Iran, Obama, Boehner and Netanyahu by Caroline Glick

...The role of an Israeli leader is to adopt the policies that protect Israel, even when they are unpopular at the White House. Far from being ostracized for those policies, such an Israeli leader will be supported, respected, and relied upon by those who share with him a concern for what truly matters.

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com..
22 January '15..

Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.

On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.

On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.

The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.

Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress by House Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner has asked Netanyahu to address US lawmakers on February 11 regarding Iran’s nuclear program and the threat to international security posed by radical Islam.

Opposition leaders were quick to accuse Boehner and the Republican Party of interfering in Israel’s upcoming election by providing Netanyahu with such a prestigious stage just five weeks before Israelis go to the polls.

Labor MK Nachman Shai told The Jerusalem Post that for the sake of fairness, Boehner should extend the same invitation to opposition leader Isaac Herzog.

But in protesting as they have, opposition members have missed the point. Boehner didn’t invite Netanyahu because he cares about Israel’s election. He invited Netanyahu because he cares about US national security. He believes that by having Netanyahu speak on the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and radical Islam, he will advance America’s national security.

"I Am Knife"

...The hatred of Israelis, of Jews, has become such a public experience, that people on social media appropriated the recent homage to those murdered at the French satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine, “#JeSuisCharlie, and created their own version: #JeSuisCouteau, which means “I Am Knife.” The people using this hashtag, frequently accompanied by grotesque cartoons of stabbed Jews or glorifying pictures of knives, are celebrating the vicious attack on Jews.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
22 January '15..








From the Daily Mail UK, January 21, 2015:

A hashtag that states 'I am knife' has begun trending on Twitter as hardline users take to social media to heap praise a Palestinian man who stabbed 11 people on a bus in Tel Aviv. The messages are an attempt to reappropriate the hashtag of solidarity - #JeSuisCharlie - which swept the world in the wake of the terrorist massacre at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices. However, the tweets - often accompanied by illustrations which depict the Palestinian flag and a bloody knife - are being posted in support of the stabber, who was shot by a prison officer after injuring 11 people in a brutal act of violence.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, writing on The Jewish Press website today notes

The hatred of Israelis, of Jews, has become such a public experience, that people on social media appropriated the recent homage to those murdered at the French satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine, “#JeSuisCharlie, and created their own version: #JeSuisCouteau, which means “I Am Knife.” The people using this hashtag, frequently accompanied by grotesque cartoons of stabbed Jews or glorifying pictures of knives, are celebrating the vicious attack on Jews.What follows are many examples of the tweets and Tumblr posts glorifying the weapon used to attack Israelis.

Please click through to see the sickening gallery of malevolence collected there. And then let's ask ourselves where the media outrage is.

(Continue)

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 as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

New York Times' Apparently Struck by Amnesia in Recounting Hezbollah's Past Actions

...Barnard obscures and distorts events of recent memory. Her failure to accurately ascribe blame for the start of the 2006 summer war to Hezbollah’s surprise attack and her failure to convey that Imad Mughniyah was foremost a chief terrorist, contrasts with the clearcut descriptions provided by the Times own reporters several years ago. It is further evidence of a continuing decline in the quality of reporting at the New York Times when it comes to dealing with conflicts involving Arabs and Israel.

Steven Stotsky..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
21 January '15..

Anne Barnard's report on the alleged Israeli airstrike that killed several senior Iranian officers and Hezbollah operatives "Iran Confirms Israeli Airstrike in Southern Syria Killed One of Its Generals" (Jan. 20, 2015) demonstrates how The New York Times' entrenched bias against Israel diminishes the newspaper's journalism. Barnard evinces amnesia in recounting the start of the Israeli-Hezbollah confrontation in 2006 and central role of a Hezbollah operative in fomenting international terrorism.

Two statements in Barnard's dispatch stand out for their misleading accounting of recent history.

Recalling the last big confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah, Barnard writes, "The last major war between Israel and Hezbollah was set off, analysts generally agree, by miscalculations on both sides about how the other would respond to provocation."

Barnard's "analysts" remain anonymous and for good reason, because serious analysts would not embarrass themselves by issuing such a noncommital statement on how the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah started. Barnard need go no further than to review her own newspaper's account of how the war was "set off." On July 13, 2006 this is what the Times reported,

The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah surprised Israel with a bold daylight assault across the border on Wednesday, leading to fighting in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and at least eight killed, and elevating recent tensions into a serious two-front battle...

The Israeli government also confirmed that Hezbollah fired several Katyusha rockets into northern Israel, injuring three people.

The White House released a statement condemning the Hezbollah raid, calling it an "unprovoked act of terrorism" and holding Syria and Iran responsible because of their longstanding support for the group.

The United Nations representative to southern Lebanon, Gier Pedersen, also criticized the raid, calling it "an act of very dangerous proportions."

There is nothing ambiguous about the Times report in 2006; it plainly contradicts Barnard's nebulous statement ascribing responsibility to "miscalculations by both sides." Barnard's failure to put the blame where it clearly lies, on Hezbollah, is consistent with the recurring theme of her report, which is to cast Israel as responsible for ratcheting up the conflict.

The World's Encouragement of Hamas to Recruit Child Soldiers

...You might call this the “dead teenager” variant of Hamas’s strategy: Fan international hatred of Israel by recruiting child soldiers whose deaths will be reported worldwide as “Israel kills innocent children.” And as long as the international community keeps collaborating with this strategy, Hamas will have every incentive to keep right on recruiting child soldiers.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
21 Januaury '15..

Hamas is currently recruiting thousands of Palestinians aged 15 to 21 into its new “Liberation Army” in Gaza, journalist Khaled Abu Toameh reported today. So on top of the fact that it’s spending its money on a military buildup even as thousands of residents of Hamas-controlled Gaza remain homeless with no help in sight, half the age cohort Hamas seeks to recruit consists of people under 18, whom the United Nations and international human-rights groups define as children. Recruiting child soldiers is generally considered a gross violation of human rights. Yet far from condemning this behavior, the “international community” is actively encouraging it.

After all, you don’t hear much about Hamas’s recruitment efforts from the UN, the EU, the media or major human-rights organizations. But if those child soldiers are someday killed fighting Israel, all of these bodies will vie over who can condemn Israel for “killing children” most vociferously. And it’s precisely that reaction that makes recruiting child soldiers a win-win for Hamas: By so doing, not only can it significantly expand its fighting forces, but it can also ensure that Israel suffers international vilification whenever a war breaks out–all without suffering any negative consequences to itself.

In fact, it’s a triple win for Hamas, because this tactic doesn’t only endanger the child soldiers themselves; it also endangers innocent 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds. After all, if Hamas is recruiting children this age into its “army,” then Israeli soldiers have to treat every male in that age range as a potential combatant. And in the fog of battle–where it’s often hard for soldiers to tell exactly who is shooting at them, especially since Hamas operatives don’t wear uniforms and frequently open fire from amid civilians–anyone who looks like a potential combatant is more likely to be killed. Thus Israel will be accused of killing even more children.

During last summer’s war in Gaza, for instance, the “official” UN statistics reported worldwide asserted that almost a quarter of the Palestinian fatalities–24 percent–were children. Most people, hearing a figure like that, are shocked and appalled, and immediately conclude that Israel was at best guilty of using excessive force and at worst of war crimes. Consequently, Hamas benefits when this figure is inflated; Alan Dershowitz aptly termed this Hamas’s “dead-baby strategy.”

But it only works because the UN, the media, human-rights groups, world leaders, and all the other sources people depend on for information collaborate with it.

Amazing! How Turkey made Hamas mainstream

...“Everybody can see how much of a difference there is between Hamas’ previous line and its current stance. The country that has made the biggest contribution to this is Turkey,” Mr. Çavuşoğlu said. Indeed, one must either be blind, dumb or a Zionist not to see the difference.

Burak Bekdil..
hurriyetdailynews.com
21 January '15..

A news story in this newspaper quoted Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu as claiming that Turkey’s relationship with Hamas had helped make the militant Palestinian group “mainstream.”

“Everybody can see how much of a difference there is between Hamas’ previous line and its current stance. The country that has made the biggest contribution to this is Turkey,” Mr. Çavuşoğlu said.

Indeed, one must either be blind, dumb or a Zionist not to see the difference.

From Hamas’ old charter, back in the militant times of 1987:

- “Hence our permanent state of preparedness and our readiness to sacrifice our souls and dearest [possessions]."

- “Our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world."

- “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them)."

- “The slogan: Allah is the goal, the Prophet the model, the Quran the Constitution, Jihad the path. Death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of wishes."

- “A woman may fight the enemy even without her husband’s authorization, and a slave without his master’s permission."

- “[Peace] initiatives ... to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement ... There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad."

- “We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Ummah, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters..."

- “I swear by the holder of Muhammad’s soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed..."

- “Jihad means not only carrying arms and denigrating the enemies. Uttering positive words, writing good articles and useful books, support and solidarity and assistance, all that is Jihad too..."

- “Whoever mobilizes a fighter for the sake of Allah is himself a fighter..."

- “Hamas is a humane movement that cares for human rights ... It is only possible for the members of the three religions to coexist in safety under the shadow of Islam ... Safety and security can only prevail under the shadow of Islam...”

Now, the following are from Hamas' charter since it has gone mainstream:

Bias, Human Rights Watch and the Destruction of Rafah

...HRW’s pattern of bias toward Israel is seen in what it says, and here in what it does not say. Destruction of homes by Israel for security reasons: a violation of international law that must be denounced at length and repeatedly. Destruction of homes by Egypt in essentially the same location for essentially the same reasons: silence. Maybe a new 20-page HRW report on Egyptian Rafah is in the works. Maybe there are dozens of statements by HRW about “Razing Rafah” on the Egyptian side of the border and I just haven’t been able to find them. Maybe there really is no bias in HRW’s coverage of Israel. But it doesn’t look that way.

Smoke rises after a house is blown up
during a military operation by Egyptian security
forces in the Egyptian city of Rafah, near the
border with southern Gaza Strip October 29, '14.
(Suhaib Salem/Courtesy: Reuters)

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
20 January '15..

Rafah is a town in Egypt, on the border of Gaza, that will soon cease to exist. The government of Egypt is destroying it, leaving thousands of Egyptians homeless, in an effort to create a buffer zone along the border.

Here’s a Jerusalem Post story from late last year story noting the facts and the Amnesty International reaction to them:

Egypt has forcibly evicted an estimated 1,165 families in Rafah so that it can clear a buffer zone by the Gaza Strip border, charged the human-rights group Amnesty International, which is concerned that additional homes will be demolished in the coming weeks.

“The scale of the forced evictions has been astonishing; the Egyptian authorities have thrown more than 1,000 families out of their homes in just a matter of days, flouting international and national law,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said….“Shocking scenes have emerged of homes in Rafah being bulldozed, bombed, with entire buildings reduced to piles of rubble and families forcibly evicted,” Sahraoui said.

That was November 20, 2014; since then there have been more evictions. On January 8, 2015 The New York Times reported that:

Egypt began evacuating hundreds of families from a town bordering the Gaza Strip on Thursday after a senior official acknowledged that the military was eradicating the town in order to complete a security zone abutting the Palestinian territory.

Ten or twenty thousand people will be moved out forcibly. The government claims that they will all be getting fair compensation, but anyone with knowledge of the incompetence and corruption of the Egyptian bureaucracy will doubt that.

A Beauty Pageant Selfie Offers a ‘Middle East for Dummies’ Tutorial

...That one picture was worth a million words of nonsense about the Middle East conflict being a misunderstanding or a problem that could be solved with enough good will on the part of both sides. The State Department should consider it a free “Middle East for Dummies” tutorial. Until Lebanese beauty contestants are not afraid to have their pictures taken with Jews, the diplomats should not bother trying to pretend their efforts will be enough to solve the problem.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
20 January '15..

The Miss Universe Pageant is a rather silly made-for-television event owned by entrepreneur and celebrity Donald Trump. But this piece of junk food for the mind has nevertheless provided the universe, or at least the portion of it that includes this planet, a tutorial in the realities of the Middle East that one cannot get from reading, say, the editorials of the New York Times or the statements about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that come out of the mouths of people like President Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry. And all it took was one selfie from Miss Israel.

The controversy arises from an incident during a photo session before the Miss World festivities began during which the contestants were also talking photos of each other. Miss Israel, Doron Matalon, took a photo of herself and a few other participants, including Saly Greige, Miss Lebanon, in which the young ladies are all smiling while dressed in shirts with their country’s names. The photo was predictably circulated on social media but the reaction involved more than the usual appreciation for the sight of a few pretty girls. Lebanese who saw it were enraged at Greige, who was reviled for treason for being depicted as engaging in normal friendly relations with an Israeli.

This sort of thing had happened once before when the 1993 version of Miss Lebanon was pictured next to that year’s Miss Israel. She was subsequently stripped of her title and ostracized as a traitor.

So to save herself from such an ignominious end, Greige claimed that she had been photo-bombed by the Israeli and then posted a new version of the same picture with Matalon cropped out. Perhaps that lame story will be enough to keep her out of the soup in a country that is dominated by terrorist militias like Hezbollah and where hatred for Israel and Jews is endemic. In response, Matalon merely said she was “sad” that her Arab counterparts were not allowed to put aside official hostility for even the three weeks of the event.

But there’s more to this story than just an embarrassing and potentially dangerous moment of fraternization for one Lebanese woman.

The exchange encapsulated the essence of why peace in the Middle East has eluded generations of diplomats.

Has Packing Time for France’s Jews Arrived?

...It’s true that Israelis run greater personal risks than French Jews. Then again, Israelis needn’t rely on the rectitude of those in power (however long they may remain in power) to see their children home safely from school. It’s also true that leaving France is a victory of sorts for French anti-Semites. But the point of living isn’t to win arguments with bigots. Settle your affairs, pack your things, leave home, go home.

Bret Stephens..
Wall Street Journal..
19 January '15..

Should French Jews move out? Does it make sense for a community that, in this century, has lost roughly 10 people to jihad in France, to pack up and go to Israel—where jihadis have claimed more than 1,000 Jewish lives? Haven’t the leaders of the Fifth Republic demonstrated in word and deed that they are committed to the protection of Jewish property and life?

The answer to that last question is yes, they have. The problem isn’t the Fifth Republic, in which French Jews have, on the whole, thrived. The problem is the arrival, sooner or later, of the Sixth. Which is why French Jews need to leave sooner rather than later, despite the disruption and risk, while the exits are not blocked and the way is still open.

Perhaps inadvertently, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls made the basic point last week when he told his Parliament that “history has taught us that the awakening of anti-Semitism is a symptom of a crisis for democracy and of a crisis for the Republic.” Very true, but if anti-Semitism is the symptom of the crisis, then ringing Jewish schools, synagogues, groceries and neighborhoods with gendarmes is not its cure. Necessity is proof of insufficiency.

So what is the crisis of France’s democracy and Republic?

Partly it’s political: Every Fifth Republic presidency (with the arguable exception of François Mitterrand’s) has ended in failure. Partly it’s economic: Since 1978, French economic growth has clocked in at an average rate of 0.45%; unemployment hasn’t fallen below 7% in over 30 years. Partly it’s ideological: Égalité begat egalitarianism, and egalitarianism is what animates the politics of envy. Partly it’s cultural: Too many French Muslims don’t want to conform to the norms of modern society, and too many French don’t want to conform to the realities of a globalized world. When National Front leader Marine Le Pen says “the multinational interests that impose their own ways are not good for France,” she is attempting to stuff the French body politic into an economic burqa.

Above all, it’s cumulative. Similar-size countries like Germany or Britain have had their highs and lows in recent decades, periods of growth or recession, feelings of confidence or malaise. French decline has been constant, unrelieved, embittering. “In one of my finance seminars, every single French student intends to go abroad,” Sorbonne economics Prof. Jacques Régniez told the Daily Telegraph in 2013. It isn’t just the Jews who want out.

But it’s especially the Jews who need out.

When It's My Terrorism

...Today’s war on terrorism will continue to be waged when nations see their interests being threatened. The outpouring of emotion will also be rooted in selfish preservation. While it may have been called a “unity march”, the Jews of Europe have been educated about their place in society.

FirstOneThrough..
20 January '15..

The streets in Paris were full of support for the victims of terror in January 2015. An estimated 1.6 million came out along with leaders of over 40 countries to memorialize the 17 victims, with signs that included “I am Charlie”, “I am the police” and “I am Jewish” to show solidarity with the murdered people.

The unity march was highly unusual compared to the reaction to terrorism that has plagued Europe for the past decade. There were no million person-marches or signs of support when:

- A Muslim man killed four people in Brussels May 24, 2014 at the Jewish Museum.
- Two Muslim men hacked British officer Lee Rigby to death in London May 22, 2013.
- Islamic radicals shot and killed a rabbi and three children at point blank range, as well as three French soldiers in Toulouse March 19, 2012.
- Two bombs targeted Christmas shoppers in Stockholm December 11, 2010 in response to the drawing of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.
- Twenty Muslim men tortured and killed a man for being Jewish in France March 2006.
- Four bombings killed 52 and injured 700 in London July 7, 2005.
- Theo Van Gogh was killed for his movie about Islam in Amsterdam November 2, 2004.
- Ten bombs killed 191 and injured 1800 in Madrid March 11, 2004.

The past victims included people killed for their use of free speech. They also included law enforcement officers and Jews. More people were killed at some of the attacks than were killed in the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks. So why was there the unique outpouring of support in Europe in 2015? Why didn’t anyone wear a pin “JeSuisMiriam” for the 8-year old girl that was shot in the head in France in 2012?

Looking at the recent protests in many European cities could lead one to conclude that the momentum of anti-immigrant groups and political parties have gained strength and popularity. The rise may stem from the number of terrorist attacks in Europe as well as the number of Islamic immigrants which has ballooned to 20 million in Europe due to the “Arab Spring” producing asylum seekers from throughout the Middle East/ North Africa region.

But why would world leaders show up now?

There was perhaps another factor at play which has to do with a more fundamental human characteristic: selfishness.

My Terrorism

People and nations react when they feel that their interests are being attacked. While they may sympathize with murdered victims everywhere, they take action when they feel that the terrorism strikes a selfish or personal nerve.

Witness the killings and abduction in Nigeria by the radical Islamist group Boko Haram. While there were murderous groups all over the world, including nearby in Sudan, there were barely any popular protests. However, when the US first lady Michelle Obama witnessed the abduction of over 200 black girls, she saw victims that looked like her own daughters and launched a “BringBack Our Girls” campaign which went viral. I do not doubt her sincerity or concern for other victims of terror including the 1400 girls who were raped by Muslim men for over 13 years in England. But it took a terrorist action that struck “close to home” against victims that resembled her own family for her to take action.

When three teenage boys were abducted in Israel a month after the Boko Haram abductions, Jews around the world and Israelis started their own hashtag campaign of #BringBackOurBoys and #EyalGiladNaftali. Israelis were obviously concerned about the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram too – indeed Israel was one of only four countries that actually sent support to find the missing girls. But world Jewry acted much more actively when it was three teenaged Jewish boys that were abducted.

Concrete Lessons From France: Aliyah is the Cornerstone of Zionism

...One need only observe the response of French Jews at a grass-roots level to see how appreciative they were of Netanyahu and his message. The very fact that the families decided to bury all four Jewish victims in Jerusalem is resounding proof. But we pray that we continue to welcome only living Jews from France to their historic homeland.

Isi Leibler..
Candidly Speaking From Jerusalem..
20 January '15..

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls courageously stated that “if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure.” He said that he did not employ the term Islamophobia because it “is often used as a weapon by Islam’s apologists to silence their critics” and called on his nation to wage “a war against terrorism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom and solidarity.”

In a recent National Assembly speech reminiscent of Emile Zola’s “J’accuse,” he passionately cried, “How can we accept that in France … where Jews were martyred 70 years ago, that cries of ‘death to the Jews’ can be heard in the streets? … How can we accept that French people can be murdered for being Jews? … How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges the Holocaust cannot be taught? … How can we accept that when a child is asked ‘who is your enemy?’ the response is ‘the Jew’?”

But alas, Valls’ noble remarks were not echoed by a single senior French government spokesman. On the contrary, President Francois Hollande, while conceding that the kosher supermarket murders were anti-Semitic acts, refused to even hint that this was an act motivated by Islamic radicalism. He mumbled about “obscurantist” forces and even insisted that “those who committed these acts have nothing to do with the Muslim religion” and that the “main victims” were Muslims.

More galling for French Jews was the absence of comparable national demonstrations of sympathy or solidarity concerning the anti-Semitic violence and murder suffered during the preceding two years and their unanswered appeals for increased security. The authorities were far more concerned with their attempts not to offend Muslims than with defending and protecting the besieged and victimized Jews.

Further evidence of this was reflected by the despicable manner in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was treated. Initially, Hollande had the gall to suggest that the Israeli leader, at the frontlines of the international struggle against Islamic terrorism, absent himself from the global leadership gathering because his presence would introduce the “divisive Israeli-Palestinian” issue. That he could make such a request to the head of the Jewish state in the wake of the brutal anti-Semitic carnage, was mind-boggling.

To make matters worse, when Netanyahu made his intentions clear that he was attending, the head of the French National Security Council responded that Israel would face dire consequences and immediately invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to demonstrate “even-handedness.” Hollande subsequently also displayed his feelings when he and his government delegation departed from the Grand Synagogue just prior to Netanyahu’s address.

Hollande welcomed the presence of the corrupt and duplicitous Abbas, who exemplifies the suppression of free speech which the demonstration was condemning. But more importantly, he personally endorses the very murderous anti-Semitic attacks that Hollande condemned. The French and the other European leaders are aware that Abbas formed a union (which failed) with the genocidal Hamas, which calls for the murder of all Jews. He incites vicious hatred against Israelis, pays salaries to murderers of innocent civilians, provides pensions for the families of suicide bombers, and glorifies the most barbaric terrorists. Hollande is aware that this abhorrent Holocaust-denier only recently sent a formal condolence note to the family of the terrorist who sought to murder Rabbi Yehuda Glick.

Imagine. The UN and EU Think Oslo Accords Bind One Party Only – Israel

...All of the above leads to one obvious question: If the UN and EU are going to deem Israeli-Palestinian agreements binding on Israel in every particular but not binding on the Palestinians at all, why on earth would Israel ever sign another?

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
19 January '15..

Between Friday’s announcement that the International Criminal Court has opened a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine” and Sunday’s airstrike that killed six Hezbollah operatives and an Iranian general, a seemingly minor Israel-related item at the United Nations Security Council last Thursday has been largely ignored. But it shouldn’t be, because it goes to the heart of what’s wrong with the world’s handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: According to both the UN and the European Union, signed Israeli-Palestinian agreements are binding on one party only – Israel.

At Thursday’s Security Council briefing, Assistant Secretary-General Jens Anders Toyberg-Frandzen slammed Israel for freezing tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority, declaring that this was “contrary to Israel’s obligations under the Paris Protocol of the Oslo Accords.” The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, made an identical claim 10 days earlier.

Though the claim is probably false, let’s assume for a moment that it’s true. The fact remains that Israel’s alleged violation of its “obligations under … the Oslo Accords” was in response to far greater violations of the Palestinians’ obligations under those same accords. Yet far from meriting any equivalent condemnation by the UN or the EU, the Palestinian violations were actively supported by both parties.

According to Article 31(7) of the 1995 Oslo II agreement (formally titled the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.” This isn’t some trivial technicality; it constitutes the very heart of the Oslo Accords: that Israel and the Palestinians will resolve their differences through negotiations, not unilaterally.

Nevertheless, the Palestinians have grossly and repeatedly violated this clause, including by obtaining UN recognition as a nonmember observer state in 2012, applying to the Security Council for full UN membership last month and joining the ICC as a state party earlier this month. All these moves are aiming at unilaterally changing the status of the West Bank and Gaza from territories whose future will be determined through negotiations to territories belonging to a Palestinian state. Yet no UN or EU official has ever criticized these moves for violating Palestinian obligations under the Oslo Accords, and in fact, both the UN and the EU actively supported them.

The dilemmas of funding and enabling terror

...We have personally contacted nearly all of those Western parties over the past three weeks. We have told them about the open adoration (in Arabic, not in English) expressed by JMI's students for a homicidal jihadist who keeps saying publicly how proud she is to have killed so many Jewish children. We have explained how the JMI has failed to condemn the obscene homage, preferring first to simply ignore it, then to hide it, and now, through euphemism and double-talk, to pretend that it has been adequately addressed and reversed.

This self-confessed murderer, honored as
the "success model" of Jordan Media Institute's
journalism grad students, has her own weekly
TV show on a Hamas satellite channel.
From studios in Amman, she incites and
encourages terrorismto a global audience.
Here she demonstrates prison-friendly dinner
recipes ina video we found on YouTube.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
19 January '15..

Here's an update for those who are following our efforts to expose the Jordan Media Institute whose "best and brightest" graduate students of journalism published a homage to a confessed and convicted murderer in early December 2014. Under the headline Success Model, they paid tribute to a female journalism student who had planned and engineered a massacre in the center of Jerusalem in 2001 on behalf of Hamas. The explosion inside the Sbarro pizzeria - augmented by the use of nails to make the bomb's devastating effect even more vicious - took the lives of our daughter and 14 other victims, most of them children.

The details of the JMI scandal are in several of our previous posts listed at the foot of this one.

We are pursuing the JMI because of what it and the scandal represent. For too long, and in too many cases, enthusiasm for terrorism is quietly excused or overlooked or ignored because it's perceived as being part of the landscape, something about which nothing can be done etc. There is never any excuse for that.

But the JMI case is different. It is happening at a well-run, promising and potentially important pro-democracy, pro-human rights institution which exists because of the generous encouragement, guidance, support and funding of well-intentioned Western governments and NGOs (we named them here) along with a number of Jordanian businesses.

(Continue)

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 as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

Ferguson, Palestinian Segregation and Apartheid

...If you are caught up with the meme of Ferguson = Palestine, you’ll regret it. It will only result in Americans resenting the Intifada methods imported now into the United States and you’ll be supporting an oppressive regime not only against Jews but its own populace: women, children, journalists, bloggers and Christians who suffer a loss of human rights and civill liberties.

Yisrael Medad..
Times of Israel..
19 January '15..





Watch this video.



That was an act of Palestinian segregation. Jews can’t use Islamic water at Islamic fountains.

Jews cannot share nor can they even be present as identifiably Jewish at the Temple Mount.

They will be accosted by Muslim men and women who are paid to ‘study’ there and whenever a Jew appears who seems to be not a tourist but one who seeks to pay quiet respect to the site of his/her former Temples (Israel forbids prayer in any form or even the reading from Bibles or other religious texts), they will obstruct, scream, push and shove and otherwise seek to creat a confrontation and provoke a Jewish response, even if in self-defense, so as to get that Jew removed and better, to have the police charge him with a crime and best, have him or her banned for a period from the site. A full riot would be a real achievement. In fact, all non-Muslims suffer the same discrimination.

Meanwhile, Israel allows Gaza Muslims to pray there on Fridays and all they do is wave banners and flags, rally on behalf of Hamas, burn a French flag recently, or otherwise raise mayhem and incitement.

Jews cannot ride the roads of the Palestinian Authority.

Prosecutor who accused government officials of covering up terrorist massacre by Iran/Hezbollah is found dead

...Nisman, who was expected to take part in a closed-door hearing in Congress on Monday to reveal the details of explosive allegations that involved President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, was found minutes before midnight...

The Buenos Aires Jewish community center 
after the explosion [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
19 January '15..



An almost forgotten terrorist murder-by-bombing of innocent people in a Jewish community center building in the capital of Argentina is in the news again today 21 years later:

The AMIA bombing was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) building. It occurred in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds. It was Argentina's deadliest bombing ever. Argentina is home to a Jewish community of 200,000, the largest in Latin America and sixth in the world outside Israel. Over the years, the case has been marked by incompetence and accusations of cover-ups. [Wikipedia]

Cover-ups?

- September 2004: All the local suspects, many of them officers of the Buenos Aires Provincial Police, were charged and then acquitted in September 2004.

- July 2005, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known today as Pope Francis, became a signatory on a petition calling for justice in the AMIA bombing case.

- August 2005: The judge in charge of the case, Juan José Galeano, was impeached and removed from his post on charges of "serious" irregularities due to mishandling of the investigation.

- October 2006: The prosecutors appointed to the case, Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos, formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing, and Hezbollah of executing it.

This morning, it's reported in the Buenos Aires Herald that Alberto Nisman, one of those two prosecutors, was found dead in a pool of blood in his Buenos Aires apartment last night:

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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 as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

Good Question - How Does it Feel to be Targeted for Genocide?

...Not only do many of our supposed allies actually think that the Jewish people deserve whatever beating we get, but they even refuse to acknowledge the reality and vitality of the political movement doing the genocidal threatening and beating. It is truly a remarkable thing to see the leadership of many tens or hundreds of millions of people literally screech for the blood of the Jews and then see our western "friends" either blame Israel or simply turn their backs.

Michael Lumish..
Israel Thrives..
18 January '15..






I think that this is not an unreasonable question.

The Jews are targeted for genocide by millions of Muslims the world over and our western allies often think that we have it coming.

None of this, of course, is socially acceptable to say, but it also happens to be the truth.

One thing that is interesting to me, however, is the Jewish reaction which, much like in the early part of the twentieth-century in Europe, is practically non-existent. The Jews - if I may stereotype my own people - can be the most reactionary people on the planet when it comes to threats to others and the most passive when it comes to threats to themselves.

In terms of the recent slaughter by Muslims against non-Muslims, liberal free speech practitioners, and Jews, the typical reaction among westerners has been to question the limits of free speech. The "Jewish" part of the attack is often white-washed and the question of the rise of political Islam is generally ignored in favor of an almost neurotic western political self-reflection - which they probably learned from the Jews - to be frank.

{Oh, my! What can we do to be better people so that they won't kill us? Are we failing to be quite as supine as we need to be? Perhaps if all the Jews in Israel stood together in a line and hopped up and down on one foot while facing Mecca and playing the kazoo, that would placate Islamic wrath.}

What we should be doing is strategizing over ways to defeat political Islam. Instead we are picking lint out of our collective navel and wondering how we can be better people so as not to upset Jihadis.

It's actually kind of pathetic and it makes me wonder how it is that we are the children and grandchildren of the "Greatest Generation."

When I take a gander at a place like Daily Kos, which simply represents typical left-leaning blog space, it indicates a disinclination to actually focus on the murderers in favor of focusing on the crimes of the murdered. They cannot very well blame the Jews at the kosher grocery for being Jewish, so they generally ignore that aspect, or twist it into something to do with Israel in order to place blame on the victims. Generally, however, they simply leave the Jews out of it and place the blame for Jihadi aggression on western "racism" of the type allegedly published in Charlie Hebdo.

"Je Suis Charlie"? Maybe. "Je Suis Juif"? Not Really.

...The recent attacks in Paris made clear the threat we all live under now; but more, they made clear that Israel is the only place on earth where Jews -- especially European Jews -- are truly safe. To call for an end to Israel, or for an end to its sovereignty, is now, more glaringly than ever, to call for an end to the Jews. Let's stop pretending that it's not.

The debate on an academic boycott of Israel,
staged by Studenten for Rechtvaardig
Palestina in Amsterdam, on January 13.
 (Image source: Studenten for Rechtvaardig
Palestina Facebook page)

Abigail R. Esman..
Gatestone Institute..
18 January '15..

The four people gunned down in Paris on January 9 had not even been buried yet -- four men murdered by a Muslim terrorist just for being Jews -- when Amsterdam's pro-Palestinian student group demanded an academic boycott against Israel.

Not that they are anti-Semitic -- not a bit, insists Studenten for Rechtvaardig Palestina [SRP], which models itself on the American Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that accuses Israel of genocide. A leader of the group, Sarah (who would not give her last name to reporters, she said, for fear of reprisals), declared, rather, "I find anti-Semitism terrible. We are against it, and we said so from our first informational meeting. I find Israel as bad as IS," she continued, "and I am Muslim myself."

Comparing Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East and a country regularly subjected to terrorist attacks, to the Islamic State would be surreal under any circumstances; but even more so when four European Jews have just been killed by Muslims, and when IS has not only applauded their murders but called on Muslims everywhere to commit more.

But it is not, it turns out, inexplicable.

The SRP's outburst was set off by the decision last week by Amsterdam's Vrij Universiteit [VU] (Free University), to cancel a previously planned "debate," called for by SRP, on encouraging the school to join the international academic boycott against Israel. This debate, to which not a single pro-Israel speaker had been invited, was to have taken place the following day at VU. The debate was to be led by former Dutch Socialist Party member Anja Meulenbelt, wife of convicted former Fatah terrorist Khaled Abu Zaid. Abu Zaid, by his own description, once trained fellow Palestinians in the use of explosives against Israeli targets.

The answer to French anti-Semitism by Caroline Glick

...After Ilan Halimi was murdered, out of fear of upsetting the French, no Israeli leader, including then-foreign minister Livni, uttered a word of condemnation against the atrocity. No Israeli representative attended his memorial ceremony. No one urged French Jews to make aliya. And the number of anti-Semitic attacks increased massively each year. French governmental hostility toward Israel similarly escalated with each passing year. There is unfortunately every reason to believe that the massacre at the kosher supermarket in Paris last Friday will not be the last one. But it is also clear that the best way to avert more suffering is to speak often and forcefully about the option of moving to Israel. Israel must also take active steps to prepare the country for the arrival of our French brothers and sisters. Hollande will certainly express his annoyance as he continues to condemn Israel at every turn for imaginary misdeeds. But the French Jews will be strengthened.

Caroline Glick..
carolineglick.com..
16 January '15..

January 16 is the nine-year anniversary of the beginning of the Ilan Halimi disaster.

On January 16, 2006, Sorour Arbabzadeh, the seductress from the Muslim anti-Jewish kidnapping gang led by Youssouf Fofana, entered the cellphone store where Halimi worked and set the honey trap.

Four days later, Halimi met Arbabzadeh for a drink at a working class bar and agreed to walk her home. She walked him straight into an ambush. Her comrades beat him, bound him and threw him into the trunk of their car.

They brought Halimi to a slum apartment and tortured him for 24 days and 24 nights before dumping him, handcuffed, naked, stabbed and suffering from third degree burns over two-thirds of his body, at a railway siding in Paris.

He died a few hours later in the hospital.

In an impassioned address to the French parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave a stirring denunciation of anti-Semitism, and demanded that his people stop treating it as someone else’s problem.

In his words, “Since Ilan Halimi in 2006… anti-Semitic acts in France have grown to an intolerable degree. The words, the insults, the gestures, the shameful attacks… did not produce the national outrage that our Jewish compatriots expected.”

Valls insisted that France needs to protect its Jewish community, lest France itself be destroyed.

“Without its Jews France would not be France, this is the message we have to communicate loud and clear. We haven’t done so. We haven’t shown enough outrage. How can we accept that in certain schools and colleges the Holocaust can’t be taught? How can we accept that when a child is asked, ‘Who is your enemy?’ the response is ‘The Jew?’ When the Jews of France are attacked France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is attacked. Let us never forget it.”

Valls words were uplifting. But it is hard to see how they change the basic reality that the Jews of France face.

When all is said and done, it is their necks on the line while humanity’s conscience is merely troubled.

Ilan Halimi’s case is more or less a textbook case of the impossible reality French Jewry faces. And, as Valls noted, the situation has only gotten worse in the intervening nine years. Much worse.

Surprise! NYT uses funeral of 4 French Jews to bash Netanyahu

...Which prompted another reader to remark: “With Jews and Israel under vicious attack, and especially at this time, that Rudoren, supported by the Times, picks this obscure story for publicity, is a disgrace. Rudoren could have picked any of 100 stories favorable to Jews or Israel as a sign of solidarity with the Jews of France. But no, Rudoren searches for a story that neither reflects Jews nor Israel to make both look bad. How pathetic she is, how awful.”

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
15 January '15..

It’s supposed to be a New York Times article about the funeral in Israel of four French Jews killed at a Paris kosher supermarket (“Emotion Mixes With Politics as 4 Killed at Paris Market are Buried in Jerusalem,” Jan. 14, page 8).

But leave it to Jodi Rudoren, the Times’ Jersualem bureau chief, to convert it into an all-out tirade against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

What riles Rudoren is that Netanyahu committed two great sins – he represented Israel on an equal basis with leaders of other countries in the front row of the massive Paris march against terror, and he had the effrontery to suggest to French Jews that they would be safer by moving to Israel.

Netanyahu’s “open arms” invitation to all French Jews, Rudoren writes, “set off a backlash over the weekend.” Intolerable, as far as she’s concerned.

But that’s just the start of her diatribe.

They're incubating terror-minded journalists in Jordan but they have an answer to all the criticisms

As for the political leaders of the countries listed above (as well as the executive managements of the corporates and the NGOs) who have not yet condemned what the Jordanian Media Institute has done, is doing and has attempted to conceal: you know who you are and you know what civilized people ought to be doing now.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
16 January '15..

We wrote here over the past five weeks about some outrageous developments at a graduate school for aspiring journalists in Jordan founded by a former CNN on-camera reporter with the very considerable help of a number of Western governments, NGOs and corporate donors.

10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred
11-Dec-14: Is it newsworthy when journalists make a terror-addicted murdering colleague their role-model?11-Jan-15: Does the king need to fly to Paris to stand with terror victims? He can do it better back in Jordan

Without retelling the story in detail, it's about an attempt to graft Western journalistic values onto a cadre of Arab journalists most of whom live and work in a country that the respected human rights watchdog organization Freedom House (in its 2014 update) calls “Not Free” with a score of 6 on a scale of 7 for freedom of the press. (7 is the worst score.)

And Jordan is not on the road to getting better just yet: Reporters Without Frontiers, which also tracks press freedom, says Jordan’s authorities further tightened their existing grip on its media in the past year. Not a happy place in which to live or work.

So all things considered, the students fortunate enough to be accepted into the Jordan Media Institute are the beneficiaries of considerable foreign largesse, goodwill, sponsorship, guidance and opportunity. This is sure to turn them into reporters that any great metropolitan newspaper would be proud of, right?

Not so right. As we wrote here last month:

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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 as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

So now the world has learned the real culprit behind the murders

...Commenting on the Paris massacre, the Lord Mayor suggested that Israel was annoyed with the Lower House of French Parliament for voting for the recognition of a Palestinian state, and with France’s vote in favor of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for the same recognition. He unmasked the plot: “Israel certainly doesn’t want this sentiment to expand in Europe. That’s why it is certain that Mossad is behind these kinds of incidents: Mossad enflames Islamophobia by causing such incidents.”....Meanwhile, other Turks who use the same logic to impress may be less lucky. In 2011, one of two Turkish celebrities who was accused of raping call girls defended himself by saying that the whole incident was an "Israeli plot against him." This author has not since learned whether the man targeted by Israel was found guilty or acquitted.

The mayor of Turkey's capital city[Image Source]

Burak Bekdil..
hurriyetdailynews.com..
16 January '15..

This columnist’s first of a few encounters with Melih Gökçek, the unchallenged mayor of the Turkish capital since 1994, was through a press release from the municipality, sent by fax to this newspaper, in the mid-1990s. It was grotesquely (but cutely) signed: Melih Gökçek, Lord Mayor of Ankara. It caused laughter in the newsroom. But no one knew the Lord Mayor of Ankara would not always be naively amusing.

In 2011, the nationalist-turned-Islamist Mr. Gökçek promised to erect an Algerian genocide/massacre monument right across the French Embassy compound in Ankara if the French parliament went ahead with a bill recognizing the Armenian genocide. In fact, Paris ended up recognizing the Armenian Genocide, but Mr. Gökçek’s monument still remains to be erected right across from the French Embassy compound. Meanwhile, French defense companies are making an impressive comeback to the lucrative Turkish market, with President François Hollande having risen to become President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “new Berlusconi.”

Last summer, when a Turkish-Kurdish pop star wrote on her Twitter account, “May God bless Hitler. He did far less [than he should have done to Jews],” the popular mayor of Ankara replied: “I applaud you!” And when hundreds of angry Turks hurled stones and rocks at, and tried to break into, the Israeli diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul, the Lord Mayor of Ankara said: “We will conquer the consulate of the despicable murderers.” Just like the Algerian genocide monument waits to be erected, the Israeli diplomatic missions remain to be conquered.

Mr. Gökçek may have a couple of unkept promises to the people of Ankara. He may have the habit of applauding people who admire Hitler. But the Lord Mayor’s more important virtues make him absolutely eligible for either of two strategic positions: The head of counter-intelligence at the National Intelligence Agency (MİT) or the head of the anti-terror unit at the special operations unit.

Commenting on the Paris massacre, the Lord Mayor suggested that Israel was annoyed with the Lower House of French Parliament for voting for the recognition of a Palestinian state, and with France’s vote in favor of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for the same recognition. He unmasked the plot: “Israel certainly doesn’t want this sentiment to expand in Europe. That’s why it is certain that Mossad is behind these kinds of incidents: Mossad enflames Islamophobia by causing such incidents.”

So now the world has learned the real culprit behind the murders. The French prosecutors and the International Criminal Court know which organization to indict for the killings: Mossad, the same silly spy network that in the past was caught red-handed by sending spies of various bird species to Turkey, with metal rings around their legs stamped “Israel.”