Love of the Land: July 2016

Sunday, July 31, 2016

A look at the BBC’s policy on naming and personalising victims of terror - by Hadar Sela

...However, for BBC audiences the vast majority of terror victims in Israel remain faceless and in very many cases such as those noted above, even nameless.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
31 July '16..

Earlier this month the trial of one of the two terrorists who carried out an attack on a Jerusalem bus last October in which three Israelis were murdered and dozens injured came to a close.

“A Jerusalem court on Monday sentenced an East Jerusalem terrorist to three consecutive life sentences and an additional 60 years in prison for killing three people in an attack on a bus in the capital last October.

Last month, Bilal Abu Ghanem was convicted of three counts of murder, seven counts of attempted murder and aiding the enemy in wartime for his role in killing three people in a terror attack on a bus in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood.”

As readers may recall the BBC News website reported the murders of Chaim Haviv and Alon Govberg but did not name them or provide any other personal details. The death of a third victim of the same bus attack – Richard Lakin – two weeks later did not receive any BBC coverage at all.

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Turkey’s Hamas Hypocrisy - by Michael Rubin

...If the United States is culpable for the attempted coup in Turkey because an ailing 75-year-old cleric lives isolated in the Poconos, then is Turkey legally responsible for Hamas attacks against Israelis and Americans because Hamas now calls Turkey home? If so, perhaps it’s time for victims of real terrorism to lawyer up and go after Turkish assets. Should they do so, their best witnesses might be Erdoğan and his proxy Binali Yıldırım.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
31 July '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/turkey/turkeys-hamas-hypocrisy/

One of the defining characteristics of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey is its complete obliviousness to the precedent its leadership creates. Five years ago, for example, Erdoğan visited the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and said, “It is a natural and constitutional right for Macedonia to use that name [Macedonia]…. Macedonia’s decision to use its name should be respected.” On this, I happen to agree with Erdoğan, but does Erdoğan extend the same right to Kurds to call their homeland Kurdistan? Precedent dictates he should, but Erdoğan is a hypocrite: Good luck to any Kurd who refers to Diyarbakir as a city in Kurdistan.

Then, of course, there is the issue of Hamas. Erdoğan has openly embraced the Palestinian terrorist group for a decade, feting their most militant leaders in Ankara and pushing back on U.S. and European criticism by saying Hamas deserved legitimacy: It won an election, had popular support, and sought national liberation. He encouraged Turks to bypass the lawful blockade of Gaza to provide humanitarian assistance. Put aside the irony that Gaza surpasses Turkey in key demographic and health indicators. Bring up the plight of the Kurds, though, and the Turkish response is bluster and hypocrisy. If any foreign power sought to deliver even humanitarian supplies direct to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) or its civilian political proxies, Turkey would consider it an act of war. At the very least, Erdoğan’s Hamas precedent means that no Western government should consider the PKK to be a terrorist group.

Is Facebook now a pipeline for funding Hamas terrorism?

...As a target audience, foreign activists are perfect. They are concentrated in a small space. Many are obsessive and almost none check the veracity of the message they are being given. The term ‘like shooting ducks in a barrel’ comes to mind.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
31 July '16..

Arabs in Gaza are swarming social media platforms and sending private messages to pro-Palestinian activists looking for donations. Is it just one massive scam? Or are Hamas utilising social media platforms, not just to spread propaganda, but as a pipeline to raise funds for their terrorist activities?

Hamas are one of the most brutal terrorist organisations on earth. Some of their attacks, such as the Passover massacre in 2002 or the Dizengoff Centre attack in 1996, highlight an undiluted strategy of barbarism. All terror attacks are difficult to digest, but deliberately targeting elderly people at a religious service, or children partying in fancy dress at Purim, leaves a particularly bitter taste.

In more recent years, Hamas have held Gaza’s entire population hostage. They seek conflict through firing indiscriminate rockets at Israeli population centres, thus deliberately placing their own civilians in harm’s way. Hamas then use the inevitable result as propaganda material for their cause. A calculated, callous and inhumane act.

Because of Europe’s blind inability to connect the dots (a blindness that is tragically coming home to haunt them), Hamas has always worked hard on public perception. The Hamas propaganda machinery learnt to utilise social media platforms to perfection. The vast majority of distorted, manipulated imagery that is used by the anti-Israel squad in the west, emerges from the hands of Hamas in Gaza.

With its military arm recognised as a terrorist organisation in most civilised nations, the more responsible charities have a difficult time trying to ensure funds do not become diverted towards terrorist activity. The Syrian civil conflict complicated matters further for Hamas, as it found itself alienated from its main sponsor, Iran. Hamas are currently handing out land to civil servants because they are unable to pay the wage bill. Hamas is a terror group desperately seeking both friends and funding.

Enter Facebook.

I have been active on Facebook for years, and apart from the odd scam, I don’t think I have ever been privately approached for money. Yet in discussion with some anti-Israel activists, I found that ‘being approached for money’ was almost a daily occurrence for them....

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The parts of the "Palestine Festival" that the EU doesn't want you to see - Elder of Ziyon

The EU is also sponsoring the promotion of violence and terror at this festival.

Elder of Ziyon..
29 July '16..

The Office of the EU Representative to the West Bank and Gaza proudly showed photos of the International Palestine Festival that it sponsored:

The ‪#‎EU‬ is among the main supporters of the Palestine International Festival as part of the support to the ‪#‎Palestinian‬ cultural sector and organizations and as part of the ''Palestinian festivals towards cooperation and community inclusion'' EU funded project.

There is nothing wrong with the EU sponsoring such a festival, although some might wonder why money is being spent on something like that.

However...

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Saturday, July 30, 2016

Abbas’s desperate gesture, a tired staple of Palestinian propaganda - by Ben Cohen

...And yet rather than tearing up the old playbook, the Palestinians persist in advancing initiatives that question their own commitment to the two-state solution they insist the Israelis are wrecking. Like the BDS campaign and the other campaigns ostensibly focused on securing justice for the Palestinians, Palestinian diplomacy has become just another vehicle for sullen grievance politics that bear little correspondence to the historical record.

Ben Cohen..
JNS.org..
28 July '16..

It’s been a long time since I saw a gesture this desperate.

At the recent Arab Summit in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, the Palestinian Authority (PA) foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, announced that his boss, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, had asked the Arab states prepare a legal case against Britain in retaliation for the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration, which took the form of a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to the Zionist leader Lord Rothschild, confirmed Britain’s favorable view of a “national homeland” for the Jewish people in Palestine, which came under British control towards the end of World War I. For that reason, the PLO’s National Covenant dates the beginning of the “Zionist invasion” to 1917—any Jews who arrived in the land after that date are considered to be illegal settlers.

These days, that’s basically every Jew in Israel.

Of course, Abbas has been able to get away with this kind of incitement many times in the past, so there was no reason for him to expect any moral condemnation from Western leaders. Had he stuck to denying the link between Jews and the city of Jerusalem, or named another public square after a terrorist, he would probably have been spared the ridicule which has greeted his tactical error of going after the British—and therefore going too far.

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Actually Jews, not Palestinians, have every right to sue - by Lyn Julius

...It is these Jews who have been denied justice, the right to compensation for their loss of assets and land several times the size of Israel itself, and the human rights abuses they suffered. It is these Jews who have every right to sue those who wronged them.

Lyn Julius..
UK Media Watch..
29 July '16..

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki has threatened to sue Britain for issuing the 1917 Balfour Declaration because, he claims that it led to mass Jewish immigration to British Mandate Palestine “at the expense of our Palestinian people.”

The Palestinian threat is not as laughable as it sounds. It’s not unexpected either, as part of the current Palestinian strategy to exploit any law and abuse any forum to delegitimise Israel.

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Friday, July 29, 2016

Monsters and a very incomplete list of children used as human shields in Gaza - by Elder of Ziyon

...Gideon Levy isn't crying about what sort of society would do such a monstrous thing. Because he doesn't really care about the dead children. He wants to do what Hamas does - use them as a weapon against Israel. Just like B'Tselem. Just like Amnesty. Just like Human Rights Watch. Which means that it is Gideon Levy and these NGOs who are the real monsters for not saying a word about - or worse, exonerating - Hamas and other Gaza armed groups for literally using their children as weapons in war.

Elder of Ziyon..
28 July '16..

Gideon Levy is outraged at Israelis:

One hundred and eighty babies and children up to the age of 5. One hundred and eighty helpless babies and toddlers that the Israel Defense Forces killed in Gaza in the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. In their sleep, in their play, as they fled; in their beds or in their parents’ arms.
Try to imagine – the army killed 546 children in the course of 50 days. More than 10 children a day, a classroom every three days. Try to imagine.
But these updated, verified figures, released by the B’Tselem NGO on the second anniversary of the killing, are hard to imagine. It’s easier to dismiss them with a shrug, a look in the other direction or the lame excuses of Israeli propaganda.
The figures that should have haunted Israeli society and keep it awake at night – that should have sparked a stormy public debate and shaken it– are of no interest at all. Any natural disaster at the end of the world would have evoked more human feelings here than this slaughter, which Israel committed an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv.

As usual, Levy is only telling a small part of the story.

Because most of these innocent children were human shields. It is Palestinian society which is so sick as to willingly put their own children (and many other family members) at risk in the hopes that Israel would not attack their terrorist relatives.

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The F-35? Time to walk away from US aid - by Caroline Glick

...If Israel walks away from the military assistance package currently under discussion, it will be in a position to sign joint development deals with the US and other governments on a project by project basis and so ensure that we develop the weapons systems we need, not the ones the US thinks we should have, as we need them. Just as India is investing billions of dollars in joint projects with Israel, so will the US in the future.

Caroline Glick..
Column One/JPost..29 July '16..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-one-Time-to-walk-away-from-US-aid-462677

On Monday, acting head of the National Security Council Yaakov Nagel will sit down with his US counterpart, Susan Rice, and try to conclude negotiations about a new, multi-year defense assistance package.

We must all hope that he fails.

No clear Israeli interest will be advanced by concluding the aid deal presently on the table.

Indeed, the deal now being discussed will cause Israel massive, long-term economic and strategic damage. This is true for a number of reasons.

First, there is the issue of the deal’s impact on Israel’s military industries, which are the backbone of Israel’s strategic independence.

Under the current defense package, which is set to expire next year, a quarter of the US aid Israel receives is converted to shekels and spent domestically.

Reportedly, the deal now under negotiation will bar Israel from using any of the funds domestically.

The implications for our military industries are dire. Not only will thousands of Israelis lose their jobs. Israel’s capacity to develop its own weapons systems will be dangerously diminished.

Then there is the problem of joint projects.

Today, Israel receives additional US funds to develop joint projects, including the Iron Dome and David’s Sling short range missile and rocket defense programs. These programs were undertaken in response to threats that weren’t foreseen when the current deal was negotiated a decade ago.

According to reports, the deal now being negotiated denies Israel and the US the ability to fund jointly new projects or to provide supplemental funding for existing projects. All funding for all projects will be covered by the lump sum that is currently being negotiated.

Not only does this preclude new projects, it prevents Congress from exercising oversight over administration funding of existing joint projects with Israel. President Barack Obama has consistently tried to slash funding of missile defense programs, only to be overridden by Congress. Under the deal now on the table, Congress will be denied the power to override a hostile administration.

Given the obvious problems with the aid program currently being proposed by the Obama administration, there’s little wonder that until now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated that if necessary, Israel is ready to wait for the next administration. Some argue that Netanyahu’s apparent newfound interest in concluding negotiations on Obama’s terms owes to his fear that this is the best offer Israel is likely to get. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for various reasons, it is argued, will be less likely to offer significant increases in US military assistance.

Assuming this is accurate, the question becomes whether Israel has an interest in the assistance at all.

And so we come to the F-35.

The Latest State Department Assault on Israel by Elliott Abrams

...With all the misery and bloodshed in the Middle East; with all the terrorist attacks Israel must face; with chaos in Iraq and Syria; with a PLO thinking not about talks but about lawsuits against the UK, it’s remarkable that housing construction strikes State as the critical problem we face.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
28 July '16..
Link: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2016/07/28/the-new-state-department-assault-on-israel/

This week the State Department engaged in a remarkable assault on Israel. Both in tone and in content, it marks a new hostility–and plenty of sheer ignorance.

The comment was entitled “Recent Israeli Settlement Announcements” and the full text ran as follows:

We are deeply concerned by reports today that the Government of Israel has published tenders for 323 units in East Jerusalem settlements. This follows Monday’s announcement of plans for 770 units in the settlement of Gilo.

We strongly oppose settlement activity, which is corrosive to the cause of peace. These steps by Israeli authorities are the latest examples of what appears to be a steady acceleration of settlement activity that is systematically undermining the prospects for a two- state solution.

In just the past few weeks, we have seen reports of the advancement of plans for 531 units in Ma’ale Adumim, 19 in Har Homa, 120 in Ramot, and 30 in Pisgat Ze’ev; the advancement of a plan to retroactively legalize an outpost near Ramallah; and the issuance of tenders for 42 units in Kiryat Arba.

We are also concerned about recent increased demolitions of Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which reportedly have left dozens of Palestinians homeless, including children.‎ More than 650 Palestinian structures have been demolished this year, with more Palestinian structures demolished in the West Bank and East Jerusalem thus far than in all of 2015.

As the recent Quartet Report highlighted, this is part of an ongoing process of land seizures, settlement expansion, legalizations of outposts, and denial of Palestinian development that risk entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict. We remain troubled that Israel continues this pattern of provocative and counterproductive action, which raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful, negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

Wow.

This statement not only protests certain recent activities (of which more in a moment) but actually accuses Israel of no longer being interested in a negotiated settlement. The history of Obama administration efforts gives the lie to that accusation: it’s quite clear that the Palestinians refused to come to table repeatedly and ultimately defeated Secretary Kerry’s efforts to get something going. Here is what Obama negotiator Martin Indyk said in 2014, as reported in Haaretz:

“Netanyahu moved to the zone of possible agreement. I saw him sweating bullets to find a way to reach an agreement,” said Indyk. Abbas, for his part, did not show flexibility, Indyk added.

“We tried to get Abu Mazen to the zone of possible agreement but we were surprised to learn he had shut down. We were ready to go beyond policy positions the U.S. had taken on the core issues to bridge the gaps and resolve it, and therefore there was something in it for him – and he didn’t answer us. Abbas [effectively] checked out of the talks in mid-February,” said Indyk.

So Abbas checks out, Abbas destroys Obama’s and Kerry’s efforts, and the State Department two years later is saying Israel’s commitment is in doubt.

Why? Because this construction is going to make the two-state solution impossible and “risks entrenching a one-state reality.” That conclusion reflects pure ignorance. The position of the United States is, and has been under Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, that Israel and the Palestinians should engage in land swaps as part of a final status agreement. Just as one example, President Obama told AIPAC in 2011 that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

Swapping for what? Swapping for major Israeli settlement blocs–such as Maale Adumim, population 40,000. The notion that peace is more distant if Israel builds in Maale Adumim is ridiculous. Or how about construction in Gilo? Same: this is a Jerusalem neighborhood of 40,000. Construction there is no obstacle to a two-state solution. Same for Har Homa. In 1997, the United States vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions demanding that construction in Har Homa stop…and it might be recalled that the president at that time was a Democrat, and was the husband of the current Democratic nominee. Besides, the State Department’s criticism regarding Har Homa is about 19 units. 19 units! One might wonder if the Department has no other matters to concern it these days. Checking the State web site, I find no similar five-paragraph attacks or critiques on any subject. It seems nothing is as dangerous to the world as construction in Israel and in settlements.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

I agree with Cornel West. One Day, the Palestinians Will Be Free. - by Stephen M. Flatow

...So, I agree with Cornel West: one day, the Palestinians will be free. The question is--how long will it take Professor West to acknowledge just who it is that the Palestinians need to be liberated from?

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
27 July '16..

I never thought I would find myself writing those words. West, a leading African-American author and intellectual, is a vicious critic of Israel. He supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He says Israel's leaders are "war criminals." In a speech at Princeton last year, he made the wildly absurd claim that the Israelis "are killing hundreds [of Palestinians] daily."

But even a broken clock gives the right time twice a day, so on the rare occasion that West utters words of truth about the Palestinians or Israel, I must acknowledge that.

West was appointed by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to serve on the Democratic Party's Platform Committee. He lobbied hard for a platform plank supporting the Palestinian cause, and was partly successful.

Speaking to a Jerusalem Post reporter on July 26, on the floor of the Democratic convention, West said that he was disappointed the platform did not go further, but he vowed to continue his struggle. He declared: "The Palestinians will be free, brother. Ain’t no doubt about that.”

And that's where Cornel and I agree.

Since 1995, more than 98 percent of the Palestinians have been living under the occupation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) (and, since 2007, 100 percent of the residents of Gaza have been living under the occupation of Hamas). Ain't no doubt in my mind: one day, brother, the Palestinians will be free of the cruel totalitarian Palestinian regimes that occupy and oppress them.

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Guess the missing word in the BBC’s report on the capture of a Hamas terror cell - by Hadar Sela

...In short, in a report concerning a terrorist cell linked to a proscribed terror organisation which carried out a fatal terror attack on Israeli civilians, the BBC once again refrained from using any form of the word ‘terror’ itself, with the sole use of the term ‘terrorist’ found in a quote preceded by the qualifier “The Israeli military said”. Apparently the BBC was once again afraid of making a “value judgement“.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
28 July '16..

Visitors to the BBC News website’s Middle East page on July 27th found the following headline:

That link led them to an article with a title which similarly suggested to audiences that there was reason to doubt Mohammed Fakih’s involvement in a terror attack reported by the BBC earlier in the month: “Israeli forces shoot dead Palestinian suspected of killing rabbi“. The article opened:

“Israeli forces have shot dead a Palestinian who they said was behind a recent attack which killed an Israeli father-of-10 in the West Bank.” [emphasis added]

However, audiences were not told that one of Fakih’s accomplices had previously identified him as the gunman – as reported by Israeli media.

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When a world power allows Israel to attack ally as its forces watch - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

A significant achievement by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that's mostly ignored. But not by everyone.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
27 July '16..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=71125

Earlier this week Israeli fighter jets attacked Syria following mortar fire that struck on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

And it was barely a news item.

It reflects a significant achievement by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that's mostly ignored.

But not by everyone.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Europe, Terror, and Glaring Hypocrisy on Israel - by P. David Hornik

...Although, for now, the focus of Islamic terror has shifted from Israel to Western Europe, Israel’s situation remains precarious. With ISIS in Sinai, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terror groups in Gaza, Hizballah in Lebanon, and a mix of Sunni terror groups, Hizballah, and Iranian militias in Syria, another armed conflict between Israel and terrorists is only a matter of time. And when the time comes, in light of all that has happened since the days of the Second Intifada, will Israel be able to count on Europe to give it support instead of reflexive criticism and pressures to lay down its arms? Despite all, only the very naïve could think so.

P. David Hornik..
Frontpage.com..
27 July '16..
Link: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263643/europes-glaring-hypocrisy-terror-and-israel-p-david-hornik

Western Europe is now being hit by a wave of terror. Israel has expressed sympathy to the governments and peoples, and is helping or has offered to help the hardest-hit countries—France, Germany, and Belgium—fight the terror.

It has been different when terror has pounded Israel. Even during the five-year onslaught known as the Second Intifada (2000-2005), Europe was sharply critical of Israel and denounced all its terror-fighting methods as immoral.

The contrast is particularly striking in light of some disparities. From the Charlie Hebdo attack on January 7, 2015 to Tuesday’s attack in a church, 239 have been killed in France (pop. 67 million). In the Brussels bombings on March 22 this year, 32 were killed in Belgium (pop. 11 million). Since September 15, 2015, terror attacks (counting the Munich shooting late last week) have killed 15 in Germany (pop. 82 million).

During the five years of the Second Intifada, however, 1000 were killed in Israel (current pop. 8.5 million; even smaller then)—a much higher rate even than France has endured since the start of 2015.

Yet, in the course of those intifada years—and since then as well, including, of course, the Gaza wars—Europe’s criticism of Israel’s fight against terror has been unremitting.

The irony is deepened by the fact that some of the Israeli measures that Europe has most fiercely condemned are now used routinely by European countries themselves—without, of course, having to put up with criticism from Israel or anyone else.

Hamas terrorists who murdered Rabbi Miki Mark are located and forcibly retired - by Arnold Roth

...A martyr al-Fakih assuredly is becoming as we write these lines. Hamas, which de facto controls large swathes of the nominally Fatah/PA towns and villages of the mis-named "West Bank", is active now preparing for a showcase funeral and demonstrations of rage and power, intended not only as a token of how far away peace is, but to show that the PA - with all its foreign aid, its police and its European-supplied limousines for insiders - actually takes a back seat to the Hamas organizers on the ground.

In the PA-controlled village of Surif this morning, the body of a
terrorist gunman is removed by IDF soldiers [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 July '16..

Violent riots erupted in the PA-controlled village of Surif, north of Hebron, early this morning (Wednesday) as a joint IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police operation trapped the four-person terror cell that murdered Rabbi Michael Mark, the executive director of the Otniel Hesder Yeshiva, on July 1 [link] and seriously injured his wife and children. The victims of that attack were traveling in a car that came under murderous gunfire on Route 60 ["01-Jul-16: The drive-by shooting near Otniel"].

Times of Israel reports that the members of the Hamas-aligned terror cell

opened fire at the Israeli troops from inside the house in which he was hiding, and the IDF responded by firing several anti-tank missiles... The IDF then used a bulldozer to knock down most of the building, and when the troops finally entered the destroyed home they found Fakih dead inside...

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The Otto Weininger syndrome - by Sarah Honig

...Weininger’s suicide was regarded by Third Reich ideologues as the only “honorable” way for a Jew to cleanse the world of his existence. Repulsive as this undeniably is, it’s hardly irrelevant....The mental aberration Weininger took to extremes is still being taken to extremes by his torchbearers. But there’s one very significant difference. Latter-day Weiningers look out quite nicely for their own well-being. Their self-abhorrence is channeled onto the Jewish collective. They promote national Jewish suicide, not their own personal demise.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
First Posted 03 June '10..
Link: https://sarahhonig.com/2010/06/03/another-tack-the-otto-weininger-syndrome/

While first published 6 years ago, this piece remains just as relevant and insightful today as before. A special nod to Sheri Oz at Israel Diaries who inspired hunting this out to post once again

Suicide can be individual or collective. In either manifestation it can share similar attributes and arise from parallel psychological anomalies. It can be perversely popular.

In early 20th-century Vienna, for example, a spate of high-profile suicides triggered a pseudo-romantic fad. There seemed to be something dashing in taking one’s own life in a grand gesture that apparently made a statement. Pivotal in sensationalizing the fashion was 23-year-old philosopher Otto Weininger who shot himself in 1903 in the same hotel room where Beethoven died (presumably to enhance the dramatic effect).

Weininger’s intense auto-anti-Semitism loomed large among his motivations. Born Jewish, he converted to Christianity in his last year but obviously found no salvation. His book Geschlecht und Charakter (Gender and Character) testifies to boundless self-loathing. Weininger lambastes modernity as “Jewish” and asserts that ”women and Jews are pimps; their goal is to make man guilty. Our era is not only the most Jewish, but also the most feminine of eras” which “no longer has a single great artist, a single great philosopher. It has the least originality and the biggest hunt for originality.”

Moreover, Weininger makes hair-raising “anthropological observations,” even embracing notions that “Jewish hair… points to the Negro, and the completely Chinese or Malaysian skull shapes, which one so often finds among the Jews – who frequently have a yellow complexion – point to partly Mongolian blood.” Harrowing stuff.

Unsurprisingly Weininger’s most ardent posthumous fans were the Nazis, foremost Hitler himself who reportedly said he “had only encountered one decent Jew, Otto Weininger, who killed himself when he realized that the Jew thrives on contaminating the authentic folk bloodlines of others.”

Weininger’s suicide was regarded by Third Reich ideologues as the only “honorable” way for a Jew to cleanse the world of his existence.

Repulsive as this undeniably is, it’s hardly irrelevant. The noxious Weininger syndrome still afflicts certain Jews. The mental aberration Weininger took to extremes is still being taken to extremes by his torchbearers. But there’s one very significant difference. Latter-day Weiningers look out quite nicely for their own well-being. Their self-abhorrence is channeled onto the Jewish collective. They promote national Jewish suicide, not their own personal demise.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Suing Lord Balfour? - by Elliott Abrams

...But there is something more serious to ponder: that the Palestinian leadership is wasting its time and energy on this nonsense instead of trying in practical ways to improve the lives of Palestinians. Suing Lord Balfour, or to be more exact suing the United Kingdom over the Balfour Declaration of 1917, is a substitute for decent governance and the evasion of even an effort to provide it.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
26 July '16..
Link: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2016/07/26/suing-lord-balfour/

The unseriousness of the PLO’s desire for peace with Israel was demonstrated in a comic manner this week. Here’s the news item from the AP:

The Palestinian president says he will sue Great Britain over the 1917 Balfour Declaration and its support for a Jewish national home in the Holy Land.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki made the announcement on behalf of Mahmoud Abbas at Monday’s opening of the Arab League summit in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott.

Malki said the suit would be filed in an international court. He didn’t elaborate.

Perhaps Mr. Malki “didn’t elaborate” because he recognizes, at some level, the lunacy of this approach. Is it to be the International Criminal Court, where perhaps they could seek a warrant to arrest Lord Balfour? Problem: he died in 1930. Perhaps he has heirs whose property might be attached. In fact, he never married and had no children. Or perhaps the PLO might try to attach all the streets named for Balfour throughout Israel, or the community there called Balfouria after him.

(Part 1) Leftist Jews: Jewish Uncle Toms?

...Leftist Jews sincerely believe that they are acting in Israel’s best interests. They are, in their opinion, trying to raise the ethical and moral standards demonstrated by leaders of the country so that Israel corresponds to their image of a just and tolerant society. In some cases, leftist Jews may believe that they are successors of those who fought for civil rights in the USA and against apartheid in South Africa. They draw some kind of equivalency between the Palestinian Arabs in Judea & Samaria and the Blacks of the States/South Africa.....However, they are aligning themselves with those who seek Israel’s destruction and not simply redress for crimes they accuse Israel of committing against Palestinian Arabs.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
26 July '16..

Credit for inspiration for this two-part piece goes to both Diane Weber Bederman and to Sarah Tuttle-Singer. Diane wrote that J Street Jews (and I suppose others like them) can most accurately be understood as Jewish Uncle Toms. Sarah wrote about privilege. In Part I, I will expand upon Weber Bederman’s application of the term Uncle Tom to leftist Jews; in Part II, I will discuss how Uncle Tomism interacts with a (false) sense of privilege leading to Jewish leftism.

By Jewish leftism I am referring only to the issue concerning attitudes to the Israeli-“Palestinian” conflict, or political leftism. I am not a political leftist. Political leftism stands in contrast to economic leftism with which I do concur to a large extent.

Jewish leftists engage in behaviours that non-leftists see as directly or indirectly harming Israel, whether in the short term or the long term. Harming the Jewish state (either intentionally or unintentionally) can be seen as a form of self-harm. Some critics of the Jewish left call the leftists antisemitic Jews or self-hating Jews.

Defining Self-Hating Jews

Many of us struggle trying to understand the apparent willingness of certain Jews to operate against the Jewish state all the while proclaiming that they are concerned with the well-being of the Jewish state. Many of those, like me, do not feel that calling leftists self-hating Jews is either accurate or really captures the phenomenon.

Surely there are those who hate the fact that they were born into The Tribe. But that is likely not the majority. I am certain that those who act in ways that I see as being against the better interests of Israel, in fact believe that they are trying to save Israel’s soul.

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Truth Versus the Pernicious Myth About ‘Settlement Growth’ - by Michael Rubin

...The more scholars delve into statistics, the more apparent it is that professional peace processors have become so blind to reality that they would discount any data that does not conform to their preconceived assumptions. With so much conventional wisdom about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict unsupported by reality, is it any surprise that U.S. and European diplomacy on the issue has such a poor track record of success?

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
25 July '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/how-much-are-settlements-growing/

There are four common myths or misconceptions that infuse U.S. and European peace process diplomacy when it comes to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The first is that there are millions of Palestinian refugees. This number is arbitrary, the result of UN sleight-of-hand. After all, the United Nations uses a different definition with regard to Palestinians than it does everywhere else in the world. The late University of Illinois Professor Fred M. Gottheil tackled this issue a decade ago in Middle Eastern Studies.

Then, there is the issue that demographic reality means that Israel must make peace now lest Palestinian population growth mean that Israel will lose its democratic character. At the root of this view, however, is blind acceptance of Palestinian Statistics Agency numbers, as Yakov Faitelson definitively showed in the Middle East Quarterly.

A third myth appeals to the humanitarian impulses embraced by so many across the political spectrum. It holds that the plight of the Palestinians (and especially the Gaza Strip which hasn’t been under occupation for a decade) is a humanitarian tragedy. And while the Palestinian leadership may be tragic in its disdain for life, liberty, and the bettering opportunities and freedoms within society, the simple fact of the matter is that living standards in the Gaza Strip are better than those in Turkey and many other developing countries.

The fourth and perhaps most pernicious myth is that settlements are the chief impediment to fruitful peace talks. A bit of background: The Obama administration entered office putting Israeli settlements in the disputed West Bank front and center. In contrast to his predecessors, President Obama made freezing the expansion of settlements and towns in disputed territories—both in terms of area and population—a prerequisite to further peace talks rather than a subject for diplomatic discussion. In effect, by acting as the zoning commissioner for Jerusalem rather than the leader of the free world, Obama gave Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a free pass on his refusal to respond to previous Israeli peace offers, be they from 2000 or 2008. The Israeli government might offer talks anytime, anywhere but the Palestinian Authority could and did use Obama’s initial statements as a reason not to engage.

Monday, July 25, 2016

Tutu, Barghouti, terror, peace and prizes - by Arnold Roth

...Without him and the many others like him, the devastation and misery of the Pal-Arabs could have ended decades ago. It hasn't ended, as we all know. And as Tutu's campaigning for a prize to be given to Barghouti demonstrates, his ill-informed hand-wringing and irrational urge to forgive remains unaffected by any knowledge he might have acquired - but clearly has not - in the intervening years.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
Bishop Desmond Tutu
[Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
25 July '16..

A Pakistani website today published an op ed lauding Marwan Barghouti, providing us (we're guessing this was not their intention) with an opportunity to share our feelings concerning the man and those who seek to aggrandize him.

The article is entitled simply "Marwan Barghouti". We had not heard of the author before; his name is Abbas Hasan and his self-description is sparse: "an engineer and a cricket fan who works in the Middle East".

Here's our comment.

It's helpful to see acolytes of Barghouti highlighting, as this piece does, the emphatically *anti-peace* stance of the convicted and imprisoned murderer. Our attention was drawn to this article because of our tracking the efforts of Bishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate himself, in shilling for Barghouti to get the same prize. In his public statements, Mr Tutu repeatedly speaks of Barghouti as an agent for peace. But as this fine article makes clear, Barghouti totally rejects peace in the Arab vs Israel wars as this quote makes clear:-

“The role and mission of the Palestinian authority should be reassessed so that its main mission must be in supporting and assisting a comprehensive resistance, which necessitates the immediate termination of security coordination and cooperation with Israel as this only reinforces occupation and is a tremendous detriment to the Palestinian people. We must stop betting on the illusion of peace negotiations”.

It's a valuable service to the cause of peace (in which most Israelis, us among them, believe passionately) that Abbas Hasan has done. Sincere thanks to him.

In case you missed our recent commentary on the odious and fundamentally dishonest efforts by Bishop Desmond Tutu to have the murderer Barghouti awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it's posted at "09-Jun-16: The convicted killer, the churchman, the prize".

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The former BBC interviewee and a PA terror monument - by Hadar Sela

...But while the PA keeps up its practice of making national heroes of dead terrorists with monuments, street namings and sports tournament dedications, the BBC continues to indoctrinate its audiences with the notion that the prime ‘obstacle to peace’ is Israeli building.

Hadar Sela..
This Ongoing War..
25 July '16..

Even as the BBC’s funding public sees its elected representatives debate issues relating to official Palestinian incitement and glorification of terrorism, the corporation continues to avoid providing them with the comprehensive picture of those issues which would not only enhance their understanding of news coming from the Middle East, but also of events in their own parliament.

Last week the Palestinian Authority and the PLO erected a monument to a terrorist who murdered fifteen people and wounded scores of others in 1975.Zion Square attack

“The Palestinian Authority went through with its plans yesterday to establish a monument honoring the terrorist Ahmad Jabarah Abu Sukkar, who planned the detonation of a bomb-laden refrigerator in the center of Jerusalem…. […]

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Palestinian demographic manipulation. The classic case of "lies, damned lies and statistics."

...So how does the PCBS manipulate its population statistics? It began in June, 1997, with the first Palestinian census in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. In that survey, 648,000 people were artificially added. The census was conducted by the Palestinian Authority, which, at the time, was concerned that the arrival in Israel of 1 million Soviet Jews would dispel the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb, eliminating the motivation generated by the Jewish fear of becoming a minority west of the Jordan River.

Yoram Ettinger..
Israel Hayom..
22 July '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16757

The July 11, 2016 Palestinian Authority report claiming that Jews are a minority west of the Jordan River is a classic case of "lies, damned lies and statistics." The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics often manipulates statistics to misrepresent reality and mislead observers in a way that is deliberate and systematic, despite a powerful Jewish demographic tailwind and a rapid Westernization of Muslim demography west of the Jordan River, and throughout the Muslim world outside the sub-Saharan region.

Deliberate Palestinian misuse of statistics has resulted in unwarranted demographic pessimism and fatalism both in Israel and among Israel's supporters. The key aim of this demographic manipulation has been to convince Israeli policymakers to hand over Judea and Samaria under the false assumption that it would be the only way to ensure an Israeli majority in Israel.

Despite the Palestinian statistics, and the display of gross negligence by the international establishment in accepting the data at face value without proper auditing, there is currently a solid, long-term, 66% Jewish majority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel, benefitting from an unprecedented robust tailwind of Jewish fertility and immigration. Moreover, there is a gap of 1.15 million people between the number of Arabs the Palestinians claim are living in the West Bank (2.9 million) and the well-documented number of 1.75 million.

So how does the PCBS manipulate its population statistics?

Sunday, July 24, 2016

People say that the conflict is complex. It isn't. - by Michael Lumish

...The fact of the matter is that Arabs in the Middle East teach their children that Jews are the issue of orangutans and swine. And there is nothing the least bit nuanced about that either.

Michael Lumish..
Israel Thrives..
24 July '16..
Link: http://israel-thrives.blogspot.co.il/2016/07/nuance_24.html

I have recently been criticized in a private email by a pro-Israel / pro-Jewish advocate - who I respect - for lacking nuance in my criticisms of the Long Arab War against the Jews of the Middle East.

This gentleman is a writer who has published a book on pro-Israel advocacy, but I honestly have no idea what he is talking about.

I guess that I do not value nuance over simple truths.

Here is a simple truth:

The Jews of the Middle East lived as second and third-class non-citizens under Arab and Muslim imperial rule from the seventh-century CE until the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.

Now, this is not a very nuanced view, but it has the virtue of historical accuracy and I tend to think that matters.

2 + 2 = 4 is not particularly nuanced, either, but it does not make it less true.

Here is another simple and entirely unuanced truth:

The Jews of the Middle East have been under constant attack by the great Arab and Muslim majority in the region for fourteen hundred years for irrational racist and religious reasons.

That is, the source of the conflict is millenia old Arab and Muslim racist hatred toward Jews.

It is nothing else.

Europeans tend to think that the Jews of Israel are terrible people in need of sanctions for their alleged mistreatment of the indigenous, innocent, conquerors of Jewish land.

This is very odd considering the ongoing malice and rape and murder of European Christians on their own land by the emigre Arabs and Muslims that they invited into their countries for humanitarian reasons.

That is also a truth lacking in nuance.

Sociopaths, savagery and the seductiveness of Palestinian Arab victimhood

...Wilentz is thankfully less entranced by the romanticism of both Ehrenreich and his sociopathic subjects than the editors at the New York Times have demonstrated themselves to be.

Ben Ehrenreich [Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
24 July '16..

Over at the LA Review of Books, under the title "The Humiliation Machine", they have a new review by Amy Wilentz of

The Way to the Spring, Ben Ehrenreich’s new book about the Palestinian struggle against the ongoing and seemingly endless Israeli occupation [that] is bound to be a highly controversial work.

Ehrenreich has been promoting the violent and hateful Tamimi clan of Nabi Saleh, a village of about 550 people located a few kilometers north of Israel's capital, for years. It was the vehicle that enabled him to snag his biggest hit so far - a New York Times Magazine cover story about the place and its people. Long on romance and bravado and carefully phrased progressive-sounding rhetoric, it barely skims the deeply embedded bigotry and long record of acts of murder against Jews that are only too easy to see in the life of Nabi Saleh... if you look. Ehrenreich plainly prefers not to look. He's a key player in sanitizing the Tamimi clan's blood-lust and race-based hatred of Jews.

We wrote an angry response when that piece appeared ["17-Mar-13: A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns"] - extract:

Friends have pointed us to this week’s NYT Magazine cover story, published today. It’s devoted to a Palestinian Arab village set in the hills a few kilometers north of where we live in Jerusalem. It's a place the author calls “spirited”, where “on warm summer evenings, life… could feel almost idyllic. Everyone knows everyone.” He says “a pilgrimage” to this magical place “has achieved a measure of cachet among young European activists, the way a stint with the Zapatistas did in Mexico in the 1990s”.

How can a person not be captivated?

But there is much wrong with the picture he conjures up. We know this because for years we have been tracking the media’s romance with the community called Nabi Saleh. Sitting here and looking over the online version of it, we are furious with anger about what the article says, and what the writer and his editors carefully avoid saying.

We tried to be heard by the readers of the New York Times in a more direct manner at the time. If you want to know how that went, we wrote about that too:

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Israel’s Strategy Shift Bears Fruit - by Evelyn Gordon

Relations with Europe are inevitably being frayed by the fact that what the EU seems to want most from Israel is something beyond Israel’s power to provide. Namely, a peace deal with people who have consistently refused every Israeli offer and are currently refusing even to negotiate with it. Europe’s attitude could change someday, but Israel can’t count on that. Hence it must develop alternative sources of trade and diplomatic support as an insurance policy.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
22 July '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/israels-strategy-shift-bears-fruit/..

Wednesday’s announcement that Guinea is resuming ties with Israel almost half a century after severing them is a nontrivial piece of good news. Granted, Guinea is a poor and relatively unimportant African country. But it’s 85 percent Muslim, and few Muslim-majority countries have yet been willing to forge open relations with Israel; consequently, its decision could encourage others to follow suit. Guinea was also the first country in Africa to sever relations with Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. For both those reasons, its renewal of ties underscores the degree to which a new Israeli strategy aimed at improving relations with the non-Western world has begun bearing fruit.

The Guinea announcement comes on the heels of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s successful trip to Africa earlier this month. Highlights of that trip included announcements by both Kenya and Ethiopia–two of Israel’s closest African allies–that they would push for Israel to receive observer status at the African Union, as well as Tanzania’s announcement that it planned to open an embassy in Israel, 21 years after renewing relations.

Israeli media outlets have also reported that officials from three other Muslim-majority African countries that don’t have relations with Israel–Mali, Chad, and Somalia–recently paid secret visits, indicating that the prospect of other Muslim countries following Guinea’s lead is far from inconceivable. Indeed, just last week, Foreign Ministry Director General Dore Gold visited Chad for a meeting with its president. This prospect is made more plausible by the warming of Israel’s relations with key Arab states. As several African leaders noted during Netanyahu’s trip, there’s little point in African countries continuing to give Israel the cold shoulder when some of the very Arab countries that originally pushed them to do so now have either overt or covert relations with it.

There are two reasons why Israel ascribes such importance to its warming ties with Africa, and both have more to do with the long term than the short term. The first is the need to diversify its trading partners. Currently, about a third of Israel’s exports go to Europe. But the combination of Europe’s slowing economy and its growing hostility to Israel make this heavy reliance on Europe a potential threat to Israel’s economic future. Africa is the world’s poorest continent, but it’s experiencing rapid economic growth, and many of Israel’s fields of expertise fit well with Africa’s needs, including agricultural technology, water conservation, and counterterrorism. Thus by expanding and improving its diplomatic relations with African countries, Israel hopes to eventually expand its trade relations as well.