Posted tagged ‘Palestinian Authority’

Obama’s Animus toward Israel May Lead to War

May 15, 2016

Obama’s Animus toward Israel May Lead to War, American ThinkerVictor Sharpe and Robert Vincent, May 15, 2016

Will the looming conclusion of the Obama presidency lead him to engineer an all-out war by Iran’s terror surrogates, Hamas and Hezbollah, against the embattled Jewish state?  Will that war conveniently occur in December 2016, as Obama serves out the final days of his presidency?

Is it conceivable that the pro-Muslim president of the United States will use such a conflict to predictably and mendaciously blame Israel as a means to permanently fracture the U.S.-Israeli alliance in a manner that would be difficult for any successor to repair?  As extreme as this may sound, it is entirely possible in view of Obama’s past acts of blatant hatred toward America’s one and only true democracy and ally in the Middle East.

As should be obvious by now, Obama believes that Islam has suffered from British and European Christian colonization and oppression.  After being thoroughly prepared to be receptive to this message by his stridently anti-Western mother and maternal grandparents, such was the indoctrination Obama received from Khaled al-Mansour – a Muslim high-level adviser to Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and anti-Jewish hate-monger – during his formative years.

It was al-Mansour who helped Obama gain admittance to the Harvard Law School.  Edward Said, an outspoken anti-Israel professor of Obama’s at Columbia University, and Rashid Khalidi, a former press agent for Yasser Arafat’s PLO, served as Obama’s mentor in the former case and friend in the latter.

These figures, whose entire professional adult lives had been essentially dedicated to eliminating Israel, focused on influencing Obama to support the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians – along with their thugocracy known as the Palestinian Authority.  These overwhelmingly Muslim terrorists amount to little more than cannon fodder in the ongoing Islamist quest to effectively perpetrate yet another Holocaust.

Thus, while Obama weakens America and disparages Western values and the tenets of Judeo-Christian civilization, he always chooses to suppress the reality of Islamic triumphalism and its appalling and inhumane history of slavery, hatred of non-Muslims, brutal Muslim conquests, and slaughter dating back to its 7th-century origins in Arabia.

This is why no one should be surprised that he would bow to a Saudi king and venerate the Islamic call of the muezzin.

Given his background, it is no wonder that Obama fell for the monumental lie that the Jewish state is also a modern colonizer, just as the European powers were.  After all, Obama’s other confidants included, as the principled and worthy Victor David Hanson recently pointed out, “the obscene Reverend Wright and reprobates like Bill Ayers and Father Michael Pfleger.”

But unlike the European colonizers who had no ancestral roots in the Middle Eastern territories they occupied, Israel is the biblical and post-biblical homeland of the Jewish people, and as the native people of its ancestral homeland, the Jews predate the Muslim invasion of Israel by millennia, as is clearly evident in the Bible, which could not have been written when and where it was otherwise.

Even though sovereignty was lost to them after the Roman destruction of the Jewish state, Jews have always lived in their native land in whatever numbers they could sustain under a succession of alien occupiers.

Despite these clearly established historical facts, modern reborn Israel and her democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Netanyahu, have been treated with unprecedented contempt by Obama and his sycophants.

This was evident early on with Obama’s support of and friendship to the Islamist Erdoğan in Turkey, who has reduced once secular Turkey to a growing totalitarian Islamic state that has openly supported terrorism against Israel, as demonstrated by the Gaza flotilla incident of 2010.

Erdoğan’s perfidy – which has included all but open support for ISIS – has in no way dampened Obama’s preferential treatment of this dictator, in contrast to his appalling treatment of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Routinely, the State Department promotes the hypocrisy of the Obama administration by ignoring the aggression and terror of the Palestinian Authority, led by the Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad thugs who rule over the Gaza Strip.

In deplorable contrast, the State Department routinely attacks Israel for building homes in Jerusalem for young couples, or chiding Israel to exercise “restraint” when Israel is forced to defend itself from relentless Palestinian brutality and murder of Israeli civilians.  Was France or Belgium similarly asked to exercise “restraint” in the face of recent Muslim terrorist attacks in those countries?

This spitefulness was exhibited when the U.S., at the behest of a high-level individual in the Obama administration (wonder who!), denied visas to Israelis during Israel’s defensive Gaza war in 2014 against Hamas aggression.

Even as the barrage of thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli villages and towns from Gaza continued, this outrage was compounded when President Obama banned the much needed resupply of armaments to Israel at the height of the Hamas terror blitz and temporarily banned U.S. airlines from flying to Israel on the flimsiest of pretexts (23 international carriers – including British Airways – continued flights to Israel in spite of this ban).

Obama has also treated America’s other traditional allies with insolent disdain and cozied up to the worst enemy of freedom and liberty – namely, the Islamo-Nazi regime of Iran.

Iran’s ongoing implicit threats of nuclear warfare – against the U.S. as well as Israel – including its aggressive development of potentially nuclear-armed ICBMs, which can eventually reach the U.S., does not faze this incumbent in the White House.

The fact that this supposed nuclear “agreement” with Iran was reached, even as his very own State Department admits that Iran has yet to actually sign the agreement and even as Iranian mobs continue to chant “Death to America” to the approving nods of the Iranian mullahs, also fits into Barack Hussein Obama’s distorted world view – a deliberate policy of lies, deception, and dissimilitude.

This was admitted to by one of his closest advisers, Ben Rhodes, who recently disclosed that the Obama administration had deliberately deceived Congress and the American public about the Iran deal – as if this was something to be proud of.

Perhaps one of the most blatant examples of Obama’s anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Israeli ideology was his support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and his reluctance to sell arms to President El-Sisi, who overthrew the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi and his vicious anti-Christian regime after it had been in power for only two years and had wrought havoc on that country.

Obama’s support for Morsi should have come as no surprise, given the endless flow of Muslim Brotherhood activists visiting Obama’s White House and the filling of senior positions within the administration, as documented by former CIA analyst Clare Lopez.

Even today, El-Sisi fights al-Qaeda terrorism in the Sinai and the Hamas terrorists in Gaza without any apparent support or approval from Obama.

These examples of the president’s bias, his pro-Islamic sympathies, and his agenda point to a seminal hatred of not only America itself, but most pointedly of the Jewish state – this hatred may override all other practical considerations in the remaining few months of his term in office.

His parting shot at Israel may well be to force her expulsion from the United Nations and turn the Jewish state into another Taiwan.

As suggested at the beginning of this article, he might well encourage both Iranian terror proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezb’allah in Lebanon, to attack Israel with a massive missile bombardment sometime this coming December.

Hamas, for its own part, has thousands of lethal rockets and mortars and is feverishly building tunnels into Israeli territory in the hope of sending its terrorist hordes into Israeli villages and towns and slaughtering as many civilians as possible.  Hezb’allah, on the other hand, is estimated to have more than 150 thousand missiles and rockets aimed at all of Israel, hidden in Lebanese schools, hospitals, and apartments.

Even as the deliberate use of civilians as human shields is explicitly spelled out by the Geneva Conventions as a crime against humanity, and though Israel would have no choice but to inflict substantial civilian casualties in her own defense, this circumstance would naturally be used as a pretext by the U.N. to punish Israel in an unprecedented manner.

They would do so knowing that for the first time, an American president would likely stand by and approve whatever the U.N. anti-Israel “lynch mob” might concoct in order to further isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state.  This might include severe economic sanctions or embargoes or might even involve expulsion of Israel from the U.N. entirely.

It should be emphasized here that once the American national election is over, there will be nothing to stop Obama from doing this.  Obama’s entire foreign policy has revolved around undermining Israel.  Such an action on his part in the closing weeks of his administration can be seen as not only possible, but likely, given the pattern of his behavior toward Israel for the whole of his presidency.

This latter punishment would suit Israel’s enemies very well, even though it would change nothing on the ground.  An Israel reduced to a Taiwan-like status – i.e., a de facto sovereign state not officially recognized as such by the U.N. – would obviate the need for Gulf Arabs (who are covertly making common cause with Israel against Iran) to establish any formal diplomatic relations with her.

The “Zionist entity,” as their official propaganda impudently puts it, would remain just that.  This might even, in rhetorical terms, satisfy the requirement of Iran’s mullahs to “wipe Israel from the map.”  What is more, once Israel is expelled from the U.N., it would be very difficult for any future U.S. president, no matter how pro-Israel, to successfully support Israel’s re-admittance into the U.N.

As is the case with Taiwan, the U.S. may maintain a commitment to supplying Israel with arms and supporting her efforts at self-defense, but in practical terms, that may be the extent of the relationship, even in the best-case scenario surrounding Israel’s expulsion from the U.N. under Obama during his final days in office.

While such a turn of events may sound far-fetched to even some of those most critical of Obama, it is entirely possible in view of Obama’s past acts of blatant hatred toward America’s one and only true ally and democracy in the Middle East.

 

Palestinian Leaders and Child Sacrifice

May 13, 2016

Palestinian Leaders and Child Sacrifice, Gatestone InstituteKhaled Abu Toameh, May 13, 2016

♦ The Palestinian Authority (PA) is now hoping that the tragedy of the Abu Hindi family will push Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to revolt against Hamas.

♦ Hamas is hoping that the tragedy will further undermine the credibility of the Palestinian Authority among Palestinians, shown as being complicit in the blockade on the Gaza Strip to prevent it from receiving weapons.

♦ These charges and counter-charges constitute yet more proof that the PA and Hamas are determined to pursue their fight to the last Palestinian child.

♦ What happened in the Abu Hindi home is an unspeakable family tragedy. What is happening to the Palestinian people, who have forever been led by leaders who care nothing for their well-being, is a tragedy of national proportions.

The tragic death of three Palestinian siblings, killed in a fire that destroyed their house in the Gaza Strip on May 6, demonstrates yet again the depth to which Palestinian leaders will go to exploit their children for political purposes and narrow interests.

The three children from the Abu Hindi family — Mohamed, 3 years old, his brother Nasser, 2 years old and their two-month infant sister Rahaf, died in a fire caused by candles that were being used due to the recurring power outages in the Gaza Strip.

The electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip is the direct result of the continued power struggle between the two Palestinian rival forces, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

In recent months, the crisis has deepened, leaving large parts of the Gaza Strip without electricity for most of the day. Hamas blames the Palestinian Authority for the crisis because of its failure to cover the costs of the fuel needed to operate the power plants in the Gaza Strip. The PA has retorted by blaming Hamas’s “corruption” and “incompetence.”

The Abu Hindi family resides in the Shati refugee camp, where Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other leaders of the Islamist movement live. But unlike the senior Hamas leaders, the Abu Hindi family could not afford to purchase their own power generator to supply them with electricity during the power outages. Instead, the tragedy-stricken family, like most families in the Gaza Strip, resorted to the cheapest alternative lighting method — candles.

On that horrific evening, the Abu Hindi’s three children went to sleep while the candles were burning. Hours later, the charred bodies of the three siblings were taken from the house while it was still on fire and engulfed with smoke.

In any other country, this incident would have been reported as a routine tragedy — one of the kind that could happen in any city such as New York, London or Paris.

Here, however, the death of the three children is not just another personal tragedy. This was a case, rather, of child sacrifice: the Abu-Hindi children were sacrificed on the altar of the decade-long war being waged between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. And these children are far from the first or last such victims.

In equal measure, the PA and Hamas are exploiting the tragedy of the Abu Hindi family to wage a smear campaign against each other. It is not as though these rivals have lived in harmony until now. But the political mud-slinging at the expense of the three dead children has reached repulsive levels.

The children were not even buried before Hamas leaders pointed their fingers at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, who it claimed were held personally responsible for the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri claimed that the electricity crisis was part of the PA leadership’s effort to keep the entire Gaza Strip under blockade. The PA’s ultimate goal, he explained, is to see Hamas undermined and removed from power in the Gaza Strip.

Other Hamas officials said the crisis was the direct result of the Palestinian Authority’s instance on imposing a tax on the fuel it supplies to the power plants in the Gaza Strip — a financial burden that Hamas could not afford to pay because of the already high cost of the fuel. They said that the tax was unjustified because the PA, through an arrangement with Israel (from which it purchases the fuel), gets the tax refunded. In addition, they pointed out, the PA has refused to file a request with Israel to increase its supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip.

Translation: Hamas takes no responsibility for the fact that two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip spend nearly 12 hours a day without electricity. Instead, in their view, it is the sole responsibility of Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, whose only interest is to strip Hamas of its power.

But where did the millions of internationally donated dollars go? How much do the tunnels cost, the ones Hamas uses to launch terrorist attacks against Israel? Funding terrorists and their families? Might not that money have been better invested in keeping children from burning to death from candle fire?

Hamas leaders staged the smear well. In an unprecedented move, masked members of Hamas’s military wing, Ezaddin Al-Qassam, were dispatched to attend the funeral of the three children. Hamas leaders such as Ismail Haniyeh were also present, offering condolences to the family. The cameras caught all this, demonstrating the family’s affiliation with Hamas and implying that Abbas and his Palestinian Authority were responsible for the tragedy.

1595Masked Hamas gunmen pose for the media at the funeral of the Abu Hindi children in Gaza, May 7, 2016.

The Palestinian Authority is also seeking to cash in on the tragedy by waging a war of defamation against Hamas. Yusuf Al-Mahmoud, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority government, dismissed the Hamas charges. “Those who continue to hijack the people of the Gaza Strip are responsible for this tragedy,” he said, referring to Gaza’s Hamas rulers. “The tragedy of the children in the Gaza Strip is the tragedy of all Palestinians. Hamas is responsible for the ongoing split (between the West Bank and Gaza Strip).” Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction has even gone as far as presenting the dead children’s grieving father as one of its own.

The Palestinian Authority is now hoping that the tragedy of the Abu Hindi family will push Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to revolt against Hamas.

Hamas is hoping that the tragedy will further undermine the credibility of the Palestinian Authority among Palestinians, shown as being complicit in the blockade on the Gaza Strip to prevent it from receiving weapons.

These charges and counter-charges constitute yet more proof that the PA and Hamas are determined to pursue their fight to the last Palestinian child.

Yet Abbas is trying to persuade the world to back his plan for establishing a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is hard to imagine how he will even be able to step foot in Gaza after this funeral.

What happened in the Abu Hindi home is an unspeakable family tragedy. What is happening to the Palestinian people, who have forever been led by leaders who care nothing for their well-being, is a tragedy of national proportions.

UNESCO’s Collapse of Credibility

May 13, 2016

UNESCO’s Collapse of Credibility, American ThinkerMichael Curtis, May 13, 2016

Lying and spinning history are becoming an international disease.  On May 3, 2016, the world learned that the White House had deliberately falsified information about Obama administration’s relations with Iran.  A month earlier, the spinning and falsification of history had been demonstrated at the headquarters in Paris of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.  

Yet the difference between the two is meaningful.  Whatever one’s views of the correctness of U.S. policy on Iran, the White House acted for political reasons, though falsely, to score a policy success.  UNESCO was created in 1945 after World War II not as a political body, but to contribute to peace that would be established on the basis of humanity’s moral and intellectual solidarity.

UNESCO betrayed its own principles and ethos by the resolution, passed by the Executive Board on April 16, 2016.  Not only inaccurate historically and factually, the resolution was one partly of self-protection for reasons of security, but mainly based on hatred and animosity toward the State of Israel and, on the part of some countries, of anti-Semitism.

The resolution, submitted by seven Arab countries including Egypt, passed by 33 in favor, 6 against, and 17 abstentions.  France, Spain, Russia, and Sweden voted in favor; the U.S, the U.K., and Germany voted against.  The vote of France, which has experienced terrorist massacres in Paris, was particularly surprising and disappointing.  UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova dissociated herself from the resolution, saying it was a political decision by the economic council and the management council of UNESCO and that she herself was opposed to it.

UNESCO does not have a good record regarding Israel and Jewish holy places.  In 2010, and again in October 2015, resolutions proclaimed that Rachel’s tomb near Bethlehem and the Cave with the tombs of the Jewish patriarchs in Hebron (Ma’arat HaMachpela), which are mentioned in Genesis, are Islamic holy sites.  The new 2016 resolution reaffirms that the two sites are an integral part of “Palestine” and calls on Israel to end its illegal archeological excavations there.

The resolution in strong terms condemned Israeli actions in east Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, but most pointedly it concentrated on supposed Israeli actions on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Plaza of the Western Wall in the Old City.  The resolution referred to the area of the Temple as al-Aqsa Mosque/al-Ha-ram al Sharif, and to the Western Wall as al-Buraq Plaza, implying they are regarded as Muslim areas.  UNESCO thus refused to recognize the 3,000-year historic and religious connection between the Jewish people and those holy sites in Jerusalem and in Israel.

For some years the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have used spin and false rumors that Israel intended to change the status quo on the Mount.  The UNESCO majority accepted the spin and charged that Israel does not respect the integrity, authenticity, and cultural heritage of the mosque as a holy site of worship.  The resolution requires Israel to restore the status of the Mount to what it was before 1967.

This in itself is the height of hypocrisy as well as the rewriting of history.  Two things are pertinent.  One is that since 1967 and Israeli control of Jerusalem, all faiths have had access to the holy places in the city.  By comparison, in the period, 1948 to 1967, when the area of Jerusalem and the West Bank were under Jordanian control, the city was physically divided, Jewish civilians were attacked, and 57 synagogues were destroyed.

The second factor is that conditions in the disputed area changed in September 2000, when Arafat deliberately started the Second Intifada and falsely declared that Israel was about to change access to the Mount.  In fact, at that time, the Jordan Wakf had full control of the area, including access to it.  Today, the site is under the authority, but not the control, of the Wakf.  It was the very Palestinian riots provoked by Arafat that led to Israeli control of access to the site for security reasons.

Today, only Muslims are allowed to pray on the Mount.  Jewish worship has been forbidden there since 1967.  The resolution calls on Israel not to restrict Muslim worshippers from access to the mosque, but Israel has never had any intention to do so.

Not surprisingly, the UNESCO majority accepted the Palestinian Narrative of Victimhood and saw Israel as the repressive occupying power.  But it is morally reprehensible that it agreed to the Palestinian attempt to erase the historic connection between the Jewish people and its holy sites.  In addition, the majority forgot that the Palestinian Authority has laid claim not simply to Jewish sites, but also to the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The one-sided resolution continued its misleading and false charges.  It condemned Israeli plans to build a prayer space for women at the Western Wall.  It charged that Israel had placed Jewish fake graves in spaces in Muslim cemeteries on Wafk property near the Temple.  It condemned the “new cycle of violence” since October 2015 but laid the blame on the victims of terrorism in Israel.  It accused Israel of the continued conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the “so-called” Jewish ritual baths or Jewish prayer places.

Again not surprisingly, without mentioning the continuing rocket attacks by Hamas on Israel and the projected use of tunnels in order to attack Israel civilians, UNESCO deplored the continuous Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and the intolerable number of casualties among Palestinian children.  UNESCO appears ignorant of the reports including the important one by Amnesty International that indicates the use of children by Hamas for military purposes and stresses the war crimes committed by Hamas.

It is shameful that UNESCO, set up for peaceful purposes to promote intercultural dialogue, has been misused for political purposes.  Its one-sided resolutions against Israel and its citizens demonstrate that it has become a vehicle for hatred, not peace.

 

BDS Spreads Anti-Semitism Across U.S. Campuses

May 12, 2016

BDS Spreads Anti-Semitism Across U.S. Campuses, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Noah Beck, May 12, 2016

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Anti-Semitic incidents seem to spring up each week on college campuses throughout the United States. According to a study, “The strongest predictor of anti-Jewish hostility on campus” is the presence of a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

The greater the BDS activity, especially involving faculty members, the more likely anti-Semitic episodes become, said the study issued last month by the AMCHA Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating, documenting, and combating anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.

One recent example occurred on April 15, when the City University of New York Doctoral Students’ Council passed a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israel, 42-19. Weeks earlier, a CUNY professor and BDS advocate claimed that the killing of Palestinians in Gaza “reflects Jewish values.” On CUNY campuses, the New York Observer reports, Jewish students were harassed, with “Jews out of CUNY” uttered in at least one instance, and a professor who wears a yarmulke was called a “Zionist pig.”

On April 21, two-thirds of a union representing about 2,000 graduate students at New York University voted to approve a motion to support a BDS resolution against Israel. The motion also urges the union and its affiliate, the United Auto Workers, to divest from Israeli companies. The resolution asks NYU to close its program at Tel Aviv University, claiming the program violates NYU’s non-discrimination policy.

About a month earlier, NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), one of the main organizing forces behind the nationwide BDS campaign, hosted Israeli academic Ilan Pappé, described by Benny Morris as “one of the world’s sloppiest historians.”

As reported by AMCHA:

“Pappé blamed Jews, perceived historically as evil, for antisemitism stating, ‘The [Jewish] Israelis…are responsible for bringing antisemitism back.’ He denied Jews self-determination and demonized Israel stating, ‘evil Zionism will come to an end – all immoral regimes do’ as well as suggested rich Jews should leave Israel as a process of ‘decolonization.’ He further demonized Israel throughout accusing Israel of carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ multiple times. Pappé delegitimized Israel consistently referring to Israel as a ‘settler colonialist project,’ …[and] promoted BDS.”

The Jewish Law Students Association at Harvard University and Harvard Hillel co-sponsored an event April 14 on “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict & the U.S.” During the question and answer session, Husam el-Qoulaq, an HLS student and head of SJP at the school, insulted  Israeli Knesset Member Tzipi Livni by asking, “How is it that you are so smelly?… A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she’s very smelly, and I was just wondering.” The student’s question resurrected the anti-Semitic stereotype of a “smelly/dirty Jew.” Incredibly, some “progressive” HLS Jewish students later defended el-Qoulaq.

As BDS campaigns spread on campuses, anti-Semitic expression increasingly follows – from swastika-filled vandalism at UC Davis and Purdue University to student “debates” at Stanford University that implicitly dignify classical anti-Semitic tropes about Jews controlling the media and economy. Among other recent incidents:

  • April 20: At Michigan’s Grand Valley State University, there have beensix anti-Semitic incidents reported on campus since last December. These involved swastikas on walls or doors of residence halls, messages including “I am a Nazi” and “Hitler did nothing wrong,” a faculty member making anti-Semitic gestures in a classroom, and a Star of David with an “X” scratched into it on the window of a bus.
  • April 19: At the University of Maryland, about two dozen protesters arrived at a Hillel and Jewish Student Union event called, “Israel Fest” and, for about an hour, chanted, “Fight the power; turn the tide; end Israeli apartheid” and held signs saying “Zionism kills.”
  • April 15: At the University of Notre Dame, a letter published by three students in the school newspaper accused Israel of apartheid and directed readers to the Anti-Semitic site “IfAmericansKnew” and the site for a major BDS group, Jewish Voice for Peace.
  • April 10: At Atlanta’s historically black Morehouse College, participants at the U.S. Universities Debating Championship (USUDC) were forced to justify the motion, “This House Believes That Violence By Palestinians Against Israeli Civilian Targets Is Justified.”

According to AMCHA, 2016 already has seen 171 anti-Semitic/BDS incidents as of April 21. At this rate, 2016 will see a 36 percent increase in incidents over last year.

Faculty members have become increasingly active in BDS efforts and smears. During a talk at Vassar College in February, Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar accused Israel of harvesting Palestinian organs and conducting scientific experiments in “stunting” the growth of Palestinian bodies. Last month, 40 Columbia University professors signed a BDS petition. More recently, one pro-BDS professor even tried to link campus rape to Israel. As Rochester Institute of Technology lecturer A.J. Caschetta notes, “at a time when much of academe is jumping on the BDS bandwagon, there is little risk to academics who join the movement, whereas opposition to majority leftist positions often leads to a perilous path.”

Indeed, academics who buck this trend may be endangering their careers. At Connecticut College, one of the few professors who defended Andrew Pessin, who hasn’t been in his classroom for the past year after a hate-filled campaign miscast his comments about Hamas as a smear on all Palestinians, says his stance cost him a promotion. Manuel Lizarralde, associate professor in Ethnobotany, wrote in a faculty-wide email Jan. 26 that the college “acted like vigilantes and found the perfect scapegoat,” in Pessin.

Within days, Lizarralde said, he was called in by the administration for a scolding. Noting that he was recently denied promotion, Lizarralde suggested in a recent email that this was payback for his support of Pessin. Connecticut College has “a sense of racism since we are Latinos, Jews and advocate for social injustice…[and we] are being punished [for such activism].”

Responding to the negative media coverage generated by the Pessin case, Connecticut College President Katherine Bergeron published an email to the faculty March 28, in which she championed “the right of all its members to express their views freely and openly.” She failed to explain how that principle applied to Pessin, who was hounded off campus for expressing his views, only to see them twisted and turned against him. She said that the school should promote “reasoned and informed debate about the most complex issues of our time,” but Pessin’s absence leaves the school with no pro-Israel voice. When asked about the contradictions between her email and the Pessin affair, she declined to comment.

Meanwhile, outrage against Connecticut College continues to build, with a petition to investigate the Pessin affair and revoke the school’s accreditation now exceeding 1,500 signatures.

Just as the character assassination targeting the only pro-Israel voice at Connecticut College appeared as a total surprise, BDS campaigns to influence student government votes across the country pop up with minimal notice, just weeks before the vote, giving the opposition little time to organize. That strategy helped secure SJP a BDS victoryat the University of Chicago undergraduate student government in March.

It failed to persuade the university’s administration, though.

Who is funding BDS? Analyst Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently told members of Congress that former employees of Hamas-linked charities now work for the Illinois-based organization American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which is “arguably the leading BDS organization in the US, a key sponsor of the anti-Israel campus network known as Students for Justice in Palestine.” Schanzer noted that AMP provides money, speakers, training and even “apartheid walls” to SJP campus activists. More surprising, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has given anti-Israel BDS organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center.

On campus after campus, the BDS movement has proven itself to be well organized and determined to poison the minds of impressionable students against Israel. It will take an equally concerted and sustained effort to oppose BDS in academia.

Gaza Salafists look to ISIS for inspiration

May 12, 2016

Gaza Salafists look to ISIS for inspiration, Israel National News, Adel Zaanoun, May 12, 2016

Isl State in GazaISIS supporters in Gaza Reuters

(AFP) Terrrorists inspired by the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group’s ideology are seeking to benefit from the desperation of young Palestinians to strengthen their foothold in the Gaza Strip.

But the Salafists in the enclave tread a fine line to avoid conflict with Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group which has ruled the strip for a decade but does not share all of ISIS’s world view.

Leaders of the Salafists, who are adherents of a strict Sunni interpretation of Islam, claim to have 3,000 fighters in Gaza.

While the figure is impossible to verify, experts see an increasing use of ISIS-style rhetoric to attract support.

“Some groups use the Islamic State label and claim to have adopted jihadist ideology to attract teenagers who have lost all hope,” said Assaad Abu Charakh, a professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

Last week saw the heaviest cross-border clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas and other terrorist groups since 2014, raising fears of a return to hostilities, though calm has since returned.

Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since 2006 aimed at containing Hamas, which is sworn to the destruction of Jewish state and whose charter calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people.

At almost 45 percent, the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip is among the world’s highest.

Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, and then one year later staged a violent purge of its Fatah rivals, killing scores and ousting the Palestinian Authority from Gaza entirely.

Qassam Brigades defectors

But some members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, argued elections were un-Islamic and defected to form Salafist groups.

Abu al-Ansari al-Ina, a leader of the “Young Salafist Fighters,” one of the major jihadist groups in Gaza, is one such defector.

The priority, he argues, is the “fight against the Jews in Palestine, even if the strategic goal is the introduction of Islamic law in the world.”

He says he is under surveillance and took precautions before meeting anAFP journalist.

Two hundred Gazans, including some of his movement, have crossed into Egypt to join the ranks of the Islamic State “despite Hamas’ attempts to stop them,” he says.

Most used the tunnels that once linked Gaza to Egypt, while others took advantage of the occasional openings of the Rafah border crossing, the only of Gaza’s borders crossings not controlled by Israel, and which is the subject of a total blockade by Egypt.

The vast Sinai desert is gripped by an insurgency that Egypt regularly accuses Hamas of supporting.

Egypt’s air force has destroyed a large number of the tunnels and established a buffer zone along the Gazan border.

Abu Sayyaf, military commander of another Salafi movement, insists Israel is the primary enemy.

“Our priority now is to strengthen the military capabilities of our fighters to kill the Jews, the enemies of God,” he said.

“We do not want confrontation with Hamas,” but “we will not hesitate to fight the infidels or anyone who stands in the way of our fighters.”

Escalation fears

Hamas security services reached an agreement last year with the jihadists after arresting about 100 of them: in exchange for their release, the groups committed to respect the truce with Israel and not to attack Palestinian or foreign institutions in Gaza.

Though limited, Salafi attacks endanger the ceasefire which Hamas is tactically keen to uphold.

Gazan groups have been firing rockets into Israel for years, with Israel retaliating by striking Hamas positions – holding the terrorist group responsible for all attacks emanating from territory it governs.

Many fear the tensions could escalate into clashes between Hamas and jihadi groups if rocket attacks occur.

Salafi jihadists have occasionally threatened Hamas in online videos, with some claiming the shelling of Qassam bases. “We met our commitments but Hamas did not, they again arrested some of our fighters,” says Abu al-Ina.

Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas official, says the authorities “discuss and are trying to reason” with the imprisoned Salafists, but have no choice but to use force against aggressors.

A Salafist was killed last year by Hamas forces who had come to arrest him.

Some jihadists “were planning to kill their neighbors and relatives,” Zahar said, provoking Hamas to step in to prevent “a huge explosion.”

Asked about the ISIS links, Abu al-Ina al-Ansari says they merely consist of “an exchange of ideas but are not organizational.”

“We agree with the clear message sent by the Islamic State to the miscreant West: ‘Stop your attacks, we will stop our attacks’.”

PA PM: We’re following the path of the Nazi Mufti

May 11, 2016

PA PM: We’re following the path of the Nazi Mufti, Israel National News, Dalit Halevi, May 11, 2016

mufti-and-hitlerHaj Amin al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler Wikimedia Commons

Hamdallah termed al-Husseini, who was a close confidante of Adolf Hitler, as “the pure-hearted son” of the “Palestinian nation.”

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Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday took part in the Seventh International Bayt al-Maqdis Islamic Conference in Ramallah, Samaria, in which he aired libel against Israel apparently on the background of its counter-terror actions.

In his speech, he called on the international community to get involved in order to “defend” the Arab residents of Jerusalem who are dealing with “illegal” activities from Israel “that oppose international law and human rights.”

Hamdallah’s call to take action against Israel urged international pressure so as to end the “occupation” and establish an independent Palestinian state along the 1949 Armistice lines, with Jerusalem as its “eternal capital.”

He accused Israel of trying to wipe out the “Arab national identity” of Jerusalem, which is in fact the ancient 3,000-year-old capital of the Jewish people. As part of his accusations, he alleged that Israel is rewriting history and expelling Arabs from the capital.

The PA Prime Minister went on to say the Conference is inculcating the path of former Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, who infamously sealed a pact with the genocidal Nazi regime to wipe out all Jews.

Hamdallah termed al-Husseini, who was a close confidante of Adolf Hitler, as “the pure-hearted son” of the “Palestinian nation.”

In the Conference meeting PA minister of holy sites Yusuf Ida’is also referred to the infamous mufti.

“This Conference is a continuation of the First Islamic Bayt al-Maqdis Conference held by the deceased Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini on Palestinian soil in 1931, and here today we walk in his path according to the instructions of the (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas,” said Ida’is.

In an ironic twist given Hamdallah’s claims of rewriting history in Jerusalem, Bayt al-Maqdis is in fact the Arabicized version of the Hebrew “Beit Hamikdash,” which is the term for the Holy Temples that stood in Jerusalem.

Op-Ed: Trump’s “peace through strength” for USA also applies to Israel

May 8, 2016

Op-Ed: Trump’s “peace through strength” for USA also applies to Israel, Israel National News, Ted Belman, May 8, 2016

(A problem with “make them an offer they will refuse” is that they may accept it, make more demands and then renege on the original deal. History suggests that such an outcome is more likely than not. Israel would then be more endangered than if the offer had not been made. As the author suggests, Israel is not likely to survive a “two state solution” and peace through strength is the only viable solution.– DM)

The next American president may decide to dictate a solution, pressure Israel as the only party that can be pressured, and an Israeli response that is responsive and defensive could lose the day.

A recent article titled Time for an Israeli strategy for the next American administration, galvanized me to write a response. I did not agree with the strategy set out and normally would not have made mention of the article except that it was written by Eric Mandel.

Not only is he the director of MEPIN™ which is read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisers, members of the Knesset, and journalists, he is also the Northeast Co-Chair of StandWithUs, an international organization dedicated to educating the public about Israel, while fighting the BDS movement. His views and policy prescriptions should not be ignored.

He argues that “Israel must begin to think differently, actively show that it is trying to be the partner for peace, and demonstrate that it will manage the situation instead just playing defense.” I believe that Israel is just doing that. Netanyahu always says that he is ready for negotiations without pre-conditions and Naftali Bennett is pushing for an improvement to the economic conditions for both Arab Israelis and Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Mandel thinks they aren’t doing enough.

He fears that pressure will build on Israel to make moves toward peace. He argues that Israel should take the initiative for peace rather than to be resistant to it.

Better judgment is needed going forward, and the excuse that Bibi must manage his fragile 61-seat coalition by placating the hard right doesn’t cut it anymore. Israel, for the foreseeable future, needs America diplomatic and security support.

The next American president may decide to dictate a solution, pressure Israel as the only party that can be pressured, and an Israeli response that is responsive and defensive could lose the day.

He is too much of a defeatist for me. He obviously believes in the two-state solution, no matter what the arguments against it, are.

ut to be fair to him, he has a clear-eyed view of what Israel is up against.

If the next president is a Democrat, you will hear growing calls for a balanced “even-handed” approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Bernie Sanders Democrats are on the ascendancy, and will be casting a large shadow on the party for the next generation.

In today’s progressive parlance, even-handed does not necessarily mean support for two states for two peoples.

Rather, it means to many of the “Palestinian Lives Matter” Democrats, two Palestinian states – one in what now comprises Israel within the 1949 armistice line, and one in the West Bank and Gaza. Too many well-meaning people have been hijacked by the BDS movement, being misled into believing that if Israel just left the West Bank, peace would break out. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

He recommends that Israel, “Take to the offensive, put some plans down on the table as soon as there is a new administration, work with them, and then actively manage the situation and expectations.” One can’t argue with this except that he suggests the wrong plans to be put forward.

Some ideas: Announce a readiness for an Israeli settlement freeze beyond the land swap areas (6%) in exchange for Palestinian, Arab League, UN recognition of a Jewish State as envisioned by UNGA Resolution 181, the end of the (Arab) right of return, and acceptance of a totally demilitarized Judea and Samaria. Offer conditional recognition of a Palestinian state for a signed end of conflict agreement.

Consider convening an Israeli summit of the nation’s security and military leaders, past and present, to discuss the maximum land offer to the Palestinians that won’t endanger Israeli security interests. Put Bogie Ya’alon in charge, as he is one of the very few members of the government respected by much of the opposition. Other than the Jordan River Valley and the settlement blocs, there is much to discuss that would not endanger Israel.

There is nothing new in suggesting that we offer a settlement freeze outside the settlement blocs. My opposition to doing so is that even if the quid quo pro is that the world accepts our building in the blocs, we would end up holding the rest of the land on trust for the Palestinians should they ever decide to take it. But in exchange for this offer, he wants recognition as a Jewish state by Palestinians, Arab League and the UN. He also wants them to recognize that the area will be demilitarized and that there will be no refugee return to Israel. He knows that these demands won’t be accepted but thinks there is value in making the offer.

I disagree. Time, and again, Israel makes offers subject to caveats, only to find out that the world accepts the offerings and ignores the caveats. For example, Netanyahu, under great pressure, offered a two states for two peoples, solution providing the Palestinian state be demilitarized and Israel be recognized as a Jewish state. Not only did Obama minimize the demilitarization to a few years only but he ignored R 242 and called for a solution based on ’67 lines. The upcoming French resolution will offer even less to Israel.

Far better to work to convince the next US administration, especially one led by Trump, to abandon the Two State Solution (TSS) for something more workable and equitable (in Israel’s eyes) and which will bring us closer to peace. Trump is now embracing Reagan’s policy of peace through strength. Time to apply the same policy to the Israel/Arab conflict and support and strengthen Israel to achieve peace.

As for the basket case of Hamas’ Gaza, offer a seaport in exchange for demilitarization with acceptance of all previous agreements. It won’t happen, but it may smooth the way for the Turkish-Israeli rapprochement that both nations need and want.

Nothing new here. Israel would gladly lift the blockade, not just allow a sea port, in exchange for these things. Turkey is demanding a seaport without these things. Israel should not capitulate to Turkey without them.

He is realistic enough to say:

These conciliatory steps are all conditional; nothing will be given up if the Palestinians remain intransigent or if Israeli security is seen to be compromised.

The Palestinian Authority in all likelihood would not accept any of this, but that is not the point. The goal is to change the dynamic going forward, putting Israel on the diplomatic offensive to blunt the pro-BDS movement, and create a situation for an improved relationship with the American people, who do not understand why Israel is building in communities in the West Bank. America should simultaneously pressure the Gulf Cooperation Council to move towards a more public relationship with Israel, as Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Morocco now have.

The diplomatic offensive he calls for, is basically to convince the world that we are ready to capitulate. The American people don’t need convincing of the rightness of our cause and conduct.. 70% of them support Israel, many of whom want Israel to retain Judea and Samaria.

Better still, we should mount a diplomatic offensive to convince the world that the TSS is not a prescription for peace, that Israel has the only right to Judea and Samaria, that the Arabs and the BDS movement they finance, want the destruction of Israel not the creation of a Palestinian state and for a lasting peace Israel must remain in control of J&S forever.

He wants to convince America that Israel is making “painful compromises for a lasting peace”. The problem is that the more painful the compromises, the less lasting the peace.

Op-Ed: Read Peter Beinart and you’ll vote Donald Trump

May 6, 2016

Op-Ed: Read Peter Beinart and you’ll vote Donald Trump, Israel National News, David Friedman, May 6, 2016

Several weeks ago, I was “outed” as one of Donald Trump’s two advisors on the relationship between the United States of America and the State of Israel. It is an honor and a privilege to advise Mr. Trump on a critical issue that is near and dear to my heart, and I fervently hope that I have the opportunity to assist him in developing and implementing policies that strengthen both countries and the unbreakable bond between them.

Right now, however, the bloodsport of American presidential politics is in full bloom, and within that scented garden emerges a recent Op-Ed piece by CNN panelist, Peter Beinart, published in Israel’s left-wing paper Haaretz. Beinart, a well-known supporter of J Street, New Israel Fund and the BDS movement, decries Trump’s selection of Israel advisors as a cynical charade by which Trump leverages Jews in his employ to go “all in” on Israel solely to garner political capital. According to Beinart, these token Jews, myself included, are just willing pawns in a modern day Game of Thrones, all willing to fall on their proverbial swords for Trump the King.

I have never met Mr. Beinart nor do I care to, and he knows absolutely nothing about me. Had he made the slightest inquiry (apparently no longer necessary for modern journalists), he would have known that I am not in Mr. Trump’s employ,  have hundreds of other clients, and hold views on Israel that are entirely independent of any political movement or candidate.  Those views have been developed over more than thirty years of study of historical accounts and scholarly works, interaction with Israeli political, military and business leaders, and probably 100 trips or more to the Holy Land. I didn’t just come out of “central casting,” as Beinart implies, to facilitate some political theatre, and my beliefs are not for sale to the highest bidder. The same holds true for Jason Greenblatt, Mr. Trump’s other advisor, whom I have known for years.

But I do want to thank Mr. Beinart for getting this issue out on the table, albeit clumsily and disingenuously. Because his reflexive reaction to my involvement in the Trump candidacy lays bare how dangerous the Jewish left is to the State of Israel.

Let’s look at the criticisms offered by Mr. Beinart of views that I have previously expressed. He thinks I’m no good because  (1) I have accused President Obama of “blatant anti-Semitism,” (2) I have questioned the wisdom of Israel bestowing the benefits of citizenship, including free tuition at some of its best universities, upon those who advocate the overthrow of the State, and (3) I have likened J Street supporters to “kapos during the Nazi era.” Let’s unpack each of those a bit.

First, Obama’s anti-Semitism. Here’s the context – Hamas puts on school plays in which 10 year olds dressed as terrorists plunge fake knives into 10 year olds dressed as Jews to the delight of the audience, and Palestinian Authority leaders (they’re supposed to be the “moderate ones”) bestow praise upon all participating in the “knife intifada.” Asked to comment on the unspeakable tragedy of innocent Jewish civilians being murdered by knife-wielding Islamic radicals, Obama and Kerry do little more than condemn the proverbial “cycle of violence.” I’m sorry, but this is pure and outright murder and any public figure who finds it difficult to condemn it as such without diluting the message with geo-political drivel is engaging in “blatant anti-Semitism.”

Second, the wisdom of free stuff for those engaged in advocating the overthrow of the State of Israel. Every civilized country other than Israel punishes treason. In the United States, advocating to overthrow the government by force or violence can get you life in prison. In Israel, Islamic radical citizens speak this way all the time, often on the way back and forth from world class institutions of higher learning which they attend for free. Is this a good idea? Is there no minimal allegiance required for Israeli citizenship? Sure seems like a fair question to me.

Finally, are J Street supporters really as bad as kapos? The answer, actually, is no. They are far worse than kapos – Jews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death camps. The kapos faced extraordinary cruelty and who knows what any of us would have done under those circumstances to save a loved one? But J Street? They are just smug advocates of Israel’s destruction delivered from the comfort of their secure American sofas – it’s hard to imagine anyone worse.

Mr. Beinart, therefore, has done us a service, albeit unintentionally. He has shown us the danger of the Jewish left – the lost souls who blame Israel for not making a suicidal “peace” with hateful radical Islamists hell bent on Israel’s destruction. This is Hillary Clinton’s crowd, and they are no friends of Israel.

Donald Trump’s view of Israel isn’t quite as nuanced as that of Mr. Beinart nor as academic as that of President Obama. He thinks that when radical Islamic terrorists are trying to kill you, the right thing to do is kill them first. Don’t negotiate, reason or cajole. Just defeat them. Or as Mr. Trump would say, “win.”

So please read Peter Beinart’s latest column. It will leave you convinced to vote for Donald Trump.

New Palestinian pact-for-terror

April 25, 2016

New Palestinian pact-for-terror, DEBKAfile, April 25, 2016

TerrorTunnels480

Israel embarked on a P. R. campaign to play down the extent of the threat which surfaced in one day in the discovery of Hamas tunnel near Kibbutz Sufa, and the suicide bombing of Jerusalem bus No. 12 on April 18, with 20 people injured. The police initially claimed for example that the explosion was due to a technical problem with the engine. But the two developments actually represented a sharp and serious escalation of the Palestinian wave of terror against Israel.

Neither of the operations was carried out by “lone wolves” but rather by large terror networks. The secret tunnel discovered in the Gaza border area was built by the Hamas military wing, the Izaddin al-Qassam brigades, while the suicide bombing in Jerusalem was carried out by the Hamas infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, specifically its operatives in the Bethlehem area.

Each of these terror networks poses a different challenge to Israel.

In Gaza, the Hamas political leadership is no longer in contact with the heads of its military wing. Neither the top commanders nor the regional commanders of the brigades obey any Hamas political body. They only heed three sources:

1. The Hamas military command framework headed by Mohammad Deif and Marwan Issa.

2. Iranian or Hizballah intelligence services, which maintain contacts with them and often provide funds or weapons.

3. The ISIS affiliate in the Sinai, with which the Hamas military wing maintains operational ties.

There is an equally serious problem in Judea and Samaria. Over the past few weeks, the Hamas terror networks have started to make contact with sleeper cells from Fatah’s Tanzim paramilitary force that have the knowledge, ability, means and experience for major terrorist attacks against Israel, such as the Jerusalem bus bombing.

This dormant wing of Mohammad Abbas’s Fatah has began to show signs of life and willingness to return to the path of terror.

These contacts began immediately after publication of a letter from jailed Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti to members of the force that called on them to start coordinating their operations against Israel with Hamas. Nobody has bothered to explain how a senior terrorist jailed in a high-security Israeli prison succeeded in smuggling such a letter out.

The link between part of the Tanzim and the Hamas terror networks is no less dangerous than the tunnel discovered near Kibbutz Sufa, and it presages an escalation of terror operations in the future.

The only way to prevent a major deterioration of the security situation is to strike targets of the Izzadin al-Qassam brigades. There is no need to launch a total war against Hamas or to occupy Gaza.

But instead of responding as needed, Israel’s government and security establishment have released pictures of digging equipment that has finally succeeded in locating a single Hamas infiltration tunnel out of the many that exist, and claimed that those responsible for the Jerusalem bombing have yet to be identified. At the same time, senior officials and IDF officers continue to assert that Hamas is not seeking escalation.

Unfortunately, this can only mean a resurgence of the wave of terror.

PA preacher: Pray for genocide and Allah to punish ‘wicked’ Jews

April 24, 2016

PA preacher: Pray for genocide and Allah to punish ‘wicked’ Jews, Israel National News, Shoshana Miskin, April 24, 2016

A preacher on official Palestinian Authority (PA) television on Friday prayed that Allah should “count” his enemies, the enemies of Islam, and “kill them to the last one.”

The TV preacher then singled out for punishment “the wicked Jews” and “the atheists who help them,” according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

“Allah, punish your enemies, the enemies of religion, count their numbers and kill them to the last one, and bring them a black day. Allah, punish the wicked Jews, and those among the atheists who help them. Allah, we ask that you bestow upon us respect and honor by enabling us to repel them, and we ask you to save us from their evil,” said the Palestinian preacher.

Recently, the PA and Fatah have replaced using sermons to call for killing Jews with different ways of promoting killing Israelis: statements by leaders in support of terror attacks and their perpetrators, celebration and glorification of terrorists, music videos promoting violence and the killing of Israelis, and more.

While the terror and murder promotion has not stopped, the PA merely changed its means after foreign governments and the media condemned the sermons on PA TV, after PMW had reported on many cases which called for Muslims to exterminate Jews.

Since then, there have only been occasional calls for genocide in sermons and in speeches by religious leaders, such as the Mufti’s vehement calls for the killing of Jews.