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Through the looking glass with Barack Obama into the Iran nuclear deal

April 13, 2015

Through the looking glass with Barack Obama into the Iran nuclear deal | Anne’s Opinions, 12th April 2015

The hallucinatory deal with Iran resembles Alice Through the Looking Glass more than any kind of diplomatic or political achievement.– anneinpt)

Iran bunny

The magic Iranian Easter Bunny (via Twitter)

 

Shortly before Purim I wrote a post about “Venahafoch hu” – how “everything was turned about” in matters to do with Israel and the Palestinians. Well, Pesach is now over and yet it seems that the Purim spirit is still with us in everything to do with the nuclear deal between Iran and Barack Obama. (Note: I use Obama’s name deliberately rather than “Iran and the P5+1” because this deal has Obama’s name (literally) written all over it with seemingly very little input from the other 5 partners.)

How else other than utter surrealism, if not willful blindness, could explain the following headlines? (All the links in the Twitter embeds are clickable and will take you to the original articles).

Yes, the Saudis and Israel are the world’s new “best friends”, or at least politically-convenient allies. Who would have thought we would live to see the day? And keep in mind that it was the Americans, or rather Barack Obama himself, who drove the two into each others’ arms. Maybe that was his devious plan all along?

Note to politicians: When Haaretz contradicts you, you know you are on the wrong side:

https://twitter.com/HenryRops1/status/584871507714768896

They should take advice from Prof. Alon Ben Meir, a world expert in the Middle East.

It’s surely past time to take the Iranians at their word (click on the picture below to enlarge and see the quotes in their entirety):

And this is confirmed by former Presidential candidate, Senator John McCain:

The Israeli government is not relenting on its persistent questioning of the “deal” with Iran:

This is summarized in these convenient tabs:

Possibly the most surreal moment of this whole surreal farce (apologies for the overuse of this word. I just cannot think of a better description) was Obama actually confirming Binyamin Netanyahu’s assertion that the Iranian’s will have zero time to nuclear breakout, and then the State Department frantically trying to walk back Obama’s words:

From the linked article:

As reported yesterday, President Obama admitted that Netanyahu was correct when he said that the sunset clause in the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran “paves the way” for Iran to get nuclear weapons.

Obama admitted that in years 13 and 14 under his deal, the breakout time, which has since dropped to its current 2-3 months, and which the deal hopes to expand to 1 year, then drops to zero.

“What is a more relevant fear would be that in Year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point, the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”

The State Department faced a crisis when Obama accidentally told the truth, and to correct it, Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the President’s words got “a little mixed up”, and he was referring to a “hypothetical” case of what would happen without a deal.

Kemberly Kaye at Legal Insurrection blasted the “dippy” Marie Harf (although she was probably acting under orders) and quoted two former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz in the Wall Street Journal:

Brutally critical of the administration’s much touted Iran deal, the op-ed focused on the White House’s dismissive attitude towards the danger Iran poses. Kissinger and Shultz were less than impressed by the administration’s insistence on the necessity of a deal with a country whose priorities aren’t remotely in the same galaxy as those of the United States, noting:

Cooperation is not an exercise in good feeling; it presupposes congruent definitions of stability. There exists no current evidence that Iran and the U.S. are remotely near such an understanding. Even while combating common enemies, such as ISIS, Iran has declined to embrace common objectives. Iran’s representatives (including its Supreme Leader) continue to profess a revolutionary anti-Western concept of international order; domestically, some senior Iranians describe nuclear negotiations as a form of jihad by other means.

In sum, the op-ed eloquently observes the Iran deal is a complete and total cluster.

As pointed out above several times, the White House is suffering from a severe case of cognitive dissonance on Iran. Amy Miller at Legal Insurrection lists the ways:

Yesterday, Senator John McCain talked with radio host Hugh Hewitt about the non-deal—and the White House is not happy about it.

During the interview, McCain laid it all bare when he said that, with regards to the framework, “John Kerry is delusional.”

…

The White House comms shop, of course, can always be counted upon to barrel headfirst through a brick wall when faced with criticism. No exception here:

https://twitter.com/rorycooper/status/586608713433292801

https://twitter.com/BrettLoGiurato/status/586608095507296257

This Alice in Wonderland view is cleverly illustrated thus:

https://twitter.com/coinabs/status/585641373510041603

We can add to this whole mish-mash the rather important but somehow unnoticed little fact that the Iran deal is not in fact a deal at all, as the Diplomad explains:

In all these mushrooming detonations of praise and self-congratulation one simple, little, itsy-bitsy fact has been overlooked. I hate to be the party pooper, but, well, there is no deal.

…

So comparing the Geneva “deal” with Iran to the Munich Agreement is unfair to the Munich Agreement. Chamberlain wasn’t lying when he announced he had a deal; Obama and Kerry are lying when they announce that they have a deal.

I repeat, there is no deal.

I have been in lots of negotiations, and can spot fake talking points real fast. The giveaway, of course, is that the detailed “parameters” were announced by the US; where are the signatures on the deal? I want to see where the Iranians signed.

The Iranian take on the “parameters” is quite different from the line peddled by Obama and Kerry. While Obama seeks to give the impression that these “parameters” have been agreed, the Iranian position is that, basically, these “parameters” establish the topics that will be discussed over the following weeks and months, except, of course, for one. The Iranians claim that sanctions must be lifted immediately or there is no further “progress.” In addition, of course, the Iranians get to keep their nuclear program. A minor detail.

David Gerstman also concurs with the Diplomad that the deal, such as it is, is going to kill the Non-Proliferation Treaty:

The idea that the protocols (remember there’s no deal yet) agreed to last week somehow would strengthen the NPT is utterly false.

The point of the ongoing nuclear negotiations from Iran’s standpoint is to remove its violations from the books and end the sanctions it incurred for those violations. Iran’s goal in the negotiations is to enshrine its “right to enrich” uranium. (No such right exists. Nuclear research for peaceful purposes is a right, an important qualification that cannot be attached to Iran’s nuclear research, according to the NPT.)

…

Now let’s assume the most optimistic outcome: that Iran addresses all key concerns. (Iran was supposed to explain possible military dimensions – PMD – of its nuclear work according to the Joint Plant of Action (JPOA) of November 2013, and still has not done so.) Iran would still have over 5000 centrifuges enriching uranium at Natanz. Iran would have centrifuges operating (though not enriching uranium) in an underground reinforced facility at Fordow and would have a heavy water reactor operating at Arak. (In December 2013, Obama himself acknowledged that Iran did not need the latter two facilities “to have a peaceful nuclear program.”)

So by defying the IAEA and the Security Council Iran will be awarded 5000 centrifuges enriching uranium that it didn’t have before. The sanctions triggered by those violations will be wiped away. (By the way, 5000 centrifuges is enough for a bomb, but not for civilian nuclear program.)

…

Ironically, the president overseeing the destruction of the NPT was once a proponent of nuclear disarmament.

One more hallucinatory piece of cognitive dissonance for today (though I could go on for ages. This Iran deal is a giver):

https://twitter.com/soccerdhg/status/587139164296126466

Seriously, if this weren’t so deadly serious we would be laughing hysterically.

And just to complete today’s upside-down news, we are now officially into “Jewish summer time” since we wish each other “a good summer” at the end of Pesach. But someone forgot to inform the weather. We have been suffering from a wintry storm with huge amounts of rain, hail, thunder and lightning. My little side road has been flooded and my car can barely get out without the water going above the wheels. My daughter in Gush Etzion has reported a temperature of 1°C!! Any lower and it will snow. This is Spring. In Israel. Where its’ supposed to be in the mid-20s at the very least. To cap it all, last Wednesday it was almost 40°C.

Welcome to the crazy Middle East.

Categories: Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Obama
Tags: ,

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Purim Same’ach! Happy Purim!

March 5, 2015

Purim Same’ach! Happy Purim! | Anne’s Opinions, 5th March 2015


(For background to the story of Purim, read this link from Chabad. There is much more about the festival here.   The parallels between the Purim story and today’s events are startling and chilling. [I mentioned some parallels here]. About 2,500 years ago a wicked Persian vizier persuaded his King with lies and bribes, that it was in Persia’s interest to exterminate all the Jews. Today the situation is slightly different in that we have a Persian leader who wishes to exterminate all the Jews, starting with Israel, but he is being courted by the American President. Let us hope today’s events have the same happy ending as the Purim story).

The dogs of war? Or running dogs of capitalism? (Purim in Israel)

Enough of all the gloom and doom and politics and propaganda. Purim is here and it’s time to celebrate!

The festival began at sundown this evening when we went to shul and heard the *Megillah being read, with the ra’ashanim (greggers) of various sorts – from toy gun caps to bells, whistles, rattling keys, even phone ringtones! – drowning out evil Haman’s name every time it was mentioned; and there was lots of laughter at some of the funny costumes and hats that people turned up in (including yours truly in a very unbecoming purple wig. :-) ).

Our Mishloach Manot parcels are all wrapped and ready to be delivered tomorrow, and then we’ll be off to our Seudah at our our son’s house together with several generations of the wider family. Quiet it won’t be… 📢 🙉 ♫ ♪

(* For a translation of the Hebrew words used here, please consult my Glossary page in the menu above.)

The favourite custom of Purim for most people is dressing up – symbolizing the “masking” of events in the Purim story, and evil turning into good. Via the “Only in Israel” facebook page, here are some hilarious and touching photos of Israelis celebrating Purim:

The El Al ground crew at Ben Gurion, dressed up for Purim

Here is a picture of a handicapped boy dressed up as Superman. The sky’s the limit when you have the will:

And the grand finale…. drumroll…

(We can always hope that our enemies will die laughing…) 😀

For some more Purim entertainment here are a couple of great videos to entertain you throughout the day.

Via a Facebook friend, from Jewbellish, here is my one of my favourite songs, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” set to … Hassidic dancing! You’ve got to admit, the results are hilarious! 😀

Another great video, (h/t Hadassah), is of a flash-mob in down-town Jerusalem, performed by both students and teachers of Mekor Chaim Yeshiva. This is the Yeshiva where two of the three murdered teenagers, Naftali Frenkel and Gil-Ad Shayer Hy’d, studied. Just thinking about what their friends and teachers have all been through over the last few months is chilling, and yet they have come through strong enough to spend a day of fun and volunteering in Jerusalem – and then to dance their hearts out.

The lyrics of the song, sung by Yakov Shweki, are taken partly from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) and are so appropriate for our situation:

לכל זמן ועת. עת לאהוב עת לשנוא עת מלחמה ועת שלום, אבל הלילה הזה כולנו בשמחה כולנו הלילה עת לרקוד

“For every time and hour there is a time to love, a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace, but tonight we are all happy, tonight we are all going to dance”.

May we all be able to keep dancing and celebrate!

Purim Same’ach everyone! Happy Purim!

!פורים שמח

Categories: Judiasm, Religion
Tags: , , ,

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EU undermining Israeli sovereignty. Again

February 9, 2015

EU undermining Israeli sovereignty. Again | Anne’s Opinions, 9th February 2015

(The perfidy and hypocrisy of the European Union in building illegal “settlements” for the Palestinians in the West Bank while denouncing Israeli housing is both outrageous and breathtaking in its scope.– anneinpt)

 

A map of the West Bank produced by Regavim, an Israeli group, shows the EU-funded Palestinian settlements represented by stars. The yellow part is Area C, which was placed under Israeli control during the Oslo Accords. The pink and red parts are Areas A and B, which are Palestinian (Click to enlarge)

I have written about the European Union’s perfidy towards Israel several times before, and it has evidently never gone away. In fact their latest act of treachery is simply the realization and expansion of their declaration 3 years ago that they intend to build infrastructure in the West Bank, thereby undermining Israel’s sovereignty over the Green Line in Judea and Samaria.

Their latest activity (h/t Margie in Tel Aviv) has been building houses in what they call the West Bank.

One could be forgiven for blinking one’s eyes in astonishment at this seeming act of Zionism – until one realises that the housing that the EU is building over the Green Line is intended for Palestinians only. The Daily Mail reports:

The EU is acting illegally by funding unauthorised Palestinian building in areas placed under Israeli control by international law, say an NGO, international lawyers and MEPs.

More than 400 EU-funded Palestinian homes have been erected in Area C of the West Bank, which was placed under Israeli jurisdiction during the Oslo Accords – a part of international law to which the EU is a signatory.

The Palestinian buildings, which have no permits, come at a cost of tens of millions of Euros in public money, a proportion of which comes from the British taxpayer.

This has raised concerns that the EU is using valuable resources to take sides in a foreign territorial dispute.

Official EU documentation reveals that the building project is intended to ‘pave the way for development and more authority of the PA over Area C (the Israeli area)’, which some experts say is an attempt to unilaterally affect facts on the ground.

Locally, the villages are known as the ‘EU Settlements’, and can be found in 17 locations around the West Bank.

They proudly fly the EU flag, and display hundreds of EU stickers and signs. Some also bear the logos of Oxfam and other NGOs, which have assisted in the projects.

Questions have also been asked about the conduct of EU workers in the region, after a picture emerged of a man in EU uniform threatening soldiers and bystanders with a rock outside a settlement in 2012. An EU spokesperson declined to comment on the picture.

A man in EU uniform threatens Israeli soldiers and bystanders with a rock on the West Bank in 2012

Do go to the Daily Mail website and look at the detailed pictures and maps to get the full impression of what has been going on there.

Maja Kocijancic, a Brussels-based EU spokesperson, denied that this was happening.

‘The EU’s funding will provide training and expertise, to help the relevant Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministries to plan and build new infrastructure and enable people to reclaim and rebuild their land there,’ she said.

‘To date, no construction has started yet under these programmes. The EU is not funding illegal projects.’

When shown sequences of photographs showing construction taking place, she declined to comment. She also did not comment on an EU-Oxfam sign stating that the ‘main activities’ of construction work are ‘rehabilitation and reclamation’ of land.

However, her statement appeared to be contradicted by Shadi Othman, a spokesman for the EU in the West Bank and Gaza. Speaking on the telephone from the West Bank, he accepted that the construction was taking place.

‘We support the Palestinian presence in Area C. Palestinian presence should not be limited Areas A and B. Area C is part of the occupied Palestinian territory which eventually will be Palestinian land.

But Area C is Israeli controlled territory intended for Israelis under the Oslo Accords! Who do the Europeans think they are, undermining the Accords? And if they are invalidated for them, then Israel too can consider itself free of the constraints of those awful Accords, and should therefore be permitted to build anywhere it wants.

An Oxfam spokesperson acknowledged that unauthorised construction was taking place, but said that it was justified on humanitarian grounds.

‘In recent years, around 97 percent of Palestinian permit applications for building in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have been rejected by the Israeli Government.’ he said.

‘This means many Palestinian communities in Area C, which is under full Israeli Government control, are being prevented from building basic, essential structures such as homes and schools.

…

Ari Briggs, International Director of Regavim and principal author of the report, claimed that humanitarian projects are being used by the EU and Oxfam as a ‘Trojan horse’ for political aims.

‘Area C has been identified by the anti-Israel “humanitarian community” as a hot spot to push Israel.

‘These organisations with EU funding are encouraging and actively aiding the illegal attempt to take over public land. This has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with taking advantage of less privileged nomadic societies for political goals.’

At least two Members of the European Parliament are raising the matter with EU policymakers.

On 1 February, James Carver, a British MEP for the West Midlands region, wrote a strongly-worded letter to the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.

‘The structures all bear the name and flag of the EU and official EU agents have been photographed participating in overseeing the construction, so the active involvement of the EU can hardly be denied,’ he wrote.

‘I kindly call upon you to do your utmost to bring an end to these illegal and destructive activities,’

Michael Theurer, a German MEP who is a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, shares his concerns. ‘I am taking these allegations seriously and will thoroughly investigate them,’ he said.

An Israeli government source said that the Palestinian settlements demonstrate ‘the double standards of the EU’, which ‘deplores’ Israeli settlements while funding illegal building of its own for Palestinians.

‘If Israel started building houses in the middle of Hyde Park, the British government would immediately take them down,’ he said. ‘The EU is doing things that would never be acceptable in Europe.’

The Israeli politician Yariv Levine, Chairman of the House Parliamentary Committee in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, added:

‘It is hypocritical of the EU to criticise Israeli construction while at the same time actively supporting and practically taking part in illegal Palestinian settlement construction on Israeli land.’

…

Alan Baker, an international lawyer who took part in drafting the Oslo Accords in the Nineties, said that the EU’s actions were illegal.

‘The EU is a signatory to the Oslo Accords, so they cannot pick and choose when they recognise it,’ he said.

‘According to international law, all building in Area C must have permission from Israel, whether it is temporary or permanent.

‘The same principle applies anywhere in the world. If you want to build, you need planning permission.

‘The EU is ignoring international law and taking concrete steps to influence the facts on the ground.’

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, an international lawyer from the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, said: ‘There’s no question, the EU is openly in violation of international law.’

Accepted terminology and Double standards

The EU in their smug self-righteousness defend themselves by saying:

The Office of the European Union Representative in Jerusalem said in a statement: ‘The European Union is deeply dismayed by and strongly opposes Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, and in particular plans to develop the E1 area.

‘The E1 plan, if implemented, would seriously undermine the prospects of a negotiated resolution of the conflict by jeopardizing the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states.

‘It could also entail forced transfer of civilian population. In the light of its core objective of achieving the two-state solution, the EU will closely monitor the situation and its broader implications, and act accordingly.’

“Could entail forced transfer of civilian population” – but it won’t because Israel has never done that until now and has no intention of doing so in the future. And again, it is up to Israel to decide what to do with E1, and not the Europeans. They should butt out of Israel’s business and if they are so worried about the Palestinians’ welfare they should investigate where their billions of dollars in aid are disappearing to – and you can be sure it is not into housing, schools or infrastructure, not to mention paying the salaries of Palestinian civil servants. Those billions are most likely to be found deep in the pockets of senior PA officials who are quite happy to let the EU do their dirty work.

Emily Amrousi explains how the European Union is building Palestine and why this poses a huge danger for Israel:

The network of Bedouin outposts in the Adumim region looks like a flagship Palestinian Authority-European Union initiative. Why there? The strategic importance of this specific area stems mainly from the narrow corridor that runs along one of Israel’s main routes — the road from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea.

In any war scenario, that road would become a vital artery, delivering vehicles, weapons and supplies to the eastern border. The battle is for control over that corridor. The Palestinians are trying to create territorial contiguity between Nablus, Ramallah and Jericho east of Jerusalem, and between Bethlehem and Hebron to the south. Israel claims contiguity between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim and eastward to the Jordan Valley.

One line runs east to west between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The other line runs north to south from Ramallah to Bethlehem. The intersection between these two lines is a fateful point: It is either an Israeli barrier preventing Palestinian contiguity or the other way around. The race is on. The point where these two lines meet is called E1. In the outdated zoning plans it is called Mevaseret Adumim. It is a range of round hills that have swelled with too many promises over the years. As of today, there is no Israeli construction there, but there is plenty of Palestinian-European construction — about 200 houses, all built in violation of the law.

The European Union mission in east Jerusalem confirmed to us that “the European Union is very frustrated with the Israeli plans to build in the E1 zone, which will jeopardize the possibility of establishing a contiguous and viable Palestinian state. We are monitoring the situation and taking appropriate action.”

It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Europe is facing the Jewish state with facts on the ground: contiguous and permanent Palestinian housing in sovereign Israeli territory. Take that.

The publicity that this Regavim report has engendered has finally embarrassed the government into taking action, and this being election season has only strengthened the government’s resolve. The Prime Minister has now ordered the demolition of the EU-funded structures over the Green Line.

I shall however not hold my breath, but will reserve judgement until I see for myself that those structures have actually been taken down. From bitter experience we Israelis know that our government is very big on talk and very reluctant to take action, especially against a hostile entity like the EU who has had the temerity to threaten sanctions against Israel for building in the West Bank while reserving that right for itself – but only for the enemy side.

And if by some miracle the government follows through, how long do you think it will take for cries of “apartheid”, “repression” or “war crimes” to ring throughout the EU and UN?

Categories: European Union, Israel, Palestinians, Settlements
Tags: , , ,

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Holocaust Memorial Day 2015

January 27, 2015

Holocaust Memorial Day 2015 | Anne’s Opinions, 27th January 2015

(On the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Allies, anti-Semitism is resurgent again. So much for “Never Again”.– anneinpt)

Holocaust Memorial Day

The world cries “Never Again” every year on the annual International Holocaust Memorial Day. And yet, seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz and the defeat of the Nazis by the allies, it is becoming sickeningly evident that the lessons have not been learned, and that “never again” means “maybe now it’s acceptable”. Antisemitism is not only raising its ugly head again, but is alive and kicking and growing daily, as we have seen in the huge rise (some say by 400%) in antisemitic attacks throughout Europe. This is also not to ignore the constant drip-drip of anti-Semitic incitement, disguised as anti-Israel or anti-Zionism, emanating from the Muslim world, and particularly from the Palestinians.

We have seen several nasty examples of this anti-Semitism in the guise of pro-Palestinian, or rather anti-Israel, activism in recent days. One of the most blatant occurred, of all places, in a New York City Council meeting commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz, when anti-Israel pro-Palestinian protestors chose to interrupt precisely as the name of Auschwitz came up during a discussion of an upcoming Council visit to Israel.

Legal Insurrection has the details:

Anti-Israel activists in New York City have started a campaign as part of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement to try to prevent City Council members and other politicians from visiting Israel. A coalition of 40 groups, most of which are quite small but including the usual suspects like the inaccurately named Jewish Voice for Peace are leading the effort.

At a NY City Council meeting today, anti-Israel activists disrupted a vote commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, shouting for one of the council members not to travel to Israel, as reported by Jacob Kornbluh at Jewish Political News & Updates website, which has video:

Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activists disrupted the City Council’s stated meeting on Thursday while members were voting on a resolution commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

The protesters started yelling, “shame on you, Melissa”, “why are you supporting an apartheid” and “Palestinian lives matter.”

After five minutes of yelling and screaming, the some 40 protesters were ordered to leave and escorted out the balcony.

Council member Cory Johnson called it “incredibly disrespectful and offensive. Simply awful.” Councilman Mark Weprin added, “The State of Israel has never supported the killing of innocent people, and they want to love in peace.”

NYC councilman David Greenfield, grandson of Holocaust survivors, hit back with admirable ferocity and eloquence:

In Britain, as previously reported, anti-Semitism is on the rise,of which an extreme example occurred in Gateshead when a gang of Muslim youth decided to go “Jew-bashing and beat up a passing Jewish man walking in the street.

Generally, though, British anti-Semitism is of a more genteel type, although it is still not only prevalent, but becoming fashionable again, as Philip Mark McGough documents in his Huffington Post article: “Anti-Semitism means hating the Jews more than necessary”:

There exists a weighty and sublimely pointless literature about the difference between so-called Old Anti-Semitism (religious, racial, xenophobic) and New Anti-Semitism (political, anti-Zionist, Third Worldist); but lately this academic fine-tuning of distinctions between various shades of hate has become practically and provisionally meaningless. Among a long litany of prejudices, anti-Semitism robed as anti-Zionism (when it even bothers to dress for the occasion) is now uniquely acceptable, even respectable, in a style quite without precedent in these hyper-sensitive, judgment-phobic times. Society has given itself a free pass, an ideological Rumspringa, where canards, tropes, and stereotypes totally forbidden in any other context can be affixed to Israel (and, by extension, the Jews) with impunity.

…

… while after each and every Islamist atrocity we are warned- and warned incessantly- of the dangers of an anti-Muslim backlash, the fact remains that in Britain, in 2015, it’s the Jews who are double-bolting their doors.

CiFWatch (Cross posted from Richard Millett’s Blog) brings us a concrete example of the above in its report of an obtuse former British diplomat who said that Israel should “dismantle its security fence “for peace”.

Elsewhere in Europe, (via Honest Reporting) Ynet brings us the story of a Swedish journalist who donned a kipa and posed as a Jew to see what people’s reactions would be. Unsurprisingly he encountered much anti-Semitic abuse. He’s lucky he escaped unharmed.

After more anti-Semitic crimes were reported in Malmo than in any other city in Sweden, Swedish reporter Peter Lindgren decided to conduct a social experiment by putting on a kippa (yarmulke or skullcap) and a Star of David necklace and walking around the city to see how locals treated Jews.

With a hidden camera and microphone documenting his stroll through the streets of Malmo, Lindgren encountered harsh verbal and physical anti-Semitic abuse.

The footage, aired Wednesday on Sveriges Television as part of a 58-minute documentary titled “Jew-hatred in Malmo,” shows Lindgren sitting at a cafe in central Malmo reading a newspaper as several passersby hurled abuse at him.

In another location, Lindgren was called “Jewish shit” and a “Jewish Satan” and one person even hit his hand – though that incident was not recorded, only recounted. One passerby told Lindgren to “get out,” while another warned him to leave for his own safety.

In Rosengard, a neighborhood heavily populated by Muslims, Lindgren was surrounded by a dozen men who threatened him, while residents of nearby apartments threw eggs at him and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. Lindgren then decided to leave for fear of increased violence.

…

In 2013, Patrick Riley, a journalist for The Local, conducted a similar social experiment in which he donned a kippa and walked through the streets of Malmo. He encountered stares of “disbelief and menace” and insults.

Writing about his experience, Riley said: “As an Irish person abroad I’ve never felt remotely threatened, but wearing the kippa for a few hours was enough to instill feelings of fear. Even when I didn’t feel afraid I was made to feel different and unwelcome.”

Watch this Swedish language video with English subtitles:

http://youtu.be/9cFYmhQMks8

Another European anti-Semite pretending to be “only” anti-Israel is the Dutch ex-minister who said (h/t Reality) that if only all the Israeli Jews would move to the US there would be world peace. Because when the Jews did not live in Israel there was world peace… I seriously worry about this man’s sanity.

On the other side of the world, Damian Pachter, the Argentinian journalist who exposed the story of the suspicious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman has fled to Israel fearing for his life:

The first journalist to report on the death of a Argentine state prosecutor, who was investigating the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, arrived in Israel on Sunday after fleeing the South American country.

Damian Pachter, who also holds Argentine-Israeli citizenship, said he had “quickly” fled Argentina fearing for his life following threats to his security.

“I’m leaving because my life is in danger. My phones are tapped,” Pachter, a journalist with the Buenos Aires Herald, told the website Infobae.

The website carried a photograph of Pachter, wearing a cap and carrying sunglasses, at the airport before he boarded an Aerolineas Argentinas flight.

Despite the fact that his and Nisman’s persecution were as much political as religious, the basis of this whole story was the bombing of a Jewish – not Israeli – community center, and the subsequent cover-up and perversion of justice by the Argentinians and Iranians.

One the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a group of survivors hold up and point to a picture of themselves, which was taken the day the camp was freed by the Soviet army

Returning to today’s commemoration events in Europe, this year, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a grand memorial ceremony is taking place at Auschwitz, including survivors of that hell-on-earth. Check out the Daily Mail link above for the story including pictures, videos.

One very important person however will be skipping the ceremony: Barack Obama, who has refused to see Binyamin Netanyahu on his visit to Washington, is not going to attend the memorial service at Auschwitz. (H/t TCKT)

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will represent the United States at the 70th anniversary ceremony for the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Tuesday—rather than President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden—while other countries are slated to send their heads of state.

Obama’s absence demonstrates an apathy towards the fate of the Jews both in the past and in the present – not the best attitude to display if he hopes to persuade Israel of his determination to confront Iran. Besides the questionable propriety of his decision, I’m surprised that Obama is prepared to miss such a feel-good PR opportunity. I wonder what his advisors were thinking.

But for sheer surealism, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the UN and thanked Ban Ki-Moon for fighting antisemitism. Considering that the UN is one of the prime movers of antisemitism in the entire world, all I can do is agree with the following Tweeter:

https://twitter.com/Yaakov_Shmuel/status/559946752875175936

As I always do on these days of commemoration, I invite readers to visit my pages on my family history during the Shoah.

Categories: Antisemitism, Holocaust
Tags: , ,

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After the Paris murders: Islam and the West, and blaming the Jews

January 15, 2015

After the Paris murders: Islam and the West, and blaming the Jews | Anne’s Opinions, 14th January 2014

The horrific terrorist murders in Paris have led to much thinking and opining about the root causes of the attacks and Muslim hostility towards the West and the Jews. The prime root cause in my humble opinion is Western denial about such hostility in the first place. The Blaze for example has a detailed article about President Obama’s denial of the link of Islam to any one of the multiple terror attacks that have taken place around the world in recent years.

David Horovitz in an excellent article (all his articles are excellent) in the Times of Israel really hits the nail on the head in The death cult ideology that France prefers not to name:

The obsession with Netanyahu’s words and deeds in Paris, and with what Hollande did or didn’t want, might seem trivial in the context of the day’s great exhibition of determined resistance to terrorism. The question of whether France would have mobilized in the way it did solely for Jewish victims might seem jaundiced and small-minded after a day of such grand display.

Netanyahu at the Grand Synagogue in Paris

But now that the 3.5 million marchers have all gone home, we are left with the question: What are the French actually going to do about the mounting challenge of Islamist terrorism? More security? Evidently so. More vigilance? Doubtless, at least for a while. More substantive action, truly designed to eliminate the danger? Don’t bet on that.

France promised the world to its Jewish community after the murderous Toulouse attacks. Hollande vowed time and again that France would do everything to counter anti-Semitism, to fight hatred, “to tear off all the masks, all the pretexts.” This time, too, he pledged unity and vigilance in the battles against racism and anti-Semitism. What he didn’t explicitly promise, then or now, however, was to tackle violent Islamic extremism. On Friday, indeed, he asserted in an address to the nation that “these terrorists and fanatics have nothing to do with the Islamic religion.”

It would be nice to think that they didn’t. But it is their perverted interpretation of obligation to that religion that they invoke in carrying out their acts of terror and fanaticism. And it is the growing brutal resonance of their kill-and-be-killed ideology, and the failure of mainstream Islam to effectively challenge it, that led Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to appeal to Muslim clerics in a remarkable speech on January 1 to promote a more “enlightened” interpretation of Islamic texts. As things stand, el-Sissi warned, the Islamic world is “making enemies of the whole world. So 1.6 billion people (in the Muslim world) will kill the entire world of 7 billion? That’s impossible … We need a religious revolution.” [I blogged about Sisi’s speech last week -anneinpt.]

Islamist jihad cannot and will not be defeated if it is not honestly acknowledged. The enemies of freedom will not be picked out at border crossings, tracked on the internet, targeted, thwarted and ultimately marginalized if insistent self-defeating political correctness means those enemies are not even named.

Jonathan Spyer, writing in “Reflections on the murders in Paris” in Middle East Forum provides some background to the motivations of political Islam which lead to Jihad and offers some remedies:

The Islamic world is currently in the midst of a great historic convulsion. This process is giving birth to political trends and movements of a murderously violent nature. These movements offer a supposed escape route from the humiliation felt at the profound societal failure of the Arab and to a slightly lesser extent the broader Muslim world.

The escape is by way of the most violent and intolerant historic trends of Islam, into a mythologized and imagined past. The route to this old-new imagined utopia is a bloody one. All who oppose or even slight it must die. The simple and brutal laws of 7th century Muslim Arabia are re-applied, in their literal sense. The events of last week in Paris were a manifestation of this trend.

…

The political trend in question is called political Islam. It manifests itself in its most extreme form in the rival global networks of the Al Qaeda movement and the Islamic State. But these, alas, are only the sharp tip of a much larger iceberg.

Political Islamists are not all, or mainly, young men from slums. On the contrary, its adherents include heads of state, powerful economic interests and media groups, and prominent cultural figures. Some of these, absurdly, were even present at the “solidarity rally” in Paris.

They rendered this event an empty spectacle by their presence.

…

Political Islam is a reaction to profound societal failure. It is also a flight into unreality. It has nothing practical to offer as an actual remedy to Arab and Islamic developmental problems. Economic, legal and societal models deriving from the 7th century Arabian desert are fairly obvious impediments to success in the 21st.

Where they are systematically imposed, as in the Islamic State, they will create something close to hell on earth. Where they remain present in more partial forms — as in Qatar, Gaza, Iran, (increasingly) Turkey, and so on — they will merely produce stifling, stagnant and repressive societies.

But the remedy for failure that political Islam offers is not a material one. It offers in generous portions the intoxicating psychological cocktail of murderous rage and self-assertion, and the desire to strike out and destroy those deemed enemies — infidels who transgress binding religious commandments, Jews and so on.

…

In contemporary western European societies, political Islam meets a human collectivity suffering, by contrast, from a profound loss of self. No one, at least in the mainstream of politics and culture, seems able to quite articulate what western European countries are for, or what they oppose — at least beyond a sort of vapid belief in everyone doing what they want and not bothering each other.

The result is that when violent political Islam collides with the satiated, lost societies of western Europe, the response is not defiance on the part of the latter, but rather fear.

This fear, as fear is wont to do, manifests itself in various, not particularly edifying, ways.

The most obvious is avoidance (“the attacks had nothing to do with Islam,” “unemployment and poverty are the root cause,” “the Islamic State is neither Islamic nor a state,” etc etc).

Another is appeasement — “maybe if we give them some of what they want, they’ll leave us alone.”

This response perhaps partially explains the notable adoption in parts of western Europe of the anti-Jewish prejudice so prevalent in the Islamic world.

The ennui of the western European mainstream will almost certainly prevent the adoption of the very tough measures which alone might serve to adequately address the burgeoning problem of large numbers of young European Muslims committed to political Islam and to violence against their host societies.

Such measures — which would include tighter surveillance and policing of communities, quick deportations of incendiary preachers, revocation of citizenship for those engaged in violence, possible imprisonment of suspects and so on — would require a political will which is manifestly absent. So it wont happen. So the events of Paris will almost certainly recur.

And lastly, since the elites will not be able to produce resistance, it will come from outside of the elites. Hence the growth of populist, nationalist parties and movements in western Europe. But Europe being what it is, such revivalist movements are likely to contain a hefty dose of the xenophobia and bigotry which characterized the continent of old.

Both these articles clearly illustrate the West’s problem with facing up to the awful brutal reality of religiously inspired political Islam which leads to the Jihadism that we are facing today on the streets of Europe and Israel.

Much of the media however appears to blame Israel, or even the Jews as a whole, for the murders of the four French Jews at the supermarket on Friday.

The BBC’s Tim Wilcox hit a new low by comparing Palestinian deaths to the murder of the French Jews, and then compounding the insult by claiming the Palestinians deaths were “at the hands of the Jews” – not Israel. BBC Watch reports:

Tim Willcox interrupts an interviewee talking about the recent antisemitic attacks in France to inform her – forty-eight hours after four Jewish hostages had been murdered in a terror attack on a kosher supermarket – that:

“Many critics of Israel’s policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well.”

He then goes on to lecture her:

“But you understand; everything is seen from different perspectives.”

Here’s a short clip of his interview:

Wilcox later apologized but the “apology” was such a travesty that it itself became a further insult:

The reporter later took to social media platform Twitter to offer an apology of sorts. “Really sorry for any offense caused by a poorly phrased question in a live interview in Paris yesterday – it was entirely unintentional,” Willcox wrote.

Campaigners against anti-Semitism were unimpressed, however. “Tim Willcox is right to have apologized for the question, but the thinking behind it was just as problematic as the way he phrased it,” Dave Rich, Deputy Director of Communications for the Community Security Trust, the official communal security body of British Jews, told The Algemeiner. “There are simply no grounds on which to suggest that random Jewish shoppers in a Paris kosher grocery might be responsible for the fate of the Palestinians.”

Michael Salberg of the Anti-Defamation League accused Willcox of engaging in “anti-Semitism, plain and simple,” describing the reporter as “a proponent of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories and stereotypes.” As The Algemeiner reported last November, Willcox caused a separate furore during a BBC television panel discussion when he suggested that Jewish voters uncomfortable with British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband’s stance on Israel were motivated by financial concerns. “A lot of these prominent Jewish faces will be very much against the mansion tax,” Willcox said, referring to a Labour proposal for an additional tax on properties worth $3.5 million or more.

Wilcox is a disgrace and the fact that he hasn’t been fired by the BBC reflects as much on the BBC as on himself.

CNN downplayed the targeting of the Jews:

On CNN, meanwhile, reporters Chris Cuomo and Isa Soares implied that the assault on kosher supermarket Hyper Casher had not intentionally targeted Jews since the store was located in an “ordinary” part of Paris and Muslims also shopped there.

WATCH the CNN video below:

It was only a “surprise” to anyone who has not been following the huge rise in antisemitism in France. CNN is a prime example of politically-correct blindness.

CNN’s Jim Clancy went on a total anti-semitic meltdown in a Twitter screed documented by the Elder of Ziyon, yet Clancy, like Wilcox, is still employed by CNN. Again, this reflects as much on CNN as on Clancy.

Meanwhile the New York Times found the eve of the funerals of the Jewish victims the perfect timing to publish an anti-Israel op-ed by an Israeli:

Even a week of terrorist outrages in Paris wasn’t enough to convince the New York Times editorial page to temporarily suspend its obsession with the supposed evils of Israeli policy.

On Monday morning, alongside a piece signed by the Times Editorial Board which discussed anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment in France in several places – but did not deign to mention the fear among French Jews of rising anti-Semitism – readers of the “newspaper of record” were confronted with another article, entitled “Why I Won’t Serve Israel.”

…

Gilead Ini, a senior analyst with media watchdog CAMERA, slammed the Times for “perversely using the emigration of over one percent of the French Jewish population as an occasion to do what the newspaper does so often: Undermine Israel’s right to exist or, in this case, its ability to defend itself, by giving the country’s most marginal and hateful critics a platform.”

Added Ini: “It is a reminder that the New York Times opinion editor recently admitted to treating Israel with a harsher standard.”

For Rabbi Cooper, however, the publication of the piece “inadvertently highlighted an important truth.”

“Israel the only democracy in the neighborhood,” he said. “Good luck to the author if he had dared pen such a piece from Beirut, Damascus or Tehran.”

Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post quotes Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu’s statements on the terror attacks and then notes:

Israel is the beacon of light, the representative of democratic values and civilization itself in the Middle East. This is obviously why jihadists seek to destroy “Little Satan”; it is a warm-up to taking on Big Satan, the United States.

Like it or not, the Europeans and the left more generally have taken up anti-Israel doctrine as part of their creed, not realizing that Israel is essential to their survival and the values of democracy, pluralism and tolerance. It is not merely that Israel battles the jihadists in the Middle East, although this is crucial to the West. More important, Israel’s existence is confirmation that the West will defend itself, that those who yearn for a new caliphate do not get a free pass. Its presence is a refutation of the Islamists’ vision.

Killing Jews as the first step in a barbaric onslaught is, alas, not unique to the Islamic terrorists. It is an uncomfortable truth that whatever the latest “ism,” forces of tyranny and suppression target Jews, whether it is Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or the jihadists in Gaza and Tehran. If ever there is confusion about who is the enemy of civilization itself, look at who is seeking to kill Jews.

The trouble is that the West, its leadership and its media, are having great difficulty in internalising and acknowledging that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Israel or Jews per se, nor with anything Israel is perceived to have done.

The West has a problem understanding or agreeing that those same Hamas terrorists that Israel is fighting in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are of the same jihadist mindset as the Paris murderers or the 9/11 terrorists or the Muslim terrorists who blew up buses and trains in Madrid and London on 7/7, and committed mass murder in Bali and Mumbai, and who killed hostages in an Australian cafe. Israel’s building settlements or demanding the right to pray on the Temple Mount is irrelevant to the Jihadis, no matter what they say to willing ears in the Western media. The Muslim terrorists’ problem with Israel is that it exists, full stop.

It’s long beyond high time that the world stopped hectoring Israel on what it “must” or “must not” do. As long as Israel exists we will be the target of terrorism, and Western antagonism to us only encourages the terrorists.

Moreover this Western hostility to Israel makes the Jihadists miscalculate and think that since the world blames Israel for the terrorism targeting it, they can similarly get away with targeting the West. And thus the roundabout continues. As one Twitter user observed:

https://twitter.com/ThisIsPalestine/status/555036840496209921

Categories: Antisemitism, Europe, France, Islam, Terrorism
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The world’s illogical rush to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian State

November 28, 2014

The world’s illogical rush to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian State | Anne’s Opinions, 27th November 2014

 

Dry Bones’ excellent political insight into the Two State Solution

Following the brouhaha over Israel’s declaration of the country as “the Jewish State“, and the international and domestic opposition to such a law, despite the Prime Minister’s vow to uphold democracy and minority rights, you would think that there would be similar opposition to unilateral recognition of a Palestinian State, especially one that has specifically stated will not allow a single Israeli to reside there. But you would be wrong.

Last month Sweden became the first country to officially recognize the State of Palestine. The UK has already voted last month to “recommend recognizing the State of Palestine” – albeit solely a “recommendation” rather than actual recognition; last week Spain voted – symbolically – to recognize Palestine – davka on the day of the Jerusalem synagogue massacre; and a similar vote is going to take place in France, though there are doubts it will pass, and in Denmark. And while the Germans, of all nations, object to the recognition of the Palestinian State, the EU have been debating the issue today.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commented on Israeli opposition to unilateral recognition of Palestine after the Spanish vote:

Speaking Sunday with Germany’s foreign minister, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called similar resolutions that passed the British and Irish parliaments this fall counterproductive, saying the “the calls… to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state pushed peace backwards.”

“They don’t tell the Palestinians that they have to make their peace with a nation-state for the Jewish people,” he said. They just give the Palestinians a nation-state.”

Today’s debate at the EU was a bitter one:

New EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini called on Israel and the Palestinians Wednesday to resume direct peace talks, as the European Parliament debated whether to recognize a Palestinian state.

“The sense of urgency is getting higher and higher in the absence of a political context,” Mogherini told lawmakers at the start of what she said was a “timely” debate. “There has to be a direct dialogue.”

I have yet to hear a reasoned explanation for the sense of urgency in recognizing what will be in essence a terrorist state. I also eagerly await an explanation of how such recognition will enable negotiations. Surely recognition of a Palestinian state will bring a full stop to any negotiations, for after all, what will be left to negotiate?

In Wednesday’s debate, European Parliament members appeared sharply divided on what policy to endorse. One lawmaker branded Israel “a state of child killers and land robbers,” while another likened a Palestinian state to the Islamic State terrorist group.

If the Europeans can’t agree amongst themselves how to define Israel and the Palestinians (and what antisemitic terms they use to describe Israel!), how can they possibly expect Israel and the Palestinians to be able to negotiate existential questions?

But the sort of good news:

A vote, originally expected Thursday, was put off until December.

A month is a long time in politics.

As for Germany’s objections to unilateral recognition, thank goodness for Angela Merkel’s steady hand at the wheel:

Germany, Israel’s closest European ally and the EU’s most powerful member, is a leading opponent of recognizing Palestinian statehood before Israel does. To do so, German officials say, would do more harm than good.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday it was better to focus on getting Israel-Palestinian talks going again, although “that appears very difficult in the current conditions.” She added that “we also believe that unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state won’t move us forward.”

A partial answer to my questions above about the urgency of unilateral recognition comes here:

There has been international alarm over a spate of deadly terror attacks carried out by Palestinians inside Israel along with rioting in East Jerusalem and the deadlock over peace talks that are fueling fear of another flareup after the Israel-Hamas war earlier this year.

But that still does not make sense. Does anyone really think that granting, or recognizing, Palestinian statehood will make them more peaceful? On the contrary. From past experience, any time the Palestinians achieve a political goal without effort, they take that as a reward for their violent behaviour and only increase their terrorist activities. As Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor said in his reproof of the Europeans’ behaviour:

European parliaments voting to recognize Palestine are “giving the Palestinians exactly what they want — statehood without peace,” Prosor told the UN General Assembly.

“By handing them a state on a silver platter, you are rewarding unilateral actions and taking away any incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate or compromise or renounce violence,” he added.

Regarding the upcoming French vote, not everyone in France is for recognizing a Palestinian State. Former President Nicholas Sarkozy voiced his objections:

Sarkozy was quoted as asking fellow UMP party members on Tuesday to vote against the resolution.

“I will fight for the Palestinians to have their state. But unilateral recognition a few days after a deadly attack and when there is no peace process? No!” he said, in reference to last week’s terrorist attack at a synagogue in the capital’s Har Nof neighborhood that killed five Israelis.

The renowned French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy also heartily opposes such unilateral recognition, as he writes, “He who would act the angel acts the brute“:

One does not recognize, even symbolically, a state in which half of the government denies another state’s right to exist.One does not recognize, especially not symbolically, a government in which half of the ministers dream of annihilating that state.

…One day, perhaps, a majority of Israelis may come to believe that the least bad form of protection against this situation is a clean break. But that will be their decision, not the decision of a Spanish, English, Swedish, or, now, French parliament improvising a hasty, ill-founded, and, above all, inconsequential resolution.

One cannot be horrified at the decapitations in Iraq and then dismiss murders with knives and hatchets in Israel.

…No honest observer can ignore the fact that both sides have a long way to go.

…

But that is precisely what the proponents of unilateral recognition deny.

It is very precisely what they forget when they go around saying “we can’t take anymore of this” and “it is urgent that things move forward,” or that a “strong gesture” is needed in order to “apply pressure” and “unblock the situation,” and that no better “strong gesture” can be found than to impose on Netanyahu a non-negotiated Palestinian state.

And that points to the last critique to be laid against them: Their reasoning presupposes that there is only one blockage (the Israeli one) and only one party that needs to be pressured (Israel), and that nothing needs to come from the Palestinian camp—literally nothing: Stay put; take no initiative; whatever you do, do not demand the revocation of a Hamas charter that drips with hate for Jews and contempt for international law—because, hey, now you have your state.

Whilst I take issue with Levy’s implicit equating Israel’s settlements policy with Palestinian violence, I heartily agree with all the rest.

I would refer you back to an earlier post of mine (from 2 years ago) where I linked to an Algemeiner article explaining “Why I don’t want a Palestinian State” It states clearly and politically incorrectly why a Palestinian State would be a terrible idea, and only strengthens my puzzlement at the world’s eagerness to do so.

And it is interesting to note the timing of these votes, and also the original date of the Palestinians vote at the UN – 29th November, known in Israel as “Kaf-Tet beNovember”. On this date 67 years ago, 29th November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181, “the Partition Plan”, partitioning Palestine into two entities: a state for the Jews and one for the Arabs. Yes, in those days Palestinians were the Jews. The “Palestinians” of today were simply “Arabs”.

The Arabs rejected Resolution 181 unanimously, and they have been trying ever since to overturn their stupid rejectionism. And in the typical Palestinian fashion of co-opting, aka stealing, Jewish history, they choose to hold these votes on the day that Israel was granted de-facto recognition in the Partition Plan. See my posts from 2011 and 2012 for examples of their attempts on 29th November.

And here they are again today, 67 years later, still trying to undo the results, with the eager connivance of the UN and the Europeans. The Palestinians have asked the Security Council to demand that Israel pull out of Judea and Samaria within two years. Since world attention has been distracted by the on-again off-again nuclear talks with Iran, the Palestinians decided to delay the vote. They always were attention-seekers, like 3 year old children. But now “chief negotiator” Saeb Erekat, denies the deferral. The more likely cause for the deferral of the vote, if it is indeed is deferred, is that despite their bombastic claims, the Palestinians have not been able to guarantee 9 Security Council votes. (h/t Israel Matzav).

Only the Palestinians are ever allowed to turn back the clock of history and get a do-over of the wars they started, each time hoping for a different result.

Categories: Israel, Israel, Palestinians
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Almost good news – terrorists and weapons captured

November 23, 2014

Almost good news – terrorists and weapons captured | Anne’s Opinions, 21st November 2014

 

The weapons cache headed for Jerusalem

 

Yesterday (Thursday) we learned that the Israel police uncovered a massive weapons cache headed for the Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, hidden in a box of Christmas decorations:

A massive amount of fireworks, knives and Tasers police believe were meant in part to be used by rioters clashing with police were seized last week by Jerusalem District detectives and officers from the Tax Authority and the Ashdod Port Customs, police announced on Thursday.

Police said the seizure came after Jerusalem detectives ran an undercover investigation along with the tax and customs officials, during which they were able to track and seize two shipping containers which came to Ashdod by way of China. The fireworks were hidden among Christmas decorations inside the containers, which were intended for Arab residents of the largely Christian east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina.

Last Tuesday, three of the suspects arrived at the Ashdod Port and claimed the containers, and then drove with them on trailers to a storehouse in Afula, where they planned to unload the merchandise. They were then arrested at the spot before unloading the containers, as was the owner of the storehouse.

Inside the containers police said they found 18,000 fireworks of the restricted 20mm variety, as well as 5,200 commando knives, 4,300 flashlights that can be modified into improvised Tasers, 5,500 Tasers, and 1,000 swords.

…

Fireworks have become a highly popular tool of rioters facing off with police and soldiers during riots in the Arab sector, in particular in East Jerusalem. The firecrackers, including large roman candles, are pointed horizontally towards police and soldiers and fired like ammunition. Some of the larger gauge fireworks can penetrate police protective gear at close range, including their plastic shields. All can cause severe burns and if some of the larger ones hit on the right spot, such as the neck, they can potentially be fatal.

Just to remind you what fireworks sound like when used as a weapon instead of as a pretty, if noisy, method of entertainment, here’s a video I posted earlier this week of Arabs shooting fireworks at Jewish homes in Jerusalem:

The good news in this story of course is the fact that this weapons cache was discovered. The bad news is that it seems to have been discovered by accident, and who knows how many other shipments have already made it to Jerusalem, or are still en route?

Today we read that Israel has arrested dozens of members of a huge Hamas terrorist network operating throughout Judea and Samaria (aka the “West Bank” for short) – and commanded from our old “friends” Turkey!

Israel has arrested dozens of members of a Hamas terror network operating throughout the West Bank in recent weeks who were planning a series of attacks against Israeli targets, senior Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel. The network, they said, was funded and directed by Hamas officials in Turkey who have set up a de facto command center in the Muslim country.

The network was similar in its operational characteristics to one uncovered in August during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the officials said Thursday night, adding that according to information received from Israel, this one was even larger. Its operatives had already attempted several attacks against Israel, they added, but they had all failed.

As with the previous network, the man behind the terrorist grouping was Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas leader who was deported from the West Bank to Turkey in 2010, the sources said.

…

The officials accused Turkey as well as Qatar — the current home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal — of enabling Hamas to operate freely within their territories to carry out attacks against Israel and undermine the Palestinian Authority.

The involvement of Turkey, if only as a passive host of this dangerous terrorist, should come as no surprise as their Prime Minister President Erdogan has been relentlessly ratcheting up the anti-Israel rhetoric for years. It is long past time that Turkey, but in particular Erdogan himself, is held to account internationally for his incitement and his aiding and abetting of terror.

The above article contains another piece of goodish news:

On Thursday the Shin Bet said it foiled a Palestinian plan to assassinate Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman during the summer war. A group of Hamas members from near Bethlehem in the West Bank planned to purchase a rocket-propelled grenade, which would be shot at Liberman, who lives in an Israeli settlement in the area.

The group gathered intelligence on Liberman’s convoy to carry out the attack, according to the Shin Bet, and turned to Hamas officials in the area for help in acquiring the RPG. Israeli officials said they also uncovered during the interrogations Hamas plans to fire weapons and carry out hit-and-run attacks against settlers and Israeli troops in the area.

One’s blood runs cold when one thinks of what might have been.

File photo of Hamas terrorists preparing to launch rockets

 

With all that’s going on in Jerusalem, Gaza has dropped off the radar recently. But Hamas remain as dangerous as ever. This week the IDF identified 4 test-launches of missiles into the sea:

For the fourth time in 24 hours a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip into the Mediterranean Sea, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said.

This suggests that “Gaza terrorists are experimenting in order to increase rocket-launching capabilities,” the army said.

Navy officials have said that Hamas fires rockets into the sea every few days as part of an ongoing project to upgrade their weapons. The launches are meant to test a number of projectile models.

On a number of occasions last month, Color Red rocket-warning sirens went off in Gaza border communities, sending residents fleeing for shelter for the first time since the end of the summer’s 50-day war with Hamas.

Besides the 4 this week, the terrorists have launched at least 14 test missiles in the last 2 months.

According to Palestinian sources, rocket tests have been going on over the past two months with at least 14 rockets launched in that time.

…

Residents of Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip reported numerous rocket alarms and explosions in recent weeks, all of which were later declared to have been false alarm by the authorities.

While sources in the defense establishment believe that “Hamas was sufficiently deterred by Israel after the summer’s operation and is unlikely to renew hostilities in the near future,” according to ynet, it seems that less than three months after the end of Operation Protective Edge Hamas has successfully repaired its infrastructure and has begaun preparations for a new round of hostilities.

We in Israel have to be prepared both physically and psychologically for a long drawn-out war, as well as preparing the informational, diplomatic and political battlefields.

Categories: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem
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Temple Mount Advocate Yehuda Glick Shot in Jerusalem

October 30, 2014

Temple Mount Advocate Yehuda Glick shot in Jerusalem | By Tova Dvorin and Ari Soffer, Arutz Sheva, 29th October 2014, 10:37 pm

(This is what happens when the police are politicised and are more concerned about preventing Jewish “provocations” than in apprehending their Arab attackers — AP)

Terrorist deliberately targets leading advocate for Jewish Temple Mount rights, leaving Glick seriously injured.

Yehuda Glick, a leading advocate for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount, has been very seriously wounded after being shot in Jerusalem on Wednesday night, Arutz Sheva has learned.

Glick was shot outside the Begin Heritage center in the capital, witnesses said, after a terrorist pulled up in a scooter or motorcycle and shot him before fleeing the scene.

Initial reports are indicating that Glick – who founded and heads the LIBA Initiative for Jewish Freedom on the Temple Mount – was deliberately targeted for nationalistic reasons, but police have not yet officially announced a motive.

The Begin Center had been hosting an event to help in efforts to re-establish a greater Jewish presence on the Mount Wednesday night, just before the activist was shot.

He has been rushed to Sha’arei Tzedek Medical Center for immediate medical treatment.

Magen David Adom (MDA) spokesman Zaki Heller said that Glick was shot in the upper body no fewer than three times and paramedics had barely had time to speak to him during the initial stages of treatment.

Activists have asked that prayers be said for the urgent recovery of Yehuda Yehoshua ben Rivka Ita Breindel.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, and MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud) are currently at the scene.

The Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site, but under pressure from Islamist groups including the Jordanian-run Waqf Islamic trust, Jews are forbidden to worship there under pain of arrest.

Glick has been an ardent opponent of the current status-quo on the Mount, which Jewish groups have condemned as discriminatory. Numerous Israeli court decisions have backed their claims – only for police to invoke “security concerns” as a way of circumventing the courts and maintaining a blanket ban on Jewish worship there.

Watch: Arutz Sheva TV joins Glick on Temple Mount tour:

Watch: Glick implores Jews to stand up for Temple Mount (2012)

Much of the recent Arab violence in Jerusalem has centered around the Temple Mount, with Islamist and Palestinian Authority leaders branding Jewish visitors to the site as “invaders” and “settlers”, and Muslim worshippers harassing and even physically attacking them. Islamist rioters have also been frequently clashing with Israeli police at the site.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas recently made a public effort to fan the flames of violence, urging Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount using “all means” necessary.

Abbas’s comments have been replayed well over a dozen times on official PA TV – part of what appears to be a calculated campaign to incite more violence in the capital.

(All photos by Arutz 7)

 

Categories: Israel, Palestinians, Terrorism
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Huge rise in campus anti-semitism and anti-Israel activity

October 29, 2014

Huge Rise in campus anti-semitism and anti-Israel activity | Anne’s Opinions, 29th October 2014

I have documented academic anti-Israel and antisemitic activity on occasion, but my focus was more on the anti-Israel activity against Jewish and Israeli academics and institutions, including boycotts. I have not really focussed on campus antisemitism against Jewish and pro-Israel students.

It was therefore shocking, if not unexpected, to see this horrifying video produced by Jewish Voices on Campus (via Arlene Kushner):

 

Staged “checkpoint” at a campus Israel Apartheid Week event

 

Prof. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has been documenting campus antisemitism for a long time now (see here and here for example) and today links to an item similar to the video above reporting on a huge rise in campus anti-Israel activity in the US:

The Anti-Defamation League issued an important report on Monday, Oct. 27, finding a dramatic increase in anti-Israel activity, compared to last year. The ADL attributes the increase to the aftermath of the 50-day Gaza war this past summer.

According to the ADL, this fall semester there have already been 75 anti-Israel events reported on U.S. college campuses. In the same period last year, there were only 35 such events.

The problem is even more alarming than the ADL’s report suggests.

…

William Jacobson, clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and founder and publisher of the excellent blog covering legal matters, especially anti-Israel activity on campuses, Legal Insurrection, made the point:

“It is no real surprise that anti-Israel groups are trying to leverage the summer’s fighting in Gaza to their advantage on campus.

“But that is just the latest excuse for what has been a long-running campus propaganda war against Israel. If it was not Gaza it would have been something else. There are groups always looking for an excuse to attack Israel on campus,” Jacobson explained.

…

METHODS OF CAMPUS ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVITIES

Those campus anti-Israel activities include mock “Apartheid Walls” intended to represent Israel’s passive security barrier as a weapon of racism; mock checkpoints in which anti-Israel thugs act out the role of Israeli security forces intimidating, harassing and aggressively demanding identification from hapless and often helpless students who are forced into playing the role of meek and innocent Palestinian Arabs, and fake “die-ins.”

There are also the mock eviction notices slipped under the dorm room doors of students. These notices demand the students leave their rooms, pretending that the evil Israeli empire is confiscating their dwelling space. Although there is (at least now) a line usually at the bottom of the notice, informing the student that the eviction notice is not real, the level of anxiety it creates is real, as is the feeling of students having their private space violated.

These tactics, along with the Israel divestment resolutions (all of purely symbolic value as students cannot vote on how a university’s money is invested, but the platform provided to bash Israel can be deeply upsetting nonetheless) and activities promoting the boycott of, divestment from and sanctions against (BDS) movement have metastasized. In the past few years several large academic organizations have focused a great deal of time and energy on whether to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

…

Jacobson, another observer in the front row, agreed with the ADL that most campuses in the U.S. do not experience problems with openly hostile anti-Israel activity. But, Jacobson explains, “that is not for lack of trying. Groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, often with the assistance and encouragement of anti-Israel faculty, have become more aggressive in the past two years.”

…

By whatever standard is used, there is little doubt that the problem of orchestrated anti-Israel activity on U.S. campuses is growing and needs to be taken seriously.

And it is not a new phenomenon. As long ago as 2009, after spending two weeks on a speaking tour of North American colleges, Arab Israeli journalist Khaled abu Toameh had this to say about the anti-Israel climate on those campuses: “there is more sympathy for Hamas there than in Ramallah.”

Read the whole article for a depressing and alarming insight into what is happening in US academia.

In the UK matters are at least as bad. The Stand With Us organization does sterling work in countering academic boycotts, BDS in general, and defending Israel in various forums. Of course many individuals (e.g. Ronnie Fraser) have confronted anti-Israel boycott proposals by teachers’ unions like the UCU, often to the detriment of their own career.

A scene from Manchester’s Say No to Anti-Semitism rally on Sunday, October 19,2014. (Mike Poloway)

 

Now there is more trouble afoot Britain, this time for Jewish students in Manchester, as they have to contend with a vote to continue twinning Manchester University with the “Hamas greenhouse”, An-Najah University in Shechem (Nablus):

Even by the standards of British student politics, the campus-wide vote due to take place from October 24-31 at the University of Manchester is most questionable and controversial.

The proposal being put to vote is to renew the university student union’s twinning partnership with An-Najah National University in Nablus, a place called by Hamas “a greenhouse for martyrs.”

According to Jewish watchdog organization the Anti-Defamation League, “the student council of An-Najah is known for its advocacy of anti-Israel violence and its recruitment of Palestinian college students into terrorist groups. The council, almost completely controlled by factions loyal to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, glorifies suicide bombings and propagandizes for jihad against Israel.”

Unsurprisingly, students connected with Manchester’s Jewish society oppose the motion.

In London’s Jewish News, James Graham wrote that he and other Jewish students supported the proposal’s motion to bring a student from a Palestinian university to study in Manchester.

“What we as a J-Soc [Jewish student union] were opposed to is the twinning with An-Najah, an institution with links to Hamas and that has publicly called for the annihilation of the Jewish people. Instead we were in favor of a three-way relationship between Manchester, an Israeli university and an alternative Palestinian one,” Graham wrote.

…

What is witnessed in wider society is not reflected proportionally on campus, but rather boiled down and concentrated. Organized student politics, as a result, can appear radical or extreme on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The current campus clashes began, in fact, before students returned to classes in late September and early October. In early August, during Operation Protective Edge, the National Executive Committee of the National Union of Students (NUS) voted in favor of a motion to support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

The NUS – a national confederation of 600 student unions in Britain representing the interests of more than seven million students – backed 23 votes to 18 to commit itself to “ensuring that, as far as is practical, NUS does not employ or work with companies identified as facilitating Israel’s military capacity, human rights abuses or illegal settlement activity, and to actively work to cut ties with those that do,” a spokesperson said at the time.

But the motion went further than that. Support for BDS was tagged to a motion which condemned “Israel’s attacks on Gaza” and “the collective punishment and killing in Gaza,” and backed calls to lift the blockade on the Strip. It also beseeched the British government to cease aid and funding to Israel and impose an arms embargo against Israel,according to Cherwell, a student newspaper of Oxford University.

Anti-Israel demonstration in London during the Gaza war summer 2014

 

This would not be in the NUS’ only intervention in the Middle East. Earlier this month, the National Executive Committee blocked a motion to “condemn the IS and support the Kurdish forces fighting against it, while expressing no confidence or trust in the US military intervention” and “campaign in solidarity with the Iraqi people and in particular support the hard-pressed student, workers’ and women’s organizations against all the competing nationalist and religious-right forces.”

…

Decisions such as these — condemning Israel, but not Islamic extremists — have set a tone for political activity in other students’ unions across the country. At Goldsmiths, University of London, the students’ union voted down a motion to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, among other anniversaries of genocides and atrocities in Europe, including the Armenian genocide. The motion read in part:

The Student Union recognizes the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, of the other genocides, of totalitarianism and racial hatred. It further recognizes that commemorating the victims of genocide, racial hatred and totalitarianism, and promoting public awareness of these crimes against humanity, is essential to sustaining and defending democratic culture and civil society, especially in the face of a resurgence of neo-fascism, racial hatred and neo-Stalinism across Europe.

…

Meanwhile at Cambridge…

At the University of Cambridge, a collective of doctors and professors put their names to a September 28 statement which demanded an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip and “a more far-reaching justice for the Palestinian people, including the displaced refugees.” This change, they argued, “without an end to the violence perpetrated by the State of Israel against Palestinians, an end to the siege of Gaza and to the occupation, and an end to the discriminatory and dehumanizing treatment of Palestinian citizens within Israel.”

Students at the university connected to the Israel Society issued a counter-letter, condemning the academics for “demonstrating a severe lack of nuance surrounding the complexity of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and for issuing an un-academic statement that achieves little save establishing the desire to discriminate against a sole nationality.”

The original letter, however, asserted that Israel “singles itself out” for criticism “through its claims to moral impeccability, its celebrated status as a democracy, through its receipt of massive support from the US and other nations, and through its abuse of the memory of the Holocaust in order to deflect criticism and to discredit the Palestinian struggle.”

Joshua Gertner, co-president of Cambridge’s Israel Society and one of the authors of the counter-letter, told The Times of Israel, “This eye-opening letter from the student body rightly highlights the lack of nuance from these Cambridge academics in their strikingly un-academic torrent of criticism leveled at Israel. It was very important to send a strong message that their unhelpful and misguided sentiment is not blindly accepted by their students.”

…

In explaining this raft of extremely politicized decisions by the NUS and other students’ unions, Daniel Cooper – one of the co-sponsors of the motion to condemn ISIS – argued that “there is a stranglehold of ‘identity politics’ on the student movement.” He added that “the idea is widespread that if a Liberation Officer opposes something, it must be bad.”

…
Some “appear not to research issues, work out what they think, engage and take ideas forward. Instead, some are not very interested and vote on basis of who they want to ally with.

In other words many British students are dimwits who vote with their emotions without studying the facts first. Exactly how a university student should NOT behave in fact.

However it is not all bad news, though the good news are few and far between.

The President of Liege University in Belgium condemned an antisemitic invitation to an anti-Israel student event and demanded that it be cancelled:

The president of the University of Liege in Belgium said he was “appalled” at philosophy students for staging a mock Gaza-themed initiation ritual of newcomers.

The invitation to the event, scheduled for Tuesday, was couched in an anti-Semitic language, reading ‘’your goal is to avoid the big bad Jew,” according to the European Jewish Press..

…

University’s president Albert Corhay demanded the cancellation of the event and added that students involved will be summoned in the coming days.

In a statement, the Union of Jewish Students in Belgium declared: “The student body has a tradition of humorous initiations. Here, however, we are dealing with something else: a Manichaean and anti-Semitic vision of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Kol hakavod to Mr. Corhay for having the courage to stand up to these bigots and for imposing a modicum of decency in his university. If only British deans adn professors woudl act likewise.

In New York too, a boycott motion was defeated at CUNY by the Doctoral Students Council:

On Friday afternoon, the Doctoral Students Council of the City University of New York (CUNY) once again considered a hateful resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

After the same measure was defeated by 41 votes last month, this destructive and divisive resolution once again reared its ugly head. For a second time, the resolution failed to win passage, receiving 31 out of a required 39 votes.

The hypocrites who promoted the resolution are part of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This well-funded and increasingly organized campaign seeks to isolate, demonize, and ultimately destroy the Jewish state of Israel.

The resolution’s backers claimed they were promoting justice and human rights, that they were seeking sovereignty and freedom for the Palestinian people, that they are trying to end the “occupation.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

…

Sensible students and faculty at CUNY organized to stand up for academic freedom and moral integrity by helping defeat this resolution. They were supported by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, StandWithUs, The Third Narrative, The Israel Project, and an on-site rapid response team from Israel on Campus Coalition.

Kol hakavod to all the students and the pro-Israel advocacy groups who supported them in their tireless efforts to defeat this bigoted motion.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in the above article, being defeated once, or even twice, is not enough to deter the bigots and Jew-haters. I’m sure they will raise their ugly heads again in further boycott attempts and anti-Jewish events. We all have to stand guard and give support to the Jewish students and faculty.

Categories: Antisemitism
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Israel’s allies and enemies – which is which?

October 28, 2014

Israel’s allies and enemies – which is which? | Anne’s Opinions, 27th October 2014

The looking-glass world of international relations in the Middle East during the Obama Administration.– AP)

Lately I have been feeling that, like Alice in Wonderland, we have stepped through the looking glass and are living in an alternative universe. Our old allies have turned against us whilst our old enemies are now siding with us and even doing our dirty work for us.

Case in point: It has been documented several times recently how petty and thin skinned is the US Administration. Last week they demonstrated this nasty characteristic once again with their juvenile and petty behaviour against Israeli Defence Minister Moshe (Bogie) Yaalon.

One meeting which did take place: Moshe Yaalon meets US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel

 

The Administration refused to arrange a meeting between Yaalon and Vice President Biden and other US officials because of their annoyance at Yaalon’s criticism of John Kerry and the US appeasement of Iran:

The Obama administration this week refused Israel defense minister’s requests to meet several top national security aides, still miffed over negative comments he made about Secretary of State John Kerry’s Mideast peace efforts and nuclear negotiations with Iran, US officials said Friday.

While Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon did see Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, the officials said the White House and State Department rejected Israeli proposals for meetings with Vice President Joe Biden, national security adviser Susan Rice and Kerry on his five-day trip to the United States. The administration had sought to stop Ya’alon from seeing Power but the objections were made too late to cancel the meeting, according to the officials.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the snubs, which were first reported by several Israeli media outlets.

…
Earlier this year, Ya’alon infuriated officials in Washington with comments accusing the administration of being weak on Iran and questioning the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security. That followed reports that Ya’alon had criticized Kerry for being unrealistic and naive in trying to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

The blogger Abu Yehuda has more on the pettiness of the US Administration and their stupidity in thinking that the Muslim terrorists are not out to get them too.

In another example of American duplicity, the Administration was rather upset at the killing of a Palestinian-American teenager who was shot by the IDF as he was throwing firebombs at Israeli cars. The US has demanded a full investigation. However I did not see them demand a full investigation of the Palestinian American who drove his car into a crowd of commuters, killing baby Chaya Zissel Braun.

The blogger Edgar Davidson chronicles the American hypocrisy:

Israeli security forces killed a Palestinian who was throwing Molotov cocktails at them. And the US Government really did issue the following statement:

The United States expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a US citizen minor (Orwah Hammad) who was killed by the Israeli Defence Forces during clashes in Silwad on October 24. We demand a speedy and transparent investigation into his killing.

This came just two days after the US government initially refused to condemn the Palestinian terror attack that killed 3-month old American-Israeli baby girl Chaya Zisel Baron, and injured many others – an attack that had not only been incited by the rhetoric of PA President Abbas but was wildly celebrated by both Hamas and the PA. The US government – which insists Israel must make concessions to Hamas and the PA – did eventually issue a half-hearted condemnation but in the same statement demanded that Israel “show restraint”. The US Government has also desperately tried to cover up the fact that Chaya (and several of the other injured victims) were US citizens. This is especially strange since we are now seeing a trend whereby the US Government is very keen to announce that Palestinian terrorists ‘victims’ are ‘US citizens’.

So now it seems that any Palestinian terrorist can not only be a hero martyr to Hamas and the PA, but can also be considered an American citizen, thereby gaining the protection of the US government in addition to the UN.

All this while Israeli Jewish Americans receive little to no support from the US Administration they so sensibly left behind.

Karen Yemima Muscara HY’D, murdered in the Palestinian terrorist attack by car

 

Tragically the death toll from that attack has gone up as another victim died yesterday. Karen Yemima Muscara, a new immigrant from Ecuador who had converted to Judaism, was buried last night in Jerusalem.

Outrageously, her funeral had to be delayed so as to avoid riots as her terrorist murderer was buried nearby. Isn’t it amazing that when Jews are murdered and buried, they don’t go on rampages and riots?

Hundreds attended the funeral early on Monday of a woman killed in last week’s terrorist attack on a Jerusalem light rail station, including Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and the Ecuadorian ambassador to Israel.

Karen Yemima Muscara was an Ecuadorian citizen in her 20s, had come to Israel to convert to Judaism after discovering she was descended from Conversos, Spanish Jews who were forcibly converted to Catholicism after 1492.

…

The funeral was postponed so as not to coincide with that of Abdel Rahman al-Shaludi, the man who drove his car into the Ammunition Hill light rail station, killing Muscara and a three-month-old baby and injuring seven others. Police shot Shaludi as he attempted to flee the scene on foot and he later died; he was buried Sunday night in the Muslim cemetery outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat eulogized Muscara saying that she was “a delicate soul and guardian of peace who fought to be a Jew,” the NRG news site quoted him saying.

“Like many before her, she also fell in love with Jerusalem. Seven months ago she joined us and tonight, with unbelievable pain, she is parted from us,” Barkat said. “As mayor of Jerusalem I say that the situation won’t continue. It’s unacceptable that those whose live their whole lives for peace fall victim to those who glorify death.” He vowed once again to restore calm to Jerusalem.

…

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday flew in Muscara’s parents after she suffered head wounds and was seriously injured in the attack. Her mother said Sunday that her daughter’s dream had been to come to Israel and build her life here, but her life was cut short.

May Karen Yemima’s memory be for a blessing and may her parents, family and friends be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi

Meanwhile our erstwhile enemy, and often very cold peace partner Egypt is acting more forcefully against Hamas than we could ever hope to do without world condemnation. After a deadly car bombing by Jihadi terrorists against Egyptian forces in the Sinai, killing 28 soldiers, Egypt has cancelled its attempts at reviving Israeli-Hamas peace talks, has closed down the Rafah crossing and is planning building a wall to close off Gaza:

After a terror attack on Friday killed at least 30 Egyptian soldiers in the northern Sinai, Cairo has declared a state of emergency in the area, closed down the Rafah crossing from Gaza, canceled indirect cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, and now says it will build a wall to block smuggling with the coastal enclave, Israel’s NRG News reported.

…

On Friday, militants mounted a complex, combined attack at an Egyptian base using what appeared to be a suicide car bomber, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside charges. Despite Hamas denying involvement, Egyptian security officials charged that attackers utilized smuggling tunnels from Gaza in perpetrating the attack, leading to the breakdown in relations.

Hamas is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, which, under the rule of Mohammed Morsi, was deposed last year.

Hamas leaders warned that the strip was on the verge of an “explosion” if the passage with Egypt remained closed. Israel, meanwhile, has continued allowing humanitarian aid and construction material to enter the enclave.

One would expect that Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas would be outraged at this move by the Egyptians. One would be wrong. In another topsy-turvy turn of events, Mahmoud Abbas is supporting the Egyptian move, as the Elder of Ziyon reports:

Now, this means that Egypt will once again be enforcing a blockade on Gaza. People will not be able to leave Gaza for medical, educational or professional reasons. This is what would be characterized as “collective punishment” if done by Israel..

Egypt, by any yardstick, is treating Palestinians in Gaza worse than Israel is. Israel has not closed the Erez crossings and hundred of truckloads of materials go to Gaza every weekday from Israel.

But how does Mahmoud Abbas respond to Egypt’s latest moves to enforce a crippling siege on Gaza?

He supports them!

After Sisi’s speech, Abbas said “We stand by Egypt’s leadership, government and people, and we support all measures to be taken by the Egyptian leadership in order to maintain security and stability in Egypt in the face of terrorism in the Sinai and all the Egyptian territories, because of the service of the Palestinian cause and the Arab national security.”

Abbas praised the Egyptian position as being “courageous in the face of terrorism,” saying he has great confidence that Egypt will overcome the enemy.

How’s that for hypocrisy?

He probably learned the hypocrisy from the Americans. Or taught it to them.

Flag of Azerbaijan

 

In another subject of interest regarding Israel’s changing alliances, the Algemeiner has a report from the Muslim world is that Azerbaijan is becoming one of Israel’s emerging Muslim-majority allies in place of Turkey which has become one of our fiercest opponents:

But now, along comes Azerbaijan—the world’s first Muslim-majority democracy, which is fast taking the place of Turkey in becoming a crucial ally of Israel in the Muslim world. It’s no surprise that of all Muslim-majority countries, Azerbaijan would fill the void. Like Turkey before Erdoğan, Azerbaijan has proudly and sometimes aggressively reinforced its secular society, banning the hijab (veil) in schools.

In a gathering with the Jewish community held in the Washington, D.C. area last month, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United States, Elin Suleymanov, recoiled from the criticism his country received from the U.S. and others for its tough line on maintaining its secularism. “We are criticized because our girls are not forced to wear the hijab, and this is the worst problem in the Middle East?” he said.

…

To date, Israel’s relationship with Azerbaijan has taken an almost identical trajectory as its early ties to Turkey. As it had with Ankara, Israel has steadily ratcheted up defense ties with Baku. Last month, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon visited Azerbaijan, one of a number of such recent defense-oriented visits.

As it had with Turkey, Israel has established a vital economic lifeline to Azerbaijan, which provides the Jewish state with 40 percent of its imported oil.

As with Israeli-Turkish relations, bilateral ties between the two countries signal Azerbaijan’s desire to strengthen its connections to the U.S. and the West. The country has become an invaluable NATO supply line to Afghanistan and has joined NATO war efforts.

When much of the rest of the world interrupted flights to Israel during the conflict with Hamas last summer, Azerbaijan continued flying.

…

Undoubtedly, Israel sees the tremendous potential in its relationship with Azerbaijan, as does Azerbaijan with Israel. American supporters of Israel must do their part to reinforce that relationship in Washington. As was discovered with Turkey, Muslim-majority allies don’t grow on trees.

Indeed. And not only Muslim-majority allies. It seems that Western liberal democratic allies not only do not grow on trees, the ones that have grown seem to be dying and falling like shrivelled leaves.

Israel needs to focus on its own interests and if an ally turns against us, we must learn to stand on our own two feet, besides finding other allies.

A good example of coping with negative fallout: It turns out that during Operation Protective Edge the Americans really did block not only shipments of Hellfire missiles to Israel, but a lot more than that:

The Obama administration stopped shipping to Israel all defense items – and not just Hellfire missiles as previously reported – for a short time in the middle of the war against Hamas, reported Israel Defense’s Amir Rappaport, the well-informed and highly credibly editor of the website.

Makor Rishon added to that report that the US actually cut off all communications with Israel’s Ministry of Defense purchasing offices in the US for days.

In response, Israel is now looking to produce its own weapons so as not to be reliant on fair-weather friends in the future:

The Defense Ministry, now realizing it cannot always depend on the Obama administration in a time of crisis, already has decided under a “veil of secrecy,” according to Israel Defense, to manufacture a highly sensitive weapon in Israel instead of buying it from the United States.

The change in policy is a major step that would wean Israel away from dependence on the United States and which also would be a significant change in the policy of buying American-made weapons with most financial assistance from the United States.

American aid to countries, including Israel, usually is conditioned on a majority of the money being poured back into the American military-industrial complex.

“The Israeli defense establishment will reduce the production of weapon systems in the USA in the context of joint Israeli-American projects, and will rely more heavily on Israeli-made products” as a result of the punitive action taken by President Barack Obama, Rappaport wrote.

…

The ministry also is examining the possibility of using Israel-made precision guided air-to-surface munition to replace Hellfire missiles, a project that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.

The American decision is cutting off their nose to spite their face, since their military aid to Israel is spent mostly in the US itself, providing jobs and income. But if that’s how they want to play it, Israel too can play the game.

Except that for us it’s not a game. It’s an existential matter of life and death.

Categories: Israel, Palestinians, Kerry, Middle East, Obama, Terrorism
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