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‘Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says

June 1, 2016

Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says In Jerusalem Day Knesset session, Netanyahu rules out a return to pre-1967 divided city, slams ‘absurd’ UNESCO resolution

By Marissa Newman

June 1, 2016, 4:29 pm

Source: ‘Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,’ PM says | The Times of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Knesset during a special session to mark Jerusalem Day, on June 1, 2016. (Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear Wednesday that he was opposed to a return to the pre-1967 division of Jerusalem in a future peace deal, and slammed a UNESCO resolution eliding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

“Our roots are deeper than any other nation’s, including to the Temple Mount. Jerusalem was ours and will remain ours,” he said, speaking in a special Knesset session marking Jerusalem Day.

 Israel doesn’t need to “make excuses for [its] presence in Jerusalem,” he added, but he did not definitively rule out any territorial concessions in the city.

“We remember Jerusalem up until the [1967] Six Day War,” he said, when the city was split, with Israelis excluded from the Old City and its eastern neighborhoods. “We certainly do not want to return to that situation.”

“I believe the Six Day War clarified to our enemies that we are here to stay,” he added.

The prime minister also lashed out at an “absurd and outrageous” UNESCO resolution from April that omitted the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jerusalem generally. The resolution accused Israel of “planting fake Jewish graves in Muslim cemeteries” and of “the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.”

“These historical distortions are reserved solely for Jews,” Netanyahu said.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog took to the podium after the prime minister, lambasted the latter’s partial endorsement of the Arab Peace Initiative on Monday and announced that “words mean nothing without action.”

The Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem, as seen from the Israeli Air Force's annual fly-by on Independence Day, May 12, 2016. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)

The Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem, as seen from the Israeli Air Force’s annual flyby on Independence Day, May 12, 2016. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)

In his address, Herzog said Israel must strive for an agreement to keep Jerusalem “Jewish and moral, whole and secure.”

“Your talk about regional opportunities is very impressive, but you must take care that they are not seen as flip-flopping or empty statements,” he said to Netanyahu, referring to the prime minister’s joint press conference on Monday with new Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman in which the two pledged support for parts of the 2002 Arab proposal.

“Jerusalem will not remain Jewish and moral, whole and secure if there is no dramatic change and unless we reach a peace deal,” said Herzog.

Meretz leader Zehava Galon, meanwhile, accused Jewish Home’s Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of visiting the Temple Mount earlier in the day, an allegation later denied by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein looks on as Meretz leader Zehava Galon addresses the Knesset during a special session to mark Jerusalem Day, on June 1, 2016. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein looks on as Meretz leader Zehava Galon addresses the Knesset during a special session to mark Jerusalem Day, on June 1, 2016. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Galon said Ariel had broken a Knesset ban on lawmakers visiting the Temple Mount on Wednesday morning. Edelstein said that the information was false, and because the issue was so “volatile” it was important to emphasize that no Knesset members had visited the holy site since they were barred from the area late last year amid rising tensions in the capital.

Jerusalem Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) urged the government to improve infrastructure in the city’s eastern Arab neighborhoods, but emphasized that Jerusalem would remain united under any future peace agreement.

“Unfortunately, one hears talk that in order to save Jerusalem, one must divide it. The Israeli public doesn’t want the city divided, and that’s why we will remain in power,” said Elkin. “If we place a clear red line against dividing Jerusalem, as has been for years, we will be able to reach a [peace] deal, it doesn’t matter with which initiative — French, Saudi, or any other initiative.”

Israel on Sunday will mark Jerusalem Day, a national holiday that celebrates the 1967 Israeli capture of the Western Wall and Temple Mount holy sites, along with the city’s eastern half.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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The Left vs Israel

June 1, 2016

The Left vs Israel, Israel Hayom, Daniel Pipes, June 1, 2016

Since the creation of Israel, Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims have been the mainstay of anti-‎Zionism, with the Left, from the Soviet Union to professors of literature, their auxiliary. But this ‎might be in process of change: As Muslims slowly, grudgingly, and unevenly come to accept the ‎Jewish state as a reality, the Left is becoming increasingly vociferous and obsessive in its ‎rejection of Israel.‎

Much evidence points in this direction: Polls in the Middle East find cracks in the opposition to ‎Israel while a major American survey for the first time shows liberal Democrats to be more anti-‎Israel than pro-Israel. The Saudi and Egyptian governments have real security relations with ‎Israel while a figure like (the Jewish) Bernie Sanders declares that “to the degree that [Israelis] ‎want us to have a positive relationship, I think they’re going to have to improve their relationship ‎with the Palestinians.”‎

But I should like to focus on a small illustrative example from a United Nations institution: The ‎World Health Organization churned out report A69/B/CONF./1 on May 24 with the enticing ‎title, “Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the ‎occupied Syrian Golan: Draft decision proposed by the delegation of Kuwait, on behalf of the ‎Arab Group, and Palestine.”‎

The three-page document calls for “a field assessment conducted by the World Health ‎Organization,” with special focus on such topics as “incidents of delay or denial of ambulance ‎service” and “access to adequate health services on the part of Palestinian prisoners.” Of course, ‎the entire document singles out Israel as a denier of unimpeded access to health care.‎

This ranks as a special absurdity given the WHO’s hiring a consultant in next-door Syria who is ‎connected to the very pinnacle of the Assad regime, even as it perpetrates atrocities estimated at ‎a half million dead and 12 million displaced (out of a total prewar population of 22 million). ‎Conversely, both the wife and brother-in-law of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian ‎Authority, whose status and wealth assures them treatment anywhere in the world, chose to be ‎treated in Israeli hospitals, as did the sister, daughter, and granddaughter of Ismail Haniyeh, the ‎Hamas leader in Gaza, Israel’s sworn enemy.‎

Despite these facts, the WHO voted on May 28 to accept the proposed field assessment with the ‎predictably lopsided outcome of 107 votes in favor, eight votes against, eight abstentions and 58 ‎absences. So far, all this is tediously routine.‎

But the composition of those voting blocs renders the decision noteworthy. Votes in favor ‎included every state in Europe except two, Bosnia-Herzegovina (which has a half-Muslim ‎population) and San Marino (total population: 33,000), both of which missed the vote for reasons ‎unknown to me.‎

To repeat: Every other European government than those two supported a biased field assessment ‎with its inevitable condemnation of Israel. To be specific, this included the authorities ruling in ‎Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, ‎Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, ‎Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, ‎Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, ‎Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.‎

Making this European near-unanimity the more remarkable were the many absented governments ‎with large- to overwhelming-majority-Muslim populations: Burkina Faso, Chad, ‎Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sudan, ‎Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, and Turkmenistan.‎

So, Iceland (with effectively no Muslims) voted for the amendment and against Israel while ‎Turkmenistan (which is over 90% Muslim) did not. Cyprus and Greece, which have critical ‎new relations with Israel, voted against Israel while the historically hostile Libyans missed the ‎vote. Germany, with its malignant history, voted against Israel while Tajikistan, a partner of the ‎Iranian regime’s, was absent. Denmark, with its noble history, voted against Israel while Sudan, ‎led by an Islamist, did not.‎

This unlikely pattern suggests that monolithic Muslim hostility is cracking while Europeans, who ‎are overwhelmingly on the Left, to the point that even right-wing parties pursue watered-down ‎left-wing policies, increasingly despise Israel. Worse, even those who do not share this attitude ‎go along with it, even in an obscure WHO vote.‎

Muslims, not leftists, still staff almost all the violent attacks on Israel; and Islamism, not ‎socialism, remains the reigning anti-Zionist ideology. But these changes point to Israel’s cooling ‎relations with the West and warming ones in its neighborhood.‎

Categories: Israel, Israel and human rights, Jewish state, Leftists, Muslims, United Nations
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The Old Generals’ Old Plan

May 31, 2016

The Old Generals’ Old Plan, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, May 31, 2016

al-aqsa_martyrs_brigade

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

The Israeli Left is a one trick pony. As it sees things, all of Israel’s problems – with the Palestinians, with the Arab world, with Europe and with the American Left – can be solved by giving up Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem (along with Gaza which we gave up already).

Once Israel does this, the Left insists, then the Palestinians, the Arab world, Europe and Bernie Sanders voters will love us as they’ve never loved us before.

The events of the past quarter century have shown the Left’s position to be entirely wrong. Every time Israel has given the Palestinians land, it has become less secure. The Arabs have become more hostile.

The West has become more hostile. The Palestinians have expanded their demands.

Because of their negative experience with the Left’s policy, most Israelis reject it. This is why the Right keeps winning elections.

Given the failure of its plan, the Left could have been expected to abandon it and strike out on a different course. But it didn’t. Instead it has tried to hide its continued allegiance to its failed withdrawal strategy by pretending it is something else.

A central component of the Left’s concealment strategy is its use of former generals.

Over the past quarter century, and particularly since the Palestinians began demonstrating in 2000 that they have no interest in a state living side by side with Israel, the Left has carted out retired generals at regular intervals to proclaim that continued allegiance to the Left’s failed policy of withdrawal is not irrational.

Every couple of years, a new initiative of former generals – often funded by the EU – is published.

Each in turn uses whatever the popular memes of the day may be to repackage their call for withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and the partition of Jerusalem.

The media, itself dominated by the Left, backs these initiatives. The retired war heroes are paraded before the cameras and presented to the public as responsible adults who have grudgingly entered the political fray, despite their aversion to it, because of their patriotism. Just as they heeded the call of duty and led forces in wars of earlier generations, so today, we are told, they heed the call again, in yet another last-ditch effort to save the country.

Just in time for Avigdor Liberman’s swearing in as defense minister, a new group of old generals released a new version of their old, discredited plan.

A group calling itself “Commanders for Israeli Security” has mobilized an impressive roster of 214 generals that have signed on to a new position paper called “Security First: Changing the rules of the game, a plan to improve Israel’s security-diplomatic position.”

The group has a great website replete with a highend web commercial that has been flooding social media feeds for the past several days. The ad shows a person ripping up a “Peace Now” bumper sticker and replacing it with a call for “Security now, peace later.”

Their plan, the ad proclaims, will improve Israel’s security, strengthen its international position, repair the cleavages in Israeli society and set the conditions for future negotiations with the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, like every leftist plan to date, if the generals get their way and the government takes their advice, the results will be precisely the opposite of what they promise. As has been the case with every other well-packaged withdrawal plan, Israel’s security will be harmed. Our international position will be wrecked. Bernie Sanders voters along with the Europeans will expand their devotion to bashing Israel. And the Sunni Arab states that now flock to us will again abandon us.

The generals’ new package involves opening their plan with a hawkish call for continued Israeli security control over Judea and Samaria, until the Palestinians decide to make peace with us.

But as we soon see, that was just throat clearing.

Having established their sober-mindedness, the generals turn to the Left’s unchanging fantasy.

They call for the government to formally relinquish Israel’s sovereign rights over the vast majority of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

They call for the government to permanently stop respecting the property rights of Jews in the areas of Judea and Samaria outside of the security perimeter.

The more than one hundred thousand Jews who live in those areas, they insist, must be denied all right to property, save the right to sell whatever they now own.

They must not be allowed to build anything – no new houses; no new communities; no new infrastructure.

As for the communities inside the perimeter, the generals insist that those should be permitted to continue respecting Jewish property rights, within limits, albeit. For instance, those communities must not be permitted to expand beyond their current construction boundaries. In other words, Jews can build up, but not out.

Jerusalem, which they believe should never have been unified in 1967, should be effectively partitioned.

The generals call for the municipal government to stop administering the city as a unified mixed Jewish and Arab city. Instead, they say, the city should set up a separate governing authority for Arab neighborhoods in eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem. That separate authority should be responsible for all planning and zoning activities in Arab neighborhoods as well as the education system and every other aspect of the daily lives of the Arabs of the city.

Gaza, which has been operating as a Hamas state since 2007, is also brought in from the cold. The generals call for the government to continue to supply Gaza with everything that Hamas demands – water, electricity, employment in Israel, a Hamas-controlled port. They even call for Israel to allow Europe to pay the salaries of Hamas terrorists.

Moreover, the generals recommend that the government announce that Gaza, Judea and Samaria and partitioned Jerusalem are one political entity, despite the fact that they aren’t.

The generals insist that by taking these steps, Israel will prove its devotion to peace and keep the dream of a Palestinian state alive. As a consequence, they say, the Palestinians will be happy and stop trying to murder Israelis. The Arab world will line up to sign peace treaties with Israel. Europe along with Bernie Sanders’ voters will bury the hatchet and embrace Israel.

The problem with the generals’ newest plan and the ones its replaces is that they all ignore basic facts.

There is no Palestinian constituency for peace with Israel. The more Israel offers the Palestinians, the less interested they are in settling.

By announcing that Israel renounces its claims to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and treating the Jews east of the 1949 cease-fire lines as second class citizens, the generals will not only widen Israel’s social cleavages. They will tell the Palestinians that they are right to feel contempt for us. The worse they behave, the more we will offer them. The more Jews they murder, the more the Jews will turn against one another.

As for improving Israel’s international position, it is hard to understand why the generals refuse to learn the lessons of the Gaza withdrawal. Despite the fact that Israel uprooted 24 Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, and removed its military forces from the area, without exception, the international community insists that Israel still “occupies” Gaza. How can the generals expect the world to act more fairly towards a more limited withdrawal plan from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem? As for Gaza, Operation Protective Edge brought out into the open the fact that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab states support Israel in its war against Hamas. They do so because they fear Islamic State and Iran more than they hate Israel, whose power they trust.

If Israel announces its intention of leaving Judea and Samaria, which the Arabs know will become a Hamas enclave faster than Gaza did, the Arab faith in Israel’s power will diminish. As a consequence, if Israel follows the generals’ advice our relations with the Sunnis will worsen, not improve.

It is a tragedy for Israel that the generals have allowed the Left to use them in this way. Their role in perpetuating Israel’s destructive adherence to the devastating two-state policy model diminishes their past contributions and endangers Israel’s future.

Categories: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Israel borders, Israeli left, Israeli media, Israeli politics, Israeli security, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution
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Watch: Arab ‘arson terror’ strikes Samaria

May 30, 2016

Watch: Arab ‘arson terror’ strikes Samaria Residents of Yitzhar report five arson attacks in the last two days, emphasizing ‘there is no difference between this and other terror.’

By Ido Ben-Porat

First Publish: 5/29/2016, 4:37 PM

Source: Watch: Arab ‘arson terror’ strikes Samaria – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva

Arab assailants from the village of Urif in Samaria set two fires adjacent to the Jewish town of Yitzhar last Friday afternoon, report residents of the Jewish town.

The town’s firefighter team, together with soldiers and residents, struggled against the large blazes just west and south of Yitzhar for over two hours, until they finally achieved control over most of the fire.

Then over Shabbat on Saturday, the Arab attackers lit three other fires at various points around the town. The blazes were controlled just before they had the chance to spread out and cause serious damage.

In the Shabbat assault the assailants came from the further towns of Huwara and Einabus as well as Urif, and they lit a fire just beneath the eastern neighborhoods of the town.

The arsonists were identified by the security coordinator and an army force who were conducting surveillance on the site, allowing a quick response to put out the fire.

Residents of Yitzhar note that Arab arson attacks take place every summer, mostly on Fridays and Saturdays so as to target their Shabbat observance. Due to the relatively remote location of the town it is impossible to wait for firefighting units to arrive.

“The residents drop everything and run, sometimes in their Shabbat clothes, in order to fight the fire,” said Uriya Cohen, director of the local council.

“This is terror to all intents and purposes,” he clarified. “There is no difference between an Arab who throws a firebomb at a car, and one who lights a fire whose goal is to reach homes in the town.”

“It cannot be that residents and young guys are distanced from Yitzhar with no reason and no evidence on an arbitrary administrative order, even as the Arab terror is going wild,” added Cohen.

 

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Hatred with and without algorithms

May 29, 2016

Hatred with and without algorithms, Israel Hayom, Judith Bergman, May 29, 2016

If you have ever found it profoundly disturbing that so much political debate centers on an online ‎platform, Facebook, which was originally about social interaction, but has by now metamorphosed into a ‎grotesque, many-headed monster that actively encourages (more about that later) and whips into a ‎frenzy existing hatred against Israel and Jews, your intuition was correct. The latest journalistic ‎experiment, in what can only be described as the dark underbelly of Facebook, confirms it. ‎

While the fact that Facebook is rife with anti-Semitic hatred is not news to anyone with even a fleeting ‎familiarity with the platform, the following is bound to disturb even the most hardened cynic.‎

A journalist from the British online newspaper Jewish News went undercover on Facebook, creating ‎fake anti-Israel internet profiles in order to infiltrate the anti-Semitic hate groups that proliferate on the ‎social platform. What he discovered were groups resembling “a lynch mob from the Middle Ages, its ‎members winding each other up until the entire group is burning with an anger that is desperate for an ‎outlet.” He mentions how one highly active group, “Israel is a War Criminal,” has more than 250,000 likes. ‎Browsing its timeline regularly, he says, “is a horrifying and deeply disturbing influence. … It is a ‎cesspit of vile and extreme political activism.”‎

What is of most concern, however, is not even the virtual cesspit of violent language and hatred, or the ‎sewer-like fabricated memes created, Goebbels-style, merely to elicit the most primitive ‎response against Israel and Jews. The most disturbing part in all this is that Facebook actively participates ‎in the hate fest, egging the participants on until hate is everywhere: “As the website builds a profile of ‎what you like and what you do not, it begins to form a unique bubble around your online existence … which means when I search for ‘Israel,’ I receive groups that are inherently pro-Israeli, but when ‘Mr. X’ ‎does, he sees a completely different list. … The truly disturbing element of the search results is that they ‎produce a list that is almost hermetically sealed in one direction. They give the appearance that the other ‎side doesn’t exist.”‎

In other words, Facebook’s algorithms ensure that users only see more of what they have already liked ‎and seen. Therefore, if you are an anti-Semitic or anti-Israel Facebook user, Facebook ‎aims to please by showing you anti-Semitic or anti-Israel Facebook posts, even if you just put in ‎‎”Israel” in the search field. In this way, those Facebook users “learn” that their warped reality is “true,” repeatedly ‎confirming their prejudices until the hatred has become all-pervasive. ‎

The Jewish News journalist’s observation regarding Facebook’s algorithms aptly confirms what Shurat‎ Hadin concluded in October, when the Israeli organization filed a lawsuit against Facebook: “Facebook ‎actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by ‎offering friend, group and event suggestions and targeting advertising based on people’s online ‘likes’ and internet browsing history.”‎

In other words, Facebook actively works to create hate-filled, anti-Semitic echo chambers — a sobering ‎and truly horrific thought that everyone ought to consider, whenever they enter the virtual meeting ‎place.‎

The trouble with the online echo chambers is, of course, that they do not remain online. The ‎incitement makes its way into the real world, where it may manifest itself in stabbings and murders in ‎Israel and anti-Semitic hate crimes and terrorism elsewhere.‎

Let’s take a step back from the virtual world for a moment and contemplate whether we see the disturbing Facebook trend in real life as well. Echo chambers are not unique to the ‎virtual world of social media. It is a growing phenomenon in real life, as well — a particular version of “reality” ‎regarding Israel is promulgated, circulated and reinforced endlessly, until it becomes the only “truth.” ‎

The United Nations is one such echo chamber, where the very language applied about Israel is coded in ‎phrases that denote a reality that does not exist outside this disaster of an international organization. ‎Nevertheless, most of the diplomats involved in the U.N., whether they agree with this language or not in ‎private, uniformly employ it as if it were true, leading to the establishment of a false reality that has dire ‎consequences on the decisions and votes made against Israel. One recent and striking example was the yearly vote on Israel in the World Health Organization, where the Jewish state was again ‎denounced as the world’s only health violator. The absurdity of this decision is extreme, yet grown men ‎and women, highly educated diplomats from supposedly civilized nations such as the U.K., France and ‎Germany, supported the resolution. By doing this, they not only betrayed all logic and ‎the justice they purport to support, but they clearly demonstrated that there exists in the U.N. ‎an alternate reality similar to the alternate reality that Jew-haters inhabit online ‎in the seedy underbelly of Facebook.‎

Western academia and university campuses represent another echo chamber where the established ‎‎”truths” abut Israel may not be challenged according to the reigning rules of political correctness, and ‎where professors and social justice warriors reinforce each other’s deep-seated anti-Semitic prejudices ‎in a way that creates an alternate reality similar to those mentioned above. ‎

This is not, however, limited to university education. In Britain, a schoolgirl from Wanstead High ‎School was met with frenzied jubilation and won the regional final in a speaker’s competition, the Jack ‎Petchey Speak Out” Challenge, after giving a virulent anti-Israel speech.The speech was a primitive ‎variation of the most commonly spewed diatribes against Israel, yet she was applauded by the school’s ‎teachers and pupils, as well as the local authorities, and rewarded accordingly. ‎

Tis is the result of yet another echo chamber, which now exists in British primary education. The British ‎National Union of Teachers, aptly named NUT, actively condones similar propaganda to that which is ‎found on Facebook’s hate sites, in the U.N. and in academia, thus supporting from an early age the ‎imbibing of British children with hatred toward Israel and furthering the dissemination of Palestinian ‎propaganda. As an example of this, NUT recently supported a conference,“Nakba: Then and Now” in ‎London, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. At this conference, ex-NUT President Philippa ‎Harvey, speaking on behalf of the union, described a new project called “Beyond the Wall,” which intends ‎to engage U.K. schools in learning about schooling in conflict zones. The project intends to show films to the ‎young Britons that illustrate “the daily struggles experienced by Palestinian children as they try to gain ‎an education.” One hardly dares to imagine the kind of untruths and propaganda running rampant in ‎those films.‎

Whereas it is important to fight the virtual cesspool of hatred, which serves as its own brainwasher and ‎echo chamber, as it were, on Facebook, we must not lose sight of the fact that the exact same ‎mechanisms at work on Facebook are very much at play in the way that anti-Semites and Israel haters ‎operate in the real world. There they create their own nonvirtual echo chambers, which are equally or ‎even more dangerous, because they have a much further reach than just the haters and trolls prowling ‎the internet. ‎

By surrounding themselves with like-minded haters and creating alternate realities and ways of ‎speaking about those realities, in schools, on campus, in academic circles and among diplomats in the U.N., ‎they ultimately become blind to any kind of objective facts, and they even lose the language needed for rational discourse about Israel. And they don’t even need computer algorithms to ‎do it.

Categories: Antisemitism, Echo chambers, Facebook, Hate groups, Israel, Israel and human rights, Media, United Nations
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Israel and the Palestinians: What the media won’t report

May 29, 2016

Israel and the Palestinians: What the media won’t report, Gatestone Institute via YouTube, May 28, 2016

Categories: Free world, Hamas, Israel, Israel and human rights, Jewish state, Media, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Palestinians and media, Two state solution, UN Human RIghts Council, United Nations
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Deceiving Cairo and helping IS, Hamas sets Gaza on course for new troubles

May 28, 2016

Deceiving Cairo and helping IS, Hamas sets Gaza on course for new troubles Hamas officials promised Egypt two months ago they’d end cooperation with IS fighters in Sinai. But Gaza’s rulers have done nothing of the kind, and the repercussions could impact Israel

By Avi Issacharoff
May 28, 2016, 5:06 pm

Source: Deceiving Cairo and helping IS, Hamas sets Gaza on course for new troubles | The Times of Israel

Salafi demonstrators in Gaza waving Islamic State flags during a demonstration that took place on January 19, 2015. (Courtesy MEMRI)

A few days ago, Hamas’s security forces in Gaza arrested a group of Salafi activists — members of Salafiya Jihadiya, a movement made up of Islamist groups that identify mainly with Islamic State. The head of the group is the son of a well-known Salafi preacher from the Shahin family. Hamas officials claimed that the group was planning to cross Gaza’s border into Sinai to join members of Islamic State in their fight against Egypt.

News of the arrests created the sense that Hamas was working to stop attempts by these Gazan activists to help Islamic State in its war against the Egyptian army. The arrests were presented as part of an impressive operation by Hamas, fulfilling promises its representatives made to Egypt during a visit to Cairo two months ago. At that time, amid escalating tension between Egypt and Hamas and accusations of close collaboration between Hamas’s military wing and Walayat Sinai (Islamic State’s branch in Sinai), the high-ranking Hamas delegates assured Egyptian officials that Hamas would end its relationship with Islamic State there and then.

 Hamas has indeed since reinforced its troop deployment along the Gaza-Egypt border, and promised to stop all smuggling done via the tunnels there. The Salafi arrests thus provided further ostensible proof of the new Hamas commitment to Egypt’s well-being. (Those arrests, in turn, prompted rocket fire at Israel two days ago, for which the Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, a Salafi group, claimed responsibility — a case of Israel being targeted by a Gaza terror group angry with Hamas.)

Yet there seems to be a wide gap between what senior Hamas officials are telling the Egyptians and what the heads of its military wing are actually doing on the ground. Despite the promises by Gaza’s rulers to stop the smuggling to and from Sinai and the recent arrests, Hamas continues to maintain a delicate and complicated web of interests and alliances with Islamic State in Sinai.

According to an abundance of Arab, Israeli and Palestinian sources, wounded members of Islamic State are still being brought into Gaza for medical treatment at almost the same rate as before the Hamas delegation’s visit to Cairo two months ago. Likewise, arms smuggling from the Gaza Strip to Sinai and vice versa continues, albeit at a reduced rate, supervised by members of Hamas’s military wing. Overall, in short, it is largely business as usual.

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai in 2015 (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

When Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), mentioned some of these facts in interviews on the Saudi Arabian news site Elaph two weeks ago, Hamas issued vigorous denials, of course. But other sources — not Israeli ones, but sources actually living in Gaza — confirm that over the past 10 months, dozens of Islamic State fighters have received medical treatment in the hospital in Khan Yunis, for example. This is astonishing considering Hamas’s delicate relationship with Egypt.

Yahya Sinwar (screenshot)

Yahya Sinwar (screenshot)

The transfer of wounded Islamic State fighters is not the work of some low-ranking activist looking for a quick way to make money. It is a deliberate policy of Hamas that began in mid-2015. The Hamas official in charge of arranging medical treatment for Islamic State members is Mohammed Sutari, a well-known activist from the Khan Yunis refugee camp. This is the same place that produced the hard core of Hamas’s military wing, including notorious terror chief Mohammed Deif and Yahya and Muhammad Sinwar.

This week the Elaph website, quoting a Palestinian source, published the name of one Islamic State fighter who is receiving medical treatment in Gaza. Maj. Gen. Mordechai named two more: Ibrahim Matar, who helps Sutari coordinate medical treatment for Islamic State members, and Said Abdelal, a Gazan from Rafah who is responsible for coordinating Islamic State’s military activities (apparently training) in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas military wing commander Muhammad Deif

Hamas military wing commander Muhammad Deif

The most problematic factor for Cairo may be the smuggling of arms between Gaza and Sinai. There’s been a dramatic reduction in the scope, but Hamas still manages to bring quantities of arms into the Gaza Strip and to move arms and ammunition from Gaza to Sinai. Constrained by Egypt’s crackdown on the border tunnels, some of the smuggling has been done recently by sea.

In addition, despite those widely reported Salafi arrests, several former Hamas activists (whose ideology leans toward that of those same Salafist groups) have crossed the border in recent weeks to join the fighting in Sinai against the Egyptian army. The best-known case is that of Musa Abdallah el-Mor, a former member of Hamas’s military wing whose family set up a mourning tent in Rafah after he was killed in Sinai while fighting against the Egyptian army there.

All of this cross-border activity takes place under the noses of Egyptian officials, who heard the promises of the Hamas senior officials and then watched in dismay over the past two months as Hamas, and especially its military wing, did as they pleased and kept up their relationship of interests with Islamic State.

Egypt’s response to this, it must be said, shows a degree of confusion and perhaps a lack of clear strategy.

The Egyptians opened the Rafah border crossing briefly, for humanitarian reasons. At the same time, they allowed tons of concrete into the Gaza Strip when concrete and wood were in short supply there. They did this even though they knew that Hamas was using such materials to build tunnels, including tunnels that crossed into Sinai.

Palestinians inspect the damage after Egyptian forces flooded smuggling tunnels dug beneath the Gaza-Egypt border, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on September 18, 2015. (Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash90)

Palestinians inspect the damage after Egyptian forces flooded smuggling tunnels dug beneath the Gaza-Egypt border, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on September 18, 2015. (Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash90)

These might have been interpreted as goodwill gestures by Egypt, but Egyptian intelligence heads quickly realized that the likes of Deif and Yahya Sinwar were unmoved, and have no intention of ordering a complete halt to cooperation with Islamic State anytime soon. It is doubtful, then, that Cairo will again open the Rafah crossing for periods longer than just a day or two, even with Ramadan approaching.

In other words, almost two years after the 50-day Operation Protective Edge Israel-Hamas war, and despite several statements suggesting that relations between Cairo and Gaza might be about to improve, that’s not happening.

Instead, the Gaza Strip is spiraling back to the dangerous routine of tension with Egypt and a humanitarian situation that is slowly but consistently deteriorating. One can only hope that we are not in for a rerun of the summer of 2014.

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Gaza rockets miss the mark

May 28, 2016

Gaza rockets miss the mark Terrorists from Gaza fire three rockets towards southern Israel, but they explode on the Gazan side of the border.

By Elad Benari, Canada

First Publish: 5/27/2016, 11:55 PM

Source: Gaza rockets miss the mark – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva

Rocket fired from Gaza (archive)
Flash 90

Terrorists from Gaza on Friday night fired rockets towards southern Israel, but missed the mark as three rockets exploded on the Gazan side of the border.

There were no reports of injuries or damages on the Palestinian side.

Earlier this week, a rocket from Gaza was fired towards southern Israel, exploding in an open area of the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council and causing no physical injuries or damages.

The Israel Air Force retaliated by striking two terrorist infrastructures belonging to Hamas in Gaza.

Rocket and mortar fire from Gaza has continued to “trickle” into Israel on occasion. On May 6, two mortar shells fired from Gaza exploded near the security fence in the Eshkol Regional Council.

There were no physical injuries or damages. Israeli aircraft hit two Hamas targets in Gaza in retaliation for the attack.

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Sweden Choosing to Lose War against Middle East Antisemitism?

May 27, 2016

Sweden Choosing to Lose War against Middle East Antisemitism? Gatestone Institute, Nima Gholam Ali Pour, May 27, 2016

Sweden has officially surrendered to the Middle Eastern anti-Semitism.

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♦ Who invited this “Salafist megastar,” who denies the Holocaust and is known for making anti-Semitic statements, to visit Malmö? What do you do when anti-Semitism in Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city, is so normalized that children in a public school can endorse a conference with anti-Semitic elements?

♦ Anti-Semitism is such a gigantic problem in Malmö that even senior city officials cannot understand how it became so normalized. They seem to dismiss it as part of a non-Swedish culture that, in a multicultural society, must be tolerated, even accommodated.

♦ If there are children in Swedish public schools today who are promoting an anti-Semitic conference, what will these children do in the future?

♦ Is Sweden really turning into a country where Jews are no longer welcome, someday to become a country without Jews? And if that happens, what does that say about Sweden? And who will come next after the Jews?

Malmö, Sweden’s third-largest city, is an important, visible part of Sweden. If you read the Municipality of Malmö’s political objectives, which the Municipal Council of Malmö has endorsed, you will see that “racism, discrimination and hate crimes do not belong in open Malmö.” The reality, however, is different. Anti-Semitism there has reached bizarre levels — with politicians and other policymakers in Sweden doing nothing about it.

On April 30, 2016, the Islamic imam and preacher Salman Al-Ouda, who has been described in the Swedish media as a “Salafist megastar,” visited Malmö. Al-Ouda apparently inspired Osama bin Laden, has claimed that the Holocaust was a myth, and is known for making anti-Semitic statements.

The first question anyone should ask is: Who invited such a person to visit Malmö?

It turned out that it was a politician from the Green Party, currently part of the Swedish government’s ruling coalition, and which also governs in Malmö locally, together with the Social Democrats.

The second question that anyone should ask is: What kind of reception did Al-Ouda receive in such a large Swedish city?

Well, Al-Ouda got to speak at one of Malmö’s most famous conference facilities, Amiralen, described on the official website of the Municipality of Malmö as a part of the city’s cultural heritage. Al-Ouda was also invited by the Alhambra Muslim student association, at Malmö University. In other words, even though Malmö’s policies officially state that racism has no place in Malmö, Al-Ouda, an anti-Semite, was treated as a diplomat.

On May 6, just a week after Al-Ouda’s visit, the fourteenth “Palestinians in Europe Conference” was held in Malmö. One of the conference’s organizers, the Palestinian Return Centre, has close ties to the Hamas terrorist organization.

The Palestinians in Europe Conference was held at Malmömässan, another famous conference center in Malmö. When a Swedish pro-Israel organization, Perspektiv På Israel, sent an email to the CEO of Malmömässan, Lasse Larsson, to warn him that an anti-Semite was going to speak at his conference center, Larsson replied:

“We, MalmöMässan, do not take positions on the substance of the matter, but have entrusted this to our authorities that have given the go-ahead and therefore we will allow the conference to be conducted.”

The problem is that if you allow someone to spread hatred against Jews, you need to have a clear position. Would he have allowed the hall to be used to spread hate speech against African-Swedes or homosexuals or women?

In Malmö, when it comes to Middle Eastern anti-Semitism, there is currently no clear position from any major institution.

When it was revealed that one of the speakers at the Palestinians in Europe Conference was to be the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrim Said Sabri, who has also repeatedly made anti-Semitic remarks, an announcement came that two Swedish Members of Parliament, Hillevi Larsson (Social Democrat) and Daniel Sestrajcic (Left Party), would also speak at it. This arrangement appeared to be no coincidence. In October 2015, both of these MPs spoke in Malmö at a rally in which participants celebrated knife attacks against Jews in Israel. Additionally, when the Eurovision Song Contest took place in Malmö in 2013, it was Daniel Sestrajcic, then chairman of Malmö’s Municipal Cultural board, who argued that Eurovision should suspend Israel.

After the Perspektiv På Israel organization revealed that Sestrajcic and Larsson were to participate in the Palestinians in Europe Conference with Sheikh Sabri, a known anti-Semite, Israel’s ambassador to Sweden wrote a critical op-ed for a major Swedish newspaper — after which the two MPs cancelled their appearance.

Wait, it gets worse. Prior to the Palestinian conference, a public school class in Malmö participated in a video advertisement promoting it. The advertisement was filmed on the premises of the Apelgårdsskolan public elementary school. The idea that in Sweden a public school openly endorses a Palestinian conference to which an anti-Semite is invited to speak may also sound bizarre, but that is exactly what took place.

As this author also happens to be a member of Malmö’s school board, it seemed normal to contact the school’s director and the municipal councilor responsible for primary schools, to report the advertisement. The councilor never responded — but the school’s director did. The advertising video, he said, was just a “call to participate in the conference.”

What do you do when anti-Semitism in Sweden’s third-largest city is so normalized that children in a public school can endorse a conference with anti-Semitic elements?

Although the school director’s reply was published in the online magazine Situation Malmö (of which this author is the editor), the media in Malmö was, as always, silent.

1516Apelgårdsskolan elementary school in Malmö (left) openly endorsed a conference to which Sheikh Ekrim Said Sabri, who has repeatedly made anti-Semitic remarks, was invited to speak. Right: Hillevi Larsson, a Social Democratic MP representing a district of Malmö, accepted an invitation to speak at the same conference where Sheikh Sabri was scheduled to speak. Larsson is pictured showing off a Palestinian flag and a “map of Palestine” in which Israel does not exist.

The topic of anti-Semitism is so normalized in Malmö that when children are promoting a conference with anti-Semitic elements, it is not something the media even writes about. The omission seems part of an editorial policy of deliberately choosing not to report about Islamic and Palestinian anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism, is, in fact, such a gigantic problem in Malmö that even senior politicians and officials in the city seem not to understand how it became so normalized. They seem to dismiss it as part of a non-Swedish culture that, in a multicultural society, must be tolerated, even accommodated.

It is only in Muslim countries — and evidently extreme liberal countries such as Sweden — that a public school could promote a conference with anti-Semitic elements without anyone reacting.

That this happens in one of Sweden’s largest cities, means that leading politicians in the country are aware of this rough anti-Semitic wave, but prefer not to do anything about it.

Some of the reasons for this preference are:

  • Large-scale immigration from countries where anti-Semitism is normalized.
  • A strong pro-Palestinian engagement among Swedish politicians that has resulted in a totally surreal debate about the Israel-Palestine debate, in which Israel is unjustly demonized.
  • A desire among political parties in Sweden to win the votes of immigrants.
  • A Swedish multiculturalism that is so uncritical of foreign cultures that it cannot differentiate between culture and racism.
  • A fear of sounding critical of immigration.
  • Important Swedish institutions, such as the Church of Sweden, legitimizing anti-Semitism by endorsing the Kairos Palestine document.

Sweden has officially surrendered to the Middle Eastern anti-Semitism.

The period of April-May 2016, and the visits by assorted anti-Semites to Malmö, show a regrettable pattern. In Sweden in general, and Malmö in particular, there are too many politicians, senior officials, journalists, heads of schools and companies that do not distance themselves from anti-Semitism.

Such a condition cannot only be described as bizarre; it is extremely dangerous.

There are Jewish communities in Malmö and elsewhere in Sweden. Jews are one of Sweden’s five recognized minorities. As one of the countries that has joined the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Sweden has an obligation to stop the normalization of anti-Semitism in Sweden.

When politicians and senior officials let children in Sweden’s third-largest city endorse a racist conference, with which even the most extreme anti-Israel Swedish MPs refuse to associate, it is obvious that Sweden wishes to lose its fight against Middle Eastern anti-Semitism. Allowing schoolchildren to endorse anti-Semitism deserves nothing but condemnation, whether in Gaza or in Sweden. We expect this pattern in Sweden of indulging anti-Semitism to be fixed.

If there are children in Swedish public schools today who are promoting an anti-Semitic conference, what will these children do in the future? In a European continent where Western values are being challenged by Islamic values and European security is threatened by Islamic extremists, these children are being abandoned and being forced into choosing racist values, because Swedish authorities refuse to say “No” to Middle Eastern anti-Semitism.

The more normalized Middle Eastern anti-Semitism becomes in Sweden, the more you see Palestinian and other Arabic and Islamic organizations pushing the limits of how openly they can express it. You start asking yourself, will Sweden someday become a country without Jews. And if that happens, what does that say about Sweden? And who will come next after the Jews? To cleanse a country of Jews through massive Islamic immigration is no better than doing the same thing through cattle-cars or concentration camps.

Is Sweden really turning into a country where Jews are no longer welcome?

Have the institutions in Sweden really chosen to lose the fight against Middle Eastern anti-Semitism and to let extremist Islam win?

Categories: Antisemitism, Human rights, Islam and Jews, Islamic invasion, Islamic racism, Islamisation, Islamism, Israel, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Sweden
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The day after Abbas

May 27, 2016

The day after Abbas, Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, May 27, 2016

The day Mahmoud Abbas departs his post as president of the Palestinian Authority, or is deposed from his dictatorial perch, could be a watershed moment. It could and should force a reassessment of conventional thinking about the feasible contours of accommodating Palestinian independence.

That moment may be coming soon. Abbas is old, sick and tired. He has little to show for his persistent efforts to isolate Israel diplomatically and force Israel into hasty withdrawals. His regime is viewed as utterly corrupt by 95.5% of Palestinians (according to a recent Palestinian poll). The tens of billions of dollars in international aid he has swallowed have failed to build any real institutional basis for a good or democratic Palestinian government.

Abbas’ thuggish underlings are jockeying aggressively around him for pole position in the battle to succeed him as West Bank despot. Hamas, too, smells blood.

On the diplomatic front, Abbas’ departure will leave nothing behind but scorched earth. He has fled from real negotiation and compromise with Israel, espoused maximalist positions, stoked hatred toward Israelis and Jews, venerated terrorists and pushed the criminalization of Israel internationally. He basically convinced most Israelis that there is no reasonable peace deal to be had with the Palestinians.

And yet, the Obama administration and much of the global community nonsensically still considers Abbas and his gang to be viable partners for a two-state peace arrangement. What will it take for them to move beyond this rotten reliance on Fatah leadership and the creaky two-state construct?

Nevertheless, most Israelis, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, still seek to move toward some clarity of borders, stability, and improved quality of life for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

They seek to do so without embarking on insane Israeli withdrawals that would likely lead to the establishment of a second “Hamastan” in the West Bank, or worse, an Islamic State-type regime.

So it’s time for Israel to re-articulate its thinking about the possibilities of an Israeli-Palestinian modus vivendi. Netanyahu should capitalize on his newly broadened government, and the coming transitions in Palestinian and American politics, to reset the diplomatic table. He can outline the acceptable contours of a conflict amelioration process in which Israel can pragmatically participate.

Doing so is especially urgent since the Obama administration is, in extremis, not-so-subtly readying to move the global goal posts farther away from Israel. This, of course, will only make the likelihood of Palestinian compromise with Israel even more remote.

Here are some guidelines and red lines that the Israeli government may want to adopt:

• Regional solutions: Unconventional alternatives to the struggling two-state paradigm must be on the table, including: a Palestinian-Jordanian federation; shared sovereignty with Israel in the West Bank; a three- or four-way land swap involving Egypt and Jordan; and, possibly, a combination of all these approaches.

The major Western powers must be willing to drive serious exploration of such alternatives. Arab states too can take responsibility for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and consider investment of tangible resources in “regional” solutions.

• Baseline: Israel’s position at the outset of talks should be that 100% of the West Bank belongs to Israel, by historical right, and that this right is richly buttressed by political experience, legitimate settlement and security necessity. Only then can Israel hope to obtain a sensible compromise.

Talks should not begin from a 68-year-old armistice line forced upon Israel by Arab aggression; nor “from the point that talks last left off” eight years ago under a previous, defeatist Israeli government; nor from the defensive security fence line forced upon Israel by Palestinian terrorism; nor from any borders high-handedly dictated in advance by U.S. President Barack Obama or the international community.

• Security: The radical Islamic winter buffeting this region, and its inroads into the Palestinian national movement, means that the security envelope encompassing Israeli and Palestinian areas must be militarily controlled by the IDF, fully and indefinitely. This includes the Jordan Valley and the mountain ridges on both sides of Judea and Samaria.

• The Temple Mount: One way in which to wring Palestinian recognition of the Jewish people’s ancient ties to this holy land is to insist on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. This can be modestly facilitated either through a time-sharing arrangement (similar to that in place at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron), or through a small synagogue tucked away on the fringes of the vast Temple Mount plaza (which won’t overshadow the two large Muslim structures on the Mount).

Palestinian denial of Jewish religious, historical and national rights in Israel is the essence of the conflict. It is time to tackle this head-on, cautiously but candidly, at the core — in Jerusalem.

In conclusion, Netanyahu should leverage this turning point to reframe the parameters of how Israel can live astride the very problematic Palestinian national movement.

Categories: Abbas, Hamas, Israel, Israel borders, Israeli security, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution
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