05/30 Links Pt2: Applauding the nakba myth; UK Labour Party Inquiry: Deny, Divert, Cover Up

From Ian:

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David Collier: Applauding the nakba myth

I wasn’t going to write about the ‘nakba’ incident at Wanstead High School. Let down by a society that doesn’t believe in truth, the schoolgirl Leanne Muhammed, aged only 15, has already been weaponised. With the publicity her speech received, I felt sorry for her.
The child will become further affected by the hurricane surrounding the speech. It is unlikely she will draw the correct conclusions. Those that have influenced her before today, will ensure that the reasons behind her ‘inability to speak freely’ are understood the way they want them to be. A reinforcement of another antisemitic myth, that secret Jewish control stops people from telling the truth. Nobody will tell Leanne that her speech turned history upside down.
The parents, the community, social media, the school, the teachers, these are the ones that remain responsible for the fact that a child of the UK has been brought up to propagate a myth that divides communities, a myth that spreads hate, a myth that seeks conflict. In our society that nakba myth is fostered and nurtured, as if truth and history are no longer relevant elements that need to be considered.
Others have already written on the content of the speech itself. Edgar Davidson wrote on the subject and ‘Brian of London’ also covered the issue. The general consensus seems to be that there is no future for Jews in the UK.
I agree with both of them.

Edgar Davidson: This explains Leanne Mohamad's perverse views about 'Palestine' and the 'Zionists'

This explains Leanne Mohamad's perverse views about 'Palestine' and the 'Zionists'

Based on her retweets, 'Peace loving' Leanne Mohamad gets all her information about 'Palestine' from Hamas supporter Abbas Sarsour, who glories in the murder of 'Zionists'. Above are some screenshots from his twitter feed
The story of schoolgirl Leanne Mohamad's award-winning anti-Israel speech, full of ignorant lies and blood libels, keeps getting more interesting. I don't normally 'do' twitter but I posted about the story there today and got back a torrent of abuse.

IsraellyCool: Brian Explains Who’s Indigenous

I put this together just before shabbat. It’s a spoken version of Ryan Bellerose’s original Israellycool post “Israel Palestine – Who’s Indigenous”. Let me know what you think.

When my great-uncle liberated a Nazi concentration camp

Published here for the first time, a collection of pictures taken by Jules Helfner, a Brooklyn-born son of Russian immigrants, offer a rare first-person perspective of the march into Germany — the horror, the outrage, some rare moments of pleasure
Seventy years earlier, in April of ’45, the German army was in tatters and retreating before the Allies. American troops approached the city of Weimar in central Germany on April 11 and liberated the first Nazi concentration camp: Buchenwald. Among the skeletal prisoners famously photographed in the grim barracks was future Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel.
But that same day, 40 miles to the north, a US Army detachment entered another, lesser-known camp outside the town of Nordhausen. The Mittelbau-Dora facility used slave labor to build V-2 rockets and worked thousands to death. Among the men of the 104th Infantry Division was a medic from Brooklyn, New York. A 21-year-old American-born son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, Jules Helfner was fluent in German, kept a pistol in his boot, and was armed with a camera.
Together with his handwritten notes, Jules’s unique photographs, published here for the first time, bring to life a Jewish foot soldier’s personal experience in the 104th. They document four months of Helfner’s service after landing in France in late 1944, chronicling the march into Germany, liberation of a Nazi labor camp, and his eventual encounter with fellow Jewish soldiers in the Red Army at the climax of World War II.

'French Jews’ situation worst since 1945'

French Jews are experiencing the most difficult situation they have encountered since the end of World War II, the newly-elected president of France’s umbrella of Jewish communities said.
Francis Kalifat, 64, said Sunday that his first priority as president of CRIF is to fight against the anti-Semitism that he said was responsible for the situation he described.
“The fight against anti-Semitism is our main cause because French Jews are in the most difficult situation they have experience since World War II,” Kalifat said during an interview with Radio J shortly after his unanimous election to succeed Roger Cukierman as president.
Kalifat, who was born in Algeria and is the first Sephardic Jew to hold the position since CRIF’s establishment in 1944, was the only candidate running this election.
His presidency, which will become effective next month, comes at a time of record emigration by Jews from France, partly because of anti-Semitic violence that included hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents annually in recent years, and dozens of physical assaults. Since 2012, attacks on Jewish targets by French Islamists in France and Belgium claimed the lives of 12 people. Last year, roughly 8,000 French Jews left for Israel — the highest number on record for any year, which made France for the second year straight Israel’s largest provider of newcomers.

Anti-Semitism is not the Israeli government’s fault

One of the highlights of the annual report released on Tuesday by State Comptroller Judge Yosef Shapira is the government’s failure to combat the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and other attempts at delegitimizing the Jewish state.
According to Shapira, no significant victories have been won in this battle, because the two ministries charged with waging it – the Foreign Ministry and Strategic Affairs Ministry– have been too busy bickering with each other over purviews and powers to join forces in what should be a common war with a shared goal.
One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at such a critique.
Though it’s healthy to have an independent body monitoring government activities, certain phenomena are so inherent, self-evident and redundant that they’re not worth wasting paper to expose. Two of these can’t be stressed enough.
The first is that democratic governments by their nature are bureaucracies whose biggest claim to fame is inefficiency. This is true in general and of countries like Israel in particular. Though headed by a highly savvy, free-market maven, it continues to operate like a socialist apparatus. And though its citizens have ample evidence at their disposal that private endeavors always get things done better and more cheaply, they still can’t get it through their simultaneously innovative and thick skulls that the government is a necessary pill to swallow, not some doctor who should be capable of curing all ills. This is an irrefutable truth.
Another is that no amount of quality “hasbara” – an untranslatable Hebrew word for public diplomacy, the field of Israel’s making a case for itself in the international arena – can prevent or eliminate anti-Semitism.

Douglas Murray: UK Labour Party Inquiry: Deny, Divert, Cover Up

In the run-up to his election as Labour party leader, Corbyn was often asked about his tendency to hang around with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic hate-preachers and others of a similar ilk. Apart from not quite owning up to his connections to such people, the other technique he employed at this time was to put on a look of extreme affront and say that he had spent his entire life "fighting racism." Whenever the specific question of anti-Semitism was raised, he would say how opposed he was to all forms of racism "including Islamophobia." It has apparently proven impossible for Corbyn to realize the specific nature of anti-Semitism; whenever it has come up, he has used the opportunity to talk not about racial hatred against Jews but what he believes to be an epidemic of hatred towards Muslims.
Leaving aside the obvious fact that Muslims are not a race, there is in any case no evidence whatsoever to support the allegation of Corbyn and others that there is an epidemic of "Islamophobia" in the UK, and specifically no evidence of such an issue in the Conservative party. But this attempt to turn around the narrative was pushed by certain Labour apparatchiks to complain that any and all questioning of the newly elected London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, for his past affiliations with Islamist extremists was not a legitimate line of questioning of the judgement of anyone running for elected office, but instead an "Islamophobic" attack purely motivated by "racism." Even now, Corbyn supporters are trying to distract attention from their own party's very evident problem and turn racism allegations around on the Conservative party. None of which suggests any serious desire to get on top of their problem.
We can already predict what the conclusions of the Chakrabarti Inquiry will be, from the manner in which she has started it. Will she able to explain that the main originator of anti-Semitism in the Labour party today comes from its growing Muslim base? If she does identify that, will she then need to have an inquiry into herself for such flagrant "Islamophobia"? More likely she will find the party entirely blameless. Just a few dozen bad apples, and so on. And even then, we now have a nice demonstration of what will happen if any unpleasant findings do accidentally slip through.
The Labour party has another inquiry: into allegations, reported earlier this month, of anti-Semitism at its Oxford University club. Amazingly enough, while that inquiry (led by Baroness Royall) found "difficulties," it claimed to find no "institutional anti-Semitism." These careful headline facts having been released, the rest of the report was then swiftly supressed on the orders of the Labour party. Only a bland executive summary and some recommendations were made public, evidently leaving even the author of the inquiry "frustrated." So there is the state of the British Labour party in 2016. A party evidently riddled with anti-Semitism from top to bottom, and led by people who want to divert attention from the fact or cover it over entirely. The Labour party has a serious problem, and it is in institutional denial. Things can only get worse.

NY Post blasts liberal Democrats for anti-Israel trend

The editorial then questioned whether the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, would stand up against the anti-Israel trend in her party.
"Maybe not," the editorial said. "She wants to avoid any public convention fights. Indeed, her own committee pick, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), says he sees room in the platform for more avowedly pro-Palestinian language on 'their hope for justice.'
"But even if Hillary does choose to stand up for her own professed commitment to Israel, will the convention delegates follow?"
The editorial went on to lament that the shift among liberal Democrats is occurring just as the Pew poll found increasing support for Israel among all other ideological groups, including moderate and conservative Democrats and all Republicans.
"It's beyond depressing to see liberal Democrats breaking ranks with the rest of America -- and pressing to destroy a seven-decade bipartisan pro-Israel consensus," the editorial concluded.

When the Labour Party Was Zionist

I’m currently reading Bruce Hoffman’s latest book Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle For Israel 1917-47. It’s a great book, one passage seemed to provide an almost incredible juxtaposition to the events of the modern day Corbyn Labour Party;
In December 1917, just weeks after the Balfour Declaration was issued, the [Labour] party had enthusiastically endorsed the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Ten successive party conferences, including the most recent one held in December 1944, had reaffirmed that pledge. That conference in fact had endorsed a geographically and politically expansive pro-Zionist platform that included monetary incentives to persuade Palestine’s Arab population to relocate elsewhere. Such proposals went beyond what even Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency were advocating. The Labour Party had also staunchly opposed the 1939 white paper, which it had previously denounced as both a regrettable “breach of faith” and a “breach of British honour.” Indeed, as the end of the war in Europe neared, its National Executive Committee had called for the gates of Palestine to be opened to the Jewish survivors of Hitler’s death camps. “There is surely neither hope nor meaning in a ‘Jewish National Home,’” a report of the executive’s 1944 meeting had proclaimed, “unless we are prepared to let Jews, if they wish, enter this land in such numbers as to become a majority. There was a strong case for this before the War. There is an irresistible case now, after the unspeakable atrocities of the…Nazi plan to kill all Jews in Europe.”

Suspended UK lawmaker tells synagogue: ‘I was ignorant about Judaism’

Suspended MP Naz Shah has admitted she was “ignorant” about Judaism when she endorsed the relocation of Israel to America and vowed to take personal “responsibility” for talking to fellow Muslims about anti-Semitism.
The MP for Bradford West remains suspended from the party for sharing a post on Facebook that called for the transportation of Israel to America, and adding the words “problem solved”.
But, appearing at Sinai Synagogue in Leeds on Sunday night, she insisted her views had changed since the 2014 post as a result of engaging with the local Jewish community – something she insisted set her apart from her predecessor George Galloway.
“He used Palestine as a political tool and he never engaged with people. When I engaged with the Synagogue and had conversations that is when I changed. Until we have those conversations we won’t achieve change,” she told the audience during her first public appearance at a Jewish event since the controversy erupted.
“It is my job in the Muslim Community to highlight the issues of anti-Semitism. Going to Auschwitz is a fantastic idea but it won’t fix the problem. We need to educate the community. It’s up to me to own the narrative. To have conversations with the Muslim community [about anti-semitism] and that’s my responsibility.”

UK's Co-operative Group - Boycotting Israeli Produce

The UK's Co-operative Group is closely linked to -- and a major funder of -- the Co-operative Party, which has an electoral pact with the Labour Party, the UK's official opposition.
This assumes that those advocating the boycott know exactly where the new borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state will be, despite that they are yet to be determined through negotiation. The enterprises boycotted by the Co-op Group employ many local Arab workers, whose livelihoods are endangered by the boycott.
The Co-op Group continues to refer to Israel's "illegal settlements" as if these were the only disputed territories in the world. There is no boycott, of course, of major exporting countries with appalling human rights records, such as China (invasion of Tibet), Russia (invasion of the Ukraine) and other countries whose occupation of other areas is not recognized internationally, such as Nagorno-Karabakh or Northern Cyprus.
As usual, of all the countries in the world, Israel is being singled out. For the boycotters of the Co-op Group, Israel is the usual soft target.

Barry Shaw: Real Clear Thoughts to Misguided Governments on BDS “free speech.”

BDS activists claim that they are a non-violent protest movement supporting the Palestinian cause.
Non-violent? Here is what Omar Barghouti, the founder of BDS, has said;
“Palestinians have the right of resistance, including armed resistance.”
We Israelis, from our long history of Palestinian “armed resistance” tend to call it “terrorism.” It includes everything from stabbings, shootings, suicide bombings, rocket attacks on our civilians, the killing of our Olympic athletes and, in the past, plane and ship hijackings.
So much for “non- violence.”
Would, I wonder, the Dutch government tolerate the free speech of an organization that called for non-violent protest against some of their policies and then condoned lethal force as part of their campaign? For how long would the Dutch government protect anti-Dutch BDS rights to free speech if they recruited people to their call for the elimination of The Netherlands as part of their protected free speech rights?
As for protected BDS free speech, the Dutch appear to tolerate Barghouti saying, “Most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No rational Palestinian will ever accept a Jewish state.”
Such anti-Semitic remarks have to be protected under Dutch and Swedish law, it seems.

Depravity: Anti-Israel ‘pinkwashing’ group seeks boycott of ‘Tel Aviv Pride’ events

Scheduled from May 25th through June 3rd, Tel Aviv Pride is a week-long series of events that celebrate gay life.
For over nearly two decades, it’s become one of the city’s most popular annual festivals. Tens of thousands of gay Israelis and LGBTQ tourists from around the world enjoy the extravaganza, which seems to get bigger and better each year with new events added and more people taking part.
But for anti-Israel gay activists, Tel Aviv Pride is a means for discrediting the one state in the Middle East which actually treats its gay community with dignity and respect.
Below I highlight the latest campaign to put Tel Aviv Pride Week into service for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions).

In the Case of Gay Gaza Commander Executed for ‘Moral Crimes,’ New York Times Editorialists Are MIA

A brief news article in the New York Times last week reported that Hamas has called for resuming the death penalty in Gaza. According to the report, capital punishment there has “mostly stopped” since 2014, though “an exception was the case of Mahmoud Ishtiwi, a Hamas commander, who was fatally shot in April for ‘moral crimes’ after he was accused of theft and of having sex with another man.”
Good for the Times for reporting on the issue, and for its earlier enterprising page one coverage of the Ishtiwi case. But, one wonders: Where is the follow-up from the Times’ editorial page and columnists?
The appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Israel’s defense minister generated a lead Times editorial denouncing him, in part, because, he “has proposed instituting the death penalty for convicted terrorists.” The Times also ran two op-ed columns hostile to Mr. Lieberman.
So, in the case of an Israeli official who merely proposes executing terrorists, the Times mounted a full-fledged editorial campaign. In the case of the Palestinian Arab regime in Gaza actually carrying out a death sentence on a suspected homosexual, the Times editorial page fell totally silent. And not merely silent.

Poll: A third of Americans back

A new landmark poll has revealed that a full third of Americans believe the BDS movement's boycott of the Jewish state is justified, in a sign of shifting support from the US which has traditionally been a staunch ally of Israel.
A full 33% of Americans called a boycott of Israel justifiable, according to the poll conducted by Ipsos among 1,100 respondents in the US, which was reported by Channel 2.
The poll shows that the intense BDS college campaigns are gaining traction in the wider public consciousness of the US, as well as in the UK.
A similar poll in the UK found that a full 40% back a boycott of Israel, showing hostility to the Jewish state is even higher in Great Britain.
However, in a telling result, 62% of respondents in the US and 50% in the UK said the BDS boycott movement is a form of anti-Semitism.
The findings come ahead of a special conference at the UN on Tuesday entitled "Building Bridges, Not Boycotts," which will be held by Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.

Italy spurns BDS with largest ever academic delegation to Israel

Defying BDS calls for a boycott of Israel, Italy has committed itself to bring the largest ever delegation of Italian academics to Israel.
A series of conferences and events will take place across the country for four days this week. Italian and Israeli researchers will be invited to participate in an exchange of information and ideas in their various fields of interest, from electronic innovations to revolutions in medical technology.
Renewed efforts to counteract BDS activity spurn earlier attempts to cut links with Israeli institutions. Earlier this year, 300 Italian professors and researchers signed a petition to halt academic cooperation with Israel. According to Al Jazeera, 50 Italian universities committed themselves to the boycott, citing a refusal to be complicit in Israel’s “intolerable human rights violations” against the Palestinians as their reason for ceasing academic relations.
The Italian ambassador to Israel told Haaretz that this cooperation is a fitting response to previous attempts to halt academic exchange. According to Italian ambassador Francesco Talo, universities should maintain dialogue and allow for the free exchange of information and ideas.

Edinburgh University BDS vote overturned

The board of trustees of Edinburgh University Student’s Association (EUSA) has refused to enforce the BDS policy passed by the student council earlier this year.
The motion to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) policy was passed on 31 March by 249-153 votes with 22 abstentions, giving a majority of 74.
The Israel Engagement Society (IES) described the motion as "irresponsible" and “intolerant" and welcomed the move, saying that “EUSA’s dropping of the policy follows a precedent set by other universities, recognising the illegality of BDS and the significant risk of increasing intolerance against minority groups on campus that it poses.”
Theo Robertson-Bonds, IES vice-chair, said he was “delighted” by the verdict.
“Singling out and boycotting the world’s only Jewish state is a reckless, divisive policy that does nothing to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he said.
“I am delighted that EUSA’s Trustee Board has taken this issue seriously and ensured our campus remains safe and inclusive for all students by refusing to enact it. IES will continue to work with the university and EUSA to promote peace and discussion around a two-state solution on campus.”

Despite anti-Semitism gaffe, Stanford students oppose BDS

A significant majority of Stanford University students oppose the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement - despite an anti-Semitism and BDS crises that rocked the university student board earlier this year.
69% of students oppose the anti-Israel movement - including 65% of freshmen, 72% of sophomores, and 73% of juniors, the Stanford Review poll of 288 students revealed.
The poll contradicts a high-profile anti-Semitism crisis related to BDS at Stanford - and raises questions about the power of pro-Palestinian groups on campus.
In April, Stanford student senate member Gabriel Knight infamously argued it is “not anti-Semitism” to claim Jews control “the media, economy, government and other social institutions," as well as questioning the reliability of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
After an Arutz Sheva investigation and a media outcry, as well as backlash from the ADL itself, Knight stepped down from his post.

Canadian student assaulted at anti-Israel protest

The anti-Israel protest, which was organized by Actions4Palestine, was made up of a group of less than 30 people who chanted “free free Palestine” while waving Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Communist flags, and signs denouncing Peres, Kissinger, and Israeli “war crimes.”
Jordan Justein told CIJNews that he counter-protested, “because both my grandparents are Holocaust survivors, and as a young person I feel it’s my responsibility to stand up against anti-Semitism and for Israel.”
Upon arriving at the protest with an Israeli flag, a police officer warned him that simply being at the demonstration with the flag could “incite a riot."
However, when Jordan Justein walked to the other side of the street, the Actions4Palestine protesters called him a “Zionist pig," a “Zionist piece of sh*t," a “kike” and a “provocateur”.
Then, a man with a PLO flag kicked him twice in the leg and told him to leave. When Jordan Justein told the police officer about the incident, he was simply told to go and file a report.

New York Times Photo Bias Militarizes Israeli Kids

What exactly is the message of the photo? Well that depends on whether you are familiar with Israeli culture, which most New York Times readers are not.
The most obvious reaction to this photo would be distaste that children are interacting with any kind of weaponry while promoting the portrayal of Israel as a highly militarized society. And what is a “traditional weapons display?” That the photo states its location “near a West Bank settlement” is also meant to add a sinister element to the image.
The reality is that on Independence Day, many IDF bases all over the country are open to the public. Israeli children have the opportunity to see the IDF up close much in the same way as American children are thrilled to see military paraphernalia on board the USS Intrepid docked in Manhattan, New York City.
While the photo may show Israeli girls handling a machine gun, you can guarantee that the weapon is not loaded and these girls are not receiving actual military training. Contrast this with Hamas and Islamic Jihad “summer camps” where Palestinian children actually undergo military training with the intent to murder Israelis. There is no moral equivalence between this and Israelis visiting military bases on Independence Day.
So why did the New York Times choose this particular photo to accompany the story? Unfortunately we probably know the answer.

Radio New Zealand’s Biased Sources

A pair of Radio New Zealand Morning Show segments included incorrect information about Israel and a proposal, now withdrawn, to expand the use of the death penalty against terrorists.
During the first segment, they interviewed journalist Kate Shuttleworth (whose anti-Israel bias we have exposed before) who claimed that Prime Minister Netanyahu:
Supported an Israeli soldier who was filmed shooting a Palestinian attacker in the head while he was already disarmed and lying on the ground.
Netanyahu actually said that the soldier’s actions:
…do not represent the values of the Israeli Defense Forces. The IDF expects its soldiers to act calmly and according to the rules of engagement.
In the second segment, RNZ interviewed Mouin Rabbani with the Institute for Palestine Studies. His main point was that under current law, an Israeli military court must vote unanimously to impose the death penalty and under the proposal, that requirement would be changed to a simple majority. This change, according to Mabbani, would lead to a wide expansion in the use of the death penalty as prosecutors would be expected to “demand” and “implement” capital punishment because of the change.

CDC Map Fail?

The first map clearly shows that there have been reported cases of the disease in Israel. Yet, Israel is not named on the map. While it could be argued that this is not necessarily a map that Israel would want to appear on, it is nonetheless strange.
So we investigated further. The maps are credited to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the public health institute of the US. We located the maps on the CDC website where they are described as:
Cutaneous leishmaniasis prevalence within Syria and neighboring countries of the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean Region, 2013.
It transpires that the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean Region does not include Israel, which is, instead part of the WHO’s European regional office. That could go some way to explaining why Israel is not on the map.
But the trail goes further.
A click on this link takes you to a large map of Syrian refugees produced by the US State Department’s Humanitarian Information Unit. While the map includes Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Yafo, West Bank, Gaza and even “Golan Heights (Israeli occupied),” the map pointedly does not include the word “Israel” on the appropriate country.

Irish Times legitimizes Israel-Nazi analogy

Of course, the suggestion that any legislation in the Knesset resembles early Nazi laws, or that discrimination against Arab-Israelis or Palestinians is akin to the discrimination against Jews “in the first phase of Nazi Germany” is completely ahistorical. Here’s a list of significant antisemitic legislation and acts during the first two years of Nazi rule:
1933
- March 31: Decree of the Berlin city commissioner for health suspends Jewish doctors from the city’s charity services.
- April 1: Nazi leadership stages an economic boycott of German Jews (Thousands of Stars of David were painted on doors and windows by Nazi Stormtroopers with accompanying antisemitic slogans such as, “The Jews Are Our Misfortune.”)
- April 7: Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service removes Jews from government service.
- April 7: Law on the Admission to the Legal Profession forbids the admission of Jews to the bar.
- April 25: Law against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities limits the number of Jewish students in public schools.
- July 14: De-Naturalization Law revokes the citizenship of naturalized Jews and “undesirables.”
- October 4: Law on Editors bans Jews from editorial posts.
1935
- May 21: Army law expels Jewish officers from the army.
- September 15: Nazi leaders announce the Nuremberg Laws, stripping Jews of German citizenship.
Avnery doesn’t provide any examples of the Nazi-like “rain of racist bills” in the Knesset, perhaps because there are none which could even remotely stand up to such a comparison. Merely the fact that some Israelis have made racist statements and proposed racist ideas – as some people do in every democratic society – is not similar to the codification of a system of racial discrimination enforced by despotic regimes.

The New York Times Wistfully Mourns an Anti-Israel Activist

A virulently anti-Israel (Jewish) activist named Hedy Epstein gets a long and respectful obituary in the Sunday New York Times.
The Times doesn’t describe what Jewish Voice for Peace is, but, just for the record, notwithstanding its name, it is a boycott, divestment and sanctions group dedicated to policies that would eradicate Israel as a Jewish state.
The headline on the Times article describes Epstein as a “rights activist.” Whatever “rights” the Times thinks she was active on behalf of, they apparently did not include the right of Israeli Jews to live in peace and security in a Jewish state.
Finally, given the narrative of Epstein emerging as an anti-Israel activist “after” the Sabra and Shatila massacre, a young Times reader unfamiliar with the event might imagine that it had been committed by Israel. In fact, the massacre was perpetrated by a Lebanese Christian militia, and the victims included not only Palestinian Arabs but also Lebanese, Pakistanis, Iranians, Syrians and Algerians. The logic of someone emerging as an anti-Israel activist following it is only just marginally more than someone deciding to take up against Israel after the Boston, My Lai or Tiananmen Square massacres.

Israeli’s Ohio restaurant closes doors in aftermath of machete attack

Hany Baransi, the Christian Israeli Arab whose Columbus, Ohio, restaurant was attacked in February by a machete-wielding assailant, has announced he will soon file for bankruptcy and close his restaurant.
Only months ago, Baransi triumphantly reopened the Nazareth Restaurant & Deli, wielding his signature baseball in front of Israeli flags, only weeks after the attack by Mohamed Bary, a West African Muslim with a history of making radical Islamist statements.
The news was shared by Baransi on his Facebook page and came as a surprise to many who had followed his story.
Four people were injured in the attack, one seriously. All have since recovered.
Baransi blamed his financial woes on not receiving any compensation from local, state or federal governments following the attack. He said he personally footed the bill for the expensive cleanup.

Holocaust monuments vandalized in Poland, Italy

Newly-erected Holocaust monuments in Poland and Italy were vandalized by individuals who wrote on them far-right and far-left slogans, respectively.
The Polish monument, which was unveiled in 2014 in the country’s northeast, was hit for the second time in a little over a year by unidentified culprits who broke off part of its surface and spray-painted expletives and a neo-Nazi symbol on what remained. In Italy, the assailants wrote “Burn the banks” on a Holocaust monument that was erected in February.
The Italian monument vandalized was the Shoah Memorial of Bologna, 190 miles northwest of Rome, that was inaugurated at a central square in February. “Extinguish your mortgage, burn your banks,” the culprits wrote on one of the monument’s walls. They added an Anarchist symbol to the graffiti. Police was handling the case as a possible hate crime, the Corriere di Bologna daily reported Thursday.
In Poland, the monument’s stone tablet, which resembles a headstone, was shattered where it used to feature a Start of David etching according to Radio Bialystok, which reported that the attack occurred in recent days in Raigrod and was discovered Friday.
The assailants spray painted in red offensive slogans and Odin’s Cross – a White supremacist version of the Celtic Cross, which consists of a square cross interlocking with or surrounded by a circle.

Leviathan partners sign $3b gas deal

Leviathan will supply 13 BCM over 18 years to the IPM power plant in Be'er Tuvia.
The partners in the Leviathan natural gas reservoir today announced the signing of a gas supply agreement with the IPM company in Be'er Tuvia. The partnership will supply 13 BCM of gas to the power station slated for construction in the Be'er Tuvia industrial zone. The value of the 18-year agreement is estimated at $3 billion. The contract is the second for the partners, following a contract with Edeltech, owned by the Edelsberg family, last January.
The IPM power station is controlled by Triple M and Israel Power Management 3000. It is designed for construction on a 62-dunam (15.5-acre) site, and will produce 430 megawatts of electricity using combined cycle power technology (natural gas as the main fuel and diesel oil as a backup).
The government approved the revised natural gas plan only a few days ago, with the omission of the commitment to refrain from changing anything in the gas sector for the next 10 years. The gas companies assert that the approval of the plan enabled them to sign the agreement with IPM. Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL) added that the agreement shows its continued commitment to developing Leviathan and the natural gas industry in Israel.

Actor Alan Cumming gets Tel Aviv Gay Pride envoy nod

If you were a viewer of “The Good Wife,” then you have more than a passing familiarity with Scottish actor Alan Cumming, who plays Jewish chief of staff and conniving fixer Eli Gold on the award-winning show.
What you may not have known is that Cumming, a bisexual who married his long-time partner, Grant Shaffer, in New York in 2012, is an ambassador for this week’s Tel Aviv Gay Pride parade, and is currently romping around the country’s sites and posting selfies on Twitter as he traipses around Jerusalem’s Old City.
Cumming is taking part in TLV Fest, Tel Aviv’s LGBT Film Festival, held for the 11th year at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque from May 29 to June 7 and presenting dozens of films about the LGBT experience that have been screened at other film festivals worldwide.
He will receive an award at the festival, and will take part in a broader conversation held on June 2, at 8 p.m.
Cumming, a Scot by birth who is a naturalized American citizen, was a recurring character in season two of Lisa Kudrow’s web series “Web Therapy,” playing a possible love interest for Kudrow’s character.

Christian-Jewish Group Brings 26 African-American Christian Leaders to Israel

The visiting delegation is from the National Baptist Convention of America, a predominately black church. Yael Eckstein, senior vice president of The Fellowship, said the trip is part of an effort to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and to “build strategic friends and allies for the Jewish people both financially and politically.”
“Just seeing the country and experiencing [it] is something which can build a greater connection with Israel,” she said.
Rev. Samuel C. Tolbert Jr.—president of the National Baptist Convention of America—said he hoped to use the trip to help find “common ground” between Palestinians and Israelis.
“How do we hear what the Palestinians say, how do we hear what the Jews say, how can we partner with them both and help find the common ground to help them live in more peaceable society?” Tolbert said, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Restoration work starts at Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre shrine

A major restoration project has begun at the shrine inside Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus is said to have been buried before his resurrection.
An AFP photographer visiting the church on Sunday saw scaffolding going up around the grotto tomb site and workers welding steel supports.
Church officials had said in March that work was to be carried out by a team of Greek specialists.
They said the project was expected to be completed in early 2017 and that the site would remain open to visitors in the meantime.
The shrine, several meters tall and wide and standing under the church’s dome, has for decades been held together by a metal frame.

Teacher sent to Nepal after quake named outstanding reservist

One of the 45 IDF reservists to be cited Monday for outstanding service is Tom Shay, 32, a civic teacher from Tel Aviv.
Shay performs her reserve duty with the National Search and Rescue Unit in the IDF Homefront Command, and will receive a certificate of merit from IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot for her actions last year when she was dispatched to Nepal following the devastating earthquake that struck the Himalayan country.
When she arrived in Nepal, Shay realized that 180 Israelis in the country were unreachable. She set up an emergency situation room and within 24 hours had contacted all of them. Meanwhile, other Israeli workers set out to search for Or Asraf, a backpacker from Lehavim, whose body was eventually located.
Shay is calm about her distinction.
"I'm still not clear why I'm being cited for excellence," she said. "We're all deserving of the citation. It was a team effort."

IDF Blog: Serving Together in the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion

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Oakham Castle reopens after major restoration project

I went over to Oakham today for the official reopening of its castle after a £2m restoration project.

The castle grounds and town centre were en fête with more or less Norman attractions.

There is a report on BBC News:

Oakham Castle, in Rutland, has been closed since September to allow for the restoration of the Great Hall and cleaning of the 230 commemorative horseshoes inside. 

The ancient defensive walls have also been revealed for the first time in 150 years. 

It is one of the oldest surviving secular buildings in the country. 

Oakham Castle, which dates back to 1180, was built as a manor house and was later heavily fortified with walls, a moat and a drawbridge but by the 16th Century most of the castle was a ruin.

If you want to know more about the archaeology of the site, there is a helpful episode of Time Team.

To an  occasional visitor like me, the revelation of the walls around the site is striking.

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Syria pauses from murdering thousands to complain about how Israel treats Golan residents

From Syria's submission to the World Health Organization:

HEALTH CONDITIONS OF SYRIAN CITIZENS IN THE OCCUPIED SYRIAN GOLAN

1. The health conditions of the Syrian population in the occupied Golan continue to deteriorate markedly as a result of the Israeli occupation and its repressive practices. Syrians refusing an Israeli identity card are unable to obtain medical treatment and primary and secondary health care services are non-existent, because there are no integrated health centres in the occupied Syrian Golan.

2. Syrians held in Israeli occupation prisons also suffer inhumane conditions and are subjected to the most brutal forms of torture and ill-treatment in attempts to extract from them confessions to acts that they did not commit. They are consequently prone to a host of serious illnesses and permanent disabilities, as well as to other life-threatening injuries and diseases.

3. The Israeli occupation authorities continue to experiment on Syrian and Arab prisoners with medicines and drugs and to inject them with pathogenic viruses, causing them to develop diseases and medical conditions that are potentially fatal, as in the case of prisoner Hayil Abu Zaid.

4. We also draw WHO’s attention, on the occasion of the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly, to the fact that the Israeli occupation authorities continue to bury nuclear waste in over 20 sites and have dumped 1500 barrels of radioactive and toxic materials in secret landfills in the territory of the occupied Syrian Golan. They also persist in planting nuclear mines and radioactive materials on the ceasefire line. These actions are in themselves crimes contrary to all international humanitarian customary law and instruments, constituting in addition a flagrant aggression against the Syrian people living under occupation.

All of this is fiction, of course.

But perhaps the funniest part comes later, where Syria complains to the World Health Organization about Israel saving Syrian lives:

8. The Israeli occupation authorities continue to set up field hospitals providing medical treatment for armed terrorists from Jabhah al-Nusrah and groups associated with it who, pursued by the competent Syrian authorities, flee to the territory of the occupied Syrian Golan. The Israeli occupation authorities then return them to the Syrian Arab Republic so that they can resume their subversive terrorist activities directed against the country’s peaceful citizens and its infrastructure.

Here's one of those armed terrorists, playing with a remote controlled car at Israel's Ziv Hospital:

There is a long history of people making up stories to WHO about how awful Israel is. Here is what the Albanian representative had to say in 1973:

Mr HYSENAJ (Albania) said that it was well known that the health of the Arab population of the occupied territories had grown worse as a result of inadequate medical services and personnel. The very serious economic situation of the Arab population in the area, and its deprivation of all national, political and social rights, had increased the number of sick in the population and mortality among children, and had made the future uncertain for them. The Israeli Zionists, pursuing their aims to create a Greater Israel at the expense of the Arab countries, was carrying out a policy of mass extermination of the Arab population, by creating extremely difficult living and housing conditions, turning the people out of their homes, pillaging, and stepping up arrests, imprisonment, and torture. The deterioration in the health of the Arab population of the occupied areas was a direct consequence of the imperialist Israeli aggression of June 1967 against the three Arab States. As long as that aggression continued, the serious health problem of the Arab population of those areas would not improve. 

The Israelis have got to be the worst practitioners of mass extermination ever. (For those interested, here is a WHO report from Israel on how much Arab health services improved from 1967 to 1980.)

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

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.@UNRWA students say they are taught to hate Jews

From David Bedein:



But they are no doubt Zionist shills being tortured into saying these things. Or bribed. Or something. Because the idea that generations of kids are being taught to support killing Jews couldn't possibly have anything to do with their education.

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05/30 Links Pt1: UNRWA head, 1953: Arab leaders care not if refugees live or die; The Palestine Hoax

From Ian:

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The Palestine Hoax

150 years ago, Mark Twain visited Muslim-occupied Israel and wrote of “unpeopled deserts” and “mounds of barrenness”, of “forlorn” and “untenanted” cities.
Palestine is “desolate”, he concluded. “One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings.” The same is true of the Palestinian Museum which opened with much fanfare and one slight problem. While admission is free, there’s nothing inside for any of the visitors to see except the bare walls.
The Palestinian Museum had been in the works since 1998, but has no exhibits. The museum cost $24 million. All it has to show for it are a few low sloping sandy buildings indistinguishable from the dirt and a “garden” of scraggly bushes and shrubs. The Palestinian Museum is open, but there’s nothing inside.
It’s hard to think of a better metaphor for Palestine than a bunch of empty buildings designed by Irish and Chinese architects whose non-existent exhibits were the brainchild of its former Armenian-American director. It’s as Palestinian as bagels and cream cheese. Or skiing, hot cocoa and fjords.
Over the Palestinian Museum flies the proud flag of Palestine, which was originally the flag of the Iraqi-Jordanian Federation before the PLO “borrowed” it, and visitors might be greeted by the Palestinian anthem composed by Greek Communist Mikis Theodorakis. If it sounds anything like the soundtrack from Zorba the Greek, that’s because they both share the same composer.

Palestinian Arab aspirations in 1948 have not changed

As the British began to dismantle their Mandate [The British Mandate] and leave western Palestine, Israel's War of Independence began (November 30, 1947‑ May 14, 1948). During the war, Palestinian Arabs became belligerents in the conflict, and by its end, rather than accept a Jewish state after five-and-a-half months of warfare, Palestinian Arabs called upon their brethren from seven surrounding countries to invade and crush the nascent Jewish state. Six thousand Jews - 1 percent of Israel's Jewish population - lost their lives during the War of Independence.
The Arab League's April 10, 1948 decision to invade Israel and "save Palestine," marked a watershed event, for it changed the rules of the conflict. Accordingly, Israel bears no moral responsibility for deliberately banishing Palestinian Arabs in order to "consolidate defense arrangements" in strategic areas. With the pending invasion following Israel's declaration of independence, it is no exaggeration to say that the new Jewish state's very existence hung in the balance.
Palestinian Arabs represented one side in the conflict - the side responsible for starting the war.
The new Jewish state found it imperative to eliminate all potential pockets of Arab resistance in key areas if it was to survive. Dislodging all Arab inhabitants from sensitive areas in proximity to Jewish settlements, establishing territorial continuity between blocs under Jewish control, and ensuring control of key transportation arteries were military necessities. As May 14th approached, Israel could not afford to risk a Fifth Column at its rear to add to all other aspects of its militarily inferior situation.
The cost of defeat was hammered home by a stream of dire warnings from Arab capitals, with perhaps the most chilling for Israel coming from Jamal Al-Husayni as vice-chairman of the Arab Higher Committee [AHC], who publicly declared:
"The Arabs have taken into their own hands, the Final Solution of the Jewish problem. The problem will be solved only in blood and fire. The Jews will be driven out."

UNRWA head, 1953: Arab leaders care not if refugees live or die

Ex-Israeli ambassador in the U.S. Yoram Ettinger has compiled a list of sound bites that succinctly explain the background of the "Palestinian refugees."
One of the Palestinian Authority's perpetual demands whenever talk of negotiations with Israel comes up is that the "Palestinian refugees" from 1948 be allowed to return to their former homes inside Israel. Israel has never accepted this demand in any form, because of the obvious consequences of millions of Arabs flooding the country.
Yoram Ettinger, an expert on demographics and Israel-American relations, explains that the PA's demand is totally groundless, on a number of counts. Excerpts from the list are provided here – enough to give an accurate picture of why the "refugees" issue is actually a non-starter:
Since the end of World War II, there have been over 100 million refugees from various countries and conflicts in Europe, Asia and Africa. Nearly all of them have been integrated into their host countries. The main exception is the Palestinian Arab refugees: The Arab countries never accepted any plan, even for good money, to integrate their brother refugees into their countries.
In 1952, the United Nations proposed a three-year, $200 million plan to integrate Arab refugees into their host countries. Jordan was the only Arab country to accept it, the plan never got off the ground, and the words of the then-Secretary General never came true: "The refugees will lead an independent life in the countries which shelter them…. The refugees will no longer be maintained by an international organization….”
Gen. Alexander Galloway, director of UNRWA in Jordan, said this at a May 25, 1953 hearing of the Near East Senate Subcommittee: “The Arabs states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”

UNRWA facing refugee protests, closings, and rumors

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness made sure to release this announcement at the end of last week: "Several media outlets have reported that UNRWA intends to close its headquarters in Gaza. These reports are false. UNRWA HQ Gaza is not closing. The Agency affirms categorically that there are no plans to do so and staff are not being let go."
Puzzlingly, the panicky announcement seemed to have been circulated even more widely than the alleged reports of the UNRWA closure. In any event, Gunness took the opportunity to state that "UNRWA is fully committed to maintaining its presence in the Gaza Strip, which … is vital to serving and protecting the Palestine refugees, who make up two thirds of the population of Gaza."
He did not explain how it happened that this number is so high. After all, UNRWA was tasked upon its forming in 1949, inter alia, with helping the refugees "achieve their full human development potential, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight." Nothing, however, has been done by UNRWA or by the Arab countries that brought about the refugee problem in 1948-9, to help them reach a "just and lasting solution."
In fact, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution in 1985 rejecting all efforts to require UNRWA to help Arab refugees engage in steps towards resettlement and rehabilitation.
In this connection, the late Joan Peters, author of "From Time Immemorial," said in 2014 (quoted by researcher David Bedein):
"UNRWA has been perpetrating fraud against the Jewish nation and against the world since they became the only 'refugee' organ solely dedicated to one group of the world's refugees. The Arab refugees who really ran or were displaced during Israel's War of Independence, were a small group when compared to the world's hundreds of millions displaced during wars and strife. The Arabs were also a much smaller actual number than the Jewish Arab-born refugees forced to flee from Arab countries. But the Arabs were counted over and over, going back and forth from the refugee camps. As American congressmen have attested, fraud was committed constantly, aided by the almost totally-Arab staff in the UNRWA employ."

Vic Rosenthal: Lessons from the schoolyard

My opponent was a bully and there would be other fights. The correct strategy would have been to teach him a lesson he would not forget. What was I afraid of? I was already fighting.
Israel’s situation is not exactly parallel, but it’s close. We aren’t afraid of our enemies, but we hold back because we don’t want to make our allies mad.
In the very early morning hours of October 6, 1973 when, after a disastrous string of intelligence failures, it became clear that war with Egypt and Syria was about to break out, Golda Meir finally authorized calling up the reserves. She considered a preemptive strike as well, but decided against it:
In recounting the events of the morning of October 6, Meir told the [Agranat] commission that her “heart was very much drawn to” a preemptive strike, “but I am scared.” In both the cabinet meeting on the morning of Yom Kippur and in previous meetings with Dayan and chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. David Elazar, she testified to having said: “1973 is not 1967, and this time we will not be forgiven, and we will not receive assistance when we have the need for it.”
Had Israel fired the first shot of the war, Meir testified, the US would have claimed “you started” and, based on her knowledge of the Pentagon, she continued, “I can say with 100 percent (certainty)” that the airlift of arms and supplies would not have been delivered.
Meir was deterred by Kissinger’s warnings not to preempt. But in any event, the US did not begin to airlift supplies to Israel until Israel’s Ambassador Simcha Dinitz hinted on October 9 that if things got any worse, Israel would be forced to use nuclear weapons.

MEMRI: Saudi Cleric Awadh Al-Qarni: Hitler Wanted to Solve the "Jewish Question" by Gas Chambers, the West by Sending them to Palestine

Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia) - April 22,
In a recent TV interview, Saudi cleric Sheikh Awadh Al-Qarni said that while Hitler wanted to get rid of the Jews by means of the gas chambers, Britain and the Western elites wanted to get rid of them by sending them to Palestine. In the interview, which aired on the Saudi Al-Majd TV channel on April 22, Al-Qarni further said that despite warnings by George Washington, the Jews had taken economic control of the U.S., "thus subjugating the American people." Any peace agreement signed with the Jews would, said Al-Qarni, be "null and void," according to Islamic law.
Following are excerpts
Awadh Al-Qarni: They came driving tanks, greeting us with their mortar launchers, and hugging us with their bullets. They greet you with a "shalom," but their smile conveys death.
Peace [with the Jews] must never be a permanent one. As I've said in the past, if any Arab ruler signed a peace accord with Israel, this agreement would be worthless according to Islamic law, and the [Arab] peoples would not accept it. The Crusader wars serve as proof that the peoples would not accept this. All those who signed peace agreements with the Crusaders have disappeared, and their agreement disappeared along with them. We have a lot of proof of this. If you carry out a public opinion poll - and I have done several - you will see the results for yourself. Over 90%...

Palestinian-American activist accuses Israel and US of shared legacy of ethnic cleansing

A Palestinian-American activist asserted earlier this month that the United States and Israel share a common legacy of ethnic cleansing as the foundational basis of the two nations in a video posted to the online news outlet The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
In the clip Osama Abu Irshaid, the National Director of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), claims that the "Zionists" have co-opted the "racist" narrative of the founding of America to mirror that of the establishment of the State of Israel in order to convince Americans that the two peoples have a similar history.
"We came to two undeveloped countries, and managed to establish two successful states," Irshaid quoted in his perception of the imagined dialogue between Zionists "infiltrating American consciousness" and the American public.
He discredits this narrative by emphasizing the analogous relationship between the American ethnic cleansing of the Native Americans and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel.
Irshaid continued to attribute American sympathies with Israel to the purported Jewish control of American media and Hollywood.

Arabs Using Christians to Fight Israel

The Middle East has been inhabited by Jews and then Christians for nearly three thousand years; until the seventh century, Muslims did not even exist.
Many Christians in Arab countries and in Palestinian Authority (PA), without a state or anyone else to support them, are still behaving as dhimmis, paying lip service to Muslim Arab "lords" in exchange for protection in their original homelands.
The Palestinians plan activities, pay salaries and fund anti-Israeli Christian dhimmi organizations, in order to make Western Christians believe in the "Palestinian cause" -- by which they mean the establishment of another Arab-Islamic dictatorship state with no human rights in it.
Coexistence is not the issue for Christians here, but rather fear for their own existence -- based on the ruthless lack of freedom under the PA, as in all Arab states.

Is the new Jordanian PM Israel's new friend in the Middle East?

As security coordination between Jordan and Israel tightens, a rapprochement between the nations may now appear to be extending into the the political sphere.
On Sunday, Jordanian King Abdullah dissolved the parliament and appointed Hani al-Mulki, a veteran politician who played a major role in the Kingdom's peace negotiations with Israel, as the country's new prime minister in place of Abdullah Ensour, who resigned earlier this month.
Since the King announced the appointment, Jordanian media has referred to Mulki as "the head of normalization with Israel."
Mulki is a veteran Jordanian diplomat and headed the country's delegation to peace negotiations with Israel in 1994.
Subsequently, as Jordan's foreign minister, he met with a long list of senior Israeli politicians. In 2005, he held talks with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his deputy at the time, Ehud Olmert.
When he was Minister of Water and Irrigation, Mulki was an ardent supporter of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal - a joint Israeli-Jordanian economic project - which strove to channel water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to replenish its dwindling water supply. According to diplomatic sources, Mulki was responsible for reviving the project in 2005.

Republicans join Democrats in anger at AIPAC

Congressional Democrats are still nursing wounds from last year’s fight over the nuclear deal with Iran, which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee aggressively opposed. But in a shift, Republicans are now the ones expressing dissatisfaction with the lobby.
Top GOP lawmakers are questioning its will to wage small legislative battles for Israel after suffering such a consequential and public loss last summer.
Aides to Republican leadership on Capitol Hill tell The Jerusalem Post of widespread disappointment in the lobby over the last several months, which the politicos view as dragging its feet on anything unrelated to its new, central concern: renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act, a move that the Obama administration has yet to oppose or endorse.
The law has been in place throughout implementation of the nuclear accord. The White House has not said whether renewal of the law would be a technical or spiritual violation of the agreement, or conversely, whether it would bolster the administration’s ability to enforce it.
The nuclear deal does not allow the US to pass any new nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, but it remains unclear whether renewal of existing law – and the continuation of executive orders waving enforcement of parts of that law – amounts to passage of new sanctions, or simply to renewal of an existing infrastructure of sanctions mechanisms.

Housing minister: Government policy not to build in West Bank

Housing Minister Yoav Galant (Kulanu) reportedly told US Jewish leaders last week that the official Israeli government policy was not to build in the West Bank.
Galant’s comments represented a break with the right-wing government’s support for Israeli settlement in the West Bank, though he admitted that building was ongoing under the aegis of other government ministries.
“Basically – I am following the policy of the government and it is that we are not building in Judea and Samaria. But I am not the only one with the ability to build,” Galant said, according to Haaretz. “There are private people and other segments of the government that work according to different ministers.”
Speaking in a closed meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Galant said the Israeli government was complying with its agreements reached with the Bush administration, under which Jerusalem may build within the settlement blocs. The Obama administration has denied any such agreements between Washington and Jerusalem exist.

Ayelet Shaked: Israel is the tip of the spear in war on terror

After six years of grueling negotiations, the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Monday passed a major new bill on terrorism in its second and third readings.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked on Monday praised the committee’s vote saying Israel is "the tip of the spear in the war on terror" and that the vote was a “important step toward making participating in terror unprofitable.”
The bill, which the committee has been debating intensely since the fall, but dates back to 2010, now goes to the full Knesset where it is expected to pass, possibly even next week, along with support from the opposition.
The legislation, which creates a catalog of new offenses to match up with “the modern challenges of terrorism,” passed by a vote of 10-2 with members of the opposition supporting the bill after having opposed earlier versions of the bill.
Former justice minister and opposition MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) praised the bill, stating it would “give new and better tools to Israel to fight terror” and Committee Chairman Nissan Slomiansky said it struck the right balance between strengthening tools for fighting terror and human rights.

East Jerusalem teens nabbed in stabbing of elderly women

The Israel Police and Shin Bet security service arrested three underage East Jerusalem residents in connection with a stabbing attack earlier this month, in which two elderly Jewish women, one of them a Holocaust survivor, were moderately injured, officials said Monday.
On May 10, a group of five elderly Israelis were walking along the Armon Hanatziv promenade in the capital — in an area of the park known as the Peace Forest — when two Arab teenagers wearing masks pulled out knives and the “wooden handle of an ax” and attacked two of the women before fleeing the scene, police said.
The victims, aged 82 and 86, were hospitalized in moderate condition.
According to police, the attack was premeditated, and the suspects had discussed it “while they were at school through social media, specifically Facebook.”
The three suspects are all 16 to 17 years old and are residents of the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood of East Jerusalem, police said. Due to their young age, their identities will not be made public.
Two of them are accused of carrying out the assault, while the third is believed to have conspired with them and planned to “carry out the stabbing attack if the other two died,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Palestinians Mull Plans For When No Holocaust Survivors Left To Stab (satire)

Two teenage suspects in the stabbing attack on several Holocaust survivors two weeks ago were arrested today, reigniting the question in Palestinian society as to what offensive strategy to adopt once the survivors die out of old age and there are none left to stab.
The suspects allegedly attacked a group of elderly women at a promenade overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, injuring two. Whether or not the suspects in question are indicted or brought to trial, the prospect of having no more Holocaust survivors to stab or otherwise attack has Palestinian strategists and thinkers debating what approach to take once the last survivor perishes. Bir Zeit University in Ramallah is scheduled to hold a conference next week on the subject.
In a rare show of unity, the conference is expected to bring together representatives of various Palestinian factions bitterly, often violently, opposed to each other, such as Hamas and Fatah. However, the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors to stab has prompted even those quarreling groups to set aside their differences, however temporarily, to address the developing crisis.
“We can expand our resistance operations beyond the region, targeting the enemy in other places, but that will prove a short-lived solution, so to speak,” explained Aiwil Killajous, who will represent Hamas at the conference. “Violent power struggles are one thing, and a natural part of Palestinian politics, but some things are more important. We really must develop a coherent approach to this problem, because it’s not going to go away. I mean, it will, and that’s the problem, but – you know what I mean.”

Prosecutors finally settle on nationalistic motivation, day after police say no evidence of it; court orders Palestinian suspect held until Thursday

Police twice changed a charge sheet for a Palestinian suspect in the rape of a disabled Israeli woman, finally settling on a racism motive, during a roller coaster court hearing in the politically fraught case Monday.
The confused court proceedings came a day after police said the gang rape of a disabled Jewish woman by three people — a Palestinian man and teenager and an Israeli man — was likely not a nationalistically motivated attack. The two Palestinians were arrested last week while the Israeli man remains at large.
A charge sheet presented to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court initially included the racism clause and a request to keep Imad Aldin Draghmah detained for eight more days.
However, a police representative first asked for the racism charge to be removed, and then shortly afterwards, to be included again, citing the ongoing police search for the third suspect.
The court ordered that Draghmah remain in custody until Thursday.

Israeli Mother Injured in Palestinian Rock Attack Calls Survival of Babies in Car ‘Bloody Miracle;’ Says She Wouldn’t Have Fired Her Weapon (INTERVIEW)

A 31-year-old Israeli mother-of-four who was lightly injured in a terrorist attack on Sunday told The Algemeiner that her survival — and that of her year-and-a-half-old daughter, sister Miri, and newborn niece — was “a bloody miracle.”
Aviva Yisraeli, a resident of the Judean settlement of Tekoa in Gush Etzion, recounted the horror of riding in Miri’s car, with their babies in tow, and watching a huge rock smash into the windshield.
Yisraeli – whose family immigrated to Israel from Canada when she was a young girl — described returning from the branch of the Tipat Halav baby wellness clinic in nearby Efrat, when an 18-year-old male Palestinian suddenly emerged from behind one of the cement security barriers along the road and hurled what she called a “boulder” head-on at their car.
“Glass was everywhere. The rear-view mirror flew off and hit me in the shoulder,” she said. “Miri, who was driving, yelled, ‘What do I do, what do I do?’ And I told her to keep going, until we could reach a manned lookout post. That’s what she did – thank God she didn’t lose control of the car — and when we got there, we called the IDF.”
Yisraeli, 31, said that though she owns a gun, it was not with her at the time, because she had been at her sister’s house, before the two set out with the children, and she had left her weapon at home.

Video: Terror in a Supermarket, and an 8 Year Old Survivor: Real People Real Stories Part 3

Miri tells the story of a terror stabbing in a supermarket as witnessed by her 8 year old niece. When people say, “just a stabbing” or terror as “Palestinian resistance” this is what we’re really talking about. This is how it impacts the lives of innocent people.

Israeli flag stirs up controversy in Arab beach soccer tournament in Egypt

Inter-Arab conflicts continue to involve Israel, particularly amid the growing trend of Arab countries seeking to keep Israel out of sports competitions.
Last week, Israel indirectly stirred up controversy during the opening ceremony of a beach soccer tournament in Egypt after the Israeli flag was featured in a documentary film presenting the upcoming tournament.
Eight Arab national teams have been participating in the tournament taking place in the city of Sharm El Sheikh since Friday.
Several Arab delegations strongly denounced the appearance of Israel's flag in the short documentary, stating that "the flag is not relevant to the tournament or to the activities related to it."
In protest of the incident, the Omani delegation left the event's press conference, alleging that "there is no reason to mention the name of the Zionist state during in Arab competition."

Hezbollah deputy: No war this summer 'unless Israel chooses'

"There are no signs that Israel is preparing for a new assault on Lebanon, but if she chooses to do so, she will find that Hezbollah is at maximum readiness", said the Lebanese terror organization's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem, at a ceremony in the south of the country on Sunday.
In his speech, Qassem said that while over the summer the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen are set to continue, he does not expect to see a war on Lebanese soil. He credited Hezbollah's role in Israel's withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000, saying that the group's "victory" will ultimately bring about Israel's downfall.
"Divine victory in May 2000 ended the era of Israeli expansion," said Qassem. "Israel is not able to behave as it could before, since she has learned a lesson and began an era of decline. So, we have the right to look to the future and say that Israel will disappear."
Qassem added: "We did not defeat Israel because of the rifle, but because we have educated our children against the international takfiris (apostates). God gives us victory because of their faith, and today we are honored with the land, thanks to this belief."

Israel intercepts communication equipment en route to Gaza terror groups

Dozens of packages containing drone parts and other communications equipment en route to terror cells operating inside the Gaza Strip were intercepted by Israeli security forces in recent weeks, the Defense Ministry said Monday.
The packages, which were shipped through the Israeli postal service, contained disassembled drones, rifle scopes, radio receivers, cellphone signal boosters and video transmitters, a statement from the ministry said.
Some of the equipment, including the 5.8 GHz video transmitters confiscated at the border crossing earlier on Monday morning — are banned for private use both in Israel and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank.
According to the statement, a joint operation by border authorities, police, the Shin Bet security agency, and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories intercepted the packages at the Erez border crossing at the Gaza-Israel border over the past several weeks.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Iran is an artificial country

Iran is an artificial country which includes a large number of ethnic groups: Persians, Azars, Kurds, Turkmen, Baloch, Arabs and more. The largest group, the Persians, is also the most dominant and makes up 60% of the population. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is Azari.
Southwestern Iran, the Khuzistan region, is home to the Arab minority group, but that is where most of the oil and gas resources are to be found underground, right under the feet of that Arab minority. They are Shiites, exactly like the majority Persians, but are treated with disdain by the government. In the past, the region was called Arabistan to allude to the ethnic group living there, but after the 1925 Persian Conquest, the Persians changed its name to Khuzistan in an attempt to hide its Arab character. Today it is called Ahwaz, the name of its capital city.
The area's size is over 60,000 sq. kilometers, three times the size of the State of Israel, but its population, numbering 4.5 million, is half that of Israel. Although most of Iran's gas and oil reserves are in the region, most of the Arab population gets nothing out of it, and probably even suffers from it.

Iran’s Holocaust denial is part of a malevolent strategy

The Islamic Republic of Iran held another Holocaust cartoon festival this month, inviting the usual despicable cast of characters. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif assured the New Yorker that although the event would proceed, Iran would ensure that the “people who have preached racial hatred and violence will not be invited.” Evidently, Zarif believes there are Holocaust deniers who do not harbor “racial hatred.”
As Iranian President Hassan Rouhani once remarked to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the Holocaust — the question of whether it happened and the dimensions of the slaughter — is really “a matter for historians and researchers to illuminate.” Crimes against humanity are bad, Rouhani averred, as he quickly glided over the Nazis’ anti-Jewish malevolence to similar crimes committed today, leaving no doubt for a Middle Eastern audience that he was talking about Israel. Among Iran’s ruling elite, Holocaust denial and the accompanying conspiracies about Jewish power are omnipresent and diverse, but they all have strategic intent. Anti-Semitism is not only central to the regime’s identity; it’s also inextricably tied to its soft-power propaganda aimed at the larger Muslim world, especially Arabs.
Anti-Semitism was part of Iran’s inception. The revolution’s father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spent much of his life indulging it. In Khomeini’s rendition, the Jews, always untrustworthy in Islamic history, are surrogates of Western imperialism who have displaced Palestinian Muslims and even distorted Islam’s scriptural texts. Khomeini’s hatred toward Israel exceeded even his disdain for America. The United States was a pernicious, seductive imperial power. But it was America’s conduct, not its existence, that the mullahs contested. Israel, on the other hand, was for Khomeini an unlawful entity, irrespective of its actual policies and behavior. No peace compact or negotiated settlement with the aggrieved Palestinians could ameliorate this essential illegitimacy. Israel must be wiped off the map.

As citizens set to miss hajj, Iran says Saudi Arabia ‘blocking path to Allah’

Iran said Sunday its pilgrims will miss the pilgrimage this year because Saudi Arabia, custodian of Islam’s holiest sites, was raising obstacles and “blocking the path to Allah” for its faithful.
The Iranian Hajj Organization said: “Saudi Arabia is opposing the absolute right of Iranians to go on the hajj and is blocking the path leading to Allah.”
The Saudi side had failed to respond to Iranian demands over “the security and respect” of its pilgrims to Mecca, of whom 60,000 took part in last year’s hajj, the organization said.
In the latest dispute between regional rivals Tehran and Riyadh, “after two series of negotiations without any results because of obstacles raised by the Saudis, Iranian pilgrims will unfortunately not be able to take part in the hajj” in September, Iran’s Culture Minister Ali Jannati said.
Saudi officials have said an Iranian delegation wrapped up a visit to the kingdom on Friday without reaching a final agreement on arrangements for pilgrims from the Islamic republic.

Iran demands social media sites deliver data on its citizens

Iran has set a one-year deadline for foreign social media to hand over data on their Iranian users, state news agency IRNA said Sunday.
It said the decision was taken on Saturday at a meeting of an Iranian committee on the use of cyberspace headed by President Hassan Rouhani that serves as an IT regulator.
“Foreign social media active in the country must transfer to Iran all the data they hold on Iranian citizens” within a year, IRNA said.
The measure will affect, in particular, Telegram, an instant messaging app with more than 20 million users in the Islamic Republic, a country of 80 million people.
IRNA said the committee had also decided to work to develop homegrown social media to compete with foreign networks.
Authorities in Iran, where Facebook and Twitter are officially banned although users can gain access with easily available software, have for years tried to impose curbs on Iranians using social media.

The Sham of Iranian Elections: The Supreme Leader Still Reigns Supreme

With the election of Ahmad Jannati as chairman of the Iranian Assembly of Experts and Ali Larijani as parliament speaker, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei once again proved that it is he who reigns supreme. Jannati and Larijani are both members of his camp, and regarded as part of his inner circle.
The hardline Jannati, 90, secured 51 of the 86 votes cast, and has been a regular member of the Assembly of Experts for the past couple of decades. Furthermore, since 1992, he has chaired the overwhelmingly powerful Guardian Council, the non-elective body whose members are installed by the Supreme Leader in a complex process, and whose task is to vet candidates in all sorts of “elections,” as well as oversee the passage of laws in the Majlis (the parliament) so that they don’t violate the wishes of the Supreme Leader.
In addition to Jannati, Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, another hardliner, became Assembly of Experts first deputy; and Mohammad Hashemi Shahroudi, yet another hardliner, became second deputy. The Assembly of Experts is the political body whose supposed task is to “oversee” the acts of the incumbent Supreme Leader and to “elect” the next one.
On the other hand, Ibrahim Amini, whom the centrist/reformist/moderate bloc had supported for the chairmanship, managed to secure only 21 votes. Amini was not even elected to the board of directors of the Assembly.

Iran nuke deal drove Trump to run for president, son says

The controversial nuclear agreement reached between Iran and major world powers last year compelled real estate mogul and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump to run in the 2016 presidential elections, his son said Sunday.
“I think, honestly, the Iran nuclear deal was one of the things that made him jump into the race,” Eric Trump said in an interview with the New York AM 970 radio station. “I think that was a game changer for him.”
“That is when he finally said, ‘Kids, I am going to it. I am going to give this a real shot,’” he added.
After years of negotiations, Iran and world powers, led by the United States, reached an agreement last year to freeze and inspect Iran’s rogue nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Since launching his campaign last July, Trump has repeatedly criticized US President Barack Obama’s handling of the diplomatic talks that led to the multilateral agreement — it involved five other world powers in addition to the US and Iran — which eased crippling international economic sanctions levied against Iran in exchange for a curtailing of its nuclear program.

Trump 'won't pressure Israel' to act against its interests

Attorney David M. Friedman, one of Donald trump's two advisors on Israel, told Arutz Sheva in an exclusive interview that Donald Trump has assured him he will not pressure Israel into "peace processes" and concessions that it does not want.
“I’ve known Donald Trump for about 15 years," he said, in a conversation with Dr. Joseph Frager. "I met him in the context of being his lawyer, and we’ve become friends over the years. He know how much I love Israel, and hopefully people who read Arutz Sheva know how much I love Israel because I write a column for Arutz Sheva as often as I can.
Trump "wanted an advisor who he knew loved Israel," Friedman explained. "So I hope people can take comfort in the fact that he’s taking advice from me. Because there’s obviously hundreds of people in New York who have thoughts about Israel – to the right, to the left, and the middle – and he chose someone who he knows has a deep love for Israel. For all of Israel, for the entire Land of Israel. So that alone says something about his feelings. He has a very strong view as to who’s wrong and who’s right in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. He remembers very well who was dancing on the roofs at 9/11 and who was mourning, who was crying. He has an innate sense of the issues and the problems, but most importantly he knows who’s right and who’s wrong.
"I have his assurances that he’s not going to pressure Israel to do things that are not in Israel’s best interest. If Israel wants to pursue a peace process he’s happy to help. But he’s not going to pressure Israel into things that it doesn’t want to do," Friedman stressed.

Jewish wedding tweeted from Turkey draws anti-Semitism clamor

The small Jewish community in Edirne, in northwest Turkey, has waited patiently since 1976 for a wedding in its local synagogue – and when it finally occurred yesterday, the response it drew from other Turks was less than celebratory.
The wedding was set to be such a significant and joyous event that it was decided to broadcast it via Periscope and Twitter – a particularly popular social medium in Turkey. However, it drew the attention of anti-Semites in the country, and the bride, groom and Jewish community in general were told, "Too bad Hitler didn't finish the job" and the like.
Edirne has a Jewish history of some 1,500 years, but just 50 years ago, only 100 Jews lived in Edirne. Finally, the local Jewish cemetery there was confiscated by the authorities, and then destroyed to make way for a residential neighborhood.
Then began the upswing. In 2013, the synagogue was renovated, and last year it was opened to the public. Its first wedding, yesterday, drew many members of the budding Jewish community, and the joy was great. Community leader Yitzchak Ibrahimzadeh even decided that it should be shared with the public at large, via Twitter. The happiness turned to consternation, however, as the responses began tweeting in: "Kill the Jews!" "Get out of occupied Palestine!" etc.

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Jewish pilgrimages in Tunisia and Morocco end without incident

Over this past week, there were two major pilgrimages to Jewish shrines in Arab nations.

The most famous one was to  Tunisia, where hundreds of Jews went on an annual visit to the ancient synagogue in Djerba.

It is the top story in The Arab Weekly, a beta site of what is apparently a new English-language newspaper:

More than 2,000 pil­grims gathered at Africa’s oldest syna­gogue on the south­ern Tunisian island of Djerba despite a warning by the Israeli government that the Jewish festival could be targeted by terror­ists.

In an event unique in the Arab world, pilgrims, especially Jews of Tunisian descent from around the world, take part every year in the Lag Ba’omar festival at Djerba’s Ghriba synagogue. Pilgrims pay re­spect at tombs of famous rabbis, make vows, light candles and en­gage in celebrations.

Braving searing heat and secu­rity concerns, pilgrims danced and chanted amid heavy security meas­ures aimed at warding off potential jihadist assaults.

Approximately 1,500 Jews live in Tunisia, down sharply from an esti­mated 100,000 before the country won independence from France in 1956.

“The way Tunisia treats its Jew­ish citizens and all its minorities serves as a strong positive model for the rest of the world,” said Knox Thames, US State Department spe­cial adviser for religious minorities. Thames participated in some parts of the pilgrimage ritual.

The Jewish community of Djerba is said to date back around 2,600 years ago. The Ghriba synagogue was built in 587BC.

The synagogue became the site of an annual pilgrimage of Jews from Tunisia and abroad. Known as the Hiloula, which translates as “cel­ebration”, the event takes place on the holiday of Lag Ba’omer in com­memoration of the death of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, a legal scholar re­puted to have performed miracles.

The event isn't quite unique, because there was another Hiloula festival in Morocco as well for Lag B'Omer. From Morocco World News:

Hundreds of Jewish pilgrims from around the world gathered on Thursday in the city of Ouazzane (north) to celebrate the Hilloula.

On this occasion, a ceremony was organized by the Council of Jewish Communities in Morocco in the mausoleum of rabbi Amrane Ben Diwane and was attended by pilgrims from Morocco and abroad.

The ceremony was held in the presence of several Moroccan officials as well as by civilian and military figures.

Aloun Sami, a member of the Council of Jewish Communities in Morocco, told MAP that the celebration of this annual religious ceremony showcases the attachment of Moroccan Jews to their homeland, where they enjoy full respect.

There is an element of Tunisia and Morocco bending over backwards to show their support for Jews to the West, but that doesn't mean that their efforts are unappreciated. Indeed, those two countries are anomalous in the Arab world as to how they protect their tiny remaining Jewish communities.

A Moroccan news site had a 10-minute feature on these pilgrimages a couple of years ago, where it gathered over 350,000 views with much debate in the comments between those who support Jews and the (much noisier) blatant antisemites.

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Antisemite who compares "Jewish state" to "Islamic State" proud he no longer explicitly says he hates Jews

Last week it was revealed that a young Muslim woman who famously took a selfie in front of an anti-Islamist crowd had herself spouted antisemitic comments.

The BBC described it:

The photo of a young Muslim woman called Zakia Belkhiri subtly undermining an anti-Islam demonstration by using the protesters as a backdrop for a selfie was one of the most striking images of the past week. But it's a story with a not so pleasant postscript.

However, since then a series of deeply disturbing anti-Semitic statements made by Ms Belkhiri on social media have come to light.

In one tweet dating from November 2012, she wrote: "Hitler didn't kill all the Jews, he left some. So we know why he was killing them."

And in another Facebook post from March 2014, she used an expletive to describe Jews before adding: "I hate them so much."

Flemish weekly magazine Knack published an article by Dyab Abou Jahjah defending Belkhiri, and he blames her antisemitism on - Israel. After saying that her antisemitic posts happened when she was "only eighteen," Abou-Jahjah then says that she cannot be blamed for conflating Zionists and Jews. After all, he asserts, Zionist Jews are like ISIS and Jews in general are like Muslims in general who consider Israel to be an evil, genocidal regime. He says that Belkhiri is a victim of Israeli propaganda because by calling itself the Jewish state it is just like the Islamists who call ISIL the Islamic State. How can you blame the poor innocent 18-year old for justifying genocide against millions of Jews???

Abou-Jahjah also proudly says "I always use the term 'Zionist' in my criticism and I avoid the word 'Jews', because I am aware of my position as an example to many, and therefore my responsibility to make people aware that it is not an ethnic or religious conflict."

How ethical! In fact, there is a great example of how Jahjah used the word "Zionists" instead of "Jews."

When the mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever, decided to call the assistance of the army after the terror attacks in Paris in order to protect the Antwerp Jewish schools, Jahjah called him "a Zionist sucker" ('zionisten-pijper') - essentially a "Zionist asslicker"  - for wanting to protect Jewish schoolchildren from being slaughtered.

In an interview, he said that he realized that the term was offensive and he took down the tweet and changed it to "Zionist flunky."

Here's another example of how Abou Jahjah really thinks about Jews, even though he claims in the media to want to live in a binational state where Jews and Arabs are treated equally:

"La valise ou le cerceuil" means that the Jews should be removed from the region via "the suitcase or the pallbearers."

Abou-Jahjah also refers to Hamas as a "glorious resistance movement" and calls Israeli Jews "Zio-Nazis.

Abou Jahjah is an antisemite who thinks that mindlessly changing "Jews" to "Zionists" when he writes for Western media today is how to shield himself from quite warranted criticism that he simply hates Jews.

(h/t Rudi Roth at The New Antisemite)

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The EoZ Pinkwashing Poster

Which doesn't make it any less true.

Story here. The story included the full quote:

A Christian Arab-Israeli ballet dancer, Abu Hanna told reporters she is “proud to be an Israeli Arab,” noting, “If I had not been in Israel and had been elsewhere — in Palestine or in any other Arab country — I might have been oppressed or I might have been in prison or murdered.”

(h/t Yoel)

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Lord Bonkers' Diary: The giant wicker figure of a hare

Monday

May Day in the village. Morris dancers spill from the doors of the Bonkers’ Arms, while youths and maidens dance around the maypole. The Queen of the May is crowned, whereupon the cavorting figure of the Jack-in-the-Green leads us in procession to a conveniently sited stone circle. Then the aforementioned youths and maidens plight their troths in the meadows. (I used to play practical jokes on Roy Jenkins, but I have to admit that it his reforms that allow them to do it openly.)

Above it all, on a green hill, stands the giant wicker figure of a hare with its wretched occupant – well, he was warned against putting it up in the Bonkers Hall ward.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• Freddie and Fiona at Remain
• The jellyfish of the Lakeland fells
• Reviewing David Laws’ memoirs
• "Take your hands off our cox"
• I know how the Children of Israel felt

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A much happier story about a boy who fell into a gorilla enclosure from 1986

The shooting of a gorilla after a small boy fell into his enclosure at Cincinnati zoo was horrible.

This blog is more sympathetic to zoos than is fashionable today, but this incident makes you want to close every one down.

I was reminded of a story from the past. It turned out to have happened at Gerald Durrell's Jersey Zoo in 1986 and you can see what happened in the video above/

A Daily Mail story earlier this year tells what happened next:

Levan spent six weeks in hospital nursing a fractured skull and broken arm. 

Following his recovery, his family was invited back to the zoo and he has maintained links with them ever since. He has returned on more than 10 occasions. 

In 1992, he cut the ribbon to celebrate the installment of a bronze statue of Jambo following his death, which happened to be on the same day as his parents' wedding anniversary. 

He said: 'I am forever thankful to Jambo as obviously it could have gone one or two ways. It was amazing how he protected me in that way. 

'I was pleased to be involved when the statue was put up of him in the zoo.' 

He also returned to the zoo on the 20th anniversary of the event where he was reunited with former ambulanceman Brian Fox, who helped lift him to safety. 

He said he was 'proud' to have helped change public perceptions of gorillas from dangerous King Kong beasts to gentle giants.

Is it wrong to see this as one more example of Americans being trigger happy?

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