From Ian:
Dr. Mordechai Kedar: The real al Aqsa Mosque is not in Jerusalem
A well known proverb says "liars need to have good memories." The reasoning is clear: a liar needs to remember his own lies and whom he told them to in order to avoid contradicting himself and revealing his mendacity. This rule applies to important issues as well. Jerusalem, for instance, whose holiness to Sunni Muslims is based on a late and political interpretation of a Koranic verse, while to Shiite Muslims it is only the third holiest city, ranked below Mecca and Medina (today the city of Najaf in southern Iraq).
Early Islamic sources state that the "al Aqsa Mosque" (literal meaning: 'the farther mosque'), mentioned only once in the Koran, was one of two mosques located near Ji'irrana, a village located between Mecca and Taaf in the Arabian Peninsula (now Saudi Arabia.) One of the mosques was called "al-Masjid al-Adna," meaning the "closer mosque" and the other " al-Masjid al-Aqsa", the "farther mosque." When the Koran refers to the al Aqsa mosque while telling the myth of the Prophet Muhammad's night time journey from the "holy mosque" of Mecca to al Aqsa, that is, the "farther mosque," it is referring to the mosque in Ji'irrana.
In 682 C.E., fifty years after Mohammed's death, Abd allah Ibn al-Zubayr, the tough man of Mecca, rebelled against the Umayyads who ruled Damascus and would not allow them to fulfill the Haj in Mecca. Since the Haj pilgrimage is one of the five basic Islamic commandments, they were forced to choose Jerusalem as their alternative for a pilgrimage site. In order to justify choosing Jerusalem, the Umayyads rewrote the story told in the Koran, moving the al Aqsa mosque to Jerusalem, and adding, for good measure, the myth of the night time journey of Mohammed to al Aqsa. This is the reason the Sunnis now consider Jerusalem their third holiest city.
Shia Islam, mercilessly persecuted by the Umayya Caliphate, did not accept the holy Jerusalem canard, which is the reason the second holiest city to Shiites is Najif in Iraq, the burial place of Shiite founder Ali bin Abi Talib. Many of the Shiite elders – Iranian and Hezbollah – only began to call Jerusalem holy after the Khomeni rebellion in 1979 so as to keep the Sunnis from accusing them of being soft on Zionism.
The first lie, in that case, is the spurious claim that the "farther mosque" is in Jerusalem.
JPost Editorial: Speaking for history
Is there a difference between an historian and a Jewish historian? The storm of criticism unleashed last week by the confessions of two academics who virtually renounced their previous identification with Israel suggests that the operative distinction has more to do with an irrational self-loathing than with scholarship.
Professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie Feld published an anti-Zionist screed in Haaretz dissociating themselves from a previous identification with Zionism, which has become associated in their understanding with racism, genocide and apartheid, just to cite a few of Israel’s alleged crimes.
Diner begins her anti-Zionist rant with a simple confession: “The Israel I once loved was a naïve delusion.” What a distance she has traveled from the Habonim Zionist movement of her youth to today, as she writes, “I feel a sense of repulsion when I enter a synagogue in front of which the congregation has planted a sign reading, ‘We Stand With Israel.’” Diner writes that she could not endorse the Jerusalem Program, because it affirms belief in “the centrality of the State of Israel and Jerusalem as its capital” for the Jewish people. This, she writes, is because it encourages aliya and “the classic negation of the Diaspora and as such the ending of Jewish life outside a homeland in Israel.”
Straying further into the realm of the absurd and nonfactual, she declares, “The death of vast numbers of Jewish communities as a result of Zionist activity has impoverished the Jewish people.” What deaths of which Jewish communities? Israel, she concludes, is “a place that I abhor visiting, and to which I will contribute no money, whose products I will not buy, nor will I expend my limited but still to me, meaningful, political clout to support it.”
Sovereign Israel cannot choose to absorb Jewish refugees and grant them citizenship, Diner states, because “The Law of Return can no longer look to me as anything other than racism.”
Feld is no better, writing how she learned from non-Jews in “liberal and left organizations in college” who opened her eyes. “I saw that Israel fit neatly into my broader understanding of Western colonialism.... The founding of Israel was the Nakba, the great catastrophe, for Palestinians, with ethnic cleansing, destruction, and no right of return.” She apparently sees no contradiction in the UN Partition Resolution of 1947 creating an Arab and Jewish state which was accepted by the Jewish community and violently rejected by the armies of half a dozen Arab countries.
Israel Emerges As A Player On The World Stage
The emergence of Israel as a small but significant player on the world stage is one of the remarkable developments at the end of the post-Cold War era. The slow economic growth of the United States and Europe has shown the weakness of the status quo powers. The American semi-withdrawal from the Middle East and the British withdrawal from the European Union have opened the door to new powers.
The chaos in the Middle East and the rise of revisionist authoritarian states such as Russia, China and Iran and democratic states like India raise the possibility of a new world order. This would be partly dominated by hardline conservative nationalism, charismatic leadership, slow economic growth, and hostility to the old globalist order.
With eight million people Israel can only play on the fringes of a new global order. But, it has a flourishing economy of $300 billion and nearly $40,000 GDP/capita. Its democratic, liberal politics and growing economy make it able to play both sides of the street.
Its military was rated by the Institute for the Study of War as “pilot to pilot and airframe to airframe” having “the best air force in the world“ and the best army in the Middle East. Israel’s extensive work on air defenses (Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow 2 and soon Arrow 3), carried out with the United States, makes it a serious military power. Its 80-100 atomic bombs put it in a rarified club of nine states in the world. Its intelligence capabilities (Shin Beth and Mossad) are formidable.
Isi Leibler: Government to expel BDS activists. Bravo!
The decision by the interior and public security ministers to form a special task force to expel foreigners engaged in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activities is a long overdue but urgent call for remedial action against anti-Semites and renegade Jews who demonize and delegitimize us. In this context, I applaud the government for, albeit belatedly, taking action to expel or bar entry to foreigners who come into Israel in the guise of tourists to promote or assist BDS and provoke West Bank Palestinians against the IDF. There is also is a strong case to prosecute Israelis who engage in such seditious activities.
No doubt this will lead to a torrent of hysteria from the delusional Left, who will claim that this “denial of freedom of expression” is another move by the government toward implementing a “fascist” regime.
This legislation should have been introduced a long while ago and the timing coincides with impending actions by European governments, currently floundering in their efforts to provide security to their citizens under attack from crazed Islamic fundamentalist killers – both imported and homegrown. They will be seeking to impose legislation which will to some extent limit civil liberties if they compromise security. If they fail to act they will be overwhelmed at the polls by radical right-wing parties which have already mushroomed in response to the recent terrorist rampages.
The situation in Israel is infinitely more acute than in any other country. The Jewish state is the only country in the world whose right to exist is constantly challenged by neighboring states motivated by fanatical Islamic anti-Semitic dictatorships.
NGO List of Discriminatory Israeli Laws Is a Fraud
One of its most effective tools to delegitimize the Jewish state is the compilation and dissemination of its list of “more than 50 Israeli laws enacted since 1948 that directly or indirectly discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel.” This is the list that the Movement for Black Lives found so compelling that they embraced the BDS goals to work against Israel, which they call the “apartheid state.”
What are the laws on this nefarious list and how do they discriminate? This is what the Institute for Zionist strategies set out to determine, and it recently completed a comprehensive analysis of every one of these laws. The study examines the text of the laws, their purposes, how they have been implemented, and how they compare to similar laws in other democracies.
The full report (Hebrew) and the English Introduction and Summary can be found on the IZS website and Facebook page. Here is what it found.
A basic underlying presumption used to condemn 21 of the 57 laws, is that any enactment defining or promoting Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel (e.g., the flag law and the law to support Yad Ben Zvi, a prominent institution promoting Zionist study and values). But this flawed premise would delegitimize the vast majority of the world’s democracies, which are also nation states – that is, states established by and for a predominant ethnic or religious majority. As I pointed out in a Wall Street Journal article explaining the proposed Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, “Most of the more than 60 democracies are built on the ethnic identity of a predominant group, which molds the character of the state while affording minorities full civil and religious rights. In this regard the Jewish state of Israel is a typical democratic country.”
Black Lives Matter to Israel, Not So Much to Its Racist Critics
Far away from the realities of Israeli life, American Jews who disown Israel and embrace Black Lives Matter in order to demonstrate their liberal cred or simply in the hope of doing the right thing by a fellow minority are not necessarily bad people. But here’s what they, and everybody else, must understand: The Black Lives Matter movement is full of racists–people who embrace the particularly ugly, conspiratorial, and long-lived form of bigotry directed against Jews. There is simply no other way to explain why its platform mentions Israel by name 11 times and demands that the United States divest from Israel but not from, say, Pakistan, another recipient of massive American aid and a nation whose totalitarian military regime frequently abuses civil and human rights giddily and without so much as a peep from American liberals. And if you embrace racism against Jews, you are not taking a hit or two in order to help some larger fight against “real” racism: You are encouraging racists in their promotion of racism, which, if you’re Jewish, also happens to be directed at yourself and your family.
Because here’s the thing: There is no such thing, logically, morally, or historically, as anti-racist racism. That’s not a movement that anyone can join without simply becoming a racist, and licensing whatever horrors your fellow racists will perpetrate in your name under the mantle of “historical justice.” The fact that groups like Hamas also play an active and deadly role in the African slave trade is not an accident, but rather the logical outcome of an ideology that demonizes the other and that is devoted to nothing but its own genocidal zeal. Is that really going to make the world a better place?
So if you really believe that black lives matter—or, for that matter, the lives of women or gays or religious minorities matter—then stand up for what you believe in, and embrace the nation that promotes multicultural values better than any other Western country, through the sacred and shared burden of self-defense. Cheer for the state that gives its black citizens—and gay and Arab and female and transgender citizens and everyone else—a gun and excellent training in how to use it. Zionism may be the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, but an M16, like justice, is for all.
NGO Monitor: When Israelis Are the Victims of Apartheid
The so-called international community, including the Olympic Committee, has, at most, reprimanded the boycotting teams and athletes, becoming a willing accomplice to anti-Israel apartheid.
In previous displays of this racism, no action was taken against the Syrian, Iranian and Lebanese teams and no penalties exacted to create a deterrent or express opposition.
In these frameworks, like the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the 57 members of the Islamic bloc (formally known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), including the wealthy oil producers, control the agendas and have veto power over the officials.
Similarly, the self-appointed guardians of human rights, including NGO superpowers such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, are silent when Israelis are the victims. Indeed, they are very active in promoting the apartheid inherent in the boycott movement, which is the current Western embodiment of the Arab League’s economic boycott of Israel. The anti-Israel campaigners in the democratic West who wrap themselves in the façade of human rights and opposition to racism are part and parcel of this apartheid.
In Lebanon, whose government and society is subject to intimidation by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, Minister of Youth and Sport Abdel Motaleb al-Hennawi praised Nakoula’s actions in Rio as “principled and patriotic.” Not surprisingly, Hezbollah noted that “the Israelis were sent away from the bus because normalization [with Israel] is not to be had in any form, and because the Lebanese identity [is that of] resistance. Be proud to be Lebanese.” As in the case of South Africa under the apartheid regime, contact with Israelis is treated as a form of impurity, and petty apartheid remains the norm.
Judoka dedicates Olympic medal to 1972 Munich massacre victims
"All this is for me? Wow! It's too much," declared Yarden Gerbi, the Israeli judoka who won the first medal at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games for Israel on Tuesday, as she entered the celebration organized in her honor by the Olympic committee.
After a day of matches, which culminated on the podium with a bronze medal around her neck, Gerbi was finally able to pause to eat something between camera flashes.
"I am proud to be where I am now, with a medal around my neck," she said. "I will never forget this. This is a dream come true, for me personally and for all the people of Israel who dreamed with me. I am proud to represent Israel. I received everything I needed -- funding, support, encouragement and accolades -- and I appreciate it. It is hard for me to explain how I feel. It will take me some time to process what happened here tonight. I am proud of the day that I've had and I am grateful for everyone who came to cheer me on."
Just like Yael Arad, the Israeli judoka who became Israel's first Olympic medalist when she won a silver medal in Barcelona in 1992, Gerbi dedicated her victory to the victims of the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics. She posed with Ilana Romano and Ankie Spitzer, the widows of two of the 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, saying that "meeting the widows was so emotional for me."
BDS to the Olympics: Dehumanize the Jew
Anti-engagement has led to outright anti-Semitism, such as the rejection of Jewish students from serving on student government boards because they are Jewish, and to anti-Semitic campus incidents including violence. As the AMCHA Initiative, a group devoted to the protection of the rights of Jewish students on campus, has documented, where there is active BDS on campus there is a rise in campus-based anti-Semitism.
Anti-engagement has reared its despicable head at the 2016 Olympiad. Lebanese athletes refused to share a bus with Israeli athletes, a violation of the very meaning of the Olympics. Some Arab athletes have once again refused to compete with Israeli athletes.
These actions show contempt for the very spirit of the Olympics and the traditions of Western culture. In Ancient Greece, the spirit of the Olympics permitted the free and protected movement of athletes through war zones.
In the same vein, those church groups that host BDS events and advocate for them are similarly contributing to the lack of human engagement between peoples. They sustain the effort by the progenitors of BDS to prevent not just Palestinians and Israelis from discovering the common bonds of their humanity but also to categorize Jews in general as a people apart.
Those church groups that call themselves advocates for peace and justice and support BDS might wish to consider that they are not promoting peace but are contributing to an agenda in support of human disengagement. The consequence of which is never peace.
Israeli athletes in Rio endure ‘shocking’ hostility, taunting by Muslim nations
The 2016 Olympic Games have been billed as an opportunity to put politics aside in the spirit of international camaraderie, but that’s not necessarily how it’s working out for Israeli athletes.
Animosity toward the 47-member delegation has triggered a reprimand from the International Olympic Committee and alarm from Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, which issued a statement this week decrying anti-Israel “hostility” in Rio de Janeiro.
“Shocking but not surprisingly, the Lebanese and Saudi delegations obviously have the wrong idea about the Olympic Games,” said a statement Wednesday by Roz Rothstein, CEO of the pro-Israel group Stand With Us.
“Instead of using the events to forget animosity and promote peace between people, they have brought their brainwashed minds to Rio,” she said. “How unfortunate that they could not implement the good, peaceful intentions of the Olympics, and instead have used it as a forum to spread hate and continued rejection of peace.”
The confrontations with delegations of nations traditionally hostile to Israel have marred an otherwise successful Olympics for Israel. Two days ago, judo fighter Yarden Gerbi won the bronze medal, making her the nation’s first medal winner since the 2008 Olympics.
Reopening of AMIA Bombing Case in Argentina ‘Victory for Justice,’ Says Maker of Documentary on ‘Largest Pre-9/11 Terrorist Attack in Western Hemisphere’ (INTERVIEW)
The very fact that the case surrounding the July 18, 1994 car-bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires is being reopened is a victory for justice, the maker of a documentary film on the yet-to-be-solved mystery surrounding the attack and its aftermath told The Algemeiner on Wednesday.
Matthew Taylor, director, writer and producer of “Los Abandonados” – a movie about what he called the “largest terrorist attack in the Western hemisphere before 9/11” – was referring to the renewed investigation in Argentina into the role played by the country’s leadership in covering up the key suspected perpetrator, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“There are two separate but connected issues here,” said Taylor, whose film presents the many facets of the attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA), which left 85 people dead and hundreds wounded. “One is whether former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (CFK) prevented evidence that Iranian-backed Hezbollah was behind the bombing; the other is the murder – or suicide — of prosecutor Alberto Nisman mere hours before he was slated to testify before congress on his findings.”
Suspect killed as possible IS terror plot thwarted in Canada
A suspect is dead after Canada’s national police force thwarted what an official said was a suicide bomb plot.
A senior police official said late Wednesday the suspect allegedly planned to use a bomb to carry out a suicide bombing mission in a public area but was killed in a police operation. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about details ahead of a Thursday news conference, identified the suspect as Aaron Driver.
Driver, originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and in his mid-20s, was under a court order from earlier this year to not associate with any terrorist organization, including the Islamic State.
In February, Driver’s lawyer and the prosecutor agreed to a peace bond stating there are “reasonable grounds to fear that he may participate, contribute directly or indirectly in the activity of a terrorist group.”
A police operation continued well into Wednesday night in the southern Ontario town of Strathroy, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Toronto.
Fist-waving mob screams ‘praise for the Prophet Muhammad’ as cowardly killer is sentenced
The court heard Tanveer Ahmed, 32, travelled from Yorkshire to Glasgow to confront Asad Shah at his store before pulling out a knife and stabbing the 40-year-old over a religious spat.
Ahmed claimed to have been offended by clips Mr Shah had posted online which he said “disrespected the Prophet Muhammad”.
Just hours before he was murdered popular Mr Shah wished his Christian customers a happy Easter on Facebook.
Watching one clip on his phone on the day of the murder Ahmed was heard in a phone message to say "listen to this guy, something needs to be done, it needs nipped in the bud".
Judge Lady Rae said Ahmed had carried out a "brutal, barbaric, horrific crime" for which he had shown no remorse and even appeared proud of what he had done.
But today, as he was led out of court he was cheered by around 20 supporters.
As Ahmed was led away, he raised a clenched fist and shouted loudly: "Praise for the Prophet Muhammad, there is only one Prophet."
David Singer: Come Clean, Clinton! Trump Advisor Castigates Clinton Betrayal of Israel
Donald Trump’s trusted co-advisor on Israel – David Friedman – has castigated Hillary Clinton for her role as Secretary of State in perpetrating one of President Obama’s worst foreign policy failures – trashing the letter from President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004 – its terms having been overwhelmingly endorsed by Congress 502 votes to 12.
Friedman – rumoured to be Trump’s Ambassador to Israel if Trump becomes America’s next President – was recently asked this question in a wide ranging interview:
"Hillary Clinton has just about everyone suggesting she is the most qualified person ever to be president. Where did she go wrong with the Middle East — if she did?"
Friedman replied:
"I don’t think she has made a right decision. I think she said some helpful things when she was the senator from New York when she had a Jewish constituency. As soon as she became secretary of state, the first thing she did was to embrace a unilateral settlement freeze. I think it completely poisoned the environment. I’m not aware of anything she did that is particularly good. I can name off the top of my head things that were nasty, like ripping up the letter from George Bush to Ariel Sharon, which I think was the only thing Israel got from evacuating Gaza."
Three questions pro-Israel donors should ask Hillary
First, “In your acceptance you boasted about the Iran nuclear deal and admitted ‘we have to enforce it.’ How many violations will you tolerate?” I would ask Clinton to subscribe to the fact sheet distributed by Omri Ceren, a managing director at The Israel Project, an organization that works with journalists on Middle East issues. She would learn that in the past two weeks alone: “Iran abducted another American hostage.... launched another round of ballistic missile tests,” continued harboring at least three senior al-Qaida operatives, and “imported the physical missiles for their advanced S-300 anti-aircraft system,” which should trigger presidential sanctions. Furthermore, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif “bragged that Iran rolled US diplomats to get a secret side agreement on advanced centrifuges.... The Iranian Atomic Energy Organization was instructed to create a plan for restarting shuttered nuclear facilities,” and “Iran was revealed to be using textbooks praising the murder of Israelis and Jews.”
Second, “Will you combat Palestinian incitement? Will you punish the Palestinian Authority with aid cutoffs – and lobby the Europeans and the UN to join you – unless the Palestinians start educating toward peace rather than toward hatred?” Even the latest Quartet report said the PA has “not consistently and clearly” condemned terrorist attacks. A MEMRI report last March found that some Palestinian civil society organizations funded by “Western countries, institutions, and foundations are openly expressing support for terrorism.” Peace will remain elusive if Palestinians continue demonizing Jews.
Third, “Will you end the Obama administration’s obsession with ‘the’ settlements by distinguishing between illegal outposts that complicate attempts at a two-state solution and expanding communities, including parts of Jerusalem, which the international consensus – and the (Bill) Clinton plan – assume will remain part of Israel?” Clinton should read the blog by Elliott Abrams of the Council of Foreign Relations calling the latest State Department attacks on Israel “politically quite stupid,” lacking nuance and proportion, foolishly and unfairly treating peaceful Jewish housing starts as the great threat in a violent, volatile Middle East.
Stunning revelation: Wikileaks hack shows that Soros called the shots on US policy toward Albania
Soros then calls for the “international community” (ahem) to intervene and pressure the Albanian government to “forestall further demonstrations” and “tone down public pronouncements.” He even offers a list of three candidates to go to Albania and act as mediator.
Soros “asks” (or is it “instructs”?), and guess what happened?
Just three days after Clinton received the e-mail from Soros the EU ended up sending Soros’ suggested nominee Lajcak to mediate the civil unrest, the BBC reported.
Let us be clear here: Soros got the U.S. and other accomplices to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Soros has long been accused of being a puppet master orchestrating world politics and markets for his own benefit. I am not certain if this is the first documented instance of his ordering an action and it being implemented by major powers, but even if there is precedent, how is this not huge news?
Labour STILL Don’t Have Conference Security Provider
Last week Guido published leaked emails showing Labour HQ were tearing their hair out because they hadn’t yet sorted a conference security supplier. The decision to boycott G4S meant the only option was an “anti-union” contractor. Today’s papers follow up the story and report that, six days on, the party still doesn’t have any conference security. The Times quotes a source saying they are “confident” that “conference will go ahead“, but admitting there is still no deal in the pipeline. The Home Office and Liverpool police have been pestering them to sort it out for weeks, but to no avail. Only six weeks to go…
Islington Corbynistas Blame Israeli Ambassador For Bad Poll Results
Last night Islington North Constituency Labour Party met to nominate Jeremy Corbyn by 266 to 100. Turns out Jez has some interesting local backers:
Another attendee, Padraig Reidy, explains what happened:
a speaker rose to tackle the contention that Corbyn is “unelectable”. This, he said, was because no one was “electable” in Britain without the support of Rupert Murdoch and the Israeli ambassador. Half the room gasped; the chair visibly cringed, and ordered the speaker to proceed very carefully. The speaker contended that anyone who stood up for Palestinians was “smeared” as an anti-Semite. Everyone was very glad when he sat down.
Later on:
A woman rose nervously to talk about anti-Semitism in the party, referring to the early speaker’s “Israeli ambassador” line. She found herself barracked by some of the audience for conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism
Well what do you expect from the Jezbollah London branch…
Head of Canada Green Party may resign over pro-BDS vote
The leader of Canada’s Green Party is pondering resigning after members voted to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.
In an interview Tuesday with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Elizabeth May said she is “struggling with the question of whether I should continue as leader or not, quite honestly,” in the wake of the vote last weekend by rank-and-file Greens to support BDS.
May, who has called BDS “polarizing, ineffective and unhelpful,” told the CBC she’s “quite certain most of our members don’t support this policy, but weren’t fully engaged in the consensus-building process we normally would have had.”
“So if I can’t find a way to bring that back and have the members review it with a consensus decision-making process, then I have to profoundly question whether I can continue as leader, and that’s obviously heartbreaking,” she said.
Ken Melamed, the Green Party’s federal council president, explained Monday that the vote to support BDS does not change the party’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Brown U. academic uses stabbing murder of 13-year old Israeli girl to demand sanctions ON ISRAEL
While it is not new, there is an intensifying push in progressive circles, particularly among leftist Jews, to blame everything wrong in the Israeli-Arab conflict on the “occupation” of Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) by Israel.
If only Israel would withdraw, then all would be good, it is claimed. Never mind that there is no evidence the result would be anything other than another launching pad to attack as happened when Israel left Gaza in 2005; or that Muslims will accept any Jewish national entity, regardless of shape, to occupy any portion of what now is Israel.
Such facts don’t get in the way of the narrative, which assesses terrorism as a result of the “occupation” and plays fast and loose with concepts of international law. (See, The Legal Case for Israel and The Legal Case for Israel’s ‘Settlements’, as to why the “occupation” is not illegal, nor are the settlements.)
This inverted assessment of terrorism is on full display in an Op-Ed in The Providence Journal by Nina Tannenwald, Director of the International Relations Program, and Senior Lecturer in Political Science, at The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University .
The article concerns the stabbing murder of 13-year old Hallel Yaffa Ariel while she slept in the community of Kiryat Arba near Hebron.
The perpetrator was a 17-year old Arab from a nearby village who jumped the security fence and managed to infiltrate a home before security forces found and shot him. But only after he killed Hallel.
History Major Elected to UK’s Largest Student Union Calls Zionists ‘Sub-Human, Rats’
An elected delegate to the UK’s largest student union called Zionists “sub-human,” The Tab reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, in a Facebook tirade against an Israeli soccer player on his favorite team, Edinburgh University student Daniel Yahia — who “weeks after having been elected, ditched the post within the NUS and never took it up” — wrote:
Sick of seeing Celtic fans creaming themselves over Nir Bitton. We are a club open to all, that cannot be disputed, but by all, we mean humans, of different creeds, races and religions. Zionists are subhuman and, Nir Bitton is a filthy, Zionist rat,” he wrote. “Get him as far to f**k from our club as possible. If you’re gonna wave your Palestinian flag, don’t be a hypocrite and demand this bastard takes his place on the team. Only place he should be an ever present is a jail cell for supporting the apartheid regime. C**t.
Then, in response to a supportive comment suggesting that Bitton be gassed, Yahia wrote, “Be too good for him mate, expose him to the worst torture which the IDF uses on young Palestinian kids, see how much of a man he is then. Scumbag.”
EXCLUSIVE: After U of Tennessee Downplays Campus Antisemitism, Covert Watchdog Releases Expanded Dossier, Says Prior Report Only ‘Tip of Iceberg’
In addition, a spokesman for UTK told The Algemeiner that the report “far exaggerated the climate on our campus,” adding that UTK “does not condone the statements included in the story [and] we believe those current and former students were within their constitutional rights to post their personal viewpoints.”
But new information provided by the covert watchdog to The Algemeiner shows a scope of antisemitism and racism on campus that extends far beyond the six current and former UTK students originally named by Canary Mission. “The full picture is far more shocking,” a Canary Mission representative, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Algemeiner.
According to the group, 14 current students, eight former students and one individual — who “is not a student but an agitator” — with ties to UTK’s Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters are responsible for a total of “97 highly racist, bigoted, antisemitic or threatening posts” on social media. “You can be sure that there are more we did not find,” the watchdog added.
“The posts highlighted in the [original] report were intended to be an alert for the UTK administration and the public at large to investigate the matter further,” Canary Mission said.
In The Algemeiner’s original report last week, Canary Mission said it had uncovered a “cesspool” of extreme Jew-hatred and other forms of bigotry at UTK. This, the group said, is being spread by students connected to the school’s branches of SJP and MSA.
Montreal: Pro-Israel protesters attacked by leftist activists
Pro-Israel protesters arriving in Montreal yesterday (Wednesday) to protest a conference they see as anti-Semitic, were attacked by far-left activists.
The protest against the "World Social Forum" conference was organized by the Jewish Defense League (JDL) branch that focuses on countering anti-Semitism in Canada.
The background information for one of the events at the conference featured the claim that Zionism and "global capitalism" are behind the rise of ISIS - a combination of the old anti-Semitic trope that "world Jewry" controls all the banks and extreme Israel-hatred - accompanied by a caricature with distinct anti-Semitic characteristics.
A short time after the pro-Israel protesters parked the cars with which they arrived from Toronto, they were surrounded by far-left activists associated with the "Solidarity Across Borders Anti-Racist Response Committee (SAB Antifa)" organization.
A witness told CIJnews that head of JDL Canada Meir Weinstein was punched in the face, while another woman sustained scratches.
Dual-loyalty slur and conspiracy theory go unchallenged on BBC Radio 4
Without challenging the dual loyalty slur with antisemitic roots or the “fighting Israel’s wars” falsehood, Kearney then wrapped up the item as follows: “Dr Michael Sheuer – many thanks for joining us.”
It takes less than ten minutes on the internet to get the measure of Michael Sheuer’s ideologies. His habit of blaming Israel for terrorism in America, his promotion of the notion of an ‘Israel lobby’ and his unfounded claim that “[t]he Israel-firsters started the Iraq war” are amply advertised online.
We do not of course know whether or not the ‘World at One’ production team bothered to invest any time in researching – even on Wikipedia – the person they chose to ask for an interview. What we do know is that when Sheuer went predictably off-topic and introduced his pet subject of Israel into the conversation, his slurs and conspiracy theories went entirely unchallenged, with the result that Radio 4 listeners were misled.
Times of London headline turns high court Kafka ruling into act of Israeli aggression
Now, think: what would be an appropriate headline?
How about this?
Kafka Manuscripts Belong to Israeli National Library, Israel’s High Court rules
Or this?
Israeli court decides Kafka works to go to National Library
Or this?
Franz Kafka literary legal battle ends as Israel’s high court rules in favor of library
Ok, now here’s the headline chosen by editors at Times of London:
"Kafka’s papers seized by Israeli judges"
Of course, nothing was in fact “seized”.
Moreover, it’s a mystery how editors managed frame a legal decision by the state’s widely respected high court into some sort of act of Israeli aggression.
Berlin hotel denies anti-Israel claim by ‘Shoah’ director
A five-star hotel in Berlin is dismissing claims of anti-Israel bias by French Jewish filmmaker Claude Lanzmann.
The director of the Holocaust documentary “Shoah” was quoted in a German newspaper Thursday as claiming that the Hotel Bristol intentionally left Israel off a list of international dialing codes.
Lanzmann told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that a hotel employee informed him the omission was requested by Arab guests.
Hotel director Birgitt Ullerich denied there were any such instructions.
She told The Associated Press that only 34 countries were on the list and Israel’s absence “was simply an oversight.”
Lockheed-Elbit Team Joins British Tank-Upgrade Competition
Lockheed Martin UK is to team with Israel’s Elbit Systems in its bid to secure a deal to update the British Army’s aging fleet of Challenger main battle tanks.
The two companies revealed their collaboration pact just 24 hours ahead of the closing date for the submission of industry proposals to undertake the assessment phase on a program which could see up to 227 tanks updated at a cost of £624 million ($816 million).
The requirement has attracted the attention of some of the leading companies in the western armored-vehicles sector.
A consortium led by BAE Systems and General Dynamics, the newly announced Lockheed Martin–Elbit Systems UK team, Rheinmetall, Swiss defense company Ruag, and a CMI Defence-Ricardo UK partnership have all announced over the last couple of months they will bid.
Israeli start-ups take top prizes in prestigious China start-up event
For the second year in a row, Israeli start-ups took top honors this week in one of the top start-up events in the world.
NiNiSpeech — which has developed a revolutionary digital platform for treating speech disorders — took first place in the Global Innovation Awards 2016, a global start-up competition featuring 21 start-ups from around the world competing for $1.5 million in cash prizes, with no equity. And AerialGuard — which has created an autonomous navigation system for unmanned aircraft — won second place.
The two Israeli winners of this year’s contest competed against 21 finalists from across the globe — 10 from China, six from the US, three from Israel and two from Europe. The winners were selected by 11 judges from around the world as well as real-time voting from an audience of over 1,000 people.
The finalists were selected from 3,000 international start-ups in an eight-month process that spanned four geographic regions.
Last year, it was the Israeli start-up DiaCardio, developer of innovative software for decoding echocardiograms, that took first prize.
Excavations reveal 6,000-year-old city, Roman-era frescoes
The recently uncovered a cluster of underground structures dating back about 6,000 years beneath the Shoket junction in southern Israel during a joint excavation project with local youth.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is set to complete its dig near the roadway ahead of plans to build a new junction on the site as part of the Trans-Israel Highway project.
During the dig, archaeologists found ancient homes built along the Hebron Stream, surrounded by a vast network of underground spaces dug into the soil. Some of the spaces are lined with large stones and others are connected by underground tunnels.
The IAA said the underground cavities, which maintain relatively cool temperatures despite the hot climate in the Negev Desert, were used for storage and production during the Chalcolithic period. The spaces may have also been used as living quarters.
Hundreds of clay vessels found at the site provide evidence of the extensive human activity that took place inside the underground spaces. Among the clay artifacts found were storage jars, churns, decorated tableware, spindles and loom weights for creating textiles. Stone tools for grinding grains were also found, along with sickles, axes, knives and grain seeds.
Nefesh B'Nefesh to celebrate its 50,000th immigrant to Israel
233 North Americans will arrive in Israel on an El Al Boeing 777 chartered by Nefesh B’Nefesh and officially make Aliyah next Wednesday, August 17. The flight is being facilitated in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah & Immigrant Absorption, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel (KKL), JNF-USA and Tzofim-Garin Tzabar.
The passengers include 75 young men and women who will become Israeli citizens and volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). They are moving to Israel as ‘Lone Soldiers’, youngsters who left their families in the US and Canada to move to Israel and volunteer for the Israeli Army. They will join the over 900 Lone Soldiers from the US, and the 3,000 Lone Soldiers from around the world who are currently serving in the IDF.
The flight’s other passengers include a diverse mix of people from 22 US states and one Canadian province, including 24 families, 78 children and 10 medical professionals. Ages of immigrants range from 3.5 weeks to 85 years old.
With this flight, NBN will celebrate its 50,000th immigrant brought to Israel with the organization, which was founded in 2002.
The American-born lone soldier who out-Israelied the Israelis
This is Michael’s invisible impact. And I’m convinced it couldn’t have been just any lone soldier. It had to be Michael Levin.
Like Michael, my hero growing up was Yoni Netanyahu, the paratrooper and leader of the raid on Entebbe and the operation’s lone casualty. I read and reread Yoni’s “Self Portrait of a Hero,” a collection of his letters, during high school — as Michael had. It was because of Yoni that I wanted to join the IDF.
But it was just as much because of Yoni that I chose tanks instead of paratroopers. In “Self Portrait of a Hero,” we meet a soldier of superhuman physical strength, unlimited stamina, and unshakable self-confidence. A true Lion of Judah. Much as I admired him, I knew I could never be like Yoni or his paratrooper platoon-mates. I was afraid I’d fall behind.
Then there’s Michael Levin. The anti-Yoni.
Michael was not a Lion of Judah. Quite the opposite: the army didn’t want to take him. It was only after he climbed a dumpster and shimmied through a window into the Induction Center that they agreed to let him in. Michael’s source of power was sheer determination.
Who Michael Levin wasn’t inspires lone soldiers as much as who he was. Michael’s Hebrew wasn’t the best. He needed help finishing hikes. He was accident-prone, and dropped a MAG machine gun on his foot during basic training. He was the skinny troublemaker with a goofy sense of humor you feel you’ve known your whole life. The guy you look at and say, “If he can do it, I can, too.” Yoni Netanyahu wows us because we know we can never be like him. Michael’s magic is that we don’t have to try to be like him; we are him.
“Michael’s message is not to go and die for your cause,” says David Keren. “His message is to fulfill your dream the best you can. That’s a worldwide message, not just one for the IDF or Israel. That’s Michael’s story. And how he should be remembered.”
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