From Ian:
PMW: Abbas’ advisor mocks terror victims
Abbas’ advisor Sultan Abu Al-Einein chose to mock terror victims running from a terrorist who shot at them with an automatic rifle. Earlier this week, terrorist Muhannad Al-Okabi entered the Be’er Sheva bus station with a knife and a pistol, murdered an off-duty soldier, then grabbed his automatic rifle and started shooting at people in the station. Security cameras showed people running from the terrorist before the security officers shot and killed him.
Abbas' advisor posted on his Facebook page the footage of people being shot at running from the scene, and expressed joy about the lethal attack. Glorifying the terrorist and possibly encouraging others to carry out attacks with knives, Abu Al-Einein focused on the knife carried by the terrorist and not the fact that he shot his victims. In the same post, Abu Al-Einein also glorified another murderer, Muhannad Halabi, who stabbed 2 Israelis to death earlier this month:
"For a long time the Israeli enemy officials have been boasting about the strength of their army, and they have described it as an 'invincible army,' which has become the fourth strongest army in the world.
Yesterday [Oct. 18, 2015], we saw the exact truth of this army: A [well-] armed army which was beaten by Martyr Muhannad Al-Okabi (i.e., terrorist who shot and killed 1 and wounded 11), and before him Muhannad Halabi (i.e., terrorist who stabbed and killed 2 and wounded 2), even though he was defenseless, and was not armed with anything but his right to his homeland and his Palestinian will - the same will which the great armies of the world have not been and will not be able to defeat or harm.
How many messages of sacrifice are showing in this scene? Armed soldiers throwing down their weapons out of fear of Muhannad's knife, others seeking a wall or fence out of fear of you, hero that you are. We loved you, Muhannad. We loved you, while you sowed life for all Palestinians.
We and the whole world saw soldiers flee, despite being armed with their weapons, the moment Martyr Muhannad [Al-Okabi] fell upon them, when he was 'defenseless' or 'pulling out a knife.' Thus he created another rung on the ladder of Palestinian praise, and has won the medal of honor as a Martyr whose name is engraved on every Palestinian's chest.
Note: I advise the enemy to arrest everyone whose name is Muhannad."
[Facebook page of Advisor to PA Chairman Abbas on NGOs
and Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu Al-Einein, Oct. 19, 2015]
Caroline Glick: France’s war against the Jews
France’s plan to use its position at the UN Security Council to bring about the deployment of international monitors to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been condemned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers as biased, unhelpful and detached from reality.
Certainly it is all those things. But France’s decision to use its diplomatic position to advance a plan which if implemented would end Israeli sovereignty over Judaism’s holiest site is first and foremost a French act of aggression against the Jewish state.
Contrary to what the French government would have us believe, France’s Temple Mount gambit is not an effort to quell the violence. French protestations of concern over the loss of life in the current tempest of Palestinian terrorism ring hollow.
France doesn’t really oppose Palestinian terrorism.
To the contrary, it facilitates it.
Every year, the French government pays millions of euros, dollars and shekels to Palestinian NGOs whose stated goal is to destroy Israel. Through its NGO agents, France finances the radicalization of Palestinian society. This French-financed radicalization makes Palestinian terrorism inevitable.
Much of the current rhetoric used by the Palestinians to reject Israel’s legitimacy and justify violence against Jews is found in strategic documents that France paid Palestinian NGOs to write.
Clifford Rosen: Anti-Zionists: Stop calling yourselves friends of the Jews
Too often, I come across some rabid hater of Israel who claims that they have no problem with the Jewish people. Their problems are with just Zionists, Zionism, and Israel. In fact, some of these people claim they love and admire the Jewish people and that some of their closest friends are Jewish. And then they ask me “If my closest friends are Jewish, how can I be anti-semitic?”
These claims are superficial and lazy at best and outright dishonest at worst. Granted, there are many critics of Israel who would like to see a two state solution that sees Israel retaining both its Jewish majority and Jewish character. These people are not the subject of this article. This article is directed at the people who claim they have nothing against the Jews, yet call for the destruction of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
For starters, calling for Israel’s destruction is discriminatory against the Jewish people because you are quick to give the Palestinians their own country, yet deny the Jews their right to self-determination. Under their agenda, Israeli Jews would have to live as a minority under Palestinian Arabs. Considering how the Jews have fared as a minority throughout the centuries (including the Arab world), this would be a recipe for disaster.
Ryan Bellerose: How To Be An Effective Jew Hater (“Peace Activist”)
It’s a fact that even if Jews aren’t actually doing anything for us to protest, we can just make something up, and people will buy it, no matter how ridiculous it is. You don’t even have to learn anything, just go buy a white and black checkered scarf and remember to talk about the Occupation a lot. The other advantage of this “cause” is that you can get Jews who hate themselves and Jews who love themselves too much to side with you in getting people to hate Jews. Just remember one thing: anything that is anti-Jewish can also be anti-Zionist, but more on that later. The other and more important factor is that if you are a pro-Palestinian – and even better – anti-Israel activist, you don’t have to pay attention to any human rights abuses anywhere else, even if they involve Palestinians! Assad in Syria is starving Palestinians? Don’t care. King of Jordan doesn’t let Palestinians vote? Don’t care. No Jews? It’s not news.
So here’s your nifty road map to a career in anti-Judaism, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism: Don’t start screaming about the evil Jews immediately! That’s right – you’ve got to build up to that. Otherwise, it just makes you look crazy and if you want to be an effective Jew hater you have to be smarter than that. For starters, whenever you can, replace the word Jew with Zionist. Don’t worry, because people who matter will know exactly who you are talking about (and so will those Jews). You can use words like Zionazi, Ziobot, and stuff like that, too. If you can work “Nazism” into your speech, it’s gold, because it attacks those Jews (Oops! I mean, of course, Zionists!) on an emotional level while at the very same time entirely delegitimising them. I know you would rather just do stuff to kill Jews right now, but this is a long-term plan so be patient.
Now that you have that out of the way, it’s time for the next step.
Join clubs, and always make sure that everyone in that club knows what a rebel you are by wearing a keffiyeh (that black and white scarf you bought earlier) and talking about The Occupation. And remember, it’s not a preoccupation with the occupation – it’s about you being a tragic figure who supports other causes, even though your cause is being entirely ignored (no matter how often you talk about it). Good clubs to join include those having to do with minorities. The gays are a good bet too, as long as you’re certain that the conversation never gets around to the fact that the same people who hate and want to kill the Jews are often those who also hate and want to kill the gays. When at club meetings, do your best to stand out – after all, it’s not about their stupid cause (their cause is secondary to yours), but rather about yours – which is, in a nutshell, to cause Jew hate. (h/t Bob Knot)
IsraellyCool: MUST WATCH: From The River To The Sea – A Call For Genocide
Another must-watch documentary by Pierre Rehov.
According to most Palestinians, “Israeli Occupation” means Tel Aviv, Ber Sheva and Haifa, and for their leaders, Palestine should be built “From the River to the Sea”. Meaning, should replace Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
In this disturbing film, “From the River to the Sea”, a revised version of “Hostages of Hatred” acclaimed director Pierre Rehov sets out to tell us the real story of those men, women and children, who have been shamefully used as mere pawns for over 50 years, by Arab leaders at first, by Palestinian leaders later on and until this very day but also by the United Nations’ body that was specially created to supposedly take care of them: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNWRA. (h/t Bob Knot)
Netanyahu has lost his best friend, but has Israel?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week lost one of his best – if not the best - political friends in the international arena for the past nine years - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. During his term, ties between two countries flourished: Canada severed diplomatic ties with Iran and supported Israel on several important votes at the UN and other international fora.
In a January 2014 visit to Israel, Harper told Israel's Knesset that "calling Israel an apartheid state was absurd" and pledged: "Through fire and water, Canada will stand with you."
Former Canadian Foreign Minister John Bird summed up the relationship well when he stated: "Israel has no better friend than Canada."
While experts on Israeli-Canadian ties do not foresee a change in ties between the two countries, they believe the intimacy will disappear – or at least lessen under Justin Trudeau, elected this week to lead Canada.
Trudeau has never visited Israel, but has the support of several top leaders of the large Canadian Jewish community. During the election campaign he said "the right" things, especially when speaking out against the anti-Israel boycott movement (BDS) and anti-Semitism. He expressed support for a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution but opposition to unilateral steps by either side.
One of Trudeau's closest advisers is Irwin Cotler, Canada's former justice minister, known as a fervent Israel supporter, who has helped its governments fight against the boycott movement and the legal measures adopted by the Palestinian against Israel on the world stage. Another Trudeau aide is Stephen Bronfman, son of Canadian Jewish billionaire Charles Bronfman.
Firebrand Arab MK to talk racism at Dutch Holocaust event
Hanin Zoabi, an Arab-Israeli lawmaker who recently called for a Palestinian uprising, is scheduled to speak about racism in Israel at a Holocaust commemoration event in the Dutch capital.
The November 8 event in Amsterdam is being organized by Platform Stop Racism and Exclusion, a far-left group that is shunned by local Jews for its members’ perceived animosity toward Israel and sympathy for Hamas. Zoabi’s attendance at the event was announced last week.
The Dutch group that invited her wrote on its Facebook page that in previous years it “paid attention to racism in the world (Germany, Austria, Greece) but not in Israel. Given recent events, discussing racism in Israel is unavoidable.” Zoabi will speak on “Israeli discrimination against Palestinians,” the text read.
The event where Zoabi will speak is in commemoration of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass” pogrom in 1938 against Austrian and German Jews. Many Holocaust historians view Kristallnacht as the opening shot in the Nazi-led campaign against the Jews.
The far-left group, previously known as NBK, has been commemorating Kristallnacht since 1992, often with the Jewish community. But in 2010, the Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands broke its ties with NBK because of the group’s perceived attempt to tie the Holocaust with the Arab-Israeli conflict.
NBK activist Miriyam Aouragh in 2004 organized a commemoration service in Amsterdam for Ahmed Yassin, a Hamas leader whom Israel killed that year. In 2009, NBK’s Kristallnacht commemoration featured a speech by Yassin Elforkani, an imam who in 2009 said that Jews in Damascus used blood to make matzah.
Pro-Hamas, Anti-Israel Journalist Appointed Comms Director for Jeremy Corbyn (VIDEO)
Guardian associate editor Seumas Milne has been appointed Director of Communications for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, the Telegraph reported on Tuesday.
Milne, Corbyn, and the Labour Party subsequently confirmed the news.
In addition to having defended terrorists who killed British soldiers, Milne twice penned columns explicitly supporting Hamas’s “right” to launch terror attacks against Israel, while rejecting Israel’s right to defend itself.
Here’s the relevant passage from his Guardian column during the 2014 summer war between Israel and Hamas.
So the Palestinians of Gaza are an occupied people, like those in the West Bank, who have the right to resist, by force if they choose – though not deliberately to target civilians. But Israel does not have a right of self-defence over territories it illegally occupies – it has an obligation to withdraw.
At a London rally that same summer, he also accused Israel of “industrial scale killing:”
Criticizing His People and Government, Palestinian Activist Offers US Students a Different Perspective (INTERVIEW)
Perhaps nowhere today is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more hotly debated than on college campuses. With the latest surge in terrorism in Israel, many pro-Israel students — like their brethren in the Jewish state — have been left with sense of unease, dread, and countless questions about what is driving young Palestinians to stab Jewish Israelis en masse.
In a bid to better understand the situation, nearly 100 students from Northeastern University in Boston recently gathered in an event organized by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America’s (CAMERA) campus arm to listen to noted Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid.
Eid, who hails from eastern Jerusalem, came prepared to offer an unlikely perspective. He directed significant blame towards his own people and their leaders, which is something rarely seen among Arab Muslims discussing the Middle East today.
The Northeastern talk was part of a nationwide CAMERA-sponsored speaking tour for Eid that includes the University of Albany, Binghamton University, Cornell University, Kenyon College, the University of Central Florida, the University of Miami, Florida International University, Ohio State University, Denison University, Elon University and Brooklyn College.
“I think it is very important that this CAMERA tour is coinciding with the unrest in the region now,” Eid said in an interview. “I have a very peaceful and important message. I want to promote peaceful reconciliation and coexistence between the Palestinians and Israelis.”
The Daily Freier Petitions MSNBC…..NOT to fire Ayman Mohyeldin! (satire)
The Daily Freier is leading the charge to ensure that troubled MSNBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin keeps his job. After last week’s reporting from Jerusalem where Mr. Mohyeldin demonstrated a somewhat selective ability to see things that everyone else can see, many have called for Ayman to be replaced or fired. But the Daily Freier has started a campaign, called ” #ISTANDWITHAYMAN “, to ensure that Mr. Mohyeldin stays employed with MSNBC for years to come.
The Daily Freier held a press conference outside Shuk HaCarmel today where spokesperson Shoshanna J. explained the newspaper’s solidarity in standing with Ayman. “These so-called pro-Israel sites like Israellycool, Elderofziyon, and some chick named “Lion of Zion” ….when they call to fire Ayman, what they’re really doing is stealing food off of the table of our families at the Daily Freier. I mean, Ayman is a goldmine for satirists. This man’s body of work is going to pay for my kids’ Bar Mitzvahs, and maybe even the ocean cruise with my husband Ethan that we’ve always dreamed of.” Shoshanna continued; “I don’t think these petitioners against Ayman actually know how satire works. Do you know how hard it is to find a guy as consistently and transparently ridiculous as Mr. Mohyeldin? Seeing drones nobody else can see? Not seeing knives that everyone else DOES see???? The Daily Freier’s stories don’t simply write themselves. OK OK, the ones about sleazy Tel Aviv guys in bracelet bars write themselves. But the other ones require research and development. And Ayman simply makes our lives at the Freier easy.”
Shoshanna concluded her remarks by saying “The Daily Freier calls on all like-minded fans of good satire to stand with us. Stand with justice. Stand with Ayman.”
Despite All: Jews Reclaim Jerusalem Synagogue after 80 Years
A key Jewish community in eastern Jerusalem – practically right under the Temple Mount, to be precise – celebrated its third milestone in six months on Monday: The return of the old Yemenite Great Synagogue in the Shiloach village to Jewish hands after nearly 80 years.
Defying a Supreme Court ruling handed down in February of this year, the Arab squatters on the holy property refused to leave – and were therefore forcibly removed from the building in a well-protected early-morning operation.
Given the sensitive nature of the mission, and the location – a neighborhood (Silwan/Shiloach) largely populated by hostile Arabs, overlooking the City of David – and the wave of terrorism currently underway, many Border Police units, special police units and others took part.
This past May, festive Jewish prayers were held in a small part of the long-hidden and inaccessible Hechal Shlomo synagogue of the Yemenite village - for the first time in 77 years. The synagogue is part of the “Yemenite Hekdesh Benvinisti” community buildings owned by the old Yemenite community of Jerusalem, which first struck roots there in the 1880's.
Citing 'political instability,' SAS Airlines to cut Israel flights
SAS Airlines, the flag carrier of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, has announced it will discontinue its Copenhagen-Tel Aviv route in March 2016.
"Tel Aviv is an expensive route to operate in stiff competition and we don't have a sufficient profitability to keep it," a SAS spokesperson was quoted as saying. "We can also see that political instability is affecting the route."
SAS is also cutting service on its Moscow and Ankara routes.
After a decade-long absence from the Israel market, SAS launched the Copenhagen-Tel Aviv route in 2012.
Huge recent hack attack said to target mainly Israeli servers
A new round of hacking attacks is being directed specifically against Israel, cyber-security giant Check Point believes. The exploit, which uses infected Microsoft Word documents to insert malicious code into a user’s computer, “appears to be politically motivated, instigated against a particular nation-state,” the company said.
With that, said the company, the identity of the hackers behind the attack is unclear, and may never be known, because it is almost impossible to trace such attacks back to the original server that issued them. And, while Check Point would not name the specific targets of the attack, it said that they included Israeli public (i.e., government) and private organizations, and that the attacks had been going on “for some time.”
“Two months ago, a malicious Rich Text Format (RTF) document came to the attention of Check Point Threat Intelligence & Research via a worried high-profile client in the public sector,” the company said in a blog post. “The file had been sent to many employees, several of whom opened the file; as a result, their machines became infected. Check Point took actions to prevent this document from further infecting the customer’s network, and also analyzed the file to better understand the attack.”
JPost Editorial: The UNESCO bid
Manipulation of history to achieve political goals is a common practice. Turks denied the Armenian genocide in order to construct an idyllic nationalist narrative and allay Armenian separatism. Japanese whitewashed the atrocities of imperial Japan before and during World War II in school textbooks in order to present a more pacifist face of their national identity.
And Palestinians, aided by a number of Arab and Muslim nations and their anti-Zionist fellow travelers, systematically deny Jewish ties to the Land of Israel in order to construct their own national narrative that leaves the Jews out of the story.
As part of this ongoing campaign of historical negationism, a group of Arab countries working in the name of the Palestinians is calling on a United Nations cultural institution to erase Jewish history from Jerusalem. On Wednesday, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are slated to present a six-page draft resolution to the UNESCO Executive Board that calls to rename the Western Wall – the Kotel in Hebrew – as the Buraq Plaza.
In the Palestinian narrative, put forward by the Palestinian Authority in its official media outlets, in textbooks used in PA schools and in speeches and sermons by politicians and officials employed by the PA , the Jewish people’s ties to the Land of Israel are systematically erased, ignored and denied. Rachel’s Tomb is presented as the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque, the Kotel is described simply as Al-Buraq Wall, supposedly the place where Muhammad’s winged horse al-Buraq was tied after his night-flight from Mecca.
But it was not always this way. Back in 1925, the Supreme Muslim Council, in a booklet published in English for tourists visiting the Temple Mount, stated, “The fact that Haram el-Sharif stands where in the past Solomon’s temple stood is unimpeachable. This is also the place where, according to tradition, David built an altar to God.”
UNESCO and the End of U.S. Honor
Kerry knows that even if the U.S. were still funding the UNESCO farce, it would not have the votes to stop this outrage. Like the rest of the UN, despite its high-flown rhetoric about saving the world, the virus of Jew hatred is integral to UNESCO’s behavior. Yet for the Obama administration even this disgusting proposal is not enough to motivate it to outrage or at least a minimal display of American dignity. This was a moment for an American leader to call on other civilized nations to walk out of UNESCO rather than be part of such a disgraceful attack on the Jews. Instead, Kerry chose to fawn over the UNESCO board on the eve of this effort without mentioning it. Only an administration with no conception of honor could have behaved in such a manner.
Rather than reaffirming an American commitment to this bankrupt body, the message from the United States should have been to tell UNESCO that there would be consequences if it passes this resolution. Congress has done all it can by cutting off funding and not even the creative law breaking efforts of the administration has found a way to contravene that law. It will have to fall to Obama’s successor to find a way to make plain the American people’s refusal to have anything to do with an anti-Semitic UN agency. But even if that successor eventually does the right thing, the disgrace of Kerry’s humiliating exhibition in Paris should never be forgotten.
UNESCO condemns Israeli ‘aggression’ on Temple Mount
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization passed a resolution Wednesday condemning ongoing Israeli archaeological excavations near the Temple Mount and elsewhere in Jerusalem’s Old City. The resolution proposal had originally sought to name the Western Wall a Muslim religious site, but Arab states struck that demand from the draft earlier in the day.
It also condemned the “aggression and illegal measures taken against the freedom of worship and access of Muslims to Al-Aqsa Mosque and Israel’s attempts to break the status quo since 1967.”
Twenty-six UNESCO representatives voted in favor of the resolution, six voted against, and twenty-five abstained. The United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Estonia opposed the resolution.
The resolution also recognized Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron as Muslim sites.
The vote came hours after the Arab states withdrew their demand that UNESCO declare the Western Wall an “integral part” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
UNESCO Passes Arab Resolution: Cave of Patriarchs 'Islamic'
UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) passed a resolution Wednesday listing the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem as Muslim sites.
The resolution - which passed with 26 in favor, six voted against, and 25 abstentions - condemned Israel for archaeological excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem and particularly near the Temple Mount.
An initial draft of the resolution had also called for the Kotel (Western Wall) to be listed as an Islamic site - or more specifically as an "extension of the Al Aqsa Mosque" - but that detail was hastily withdrawn after widespread condemnation, including from UNESCO's own Director-General.
The revised draft also toned-down some of the more blatant anti-Israel language in the original, including referring to Jerusalem as the "occupied capital of Palestine."
Nevertheless, the resolution accepted Wednesday does co-opt two other ancient Jewish holy sites: the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb, which contain the remains of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs and are regular sites of pilgrimage for Jewish worshipers.
Both sites, however, have seen Muslims lay claim to them as well - which including the building of mosques directly on top of the Jewish shrines.
Honest Reporting: New York Times Gets Judaism’s Holiest Site Wrong
It’s an all too common error that appears in far too many media outlets. The New York Times has published the following:
The Western Wall is not the holiest site in Judaism. It is, in fact, the Temple Mount. The Western Wall is the closest site that Jews can pray to the site of the destroyed ancient temples and is a part of a retaining wall of the structure of the Second Temple.
Aside from the New York Times’s statement being factually inaccurate, it is important to ensure that the correct and accurate information is out there particularly at a time when Israel’s enemies are attempting to delegitimize the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
Iran Warns U.S.: New Sanctions Will End Nuclear Deal
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday that any new sanctions by the United States would effectively terminate the recently announced Iranian nuclear deal, which Khamenei officially endorsed Wednesday in a letter, according to regional reports.
In a letter to President Hassan Rouhani released early Wednesday, Khamenei underlined his opposition to the United States but said that he endorses the accord reached between Tehran and world powers earlier this year in Vienna.
However, if the United States does not fully terminate sanctions, the Islamic Republic will consider this a breach of the deal, according to Khamenei.
This demand could cause trouble moving forward, as the United States has only agreed to suspend nuclear sanctions on Iran and maintain other sanctions on terrorist entities affiliated with the Islamic Republic.
The Obama administration also has promised that if Iran breaches the deal or United Nations prohibitions—such as ones preventing Iran from testing ballistic missiles—it would move to reimpose the sanctions.
Khamenei called this a deal breaker.
10 Ways Iran Has Flouted International Law Since Signing the Nuclear Deal
In recent weeks, Iran has consistently shown its contempt for international law, even as it seeks legitimacy in that same code.
2) Ballistic Missiles – Iran test-launched a precision-guided ballistic missile earlier this month in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. U.S. ambassador to the UN Samantha Power publicly stated last week that the launch was in fact a violation of Security Council resolutions. The United States has said that it will bring up the violation at the Security Council.
8) United Nations Security Council Resolutions – In addition to the instances mentioned above, top Iranian officials have said that Iran refuses to be bound by United Nations Security Council resolutions. “To follow our defense programs, we don’t ask permission from anyone,” Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said after the test-launch of ballistic missiles last week. Dehghan’s statement echoed an earlier and more explicit boast by President Hassan Rouhani: “We will buy, sell and develop any weapons we need and we will not ask for permission or abide by any resolution for that.” Rouhani has claimed that Iran may violate UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which governs the nuclear deal, without violating the nuclear deal itself.
9) Destruction of Israel – Although it is prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention to incite to commit genocide, the nuclear deal has not stopped Iran’s leaders from threatening Israel’s destruction. Khamenei said last month that Israel will be gone in 25 years. “We are glad that we are in the forefront of executing supreme leader’s order to destroy the Zionist regime,” Major General Ataollah Salehi, the commander of the Iranian army, boasted two weeks later. A week before the nuclear deal was agreed upon, former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is often describes as a “moderate,” said that Israel would one day be wiped off the map.
StandWithUs: The Persian Carpet Salesman and the Iran Nuclear Deal
Ami Horowitz meets with a tough Persian negotiator to find out how he thinks America fared in the Iran deal negotiations.
Jimmy Carter Offers Help for Russia’s Bombing Campaign in Syria
Former President Jimmy Carter said recently that he provided maps of Islamic State positions in Syria to the Russian embassy in Washington, a move apparently at odds with the Obama administration’s official policy of not cooperating with Russia in the Syrian war.
Carter said on Sunday in Georgia that he knows Russian President Vladimir Putin “fairly well” because they “have a common interest in fly fishing.” When he met with Putin in April along with other global leaders to discuss the crises in Syria and Ukraine, the Russian president gave him an email address so the two could discuss his “fly fishing experiences, particularly in Russia,” Carter said.
The civil war in Syria, where U.S. officials say Russia has bombed rebels and CIA-backed groups rather than the Islamic State terrorist group, has also been a topic of conversation between the two. Carter said he sent maps of the Islamic State’s locations in Syria, produced by the Carter Center, to the Russian embassy so Moscow could improve the accuracy of its strikes.
“I sent [Putin] a message Thursday and asked him if he wanted a copy of our map so he could bomb accurately in Syria, and then on Friday, the Russian embassy in Atlanta—I mean in Washington, called down and told me they would like very much to have the map,” Carter said at his Sunday school class in Georgia, according to a video of his remarks first aired by NBC News. “So in the future, if Russia doesn’t bomb the right places, you’ll know it’s not Putin’s fault but it’s my fault,” he added as the audience laughed.
Only The Jews Are Supposed To Make The Arabs Happy
John Kerry justifies Palestinian Arab rage on the “settlements” -- forgetting, I suppose, that Arabs are in a rage everywhere, about everything.
Only a few hours ago the Secretary of State also announced that Israeli civilians ought to be sitting ducks. They should quit defending themselves when faced with any Palestinian knife, gun or car attack, events now becoming “the new normal” throughout the Jewish State. The Jews ought to keep taking it as they used to in the good old days.
In fact both Kerry and the UN’s Ban Ki-moon are rushing to Israel to quell the violence that they blame on “both sides” – like blaming Pearl Harbor and 9/11 on both sides and blaming the woman for getting raped. She asked for it just as Israel keeps asking for Palestinian discontent, frustration, rage and plain unhappiness
If you distill all the headlines this is what they amount to – The Arabs Are Not Happy!
That is all the world cares about, making these people comfy and content and it is up to Israel to gratify and satisfy these insatiable darlings.
David Collier: An open letter to Theresa May, Home Secretary of the UK
Rt Hon Theresa May MP
I spent the weekend of the 17 and 18th October 2015 at the School for African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) to attend a conference. SOAS was one of the specific universities “named and shamed” as an institution that gives a platform to extremists. The conference was the 10th Annual Conference of the SOAS Palestine Society titled ‘Settler and Citizens: A Critical View of Israel’.
Some questions.
1. If Hamas or Islamic Jihad, were to create an academic argument for their position, how would it differ from the one on display at these events?
2. If the ‘Palestinian society’ is addressing the ‘Palestinian issue’, why do you think matters that you would normally associate with such a cause (charity, reconciliation, peace, education, investment, health) are *never* addressed?
3. If during such an event, an ‘academic’ casts aside Palestinian opinion, suggesting BDS has ‘no time to wait for Palestinians to make their mind up’, where is BDS placed on the political map and should our universities be providing a platform for it?
4. The message at the conference was monotone. Israel is racist, ethnically cleanses the Palestinians, commits genocide against them, is a settler state, is illegitimate, is illegal, is violent, cannot be negotiated with, hates blacks, kills children for profit, wields incommensurate power and must be removed from the map. Why is this disgraceful message allowed *unopposed* and given a platform of its own without a single dissenting voice?
Teacher banned from classroom after Facebook post saying Hitler ‘was right’
Mahmudul Choudhury, 35, was reported to police after a Jewish student spotted his approval of the anti-semitic message on the social network site.
The image of Hitler appears with the words: “Yes man, you were right... I could have killed all the Jews, but I left some of them to let you know why I was killing them.”
Choudhury reposted the image on July 11 last year with the comment: “Yes now we could see why ProtectiveEdge” - referring to the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict.
He was fined £465 in February after admitting the racially aggravated use of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.
Earlier this month a panel at the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) announced it was banning Choudhury from teaching indefinitely in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children's home in England.
'Mein Kampf' to Be Sold in Germany
Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s malevolent and malignant anti-Semitic manifesto, will be sold in German bookstores starting in January.
The Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History (IFZ), funded by the German government, has edited an annotated version of the book, and will publish it after the copyright held by the German state of Bavaria expires in January 2016.
For those wanting more, the book will offer 3,700 comments giving supposed analysis. IFZ’s Christian Hartmann told NBC News Hitler’s “800-page book is in great parts anti-Semitic” and “full of allusions and assertions, which are difficult to understand in the 21st century,” thus justifying the need for the copious comments.
When news broke in March that the demonic book might be released, Levi Salomon, spokesman for the Berlin-based Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism, said, “I am absolutely against the publication of ‘Mein Kampf,’ even with annotations. Can you annotate the Devil? Can you annotate a person like Hitler?”
The delivery drone that never leaves ground
It might put an end to those irritating missed delivery cards and the fleets of couriers ferrying our internet shopping to our homes.
A new type of robotic vehicle could soon be carrying our packages and parcels to our doors, according to designers.
The Transwheel drone uses robotic arms to carry deliveries on single self-balancing wheel.
It would use GPS to navigate between locations and facial recognition software to confirm the identity of recipients.
For larger items, the drones could also work together to share the load.
Kobi Shikar, an engineering and design student at Shenkar School of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan, Israel, claims they could even replace the need for container lorries.
He said the robotic delivery service could replace the need for large delivery vehicles clogging up the roads but perhaps more usefully it may also remove the need to deliver items during working hours.
iTunes, Google Play Music face a surprise rival – an Israeli start-up
Overnight, an Israeli cloud-based music access platform start-up has become one of the world’s largest digital music services.
Comparable in size to iTunes and Google Play Music, eMusic was bought by Ramat Gan-based TriPlay for an undisclosed amount in cash and stock. The deal retains the executives and employees of eMusic and integrates both companies’ operations, TriPlay said.
With the acquisition, TriPlay gets a catalog of over 25 million songs from every genre, and a host of loyal users who swear by the service, eschewing the more commercial services that play the “same old stuff” and preferring eMusic, which chiefly features music by independent and new artists.
It’s fitting that his company should be the one to take up the cause of eMusic, its artists and its listeners, TriPlay founder and CEO Tamir Koch told The Times of Israel in a late-night interview just hours after completing the deal.
“eMusic users are independent spirits who don’t want to be tied down or buttonholed, and that includes being tethered to a specific device. Our platform allows users to access music they own from the cloud on practically any connected device out there. We provide accessibility on over 14 platforms via the web and apps, so users are free to listen to their music their own way.”
In History of Jewish Lawyers, Alan Dershowitz and Abraham Are Two of a Kind (INTERVIEW)
In his latest sharp-witted work, the world’s perhaps best-known Jewish lawyer profiles the man he considers to the first-ever Jewish lawyer: the biblical patriarch Abraham.
Retired Harvard Law School professor Alan M. Dershowitz, who has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights,” on Oct. 6 came out with Abraham: The World’s First (But Certainly Not Last) Jewish Lawyer. The attorney and Israel advocate says he has been working on the book for essentially 70 of his 79 years.
“Abraham is the only biblical character that starts his career arguing with God,” Dershowitz explains, referring to Abraham’s protest against God’s planned destruction of the town of Sodom. In this narrative, Abraham convinces God not to “sweep away the righteous with the wicked.”
“What could be more appropriate for a criminal lawyer?…I have taught about him and thought about him, and finally, at the age of 77, decided to write about him—since that was about the age that Abraham was when some of these adventures took place,” says Dershowitz.
The book also profiles some of the leading Jewish attorneys since Abraham, including Louis Brandeis, Theodor Herzl, Rene Cassin, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Irwin Cotler. It highlights Dershowitz’s understanding of why Jews are so prominent in the legal field — “We’ve had a lot of practice, as a people, in defending ourselves, but also defending others,” he says — and candidly elucidates the author’s four decades as a practicing lawyer.
Defying Terror, Christian Zionists Flock to Aid Samaria Farmers
With the end of the shmitta year, during which according to Jewish law the land of Israel must lie fallow, farmers throughout Israel are picking up where they left off and working the land once again.
Lending them a helping hand will be several hundreds of Christian volunteers from Hayovel, a US-based Chrisitian-Zionist organization which organizes solidarity trips to Samaria to support farmers in Israel's front line communities.
The group has had remarkable success in recent years, and the current wave of brutal Arab terrorism has not deterred them at all - in fact, if anything it has buoyed their efforts.
In honor of the new harvest, leading Hayovel activist Zac Waller - whose anthem of solidarity during last year's Operation Protective Edge went viral - has released a new song hailing the "Restoration" of the people of Israel in its ancestral homeland.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva, he explained that inspiration for his songs come easily, since they unite his life passions: music and "the God, Land and People of Israel."
A Wing and a Prayer: American WWII Aviators Who Flew For Israel
On May 14, 1948 David Ben-Gurion and his colleagues announced the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel, which was to be open to all Jews and which pledged to ensure the rights of all its citizens regardless of race or religion.
The new state was proclaimed at 6:00pm (EST). U.S. President Truman’s recognition followed 11 minutes later.
Many people assume that because Truman issued an immediate recognition of the Jewish state that the U.S. was firmly committed to the country’s survival. But as A Wing And A Prayer makes clear, the truth is that America was actively hostile to the new Jewish state.
As noted by Prof. Ralph Lowenstein, dean emeritus of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida, who’s featured several times in A Wing And A Prayer, it wasn’t until 1962 that President Kennedy authorized the first arms shipments to Israel. Before then, and especially during the run up to the 1948 war, the fledgling state faced opposition from nearly every arm of the U.S. government—including the State Department, the Treasury, the CIA, and the FBI.
During 1947-1948—those critical months when Israel’s survival hung in the balance—U.S. authorities took active measures to foil Jewish statehood. America enforced an international arms embargo and also revived its Neutrality Act. The U.S. government threatened to revoke the citizenship of any American who tried to join the Jewish defense forces. American Jews could legally donate funds to the Jews of Palestine through the Jewish Agency, but all weapons shipments destined for Palestine were routinely confiscated at the N.Y. harbor.
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