Question. How Many Times Has The Red Cross Visited Israeli Prisoners in Gaza? - by Sheri Oz

...If you want to identify with suffering prisoners, I ask you to consider raising awareness regarding our three unfortunates who inadvertently found themselves inside Hamas’ Gaza. If you are going to cry, cry for Mengistu, Al-Syed and Anima and their families. They could go on a hunger strike to protest their prison conditions and nobody would know — not even the IRC.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
10 May '17..

Tell me, Mr Barghouti – how do your prison conditions compare with those of Gilad Shalit who was abducted and held by Hamas in Gaza for five years? How do they compare with the conditions Hamas offers to current Israeli prisoners: Abera Mengistu, Israeli of Ethiopian origin being held in Gaza since September 2014, Hisham al-Syed, Israeli Bedouin held since April 2015, and Juma Ibrahim Abu Anima, Israeli Bedouin who has been held since July last year?

The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has agreed to let the International Red Cross visit you today (Thursday) in lieu of the pre-scheduled meeting with your lawyer that was cancelled since you called on security prisoners to join you in a hunger strike and you were consequently put into solitary. The reports note that you have not seen anyone from the Red Cross since before the hunger strike. That means that you HAVE seen Red Cross staff before that – and we have no idea how many times these visits have taken place but apparently the IRC visits security prisoners in Israel on a regular basis.

Out of curiousity, I wanted to know how many times the IRC has visited with Abera Mengistu so I called Uri Perednik, Parliamentary Aide to MK Avraham Neguise (pronounced Negosa), who serves as chair of the Caucus for the Return of Avraham (Abera) Mengistu. Perednik told me that the IRC has visited Mengistu a total of zero times. Furthermore, while the Israeli government and Hamas insist that Mengistu is alive, there have been no signs of life presented in fact, according to Perednik.

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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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BBC World Service continues amplification of PA’s anti-Israel campaign at FIFA - by Hadar Sela

...Considering that BBC audiences have a permanent deficit of information concerning Palestinian glorification of terrorism through sport (and in general), that they rarely receive information on Palestinian Authority internal politics and that their understanding of delegitimisation campaigns against Israel is decidedly limited, it would have been appropriate for Bateman to supply listeners with actual facts rather than repeatedly and unhelpfully telling them what “Israel says”.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
10 May '17..

For years Jibril Rajoub has been exploiting his various sports-related positions in the Palestinian Authority to advance delegitimisation of Israel.

In May 2012, he volunteered to lead a campaign to have Israel expelled from all Olympic unions and committees, stating that he opposes any form of ‘normalisation’ with Israel, including in the field of sports. In June 2012 Rajoub demanded that UEFA cancel Israel’s hosting of the 2013 European Under-21 Championship.

Not infrequently, Rajoub’s assorted campaigns have been covered on BBC platforms: see for example here, here and here. Over the last two years, the BBC has repeatedly amplified Rajoub’s current campaign against the Israeli football association at FIFA (which is supported by the political NGO HRW) on multiple platforms:

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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 solution is going to require a lot more than eluding a sneaky photo in Ramallah - by Stephen M. Flatow

...The reason Arafat’s tomb is situated right smack in the middle of Abbas’s presidential compound in Ramallah is because Abbas worships his former leader and mentor. And to this day, Abbas faithfully carries out Arafat’s policies.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
10 May '17..

White House officials say they foiled a plan by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to have President Donald Trump walk near the tomb of Yasser Arafat when Trump visits Israel and the disputed territories later this month. Supposedly, the PA wanted to photograph Trump with the tomb in the background.

I wouldn’t put it past the PA to concoct a scheme of this nature. Staging photographs, faking photographs, lying about photographs—it’s all old hat for the PA. But keeping Arafat’s tomb out of the picture will not resolve Trump’s Arafat problem.

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

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Why I Won’t Join An Israeli-“Palestinian” Peace Organization (Yet) by Sheri Oz

...When I see Arabs organize peace marches in the PA demanding the cessation of terrorist acts against Jews, when I see more of them coming out publicly and calling for concessions to Israel instead of only demands from her, when I see them pull down their own corrupt leaders and reclaim the stolen billions of dollars and use it to start building the healthy infrastructure...

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
09 May '17..

I wonder if, in order to be invited to take part in conjoint “Palestinian”-Israeli make-nice meetings, I have to stop writing “Palestinian” in quotation marks and I have to agree that Israel is “occupying” the so-called disputed lands. In other words, I need to accept their “narrative” and discard my history in order to be considered pro-peace.

I do not see the point of joining any “peace” organization that includes Israelis and “Palestinian” Arabs before we see such a group rise up from within the “Palestinian” Arab population itself and not because some Jews reached out to them and offered them an olive branch on bended knees. Perhaps if I could read and understand Arabic I would find the evidence that so far eludes me regarding independent “Palestinian” Arab pro-peace initiatives that promote accepting us Jews as their neighbours.

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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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BBC’s Yolande Knell tells audiences that convicted terrorists are ‘political prisoners’ - by Hadar Sela

...Knell’s portrayal of the chances of renewal of negotiations of course airbrushed very pertinent context such as the increasingly acrimonious rift between the PA and Hamas and the related fact that the long since unelected Mahmoud Abbas cannot even set foot in the Gaza Strip, let alone claim to represent all the Palestinians. However, Knell’s aim in this report was obviously not to provide domestic and foreign BBC audiences with a realistic, accurate and impartial report on the story but to promote PLO talking points – primarily the false claim that imprisoned terrorists are “political prisoners”.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
07 May '17..

When some mostly Fatah-linked Palestinians serving sentences in Israeli prisons began a hunger strike on April 17th, the BBC produced three reports on that story on consecutive days. As was noted here at the time:

“…in all three of the reports, readers find (not for the first time) amplification of the PLO’s narrative concerning Palestinian prisoners – as promoted, for example, in a PLO ‘media brief’ from June 2015. [emphasis added]

Report 1: “Palestinians regard the detainees as political prisoners. Many have been convicted of attacks against Israelis and other offences.”

Report 2: “Palestinians say the detainees are political prisoners, while Israel describes them as “terrorists”” (photo caption)

“Palestinians regard the detainees as political prisoners. Many have been convicted of attacks against Israelis and other offences.”

Report 3: “Palestinians regard the detainees as political prisoners. Many have been convicted of attacks against Israelis.”

The idea that people who have been convicted of perpetrating acts of terrorism are ‘political prisoners’ is rejected in Europe and we certainly do not see the BBC promoting the notion that people imprisoned in the UK for terror related offences may be defined in such terms.”

On May 2nd the BBC went one step further. Apparently not content with the above uncritical and unqualified amplification of the partisan narrative of the PLO, Jerusalem bureau correspondent Yolande Knell dispensed with the nicety “Palestinians regard”, electing to describe convicted terrorists as “political prisoners” in her (and hence the BBC’s) own words.

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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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Abbas's "Culture of Peace" - by Bassam Tawil

...Under Abbas, anti-Israel incitement and indoctrination is a business that has expanded exponentially. It has, in fact, grown to the point that a new generation has been raised on the glorification of jihadists, a generation impatient to draw yet more Jewish blood. If this is Abbas's "culture of peace," what, one wonders, would he consider a culture of war?

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
08 May '17..

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas may soon be known for his sense of humor. Like many Palestinians, Abbas believes that Westerners will swallow his lies wholesale. Abbas, for instance, ended his May 3 meeting with US President Donald Trump with the following whopper: "We are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace."

Abbas did not provide further details about the "culture of peace" upon which Palestinian children are being raised. Nor did anyone bother to ask Abbas or any member of his entourage to provide examples of the "culture of peace" in Palestinian society. Yet major Western media outlets were quick to publish Abbas's unmistakable lie.

Apparently, like his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, Abbas is convinced that Palestinians can fool "all of the people, all of the time" about their true goals and intentions. Arafat lied to Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton when he told them that he and the Palestinian Authority were promoting peace and coexistence with Israel. Under Arafat, anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian media, schools and mosques intensified until Palestinians waged the Second Intifada in September 2000. This intifada was the result of seven years of vicious incitement and indoctrination that came after the inception of the PA. In a truly ironic turn of events, the Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993, gave the Palestinians media outlets, including television and radio stations, which were then used to amplify hatred against Israel and Jews on a daily basis.

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Bassam Tawil is a scholar 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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Despite the absolute aptness of placing the UN on the Hill of Evil Council - by Vic Rosenthal

...Here is an opportunity to take a stand for sovereignty and against the corrupt and anti-Jewish UN. Despite the absolute aptness of placing the UN on the Hill of Evil Council, the site does not belong to them. If they need a headquarters in our country, they should be required to rent office space like anyone else. I know a presently unoccupied spot in Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station that they can get cheap.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
08 May '17..

[The British High Commissioner] grabbed the most fantastic place in the world … built a palace there, and every morning when he wakes up and opens his eyes … can see from the palace windows the loftiest and most holy view in the world, as if it were his.

– Yehuda Haezrahi, City of Stone and Sky, quoted by Nadav Shragai

After the First World War, the British became the last in a line of foreign powers ruling over Judea, including Jerusalem. Like any conqueror, the British built monumental palaces for its administrators. From 1920 to 1927, the High Commissioner’s residence and offices were located in the Augusta Victoria Church and hospital compound on the Mount of Olives. A beautiful place, but after it was damaged in an earthquake, the Empire decided to build a new and even more glorious seat of power at a spot with an even better view, the Hill of Evil Council (not “Counsel”) – so called by the Byzantine Christians because it was said to be where Temple priests met to discuss betraying Jesus.

The grand building was constructed between 1928 and 1933, and its first resident was High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, who seems to have been one of the better ones. It is a stunningly beautiful building (the UN renovated it in 2012) in one of the most beautiful spots in the world. I can’t imagine how much the property is worth (maybe Donald Trump could). In Hebrew, it’s called Armon Hanatizv (the commissioner’s palace), and that also became the name of the neighborhood around it.

In 1948 when Britain was forced to retreat from Palestine by yet another indigenous revolt in its rapidly fragmenting Empire, it transferred control of the property to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which gave it to the UN. It was part of the Demilitarized Zone which existed until 1967, when it came under Israeli control. The UN demanded it back, and after an abortive struggle, Israel knuckled under. Nadav Shragai explains the historical details and legal issues here.

The UN has since made modifications to the building, appropriated land adjoining the main structure and put up additional buildings, all – needless to say – without obtaining permits from the municipal authorities. The UN did not purchase the site, and never paid rent or municipal taxes on it. The most recent official reason for the UN presence there was to house the observers responsible for monitoring the truce in effect after 1967. This has long since become irrelevant; as Shragai notes “Israel has peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, and in Syria everyone is fighting everyone.”

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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! BBC News website plays along with the ‘softer’ Hamas spin - by Hadar Sela

...While journalists at the BBC News website (in contrast to some of their colleagues) clearly understand that Hamas’ latest moves are no more than an attempt to embellish its image for various outside audiences, that its original antisemitic charter still stands and that no significant changes have been made to Hamas policy, curiously they apparently still find it appropriate to provide a platform for the spin of a ‘softer’ Hamas and refrain from informing audiences in clear terms that Ismail Haniyeh is no different to – and no more ‘pragmatic’ than – his predecessor.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
08 May '17..

On May 6th the BBC News website published an article titled “Hamas chooses Ismail Haniya as new leader” on its Middle East page.

Readers are told that:

“Mr Haniya is seen as a pragmatist who will try to ease Hamas’s international isolation.”

However, audiences are not informed by whom exactly the new Hamas political bureau leader is regarded as “a pragmatist” and neither are they given any insight into Haniyeh’s record of decidedly unrealistic statements that the people who have suffered under his rule for the past decade might well find less than practical and sensible.

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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 day of anti-Israel hatred at the University of Warwick - by David Collier

...The University of Warwick is a ‘top 10 UK university’. Truly frightening. Everyone in that room was fed lies, and every single person that attended left the University of Warwick more stupid, more entrenched and more ‘radicalised’, than they had been before they arrived. The audience, rather than step towards understanding, became an additional part of an already complex problem. This is what the university funds were used for...

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
04 May '17..

On Thursday, 4th May, I spent the day at the University of Warwick. Warwick forms part of one of my favourite areas of the UK. Close enough to visit from London in a day, and containing both Warwick castle and Shakespeare’s town, Stratford upon-Avon. As is proving to be a recurring theme, the romantic relationship I have with the country of my birth is being torn apart piece by piece. This is my report:

The conference was a full day event. It did not seem to have been long in the planning. Advertising for the event suddenly appeared about two weeks ago and I only saw the event promoted via social media on some university related Facebook pages, and of course, on the pages of the local anti-Israel activist groups.

Logistically , the conference was made up of three panels, three speakers in each and a final ‘keynote’ conversation between a lawyer/activist at an anti-Israel NGO and a Palestinian legal academic. Apart from the final keynote, each academic would present a ‘paper’ and have 15-20 minutes each to speak. Each of the four sessions was chaired by a University of Warwick academic. Fifteen participants in total. ‘Coincidentally’, all four of the chairs (Sara Salem, Alice Panepinto, Teodora Todorova & Nicola Pratt) are all University of Warwick academics who have engaged in anti-Israel activism.

The room was small, attendance peaked at about 45 people. Fifteen participants, alongside a few other organisers. A small number of other Warwick academics were present. Fifteen or so activists from the local Leamington Spa and Warwick Palestine groups also turned up, to have their fetish fed. Perhaps a handful of ‘others’. There was not much of a student presence at all.

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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 actually an oasis of normality. The dogs bark, but the convoy rolls on. - by Dr. Reuven Berko

...Israel is actually an oasis of normality surrounded by millions who are busy slaughtering each other (for now) with weapons they amassed to use against us, but who still dream of "return." Critics, take note: Israel is an island of normalcy on which Jewish life is flourishing while millions around it and inside it aspire to get rid of us. The dogs bark, but the convoy rolls on.

Dr. Reuven Berko..
Israel Hayom..
07 May '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=18971

Recently a journalist, known as a slanderer who nips at the heels of the Zionist convoy, made use of the following invective (quoted here in part): "It's a fact that we're an abnormal country. A normal country has borders and doesn't have 2 million people it wants to get rid of."

In contrast to this loathsomeness, Joint Arab List Chairman Ayman Odeh has made it clear that the Israeli "abnormality" stems mainly from our failure to understand that he and many of the people who voted for his party want to get rid of us.

Like in past years, Israeli Arabs marked Independence Day last week as the anniversary of the Nakba (the Arabic term, meaning "catastrophe," for the displacement of Palestinian refugees during Israel's War of Independence). Odeh and his family participated in a demonstration replete with Palestinian flags held near Kibbutz Kabri. His daughter waved a Palestinian flag that bore the word "return" in Arabic (so we wouldn't understand?). Others held up their fingers in a V for Victory, to mark the failure of their attempt to wipe us out in 1948 and their vision of doing so in the future.

Truth be told, Israel is still at war - by Prof. Efraim Inbar

The understandable desire for peace should not blur the discomforting likelihood that Israel will live by its sword for many years to come.

Prof. Efraim Inbar..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 459..
04 May '17..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-still-war/

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Israel just celebrated its sixty-ninth anniversary. Its citizens can be proud of its many impressive achievements, and particularly the building of a very strong military that has withstood many tests. Yet acceptance by all its neighbors has not been attained. Israel is still at war.

After several military defeats, the largest and strongest Arab state, Egypt, signed a historic peace treaty with Israel in 1979. The defection of Egypt from the anti-Israel Arab alliance largely neutralized the option of a large-scale conventional attack on Israel, improving Israel’s overall strategic position.

Yet Cairo refrained from developing normal relations with the Jewish state. A “cold peace” evolved, underscoring the countries’ common strategic interests but also the reluctance of Egypt to participate in reconciling the two peoples.

Jordan followed suit in 1994, largely emulating the Egyptian precedent. Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel also reflected common strategic interests – but was commonly referred to by Jordanians as the “King’s peace,” indicating a disinclination for people-to-people interactions with the Jews west of the Jordan River.

The inhibitions in the Arab world against accepting Israel should not be a surprise. Muslims seem to have good theological reasons for rejecting the existence of a Jewish state. Moreover, the education system in the Arab countries has inculcated anti-Semitic messages and hatred toward Israel for decades. Unfortunately, the dissemination of negative images of Jews and Israel has hardly changed in Arab schools and media.

White House Guests, Double Standards and Holocaust Denial - by Rafael Medoff

...In France, the National Front’s Jean-Francois Jalkh was compelled to resign because the force of public opinion made it clear that he had crossed a line. Civilized society does not tolerate Holocaust deniers. It should not tolerate Abbas’s version of Holocaust denial, either.

Rafael Medoff..
Opinion/JPost..
06 May '17..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Double-standard-on-Holocaust-denial-489928

A French political leader who referred sympathetically to a prominent Holocaust denier has been forced to resign in disgrace.

But a Palestinian political leader who referred sympathetically to the same Holocaust denier was welcomed at the White House this week. Why the double standard? Jean-Francois Jalkh, leader of France’s National Front party, resigned in disgrace on April 28 after it was revealed that in a 2000 interview he said it was “impossible” for the Nazis to have carried out mass murder with poison gas. As his source, Jalkh cited the convicted Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, whom he described as “trustworthy.”

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has referred to Faurisson in similar terms, in a bizarre and disturbing book that Abbas wrote in 1983 called The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement.

The central thesis of the book, which Abbas wrote as his doctoral dissertation at Moscow University, is that David Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders “collaborated with Hitler” and wanted the Nazis to kill Jews, because “having more victims meant greater rights and stronger privilege to join the negotiating table for dividing the spoils of war once it was over.”

Our job is to pick out the important stuff, the “signal,” and reject the “noise.” - by Vic Rosenthal

...The world is changing, getting less rational, more dangerous and more fragmented. Nobody will give artificial respiration to weak nations in a world dominated by Putins, Xi Jinpings and (maybe) Trumps. Israel won’t be protected by international organizations or laws, even if they were not subverted politically and turned against us. And it can’t depend on the US, which has its own problems that will only get worse. What will matter in the future, and already matter today, are facts on the ground and the ability to deter aggression. This is the real “signal.” The posturing of international diplomacy is just part of the noise that is intended to obscure it.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
05 May '17..

The latest UNESCO resolution on “Occupied Palestine” is both nothing and something.

It is nothing because it changes nothing. It cannot render “null and void” Israel’s possession of Jerusalem or its status as our capital city (echoing Hamas’ new document of principles, p.11). It cannot make Ma’arat HaMachpela or Kever Rachel “Palestinian” sites. And it cannot make UNESCO something rather than the nothing it has become, because its passage of a series of similar resolutions shows that it is a creature of anti-Israel politics rather than an organization to promote international cooperation.

On the other hand, the resolution adds to the massive accumulation of documents, maps, slogans, manifestos and resolutions in UN agencies, churches, and universities – none of which in themselves change anything – that declare that we, the Jewish people in their sovereign state, are nothing. A historian of the 30th century might come upon this pile of documents and believe that there is a country called “Palestine” that is “occupied,” although there would be a far smaller collection of sources testifying to the existence of a state called “Israel.” They might wonder how nothing can occupy something.

Although millions of Arabs, other Muslims, Europeans, Ha’aretz writers, and other enemies of Israel have been so far unable to dislodge the tenacious grip of the Jewish people from their land by force or the combination of force and guile called “diplomacy,” they have been able to produce thousands of tons of paper attesting to the proposition that we don’t exist, and to the extent that we do, we oughtn’t to.

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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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Washington Post’s chief correspondent in Israel goes to bat for paying Palestinian terrorists - by Stephen M. Flatow

...The Post recently announced Booth is being promoted. Sometime this summer, he will relocate to London to become the newspaper’s bureau chief there. Is there any chance his successors in Jerusalem will be objective reporters, rather than advocates for the Palestinians, like Booth? I’m not holding my breath.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
03 May '17..

The Washington Post’s chief correspondent in Israel has discarded all pretense of objectivity and is now openly lobbying for a political cause—and it’s one of the most distasteful causes imaginable: justifying the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) policy of paying imprisoned terrorists and their families.

William Booth, the Post’s longtime Jerusalem bureau chief, has never been very careful about keeping his personal opinions out of his news articles. But his May 3 report on PA payments to terrorists crossed the line from journalism to outright advocacy.

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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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Surprise! UNESCO’s Latest Resolution on Jerusalem: Much of the Same - by Amb. Alan Baker

...Sadly, UNESCO can no longer be regarded as an objective, universal, and professional specialized agency. As such, its special character as the educational and cultural organ of the UN has been gravely and irreparably polluted and prejudiced. For this reason, one might expect that serious and responsible states disassociate from and reject such resolutions and review their positions regarding continued membership of UNESCO. By the same token, one might expect the Palestinian leader to come to the President of the United States with clean hands.

Amb. Alan Baker..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
03 May '17..

On May 2, 2017, the 58 member Executive Board of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – an organization ostensibly devoted to science, education, and culture, adopted a resolution entitled “Occupied Palestine.”

This politicized resolution, initiated by the Palestinian leadership and formally sponsored by such paragons of educational and cultural virtue as Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, was supported by 22 nations including such sidekicks as Sweden, South Africa, Russia, Iran, China, Brazil, Vietnam and even Mauritius!

Twenty-three nations abstained, and 10 opposed the resolution, including the United States, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Greece, Germany, Paraguay, Togo, and Ukraine.

Curiously, the adoption of this resolution coincided with Israel’s 69th Independence Day celebration.

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Amb. Alan Baker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center and the head of the Global Law Forum. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as well as agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. He served as legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Israel’s ambassador to Canada.

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

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When Mahmoud met Donald: Thinking about the PA's Rewards for Terror scheme - by Arnold Roth

...Ben Cohen's Algemeiner article ends with a quote worth emphasizing from Grant Rumley, a Palestinian affairs expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noting the centrality of the prisoner payments issue to Palestinian internal politics. “Any change on the payments policy will cost Abbas dearly at home,” Rumley said. He's right. But we think the question for non-Palestinian Arabs is: so? Should we be worrying about the political future of this 82 year-old kleptocrat, inciter to hatred, and career politician now in the thirteenth year of his four-year term as president?

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
04 May '17..

We had a welcome opportunity yesterday to publicly express some things about the Palestinian Authority's blood-soaked Rewards for Terror scheme. That's not its official name but it does describe what actually goes on.

The occasion was a formal visit by PA president Mahmoud Abbas to the White House, and a perceptive article by Ben Cohen: "As Trump Meets Abbas, Victim Families Press Issue of Financial Rewards for Palestinian Terrorists" [Ben Cohen | The Algemeiner | May 3, 2017]

Some excerpts...

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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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While real Palestinian kids are dying in Syria - by Elder of Ziyon

...For some reason, the "pro-Palestinian" crowd are more interested in releasing people who kill Israeli children than they are in helping out Palestinian children. Perhaps their real agenda has nothing to do with human rights. Just a thought.

Elder of Ziyon..
02 May '17..

About 12 pathetic terror supporters took time out of their meaningless lives to "stand for freedom and dignity for Palestinian prisoners" in front of an electronics store in New York City last Friday. Passers-by didn't even want to make eye contact as they were badgered to accept propaganda sheets. Of course, "freedom and dignity" means the right to have more Arab satellite TV channels and the right to cook their own food in prisons. Not to mention air-conditioning.

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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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(Video) From Time Immemorial – The Everlasting Jewish Tie to the Land of Israel

On Israel's Independence Day, UNESCO passed a resolution demanding that Israel disavow Jerusalem as its capital.

TheJerusalemCenter..
03 May '17..
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsvw4NS1MnI&feature=youtu.be



This resolution is part of the ongoing Palestinian campaign to delegitimize Israel in the international arena and disseminate false history and libel against the State of Israel. It ignores the continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel throughout the past 2,000 years - as documented in this new Jerusalem Center video.



The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a leading independent research institute specializing in public diplomacy and foreign policy.

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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Peace deals are supposed to produce peace, not to double the number of casualties - by Evelyn Gordon

...Granted, extorting more Israeli concessions takes a lot less time than changing Palestinian attitudes. But the former has yet to produce anything but more names on the annual Memorial Day rolls. The latter might have a chance of someday producing genuine peace.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
02 May '17..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/terrorism/oslo-doubled-israel-terror-toll/

Today (Monday) is Israel’s Memorial Day, which is always marked by the release of official statistics on the number of Israelis killed in wars and terror attacks. If the Trump Administration is serious about wanting to revive an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, reviewing those statistics would be a good place to start. What those numbers show is that Israel’s annual death toll from terrorism has more than doubled since it signed its first “peace agreement” with the Palestinians. And that simple fact sheds light on both why the process has consistently failed and what would be necessary to reverse this pattern of failure.

According to the official statistics, more than 3,100 Israelis have been killed in terror attacks since Israel’s establishment in 1948. The press releases don’t offer any breakdown of this statistic, but more detailed information is available on the Foreign Ministry’s website. Those numbers (located here for 1949-99 and here since 2000) show that terrorists killed 1,176 Israelis from 1949 through 1992, a period of 44 years. But since 1994, they’ve killed another 1,538 people–a significantly larger number of victims in a period just over half as long. (My tally omits the 45 deaths from 1993 because I don’t know whether they occurred before or after the Oslo Accord was signed on September 13, 1993, as well as 379 deaths from 1948, most of which took place either prior to or during the War of Independence.)

In other words, prior to the Oslo Accords, the number of terrorist deaths averaged 27 people per year. But in the post-Oslo period, terrorist deaths have averaged 66 people per year–almost two and a half times as many. And the real increase is slightly higher, because the ministry’s figures don’t include 75 soldiers killed in two wars in Gaza in 2009 and 2014, although they, too, are attributable to the Oslo Accords. Pre-Oslo, Israel didn’t fight wars with the Palestinians, because the Palestinians controlled no territory from which to launch a war.

Needless to say, this isn’t what a “peace process” is supposed to look like. Peace deals are supposed to produce peace, not to double the number of casualties. Moreover, these casualty figures show that the Palestinians have blatantly violated the one promise they made Israel in both the original Oslo Accord and every subsequent accord–an end to Palestinian terror.

Hamas Taunts Bereaved Israeli Parents, NY Times Touts Hamas ‘Moderation’ - by Ira Stoll

Given other recent Times coverage or non-coverage (see “New York Times Finds Gaza Cancer-Patient Terror Attempt Unfit To Print” and “The New York Times Whitewashes Hezbollah Terrorism”), the newspaper risks slipping into such a disappointingly bad pattern that when and if it actually does cover something well on the Israel beat, this will be a “man bites dog” type surprise.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
02 May '17..

“Hamas Tempers Extreme Stances In Bid For Power” is the headline at the top of the front page of the New York Times.

You have to read all the way to the tenth paragraph of the story, inside the paper, to find out, “Experts on all sides of the complex struggle here say the new document is unlikely to represent any profound change in Hamas’s true position toward Israel. The group recently chose a hard-liner, Yehya Sinwar, as its new leader in Gaza, and it has still in no way recognized Israel or renounced violence.”

Well, if it is “unlikely to represent any profound change,” why in the world does it merit a top-of-the-front page headline in the Times?

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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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These are some of the things I learned living in Israel - by Forest Rain

...I learned that miracles are real. They aren’t a thing of the past. Not burning bushes but miracles nonetheless, things that should have happened but didn’t. Things that defy all laws of nature and statistics – like Israel itself. There is no other explanation for this country. Most of all I learned that other countries might be easier or more comfortable but there is no place like home.

Forest Rain..
Inspiration from Zion..
01 May '17..

Israel is something you have to experience in order to truly understand. This land is both less and much more than people tend to assume.

These are some of the things I learned living in Israel:

In Israel, I learned that “no” means “maybe.”

Rules are for the boring.

There always is a better way, there has to be a better way. It’s just a matter of finding it.

Stubborn isn’t a bad quality (necessarily). Neither is pushy. They are just ways to get things done.

In Israel, I learned that just because people complain doesn’t mean they aren’t happy. Loud doesn’t mean that people are angry. In Israel, loud means that people are passionate, that they care (it may not be what you care about but there is always passion about something).

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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 inversion/perversion of reality by the greatest historical/cultural thieves of all - by Vic Rosenthal

It’s ironic that the same people that accuse us of cultural appropriation of falafel are the greatest historical/cultural thieves of all.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
01 May '17..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2017/05/historicalcultural-appropriation-and-reality-inversion/

Imitation may really be the sincerest form of flattery. We Zionists, therefore, should be flattered that our deadly enemies have claimed our history and our land for themselves.

The enemies of the Jewish state and the Jewish people have been trying to reverse history and re-disperse the Jewish people. They employ increasingly sophisticated means, including war, terrorism, and lately a combination of these with a carefully planned and executed diplomatic and cognitive assault aimed at Israel’s supporters and Israelis themselves.

The cognitive part of the attack on our state and people is intended to delegitimize our claim to be the indigenous people of the land of Israel, and to replace us with a fictitious people, the “Palestinians,” who actually are a group of heterogeneous Arabs who have little common history prior to the 20th century.

Nevertheless, the story is that Jews are actually Europeans (this doesn’t account for the half of Israelis whose ancestors did not live in Europe, but nobody cares), and that the Arab inhabitants of the land of Israel have been here for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Jewish history and provenance in the land of Israel are denied, and “Palestinians” are falsely cast as victims of oppression, expulsion and genocide thus appropriating the historical experience of the Jewish people.

Denial of Jewish provenance is pervasive. Yasser Arafat said that there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and his successor Mahmoud Abbas joined him, despite massive archaeological and historical evidence for the existence of both the first and second Temples. UNESCO, prompted by Arab members, passed a resolution in 2016 referring to the Temple Mount only as “Al Aqsa Mosque/Haram al Sharif,” thus attempting to erase Jewish connections to the site. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat claimed to be “the proud son of the Canaanites who were there 5,500 years before Joshua bin Nun burned down the town of Jericho,” but he is actually descended from Hashemites who lived in Arabia before coming to Israel “many decades ago, but not centuries nor millennia.” Erekat is actually an old-timer among Palestinian Arabs, because many (if not most) of them are descended from migrants who came to Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Jewish history, the story of a people dispossessed from its land treated cruelly in exile, and triumphally reestablishing sovereignty in its historic homeland, seems to the Palestinian Arabs to be a powerful and appealing narrative, so they appropriate it and fit it to their purposes.

The sacred platter on which our country was given to us is more radiant than ever - by Dr. Haim Shine

On the 69th Independence Day of a country that rose from dust and ashes and the storms of war, it is possible obtain some kind of historical perspective that permits an extraordinary sense of pride for our country's achievements.

Dr. Haim Shine..
Israel Hayom..
01 May '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=18947

The sharp transition from Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism to the fireworks and dancing of Independence day festivities is at times overwhelming. The tears of grief have yet to dry and already an entire nation is out celebrating in multitudes.

In Nathan Alterman's poem "Images of Faces," which concludes his work "Songs of the City of the Dove," he wrote, "Not in peace, but in steel you were forged / not in sword, but in shovel you endlessly sought to rise. / But life and death are an inseparable pair." Indeed, Israel's Memorial Day and Independence Day are inextricably intertwined.

On the 69th Independence Day of a country that rose from dust and ashes and the storms of war, it is possible obtain some kind of historical perspective that permits an extraordinary sense of pride for our country's achievements. There is no other country in the world whose citizens succeeded in less than 70 years to transform it into a global power in every sphere of life -- in science, economy, culture, technology and military.

One needs many tomes to cover Israel's long list of accomplishments. Older countries, whose population is dozens and hundreds of times larger than our own, have been dumbfounded by the achievements of our tiny country on the fringes of the Middle East -- a country whose people were forced to hold a sword in one hand, and realize a vision and redeem a nation in the other.

Feeling a little bit guilty about not having agreed to lie down and die? - by Sheri Oz

There are plenty of other days of the year to dedicate to the hard work of seeing if we can resolve our problems with our neighbours.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
28 April '17..

Or: How did nationalism get such a bad rap? And: What’s a proud Israeli to do?

People on the left side of the political spectrum talk about nationalism as if it is a dirty word, something to be discarded for global(homogen)ization.

During the election campaign in the USA, many Americans expressed the sense that they care more for the greater common good of humanity than they do to “Make America Great Again”. Europeans fear a Le Pen win, in part because she may try to take France out of the European Union and revert to putting national interests above those of the European continent as a whole.

Israelis who support the two-state solution (TSS) argue that possession of rocks and buildings, central as they may be to Jewish history and our identity formation as a people, do not over-ride concern for the well-being of another group of people who claim ownership over this same land and these same buildings. TSS’ers say that Israeli national interests cannot be ethical if they are achieved and maintained at the expense of the national interests of the Arabs who now call themselves Palestinians.

Some TSS’ers may even deplore celebrations of our national pride, such as Jerusalem Day, arguing that marching through the Old City of Jerusalem holding flags and singing — “as if” we own the place — is insulting and humiliating to the Arabs who feel oppressed by us. Out of compassion, we are supposed to accept Naqba demonstrations at our universities as legitimate protests facing off against our own Israel Independence Day celebrations, and perhaps even to feel a little bit guilty about having won wars waged against us and not having agreed to lie down and die.

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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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Kairos claims, lies and anti-Israel fantasy - by Elder of Ziyon

The biggest irony is that Kairos, which traffics in lies, pretends in its own slogan that it tells the truth.

Elder of Ziyon..
28 April '17..

Kairos is the antisemitic Palestinian Christian organization that teaches supersessionism.

From Wafa:

A statement by Kairos Palestine, which describes itself as the Palestinian Christian voice, said it “expresses its support for the just and humanitarian demands of prisoners – children, women and the sick – and their families.”

It said “Kairos deems it intolerable to see prisoners engaged in an all-out hunger strike to obtain basic rights and humanitarian demands that should be granted to them as human beings and are applicable to all under international law.”

Remember, the "basic rights" being demanded under "international law" include a larger choice of cable TV channels, access to their own kitchens and free university education.

The statement said: “We view all prisoners as human beings whose dignity is granted by God; no man or occupying power has the right to deprive them of what was granted by God. The norm is freedom and a just peace for them and the entire Palestinian people. It is unjust for the majority of a people to experience detention and imprisonment in occupation prisons because they demand their freedom and dignity."

Hold on. The Palestinians were just getting to the point of falsely claiming that a million of them have been arrested and detained, but Kairos is now saying that a majority of them - meaning, presumably, more than half of the 4 million Arabs under PA control (or perhaps more than half of the 5.6 million Arabs in Israel and the territories, or maybe even more than half of the 10 million "Palestinians" worldwide) have been arrested by Israel or have been incarcerated in "occupation prisons."

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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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