Friday, September 30, 2016

As Peres is remembered, some keep looking backwards as others face the future

...Sadly, in ways that remind thoughtful observers of how tightly they continue to hold to backward-facing conceptions even as booming, sparkling Israel along with most of the world is busy trying to build a better future and resolve a generations-long conflict.


Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
30 September '16..

It's a gorgeous Friday morning here in Jerusalem. The air is still, the sun is bright, the cloudless sky is a luminescent blue.

But residents of the city, like us, know to expect chaos and it's already noticeable how light the road traffic is in our part of town. Many of the capital's major thoroughfares are already closed by the police and others, including the main highway from Tel Aviv, will be shut down for long intervals during the day.

Foreign delegations from dozens of countries are either already here or making their way to the national cemetery on Mount Herzl at this hour for this morning's state funeral of Shimon Peres, former president, major figure on the Israeli stage for the entire seven decades of Israel's renewed existence, and global statesman.

How are our neighbours dealing with this?

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Aleppo, Gaza and Double Standards - by Simon Plosker

...Unfortunately for the 250,000 residents of Aleppo, the city is not being attacked by the IDF. There are no leaflets being dropped warning civilians to evacuate areas in the line of fire. There is no “roof knocking” — where non-explosive devices are dropped on the roofs of targeted buildings to give civilians time to flee. And judging by the number of civilian casualties and the extent of the destruction in Syria, there is very little to no concern for the well-being of innocent civilians.

IDF paratroopers in Gaza during Operation
Protective Edge. Photo: Wikipedia.
Simon Plosker..
Algemeiner.com..
29 September '16..

Make no mistake, the carnage taking place in Aleppo right now is a disgrace to the international community.

The Syrian government and Russian-backed forces are reportedly using chemical weapons, barrel bombs and increasingly powerful explosives to target innocent men, women and children. While rebel fighters have undoubtedly embedded themselves in the city in fortified positions, it appears that the civilian population is bearing the brunt of the conflict.

While there has been some condemnation from the UN, where are the protests on the streets of European capitals and where is the media frenzy about this disgrace?

Had Israel been involved, or had the IDF aimed one solitary munition at Aleppo, I think the response would be much different.

The international community’s condemnation of the Assad regime and Putin’s Russia is nothing compared to the vitriol leveled against Israel for its far more restrained (and completely justified) 2014 operation against Hamas in Gaza.

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Simon Plosker is Managing Editor of HonestReporting (www.honestreporting.com).

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Thursday, September 29, 2016

Someone who had the privilege of helping to found the community of Ofra

...To understand the spirit of the times, we must remember that prominent members of the Ma'arach party (later the Labor party) were also members of the Movement for Greater Israel. And to a certain degree, in those years Peres was farther to the right than Rabin. From the outset, he came to visit and planted trees, and Defense Ministry officials even ordered ladders for the Kfir fighter jets from Ofra's welding workshop, to provide employment for the people living there. Moreover, when Peres turned 80, at his behest a BBC crew came to Ofra to document his part in the community's foundation.

Pinchas Wallerstein..
Israel Hayom..
29 September '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17317

With the passing of Shimon Peres, I feel the need to reminisce about him, specifically in relation to the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria (without, of course, minimizing the extremely harmful role he played in advancing the "Oslo Accords"), as someone who had the privilege of helping to found the community of Ofra.

I will always remember that Ofra was established as a Defense Ministry "labor base." We received that title because a small group of us, led by the late Hanan Porat, called the construction contractor who at that time was building the army base on Mount Hazor, and pressured him to subcontract the base's fencing. As it was, every day for six months, the "labor platoon" would make the drive from Jerusalem to Mount Hazor. During that time, we would gaze longingly at an abandoned Jordanian army base (today Ofra) as a good place to establish a community. On April 20, 1975, we decided that upon finishing the fencing job, instead of returning to Jerusalem, we would simply stay in Ofra.

During that entire time, of course, then-Defense Minister Shimon Peres' office and Gush Emunim representatives were in contact. Indeed, that night the army received the order not to evict us. It is hard today to appreciate the immense significance of that decision. Before Ofra was founded, there was no Jewish civilian presence between Afula and Jerusalem.

Then, half a year later in Sebastia, Peres struck a deal between Gush Emunim and the Israeli government, which allowed 30 families to settle and establish Kedumim. There are those who say Peres made the deal to undermine then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but I believe this is not the case. It is true, meanwhile, that as a young community leader I requested a meeting with Rabin in the hope that he would recognize us as a legal settlement, but his bureau chief, Eli Mizrahi, told me: "You are Peres' baby; there is nothing for you to find here."

The phony threat of a "Palestinian majority" - by Stephen M. Flatow

...All of which brings us to today. The "occupation" is long over. The "separation" that the S. Daniel Abraham Center is now demanding was already implemented 21 years ago. The "demographic time bomb" was defused. Israel is still both Jewish and democratic. Now you can see why the advocates of Palestinian statehood feel so frustrated. They've run out of cogent arguments. All they can do now is try to wind the clock back to the days before Oslo, so that they can portray Israel as an occupier. That is nothing less than a callous, cynical attempt to manipulate the public. 

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
28 September '16..

A group advocating Palestinian statehood took out a full-page ad in The New York Times last week to warn that there will be "a Palestinian majority" in Israel in less than a decade unless such a state is created. A reader of the ad might think he had fallen into a time warp and ended up sometime prior to the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords.

The ad, sponsored by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, was headlined "Separation Between Israelis and Palestinians is Essential." It featured what it called a "population breakdown from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River" - a frightening chart that showed the current Jewish population and that of projected estimates; in 2015, 52 percent Jewish; in 2020, 49 percent Jewish and in 2030, 44 percent Jewish.

Those statistics are not merely ignorant; they constitute deliberate deception.

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Surprise? BBC report on EU Hamas terror designation gives incomplete picture - by Hadar Sela

...Remarkably, in an article all about Hamas’ terror designation in the EU, the BBC did not find it necessary to provide readers with factual information concerning Hamas’ long history of terror attacks against Israeli civilians, including the thousands of missile attacks which brought about those tepidly portrayed “three conflicts”.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
29 September '16..

Back in December 2014 the BBC News website produced a report which was misleadingly headlined “EU court takes Hamas off terrorist organisations list”. The following month the Council of the European Union decided to appeal the court decision that was the subject of that article but the BBC News website did not cover that chapter of the story.

An article appearing on the website’s Europe page (though not on its Middle East page) on September 22nd under the title “EU advised to drop Hamas and Tamil Tigers from terror list” opened with a summary of the story so far.
“The EU may have to remove Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and the Sri Lankan separatist Tamil Tigers from its list of terrorist organisations, a top European Court adviser has said.

The Court ruled in 2014 they should be taken off the list on technical grounds, not as a reassessment of their classification as a terrorist group.

The Council of the EU, which represents all 28 governments, launched an appeal.

Now the European Court adviser has recommended the appeal be rejected.

The opinion of the adviser, known as the Advocate General, is not final but is generally followed when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivers its judgement.”

As was the case in the December 2014 report, the article goes on to amplify the Hamas narrative of ‘resistance’ and to provide incomplete information concerning the countries which proscribe Hamas as a terror organisation.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Choosing which Peres to remember - by Michael Freund

...Human beings are complex creatures, full of incongruities, and Peres was no exception. So while I disagreed with his vision over the past 25 years, and believe it to have been decidedly misguided, the Shimon Peres I prefer to remember in light of his death is the one who demonstrated just how much one person can accomplish over the course of a lifetime. There will be plenty of time and opportunities for future historians and analysts to assess the totality of the individual, his accomplishments and failings.

Michael Freund..
Fundamentally Freund/JPost..
28 September '16..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Fundamentally-Freund-Choosing-which-Peres-to-remember-468933

The demise this week of former president and prime minister Shimon Peres, who served as one of the last living links with the heroic generation that founded this country, is a milestone event, the kind of moment in a nation’s life that cannot but evoke collective and personal introspection.

In death, as in life, Peres remains an intriguing conundrum. Few historical figures have left such an indelible and undeniable mark on the nation they helped to forge and lead, leaving behind a complicated legacy that stirs up a broad range of sentiments among differing sectors of the population.

For those of us on the Right, in particular, Peres’ career encompassed a complex array of actions, prompting many to wonder how best to remember the man and his legacy.

Consider the following: As defense minister in 1974, Peres played a key role in the revival of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.

Despite opposition from prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Peres pushed for and granted the approval for the establishment of Ofra, north of Ramallah, which is now a thriving community of more than 3,000 Jews.

There is a well-known photo of Peres planting a tree at the site, and it is said that the sapling remains in place until today.

And yet, barely two decades later, in 1993, Peres served as one of the architects of the Oslo process, which ultimately sought to undermine the very same Jewish presence in the territories that he had previously championed.

The Jewish presence in the holy city of Hebron also owes a debt of gratitude to Peres.

In an interview last year with the Israeli news site Walla, Hebron Jewish community spokesman Noam Arnon told a remarkable story about a meeting with Peres that took place toward the end of 1975, when he was part of a delegation of Jews headed by Rabbi Moshe Levinger who went to see the defense minister.

At the time, the Jewish community of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron, was already in existence, but no Jews yet resided in the heart of the ancient city itself.

Speaking with Peres, Rabbi Levinger raised the subject of the Avraham Avinu synagogue, which was built in 1540 in Hebron’s Jewish Quarter but had stood empty after the 1929 Arab massacre of Hebron’s Jews. When Jordan seized control over the area in 1948, they turned the site of the synagogue into a goat and donkey pen.

According to Arnon’s account, when Rabbi Levinger began to explain the sanctity of the site and its importance, Peres cut him off and said, “Do you think I am a goy and that I don’t know what a synagogue is?” Shortly thereafter, Peres granted permission to rehabilitate and refurbish the synagogue, thereby laying the groundwork for the ultimate reestablishment of Hebron’s Jewish community.

“Not that there weren’t further struggles over the matter,” Arnon recalled, “but the greatest and most important breakthrough was the meeting with Peres.”

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

When a News Organization Covers-Up For the Violent “Gandhi of Palestine”

...Years of violence against soldiers, violence against civilians, destruction of personal property, insulting, spitting, and instigating riots. This is the “Palestinian Gandhi.” This is the “Palestinian Martin Luther King.” This is what Vice News calls “journalism.”

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
28 September '16..

A highly misleading article from the online publication “Vice News” begins with the headline, “A Famous Palestinian Activist Could Be Sent to Israel Prison for His Years of Nonviolent Protest.”

Journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon says that Issa Amro is called the “Palestinian Gandhi,” and quotes an interviewee who compares him to Martin Luther King, Jr.

But what Vice won’t tell you is that Amro is actually not “non-violent” at all. In fact, he is quite violent.

According to the charges, Amro was actually arrested for his years of violence against Israeli soldiers and civilians, and for actively harming and degrading human beings in ways that Gandhi and Dr. King, in their time, found utterly deplorable.

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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New York Times falsely blames Israel for second intifada in Peres obituary (Update)

...This is another example where reporters simply regurgitate myths as conventional wisdom - myths that they helped create with their own agendas, including in this case to minimize the deadly attacks in Israel during the Oslo process to "give peace a chance" as well as accepting without checking the Palestinian narrative that Ariel Sharon's pre-planned and approved visit sparked the violence.

Elder of Ziyon..
28 September '16..







Here's how the New York Times describes the beginning of the second intifada in its obituary for Shimon Peres:

Mr. Peres, Mr. Rabin and Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

But the era of good feelings did not last. It was shattered in 2000 after a visit by the opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the sacred plaza in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The next day, the Israeli police fired on stone-throwing protesters, inaugurating a new round of violence that became known as the second intifada.

There are two major problems with this description.

One is that the years after Oslo were filled with terror attacks against Israelis. In fact, 279 Israelis were killed in the five years following the Oslo accords, more than in the 15 years beforehand - including the entire first intifada. That time period saw some of the worst suicide bombings, particularly on buses, that Israel had ever seen.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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When coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict favors propaganda over professional journalism

...These inconvenient facts not reported by the Independent, regarding both the terror-affiliation of the ‘media outlets’ and the reinstatement of the Facebook accounts, of course undermine the desired narrative of the article.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
27 September '16..

Omissions are arguably more damaging than outright errors in skewing news reports in a particular political direction.

Whereas outright errors of fact can often be easily spotted and challenged, the mere absence of information vital to accurately contextualize a story is not always as easy to catch, and even harder to correct. Such omissions – most of which just so happen to reinforce the desired media narrative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – greatly impact news consumers’ understanding of Israel and the wider region.

A report published at the Independent yesterday (Facebook ‘blocks’ accounts of seven Palestinian journalists, Sept. 26) falls into this category.

First, a brief note on the photo Indy editors chose for the tweet and the full article. The ‘menacing’ Israeli soldier and the pleading Palestinian women may be evocative, but (as you’ll see) it has little to do with the story.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Unfortunately, New NY Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Follows Old Pattern In Coverage of UN Speeches

...Whether wiping out actual distinctions in speeches, or imposing particular opinions when characterizing the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, recent reporting by the new Jerusalem bureau chief has left those hoping for a more evenhanded approach by the New York Times continuing to wait for an improvement.


Gilead Ini..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
26 September '16..

The New York Times would have you think there was a neat symmetry between two recent speeches by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, both of whom spoke at last week's opening of the UN General Assembly.

In his article on the speeches by the Middle East rivals, Times Jerusalem bureau chief Peter Baker evoked a split screen, with Netanyahu on one side and Abbas on the other, saying the same things and going through the same motions. The New York Times reporter began:

They took the stage, one after the other, two aging actors in a long-running drama that has begun to lose its audience. As the Israeli and Palestinian leaders recited their lines in the grand hall of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, many in the orchestra seats recognized the script.

"Heinous crimes," charged Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. "Historic catastrophe."

"Fanaticism," countered Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. "Inhumanity."

Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu have been at this for so long that between them they have addressed the world body 19 times, every year cajoling, lecturing, warning and guilt-tripping the international community into seeing their side of the bloody struggle between their two peoples. Their speeches are filled with grievance and bristling with resentment, as they summon the ghosts of history from hundreds and even thousands of years ago to make their case.

It was all very balanced, calibrated to allow for Baker's tidy (or some might say lazy) narrative technique of equating parallel speeches.

Were the Two Speeches Equivalent?

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Jabotinsky, Netanyahu, and the American debates - by Vic Rosenthal

Jabotinsky also stressed the importance for a leader to display hadar, a difficult word to translate, but it connotes dignity, gravitas, self-respect, and maybe honesty too. My own opinion is that Netanyahu, despite his faults, is a pretty good heir to the Jabotinsky tradition, and I think he is aware of the history and the responsibility that this places on his shoulders. I watched the debate. There were no big surprises. Donald was Donald and Hillary put on a polished, empty performance. Two “leaders” without a sense of history, without responsibility to anyone but themselves. Without hadar.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
27 September '16..

When I arose at 0330 this morning to watch the American presidential debates, I couldn’t help but think about the concept of leadership – what makes a good leader and why it’s rare to find one who is also a good politician. So I was pleased to run into this very interesting article by Elliott Jager about a man who was a great leader of the Jewish people, although he was not successful as a politician and unfortunately died far too soon.

The man, of course, was Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whom generations of left-leaning politicians dismissed as a fascist and an extremist, and whom many still think of as a footnote in Zionist history that is best kept at the bottom of the page.

But Jager points out that Jabotinsky’s positions were more nuanced than many think today. As a classical liberal, he was absolutely committed to the protection of individual rights (something that the Left likes to talk about a great deal while doing the precise opposite).

This includes the rights of Arabs in the Jewish state. Jabotinsky clearly saw the distinction between civil rights, such as those enumerated in the American Bill of Rights, and national or collective rights, the most obvious example of which is the Law of Return for Jews alone. Those who insist that the Jewishness of the state is essentially undemocratic elide this distinction. Jabotinsky’s demand for a state with national rights for the Jewish people was uncompromising, but he would never have accepted discrimination against minorities within the state.

Jabotinsky would not have agreed to limitations on where any citizen could live, but he would also have rejected Arab demands to change the flag and the national anthem, which are clearly national issues. And while he lived a secular life and was opposed to any kind of religious coercion, he nevertheless respected Judaism. Jager notes that the food at his Betar youth movement camps was kosher and “Shabbat was respected.”

One of the themes that Jabotinsky returned to throughout his life was the centrality of Jewish self-sufficiency and self-defense, and the importance of military power in the survival of a state. I suspect that he would be as uncomfortable with Israel’s degree of dependence on the US as I am.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Is HRW's silence a statement that HRW approves of Palestinian promotion of terror?

...Is HRW's silence in the face of open use of sports to glorify terror by the PA, a statement that HRW approves of Palestinian promotion of terror? If HRW does not approve of the PA using sports to glorify terror, a clear condemnation in the report is required.

Itamar Marcus..
Palestinian Media Watch..
26 September '16..

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently published a report on sports, concerning Israeli football in the disputed West Bank, and FIFA, the international football association's support thereof, claiming Israeli football matches in the West Bank are a violation of human rights. [HRW's website, Sept. 25, 2016]

However, Human Rights Watch has chosen to completely ignore the Palestinian Authority's use of sports as a vehicle to glorify and promote terror and present murderers of Israeli civilians as heroes and role models. HRW has likewise ignored the terror glorification and incitement to murder by Jibril Rajoub, who is head of the Palestinian Football Association, the Palestine Olympic Committee, and the PLO's Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs.

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Monday, September 26, 2016

Attacks On Israelis and the New Wave of Incitement On Palestinian Social Media Pages

The sharp spike in violent Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the past week triggered many responses on social media. Palestinian social media accounts featured new hashtags such as "rage for your honor" and "the return of [Intifada] operations," as well as hashtags that were launched with the start of the current Palestinian wave of violence on October 2015, such as "Al-Quds Intifada" and "the Intifada continues."


MEMRI..
Special Dispatch No.6627..
26 September '16..

As during previous spikes of violence in the past year, Facebook pages of Palestinian towns and neighborhoods posted photos and footage from the scenes of attacks, as well as graphics and messages praising the perpetrators. Facebook pages associated with Hamas also posted calls for additional attacks.

The following are examples of messages and images posted on social media over the past week:

Images From Gazan, Hamas-Affiliated Facebook Pages

The Hamas daily Al-Risala posted a cartoon on its Facebook page titled "The Intifada continues in Jerusalem and the West Bank" showing a knife as a gear stick in "drive" mode:

Facebook.com/alresalahNet, September 19, 2016. 

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Calling Zionism colonialist? A claim both false and antisemitic - by Elder of Ziyon

...It is entirely based on the fact that Jews are returning to their homeland from which they never severed their emotional, religious or even physical ties. Zionism is anti-colonialist in that it fights against outsiders who invaded and colonized it over the centuries during the Diaspora. It is not a colonial movement, it is a national liberation movement.

Elder of Ziyon..
26 September '16..

There have been many articles about the student-designed course at UC Berkeley called “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Inquiry.”

But as far as I can tell, no one has addressed the main question: can Israel be considered colonialist?

It can't.

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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The Real Middle East Story - by Walter Russel Mead

...There is perhaps only one thing harder for the American mind to process than the fact that President Obama has been a terrible foreign policy president, and that is that Bibi Netanyahu is an extraordinarily successful Israeli Prime Minister.

Walter Russel Mead..
The American Interest..
23 September '16..







Peter Baker notices something important in his dispatch this morning: at this year’s UNGA, the Israel/Palestine issue is no longer the center of attention. From The New York Times:

They took the stage, one after the other, two aging actors in a long-running drama that has begun to lose its audience. As the Israeli and Palestinian leaders recited their lines in the grand hall of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, many in the orchestra seats recognized the script.

“Heinous crimes,” charged Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. “Historic catastrophe.”

“Fanaticism,” countered Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. “Inhumanity.”

Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu have been at this for so long that between them they have addressed the world body 19 times, every year cajoling, lecturing, warning and guilt-tripping the international community into seeing their side of the bloody struggle between their two peoples. Their speeches are filled with grievance and bristling with resentment, as they summon the ghosts of history from hundreds and even thousands of years ago to make their case.

While each year finds some new twist, often nuanced, sometimes incendiary, the argument has been running long enough that the world has begun to move on. Where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once dominated the annual meeting of the United Nations, this year it has become a side show as Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas compete for attention against seemingly more urgent crises like the civil war in Syria and the threat from the Islamic State.

Baker (and presumably many of his readers) don’t go on to the next, obvious question: What does this tell us about the relative success or failure of the leaders involved? The piece presents both Netanyahu and Abbas as irrelevant. They used to command the world stage, but now nobody is interested in their interminable quarrel.

What the piece doesn’t say is that this situation is exactly what Israel wants, and is a terrible defeat for the Palestinians. Abbas is the one whose strategy depends on keeping the Palestinian issue front and center in world politics; Bibi wants the issue to fade quietly away. What we saw at the UN this week is that however much Abbas and the Palestinians’ many sympathizers might protest, events are moving in Bibi’s direction.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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A Candid Speech from Mr. Abbas - by Elliott Abrams

A speech such as Mr. Abbas gave shows us why it has not been possible to make more progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.


Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
25 September '16..
Link: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2016/09/25/a-candid-speech-from-president-abbas/

There have been many attacks on aspects of Palestinian President Abbas’s speech to the UN General Assembly last week, but it had one saving grace: candor.

Let’s take just two examples. First, Mr. Abbas said this about the Temple Mount: Israel must cease its aggression and provocations against the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque,” and Israel “continues to commit aggressions and provocations against our Christian and Muslim holy sites, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque. The continuation of the Israeli aggressions against our Muslim and Christian holy sites is playing with fire.”

This accusation–as we see, repeated twice–is false, but Mr. Abbas goes beyond merely stating it and turns it into a threat of violence. What else does “playing with fire” mean?

Second, and in a way worse, is Mr. Abbas’s treatment of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his complete delegitimization of Israel. Here are some of his remarks on that:

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Israel is The Dhimmi That Got Away - by Michael Lumish

...However, until the Arabs manage to wrest back control of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people it will remain, like all non-Muslim lands, part of Dar al Harb, "the House of War."...Nonetheless, despite chronic and unremitting Arab-Muslim theocratic animosity toward Jews, we are the only indigenous people in the history of the planet to successfully reconstitute a national home upon ancestral land after twenty centuries of diaspora and thirteen centuries of dhimmitude.

Michael Lumish..
Israel Thrives..
24 September '16..
Link: http://israel-thrives.blogspot.co.il/2016/09/the-dhimmi-that-got-away.html






Israel is The Dhimmi That Got Away.

The fundamental basis of the never-ending Arab-Muslim aggression against the Jews of the Middle East is the Muslim religion as outlined in the Qur'an and the Hadiths.

Period. Full stop.

It is not an aggression based upon notions of social justice, as the Palestinian-Arabs, and their friends, would have you believe. In truth, Israel is a social justice Shangri-La compared to the rest of the Middle East.

The Long Arab War against the Jews of the Middle East is a religious war.

And it is within the primary sources of the Islamic faith that we find the basis of this aggression toward the loathsome Infidel, particularly toward those trouble-making Jews.

The Jewish people, however, along with a few Christians, managed to escape dhimmitude - in violation of Islamic theocratic imperatives - with the fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the creation of the Jewish State of Israel after World War II.

From those days to these, the Jews of the Middle East are free and the Arabs do not like it.

When Muhammad created Islam as an imperial-supremacist religion intent on global expansion, he constituted it as the enemy of the Jewish people, the Christian people, and all other "unbelievers."

Furthermore, it is an astonishing testament to the man's will and intelligence that he damn near pulled it off. Within a mere century of The Prophet's death Muslims were already banging on Europe's door in search of conquest, slaves, and booty.

Please understand, however, that the following criticism are not pointed at Muslims as individuals, but toward the consequences of Islamic doctrine. It is Islam as a theocratic-political ideology, with far-reaching consequences for all of us, that is under scrutiny.

Again, No BBC coverage of energy sector agreements between Israel and the PA - by Hadar Sela

...Given that the topic of the chronic electricity crisis is a regular feature in BBC reporting from the Gaza Strip (and frequently inaccurately attributed to Israel), one might have expected the corporation to report this news. However, neither of those examples of cooperation between Israel and the PA has received any BBC coverage.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
25 September '16..

The topic of Israel’s withholding of tax revenue transfers to the Palestinian Authority has cropped up time and time again in the BBC’s Middle East coverage over the years. However, the BBC has repeatedly failed to adequately inform audiences of the relevant context of the PA’s massive debt to the Israel Electric Corporation and the reasons why that debt has accumulated.

Last week an agreement was reached in an effort to try to solve the perennial problem of that PA debt to the IEC.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Hinde Street #antisemitism in the Methodist Church - by David Collier

...It seems odd then that these checkpoints should become the focus of your exhibition. As defenceless Christian communities are slaughtered throughout the Middle East, you choose to waste church funds on highlighting issues with a method the Jewish people have found, that protects them from a similar slaughter.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
23 September '16..

I have been to your church several times this week in an effort to engage with people over the ‘you cannot pass today’ exhibition. The Church decided to use a replica of an Israeli security checkpoint to deliver a message about ‘bringing down walls’.

Last night I was also at the circle discussion, that spoke about building bridges between the communities. I always try to reach out, try to understand. My learning process doesn’t include vocally arguing my case, but rather engaging and listening to others, absorbing their message (without confrontation) and trying to build a picture of what it is I see. There are three central points I would like now to get across:

The humanitarian safari park

The exhibition came about because one of the people involved with the church, Katherine Fox, had recently returned from a three-month humanitarian mission in Bethlehem.

Katherine did not go to Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan nor Libya. The reason she did not go to these places is because it is generally too dangerous and there is no similar industry to any of these life threatening areas. Only inside Israel does this type of tourism occur. It is safe to view the humanitarian situation in Israel precisely because it does not involve the dangers that exist elsewhere. I have written on this subject before.

If you had listened to Katherine speak last night, you would hear she was instructed to propagate the information. To return from the safari park and record events as if she had been into a jungle. It is part of the process, part of the industry. You get to go, provided on your return, you hold ‘x’ number of events that perpetuate the myths and convert others to the cause.

You also only get to see what they want you to see. You are on a journey with a clearly laid out path. If for example Katherine had spent three months in Ramallah, she’d be wondering what all the fuss is about . These trips are well choreographed. Your hand is held from the time you arrive to the time you leave.

So the question then becomes, is ‘bringing down the wall’, a message of peace or one of war. Is the church assisting those who seek a peaceful solution, or inadvertently helping to perpetuate a conflict, assisting in spreading the hatred?

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Saturday, September 24, 2016

In truth, we don't live by what the Palestinians say - by Dror Eydar

...The Palestinians routinely refer to the Jewish Temple as "imagined" and the stories of the Bible as "imaginary." The reason for their efforts is clear: If there is no historic link between the Jewish people and this land, then we are foreign invaders who took control of a country that wasn't ours. But we don't live by what the Palestinians say.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
23 September '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=36659



1. I was asked to give a speech of about 12 minutes at the Israel American Council's upcoming national conference to young Israelis living in the U.S. about archaeology and the story of Israel.

It's a very Jewish thing, compressing thousands of years into a drop of time. There are many aspects to archaeology. Generally, it's about physically touching ancient material: structures, fragments of pottery and metal, inscriptions, graves, and more. History, particularly ancient history, is mostly silent. Very little of it is written down. Archaeology helps reconstruct the past.

For us as Jews, reconstructing the past isn't a matter for a museum to handle. We aren't sitting and watching a historic play; we're part of it. To understand this, let's think about archaeology in other fields, such as the archaeology of texts or language.

What is a word? A signifier. What happens when a word can refer to more than one thing? What happens when it's an ancient word that has existed for 3,000 years? Words like these are like the tips of icebergs -- their contemporary meaning is just the uppermost layer. If we dig, we discover older layers of meaning. We might find, in other periods, that a word meant exactly the opposite of what it does now.

Think about Hebrew. Anyone who speaks this ancient language is unconsciously getting the past to speak and awakening the immense trove of knowledge and meanings and traditions amassed within the language. In a beit midrash, a place of Jewish learning, we will discover that the verbs used are in the present tense: Rabbi Akiva "says" (not "said"), Rashi interprets, the Prophet Isaiah prophesies. For the Jew, ancient texts are not something to be abandoned on dusty shelves or put in museums -- they have always surrounded Jews, who talked and argued with them, defied them, and took joy in them. Through the use of Hebrew, they were always accessible.

Today, too, Hebrew speakers are able to read the texts that date back 2,000 years or more. If we try harder, we can also become acquainted with the Talmud. And of course the poetry of Spanish Jewry, and Jewish philosophy, biblical commentary, mystic literature, the Zohar, the hassidic and enlightenment movements, up through the literature of the rebirth of the modern Jewish people and the modern day. If we want, we can learn about the lives of Jewish communities in North Africa in the 10th century C.E. or in Renaissance Italy and more, through the system of questions and answers (the responsa) that connected the Jewish world.

I mentioned that these texts "surrounded" us, and I actually meant that they "enveloped" us as both individuals and as a people. This is a defensive wrapping that protected and preserved us in the many diasporas and which even today is supposed to protect the Jews of the world, as long as they are not in their natural home, Israel.

2. The texts, as important and moving as they are, provide a limited archaeological experience. Reading about and studying Jerusalem in the First Temple period is not like walking around the City of David. When you're standing there, you understand what the poet meant by "the mountains surround Jerusalem" (Psalms 125:2) or "dwells between his shoulders" in Moses' blessing to Benjamin (Deuteronomy 33:12) -- that the place where God resides (known in Hebrew as the "shechinah") is between the shoulders -- halfway up, not in the valley and not at the highest hilltop. That is how our forefathers distinguished between their belief and the idol worship that was "on a high and lofty mountain" and "under every spreading tree" (Isaiah 57:5-7).

Several weeks ago, archaeologists revealed how the decorative floor of the Temple looked. They discovered it after intensive work that entailed putting together fragments of stone that had been found among the rubble removed from the Temple Mount. It's supposedly just a floor, colors and stones, not very much.

But the enormous excitement expressed in the news headlines about the discovery demonstrated that the archaeological find had touched a raw nerve. Every time we encounter a remnant of our past as a people, we get a response (and perhaps, an answer) to the question of identity that we have been debating since we returned to history, and even more so since we established an independent Jewish state: Who are we? Is the State of Israel a living continuation of the ancient kingdom of Israel? Are the Jews of the 21st century continuing the people whose high priests walked on those wonderful floor tiles? In the words of literary researcher and critic Baruch Kurzweil: Are we a continuation or a revolution?

Friday, September 23, 2016

And the Reason the Herald Scotland Supports a Violent “Human Rights Worker” is...

...In this case, Israel denied entry to a woman who starts riots, attacks soldiers, and puts the lives of Israeli civilians in danger. Apparently, this is this is what passes for a “human rights worker,” at the Herald Scotland. At least when talking about Israel. The only real question is, why has Israel allowed Pacetta to return so many times in the past?

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
22 September '16..

The Herald Scotland broke with journalistic ethics, and general reality, when it published an article claiming that “human rights worker” Margaret Pacetta was detained by Israeli authorities at the airport.


Except that Pacetta is not a human rights worker.

Margaret Pacetta is active in an organization called “Glasgow Palestinian Human Rights Campaign,” through which she provokes riots, engages in violence against IDF soldiers, and directly endangers the lives of Israeli civilians.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Why Abbas Won’t Accept Bibi’s Invitation - by Jonathan Tobin

...if Abbas were truly searching for a path to peace and independence for his people, the smartest thing he could do would be to say yes to the prime minister’s invitation. The fact that we all know he’d never even consider doing it tells us all we need to know about Palestinian intentions.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
22 September '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/why-abbas-wont-accept-bibis-offer/

During his address to the United Nations General Assembly that seemed largely a challenge to the organization’s legitimacy—he described its organs as s a “moral farce,” a “disgrace,” a “joke” and a “circus”—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slipped in a clever invitation. He asked Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to come to Jerusalem to address the Israeli people at the Knesset. Abbas’s answer to the offer so far has been silence. But since he has repeatedly rejected every past invitation for a one-on-one meeting with the Israeli in recent years—just as he has repeatedly rejected Israeli offers of peace and statehood—there is little likelihood that the answer will be different this time.

If Abbas were serious about peace, going to Jerusalem in that manner would completely change the dynamic of both the stalled peace process and Israeli public opinion about the conflict no matter what the Palestinian said in his remarks. The spectacle of Abbas at the Knesset would undermine the arguments of the majority of Israelis who agree with the prime minister that the Palestinians don’t want peace. It would create what would likely be intolerable pressure on Netanyahu to give in to more of the PA’s demands on territory and other issues. If the generous terms of peace previously offered by Israel were really inadequate, such a stunt is the best and perhaps the only way for the Palestinians to do better.

So rather than just toss this aside as a meaningless gesture, as Netanyahu’s critics are doing, it’s worth asking why Abbas won’t even consider doing something that is so obviously in the interests of his people? The answer is painfully obvious. He can’t do it because his objective isn’t really a two-state solution that would end the conflict forever.

Going to the Knesset wouldn’t just revive echoes of Anwar Sadat’s dramatic 1977 gesture that led to peace between Israel and Egypt. More than anything either he or his predecessor Yasir Arafat has done, it would signal that the century-long Palestinian war on Zionism is over. Speaking there would mean that the Palestinians are acknowledging the legitimacy of the Jewish state and that the only obstacles to peace are details about borders and guarantees against future violence.

Abbas: Palestinians who murder Israelis must not be arrested - no reaction?

...Comment from the White House? No. Nor from the State Department. Not a peep from the various Jewish organizations ostensibly so keen for peace. Nor any significant follow up by the journalists covering the event. Shame on all of them.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
23 September '16..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=71490



Incredible.

Let's read this short excerpt from Mahmoud Abbas' UNGA address:

"We remain committed to the agreements reached with Israel since 1993. However, Israel must ...cease the arrest of our people, and must release the thousands of our prisoners and detainees..."
Mahmoud Abbas UN General Assembly September 22, 2016

That's right.

Mahmoud Abbas stated that if a Palestinian goes out tonight and slaughters 20 Jewish babies in a hospital that Israel must not arrest the Palestinian.

Sure, Abbas may put out a press release opposing violence. But he is clear that Israel must not arrest Palestinian murderers.

And the reaction?

A deafening silence.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Unreal. Abbas now claims that Israel has been illegally occupying land since 1948!

...Abbas is turning history on its head and lying as easily as he breathes. As usual, no reporter is calling him on this unbelievable display of gall and lying.

Elder of Ziyon..
22 September '16..

I'm reading the (Arabic) statement that Mahmoud Abbas gave to the UN, and it is filled with the usual lies.

But he added a new one, which is breathtaking in its chutzpah.

Abbas claims that Israel violated the UNGA resolution 181 that called for a partition of British Mandate Palestine.

The partition resolution was accepted by the Zionist leadership and rejected by the Arabs, who immediately started murdering Jewish civilians within hours of the vote.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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What Exactly is Obama’s “Palestinian Land”?

...International law – and human rights law – clearly allow Jews to live throughout EGL/the West Bank. The Oslo Accords signed between the parties specifically state that Israel controls all of Area C until such time as the parties negotiate the transfer of more lands. The concept that Jews living in houses that they have every legal and moral right to live in, is somehow connected to Obama’s belief of a “permanent occupation of Palestinian land” is false, misleading and arguably anti-Semitic on every level.

FirstOneThrough..
Israel Analysis..
21 September '16..

On September 20, 2016, US President Barack Obama spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. His passing comment on Palestinian Arab-Israel conflict underscored why peace did not advance, and his relationship with Israel worsened over his term.

Obama’s UN remarks covered a lot of activities during his eight years in office, including the Iranian nuclear deal; opening relations with Cuba; and tackling climate change. He spoke about the Arab-Israeli conflict very briefly, but the remark was telling:

“…surely, Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land. We all have to do better as leaders in tamping down, rather than encouraging, a notion of identity that leads us to diminish others.”

“Palestinian land.” What exactly is Palestinian land, according to the parties themselves? According to the United States? According to Obama?

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https://firstonethrough.wordpress.com/

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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