From Ian:
JCPA: How a Blood Libel against Israel Is Born
On Friday, October 30, the primetime show The Agenda on Ontario’s TVO network, with anchorman Steve Paikin, explored the question of whether the Palestinian violence marks the beginning of the Third Intifada.
Two interviewees were asked to give their assessment: Yoni Goldstein, editor of the weekly Canadian Jewish News, and Khaled Elgindy, a fellow of the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy and former adviser to the Palestinian Authority on permanent-settlement issues from 2004 to 2009.
Elgindy presented a distorted picture of the situation that pins full responsibility for the Palestinian violence on Israel. He asserted that a new intifada would probably be a better option for all of the sides, because it would be organized and would seek clear-cut objectives. In other words, Elgindy implied that a wider outbreak of violence, which would wreak numerous civilian deaths like the Al-Aqsa Intifada that began in September 2000, would be better than the current level of Palestinian violence, which so far has not succeeded to kill large numbers of Israelis.
Elgindy went on to say:
I would disagree that the Israeli response has been effective. It’s not been effective. It’s been very repressive, and it has been almost as random in its violence as the knifing attacks except far more deadly in terms of the number of Palestinian casualties….
Israel has arrested hundreds of Palestinians basically just mass arrests rounding people up. It has shot into crowds of unarmed protestors. There is a sort of ‘shoot to kill’ policy that appears to be the main rules of engagement for Israeli security forces where they shoot first and ask questions later. And we saw just the other day, the Israeli police conducted an investigation into a Palestinian woman who was shot in the city of Afula and they found in fact that she wasn’t carrying any weapon. That the initial report that she had a knife was false and that she was simply executed for no reason.
To put it mildly, Khaled was not speaking the truth. There have been no cases whatsoever of Israeli security forces shooting into innocent crowds. The casualties among the Palestinians stem from the multitude of terror attacks against Jews, of which there have been many hundreds just in the last month. The arrests being made are not random, but are responses to violent activity or to intelligence information. Israeli open-fire orders do not allow shooting to kill except in life-threatening cases, such as the use of firearms, firebombs, knives and potentially lethal stonings.
The blood libel against Israel has reached a peak with the description of the incident where the woman in Afula was shot. The facts are entirely different from those Elgindy presents in his version.
The female attacker was not Palestinian, but rather an Israeli Arab residing in Nazareth named Asra Awad. She was not “executed,” but rather moderately wounded in her lower extremities by the gunfire and treated in a hospital.
PMW: Palestinian football tournament named after murderer who stabbed two to death last month
Terrorist Muhannad Halabi murdered two Israeli civilians and wounded the wife and infant of one of them, in a stabbing attack in the Old City of Jerusalem in October. Now, the Yasser Arafat Youth Center in Jenin has named a football tournament after the murderer.
Headline: "Bal'a Club wins the Martyr Halabi cup for football"
"The Martyr Yasser Arafat Youth Center (Al-Attara - Jenin) succeeded in organizing the first football tournament named after Martyr (Shahid) Muhannad Halabi, which took place on its football fields. The final game was played by the Yasser Arafat Youth Center and Bal'a, which rightly won the title." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 2, 2015]
Palestinian Media Watch has reported on official PA gestures in honor of this murderer. A PA municipality named a street after him and the mayor said, "This is the least we can do for Martyr Halabi." Abbas' Fatah movement brought soil from the Al-Aqsa Mosque to his grave. Private institutions and people have also honored terrorist Halabi, with the PA Bar Association awarding him an honorary law degree and parents in Gaza naming their newborn son after the murderer.
It is not surprising that private institutions and organizations like the Jenin youth club decide to honor murderers who have killed Israelis. Glorification of terrorist murderers is a practice repeatedly carried out by the PA and Fatah, as documented by PMW.
Sudanese Man Attempts to Murder Israeli on Ethiopian Airlines Flight
A Sudanese man was arrested by Ethiopian authorities for attacking an Israeli man on an Ethiopian Airlines flight from N’Djamena to Addis Ababa last week, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Tuesday.
A 54-year-old Israeli man, identified as Arik and an employee for an Israeli communications company that operates in Africa, was on the flight with the intent to get on another flight to Israel after landing in Addis Ababa.
“About 20 minutes before the plane started its descent the passenger sitting behind me identified me as Israeli and Jewish,” Arik told the newspaper.
“He came up behind my seat and started to choke me with a lot of force,” he continued, “and at first I couldn’t get my voice out and call for help. He hit me over the head with a metal tray and shouted ‘Allah akbar’ and ‘I will slaughter the Jew.’ Only after a few seconds, just before I was about to lose consciousness, did I manage to call out and a flight attendant who saw what was happening summoned her colleagues.”
Most of the other passengers chose not to get involved, with the exception of one Lebanese passenger who assisted the crew in stopping the attack, Arik said. (h/t Yenta Press)
Orthodox Jewish Man Stabbed in Brooklyn; Victim in Stable Condition (VIDEO)
An off-duty volunteer for Brooklyn-based Jewish ambulance service Hatzalah was stabbed in the back on Tuesday night while walking in Crown Heights, local blogs reported.
The victim, identified as 34-year-old Dovid Katz, was treated on the scene by his colleagues and then rushed to the nearby Kings County Hospital, where he was reported to be in stable condition, sources said.
According to the report, he did not see the attacker, who approached from behind and then quickly fled the scene following the assault. One witness cited by a local blog described the assailant as an “African-American male wearing a hoodie,” but noted that “this has not been confirmed.” The attacker is still at large.
Local website Crownheights.info warned local residents, “Please beware of your surroundings and be extra cautious when going outside until the assailant is apprehended.”
A leader of the largely Chabad Chasidic local Jewish community also called on residents to be on guard.
Abbas Plays the Same Double Game
For those like Presidents Obama and Clinton, who view Israel and its policies as the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East, what the Palestinians do, say, or even think never seems to get on their radar screen. Compared to the Palestinians — both the supposed moderates of Fatah in the West Bank and the Islamists of Hamas that govern Gaza — the Israelis are relatively more powerful and so they are judged to be the ones with the ability to end the conflict and create a two-state solution. But in order for even this form of magical thinking to work, Israel requires some kind of peace partner. Cast in that role is Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, Yasir Arafat’s successor and a man that President Obama has praised as a champion of peace. But in order to believe he is such a person, observers have always been forced to restrict their study of his behavior to a limited number of moderate-sounding statements generally made in English and directed at Western and Israeli audiences. At the same time, you have to ignore the host of other damning utterances and actions that make it clear he is not interested in peace that are in Arabic and directed at his own people.
Arafat perfected that double game during the heyday of Oslo euphoria in the 1990s as Americans and Israelis clung to statements that could parsed as indicating he wanted peace while everything he said to Palestinians showed that he still intended Israel’s destruction. Abbas has learned to play the same double game with great skill. Last week, we got an example of just how he plays to different audiences when he extolled the two-state solution and his willingness to stick to Oslo when speaking to Dutch Jews. But two days earlier he told the United Nations Human Rights Council that he considered all of Israel, including land it held before the 1967 Six Day War, as “occupied” (this can be viewed at the Palestine Media Watch website). Like its silence about Abbas’s record of incitement that has helped fuel the current wave of anti-Israeli terror, the United States has remained silent about a statement that both reveals his intentions and explains his repeated refusals of peace offers.
In the decade since he succeeded Arafat (he’s currently serving in the 11th year of a four-year term as president of the PA), Abbas has cultivated a good reputation among American and Israeli left-wingers. His Dutch speech is not an anomaly in that he has told countless Western and Jewish audiences the same thing about wanting two states and giving up the “right of return,” which is synonymous with the end of Israel as a Jewish state. That’s just what Westerners who want to believe in the two-state solution want to hear. Thus armed with what they think is proof of a Palestinian willingness to make peace, they then attack the Israeli government and demand it show it grant Abbas the concessions he needs to sell a deal to his people.
It sounds good, but for every hopeful statement Abbas makes, he makes a few that indicate that his peace talk is as much of an act as the blood-soaked terrorist that he succeeded.
Israeli man fighting for life after car-ramming near Hebron
A Palestinian careened his car into an Israeli man north of Hebron on Wednesday in the latest terror attack to occur near the restive West Bank city.
A 20-year-old suffered multiple injuries and was rushed to a Jerusalem hospital in serious condition, the Magen David Adom rescue agency said. He was fighting for his life after sustaining a major head injury.
A second Israeli was also hit but was unhurt, according to initial reports.
The identity of the victim was not immediately released for publication.
“On the side of the road a young man around 20 years old was lying unconscious with serious multisystem injuries,” a paramedic said, “[and] along with IDF medical soldiers who arrived at the scene we gave him life-saving first aid and took him in serious condition to Hadassah Hospital at Ein Kerem on life support.”
The driver of the vehicle was reportedly shot dead by security forces at the scene of the attack, which occurred near Halhul Junction on Route 60.
American Jewish Extremists Falsely Blame Israeli Soldiers for 'Unreasonable Force' Against Palestinian
Last Wednesday, five soldiers of the elite Givati (infantry) Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces were arrested on suspicion of using unreasonable force against a Palestinian suspect in El Bireh, near Ramallah. They were interrogated, and put under investigation by the military police investigation department.
The supposedly damning evidence against them was a film clip disseminated by B’Tselem – a so-called human rights organization that has received millions from the American Jewish organization The New Israel Fund (NIF) - in which Ansar Asi, a 25-year-old Palestinian, is seen standing anxiously at the entrance to a storage room and a short time later is violently arrested by five armed soldiers, who drag him through the short passageway. According to B’Tselem, Asi was at work when clashes erupted between IDF soldiers and Palestinian youths in the area, on October 6, 2015.
The video clip shows the soldiers forcefully arresting Asi in the storage room – but an Israeli rapper, “Shadow” (Yoav Eliasi) and thousands in the Israeli public were convinced something was amiss and set out to find evidence that could prove that the 25-year-old
Palestinian was not as innocent as B’Tselem claimed. As Israeli media is widely reporting tonight, “The film clips came from Arab news stations, and within a day a picture was found showing Asi participating in the rioting,” according to Eliasi.
PA's Temple Mount sheikh arrested for incitement
Jerusalem district police on Wednesday morning arrested a Palestinian Authority (PA) sanctioned Muslim sheikh, who was caught on film inciting terrorism against Jews in his weekly lessons at the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi was exposed by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) in his various anti-Semitic rants, in which he claimed Jews created disease, that Jews control the world's wealth, and likewise spouted blood libels and accused Jews of paganism and devil worship.
Recently, Al-Mughrabi went on record saying, "the sons of Israel will be forced to change their plans to build the Temple in the Al-Aqsa Mosque structure, and will be forced to build it outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
"A Temple of heresy where they will worship Iblis (satan - ed.). Why? Because the false messiah won't appear, unless the Temple will be built and they worship satan in it...(in the end of days) we will go after the Jews in every place. They won't escape us. They won't be able to escape us. And the stone and the tree will speak, in accordance with the hadith of the prophet (teachings ascribed to Mohammed - ed.)."
"This is a reliable promise from the prophet, according to which the tree and the stone will speak and say: 'O Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come kill him.' All the sons of Israel will be destroyed, the false messiah will be killed, and the Muslims will live well for a long period," said the terror sheikh.
Police remove east Jerusalem roadblocks after 'achievement of stability'
Police announced Wednesday that they were removing some of the roadblocks that were set up in east Jerusalem to deal with a spate of terror attacks in the capital which have subsided in the past two weeks.
Jerusalem Police said in a statement that the goal of the changes was to "enable the greater public to get back to their regular and safe daily routines."
Police put up the barriers in the middle of last month at the entrances to several east Jerusalem neighborhoods from which Palestinian terrorists who carried out dozens of attacks in the capital hailed. Five Israelis were killed and dozens more were wounded in the capital during the string of attacks.
Police said Wednesday that "the change in road blocks and their removal from some points in the city comes about as a result of the achievement of a certain security stability which enables this policy of easing conditions."
Suicidal Afula bus station ‘attacker’ released to house arrest
A Nazareth woman who was shot when she brandished a knife at a bus station in the city of Afula last month was released to house arrest, a court said Wednesday, after she was found to not have intended to carry out a terror attack.
A police investigation into the October 9 incident revealed that Asra’a Zidan Abed, 30, wanted to be shot and killed by police.
She will not face charges for attempted murder. Instead, she faces minor charges of carrying a dangerous weapon.
Police and Shin Bet investigators say they believe Abed did not plan to stab anyone when she wielded the knife at the Afula station, but was pretending to be a Palestinian terrorist in the hope that she would be shot by security forces.
IsraellyCool: “Stabbing Intifada” Interactive Terror Map
Presenting an interactive map of the so called “Stabbing Intifada” of 2015
The map lists some 1500 attacks in the current wave of the Palestinian terror initiative, with detailed event data such as location, type of attack, attacker nationality, casualties and more.
If you recall passed mapping of events, like the Carlo SMG and Protective edge, these type of visual analyses give the reader a more thorough understanding of the situation and spatial patterns of events reported in the news. (h/t Yenta Press/Alexi)
House resolution condemns anti-Israel incitement in PA
The US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution condemning anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement in the Palestinian Authority.
The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the chairwoman of the House Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, and Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., ranking member of the subcommittee, passed Monday.
“The House has sent a clear message to the Palestinian leadership that its anti-Israel incitement causing so much of the recent tension, violence, and terror will no longer be tolerated,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement issued after the resolution vote. “There should be no doubt that the Palestinian Authority sets the tone with its incitement, resulting in the recent wave of attacks that we’re seeing against innocent Israeli civilians.”
Senators pressure Obama to condemn anti-Israel attacks
A bipartisan group of senators is backing a resolution supporting Israel amid an uptick in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Senators are using the resolution to pressure President Obama, as well as the international community, to condemn forcefully the attacks against Israelis. They also want Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to take steps to curb the violence and build on security cooperation with Israel.
Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are backing a resolution to show "solidarity" with Israel after a recent spate of attacks. Graham and Rubio are both running for the Republican presidential nomination.
Blumenthal, in a statement, said that he supports Israel "in defending itself against these tragic and indiscriminate Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli citizens."
"Repeated reprehensible attacks on innocent Israeli civilians follow President Abbas’ dangerous disavowal of commitments made during the peace process. These attacks must be stopped," he added.
Congress Moves to Label Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Group
Lawmakers in both houses of Congress filed legislation on Tuesday that would formally designate the Muslim Brotherhood a sanctioned terrorist organization, according to an advance copy of the legislation obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The legislation outlines the Brotherhood’s long history of sponsoring terrorism and outlines congressional support for it to be designated a global terrorist outfit. The bill also would force Secretary of State John Kerry to explain why the Obama administration has been hesitant to label the Brotherhood a terrorist group.
The Brotherhood’s political wing has been banned in Egypt, where affiliates of the organization overthrew the government and then violently cracked down on its opposition, the United States has avoided labeling the organization a sponsor of terrorism.
Should the State Department refuse to move forward with the designation, the bill would require it to provide a justification for this policy, according to the bill.
Multiple House lawmakers spearheaded a similar effort last year, but the bill failed to become law.
The elusive Palestinian condemnation
Abbas' deafening silence is intensified in light of the tremendous change in electronic media over the last decade, namely the creation of social media platforms.
An increasing number of experts agree that social media is the most influential catalyst for stabbing attacks. The exposure afforded to a 13-year-old boy who carries out a terrorist attack spurs other impressionable teenage boys to pursue terrorist activities and fan the flames. However, social media has a two-pronged effect: One word of condemnation from Abbas and the order to quell terrorism will be set in stone rather than in ice.
Abbas seeks to hold diplomatic negotiations, even if he claims their results can be foretold. Israel should continue to push Abbas to condemn terrorism, because dropping this demand will be perceived as a sign of weakness, and Abbas would see it as yet another victory.
The fight against this new brand of terrorism, enhanced via social media, is like a game of chess: Israel's demand that the Palestinian Authority condemn violence is independent of the security establishment's actions, and, like in a game of chess, it requires patience and wisdom to anticipate the next moves.
Alongside the demand for a Palestinian condemnation, the ethical question in this case is, how many dead terrorists can Palestinian society tolerate? How much blood would have to be spilled until the last-remaining instigator realizes that the Jewish people's desire to live supersedes the "heroism" of a terrorist who stabs an 80-year-old woman in the back?
Khaled Abu Toameh: PA to spend $7m to support Palestinians in Hebron
The Palestinian Authority government on Tuesday announced a series of moves to support Palestinians in Hebron, including the launch of 20 projects in the fields of education, health and infrastructure at a cost of $7 million.
The government also decided to pay a monthly grant of $100 to more than 1,000 families living in the Israeli-controlled part of the city and to establish a special fund to support the Old City of Hebron, whose residents also would receive various privileges including a raise in salary for PA employees and financial aid to merchants.
The decisions come amid criticism the PA has not been doing enough to support Hebron’s residents, especially in light of the IDF’s recent security measures and settler “provocations.”
Palestinians living in the Israeli-controlled part of Hebron have long complained that the PA government hasn’t given them enough support to enable them to stay in their homes, claiming that Israel’s policy over the past few decades has been to evict them from the Old City of Hebron to pave the way for settling Jews there.
Jordanian cleric walks back fatwa against killing Jews
After facing a backlash for the comments from the Muslim Brotherhood and other political rivals, Halabi released two videos, translated by MEMRI, in which he rebutted the criticism.
In his rebuttal, the sheikh called Jews "occupiers and plunderers," who are prone to "betrayal, fraud, cunning and deceit."
Halabi said that jihad against the Jews is a "mandatory jihad...upon any Muslim who accepts Allah as the Lord and Islam as his religion."
Clarifying his earlier fatwa, however, the sheikh said that the jihad could not be carried out by an "emotional thrust and with such excitement that only serves to harm us."
"How can we think that this leads to victory?" he asked. "The nation must prepare and unite in order to uproot his enemy," Halabi charged.
"By Allah, if your brother, the son of your mother and father, were to attack you in your own home, and you have no way to fend him off other than killing him, then we say that he was the aggressor and you were the defender - all the more so when the aggressor is an evil Jew, from among the brothers of apes and pigs," he said.
Cleric Who Banned Killing Jews Sets Record Straight: Jihad against Brothers of Apes and Pigs a Duty
Palestinian Human Rights Activist: Media ‘Full of Antisemitism, Hatred for Israel’
A prominent Palestinian human rights activist lamented on Monday night what he called the media’s unfair treatment of the Jewish state.
At a pro-Israel gathering hosted by advocacy group StandWithUs in New York City, Bassem Eid, a Jerusalemite, said the press, which is “full of antisemitism” and “hatred,” is “much more interested in fighting against Israel” than discovering the truth. So, he added, “Let us [Palestinians] tell the world what we are really suffering from.”
Eid, a former director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), said Palestinians are “fed up and hopeless,” and have lost trust in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Meanwhile, he asserted, Israel is “the safest place” for Palestinians in the Middle East.
He continued, “When Israeli Arabs complain about Israel, I tell them, ‘So move to Syria, go to Yemen…’ And they can, but it’ll be worse for them there.” He also cited a recent survey conducted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy which revealed that a majority of east Jerusalem Arabs would prefer living under Israeli rule than Palestinian.
Lawyer Suing Facebook: Social Media Has Social Responsibility
In a briefing at MediaCentral in Jerusalem, Darshan-Leitner explained that the lawsuit came about after Facebook rejected a request from the Israeli Foreign Ministry to remove inciting content. She then launched a campaign for a class-action suit.
Within three days, 20,000 people joined the suit. Within a week, she, along with lawyers in New York, filed the suit in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The suit demands an injunction against Facebook to remove inciting posts and block the users who call for violence against Jews. It also demands that Facebook make a pro-active effort to monitor what’s posted and remove incitement to violence.
“We believe that Facebook has the tools to do that,” she said. “The same way Facebook knows what type of coffee I drink in the morning and where I like to go on vacation and pushes ads according to that, the same way Facebook connects me to people with the same types of interests, they have the tools to monitor the incitement, monitor the pages and the pictures, and take them down.
“The same way Facebook does not allow pornography on the pages, they have the algorithm to identify it and not allow it to go on, they can identify the incitement to kill Jews.”
The Independent and “Israeli Occupation Forces”
It’s only in the penultimate paragraph of the story of Palestinian students clashing with Israeli soldiers, that Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis are mentioned. But it’s the final paragraph that makes you wonder if The Independent is taking its cue from the Palestinian Authority:
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, since the beginning of last month, 61 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces, with over 2,120 injured.
Just who are the “Israeli occupation forces?” Does this include Israeli policemen who have shot dead terrorists within Israeli cities such as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Beersheba? If so, then The Independent has adopted Mahmoud Abbas’s narrative that considers the whole of the State of Israel to be “occupied.”
In addition, there is no mention that most of the Palestinians killed since the beginning of October were either carrying out terror attacks against Israelis or engaged in violent confrontations against the Israeli military. And by failing to even consider the number of Israelis killed or injured by Palestinian terrorists (albeit mercifully lower numbers), The Independent clearly demonstrates just how one-sided its reporting on Israel is.
Why is BBC Arabic feeding its audiences politicised terminology?
As we noted here recently, there was no coverage whatsoever of the two terror attacks which took place in Rishon Lezion and Netanya on November 2nd on BBC News’ English language website. A search for reporting of those events on the BBC Arabic website showed that it did publish an article about an earlier incident at the Jalame crossing on the same day but the later stabbing attacks did not receive any coverage on that website either.
However, that November 2nd article – published under the context-free title “Palestinian death toll rises to 74” – is also notable on other counts.
BBC Watch asked a professional translator to take a look at the report and he confirmed that in its seventh paragraph, readers are told that the victims of the ongoing wave of terror attacks are “Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers”. Below is his translation of paragraphs six and seven: the absence of punctuation or a joining word between “occupied Palestinian lands” and “Arab areas inside Israel” appears in the original text, along with the questionable timeline of events.
“Tensions have been rising for weeks in the occupied Palestinian lands Arab areas inside Israel between the Palestinians and the Israeli security apparatuses. A number of cities and towns witnessed protests and demonstrations which the Israeli authorities confronted forcefully.
After that, the confrontations developed into individuals deeds/operations/actions in which Palestinians have stabbed Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers, and the Israeli army reacted by killing the attackers and arresting those who cooperated with them (with the attackers).” [emphasis added]
Times of London embraces the ‘Israeli root cause’ explanation for Palestinian violence
Carlstrom’s theory – that Israel’s home demolition to punish Alaa Abu Jamal’s cousin backfired, and indeed incited Abu Jamal to engage in antisemitic violence of his own – seems, however, to be undermined by evidence that he clearly held radical pro-terror views before the demolition
In an interview with Ynet in November 2014, Abu Jamal praised the deadly attack on synagogue worshippers by his cousin as “something normal which could be expected from anyone who is brave and has a feeling of belonging to his people and Islam.” Abu Jamal added: “People reacted with cries of joy when we received word of their death. People here handed out sweets to guests who came to visit us, and it was a great celebration for our martyrs.”
So, according to Abu Jamal, the murder, by Palestinians, of innocent Jewish civilians is “something normal” and indeed worthy of celebration.
Of course, Carlstrom is far from alone in ignoring the ideological and moral components of Palestinian terrorism. As Matti Friedman, former AP Jerusalem correspondent, argued in his expose on the media’s failure to fairly cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “if you follow mainstream coverage, you will find nearly no real analysis of Palestinian society or ideologies, [or] profiles of armed Palestinian groups”.
The reason why such journalists always look for an Israeli root cause when explaining such acts of terror – whether it’s the settlements, “threats” to al-Aqsa, hopelessness, etc. – is that they immediately discount any explanation (no matter how grounded in empirical data) suggesting that attacks have a racist (antisemitic) motive – an ideological orientation which has fed anti-Jewish violence in the region for well over a century.
CNN’s New Terror: “Other-Handism”
CNN talks about the use of social media by both sides:
The spark, according to Harel, is incitement shared and amplified on social media. Each side largely shares the videos and stories that support its own narrative. As Israelis show videos of Palestinian attacks, Palestinians share pictures of every checkpoint, every roadblock, and every time Israeli security forces open fire.
Fact: Palestinian social media is full of images, videos, and posts encouraging people to commit murder.
While CNN says that the Palestinians are sharing pictures of checkpoints, here are a few examples of what is really being shared. Why is this part of the Palestinian “narrative” not being reported by CNN?
Israel set to free Palestinian hunger striker
After holding him for a year without trial, Israel is to free a Palestinian detainee Wednesday who survived a two-month hunger strike, the prison service said.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said in September that the IDF Military Prosecutor guaranteed that it wouldn’t extend administrative detention for Mohammed Allaan, a member of the Islamic Jihad terror group, beyond November 4.
The Israeli military confirmed the report and said that his release was contingent upon him not renewing his hunger strike.
Allaan was arrested in November 2014 and held under administrative detention, which allows imprisonment without trial for six-month periods renewable indefinitely.
Saudis refuse soccer match with Palestinians in Judea-Samaria
The Saudi Arabian Football Federation has announced its refusal to play a World Cup preliminary match against the Palestinian national soccer team in a stadium near Ramallah, Samaria.
In its official announcement Tuesday to FIFA, Saudi Arabia expressed concern for the safety of its players in the sensitive area of Judea-Samaria, but reports say the real reason behind the refusal is fear that playing in the area would be a recognition of the "Israeli occupation."
The Saudis apparently protested having to move through Israeli military checkpoints to reach Ramallah, enraging Palestinian Football Association (PFA) president Jibril Rajoub who insisted the match be held at Al-Ram stadium.
Under pressure from the Saudi royal family, Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas' office offered to postpone the game indefinitely or have Jordanian helicopters fly the Saudi national team directly to Ramallah, thereby circumventing the IDF checkpoints.
The Saudis, however, refused the offers and demanded the game be held in another country.
Building Materials Smuggled Hamas Passed through UN Inspectors
Indictments have been filed in Israel against a Gaza merchant who allegedly smuggled “hundreds of tons” of building materials for the Hamas terror infrastructure, it was revealed Wednesday following the lifting of a gag order by the military.
The IDF spokesman stated:
The transferring of the materials successfully bypassed the UN monitoring mechanism. The U.N. mechanism was put in place in order to ensure that materials which are donated by countries and organizations are used for reconstruction and development of civilian infrastructure.
This testimony is another example of how Hamas replenishes its terror infrastructure using money and materials donated for the reconstruction and the development of the civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.
The smuggler was identified was Tamer Ahmed Mahmad Brim, 36, who was arrested by Israeli police at the Erez Crossing on August 31.
During the investigation, Brim admitted that he transferred, straight into the arms of the Hamas terror organization, hundreds of tons of building materials that were originally intended to be used for the reconstruction and the development of Gaza.
Hamas leader says group wants to free terror mastermind Barghouti
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said on Wednesday that his movement is interested in releasing Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and other prisoners from Israeli jails.
Mashaal, who was speaking to Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip by videoconference, said that the issue of a prisoner exchange with Israel was not on the table at this stage.
He said that Hamas would not offer any details about the remains of IDF soldiers held by his movement unless Israel agreed to release all former prisoners who were released in the Gilad Schalit prisoner swap and rearrested by the IDF.
“We are interested in the release of Marwan Barghouti and (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader) Ahmed Sa’dat and all the prisoners,” Mashaal said. “But there won’t be any negotiations before Israel releases the prisoners (from the Schalit deal),” he added.
Mashaal praised the current “intifada” against Israel and called on the Palestinian Authority to halt security coordination with Israel. He said that the “intifada” should be accompanied by “diplomatic work in line with an effective strategy endorsed by politicians.”
PreOccupiedTerritory: Scholars: Islamic Sources Justifying Lying Might Have Been Lying (satire)
However, researchers investigating the origins and development of Taqqiyya have discovered a wrinkle that may color the application of the doctrine: namely, that those who first advanced the interpretation that it is permissible to lie for any noble goal were likely lying. Ayama Shaqran, who has spent the last eight years studying Taqqiyya at Quds, explained that the first expansive use of Taqqiyya beyond accommodations for individual and communal survival occurred when a sweet-talking twelfth-century Arabian camel merchant convinced the father of several attractive daughters that the Prophet had appeared to him in a vision and commanded him to impregnate each of the girls in succession. The son of one of those unions became an Islamic leader of renown, and explained his father’s behavior as a legitimate instance of Taqqiyya.
Since then, the doctrine has been invoked to varying degrees. In recent times, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafar sought to persuade more radical elements not to attack the PLO for reaching an accord with Israel, saying that it was permissible to lie to the world about peaceful intentions when in fact the Oslo agreement was merely a stepping-stone on the way to liberation of all of Palestine. Even more recently, Palestinian leaders across the political spectrum have engaged in Taqqiyya by inciting their constituents to violence in Arabic while proclaiming to the rest of the world that their intentions and methods are peaceful.
Shaqran does not expect the revelation to have much of an effect. “People are going to do what they’re going to do, and justify it any way they can,” he said. “If not Taqqiyya, then some other doctrine can be invented, such as Alqilya, which involves putting to death anyone who asks uncomfortable questions.”
Car bomb kills 6 in Sinai, ISIS in Egypt claims responsibility
A car bomb targeting a policeman's club in the Egyptian city of El Arish killed six people and wounded 10 on Wednesday, security sources said.
Islamic State's Egypt affiliate, Sinai Province, claimed responsibility for the attack, which it described as a suicide bombing.
The group has killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said Islamist militants pose a grave threat to Egypt, the most populous Arab country.
US officials say in-flight explosion may have brought down Russian plane
US officials ruled out Monday the possibility that a surface-to-air missile brought down a Russian commercial airline in Egypt's Sinai on Saturday, killing all 224 passengers on board, according to a report by NBC News.
Officials said that satellite imagery identified a heat flash at the point where the aircraft crashed, leading analysts to believe that an in-flight explosion, rather than external tampering, may have brought down the the plane.
"The speculation that this plane was brought down by a missile is off the table," an official told NBC. Yet the possibility that the explosion was fueled by an on-board terror attack has not been ruled out.
Egyptian Army Pumping Sea Water into Gaza Tunnels Causing Landslides, Sinkholes
As the Egyptian authorities continue relentlessly to pump water from the Mediterranean sea across the Rafah border in the southern Gaza strip, the affected terrain is beginning to change. The Hamas-affiliated Shehab news agency reported on Tuesday that the pumping has been causing landslides of the sandy soil across a wide span. Large sinkholes have begun to form along the border area, creating hazards for the locals.
This week, national security and civil defense forces were rushed to the sites of new sink holes, to protect citizens from the risk of collapse. Sources in the Gaza Strip are worried that the continued Egyptian action, intended to discourage Gazan smugglers from returning to their tunnels, will cause the erosion of vast areas and even the collapse of buildings.
In October, 2014, the Egyptian army created a wide buffer zone in the town of Rafah, demolishing thousands of homes along the border with the Gaza Strip. Authorities said the move was aimed at preventing the infiltration of jihadists and arms smugglers through tunnels that run under the border. Pumping the tunnels with sea water has been a cheap and reliable method for the Egyptians to keep hostile Islamists from entering the Sinai from Gaza.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Israel Repairing Fictitious Dams To Open On Gaza Again (satire)
Insufficient drainage and poor infrastructure maintenance in parts of the Gaza Strip led to a deluge of parts of the strip last winter, an event that Palestinians – and credulous Western journalists in their wake – blamed on Israel purposely opening dams in the vicinity, though no such dams exist outside the bizarre fantasies of anti-Israel agitators. However, with the proven Zionist ability to infiltrate almost anywhere, Israeli defense officials said they had managed to gain control of the minds of the people imagining the existence and opening of such dams, and are preparing them for use again this coming winter.
“In the fantasy world where these dams exist, there are parallel phenomena also exclusive to that realm,” explained IDF Colonel Matzav Hazui. “Among those phenomena is the notion that Israel seeks the suffering of the Palestinians, as opposed to the real world, in which Israel does what it can to keep life normal for them, since stability is in Israel’s interest. But even in that La-La-Land of anti-Israel hate, we can occasionally penetrate and conduct operations. Inside that realm, of course, we have to operate by its rules, so such operations must naturally be aimed mainly at generating Palestinian misery. Opening the imaginary dams is a no-brainer.”
Analysts gave additional reasons for causing the fictitious dams to flood Gaza. “The chief metaphor that Hamas invokes when threatening Israel is ‘opening the gates of hell’ and the like,” explained commentator Noah Zark. “So in that same metaphorical realm, it makes sense to douse the emerging flames of hell with as much water as possible.” He also suggested that yanking the chains of haters for entertainment plays a role.
“The IDF unit responsible for maintaining the pretend dams is the same one that controls the world banking system, the financial markets, the media, governments, the harvesting of Palestinian organs, the poisoning of Arab water sources, the spread of the Black Plague in medieval Europe, ‘degenerate’ music in Nazi Germany, and a plethora of other demanding imaginary tasks,” said Zark. “They need to cut loose every once in a while, so this is how they do it.”
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.