Love of the Land

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Not a dialogue that can help bridge the divide between the two peoples, let alone promote peace - by Arnold Roth

And there's a clear take-away: That isn’t the sort of dialogue that can help bridge the divide between the two peoples, let alone promote peace. True dialogue involves airing disagreement and promoting respect for differing narratives, not one side affirming the stance of the other...

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
09 August '17..

In a well-argued opinion piece that appeared in Haaretz a few days ago, Jonathan S. Tobin (opinion editor of JNS.org, a Contributing Writer at National Review, an editor at Commentary Magazine, and for a decade up to 2008 executive editor of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia) tackles the way America's Jewish left

is deeply invested in a form of asymmetric dialogue that too often requires co-opting Jewish kids to denounce the sins of Zionism

In doing so, his essay, "It's not about flags: The real problem with Jewish-Palestinian dialogue" [Haaretz, August 3, 2017] addresses issues that we have touched on when expressing the deep disquiet we feel about one particular left-oriented group called Parents Circle Families Forum. Readers not familiar with that exceedingly well-funded organization or our criticisms of it might start here: “Behind the facade at Parents Circle, messages that are deeply disturbing to bereaved families”.

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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.

Israel, the Zvulun Regional Council and Ras Ali – A Bedouin Success Story - by Sheri Oz

North of Haifa there is a road that seems like it is going nowhere. I knew there was a town at the end of the road, an Arab town, but I had no idea what kind of town I would find there other than that it has a population of about 700-800 people, perhaps a bit more. Small.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
08 August '17..

There is lots of activity in the region, now that Highway 6 is working its way feverishly northward, including modernizing Highway 70, building tunnels and otherwise helping traffic move smoothly between north and south. A new road parallel to Hwy 70 has been paved for local traffic, but immediately after passing the Bedouin town of Khawaled, the road turns into the kind I often travelled decades ago in this country: not much wider than a single lane, twisting and turning along the contours of the land, with narrow dirt shoulders.

Signs at the side of the road promise that soon there will be a modern road here as well, leading to the small town at its end, Ras Ali.

After a number of twists and turns in the road, flanked only by rolling hills in green, gold and brown, I see a cultivated valley open up to the left of me. I then see buildings on a hill, but they give no real hint of what I will find when I turn the last curve before town, and when I finally do, my mouth drops open.

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Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Israel Slanderer and Boycott Advocate Waits for Israeli Lung Transplant - by Mordechai Sones

'Those who choose to boycott the State of Israel should show some self-respect and boycott all the services of the State of Israel.'

Mordechai Sones..
Shurat Hadin/Israel Law Center..
Link: http://israellawcenter.org/israel-slanderer-waits-for-israeli-lung-transplant/

Legal human rights organization Shurat Hadin, joined by 50 IDF reserve officers and soldiers, wrote to the Health Ministry and the National Transplant Center requesting that PA diplomat Saeb Erekat be removed from the waiting list for transplants in Israel.

About 50 soldiers and officers who fought in Operation Defensive Shield and who hold organ donor cards today petitioned the Health Ministry and the National Transplant Center to immediately remove Saeb Erekat from the list of transplants in Israel, due to the fact that Erekat has repeatedly slandered IDF soldiers, called for the boycott of the State of Israel, campaigned for sanctions against it, and led the BDS movement to isolate and harm the State of Israel.

Yesterday the media reported that an application had been filed on behalf of Saeb Erekat, a senior PA official, for a lung transplant in Israel.

In the wake of Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, and the reserve soldiers battle in Jenin in which 13 IDF soldiers were killed, a false propaganda film by director Muhammad Bakri, entitled Jenin Jenin, was released. The film purports to provide prima facie evidence of war crimes committed by the IDF in Jenin which turned out to be wholly spurious, as was decided by the Central District Court.

Erekat took a large part in disseminating the blood libel embodied in the film, which portrayed the story as if a massacre took place in Jenin when noting of the sort occured. Israel lost 13 soldiers in the city which it entered after dropping warnings from the air telling the residents to leave and then refraining from bombing from the air to prevent civilian deaths.. Erekat appeared at the time in the various media, mainly on foreign television channels, and disseminated the lie of the massacre.

In addition, in November 2010, Erekat wrote a letter praising the planner of then Minister Rechavam Ze'evi's assassination, and in December 2015 he paid a condolence visit to another family whose son carried out a shooting attack against IDF forces.

In addition, Erekat is an enthusiastic supporter of the boycott movement against Israel - BDS. He has visited EU representatives in the past because they did not support BDS, and asserted that all their support for the two-state solution is meaningless if they do not support the boycott of Israel.

Is there an award for being the most clueless Jew in the world? Is Arik Ascherman the winner? - by Vic Rosenthal

...Ascherman’s technical expert politely told him that he wished that he would stop harming the Jewish people. I couldn’t agree more.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
07 August '17..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2017/08/the-most-clueless-jew-in-the-world/

Arik Ascherman calls himself a “human rights activist.” I call him an anti-Zionist one. For years he has been doing his best to interfere with the Israeli authority in the territories, support Bedouin tribes squatting in the Negev, oppose the demolition of the homes of terrorists, and besmirch IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza.

Ascherman’s former organization, Rabbis for Human Rights, is paid for its activism by European anti-Zionists and the American New Israel Fund. He sees no moral problem in taking their money (he is no longer associated with RHR and has recently started a new Jewish/Arab organization called “Haqel.” Doubtless he will continue to take money from the enemies of Israel. Who else would support him?)

He works against the state because “all human beings are created in God’s image” and therefore it is forbidden to “discriminate” against any of them, even, apparently, those who murder us or steal our land and property.

But the other day he met a Jew who wasn’t clueless, and the interaction – documented by Ascherman himself to display his moral superiority – shows precisely what is lacking in his soul (or psyche, if you prefer).

Ascherman took some old recording media to a technical expert to convert it to digital form, and this is what happened:

Yet another universal human right that Mr Abbas is against - by Elder of Ziyon

...Anyone who thinks that there can be peace with the Palestinians needs to explain exactly how these tolerant, peaceful people would treat the Jews who want to pray at Jewish holy sites. And feel free to bring examples from the tolerance of the Muslims when they controlled those sites under Ottoman and Jordanian rule, as well as how the PA treats Joseph's Tomb today.

Elder of Ziyon..
07 August '17..

Every month or so, religious Jews flock to Joseph's Tomb in Nablus to pray. They do this in the middle of the night, under heavy Israeli police protection, because otherwise they would be lynched.

Under existing agreements, the PA is supposed to allow access to holy sites under its control. The Interim Agreement says, 'Both sides shall respect and protect the religious rights of Jews, Christians, Muslims and Samaritans concerning the protection and free access to the holy sites as well as freedom of worship and practice.'

Here is how the PA's official Wafa news agency describes the latest pilgrimage by religious Jews, who are willing to stay for hours in a virtual prison where walking outside could get them killed, in order to get a chance to pray at Joseph's Tomb:

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Monday, August 7, 2017

Does "international human rights law" demand that people who murder Jews be paid a lifetime salary? - by Elder of Ziyon

...Out of all the egregious, immoral actions of "human rights" groups, this is the most shocking. Answers must be demanded from not only PCHR but also from every one of its funders. And the answers must not be of the "let's sweep it under the rug" type where PCHR makes a half-hearted statement that gets eagerly swallowed by these governments and non-government funders so they can continue to throw money - often taxpayer money - to a "human rights" group that has just proven that it is the antithesis of human rights. As long as you consider Jews to be human, that is.

Elder of Ziyon..
07 August '17..

PCHR, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, held a workshop last month entitled “Consequences of Former Prisoners’ Salary Suspension on their Economic and Social Rights.”

The conference centered on some 277 former prisoners in Gaza, all of them Hamas as far as I can tell, who lost their permanent salaries from the Palestinian Authority. But the arguments that PCHR is putting forth in defending them are the same arguments that they would use to defend paying the thousands of prisoners and former prisoners, including murderers, who take up a significant part of the PA budget.

The workshop was opened by Dr. Fadel Muzeini, a researcher at PCHR’s Economic and Social Rights Unit. Muzeini emphasized that PCHR has paid special attention to prisoners and former prisoners over their years of work and always supported their just causes. He also stressed that the Palestinian Authority’s decision to suspend the salaries of former prisoners is unfair and in violation of former prisoners and their families’ right to a decent life. He added the decision is unconstitutional and explicitly violates the Basic Law and Prisoners and Former Prisoners Law No. 19/2004 and its amendments, which guarantee former prisoners’ rights to be monthly paid a salary according to a specific system.

Lawyer Raji Sourani, PCHR’s Director, reviewed PCHR’s position on the suspension of former prisoners’ salaries. He said that the decision of suspending former prisoners’ salaries was shocking to the prisoners, their families and all Palestinians as it is illegal, immoral, and violates the Basic Law and the international human rights law. Sourani also demanded the Palestinian Authority to apologize for this unjust decision, end this abnormal situation and regularly re-pay the former prisoners’ salaries, considering all of this as a lawful right for the prisoners and former prisoners.

The director of a lavishly funded human rights NGO says that "international human rights law" demands that people who murder Jews must be paid a lifetime salary for their efforts.

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How the Temple Mount Crisis Is Calling Me Home — to Israel - by Fred Menachem

...when the time is right, I’ll permanently return to my ancestral homeland to fulfill my deep responsibility and continue to do my part to make sure that the Jewish people continue to persevere, thrive and survive long after my time on this planet. That’s my covenant with God, the Jewish people and the future of the democratic and Jewish state of Israel. It is the Temple Mount crisis and the savage murders of my people that have sealed my fate and cemented that commitment.

Fred Menachem..
Algemeiner.com..
06 August '17..

This has been a particularly tough few weeks for the Jewish people.

The ‘crisis’ at the Temple Mount has given extremists in the Arab world the opportunity to use fallacious arguments, staged violence, propaganda and a skewed version of history to justify inciting and igniting violence and committing barbaric murders of Israeli Jews and non-Jews alike.

Oddly, but, not surprisingly, the mainstream international media — many of whom can’t see past their hatred of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu — seem to have forgotten that this entire crisis was triggered when three Arab-Israelis shot and killed two Druze-Israeli police officers. Sadly and ironically, these police officers were keeping the Mount safe for everyone, including Muslims.

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BBC Travel continues dishing up political narrative in a food item - by Hadar Sela

...As we see, BBC Travel’s promotion of sub-text political messaging in ‘life-style’ articles that potentially reach audiences less familiar with the political ins and outs of the Middle East continues.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
06 August '17..

August 3rd saw the appearance of yet another BBC Travel article belonging to the genre of ‘food as a hook for political messaging’ on the BBC News website’s Middle East page and – like the previous example – this one too was written by a freelancer – Miriam Berger – rather than by BBC staff.

Titled “The Palestinian dessert few can enjoy“, nearly half of the article’s 1,037 words are devoted to political topics rather than the Middle Eastern sweet (confusingly presented in this piece with three different names: knafa, kunafa and knafe) that is supposedly its subject matter.

That becomes rather less surprising when one is aware that the quoted ‘culinary expert’ Laila el Haddad is in fact a long-time anti-Israel activist who has used food for the promotion of her political narrative in the past – including at the BBC.

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Sunday, August 6, 2017

Surprise? NYT Art Critic Attacks Israel-Sponsored Exhibit on Eichmann Trial - by Ira Stoll

...The exhibit the Times reviews is at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan through December 22; feel free to use the money you save by canceling your Times subscription to go buy a ticket and see it. The Times review itself is a fine reminder of why such a museum, and such exhibits, sadly remain necessary. Perhaps the article could be clipped and added to the museum as an example of the kind of mindset that makes the Jewish state necessary to defend the Jewish people.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
05 August '17..

Just when you may have thought that the New York Times couldn’t possibly sink any lower when it comes to Israel or Jewish issues, along comes one Jason Farago, an art critic for the newspaper, who manages to review an exhibit about the murderous Nazi Adolf Eichmann and fault it for being, of all things, insufficiently sympathetic to Eichmann.

Farago complains: “The trial was transformative, but whether it was entirely just is not a question raised by this exhibition, which prefers the relics of James Bond-like spycraft to moral and legal dilemmas.”

Perhaps the reason the exhibit doesn’t dwell on these so-called “moral and legal dilemmas” is because they weren’t truly dilemmas at all.

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BDS, Turkey and the silence of the (anti-semitic) anti-Israel academics - by A.J. Caschetta

...Real suppression, however, making their persecution fantasies seem absurd, is mostly met with silence. Where is the moral indignation? Yet, there is no shortage of howls of "injustice" and BDS movements criticizing even the slightest perceived infringement of human rights in Israel, a country that ensures human rights and equality under the law to all its citizens.

A.J. Caschetta..
Gatestone Institute.
05 August '17..

In Turkey, academics are currently at the mercy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who demands their compliance and threatens dissenters. After last July's failed coup (for which Erdogan blamed an American scholar), a series of emergency decrees have specifically targeted Turkish academia. One would think this assault would raise ire from the ivory towers, but as Turkey slides deeper into totalitarianism, academia yawns. The failure of many professors to stand up vigorously and publicly for what they profess is especially notable in those whose careers are focused on the demonization of Israel through various attempts to destroy Israel by suffocating it economically.

All right, it is summer break and everyone is off doing research, writing novels and looking for grant money. But Erdogan's crackdown is not new. Most of it was ignored until January 2016 when he targeted a group of Turkish scholars who called themselves "Academics for Peace" for producing a petition demanding that the Turkish government "end the massacre of the Kurdish people."

Since the failed coup, Erdogan has increasingly behaved like a paranoid dictator flexing his muscles. In the last 12 months alone, he has closed at least 15 universities and confiscated their property. Invoking Article 301 of the Turkish penal code – which amorphously criminalizes insults to "Turkishness," the Turkish government or the Turkish military – he has also closed down numerous publishing houses. He has forced Turkish journals to remove from their editorial boards scholars who criticize him. Hundreds have been fired and blacklisted. Unable to work in Turkey and, with their passports confiscated, unable to leave, they represent the worst-case scenario of every comfortable Western academic who has ever bemoaned the "chilling effect" of Republican presidents and congresses, or who have proclaimed as "McCarthyism" any criticism of their own work. Real suppression, however, making their persecution fantasies seem absurd, is mostly met with silence. Where is the moral indignation? Yet, there is no shortage of howls of "injustice" and BDS movements criticizing even the slightest perceived infringement of human rights in Israel, a country that ensures human rights and equality under the law to all its citizens.

A letter condemning the Erdogan regime and supporting the persecuted academics is the bare minimum one might expect from an easily-piqued group of people who write for a living. Escalations in severity might include organized protests, media events and other kinds of activism to reach audiences beyond readers of The Chronicle of Higher Education and InsideHigherEd. Enlisting the help of celebrities comes next, followed by attempts at isolation in one of the few ways possible to an academic institution, such as cancelling conferences and sporting events convened in the offending state or country. Next come boycotts, calls for divesture of university-controlled funds and sanctioning various individuals.

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The unmaking of Palestinian Arab losers - by Arnold Roth

...Attacking Israelis, dying as a martyr, becoming the subject of acclaim and perhaps an admiring speech from highly-placed Palestinian Arab personages, all amount to an escape from the problems at home or in the town or village.

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

Amos Harel writing in Haaretz today ["'Revenge of the Rejects': The Real Reason Young Palestinians Commit Lone-wolf Attacks"] puts a pin in the "look-for-root-causes" balloon.

The IDF believes there have been more than 300 Palestinian-Arab-on-Israeli "lone-wolf terror attacks and copycat attacks", as they are refer to them, since October 2015. Harel says that when first confronted by the emerging reality, the military's intelligence organizations were at a loss to make sense of the waves of stabbings and vehicle-rammings.

They systematically addressed their lack of insight and preparedness by turning to the data. The chief focus was intelligence monitoring of Palestinian Arab social media. As he describes, it, they began with

an Excel sheet in which all the available information on the first 80 terrorists was entered. Clear patterns were spotted, with imitation the most prominent: 40 percent of the terrorists who struck in those first months came from the same seven West Bank villages and neighborhoods. Half of the attacks occurred at a small number of locations, with one attacker following in the footsteps of another. Based on this information, the Central Command tailored special security arrangements for the attack-prone sites, with the Gush Etzion junction being number one.

So while clearly the role of incitement is important, and invoking “Al-Aqsa is in danger,” as the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel - essentially Hamas - is an exceptional potent trigger, the underlying personal and psychological problems of certain parts of their society make them wide open and receptive.

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Saturday, August 5, 2017

Israel, Terrorism and the Foreign Press Association's Unlimited Bias - by Bassam Tawil

...perhaps such fair-minded reporting would demand too much of the FPA's time: were it to follow assaults on public freedoms and the freedom of the media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it would have to issue a statement of condemnation every two hours. Hardly a day passes without a Palestinian journalist or blogger or Facebook user being detained or beaten up for expressing his or her views.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
04 August '17..

The Foreign Press Association (FPA), an organization representing hundreds of foreign journalists who work for various media outlets in Israel, is upset. What seems to be the problem? In their view, recent Israeli security measures in Jerusalem are preventing reporters from doing their jobs. The FPA's position, expressed in at least two statements during the past three weeks, came in response to Israeli security measures enforced in the city after Muslim terrorists murdered two police officers at the Temple Mount on July 14.

Earlier this week, the FPA, which has often served as a platform for airing anti-Israeli sentiments, went farther by filing a petition to Israel's High Court of Justice challenging the actions and behavior of the Israeli security forces toward journalists during Palestinian riots in protest against the installation of metal detectors and cameras at the entrances to the Temple Mount. The petition demanded that the Israeli security forces stop restricting journalists' entry to the Temple Mount compound. It also complained of verbal and physical abuse against journalists by the police.

The FPA protest should come as no surprise to those familiar with the anti-Israel agenda of its leadership. This organization has a long record of black-and-white thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- and somehow, the Israelis always come out in the wrong.

While the FPA is teeming with self-proclaimed "open-minded" journalists, their minds seem closed to facts surrounding Palestinian violence.

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Friday, August 4, 2017

Surprise? Two Shalit Deal beneficiaries are at the heart of a just-busted Hamas terror-financing operation - by Arnold Roth

...Why don't reports of the post-prison exploits of Shalit Deal terrorists tell you what those jihadists did to be in prison in the first place?

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

How much damage did Israel do to itself by engaging with the terrorist thugs of Hamas in the 2011 Gilad Shalit transaction?

Whatever the answer, the toll is not static. It continues to grow and it includes innocent people murdered by terrorists who had murdered before they were released in the Shalit Deal and then murdered again once they were freed.

As we have said and written on numerous occasions since the catastrophic transaction was put together, we will regret the Shalit Deal for generations.

Here's today's update.

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Question. Did the BBC adequately explain the Temple Mount ‘status quo’? by Hadar Sela

...In other words, visitors to the BBC News website would have to have been lucky enough to stumble across one of three reports published on two separate days over a fifteen day period in order to get some inkling of what this story is really all about.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
03 August '17..

For anyone trying to understand the events ostensibly related to new security measures at entrances to Temple Mount in the latter half of July, familiarity with the history and terms of the ‘status quo’ operating at that site is obviously of prime importance. Without that information, it is impossible to make sense of Palestinian and Israeli claims or to reach informed conclusions about the story.

The history of that ‘status quo’ of course began in June 1967 when Jordan’s 19-year occupation of parts of Jerusalem ended after it lost the war it had launched together with Egypt and Syria.

“Within hours of Israel’s victory in Six-Day War and the unification of Jerusalem, the Minister of Defense at the time, Moshe Dayan, arrived on the Temple Mount and began to formulate the arrangements that would eventually be labeled “the status quo on the Temple Mount.” Dayan ordered the Israeli flag that had been raised at the site to be lowered and Israeli forces on the Temple Mount to be withdrawn to a position in the northern sector of the compound. […]

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A simple fact that all the professional peace processors and self-appointed Middle East “experts” still don’t seem to grasp - by Stephen M. Flatow

...All the professional peace processors and self-appointed Middle East “experts” still don’t seem to grasp a simple fact that an unassuming real estate developer-turned-presidential son-in-law evidently understands: the conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israel has no solution. A century of bitter and bloody experience has made that painfully clear.

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

When presidential adviser Jared Kushner said in a recent private discussion that “there may be no solution” to the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, he was just stating the obvious.

For nearly a century, self-appointed wise men have been claiming to have the solution, but every such proposal has proved to be a mirage.

The British thought they had the solution in 1922, when they sectioned off the eastern part of Mandatory Palestine—78 percent of the original mandate territory—and set up an Arab kingdom there, which came to be known as “Jordan.” You’d think that giving the Palestinian Arabs 78 percent of the country would be enough to convince them to let the Jews have the remaining 22 percent. No such luck!

England tried again 15 years later. The Peel Partition Plan of 1937 proposed to divide up the remaining 22 percent of the country. The Arabs would get three-fourths of it. The British would keep Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Jews’ dwarf-state would consist of the Galilee and a thin strip of land running down the coast. Jewish leaders, desperate for a few grains of sand, were willing to negotiate on that basis. The Arabs, however, refused.

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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.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

A massacre that never happened: The myth of Balad al-Shaykh - by David Collier

...This is how the Nakba myth is developed and propagated by sloppy historian activists who do not seem to care about the truth at all. An overestimate of twenty-one, became a massacre of sixty plus. In reality the death toll was probably nine. And all the while a file containing the truth was waiting to be uncovered in Kew.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
03 August '17..

This is the story of how a small engagement at Balad al-Shaykh, at the start of the 1947/1948 civil war in the British Mandate of Palestine, became the story of a full blown massacre with its own wiki page. I have uncovered documents that reveal the Balad al-Shaykh massacre is little more than part of the bubble of anti-Israel distortion. Here is the report:

It was new years eve, 1947. Both Jews and Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine had been suffering from widespread violence since the passing of UN resolution 181 on 29th November. The Jews had accepted the partition plan, the Arabs had responded with violence, and civil war between the two sides had erupted.

With the British due to leave in only a few months, and with the neighbouring Arab states threatening to destroy any Jewish attempts to declare independence, the situation was becoming increasingly bloody and desperate.

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(Thumbs Up!) The week Israel won Jerusalem - by David Suissa

...So, I’m not buying the conventional narrative that Israel lost last week. It didn’t. It tried to protect a holy site with a security measure that is ubiquitous around the world, and Arab Muslims went into a frenzy. Their rage was not directed at the use of metal detectors but at the Jews who had the power to put them there. Arabs know real power when they see it. The more anger and frustration they direct toward the Israeli security forces guarding the Temple Mount, the more they remind us that Israel is in control of the world’s holiest city. For anyone who values freedom of religion, that control is a very good thing.

David Suissa..
Jewish Journal..
28 July '17..
H/T Sheri Oz

It’s easy to see the latest brouhaha over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as a defeat for Israel. After all, Israel caved to Arab and Muslim pressure and took down the metal detectors it installed after Arab terrorists smuggled weapons into the compound and killed two Israeli security guards.

Israel takes action. Arabs protest. Israel caves. Arabs win — right? Wrong.

The Middle East is a complex jungle where what counts, above all, is power. Israel’s enemies know this. They know that yelling and getting angry doesn’t confer real power. It’s like the power of a kid throwing a hissy fit. The real power belongs to the party that has ultimate control — that has, in other words, the power to install and take down metal detectors.

This view was why Palestinian leaders continued maligning Israel and calling for protests even after Israel took down the detectors. They were angry that Israel flexed its power so blatantly at a holy place that they considered theirs and theirs alone. They were humiliated by a “status quo” that had Jews guarding their mosque. So they continued to lash out because, well, that’s all they could do.

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Another part of the Temple Mount ‘tensions’ story that BBC audiences were not told - by Hadar Sela

...On July 27th the BBC News website published four reports on its Middle East page...None of them includes so much as a word about the scenes that had taken place in Umm al Fahm earlier that same day.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
02 August '17..

In the early morning hours of July 27th the funerals of the three terrorists who committed the attack at Lions’ Gate nearly two weeks earlier took place in their home town of Umm al Fahm in northern Israel.

“Thousands of people attended the funerals overnight Wednesday of the three Arab-Israeli terrorists who carried out a terror attack at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem two weeks ago, killing two Israeli Druze police officers with weapons they had smuggled onto the holy site.

Some 3,000 people were at the funerals in the northern Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm, according to Hebrew media.

The burial processions included cheers and celebratory chants, as attendees vowed to become “martyrs for Al-Aqsa,” in reference to the mosque that sits on the Temple Mount along with the Dome of the Rock sanctuary.

Some flew the Palestinian flag. “Millions of martyrs are marching to Al-Aqsa,” the crowd chanted, in footage shown on Channel 2.

An unnamed member of the Jabarin family praised the attackers, telling Channel 2 they were “shahids” (martyrs), and saying “they received the respect they deserved with a mass funeral the area has not seen before.””

The organisers of the funerals claimed higher attendance:

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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

U.S. State Department's Report on Terrorism and Why It Should Be Discredited - by A. Z. Mohamed

...Like Abbas and the PA, the State Department report deserves to be discredited, and sadly -- along with its promotion of the criminalization of freedom of speech and its own attempts at censorship -- the State Department holdovers along with it.

A. Z. Mohamed..
Gatestone Institute..
02 August '17..

A newly-released report on terrorism by the US State Department so completely distorts the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Authority -- the areas it refers to as "the West Bank and Gaza, and Jerusalem" -- that one can assume the rest of its findings are equally inaccurate.

To set the stage for its unfounded and biased claim that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been engaged in a serious effort to combat terrorism, the report equates "extremist" Palestinians, who "continued to conduct acts of violence and terrorism in the West Bank and Jerusalem," with "[e]xtremist Israelis, including settlers, [who] continued to conduct acts of violence as well as 'price tag' attacks (property crimes and violent acts by extremist Jewish individuals and groups in retaliation for activity they deemed anti-settlement) in the West Bank and Jerusalem."

At the top of the list of supposed "continued drivers of violence" in the Palestinian Authority is an assertion even more fabricated:

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Well fancy that! BBC changes its tune on Israeli missile defence - by Hadar Sela

"...Technology has advanced dramatically with some of the most significant strides being made by Israel. Its interceptor systems and their associated radars – funded in large part by the US – have shown themselves spectacularly successful, even though against a full-scale onslaught even Israel’s system would be sorely tested.” Well fancy that!

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
02 August '17..

Back in March 2013, the BBC’s defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus wrote an article entitled “Israel’s Iron Dome: Doubts over success rate” which appeared on the Middle East page of the BBC News website.

“A leading US expert on missile defence has raised doubts about the efficacy of Israel’s Iron Dome defence system.

Israeli officials say it hit some 84% of the targets engaged in last year’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

But Professor Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests the defence system’s success rate may have been “drastically lower”.”

Mr Marcus took great exception at the time to our critique of the claims made by his source. Six weeks later, the BBC News website published filmed and written reports by Kevin Connolly on the same subject, asking “Does Israel’s Iron Dome actually work?”.

Fast forward to July 4th 2017...

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(Saeb Erekat hypocrisy edition) Israel must be boycotted, unless it is too inconvenient - by Elder of Ziyon

...Erekat could go to Europe or an Arab country to get the transplant and treatment. But - he chooses Israel. The hypocrisy doesn't end there. The PA has recently slashed the number of medical permits for Gazans to get treated in Israel, but for Erekat, of course, he must get the best medical care possible.

Elder of Ziyon..
01 August '17..

We've seen before how BDS activists talk big about boycotting Israel - meaning, everyone else must boycott Israel.

We know how Omar Barghouti wants everyone to boycott Israeli universities while he attended (attends?) one. We've seen how BDS groups happily use Israeli website technology - and even try to justify it!

Add to this list Saeb Erekat. Erekat has publicly called for BDS in Europe. But now, he needs medical help in Israel, and he doesn't hesitate to use it:

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Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Tisha B’Av: Yes, Jews Were Here First - by Daniel Pomerantz

...Tisha B’Av is a story of perseverance in the face of destruction and terrible sadness. Zionism is the inspiring story of an ancient, indigenous people returning to their native land. These stories are two sides of the same coin: ancient dispersal and modern return, tragedy and renewal, longing and home. Together, Tisha B’Av and Zionism tell a tale of life itself that applies to every human, and to all of humanity.

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
31 July '17..

Remembering catastrophe.

It’s known as the “saddest day on the Jewish calendar.” Many Jews will fast and some will even observe traditional mourning rituals. This is because Tuesday is Tisha B’Av: a holiday that commemorates a number of tragedies throughout Jewish history.

One of those many tragedies strikes me as especially meaningful today: the destruction of the “Second Temple,” and of the entire Jewish nation-state, some 2,000 years ago. This destruction continues to impact us today: in fact it gives meaning to the entire concept of modern Zionism.

Think about what this means.

The simple existence of the holiday of Tisha B’Av implies something extraordinary:

The Jewish people were living in the Land of Israel long before Christianity even existed, before Islam, before the current nations of Europe came to be, and not only before America was formed but even before the known Native American tribes had formed.

Jews are indigenous people. One of the oldest we know.

In a saga common to many indigenous peoples, Jews were massacred, exiled, enslaved and oppressed. Yet the Jewish people survived and endured, until a startling turn of events, a “mere” 1,878 years later, when Jews became one of the rare indigenous peoples to actually return to their native land, and re-build an independent nation.

It is a story called “Zionism.”

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Tisha B'Av and the memory that commands us to live - by Dror Eydar

Remembering this day is what enabled us to arise from the ashes and return to our land after being on the margins of history for centuries. Here we are, in our independent country, 1,947 years after the Second Temple was destroyed, and the memory is still alive and well, infusing us with motivation, inspiration and strength. Thanks to the power of memory, we were wise enough to keep our assimilation a matter of appearance only, because we were expecting to wake from this long nightmare at any moment and restore ourselves to what we used to be.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
01 August '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19587

Today is Tisha B'Av. We remember the destruction of our country and our Temples, or the reasons for that. Today is Tisha B'Av, and all the troubles visited upon us as a nation and as individuals are buried under and bound up with the pain of this day.

The Prophet Jeremiah, who foretold the destruction of the Temple in the sixth century BCE, put this at the very top of the lamentations that are read out each year: "Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress" (Lamentations 1:3).

Remembering this day is what enabled us to arise from the ashes and return to our land after being on the margins of history for centuries. Here we are, in our independent country, 1,947 years after the Second Temple was destroyed, and the memory is still alive and well, infusing us with motivation, inspiration and strength. Thanks to the power of memory, we were wise enough to keep our assimilation a matter of appearance only, because we were expecting to wake from this long nightmare at any moment and restore ourselves to what we used to be. Thanks to the power of memory, Rabbi Moshe Ben Nahman (the Ramban) arrived in Jerusalem in the year 1267 to re-establish the city's Jewish population, and the memory of Jerusalem gave the Jews expelled from Spain the courage and comfort to keep going in the countries where they scattered.

Today is Tisha B'Av, and if it weren't for this day, we would not have survived as a people. We would not know our traditions or our history, and we would not have brought the world the great spiritual treasures we created in the Diaspora. If it weren't for Tisha B'Av and the memory of grieving for Zion, Zionism would never have been born, and a sovereign Israel would have remained confined to the pages of history, never again to become a living entity.

Temple Destruction: The Story of the Last Refugees (Video)

Archaeologist Eli Shukron describing the discovery of the tunnel and the story of the last Jewish refugees hiding in the tunnel after the days of the Temple Destruction by the Romans

City of David..
cityofdavid.org..
First Posted 09 August '16..

Link: http://www.cityofdavid.org.il/en/news/temple-destruction-story-last-refugees

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Monday, August 7, 2017

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Friday, August 4, 2017

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

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