From Ian:
Israeli victory is the only way to advance peace process
American policy has long been to prevent Israel from achieving a decisive military victory over its adversaries. In 1956, President Eisenhower forced Israel to abandon its territorial gains from the Suez Crisis. Similarly, following the 1967 Six Day War, the U.S. helped engineer a U.N. resolution calling on Israel to return unspecified “territories occupied” in the war. The Reagan administration stopped Israel from obliterating Yasser Arafat’s PLO forces in Lebanon in 1982, and, most recently, the Obama administration pressured Israel to limit its objectives in its 2014 war with Hamas. These concessions, which are often unilateral and irreversible, include settlement freezes, prisoner releases and forfeiture of territory.
Such policies deliver pernicious results; American “restraint” of Israel encourages its enemies to take risks. Much like government bailouts encourage banks to make high-risk, high-payoff investments by removing the consequences of failure, Israel’s adversaries need not fret over irrevocable loss because they know the international community will admonish Israel for any gains it achieves.
Moreover, restraining Israel legitimizes and nourishes Palestinian rejectionism, defined as the refusal to acknowledge Israeli sovereignty and right of Jews to live in their ancestral homeland. Because it knows there will be no consequences for its sophisticated propaganda war, the Palestinian Authority can continue to demonize Israel. “To become a normal people, one whose parents do not encourage their children to become suicide terrorists, Palestinian Arabs need to undergo the crucible of defeat,” writes Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes.
When Israel has licensure, without American opprobrium, to unleash its military might after a Palestinian rocket or terror attack, as when Liberman ordered over 50 airstrikes on Hamas military infrastructure in Gaza in response to one rocket, the Palestinians retreat. The fear of crushing defeat is a potent weapon in neutralizing Palestinian resistance.
America’s handling of the Arab-Israeli conflict is preventing the kind of metamorphosis in Palestinian thinking about Israel that peace requires. It’s time for Washington to allow Israel to demolish the Palestinian dream of a one-state solution, free of Jews. As Ronald Reagan said regarding the US fight against communism, the only way to “win is if they lose.”
This doesn’t mean the U.S. should support a winner-take-all settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But we must dispense with the fallacy that Israel is only a concession or two away from an American-brokered diplomatic breakthrough. As Gen. Douglas MacArthur said famously, “there is no substitute for victory.”
Washington calls Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing video ‘inappropriate’
Washington on Friday fumed at comments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video released online in which he accused the Palestinians of advocating ethnic cleansing of the Jewish population in the West Bank.
US State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters the administration is “engaging in direct conversations with the Israeli government” about the video.
“We obviously strongly disagree with the characterization that those who oppose settlement activity or view it as an obstacle to peace are somehow calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank. We believe that using that type of terminology is inappropriate and unhelpful,” Trudeau said.
She said Israel expansion of settlements raises “real questions about Israel’s long-term intentions in the West Bank.”
Car packed with gas cylinders parked in front of Marseilles synagogue
A week after police in Paris discovered a booby-trapped car near a tourist attraction, a suspect vehicle with gas cylinders was found outside a Jewish community center in the southern city of Marseille.
The parked car found Saturday morning outside the Bar Yohaye Jewish Community Center and synagogue in Marseille’s 4th Arrondissement east of the Saint-Charles railways station had no trigger mechanism to cause an explosion and was not stolen, Laurent Nuñez, the police commissioner of the Bouches-du-Rhône region, told La Provence.
There was no indication that the car found in Marseille was connected in any way to what police believe was a foiled attempt to carry out a terrorist attack in Paris last week involving a car with several gas cylinders that was found abandoned near Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral, Nuñez added.
Three women were arrested last week in connection with the Paris incident. They were likely planning an imminent attack, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
Arrested French women, directed by Islamic State, planned Paris attack
One of three women arrested over a failed Islamist attack in Paris had been "promised as a bride" to two men behind attacks on police officers and a priest earlier this year, the Paris prosecutor said on Friday.
The revelations highlight the close links between members of radical Islamist circles in France, even though they might live in different parts of the country.
Sarah H, a 23-year-old Frenchwoman, was taken into custody on Thursday along with the other two women after police launched a manhunt to find them, believing they were planning an imminent attack on the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris.
The three women were being tracked after a car loaded with gas cylinders was found near Notre Dame cathedral at the weekend. Sarah H allegedly stabbed a police officer when she was arrested; another of the women was shot and wounded . Neither the police officer nor the woman shot was seriously injured.
MEMRI: On 15th Anniversary Of 9/11, Al-Qaeda Leader Al-Zawahiri Urges Mujahideen To Focus On Targeting U.S., Incites Black Christians Against U.S. And Calls Them To Islam
On September 9, 2016, Al-Qaeda's media wing Al-Sahab released a video message by the group's leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, marking the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Al-Zawahiri reiterates the reasons behind the attacks and their impact on the U.S., and urges the mujahideen to focus on targeting the U.S. and its allies, and to bring the battle onto their own soil as well. Appealing to non-Muslim African-Americans, he blames their woes on the U.S. and calls to them to convert to Islam.
Most of the 20-minute video consists of Al-Zawahiri's message, and the final several minutes feature an archival address by Osama bin Laden. Additionally, archival footage of a Malcolm X address is played as Al-Zawahiri appeals to African-Americans.
Below are the main points of the message:
Al-Zawahiri praises the "blessed raids" of 9/11, noting that they managed to strike deep within the U.S. and to attack its economic symbols, i.e. the Twin Towers. He also notes that the final and fourth hijacked airplane, United Flight 93, was heading towards "the biggest criminals in the White House or the Congress." Al-Zawahiri boasts that 9/11 was a wakeup call to the U.S., reminding it that its crimes against Muslims won't go unnoticed. The attacks' impact, according to Al-Zawahiri, continues to be felt today, and its memory will forever be remembered by the Americans.
Addressing the U.S., Al-Zawahiri reminds it: "The events of 9/11 were a direct result of your crimes against us, your crimes in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Mali, Somalia, Yemen, Islamic Maghreb, and Egypt [and] the result of your occupation of Muslim lands, theft of their resources, and support for the murderous corrupt criminals, who rule over them." He further threatens the U.S.: "As long as your crimes continue, the events of 9/11 will be repeated thousands of times, by the will of Allah. And we will follow you – if you don't cease your aggression [against us] – until the Day of Judgment..."
MEMRI: From The MEMRI 9/11 Archives Series 'Terror In America': Arab And Iranian Media In The Days Following 9/11
Since September 11, 2001, The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has been following and documenting content in the media of the Middle East and South Asia concerning the attacks that took place on that day. A great number of the initial reactions in the media – from prominent journalists, academics, politicians, and leading religious figures, as well as from officials in the government of Arab countries – centered on conspiracy theories. These theories implicated the Jews, Israel and/or the Mossad; President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the CIA, the FBI, and/or the National Security Council; Christians and/or the Vatican; Britain; white supremacist groups; and others.
September 11, 2001 also marked the emergence of the reform movement in the Arab and Muslim world. Following the attacks, intellectuals, writers, journalists, associations, reform websites and organizations called insistently for reform; in ever-growing numbers, they are demanding that the culture and education that produced the attackers undergo a fundamental change.
The following are reports from MEMRI's "Terror In America" series, on the Arab and Iranian media in the days following the attack.
Terror In America (1) Palestinian Information Ministry Director-General: The Arab Media Are Overly Preoccupied With The Terror Attacks In The US; They Must Return To Dealing With The Palestinian Problem Special Dispatch - No. 267 - September 17, 2001
Terror In America (2) Hamas Weekly: 'Allah Has Answered Our Prayers; The Sword Of Vengeance Has Reached America And Will Strike Again And Again' Special Dispatch - No. 268 - September 17, 2001
15 years after 9/11, US terror threat is now ‘homegrown’
Fifteen years after the September 11 attacks, US anti-terror officials say the country is hardened against such well-developed plots but remains as vulnerable as ever to small and especially homegrown attacks.
Counter-terror operations are under huge pressure to ferret out and disrupt plots by sympathizers of the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda hidden by less centralized networks and new communications technologies, they say.
“Our job is getting harder,” said Nick Rasmussen, the powerful director of the National Counterterrorism Center, at a stock-taking this week in Washington.
The explosion of ways extremists can communicate with each other, many of them via popular smartphone apps and easy access to powerful encryption, “gives them the edge” against the US intelligence community, he said.
The 9/11 attacks gave birth to the US War On Terror, which initially focused on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
ISIS ploting to massacre Christians in Belgian shopping mall
ISIS extremists are hatching a plot to butcher Christians in a shopping center with chainsaws, the son of a radical Imam told the Daily Mail.
The teenager from the city of Verviers, Belgium was arrested after a video of him walking in the street and calling for the murder of Christians in Arabic was released.
He is said to have revealed in a police interview that the terrorist organization is recruiting members in order to carry out a massacre in a shopping center using a chainsaw.
According to the Daily Mail, the Belgian newspaper 'La Derniere Heure' reported that the man, son of radical imam Shayh Alami, confessed that ISIS is recruiting lone wolves in Belgium.
The teenager said two planned attacks were to be staged at a shopping center, while another was against an Imam "not radical enough."
Theo Francken, the Belgian Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, is working to deport the Imam as well as his son.
Prisons: Harvard for Radicals
"If they arrest me and put me in prison, I will carry on in prison. I will radicalise everyone in prison." — Anjem Choudary, quoted by the Daily Mail.
One of the most troubling factors is the vulnerability of fresh converts to radicalisation. Starting out with minimal knowledge of their new faith, converts are easily lured into adopting strict forms of Islam, guided by existing radicals and by the extremist literature freely available in prisons.
"Political correctness in prisons is allowing extremism to flourish because guards are too afraid of confronting Muslims." Extremists are "exploiting... staff fear of being labelled racist." — The Telegraph, citing a report by Ian Acheson, a former British prison governor.
Said al-Shihri, after his release from Guantanamo in 2007, completed and passed the Saudi deradicalisation program, then became deputy leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen, orchestrating the bombing of the U.S. embassy there in 2008.
A Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood, pointed out that many of the mentors who are supposed to guide young people away from becoming radicalised are themselves non-violent radicals.
PreOccupiedTerritory: Imam To Lead Customary Security Council Reading Of Mein Kampf (satire)
In what organizers are calling a manifestation of religious tolerance, for the first time a Muslim religious leader will ceremonially introduce a session of the United Nations Security Council, directing the delegates in a joint recitation of passages from Adolph Hitler’s seminal work.
Imam Aryan Babyar, a cleric of Pakistani origin residing in Britain, will conduct a reading of Mein Kampf when the Council meets early next week. He was invited to perform the reading by the French ambassador, François Delattre, who sought to open the session with a nod toward pluralism and tolerance, a subject that has stirred passion in France and the Muslim world in recent weeks over attempts to ban conspicuous Islamic attire in some French municipalities.
Imam Babyar is already the resident convocation leader at the Human Rights Council in Geneva and UNESCO in Paris, where he leads the delegates in recitation of important pieces from the classic works The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and Der Stürmer. Ambassador Delattre heard of Babyar’s inspirational activities and invited him to New York, where he and the other Council delegates hope the readings become a permanent feature of the body’s protocol.
“We’re all excited for this opportunity to showcase acceptance and cooperation,” gushed the ambassador, “and I, personally, feel gratified that even amid the controversy over swimwear, secular values, and the limits of religious expression, we can permit the other values we share to shine through.”
Jeremy Corbyn set to speak alongside Hamas supporter at London conference
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is set to take the stage alongside Hamas supporter Anas Altikriti, at the Stop the War coalition's conference in London next month.
British daily The Telegraph reported early last year that Altikrti is a key spokesman and lobbyist for the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK, though he denies being a member himself.
Altikriti has openly stated that “the Brotherhood supports Hamas. I believe that if you are occupied you need to fight back.”
According to The Telegraph, Altikriti also co-founded a group called the British Muslim Initiative with a senior operative in Hamas, Mohammed Sawalha, and a Hamas “special envoy,” Azzam Tamimi.
Sawalha fled to London, England in 1990 after Israeli authorities sought to detain him for his activities with the Islamic terror organization, the BBC's John Ware reported in 2006. Sawalha, the BBC noted, was said "to have masterminded much of Hamas' political and military strategy."
Tamimi is a Palestinian academic based in London who has openly championed Hamas over the span of his career, calling for the end of the Jewish state and stated that violence in the cause of freedom was not murder, but "legitimate struggle."
UN antisemitism forum: UNGA president blasts Israeli "oppression"
When Israel, U.S. and Canada hosted a forum on anti-Semitism at the U.N., General Assembly president Mogens Lykketoft used the occasion to speak of Israel's "oppression" of Palestinians
66 EU parliamentarians urge FIFA to ban Israeli settlement clubs
A group of European lawmakers on Friday urged soccer’s world governing body FIFA to ban Israeli clubs based in settlements in the West Bank.
In a letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, 66 MEPs identified five clubs based in settlements and insisted they either move inside Israel’s internationally accepted borders, or be excluded from the Israel Football Association.
“I am not asking FIFA to suspend Israel, we just want it to apply the rules,” said Scottish National Party MEP Alyn Smith, who launched the appeal.
“Allowing Israel to use football as an instrument of territorial expansion in the West Bank politicizes football — and this is not acceptable,” he said in a statement.
All five clubs play in the third and fourth divisions.
Abbas: Israel not responding to international peace efforts
Israel failed to respond to current regional and international efforts to revive the peace process while the Palestinians responded positively, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a Mexican Jewish delegation in his de facto West Bank capital of Ramallah.
Abbas told the delegation that Russia will continue in its efforts to arrange a summit for him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but did not specify a date, Israel Radio reported Saturday.
The Russian foreign ministry said Thursday that Netanyahu and Abbas agree “in principle” to meet in Moscow. According to Russian media reports, the two leaders are willing to sit down for a face-to-face meeting in a bid to revive peace talks.
The PA president also said a French plan for an international peace conference by the year’s end was a vital opportunity to salvage the peace process, and called on the international community to both support it and work to guarantee its success.
Israel ‘bracing for attack’ by IS in Sinai in next 6 months
Israel is preparing for an attack by Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate, Wilayat Sinai (“Sinai Province”), within the next six months, a top military official told the UK’s Telegraph.
The unnamed official quoted by the newspaper Friday said Israel believes the group will soon use weapons and vehicles stolen from Egypt’s military to stage an attack on the Jewish state’s southern border with the Sinai Peninsula.
The weaponry includes an Egyptian tank and Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles, the officer said.
“It could happen today, tomorrow, in a month but within the next six months we will come into an engagement with Wilayat Sinai,” the official said. “In the next six months they will try to carry out an attack and try to do something against Israel.”
The group was established as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis in 2011, amid the revolution that brought about the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. Comprised of extremists and former al-Qaeda fighters, it sought to fight both the Egyptian state as well as Israel.
IDF denies Palestinian claims it killed Gaza teen near border
Medical sources in the Gaza Strip said Friday evening that a young Palestinian was killed by IDF fire in El Bureij in the coastal enclave.
The 18-year-old was reportedly killed during riots by Palestinians near the Gaza border fence.
IDF officials said in response the Palestinian “claims are known and are now being examined.” But later on Friday evening army officials said troops were not operating in the area where the Palestinian teen was killed.
Earlier this week, on Monday, Palestinians in northern Gaza fired across the border at Israeli soldiers. In response, tanks fired at two Hamas posts in Gaza, the IDF said in a statement. Palestinian media sources reported the targets were buildings belonging to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
No injuries were reported on either side.
Hamas MP: "The Jews Are The Vilest Nation in History"
Hamas MP Marwan Abu Ras in a Friday Sermon: The Jews Are "the Vilest Nation in History"
In a Friday sermon delivered in Gaza on August 26, Hamas MP lambasted the Saudi delegation, headed by retired Saudi general Dr. Anwar Eshki, which had visited Israel in July to promote the Arab peace initiative. "You are a supporter of the Jews, even if you came from the Land of the Two Holy Mosques," he said, calling the Jews "the vilest and most despicable nation in history," who "betray everyone" and "never abide by any pace they make." The sermon was broadcast by the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV channel.
Second mortar shell of day hits Golan Heights
A second mortar shell fired from Syria struck the Golan Heights on Saturday evening, Channel 2 News reported, hours after a shell that exploded in the area led to retaliatory Israeli strikes.
The shell exploded on the border, causing no casualties or damage. It was the fourth such incident this week.
Earlier a mortar shell had exploded inside Israeli territory. It too did not cause harm. A military spokeswoman said the projectile was most likely unintentional “spillover” from the internal fighting in Syria.
A short time later, the Israeli Air Force struck artillery targets belonging to the Syrian army, the army said.
“The Syrian government [is] accountable for this blatant breach of Israeli sovereignty, the IDF will continue to act in order to safeguard Israel and its civilians,” it added.
Elliott Abrams: The United States Bars Christian, Not Muslim, Refugees From Syria
The title of this blog post–The United States Bars Christian, Not Muslim, Refugees From Syria–will strike many readers as ridiculous.
But the numbers tell a different story: The United States has accepted 10,801 Syrian refugees, of whom 56 are Christian. Not 56 percent; 56 total, out of 10,801. That is to say, one half of one percent. The BBC says that ten percent of all Syrians are Christian, which would mean 2.2 million Christians. It is quite obvious, and President Obama and Secretary Kerry have acknowledged it, that Middle Eastern Christians are an especially persecuted group.
So how is it that one half of one percent of the Syrian refugees we’ve admitted are Christian, or 56, instead of about 1,000 out of 10,801–or far more, given that they certainly meet the legal definition? The definition: someone who “is located outside of the United States; Is of special humanitarian concern to the United States; Demonstrates that they were persecuted or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” Somewhere between a half million and a million Syrian Christians have fled Syria, and the United States has accepted 56. Why?
“This is de facto discrimination and a gross injustice,” Nina Shea, who is director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, told Fox News. Fox notes another theory: that the United States takes refugee referrals from the UN refugee camps in Jordan and there are no Christians there.
US, Russia clinch deal seeking to end Syrian civil war
The United States and Russia hailed a breakthrough deal on Saturday to put Syria's peace process back on track, including a nationwide truce effective from sundown on Monday, improved humanitarian aid access and joint military targeting of banned Islamist groups.
"Today, Sergei Lavrov and I, on behalf of our presidents and our countries, call on every Syrian stakeholder to support the plan that the United States and Russia have reached, to ... bring this catastrophic conflict to the quickest possible end through a political process," US Secretary of State John Kerry told a news conference after marathon talks in the Swiss city.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that despite continuing mistrust, the two sides had developed five documents that would revive a failed truce agreed in February and enable military coordination between the US and Russia against militant groups in Syria.
Both sides agreed not to release the documents publicly.
"This all creates the necessary conditions for resumption of the political process, which has been stalling for a long time," Lavrov told a news conference.
BDS: A threat to the entire Middle East
As a Jordanian politician, I feel obligated to speak out against the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and its effect on the Middle East and the world.
I represent the point of view and interests of the Jordanian people. By doing so, I have freedom that many others may not. My views on BDS are unbiased and balanced because I am not an Israeli and nobody could accuse me of being anti-Arab.
Let me be clear: BDS is a reckless act of hatred that threatens the security and stability of not only Israel, but also my country, Jordan, and the entire Middle East.
BDS seeks to attack and isolate Israel. But what is Israel's importance to Jordan, and to the world? Why should anyone care if Israel is hurt?
This is what the president of the Jordanian opposition, Mudar Zahran, wrote last year in Israel Hayom: "If the day were to come when Israel falls, Jordan, Egypt and many others would fall, too, and Westerners would be begging Iran for oil.
"We can hate Israel as much as we like, but we must realize that without it, we too would be gone."
Inside a hate-filled anti-Israel protest
I arrived early. The first thing I noticed was the signs the protesters were holding. Several claimed the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and the Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) are equivalent, saying, “ISIS and IDF are the same: Only difference is their name” and “Humanity devastated, Zionist collaborated, ISIS & IDF activated.” Some read: “Boycott IsraHell.” Others showed graphic images purporting to be bloodied Palestinian children being abused by the IDF. I later searched for these images online and found that they were from other conflicts, unrelated to Israel.
After I left, and took the scarf off my head, I was profoundly disturbed.
The large crowd chanted “Zionism is racism is terrorism,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Black, red, green and white, Palestine is going to fight.”
The speeches were also deeply unsettling. Speakers said there should be no “so-called” state of Israel, that Israel is committing ethnic cleansing, that “Zionists gun down women as their income” and that “Zionism is racism.” One speaker said that Israel had executed a 17-year-old boy, referring to the Palestinian who slaughtered a 13-year-old Israeli girl while she was sleeping and was shot by the IDF while trying to murder her family. Another said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not a true Canadian, claiming he was too pro-Israel. The crowd cheered each speaker, while constantly shouting, “Down with Israel.”
After I left, and took the scarf off, I was profoundly disturbed that there were people allowed to espouse this hatred outside the Ontario legislature. I was cautiously optimistic when B’nai Brith launched an investigation, both into the public school teacher who spoke at the event and the event itself. I was pleased when the Toronto District Catholic School Board suspended the teacher during its investigation.
J Street wants review of tax exemption for US pro-settlement organizations
The liberal J Street organization is calling on the US Treasury to review the tax-deductibility status of donations by American groups that promote Israeli settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In a statement sent to the media Friday, J Street said that “a sophisticated private network has sprung up in the United States, funded by tax-deductible donations, that has channeled millions of dollars to strengthen the settlements and weaken the Palestinians’ presence in the West Bank.”
According to the statement, the money is used to fund organizations such as the right-wing NGO Regavim, founded by Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich, which J Street said “presses for the demolition of Palestinian houses – and in some cases entire communities.”
The statement also cited El’ad (also known as the Ir David Foundation), which works to move Jews into predominantly Arab areas of East Jerusalem, and the Brooklyn-based The Hebron Fund, a group that J Street says promotes Jewish settlement in Hebron “at the expense of the local Palestinian population.”
J Street also highlights US policy, which it says “consistently opposed the construction and expansion of settlements under each and every president — Democratic and Republican — since Israel started building on territories captured in the 1967 [Six Day] war.” Yet, it says, US “statements of disapproval have done little to stem or even significantly slow the inexorable expansion of the Israeli presence in the occupied territory.”
Britain to start building anti-migrant wall in Calais
Britain hopes a four-meter high (13 foot-high) concrete wall will succeed where security guards and barbed wire have failed, and stop migrants reaching the UK from the northern French port of Calais.
Construction for the barrier will begin this month and should be completed by the end of this year, officials said.
The wall, which will be funded by the British government under an agreement struck at a summit in March, will complement a security fence already put up around the port and entrance to the Channel Tunnel.
“We are going to start building this big new wall very soon. We’ve done the fence, now we are doing a wall,” Home Office Minister Robert Goodwill told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
Calais, known as “the jungle,” a squalid camp of tents and makeshift shelters, is home to some 7,000 migrants but charities say the number might be as high as 10,000 after an influx this summer.
The wall, which is expected to cost 2.7 million euros ($3.0 million), will be the latest barrier to go up around Europe as the Continent struggles with its biggest migrant influx in decades.
Thousands of people, most from the Middle East and Africa, have made long and dangerous journeys to Calais, crossing the Mediterranean to southern Europe in overcrowded boats and then traveling hundreds of miles by foot, car or rail to northwest France.
The Guardian: Filleting the Context
The Guardian publishes what appears at first sight to be a story of hope and encouragement from Gaza surrounding the growth of fish farms. To his credit, Peter Beaumont states that “All the farms in Gaza are vulnerable to the instabilities resulting from Hamas rule.”
However, it wouldn’t be a Guardian story without something to blame on Israel:
The Palestinian fishing industry operates under strictly enforced restrictions. An exclusion zone policed by Israel limits the industry’s range to within six miles off Gaza’s coast. Fishermen risk being shot at, arrested and having their catch confiscated.
How about some much needed context? Restrictions on Palestinian fishing are undoubtedly causing difficulties for Palestinian fishermen. But is Israel deliberately setting out to strangle the Palestinian fishing industry in a fit of malevolence?
Of course not.
Two hyperlinks to other stories also lacking the same context are no excuse for failing to point out why Israel needs to enforce a maritime exclusion zone. The main reason is smuggling of weapons to Hamas.
Toronto Star Video Fails to Mention that “Palestinian Internet Sensation” is a Terrorist
Yesterday, the Toronto Star posted a video to its website headlined “Palestinian internet sensation brings joy with funny videos” about how “Adel Meshoukhi, a former Hamas security guard, seeks to make Gazans forget about their daily woes by posting funny videos on social media.”
The Star and the makers of this video report failed to mention and disclose that:
Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and is a proscribed terror group according to Canada, the U.S., U.N, E.U. etc. Instead, Hamas was sanitized as a “militant” group in this video .
According to Agence France-Presse, Adel Meshoukhi (pictured right) is still on Hamas’ payroll.
Failing to mention this vital context was misleading to viewers of this video who were not told that this individual worked for, and still secures a salary from an organization that wants to wipe Israel from the map.
Jews, Muslims join forces for kosher, halal food in NYC schools
Muslim and Jewish students rallied with lawmakers in support of a bill to provide kosher and halal food options in New York City public schools.
“The cost is limited, compared to having a healthy meal, allowing students to eat and to be able to perform,” said State Assemblyman David Weprin, a Queens Democrat, at the Tuesday rally in front of City Hall, according to CBS New York.
The bill, which is sponsored by State Sen. Tony Avella, also a Queens Democrat, would provide kosher and halal food options in public schools, where at least a quarter of students belong to a religious community with dietary restrictions, according to the Jewish Press.
There are vegetarian school lunch options, but not kosher or halal ones, according to the city’s Department of Education.
Israeli ambassador hosts Polish priest accused of anti-Semitism
Israel’s ambassador to Poland hosted a Catholic priest who runs a radio station that the US State Department has called a main purveyor of anti-Semitism.
Tadeusz Rydzyk, the director of Radio Maryja, visited the embassy Wednesday, the embassy reported on its website, where he met with Ambassador Anna Azari for an hour.
According to a US State Department report from 2008, “Radio Maryja is one of Europe’s most blatantly anti-Semitic media venues.” A Council of Europe report stated that Radio Maryja has been “openly inciting to anti-Semitism for several years.”
In July 2007, Rydzyk was recorded making “a number of anti-Semitic slurs,” the report also stated. Rydzyk said Jews were pushing the Polish government to pay exorbitant private property restitution claims, and that Poland’s president was “in the pocket of the Jewish lobby,” according to the report.
His statements were aimed at encouraging legislators and popular opinion “against support for a compensation bill,” read the report, which also stated that Rydzyk and his radio station have both come under criticism from several members of the Polish Catholic leadership.
App trains your brain to dispense with reading glasses
If you are over 40, squint while reading your paper in the morning or scramble for your reading glasses while checking out the menu at a dimly lit restaurant, then you may want to try out a mobile app that promises you will do away with your reading glasses within three months.
Tel Aviv-based GlassesOff’s patented technology, when tested by the University of Berkeley in California, was proved to have a success rate of over 90 percent in users who qualified and were dependent on reading glasses, the company said.
After using the app, “vision-age” is reduced on average by 8.6 years, a study showed. A recent placebo study also proved the app’s efficacy, and it was also tested on Israeli air force pilots in 2014. An English version of the app was launched in 2014 and a French version followed last year.
The app has just reached 1 million users globally.
IsraelDailyPicture: Jordan River Water Was Shipped to the U.S. in 1906 and May Have Flushed an Anti-Semitic U.S. Diplomat Out of His Job
The International River Jordan Water Company was launched by Col. Clifford E. Naudaud of Covington, Kentucky, in 1906. He secured "the sole right of shipping the water of the Jordan River from the banks of the stream in Palestine to all parts of the world for baptismal and other purposes," according to a Kentucky newspaper, The Bee, published in Earlington, KY.
The water was "shipped in casks bearing the seals of the Turkish Government and the American Consul," according to The Bee. "The water will be bottled in the United States in bonded warehouses."
The American Consul granting his seal for the commercial venture may have cost the veteran diplomat his job. His departure was a blessing for the Jews of Palestine. The Consul-General was undoubtedly the nastiest anti-Semite to ever hold that post.
The story of an ‘Exodus’ passenger’s stormy sail to the Jewish state
David Ariel, formerly Leibowitz, an Ashkelon resident for the last 54 years, was a passenger on the Exodus 1947, carrying Holocaust survivors to Palestine. What follows is just a drop in the deep bucket of his amazing life.
David Leibowitz was born in Carpatorus, Czechoslovakia, the oldest of three siblings. His father was a successful tailor and his mother took care of the family and the home. Life was good until the Czechs left and the Hungarians stormed the town after aligning with Germany. Things became perilous, but there was no risk to life until March 1944, when the Germans came marching into the city. At that point, life became a living hell.
David, 13, and his family were exiled to a ghetto until the day after Passover when they were thrown into cattle cars with a hundred others for a grueling three-day journey. Before getting off the train, his mother whispered to him to stand tall and always say that he was 16.
These were her last words to him, and her advice later saved his life.
Immediately after arriving at Auschwitz, the “selection” process began and David lost sight of his mother and siblings forever. He managed to stay with his father for two or three days before they too were separated, David being sent to Austria to the Mauthausen concentration camp. During the “selection” there, he found himself on the left, standing with the children. He heard his mom say, “Dudi, do not go with the children!” David jumped to the adult side and followed that group into the camp. There he was given his new name: No. 68511. (In 1993, on a visit to the camp, David learned that those children who had been on the left had been sent to the gas chambers. His beloved mother had saved his life.) He began a journey that movies are made of. Today at age 86, speaking in a strong voice that faltered at times when describing some incredibly harrowing details, David shared his life with amazing acuity. Beatings, working dawn to dusk building tunnels – this was now his life at the Melk work camp, where one subsisted on meager food rations, fought disease and battled every day to survive. The 10 months he spent there were an eternity and only the strong survived. Going to the infirmary was not an option, since whoever was taken there never came out.
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