One Author’s Effort To Make Jewish History Die - by Zahava Raymond

...The only “good” Israelis, for McBride, are those who are “ashamed.” Like Breaking the Silence. Only she has gone even further than BtS, in completely denying Jewish ties to Israel, while demonizing and dehumanizing Israelis – and the Irish Times has promoted her hateful, false narrative.

Zahava Raymond..
Honest Reporting..
19 April '17..

The Irish Times has published an essay by author Eimear McBride, who visited the West Bank on a trip organized by the controversial and highly politicized Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence (BtS). BtS campaigns against the occupation by publishing Israeli soldiers’ testimonies of alleged IDF misdeeds or “war crimes.” However, BtS relies almost exclusively on accounts that are both anonymous and unverified, leading to many stories that later turn out to be distorted or even entirely disproved. As part of this campaign, BtS brought authors to the West Bank, to compile their essays into a book of their experiences.

The headline in the Irish Times quotes McBride: “All that is human in me recoils from this.” This indicates the theme of her article, which goes on to dehumanize and demonize Israelis, while affirming only the Palestinian narrative that “this is their homeland, all of it.” In her view, all of Israel is Palestinian and Jews have no place in Israel whatsoever. By her logic, anything Israel does is wrong because the Jewish homeland shouldn’t even exist, in which case the only proper course of action for Jews in Israel would be to leave entirely.

McBride dismisses the notion that Israelis should have any legitimate security concerns regarding Palestinians. In her view, the security fence that finally stopped the hundreds of suicide bombings in the second intifada is a “separation wall,” motivated by discrimination.

She mentions the signs Israel has put up near Palestinian villages, warning Israelis that entry is forbidden and dangerous for them, and says these signs “alarm” her. Paradoxically, though, she is not alarmed by the Palestinian attacks on innocent Israelis that made the warning signs necessary in the first place.

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Parroting an inaccurate claim from a politicised UN agency at BBC News - by Hadar Sela

...Obviously if BBC journalists conducted their own research rather than blindly parroting claims made by a highly partial and politicised UN body, their reporting would be more likely to meet the BBC’s professed standards of accuracy.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
30 April '17..

On April 27th an article titled “Palestinian Authority ‘stops paying Israel for Gaza electricity’” appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page.

“The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has told Israel that it will stop paying for electricity supplied to the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials say.

There was no confirmation from the PA. But President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened “unprecedented steps” to end the political division with the rival Hamas movement, which dominates Gaza. […]

On Thursday, the Israeli military’s Co-ordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat) announced that it had been notified by the PA that payments for electricity supplied to Gaza would stop immediately.”

The report provides readers with accurate background information relating to the chronic power crisis in the Gaza Strip....

However...

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

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Look at what happens, when one man, one single diplomat, dared to walk on the ‘sacred ground’ at SOAS. - by David Collier

Those that seek to deny us the right to speak, the right to be heard, the right to live freely, are always gathering together. The old excuses become replaced with new ones, but the underlying motives are always the same. We know where their road leads. A cycle of increasing repression, increasing intimidation and increasing violence. We have no choice but to stand against them. Enough is enough.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
29 April '17..

On 27/4/2017, Mark Regev, the current Israeli Ambassador to London, came to speak at SOAS. Ever since the news of this event became public knowledge, several groups of students on SOAS have been actively trying to have the talk cancelled. SOAS academics also issued a public plea, the student union issued a statement, and eventually, when it became clear it would go ahead, student groups organised a public protest to coincide with the meeting. This event was promoted off campus as well, with external anti-Israel organisations such as the the Palestine Solidarity Campaign calling for support.

A large turn out was expected. Hundreds of people who wanted to silence opposing voices on campus would turn up. People who do not believe in a world where their ideologies and their political positions can be examined. Instead, they seek to close down the argument and silence opposition voices. Working to a drumbeat demanding that all critical thinking on central themes surrounding their own political preferences must be expelled from the university campus. This includes Mark Regev. What kind of university behaviour is that?

But the story of the visit by Mark Regev to SOAS, is far bigger than a few bigoted student activists. The day itself started with a sickening attempt at balance by the BBC.

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

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The pleasures of television and other aspects of terrorist life behind Israeli bars - by Arnold Roth

...The hunger-striking prisoners and their many media megaphones and helpers present their situation to the world in a manner so remote from reality that it is crucial Israel sets the record straight.

Our daughter's happy and proud killer demonstrates
prison-friendly cooking recipes for her world-wide audience
in a 2015 edition of her weekly Hamas TV show

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 April '17..

Over at Elder of Ziyon, there's a sharp and timely take-down [""Basic rights" demanded by Palestinian prisoners include satellite TV, university education, their own kitchens"] of the pompous demands being trumpeted by Al Jazeera on behalf of Palestinian Arab prisoners behind Israeli bars.

A group of those prisoners is in the midst of a hunger strike:

What are these "basic rights" that the prisoners are demanding? They include:
Adding satellite channels "tailored to the needs of prisoners" [Elder of Ziyon]

and a list of others claimed to be "basic rights". Here's another:

"Allowing prisoners to take photographs with their families every three months".

Undoubtedly a core human rights value, no?

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

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‘Israel is deeply controversial’ and BDS is a ‘human rights’ group at the BBC - by Hadar Sela

...Had audiences been told in the BBC’s own words that the BDS campaign is opposed to Jews having the basic human right to self-determination in their own country and that denial of Israel’s right to exist is considered – including by the UN Secretary General and according to the definition adopted by the UK government – to be a form of antisemitism, they would have been able to put the BDS campaign’s claim to be a non-racist human rights organisation into its correct context.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
27 April '17..

For years the BBC has reported stories relating to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) without adequately clarifying to its audiences that what that campaign ultimately seeks to achieve is the end of Israel as the Jewish state. Moreover, in August 2015, we learned that the BBC considers the provision of such crucial background information “not our role“.

Nevertheless, one might have expected that in two reports specifically relating to the issue of support for the BDS campaign from student unions in British universities, the corporation would have made an effort to get the facts right.

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

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Surprise! J Street embraces an Israeli settlement - by Stephen M. Flatow

Last week, J Street’s campus division, J Street U, mobilized 575 Jewish students to write a letter to Taglit-Birthright Israel, demanding that it refuse to cooperate with Israeli law. The letter demands that Birthright refrain from any screening of applicants for its trips to Israel to determine if they are BDS activists. Or, to put it another way, J Street wants BDS promoters to be able to exploit Birthright and gain access to Israel under its cloak, so they can avoid being caught by the Israeli border authorities. Then, this gets really interesting.

Credit: Flash90

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
26 April '17..

J Street, the left-wing group that claims to be staunchly opposed to Israeli settlements, has embraced an Israeli settlement.

What? How can that be?

This strange but true story began when the Israeli Knesset overwhelmingly adopted a law to prohibit the entry of foreign citizens who actively promote the BDS movement against Israel. The law does not prevent Israeli citizens from boycotting Israel. Their right to seek the destruction of their own country remains protected. The law does not block the entry of foreigners who happen to agree with BDS. Their right to believe what they want to believe—and still enter Israel—remains intact. The new legislation keeps out people who actively seek to undermine Israel.

For some reason, that was too much for J Street, which claims to be “pro-Israel.” For some reason, J Street, which claims it does not support BDS, wants Israel to open its doors to BDS organizers.

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

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Today you will be remembered, you who returned yet again to rescue those still there

...Today, Rosh Chodesh Iyar, you will be remembered Leon, and how you and your comrades in arms who had escaped the burning ghetto, returned to rescue those still there.

LOTL..
27 April '17..

(While having posted the beginning earlier this week for Yom HaShoah, today is appropriate to complete the story)

The excerpts quoted below come from Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto: The Untold Story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Moshe Arens. The book is both an outstanding and uniquely accurate account of what transpired, a must read, and one that does justice to all who fought and fell there.

On Sunday, April 18, 1943, the day before the uprising, Walewski and Leon Rodal were in the ZZW headquarters at Muranowska 7, making last-minute preparations. Walewski, who survived the fighting in the ghetto, later recalled Rodal's words:

We will all fall here. Those in battle, weapons in hand, and those as vain victims. But it is important that the memory of our battle will be retained, that the world will know there was a battle. A tough bloody battle. And should it happen that you, of the two of us will survive...and sometime, some-place, you were to meet my comrades, please tell them what I said, tell them that not for a moment did I doubt that Hitler's Germany would be defeated, not I, nor my comrades...that we are fighting for our people and we shall die for them. That we believe a Jewish State will arise in a struggle with our enemies there in that distance land.... During that far-off period of slavery, when the Roman legions trampled almost the entire ancient world, and the whole world kneeled before them, only one small Roman province, Judea, took up arms, rose up to fight for freedom and in defense of the honor of man, against a world of injustice. And that is the reason that Judea is inscribed in the history of man as a symbol of the fight for the spirit of man....Maybe, some day, after many years, when the history of the struggle against the Nazi conquerors is written, we will also be remembered, and, who knows, we will become - like small Judea in its day, which fought mighty Rome - the symbol of man's spirit that cannot be suppressed, whose essence is the fight for freedom, for the right to live, and the right to exist.

By the end of April, with the ghetto reduced to rubble and in flames, the remaining fighters looked to relocate outside, and continue with whatever activities would be possible from there. The surviving ZZW fighters, their commander Pawel Frenkel, and his deputy Leon Rodal, reestablished themselves at at Grzybowska 11, a building outside the ghetto.

A transformed Barghouti? What they want is another Arafat. - by Jonathan Tobin

...Barghouti’s credentials rest solely on the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of Jewish men, women and children during the intifada. The political culture of the Palestinians—which is reinforced by a media and an education system promoting hatred of Jews and glorifying terrorism—is what makes Barghouti look good to the Arab street, not the hope he will rise above a record of wanton slaughter.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
21 April '17..

Palestinian internal politics and liberal hostility to Israel came together at The New York Times this month.

The newspaper provoked a firestorm of criticism through its decision to publish an article on the eve of Passover authored by Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned mastermind of a second intifada terror campaign, without mentioning that he is currently serving five life terms for the murder of civilians. But a more important discussion got lost amid the outrage about media bias. The question to be asked about this episode is not whether terrorism is significant enough to be worthy of mention, but why Barghouti is a likely candidate to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Barghouti is currently leading a hunger strike by Palestinian security prisoners in Israel jails. But the real motive for this gesture is promoting Barghouti’s desire to replace the 81-year-old Abbas. Given that Israel has as little interest in releasing Barghouti as Abbas does in having a new election—the current PA leader is serving the 12th year of the four-year presidential term to which he was elected—it’s not clear how he’ll pull off that trick. But the real issue here is the reason for Barghouti’s popularity among supporters of the peace process is very different from the reason for his high standing among Palestinians.

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

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Commendable and appropriate, and any other head of state would do the same - by Dr. Gabi Avital

...There are those who ask why Germany does not have its own Holocaust remembrance day. It is a reasonable question, particularly when the insolent German foreign minister behaves as if he is visiting a banana republic. The prime minister's ultimatum is commendable and appropriate, and any other head of state would do the same.

Dr. Gabi Avital..
Israel Hayom..
26 April '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=18903

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel's visit to Israel is getting far more media attention than most visiting dignitaries tend to receive, especially in recent years. The overwhelming majority of the Israeli press downplays diplomatic visits from around the globe, although this is not the place to expand on that issue.

However, the scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gabriel was canceled after the German minister ignored Netanyahu's ultimatum to cancel his meetings with representatives of far-left NGO's B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence.

The argument around Gabriel's visit is similar to the controversy surrounding Pope Paul VI's visit to Israel in 1964. That historic visit, under the shadow of the Vatican's silence during the Second World War, began in Jordan and proceeded to the Old City of Jerusalem, three years before its liberation. From there, the pope went to Megiddo, where he was ceremoniously greeted by the heads of the state and army. The Sephardic chief rabbi at the time, Yitzhak Nissim, boycotted the ceremony. "Anyone who wants to meet me can come to Jerusalem," he said. Many shared the chief rabbi's sentiment. "A national disgrace," many others called it. Then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol did not agree with the criticism.

Fifty-three years later, the tables have turned. The prime minister is unwilling to change the rules of a diplomatic visit, in addition to the accepted rules of ceremony. Netanyahu believes that anyone who meets on their own accord with organizations that are openly hostile to Israel is essentially in violation of these unwritten rules. Those who oppose the prime minister's stance, such as Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog, cite the potential harm to the countries' diplomatic and economic relationship. Ironically, it has been the German guest who has repeatedly said that missing the meeting with Netanyahu would not be a catastrophe, because the relationship between the two countries is stronger than ever.

Should Student Government Divestment Votes Be Taken Seriously? (Divest This!)

...Even if you believe (as I do) that BDS campaigns are just the means to inject a steady drip of anti-Israel venom into the minds of impressionable students, we can fight against that campaign more effectively if we don’t treat such votes as stunning victories, harrowing near misses, or terrible blows. Rather, we should see them for what they are: the boobie prize the boycotters are forced to content themselves with in an era when boycotts are nowhere to be seen, investment in the Jewish state continues to skyrocket, and the only sanctions being enacted are by dozens of state legislatures and the US government to condemn the aptly named BDS “movement.”

Divest This..
Elder of Ziyon..
25 April '17..

While I take a back seat to no one in expressing glee when some SJP/JVP-sponsored student government divestment vote goes down in flames (not to mention burning with rage when such votes go the BDSholes’ way – especially when they cheat), it might be time to stop tracking success or failure of the BDS “movement” (or Israel’s standing among the young) based on what a handful of Student Senators say or do.

Claims that student government votes carry actual political weight can only be supported if at least one of the following conditions is true:

( 1) That there exists a plausible chance that such a vote will be taken seriously by those who actually make decisions regarding where a college or university invests its money (i.e., the school’s adult leadership and institutional investment managers), leading to the possibility of actual divestment; and/or

( 2) That such votes represent genuine anti-Israel sentiments among the wider student body that student government is supposed to represent

Regarding condition (1), given that college Presidents, Boards of Trustees and investment managers have been saying “No!” to BDS calls since the start of the Millennium, it’s pretty safe to say that the number of schools actually considering divestment from Israel continues to stand at zero.

In fact, during a BDS era that stretches back close to two decades, college and universities have been falling all over one another to build or strengthen partnerships with their Israeli counterparts (many of them investing – rather than divesting – millions into these relationships).

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

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Follow up on a UNRWA-Hamas Gaza story ignored by the BBC - by Hadar Sela

...Given that, according to UNRWA figures, the UK was the agency’s third most generous donor in 2015, members of the British public would no doubt have been interested to see some serious investigative reporting from their national broadcaster on the issue of alleged links between the UN agency they help fund and the terror organisation that is proscribed by the British government.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
25 April '17..

Back in February we noted that – despite its practice of extensively amplifying UNRWA messaging – the BBC had chosen not to cover the story of an employee of that UN agency who was suspended after he was allegedly elected to the Hamas political bureau.

“On February 23rd the ITIC published a report concerning the election of the chairman of the Hamas-controlled UNRWA staff union to the Hamas political bureau in the Gaza Strip.

“One of the newly-elected members is Dr. Suhail Ahmed Hassan al-Hindi, who holds a PhD from Cairo University (his thesis dealt with improving the conditions of Palestinians teachers under the Israeli “occupation”). Since 2012 he has been the chairman of the UNRWA staff union in the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas. […] In addition to his role as union chairman, he is also the principal of the Palestine Boys’ Elementary School, an UNRWA school for refugee children.”

Both Hamas and al Hindi denied that he had been elected to the Hamas political bureau despite reports in the Palestinian media and UNRWA’s Chris Gunness issued a statement saying that the organisation “has neither uncovered nor received evidence to contradict the staff member’s denial that he was elected to political office”.

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

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Barghouti? A Convicted Murderer, Nothing More. - by Jamal Barakat

...My brother should have been the last one to lose his life to this senseless violence. It is my hope that nobody else in the world should share this terrible lifetime of bereavement from losing a family member to terrorism.

Jamal Barakat..
Opinion/JPost..
22 April '17..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Barghouti-is-a-convicted-murderer-Nothing-more-488655

When terrorism explodes in your face, we are all the same – we run. Amid the screams of panic and pain, through the smoke and with bullets hunting us down, we flee for our lives. It is an inspiring phenomenon that the first responders are running past us the other way – directly into the gunfire, explosions and flames. America saw it on 9/11, but the unhappy truth is that in Israel we see it all the time.

My younger brother, Salim, was one such first responder – a dedicated police officer who loved his job, loved serving his country and fellow citizens, and who in 2002 ran straight into danger when he heard a Palestinian terrorist throwing grenades and shooting up the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv.

With two innocent civilians on the ground dying or already dead and over a dozen others wounded, Salim charged the terrorist and shot him before he could kill more innocent people. But as Salim moved in to see if the terrorist was wearing a suicide explosive belt, the wounded terrorist suddenly thrust a knife into my brother, killing him.

The man who organized that attack was Marwan Barghouti.

A new creative BBC ‘explanation’ for its double standards on terror - by Hadar Sela

...While there appears to be no limit to the ‘creativity’ of BBC Complaints when challenged on the issue of the corporation’s double standards and lack of consistency when reporting acts of terror, audiences are of course likely to remain unimpressed by these repeatedly contorted excuses.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
24 April '17..

As readers no doubt recall, when a vehicular and stabbing attack took place in London last month, the BBC made appropriate use of the word terror in its reports on the story.

In contrast, the word terror is consistently absent from reports concerning similar acts of terrorism that take place in Israel.

A member of the corporation’s funding public, Mr Neil Turner, wrote to the BBC to ask them to explain that lack of consistency in the use of the term terror. The reply he received includes the following...

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

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Happy Holocaust Remembrance Day to You from the NY Times - by Ira Stoll

...I mention all this not so much to re-litigate the story of Israel’s War of Independence, but to underscore how grotesque it is that the Times has managed to turn a news article about Holocaust remembrance into an opportunity to launch false accusations against the founders of the Jewish state. The Times perfervid fantasy of marauding Zionist occupiers liquidating Arab villages goes well beyond the facts recounted by even the fleeing villagers themselves in the Journal of Palestine Studies. It seems unmoored to reality. The Times cites no evidence or historical sources to support its claims. Happy Holocaust Remembrance Day to you.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
24 April '17..

The New York Times marked Holocaust Remembrance Day with an editorial condemning what it called the American government’s “ominous tendency to demonize Iran” and a news article accusing “Zionist forces” of eradicating a Palestinian village.

The Times has been editorially plumping for Iran for years. But it takes a certain exquisite level of tone-deaf obtuseness to choose — on a day devoted to commemorating the victims of the Holocaust — to publish an editorial essentially carrying water for the Holocaust-denying, Jew-killing terror-supporting regime in Tehran.

On any day, such an editorial would be cringe-inducing and objectionable. But on this particular day, it’s enough to make a person want to toss the newspaper aside in disgust.

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

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A New Hamas Charter? From the River to the Sea - by Denis MacEoin

...The New Charter is mere window-dressing; even a casual reading of it should show that the new Hamas is the old Hamas wearing a different face to try to disguise the true intransigence and hatred that have always characterized it.

Denis MacEoin..
Gatestone Institute..
24 April '17..

Anyone with a serious interest in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will be familiar with the oft-cited Charter (or Covenant [mithaq]) of the terrorist group currently ruling the Gaza Strip, Hamas. The Charter (in Arabic here) was published on 18 August 1988. Its proper title is "The Charter/Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement 'Hamas' Palestine", Hamas being an acronym for "the Islamic Resistance Movement".

This April, the Lebanese news site al-Mayadeen leaked a draft version of a much-revised version of the 1988 Charter, due to be released "in the coming days". The anti-Israel website Mondoweiss subsequently provided an English translation of the draft, made by someone from the Ayda refugee camp in the West Bank. So far, I have been unable to find the Arabic text of the draft online, even though it has been discussed many times in the wider Arabic media. We shall turn to it later, but it is obviously sensible to look first at the 1988 version as a basis of comparison. And even before that, we need to see how the Hamas Covenant differed from, and resembled, the PLO Covenants of 1964 and 1968.

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Dr. Denis MacEoin is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, where he writes about Islam, Israel, Left-wing and Christian anti-Semitism and the Middle East.

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

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Maybe, some day, after many years, ...we will also be remembered

...And should it happen that you, of the two of us should survive...and sometime, some-place, you were to meet my comrades, please tell them what I said, tell them that not for a moment did I doubt that Hitler's Germany would be defeated, not I, nor my comrades...that we are fighting for our people and shall die for them. That we believe that a Jewish State will arise in a struggle with our enemies there in that distant land...

Love of the Land..
24 April '17..


...On Sunday, April 18, 1943 (13 Nisan), the day before the uprising, Waleski and Leon Rodal were in the ZZW headquarters at Muranowska 7, making last minute preparations. Walewski, who survived the fighting in the ghetto, later recalled Rodal's words:

We will all fall here. Those in battle, weapons in hand, and those as vain victims. But it is important that the memory of our battle will be retained, that the world will know that there was a battle. A tough bloody battle. And should it happen that you, of the two of us should survive...and sometime, some-place, you were to meet my comrades, please tell them what I said, tell them that not for a moment did I doubt that Hitler's Germany would be defeated, not I, nor my comrades...that we are fighting for our people and shall die for them. That we believe that a Jewish State will arise in a struggle with our enemies there in that distant land...

Some thoughts concerning the Holocaust, miracles and revenge - by Forest Rain

...The miracle of survival is very personal. 3000 years later, nothing has changed. On Holocaust Memorial Day we ponder the memories of our grandparents. The children and grandchildren of those who were there are also part of the story. The horrors perpetrated against those who were there were a direct attack on us as well. If not for those who—miraculously–survived the Holocaust, we would not be here either.

Forest Rain..
Inspiration from Zion..
23 April '17..

On April 24th Israelis will commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. This is not the same date as the International Holocaust Memorial Day. This date was chosen to emphasize the place of the Holocaust in the story of the Jewish people.

We do this by first celebrating Passover. One week later, we mark Holocaust Memorial Day. Exactly one week after that is Memorial Day for IDF soldiers and victims of terrorism. The following day is a joyful celebration, Israel’s Independence Day.

This pattern is deliberate. The message is very clear. The exodus from slavery to freedom is an on-going journey. As we acknowledge during the Passover Seder: “In every generation [enemies] rise up against us, to destroy us, and every time God saves us from their hands.”

In other words, our very existence is a miracle.

The Passover story is relevant to our modern experiences. The lessons remain the same. The defiance of those who did not obey Pharaoh was critical but, alone, that would not have been enough to save the Jewish people. The leadership of Moses, alone, would not have been enough to lead the people to freedom. During the Passover Seder, we explain to our children that God rescued us from slavery – the miracles were a personal gift to us. If there is a child who rejects this legacy we are instructed to still teach the Passover story but to explain: “God saved me, me and not you.”

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

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Goodwill and those who would blow up an Israeli hospital - by David M. Weinberg

It hurts when radical Palestinians exploit Israeli goodwill for nefarious purposes; to act with humanity while our enemies act with cruelty… Stories from the world of Israeli medicine and Palestinian abuse of our compassion.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
21 April '17..
Link: http://davidmweinberg.com/2017/04/21/exploited-by-the-enemy/

Two Gazan women were caught on Wednesday smuggling explosives into Gaza for Hamas. The two sisters hid the weapons in medical supplies they had been given in Israel, after one had been treated here for cancer.

Last month, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben Dahan revealed that Hamas was using Gazan cancer victims as mules to smuggle money and gold into Israel to finance terror operations.

Everyone remembers Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, the 21-year old Palestinian woman from Gaza who in 2005 was caught wearing 10 kilo of explosives in her underwear, en route to blow-up Soroka Hospital in Beersheba where she was being treated for burns. She admitted to being recruited by the Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and added that she had wanted to target as many Israeli children in the hospital as possible.

DESPITE THE SECURITY RISK, Israel annually allows tens of thousands of Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel (and in the West Bank and Jordan).

I know this firsthand. For a decade I served as a public affairs and development officer at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, the largest hospital in the Middle East. At any given time, one-quarter of all patients in that institution’s Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital are Arabs from Gaza.

Treating these children from enemy Hamastan is a complex humanitarian commitment that stems from compassion that is ingrained in Jewish history and tradition.

The doctors and administrators at Sheba (and other Israeli hospitals who offer similar care to Palestinians from the West Bank, to Syrian refugees, and quietly, to Arabs from across the Mideast) are very proud of their efforts.

But it hurts when wicked forces exploit this professionalism and goodwill for nefarious purposes; when they abuse our humanitarian generosity for terror.

I was eyewitness to the following sordid tale. Several years ago, there was an eight-year-old Palestinian child ill with a rare form of cancer. He was clearly going to die without a bone marrow transplant, and was brought to Sheba.

NY Times Finds Gaza Cancer-Patient Terror Attempt Unfit to Print - by Ira Stoll

...If the Times can find room in the newspaper for the fluff, why can’t it find room for its own, staff-written version of a compelling and newsworthy story that underscores the depravity of Hamas and helps explain why Israel carefully scrutinizes even apparently innocuous traffic from Gaza? Given the vast resources and print space of the Times, there is no good reason.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
21 April '17..

An attempt by the Hamas terrorist group to use cancer patients to sneak explosives into Israel was thwarted this week, and the New York Times hasn’t considered it news fit to print.

The Times, which has a bureau chief in Jerusalem and an extensive network of local stringers in Israel and the Gaza Strip, handled the story instead by picking up an Associated Press dispatch, for which it apparently couldn’t find space in its print edition.

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

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If these terrorists want to be hungry, let them be hungry - by Stephen M. Flatow

...And what is it that these imprisoned mass murderers are threatening to do if their demands are not met? They’re threatening to get really, really hungry.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
21 April '17..

Guess what the hunger-striking Palestinian terrorists are demanding?

Satellite television, air conditioners and admission to an Israeli university. I’m not kidding.

According to the Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa, satellite TV, air conditioning and admission to Israel’s Open University are on the list of 10 demands that the current hunger-strikers have presented to Israeli authorities.

The people whom these prisoners murdered are not enjoying such perks. My daughter Alisa was a Brandeis University student when she and eight other bus passengers were murdered by some of these hunger-striking prisoners. Alisa can’t study at her university. Her killers don’t deserve that privilege, either.

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Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

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

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Hunger Strike, Con Artists and Smokescreens - by Bassam Tawil

Stripped of its Western trappings, Barghouti's "hunger strike" is actually a struggle between Abbas and yet another Fatah pretender to the throne.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
20 April '17..

Palestinians have an old habit of settling internal scores by diverting their grievances and violence towards Israel. This practice is clear to those who have been monitoring developments in the Palestinian arena for the past decades. It is an integral part of the Palestinian strategy to undermine, isolate, delegitimize and destroy Israel.

Those less familiar with Palestinian culture and tactics, however, have difficulty understanding the Palestinian mindset. Officials in Washington, London, Paris and other Western capitals rarely meet the ordinary Palestinian, the "man on the street" who represents the authentic voice of the Palestinians.

Instead, these officials meet Palestinian politicians and academics from Ramallah -- the "experts" who are actually accomplished con artists. Such Palestinians grasp the Western mindset very well, and use their understanding to twist Western officials any which way they want.

The Western reaction to the hunger strike declared on April 17 by Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails is a case in point.

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Bassam Tawil, an Arab Muslim, is based in the Middle East.

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

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Beinart, half-truths and being a true apologist for terror - by Elder of Ziyon

...There is no other way to read this than to say that Peter Beinart is trying to whitewash the actions of a terrorist who is responsible for the murders of many people, directly and indirectly. Despite his halfhearted caveats and perverted downplaying of Barghouti's murderous terror as "a tragic mistake" - as if his victims died in car accidents - this essay shows that Peter Beinart is an apologist for terror.

Elder of Ziyon..
20 April '17..

Peter Beinart tries to snow his readers in his latest piece for the Forward. See if you can spot his sleight of hand as he describes Israeli political reaction to the New York Times publishing an op-ed by Marwan Barghouti:

[Michael Oren believes] because Barghouti was convicted of terrorism, his cause is illegitimate, even monstrous. The problem with this argument is that it doesn’t only explain why Marwan Barghouti isn’t Nelson Mandela. It explains why Nelson Mandela isn’t Nelson Mandela either.

A decade earlier, when the Oslo Peace Process began, [Barghouti] had declared the era of military resistance over. “The armed struggle,” he claimed in 1994, “is no longer an option for us.”
...
Barghouti’s shift, which led him to play an active role in the second intifada, constituted a tragic mistake, even a crime, against both Palestinians and Israelis. I’m not justifying it. But he’s not the only national leader to have embraced armed struggle after losing faith in non-violence. Mandela did too.

Beinart, whose parents were born in South Africa, knows very well that the analogy doesn't hold water - so he tells half-truths to create it.

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

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Promoting PLO narrative in copious coverage of prisoners’ strike at BBC News - by Hadar Sela

...There is of course nothing novel about BBC compliance with the PLO’s ‘advice’ to the media. However, the repeated promotion of the narrative according to which convicted terrorists are ‘political prisoners’ in this over-generously covered story obviously calls BBC impartiality into question.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
20 April '17..

Since the commencement on April 17th of a hunger strike by some of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons led by Marwan Barghouti, the BBC News website’s Middle East page has published no fewer than three reports on the subject.

April 17th: “Palestinians in Israeli jails hold mass hunger strike”

April 18th: “Israel rules out talks with Palestinian hunger striking inmates“

April 19th: “Palestinian anger at Israeli refusal to talk to hunger striking inmates“

However, in that remarkable display of conscription to the cause of publicising that story, the BBC has refrained from providing its audiences with background information crucial to their understanding of the topic.

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

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Sometimes, reality clashes with the fantasy world of Hollywood - by Stephen M. Flatow

...The victim was hospitalized with head wounds. Will the injuries have any permanent effects? Will his vision or hearing be damaged? Will he a bear an unsightly scar across his face? We’ll probably never know. The international news media lost interest in the story as soon as they realized there was no way to blame the Israeli driver. And, of course, so did Richard Gere.

Stephen M. Flatow..
Jewishpress.com..
17 April '17..
Link: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/richard-gere-was-right/2017/04/16/

Actor Richard Gere sparked controversy last month when he said after a visit to Hebron that the Arab-Jewish situation there reminds him of the American “Old South.”

Gere was right – only not quite in the way he intended.

“It’s exactly like what the Old South was in America,” Gere remarked as he looked around the streets of Hebron. “Blacks knew where they could go, they could drink from that fountain, they couldn’t go over there, they couldn’t eat in that place. It was well understood. You didn’t cross it or you’d get your head beat in or lynched.”

Wouldn’t you know it, just a few days later, somebody from the “wrong race” accidentally crossed into place he wasn’t “supposed” to go, and sure enough he – to use Gere’s terminology – “got his head beat in” and was nearly “lynched.”

What a remarkable coincidence. So soon after Gere proclaimed his dire warning, it came true. You would think Gere would have immediately issued a loud declaration about how events have proven him right. Instead, he was silent.

The explanation for Gere’s odd silence is simple and sad.

While Gere was warning about Jewish mobs he believed were ready to “lynch” Arabs, what actually happened was that the mob in a suburb of Hebron consisted of Palestinian Arabs, and the target of the near-lynching was a Jew.

Sometimes, reality clashes with the fantasy world of Hollywood.

Impartial reporting? Identifying the BBC’s anonymous “mother of a Palestinian inmate” - by Hadar Sela

...A media organisation truly committed to accurate and impartial journalism would of course have provided its audiences with information concerning the “Palestinian inmate” and the act of terror he committed. The BBC World Service, however, chose to give completely context-free amplification to his mother’s claim that Israel is ‘depriving’ her of seeing her son, without any mention of the fact that her son deprived three children – the youngest of whom was only five years old at the time – from ever seeing their father again. That, of course, is not accurate and impartial journalism but self-conscription to a political campaign.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
19 April '17..

As noted in a recent post, the April 17th edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newsday’ included a monologue from a person described as “the mother of a Palestinian inmate”. The monologue was also promoted to the BBC World Service Twitter account’s 303,000 followers and those who listened to the clip heard the following in a voice-over:

“I haven’t seen or visited my son for around maybe ten months. Israeli security won’t let me see him. When I used to visit Diya I felt as if I owned the world. Every visit request I put in only comes back with rejection, rejection, rejection. I’m 67 years old. What risk am I to Israel’s security? I am of no danger. All I want is to see my son, to check on him and he can check on me. This is all I want but they deprive even a mother from seeing her son and a son from seeing his mother.”

While BBC audiences are no strangers to the promotion of pathos-rich stories from the elderly mothers of convicted terrorists, the fact that listeners were not told who the speaker is or why her son is in prison and did not hear any response to her allegations from the Israeli authorities obviously does not inspire confidence in the BBC’s commitment to impartial reporting of this story.

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

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Question. Why Is the US Still Funding Palestinian Terrorism? - by Shoshana Bryen

...Abbas has not said much about Jamil Tamimi, last Friday's murderer, and it is time to stop encouraging, threatening or demanding that he do so. Rather, the U.S. government should let the PLO and PA know that we are onto their game. Disincentivizing terrorism by closing the PLO office in Washington would be a good first step.

Shoshana Bryen..
Gatestone Institute..
19 April '17...

British exchange student Hannah Bladon was stabbed to death on a Jerusalem light rail train last Friday. Her murderer was identified as an East Jerusalem resident who had previously been convicted of molesting his daughter and had tried to commit suicide. Failing at that, he apparently opted for terrorism, on the assumption that the police would kill him. They didn't. "This," the Shin Bet said in a statement, "is another case, out of many, where a Palestinian who is suffering from personal, mental or moral issues chooses to carry out a terror attack in order to find a way out of their problems."

"Suicide by cop" is not unheard of, but the real incentives need to be spelled out.

Jamil Tamimi, 57, knew that if he committed an act of terror, he would be lionized by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and -- perhaps more importantly -- that, if he were killed or sent to prison, his family would be taken care of financially.

To take the PA leader, Mahmoud Abbas, at his word, the PA itself does not pay salaries or pensions to terrorists in Israeli jails or to their families; the money -- instead! -- comes from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). That sleight-of-hand would make this a perfect time for the United States, an ally of the UK and properly appalled by terrorism, to take a step it has been avoiding for more than 25 years: to close the PLO office in Washington -- preferably before the planned visit by Abbas in May.

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

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