began his hunger strike four days after he was arrested on November 21 at his home in Ramallah for terrorist activities connected to Hamas, according to Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency].
After being released Kik said, "This victory was made by you all. You got tired but went down to the streets and covered and followed up on the news. This is not exclusively about who achieved the victory, this victory is a joint victory by everyone because we all stood (together)."
Kik had agreed to end his strike in February, but remained to be in custody until the Israeli Military determined whether there was new intelligence that would require further detention.

IsraellyCool: A Taste of “Concentration Camp” Gaza: Oregano Restaurant

Inspired by the Gaza mall photos, I have featured on this blog various facilities from Gaza, with the aim of providing readers with a glimpse into the real Gaza, which is anything but a concentration camp as some claim.
My point is not that there is no hardship in Gaza, but rather that the situation is a far cry from what is being presented by the palestinians, their supporters and the mainstream media.
Introducing Gaza’s Oregano Italian restaurant.

Argentine ex-presidents summoned to testify in Hezbollah-linked chopper crash

Six former presidents of Argentina were summoned to testify in the investigation into the 1995 death of the son of ex-president Carlos Menem after he named Hezbollah as responsible.
Judge Villafuerte Ruzo on Wednesday requested the testimony of Fernando de la Rúa, Ramón Puerta, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, Eduardo Camaño, Eduardo Duhalde and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The six ruled Argentina after Menem, who said last Friday that he believes his son was assassinated by Hezbollah — information that his then-foreign minister, Guido Di Tella, heard from foreign embassies in Buenos Aires. Menem was president from 1989 to 1999.
Menem’s lawyer, Omar Daer, told the TN news channel on Wednesday that his client also wants to know what kind of information the Security Secretariat had about Hezbollah’s possible involvement in the March 1995 accident of the helicopter that Carlos Menem Jr. was piloting when it crashed.
On Friday, Menem for the first time told a judge that Hezbollah killed his 26-year-old son.

JCPA: How Close Are We to Unconventional Terror Attacks by ISIS? The Dirty Bomb Scenario

Early last month, world leaders attending a nuclear security summit in Washington DC expressed concern over nuclear and radiological terrorism threats. This was a formal international gathering hosted by the American president dedicated to the evolving ability of terror groups to plan and carry out mass killing attacks using unconventional means.
Publicly, the summit’s participants did not provide any substantial new information about any pending preparations among known terror groups. This raises the question how serious the threat is, and in the absence of clear leads and intelligence materials, the question is how can we assess this threat?
The background of the global Jihad provides us with some indications, especially those efforts conducted by former Al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin-Laden, to acquire nuclear materiel. His efforts included a couple of initiatives but especially worrisome was Bin-Laden’s bargaining with a former Sudanese general who claimed he could provide such nuclear materiel. According to the 9/11 Commission’s report, Bin-Laden paid $1.5 million dollars only to find that the offer was a fraud.
In most cases, the orphan radioactive sources (material no longer under regulatory control) represent a danger of “dirty bombs” – rather than actual nuclear bombs – which can contaminate large areas.

ISIS execute 25 people by DISSOLVING them in nitric acid: 'Iraqi spies' were tied up with rope and dropped into a vat in public as a warning to others

ISIS has executed 25 people in Mosul, northern Iraq, by lowering them in a vat of nitric acid, according to several local news reports.
The men had been accused of spying on ISIS on behalf of Iraqi government security forces.
According to witnesses, the 25 alleged 'spies' had been tied together with a rope and lowered in a large basin containing nitric acid until their organs dissolved.
'ISIS terrorist members executed 25 persons in Mosul on charges of spying and collaborating with Iraqi security forces,' a source told Iraqi News in a statement.
'ISIS members tied each person with a rope and lowered him in the tub, which contains nitric acid, till the victims organs dissolve.'

US again tells European banks trade with Iran is OK

The United States and its partners in the Iran nuclear talks are trying anew to convince European banks and businesses that now-legal trade with the Islamic Republic won’t be punished.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and the European Union’s foreign policy chief said in a joint statement Thursday that Iran deserves the sanctions relief it’s due under last year’s landmark nuclear deal. “This includes the reengagement of European banks and businesses in Iran,” they said after meeting in Brussels.
“We will not stand in the way of permitted business activity with Iran, and we will not stand in the way of international firms or financial institutions’ engaging with Iran, as long as they follow all applicable laws,” the statement said.
Iran has complained that US sanctions that remain on the country are preventing it from receiving the full benefits of the deal under which it agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The US maintains it has met its obligations, but has been trying to convince foreign firms that some trade with Iran is now legal.

IMF: Iran Must Stop Funding Terror, Money Laundering if It Wants to Join Global Economy

Iran’s failure to bring its money-laundering and terror finance laws into compliance with international standards has discouraged foreign banks from doing business with the country, according to a senior International Monetary Fund official.
David Lipton, a deputy of the IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde, told Bloomberg News while in Tehran on Tuesday that “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.” He added that “lenders here have to acknowledge that foreign banks will make decisions based on their assessments of risk management.”
Lipton is the first senior IMF official to visit Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, according Iran’s central bank. His warning about Iran’s banking system echoes that of other industry and independent experts.

Religious Persecution in Iran Spotlighted as Ayatollah’s Daughter Meets Jailed Bahai Leader

A meeting between the daughter of a prominent ayatollah and a leader of the Bahai faith in Iran this week has provoked outrage among the country’s elite and underscored the religious intolerance of its government, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of the Islamic Republic and current chairman of the expediency council, has been roundly blasted by the country’s clerical leadership for paying a house visit to Fariba Kamalabadi, an imprisoned Bahai leader who has been furloughed for a short time.
Kamalabadi, along with six other Bahai leaders in Iran, was sentenced to twenty years in prison after being convicted in 2010 of crimes including “espionage for Israel,” “insulting religious sanctities,” and spreading “propaganda against the system,” according to Amnesty International. Kamalabadi and Hashemi met in prison in 2013, when the latter was sentenced to six months for “spreading propaganda against the system.”
Hashemi has a reputation for being outspoken. She previously started a newspaper for women and is believed to be the first woman of the Iranian establishment to publicly ride a bicycle, challenging the religious dictates of the government.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Report: Sex, Personal Hygiene A Jewish Mind-Control Plot (satire)

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control suggests that people only engage in sex and personal hygiene practices when under the control or influence of Jewish puppetmasters.
Researchers at the Public Health and Policy Division have discovered strong evidence that under normal circumstances, humans do not pursue sexual encounters or keep their bodies clean or groomed. However, when placed under the impact of various mind-control methods long associated with Jews, people are eight hundred times more likely to engage in those activities, or attempt to do so. The study will be published in next month’s issue of the journal Health Education Research for the Medical and Interpersonal Theaters (HERMIT).
Scientists examined societal trends before and after the arrival of Jews onto the historical scene, and noticed that as Jewish influence on civilization increased, so did hygienic practices and population – with population increases a known by-product of sexual activity. Taken together that long-ignored correlation raised a number of eyebrows at the CDC, said lead study author Dr. David Duke.
“I’ve already stopped showering,” he said, “at least until the data are confirmed or disproved. And most of my team here at the CDC has sworn off flossing, brushing teeth, and romance of any sort. It’s the prudent thing to do, given what we seem to know so far about pernicious Jewish influence.”

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Egyptian paper: "These ten Jews control the world economy"

I always wondered who they were, and now popular Egyptian newspaper Vetogate lists for us the ten Jews who run the world economy.

Haim Saban

Haim Saban
Patrick Drahi
Yitzhak Tshuva
Shari Arison
Idan Ofer
Ronald Lauder
Rupert Murdoch (who is not Jewish)
Sheldon Adelson
Irving Moskowitz
Bernard-Henri Lévy

Now you know!

(corrected headline from "world "to "world economy," h/t Oren K)

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French health site replaces Israel with Palestine on map, says Syria is safer than Israel

A popular French health website, DocteurClic, has a section on the dangers of traveling to other countries.

Here is the map it uses to travel to "Palestine":

In general, it is safe to travel to "Palestine" which is entirely occupied, although from the map it is unclear exactly who is occupying it. Perhaps Great Britain.

It does have a section on traveling to Israel, which is apparently a state in two sections somewhere on the Mediterranean:

For Israel, it says that it is very dangerous to travel:

The troubled political climate, lack of stability in the region and the situation on the ground makes it dangerous country for travelers.

In addition, the low level of health does not allow the traveler to ensure optimum safety in terms of the management of health problems. Health infrastructure is poor or very degraded.

Precautions are needed to avoid many worries or to compromise a part of your stay.

It is in any essential way to know the safety rules to be respected during trips.

Who knew Israel's health system was so primitive?

It has similar rules for "Palestine," but it adds for Israel:

Travel is not recommended in this country, except for imperative professional reasons.

Due to the increase in suicide bombings and their random and unpredictable, visitors should exercise extreme caution.

In all major Israeli population centers:

avoid places and rush hour: market squares, pedestrian streets, shopping centers, restaurants located on major streets, cafés, clubs, gatherings of any kind on the highway;
refrain from using public transport (buses, taxis, trains)
Do not participate in any event,
rent a mobile phone and tell the number to friends or acquaintances, or even the French official representations.

These instructions apply especially to pilgrims planning to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but also in Galilee (Nazareth Christian sites near the Sea of ​​Galilee: Taghba, Capernaum, Cana, Mount of Beatitudes, Mount Tabor ...) .

While Israel is rated amber for travel, Egypt is considered green.  So is Jordan.

And so is Syria, which is green in every single category.

Travelers to Israel are warned about respiratory diseases in the dry air but not for Jordan or Syria.

(h/t The New Antisemite)

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UC Irvine is officially an anti-Israel campus

From Campus Reform:

An event held by a Jewish student group at the University of California, Irvine was disrupted Wednesday night by a crowd of Muslim students chanting anti-Semitic and anti-police slogans.

Ariana Rowlands, president of the College Republicans club at UCI, told Campus Reform that her group had just wrapped up its weekly meeting Wednesday night, and were gathered outside the building preparing to hang posters advertising an upcoming appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos when they heard a commotion nearby.

Wandering over to investigate, the CR members encountered a large group of students—Rowlands estimated there were perhaps 50 in total—holding signs and screaming in unison to protest a movie screening being held by Students Supporting Israel (SSI).

Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee member who was on campus to address the CR meeting, posted a video on Facebook depicting a portion of the demonstration.

“Intifada, Intifada/long live the Intifada,” the protesters shout at the start of the video, following that up with a call-and-response chant of “displacing people since ‘48/there’s nothing here to celebrate!”

Kevin Brum, Vice President of SSI, told Campus Reform that the demonstrators were members of the Muslim Student Union and Students for Justice in Palestine groups, who were apparently incensed that two former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers were planning to meet with attendees at the screening.

“The film was Beneath the Helmet, a film about IDF soldiers with personal interviews that sort of humanizes them,” he explained. “One of the campus advisers for Hillel is an Israeli citizen who served in the IDF, so she has former IDF friends, and two of them stopped by. Someone posted that information on Facebook, and SJP and MSU got wind of it.”

Here's video:



SJP bragged about violating free speech of people who support Israel:

Today we successfully demonstrated against the presence of IDF soldiers on campus. ...The presence of IDF and police threatened our coalition of Arab, black, undocumented, trans, and the greater activist community. Thank you to all that came out and bravely spoke out against injustice. ‪#‎UCIntifada‬

SSI says that the police stopped the event for the safety of the Zionist students being threatened by the Israel-hating thugs:

Tonight one of our events was disrupted by certain student organizations. They were in violation of UC Regents Hate Speech policy and were shouting various anti-Semitic statements. The police had to escort attendees out of the event for their own safety. While it saddens us that there exist individuals who are more interested in shutting our Peace Week down, we at SSI want to assure you all that we are not backing down in the slightest. We are not going to give in to their intimidation tactics and anti-Semitic rhetoric. ‪#‎UCIsrael2016‬ ‪#‎WeStandUnited‬ ‪#‎NeverGiveUp‬ ‪#‎StudentsAgainstHate‬ ‪#‎StudentsForPeace‬ ‪#‎PeaceWeek‬

Only two weeks ago SJP, JVP and MSU at UCI hosted "anti-Zionism week" on campus. An entire week dedicated to destroying the Jewish state and denying the Jewish right to self-determination. No attempt was made to shut it down.

Imagine a campus allowing an "Anti-Palestinian Week" or indeed a week dedicated against any country's very existence. It could never happen.

But at UCI, a week dedicated to hate against the Jewish state is protected, while an event that celebrates Israel is in danger of being shut down because of the violence of the haters.

There is something seriously wrong on campus when hate speech is celebrated and people supporting peace cannot speak without being threatened.

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