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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Continue to Full Column)

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The U.N.'s Delusions About Israel, Facts Be Damned - JPost Editorial

...In 1975, Moynihan spoke of a practice at the UN “for a number of countries to combine for the purpose of doing something outrageous, and thereafter, the outrageous thing having been done, to profess themselves outraged by those who have the temerity to point it out.” Forty-four years later, and the rot at Turtle Bay is sadly continuing to spread.

Jerusalem Post Editorial..
02 December '18..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-UNs-delusion-573363

Former US ambassador to the United Nations and staunch Israel defender Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

For decades, the UN has repeatedly shown that it thinks it can set its own facts about Israel, history be damned.

Moynihan is known for, among other things, giving a speech against the UN’s 1975 decision that “Zionism is racism,” a distortion that he called an “infamous act” by which “the abomination of antisemitism has been given the appearance of international sanction.”

On Friday, 43 years later, UN member countries authorized six anti-Israel resolutions in the General Assembly, including writing the Jewish people out of Jerusalem’s history, showing all these years later that the institution has not changed.

A resolution approved by 148 countries, and opposed by 11 that are committed to the historic truth, denied Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. That and another, which was approved 156-8, spoke of al-Haram al-Sharif without mentioning that Jews and Christians call it the Temple Mount and that it is Judaism’s holiest site.

After the UN declared Zionism to be racism, Moynihan said in his speech: “As it is a lie which the United Nations has now declared to be a truth, the actual truth must be restated.”

The same applies to Friday’s decisions.

And Ahed Tamimi, who has publicly called for stabbings and suicide bombings, is decidedly no Rosa Parks - by Vic Rosenthal

In case anyone needs a refresher, the Jews didn’t kill Jesus, we didn’t poison wells, we didn’t start all the wars of the 19th century, we didn’t stab Germany in the back, we didn’t cause the Bolshevik Revolution, we didn’t poison Arafat, we didn’t knock down the Twin Towers, we didn’t make Bush invade Iraq, we didn’t create ISIS, the PLO is not the NAACP, we aren’t responsible for the actions of American police – and certainly not for the choices made by Donald Trump. And Ahed Tamimi, who has publicly called for stabbings and suicide bombings, is decidedly no Rosa Parks.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
07 December '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/12/blame-the-jews/

“Ahed Tamimi is the Palestinian Rosa Parks” – Aljazeera headline for an article by David A. Love

One of the most illogical – indeed, embarrassingly stupid – ways to criticize Israel is to make an analogy between the “plight of the Palestinians” and the condition of blacks in America, to equate the “Palestinian struggle” to the US movement for civil rights.

And yet it has been highly effective among minorities and on college campuses. It has been used by intelligent and (sometimes) well-informed individuals like Condoleezza Rice, by dog-whistlers like Barack Obama, and by rabble-rousers like Jeremiah Wright. In the age of intersectionality, it is taken as a given that racism against blacks in the US and “oppression” of Palestinians by Israel are similar phenomena, and that opposition to one kind of oppression demands opposition to all.

Progressive ideology insists that racial strife in the US and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have similar root causes, like capitalism (somehow), colonialism, and racism (defined as racial animosity plus power). Progressives like to put the conflict under a microscope with a very narrow field of view, but by doing that they exclude the broader context in which the narrower struggle takes place. The Palestinian struggle is just a subset of the much larger Arab and Muslim struggle to rid the region of Jews and extinguish Jewish sovereignty. Israel has a degree of military power that has so far enabled her to defend herself, but the balance of power – in terms of numbers, financial clout, and even international support – clearly rests with the anti-Israel side.

There is certainly racial/ethnic animosity on both sides, but the hatred that drives Arabs to stab or run down random Jews is only rarely seen among Jews. Colonialism? Who is indigenous, the Jew whose ancestral culture, language, and religion developed thousands of years ago here in the Land of Israel, or the Palestinian whose ancestors most likely came to the land in the late 19th or early 20th century (even as late as 1946), who speaks Arabic like an Egyptian or Syrian, whose religion is the Islam brought to the region by Muslim colonialists from Arabia, and who didn’t even call themselves “Palestinians” until the late 1960s? If there is a “root cause” of the conflict, it is Arab rejectionism, deeply embedded in ideology and religion, and amplified by every input they receive from their media and educational system.

So now consider the black Americans, who were brought to the country as slaves in the most horrible fashion imaginable, and then when slavery was finally abolished, faced systematic oppression ranging from legal apartheid in the segregated South to multifaceted informal discrimination elsewhere. Unlike Palestinians, they are not part of a coordinated effort to ethnically cleanse white Americans from their homeland. Most of their families have been in America longer than many (most?) other Americans. Their struggle against discrimination has been mostly nonviolent.

The ongoing joke of Palestinian ‘democracy’ - by Lt. Col. (Res) Maurice Hirsch

Apparently for the PA, holding general elections twice in 25 years is a sign of a “true democracy”.

Lt. Col. (Res) Maurice Hirsch..
JNS.org..
06 December '18..

In a recent Conflict Zone interview, acclaimed journalist Tim Sebastian grilled veteran Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator Saeb Erekat. While Erekat may not remember the interview as his finest hour, it could—and should have—been much worse had Sebastian pointed out a number of ludicrous statements Erekat made.

During the interview, Erekat argued that the Palestinian Authority is “a true democracy”, that Mahmoud Abbas “won 62% of the vote” in the 2005 elections for Chairman of the PA, and that “Hamas carried out a coup d’état in Gaza” in 2007.

Closer examination of these claims shows their inherent contradictions.

(Continue to Full Column)

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

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France and B'telem, partners in shame - by Dror Eydar

Here's a suggestion for the government of France – let's drop the pretense and call the prize by an appropriate name: the prize for the rights of those who oppose (sometimes with fire and bloodshed) the Jews' return to Zion.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
06 December '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/france-is-a-partner-in-shame/?redirected=323027



1.

On Dec. 10, two Palestinian organizations – one openly declared, the other of which uses Israeli cover – will receive the Human Rights Award from the French government. The two groups deserve each other, and they both fight against Israel and the Jews' return to their homeland. They both talk about morality, but their activities promote the opposite. They both work in response to international pressure on the Jewish state, which urges us to agree to their suicidal peace plans. One organization is B'Tselem, whose director Hagai El-Ad travels the world, slandering Israel and inviting the nations of the world to intervene and call to order these Jews who for some reason insist on defending themselves and holding on to their historic lands in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

This isn't the first time that the activity of El-Ad and his organization creates the impression that for them, human rights include everyone except the Jews. In the imaginary Palestine, which sees to celebrate the destruction of Israel, heaven forbid, El-Ad would be an honored citizen.

2.

The other organization being awarded the sketchy honor is Al-Haq, which hates Israel and the Jews and uses every platform to support the BDS movement and boycott of Israel, meaning wiping it off the map. In February 2016, the group declared it "the right of every individual to take part in and support BDS activity." Their call decreed that the European Union's steps to label products made in Israeli settlements was insufficient, and they are demanding a total boycott of Israeli goods. For them, all of Israel is a "settlement" that must be uprooted from the Middle East, under the guise of "protecting human rights."

Al-Haq encourages the world to fight Israel in the courts, over "war crimes and crimes against humanity" – a reference to our war against terrorism. The organization has suggested attacking the Israeli legal system by "flooding the Supreme Court with petitions in the hope of overwhelming its workload and resources." Last July, the head of the organization declared that convicted terrorists had a "right" to receive a salary from the Palestinian Authority.

This is how the organization described the events leading up to Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014: "On June 12, 2014, three settler boys disappeared near the city of Hebron in the West Bank; the three were later found dead." What do you think? "Disappeared" and "were found dead" – it happens, doesn't it? Like I said, this kind of "human rights" does not include the Jews' right to life.

Must have been the mole inside the Hezbollah tunnel - by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

How did Israel gain the intelligence information it needed to discover and booby-trap Hezbollah's tunnel and what does that mean for the future?

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Israel National News..
05 December '18..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23109

This week, for the first time, Israel made public its discovery of the tunnel constructed by Hezbollah and reaching into Israel's sovereign territory. This brought to an end a long period during which a large number of Israelis living in communities adjacent to the Lebanese border reported hearing sounds of digging as well as feeling tremors in the walls of their homes.

Attack tunnels are intended to allow for significant numbers of armed infantry bearing weapons, artillery and supplies, to traverse them within a minimal time span, avoiding Israeli lookouts and thereby gaining the element of surprise. An underground passage grants attackers protection from Israeli bombs, while it also means that the war begins on the Israeli side of the border, in the midst of areas populated by civilians. That fact allows for sudden forays and kidnapping.

However, the discovery and neutralization of the tunnel that Hezbollah dug into Israel's sovereign territory is a technological, operational and intelligence network accomplishment, for additional reasons:

1. Hezbollah based its plans for future wars on these tunnels. Nasrallah has not made a secret of his plans to take over the Galilee in the next war, but because Hezbollah has no means of air transport, it cannot land sufficient numbers of armed forces in Israeli territory, and the tunnels were intended as the substitute for an airlift. By discovering the first tunnel, Israel has eliminated the immediate use of this strategic method, but the IDF believes there are additional tunnels. An underground passage grants attackers protection from Israeli bombs, while it also means that the war begins on the Israeli side of the border, in the midst of areas populated by civilians.

2. The discovery of the tunnel has proven to the entire world that Hezbollah is acting in flagrant violation of the Security Council Resolution 1701 which brought the 2006 Second Lebanon War to an end. This resolution forbids Hezbollah any presence in southern Lebanon, but now it has become clear that not only is the terrorist organization in that region, it is also violating Israeli sovereignty. It is obvious once again that UNIFIL has neither the ability nor the interest to carry out the mission it was given by the Security Council and Israel has no reason to assume that the international community will act to ensure its security. This violation of a Security Council decision provides Israel with justification, vis a vis the Israeli public and the world, to attack Hezbollah.

Birthing a whole country of Marc Lamont Hills - by Stephen M. Flatow

Palestinian children are not born hating Jews or dreaming of destroying Israel. It takes an entire village, an entire society, an entire governing regime to make them that way.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.com..
05 December '18..

CNN has fired commentator Marc Lamont Hill for giving a speech in which he called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” In other words, he means the destruction of Israel.

But let’s not forget about a much bigger problem: an entire generation of Palestinian Arabs who want to create “Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

The Palestinian Authority has posted a deeply disturbing photo on the official Facebook page of the P.A. Presidential Guard. (Thanks to Palestinian Media Watch for exposing this.) It shows an Arab boy who looks to be 5 or 6 years old, holding a Palestinian flag and flashing a V sign.

That’s not the peace sign that antiwar protesters used to make during the Vietnam war. In Palestinian culture, it’s the “V-for-victory” sign. As in, victory over Israel.

Behind the boy is a huge map, twice his size, labeled “Palestine.” Now if the Palestinian Authority was really interested only in a state along the 1967 lines—as J Street and other pro-Palestinian apologists claim—then presumably the P.A.’s map of “Palestine” would reflect that.

No such luck. The map of “Palestine” covers all of Israel. All of it.

(Continue to Full Column)

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

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When They Say ‘From the River to the Sea’, What Palestinians Want, and In Their Own Words - by Elder of Ziyon

...If there is any iota of evidence that Palestinians can govern themselves in a more tolerant way than any other Arab state, I am anxious to hear about it. And if there is any evidence that a Palestinian state would treat its minorities better than Israel does, by all means enlighten me. The very idea is ludicrous, and even Israel’s most fervent critics couldn’t say with a straight face that a Palestinian state would be more inclusive than Israel is today. This means that the people screaming “from the river to the sea” aren’t interested in equal rights. They are antisemitic, plain and simple.

Elder of Ziyon..
Algemeiner..
05 December '18..

The Forward has a piece from Maha Nassar claiming that the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” really means a country where Jews have equal rights with Arabs in all respects. She says that Zionists are purposefully choosing the interpretation of that phrase that Hamas uses — one where Jews have no place in the land.

She is correct in saying that Fatah has never explicitly said that it would force Jews out of the land (although she concedes many might want to leave). That is probably true. But that is a long way from pretending that Jews would have the same equal rights in “Palestine” that Arabs in Israel do today.

So assuming that Fatah represents “mainstream” Palestinian thought (even though Hamas did win the only real elections they ever had), what is Fatah’s goal?

First of all, their goal is not the two-state solution. The 2009 Fatah platform, which is still in effect, says: “The objectives, principles and methods stipulated in the first chapter of the basic law (charter) of Fatah remain the key elements of our Movement and part of the intellectual and political entity of our people.”

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of the Fatah charter:

(Continue to Full Post)

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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Latest Campaign Against U.S.-Israel Police Programs is the BDS Version of Blood Libel - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Efforts to derail Israeli training for U.S. law enforcement reveal the link between BDS and anti-Semitism by attempting to blame Jews for police shootings in America

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Haaretz/Opinion..
04 December '18..

Jewish Voice for Peace can finally claim a couple of victories for its Deadly Exchange program. The Vermont State Police and the Northampton, Massachusetts Police Department have pulled out of a program in which law enforcement personnel take part in a week-long seminar on terrorism in Israel. Participants hear from Israeli and Palestinian Authority police and learn from their experience in dealing with the problem.

The program, which is sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, is more than a decade old and is one of those that have been targeted by JVP as part of its so-called Deadly Exchange campaign. JVP’s argument is that exposing American police officers to the techniques and ideas employed by Israel in its counter-terrorism efforts encourages brutality and mistreatment of minorities back home. The conceit of Deadly Exchange is that such training is both inappropriate for Americans as well as indirectly responsible for outrages like “police murders,” “shoot to kill policies,” “extrajudicial executions” as well as “spying” and “deportation and detention.” The claim here is that Israeli police are a force that is primarily interested in repression and violence and those U.S. personnel that learn from them are more likely to kill Americans.

The problem with Deadly Exchange is more than a matter of how you think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be resolved.

(Continue to Full Column)

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

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As expected, the New York Times and Hanukkah - by Jerold Auerbach

...“We have neither taken other men’s land, nor have we possession of that which [belongs] to others. … But we, having the opportunity, hold fast the inheritance of our fathers.” That inheritance is of little value to Lukas, and even less to The New York Times, ever eager to display its assimilationist identity and assert its patriotic loyalty.

Jerold Auerbach..
Algemeiner..
04 December '18..

Ever since Adolph Ochs purchased The New York Times in 1896, launching what eventually became the Sulzberger family dynasty that still presides over the newspaper, it has embraced Jewish assimilation. Judaism, for Ochs, was a religion only. Zionism was anathema to the Times, threatening to compromise the loyalty of American Jews to the United States. The restoration of Jewish statehood, two millennia after the destruction of Jewish national sovereignty in the Land of Israel, increased Times discomfort for publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Ochs’s son-in-law and successor. During most of the past seventy years, the Times has reflected the palpable uneasiness of the Sulzberger dynasty with the State of Israel.

As difficult as it might be to select the most obnoxious example of this distress, a recent Times opinion article surely deserves consideration. Entitled “The Hypocrisy of Hanukkah” (December 2), it was written by journalist Michael David Lukas, who had previously authored “A Skeptic’s Guide to Passover.” Clearly distressed by Zionism and Israel, he seems to find little value in Judaism other than as a target of his scorn.

(Continue to Full Column)

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

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Minorities, bereaved families, and wounded IDF vets tell New Israel Fund CEO: ‘Stop harming us’

A new series of videos addressed to the CEO of the New Israel Fund, Daniel Sokatch, call on him to stop funding organizations that delegitimize Israel and the IDF in the upcoming year.

CEO of the New Israel Fund, Daniel Sokatch

JNS.org..
03 December '18..

The videos include personal testimonies from bereaved parents, Druze and Muslim minorities, a wounded IDF veteran and a resident of the Gaza periphery, each stating how the New Israel Fund has “harmed” them.

“The New Israel Fund harms me as well,” states Israeli-Arab Issam Ottman, whose son Youssef was murdered in a terrorist attack in September 2017.

How The New Israel Fund Harms Me: Issam Othman:



“The NIF funds millions of dollars to ‘Machsom Watch,’ which according to testimonies of soldiers at the scene, a ‘Machsom Watch’ activist caused a disturbance at the checkpoint where the attack occurred and shouted ‘You’re a disgrace’ at one of the soldiers, moments before the attack.”

(Continue to Full Article)

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Another story BBC audiences are unlikely to be told - by Hadar Sela

...Not only are BBC audiences highly unlikely to ever hear that story but – despite being obliged under the terms of its Charter to provide “impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them” – the corporation will doubtless continue to describe that area and others as ‘occupied Palestinian land’.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
03 December '18..

As has often been noted here – most recently in relation to the Airbnb story – according to the BBC’s chosen narrative, any place which fell on the Jordanian side of the 1949 ceasefire lines is ‘Palestinian land’ (regardless of the fact that the Armistice Agreement specifically stated that the ceasefire lines were not borders) and any community populated by Israelis in those areas is a ‘Jewish settlement’ in either ‘East Jerusalem’ or ‘the West Bank’ which is portrayed as being ‘illegal under international law’ regardless of its history.

There is no place at all in the BBC’s simplistic and politically partisan narrative for nuances such as the fact that Jews lived for centuries in the Old City of Jerusalem before being ethnically cleansed by the Jordanian army. Neither is there any room in that frequently promoted portrayal for facts concerning places such as Neve Ya’akov or Gush Etzion where Jews legally purchased land years before the belligerent Jordanian invasion.

Last week a 22 year-long legal case came to an end.

(Continue to Full Post)

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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Iran's Funding of Palestinian Terrorists - by Bassam Tawil

The message that Iran is sending to Palestinian families is: "If you want money and a good life, send your children to die on the border with Israel." This is a message that is likely to reverberate far and wide among Arabs, well beyond the Palestinians.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatstone Institute..
03 December '18..

In keeping with its long-standing policy of funding anyone who seeks to destroy Israel or kill Jews, Iran has decided to pay stipends to the families of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who were killed during attacks on Israel. The decision refers to the Palestinians who were killed while attacking Israeli soldiers during the weekly Hamas-sponsored riots along the Gaza-Israel border; they began in March 2018 under the banner of the "March of Return."

What are the implications of the Iranian decision? The message that Iran is sending to Palestinian families is: "If you want money and a good life, send your children to die on the border with Israel." In other words, Iran is telling Palestinian families that the best way to improve their living conditions is by sending their children to kill or injure a Jew. This is a message that is likely to reverberate far and wide among Arabs, well beyond the Palestinians.

The expansion of Iranian influence to the Middle East in general and the Palestinian arena in particular began during the Obama administration, which turned a blind eye to Iran's aggressive intentions, and later embarked on a policy of appeasement toward its mullahs. Under the Obama administration, the Iranians must have felt they had a pass to do whatever they wanted. That is evidently why, today, they are sitting not only in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, but also in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Iraq.

(Continue to Full Post)

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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Hating Jews and Israel: Where David Duke agrees with Marc Lamont Hill, Linda Sarsour and Louis Farrakhan - by Petra Marquadt-Bigman

...The left likes to pretend antisemitism is an exclusively right-wing phenomenon. But every time the left makes statements about the world’s only Jewish state that appeal to the likes of David Duke, it proves that contemporary left-wing antisemitism masquerades as “anti-Zionism” while faithfully reflecting “the tropes, images and ideas of classical antisemitism.

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
03 December '18..

It’s often said that Israel is a divisive issue – but Israel-haters from the far-right and the far-left actually find a lot of common ground when it comes to the world’s only Jewish state.

So David Duke – described by the ADL as “perhaps America’s most well-known racist and anti-Semite” – has decreed that “no decent person can disagree” with Marc Lamont Hill’s views on Israel. Hill is a far-left anti-Israel activist who thinks the Jewish state too evil to exist and wants it eliminated in favor of a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

And while Duke doesn’t think too much of Women’s March leader and prominent activist Linda Sarsour, he does think she’s absolutely right to believe Israel exerts undue influence on US politicians…

(Continue to Full Post)

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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Anti-Israelism, or Worse, at Pitzer College - by Jonathan Marks

...While it has become the norm to apply a double standard to Israel, an obsessive and exclusive focus on the deficiencies of the Jewish state can be anti-Semitic. Because the double standard is the norm, there is no reason to accuse anyone on Pitzer’s faculty of anti-Semitism. But there is good reason to accuse those who voted against study abroad in Israel of permitting themselves to be swept up in an anti-Semitic current. That’s plenty to be ashamed of.

Jonathan Marks..
Commentary Magazine..
27 November '18..

The faculty of Pitzer College, a small elite California school, has turned a critical eye toward the college’s study abroad programs. That makes sense. After all, they’ve got one in China where, according to the State Department, the government restricts “political and social discourse at colleges, universities, and research institutes.” Academic subjects “deemed politically sensitive,” such as civil rights, are “off limits.” I mean, Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to turn the academy into a “stronghold that adheres to party leadership.” That doesn’t sound very Pitzer at all!

College campuses are sensitive to anti-Muslim prejudice. It’s no surprise, then, that Pitzer’s faculty might want to reexamine the school’s relationship with a country that, according to Sigal Samuel of The Atlantic, keeps an estimated one million Muslims in internment camps. In the camps, they are compelled to renounce Islam and “recite Communist Party propaganda songs for hours each day.”

It also makes sense that they’d want to get out in front of the situation in Brazil. There, campuses were recently “stormed by military police” and staff were “arrested for their political views in the wake of the presidential election.” Pitzer has a study abroad program there, too.

In Rwanda, according to Freedom House, scholars and students can be suspended for “divisionism.” Freedom House rates Rwanda “not free.” Among many other conditions, “space for free private discussion is limited in part by indications that the government monitors personal communications. Social media are widely believed to be monitored, and the law allows for government hacking of telecommunications networks.” That doesn’t sound very Pitzer either! But Pitzer has a study abroad program there.

So what study abroad program has so riled Pitzer’s faculty? The one at the University of Haifa in Israel.

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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 Marc Lamont Hill affair? Maybe Aljazeera will give him a job. - by Victor Rosenthal

...It might be controversial to fire a news analyst for taking an unpopular position on his own time. One could even argue that it’s his own business if he calls for the destruction of a state and the death or dispersal of its people, and supports violent terrorism. After all, it was said at the UN, where such ideas are commonplace. But his uncritical acceptance and regurgitation of the most blatantly false and misleading propaganda makes it clear that he is not competent in the role of political analyst for any media outlet that has the slightest regard for truth.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
02 December '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/12/the-marc-lamont-hill-affair/

Marc Lamont Hill, a CNN political analyst, went to the UN on Nov. 29, its annual “Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” which just happens to be the anniversary of the partition resolution which could have created a state of Palestine – but didn’t, because the Arabs couldn’t accept a Jewish state next door. Hill called for (video) “a free Palestine from the river to the sea,” accused Israel of “settler colonialism,” and spoke approvingly of Palestinian Arab terrorism:

If we are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, we must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend itself. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must advocate and promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing.

He also endorsed the program of the BDS movement, “the need to return to the pre-1967 borders, to give full rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and to allow right of return.”

I was planning to write about the history and meaning of the slogan “from the river to the sea…” and refute for the thousandth time the idea that Israel is a “colonialist” enterprise. I was going to explain yet again that “Palestinian” citizens of Israel do have full rights, and that “right of return” means converting Israel into an Arab-majority state. I was planning to present Hill’s explanation of why he didn’t really mean that Israel should be replaced by a Jew-free Arab state like the Jordanians created in the territory they occupied in 1948, and argue that he should have known better.

Well, screw it. I’m going to stop right here. I am tired of swimming in the sewers with people like Marc Lamont Hill. Either he understood the connotations of the words and phrases that he used, and knew that he was participating in an ugly annual ritual to whip up enthusiasm for uprooting the Jewish people from their homeland by terrorism and murder, or he didn’t know what he was saying. Is he in favor of terrorism and ethnic cleansing or just incredibly ignorant?

Is Fatah and Abbas trying to spark a new round of terror? - By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The question is why Fatah chose to post this speech now focusing on Ribat, which can include violence and terror?

Itamar Marcus/Nan Jacques Zilberdik..
Palestinian Media Watch..
29 November '18..

The Fatah Movement has reposted part of a violence promoting speech by Mahmoud Abbas that was used in 2014 to launch a terror wave.

Abbas gave the speech in October 2014 and then PA TV rebroadcast it 32 times. It coincided with a month of terror attacks in Jerusalem in which 11 Israelis were murdered in car rammings and stabbing attacks.



Abbas: "We must all carry out Ribat [religious conflict] in the Al-Aqsa Mosque... We have to prevent them, in any way whatsoever, from entering the Sanctuary... They have no right to enter it. They have no right to defile it. We must prevent them. Let us stand before them with chests bared to protect our holy places."
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Nov. 28, 2018, July 15, 2017,
rebroadcast of Abbas' speech on official PA TV, Oct. 17, 2014]

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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, Chanukah and the Single Basic Truth - by Nadav Shragai

...What Shimon the Hasmonean understood more than 2,000 years ago, and what our sage Rashi understood in his interpretation of the first verse in Genesis some 1,000 years ago, followed by Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and later Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and certainly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is that we exist here by way of force and of diplomacy, but, above all, we exist here by right.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
First posted 25 December '16..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=17979

We can continue the argument over the settlements with the world of U.S. President Barack Obama and his supporters in legal and diplomatic language, rightfully protesting his hypocrisy and hoping for better under incoming President Donald Trump.

But all this cannot be done without screaming in the ears of the world -- especially during Hanukkah -- a single basic truth, as Shimon the Hasmonean put it some 2,200 years ago: "We have not taken foreign territory or any alien property, but have occupied our ancestral heritage, for some time unjustly wrested from us by our enemies; now that we have a favorable opportunity, we are merely recovering our ancestral heritage" (Maccabees 1, 15:33-34).

Our real and imagined friends in the United States and all over the world must finally hear that the historical, religious, legal and emotional links the nation of Israel has to Hebron, Beit-el, Shiloh and of course, Jerusalem, is no less than that of the Palestinians. They must hear that we are not occupiers in our own land, and that we are connected to it with bonds of love, the Bible, heritage and nature; that the settlements in Judea and Samaria, as elsewhere in the Land of Israel, are the realization of justice and natural rights.

Seventy-One years on, Europe and the West is struggling with the acceptance of a Jewish State of Israel - by Daniel Kryger

When it comes to Israel and Jews, much of the West has regressed since November 1947 when Western democracies overwhelmingly voted in favor of welcoming the first Jewish state in 2000 years.

Daniel Kryger..
MiDA..
30 November '18..
Link: https://en.mida.org.il/2018/11/30/in-the-west-a-rising-tide-against-jewish-nationhood/

November 29 marks the day that, in 1947, the international community voted in favor of partitioning the former British Palestine Mandate into an Arab and a Jewish state. However, 71 years on, Europe and the west is struggling with the acceptance of a Jewish State of Israel.

In 1947, the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland was widely perceived as a just solution to unjust Jewish national homelessness. In 2018, a Jewish nation-state is increasingly seen by many self-appointed human rights advocates as an “unjust problem.”

A recent CNN survey on antisemitism reveals that merely 54 % of Europeans say that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. Ever since Israel pushed back the Arab aggression in 1967, self-appointed human rights champions have argued that the main problem is a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. The new comprehensive CNN survey shows that much of the supposedly liberal West has still not come to terms with the existence of a Jewish nation-state.

Ironically, outside of the Middle East, supposedly liberal Western European democracies lead the delegitimization against the sister democracy Israel. This wave of anti-Israel radicalization is also increasing among the younger generations of American leftists. When it comes to Israel and Jews, much of the West has regressed since November 1947 when Western democracies overwhelmingly voted in favor of welcoming the first Jewish state in 2000 years.

CNN Says Goodbye to Commentator Who Advocates the Elimination of the Jewish State

It is no secret that Marc Lamont Hill is a radical who hates Israel, promotes anti-Israeli violence and terrorism, and advocates the violent elimination of the Jewish state. After asking how long would he continue as a political commentator on CNN, our question has been answered. The network has finally severed its ties with him.

CAMERA..
29 November '18..

Nov. 29, 4 PM Update:
CNN has been under fire, including by CAMERA, for its continued collaboration with someone who increasingly expresses bigotry and promotes violence. It has now been reported that CNN has severed its ties with Lamont Hill.

It is no secret that Marc Lamont Hill is an extremist who hates Israel, promotes anti-Israeli violence and terrorism, and advocates violent "resistance" to, and the elimination of, the Jewish state. Yet he continues to be listed as a political commentator on CNN and a professor at Temple University, promoting himself as a journalist, author, social justice activist, and bombastically proclaiming himself “one of the leading intellectual voices in the country.”

The fact that he is still accepted as a mainstream “scholar” and “journalist” while using his activist status as a platform to incite anti-Israeli violence and the end of the Jewish state is particularly disturbing. How many times does he have to display his true colors before CNN finally decides that enough is enough?

How many times must his defense of the kidnapping and murders of Israeli children by a terrorist group, his advocacy on behalf of convicted Palestinian terrorists, his opposition to Israel’s use of an air defense system to protect its civilians from deadly rockets, his close association with noted anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, and his relentless, propagandistic lies about Israel be exposed? How many times must he repeat his opposition to peaceful resistance and how many times must he advocate violence until media outlets distance themselves from him? (See previous articles.)

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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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