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Terror attack by vehicle in Jerusalem – 3-month old baby killed

October 23, 2014

Terror attack by vehicle in Jerusalem – 3-month old baby killed | Anne’s Opinions, 23rd October 2014

3-month old Chaya Zissel Braun HY’D, murdered in a terrorist car attack in Jerusalem

As if predicted by my previous post, a Palestinian terrorist with previous form drove his car directly into a group of people waiting at the Ammunition Hill light rail stop, killing a 3-month old baby and injuring several others.

A three-month-old girl was killed Wednesday afternoon and eight others were injured when a car crashed into a crowd at a light rail station in Jerusalem in what officials said was a terrorist attack.

The suspect, identified by an Israeli official as a member of terror group Hamas, attempted to flee the scene on foot and was shot and badly hurt by police, a police spokesperson said.

“A private car which arrived from the direction of the French Hill junction hit a number of pedestrians who were on the pavement and injured nine of them,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

“Initial indications suggest this is a hit-and-run terror attack,” Samri said.

The baby, Chaya Zissel Braun, died at the nearby Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus a few hours after the incident. A spokesperson for Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said a 60-year-old woman and seven other people, including the baby’s parents, were also lightly and moderately wounded in the attack.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said that both Chaya Zissel Braun and her parents were American citizens. US State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf couldn’t immediately confirm whether the family was American, but condemned the attack.

The alleged attacker is Abdelrahman al-Shaludi, a former Palestinian prisoner from the flashpoint neighborhood of Silwan.

The Palestinian terrorist who ran over 8 people in Jerusalem this evening, injuring them and killing a baby, was a member of Hamas.

— Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) October 22, 2014

a baby stroller at the scene of a terror attack at a Jerusalem light rail station, by Ammunition Hill (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

After the incident, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino and Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen to receive a briefing about what happened. Netanyahu ordered increased security in the capital.

“This is how [PA President Abbas’s] partners in government act, the same Abbas who just a few days ago incited attacks on Jews in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

As if this terrible news were not bad enough, it takes an even more tragic turn, as Arutz Sheva reports:

The grandfather of the three-month-old girl murdered in this evening’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem has issued a heartbreaking statement in response.

The baby girl, named Chaya Ziso was among nine people wounded when an Arab terrorist mowed down pedestrians with his car at a light rail station in Jerusalem’s Ammunition Hill. She succumbed to her wounds shortly afterwards; another victim suffered serious wounds while the remainder were moderately or lightly injured.

“Her parents waited for a child for many years during which they did not merit to have children,” said grandfather Shimon Halperin. “Today they were coming back from praying at the Kotel (Western Wall) and a terrorist came and ran over their baby.”

He told of her parents’ joy after she was born, and described how he enjoyed playing with his granddaughter during her tragically short life. He and his wife had just arrived in Israel from the US to meet his grandchild, but only had a few short hours with her.

May Hashem avenge the blood of little Chaya Zissel Braun, and may He bring comfort to her grieving parents and family amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. May all those wounded have a speedy and full recovery.

But while we Jews await Hashem’s vengeance, the Palestinians have no such compunction. Instead of keeping a low profile, and maybe even apologizing for such a dastardly attack, what do our “peace partners” do? Why, they riot and throw firebombs of course!

A few hours after the suspected attack, dozens of masked Palestinian youths blocked roads in Silwan, set tires alight and fired off firecrackers. Clashes were reported with police forces in Silwan and Issawiya. One police officer was reported injured by a firebomb in Silwan.

A Hamas spokesperson said in response to the reports that if indeed it was a terrorist attack, then it was a natural response to Israel’s actions in Jerusalem, particularly Jewish incursions into the al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel Radio reported.

Just imagine if we Jews were to avenge ourselves on the Arabs for their desecration of our holiest site in a similar manner. There would be no Palestinians left! Trying to justify a terrorist attack against civilians is simply beyond the pale. Except for the Palestinians of course.

As for the Americans – since the baby and her parents are American citizens – what was their reaction? You can guess it I’m sure (from the previous link):

US State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf couldn’t immediately confirm whether the family was American, but condemned the attack.

“The Israelis are currently looking into the incident. We are in touch with them and we’ll see what more information we can get, also urge all sides to exercise restraint and maintain calm,” Harf said.

They should have addressed that demand to the rioting Palestinians, not to the Israelis who show nothing BUT restraint.

In truth we must stop restraining ourselves. It has only brought more terror and devastation upon ourselves. It’s about time we stood up for ourselves and fought back with our full strength. It’s time Israel and our leaders stopped fearing the nations and took responsibility for our own safety.

In a particularly nasty piece of reporting which has now gone viral round the internet, AP reported the incident thus (via Israellycool):

How AP reported the terror attack in Jerusalem

Words fail me – and everyone else. As Brian of London remarks:

It’s hard to describe how evil this is. It immediately (and automatically) was pushed out by Yahoo! and hundreds of other sites that just run any AP story without modification.

It’s all over Google News and the Middle Eastern sites are loving it.

Many people are blaming Yahoo! That’s not entirely fair, the real evil was done by the headline writers at AP. It matters not that they’ve changed the headline now (many times). The damage is done.

The AP need to be kicked out of Israel. I’m too angry to even link to all the pieces I should.

A twitter response has been gaining steam with the ironic use of the hashtag #HowAPWouldReport:

Thus we have the following examples intended to embarrass AP:

https://twitter.com/TheRealBeadle/status/525051937189031936

Malaysian Jetliner Obstructs Path Of Missile Over Eastern Ukraine #HowAPWouldReport

— PreOccupied Territory (@POTerritory) October 22, 2014

https://twitter.com/JudgeDan48/status/525039543943049216

All fun and snarkiness aside, this is no laughing matter. Seth Mandell at Commentary Magazine call this a case study in media bias:

If you want to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict, those two stories are a good introduction. The Israeli government built rail access to Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem to better integrate them into Israeli society. Arab Jerusalemites have made the very instruments of Israeli outreach and integration into targets of sporadic violence.

…

The Associated Press got plenty of attention for its initial headline of the story: “Israeli police shoot man in east Jerusalem.”

…

But the AP wasn’t alone. Scanning the BBC, I had noticed their initial headline (since changed as well): “Nine hurt as car hits pedestrians at Jerusalem station.” As the Jerusalem Post’s Seth Frantzman pointed out, the headline on the version he saw, and took a screenshot of, was “Car hits people at Jerusalem station.” Either the BBC was deliberately downplaying the story, or the editor in charge thought he was posting a story about an evil car magically becoming sentient only to lash out, like Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, at the humans around him.

Later in the day, after executives at the BBC located a shred of integrity hidden somewhere in the sofa cushions, that was changed as well. It now reads: “Jerusalem car ‘attack’ kills baby at rail station.” I say “a shred of integrity” because the BBC still saw fit to wrap “attack” in scare quotes. What are the options, here? Was it a car “love tap”? It was a terrorist attack, perpetrated by a member of a terrorist organization.

Addressing the Americans’ call for restraint, Mandell says:

I suppose if the driver of the car had said something mean about John Kerry, she’d really let him have it.

In any event, all sides are not exercising restraint and maintaining calm. Only the Israeli side is. The Palestinians are agitating for more, relying on an international press to obfuscate and deploy scare quotes as needed.

And that encapsulates the dangers of anti-Israel media bias. The Palestinians are always excused, the Israelis are always accused – and are demanded to show restraint. This what encourages the Palestinians in their maximalist demands and their rejection of anything resembling peace and normalization. And they are never required to pay the price for their rejectionism.

If ever there is a reason for the “cycle of violence” between Israel and the Middle East, Western encouragement is one of the major ones.

Categories: Hamas, Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem, Terrorism
Tags: Jerusalem, Terrorism

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The battle for Jerusalem

October 21, 2014

The battle for Jerusalem | Anne’s Opinions, 21st October 2014

Arab anti-Jewish violence in Jerusalem is predicated on the theory that the Jews are trying to “Judaize” Jerusalem – as if it could be anything else! And also on the widely spread myth that the Jews are out to destroy Al Aqsa and replace it with the Third Temple. “If only” is what I say. –AP)

Jerusalem has been under fire, both literally and diplomatically, for a long while now, but in recent weeks the situation has deteriorated sharply. If the authorities, i.e Binyamin Netanyahu and his Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharanovitch don’t get matters in hand very soon I dread to think what might happen next.

Starting with the Silwan neighbourhood: contrary to the received wisdom, this is no “Arab East Jerusalem” neighbourhood. This was once a Jewish or mixed area, settled (oops, there goes that word again) by Yemenite Jews at the end of the 19th century.

Yemenite Jew in Shiloah (Silwan) c. 1882

The Jews were driven out in the Arab riots of 1929 and were finally ethnically cleansed in 1948 by the marauding Arabs. The area remained Judenrein until Jerusalem was liberated in 1948. Somehow, since those 19 years of Arab occupation, the “Arab identity” of the area stuck and it is considered unacceptable for Jews to live there.

However over the last few years, Jewish individuals and organizations have started buying property in Silwan, which in any other area literally anywhere in the civilized world (I do not consider most Arab countries civilized) would not even raise an eyebrow. In the last few weeks two properties were purchased by Jews and the purchasers moved in, thereby doubling the Jewish presence in Silwan.

The Arabs have been seething ever since. Because Silwan is designated nowadays as an “Arab neighbourhood”, these purchases have been called provocation, theft and generally outrageous and inflammatory. The condemnations have come in swift and sharp from the likes of the PLO and various foreign ministries.

The fact is that it is an outrage that these people consider it an outrage for a Jew to buy a house, and – gasp! – move into it, in his own capital city, or any other city anywhere in Israel. The outrage, faux or real, only encourages the Palestinian irredentists to entrench themselves in their rejectionist positions. If the world is so concerned about peace in the region, they ought to internalise for themselves, and then teach the Palestinians that Jews are allowed to buy property and live in it wherever they so wish, just as the Israelis are pushed to allow the Palestinians to live where they wish.

“Deebo” at Israellycool has an excellent take-down of the Palestinian point of view as reported by the Palestinian newspaper Ma’an, which illustrates so clearly how slanted is the view about Israel, Jews and Jerusalem. One small example – with Deebo’s remarks in brackets:

The (previous) owners of the buildings, Salah al-Rajabi and Imran al-Qawasmi, sold the properties to a Palestinian man identified as Shams al-Din al-Qawasmi, who in turn sold the buildings to Jewish settler groups, the center said. (Oh that guy is dead meat now)

The previous Palestinian tenants left the buildings over four months ago. (so they “raided” and “occupied” an empty home, that was legally purchased, but some will still claim the previous inhabitants were forced into homelessness)

For more background and history of Silwan, and Jerusalem in general, read this scholarly article by Shaul Bartal in Middle East Quarterly. One very important point that he makes is this:

The ultimate goal of the Palestinians and their allies is to advance the idea that Jerusalem in general, and neighborhoods like Silwan in particular, have no Jewish ties. Archeological remnants found in Jerusalem are thus presented as either Canaanite or Muslim.

On the Temple Mount, Arab riots and Muslim provocations continue against Jewish visitors. I use the word “visitors” advisedly because Heaven forfend that they should be worshippers for that is forbidden by the Waqf and the Israeli police.

In the latest incidents Mahmoud Abbas has called Jewish visitors to their holiest site “herds of cattle”, and has now called for Jews to be banned completely from the Temple Mount, using “all means”. If that is not a call to violence I don’t know what is.

This follows the shocking daubing of swastikas on the Temple Mount, discovered this week:

Swastikas daubed on the Temple Mount

Avigdor Liberman got it right when he said that Abbas is an anti-semite trying to ignite a holy war in Jerusalem. The terrifying thing is that Abbas might well get what he wants. But he will be the loser – yet it will be blamed on Israel as usual.

The American blogger Meryl Yourish (so glad she has resumed writing) takes AP to task for calling Abbas’s inflammatory words “a suggestion” and concurs with Liberman’s accusations against Abbas:

In a speech quoted by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, Abbas said Jewish “settlers” should be prevented from entering the site “by any means.”

“This is our Noble Sanctuary … they have no right to enter and desecrate it,” Abbas added.

That is outright religious hatred. He’s not talking about the mosque. He’s talking about the entire Temple Mount. You know, the holiest site in Judiasm. And “suggested”? really? You know what a suggestion is? “Hey, I think you should try putting a purple streak in your hair and see how it looks.” That’s a suggestion.

This? This is outright saying Jews have no right to their own holy place. No right to the site where both Temples stood, where the Ark of the Covenant resided, where Jewish priests blew the shofar on Rosh Hashanah–the site, in fact, where Judaism was practiced for centuries before Islam existed. This is part of the Palestinian strategy to pretend that the area was wholly Muslim and Jews have nothing to do with it. It is, straight out, a lie. And the AP calls it a suggestion.

The Muslim desecration of Jewish holy places extends even to the dead, as Arabs vandalised over 40 graves at the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

Jewish graves vandalised on the Mt. of Olives cemetery

Meanwhile, Arab anti-Jewish violence in Jerusalem continues, with lynching attempts, stonings, firebombings, not to mention the severe damage caused to the Jerusalem light rail, putting almost 40% of the line out of action.

Damage to Jerusalem light rail station

Jerusalem light rail train carriage windows smashed by Arab rioters

It has taken until now, but PM Binyamin Netanyahu has finally lost patience with the incompetence of the police and their lack of response to the Arab violence in Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday demanded Israeli police and security agencies take a harsher stand against escalating firebombing, stoning, and vandalism attacks against Jewish residents by pro-Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem in recent months.

Calling to bolster police presence in the streets of the capital as a show of deterrence, Netanyahu “instructed that forces be increased in the confrontation areas and that vigorous action be taken against those who disturb the peace.”

…

However, despite the staunch calls for a crackdown on crime, a government official told the 0404 news site that Netanyahu is “furious” at Aharonovitch over his inability to quell the burgeoning violence.

According to the source, Netanyahu has expected that Aharonovitch know what steps to take in order to get the streets under some semblance of control.

“Netanyahu is furious with Aharonovitch’s lack of treatment on the terrorist attacks in Jerusalem,” the official said. “The situation is catastrophic. Aharonovitch ‘fell asleep on his watch,’ and now everyone’s getting hit by the ricochets.

“This verges on scandalous,” the official said.

Eyewitnesses at the meeting earlier in the day between Netanyahu, Aharonovitch, Barkat, police officials, and others who deal with the attacks in Jerusalem, said Netanyahu slammed his fist on the table as he turned to speak with Aharonovitch.

Netanyahu, according to those present, gave Aharonovitch five days to boost forces and stop the violence.

But since Netanyahu was the one who appointed Aharonovitch in the first place, why does he not fire him and find a more competent replacement?

This is not a matter of mere politics any more.

Unfortunately, the battle for Jerusalem is not only in our own hands. As Shaul Bartal in the above-mentioned Middle East Quarterly article sums up with these sad words:

Sadly, the battle over Silwan (and for that matter the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict) is likely to continue as long as Palestinian Arabs and their brethren refuse to recognize that another people, the Jews, have a claim to the Land of Israel.

Categories: Israel, Palestinians, Jerusalem
Tags: Jerusalem

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Murderers of the three teens eliminated

September 23, 2014

Murderers of the Three Teens Eliminated

Arutz Sheva| First Publish: 9/23/2014, 7:26 AM

Perfect timing for Rosh Hashana, settling the “account” just as the Jewish year ends and a New Year begins.– AP)

Marwan Kawasmeh and Amer Abu Eisha of Hevron located and killed in exchange of gunfire.

Murdered (L to R): Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Sha’ar, Naftali Frenkel courtesy of the families

Marwan Kawasmeh and Amer Abu Eisha of Hevron, who abducted and murdered three yeshiva boys Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Sha’ar, Naftali Frenkel in June, were located and killed in exchange of gunfire early Tuesday morning.

The operation was carried out by the Yamam, a special unit of the Border Police, and the IDF, in Hevron. An attempt was made to arrest the suspects but an exchange of fire developed in which they were killed.

The operation was made possible by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), which located the murderers’ hideout. In the last few days, several Hamas suspects were arrested and questioned on the assumption that they were assisting the fugitives.

“We have been pursuing these two since the abduction,” said Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brig. Gen. Tamir Yadai. “Last night the investigation ripened as regards their location and we have been surrounding the place where they were hiding since 1:00 a.m. We killed them and there are arrests of several other collaborators.”

“We began areesting suspects and at the same time we applied [IDF] ‘pressure cooker’ protocol on the house. It is a big house and they hid out in a secret arms store on the basement floor. The floor is not visible from the outside. At one stage they went outside and opened fire. One was shot and the other fell inside, into a hole.”

“There was use of weapons, like hand grenades and the deployment of explosives that were prepared ahead of time,” he added. “We know that they have been staying in this location quite a lot in the last few days. We know for certain that they were not here the whole time. They had weapons like M-16s, a Kalachnikov and handguns, too.”

Kawasmeh’s close relative Hussam was arrested in Jerusalem in August for planning the attack, which was carried out physically by Marwan, along with Amer Abu-Eisha.

The abduction and murder reportedly was planned by a third Kawasmeh, Mahmoud, along with Hussam, under the support of Hamas’s military branch, the Al-Qassam Brigades, through their branches both in Gaza and abroad.

The Brigades transferred funds via Mahmoud to purchase a car with an Israeli license plate, weapons and hideouts which were arranged in advance,according to security sources. They added that the three Israeli teens were buried on land purchased by the Kawasmeh family long before the attack. Hussam admitted in investigation to having shaven his beard off and obtained a forged passport in an attempt to flee the country to Jordan.

Marwan Kawasmeh (L) and Amar Abu-Eisha Israel Security Agency

After going missing on June 12, Eyal Yifrah, 19, and 16-year-old classmates Gilad Sha’ar and Naftali Frenkel, were declared kidnapped the next day.

Suspicion immediately fell on Hamas after intelligence pointed towards the involvement of Kawasmeh and Abu-Eisha, whose names were publicized two weeks later.

An 18-day search for the three teenagers ensued, accompanied by a crackdown on Hamas in Judea and Samaria, but the search ended in tragedy after their bodies were found in field close to the Arab village of Halhul near Hevron. They were buried side-by-side in the city of Modi’in.

The three boys are believed to have been murdered very shortly after being kidnapped; one source close to the murder investigation said a recording of a call made by one of the boys as he was being kidnaps provides crucial evidence that the murder had been pre-planned from the very start.

The source claimed the kidnappers used a silenced weapon, indicating their attempt to actually use the gun, and dressed up as religious Jews to lure the victims into their car.

Categories: Israel, Palestinians

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Breathtaking disingenuousness: UNHRC head Navi Pillock Pillay criticizes UNHRC for ineffectiveness over Syria and other conflicts

August 23, 2014

Breathtaking disingenuousness: UNHRC head Navi ~~Pillock~~ Pillay criticizes UNHRC for ineffectiveness over Syria and other conflicts – by anneinpt | Anne’s Opinions, August 23rd 2014

UN - Useless Nations

UN – Useless Nations

UN Human ~~Wrongs~~ Rights Council head ~~witch~~ Navi ~~Pillock~~ Pillay has come out with what can only be described as a case of extreme blindness, total self-unawareness and a moronic level of disingenuousness when she accused the UNHRC of having been ineffective in dealing with Syria and other intractaable conflicts. Here is an excerpt (emphases are mine):

“I firmly believe that greater responsiveness by this council would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” said Navi Pillay, whose term as high commissioner for human rights ends on 30 August.

Pillay said Syria’s conflict “is metastasing outwards in an uncontrollable process whose eventual limits we cannot predict”. She also cited conflicts in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Congo, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza.

“These crises hammer home the full cost of the international community’s failure to prevent conflict,” Pillay said. “None of these crises erupted without warning.”

Pillay spoke at a meeting where the security council unanimously adopted a resolution promising more aggressive efforts to prevent conflicts.

The resolution acknowledged that the United Nations has not always used the tools in its charter for preventing conflict. It prescribed several steps for improvement, focusing on addressing human rights violations earlier and recognizing that such abuses are often warning signs of looming conflicts.

…

Pillay touched on the problem in her remarks. “Short-term geopolitical considerations and national interest, narrowly defined, have repeatedly taken precedence over intolerable human suffering and grave breaches of and long-term threats to international peace and security,” she said.

The human rights chief said the use of veto power on the security council “to stop action intended to prevent or defuse conflict is a short-term and ultimately counter-productive tactic”.

Pillay offered her own solutions. She proposed that the council adopt a menu of new responses, including “rapid, flexible and resource-efficient human rights monitoring missions”. And she suggested building on the Arms Trade Treaty by requiring that, in countries where there are human rights concerns, governments accept a small human rights monitoring team as a condition of purchasing weapons.

I was so flummoxed at Pillock Pillay’s statement that I was momentarily struck speechless. I was literally spluttering.

For is she herself not the vaunted head of this illustrious Council? Is not she the one who should have been setting the agenda and guiding the Council to the correct resolutions and conclusions?

I have addressed the wrongs inherent in the Human ~~Wrongs~~ Rights Council too many times to count on this blog.

But the graphics that I use (one above and one below) whenever the UNHRC or Navi Pillay’s position as High Commissioner for Human Rights aptly illustrate the reason why the UN’s human rights committees have been so ineffective. The reason has been repeated ad nauseum by Hillel Neuer of UN Watch and Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor, besides other supporters of Israel protesting at the anti-Israel bias of the various UN human wrongs rights committees.

UN anti Israel bias

In a nutshell – the microscopic concentration on Israel’s alleged and unproven human rights abuses have detracted attention from the real human rights abusers around the world.

If Pillay is genuinely upset and not just engaging in a “cover your ass” exercise, the best advice I can give to and to her successor is the warning and advice offered by the indefatigable and eloquent UN Watch spokesman Hillel Neuer, whom I quoted not two weeks ago in his Test: Are you pro-human rights, or anti-Israel?

If in the past year you didn’t CRY OUT when thousands of protesters were killed and injured by Turkey, Egypt and Libya, when more victims than ever were hanged by Iran, women and children in Afghanistan were bombed, whole communities were massacred in South Sudan, 1800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, hundreds in Pakistan were killed by jihadist terror attacks, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by terrorists, villagers were slaughtered in Nigeria, but you ONLY cry out for GAZA, then you are not pro HUMAN RIGHTS, you are only ANTI-ISRAEL.

Embedded in the above quote is a video which I have posted here before but is worth watching and sharing again.

Note to Navi Pillay: You could have saved your discomfort and embarrassment at your committee’s ineffectiveness and your disingenuous criticism of it had you persuaded your colleagues at the UNHRC not to ban this video.

From the blurb of the video:

UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer exposes the hypocrisy of the UN Human Rights Council, the body that created the Goldstone Report. The Council president, Amb. Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, rejects the speech as “inadmissible” — and bans it from ever being delivered again.

Luckily for us, there is UN Watch and their YouTube channel, preserving the video for posterity, exposing the hypocrisy of Pillay and her ilk.

Should we expect things to change under the new head of the Human Rights Commission at the UN?

I’m not holding my breath.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Human Rights Council, UN

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Shopping for un-Kosher trouble in anti-Semitic Britain

August 18, 2014

Shopping for un-Kosher trouble in anti-Semitic Britain | by anneinpt, Anne’s Opinions 18th August 2014

Two stories making the rounds on social media clearly illustrate the rising levels of antisemitism in Britain today, fuelled by unreasonably hysterical and vitriolic anti-Israel hatred, and disguised – of course – as “only” anti-Israel protests.

In Birmingham a Tesco supermarket was trashed by “Gaza protestors” – i.e. protestors who object to Israeli produce being sold anywhere in the UK:

Tesco store trashed by anti-Israel protestors who threw Israeli products to the floor

Police officers were attacked and stock was thrown around during a protest against the Gaza conflict at a Tesco store on Saturday.

Demonstrators, who want the supermarket to stop selling Israeli food, entered Tesco in Hodge Hill, Birmingham, threw produce to the floor and shouted at staff and shoppers.

Pictures show a large number of police officers at the scene and stock strewn across the floor of the store.

West Midlands Police said one person was arrested for assaulting its officers during the protest.

Speaking on social media, a customer said: “I was just in the Tesco in Hodge Hill, scanning my items and I heard chanting.

…

“Then a group of Asian men holding Palestinian flags came walking in and starting to push products over and getting aggressive with staff and shoppers.

“Police officers tried to stop them but I ran out.”

About 100 people had gathered outside the store to demonstrate, calling on Tesco to stop all trade with Israeli agricultural companies.

When the British press write about “Asian men” or Asians in general, it is code-speak for Muslims. Keep that in mind whenever you read about anti-Israel protests in Britain.

Following shortly afterwards, the Holborn (central London) branch of the Sainsbury’s supermarket chain took it upon themselves to remove all the Kosher food from their shelves! Colin Appleby tweeted the story

.@sainsburys produce has been emptied. It looks like this now. member of staff said "we support free Gaza". Explain? pic.twitter.com/UTxpe6Jksf

— חיאל יעקב Colin Appleby 🏳️‍🌈✡️ (@CJ_Appleby) August 16, 2014

.@sainsburys Any comment on the empty kosher section at Holborn and the "We support Free Gaza" comment from staff? pic.twitter.com/Sm7F4OLxXa

— חיאל יעקב Colin Appleby 🏳️‍🌈✡️ (@CJ_Appleby) August 16, 2014

.Dear @sainsburys you've removed Kosher food as a "protective" measure. Are you supporting ISIS if you don't remove Halal food?

— חיאל יעקב Colin Appleby 🏳️‍🌈✡️ (@CJ_Appleby) August 16, 2014

And then the happy denouement:

.#Fridgegate update. The fridge right now. @sainsburys assure me the staff member has been suitably chastised. pic.twitter.com/0DHmlYr028

— חיאל יעקב Colin Appleby 🏳️‍🌈✡️ (@CJ_Appleby) August 17, 2014

Another Sainsbury’s came under attack by protestors (via Harry’s Place), including a disgraceful display by a Labour MP:

In both cases the Jewish community and its supporters, and also ordinary well-meaning citizens, did not sit quietly by.

In the Tesco case, people took to the social media:

Tesco customers were not impressed by the riot and went on social media to castigate the behavior as Idiotic” and “disgusting,” among other adjectives.

“Peace protest? I think not. Disgusting!” one tweet stated. Another tweeter with the Arabic-sounding name, of Wagar Ahmed, wrote, “This isn’t helping the Palestinian cause. In fact, it’s doing the opposite.” Mehr Ali tweeted, “How is this going to help Gaza. Idiots.”

Reaction against the Sainsbury’s kosher-boycott was much fiercer. Jonathan Sacerdoti, an Anglo-Jewish reporter and pro-Israel activist, recorded his phone complaint to Sainsbury’s (via Israellycool who also has the full transcript) and it was most revealing:

Some key points that he made:

* Why is it considered a good reaction to remove products of interest to Jews from the shelves when there’s going to be some sort of violent intervention rather than to stop the violent intervention.

…

* But why don’t you stop them doing that? If I told you I was going to go into the store and start trashing Halal products from the shelves, would you remove them all?

– Of course not. that is a…

* But that’s what you did with the Kosher products.

– This was one store that decided to do that with the store manager, and it has all been rectified now.

* So you mean it was a mistake to do that?

– No, I didn’t say it was a mistake. You’re putting words in my mouth. I did say that it has been sorted out. There was an issue with it, and it has been sorted.

…

* As you told me there was a threat that people were going to come in and throw products onto the shop floor, you took the kosher products off the shelves so that Jewish people during that day would be unable to buy them., ad yet you can’t understand the comparison that if there were a similar threat to halal products you’ve told me you wouldn’t have the same line of action, and you can’t understand why that’s a fair comparison.

Read it all and watch the video.

The level of anti-Israel discourse in Britain today is disgraceful and extremely worrisome.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, anti-Israel, Britain, kosher

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Israel’s adventures in UN-Wonderland

August 15, 2014

Israel’s Adventures in UN-Wonderland – by anneinpt | Anne’s Opinions, 15th August 2014

UN - Useless Nations

UN – Useless Nations

More outrageous and depressing news from the Human Wrongs Rights Council. They never met a terrorist they couldn’t love. — AP)

My above title is intended to be a pun – the UN is no wonderland, the exact opposite in fact. And in parallel, the way the UN behaves towards Israel is so reminiscent of the Queen of Hearts’ words that it almost makes one want to chuckle.

Queen of Hearts: Now… are you ready for your sentence?

Alice: Sentence? But there has to be a verdict first…

Queen of Hearts: Sentence first! Verdict afterwards.

As most of you must have heard by now, the UN Human ~~Wrongs~~ Rights Council decision to investigate Israel’s “war crimes” committed during Operation Protective Edge. No matter that the operation is still ongoing, that the ceasefires have proven worthless and that truce talks are taking place at this moment in Cairo between all the sides.

Thus we end up (h/t Elder of Ziyon) with the Alice-in-Wonderland-like denouncement of Israel before any actual investigation has taken place:

Here is the statement from the UN Human Rights Council establishing a “commission of inquiry:”

…

to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014. William Schabas will serve as Chair of the three-person commission mandated by the Council at its last special session.

June 13? Operation Protective Edge began on July 8. So why is the UN choosing June 13?

The answer tells you all you need to know about how biased the UNHRC is.

Hamas kidnapped and murdered Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah on June 12.

Israel started searching for them in the Hebron area on June 13.

The commission is being given a framework where they are supposed to believe that the kidnapping and murder were not acts of aggression, but Israel’s response was.

While it is true that the next paragraph tries to stave off this criticism by saying “whether before, during or after,” the very mention of that date and not the day before shows that its mandate “to establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated and to identify those responsible, …all with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring that those responsible are held accountable, and on ways and means to protect civilians against any further assaults” is directed only at Israel and not Hamas.

Hamas has never been accused of “impunity.” That is a NGO keyword that only applies to Israel in the context of this conflict.

This is not a mistake. Diplomats are very careful with statements like this, and using the words “military operations conducted since 13 June 2014″ shows that the UNHRC does not consider the kidnapping and murder of the teens to be within the mandate of the commission – only the Israeli response.

Kidnapping and targeting civilians is a war crime, by the way, so the choice of June 13 is a very deliberate attempt not only to portray Israel as the initiator of the hostilities but to whitewash Hamas war crimes.

None of this should come as a surprise to those of us who know the character of the UN (bad) and the UN Human ~~Wrongs~~ Rights Council (evil, malicious). Let’s add to this stinking pile the composition of the hastily gathered panel tasked with investigating Israel’s already-determined war crimes, and you get a witch-hunt worthy of the worst of the Salem trials.

Israel dismissed the Monday appointment of the three members of a UN human rights’ investigative committee to review the recent military operation in Gaza, saying the identity of the three proved that the results of the probe were a foregone conclusion.

The committee will be headed by Canadian Prof. William Schabas, and was to include British-Lebanese rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, best known for her recent engagement to actor George Clooney, and Doudou Dienne of Senegal, who has previously served as the UN’s watchdog on racism and on post-conflict Ivory Coast.

However, Alamuddin later released a statement saying that she was too busy with eight other cases and could not take on the UN position.

The biggest problem is with the chairman of the panel, William Schabas, a man known for his deep hostility towards Israel, and towards Binyamin Netanyahu in particular.

William Schabas, anti-Israel chair of the UN investigatory panel

Schabas, a professor of International Law at London’s Middlesex University, has called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former president Shimon Peres to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.

He also supported the 2010 Goldstone Report into Israel’s last ground offensive in Gaza, though he said in a later interview that the scale of destruction in Gaza did not compare to other atrocities in the world.

UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog with ties to Israel, slammed the appointment and called on Schabas to recuse himself.

“You can’t spend several years calling for the prosecution of someone, and then suddenly act as his judge,” UN Watch head Hillel Neuer said in a statement. “It’s absurd — and a violation of the minimal rules of due process applicable to UN fact-finding missions.”

In a scathing denouncement of Schabas’s appointment, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, called the appointment of Schabas equivalent to ISIS hosting a religious tolerance event:

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations predicted on Wednesday that Jerusalem will not cooperate with the so-called “Schabas committee” that has been appointed to investigate alleged war crimes committed during Operation Protective Edge.

…

The Foreign Ministry said that Schabas’s appointment to head the panel proved that Israel cannot expect justice from this body.

“The report has already been written and the only question is who signs it,” the Foreign Ministry said.

In an interview with Army Radio, the Israeli envoy, Ron Prosor, expressed doubt regarding the legitimacy of the panel due to what is perceived by Jerusalem officials as a committee with a clear anti-Israel bias.

“Forming an investigatory committee headed by Schabas is like inviting ISIS to organize religious tolerance week at the UN,” Prosor told Army Radio.

I am pleased to be in good company with Ambassador Prosor who has used the same nickname as me for the UNHRC:

Ambassador Ron Prosor, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on Tuesday said “the United Nations Human Rights Council set a new record for anti-Israel bias and proved once again, that it would be better named the ‘Human Wrongs Council’” because of its “complete travesty of justice” by inviting Professor William Schabas, “one of the most outspoken critics of Israel to serve as its judge and jury.”

It was not only Israel of course who objected to the anti-Israel opinions of the committee members:

Jewish organizations also condemned the creation of the commission and its appointments. The Anti-Defamation League called the panel “a farce” with the outcome “all-but preordained.”

“Here we go again,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “As if on cue, the United Nations Human Rights Council has appointed a so-called ‘independent’ panel to investigate Israel’s conduct in the recent conflict in Gaza, with the outcome all-but preordained. This farce began with an illegitimate Council resolution and will predictably end with an illegitimate panel investigation and report, entirely biased against Israel, which places the blame squarely on Israel for ‘war crimes’ and other violations of international law and pays no attention to the terrorism of Hamas.”

In his last full day in office, former Israeli President Shimon Peres also objected to the creation of the commission in a joint press conference with the UN Secretary-General, who he called out for allowing UN-run schools in Gaza to be used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as rocket depots and launchpads.

“We have seen this theater of the absurd before,” Foxman said. “The inquiry will be stacked against Israel through the appointment of individuals with anti-Israel bona fides like Professor William Schabas. Israel, understandably, will refuse to cooperate. And, finally, a harsh, biased and fundamentally flawed report will be issued, providing fodder to those who have already found Israel guilty on all counts and handing Hamas a phony victory in the court of public opinion.”

“Schabas has made comments critical of Israel’s leadership in the past, and participated in the 2012 Russell Tribunal on Palestine, a conference in which Israel is put on trial, with its guilt on war crimes fully presumed,” Foxman said. “Diène has served as U.N. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance from 2002 to 2008 and as the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Côte d’Ivoire from 2011 to 2014.”

B’nai B’rith International said “the commission itself illegitimate as it was born of a UNHRC resolution that stridently excoriated Israel in advance of the ‘inquiry’ it launched and didn’t so much as mention Hamas by name. It was specifically designed to scrutinize not years of cross-border terrorist attacks against Israelis, but‎ rather Israel’s defensive response to them. Any suggestion that there is equivalence between terrorism and a state defending its civilians from that threat is both outrageous and unacceptable.”

Schabas tried to defend himself with the old “some of my best friends are Jews” routine, ludicrously saying that he was impartial, not anti-Israel.

The professor appointed to lead a United Nations inquiry into possible war crimes during the recent military campaign in the Gaza Strip defended his record to Israeli media Tuesday and said past statements that paint him as anti-Israel would have no bearing on his probe of the Gaza conflict.

Willam Schabas told Army Radio in an interview on Tuesday that he is not anti-Israel, has visited Israel in the past to give university presentations and is a member of the editorial board of a legal publication.

…

Israel dismissed the probe as one-sided and said the appointment of Schabas — who has called for both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former president Shimon Peres to stand trial in the International Criminal Court in the Hague — proved the outcome of the report had been predetermined.

…

Asked about a comment made last year that he would most like to see Netanyahu stand trial in the Hague, Schabas said the comments were made in reference to the Goldstone Report, a UN Human Rights Council investigation that claimed Israel had committed war crimes during the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead by deliberately targeting civilians during fighting in the Gaza Strip.

“I didn’t prejudge him and I didn’t say he was guilty,” Schabas told Army Radio. “I was making a comment in the context of a discussion about the priorities of the International Criminal Court. I think probably every person in Israel has criticized the government in Israel at some point or other in their lives and the suggestion that I’ve delivered a verdict on this is wrong and unfair.”

He can wriggle all he likes, but his own words damn him:

Read the above words again and note his huge error. This from a supposed “expert” on the Middle East. He can’t even get his Prime Ministers right! Yair Lapid puts him right:

Finance Minister Yair Lapid, in an interview with Channel 2 later on Tuesday evening, pointed out that it was former prime minister Ehud Olmert who was in office during Operation Cast Lead and not Netanyahu.

Schabas’s obsession with Netanyahu reveals the extent of his animosity towards the Prime Minister, and by extension towards Israel. How on earth can anyone expect Israel to get a fair hearing at the hands of an ignorant oaf of a bigot like that?

The Israeli press watchdog site Mida has another video of Schabas in an interview with Israeli TV in which he refuses to call Hamas a terror organization and where he does not walk back his error about Netanyahu.

Mida comments:

So even given the opportunity, Schabas did not recant or walk back his statement. He would like to see Netanyahu tried based on the findgins of the Goldstone Report. There’s only one problem: the Prime Minister responsible for the “alleged crimes” of Operation Cast Lead is none other than Ehud Olmert. Netanyahu was head of the opposition at the time and had nothing to do with it. Thus, already at the beginning of the interview, Schabas revealed his severe bias: as far as he’s concerned, Netanyahu is guilty regardless of the facts.

…

This wouldn’t be the first time Schabas had shown such an attitude towards Netanyahu. Already in 2010, he wrote an article in a law journal that Netanyahu is the man most likely to threaten Israel’s existence. His evidence? Netanyahu’s statement that “we face three strategic challenges: Iran’s nuclear program, rockets fired at us and the Goldstone Report.” Not Hamas, not Hizballah and not Iran – the greatest danger to Israel is its own Prime Minister, who dares to defy the word of UN legists and argue for the innocence of his country. According to this logic, Emil Zola was a traitor and a criminal for daring to charge the French Courts with falsely convicting Alfred Dreyfuss.

UN anti Israel bias

And finally, as yet another reminder of the what the Human ~~Wrongs~~ Rights Council is all about, the Gatestone Institute has a very detailed article by Denis McEoin. Again, none of this will be new to most of my readers, but it always bears repeating (and sharing as widely as possible):

But expecting the UNHRC to carry out a fair, balanced or accurate investigation of anything involving the State of Israel is rather like asking the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC] to carry out investigations into the persecution of Christians, Ahmadi Muslims, or Baha’is in Muslim countries.

Before the emergency session ended, Navi Pillay, the South African UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who has her own office in New York, but supervises the Geneva-based UNHRC, warned the world that Israel may have committed war crimes by not doing enough to protect civilians. Pillay, however, has a long track record of demonizing Israel; it was she who was behind the infamous and totally discredited Goldstone Report of 2009, which accused Israel of deliberately targeting Gazan civilians — a finding that the report’s author, Richard Goldstone, later retracted, although Pillay did not.

…

We are still living in 1984. The UNHRC works to defend and even promote countries that abuse those rights, and to condemn one of the most rights-observant countries in the world — Israel. When anyone tries to take the floor at the UNHRC and reveal the truth about abusive states, watch the abusers press their buzzers and demand that the truth-teller be stopped from speaking. How many times have the vigilant and dedicated human rights activists Anne Bayefsky of Human Rights Voices or Hillel Neuer of UN Watch been attacked for speaking truth?

Watch the indefatigable Hillel Neuer here:

There’s much more at the link. Read it all. The article concludes:

Most disturbingly, both the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, while pussy-footing with the world’s most ostentatious human rights violators, cannot get savage enough with one of the world’s most tolerant and free countries, Israel. Between its formation in 1947 and 1991, the UN General Assembly has adopted 300 resolutions against Israel. In the year 2006-7, it issued 22 such resolutions — but not one about the Sudanese genocide then continuing in Darfur. The year before, Israel had pulled out of Gaza entirely in an effort to make peace. Yet the General Assembly passes 19 resolutions per year against Israel and almost none on any other state.

No fewer than three UN entities exist that are dedicated to furtherance of the Palestinian cause (which is, in its simplest form, dedicated to destroying Israel). There are no UN entities to advance the Israeli cause, which has always been to make peace with its neighbors and to help its citizens — mainly Christians, Muslims and Jews — build good lives for themselves. Never in history has a human institution for goodwill and peace among men been so betrayed by those who seek to use it for their own ends.

What is Israel supposed to do in these circumstances? No matter how much care we take in avoiding civilian casualties, no matter how much aid we allow through, no matter how many enemy civilians we treat in our field hospitals, no matter how much fuel, water and electricity are provided to the enemy civilians – at Israeli taxpayers’ expense I would add – all we get is a cold shower of intense condemnation in the UN and the international media.

Why do we bother at all? If we’re going to be accused of genocide, maybe we should go out and commit genocide. Then the world will be able to tell the difference.

At the moment all I feel is profound depression and nausea at the utter unfairness and injustice of it all.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: double standards, Human Rights Council, UN

Comments: 2 Comments

Anti-Zionism = Antisemitism: The hypocritical obsession with Gaza

August 11, 2014

Anti-Zionism = Antisemitism: The hypocritical obsession with Gaza

by anneinpt | Anne’s Opinions 11th August 2014

The media feeds antisemitism with its biased articles about Israel and then is shocked! shocked! at the surge of antisemitism.– AP)

The longer Israel’s war against the barbaric nihilist jihadists of Hamas drags on, the more anti-Israel protests take place around the world, and the more antisemitic those protests become. I addressed this subject a few weeks ago when the Gaza war began, but as we can see, the phenomenon has only worsened. What’s more, this obsession with Gaza’s victims highlights the hypocrisy of the protestors when you consider their utter lack of response to the barbaric atrocities being carried out by ISIS, Assad in Syria, Boko Haram in Nigeria and so much more Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

This tweet illustrates the one-sidedness so clearly:

Two images: 1) Stop the War's campaign against Israel; 2) Stop the War's campaign against the mass murderers of ISIS pic.twitter.com/slvnZby8sO

— Tim Montgomerie 🇬🇧 (@montie) August 9, 2014

Here is the Bolt Report from (I think) Australian TV giving just a short list of the antisemitic protests that have taken place recently – and that does not include all of the protests in my above-mentioned post.

Since I’m an ex-Londoner I’m going to concentrate for now on the ugly displays of antisemitism that have occurred in Britain.

To start with, some politicians have gotten in on the act in a most despicable way, and it must be borne in mind that politicians act when they feel they have the public behind them, and conversely many members of the public take their lead from their politicians. This has therefore carries the danger of a ripple effect for Britain’s Jewish community.

The Respect Party (pfft!) MP George Galloway declared his constituency of Bradford an “Israel-free zone”:

The notoriously anti-Israel Galloway told a meeting of the Respect Party which he heads that Israelis of any persuasion were “not welcome” in Bradford, where serves as MP.

“We have declared Bradford an Israel free zone,” he told party activists at the meeting in Leeds.

“We don’t want any Israeli goods. We don’t want any Israeli services. We don’t want any Israeli academics, coming to the university or the college. We don’t even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford if any of them had thought of doing so.

“We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same.”

As noted on the Guido Fawkes blog which initially posted the video, Israeli tourists are hardly going to be rushing to make changes to their holiday plans, as Bradford is not a tourist attraction by any means. Some areas of the city suffering from the worst levels of social deprivation in all of the UK, and is a hot spot for Muslim extremism.

Galloway has a long history of anti-Israeli bigotry. He was branded a racist when he stormed out of a debate after finding out that his opponent was Israel, saying “I don’t debate with Israelis.” He has also publicly aired several bizarre anti-Israel conspiracy theories, including claims that Israel was engineering unrest in Ukraine, and that the Jewish state had given chemical weapons to Al Qaeda – comments he then denied making despite them having been recorded.

His declaration notwithstanding, a crowd of cheeky Israelis challenged his authority with a visit to Bradford, complete with flags!

This morn. group of Israelis went 2 pay a visit to George Galloway #Bradford. He wasn't home. pic form tv. Well done pic.twitter.com/Vjhj3zGfH4

— Be a VOICE not an ECHO 🎗️ (@globalhasbara) August 10, 2014

Personally, I wouldn’t have graced the place with my presence, but good for them.

Lord John Prescott wrote a revolting article in the Mirror accusing Israel of turning Gaza into a concentration camp resembling the Warsaw Ghetto (I shall not link to his execrable screed). Blogger Ray Cook took him to task for his ignorance and provocation in an excellent fisking.

Earlier last week Baroness Sayeeda Warsi resigned from the government in protest at the British Government’s policy on Gaza – i.e. they didn’t condemn enough for her liking. A Daily Telegraph editorial dismissed her resignation:

She alleges that the even-handed position adopted by Britain towards the two combatants is “morally indefensible”. This suggests that Lady Warsi wanted far greater condemnation of Israel than has been forthcoming from David Cameron and his ministers. But how would that have helped matters? “Megaphone diplomacy,” as Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary called it, might make some people in the West feel better – but it does not deal with the issues that brought about the carnage in Gaza. Nor is Lady Warsi impartial in her interpretation of what is “morally indefensible”. She might have been on surer ground had she been equally condemnatory of Hamas and its bombardment of Israel with rockets.

Palestinian flag flies from Glasgow City Hall

The Glasgow local council also got in on the act of supporting Hamas by flying a Palestinian flag from City Hall, causing consternation, antagonism and a general outcry:

Glasgow’s council has provoked controversy by flying the flag of the Palestinian people from the City Hall.

They seemed oblivious of the hurt and fear this would cause the local Jewish community:

“We met with people from the Jewish Representative Council … The last thing we want to do is offend anyone and we absolutely condemn any anti-Semitism anywhere and we feel for the victims of the conflict no matter which side they are on.

“We are working with the Jewish Representative Council to try and allay any fears they might have but we feel absolutely that we have to show solidarity with the victims of this conflict, many of whom are innocent children.”

Hmm. But not Israeli children obviously. They don’t deserve anyone’s solidarity or sympathy.

The Daily Telegraph slammed Glasgow’s decision as “gesture politics”:

David Meikle, the Scottish Conservative councillor, said he was disappointed the decision was taken without consulting members and said it could cause division in the city.

He added: “I not that the Lord Provost has also written to the mayor of Bethlehem advising them of the decision to fly the flag. I failed to read in the letter where the Lord Provost mentions the plight of the Christian population in Bethlehem who are leaving owing to harassment.

“I also failed to see in the letter any condemnation of the Hamas terrorists who have declared war on Israel and their use of civilians as human shields to protect its forces.”

The Daily Express too condemned Glasgow’s provocative flag-waving and said Glasgow had lost the admiration of the world after the success of the Commonwealth Games last week:

Since only the Palestinian flag will be seen fluttering above the chamber’s Victorian cupolas, we can presume that Ms Docherty’s sympathies do not extend to the men, women and children terrorised day and night by Hamas’s rockets, 180 of which have been fired into Israel within the space of just three days.

It is worth reminding ourselves who started the present conflict in Gaza because it is plain that Glasgow, and other councils who have also decided to fly the Palestinian flag, seem congenitally incapable of trying to understand its byzantine roots, preferring to demonstrate their “caring” attitude by implying that all the blame lies at the feet of the Israelis and their government.

The Daily Express bravely reminds its readers how these pro-Palestinian gestures rapidly descend into antisemitism:

Indeed, the very idea that we have a government in Edinburgh who seek to aid organisations endlessly committed to the destruction, not just of Israel, but also of the Jewish people, is sickening.

It is, of course, unthinkable that any of these councillors would agree to a similar gesture demonising any other ethnic group or nation. Just imagine the furore if the Italian, the Polish, the Chinese, the Pakistani, the Indian or even the English communities were effectively being held up to general vilification.

Yet it seems that demonstrations of anti-Jewishness are somehow allowable in the world of right-on municipal thinking.

The British cultural elite have also displayed their antisemitism once again as the Tricycle Theatre cancelled its Jewish (not Israeli) Film Festival because it receives backing from (gasp!) the Israeli Embassy in London:

In a move condemned as “anti-Semitic”, a London theater has shocked the British Jewish community by refusing to host the UK Jewish Film Festival this coming November, because the event is sponsored by the Israeli embassy.

The Tricycle Theatre was to have been the main venue for the UKJFF for the eighth year running, hosting 26 separate screenings and six gala events, according to the Jewish Chronicle, but venue directors told festival organizers that they did not want to be “associated” with the Israeli embassy.

…

But when asked by Arutz Sheva whether they had ever previously refused to host an event which had ties to a country involved in an armed conflict, and how it could justify asking Jews to renounce ties to their own homeland as a precondition to being hosted at the venue, the theater said it had “nothing to add” to Rubasingham’s comments.

The decision has been attacked as anti-Semitic by prominent British Jews, including the Jewish Chronicle‘s editor, Stephen Pollard:

https://twitter.com/stephenpollard/statuses/496692124004651008

In Cambridge meanwhile a ~~pro-Palestinian~~ antisemitic demonstration was cancelled following huge outrage (via Harry’s Place). It was intended to have been held outside a synagogue on Friday night! (a clear-cut case of antisemitism):

One user Jay Stoll wrote on Twitter: “There is a planned protest outside Cambridge Synagogue on Shabbat? Is this some sick joke? Unjustifiable.”

Another, Diana Muir Appelbaum described it as “vile anti-Semitism gnawing at the heart of a university.”

Michael Cahn, one of the organisers, initially posted the invitation to the Cambridge Palestine Forum’s Facebook page.

Sunday Express journalist Ted Jeory was abused as he asked about black flag in Tower Hamlets[Ted Jeory]

A horrifying article by Ted Jeory, a non-Jewish journalist, tells us how he was verbally abused and physically threatened simply for taking a photo of an ISIS flag flying in the Muslim-majority borough of Tower Hamlets:

WAS told this morning by a community activist in east London to be kind in this article to the Bengali Muslim youths who threatened violence last night…and who told me to “F*** off Jew, you’re not welcome here.”

So let me state her well-meaning view that they’re “good boys” and that they’ve been raising much money for the victims of the terrible violence in Gaza.

My wife, a Bengali Muslim herself, disagrees.

She thinks they’re a “disgrace”, both to their families and to their shared community.

My wife is always right.

…

A few more youths, all of them mid-late teens, a couple a little older, joined the group.Then one stared at me.“Are you a Jew?” he asked.I’m not. I have a large nose; I fitted his stereotype.

I glared back at him. “What if I were? Would that be a problem for you?” I asked.“Yeah,” he said. “F*** off Jew, you’re not welcome here.”

The Mayor of Tower Hamlets is a controversial figure in himself. To give him credit however he did try to calm the situation down:

About five minutes’ walk away from the Will Crooks estate is the Tower Hamlets town hall.

There last week, the borough’s directly elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman, ordered the flag of Palestine be raised as a “humanitarian gesture of solidarity” with Gaza.

His decision created national headlines.

Some applauded his principles; others worried his action would stoke the fires of division, that his example would somehow legitimise hatred among those less able, or willing, to spot the difference between the policies of an Israeli government and the views of the British Jewish community at large.

But to the mayor’s credit, when he heard about the incident in Poplar last night, he asked council officials to have the black flag taken down.

Sometimes it takes a non-Jew to see the situation with clarity: (emphases are mine):

It may well be that yesterday’s incident was just local hooligans looking for a cause and identity, and acting territorially on their estate.

But I think there’s probably more to it than that. They seemed to want a Jew-free zone.

The conflict in Gaza has unleashed what I think has been latent anti-Semitism in the minds or far too many in Tower Hamlets.

A few years ago, I was called ‘Ted Jewry’ by one former councillor.

He later apologised.

But social media, particularly during Ramadan, when the violence in Gaza was at its peak, was awash with pro-Hitler prejudice against Jews.

The terms ‘Jew’ and ‘Zionist’ have been used interchangeably as a form of abuse.

Official reaction to these displays of antisemitism have been predictably shock, horror and outrage. Even the Guardian (!) has denounced this phenomenon. And in the Independent, Yasmin Alibhai Brown turns herself into a pretzel worrying about the surge of antisemitism, but claiming at the same time that the charge of antisemitism is used by “Zionists” to “silence criticism of Israel” – otherwise described by David Hirsh as the Livingstone Formulation.

But there’s no reason that the UK media be given a clear pass when they themselves, through their tendentious reporting with its distortions, smears, libels of Israel in their reports from Gaza, have only encouraged such displays, and when their letters pages are full of leftist radical chic complaints about Israel’s behaviour from “Outraged from ‘Ampstead”. For examples see CiFWatch here and here and anything and everything on BBC Watch.

Until they confront their own built-in anti-Israel bias they are nothing but hypocritical.

Melanie Phillips tells us what our leaders would say if they really cared about defending Britain’s Jews:

People are aghast. Yet this lynch-mob mentality has been building for years. Every time Israel takes military action to prevent further Palestinian attacks, it is falsely presented as the aggressive persecutor of the innocent.

Unless British Jews join this demonisation, they are deemed complicit with Israel’s ‘war crimes’. As a result, attacks on British Jews always spike during Israel’s wars. So much for the supposed distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

Even more appalling is the silence in the face of all this of the political class.

…

Anti-Semitism can never be eradicated. Yet much could be done to push it back under its stone if both the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition were to display moral leadership and state a number of home truths. This is what David Cameron should say: ‘I am utterly appalled by the attacks on the Jewish people on the streets of Britain and in our public discourse. This hatred and bigotry is being fuelled by warped and distorted reporting about the Gaza war.

…

‘Frankly, in Iraq and Afghanistan we showed nothing like the care Israel is taking to avoid killing civilians wherever possible, even sacrificing its own soldiers to do so.

‘I have become aware that this Jew-hatred is fuelled by falsehoods about Israel’s historic and legal rights. Accordingly, Philip Hammond will ensure that the Foreign Office corrects its untrue claims about the ‘occupation’ and ‘illegal settlements’.

…

And this is what Ed Miliband should be saying: ‘I am horrified, not just because of the resurgence of the madness from which my own family so grievously suffered in the Holocaust, but also because we on the left bear no small responsibility for this current obscenity.

…

‘We ignore Muslim on Muslim violence in Iraq, Yemen, Libya or Gaza. We ignore the 800 or so civilians killed in Ukraine. In Syria, more than 200,000 people have been slaughtered, 2,000 in the past two weeks alone. Yet we don’t march against Assad or Putin, only against Israel.

‘We think we are progressives building a better world. We tell ourselves anti-Semitism is right-wing. We are terribly wrong. Today, anti-Semitism is overwhelmingly on the left.

…

All of that would help. So do you think there’s any chance that either of them will say it? No, me neither.

Such silence and worse by our politicians makes them complicit in this resurgence of the oldest hatred. Small wonder many British Jews now feel so betrayed, so nauseated and so alone.

Everything that Melanie Phillips writes is the truth, and moreover, is applicable to every single country in the world in which antisemitic demonstrations, disguised as fury at Israel’s actions in Gaza, have taken place.

As to the inherent hypocrisy in all this faux-outrage, Hillel Neuer of UN Watch puts it so clearly in his “Are you anti-Israel Test”:

If in the past year you didn’t CRY OUT when thousands of protesters were killed and injured by Turkey, Egypt and Libya, when more victims than ever were hanged by Iran, women and children in Afghanistan were bombed, whole communities were massacred in South Sudan, 1800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, hundreds in Pakistan were killed by jihadist terror attacks, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by terrorists, villagers were slaughtered in Nigeria, but you ONLY cry out for GAZA, then you are not pro HUMAN RIGHTS, you are only ANTI-ISRAEL.

We must not allow either the politicians or the media to get away with their slander and smearing of Israel which then incites the masses to antisemitism. They must be challenged at every turn. Certainly the likes of the IDF Spokesman Peter Lerner, Minister Naftali Bennett and MK Danny Ayalon amongst others have done sterling work in the English-speaking media. And yet – our message is not trickling down to the antisemite-in-the-street.

Perhaps local Jews have to step out of their comfort zone and confront the media like this New York Jewish protest outside the CNN offices, protesting their anger at their bias:

Kol hakavod to them!

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, media bias

Comments: 2 Comments

The other tunnel threat – from the North

August 7, 2014

The other tunnel threat – from the North – by anneinpt | Anne’s Opinions

Shh! We’re digging!

The menace of Hamas’s terror tunnels is now well-known not only in Israel, but throughout the world. During Operation Protective Edge the IDF discovered and destroyed 32 tunnels and at least twice as many shafts.

The news of all these discoveries has obscured a similarly dangerous (or even more dangerous) threat of tunnels in the north of Israel, built by Hezbollah and leading from Lebanon into Israel. Tunnels within Lebanon were discovered and are well-known to the IDF, and were already confronted in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. But after the discovery of the Hamas tunnels reaching far into Israel, we must assume that Hezbollah too has been using these past years to build their own terror tunnels into Israel for the same dastardly purpose.

Here is a Facebook post (via Zvi) which I have translated from Hebrew into English, and it is a terrifying must-read for all of us. The author recommends flooding the social media with any evidence and testimony that we have in order to keep this threat at the top of the national agenda, in order that the Government doesn’t ignore it like it did with the Hamas tunnels, and deals with the danger forthwith.

A female resident of Zar’it, (a city close to the northern border) said on the Dan Shilon program that for a long time now she had been hearing digging sounds under the house.

When she reported this, she and other residents of the North who were hearing drilling and excavation mainly at night were sent to take tranquilizers.

She described how she is able to see, in Lebanese territory, cement trucks and heavy construction equipment entering under greenhouses but cannot see anything being built above ground. She told how her whole house is shaking, objects are moving and falling ..

This is just one testimony amongst many others of residents and soldiers along the northern border who have been hearing the sound of digging for years!

I personally heard many testimonies of IDF soldiers who served on the northern border, who heard excavations, who reported to their superiors and nothing was done. They have long been released!

What we went through with Hamas in Gaza is child’s play compared to what awaits us in the north with Hezbollah.

People of Israel, wake up!

We must not leave the residents of the north alone with this threat.

Hamas is the son and the student of Hezbollah when it comes to fighting methods and tunneling theory …

The tunnels in the north are much larger and much more dangerous.

What’s the matter with us? Are we afraid of confrontation? Have we closed our eyes?? If it’s quiet over there, what is not clear? They’re simply digging ..

The Israeli government is requested to act immediately to defend the northern communities, to locate tunnels in the north too, and to work on the assumption that the tunnels already exist beneath communities.

If the terrorists manage to infiltrate motorcycles and vehicles through these tunnels, this terrorism will reach the center and anywhere else in the country in a snap .

We’re talking about a strategic threat of the highest order to security of Israeli citizens.

We have to prevent an attack from the tunnels which could be carried out any day.

A Golani soldier in a Hezbollah bunker in Lebanon (archive photo)

The residents of the north must be evacuated, especially those in whose localities digging sounds have been reported. Alternatively large forces must be stationed there to keep guard. Access roads to the center of the country must be closed; serious checks to detect tunnels must be carried out and their destruction must be ensured without delay.

We must not sit back and allow the Gaza tunnels failure to repeat itself and allow them to carry out their plans for Rosh Hashana, God forbid ..

In theory and practically, it is possible that after years of digging with electrical excavation tools into the rock and mountainside, there is beneath us a terror city equipped with billions in Iranian and Syrian funding terrorism and with many arms leading into bases and various localities.

I will expand on what has been said, that it is even possible that the (useless) dribble of Hamas launches to the Gaza periphery are intended to draw our attention to Gaza, to concentrate our forces there and thus our attention will be distracted, and we won’t have the chance to deal with the real threat – the North.

This is an old tactic of shoplifters who come in pairs. One asks the seller with questions and the other steals undisturbed ..

Have I scared you? I’m scared too! Let us all work together. We can do something.

So what can be done?

This is where the author suggests sharing any evidence on the various social media:

* If you have photographic evidence of anything (how your furniture shakes or moves, photos of suspicious excavation sites, your own photographic evidence ..) flood the social media networks (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) with them

* If you are residents of the north or you served there and you witnessed the sounds of digging, share your experiences in the comments here.

*If you want to remain anonymous, contact me via chat and send me your testimony and I’ll enter it as a response under this status (anonymously of course).

* If there are any professionals here, geologists, seismologists, acoustics engineers, experts and those knowledgeable about detecting tunnels, Including academics with appropriate equipment to perform the tests, who are willing to volunteer to go to the homes of residents who hear the digging, please send me your details privately and we will work to bring professional opinions and distribute them until the earth shakes!. This is a Tzav 8, an emergency call-up., this is your hour!

We must not let this the issue drop off the agenda and we have to demand attention to it from our government.

In matters such as this the power of an individual is limited. But all of us together have enormous power to change priorities.

All of us massed together have the power to raise such issues on the public agenda and not allow our government to bury their heads in the sand any more.

Here is a documentary broadcast on Channel 10 five years ago. Mumi Biton, a resident of a northern community, heard sounds of excavations. Channel 10 brought in an acoustics engineer. He checked and unequivocally stated that there was digging underground. With machines. This was five years ago! Watch the video. It’s only three minutes.

The mayor of Kiryat Shmona sent a letter to the Minister of Defence in which he wrote “From the beginning of the operation, I started getting calls from residents living near the Lebanese border, claiming that they hear noises under the ground” Here is the article in the Algemeiner. [I changed the URL because the Walla one quoted in the post doesn’t link to the letter. Also, this link is in English. -Ed.]

And if that is not enough for you and you want to specific detailed information about the quality and specification of the tunnels that they built, go here: Calacalist article about the tunnels.

Beneath the above report there are comments from readers with firsthand evidence they have heard in the past, and are currently hearing, the sound of digging.

You are invited to share this post and sign the petition to stop the tunnels.

And I’ll sign off with the words of the song: “Oh my native country .. you are heading to disaster”

Please spread this story far and wide. As Alona Elman wrote, we need to keep this issue on the national agenda in order for the government and the IDF to deal with it before disaster strikes.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Hezbollah, tunnels

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OFF-TOPIC: Beduin safety will only come with equal enforcement of law

July 30, 2014

OFF-TOPIC: Beduin safety will only come with equal enforcement of law

By ARI BRIGGS | Jerusalem Post 07/29/2014 23:26

By demanding Israel equip illegal houses with shelters, they further seek to legitimize Beduin illegal occupation of state land.

Beduin women

Beduin women in the Negev Photo: HADAS PARUSH

(The New Israel Fund and associated do-gooders do not seek to do good at all. Rather they seek to undermine Israel’s sovereignty . Encouraging illegal Beduin building is just one method of theirs. — AP)

Beduin in the Negev have been among the hardest hit by the relentless Hamas bombardment.

Two sisters from the illegal Beduin outpost of Awajan are healing from wounds caused by shrapnel from a Hamas rocket.

A 32-year-old from an illegal Beduin outpost near Dimona was killed and four others wounded, including his daughter.

NGOs funded by the misguided New Israel Fund are cynically exploiting these causalities to open a new legal front against Israel even as the country is burying its dead and protecting its citizens from continuous rocket attacks. Bear in mind, these same NGOs (now receiving generous “emergency funding” from the NIF) are preparing “Goldstone Report 2.0” to once again wrongly accuse Israel of war crimes.

The Beduin casualties have afforded these NIF grantees the opportunity to file a petition to Israel’s High Court appealing for government provision of protective shelters. Under the pretext that they care for Beduin safety in the face of alleged government discrimination, these NGOs are using the courts to slander Israel, alienate Beduin from Israeli society and endanger them even further.

By demanding Israel equip illegal houses with shelters, they further seek to legitimize Beduin illegal occupation of state land.

Awajan is among more than 2,000 illegal outposts set up by the Beduin in the Negev. They extend over 200,000 acres of state-owned land between Beersheba, Arad and Dimona. Currently, 60,000 illegal structures overrun the Northern Negev, with approximately five new illegal structures added every day, making it nearly impossible for law enforcement authorities to keep up. Contrary to popular stereotype, these illegal settlements do not consist merely of tents and tin huts.

Dedicated to ensuring the responsible and legal use of state land, Regavim has discovered and photographed thousands of multi-story concrete block and cement houses, all built illegally since the 1990s.

DURING THE recent legal stunt pulled for political and PR purposes, NGOs added insult to Beduin injury by lamenting Israel’s discriminatory treatment of the unrecognized (read: illegal) “villages.”

Israeli law since the early 1990s makes it the responsibility of every home and property owner to build a safe room.

In flouting Israeli law, these Beduin put themselves at risk and essentially rendered themselves illegible for services that would better guarantee their well-being.

Any democratic country would come down hard on such lawbreakers. In Israel, however, Arabs are given a pass, in part thanks to protection by these NGOs, who then blame Israel for any injury resulting from such violations.

Regavim seeks to prevent such illegal, hazardous building from the outset by petitioning the government to enforce equal rule of law. The Israeli government indeed discriminates in cases of land-use violation, but to the Beduin’s seeming benefit. Compared to its treatment of Jewish builders, the government turns a blind eye to rampant Arab illegal settlement throughout Israel, leaving Regavim supervisors to alert and press authorities about violations.

The majority of Negev Beduin who do live in legal cities, towns and villages are protected today from the terrorist rocket onslaught against Israel.

Take, for example, the city of Hura.

The mayor of Hura, Dr. Mahmoud Nabari, has publicly stated that every house in Hura has a safe room.

The Israeli government has invested hundreds of millions of shekels toward supporting legal cities, towns and villages for the Beduin in an attempt to improve their lives. Every Beduin family living in an illegal outpost has been offered a free 1/4-acre plot in and around such neighborhoods as Rahat, Lakiya and Hura, not far from the site of the recent casualties. Equipped with full infrastructure for utilities and services, these neighborhoods are ready for construction. Instead, they have become ghost towns.

Even pasture land has been offered for lease exclusively to Beduin at the price of one shekel per quarter acre in an attempt to convince the Beduin squatting illegally to join a legal community. However, approximately 70,000 Beduin – with the help of NIF grantee NGOs – have preferred to stake their claim on state land, thus putting themselves at risk. The financial support for such illegal behavior by the NIF’s grantee NGOs is not only misguided in this case, it is heartless and cruel.

Instead of expecting the Home Front Command to chase after every illegal house with a shelter in hand during a war, it is time for the Beduin to accept the magnanimous terms being offered by the State of Israel so they can start living as responsible, law-abiding citizens, which is what any democracy should expect from its people.

The author is the director of Regavim, a research-based legal advocacy organization, dedicated to ensuring responsible, legal and accountable use of Israel’s national land. For more information, visit http://www.regavim.org.il/en.

Categories: Off Topic
Tags: Beduin, NIF

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Kerry’s delusional ceasefire proposal: When the left and right are in agreement you know you’ve lost the argument

July 29, 2014

Kerry’s delusional ceasefire proposal: When the left and right are in agreement you know you’ve lost the argument | Anne’s Opinions

John Kerry is back, like a bad penny

A lot has been said and much fun been made of John Kerry’s ridiculous ceasefire proposal, which was utterly rejected by Israel. It turns out that John Kerry’s delicate feelings and fragile ego have been mortally wounded by the mockery.

Below are a series of items from yesterday’s Times of Israel live-blog which illustrate this:

First, an overview from Avi Issacharoff regarding the ongoing dispute with Kerry:

Labor opposition leader Isaac Herzog told Channel 2 earlier that Secretary Kerry, with whom he says he speaks often, has been “hurt to the depths of his soul” by the criticisms he’s received in Israel for his handling of the ceasefire effort.

ToI’s Avi Issacharoff explains in an analysis piece why Kerry has so infuriated his allies.

One key point: “Kerry and his staff made an outrageous decision to turn their backs on the Egyptian framework for a ceasefire in a manner that encouraged Hamas to continue shooting rockets… By turning to Doha and Ankara behind the backs of Cairo and Jerusalem, Washington — no doubt unintentionally — strengthened Hamas’s resolve against Egypt and Israel.”

Another: “The farce continued with the amateurish draft that was immediately rejected by Israel’s security cabinet.”

And a third: “It then reached new heights on Saturday in Paris, when Kerry decided to participate in an international summit on Gaza, attended by his new friends al-Attiyah and Davutoglu (the foreign ministers of Qatar and Turkey) as well as the foreign ministers of the European Union, but not by a few players that Kerry apparently perceives as marginal – representatives of Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and, of course, Israel.

It’s hard to say what caused the Obama administration to join forces with the Muslim Brotherhood of all camps — loyally represented by Turkey and Qatar — and turn its back on the movement’s sworn enemy, the Egyptian government. The best case scenario is that it might have been amateurism or a misreading of the situation. In a less ideal scenario, Washington decided to forge an alliance with organizations and entities that would be happy to see Israel disappear from the map.”

Says Issacharoff: “I prefer to bet on the first option… that Kerry just doesn’t understand who’s playing against whom in the Wild Mideast.

Here is Avi Issacharoff’s full article.

Here’s just one example of an MK’s scathing view of American diplomacy. Zeev Elkin said “Last time we listened to the US, Hamas took Gaza”.

The US clearly can’t abide any criticism and use nasty menacing language against Israel’s legitimate criticism as we read that “Criticism of Kerry could jeopardize Israeli-US ties — US officials“. It seems that criticism is a one-way street. The US, particularly the State Deparment, can and does criticise Israel loudly, publicly and often, but cannot dish it out. We’ve been here before.

The State Department went on the offensive and denied ceasefire draft was unfair:

The State Department goes on the defensive Monday afternoon, critiquing Israeli sources for leaking details of a Gaza ceasefire draft, and then denying allegations that the draft represented a capitulation to Hamas demands.

Leaks and criticism of the sort that Secretary of State John Kerry faced over the weekend are “simply not the way allies and partners treat each other,” State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki complains.

Riiight. The US has never criticised Israel. Not.

The US ought to know that in the Middle East, but especially in Israel, you know you’ve lost your argument when you’ve lost the left as well as the right, and when their views converge –Voices from left, right wary of US ceasefire proposal.

However, despite all America’s sound and fury at Israel’s audacity in rejecting their ceasefire proposal, Israeli criticism did manage to alter the US ceasefire terms:

While American officials continue to fume at the Israeli media for its harsh criticism of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to reach a ceasefire last week, apparently it had some effect. During a speech, Kerry says that “any process to resolve the crisis in Gaza… must lead to the disarmament of Hamas.” In a ceasefire proposal Kerry had submitted to Israel on Friday, no disarmament of Hamas was mentioned.

Small comfort but we have take the crumbs that we can find.

Israel’s confusion at John Kerry’s delusional behaviour has not gone unnoticed in the foreign press. The Daily Telegraph’s Robert Tail reports that “Israel thinks that John Kerry is an alien, an ongoing embarrassment“:

John Kerry has almost certainly been called worse things than a space alien – particularly by Israel’s Right-wing camp, where contempt for the US secretary of state and his failed peacemaking efforts is unabashed.

But when the insult is levelled by the previously supportive Haaretz newspaper, standard-bearer of the country’s liberal-Left, it may be time for him – and by extension, President Barack Obama – to take notice.

The withering description was coined by Barack Ravid, the paper’s well-informed and normally restrained diplomatic editor, to describe Mr Kerry’s attempts at brokering a truce to the bloody conflict in Gaza – rejected by Israel amid widespread mockery.

“It’s as if he isn’t the foreign minister of the world’s most powerful nation, but an alien, who just disembarked his spaceship in the Mideast,” wrote Mr Ravid, even while softening his remarks by describing Mr Kerry as “a true friend to Israel”.

Worse still from Mr Kerry’s viewpoint, the journalist suggested that, Moshe Ya’alon, the Israeli defence minister, “may have had a point” earlier this year when he labelled America’s top diplomat “obsessive and messianic” in remarks that were widely disparaged at the time over his abortive attempts to mediate a peace deal with the Palestinians.

The Israeli media carried similarly mocking depictions in abundance on Sunday – all fuelled by senior figures in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, who professed amazement at the terms of a proposed ceasefire deal which they said were skewed in favour of Hamas, the Islamist militant group which Israel is fighting.

…

Yet it is the Haaretz insult that signals Mr Kerry’s credibility loss in the eyes of Washington’s closest Middle East ally, according to Israeli government insiders.

“If he gets rubbished by Haaretz, it means he really goofed up,” said one official, who said the criticism was widely shared across the Israeli political spectrum.

Debka reports (h/t DavidinPT) that it wasn’t only Israel who was furious at the Kerry proposal. The Palestinian Authority strongly objected too:

The Palestinian Authority was much more open and blunt than Netanyahu in its disapproval of the game that was being played out in Paris. Walid Assad, one of the spokesmen of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas protested what he called Kerry’s “appeasement” of Qatar and Turkey at the expense of Egypt and the PA, and his failure to invite either to the meeting for discussing a ceasefire in Gaza hostilities.

Senior Palestinian officials warned against attempts to “bypass the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

In the legitimacy stakes, Netanyahu has three solid allies for crushing Hamas: Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi and the UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Sunday, Mahmoud Abbas attached a Palestinian voice to this group.

Debka goes on to try and explain the American rationale behind their ceasefire attempts:

This regional coalition has enormous clout, derived, on the one hand, from the Israeli military and its fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian army’s containment of Hamas efforts to break out into Sinai for strategic depth; and, on the other, from the financial might of Saudi Arabia and the oil emirates and the world prestige they enjoy.

So why is the Obama administration shoving this powerful coalition out of his way and building a rival alliance to counter it?

Its primary motive is fear that if this group is allowed to make the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip a success, it will become the springboard for its next move, a victorious assault on Iran.

This sequence of events would totally derail current US Middle East policy, which hinges on détente with Tehran, Obama’s advisers warn him, and even jeopardize his strategy for bringing the nuclear negotiations between the six world powers and Iran to a successful conclusion.

I can’t see anything wrong with derailing American policy in the Middle East. As far as I’m concerned, and probably most Israelis, that should be a feature, not a bug, of any future agreement.

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