06/10 Links Pt1: Explaining Palestinian “Heroes”; Tel Aviv Terror Attack Shatters Five Myths; #Stupid_CNN

From Ian:

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Explaining Palestinian “Heroes”

The status quo has continued not because more houses or apartments are being built in existing Jewish communities in the West Bank or Jerusalem (almost all of which are in places that peace processers conceded would remain in Israeli hands even if there were an agreement with the Palestinians). Nor does it continue because hard-hearted men who don’t want peace lead Israel. If Palestinians wanted a two-state solution, they could have had one many years ago. They refuse because the price of Israeli acceptance of a Palestinian state is Palestinian acceptance of the legitimacy of a Jewish state alongside it no matter where its borders might be drawn. And that price remains too high for any Palestinian leader or the Palestinian public to accept.
Terrorism against Jews didn’t begin in June 1967. The Palestinians have been waging a century-long war on Zionism and that struggle has become inextricably linked with their sense of national identity. That’s why they cheer people who commit indiscriminate murder against Jews and call them heroes. They were doing that long before the Six Day War, let alone the two intifadas, and it is not illogical to suppose they would continue to do so even if Israel were so foolish as to withdraw its forces from the West Bank as it did in Gaza.
While some Israelis search their souls in vain for enough guilt about winning wars launched against them that would have ended the “occupation” of Tel Aviv, this is a futile quest. The status quo will change when the Palestinians stop thinking of people who kill random Jews as heroes and when they are ready to accept peace with the Jewish state.
That is why it is important that the world react to crimes such as yesterday’s murders by avoiding statements calling on both sides to show restraint or use it as an excuse for more pressure on Israel to make concessions. For too long, Palestinians have been led to believe that they could prevail against Israel if they had enough patience or were willing to shed more blood. When a sea change in the political culture of the Palestinians makes a change in their thinking possible, they will find Israelis willing to accept a deal. Until then, they will continue cheering terrorists and doom themselves to pursuing a hopeless effort to eliminate Israel that keeps a status quo neither side wants in place.

Tel Aviv Terror Attack Shatters Five Myths

The June 8 terrorist massacre in Tel Aviv exposed all five of the major myths that cloud discussions of Israel and the Palestinians.
Myth #1: “The problem is the settlements”
Myth #2: “It was a reaction to the occupation”
Myth #3: “The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack”
Myth #4: “Ordinary Palestinians are against terrorism”
Myth #5: “The major American news outlets are staffed by objective, professionally trained journalists; if their coverage of Israel is unflattering, that’s because of Israel’s own policies, not because of media bias”

Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Calls for Solidarity With Israel Following Deadly Tel Aviv Terrorist Attack (VIDEO)

The host of Fox News‘ “On the Record” called for the international community to show support for Israel in response to Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, which claimed the lives of four people and wounded several others.
“Israelis stand always with us. It’s time to make sure they know we do the same,” Greta Van Susteren wrote on Facebook, shortly after it was revealed that two Palestinian terrorists went on a deadly shooting rampage at the restaurant-laden Sarona compound before being neutralized by security guards.
Van Susteren also posted online an “off the record” video, in which she called the terrorists “evil, evil people full of hate.” She also expressed sorrow for the “innocent Israeli victims” who were at the Sarona Market “just out on a nice summer eve in Tel Aviv.”
Van Susteren reminded viewers of Israel’s immediate response to help in international crises, and said she hopes nations around the world will “stand with the Israelis, because they stand always with us.”

Shooting
JPost Editorial: Reacting to Sarona

With all the difficulty of reining in our natural inclination to seek revenge for Wednesday’s bloody attack, Galant’s levelheaded stance serves Israel’s interests better.
We understand the desire to lash out at those who support terrorism. It was upsetting to watch hundreds of Palestinians near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, in Tulkarm and other locations on the West Bank and in Gaza celebrate the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv. But reacting emotionally is counterproductive. If Israel decides to revoke the tens of thousands of working permits allocated to Palestinians with security clearance, will it lower the number of terrorists? If thousands of Palestinians who are not connected to the attack are arrested, will fewer Palestinians support terrorism? We doubt it.
That does not mean nothing can be done. The two Palestinians who carried out the terrorist attack entered Israel illegally. Steps need to be taken to prevent the unmonitored movement of Palestinians from the West Bank into areas with large Israeli population centers. Breaches in the security barrier should be closed. Israelis who employ Palestinians illegally should be punished. And there needs to be more intelligence gathering, including information received through cooperation with the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.
The Sarona Market attack will be the first major test for newly appointed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.
Liberman has proven to be a pragmatic minister and politician despite some past incendiary comments about how he thought Palestinian terrorism should be dealt with.
We hope he takes the pragmatic approach and heeds the advice of people like Galant or Ya’akov Amidror, the former national security adviser, who also recommends not overreacting in order not to destabilize the security situation. Liberman the politician was appealing to populism when he made those comments. But Liberman the defense minister carries more serious responsibilities on his shoulders.

‘Wake me from this nightmare,’ says daughter at funeral for Sarona victim

Hundreds of people turned out Friday afternoon at Yarkon cemetery in Petah Tikva for the funeral of Ilana Naveh, one of the four Israelis killed in Wednesday’s terror attack in Tel Aviv.
“I wanted to believe that when they took me to the hospital it would be okay,” said Shiran Naveh, one of 39-year-old Naveh’s four daughters, the Ynet news website reported. “They told me in the morning [that you had died], but it didn’t surprise me, I already knew that night. I wanted to them to wake me from this nightmare, tell me that it didn’t really happen, but it’s not a dream, it’s real.”
She continued: “Give me the strength to fill your massive shoes. I promise to do it in the best way possible. Watch over us, mom, we love you very much.”
MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni, who performed Naveh’s marriage ceremony, also delivered a eulogy.

Friend of Sociologist Slain in Tel Aviv Terrorist Attack: ‘How Could Bullets Have Penetrated This Lively, Good Man?’

“How could bullets have penetrated this lively man… his humor… sharp anecdotes? How did yesterday’s talk in the hallway become our last?” a close friend of one of four Israelis murdered in cold blood on Wednesday night in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv wrote on social media, Israel’s Channel 2 reported. “Michael Feige, this good man, I can’t believe it.”
Feige, 58, who headed the Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in the Negev, was killed when two Palestinian terrorists opened fire on the Sarona Market. The Ramat Gan resident is survived by a wife and three daughters, two of whom live abroad, and the remaining one is engaged to be married in the near future.
According to Hebrew news site nrg, a colleague of Feige’s from BGU, Prof. Oren Yiftahel, head of the department of interdisciplinary studies, said. “It is a very sad day for us. He was a very important researcher who delved into delicate subjects and extracted interesting insights from them. He was among the very best, open and attentive, a genuine democrat. He was a rare bird from that point of view. It is a great loss to our university.”
Another colleague, Dr. Avi Picard, called Feige “A dear man, rare in his integrity and honesty, and in his absence of ego. He had a healthy cynicism, and, as a sociologist and anthropologist, he had many profound and interesting insights about seemingly standard phenomena in Israeli society.”

MEMRI: One Day Prior To Tel Aviv Terror Attack, Article On Hamas Website Calls On Muslims To Wage Jihad – 'The Pinnacle Of Islam' – During Ramadan, 'The Month Of Jihad'

On June 7, 2016, the day before the shooting attack in Tel Aviv in which four were killed and several wounded, Hamas's military wing, the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, published an article on its website encouraging jihad and martyrdom during the month of Ramadan, which began this week. The article, titled "Ramadan – The Month of Jihad, Fighting and Victory over the Enemies," noted that throughout the ages Ramadan had been the time of the greatest Muslim victories, beginning from the days of the Prophet Muhammad. Allah, it said, had commanded, and urged, the Muslims to wage jihad, for it is the pinnacle of Islam. The article stressed that Muslims' sad situation today is due to their abandonment of jihad, and called on them to follow the example set out in their glorious, jihad-saturated history.

MEMRI: Palestinian Reactions Immediately Following Tel Aviv Shooting: It Was 'A Natural Reaction'; 'A Ramadan Operation'; Palestinian Presidency One Day After Shooting: 'We Oppose Actions Against Civilians From Any Side'

In a June 8, 2016 shooting attack in Tel Aviv, four Israeli civilians were killed and 6 were wounded. Up until the following afternoon, the Palestinian Authority (PA) did not issue any statement condemning the attack, which was perpetrated by two cousins from the town of Yatta near Hebron, Ahmad Moussa Makhamra and Khaled Muhammad Moussa Makhamra.
On the contrary, Fatah's Recruitment and Organization Commission issued an official statement justifying the attack, calling it a natural reaction to Israel's actions and policy. A former minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA) said the attack was a reaction to the Israeli President's recent visit to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Only at 14:00 on June 9 did the Palestinian news agency WAFA publish a condemnation by the Palestinian presidency, which stated that the presidency opposed violence against civilians from any side.
Palestinian opposition factions (such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front) welcomed the attack and called its perpetrators "heroes" and "a source of pride."
In several West Banks cities, as well as on social media, there were expressions of joy over the shooting, with many linking it to the month of Ramadan that began two days ago and is known as the month of jihad and victories.

Sunni cleric defends Tel Aviv terrorists

On Thursday, the attack prompted the United Nations Security Council to issue its strongest condemnation of Palestinian terror since September’s uptick in attacks.
The council condemned “in the strongest terms” the attack and expressed its “deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government of Israel.” The text of the council’s statement added that “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.”
But Yusuf al-Qardawi, a Qatar-based religious authority and Muslim Brotherhood leader who is one of Sunni Islam’s most highly-regarded personalities, wrote on Twitter following the attacks that “Israel was always the first to do evil and mischief, and the resistance is trying to respond to defend itself. This is crystal clear and undeniable.”

Palestinians on Social Media Celebrate Tel Aviv Terrorist Attack; Call Carnage ‘Sweeter Than Ramadan Prayer’

Palestinian supporters of the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night have lit up the web with praise in Arabic for what is being hashtagged “#operationRamadan,” the media/tech company Vocativ reported on Thursday.
According to Vocativ’s web analysis, the above hashtag had been used some 5,000 times between the time of the Palestinian shooting spree – which left four Israelis dead and several others wounded – and the following morning. On Instagram, as well, users posted photos and cartoons to express their delight.
Examples provided by the media site included a poster reading,”Ramadan brings us together and Tel Aviv is our playground,” with the caption: “Operation Ramadan, #CarlosSalvo #Intifada Jerusalem.”
Another is a photo of the aftermath of the bloodbath, with the words: “Have a delicious Iftar [the meal eaten by Muslims after sunset during Ramadan].”

Netanyahu says third suspect apprehended in Tel Aviv attack

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that authorities have apprehended a third man involved in the terror attack at the Sarona Market in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday night in which two Palestinians opened fire on customers at a cafe in the plaza, killing four and wounding 16.
Speaking at the site of the attack a day later, Netanyahu said: “This nation is strong. They will not defeat us. In this place yesterday four innocent Israelis were murdered. We mourn them. Life is already returning to its routine around us, and that’s a good thing.”
Netanyahu noted that the security establishment took a series of steps in the 24 hours since the attack, including “cordoning off the West Bank village of Yatta, the terrorists’ hometown, catching a man who collaborated with the terrorists, revoking work permits of hundreds of members of their family, and freezing thousands of entry permits into Israel for Ramadan.”
He also slammed the Palestinian Authority for failing to condemn the attack but praised Israelis’ strength and resilience.

IDF: Attempted stabbing attack against Israeli in Nablus

A suspected terrorist was shot and critically wounded following an attempted stabbing attack against an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus, the IDF said in a statement Friday.
According to the IDF, the assailant approached military forces stationed at a checkpoint near the village of Beit Furik, south of Nablus, where he pulled out a knife and attempted to stab one of the soldiers positioned in the area.
IDF forces quickly responded by shooting the attacker, abating his ability to commit any further harm.
The attacker was reportedly in critical condition following the shooting and was evacuated to the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson in Petah Tikva, according to The Jerusalem Post's sister publication Ma'ariv.
The military said that no soldiers were harmed in the event, adding they have opened an investigation.

IDF Seizes Gunmaking Machinery, Ammo in West Bank Sweeps

Israeli security forces seized machinery used to make home-made guns in the West Bank on Thursday night, in a crackdown following a lethal terror attack in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the army said.
The Israel Defense Forces and Border Police, along with representatives from the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, located the two drill presses, which are suspected of being used to create illegal guns. One of the machines was found in Eizariya and the other in Abu Dis — two Arab towns near Jerusalem.
The shooting in Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market this week was carried out with two homemade guns, known by law enforcement as “Carlos,” after the Swedish Carl Gustav submachine gun, on which the design is loosely based.
In addition to the gun-making equipment, Israeli forces discovered bullets and components of explosive devices at the two sites, the army said in a statement.

Carl Gustav - the terrorist weapon of choice

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), IDF and police are all working to uncover as many weapons manufacturing workshops as possible, since the Carl Gustav rifle has become the weapon of choice for Palestinian terrorists.
According to security sources, the weapons are cheap to manufacture, and require no special technology.
“Many have the capability of producing them,” one security official said on Thursday.
The weapons are unreliable and frequently jam, as one did during Wednesday night’s deadly attack. Yet they pose a deadly threat, and are proliferating.
Security forces regularly report seizing the firearms during weapons raids in Palestinian villages, town and cities.
Such efforts will go on, and likely intensify, in the days and weeks ahead.

Liberman orders moratorium on returning attackers’ bodies

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman ordered a halt to the practice of returning West Bank Palestinian attackers’ bodies to their families for burial on Thursday, a day after two Palestinian terrorists killed four people and wounded 16 in a shooting attack in central Tel Aviv..
Liberman discussed the idea during a meeting of the security cabinet earlier in the day, breaking with the approach held by his predecessor in the post, Moshe Ya’alon, who opposed withholding remains.
The meeting was convened to discuss possible responses to the Sarona Market attack.
During the meeting, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan also called unequivocally to stop returning the bodies of attackers to their families and to reestablish a cemetery where such remains were buried by Israeli authorities up until about a decade ago — a proposal Liberman reportedly said he was not opposed to.

“We Can’t Let Terrorists Stop Our Lives”: Shoppers Return to Site of Terror Attack

Less than a day after a deadly terror attack at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv claimed the lives of four Israelis, people have begun heading back to the shopping center.
“There were no visible bullet holes, no broken glass, no blood stains or police tape to be seen, the terror attack already cleaned up and pushed to the side in a classic example of stubborn Israel insistence to return to normal after sudden and deadly tragedy,” The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.
Tal Sharabi, a waiter at Benedict, one of the restaurants that was attacked Wednesday night, spent much of the night helping to clean up the scene so that things would look more presentable the following morning.
“It’s a terrible feeling, in one of the videos you see one of our customers, who just a moment earlier was talking to us, and he’s shot dead, and they [the terrorists] shoot him again to confirm the kill,” Sharabi told the Post. But he added that returning to normal so quickly after such a terrible event is essential: “It’s strange but we live this every day already, we can’t put our lives on hold. We must do this; we can’t let terrorists stop our lives.”

‘Let’s Buy Out Max Brenner, Turn Darkness Into Light,’ Says Volunteer EMT Who Launched ‘Pay It Forward’ Campaign in Wake of Tel Aviv Terrorist Attack (VIDEO)

A volunteer for Israel’s United Hatzalah emergency response team told The Algemeiner on Thursday about his “pay it forward” campaign to bolster the Max Brenner chocolate bar where Palestinian terrorists began a murderous shooting spree on Wednesday night — killing four Israelis and wounding many more.
“I wanted to start a trend,” said 20-year-old Dovi Meyer about the campaign he launched Thursday morning, which involved purchasing nearly 1,000 chocolate bars at Max Brenner, and distributing them, two at a time, to passersby outside — asking each to give up one of the two to someone else, on condition that the next person buy a bar and continue the chain.
“As I started, businessmen began stopping and said, ‘You know what? I’ll buy this for my wife or for a friend.’ And the store, which had been pretty empty before, started to fill up. Outside, it was pumping, but inside, people were just inquisitive; they weren’t really buying. So I wanted to set that drive, and the only way I could do it was by doing something over the top. I bought an obscene amount of chocolate, so that people would buy one or two, and that’s what they did. They started flooding in…and I felt something really special about it.”
Meyer — who was an EMT in Sydney, Australia, before he immigrated to Israel two years ago — added, “Nothing gives me greater joy than helping people, and when I don’t see change, it bothers me and I speak up.”

Foreign envoys make solidarity trip to terror-struck Sarona

More than 20 foreign ambassadors to Israel made a visit of solidarity to the Sarona food market in Tel Aviv on Friday, two days after a devastating Palestinian terror attack there left four Israelis dead and more than 15 others wounded.
The envoys were accompanied by the police commander of the Yarkon District, Yehuda Dahan, and the head of the Yesh Atid party, MK Yair Lapid.
“This is a battle between two cultures,” Lapid said. “One loves democracy and the energy of people who simply want to live, while the other celebrated death and destruction.
“They were celebrating yesterday in Ramallah, Nablus and Gaza. Celebrating what? The death of a young woman who was supposed to get married a few weeks from now? The death of a father of four?” asked Lapid in reference to two of the four victims.”
“We need to celebrate life,” he said.
Among the envoys was the Italian ambassador to Israel, Francesco Talo, who praised the quick return to normal life after the deadly attacks.
“What Tel Avivians are doing is important. The terrorists lose when they see that people here are enjoying life. We came to tell the terrorists that we are not afraid of them,” said Talo.
The Austrian envoy to Israel expressed a similar sentiment, saying that it was important to see how people move on from such an event.
“This was pure terror. It could have been me or a friend [sitting] at that same cafe,” said Martin Weiss.

UN Security Council condemns Tel Aviv attack for the first time since current terror wave

Members of the Security Council condemned “in the strongest terms” the terrorist attack at Sarona market in Tel Aviv, during which at least four civilians were killed and many more injured.
This was the Security Council’s first official condemnation of a terror attack carried out by Palestinians on Israelis since the beginning of the current wave of violence that begun this fall.
The Security Council members also expressed their “deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government of Israel” and stated that “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.”
In addition they underlined “the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice.”

UN: Ban on Palestinians entering Israel is ‘collective punishment’

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein [Jordan] on Friday criticized a blanket ban on Palestinian entry into Israel imposed in the wake of a deadly terror attack in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, saying it could be classed as “collective punishment” and therefore illegal under international law.
Hussein’s spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani, told reporters in Geneva on Friday that the move by Israel “may amount to prohibited collective punishment and will only increase the sense of injustice and frustration felt by Palestinians,” Reuters reported. Hussein did, however, condemn the Tel Aviv attack, Shamdasani said.

In Robust Response to Tel Aviv Terror, Trump Rips ‘Uncivilized’ Palestinians Who Praised Attack

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump harshly condemned on Thursday the recent bloody terror attack in Tel Aviv, citing the teachings of anti-Israel hatred rampant in Palestinian society as a driving force behind the violence.
“I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the outrageous terrorist shootings that took the lives of at least four innocent civilians and wounded at least twenty others in Tel Aviv yesterday,” he said in a statement. “The Israeli security forces’ investigation is ongoing, but some facts have already emerged — and they are grim.”

Palestinians celebrate terror attack in Tel Aviv, Saudis strongly condemn

Following the shooting, Salma al-Jamal, a Palestinian news anchor working at Al-Jazeera TV, wrote on her Twitter page: "The Ramadan operation that took place today is the best answer to stories we have been hearing about 'peace process' that some people are trying in vain to revive."
In a striking contrast to the Palestinian reaction, the official Saudi media strongly denounced the Tel Aviv terror attack.
Reporting about the shooting on its Facebook page, the well-known Saudi TV channel al-Arabiya referred to the people injured in the attack as "victims," and not as "settlers" as most of the Arab outlets usually refer to Israelis. This remark aroused cynical reactions among users on social media, who claimed that the channel distorted the report to defend Israel, because the victims are Palestinians, not Israelis.
Dahham al-Enazi, a member of the Saudi Journalists Association, also condemned the shooting in a series of remarks on his Twitter page.
"The Tel Aviv attack is terror and thuggery. Our solidarity and support for the Palestinian people does not mean that we accept the killing of innocents and civilians. We would like to extend our condolences to the families of the victims," Enazi said.

'Je suis Tel Aviv' slogan spreads on social media

People in France and around the world are expressing solidarity with Israel following the deadly Tel Aviv shooting attack Wednesday, with social media posts using the slogan "Je suis Tel Aviv," adapted from "Je suis Charlie," which was widely spread after the January 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.
Former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe was among the first to share the modified slogan on Twitter, with many others following his lead.
The "Je suis Tel Aviv" slogan is often accompanied in social media posts by an image depicting a typical Tel Aviv Bauhaus apartment building. The architectural style is emblematic of the city.
Former French government spokesman and current MP Jean-Francois Cope as well as MP Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet were among those to share the slogan and image.
French Jewish MP Meyer Habib noted that there was a connection between the attack in Tel Aviv this week, the November attacks in Paris and the Brussels bombings in March. "From Paris to Tel Aviv, from Brussels to Jerusalem, we are seeing the same terrorist attacks in the name of global jihad, which is waging a war against our civilization," he said.

After shooting, Tel Avivis ask: 'Facebook, where's our safety check?'

Safir took to Facebook to let her friends know that she and her family were all right, but she was also exasperated.
“Mark Zuckerberg, where is my safety check-in following a terrorist attack?” she wrote, tagging Facebook’s founder and CEO in the post.
She was referring to a feature the social network developed – at its Israeli development center, no less – that lets people “check in” as safe, following a mass casualty terrorist event or natural disaster. The feature helps friends and families find out that their loved ones are safe, and has even been used by governments to track the fates of their nationals in a foreign disaster.
Others posting on social media after Wednesday’s Tel Aviv attack expressed similar dismay at the perception that Israelis were being overlooked.
“You know what would be nice....if #Facebook would ever turn on the #SafetyCheck feature in #Israel when we have a #terror attack,” wrote a user named Miriam.
“Hey Mark, Was sorry to see that the Facebook Safety Check didn’t activate after the shooting tonight... In case you are wondering how everyone is doing...” wrote Ellie, another Facebook user.

Israel sunk the Titanic? New hashtag roils against anti-Israel media bias

International media outlets provoked a firestorm of outrage on Thursday when a number of news purveyors including CNN, the BBC and the Guardian revealed media bias in their reports of the Tel Aviv attack at Sarona Market on Wednesday evening.
The attack, that left four people dead and 16 wounded, was perpetrated by two Palestinian men from Southern Hebron.
Most of the media outlets failed to identify the incident as an act of terror and even neglected to use the words "terror" or "terrorism" in their reports and instead labeled the tragedy a "shooting incident."
CNN's official report of the incident even placed the word "terrorists" in its headline in quotations.
But now, the fed-up public has decided to strike back with a new twitter campaign called #Stupid_CNN, that aims to make light of the increasingly hostile foreign media.

Media Watchdogs: Russian News Outlet RT Wins Top Prize for Most ‘Appalling’ and ‘Dramatically Absurd’ Headline in Coverage of Tel Aviv Terror Attack

Kremlin-affiliated news outlet Russia Today (RT) takes first place for the most misleading headline in all media reporting on yesterday’s bloody terror attack in Tel Aviv, spokesmen for two prominent media watchdog groups told The Algemeiner on Thursday.
In its initial report on the attack, RT ran an article under the headline “2 ‘ultra-Orthodox Jewish’ gunmen kill 1, injure 8 in Tel Aviv.” In response to the portrayal, Simon Plosker, managing editor at Honest Reporting, said that RT ”wins the prize” for “most appalling headline.” Gilead Ini, a senior research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) described RT’s “short-lived headline” as “dramatically absurd.”
“If anyone ever considered RT, the Kremlin’s propaganda outfit, to be a credible news organization, this headline proves the opposite,” said Plosker. According to Ini, the headline “was quickly changed after CAMERA and others drew attention” to it.

CBC Reporter: Palestinian Terrorists’ “Motive (Is) Unclear”

It was a gruesome, premeditated and cold-blooded terror attack which targeted innocent Israeli civilians. Two Palestinian Hamas terrorists murdered four Israelis and injured more than nine in a brazen shooting attack at a Tel Aviv restaurant in the Sarona Market yesterday.
Whether in Paris, Brussels or Tel Aviv, Terror is terror and nothing justifies it.
Covering the attack yesterday, CBC’s Mideast Bureau Chief Derek Stoffel opined on his Twitter feed that the “motive” of these Palestinian terrorists is “unclear”:

BBC coverage of Sarona Market terror attack – part two

As was noted in part one of this post, while news of the terror attack at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv on June 8th was emerging, the head of the BBC’s Jerusalem bureau took to Twitter to inform his followers that such attacks are “rare”.
Despite the fact that this was the sixth terror attack in the Tel Aviv district in less than nine months and that its four victims bring the number of civilians murdered in the city in that time to ten, that theme was also in evidence in the report produced by the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ on the evening of June 8th.
Presenter Tim Franks described the terrorists (from 14:11 here) as follows:
“…we’re able to bring you up to date on that story that broke just before we came on air and that’s news of a shooting attack in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The police say that…eh…three people have died, that two assailants were involved in the attack….” [emphasis added]
During the conversation with his interviewee – Ben Hartman of the Jerusalem Post – Franks promoted the notion that terrorism in Tel Aviv is “rare”.

Antisemitic trope at the Indy: Israeli minister called “bloodthirsty”

Here’s the headline:

In case you may think the language was the work of sub-editors, the term “blood thirsty” is repeated in the text:
Ever since Avigdor Lieberman was appointed to his new post by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the world – and especially the Palestinians – have waited to see if he would fulfil the bloodthirsty threats he made during Israel’s 2015 election.
Let’s be clear: When we talk about antisemitism in the British media, we’re not suggesting that the writer or editor in question is haunted by Judeophobic thoughts.
Rather, those of us who talk seriously about antisemitism are identifying common tropes, narratives and graphic depictions of Jews which are based on stereotypes and mythology which has historically been employed by those engaging in cognitive or physical war against Jews.
In short, we’re asking anti-racists to resist becoming, even if unintentionally, intellectual partners with those who trade in the lethal narratives associated with antisemitism which has caused us immeasurable pain to Jewish communities throughout the ages.
As such, we’ve contacted Indy editors to ask that they remove the term “blood thirsty” from Fisk’s op-ed.

Israel, Terror, and the New York Times

What about the Times article about the real attack in Israel? Let's start with the headline:

Not Palestinian Terrorists – Palestinian Gunmen, and the article followed a similar path. While the lede referred to the attack "reigniting fears of terrorism," that was it. The attackers were not referred to as terrorists, and the attack was not referred to as terrorism. Instead the Times used phrases like:
• "police identified the attackers" (not terrorists)
• "Security officers wounded one of the gunmen" (again, not terrorists)
• "The second gunman was arrested" (not second terrorist)
• "Tel Aviv has suffered a number of deadly attacks" (not deadly terrorist attacks)
• A witness "heard the shots and could see one of the attackers" (not one of the terrorists)
And this refusal to use the "terror" word to refer to deadly attacks against Israelis is no aberration at the Times. Indeed, in a followup article on June 9, Israel Imposes Travel Restrictions on Palestinians After Tel Aviv Attack, the Times also failed to use the terror word (except when quoting Israeli officials), instead using words like "gunmen" and "assailants."

It's No Time for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal

The shooting of at least nine people in Tel Aviv on Wednesday comes as European leaders are attempting to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. It is a heinous act, but it must not prevent the U.S. from letting the talks fall apart.
It is almost inconceivable, in fact, why French and European Union leaders think that now is a good time. "The threats and priorities have changed," said French President François Hollande at a special press conference last week, and he is right. They have changed. The Middle East is beset by problems; but for a moment, blessedly, they have literally nothing to do with Israel.
Even Israel's enemies want nothing to do with Israel. Hezbollah wants so little to do with Israel that it ignores strikes on its missile facilities and military leadership to continue its war against the Syrian Arab rebels. Iran wants so little of Israel it does the same thing. Turkey, hostile to Israel only five years ago, has warmed dramatically as its Kurdish and Syrian problems have increased. Even the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), for all of its other heinous policies, seems totally uninterested in its neighbor to the south.
The European Union's foreign policy boss, Federica Mogherini, added her justification for the French initiative. "The policy of settlement expansion and demolitions, violence and incitement tells us very clearly that the perspective that Oslo opened up is seriously at risk of fading away." Yes, I'd say so. I'd say it was at risk of fading away after a five-year intifada, complete with bombings of a teenage disco in Tel Aviv, a Passover Seder in Netanya and multiple buses. I'd say it was at risk of fading away after two major wars between Israel and Hamas, both initiated by Hamas, and a month-long war with Hezbollah initiated by Hezbollah. If that didn't put it to bed, the last 10 months of Palestinians randomly stabbing to death Israelis on the street probably has done it.

Understanding the Campaign to Divide the Holy City

Dividing Jerusalem by giving away sovereignty and control of the city’s approximately 28 Arab neighborhoods could actually import a Gaza strip reality to Jerusalem and put hundreds of thousands of Jews in eastern and western Jerusalem in imminent danger. The resulting vacuum would most likely be filled by Hamas, ISIS and other terrorist organizations sworn to Israel’s destruction, bringing them to our doorstep. It has already happened in two neighborhoods that were left out of the security barrier but are still in Jerusalem – Kafr Aqab and the Shuafat refugee camp. Those two neighborhoods are rife with terrorism, Hamas rule, hard drugs being supplied to Jerusalem, and proliferation of weapons. This could expand to all the 28 neighborhoods if Israel withdraws unilaterally. Getting control of this area would embolden them immeasurably to complete the struggle of total liberation of “Al-Quds” — the Arabic name for the city of Jerusalem.
If you support keeping Jerusalem united under Israel’s sovereignty, what steps must be taken to ensure Jerusalem’s security and peaceful prosperity over the next decades?
1. More information and facts to the public: Dividing Jerusalem by handing over Arab neighborhoods would endanger hundreds of thousands of Jewish residents. Tens of thousands of Jews would leave the city and tens of thousands of Arabs who would find themselves outside of Jerusalem would move to Jewish neighborhoods. (Most Arab residents of Jerusalem actually prefer to remain in Israeli-controlled Jerusalem. Holy sites of all religions are fully guaranteed only under Israeli sovereignty.)
2. Build thousands of apartments in affordable Jewish neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem, thereby stemming the current outward flow of Jews from the city and correcting the demographic imbalance threatening to create an Arab majority in the city within 15 years.
3. Uncompromising crackdown on terrorism and incitement by the Palestinian media and school system (including Israeli-funded Arab schools in eastern Jerusalem).
4. Develop and implement a long-term policy to maintain a united Jerusalem under full Israeli sovereignty, including housing, security, education, infrastructure and tourism, to permanently change the face of Jerusalem and mold it into a truly united city, not just in theory. This will benefit not only Jewish Israelis but certainly the Arab citizens and anyone from the free world who cares about Israel, the holy sites and democracy.

Israel‬ and the ‪‎Palestinian‬ Arabs: Whose Land is it Anyway? - The Wallet Analogy


Shaked accuses Haaretz writer of incitement for calling Supreme Court judge 'war criminal'

Haaretz Oped writer Uri Misgav on Friday unleashed an unprecedented attack on Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, calling him a "war criminal" for living in the Alon Shvut settlement in the Gush Etzion block.
Misgav wrote that building and living in the settlements is a criminal offense under international law which makes Sohlberg a war criminal and unfit to sit on the country's top court.
He also implied that Sohlberg's living in the settlements and his orthodox religious background were potentially negatively influencing his decisions on a range of hot-button issues. The fierce response to these allegations was fast-coming.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked slammed Misgav and Haaretz as engaging in "unconcealed incitement ...against the judges of the Supreme court." She said that Haaretz's high-minded pluralism ends when it comes to an issue regarding a set view which the newspaper subscribes, such as its opposition to the settlements.
The Israel Bar Association also lit into Haaretz writer Uri Misgav for encouraging a "violent discourse" in his article against Sohlberg.

MK Ayman Odeh Slammed by Danny Danon over Request to UN via Palestinian Authority

In a letter to Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstien, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon accused Knesset Member Ayman Odeh of “crossing a red line”. The allegation followed a letter by Odeh, Chairman of the Joint List faction, to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling for an investigation into land disputes in the Negev.
The application for the probe was submitted by Odeh through UN Palestinian Authority Representative Riyad Mansour. In it Odeh asked for a “UN fact-finding mission to the Negev to examine the dire situation of the land’s indigenous Arab population, and work to secure their rights as guaranteed by international law and conventions.”
Danon reacted harshly to Odeh’s actions in a letter to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, “I find it appalling that MK Odeh decided to work together with the Palestinian representative who regularly spreads Antisemitic lies against the State of Israel. A red line has been crossed.”
Mansour is known for particularly vehement rhetoric towards Israel. In November he accused Israel of harvesting organs from Arab bodies, and last month he compared Israel to Nazis in the Warsaw uprising.

Fallen soldiers held by Hamas recognized as captives MIA

Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, the two fallen soldiers whose bodies remain in the hands of Hamas, have been recognized by the IDF as captives missing in action.
The move comes as part of a renewed effort to recover the bodies of the fallen soldiers, which have been held by Hamas since the 2014 Gaza conflict.
Shaul was killed in July 2014 when the armored personnel carrier he was riding in struck a mine. Hamas terrorists later captured his body, which they have held for ransom, demanding Israel free terrorists in exchange for the transfer of the body.
In August 2014, in the midst of a US-negotiated ceasefire, Hamas terrorists emerged from a terror-tunnel and struck an IDF position, killing three soldiers. The body of Goldin, who was among the soldiers killed in the attack, was never recovered by the IDF.
The bereaved families have pressed the Israeli government to bring back the bodies of the fallen soldiers, though Hamas has indicated it would demand a steep price for their return.

Hamas test-fires dozens of short-range rockets in Gaza

The Hamas terror organization on Friday test-fired dozens of short-range rockets in the Gaza Strip, with Israeli sources estimating that at least 30 projectiles were launched.
The rockets were aimed at areas not under Israeli control, Army Radio reported.
The tests came as part of ongoing efforts by Hamas to improve its rocket range and accuracy, two years after it last fought Israel. The Islamist terror group, which seeks to destroy Israel, has also been digging tunnels towards and under the Israeli border, in preparation for further conflict.
The Defense Ministry announced late last month that Israel foiled an attempt to smuggle metal pipes and motors into the Gaza Strip, which could have been used for building rockets and tunnels.

Hamas Still Finds Harbor in Turkey

Turkey is one or two meetings away from normalizing ties with Israel, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the media Tuesday. Ties between the two countries have been frosty since 2010, when Ankara sponsored a flotilla to the Gaza Strip, a territory held by the terrorist organization Hamas, in a bid to break the Israeli-led international blockade. Israeli commandos boarded one of the ships, leading to a confrontation that resulted in ten deaths.
To this day Turkey insists that Israel must lift the blockade. The issue is not an easy one to resolve, but just as thorny is the issue of Turkey's continued support for the Palestinian terrorist group. Reports that Turkey provides cash to Hamas have circulated for years. But because this assistance is provided in the form of cash, it's not easy for the Israelis to document. This is why Israel is focused on another demand: dismantling Hamas's Istanbul headquarters.
Hamas's Turkey headquarters was big news in August 2014, when the group's exiled military leader Saleh Arouri announced that his group was behind the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank. That operation led to the grueling 51-day war between Israel and Hamas. Arouri made the announcement in Istanbul, in front of a large crowd that included senior Turkish officials.

Top Gaza News Agency Mocks Tel Aviv Pride Attendees with Homophobic Slurs

A major Palestinian news agency linked to the terrorist group Hamas mocked revelers at Tel Aviv’s annual gay pride parade with homophobic slurs in a series of widely-shared Facebook posts.
The Gaza-based Shehab News Agency used derogatory terms for gay men and women in its coverage of the LGBT community’s annual parade along the Mediterranean coast last week, which drew hundreds of thousands of people. The agency called the Israeli city a “settlement” and claimed that Israel has one of the world’s highest rates of homosexuality, which it described as an “anomaly.”
One of the most popular social media sites in the Palestinian territories, Shehab’s Arabic-language Facebook page has nearly 6 million followers.
Over 200,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv to participate in the region’s largest gay pride parade on Friday. “The sun is out and everybody is partying and having fun, the atmosphere is great,” Christian Tummann, a German tourist, told the Associated Press. “I feel so happy, so happy, that I can go to the Middle East and still be proud, it’s very nice,” added Dona Ulzen, who was visiting from Sweden.

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No, HuffPo, Governor Cuomo is not violating US law

The Huffington Post has an article by an ACLU official:

Gov. Cuomo’s BDS Blacklist Is An Affront To Free Expression

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order this week requiring state agencies and authorities to divest from any company or institution that supports the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. The order not only threatens to punish constitutionally protected political speech but also requires the state of New York to create a blacklist of allies of the movement, which BDS supporters describe as an effort to ensure human rights for Palestinians.

“It’s very simple: If you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you,” Cuomo said when he announced the order.

The directive requires all agencies and departments over which the governor has executive authority as well as certain public benefit corporations, public authorities, boards, and commissions to divest funds from any company or institution supporting BDS. The entities are also banned from investing in those companies in the future.

The order itself makes clear that the activity the governor wants to punish is political in nature. But, as the Supreme Court made clear, government can’t penalize people or entities on the basis of their free expression, and political boycotts are a form of free expression.

What is the Supreme Court ruling that the ACLU is citing?

In 1966, the NAACP called for a boycott of some white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Mississippi. The businesses sued the NAACP in 1969 for their lost revenue over the boycott. The Mississippi High Court rejected two of the three arguments for the lawsuit but upheld a third, that black citizens were intimidated into boycotting the stores with threats of violence. Some NAACP members actually engaged in violence and others stood outside the stores to record the names of any black customers.

The Supreme Court said that non-violent free speech cannot be penalized on First Amendment grounds, and that the NAACP cannot be held responsible for the violent or threatening acts by some of its members, so the lawsuit against the boycotters was dismissed.

In short, the Supreme Court ruled that the state cannot penalize people for engaging in nonviolent free speech.

But choosing not to give government contracts with, or invest in, a business that boycotts Israel is not in any way, shape or form a violation of people's right to free speech.  There is a huge difference between forcing people to pay a financial penalty for their non-violent speech and saying that you won't financially support their speech. States have the right to decide how to spend and invest their money, and that does not violate the right to free speech. Not until they prosecute someone for what they write on a blog or say on a street corner.

Freedom of speech does not mean the right to be paid for your opinions. It is not the right to have your opinions be respected as much as all other opinions. It is not the right not to feel uncomfortable when others disagree with your ideas.

The BDSers are not being stopped in any way, shape or form from expressing their opinions. Being exposed as idiots and liars is not a violation of their right to be idiots and liars.

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Amnesty's Twitter followers don't care about dead Jews

Here are the number of retweets for recent Amnesty International tweets from their @AmnestyOnline account:

-Ireland’s ban on abortion violates human rights – ground-breaking UN ruling - 174
-I fled war in Syria, was attacked in #Germany: Report on failure to tackle hate crime rise - 127
-GOOD NEWS! Torture survivor Yecenia Armenta now free in Mexico - ends 4 years of injustice - 113
-Bahrain shatters façade of reform with persecution of opposition leader @ariel_plotkin oped - 109
-UN: Shameful pandering to Saudi Arabia over children killed in Yemen conflict - 154
-Nowhere safe: Refugee women on the Greek islands live in constant fear - 60
-Malawi: Killing spree of people with albinism fuelled by ritual practices/police failures - 260
-Two Syrian refugees are first at risk of forced return to Turkey under #EUTurkeyDeal: Tell @imouzalas to STOP this! - 124
-Evidence counters UK claims that no British-made cluster munitions used in recent Yemen war - 219

It is very clear that AmnestyOnline can count over a hundred of its followers to pretty consistently retweet nearly every tweet of theirs, no matter how obscure the topic.

With one exception.

Amnesty released a fairly strong statement about the Tel Aviv bombing (although it also couldn't stop itself from warning against Israel engaging in "collective punishment." How many people retweeted that statement from this account since yesterday?

Israel/OPT: Tel Aviv attack displays total disdain for human life - 37 retweets

Amnesty International's Twitter followers apparently care far less about Jews being murdered than any other human rights issue on Earth.

This is not the first time that Amnesty's followers showed a marked indifference to dead Jews. Last November Amnesty tweeted a similar message against killing Israelis, and it received only 46 retweets.  Yet a general anti-Israel tweet in the midst of the knife attacks weeks earlier received nearly triple that amount.

During the Gaza war, an Amnesty tweet against the US providing Israel with fuel gathered over 1500 retweets. The daily tweets that Amnesty did last summer on events that happened in Gaza a year earlier routinely gathered 100-200 retweets.

The pattern is consistent: Not only does Amnesty tweet far more against Israel than against people trying to kill Israelis, but its fans don't give a damn about dead Israelis the few times that Amnesty decides to pretend to be "even handed" and condemn the terrorists.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that most of Amnesty International's active online fans either don't care about dead Jews or that they feel that slaughtering Israeli civilians is justified and should not be condemned as much as, say, Bahrain persecuting an opposition leader.

(AmnestyUSA's fans does not show the same overt bias as its international Twitter account followers do, the AmnestyUSA  tweet about the attacks garnered 148 retweets, which is about average for that account.)

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Arabs make video celebrating the "Ramadan operation" in Tel Aviv

This Arab dramatization of the Tel Aviv attack, based on false early reports that the shooters were disguised as religious Jews, was produced and released less than 24 hours after the murders.

 It uses the hashtag "Ramadan operation."



Unlike apologists for Palestinian terror speaking to gullible Westerners, this video for Muslim audiences doesn't try to justify murdering Jews in a restaurant as being because of "occupation" or "oppression."  The video juxtaposes the murderous rampage with the Ramadan iftar meal and a visual of the Dome of the Rock. it shows that it is religion, not politics, that animates these terror attacks.

Hamas openly associates Ramadan with religious war against Israel. But no analyst at the New York Times or CNN would dare say that.

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A BDS lexicon (Poster)

After reading the ridiculous reactions of the Israel-hate crowd over Governor Cuomo boycotting the boycotters, I created this.

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06/09 Links Pt2: Why Even-Handed Isn’t Pro-Israel; Anthropology and Anti-Semitism;

From Ian:

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Anthropology and Anti-Semitism

One of the core principles of modern anthropology is cultural relativism, the idea that researchers must not make value judgements about the societies they study. Anthropologists think of themselves as setting aside their biases and preferences in order to see a society and culture "from the native's point of view." Whether studying the raiding activity of Bedouin tribal nomads, witchcraft by African villagers, or head-hunting by grieving Philippine tribesmen, anthropologists embrace the sentiment that "nothing human is alien to me."
Except when it comes to Jews. Once again, Jews and the Jewish state have been uniquely selected for official opprobrium by the American Anthropological Association (AAA). A motion to boycott Israeli academic institutions, an initiative reminiscent of anti-Jewish boycotts of the 1930s, was presented this spring to the membership, which voted online. The resolution, which claims that "the Israeli state has denied Palestinians – including scholars and students – their fundamental rights of freedom, equality, and self-determination through ethnic cleansing, colonization, discrimination, and military occupation," was defeated, according to the official tally released on June 6, by a vote of 2,423 against and 2,384 in favor.
By the narrowest of margins, AAA will not formally join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This was surely a great disappointment to its Middle East Section, which has long been obsessed with defaming Israel. While the U.S.S.R. was invading Afghanistan and slaughtering its people in 1979, the Middle East Section discussed only Palestine, and condemned only Israel.

Why Even-Handed Isn’t Pro-Israel

Most Israelis would be overjoyed to accept a peace settlement that ended the conflict for all time even if it meant painful territorial compromises that would result in the eviction of many Jews from their homes in the heart of their ancient homeland. But as the Palestinians have indicated repeatedly, even their supposedly moderate leader Mahmoud Abbas is not willing to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. Despite occasional lip service paid to the two-state solution idea for the Western press, neither Palestinian leaders nor Palestinian public opinion is ready to accept Israel. They see all of Israel — not just the West Bank and Jerusalem — as occupied territory. They applaud terror attacks on all Jews. Those dining in Tel Aviv cafes, like the victims in today’s atrocity, are seen by them as extremists as deserving of death as those Jews living in the most remote West Bank hilltop settlement.
The problem with even-handed policies, such as President Obama’s obsession with creating more “daylight” between Israel and the United States, is that they only encourage the Palestinians to continue rejecting peace rather than putting pressure on them to accept the compromises including statehood they’ve repeatedly rejected. That stand seems irrational, but it makes sense when you realize that Palestinians have come to view their struggle against Israel’s existence as intrinsic to their national identity.
Events like today’s attack in Tel Aviv ought to remind all Americans that so long as Palestinians are killing Jews, talk of even-handed policies will not help anyone, least of all Israel. Those who will praise today’s murderers as “heroes” — as both Palestinian moderates and extremists alike will do — don’t deserve support from either Democrats or Republicans. By fetishizing Palestinian statehood and trying to redefine support for that concept as essential to being pro-Israel, J Street and the left are actually harming the cause of peace and strengthening the forces inciting terrorism. If Democrats choose that path, they may claim, like J Street, to be pro-Israel, but that will be a deception. Until the Palestinians show themselves willing to end their century-long war on Zionism, even-handed means putting daylight between their party and the effort to defend the Jewish state.

Reporter Wonders if Israel Suspending Palestinian Entry Permits Akin to Trump’s Muslim Ban

ABC reporter Lana Zak asked the White House Thursday if it likened Israel’s suspension of entry permits to Palestinians in the wake of another terrorist attack to Donald Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.
Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire Wednesday at a popular Tel Aviv shopping complex located near Israel’s defense ministry, killing four. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the terrorists’ “savage crime,” and Israel announced it had suspended 83,000 entry permits for Palestinians on Thursday.
Zak wondered at Thursday’s press briefing whether this was akin to Trump’s controversial proposal that the U.S. temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S. in the name of security. Both Palestinian terrorists were in Israel on entry permits.
“What does the White House make of Israel’s decision to suspend entry permits to Palestinians?” she asked. “Does the White House find that an appropriate response? Is it too similar in some ways to the presumptive Republican nominee’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States because of terrorism?”

IsraellyCool: Almost Close—A Jerusalem Chai Documentary

I don’t know any Jewish extremists. But I do know Jewish people who live in the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem or on the Mount of Olives in “East” Jerusalem. They do so not to provoke Arabs but out of the conviction that Jews should settle in and build in every part of Jerusalem, our holiest city.
I believe this distinction is important: that Jews who insist upon living among the Arab people in Jerusalem do not do so to incite or provoke, but out of the conviction that Jews have a right to build homes and live in peace in any part of Jerusalem, and indeed, in any part of the Holy Land.
That is why I want to share this video clip of Daniel Lourie speaking about the mission of Ateret Kohanim, an organization that works to legally purchase properties in largely Muslim parts of Jerusalem. Daniel is calm, reasonable, logical, as he explains why he does what he does. He tells an Arab woman that he wants to live peacefully, side by side with Arabs, as she complains that building homes in her neighborhood makes Arabs angry.
Daniel makes the point that the Jewish Quarter of the Old City was called that because, under the Ottoman Empire, there were 19,500 Jews living in this part of Jerusalem out of a total population of 28,000, a clear Jewish majority. Further, Daniel tells us, the so-called “Muslim” Quarter was home to 21 synagogues and 6 yeshivot (Jewish seminaries). Last but not least, Lourie says quite reasonably, in my opinion, that it isn’t right that there is no synagogue on the Mount of Olives, a location with a special Jewish significance from long before Christ and Mohammed were born, and where there is a large Jewish cemetery.

JPost Editorial: Promises, promises

The US has 294 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions around the world – 27 of them in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, more than any other country. All but one of them share one thing: They are located in the host country’s capital. But not in Israel.
As Jeff Jacoby writes in The Boston Globe, “This isn’t just an absurdity; it’s an insult to an ally. It’s also a continuing act of appeasement to rejectionists who oppose Jewish sovereignty over any part of the Jewish homeland. Such discriminatory treatment is obnoxious; that is why presidential hopefuls keep pledging to fix it, and why the House and Senate more than a decade ago, by overwhelming majorities, passed a law – the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 – requiring that the embassy be moved.”
Every six months, each president since Bill Clinton has invoked “national security” to justify using the waiver provision of the Embassy Act. The State Department’s spin is that relocating it would amount to prejudging the status of the city, which should be settled by negotiation.
But no one is suggesting that the embassy be built in other than the western part of town – where Israel’s government ministries, legislature, and Supreme Court are situated, for example. For any country not to recognize Israel’s seat of government as its capital is insulting and absurd.
The what-will-the-Arabs-think argument is specious.
Those who are our friends might gain some respect for the US for its doing the right thing, while our enemies do not care about embassies in Jerusalem as much as eliminating the Jewish state.
President Obama is no doubt concerned with solidifying his legacy in his remaining months in office. It would be an historic decision for him to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. It would be an act that binds our two democracies even closer together and sends the world the message that the survival of the Jewish state is not negotiable.

Netanyahu: U.S., Not Moscow, Is the Cornerstone of Israel's Foreign Relations

The US remains Israel’s chief ally and cannot be replaced by Russia, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday before flying home after a two-day visit to Moscow.
“It is not desirable or practical to replace the United States [with Russia]. The US is the cornerstone of our foreign relations,” Netanyahu told reporters.
He had visited Moscow for the third time this year, and had held his fourth face-to-face meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
Although the trip was a celebration of 25 years of diplomatic ties, it fueled speculation that Israel is seeking to grow closer to Moscow and to distance itself from Washington, particularly in light of Netanyahu’s contentious relationship with President Barack Obama, with whom he has met only once in the past year.
But Netanyahu said that the idea that his frequent trips to Russia were part of a plan to replace Washington with Moscow is “nonsense.”

US, Palestinians slam minister’s call for partial West Bank annexation

American and Palestinian officials on Wednesday denounced comments made by Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, who earlier this week urged Israel to annex Area C of the West Bank and who was incorrectly quoted calling for the removal thousands of Palestinians who live in that area.
A spokesperson for Uriel has since clarified that while the Jewish Home party minister did call for the annexation of Area C — some 60 percent of the West Bank — he did not call for the removal of Palestinians from there, and that his comment to this effect was mistranslated. (The Times of Israel has corrected its original article to reflect this.)
During the daily press briefing on Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Mark Toner was asked about Ariel’s remarks, made in an interview with The Times of Israel during his trip this week to Moscow.
“I’m going to resist the temptation to respond to every comment from Israeli officials, but for a member of the Israeli cabinet to say what Minister Ariel said is concerning,” Toner said. “We continue to look to steps, rhetoric, comments, actions that we believe will set the conditions for a peace process to take hold and to avoid inflammatory and provocative rhetoric.”

Egyptians Begin to Envision Warmer Relations with Israel

A string of statements by current and former senior Egyptian state and military officials and independent publicists have appeared recently in the Egyptian press, calling for a reassessment, under certain conditions, of the traditional reservations regarding the "temperature" of the country's relations with Israel.
Egypt's openness to eventual "warm" peace with Israel emerges in a new geopolitical context. Normalization is no longer presented only as bait aimed at Israel but rather reflects Egypt's genuine interests and those of other Arab countries in creating a "new regional order" that will include broader and more open cooperative efforts with Israel for the sake of security stability and economic welfare in the region.
"Warm" peace with Israel during the current period is actually meant to fill the vacuum left by the reduction of U.S. involvement in the region. It aims at establishing a new regional axis in which Egypt, the Gulf states, and Israel will join forces.
May Azzam, who published a series of articles in al-Masry al-Youm under the title "Are the Arabs Ready for Warm Peace?," noted that the Palestinian problem no longer heads the Arab public agenda; an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights is not currently a relevant prospect, in light of the war in Syria; and the "resistance" organizations of Hizbullah and Hamas are considered by some Arab states to be outcast terrorist groups.
According to Azzam, "most of the Arab governments already do not regard Israel as their most bitter enemy and rank other countries ahead of it on the hostility and hatred scale." She pointed to the Egyptian necessity for promoting "a turnover in the principles on which we were educated and that became part of our fundamental concepts."
Another columnist in al-Masry al-Youm, writing under the pseudonym "Newton," stated that after decades of living side-by-side with Israel, the time has come for Egypt to update its "operative program" to enable it to reap the fruits of peace between the two countries. In his view, the new security understandings between Egypt and Israel regarding the deployment of forces in the Sinai Peninsula have proven "the existence of mutual trust and the coordination that serves the interests of both countries."

Outrage Over Special Labeling for French Passports of Jews on Aliyah; Residence Listed as ‘Israel/Palestinian Territories’

Prominent Jews expressed outrage this week over new French Foreign Ministry “software” that lists the residency of French citizens who made aliyah as “Israel/Palestinian Territories” in their passports.
“Grotesque” is how Nidra Poller – an American Jewish intellectual who has been living in France for more than four decades — described the move. “French citizens living in Israel have to move over and make room on their passports for those Palestinian territories that the French pretend to cherish,” she told The Algemeiner.
Author, most recently, of The Black Flag of Jihad Stalks La Republique, Poller placed the labeling of passports in a broader context of French policy in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“France voted in favor of giving the Palestinians the Temple Mount, the Kotel (Western Wall), the tombs of the Patriarchs. At the World Health Organization summit, French representatives joined in the call to investigate Israel for so-called ‘abuses of mental, physical and environmental health.’”

WMD Expert: Tolerance of Assad’s Renewed Chemical Attacks Marks “Milestone” in Their Use

U.S. officials warned last year that the Assad regime is likely to use chemical weapons as a last resort to protect key installations.
The Assad regime killed hundreds of civilians in a chemical attack on a Damascus suburb in August 2013. Despite a deal drawn up in the wake of this attack to rid Syria of its chemical weapon stockpile, the Assad regime has continued to use chlorine gas, and traces of chemical weapons were found in May 2015 at facilities that Assad had not declared. Last year, Iran attempted to block diplomatic efforts to condemn Syria for its violation of the chemical weapons agreement it had signed.
Assad prevented inspectors from accessing all of his chemical weapon stores in July 2015, allowing Syria to avoid completely complying with the deal it had agreed to in 2013. American intelligence at the time indicated that Assad still retained “caches of even deadlier nerve agents.”
Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at Israel’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, warned that the failure of Syrian chemical arms agreement to rid Syria of those illegal weapons boded poorly for the success of the nuclear deal with Iran. After Assad was reported to have kept inspectors away from his chemical weapons stockpile, Karmon asked, “If this is the record of the international community in dismantling and monitoring the chemical and nuclear facilities in Syria, how exactly it will do better in monitoring the vast Iranian nuclear infrastructure?”

Amid war, UN warns Syrians smoking is a grave health risk

The World Health Organization has identified another grave risk to the health of Syrians in their war-torn country: tobacco.
In a statement last week, the UN health agency warned that “notwithstanding the current crisis in the country,” Syrian officials should collaborate with the UN health agency to control the use of tobacco and water pipes among its people, especially young adults, women and teenagers.
WHO’s Syria representative, Dr. Elizabeth Hoff, warned that using tobacco and water pipes endangers the health and lives of smokers and people around them. Hoff said using water pipes to smoke shisha, a common pastime in the Middle East, is 20 times more dangerous than cigarette smoking. She urged Syrian officials to implement a “plain packaging” approach for cigarettes to reduce their “attractiveness and glamour.”

Report: Media Give Gorilla Death 6 Times More Coverage Than ISIS Beheadings of Christians

A new study by the indefatigable Media Research Center (MRC) has revealed that mainstream media devoted some six times as much air time to covering the recent death of Harambe the gorilla than they did to the gruesome Islamic State decapitation of 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach last year.
On Saturday, May 28, security officials shot a gorilla named Harambe to protect a three-year-old boy who had fallen into the animal’s pen at the Cincinnati Zoo.
In the five days that followed the animal’s death, the three major networks devoted a total of 1 hour, 28 minutes and 17 seconds to the story during their morning and evening news shows. An unfortunate incident, to be sure, but as one commentator noted, “a tempest in a teapot.”
By contrast, in February 2015, a group of black-clad Islamic State militants slit the throats of 21 Coptic Christians on a beach near Tripoli, which garnered only a fraction of the gorilla coverage. The terrorists videoed the execution, as the Christians, dressed in orange jumpsuits, fell one by one to the ground dead.

U.S. Lawmakers Want More Iran Sanctions

A senior U.S. senator said on Tuesday he would like to pass legislation to extend expiring sanctions on Iran and enable Congress to quickly enact new ones if necessary over the country's ballistic missile tests.
The Iran Sanctions Act, which imposed nuclear, missile and terrorism sanctions on Iran, expires at the end of 2016, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress support extending it.
But Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, acknowledged that lawmakers have not yet unified behind a proposal that would attract enough votes to pass and become law.
"Members have different views," he said at a roundtable discussion with reporters.
The Obama administration has warned Congress that it would oppose new sanctions that interfere with the international nuclear pact, laying the groundwork for a potential fight over any legislation.

Book: Hillary Played Crucial Role in Secret Iran Deal

A book released two months ago is said to be the first to disclose the full extent of the backdoor nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama administration began in secret, and as it turns out, it's got Hillary Clinton written all over it.
The book is Alter Egos, written by New York Times White House correspondent Mark Landler, and explores the relationship between Clinton and Barack Obama -- two top U.S. leaders that exist both as arch-rivals and partners in American destiny. The section on the secretive Iran deal piqued the interest of Washington Post foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius in light of the recent revelation that the State Department deliberately deceived the American public to hide this "back channel" deal.
Ignatius writes:
One of the mysteries of Campaign 2016 is why the Iran nuclear deal has vanished as an issue. But a new book reveals some startling details about how the diplomacy with Tehran began in secret, long before reformers took power there, and the crucial role played by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
This Omani "back channel," as Ignatius calls it, was opened in 2009 "through a colorful fixer named Salem ben Nasser al-Ismaily." According to Landler's account in his book, Clinton's role was extensive and her entry through the back door was very early.

Iranian Goalkeeper Banned from Soccer for Six Months for Wearing “SpongeBob” Pants

Iran has suspended one of its national soccer stars for wearing SpongeBob SquarePants-themed pants, The Guardian reported Wednesday.
Goalkeeper Sosha Makani, a member of Iran’s 2014 World Cup team who plays for Persepolis in Tehran, has been banned from the sport for six months by the committee in charge of monitoring the morality of Iran’s football federation for wearing bright yellow pants that at least one news agency compared to the cartoon character.
Makani was arrested and briefly jailed earlier this year for posting pictures of himself along with women who had their hair uncovered, which was considered “indecent” by authorities. He defended himself by claiming that his account was hacked and that he had not posted the pictures.
A video of Makani dancing with one of the women in the photos subsequently emerged. (h/t Rab iBurns)

Global Premiere of ‘Hating Israel’ in Jerusalem Cinematheque

The global premiere of “Hating Israel: In Search of The Truth Behind BDS” was screened on Wednesday evening at the Jerusalem Cinematheque in the presence of a select group of parliamentarians, clergy, business leaders, and VIPs. The full-length documentary takes viewers on a personal journey through Israel in search of the truth behind the global movement to defame and destroy Israel. The film is the latest initiative of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations (PJTN) as part of their ongoing global educational and mobilization campaign against the BDS movement. The film will be distributed in the fall through PJTN’s media partners on several television networks, reaching a combined audience of more than 950 million viewers in 200 countries. It will also have a limited theatrical release in the US and Europe and will be screened in college and university campuses, civic groups, churches and synagogues around the globe. The Trailer you can see below has already won a Telly Award.
The documentary offers a news-driven, satirical approach to focus on the global impact of the BDS Movement — a movement to boycott, divest, and sanction against the State of Israel. Through the lens of Emmy Award winning director Stan Moore, host Brad Stine leads viewers through a twisted landscape of false perceptions to fully explain the anti-Semitic roots of BDS. Through commentary, interviews, and visuals from headline news the world, the documentary exposes the frightening rise seen globally of a new anti-Semitism being promoted through the BDS Movement.
Viewers join American Comedian Brad Stine on a journey in search of truth that takes him across Israel and the United States of America, meeting Ethiopian Jews in Jerusalem and Muslim-Israelis in Haifa, visiting Israeli colleges and high-tech companies to hear about the latest breakthroughs in Israeli innovation, traveling into the West Bank to hear personal stories from local Palestinians, learning firsthand how, if successful, the BDS movement would actively destroy the livelihoods of thousands of Palestinian families.
In America, Stine met with an array of experts including former CIA director James R. Woosley, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, Jewish comedian Jackie Mason, and exiled Palestinian Christians and Jewish students under attack on university campuses. He learned about the increasingly violent protests and intimidation tactics used against pro-Israel students.

The Anti-Israel Left Suffers a Rare, Close, and Welcome Defeat in Academia

BDS resolutions showcase a bizarre anti-Israel fetishism within certain academic disciplines. Why not pass resolutions boycotting academic institutions in legitimately oppressive states? The ineluctable but unnerving answer is that the professed concern for human rights contained in these boycotts is cover for a leftist political campaign to delegitimize Israel.
But there is something far more disturbing about the way academia embraces BDS. Disciplines in which anti-Israel sentiment is most common come from the cultural-studies line. There, orthodoxy demands denial of legitimacy to states whose history is colonial. Looking for the silver lining, the pro-BDS faction of the AAA cites a “ground-breaking report by a AAA Task Force recognizing the settler-colonial practices of the Israeli government.” The post-colonial instinct is to see indigeneity as the true marker of legitimate sovereignty.
This is radical. While the classical tradition contends that states are legitimated by representative government and preserved through a structure of law, this new orthodoxy pretends that such institutions are inherently polluted, and therefore illegitimate, because the settlers who erected political structures drove out indigenous people. Such displacement is historical fact in many countries, both Western and non-Western, but it hardly constitutes sufficient reason to throw away the benefits of modern democratic institutions. Academics who support BDS resolutions show their true convictions: They trade John Locke for Edward Said.
BDS in academia should be resisted, so the AAA’s vote ought to be applauded. It is too soon to say whether, when taken in conjunction with the lawsuit, it constitutes an effective countervailing force against BDS. But it is not too soon to hope that it does.

Free Speech and Anti-BDS Laws

The definitive take on the legality of anti-BDS laws was written by legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich in Tablet Magazine last year. Responding to the concerns of former ADL head Abe Foxman, who said that such measures would be struck down in the courts as violations of free speech and allow their supporters to pose as victims. Yet as Kontorovich explains, anti-BDS laws are on firm legal ground. Nothing in them stops Israel haters from advocating their positions. Anti-discrimination measures are not only legal but also commonplace. The government has no right to tell a business owner what to believe or try to stop them from speaking out on those beliefs. But by the same token, there is no obligation on the part of the state to subsidize activity that is abhorrent. It is understood that those who do business with governments can’t practice discrimination.
Contrary to the arguments of National Review’s Noah Daponte-Smith, there is no analogy between anti-BDS laws and those who advocate boycotts against the Chick-fil-a chain because of its donations to anti-same sex marriage groups or the beliefs of its owners. If consumers don’t want to support businesses on that basis they are free to do so just as others may decide they prefer to eat or shop at such places because they agree with those views. Consumer boycotts are legal. However, the threats of some city governments to prevent the chain from doing business in their towns because they don’t like those views were illegal. Yet those governments are also not obligated to invest in or in any way subsidize those stores and that is the focus of anti-BDS laws.
As Kontorovich points out, those who oppose anti-BDS laws aren’t proposing to end regulations that prohibit government entities from doing business or investing in firms and groups that actively and openly engage in discriminatory behavior on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. To the contrary, most of the left-wing supporters of BDS warmly support those measures. But what must be understood is that practicing BDS is no different from any other form of bias. Waging war on the one Jewish state in the planet is not an effort to get the government of Israel to change its policies or just an opinion on where its borders should be drawn. BDS is part of a world view that seeks to treat Israel differently from the rest of the world since no other country or people is the object of an international movement bent on its destruction. BDS is part of a campaign to eliminate Israel and, in that sense, merely compliments the efforts of those who seek that end by violence and terror.

Behind the Scenes: How the Anti-BDS Vote Within the American Anthropological Association Ballooned

Following the defeat of the resolution, AAA President Alisse Waterston said in a statement, “The consensus within the AAA remains and that is that there are serious human rights problems that exist in Israel/Palestine as a result of Israeli state policy, practices and the occupation and that AAA must take a course of action.”
Rosen slammed Waterston’s comments, saying, “The leadership of the AAA continues to promote the BDS agenda by claiming that there is a consensus about Israel. No such consensus exists. The AAA is radically divided on all these issues. The leadership has absolutely no mandate from the membership of these issue. It is purely self-directed.”
The results of the AAA vote — which took place via electronic ballot between April 15 and May 31 — were announced on Tuesday. Some 51 percent of 9,359 eligible-voting members took part in the vote. Had the resolution passed, AAA would have joined other academic institution — such as the American Studies Association, the National Women’s Studies Association, the African Literature Association and the Association for Asian American Studies — in boycotting Israel.

The McGill model for fighting BDS

For years Jewish students had felt that there was sustained hostility aimed at them from their anti-Zionist and pro-BDS classmates.”
When these heartfelt arguments “were treated with varying levels of disdain,” students “came to vote with us because they saw the toll that the aggressive and at times personal attacks took on their friends.”
The McGill model teaches important lessons.
First, make the fight personal, because it is. BDS scapegoats Israel, Israeli students, Jewish students, pro-Israel students and harms the campus environment.
Students mobilized to support their friends.
Second, make the fight about fairness, about treating Jewish and pro-Israel students with the dignity all students deserve. And third, don’t just say no. Turn the negative into a positive. Celebrate the open, tolerant pro-Israel, pro-democracy campus the McGill students and professors cherish, the provocative, civil academic values the principal champions, the fair, equitable, civil learning community the Judicial Board endorses, and what Paransky proudly calls “the strong Jewish and Zionist values” he learned from camp and his family.
Finally, be proactive. Other campuses shouldn’t wait for BDS ugliness to strike; celebrate fairness and openness by articulating what you believe now, affirming that your campus has zero tolerance for BDS intolerance.

UC Irvine Braces for Possible Backlash Over Re-Screening of Pro-Israel Film That Stirred Violence on Campus

Officials at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) are preparing for possible backlash over the re-screening of a film that was the cause of a violent protest last month by anti-Israel student groups, a spokesperson for UCI told The Algemeiner on Wednesday, ahead of the event.
According to Cathy Lawhon, UCI is “planning for the possibility” of controversy and protest against the event and have even set aside a specific area across the street from the venue where protesters can gather. “Plans to keep the auditorium area secure are in place,” she said, adding, “Only people who have RSVP’d can get in.”
The sold-out event — titled “UCI Celebrates Free Speech” — is expected to draw hundreds of Israel-supporters to the to the campus.
Lawhon told The Algemeiner that UCI Dean of Students Rameen Talesh “has reached out to oppositional groups to find out their plans, but have not heard back because it is finals week.”

IsraellyCool: JCC Manhattan Showcases Anti-Israel Film

OK, nothing really there. But here’s the synopsis.
Synopsis
Dawn is a psychological drama behind closed doors, in which four comrades in arms pressure the young Elisha to overcome his moral qualms and fully commit to the armed struggle.
The story is set in Palestine in 1947, during the British mandate period. The Zionists are fighting for the establishment of a Jewish state. A member of the armed Jewish underground has been sentenced to death by the British authorities. In return, the resistance has kidnapped a British officer, trying to redeem their friend. The insurgents spend the night together, waiting for the outcome of the negotiation. If the British hang their friend at dawn, one of them will shoot the British officer held as a hostage.
Based on the novel by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, Dawn sheds a new light on a key moment in history that allows us to re-examine the current political disputes.
Context
Since the beginning of the British occupation of Palestine, towards the end of the First World War, the British authorities were struggling to maintain peace between the local Arab population and the Jewish newcomers from Europe. When the British denied entry to the survivors of the concentration camps coming by boat to Palestine, they became the Enemy Number One of the Zionist project. Clandestine groups like the Irgun and Lehi subsequently increase their attacks against the British on Palestinian soil. (see also Timeline)
The theme of the resistance’s struggle has not lost its relevance since the novel’s publication in 1960. However, the reading of the book today evokes the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which it is now the Palestinians who are fighting for the liberation of Arab Palestine. The situation’s reverse is quite striking and shows that liberation can lead to other forms of oppression, once again leading to fight. Of course, this kind of theoretical reflection is quite distant from the people involved in the everyday struggle. It is therefore necessary to keep a certain distance in order to be able to judge the problem on the whole.
The parts I bolded clearly show the thinking of the filmmakers and their attempt to draw parallels between the Jews’ struggle in pre-state Palestine and the palestinian terrorists of today.
This is no surprises when you consider the director and producer is the Swiss Romed Wyder.

Second Austrian Bank Closes Anti-Israel Boycott Account

The second Austrian bank in two months has closed an account held by an anti-Israel boycott group, Benjamin Weinthal reported for The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.
An account at the Austrian banking giant BAWAG belonging to the Austrian-Arab Cultural Center (OKAZ) has been closed, Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based investment firm that is the majority owner of BAWAG, confirmed to Weinthal. OKAZ held an event earlier this year featuring terrorist Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was involved in two plane hijackings in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
This is the second such occurrence to have happened in Austria in recent months. Erste Group Bank closed the account of the organization BDS Austria in May.
Weinthal, who is also a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, explained in an op-ed Wednesday in the New York Daily News that Bawag’s action may be related to the executive order signed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday barring state agencies from doing business with organizations that boycott Israel.
“The ramifications [of the executive order] will ripple far beyond these borders,” Weinthal wrote. Since Cereberus has a business relationship with New York State’s pension fund, Weinthal deemed the closing of the OKAZ account “a probable result” of Cuomo’s executive order.

BBC’s Bowen employs apartheid analogy in report on Paris conference

Listeners yet again heard exaggeration of the significance of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“Just because events between the Israelis and the Palestinians have been largely overshadowed by the war, chaos, tumult elsewhere in the Middle East doesn’t mean that the conflict still isn’t very poisonous. And President Hollande as well said that because of the way that – as he put it – terrorism is spreading around the world, that other countries have a legitimate interest in trying to bring some peace and stability to one of the most troubled places on earth.”
Once more promoting PLO talking points as he did in his ‘Newshour’ report two days earlier, Bowen again steered audiences towards the view that the main obstacle to a peace agreement is Israeli construction, citing “lots of people” whose identities – and relevant expertise – he declined to share with listeners.
“The idea of making peace by setting up an independent Palestine to exist alongside Israel – the two state solution – lots of people these days say that because of the growth of settlements – Israeli settlements on occupied land which is in defiance of international law; it’s illegal – it’s just physically going to be very difficult for the Palestinians to set up an independent state.”
The Middle East editor made no effort to comply with BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality by informing audiences that the legal view he promotes is just one interpretation of ‘international law’ and that other views also exist.

Yahoo News Promotes Al Jazeera's Anti-Israel Propaganda

Verizon is reportedly offering $3 billion for Yahoo's internet business. If the deal goes through, Verizon is expected to benefit from additional advertising revenues. But it would also inherit an ongoing problem: Yahoo News and its penchant for hateful propaganda.
CAMERA recently prompted Yahoo to remove from its "news" rotation two virulent hate sites. Yahoo News had promoted the sites seemingly because, along with their Holocaust denial, 9/11 conspiracy theories, homophobia, and anti-Semitism, they frequently published anti-Israel agitprop. (See here and here for more details about Yahoo News's promotion of hate sites Veterans News Now, Mint Press, and American Herald Tribune.)
Unfortunately, despite its step in the right direction, Yahoo News, headed by former New York Times editor Megan Liberman, continues to pursue and promote radical anti-Israelism at the expense of decency and accuracy. Yesterday, for example, the internet giant directed readers to a multimedia feature by Al Jazeera entitled "Vanishing Palestine: The making of Israel's occupation."

Hypocrisy: Robert Fisk Bemoans Reporting of “False Atrocities”

Back in October 2006, Fisk was given the front page of the UK’s Independent to spread the libel that Israel had used uranium-based weapons in southern Lebanon. The charge was swiftly debunked yet Fisk never retracted this libel, which continues to reappear online courtesy of anti-Israel activists.
This is the same Robert Fisk who happily promoted the falsehood of the Jenin “Massacre” in 2002. And let’s not forget that The Independent was forced to pay damages to the Saudi interior minister in August 2011 after a story by Fisk was found to be false.
Fisk ends his op-ed by saying: “Thus we journos have to investigate each bestiality which comes our way, usually in the Middle East, with semantic scalpels.”

Out of jail, Jewish author vows to fight Austria fraud conviction

Stephan Templ, a critic of Austria’s handling of Jewish property, was released from prison last week after serving eight months for a controversial conviction for fraud on his mother’s application for Holocaust restitution. It is a conviction he is determined to quash.
Templ, 56, left Austria for his home in Prague in the Czech Republic shortly after his release Friday, in self exile over his conviction, which he said was false and designed as payback for his critical writings about Austria. In an interview Tuesday, he vowed to fight to have his conviction annulled based on new evidence.
The Austrian Supreme Court sentenced Templ in 2014 to one year in jail for defrauding the state by omitting the name of his aunt from an application for restitution he filled out for his mother. But the new evidence shows he named the aunt several times in restitution-related documents received by the authorities.
The Anti-Defamation League and 75 Holocaust scholars implored Austrian authorities to avoid jailing Templ, noting the decision to do so seems connected to his 2001 book, “Our Vienna,” in which he criticized failures in offering restitution for property stolen from Jews by Austrians and Germans during World War II.
“It was a fabricated trial with trumped-up charges, full of lies,” he said.

Elbit’s IronVision Helmet for Tanks Sees through Armor

Next week, at the international defense and security industry trade show Eurosatory, Elbit will unveil IronVision, the first Helmet Mounted Display (HMS) designed for the crews of armored vehicles. IronVision is a 360-degree panoramic situational awareness system, part of Elbit’s See-Through Armor (STA) architecture, that enables tank and infantry crewmen to “see-through” their vehicle’s armor in real-time, creating a clear and complete visualization of the battlefield, even when the hatches are down.
IronVision’s 360-degree, high-resolution imagery is projected in full color and zero latency to the wearer’s visor, offering a bright and vivid display of the surroundings in both day and night and all types of weather.
The new HMS is based on the proven sensors and system architecture that is already integrated with thousands of fixed and rotary-wing aircraft systems that are already in use by most modern air forces worldwide. IronVision incorporates advanced See-Through Armor (STA) technology that lets the wearers obtain full, real-time, Situational Awareness (SA) and locate, identify and track enemy targets.

Israel produces new anti-drone system

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has system for fighting hostile drone activities.
The Drone Guard, as the project is known, focuses on detecting, identifying and disrupting drones, Ynet reports. It even has civilian uses, allowing people to prevent drones from entering their private property.
"The use of small drones has increased dramatically over the years, making them a potential threat to critical infrastructures, other aircraft and homeland security due to their small size, low speed and low flight altitude," reads a statement from IAI. "These drones may be used for a number of reasons, including hostile purposes such as intelligence gathering, smuggling, or as weaponized platforms."
While Israel has a larger drone program than its hostile neighbors, it has already dealt with military drones from Hamas and Hezbollah during wartime. Most are intended to gather intelligence on the IDF's actions and make a show of force, rather than to carry out attacks.
IAI has already sold Drone Guards to a number of customers, though it has not identified the purchasers.

Israeli-founded companies brought $9.3 billion to Massachusetts

Israeli-founded companies based in Massachusetts brought in $9.3 billion to the state last year, continuing to outpace the state's economy in overall revenue and job growth, according to a new report released Wednesday by the New England-Israel Business Council.
When factoring in the impact of spending on goods and services, such as office space, marketing and other business needs, the figure nearly doubled to $18.1 billion, the report found.
Some 200 companies employ nearly 9,000 people in Massachusetts, up from some 6,600 three years ago, when the New England-Israel Business Council released a similar study. Both studies were conducted by Stax Inc., a strategic management consulting firm, with support from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.
In that time, the revenue from the Israeli-founded companies grew twice as fast as the Massachusetts economy overall and now represents nearly 4 percent of the state's entire economy.
“That's a big deal,” said the report's author, David Goodtree.

Die Antwoord brings fun, weirdness, defiance to a bleak Tel Aviv night

South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord had all the answers for the crowd in their first show in Israel Wednesday night.
The trio from Cape Town, led by frontman Ninja and singer Yo-Landi Visser and backed by DJ Hi-Tek, performed at Rishon’s Live Park as part of the “Suck on This” tour in support of a recent mixtape and upcoming album.
Their bizarre, idiosyncratic and vulgar music is difficult to categorize, but that did not seem to bother the crowd. The audience knew the band’s hits and welcomed its new material. It didn’t hurt that Ninja and Visser emphatically and obscenely rejected the calls for them to boycott Israel.
The crowd of mostly young Israelis packed into the venue, which has room for 20,000. Some audience members sported Visser-like white face paint and clothing inspired by the “zef” countercultural movement, which the band identifies with. Visser described the South African movement to The Guardian in 2010 as “people who soup their cars up and rock gold and shit. Zef is, you’re poor but you’re fancy.”
“Die Antwoord” means “The Answer” in Afrikaans. The band performs in English and Afrikaans, and has used the Bantu language Xhosa.

Serving their Country, Quietly and Bravely

The Israeli government has long been challenged with how to integrate the country’s Bedouin population. Some IDF veterans are forging a new path.
Only the sounds of gunshots and the orders of military commanders break the silence of the Negev desert near Israel’s border with Egypt. Under a blue summer sky and a seemingly endless expanse of sand, recently drafted soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces carry out training drills, practicing shooting, running, and navigating. The olive-green uniforms of the Givati brigade match the scrubby bushes underfoot, the only vegetation that survives under the desert sun.
Basic training at facilities like this is a rite of passage for most Israeli teenagers. Young men serve three years in the IDF and women two. Exemptions are given to those who study in ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, the country’s Arab citizens, and young women who opt for civilian national service. But aside from these groups, most healthy Israeli citizens, whether they like it or not, serve in the IDF in some capacity.
But one of the units running drills today, the 585th or Desert Reconnaissance Battalion, has a different story. It is an infantry unit made up mainly of Bedouins, a semi-nomadic Muslim minority that makes up about 2 percent of Israel’s population. Bedouins are not required to serve in the army, but many have chosen to do so for decades.

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