Friday, July 21, 2017



Here is an excerpt from an interview with Muslim Brotherhood supporter and member of the Jordanian parliament, Dima Tahboub.






At the very same time that she claims to be against violence, she justifies and cheers the murder of 7 Israeli schoolgirls in 1997 in the Island of Peace massacre.

Dima Tahboub is not the reason peace is impossible in the Middle East. She's a hater, a bigot, an antisemite, a Muslim supremacist and an inciter, but there are lots of those around.

The reason that peace is impossible is because it is impossible to find any Arabs, anywhere in region, who are aghast at these comments and willing to publicly stand up and condemn them.

If one cannot find a a single Arab government, a single Arab "human rights' organization, a single Arab lawmaker or a single Arab pundit or columnist willing to condemn Tahboub for cheering the murder of innocent girls because they are Jewish, then that silence tells us far more about how the Arab world thinks than a thousand statements that they are against violence and don't hate Jews.

I have no doubt that many Arabs do not support the wanton murder of innocent girls, even Jewish ones. But even those Arabs live in a society where they both do not feel strongly enough about it to speak up, and where if they did there would be very unpleasant consequences for them and their families. Such a society is not capable of making real peace, ever.

The full disgusting interview is here.





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  • Friday, July 21, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
Israel has done absolutely nothing wrong in regards to Israeli or Palestinian Muslims in this past week.

Muslims attacked Israeli police from their supposedly holy site using weapons that were hidden in the mosque itself. Muslims decided to riot instead of worshipping at that same site.

All of the moves Israel made (temporary closing of Temple Mount, setting up metal detectors, barring young Muslim men from Jerusalem) were defensive and in reaction to offensive actions or threats from Palestinians.

So J-Street decided to write a backgrounder for its fans so they can know how to spin the story as much as possible against Israel and for Muslims. To be "even-handed." Because Allah-forbid "pro-Israel" J-Street ever finds anything nice to say about Israel or anything bad to say about her enemies.

Over the course of the last week, a new crisis has broken out over questions of control, access and security at the Holy Esplanade of Jerusalem’s Old City, known to Jews as the Temple Mount (formerly the site of the ancient Jewish Temple) and to Muslims as the Haram-al Sharif (site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock). For years, controversies involving the holy site, which is jointly controlled by Israel and Jordan and administered by the Islamic Religious Trust known as the Waqf, have generated major tension between Israeli and Palestinian leadership and between devout Muslims and Jews. Now, in the wake up of a shooting attack last week that killed two Israeli policemen at the site, those tensions are dangerously close to boiling over.
Look at this "even-handed" garbage. The Muslims are rioting and Israel is trying to save human lives, but to J-Street "tensions are dangerously close to boiling over."

On Friday, July 14, two Israeli Border Policemen were shot and killed (and another wounded) inside the Holy Esplanade complex by three Palestinian citizens of Israel, who were then themselves shot and killed by police. 
To J-Street, there are no such things as Israeli Arabs. They are "Palestinian citizens of Israel." If they are Palestinian, of course, it begs the question of why they don't move to the territories. The implication is that all of Israel is still Palestine.
The most significant measure taken so far seems to be the decision to install metal detectors at the entrances to the site. While Israeli officials apparently viewed the move simply as a prudent security measure, many Palestinian leaders and clerics have denounced it as an attempt to transform the “status quo” at the site and as a continuation of what they see as a pattern of Israel tightening its control over the site and increasing restrictions on Muslim access.
J-Street's "objectivity" is again shown to be a sham. Israel only "apparently" thinks metal detectors to stop Arabs from bringing more weapons to the Temple Mount is "prudent," but Palestinians are quite justified in denouncing the move.

One side's actions make perfect sense to save lives. The other side's actions are literally a call to violence, using normal security measures as a pretext. "Pro-Peace" J-Street doesn't take sides (in this case.)
Dating back to Ottoman rule in the 19th century, visitors of all religions were permitted to visit the site, while the Muslim holy places were administered by Muslim authorities, an arrangement that has broadly informed the status quo since then. 
This is knowingly deceptive. Jews were known to have prayed on the Temple Mount up until the Ottoman period, when they were banned altogether and were limited to worshiping at the Western wall. After the Crimean War, Great Britain insisted on non-Muslim access to the Mount, but Jews had to get specific permission from the governor and apparently had to pay high fees for the right to ascend. So in theory they were "permitted" but in fact they were effectively barred.

J-Street doesn't say a word about how Jews were banned from the Old City altogether and synagogues razed under Jordanian rule.

J-Street is deliberately whitewashing the history of Muslim bigotry.

Since Israel captured the Old City, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan during 1967’s Six-Day War, it has maintained de facto overall control over the site, but allows the Jordanian Waqf to administer it for Muslim worshippers, a role that was formally recognized in Israel’s 1995 peace treaty with Jordan.
False. The peace treaty says "Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines." That is not at all saying that the Waqf has the legal right to administer the site; it is Israel's decision to allow it and Israel's right to take it away.

A key pillar of the generally accepted “status quo” was that the site would be fully open to both Muslims and non-Muslims for visits, but that only Muslims would be allowed to worship there. In recent years, however, Israeli Temple Mount activists who wish to secure greater Jewish access and rights to worship at the site have increasingly agitated for changes -- greatly angering and unsettling the Waqf and other Palestinian and Muslim leaders. Israel has allowed increasingly large groups of these Jewish activists to visit the site -- and to protect them, they have at times imposed major restrictions on which Muslims are allowed at the site. That includes sometimes barring all Muslims from the site, or barring all Muslim men under the age of 30 or even under the age of 50.
This  "status quo" is only since 2000. Jewish prayer on our holiest site is a human right that is protected by international law.  J-Street, instead of pushing for these basic human rights, is blaming Jews for wanting to exercise them - the exact opposite of its position towards Muslim worship. Muslim anger towards Jews is, to J-Street, a more important factor in determining what is right than the Jewish rights to worship.

And never has Israel barred "all Muslims from the site" except for the two cases where it banned all people from the site. J-Street is accusing Israel of anti-Muslim bigotry.

J-Street here is also implicitly blaming Israel for allowing Jews to visit the site - even though it (falsely)  claims that the Ottomans did exactly that. But when Muslims purportedly allow Jews to visit, it is tolerance; when Israel allows it, it is incitement.

J-Street tried to write this in a way that it would appear to be fair and balanced. But applying "balance" to a situation that is so one-sided as to who is right and wrong is not balance, it is bias. And when you look a little closer at their words, the anti-Israel bias and whitewashing of Muslim antisemitism is even clearer.






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  • Friday, July 21, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon

Here is the full statement from White House Press Secretary about the events in Jerusalem, released on Wednesday:
Statement from the Press Secretary on Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif

The United States is very concerned about tensions surrounding the Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif, a site holy to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and calls upon the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to make a good faith effort to reduce tensions and to find a solution that assures public safety and the security of the site and maintains the status quo.  The United States will continue to closely monitor the developments.
This is a vague statement that can be interpreted in a number of ways.  It seems calibrated to not offend anyone by not going into any details and highlighting the Muslim as well as Jewish names for the Temple Mount. Asking to maintain the "status quo" could be interpreted as being against the metal detectors but highlighting the importance of public safety and security implies the opposite. The "status quo" section can also be interpreted as being against Jewish prayer on the Mount, although the White House seems unlikely to say anything more pro-Jewish than the Netanyahu government which already promised to maintain the status quo.

What cannot be ignored from this statement, however, is the complete absence of the word "Palestinian."

The Palestinian Authority is not asked to work to reduce tensions. 

This is a stinging omission from two angles.

It implies that the Palestinian Authority, which is calling for protests today against the very solution that "assures public safety and the security of the site," is not expected to act like a responsible party by the White House. Mahmoud Abbas is not considered to be a responsible leader to tamp down tensions - he is regarded not as part of the solution, but as part of the problem.

From the Palestinian perspective, this statement is even worse. They claim to be the legal sovereign over the Old City of Jerusalem and they claim it as their future capital. The White House, in this statement, recognizes none of that. Jordan - whose only relevance is that they are the employers of the Waqf and who formerly had illegally annexed the West Bank but renounced that claim in 1988 - is considered more relevant to the Old City of Jerusalem than the purported "State of Palestine."

Any way you read this, the White House has downgraded its opinion of Palestinian leadership to essentially being irrelevant as a partner to find a solution to what their own people are doing. Which means that this statement implicitly blames Mahmoud Abbas for his actions and inactions since the murders of two Israeli police from the "third holiest site in Islam" last Friday.

(h/t Irene)



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Thursday, July 20, 2017

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory


Check out their Facebook page.


GPO (Israel)
GPO (Israel)
Gaza City, July 19 - Sources within the intelligence community have uncovered evidence that prolonged Arab opposition to the Israel under the misapprehension that it remains possible to defeat and destroy the Jewish State actually results from a decades-long disinformation operation to distract Arabs from the work of building prosperous, peaceful societies.
Analysts and former intelligence officials in multiple Arab capitals told PreOccupied Territory this week they had made the potentially explosive discovery after examining the long-term results of the seemingly disparate anti-Israel stances of the dozens of Arab and Muslim states in the region and beyond.
"It occurred to me that we could have advanced our societies beyond imagination if we hadn't been focused on denying the Jews sovereignty," observed one, a Jordanian. "Clearly, forces conspired to deprive us of a sober perspective on these developments, and we all know which forces those are."
"It just makes so much sense, and fits all the evidence - it's shocking we hadn't considered this before," admitted an Algerian analyst. "It dovetails with everything we know about the way the Zionists operate, and the only way to explain how it took us this long to realize it is to attribute it to a Zionist scheme."
If true, the plot represents yet another in a long line of sweeping Zionist initiatives to compromise the Arab-Muslim societies of the Levant and broader Near East, including the introduction of Islam in the seventh century as a means to make Muslims look bad, a nefarious initiative still yielding dividends many centuries later.
According to experts, such a plot virtually guarantees a victory to the Zionists, as it plays on the Arabs' worst vulnerabilities. "The last thing anyone, at least any leader, in this region wants to do is betray any sign of serving the Jews' interests," explained Morton Sfork. "That rules out advocating an abandonment of the Palestinian issue. But focusing on the Palestinian issue means allocating resources to it instead of to the industrial, educational, or economic development of the country, a decision that in turn condemns the country to economic, cultural, and developmental stagnation, resulting in defeat. Clever chaps."
"It turns on the axiom that Muslims and Arabs can't be blamed for their misfortune," he concluded. "As always, the fault must lie with outside forces, and the Jews were kind enough to bring their outside forces to the Islamic world, for convenience's sake, which was nice of them."



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From Ian:

With longest concert in 11 years, Radiohead shows it does belong here
Forty-seven thousand creeps and weirdos flocked to Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park to hear Radiohead play in the Jewish state for the first time in 17 years on Wednesday night, despite the hot, muggy weather and in appreciation of the band’s robust defiance of calls by boycott-Israel activists that it cancel the show.
Those tens of thousands of fans, plus the hordes who saved the ticket price and listened to the concert on the grass beyond the gates, were treated to the longest Radiohead concert in 11 years, according to a Reddit tally.
Toward what seemed like the end of the show, lead singer Thom Yorke, who’d been relatively quiet all night, told the fans: “We ain’t done yet. We came all the way here. We’re gonna play our fingers off.”
Other than perfunctory “Thank yous” and a bit of Israeli slang, “yalla” (come on), which drew whoops of approval from the crowd, Yorke’s only other brief on-stage comments during the show had to do with some of the controversy surrounding the Tel Aviv performance.
In the months leading up to the show, a group of activists who support cultural boycotts of Israel called for Radiohead to cancel the concert, as they routinely urge all visiting artists, over Israel’s policies regarding the Palestinians. Unlike many artists — a minority of whom cancel, and most of whom go ahead with their shows and ignore the critics — Radiohead responded fiercely to the pro-BDS pressure campaign, calling it patronizing and saying that their playing in Israel does not signify approval of the government’s policies.
Yorke didn’t go into the details of the argument, but merely told the crowd quietly, “A lot of stuff was said about this. But in the end, we played some music,” before launching into the final song of the night, “Karma Police” from its hit album “OK Computer.”


New ADL Guide Blasts Right-Wing Anti-Semites, Gives Left-Leaning Bigots a Pass
Yesterday, the ADL issued a guide to help us errant Jews understand who are our true haters. It is titled “From Alt Right to Alt Lite: Naming the Hate,” and it profiles 36 (double chai!) prominent individuals who are either known for their anti-Semitism or known for cozying up to people known for their anti-Semitism. As long, of course, as they’re on the right.
Looking for social justice warriors who kick Jews out of their marches? Prominent progressive activists who think you can’t be both a Zionist and a feminist? Professors who believe Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks? Don’t bother the ADL by arguing that Jew hatred is as rampant on the left as it is on the right, if not more.
Why the double standard? Why focus on one end of the political spectrum and ignore the other? Todd Gutnick, the ADL’s Senior Director of Communications, said his organization “will continue to put out reports on the wide range of extremist threats, as well as those involved in anti-Israel activity.” He also added that the organization’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, a former assistant to Barack Obama, has spoken out before about the left’s growing anti-Semitism problem. But reporting on the right, Gutnick said, “felt timely and necessary. These groups have been holding a number of public rallies recently and our Center on Extremism has been tracking their activities. As more of the individuals in these movements attempt to move into the mainstream, we felt it was crucial to understand their ideas and to share their statements.”
It’s a strange argument. Is Andrew Anglin, who runs the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, more mainstream than Linda Sarsour? Are KKK rallies in Virginia better attended or more prominent than leftist anti-Jewish marches in Chicago? Of course they’re not. Why, then, the systemic focus on the alt-right? I pressed Gutnick for an answer; I never heard back.
It’s a shame. As Jews face real hate from left and right alike, we need and deserve an organization that places principles over politics.
ADL accuses Jewish Voice for Peace of ‘anti-Israel radicalism’
The Anti Defamation League on Wednesday accused Jewish Voice for Peace of seeking to undermine support for Israel among US Jews, saying the pro-BDS group has adopted “increasingly radical positions” and uses “questionable tactics” to promote its agenda.
In a statement, the ADL said JVP is engaged in “harassing LGBT groups,” citing the organization’s infiltration of the pro-Israel Jewish Queer Youth during June’s Celebrate Israel parade in New York and its support for the Chicago Dyke March’s removal of three Jewish women from its parade for carrying Jewish Pride flags.
The ADL also slammed JVP for “shutting down dialogue,” saying that members of the group shout down speakers whom they deem to be too pro-Israel rather than engaging them in debate.
JVP also came under fire from the ADL for its continued praise of convicted Palestinian terrorists, including its decision to host Rasmea Odeh — who was was convicted by Israel of involvement in a 1969 bombing in Jerusalem that killed two and injured nine — at an event in April and an advertisement it published in The Forward newspaper hailing jailed Palestinian terror mastermind and political leader Marwan Barghouti that made no mention of his involvement in the murder of Israelis.

  • Thursday, July 20, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
Mic? What mic?

Yesterday:
 Unaware that his remarks were also being transmitted to reporters outside, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the European Union in unusually harsh terms on Wednesday for its treatment of Israel, urging the leaders of four Central European countries to use their influence in the organization to ease its conditions for advancing bilateral ties.
“I think Europe has to decide if it wants to live and thrive or if it wants to shrivel and disappear,” he said in a closed-door meeting whose content was accidentally broadcast to journalists outside the room. “I am not very politically correct. I know that’s a shock to some of you. It’s a joke. But the truth is the truth — both about Europe’s security and Europe’s economic future. Both of these concerns mandate a different policy towards Israel.”
During the meeting, Netanyahu also urged the leaders of Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland to close their borders to refugees from Africa and the Arab world, and praised the administration of US President Donald Trump for its “stronger” position on Iran and Syria.
The funny part is, there was no fallout. There was no difference between what Bibi said behind closed doors and what he says in public, if he was a little less diplomatic.

Some interesting analysis from Tal Shalev and Lahav Harkov:
[D]espite the obvious embarrassment, the incident is not necessarily bad for Bibi, as it proves he actually delivers the same messages both inside closed doors and outside as well.  His staunch defense of Israel will definitely earn him some points with his base, and prompted some speculation and theories that perhaps the hot mic wasn't unintended. 
I was wondering the same thing. His comments made him look good. Barely past what Israel has admitted in the past (like how many Hezbollah targets have been bombed in Syria) but altogether nothing embarrassing and in many ways it enhances his reputation.

I'm sure the EU has heard the exact same complaints by him in the past as well, and as of this writing there has been no reaction.

Interestingly, Arab media have emphasized one very small part of what he said about how Israel has good relations with Arab countries and that they speak to Israel about technology and other common interests. There are no protests at this information.

The dreaded "normalization" is practically here and no one really cares.




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The recent terror attack at the Lions’ Gate in Jerusalem reminded me, as if I needed reminding, of the complexity of the Jewish-Arab conflict in the land of Israel.

There are actually three separate conflicts raging in the same place, involving more or less the same people. They have distinct objectives, but they are intertwined in a complex way, which is detrimental to ending any of them.

The first is the political conflict between the State of Israel and the PLO in its embodiment as the Palestinian Authority (PA). This is a disagreement over borders, settlements, security, and other geopolitical issues.

The second is the national conflict between the Jewish people and those Arabs whose self-defining national narrative is that of “Palestinians.” This is a disagreement that can be characterized as an argument over the historical title to the land between the river and the sea.

The third is the religious conflict between Jews and Muslims. This stems from the Islamic ideas that Muslims are superior to non-Muslims (especially Jews), that they should live under shari’a (which implies Muslim sovereignty), and that land that has once been Muslim must not be allowed to remain in the hands of infidels.

The various attempts to end the conflict have mostly focused on the political conflict, and to a great extent ignored the national and religious ones. This confuses people who don’t understand or aren’t aware of the latter two, which in my opinion are far more important than the political one.

So, for example, when Yasser Arafat walked away from a political compromise at Camp David/Taba that was unprecedented in its generosity, US President Clinton was shocked. But the compromise did not include recognition of a right of return for Arab refugees, and thus represented an defeat in the national conflict that could not possibly be accepted by Arafat.

The Arab position in the national conflict is based on the Palestinian narrative, in which the “Palestinian people” are a distinct people who have been living for many generations, even from biblical times, in the land. They had a flourishing civilization which was usurped by Zionist colonizers, who invaded Palestine and dispossessed the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants in 1948. The continued occupation – which includes the territory on both sides of the Green Line – is a continued besmirching of Palestinian honor.

This story is entirely false, but that doesn’t matter, because the Arabs firmly believe it, and – of great importance in an honor-shame culture – much of the rest of the world believes it too. The implication of the story is that the “Palestinian people” had their most important possession, their land, taken from them by force – and they were unable to prevent it. Not only that but (and here we see the interplay between the national and religious conflicts) it was done by the despicable Jews. Only a complete reversal of the act of dispossession, in which Palestinians violently dispossess the Jews, can begin to restore Palestinian honor.

The religious and national conflicts are intertwined. The original Hamas charter refers to the land between the river and the sea as an “Islamic waqf,” that is, as inalienably Islamic property, once governed by Muslims and now in the hands of infidels. The imperative to regain this land for religious reasons is thus added to the need to do so in order to restore national honor.

The conflict that is going on right now at the Temple Mount is over both religion and national honor. Of course there is no Islamic issue with metal detectors, which are in use in Mecca during the Haj, along with even more invasive security measures. However, the idea that Jews (or non-Muslim Israelis like Druze police officers) can decide who is allowed to enter the site damages the honor of the Arabs, both as Muslims and as Palestinians. The fact that these metal detectors were introduced in response to a brutal murder is not relevant for Palestinians who believe that violent ‘resistance to occupation’ is fully justified, and for Muslims who believe that jihad for the sake of recovering land that was once dar al-islam is praiseworthy.

In other words, the murder of the two policemen is not seen as immoral, but Jewish control of Muslim Palestinians is.

There is no way to separate these conflicts. Not only that, but the tools that would be employed for solving the political one – negotiations, compromise, concessions on both sides – are precisely the wrong ones to use for conflicts based on honor and religion. In the latter cases, concessions are seen as admissions of weakness, a reason to push harder. So it isn’t puzzling that Arafat responded to the failed Camp David negotiations by launching the Second Intifada; he saw the Clinton and Barak offers as signaling their desperation, and expected that more violence would bring about the collapse of the tottering colonialist empire (despite all his years of trying to kill them, he never understood Israelis).

In pre-modern days, national and religious conflicts were easy to solve. The side with military superiority would drive out, kill or enslave the enemy population. In the today’s enlightened world, it’s not so easy (although third-world actors still do it under the Western radar whenever possible). This is surely the option the Arabs would take if Israel were weaker, but Israel is too Western and too modern to behave like that.

Sometimes what appears to be human progress is actually the opposite. Contemporary diplomacy can only solve political conflicts, not ones about national honor or religion. So they go on forever.




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From Ian:

State Dept blames Israel for causing Palestinian violence
Rex Tillerson’s State Department added blistering anti-Israel language to this year’s “Country Reports on Terrorism,” adopting a tone not seen even during the hostile Obama era.
On Wednesday, Tillerson submitted the annual report to Congress. This year’s report may come as a shock to the overwhelmingly pro-Israel majority that elected Donald Trump president.
The report appears to blame Israel for the lack of peace between the two sides, pointing to a “lack of hope” as a “driver” for Palestinian violence.
Tillerson’s State Department concluded that Palestinian terrorism is motivated by “Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the perception that the Israeli government was changing the status quo on the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount, and IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive.”
Continuing its pro-Palestinian posture, the next paragraph of the State Department memo commends the Palestinian Authority chairman for condemning acts of violence.
Tillerson continues to shock supporters of Israel with his pro-Palestinian policy promotion.
In May, the embattled secretary of state blackmailed Israel, using the debate over its embassy move as a bargaining chip for Palestinian statehood. That same month, he described Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, as the “home of Judaism.”
Unlike U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Tillerson refuses to recognize that the Western Wall is in Israel. Moreover, his State Department continues to reject Israeli claims over the city of Jerusalem.
Israel UNESCO is a full partner in Palestinian incitement
Israel has charged that UNESCO’s actions have helped Palestinians use the Temple Mount to incite violence against Israel.
“UNESCO is a full partner to the false incitement by Palestinians and radical Islam who claim that Al-Aksa [Temple Mount mosque] is in danger,” Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO in Paris Carmel Shama HaCohen said on Thursday.
HaCohen said that Israel hopes to see an end to the incitement that comes from sensational and false stories put out by Arab and Palestinian media about the Temple Mount.
This year, both UNESCO’s Executive Board and its World Heritage Committee passed a resolution that disavowed Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, known to Muslims as Al-Haram/Al-Sharif. This followed two years of resolutions that also ignored Jewish ties to the Temple Mount - as well as the city of Jerusalem as a whole - by referring to Judaism's holiest site solely by its Muslim name.

Will UNESCO ever condemn Temple Mount terror attack?
Will the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) stand up and condemn a murderous terror attack which took place on a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site, and the use the Heritage Site to store weapons for the attack?
That is the question Israeli envoy to UNESCO Carmel Shama Hacohen posed to the international body on Thursday in a letter to its director-general, Irina Georgieva Bokova.
While UNESCO has designated the Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount included, as a UN-protected World Heritage Site, since last week’s murder of two Israeli Border Police officers by a gang of Arab terrorists, the UN organization has yet to issue any form of condemnation against the terror attack.
In his letter, Shama Hacohen urged UNESCO to stand by its pledge to protect World Heritage Sites and condemn the use of one in facilitating Friday’s attack. Authorities believe that the three terrorists responsible for the attack stored their firearms in one of the mosques on the Temple Mount with the help of officials from the Waqf, the Islamic trust charged with managing the holy site.




I have seen young people and older people too, who are good democratic liberals, lovers of peace and gentleness, struck dumb with admiration for individuals threatening or using the most terrible violence for the slightest and tawdriest reasons. They have a sneaking suspicion that they are face to face with men of real commitment, which they themselves lack. And commitment, not truth, is believed to be what counts.
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, p. 221


Bloom was writing in the 1980's, basing himself on his experiences on college campuses in the 1960's.

Today, we witness a more nuanced approach, where "activists" under the banner of "human rights" use their halo -- some times as a shield, other times as a hammer -- preaching about commitment to high ideals and human values, while appealing to people's baser instincts.

Linda Sarsour is one such "activist." The deserving cause of the Muslim rights in America apparently cannot be achieved unless Islamophobic and alt-right villians can be revealed and attacked in order to increase her audience and galvanize it into action.

Lahav Harkov and Petra Marquardt-Bigman, among others have examined Sarsours hateful statements and tweets and have written about what they reveal about her. Yet despite what Sarsour says, not matter how nasty she may get, her self-proclaimed dedication to human rights suffices for the media to raise her on a pedestal -- and protect her from criticism.

Not that this is surprising.
We have seen this before.

In April, The New York Times came out with an Op-Ed entitled,Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons, by Marwan Barghouti, described as "a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian." It was only later, in reaction to criticism, that the paper decided to describe Barghouti more fully in a correction:
This article explained the writer’s prison sentence but neglected to provide sufficient context by stating the offenses of which he was convicted. They were five counts of murder and membership in a terrorist organization. Mr. Barghouti declined to offer a defense at his trial and refused to recognize the Israeli court’s jurisdiction and legitimacy. [emphasis added]
photo
Marwan Barghouti. Credit: BDalim, Wikipedia


Not content, The New York Times came out with an article about Marwan Barghouti's wife: Fadwa Barghouti is the unflappable voice of a jailed Palestinian freedom fighter -- this despite the admission in the piece that
Reflecting on that time, Fadwa repeats over and over that Marwan never killed with his own hands. He led, she says, but he never killed. [emphasis added]
The New York Times is similarly glowing about Sarsour, proclaiming: Linda Sarsour Is a Brooklyn Homegirl in a Hijab:
She has emerged in the last few years not only as one of the city’s, and the country’s, most vocal young Muslim-American advocates, but also as a potential — and rare Arab-American — candidate for office.
photo
Linda Sarsour. Credit: Wikipedia

Again, The New York Times is more interested in her commitment as a "vocal young Muslim-American advocate" than it is interested in what she actually says and how she says it. The most controversial thing it quotes her saying is a gratuitous swipe at Israel:
Then, last summer, Mr. Brown was killed in Ferguson. “I was sitting here in Brooklyn,” Ms. Sarsour said, “and heard he’d gotten shot and was lying in the street for four and a half hours. I was like, ‘Wait a minute. This happened in the United States of America? You hear about that happening in Palestine.’
The New York Times does not mention her attacks on critics, such as Sarsour's tasteless tweet threating to take away the vagina of female genital mutilation survivor Hirsi Ali.



Meanwhile, The Washington Post ran an article in February, March catapults Muslim American into national spotlight and social-media crosshairs describing her as "one of the highest-profile Muslim American activists in the country" who "despite a barrage of hateful messages and violent threats targeting her on social media" has "continued a punishing schedule of activism as she has sought to bring her heightened profile, and a new sense of what is possible, to a range of resistance movements that are developing in the first weeks of President Trump’s administration."

As Petra Marquardt-Bigman writes, the Washington Post article:
allows Sarsour to airily dismiss a vile tweet she posted in 2011 fantasizing about Brigitte Gabriel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali “asking 4 an a$$ whippin’” and expressing the “wish” to “take their vaginas away” because “they don’t deserve to be women.” All Sarsour has to do now is to shrug off her vicious outburst as “stupid” and to dismiss it as simply a reflection of her being “a brash New Yorker.” An open threat against Brigitte Gabriel also posted by Sarsour remained unmentioned
The Washington Post is nothing if not consistent.

Just as The Washington Post frames Sarsour's critics as reacting to her rise in the public eye, when Sarsour spoke about jihad against the White House, the headline did not address the provocative term but rather the reaction to it: Muslim activist Linda Sarsour’s reference to ‘jihad’ draws conservative wrath.

Lee Smith noted that Sansour did something sensationalist, and then played the victim -- aided by The Washington Post.

More importantly, Smith notes Sarsour's message to the American Muslim community which the media ignored:
“You can count on me,” she told an audience of American Muslims, “to use my voice to stand up, not only to people outside our community who are repressing our communities, but those inside our communities who aid and abet the oppressors outside our community.”
Right, it’s a threat. If you don’t see things like she does, even if you’re Muslim, then you’re in for it— Linda Sarsour is watching. Linda Sarsour has your name.
James Kirchick writes that the whitewashing of Sarsour in the media is common. She uses the term "Islamophobia" as a catchall phrase to tar her critics, and the media plays along:
The point of the term “Islamophobia” as used by Sarsour and her sympathizers is very often a self-interested and dishonest one—namely, to delegitimize critics by lumping them in with fringe racists and bigots. “Feminist activist Linda Sarsour has become one of the far right’s favorite targets,” declares Newsweek. The Times, meanwhile, characterizes her “critics” as “a strange mix, including right-leaning Jews and Zionists, commentators like Pamela Geller, and some members of the alt-right.” All this is being done in an effort to excuse Sarsour’s own extremism.
But even when the media plays along, there appear to be limits.

This week, the Women’s March came out with a tweet celebrating the birthday of Assata Shakur, the black militant who killed a New Jersey state trooper in a 1973 shootout. She later broke out of prison and escaped to Cuba in 1984, where she remains on the FBI's “most wanted terrorists” list. Not content with the one tweet, the group then came out with a series of tweets defending what they had done.

Jake Tapper criticized them.



In response, Sarsour lashed out:


Alexander Nazaryan of Newsweek reported
But the criticism leveled on Tuesday against Tapper by liberal activist and Women’s March co-founder Linda Sarsour has struck many as malicious, misguided and unjustified, though others defended her ferocity...Sarsour chose to respond by branding Tapper a member of the alt-right, a loosely defined movement that includes nativists, nationalists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes and anti-establishment meme warriors. Under no definition of the term, however, would Tapper, who is Jewish and a long-standing member of the Beltway media-political nexus, belong in that category.
In the long term this is not going to have an effect on Sarsour's tactics, nor on the attitude of the liberal media.

But it was refreshing to see the media's blinders momentarily removed.



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Saeb Erekat, among others, claim that Israel's placing metal detectors at all the entrances to the Temple Mount (it already had them at the single entrance for non-Muslims) is a violation of international law.

For example:
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday called on the international community to make Israel remove metal detectors from the entrances to the Temple Mount.
“We call on the international community and the Arab and Islamic states to take responsibility for... stopping the occupation’s measures that are in contravention with all laws, agreements and international charters,” he said.

Even if one regards parts of Jerusalem as occupied, the Fourth Geneva Convention very clearly allows the occupying power wide latitude in what it deems necessary for security measures. In fact, security measures override many other rights mentioned in Geneva.

The most relevant section is Article 27, which reads in full:
Art. 27. Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity.
Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.
Without prejudice to the provisions relating to their state of health, age and sex, all protected persons shall be treated with the same consideration by the Party to the conflict in whose power they are, without any adverse distinction based, in particular, on race, religion or political opinion.
However, the Parties to the conflict may take such measures of control and security in regard to protected persons as may be necessary as a result of the war.
 The ICRC's 1958 commentary on the last paragraph says:

The various security measures which States might take are not specified; the Article merely lays down a general provision. There are a great many measures, ranging from comparatively mild restrictions such as the duty of registering with and reporting periodically to the police authorities, the carrying of identity cards or special papers, or a ban on the carrying of arms, to harsher provisions such as a prohibition on any change in place of residence without permission, prohibition of access to certain areas, restrictions of movement, or even assigned residence and internment. 
A great deal is thus left to the discretion of the Parties to the conflict as regards the choice of means. What is essential is that the measures of constraint they adopt should not affect the fundamental rights of the persons concerned. As has been seen, those rights must be respected even when measures of constraint are justified.
Note that the mild restrictions enumerated by the Convention are far more severe than requiring people to walk through a metal gate.

There are absolutely no restrictions of any fundamental rights of any persons - except for Jews who are now banned from visiting the Temple Mount because some uttered prayers out of earshot of any Muslims.

As always, the Palestinians and their allies are perverting international law.

And as always, the media's vaunted "fact checkers" don't even bother doing their jobs when the lies don't offend them.




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  • Thursday, July 20, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon




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Wednesday, July 19, 2017

  • Wednesday, July 19, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon


No, this is not a spoof.

From Toronto Metro:
As Queer Arabs of Halifax continue to boycott Pride for a second year, a number of groups have decided to join them in solidarity until issues of pinkwashing are resolved.
Pinkwashing is when groups or individuals use LGBTQ issues and spaces for their own marketing and political agendas.
“Halifax Pride is still not acknowledging pinkwashing… and the way they acted in the AGM, [annual general meeting] “ said a member of Queer Arabs Halifax, who asked to remain anonymous, on why they’re continuing the boycott.
“It’s going to take time for wounds to heal and until Pride apologizes publicly, it’s not going to solve anything.”
Speaking with Metro earlier this month, Halifax Pride did apologize for the events that occurred at the 2016 annual general meeting, although they did not mention Queer Arabs directly or acknowledge pinkwashing in their events.
At the AGM, Queer Arabs Halifax had put forth an amendment to remove pro-Israel campaign from Pride events, as well as other pinkwashing concerns.
Instead of hearing those concerns and addressing them in a way to mitigate harm, Halifax Pride chose to go through with a public meeting wherein the opposed amendment was voted publicly. It was a really traumatic experience for the people who were in attendance,”said Carmella Farahbakhsh, volunteer and administration coordinator at South House, one of the groups also boycotting Pride.
Farahbakhsh said that Halifax Pride had not apologized publicly to the Queer Arabs group or acknowledged their lack of support and communication since the AGM.
What happened at the AGM?
At the Pride annual general meeting last October, a resolution to remove a pro-Israel campaign hosted by the Atlantic Jewish Council from the Pride festival was defeated by majority vote, leaving societies such as the Queer Arabs of Halifax feeling marginalized and ignored.
The "Queer Arabs" were upset that their resolution wasn't accepted without a vote, and when the majority of members voted against it!

Because it is self-evident that any gays who support a state that support gays are the bigots, while the gays who support states that would put them in jail (or worse) are the liberals.

And it is equally self-evident that when people vote for something you are against, the vote is invalid.

Not only that, but other queer groups are joining the Queer Arabs in boycotting a Pride Parade that allows people who support Israel.

You simply cannot make this stuff up.



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