Thursday, April 17, 2014

  • Thursday, April 17, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ma'an:

Three Palestinian men were killed and four others injured in an explosion in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

A spokesman of the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health told Ma’an that the circumstances behind the explosion were not clear.

Ashraf al-Qidra added that ambulances evacuated two dead men and one critically injured person. The third victim was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at the European Hospital in Kahn Younis.

Eight others sustained minor wounds caused by shrapnel. They were in stable condition.

Hamas sources told Ma'an that the victims were members of the group's al-Qassam Brigades militant wing, and were killed while preparing explosive devices.

They were identified as Rami Mishmish, Yousif Thabit and Abu Ashour Hajji.
Hamas' Al Qassam website freely admits that they were killed in a "jihadist military manufacturing unit."

Note that the Gaza ministry of health, which is run by Hamas, knows very well how they were killed but they prefer to say that "circumstances were unclear" in case they can find a way to blame Israel. Sometimes they claim that leftover Israeli ordnance causes injuries and deaths when they don't want to admit that it is from their own people.

Their faces must have been ripped apart by the explosion, because unlike in most cases of "martyrs," the photos of the bodies do not show their faces but only their weapons.

This makes at least 15 Gazans killed by work accidents or Hamas rockets this year, more than have been killed by the IDF.


Wednesday, April 16, 2014

  • Wednesday, April 16, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
Dearborn is the epicenter of the Arab community in the US - it was 30% Arab in 2000 and estimated to have a  much higher percentage today -  so this is pretty impressive. And completely ignored by the Israel-haters.

From The Arab-American News:

The University of Michigan-Dearborn Faculty Congress voted on Monday, March 7 [sic, should be April 7] against a resolution that calls for forming a divestment committee to look into the human rights records of companies that do business with the Israeli military.

After a 30-minute debate, the faculty struck down the resolution in a 23-17 vote with two abstentions. Present faculty members voted via ballot box. The faculty also voted 32-7 against a resolution calling for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The yearly meeting, which was open to the public, was almost exclusively attended by UMD faculty.

The Student Government (SG) had passed the divestment proposal last week. [Actually, the student proposal was to create a committee to look at the topic, there was no call to divestment in the SG resolution, much to the consternation of SJP. - EoZ] According to campus newspaper, the divestment initiative was proposed by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and endorsed by eight student organizations. SG has called for divestment on four previous occasions in 2005, 2006, 2010, and 2012, according to campus newspaper The Michigan Journal.

Dr. John Poster, the chair of the Faculty Senate told The Arab American News that the resolution approved by SG is not reflective of the opinion of the student body because most students are not involved in the student government.

"It is difficult for us to focus on this, while [Syrian President Bashar] Assad has killed more than 100,000 of his own people, while the military in Egypt overthrew a democratically elected government," Poster said. "There is a number of problems in the world, and it is hard for us to focus on Israel only."
The tide has decisively turned against BDS on college campuses, venues that were considered lost causes only a year ago. It is clear that the Israel-haters are noisy and know how to get publicity, but their stunts have no substance behind them.

(h/t Dan C.)
From Ian:

Lead, Netanyahu, lead
When Frazier Glenn Cross is convicted of murder for gunning down physician William Corporon, his 14-year-old grandson Reat Griffin, and occupational therapist Terry LaManno, at the Jewish community facilities of Kansas City on Sunday, he will, at the very least, be jailed for life with no possibility of parole. The capital murder charge with which he has been indicted also carries the possibility of the death penalty.
When the gunman who opened fire indiscriminately on Israeli vehicles outside Hebron on Passover eve a day later, killing Baruch Mizrahi, is tracked down and arrested — as he almost certainly will be, given the Israeli security forces’ astounding record of locating West Bank terrorists — he will face a very different set of consequences.
Alan Dershowitz: 'Extreme Left and Extreme Right Have Only One Thing in Common -- They Hate Jews'
Monday on MSNBC's "Ronan Farrow Daily," Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz discussed Sundays tragic shooting outside a Jewish community center in Kansas City:
“When we were kids we learned sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never harm you. That’s a lie, Names hurt. They are horrible, and we shouldn’t be tolerating them in society. But the law under our Constitution can’t move against people simply for expressing views.”
"They praise Hitler and they praise Farrakhan and of corse Farrakhan was one of this guy's heroes along with Hitler and David Duke. Here you have a problem with the extreme left and extreme right have only one thing in common, they hate jews. The extreme left preaches this kind of bigotry as well, people like Farrakhan people within Hamas and Hezbollah and the extreme right."

Why aren’t mainstream Israel critics defending Max Blumenthal?
Max Blumenthal is experiencing what goes around coming around.
Having blamed various critics of radical Islam as well as international Zionism for the 2011 mass murder in Norway, unfairly, Blumenthal now is in focus because the Overland Park shooter was a big fan of Blumenthal’s Jewish money and Israel Lobby conspiracy theories. The shooter was a Neo-Nazi and KKK leader for whom Jewish control of the media and international money was a core belief motivating hatred of Jews. That’s a shared space for anti-Zionists of multiple political ideologies and religions.
Specifically, the shooter focused on Blumenthal’s theory that Jewish campaign donors were trying to buy the 2012 U.S. presidential election for Bibi Netanyahu, as expressed by Blumenthal in a lengthy article and a Russia Today television interview, to which the shooter linked. It’s ugly stuff, but the type of ugly stuff for which Blumenthal has become known.
CNN National Security Analyst: Right More Deadly Than Al Qaeda
Without mentioning reports that the man accused of shooting up a Jewish Community Center over the weekend was apparently a fan of the left's Max Blumenthal, CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen exploited the murders to claim the American Right is more deadly than jihadists.
Today, April 15, just so happens to be the one-year anniversary of Bergen using CNN's airwaves to speculate that right-wing groups might be behind the Boston Marathon bombing. Bergen is apparently using today's hysterical piece of selective, anti-science analysis to balm that embarrassment.
By publishing this junk, CNN is merely doing what CNN has been doing all throughout the failed Zucker-era: trolling the bottom of the barrel for attention. (h/t Alexi)

Monday, April 14, 2014

  • Monday, April 14, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
Wishing a Chag Sameach to my readers!

I will not be blogging until Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

Here is some previous original EoZ artwork from previous Passovers, usually created in less than a half hour:




  • Monday, April 14, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Palestinian Media Watch:


Girl to PA TV about her goal in life:
"My life's ambition is to reach the level that the Martyr fighter Dalal Mughrabi reached..."

The purpose of the PA TV program was explained by the TV host:
"Today we are in the Dalal Mughrabi School [in Gaza], to get to know the Palestinian Martyr and fighter..."

Other children and teachers in the school were also interviewed.

Student at the school:
"Dalal Mughrabi is a great leader, who raised more and more and worked for the Palestinian cause to protect the pure land of the homeland, by defending Jerusalem to liberate it. This fighter may have died and her soul may have ascended to Heaven, but still our mothers give birth to thousands like Dalal, and she still walks among us. Dalal Mughrabi has given us a lot, and I personally am proud to attend the Dalal Mughrabi School, which bears this pioneering name."

Teacher at the school:
"Dalal Mughrabi is a fighter who carried out Jihad and struggle from the beginning of her life. She was one of the brave female fighters who carried out Martyrdom-seeking operations (i.e., terror attacks). We in the Ministry of Education had the honor of naming our school after the Martyr Dalal Mughrabi, so that her eternal memory will stay for a long time."

Suicide attacks ("martyrdom-seeking operations") are the highest aspiration for these Palestinian Arab girls, today. Generations are being taught to join a death cult.

Yet whenever the issue of incitement is brought up, it is minimized by "progressive" Westerners. It isn't newsworthy. Plans to build houses are major headlines, girls being taught to kill themselves along with as many Jews as possible doesn't even merit a footnote.
From Ian:

Why the Left Doesn’t Understand the Arab War Against Israel
Frankly, the Palestinian Arabs should be celebrating their dumb luck that they happen to live next to and among Jews in Israel, where biology trumps ideology, and where Israel’s actions don’t mirror how they are treated by the Palestinian Arabs: with acts of terrorism, hatred, and glorification of murderers.
If the Palestinians lived anywhere else in the Arab and Muslim world they would be persecuted and the media and world would not report nor care about their fate. That is really how most of the rest of their so-called Arab brethren treat them – as political pawns and pariahs in their war on the Jews.
Peace is a long way away. It’s not helped by the moral narcissists and useful idiots on the Left. Too many on the Left, including in academia, engage in Stockholm syndrome, becoming emotionally attached to and sympathetic with the victimizers, the terrorists (who, ironically, would slit their throats if given the chance).
The status quo is terrible. But all of the alternatives to date are existentially dangerous to Israel. The onus must be on the Palestinian-Arabs to prove they truly are interested in recognition and peaceful co-existence with Israel. For the past 66 years, they have in fact proved the exact opposite.
The Left’s jealousy and envy of Israel’s amazing success and humanitarian accomplishments; their self-hatred; failure to listen to what the Judeo-Christian world’s enemies advocate; appeasing them; excusing them is breathtakingly presumptuous and arrogant.
Where is the feminist anger at Brandeis?
‘Honor Diaries” might not be coming to a theater near you, at least not if CAIR gets its way. The award-winning documentary about “honor” violence against girls and women in much of the Muslim world was released last month in honor of International Women’s Day, and it didn’t take long for the Council on American Islamic Relations to slap its all-purpose “Islamophobic” label on it. The film has been shown in dozens of venues, but CAIR has raised enough of a stink to get screenings cancelled on several college campuses, including the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois.
CAIR — a front group for Islamist extremism that masquerades as a civil rights organization (its first executive director, Nihad Awad, was an open supporter of Hamas) — is good at raising stinks. Last week Brandeis University caved in to demands that it rescind its offer of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a heroic defender of women’s rights in the Islamic world. With a life story that reads like a screenplay, Ali has personally experienced many of the evils she fights, including genital mutilation, forced marriage, and savage “honor” crimes. Her remarkable accomplishments should easily merit the honor of any university that upholds reason and intellectual diversity. But Brandeis apparently has different priorities now, like giving CAIR and the Islamophobia-phobes a veto over honorary degrees.
Ali was involved in making “Honor Diaries,” which goes out of its way to convey respect for moderate Islam. It spotlights nine eloquent women with roots in the Islamic world, several of whom are devout Muslims — “Islam is my spiritual journey,” says one — and all of whom are passionate about exposing the terrible abuses women and girls in many Muslim cultures suffer in the name of family honor. None thinks such horrors should be excused or neglected out of a misplaced cultural sensitivity or political correctness.

  • Monday, April 14, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
Stanley Cohen, lawyer for Hamas and other terrorists, is going to jail for tax evasion. Here is his rambling description of his version of events, as he pretends to be a martyr for freedom, including his purposeful conflation of human rights and terrorism:


Whatever, dude.

But what struck me was the number of supporters he has who retweeted this self-serving piece of garbage as if Cohen is a hero. As of Monday morning, 467 people retweeted this and nearly 300 favorited it.

It truly is amazing that so many are so screwed up as to think that Cohen is a hero.


From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians' "Anti-Normalization" Movement
Palestinian Authority security forces used force to disperse and arrest Palestinian activists who tried to prevent Indians from performing a dance in Ramallah on April 12.
The activists accused the Indian Classical Dance Performance, Kathak, of appearing before members of the Indian community in Tel Aviv, saying this was a form of "normalization" with Israel.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, an anti-Israel group that claims to be pro-Palestinian, issued a statement calling for boycotting the Indian dancers who had been invited to attend a Palestinian book fair in Ramallah.
The group said that the Indian dancers' performance in Tel Aviv came in "wake of an upsurge in the fierce onslaught against the Palestinian people by the Israeli Occupation Forces."
'A raging anti-Semite' - Who is Frazier Glenn Cross?
Frazier Glenn Cross, the man in police custody for allegedly shooting three people dead outside two Jewish community centers near Kansas City, is an avowed white supremacist who has not been shy about expressing his disdain for Jews and blacks.
According to a profile of Cross conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the man who formerly ran for a Senate seat in Missouri, once held the title of “grand dragon” of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
He was also sent to prison for operating an illegal paramilitary organization and using intimidation tactics against blacks, as well as illegal weapons possession.
Cross, who did two tours of duty in Vietnam and was also a member of the elite Green Berets, said he was indoctrinated by racist newspapers which he read in his youth.
Netanyahu condemns ‘hatred of Jews’ in Kansas shooting
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday condemned the murder of three people in a shooting attack at US Jewish institutions, saying it bore the hallmarks of anti-Semitic attacks.
“We condemn the murders, which according to all the signs were committed from hatred of Jews,” said a statement from his office, which added that Netanyahu had sent condolences to the victims’ families.
“The state of Israel, together with all civilized people, is committed to fighting this pestilence,” Netanyahu said.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz also said anti-Semitism was behind the attack that left three dead.

  • Monday, April 14, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the BBC:



The report is quite good.

But being the BBC, the headline skews the report:

Anti-Semitism forcing Jews out of France, says Israel

Israel has said an increasing number of Jewish people are migrating to the country from France because of a rise in anti-Semitism.

Around 3,200 people left last year, a 63% jump when compared to 2012.

Christian Fraser reports from Paris.
In the report, the Israeli representative in France said that Jews are feeling unwelcome and notes that the economy is bad as well. The first French Jew interviewed is the one who said in this report that antisemitism is the reason he and his family are leaving. And the reporter shows an explicitly antisemitic rally held this year.

In other words, it isn't an Israeli claim that antisemitism is causing the French aliyah - it is the French Jews and the objective evidence itself.

By claiming that "Israel says" rather than what the French Jews themselves are saying, the BBC's editors are subtly pretending that the problem is not real antisemitism but Israel encouraging the perception of antisemitism.

(h/t Harley)
  • Monday, April 14, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
Ma'an reports:

Right-wing Israeli political parties have begun a campaign to sue president Abbas for "war crimes" at the International Criminal Court in response to the Palestinian Authority's recent decision to join international conventions and treaties.

The campaign comes amid a near breakdown in ongoing peace negotiations between Israel and the PLO, and seeks to file legal procedures against Abbas accusing him of supporting "terrorism" and aiding to terrorist organizations.

Beginning on Friday, Israeli newspapers and websites have published advertisements calling on Israeli lawyers to join the campaign led by the Israel Law Center to sue Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on charges of supporting terrorist organizations.

One of the prominent leaders of the campaign is chairman of the Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett, who has been a vocal critic of peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

An ad in the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth features president Abbas behind bars with a phrase in Arabic reading, "We will terrorize him in The Hague."
It actually says in Hebrew, "He terrorizes us the the UN....we will terrorize him in the Hague."

Palestinian officials, however, have downplayed the move, pointing out that Israel cannot pursue legal action at the international court due to its own failure to sign the treaties.

Palestinian minister of justice Ali Muhanna told Ma'an that the Israeli government had "lost balance both politically and legally."

Their response, he said, reflects the degree of rage in Israel towards the PA for attempting to join international conventions.

Muhanna confirmed that Israel "cannot engage in any legal action at the ICC because Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court."

"Such legal proceedings are submitted through the ICC's Attorney General or through the UN Security Council."
It is true that Israel cannot file a complaint with the ICC's prosecutor, as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

But Shurat HaDin can.

From the ICC (archived):
The Prosecutor may start an investigation upon referral of situations in which there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes have been or are being committed. Such referrals must be made by a State Party or the Security Council of the United Nations, acting to address a threat to international peace and security. In accordance with the Statute and the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, the Prosecutor must evaluate the material submitted to him before making the decision on whether to proceed.

In addition to State Party and Security Council referrals, the Prosecutor may also receive information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court provided by other sources, such as individuals or non-governmental organisations. The Prosecutor conducts a preliminary examination of this information in every case. If the Prosecutor then decides that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation, he will request the Pre-Trial Chamber to authorise an investigation.
So, yes, Shurat HaDin - or anyone on the planet - can request that the Prosecutor indict a party that violates the provisions of the Rome Statute.

It is important to realize that the ICC will not indict if there is a functioning court system that can do the job instead. As the ICC says:

The Preamble of the Rome Statute recognises that the Court itself is but a last resort for bringing justice to the victims of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It therefore calls upon all States to take measures at the national level and enhance international co-operation to put an end to impunity, and reminds States of their duty to exercise criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for such crimes. Thus, the Rome Statute assigns the Court a role that is complementary to national systems.

Emphasising the primary responsibility of States to investigate and prosecute international crimes, the Statute provides that a case is inadmissible before the Court where the case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution. The Prosecutor is obliged to consider this requirement of the Statute when deciding whether or not to start an investigation.
If "Palestine" is a state - a precondition for its bringing cases to the ICC - then it presumably has a court system. If the West Bank is under occupation or disputed, than Israel's court system can be used for complaints. Either way, unless the ICC wants to become politicized, it seems unlikely that the ICC prosecutor will indict Israel just because the PLO insists it do so. (I don't think Shurat HaDin will make much headway at the ICC either, but the threat is as real as that of the PLO.)

So far most of the cases the ICC has dealt with are in Africa.

(h/t Anne)

  • Monday, April 14, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestinian Arabs (and Arabs altogether) consider "normalization" with Israel  to be one of the worst things that could happen.

So what exactly does that mean?

Last month, COGAT reported on an example of how awful "normalization" is:

A medical conference and training session took place last week at Haddasah Ein Kerem Hospital for Palestinian nurses and doctors. The conference, which focused on medical care for trauma victims, was organized by the Health Coordinator of the Civil Administration. More conferences are expected to take places in the coming weeks on several other medical issues.

On Monday, (10.3.14) the first training session for Palestinian medical workers took place. The session, which focused on trauma treatments, included lectures and presentations from trauma experts, as well as a tour of the trauma and rapid treatment wing in the hospital. The session was organized by the CA Health Administrator, Daliah Bassah, for the purpose of strengthening the ties between Israeli and Palestinian medical professionals, as well as to train them so as to better equipped to deal with trauma victims in multiple victim scenarios.

The dire need for advanced training in the field of trauma was brought to light after a serious traffic accident at the Kalandia-Giv'a junction in February 2012, in which 8 people were killed and 50 injured when a bus carrying Palestinian children and an Israeli truck collided. While the CA and Daliah were in touch with the Palestinian hospitals following the accident, providing aid and expertise, coordinating emergency care between Israeli and Palestinian emergency medical services, as well as coordinating transport to hospitals in Israel and the West Bank, it was decided that more advanced training was needed as well. Following the event, it was realized that a more efficient method of coping was needed.

"It is important that all of us in the medical field, both Israeli and Palestinian, speak the same professional language as well as have clear and open lines of communication during times of crises and multiple trauma victims so as to be able to provide the best care possible", said the head of the Haddasah trauma wing, Dr. Miklush Balah. "When Palestinian doctors turn to us for help, we need to know what the status of the patient is and what treatment they have already administered, in order to advise them on the best course of action, as well as to decide if they need to be transferred to an Israeli hospital".

Attending the conference were two Palestinian doctors who are currently interning at the hospital, as part of a program where Palestinian doctors, nurses, and technicians from Palestinian hospitals intern at Israeli hospitals and receive high level training, with which they return to their original hospitals upon concluding the internship. The two doctors, Dr. Abed Salameh and Dr. Muhamad Awa'ad, who are interning in trauma related fields, have already had the opportunity to put what they learned in Israel to use, although not quite in the way they thought they would. Dr. Awa'ad was able to save the life of his niece by pushing her doctors away from riskier, more invasive options and running more tests before operating on her, and Dr. Salameh treated twin girls who were involved in a car accident that he witnessed on his way to work one morning.

"I'm currently interning at a hospital in Israel, but I fully intend to return to a hospital in the West Bank and use the knowledge I have gained here to improve the treatment we are able to give there" explained Dr. Awa'ad. "Advancement in the field of medicine and the cooperation we have between the medical systems, is, for me, is a direct road to peace".
Sounds awful, doesn't it?

Sunday, April 13, 2014

  • Sunday, April 13, 2014
  • Elder of Ziyon
Earlier I posted about the horrific shootings aimed at Jews in Overland Park, and I noted that while obvious antisemitic acts are not an every day occurrence in the US, they are far more prevalent than "Islamophobic" attacks - yet from the media one would get the impression that Muslims are victims far more than Jews in the US of bigotry.

There is a certain strain of Israel haters, though, who cannot stomach the idea that traditional antisemitism exists today. Their logic is that since Israel is meant to be a haven from antisemitism, and they don't want to give Israel any excuse for existing, they must downplay and trivialize any overt murders of Jews.

Immediately after I tweeted my post, Mira Bar Hillel - who I have proven to be about as dishonest a critic of Israel as can be -  tweeted back that the issue isn't Jews, but guns:



Max Blumenthal made a similar point, minimizing the murder of three people who were killed because they were assumed to be Jews and comparing it to another shooting spree in Kansas City:




Max's tweet is most interesting when you recall some tweets he has made previously.

Even though there have been consistently far more antisemitic attacks than attacks on any other religious group in America, Blumenthal wrote in 2012:







Blumenthal, supposed defender of victims worldwide, cannot allow Jews to be considered victims, ever - because that would undermine his thesis that Israel has no moral reason to exist. So facts must be disregarded and belittled. Indeed, he instead implies that Jewish power is what is causing the DHS to give some $10 million a year to Jewish institutions for security.

Yes, he is leaning on an antisemitic stereotype to downplay the existence of antisemitism!

Overland Park (not to mention the other examples I gave of Seattle, DC, Manhattan, the Bronx, Los Angeles..) shows that Jews really are a disproportionate target of hate in America. The US is nowhere near the point that France or Sweden or other countries are, of course, and most Jews are quite safe even as those DHS grants that Blumenthal decries are going towards placing concrete planters and video surveillance systems in larger synagogues and Jewish schools nationwide. (Synagogues and Jewish schools in Europe are fortresses; America's are nowhere near that yet.)

Obviously Blumenthal and Bar Hillel and their disgusting ilk cannot accept the idea that Jews are the juiciest targets for America's bigots, both right and left wing.. Their viewpoints and thought processes are completely skewed by their own hate - something they have in common with the people who plot to kill Jews.

(h/t Joshua U)

UPDATE: I didn't know this when I wrote the last sentence: The killer, now identified as Glenn Miller Jr., has quoted Blumenthal when giving his antisemitic rants on white supremacist sites! (Here's his personal site.)

UPDATE 2: The known victims as of this writing  were not Jewish, updated post to reflect that.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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