European Commision bureaucrats and their nightly prayers

...We imagine these people saying fervent prayers each night before dozing off, giving thanks that they don't work for a profit-making corporation where malfeasance and scandal on this order would cost them their jobs. Also, for never having to answer: not to the timid media, not to the factionalized Parliament, not to the taxpayers whose money they ship off so carelessly, and not for the devastating harm done to Israelis and Arabs alike with those European taxpayer funds they keep handing off to Palestinian Arab figures and to the terrorists whom they so persistently fund and sustain.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
29 May '14..

The European Commission announced via a press release on Wednesday that the EU

has made available €200 million to ensure support to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), in order to provide vital basic services to the Palestinian people (such as education, health relief and social services)... a contribution of €130 million, through the PEGASE mechanism, to the Palestinian Authority and a contribution of €70 million to the General Fund of UNRWA... Via UNRWA, the EU is delivering its support to Palestine refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, enabling refugee families and their children to attend school, to receive medical attention and to survive economically, this way keeping alive the values of humanity, solidarity and dignity of the refugees.

It goes into a detailed explanation of what the PEGASE mechanism is, but manages to say not one word about what the EU's auditors found when they finally got around to looking at where the torrent of European money goes when it's given as aid to the Palestinian Arabs. When we recently wrote about this ["28-Mar-14: Once more: European double-talk on the funding of Palestinian Arab terrorism"] we said

From personal knowledge, there has been an inside understanding among the civil servants of the EC and their political masters [read our blog post "9-Sep-13: Snouts and troughs"] since at least 2003 to do whatever it takes to hide the truly hideous things that everyone knows are done with those European funds that go to Ramallah. In all those years during which torrents of European funding, amounting to billions of Euros, were channeled, first, to the blood-drenched Arafat regime, and then to the corrupt and insider-controlled regime of Mahmoud Abbas, those oh-so-careful Eureaucrats managed to avoid carrying out even one financial audit, until the one published this past December [full text here]. All of this while the EU "provides 20% of the direct financial support for the PA", making it "the biggest multilateral donor to the Occupied Palestinian Territories".

And what did that carefully-worded audit find?

(Continue)

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. Check-it out!
.

Surprise! Reuters Shoots Truth in the Foot

...Most people see headlines in social media feeds and web sites without clicking on the articles. The minority of people who click on the stories tend to skim the the first two or three paragraphs. Only a minority of readers who stuck with the story into the seventh paragraph will learn that — surprise! — the suspension and deaths aren’t connected.

Pesach Benson..
Honest Reporting/Backspin..
29 May '14..

The IDF suspended a soldier for firing his weapon in an unauthorized way during the Nakba Day clash. That’s according to Israeli media reports such as Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, YNet, and the Times of Israel.

The reports make clear that this soldier did not fire the shots that killed Palestinian teenagers Nadim Nuwara and Mohammed Salameh. As a member of a non-combat communications unit, the soldier in question wasn’t authorized to use his gun at all unless he was fired upon or in a life-threatening situation, yet he fired several rubber bullets at a wall hoping to scare away Palestinian rock throwers.

Now imagine what a careless or confused reporter might do with this information. Then see how closely Reuters matches your mind’s eye:

How to Not Stand Up to Turkey by Mordechai Kedar

...Israel has tried to be optimistic since his election twelve years ago, in 2002, noting that the army remained basically secular and therefore continued its good relations with Israel. However, Islamic clouds gradually darkened the relations between the two countries, so that as the trend towards Islamism grew stronger in Turkey, Israel's value to Ankara lessened appreciably, as did any mutual cooperation. Israel's official spokesmen tried to minimize the significance of these developments, but the bitter reality struck Israel in the face when Erdogan – under IHH camouflage – organized the Marmara flotilla in order to break the sea embargo that Israel maintains on Gaza.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Arutz Sheva..
29 May '14..

From the first day on which the Islamic Party gained control of the government of Turkey, Israel has attempted to pacify and reassure Erdogan, despite that leader's proven antagonism to Jews - in line with his extreme Islamic approach - that was all too evident by the 1980's. During that period, he wrote a play called "Mas-kum-ya", an abbreviation of "The Free builders, Communists and Jews" and recently called an anti-Erdogan demonstrator "Jewish seed", considered a most denigrating and humiliating insult in Turkey.

Israel has tried to be optimistic since his election twelve years ago, in 2002, noting that the army remained basically secular and therefore continued its good relations with Israel.

However, Islamic clouds gradually darkened the relations between the two countries, so that as the trend towards Islamism grew stronger in Turkey, Israel's value to Ankara lessened appreciably, as did any mutual cooperation. Israel's official spokesmen tried to minimize the significance of these developments, but the bitter reality struck Israel in the face when Erdogan – under IHH camouflage – organized the Marmara flotilla in order to break the sea embargo that Israel maintains on Gaza.

IHH is internationally known as a terror-sponsoring Islamist organization. That fact alone justified Israel's takeover of the Mavi Marmara, even if it entailed the use of force. Israel has the right to protect itself from weapons-smuggling to Gaza, and the armed terrorists who holed up on the Marmara disguised as "human rights activists" did not convince anyone that their mission was necessary. Even the UN investigative team – of which Turkey was a member – justified the takeover after the fact.

Except that Erdogan was not convinced, continued to claim that Israel had committed a crime and increased the pressure on her to admit it, accept responsibility for it and its results, remove the blockade of Gaza, and pay compensation to the families of terrorists who were aboard the ship. Israel tried to resolve the issue behind the scenes and reach a modus vivendi between the two nations, assuming that the Marmara episode aside, there is no other problem affecting relations between Israel and Turkey under Erdogan.

Israel's policy makers seemed to believe that as soon as a compensation agreement could be signed and the sums it demands paid, there would be no more problems and relations with Turkey would go back to what they were before 2002.

But then came this week's report of Turkey's complaint to Interpol against high-ranking IDF officers who were in active service at the time of the Marmara takeover. If Interpol accepts the Turkish complaint, these officers will be unable to fly to most points on the globe, because the minute they tread on the ground of a country that is a member of Interpol, they can be arrested and sent to Turkey, imprisoned, questioned, tried and sent to the infamous Turkish jails.

This is intended to bring Israel to its knees and have it beg the Turks to spare the lives of the IDF officers whose every move out of Israel might now be controlled by Turkey.

Of course the demand for absolute proportionality is one leveled exclusively at Israel

...Presumably in the aforementioned incident, Psaki expected Israeli soldiers to arrive at the riot scene equipped with incendiary devices (like those hurled by the rioters) and toss these fire bombs around indiscriminately. If the rioters failed to inflict casualties (not for the lack of trying), the soldiers had better make sure they didn’t hit anyone either. Superior aim could be construed a tie-breaker. Such undue advantage may signify a “disproportionate” element in the equation.

freeze-frame from the surveillance footage:
 the “victim” clearly breaks his fall.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
29 May '14..

Trying to get inside Jennifer Rene Psaki’s head is one heck of an intellectual challenge. The pearls of wisdom that habitually escape the lips of this US State Department spokeswoman are often no less than stupefying, so it must be edifying to get a handle on what inspires them.

Each time the comely redhead mounts the rostrum to deliver another of her deadpan briefings, Israeli hearts skip a few beats. Will she merely be chillingly aloof? Will she school-marmishly disapprove of our perceived misconduct? Will she actually go the whole hog and scold us for being the reprobates she serially suggests that we are?

She is the gauge of just how disliked we are. Our tendentious, left-dominated, agenda-driven media has turned Psaki into the adjudicator of our international standing. If she isn’t pleased, we are in obvious trouble. Her pronouncements open our news broadcasts and star on our front pages.

Thus we quaked the other day, awaiting her judgmental input following the deaths of two Arabs in Bitunia (near Ramallah) on May 15. They took part in irredentist disturbances to decry Israel’s Independence anniversary as a catastrophe – Nakba – their loaded characterization of our existence.

Psaki unequivocally put us in the dog-house when she encouraged “the government of Israel to conduct a prompt and transparent investigation to determine the facts surrounding this incident, including whether or not the use of force was proportional to the threat posed by the demonstrators.”

Ouch! We are well-familiar with that demand for proportionality. It never augurs well for us.

Presumably in the aforementioned incident, Psaki expected Israeli soldiers to arrive at the riot scene equipped with incendiary devices (like those hurled by the rioters) and toss these fire bombs around indiscriminately. If the rioters failed to inflict casualties (not for the lack of trying), the soldiers had better make sure they didn’t hit anyone either. Superior aim could be construed a tie-breaker. Such undue advantage may signify a “disproportionate” element in the equation.

Needless to say, the demand for absolute proportionality is one leveled exclusively at Israel. No other country on this globe was ever constricted by similar requirements, certainly not American forces operating anywhere and certainly not Arab terrorists of the ilk that invaded the Fogel home at Itamar two years ago and butchered parents and three children (one of them a three-months-old baby who was nearly decapitated).

But Psaki of course isn’t the wrongdoer here. She’s just the messenger and venting at the messenger kind of misses the mark.

One-sidedness, journalistic bias and unreported ‘price-tag’ actions

...The Israeli media simply doing its job would have two major effects the issue of terrorist acts against Jews. One is that the IDF and other security forces would take it more seriously and put more effort into prevention. The second and the more important result, however, is that more people in Israel and all over the world would appreciate the pressure on Israelis coming from the Palestinian side.

Yisrael Medad/Eli Pollak..
Media Comment/JPost..
28 May '14..

Over 48 hours (May 23-24), there were no less than 69 stone-throwing and fire-bombing attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria (Yesha). On May 24, according to a report of the Hashomer Hachadash website, fires broke out at three separate locations in the area of Givat Nili and Regavim. Arson is strongly suspected. Givat Nili and Regavim are not “settlements” across the Green Line, rather they are located on the Western boundary of Wadi Ara. Such fires occur in that area at the rate of approximately 1,000 per year.

The Hakol Hayehudi news website reported on May 22 that that morning there were 10 stonings of Jewish cars in Yesha. Some were damaged, no injuries were reported. According to the same website, during the week preceding May 13 no less than 62 attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria were recorded. Most of them were “only” stonings. Similar statistics were reported for the first week of May.

There is nothing new about any of this. The Megaphone website, in an article from November 23, 2013, reported that in the three weeks prior to the article’s publication, 786 stonings were reported in all of Israel, not including attacks directed at IDF forces. Yehudit Tayar, an emergency medic volunteer with the Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron organization and who served in an IDF combat unit, has so far published, with the clearance and confirmation of the IDF, 91 reports, each of which contains dozens of violent incidents that have occurred over the past three years in Judea and Samaria. These reports have appeared on news websites in both Hebrew and English, but are ignored by mainstream media outlets.

Ynet reported on May 8 that swastikas were spray-painted on three vehicles in Lydda. The report, by Eli Senior, ends with the laconic statement that the police had opened an investigation. On May 8, the Rotter website reported that swastikas were spray-painted on a bus parked in the vicinity of the ORT Shapira School in Jaffa. Swastikas were also reported on the Serugim website to have appeared in the ancient synagogue in Eshtamoa (located in the South Hebron region). The “price tag” logo did not appear in any of the cases described above.

Had it not been for modern technology we would not know that a war is taking place in Judea and Samaria.

No, this war did not break out as a result of the “breakdown” of the talks between Israel and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen. It has been going on all through the nine months of talks.

No one in the media addressed a question to Abbas about these events. PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, a frequent guest of Razi Barkai on Army Radio, was not asked questions such as, “Do you condemn such violent acts against civilians, holy places, etc.? Aren’t you also responsible for these acts if you do not actively seek to have them stop? Don’t you think that it is high time that your religious leaders stop their hate speeches in the mosques, so that such terror acts are reduced?”

One wonders why the IDF radio station is even willing to interview Erekat, an outspoken supporter of this kind of terror. The same station has not interviewed (and justifiably so) the “price tag” suspect caught in Yokne’am to provide him with a broad platform to “explain” his weltanschauung.

Hamas insider reminds us that in the terrorism business, money is a key enabler

...reporter Gavriel Fiske outlines the recent turns in Toameh's life, and illustrates some of the things money can do when its controlled by terrorists.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
29 May '14..

A man called Mahmoud Mahmoud Issa Toameh is the central figure in a report published this afternoon on the Times of Israel site. Under the heading "Top Hamas moneyman spills in Shin Bet interrogation", reporter Gavriel Fiske outlines the recent turns in Toameh's life, and illustrates some of the things money can do when its controlled by terrorists.

The thuggish young men, for instance, who routinely appear on the grounds of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (see this post of ours from yesterday) harassing Jewish visitors to the site and hurling stones, curses and threats at Jewish children do so as mercenaries. Said by gullible-enough reporters to be students of Islamic theology, they are paid monthly retainer fees - between $1,150 and $1,440 - from sources connected to Hamas and the Islamic Movement via a confidential agreement to collaborate on this. Both groups regard themselves as arms of the Moslem Brotherhood.

(Continue)

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. Check-it out!
.

Do they have a right to a state? Does every people have such a right?

...The culture, thanks mostly to Arafat’s educational and media systems, is obsessed with death, martyrdom, and revenge. Palestinians make it clear to anyone who is prepared to listen that their greatest aspiration is to destroy the state of Israel, kill or expel the Jews, and take the land that they believe they have a right to. In a moral sense, then, are they ‘deserving’?

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
28 May '14..

And so I renew the appeal made in this place by Pope Benedict XVI: the right of the State of Israel to exist and to flourish in peace and security within internationally recognized borders must be universally recognized. At the same time, there must also be a recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to a sovereign homeland and their right to live with dignity and with freedom of movement. — Pope Francis, May 25 [my emphasis]

This raises many fascinating philosophical questions. Does every people have such a right? Does every group that calls itself a ‘people’ have one? Is it a ‘natural’, inherent right, like a person’s right to life, or does it have to be earned? What if there are conflicting rights? What if one group behaves as if the only way its rights can be realized is by denying them to another?

You get the idea. President Obama prompted similar thoughts when he said that “the Palestinians deserve a state.” Deserve? Why?

The earliest stirrings of Palestinian nationalism go back no farther than the early 20th Century. Before that, the Arabs living in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire that overlapped ‘Palestine’ — for the sake of argument, the area from the river to the sea, from today’s Lebanese border to Egypt — were just Arabs, like the ones in southern Syria.

There was no historical state of Palestine, nor an indigenous Palestinian civilization. There were Arabs, along with various other ethnic groups, including of course Jews. Some of the longer-resident Arab families may even have been descended from Jews converted to Islam during the Muslim conquest of the area in the 7th century!

The British promised to assist the development of a Jewish state in Palestine in accordance with the terms of the Mandate established at San Remo in 1920. Before it went into effect, they chopped off the three-quarters of the land that lay east of the Jordan and gave it to their friend Abdullah, who had helped them expel the Ottomans.

But the Arabs of the Mandate would not countenance Jewish sovereignty anywhere in Palestine. Incited by the man who would become their leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, they engaged in deadly riots in 1920-21, perpetrated a pogrom in Hebron in 1929, rejected the Peel Commission recommendations of 1937 which called for partition of the remaining land into a small Jewish state (25% of what was left of Palestine) and a large Arab one, and began a violent revolt against both the Jews and the British — who nevertheless continued to do their best to frustrate the Jews’ aspirations for a state.

From the beginning the Arabs asserted a ‘right’, not only to a state, but to every inch of the land. More recently, they rejected several additional offers of partition. In each case the grounds for rejection appear to be the insistence on a ‘right of return’ which would in effect bring about Arab sovereignty over all of the land, and a refusal to agree to a final end of the conflict — that is, to admit that the Jewish state is here to stay.

An Alarming Divided Jerusalem Fantasy

...The obstacle to dividing Jerusalem isn’t one of aesthetics or engineering or even the problem of drawing a border in a place that causes the least harm to both sides. It is about a conflict that won’t be resolved until the Palestinians give up their fantasy of eradicating the Jewish state.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
28 May '14..

On this date in the Hebrew calendar 47 years ago, Israeli forces ended the division of Jerusalem. The city had been split during the Arab siege of the capital in 1948 and it remained cut in half by an ugly wall as well as by dangerous no-man’s-land zones. The victory in the Six-Day War ended an illegal occupation of the eastern portion of the city as well as the walled Old City by Jordan that had lasted for 19 years but was not recognized by the world. In breaking down the barriers, the Israelis not only reunited the city but opened access to its religious shrines—including the Western Wall and the Temple Mount—which had been off limits for Jews during the Jordanian occupation. But as Israelis celebrated what is known as “Jerusalem Day” today, support for the push to reinstate the division of the city in the international community has grown. Every Middle East peace plan proposed in the last 15 years, including the three Israeli offers of statehood that the Palestinians turned down, included a new partition of Jerusalem even though both sides remain murky about how that could be accomplished without reinstating the warlike atmosphere that prevailed before June 1967.

But for those who believe that such a partition is essential to peace, the process by which a city that has grown exponentially in the last five decades, with Jews and Arabs no longer neatly divided by a wall, could be split is merely a matter of details. To fill in the blanks for its readers, Haaretz published a Jerusalem Day feature that provided the answer to the question. Highlighting a complicated scheme put forward by a Jerusalem architectural firm, the paper asserted that most Jerusalemites wouldn’t even notice the difference if their city was re-partitioned. On the surface the plan, which has been funded by a variety of left-wing sources, seems practical if complicated and expensive. But it is not only completely unrealistic; it is based on a fantasy that the real problem in Jerusalem is primarily one of engineering, aesthetics, and logistics. Like every other element of other utopian peace plans that are sold to both the Israeli and Western publics as the solution that “everybody knows” must eventually happen, this vision of Jerusalem ignores the fundamental problem of peace: the fact that the Palestinians don’t want it.

The conceit of the divided Jerusalem scheme is that the old “green line” that once cut through the city as well as the West Bank is alive and well. Since the second intifada, Jews largely avoid Arab sectors of the city and Arabs do the same in Jewish sections. The only problem then is how to “soften” the appearance of a division so as to codify the reality of a divided city without actually reinstating the ugly and perilous military fortifications that served as the front lines for the Arab-Israeli wars from 1949 to 1967.

There is some truth to the notion that Jerusalem is currently divided in this manner. But it is a fallacy to assert that it is anything as absolute as the authors of the plan and their media cheerleaders claim. Contrary to the notion popularized by the terminology used by the media, there is no real east or west Jerusalem. The city is built on hills with much of the “eastern” section actually in the north and south where Jewish neighborhoods on the other side of the green line have existed for over 40 years. The idea that this can all be easily sorted out by handing out the Jewish sections to Israel and the Arab ones to “Palestine” won’t work.

It is a falsehood to assert that 40 percent of Jerusalemites can’t vote in municipal elections. Residents of Arab neighborhoods could vote but don’t. If they did participate they would hold real power, but for nationalist reasons they choose to boycott the democratic process and the result is that they have been shortchanged. While current Mayor Nir Barkat opposes division of the city, he has rightly argued that Israel has to do better in serving Arab neighborhoods because with sovereignty comes responsibility. But what the plan’s authors also leave out of the equation is that a division would deprive many of these same Arabs of their employment and health coverage since a great number work on the Israeli side or get their medical treatment there. Will they give that up for Palestine? Just as when the security barrier was erected, many Arabs will clamor to stay on the Israeli side of any divide for obvious reasons.

Respecting The Palestinians Means Raising The Bar From The Gutter

...So a word of advice to all those who lower the bar for the Palestinians to the gutter: You aren't part of the solution. You are part of the Palestinian's problem.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
28 May '14..

President Shimon Peres scheduled a photo op prayer session with Pope Francis and Mahmoud Abbas at Vatican City designed to endorse "man of peace" Mahmoud Abbas to be held hours after a unified Fatah-Hamas PA is slated to be announced.

As of this writing, the entire world community - including the US and EU, has opted to postpone any actual requirements regarding a unified PA at least until after Palestinian elections are held. And judging by the world’s track record, if there is a unified PA and it enjoys unqualified world acceptance during an interim period up to the formation of a post-elections government, then that acceptance will continue indefinitely after elections as well.

There is a common thread to this.

It is that for all practical purposes the Palestinians enjoy an automatic pass from the world.

And if I were an Arab conspiracy theorist I would suggest that this is the product of a terrible dark Israeli conspiracy against the Palestinians.

Because this policy of not requiring the Palestinians to meet the most basic standards of behavior lulls them into doing just that: not meeting the most basic standards of behavior.

(Video) Celebrating Jerusalem Day on the Temple Mount

The Temple Institute..
28 May '14..

Today, the 28th day of the month of Iyar, (May 28), 100s of Jews, (and 100s of tourists), ascended the Temple Mount to celebrate the 47th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem and the liberation of the Temple Mount, on June 7th, 1967.



The Muslim Waqf did their best to dampen our joy and chase the Jews from the Mount, and although the police did close the Mount to non-Muslims mid-morning, it was only after 100s of Jews ascended.

The children of Israel have rediscovered the Temple Mount, the place of the Holy Temple. Each day, each week brings 100s and 1000s of more Jews to the Temple Mount. Jerusalem is the Holy Temple, and the Holy Temple is Jerusalem. With joy and determination, and with G-d's help, we will rebuild the Holy Temple.

Happy Jerusalem Day!

Visit us: http://www.templeinstitute.org

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DDN8Lw5u4A

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. Check-it out!
.

Just What is a "Palestinian," Anyways?

...The Arabs may represent a significant portion of what was once the British Mandate of Palestine, but they obviously never represented all of it. The Jews were always willing to share, just as the Arabs were always determined to prevail in a zero-sum contest against their formerly persecuted subjects. But if one is an all-or-nothing kind of person and if you cannot grab it all, you very often get nothing. This is something that Mahmoud Abbas might well keep in mind.

Michael Lumish..
Israel Thrives..
28 May '14..

The Philistines, of course, were a seafaring people of the Aegean islands.

They were one of the rivals for regional dominance competing with the ancient Israelites along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea over one thousand years before Jesus of Nazareth walked the land.

They were, needless to say, not a people from the Arabian peninsula and were in no way the forebears of those who conquered the Land of Israel in the seventh century.

This is to say that the ancient enemy of the Jews, the Philistines, are in no way related to the contemporary Arabs who have, for some reason, taken a Latin name that refers to a Greek people.

Furthermore, Palestinian-Arab authorities sometimes claim to be either descendants of the Philistines or descendants of the ancient Canaanites or descendants of the little known ancient Jebusites.

The areas of Judea and Samaria, and all the Land of Israel, was renamed Syria-Palestina by the Roman Emperor Hadrian around the year 135 CE for the explicit purpose of erasing Jewish history on the land of the defeated indigenous Jewish population upon the failure of the Bar Kochba Rebellion.

From that day to this the traditional homeland of the Jewish people was generally referred to as either "Palestine" or the "Holy Land" or "Eretz Israel," depending upon among whom, when, and where the conversation was taking place.

By the time that the Zionist project was well under way in the early part of the twentieth-century the terms "Palestine," to refer to the region, and "Palestinian," to refer to the Jews of the region, were commonplace in the west.

Throughout the first half of the twentieth-century a "Palestinian" was generally considered a Jew or, in official British terms during the period of the mandate, anyone, without regard to race or religion, who resided within the mandate, itself. This definition, in my opinion, is probably the only one that actually makes sense from a liberal perspective.

Reaffirming Our Commitment to Jerusalem

...When we rejoice today and raise the national flag, when we sing "Jerusalem of Gold," we will remember the words of Nathan Alterman, that justice lies with us, and we will not let the devil twist our minds.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
28 May '14..




Happy holiday, fellow Jews; today we celebrate Jerusalem Day.

This is a wonderful opportunity to clarify a few things we can be happy about. This is a day to mark the great joy, not tragedy -- despite what a few professional lamenters might say -- that came with the return to our historical home of Jerusalem, the most holy of our sites. The 200,000 Jews residing in Jerusalem beyond the distorted, outdated border lines are not an obstacle to peace, but an obstacle to re-division. Many of this city's residents, Jews and Arabs, not only feel that dividing Jerusalem is not a "solution," it is a surefire recipe for chaos and increased hostilities.

For 364 days out of the year, we discuss the best and worst courses of action, what should and should not be done in Jerusalem. But on this one day, the day the city was liberated, it is befitting to pay homage to our own sense of justice, to cast a steady eye outward and inward, and to heed the essence of the Torah's teachings. In the spirit of the historian Ben-Zion Dinur: The Arabs have full rights in Jerusalem, but no rights over Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is the embodiment of Jewish justice. It is the strongest collective memory we have as a people. It has been present in our lives for 2,000 years, in our prayers, celebrations, days of mourning, religious ceremonies, songs. It has been part of our unyielding longing. It was and still is one of the clearest markers of Jewish identity, if you will -- the true law, unwritten, that defines Israel as the home of the Jewish people.

Many years ago, Menachem Begin posited that Jerusalem defended Israel more profoundly than Israel defended Jerusalem. He was right, but his diagnosis was only a partial one. Throughout all the years of our exile, Jerusalem indeed functioned as the glue unifying the Jews dispersed throughout the Diaspora.

But when we returned, too many of us began to lose our bond with the city. More importantly, we began to forget our obligation to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Day, the real problem and what the real solution is

...Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn't about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It's not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It's about solving the Jewish problem.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
First posted 20 May '12..

When Jordan's Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city-- the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.

Since then the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is however standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as "settlers" living in "settlements", and describe them as an "obstruction to peace." Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.

Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world's oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as "settlements" is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to dip his hat to. How does one have "settlements" in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that you would have to ask London and Washington D.C. where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.

(Video) Celebrating Jerusalem -"Fly Your Flag"

LOTL..
First posted 10 May '13..




From the former Latma's Tribal Update, a song for Jerusalem "Fly your flag" in celebration of Jerusalem Day commemorating the unification of our eternal capital city 47 years ago. Enjoy!


Latma TV

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.

.

Inside the Infrastructure of Hate, Deep Inside the UN

...But as long as the UN's "propaganda apparatus" for Palestinian rejectionism survives, the world body's essentially positive nature will be disfigured by well-founded accusations of discrimination against its only Jewish member. For the good of Israel, the Palestinians, and the UN itself, it is long past time for the world body to finally say farewell to the libel that Zionism is racism.

Ben Cohen..
Pundicity/The Tower Magazine..
13 May '14..

The April reconciliation agreement between the Palestinian Authority's dominant Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement has come as a shock to many. It shouldn't have. In the weeks before the deal, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had already taken steps with a profoundly negative impact on the U.S.-sponsored peace talks. Building on his modest success in winning a 2012 UN General Assembly vote to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's status to that of a non-member state—a designation it shares only with the Vatican—Abbas returned to this unilateralist strategy of peace avoidance by signing 15 applications for membership in a variety of international agencies, conventions, and treaties.

Abbas' goal is obvious: By embedding a virtual "State of Palestine" into the complex infrastructure of the United Nations, he hopes to massively increase international diplomatic and legal pressure on Israel, render the Jewish state vulnerable to international sanction as a rapacious colonialist occupying power, and achieve "statehood" without any compromise required by peace negotiations. This latest attempt at "diplomatic warfare" pursues many of the same aims as did decades of failed conventional wars and terrorism, yet it enables the Palestinians to do so without explicitly resorting to violence, addressing the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, or any other necessary accommodation. Abbas knows he has a great deal of support for such a move. He can count on the votes of Arab and Muslim states in the General Assembly, as well as their allies in the developing world, to make Palestinian statehood a reality—at least on paper.

That the UN would endorse this approach, which sets out to undermine the peace process and render it irrelevant, while violating previous agreements with Israel, should not be surprising. The UN's systemic antipathy toward the Jewish state is well-documented.

Indeed, even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has conceded that "Israel has been weighed down by criticism and suffered from bias—sometimes even discrimination" in the international body.

The most glaring example of this tendency was UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which horrendously declared Zionism to be a form of racism. Passed in 1975 following a sustained campaign by the Soviet Union, and rescinded in 1991 after a major push by the United States, the resolution triggered a measure of international revulsion, as it symbolized the extremity of the UN's aversion to one of its own member states. But what few people realize is the extent to which we are still living with the resolution's influence—especially in the form of a network of extremely well-funded UN structures and offices that have until now remained largely hidden from public scrutiny.

Despite the "Zionism-is-racism" resolution having been annulled, these offices, agencies, and committees continue operating as the engine of the effort to delegitimize the Jewish state and attack it through boycotts, sanctions and divestment. It is these structures and their activities that are being exposed here systematically for the first time.

Boom! What they don't tell you, Chapter 94

...We're wondering about something else. Consistent with their recent call for the Christian faithful to respect the 'dignity' of convicted and unrepentant Palestinian Arab murderers of children and of other innocents, will the World Council of Churches' Geneva-based leadership be eulogizing this young man who failed to reach the ranks of prisoners, though not for lack of trying?

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 May '14..




The way the news media can and do manipulate events in this highly charged neighbourhood is illustrated in this tiny vignette.

A report currently appearing on the website of the Bethlehem-based widely-read and influential Maan News Agency, reads in its entirety:

Man killed in Gaza explosionPublished yesterday (updated) 26/05/2014 10:44GAZA CITY (Ma'an) - A Palestinian man was killed Monday in an explosion in the northern Gaza Strip, Gaza health officials said. Nizar Said Issa, 25, was killed by a blast in Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern camp, Ashraf al-Qidra said, without providing further details. The incident is being investigated by police.

"Man killed". Can't argue with that. Sad story, another victim of the occupation etc. But who was he? Why was he killed? Who killed him?

There's some relevant background at Times of Israel:

An Islamic Jihad operative died Monday morning apparently while handling explosives at the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Nizar Said Issa, 25, was active in the terrorist organization’s military wing and was working with explosives at the time of the accident, according to [Israel's] Channel 2. He was evacuated to Kamal Hospital in Beit Lehia, where he died of his wounds.

This was not the first PIJ work accident of the week:

On Saturday two Islamic Jihad members were killed, and at least two more injured, during a training accident in the southern Gaza Strip. [Times of Israel]

In fact, the coyness of the editors at Maan News Agency notwithstanding, Nizar Said Issa, his short career and his dedication to terrorism are all over the Arabic language news media today. His funeral was a major event:

(Continue)

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. Check-it out!
.

Surprise! The NY Times Misses Deicide Theme in Bethlehem

...As CAMERA’s Christian Media Analysis Dexter Van Zile argued, in the context of Christian-Jewish relations, visual language which plays upon the decide charge (which has preceded and justified the killing of Jews for nearly two millennia) “is the [moral] equivalent of a noose hanging from a tree in the Old South”.

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Snapshots..
26 May '14..

Downplaying the significance of a Palestinian photomontage exhibit in Bethlehem's Manger Square, erected in time for Pope Francis' visit there yesterday, The New York Times reports:

The pope offered a spirited Mass in a crowded Manger Square, which was bedecked with photomontages blending Christian iconography with images of Palestinians’ difficult daily reality.

Palestinian Media Watch provides more information on the art exhibit commissioned by the Palestinian Authority:

The exhibit consists of visual displays merging classical paintings of biblical scenes with photos of Palestinians and have been "designed by the Palestinian Museum at the request of the Presidential Higher Committee for Church Affairs." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 20, 2014]

As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, the PA has misrepresented Jesus for years, claiming he was not a Judean as in Christian tradition, but rather a "Palestinian," thereby claiming a Palestinian history dating back to the time of Jesus. Mahmoud Abbas recently said Jesus was “a Palestinian messenger.” This exhibit reinforces the pretense that Jesus was a Palestinian by visually merging the image of Jesus in classical art with pictures of Palestinians.

Some of the displays at the exhibit also reiterate another PA message - that Palestinians suffer as Jesus did.

Moreover, as our colleagues at CiF Watch, a CAMERA affiliate, noted:

As Israel shifts eastward

...Despite the centuries of anti-Semitism that marked most European nations and the guilt borne by them for their actions during the Holocaust, Europe, in recent years through the machinery of the European Union, has waged a constant campaign of criticism and condemnation of the policies pursued by Israeli governments, going so far as to impose economic sanction against Israel. Nothing of the sort has come Israel’s way from the Far East or India. Unlike Europe, China, Japan, and India have no history of anti-Semitism. Quite the contrary - they demonstrate admiration for the ancient Jewish civilization and Israeli achievements in science and technology, and are eager to expand cultural and economic relations with Israel.

Moshe Arens..
Haaretz..
26 May '14..

Slowly but surely Israel is pivoting toward the East. Years ago that would have been a most unexpected development. After all, most of Israel’s population originated from Europe, and most of its leadership had its roots in Europe. For many years Israel might have been considered, for better or for worse, an outpost of Europe in the Middle East. Whether Europe loved Israel or hated Israel, Europe remained Israel’s closest connection to Western civilization. But a change is taking place. Our prime minister has visited China and Japan, and it is a fair bet that he will visit India in the near future. Who knows, Korea may even be next.

On reflection this is not totally unexpected. For many years the economic development of the countries in East Asia has been outpacing the economic development of Europe. Japan made giant strides in the years after World War II. South Korea followed suit. China has become the economic wonder of the twenty-first century. There are, as well, indications of accelerated economic development in India, the world’s largest democracy. It is natural that Israel’s economic relationship with these countries would begin to rival its relationships with the countries of Europe, a Europe which seems to be in permanent economic crisis and lagging behind the Asian tigers.

But that is not the only reason for this turn to the East by Israel. Europe is the graveyard of European Jewry. They were slaughtered in the killing fields of the Soviet territories, now Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, and Ukraine, that the German army occupied during Operation Barbarossa. And they were gassed in the industrialized killing installations established on Polish soil. Almost all of Europe was involved, directly or indirectly, in the murderous scheme to exterminate the Jewish people. The French and the Dutch shipped their Jews off by railroad to Auschwitz, knowing full well the meaning of that destination.

Where the Pope is Welcomed with Lies About Israel’s Christians

...Throw in the de rigueur innuendos that the Palestinian Authority’s declining Christian population is mainly Israel’s fault, and Casey’s verbal Photoshop job is complete: The one country in the Middle East whose Christian population is growing and thriving–a fact increasingly acknowledged by Israeli Christians themselves–has been successfully repackaged to the average reader as a vicious persecutor that is driving its Christians out.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
26 May '14..

I’m a longtime fan of the Wall Street Journal. But I confess to mystification over why a paper with a staunchly pro-Israel editorial line consistently allows its news pages to be used for anti-Israel smear campaigns–and I do mean smear campaigns, not just “critical reporting.” A classic example was its assertion in an April 7 news report that Israel had agreed “to release political prisoners” as part of the U.S.-brokered deal that restarted Israeli-Palestinian talks last summer. The Journal was sufficiently embarrassed by this description of convicted mass murderers that it issued a correction in print, yet the online version still unrepentantly dubs these vicious terrorists “political prisoners.”

A more subtle example was last week’s report titled “On Middle East Visit, Pope Will Find a Diminished Christian Population.” While Israel is the glaring exception to this Mideast trend, reporter Nicholas Casey elegantly implies the opposite in a single sentence that’s dishonest on at least three different levels: “Syria has seen an exodus of nearly half a million Christians, and in Jerusalem, a population of 27,000 Christians in 1948 has dwindled to 5,000.”

First, while Casey never says explicitly that Jerusalem’s shrinking Christian population reflects the situation in Israel as a whole, it’s the obvious conclusion for the average reader–especially given the juxtaposition with Syria, which implies that both countries are treating their Christians similarly and thereby causing them to flee. This impression is reinforced by the only other statistic he gives about Israel: that Christians have declined as a percentage of the total population.

The truth, however, is that Israel’s Christian population has grown dramatically–from a mere 34,000 in 1949 to 158,000 in 2012, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. That’s an increase of almost fivefold. And while Christians have fallen as a share of the total population, that’s mainly because they have significantly lower birthrates than either Israeli Jews or Israeli Muslims.

Viewing the industry of lies in action

...If we wanted to know how the industry of lies works, we received another small example this week.

Ben-Dror Yemini..
Ynet/Israel Opinion..
25 May '14..

Two young Palestinians were killed during the Nakba Day protests. Footage from security camera raises questions about the statement released by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, which said there was no use of live ammunition during the incident.

We must exercise caution. We have already seen such footage which turned out to be "Pallywood," as Prof. Richard Landes defined it in the past. Landes revealed staged scenes of Palestinian propaganda, which were presented in the world as crimes made in Israel.

The short video segment, less than a minute, about Muhammad al-Durrah turned into one of the inalienable assets of the anti-Israel propaganda. It took years before the full film was exposed, and before it turned out that it was a libel.

The footage from Nakba Day should also be treated with caution and suspicion. The problem is that the days go by, and the IDF has all the time in the world. Journalists have obtained the material way before the investigators.

So before the Nakba Day killing turns into another al-Durrah affair, a serious investigation must be conducted. Not in a week's time. It should have happened immediately.

The US State Department has already turned to Israel, demanding an investigation. The scrupulousness of senior American administration officials is noteworthy. They have already been in this situation. When civilians were killed in a serious incident in Baghdad by US soldiers, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl said it was a conflict with "hostile forces." Soldier Bradley Manning, as part of a huge leak to WikiLeaks, revealed a video of that incident, among other things. Apache pilots were seen targeting and killing civilians, including two journalists. They may have mistaken them for fighters, but they continued shooting even at those who arrived to collect the wounded and the bodies. Manning was sent to 35 years in prison. The shooters were not indicted.

There have been countless incidents of this kind, mistakes, deviations. Crimes were committed too. In the US and Britain it somehow ends in nothing or an almost nothing. Israel must act differently. Check. Investigate. Draw conclusions. Not because others demand that we do it. After all, they are the last ones entitled to preach us. We owe it to ourselves.

The Lag Ba'Omer 'pogrom'

A Jewish friend from the US called me last week to inquire about a pogrom committed by Jews against Palestinians. A pogrom? He had irrefutable proof. Peter Beinart, one of the heads of the Jewish left in the US, wrote the words "A Lag Ba'Omer pogrom" on his Twitter page, with a link to a report on Haaretz newspaper's English-language website. The report's headline read, "Settlers torch Palestinian orchard."

Torching an orchard is a serious matter, but how exactly did Beinart get to a pogrom? The Presspectiva website, which looked into the issue, found that the original report, in Haaretz's Hebrew-language website, said that "settlers lit a bonfire in an olive grove."

So what we are talking about three stages. It began with a report in Hebrew about a bonfire in an olive grove. Not a single tree was torched. There are such bonfires all over the country. It continued with a distorted translation to English, about an orchard being torched. And it evolved into a pogrom, no less, by the master and teacher of the Jewish left in the US.

Following an appeal from Presspectiva, the newspaper published a small correction. Beinart, until now, has not taken back his choice of words.

If we wanted to know how the industry of lies works, we received another small example this week.

From the Dark Continent, Another Anti-Semitic Outrage

...It’s often quipped that European governments have a decent record of commemorating dead Jews, as evidenced by the numerous Holocaust memorials across the continent, and a pretty awful record when it comes to protecting live ones.

Ben Cohen..
Commentary Magazine..
26 May '14..

Yet again, Jews in Europe are grieving. Saturday’s brutal shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels was a stark reminder that, for its Jewish communities, Europe is rapidly becoming a dark continent, one where extreme violence lurks behind the constant stream of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic invective found on extremist websites and mainstream media outlets alike.

Four people were murdered in the museum shooting. Two of them were a couple from Tel Aviv, vacationing in the Belgian capital. The third was a female volunteer at the museum, while the fourth was a 23 year-old museum employee who was hospitalized in critical condition and who died shortly afterwards from his injuries. The assault was eerily reminiscent of the Islamist terror attack in 2012 at a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse, in which three young children and a rabbi were similarly shot at close range by Mohammed Merah, an individual with dual French and Algerian citizenship who entered the global Islamist terror network following visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It just so happens that I am writing these lines from Jerusalem, where I am one of several speakers at a major conference on anti-Semitism organized by the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University. As the news from Brussels broke on Saturday night, hundreds of Israelis were gathering in cafes and bars to watch the final of the European Cup soccer tournament. In the informal conversations I had with fellow spectators, I encountered anger and disgust, but little surprise–this is Europe we’re talking about, after all. And to its immense credit, the Israeli government’s official response to the attack reflected these public sentiments. “This act of murder is the result of constant incitement against Jews and their state,” declared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Slander and lies against the State of Israel continue to be heard on European soil even as the crimes against humanity and acts of murder being perpetrated in our region are systematically ignored.”

When it comes to spreading fear among Jews, Belgium is, in fact, one of the worst offenders. The the latest annual survey of global anti-Semitic incidents and expressions from Tel Aviv University’s Stephen Roth Institute noted that “the countries in which the situation and sense of vulnerability seem to be the worst were Hungary, France, and Belgium.” Indeed, anyone tempted to think that the Brussels attack was an isolated aberration would do well to consider the depressingly long list of antisemitic incidents in Belgium that presaged it.

Amos Oz and his coterie of Canaanite prophets

...The next time Amos Oz and his coterie of Canaanite prophets offer us their opinions as semi-prophets, we should keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews reject their message. However it will end up looking, our Judaism and our Jewish identity is both vital and flourishing. On the contrary, it is Oz’ utopian cosmoplitanism that belongs in a museum.

Jeffrey Woolf..
Times of Israel..
25 May '14..

For the second time in as many weeks,novelist Amos Oz has favored us with his wisdom. Last week, he declared to Israel and the world (urbi et orbi, as the Catholics put it) that the Hilltop Youth, who he assumes to be responsible for the ‘Price Tag’ attacks, are nothing less than Neo-Nazis. Today, Professor Oz summarily dismissed Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence that any agreement with the Palestinians include a declaration acknowledging Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish People as ‘superfluous.’ One gets the sense from his statement, moreover, that he judges the Prime Minister’s demand to be nothing more than a tactical move to avoid making peace.

Both of these assertions can be addressed, and taken down, separately. Indeed, Oz has already drawn a tremendous amount of criticism for the first (despite the fact that such attacks, whoever perpetrated them, should be duly prosecuted). As to the second, more recent pronouncement, there is also a plethora of articles cogently defending the absolute necessity for such an Arab/Muslim recognition, from both right and left.

I would like, here, to call attention to the fact that the Oz’ two assertions are really connected. They are both acute expressions of his integrated worldview. Oz is the foremost, living representative of an established tradition in modern Hebrew literature that espouses the total elimination of Israel’s Jewish identity, and cultural and religious character. The tradition can be traced back to Yosef Haim Brenner, through the Canaanite movement of the 1950′s and 1960′s, down to Oz and his compatriot A. B. Yehoshua (among others).

I first realized this fact almost twenty years ago, at the Israel Conference of the Wexner Heritage Foundation in 1995. It was the halcyon days of Oslo when the mainstream thought that peace was around the corner, and the organizers invited Oz to engage in a dialogue with the right wing activist and thinker, Elyakim Haetzni on the future of Israel. Upon arriving, Oz adamantly refused to sit next to Haetzni, or even to acknowledge his presence. The moderator, Professor Arnold Eisen, was forced to sit between them. (Oz’ pointed refusal to even look at Haetzni shocked the Israelis who were present. The Americans didn’t realize what was transpiring.)

In his remarks, Oz laid out his vision for Israel’s future. He took the city of Jerusalem as an allegory. The city, he said, is divided into the New City and the Old City. The former is full of life, progress, and intoxicating vitality. Living there, with its energy and drama, is like living in a world of Live Theatre. The Old City, by contrast, is a place of the past. Living there is like living in a museum, a tribute to a long lost, dead world. ‘No one,’ he concluded, ‘wants to live in a museum.’

Soros, BDS and thankless takers of gifts

...George Soros may not have expected that the Palestinians would express gratitude for his generosity toward them. But even more, he could not have imagined that they would, in such ungrateful manner, bite the hand that fed their cause. He may now be beginning to see the light. The mild-mannered Soros must be amazed at the explosion of rhetoric directed against him by the Palestinian and other bigoted boycotters of Israel caused by the revelation that the Soros firm bought $24.3 million of the shares of the Israel-based SodaStream company.

Dr. Michael Curtis..
American Thinker..
25 May '14..

Life does imitate art. The recent announcement that the Soros Fund Management (SFM), the family office of the billionaire George Soros, bought shares of SodaStream International Ltd., the maker of home soda machines, could have been taken from Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of being Earnest. Has George Soros been leading a double life, “pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time”?

George Soros may not have expected that the Palestinians would express gratitude for his generosity toward them. But even more, he could not have imagined that they would, in such ungrateful manner, bite the hand that fed their cause. He may now be beginning to see the light. The mild-mannered Soros must be amazed at the explosion of rhetoric directed against him by the Palestinian and other bigoted boycotters of Israel caused by the revelation that the Soros firm bought $24.3 million of the shares of the Israel-based SodaStream company. Soros, simultaneously, also bought 5.7 million more shares of the Israeli drug company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd., which was already in his investment portfolio. His holding in that company is now valued at $373 million, about four percent of the holdings of SFM and 5.8 per cent of Teva’s total stock.

All should have known that Soros, after all, is in the business of making money – not, as some have supposed, more concerned with political causes. Therefore, he must have been surprised by the immediate and extreme condemnation of him by members of the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose efforts he had generously supported. They called for a boycott of Soros’s Fund Management and his Open Society Foundations (OSF) because of his investments in Israeli companies that they consider in violation of international law, since these companies operate in disputed areas in the West Bank.

The Palestinian boycotters, in ludicrous accusatory fashion, now argue that Soros’s and OSF’s investment in SodaStream and Teva is incompatible with his support of educational, human rights, and cultural projects in the area of Israel and Palestinian territory.

The irony is truly Shakespearian in character. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless taker of gifts. Soros’s OSF has given large grants both to Palestinian organizations and to Israeli non-governmental organizations critical of Israeli policies. All of them have accused Israel of committing “war crimes,” and many have taken part in the international BDS movement and in legal campaigns to file international lawsuits against Israeli officials.

The bigoted boycotters seem unaware of the contribution of Teva to welfare, including their own. The company, with headquarters in Petach Tikva in Israel and employing 46,000 people in 60 countries, is the largest generic drug manufacturer in the world, developing and supplying health care systems worldwide with specialty medications and more than 350 high-quality generic medicines. As a distribution company, it also delivers health care products and services, hospital supplies, dialysis equipment, and diagnostics globally.

One of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world, Teva is responsible for 34 billion generic prescriptions. It claims that one of every six prescriptions in the United States is filled with a Teva product. The boycotters themselves must have benefited, perhaps their very lives preserved, from the use of those prescriptions. Why do the Palestinians and the boycotters they have influenced and pressured want to prevent people in the world from benefiting from the Teva enterprise?

The EU's ceaseless meddling in Israel's internal affairs

...So what right or authority has the ambassador of "the ill giant," the European Union, to intervene in Israel's internal affairs? Are we part of their union? We have gotten so used to this meddling, that we have failed to ask them till this very day: Why does this actually concern you? Would you want us to intervene in the European Union's affairs?

Guy Bechor..
Ynet/Israel Opinion..
23 May '14..

On September 18, Scotland's residents will vote on the establishment of an independent country and splitting from Britain. On November 9, the residents of the Catalonia region, whose capital is Barcelona, will vote on gaining independence from Spain. And In March 20-22, 89% of the residents of Venice voted in favor of turning their city into an independence state and splitting from Italy.

Now imagine what would happen if Israel's ambassadors in these different countries intervened in the vote and instructed the Scottish people how to vote, or transferred funds to the Venetians to split or stay in Italy. Imagine what an uproar this insolent behavior would raise in Europe, and rightfully so.

So what right or authority has the ambassador of "the ill giant," the European Union, to intervene in Israel's internal affairs? Are we part of their union?

We have gotten so used to this meddling, that we have failed to ask them till this very day: Why does this actually concern you? Would you want us to intervene in the European Union's affairs? Perhaps it would actually be a good idea to start funding the Catalonians, the Walloons in Belgium or the Basques in Spain through subversive associations for "human rights" – like the Europeans do here.

EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen said this week that the EU was "disengaging from the settlements," thereby continuing the blatant intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign country in which he is a guest. It's true that he tried to soften the message with talks about cooperation with Israel – but we, tired of hearing this frequent European undermining, won't listen to it anymore.

It's important to remember that wherever there are Jewish settlers, security and stability will remain. And vice versa: An area free of settlers is a future Salafi-jihadist area, like what happened with the disengagement from Gaza.

Does the ambassador expect Israel to commit suicide and turn into Syria or Iraq, with terrorism entering deep into its belly? We are willing to do that only if London becomes semi-jihadist, as well as Berlin, Madrid and Stockholm. The day Paris is divided between the French and al-Qaeda and the Jihad, with an ability to fire missiles at the Élysée Palace, we'll agree to a division in Jerusalem too.