Fighting the narrative war: Occupation vs the ‘Abraham Accords’ - by Yishai Fleisher

Indeed, the UAE has every incentive to normalize relations with Israel—from the common danger of Iran to the interest in prosperity and progress. Hopefully, the Abraham Accords can start a cascade that will lead the Arab world out of the regressive Dark Ages of hate and into an embrace of Israel as an important member of the Semitic family and a fellow regional tribe. But it won’t be easy to let go of a thousand years of Muslim prejudice and 100 years of open war against Israel.

Yishai Fleisher..
JNS.org..
26 August '20..

One of the greatest successes of the “Abraham Accords”—the nascent diplomatic relations deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel—is just the name itself.

The name implicitly indicates that the agreement is between descendants of the children of Abraham—Arabs and Jews—and for Israel, this is a crucial identification in its quest for normalization in the Middle East.

Occupation or ancient nation?

Having lost hope of military victory, anti-Israel forces are conducting a narrative war against Israel. They seek to erase the intellectual foundations of Zionism, which assert that Israel is the ancient home of the Jewish nation, who have had two commonwealths on this same land, and to which Jews have an unbroken historical and spiritual connection.

One of the main avenues of that attack, coming out of the Palestinian camp, has been the buzzword “occupation,” which has become the default association for the Jewish state on campuses, at international organizations and in left-leaning media. The sinister term “Israeli occupation” says all that the enemies of Israel want to say: that Israel is a white colonialist interloper in the Middle East, a European holdover, a foreigner grabbing Arab lands and an abuser of the human rights of the true indigenous people—the Arabs.

The occupation narrative machine has many arms. For example, using UNESCO, the United Nations body in charge of recognizing world heritage sites, the anti-Israel crowd has asserted that integral Jewish sites like Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron are actually Palestinian cities under—you guessed it—“occupation.” Any campus protest against Israel will feature the word “occupation” and most New York Times articles will throw in a jab like “Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem” etc.

Indeed, the classic Israeli narrative—that of an ancient people repatriating their land in a miraculous story of faith, tenacity and survival—has been replaced by the occupation-narrative which paints Israel as a greedy land thief and victimizer.

Forefather in faith

Political buzzwords surpass their literal meanings and signal value-laden political positions which divide between political camps. The word “occupation” is meant to convey the illegitimacy—and even the evil roots—of Israel. If you are anti-Israel, you will embrace this word and this narrative.

But what is the counter-word to “occupation”? How do you convey Israel’s deep history in the land and the Jewish people’s indigeneity to the Middle East? How do you invoke the flavor of ancient history without sounding like a Bible-thumping extremist? What word can bridge the Arab-Jewish divide?

The answer, which the new accords have found, is “Abraham.”

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Wow! Reuters’ World Refugee Day story from Gaza is a masterpiece of propaganda without technically lying - by Elder of Ziyon

For World Refugee Day, Reuters decided to use its platform to create anti-Israel propaganda with highly selective facts that conveniently are all exactly the same as the narrative that Hamas and the PLO tells the world. Reuters can point to the story and swear there is nothing incorrect, but there is a huge difference between being not lying and being accurate. This story is not even close to accurate.

Elder of Ziyon..
23 June '20..

Reuters published a story ahead of World Refugee Day last Friday about Palestinian “refugees” in Gaza.

It is a typical mainstream news story – meaning it is an outrageous story that makes no attempt to put any context around the anti-Israel points it wants to make.

On the United Nations’ World Refugee Day on Saturday, Marwan Kuwaik, a 70-year-old Palestinian in Gaza, will be focused on trying to eke out a living by selling snack food on the street.

In Gaza, Kuwaik earns about 30 shekels ($8.50) a day selling lupin beans from his bicycle. He is among 1.4 million Palestinians U.N.-registered refugees in the impoverished and crowded enclave, whose economy has suffered from years of Israeli and Egyptian blockades.

Because Hamas and other terror groups have used Gaza as a literal launching pad for rockets and other terror attacks. Reuters doesn’t mention this.

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Truthfully? No, not all votes are equal - by Martin Sherman

Blue and White persists in an obsessive effort to include the inimical Joint Arab List in determining the fate of the Jewish nation-state.

Am Yisrael Chai?

Martin Sherman..
JNS.org..
14 March '20..

… the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable. … This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State. … Accordingly, we … hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. … The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration. — From Israel’s Declaration of Independence

Why was the First Temple destroyed? Because of three things which prevailed there: idolatry, illicit sexual relations, bloodshed. … But why was the Second Temple destroyed, seeing that in its time they occupied themselves with Torah, mitzvot [religious observance] and acts of charity? Because baseless hatred prevailed. This teaches you that baseless hatred is equal to the three sins of idolatry, illicit sexual relations and murder. — Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9:B

The election results put us in the position of choosing which election promise to break. In this situation, removing Netanyahu is the main goal. We have no choice but to rely on the Joint List.” — MK Moshe (Bogey) Ya’alon, Blue and White, March 12, 2020

“It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change.” — Alice in “Alice in Wonderland” (The film)

These four excerpts encapsulate concisely, yet precisely, much of the implausible events that transpired in Israel’s political arena over the last few days—from the disturbing departure from the founding ethos of the State of Israel to the pernicious conduct of those, who allow their personal pique to undermine the very foundations of Jewish sovereignty.

A Kafkaesque aura

On March 11, a surreal, almost Kafkaesque, aura descended upon political realities in Israel, shrouding them in a thick swirl of bizarre fog, distorting familiar perspectives and conjuring up outlandish spectacles, previously considered inconceivable, before our very eyes.

Incredibly, and despite fervent assurances to the contrary, official envoys from Blue and White, Knesset members Ofer Shelah and Avi Nissenkorn, unashamedly proceeded to engage the heads of the Joint Arab List in an effort to cajole them into entering a coalition to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office, or at least into supporting the establishment of such a coalition.

This, of course, constitutes a breathtaking abandonment of principle by Blue and White—a party headed by three former IDF chiefs of staff, who time and again assured the electorate that any government that their party formed would not rely in any way, neither directly nor indirectly, on the overtly anti-Zionist Joint List.

This was a pledge that appeared eminently plausible. After all, the Joint List, a motley, ad hoc political amalgam of Stalinists, Islamists and Arab ultra-nationalists, united only by an incandescent animosity towards Israel as a Jewish state, is a party that represents the utter negation of everything the leaders of Blue and White have dedicated much of their adult life to defend.

What makes this endeavor even more perverse is the fact that less than a year ago, prominent Joint List members repeatedly accused the heads of Blue and White of war crimes.

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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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Past time to shut down the Palestinian Hanukkah and Christmas scams - by Jonathan S. Tobin

An effort to appropriate the holidays in order to delegitimize Israel denies Jewish history and ignores the truth about the fate of the Christian minority in Arab lands.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
23 December '19..

It used to be confined to an annual piece of theater staged by the Palestinian Authority every Christmas. The festivities in P.A.-governed Bethlehem are primarily aimed at promoting Christian tourism. But statements alleging that Jesus was a Palestinian have always accompanied the activities there, including a parade to the Church of the Nativity.

The efforts by the late terrorist chieftain Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, his successor as head of the P.A., to appropriate Christmas as a prop for their war on Israel have generally been dismissed as holiday nonsense by sensible people. But there’s more to this than just the desire of the Palestinian leadership to exploit the fact that the international press pays attention to events in the otherwise sleepy city in the Judean hills south of Jerusalem once a year.

At the heart of this effort is something far more insidious than what has seemed at times to be more of a P.A. attempt at photo-bombing the Christmas Eve coverage than doing any substantial harm to Israel’s image. Promoting the claim that Jesus was a Palestinian or that the Arab inhabitants of what was called Judea 2,000 years are the real Jews is denying and delegitimizing Jewish history and identity. Though some who either rationalize or wink at these Palestinians claims think this is basically harmless, it’s nothing less than a classic theme of anti-Semitism, whose ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the real Jews.

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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? Guess who’s leading your child’s tour of Israel? - by Stephen M. Flatow

An American University trip with the theme of “social justice” will offer a “dual-narrative immersive experience” that will feature “both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives.”

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
19 December '19..

The problem of anti-Semitic intimidation on American college campuses is serious, and hopefully, U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order will help combat it. But an equally significant problem is the deeply entrenched anti-Israel bias in the lectures, discussions and even the student trips abroad that our sons and daughters are participating at many universities today.

Case in point: an upcoming trip to “Israel and Palestine” for students who attend American University in our nation’s capital.

The official description of the trip employs all the usual clichés that indicate the organizers’ slant without being too overt about their bias.

It will be a “dual-narrative immersive experience,” which will feature “both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives.” That means the students will be taught that the “Israeli narrative” (in which Israel has a right to exist) and the “Palestinian narrative” (in which Israelis are Nazis and Israel’s creation was an act of racist colonialist aggression) are equally valid.

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According to the web site, the theme of the trip will be “social justice,” and “in order for social justice anywhere to be achieved, a true and lasting peace rooted in a power structure based on equity, security and justice must take shape.” In progressive-speak, that means Israeli policies are unjust, the Palestinian Arabs are innocent victims, and Israel must be pressured to make more concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

The itinerary of the trip posted on the university’s website is short on details, but there are some clues as to its flavor.

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

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What the HBO series ‘Our Boys’ doesn’t want us to know - by Jonathan S. Tobin

The series is, as one ecstatic writer for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote, “an unashamedly liberal show that could have been ripped from the pages of Haaretz,” which is to say that it adopts the tone of hostility to the Jewish state that is the keynote to the vast majority of articles published there (it also sometimes runs opinions columns from me). It embodies the politics of Israel’s liberal Ashkenazi elites and considers the only suitable topic for discussion an examination of Israel’s alleged sins.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
05 September '19..

The brutal murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir by three extremist Jews is a story that deserves to be told. The same can be said for the account of the swift and efficient manner in which his murderers were tracked down by Israel’s security services, and ultimately convicted and given harsh sentences.

The exclusive focus on that bestial crime—the 16-year-old Palestinian Arab resident of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat was kidnapped, beaten unconscious and then burned to death while still alive in June 2014—is the point of the HBO series “Our Boys,” produced by the Keshet Media Group that runs Israel’s Channel 12.

The show has understandably raised the hackles of many Israelis; however, the problem with “Our Boys” isn’t that it airs some of Israel’s dirty laundry. If that were the only substantive criticism to be made of the show, then the furor over it—it was denounced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “anti-Semitic”—wouldn’t be justified.

Documenting the transgressions of a few Jews, as well as the diligent efforts of their compatriots to catch and punish them, is no insult to the Jewish people. Viewed merely as an entry in the “true crime” genre or as a police procedural, it could be judged favorably as a well-acted and meticulously produced document of the incident, even if the glacial pace of the miniseries is problematic. And, indeed, that is the frame of reference for most of the critical reception from American TV critics of the show that debuted last month and, as of this writing, is halfway through its 10-episode run on the cable-television network.

Others will see it as yet another example of Israel’s flourishing television industry that has produced Netflix hits like “Fauda” and “Shtisel,” as well as providing the inspiration for shows like “Homeland.” But many of those who usually take special pride in seeing Israeli TV shows get such wide exposure aren’t cheering “Our Boys.”

The anger that the show has generated isn’t so much rooted in the fact that it depicts Jewish murderers or that their victim was a Palestinian Arab. It is the context out of which this one deplorable incident was pulled, and the painfully obvious political motivations of its producers and writers that is at question. And on that score, the artistic merit of “Our Boys”—and its avowed goal of examining the sources of hate crimes—cannot justify the manipulative agenda that it serves.

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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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Palestineism, the Very Embodiment of Toxic Racism - by FirstOneThrough

Palestinian Arabs could achieve sovereignty and statehood in Gaza and Areas A and B tomorrow, but Palestineism has more malicious demands: that Israel not be a Jewish State; that Jews be forbidden from living anywhere in Palestine; and that Jews be denied access and rights to their holy sites. It is Palestineism that is the roadblock to creating a state of Palestine and an enduring peace in the region, nothing else.

FirstOneThrough..
18 August '19..

Racism is a form of hatred which believes that all members of a particular group are inferior and/or evil. In itself, it is ugly but not dangerous, a localized noxious belief system based on bigotry. Racism becomes toxic when it spreads and obtains power.

Such is the state of Palestineism, the effort to weaken, shrink and destroy Israel because it is a Jewish State, as well as to vilify Jews and deny their rights, history and dignity in the Jewish holy land.

The Arab World

Palestineism has been present in the Arab and Muslim world for a hundred years.

Denying Jews and the Jewish State has been at the forefront of the Palestineism. Even before Jews reestablished Jewish sovereignty in their holy land in 1948, Arabs rioted and killed Jews throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, and petitioned the British who oversaw the Palestine Mandate to bar and limit the entry of Jews during the Holocaust in Europe. When Israel declared itself a Jewish state, the armies of five neighboring Arab Muslim countries invaded with the stated desire to destroy it completely. The Arabs evicted Jews from all lands they seized and specifically forbade Jews from obtaining citizenship (Article 3). Fellow Arab and Muslim nations followed suit, with ten Arab and Muslim countries expelling one million Jews after Israel was founded, irrespective of whether their fellow Jewish countrymen were Zionists.

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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 Streeters duped on alternative tour of Israel - by Steve Frank

Hebron’s Shuhada Street was a highlight of J Street’s Israel tour, and the group fell for the myth, hook line and sinker.

That which is kept out of sight,
remains out of narrative

Steve Frank..
JNS.org..
04 August '19..

Nonprofit advocacy group J Street has recently been campaigning against Birthright Israel, an educational program that sponsors free 10-day heritage trips to Israel for young Jewish adults. Over 600,000 young adults have participated in the program since its founding in 1999.

J Street charges that Birthright trips lack Palestinians voices, fail to incorporate the Palestinian narrative and neglect to visit Palestinian sites in the West Bank. As an alternative to the traditional Birthright tour, J Street recently sponsored a trip to Israel for 28 participants who visited Palestinian sites in the West Bank and heard from spokesmen for the Palestinian cause.

According to The New York Times, “In the West Bank settlement of Har Gilo,” the J Streeters “received a harsh history lesson from a veteran opponent of the occupation. Then they toured an impoverished, water-starved Palestinian village that Israeli settlers want to demolish, and visited the city of Hebron, where repeated outbreaks of violence have turned an entire Palestinian business district into a ghost town.”

The J Street trip and the Times article about it were highly criticized in a pointed piece in Commentary magazine. The Commentary review noted that there was not a word in either the trip or the Times article “on the murderous Palestinian anti-Semitic violence that necessitates Israel’s policing of such places [as Hebron] to begin with,” “no mention of the kleptocratic Palestinian leadership that’s consigned generations of Palestinians to certain ruin” and “no mention of the fact that the Palestinians have, again and again—and again—refused to make peace with Israel when it was offered.”

However, there was one particular failing of the J Street trip that has not received the attention it deserves.

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Steve Frank is an attorney, retired after a 30-year career as an appellate lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. His writings on Israel, the law and architecture have appeared in publications including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel and Moment magazine.

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 Truth about Jerusalem’s City of David – The Lies about Silwan - by Nadav Shragai

...it appears that, as in the case of the Temple Mount compound, the acrimony and slander concerning the City of David stem in part from the inability of the inciters to deal with the Jewish past of the site, which is adjacent to the heart of Jerusalem – the Temple Mount. At a time when Palestinians are rewriting the history of Jerusalem – both the Jewish and the Muslim history – and trying to prove that they were in the city before the Jews were (despite what modern research tells us), the City of David is for them another item in their large fabric of denial of any Jewish tie to Jerusalem, its sites, and its holy places.

Nadav Shragai..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
Institute for Contemporary Affairs #624..
July '19..

On July 1, 2019, a photo of the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and U.S. envoy, Jason Greenblatt, striking a thin and symbolic wall with a sledgehammer – a wall built to separate two parts of the ancient Pilgrimage Road – became the headline of the whole event.

This is one of the most sensational archaeological discoveries to be made in Jerusalem since Israel’s establishment. On this road, which was remarkably preserved under the ashes of the Roman destruction, many thousands of Jews – according to the historical descriptions – walked in Second Temple times after a ritual bath in the Shiloah Pool about 700 meters from the Temple Mount.

Over the past five years, Israeli archaeologists have uncovered 350 meters of this road including numerous artifacts that bring back to life the last battle in Jerusalem, about 2,000 years ago, between the Jewish rebels and the Romans.

Friedman attended the dedication ceremony not only to express recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the City of David area, but also to admire a magnificent archaeological endeavor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, replete with discoveries and finds. Although this enterprise was dedicated by Israel on June 30, it began more than a hundred years ago at a site excavated by non-Israeli archaeologists, at a time when the State of Israel did not exist and Jerusalem was under Muslim rule.

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority, closely supervised by safety engineers (in line with the world’s strictest standards), have been searching for or excavating the Pilgrimage Road – mistakenly known as the Herodian Road – only since the beginning of the 2000s. But they and the Antiquities Authority are not the first to look for this road or excavate it. They were preceded in the period of Jordanian rule by the British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, who uncovered the more northern parts of the Pilgrimage Road and also warned that the City of David should be excavated hastily before the Jordanians paved a road there – which is indeed what they eventually did. Kenyon was preceded by an archaeological research delegation during the period of the British Mandate. And this delegation was preceded at the end of the nineteenth century, in the time of Ottoman rule, by the archaeologists Jones Bliss and Archibald Dickie.

Before discussing the many discoveries from the new excavation, we first need to disprove the allegation that it endangers the homes of the residents of the Arab neighborhood of Silwan.

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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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Jerusalem? The Proof is in the Ancient Coins and Seals - by Dov Lipman

The Palestinians can travel the world and spread their lies about the Jews not having a connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount all they want. False claims are one thing. Clear archaeological evidence is another. The Jewish people lived in the land of Israel and the stories of the Jewish Temples recorded in the Bible and historical documents now have that archaeological support.

Dov Lipman..
Honest Reporting..
05 June '19..

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shifted over the last decades from trying to destroy Israel with the help of neighboring Arab armies to the Palestinian leadership and its supporters seeking to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. A primary focus of this effort has been an attempt to disconnect the Jewish people from having any historical connection to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Convincing the world that the Jewish people have no connection to this disputed area further cements the narrative that Israel is an occupying force in this land, and especially in Jerusalem.

This began with a declaration by Yasser Arafat on October 11, 1996, in which he said, “That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Muslim shrine.” (Ma’ariv, Oct. 11, 1996)

This approach continued on November 22, 1997 when the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrama Sabri, who is the PLO’s senior religious authority for the city and was appointed by Arafat, said: “The Al-Buraq Wall [Western Wall] and its plaza are a Muslim religious property, and the Israeli government’s decisions do not affect it…The Al-Buraq Wall is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Jews have no relation to 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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Keeping Up the Palestine Cause 'Narrative’ - by Judith Bergman

With all the financial, political and emotional capital already invested in the cause of ‘Palestine’, it is vital to keep up a certain ‘narrative’ with which facts must never be allowed to interfere.

Judith Bergman..
MiDA..
10 March '19..

The official Palestinian Authority (PA) daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, recently published an op-ed, claiming, “Anyone who follows the prattle of Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s envoy in the matter of the deal of the century, sees that his condition is very similar to Down Syndrome… Anyone who looks at the American envoy [Greenblatt] discovers that he has external and inner characteristics similar to those suffering from Down Syndrome: He is short, his eyes are similar to Mongoloid eyes, he prattles unrestrainedly, and is politically retarded.”

As reported by Palestinian Media Watch, the author, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, a regular columnist for the official PA daily and once the advisor to former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on national affairs, went on to add, ”The ill Greenblatt is not the only one who has Down Syndrome, for it strikes all the components of the American administration. Anyone who examines the general genes of the components of the Trump administration sees that it is a politically crippled creature.”

The PA does and publishes much that is outrageous, but it rarely meets with much, if any, external consternation. This time was only slightly different, as the op-ed did elicit some criticism in the US: According to Palestinian Media Watch, US Congressman Ted Deutch (Dem.) said, “It is an outrageously offensive attack to level on anyone, anywhere” and AIPAC stated: “This is an outrageous personal attack on a distinguished U.S. official and an insult to basic human dignity.” A week prior to al-Ghoul’s op-ed, Fatah, of which Mahmoud Abbas has been chairman since 2009, published a statement on its official Facebook page, that Jews “deserved to be killed” during the Holocaust “because of who they are”. The statement did not produce any reactions anywhere.

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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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Indy journalist again falsely accuses Israeli politician of “glorifying” Palestinian civilian deaths - by Adam Levick

...But, of course, no analysis on the prospects that Palestinian society may move to the centre will be offered by Trew, as her reporting follows the MSM pattern of denying Palestinians agency, thus preventing any real reporting on, for instance, the injurious impact to the peace process of their high levels of support for violence, extremism and antisemitism.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
26 February '19..

An op-ed by Independent Mid-East correspondent Bel Trew on the electoral hopes of Benny Gantz and his Blue and White Party expresses skepticism that the former IDF Chief-of-Staff truly holds a more centrist view on the Palestinian issue. The central argument of her piece (Centrism is finally returning to Israeli politics, but there are still plenty of reasons to be concerned) is found in these paragraphs:

[Gantz’s] new party is expected to win 36 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, according to polls by Israel’s Channel 12 and 13 news. The two networks predicted Netanyahu’s Likud party would secure just 30 and 26 respectively.

There were discussions of Israel finally embracing a centrist agenda. The word progressive was even bandied about.

It is true that Netanyahu, his party and his people were quick to scaremonger the largely right-wing Israeli electorate, criticising Gantz-Lapid for being “left wing” and “pro-Arab”.

But how much of this is actually the case?

While it is unlikely the pair will peddle the same fervent nationalist and populist line that Bibi has sculpted into his own brand, don’t expect a major break from the norm.

Lt Gen Gantz’s first campaign video was a disturbing rolling body count of the Palestinians killed by his soldiers during the 2014 war on Gaza that he oversaw. The advert, layered over footage of funerals and destroyed civilian neighbourhoods, concluded by saying that Gantz was responsible for killing 1,364 Gaza militants in the seven-week military campaign. The problem is that this militant body count is even higher than Israel’s agreed numbers and nearly double the United Nations’ figures.

The video effectively glorifies the killing of civilians.

However, as we’ve demonstrated previously in response to the same claim in another article by Trew, the allegation that Gantz’s video “glorifies the killing of civilians” is not accurate.

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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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Problematic? MESA Ignores the Terror Threats Incubating on Palestinian Campuses - by A.J. Caschetta

...Actions against Palestinian universities by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and Gaza are not arbitrary. Rather, they are necessary, measured responses to the terrorist takeover of Palestinian campuses, where indoctrination and recruitment have supplanted education. In its contrived ignorance of these facts, MESA mirrors the morally bankrupt academic field it represents. Until and unless far-ranging reforms are implemented, students, policymakers, and legislators should shun it.

A.J. Caschetta..
Algemeiner..
15 February '19..

Despite all the corrupt, tyrannical theocracies and dictatorships in the Middle East, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) — the academic umbrella organization for the field — aims its harshest criticism at the only democracy in the region: Israel.

MESA’s disdain is apparent in the dozens of “advocacy letters” it has directed at Israel since 2001. The latest open letter from its Committee on Academic Freedom to Israel’s government demands an end to the Jewish state’s alleged “arbitrary arrests at and incursions into Palestinian universities” and “the Israeli Army’s harm to students at all levels of education.”

Ignoring the long history of terrorist recruiting on Palestinian campuses and the terrorism committed by Palestinian students under the tutelage of their Hamas and Fatah advisors, MESA falsely portrays Palestinian academics and students as benign.

But MESA’s most disingenuous claim is that Israel harasses peaceful Palestinian students with “arbitrary arrests,” a phrase used three times in the short letter. The phrase also appears on Birzeit University’s Facebook page, where its “Right to Education Campaign condemns arbitrary arrest of Birzeit University’s Head of Student Council.”

So, who are the innocent students that MESA would have us believe were “arbitrarily” arrested, while working diligently toward their degrees?

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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. "Free Palestine Movement" calls to expel all "non-indigenous Jews" from Israel. Does Rashida Tlaib agree? - by Elder of Ziyon

...Someone may want to ask Tlaib if she supports the goals of the Free Palestine Movement and the Palestine Liberation Movement, and if her vision of a one-state solution looks like this one.

Elder of Ziyon..
13 February '19..

The Free Palestine Movement was behind the 2011 flotilla to Israel and styles itself as a progressive peace movement that is pro-Palestinian.

They said in a November newsletter that they will offer new members of Congress a trip to "Palestine" as a rebuttal to the AIPAC-sponsored trip most take, and it is possible that Rashida Tlaib, who announced in December that she wants to partner with pro-Palestinian groups on a similar trip, may be working with FPM on this initiative.

FPM just sent out an email urging members to visit and support a "Call for a Palestine Liberation Movement" webpage, that describes what they want to see as a solution to the Israel/Palestinian conflict.

Their solution, as the map here show - no Israel. It would be replaced with the "One Democratic State of Palestine."

The description of that state makes it pretty clear that most Jews would be forced to leave.

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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 Washington Post Narrative on the Israel-Islamic Conflict That Requires Excavation - by Sean Durns

Archaeological digs are about uncovering history and truth—not narrative. It is no wonder that those who deny the Jewish people’s connection to the land would find them objectionable and inconvenient. The Washington Post, however, should take a cue from the archaeologists and dig deeper.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA..
30 January '19..

A Jan. 27, 2019 Washington Post report, “Dig for ancient road unsettles Palestinians,” offered a glimpse at the problems plaguing the newspaper’s coverage of Israel. The article, by Jerusalem bureau chief Loveday Morris and reporter Ruth Eglash, relied on questionable sources and revealed the paper’s preference for narrative-based reporting.

The Post’s 1,181-word dispatch, replete with several photographs, described Israeli archaeological work in ominous terms. The newspaper highlighted excavations near the present day Arab neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh in eastern Jerusalem. Israeli archaeologists believe that the digs will uncover “an important thoroughfare used by worshipers some 2,000 years ago to reach the Jewish holy temple.”

The newspaper noted, “Developers envisage an archaeological attraction that would lure millions of visitors keen to walk the same stones as ancient pilgrims, or perhaps even Jesus.” Private donors and the Israeli government have contributed to the project, which is organized by the City of David Foundation.

The Post, however, warned: “But in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, in which land and each side’s historical connection to it is front and center, the endeavor is inevitably mired in controversy. Palestinian officials say it is an attempt to literally pull their hopes for a future capital in East Jerusalem from under their feet.”

Palestinian officials—none of whom are specifically cited in the report—might very well make such claims. But The Post failed to inform readers that they’re transparently disingenuous.

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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 peak into how Israel-haters use a false framework to spread their hate - by Elder of Ziyon

...The readers of such trash usually don't understand that the Israel being written about is a funhouse mirror reflection of reality, because the cherry-picked facts are mostly correct - it is the context and framework that are far off base. It is the job of editors to separate the propaganda from the reality, but the New York Review of Books employs editors that seek such anti-Israel propaganda to begin with.

Elder of Ziyon..
06 January '18..

At the New York Review of Books, anti-Zionist Antony Loewenstein wrote an article called "Exporting the Technology of Occupation". The key paragraph:

Over more than half a century of occupation, Israel has mastered the arts of monitoring and surveilling millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel itself. Israel is now packaging and selling this knowledge to governments that admire the country’s ability to suppress and manage resistance. Israel’s occupation has thus gone global. The country’s defense exports reached a record $9.2 billion in 2017, 40 percent higher than in 2016 (in a global arms market that recorded its highest ever sales in 2017 at $398.2 billion). The majority of these sales were in Asia and the Pacific region. Military hardware, such as missiles and aerial defenses, was the largest sector at 31 percent, while intel, cyber, and information systems comprised 5 percent. Israel’s industry is supported by lavish domestic spending: in 2016, defense expenditure represented 5.8 percent of the country’s GDP. By comparison, in 2017, the American defense sector absorbed 3.6 percent of US GDP.

The article decries how Israel is making so much money by selling weapons and cybersecurity software that, Loewenstein implies, are solely created to crush Palestinians.

The reason the story sounds reasonable is because Loewenstein is framing Israel's existence in terms of how Palestinian Arabs view it. When you use a flawed framework it is easy to make anything look bad.

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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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And what if the Six-Day War never took place? - by Martin Sherman

Charges of “occupation” of Palestinian land and dispossession of the Palestinians were widespread long before Israel had control of a square inch of the “West Bank.”

Martin Sherman..
JNS.org..
28 December '18..

If the “West Bank” was part of the “Hashemite Kingdom” up to 1967, how did it suddenly become the Palestinians’ long-yearned-for homeland which, up until then, they were submissively willing to cede to an alien potentate?

Not since the time of Dr. Goebels [head of the Nazi propaganda machine] has there ever been a case in which continual repetition of a lie has born such great fruits. … Of all the Palestinian lies, there is no lie greater or more crushing than that which calls for the establishment of a separate Palestinian state in the West Bank. — From “Palestinian Lies” in Haaretz, 30-7-76, by former far-left Meretz Education Minister, Professor Amnon Rubinstein.

As the new elections approach, the “Palestinian problem” is once again likely to dominate much of the inter- (and intra-) party debate. In many ways, this debate is entirely superfluous. After all, a simple mental experiment will suffice to strip away the veil of mendacity shrouding the Palestinian grievances against Israel.

Imagine for a moment …

To demonstrate this, imagine for a moment that the 1967 Six-Day War, in which several Arab armies marshalled their forces with the undisguised intention to annihilate Israel, never took place. Imagine that Israel had not been compelled to launch a preemptive strike in self-defense to thwart the Arabs’ openly proclaimed aim of total genocide that resulted in it taking over Judea-Samaria (aka, the “West Bank”), which the Palestinians now contend is their long-yearned for homeland.

Then ask yourself: If that war had not occurred, where would “Palestine” be?

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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 Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses Israel of pretending Jerusalem has been a Jewish city since Biblical times - by Elder of Ziyon

...This isn't being "pro-Palestinian." This is being actively antisemitic.

Elder of Ziyon..
23 December '18..

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement about supposed Israeli "Judaizing" of the city of Jerusalem.

One of the accusations is that Israeli actions in Jerusalem "give the impression to any visitor that it is a Jewish biblical city featuring continuous [Jewish] presence and Jewish heritage."

Well, yeah. Because it is. For some 3000 years. Except for some very brief time periods where Jews were specifically expelled because of their cultural and religious ties to Jerusalem, as they were ethnically cleansed from the Old City for a mere 19 years in 1948.

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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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Believe it or not, Hezbollah’s war on Israel does takes precedence over the war on Bibi. Sorry. - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Accusations that Netanyahu is “wagging the dog” by highlighting Hezbollah’s terror tunnels undermines his critics’ credibility.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
06 December '18..

Maybe you thought that the discovery of tunnels built by Hezbollah under the border between Lebanon and Israel would generate a full-scale debate about the deadly nature of the threat from the terror group and its Iranian masters. But if so, you haven’t been paying much attention to the political atmosphere in Israel or the way the Jewish state and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are covered in the international press.

The first mention of the tunnels in The New York Times came in an article with the headline “Suspected of Crimes, Netanyahu Is Also Suspected of Fear-Mongering.” The upshot of the piece was to frame the issue as merely a distraction from the prime minister’s legal troubles after the Israeli police recommended that he and his wife, Sara, be indicted on corruption charges.

The charges against Netanyahu are serious. Or rather, it might be said that this latest problem is more serious than two previous cases where the police also recommended his indictment. Netanyahu is accused of aiding a wealthy crony’s acquisition of the Bezeq Company. Bezeq owned a popular website Walla News that, in return for the prime minister’s ability to use the government’s regulatory power in its favor, provided positive coverage for him and his government. It remains to be seen whether Israel’s attorney general will accept the police recommendation that an actual crime was committed and a conviction can be obtained. The same is true about two more frivolous charges in which the police also sought indictments.

The debate about these accusations has played into the discussion about whether the government will wait to hold a new election next fall, when Netanyahu’s government’s term expires, or if he will move for an early election. The presumption is that if he were to be indicted—something that is by no means certain in any of the three cases—he would wish to enter into legal combat forearmed with the endorsement of the voters. That is because, to the horror of his opponents, every poll predicts Netanyahu’s coalition will be easily re-elected.

Israeli politics is just as nasty, personal and partisan as it is in the United States. So it was hardly surprising that cynics in the Israeli opposition and media, as well as their foreign counterparts, would interpret the furor over the tunnels as an attempt to change the subject from accusations of corruption.

(Continue to Full Column)

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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