Sorry, but ‘Counting to 10’ won’t bring peace to the Middle East - by Stephen M. Flatow

Palestinian Arabs are not children throwing a temper tantrum who need to calm down. They are Arab nationalists and devout Muslims who see their war to destroy Israel as a national and religious obligation.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
30 April '20..

One of the main authors of the Trump Mideast peace plan is appealing to Palestinian Arab leaders to “count to 10” before rejecting the plan. Despite spending years observing Palestinians and negotiating with Palestinian officials, he still believes that peace is possible if Mahmoud Abbas would just take a deep breath.

Writing last week in The Jerusalem Post, former U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt pleaded with Palestinian Arab leaders to “see the advantages of counting to 10 before officially reacting to the proposed peace plan.”

Greenblatt’s article was co-authored by Bishara Bahbah, a former Palestinian negotiator. I get why Bahbah likes the plan: It would create an independent Palestinian state in three-fourths of Judea and Samaria, with a capital in part of Jerusalem and a corridor to the Hamas state in Gaza. But the leadership of the Palestinian Authority has obviously decided that they will hold out of a better deal.

My concern is with the premise that apparently lies at the heart of the Trump administration’s approach. Greenblatt’s appeal for the Palestinians to “count to 10” follows a similar statement at the United Nations the previous week by a senior U.S. representative, Cherith Norman Chalet. “When this [coronavirus] disease passes,” he said, “we will be able to point to the cooperation we’re seeing now and say that dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinian is possible. We will be able to say that achieving mutually beneficial solutions is possible.”

The P.A. “cooperates” with Israel only to the extent that of its immediate, practical advantage. It’s like when P.A. officials quietly go to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment. They don’t mind exploiting Israel’s kindness or benefiting from Jewish-led innovations. But that has no effect whatsoever on the unending Palestinian war against Israel.

Anybody remember the Israeli greenhouses in flames in Gaza? The diplomats and pundits and peace activists all insisted that Israel should hand them over intact when it pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

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2020 Edition - Proud to Be a Zionist by Elder of Ziyon

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's version:
========================

Elder of Ziyon..
29 April '20..

I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, at least as much as any other country. Given Israel's unique history and the resurgence of antisemitism worldwide, Israel arguably has more moral legitimacy than any other nation on Earth.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its never ending war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet that tries to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, stabbed and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards, which can be easily proven for anyone who wants to investigate the situation impartially. (People willing to do that are, regrettably, few and far between.) It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding themselves to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while on a constant war footing. One only needs to read the hateful articles in Israel's left-wing publications on Israel's Independence Day to fathom how far press freedom goes in Israel.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous. The 'knife intifada," car rammings, and other violent "innovations" by Israel's enemies have largely died down because of Israeli defensive actions and innovative pro-active work on social media. Hamas has been reduced to celebrating attacks that cause only minor injuries because most of their major attacks, thank God, are foiled. Today there are new challenges, but each one is met and solved with brains and creativity.

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San Remo in International Law: The Jewish People's Charter of Liberation - by Amb. Dror Eydar

In the historiography of Zionism, the San Remo conference – which anchored the Balfour Declaration in international law – has been neglected. We must study it, and celebrate it.

Amb. Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
24 April '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-jewish-peoples-charter-of-liberation/..

1

A moment before the world was turned upside down by a tiny virus and our lives became one long day, I managed, at the start of February, to visit the little town of San Remo on the Italian Riviera. We in the Israeli Embassy had been planning to hold a big event there on Sunday, April 26, to be attended by world leaders, to mark the 100th anniversary of the famous conference. The mayor had even put the symphony orchestra of the famous San Remo Festival at our disposal.

The idea was to highlight, in the global discourse, the main insight of all those who take an interest in the decisions made at the conference: in contrast to the conventions I frequently hear voiced in the world, international law is absolutely on our side.

We also planned an exhibit that would be shown in the Italian Senate, the European Parliament, and the Israeli Knesset, and display documents and items from that period. We visited the archives at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I saw files that bulged with documents from back then that might not have been opened since.

2

For a week, the Villa Devachan in San Remo hosted representatives of the powers that were victorious in World War I: British Prime Minister Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand, Italian Prime Minister Francesco Nitti, Japanese representative Keishiro Matsui, and the US Ambassador to Rome, Robert U. Johnson. They, along with their aides, ushered in the decisions that led to the birth of the Jewish state.

In the archives at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, my eyes caught a telegram to "His Excellency Nitti" sent directly to San Remo, titled "The Peace Conference," which stated "We hope that the Supreme Council will resolve the question of Palestine in accordance with the Balfour Declaration." It was signed by the Community of Achim Neamonim and the Rabbi Benjamin Cohen. There were other similar telegrams that teach us about the tense anticipation in the Jewish world and how importantly the conference was perceived, even at the time.

3

From a Zionist historical perspective, the San Remo Conference was of much greater importance than the Balfour Declaration -- the difference between a non-binding declaration and anchoring it in law. Oddly, Zionist historiography has forgotten this major event. We haven't really studied it. It's time to correct that.

(Excellent) The true original "Deal of the Century" was the 1920 San Remo Conference - by Yishai Fleisher

Let us cast off the contrived U.N. narrative in which Israel was born into the inevitability of two states on this year's Independence Day.

Yishai Fleisher..
en.hebron.org.il
26 April '20..
Link: http://en.hebron.org.il/blog/51/1177

One hundred years ago this week, the British Balfour Declaration—which recognized the Jewish rights to the land of Israel—became international law.

The Allies, the countries that defeated the Ottoman Empire in World War I, gathered in San Remo, Italy, in late April 1920 to carve up the Middle East. Basing their outlook on Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination, they set out to establish new would-be countries through a mentoring program called “mandates.” The Arabs, now free of the Turks, would get Syria, Lebanon and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Jews would get “Palestine” (Palestine was a Jewish thing back then).

The language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration was put directly into the San Remo accords: “[T]he Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

This decision was soon unanimously ratified by 56 member states of the League of Nations, and later became part of the United Nations Charter, thus paving the way for the third Jewish commonwealth, reborn on its ancestral soil after 2,000 years.


Yet this momentous occasion, on which the international community recognized and then ratified the inalienable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel for the first time in modern history, is often forgotten. Instead, attention is diverted to the radio broadcast of the U.N. vote for Partition on Nov. 29, 1947, where the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution adopting the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) partition plan of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states and for which 33 states voted in favor, 13 against and 10 abstained.

Legally speaking, the two events cannot be put on the same scale. The San Remo Accords were binding law, ratified by member states, which took quick effect. Even the United States, which was not a member of the League of Nations, took measures to recognize the accords.

Conversely, the UNSCOP Partition Plan was merely a non-binding resolution, voted on in the toothless General Assembly (not the Security Council), and was immediately rejected by the Arabs—in other words, the whole exercise of the partition plan vote was null and void.

The U.N. bundle narrative

The U.N. partition vote does have the distinction of being the immediate precursor to Israel’s declaration of independence. While David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency accepted the partition plan—ready to take what they could get for the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust—other Zionists rejected the plan outright as an abrogation of previous agreements. At the time, the U.N. resolution was instrumental, but that is a far cry from the portrayal of the U.N. partition vote as the foundational moment of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.

So why does the empty U.N. partition resolution get so much play as compared with the real law of San Remo Accords? The answer lies in who is presenting the history—what they want Israeli policy to look like and what they want to say about Israel’s legitimacy.

Surprise? Israel and ‘Palestine’: It’s All the Same For The Irish Times - by Simon Plosker

Did Juliet Casey use the opportunity of a platform in the Irish Times to push an anti-Israel agenda? Given the failure of editors to notice the appalling and confusing errors as well as the libelous claim, it appears that the consistently hostile media outlet was only too happy to go along with it.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
24 April '20..




Update: 26 April '20 Irish Times’ Abysmal Attempt at a Correction - by Simon Plosker

As part of a series looking at personal experiences under the coronavirus in different parts of the world, the Irish Times interviews Juliet Casey “originally from Walkinstown, Dublin, but now lives in Palestine, where she teaches ballet.”

Casey is asked “Where do you live now?”

I live in Palestine with my fiancé Fadi, who is from Jerusalem. We first met in Belgium and eventually I decided to visit him over here for three weeks. Almost four years later I’m still here. Fadi is a circus artist so his projects take him all over the country and overseas fairly regularly. I started teaching ballet and we moved to Haifa, which is a seaside city with a big Palestinian population.

Haifa, as we ascertain from the rest of the article, is where Casey lives. Haifa, Israel’s third largest city. Not “Palestine” as Casey states. So begins what looks like a deliberate effort either on the part of Casey or the Irish Times (or both) to confuse readers and conflate Israel with “Palestine.”

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One Hundred Years - From San Remo to its 72nd birthday, Israel survives the virus of political and moral collapse - by Melanie Phillips

Unlike Israel, its Middle Eastern neighbors were artificial creations through which the model of the nation-state was imposed upon unruly tribal areas in the hope and expectation that this would give them order, stability and prosperity.

Melanie Phillips..
JNS.org..
23 April '20..

One hundred years ago this Sunday, the four principal allied powers involved in World War I signed a resolution at San Remo. Next week, Israel celebrates Yom Ha’atzmaut, the 72nd anniversary of the state’s declaration of independence.

Typically, the world thinks that the key step towards the establishment of the State of Israel was the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the statement in which the British government committed itself to work for the establishment of a Jewish home in what was then called Palestine.

Relatively little attention has been paid to the more important milestone in that story: the San Remo resolution signed on April 26, 1920.

For it was at San Remo that Britain, France, Italy and Japan turned the Balfour Declaration into an internationally binding treaty to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine, with Britain being given the mandate to facilitate Jewish immigration there.

A few months after the San Remo conference, for reasons of realpolitik, Britain hived off some three-quarters of Palestine to create Transjordan.

The scope of what was left for the Jewish national home, however, is something that Israel’s enemies don’t want to acknowledge—and is the reason that San Remo is conspicuously ignored. For in that resolution lie the roots of Jewish legitimacy, not just in Israel but also in the disputed territories.

That’s because the Palestine within which the Jews were legally entitled to settle as their designated national home included not just the Israel that emerged in 1948, but also Judea and Samaria. That legal right given to the Jews to settle the entire land of Mandatory Palestine has never been abrogated.

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Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, “The Legacy,” in 2018. Her work can be found at: www.melaniephillips.com.

Israel Memories - by Jerold Auerbach

...With hesitation, I entered. Seated behind a table at one end, surrounded by shelves filled with cartons, was a husky middle-age man dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, wearing a kippa. He pointed to a nearby chair, where I dutifully sat and waited. At his initiative we began a conversation that lasted for thirty years.

Jerold Auerbach..
Algemeiner..
22 April '20..

Warmly greeting my family at Ben Gurion airport in September 1974 was Haggai, a Tel Aviv University history professor who would become my mentor and dear friend during my year as Fulbright professor. He had come to help my family navigate our entry as strangers in a strange land. I had visited Israel for the first time one year earlier with a group of “disaffected Jewish academics,” chosen by the American Jewish Committee in an effort to counter the rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment that had begun to spill across college and university campuses. I knew that I was amply qualified. So did the Committee.

The few days that I spent in Jerusalem during that two-week journey convinced me that I must return. The Fulbright professorship became my ticket. Haggai, understandably assuming that we would want to live near the university, went out of his way to guide us through the airport maze to our new home. When I told him that we had already rented an apartment in Jerusalem he was clearly disappointed.

Haggai faithfully attended my weekly seminar (ironically entitled “The American Promised Land”), followed by lunch together. There I became the student, learning about Israel from a superb teacher. A Haganah soldier during the Independence War when he had just turned 18, Haggai chose Kibbutz Revivim, close to the border with Egypt, as his postwar home. A decade later he came to Columbia University for his PhD in American history. With degree in hand he had returned to Israel to teach at Tel Aviv University. Our year together, first as colleagues then as friends, taught me about Israel.

I had other teachers that year. One of my students, Rafi Amir, had been the Kol Israel radio newscaster during the Six-Day War. Arriving at the Western Wall with the first wave of IDF soldiers, he broadcast with palpable excitement the return of Jews to their ancient holy site for the first time since Jordan had destroyed the Jewish Quarter during the Independence War. Rafi became my Jerusalem guide and teacher, taking me to hidden corners in the Old City that I never would have found by myself.

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Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel, 1896-2016, chosen for Mosaic by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a best book of 2019.

Question. Why would anyone celebrate the failed, deadly "Arab Revolt" of 1936? - by Elder of Ziyon

The revolt killed thousands of Arabs, destroyed the Arab political and economic leadership in Palestine, and the results were disastrous for any Palestinian national aspirations since there was no leadership or unity in 1948. There is a direct line from the 1936-9 Arab Revolt to what the Palestinians call the naqba. So why would anyone who pretends to be pro-Palestinian celebrate this huge failure?

Elder of Ziyon..
20 April '20..

Students for Justice in Palestine tweeted this thread:

It was 84 years ago on April of 1936 when Palestinians began what we now call the 1936 Arab Revolt. In opposition to the British enforcement of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which prioritized Jewish immigration to Palestine and displaced indigenous Palestinians, the revolt began as a general strike. Rural Palestinians in the 1930’s lived during a debilitating economic depression. Their struggle was only worsened by British colonial policies and heightened anti-Semitism in Europe resulting in an increase of Jewish immigration to Palestine.

In response, the Arab Higher Committee led a general strike against the British and Zionist opposition. As the action progressed, however, the Arab Higher Committee had been accused of betraying the cause after agreeing to the request of the Arab kings to end the strike.

The general strike lasted for six months making it one of the longest general strikes in history and marking the start of the Arab Revolt that lasted until 1939. Today we want to honor this collective resistance as we continue our joint struggles for liberation!⁣

5000 Arabs were killed in the Arab Revolt, many by the British but perhaps most by infighting.

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In Israel, who is really making the decisions on how to manage the corona crisis?

Anyone suggesting that crisis management should be transferred to the IDF, one of the ministries or any other entity is not only suggesting that management is taken out of the hands of the NSC, but essentially also wants to take the responsibility for the decision making away from the prime minister.

Professor Jacob Nagel..
Israel Hayom..
19 April '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/19/who-is-really-making-the-decisions-on-how-to-manage-the-corona-crisis/

Over the last two weeks, there has been a witch-hunt over the question of who is "managing" the coronavirus crisis, and given the sensitivity of this issue, the media is likely to keep focusing on this for the near future.

Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, most of the writers and pundits are missing the central question – or perhaps it simply doesn't fit their agenda.

Shuki Sadeh outdid himself with a noxious article in The Marker about the National Security Council, almost entirely detached from reality and the NSC's remarkable work during the current crisis, and in recent years. The article relied on interviews and ideas from various "NSC victims" as well as politicians whose main objective is to defame the prime minister and his team.

The central question that all these advisors and pundits who do not understand the Israeli system of government, or seek to change it through illegitimate pressure, is not "who is managing the crisis", but rather who is making the decisions.

The hierarchy of the executive authority in Israel is very clear – even if we don't always work according to it: the prime minister and the security-defense cabinet, or any other composition of ministers that is decided (and sometimes the entire government according to the law), are the ones who are in charge of making the important decision which impacts upon our lives, both in routine times and in times of crisis. The legislature, i.e. the Knesset, is meant to supervise the activities of the executive. This is a very important process – but very often Knesset committees, especially those run by the opposition, are not focused on supervision, but rather on goading the prime minister and ministers.

A limited forum


If one understands these basic principles, then it is understandable that the discussions around "who is managing the crisis" are less relevant. Decisions are made in a limited forum, and sometimes by the prime minister alone. In order to help him reach these decisions and understand the operational alternatives suggested by the professional bodies, the National Security Council was established.

Anti-Israel propaganda helps people die - by Elder of Ziyon

The massive coverage over the past five weeks of a crisis that never happened crowds out coverage for the actual crises in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and other Arab and Muslim countries who have far more people at risk than the total number of Palestinians. Limited aid dollars are disproportionately sent to the one place where people aren't dying of COVID-19 and not sent to NGOs that can actually help millions of other Arabs.

Elder of Ziyon..
19 April '20..

I've seen lots of articles, retweeted hundreds of times by people who pretend to be humanitarian, about how Israeli prisons are going to be hotbeds of coronavirus because of crowding and lack of medical aid - both of which aren't true. Indeed, there are still no cases of COVID-19 in Israeli prisons with Palestinian prisoners.

But the prisons in the rest of the Arab and Muslim world? Practically no one cares:

Egyptian authorities have rejected pleas to free up overcrowded jails, continuing to imprison dissidents even as COVID-19 infections in the country rise.

One former detainee, who preferred not to be identified out of fear of repercussions, said there was a "catastrophe brewing in prisons" in the country because of unsanitary conditions and overcrowding.

He spent around two years in a cramped cell with some 25 other men in the Borg al-Arab prison, near the northern city of Alexandria, and recounted how a hole in the ground functioned as a rudimentary bathroom for showering and as a latrine.
"We had a tattered blanket that we used as a door for privacy, and the little running water we had... would wash away all the filth on an already dirty cement floor," said the former inmate, who was released in late 2015.

"We slept on our 'swords', meaning we lay on the floor next to each other on our sides. You couldn't sleep on your back, that was out of the question because of the lack of space," he added.

In war-torn Syria, the pandemic has put a spotlight back on the plight of political prisoners and long-term detainees.

In Iran, Reza Khandan, husband of jailed human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, described on Facebook the situation in Tehran's Evin prison, where family phone calls have been limited.

"The crowded meeting room is an ideal place for the virus to spread," he wrote, since many families have been forced to visit in person.

Because so many reporters are covering a non-existent crisis in Israel, there is no oxygen for real issues in the Arab world to be publicized.

And prisons aren't the only issue.

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Anyone surprised that Coronavirus can stop economies but not Palestinian Authority hate? - by Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Coronavirus can stop economies but not PA hate: PA continues terror and Martyrdom promotion – through official TV and radio

Nan Jacques Zilberdik..
Palestinian Media Watch..
17 April '20..

While the Corona pandemic is interfering with daily life and challenging economies around the globe, one sphere is unaffected. The Palestinian Authority is not letting the virus obstruct its obsessive promotion of violence and terror to Palestinians. The following are songs broadcast during the crisis that encourage continued terror, promote Martyrdom-death for children, and congratulate mothers on the dying of their sons as “Martyrs.” Several of them are songs that have been exposed in the past by Palestinian Media Watch:

“No force in the world can remove the weapon from my hand”



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Demanding that Israel release terrorists to be free to kill Jews again? - by Elder of Ziyon

This particular group says that the prisoners must be freed "for public health." They care so much about the health and safety of the people! Except for the hundreds of Jews who were murdered by these terrorists. Their health and safety aren't on the radar of these supposed humanitarians.

Elder of Ziyon..
17 April '20..

Today is Palestinian Prisoner Day, and people from the far Left as well as Palestinians are demanding that Palestinian terrorists be freed.

Mahmoud Abbas said that he would refuse to sign any peace agreement with Israel that didn't free every Palestinian terrorist, no matter what they were convicted of.

But the far-left is saying the same thing, pretending to care about human rights.

This particular group says that the prisoners must be freed "for public health."

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After the Corona Plague, We’ll Also March and Sing - by Lenny Ben-David

Out of thousands of vintage photographs I’ve discovered, this picture is my favorite. I found the black and white picture in the Library of Congress, and the caption read, “Group of children and adults in procession in street, some holding a banner with a Star of David,” taken between 1910 and 1930.

Lenny Ben-David..
Blog/TOI..
10 April '20..

Several years ago, after research, field trips, & my wife’s assistance, we discovered the picture was taken in Jerusalem on Lag B’Omer, April 30, 1918. The children and their teachers were returning to the Old City after visiting the Tomb of the High Priest Simon the Righteous (Shimon Hatzadik). They were walking south on Nablus Road which ran between the Old City and Mount Scopus. From the shadows, it can be ascertained that the hour was early afternoon; the girls started their Spring-day hike with sweaters, and most had removed them.

The detective story of how we determined the time and place of the picture can be viewed here.

In the Age of Corona, this Picture Has Much More Significance


Lag B’Omer, the 33rd day between Passover and Shavuot, has deep Kabbalistic origins, dating back thousands of years. From Passover until Lag B’Omer, the period is commemorated as a time of mourning, and Jewish weddings or public celebrations are not held. Lag B’Omer marks the end of a national plague that struck Eretz Yisrael and killed 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students in the first century of the Common Era. For Jewish children, the day is reserved for school outings and nature walks – to this day.

In April 1918, these children were experiencing the end of the multiple plagues of Ottoman control, starvation, cholera, typhoid, malaria.

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Good Question. Why Does No One Care About These Palestinians? by Khaled Abu Toameh

Unfortunately, the Palestinians of Syria live in an Arab country. Were those Palestinians living in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, the international media, the United Nations and human rights organizations would have interrupted the daily media fare of coronavirus by shouting day and night about Israel's purported persecution of the Palestinians.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
14 April '20..

As the world is busy combating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Palestinians are continuing to "disappear" in Syrian prisons -- or otherwise die. Those in the international community expressing concern about the possible spread of the virus in the Gaza Strip are ignoring the existing tragedy of the Palestinians in Syria, particularly those held in various Syrian government-controlled prisons.

The international community also does not seem to care if a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria is about to be wiped off the face of the earth.

The reason the world does not care about the atrocities committed against Palestinians in Syria: they cannot blame Israel for them.

An Arab persecuting or torturing an Arab never seems to be condemned by the international community.

The following are some distressing figures released this week by the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS), a London-based human rights watchdog organization that monitors the situation of Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria.

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Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

University of California students justify Palestinian terror. Actually, they justify ALL terror. - by Elder of Ziyon

...I can see nothing in the Bears for Palestine justification of murdering Israeli Jews that does not preclude justifying campus terrorism as well. Students with such a twisted view of morality are a danger to everyone on campus.

Elder of Ziyon..
12 April '20..

In The Daily Californian, the group "Bears for Palestine" not only support terrorist Rasmea Odeh, but they also explicitly justify all Palestinian terrorism:

Regarding Leila Khaled and Fatima Bernawi, many individuals throughout history have demonstrated strategic means of resisting occupation and have been labeled as “terrorists.” ....And like Mandela, Khaled and Bernawi sought to bring attention to the brutal occupation of Palestinians. As millions of Palestinians have been expelled from their homeland and thousands of Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli occupation, it is only natural that Palestinians would militarize and resist the occupation.

It signals power and privilege to presume that individuals are “terrorists” without first asking what forces them to resort to protests. To individuals who seek to teach us oppressors’ morals, we respectfully say we do not take orders from colonizers. To quote the anti-colonial phenom Frantz Fanon: “When we revolt, it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.”
Khaled was the notorious airplane hijacker involved in the 1969 TWA Flight 840 and El Al flight 219 in 1970. Bernawi attempted to bomb a cinema in Jerusalem.

Notice that the justification by the Bears of Palestine for the terror acts of these two women can extend to the most depraved acts of terror imaginable - if Bernawi is justified in her attempt to blow up people watching a movie, then any murderous act against any civilians is justifiable as long as it is called a mere "protest." ISIS beheadings are no different than suicide bombings which are no different than cinema bombings.

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Introducing the @Amnesty employee who insisted Hamas arrest Gazans for videoconferencing with Israelis - by Elder of Ziyon

This one incident shows the abject hypocrisy of the entire so-called "human rights" and "peace" communities. Amnesty hires a worker who explicitly supports terror, "peace groups" are silent when ordinary Gazans are arrested for speaking to Israelis online, and the head of HRW implies that Hamas' actions would be OK if only the Jews were more right wing. It would be unbelievable if this sort of thing hasn't happened so many times before.

Elder of Ziyon..
12 April '20..

The New York Times reported:

For five years, a small but feisty group of Palestinian peace activists in the blockaded Gaza Strip has been organizing small-scale video chats with Israelis under a bridge-building initiative it calls “Skype With Your Enemy.”

On Monday, the group, the Gaza Youth Committee, drew one of its biggest crowds yet — more than 200 participants — this time on Zoom, the newly popular teleconferencing platform.

But other Palestinians in Gaza, who took umbrage at the idea of befriending Israelis, were also listening in. And the resulting public uproar prompted Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, to arrest the youth committee’s leader and several other participants.

The charge: “holding a normalization activity” with Israelis, which a Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, Iyad Al-Bozom, called a crime, saying it amounted to the “betrayal of our people and their sacrifices.”

...[E]arly Thursday morning, a freelance Gaza journalist, Hind Khoudary, posted angry denunciations on Facebook of Mr. [Rami] Aman and others on the call, tagging three Hamas officials, including Mr. Al-Bozom, to ensure it got their attention.

An arrest warrant was issued by the Hamas military prosecution, which handles accused collaborators with Israel, would-be suicide bombers and other serious security threats, Mr. Al-Bozom said. He did not identify or say how many other youth committee members had also been detained.

Hind Khoudary isn't just a "freelance journalist." She works for Amnesty International.

Yes, a person working for an organization that was founded to fight for the freedom of people imprisoned for free speech demanded that a terror group put people in prison for talking to Israelis.

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‘The Show Must Go On’. It’s in our national DNA. - by David E. Kaplan

Can’t go to concerts, then ‘Corona Concerts’ come to you as top Israeli musicians perform nightly in our living rooms

David E. Kaplan..
Lay of the Land..
10 April '20..

How accustomed are Israelis that when the chips are down, they will not be denied culture and entertainment! It’s a hallmark of the character of this country and its people. Through wars, intifadas and incessant missile attacks, the message projected is that ‘The Show Must Go On’.

It’s in our national DNA.

Over a decade before Israel emerged as a state, culture was foremost on the minds of those navigating its destiny.

On 26 December 1936, The Palestine Orchestra – the forerunner of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) – was born. Its genesis coincided with The Great Arab Revolt (1936-1939) that began in April 1936 when a Jewish convoy was attacked, and two drivers killed. If frightening violence against Jews prevailed in Palestine, it was the impeding genocide of Jews in Europe that was the impetus for the formation of the IPO.

The great Polish-born Jewish violinist and musician, Bronislaw Huberman, who foresaw the Holocaust, persuaded 75 Jewish musicians from major European orchestras to immigrate to Palestine, creating what he called the “materialization of the Zionist culture in the fatherland” on the sand dunes of Tel Aviv.

Striving for excellence, Huberman invited the greatest conductor of the time, Arturo Toscanini, to conduct the opening concert, to be performed at the Levant Fair in Tel Aviv on 26 December 1936. Toscanini abandoned his renowned NBC Orchestra for several weeks “to render paternal care to the newly born…”

Having escaped the rise of Fascism in his homeland of Italy, the great Maestro said:

“I am doing this for humanity…”

That thirst of a people for music prevailed and is embedded in Israeli culture.

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(The diverse group of performers appearing on Israel’s Channel M12 includes Harel Skaat, Amir Dadon, Maor Cohen, Asaf Amdursky, Dudu Aharon, Danny Robas, Knessiat Hasechel, Netta Barzilai, Marina Maximillian Blumin, Monica Sex, Natan Goshen, Idan Habib, Miki Gavrielov, Elai Botner, Amir Benyun, Kobi Aflalo, Karolina, Keren Peles, Shiri Maymon, Rami Kleinstein, Shuli Rand, the Shalva Band and Shimon Buskila. Golan Einat, owner of the Zappa Group that is cosponsoring the ‘Corona Series’ together with Keshet, said: “In these difficult days, it is a great privilege for us to try to bring Zappa’s live performances directly into the homes of hundreds of thousands of people in Israel.” And now all of you who might have missed these extraordinary concerts, can ENJOY at your leisure at home by linking onto the various performing artists within the post)

When a Pharmaceutical Magazine’s Gaza Story is Itself Medical Negligence - by Simon Plosker

Pharmafile.com and its associate magazine Pharmafocus, instead of blaming Israel for all of Gaza’s ills and a “death sentence” on Gazans for a coronoavirus outbreak that hasn’t and hopefully will not happen, should stick to the issues it has actual expertise in.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
07 April '20..

According to its mission statement, “Pharmafile.com is a leading portal for the pharmaceutical industry, providing industry professionals with pharma news, pharma events, pharma service company listings and pharma jobs.”

Pharmafile.com also has an associated trade magazine Pharmafocus. One wouldn’t expect a pharmaceutical magazine to stray into the realm of geopolitics. Unfortunately, this is exactly where it has gone with the prejudicially titled “Israeli blockade has made COVID-19 a “death sentence” in Gaza.”

Israeli blockade has made COVID-19 a “death sentence” in Gaza https://t.co/PPeNbPPJJF pic.twitter.com/iHqtobXq0x

— Pharmafocus (@Pharmafocus) April 6, 2020

Nobody should underplay the potential seriousness of the coronavirus threat to Gazans or anywhere else in the world. However, medical professionals and people in the pharmaceutical industry deserve factually-based evidence rather than hyperbole when it comes to assessing the threat.

In the first instance, blaming the “Israeli blockade” for a “death sentence” is obscene. At the time of writing, Gaza has 12 confirmed coronavirus cases and no deaths. Becoming infected with the virus, while potentially life-threatening, is in no way a death sentence according to global statistics. Thankfully, most of those with corona symptoms recover. It is also worth considering that the relatively young population of Gaza (a median age of around 17 years old) would indicate a potentially higher survival rate.

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Important Lesson from the Coronavirus Crisis: Local Farming is Clearly a Vital National Asset - by Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen

The coronavirus crisis underscores agriculture’s importance as a vital national asset. Public health depends not only on the quality of medical services but also on the availability and quality of food, which makes it vital for the state to maintain the highest possible level of agricultural self-sufficiency.

Spring barley in Israel,
photo by Janie Easterman via Flickr CC

Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,521..
06 April '20..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/local-farming-existential-interest/

Until the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, the inhabitants of many of the world’s big cities felt no sense of any dependence on their countries’ local farmers. Every morning, trucks loaded with vegetables grown in Mexican greenhouses streamed into New York. Every evening, aircraft full of Turkish vegetables flew to Berlin to be sold in the markets in the morning.

The marketing of Israeli agricultural produce, like that of all other consumer products, has detached from domestic production. Even in midwinter, South African grapes are available on grocery shelves in Tel Aviv. In that metropolis, practically all interest in the fate of the country’s farmers has ceased completely.

How did this happen? The Treasury and the Ministry of Agriculture were united in their belief that for economic reasons, the Israeli agriculture market should be opened up to global competition. When they allowed imported Chinese fish to flood the market before each holiday, they severely hit the Israeli fisheries industry, but explained that this was necessary to lower the cost of living. They maintained this argument despite the fate of the Israeli textile factories, which were badly affected by cheap Chinese imports.

In the face of these measures, Israeli agriculture has essentially come to a standstill. Farmers in the country are having difficulty surviving and farms are closing down.

Hamas praises itself on how humanitarian it is - by Elder of Ziyon

...at the same time they are threatening a new Holocaust against Jews, they are telling the world how moral they are. You could not make this up.

Elder of Ziyon..
03 April '20..

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar threatened to kill all of Israel's Jews if Gaza does not get enough ventilators.

“If ventilators are not brought into [Gaza], we’ll take them by force from Israel and stop the breathing of 6 million Israelis," he said, as reported by Times of Israel and Arab media.

Israel has close to 9 million people, of whom about 6.9 million are Jewish. Sinwar's use of the word phrase "six million" is meant to apply only to Jews, as well as to evoke the Holocaust.

No "human rights" group seemed bothered by that.

But, at the same time, Hamas pretended to offer a deal if Israel released prisoners who are old and sick, women and those under 18. A Hamas press release said, "We can offer a partial concession on the issue of the captured Israeli soldiers, in exchange for the release of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian prisoners, the elderly, the sick, women and children."

The nature of this "partial concession" is not even hinted at. Maybe Israel can expect a fingernail or a 1 cm square piece of cloth from one of the uniforms of the dead.

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The Coronavirus Vs. the Palestinian Authority's Financial Priorities - by Maurice Hirsch, Adv.

The amount the PA is paying terrorists this month could buy them 387,143 Coronavirus test kits or 465 ventilators instead

Maurice Hirsch, Adv..
Palestinian Media Watch..
30 March '20..
Link: https://palwatch.org/page/17674

For which leaders is the payment of financial rewards to terrorists more important than supporting the needy or paying teachers?

The answer is, of course, the Palestinian Authority leaders– during the Coronavirus crisis!

Anticipating a fall in income, PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh announced that the payment of the March salaries will be staggered, and every day a different group of PA employees will be paid. The order of payment is a clear indication of the PA’s priorities.

Preceded only by the medical and supporting personnel, and the PA Security Forces members, third in line to receive their share of the limited PA budget are the terrorist prisoners and the families of the dead terrorists, the so-called “Martyrs.”

“Since the wheels of production, import, and consumption have stopped, there will be a large drop of more than 50% in the PA’s revenues… The international aid will decrease because the entire world is in crisis, and therefore we will work according to an emergency austerity budget by reducing the expenses as much as possible. However, we will pay the salaries for this month [March] in full and over the course of several days in order to prevent gatherings in front of the banks, and this [will be] in the following manner:

On Sunday the salaries of the medical and supporting personnel will be paid.
On Monday to the [PA] Security Forces members.
On Tuesday to the prisoners and [the families of] the Martyrs.
On Wednesday to welfare cases and the poor.
On Thursday to the teachers.
On Friday to the rest of the [PA] public employees.
The last payment, on Saturday, will be to senior officials, to high level state employees, and to the ministers.”

[WAFA, Official PA news agency, March 29, 2020]

As Palestinian Media Watch has shown, this is not the first time the PA has clearly demonstrated its warped priorities. In 2019, when the PA decided to plunge itself into a self-made financial crisis and was forced to cut salaries to its law abiding employees, it nevertheless committed itself to paying, in full, the salaries of the terrorist prisoners and allowances of the families of the dead terrorists.