Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 11, 2016

"Protocols of Elders of Zion" (new edition!) at Cairo Book Fair

Here is a scene of an author signing books at the Cairo Book Fair last week

Let's look closer at that book on the lower right:

It is a new 8th edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, issued by the publishing house that hosted this author.

The same publisher published a different cover for the previous 2013 edition:

Apparently that older cover didn't quite capture the pure evil of Jews well enough, so it had to be re-drawn.

The publisher is Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, and the person signing his books, Mansour Abdelhakim, whose website is linked to for the Protocols edition just above, is apparently an antisemitic conspiracy theorist as well.

I have previously reported that the Cairo Book Fair had a session dedicated to bashing Jews.

Interestingly, Egyptian authorities have removed books they deemed distasteful from the Book Fair in previous years, including books that boosted the Muslim Brotherhood.

(h/t Shwarama News)

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We have noted a number of times that part of any real peace between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would necessarily mean that they work together in joint projects.

It just so happens that Palestinians call such any co-existence projects "normalization with the Zionist enemy" and consider it practically a crime.

Yet there are idealistic Jews who keep trying to build programs for real peace - the Peres Center in particular works hard on this.

USAID tries to fund programs that encourage conflict resolution between the sides as well:

Today [November 10 2015] USAID West Bank and Gaza Mission and U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv announced 15 new grants to the Conflict Management and Mitigation Program [three managed by U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv and 12 managed by USAID West Bank and Gaza Mission]. The new grants bring together Israelis and Palestinians and provide opportunities to address issues, reconcile differences, and promote greater understanding and mutual trust by working on common goals such as economic development, environment, health, education, sports, music, and information technology.

USAID West Bank and Gaza Mission Director Dave Harden noted “These grants represent our investment in support of partners who strive for peace and a better, more hopeful Middle East”

The CMM Program is part of a worldwide effort to bring together individuals of different backgrounds from areas of conflicts in people to people reconciliation activities. Since the program’s start, USAID WBG and U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv have invested in 99 CMM grants.

So programs that encourage grassroots cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians do exist, even if practically all of them are initiated from the Israeli side and the PA fights tooth and nail against them.

Which makes this answer to a question in the UK Parliament so interesting:

Q

Asked by Joan Ryan

(Enfield North)

[R]

[N]

Asked on: 05 February 2016

Department for International Development

Israel: Palestinians

26100

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support her Department has provided to projects fostering co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians in each of the last five years.

A

Answered by: Mr Desmond Swayne

Answered on: 10 February 2016

DFID does not directly fund joint Israeli-Palestinian programmes. However, through the Conflict Stability and Security Fund (CSSF), the UK provides support for the ‘Youth Creating Peace On/Line’ project which encourages educational cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. The project, run by NGO ‘Kids Creating Peace’, uses dialogue and leadership workshops to train participants to become peace advocates in their communities and beyond. The UK is providing £40,000 to ‘Youth Creating Peace On/Line’ for 2016/17.

DFID provided £349 million in support of Palestinian development from 2011-15 and will provide a further £72 million in 2015-16. For a breakdown on how financial assistance in the Palestinian Territories is spent, information is published on DFID’s Development Tracker website (https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk).

I couldn't find any specific mention of "Youth Creating Peace On/Line" project within the Kids Creating Peace website, but from its name it sounds like it might be is an Internet-only initiative and not one of KCP's projects that bring Israeli and Arab youth together. I could be wrong.

Either way, that is a pretty poor track record on conflict resolution initiatives from the UK. £40,000 in five years is practically nothing, especially compared to "£349 million in support of Palestinian development" - 1/100 of 1%.

It looks like instead of fighting against the absurd Palestinian Authority's anti-peace stand, the UK has largely bought into it.

(h/t David F)

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"Apartheid" Poster 2016: Dr. Jacob Hanna (update)

Entire series here.

UPDATE: In the comments Bob Knot note that Hanna accuses Israel of "pinkwashing" and calls himself a Palestinian. Yet he can still become an important member of Israeli society even with his noxious views about his country - and there are others in this series who are far more anti-Israel.

It all goes to prove even more how Israel is not an apartheid state.

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02/10 Links Pt2: Bully Deceive Smear: 10 Reasons Why BDS is Bad for Everyone; Blood Libeling at Vassar

From Ian:

South Africa and the Israel Apartheid hoax

“The problem is that you are a filthy Zionist Jew, and we do not talk to Zionists!” Is what a pro BDS activist shouted at Natan Pollack at the Witwatersrand University in South Africa. It was 2014 and Natan called a meeting between the Jewish organization he headed and the pro BDS group on campus. He wanted to see if they could have a dialogue. Guess not. So what is a Jewish boy to do? -Research and think: How do you talk to people who will not talk to you?
This was the catalyst to the establishment of the South African-Jewish Forum. A non profit organization, who’s mission is to take young South African leaders on a one week, all expenses paid, trip to Israel.
The anti-Israel, pro Boycott-Divestment -Sanctions movement has skillfully managed to insert itself into campus life, by promoting a narrative linking Israel to Apartheid. This is a very powerful manipulation of facts in South Africa, since black South Africans are intimately familiar with the hardship and suffering Apartheid entails. They feel compelled to help those who are oppressed in such a manner. Indeed, they feel it is their duty to help those who suffer under this yoke. Therefore, if you are pro human rights, you are inevitably pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel and, by extension, anti-Jew. This sentiment is further intensified by image displays of death and carnage, supposedly perpetrated by the Israelis, during Israel Apartheid week on campus. Can anyone blame students for being hostile to the Jews on campus?
Nathan Pollack and Dan Brotman of the South African-Israel Forum worked tirelessly to get funding, and then convince these mostly reticent anti-Israel student leaders, to join them on a free fact finding trip to Israel.
Their first group consisted of 18 such students.

Open letter to the anti-Israel Left.

This letter is addressed to that small fraction of the political Left which not only criticises Israeli government policies or practices, but also demonises and denigrates Israel at every opportunity and thus denies its legitimacy.
We see you, we hear you, day after day, making your ignorant, bigoted and malicious accusations against Jews and Israel. You claim to be speaking for human rights and for justice, but your words and actions betray you. You are haters, liars and bullies.
You presume to define our Jewish identity to suit your own sensibilities and convenience. You assert that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. You say we are only a religious group and deny our 3,500 year old history as both a national and a faith community. In short, you presume to tell us who we are – a liberty you would not dare to take with any other group – and you are wrong.
You say you have nothing against Jews. You say you are only against Zionists. You categorise us into “good Jews” who oppose Israel and “bad Jews” who support Israel. This is your cynical, sinister way of offering acceptance only to those Jews who are so lacking in knowledge or moral fibre that they are willing to embrace your hollow caricature of what it means to be Jewish. You are against the millions of Jews, the overwhelming majority, who are proudly Jewish and support Israel’s right to exist as the State of the Jewish people.
You are guilty of ignoring, minimising and obfuscating the antisemitism within your ranks. You claim to be anti-racists but will not condemn the all too obvious anti-Jewish racism which is manifested every day by adherents of the anti-Israel movement – on websites, on social media, at demonstrations, in public lectures, talks and speeches. When this antisemitism is exposed, you go into hysterical denial, accusing those who expose the ugly anti-Jewish racism you have helped to spawn of trying to stifle public criticism of Israel. As if there is any shortage of public criticism of Israel.

Alan Dershowitz Brilliantly Strikes down Anti-Israel Question at Conference

Parole hearing set for Robert Kennedy killer Sirhan Sirhan

For nearly 50 years, Sirhan Sirhan has been consistent: He says he doesn’t remember fatally shooting Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in a crowded kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The Palestinian, a Jerusalem native, now 71, has given no inkling that he will change his version of events at his 15th parole hearing on Wednesday in San Diego. He is serving a life sentence that was commuted from death when the California Supreme Court briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972.
During his previous parole hearing in 2011, Sirhan told officials about his regret but again said he could not remember the events of June 5, 1968. The parole board ruled that Sirhan hadn’t shown sufficient remorse and didn’t understand the enormity of the crime less than five years after the killing of President John F. Kennedy — the senator’s older brother — and two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
His memory will be tested this time in front of Paul Schrade, 91, a Kennedy confidante who was one of five people injured in the shooting. Schrade will appear for the first time at a Sirhan parole hearing.

Report: Qatar and Turkey to give $1B to Hamas to make up for Iranian shortfall

Palestine Press Agency quotes Egypt's Youm7 about a power struggle within and without Hamas as to who should lead the terror group over the next several years.

Khaled Meshal, the political head of Hamas, has led the group since 1996, although he only visited Gaza once in 2012. Hamas' Gaza leaders like Qassam Brigades head Mohammed Deif and Mahmoud al-Zahar have been critical of Meshal for his position against Iran in the Syrian civil war, which cost Hamas hundreds of millions of dollars in support from Iran.

Qatar and Turkey want Meshal to remain Hamas' leader for two reasons. One is in order to counteract Iran's influence in Gaza. But the other is because Meshal is also an important player with the global Muslim Brotherhood and they want to maintain his position of prestige there. He is apparently strategizing with Egypt's MB leaders to come up with a way to gain ascendance again after the effective coup by Sisi.

In fact, Qatar already has once given Hamas hundreds of millions to discourage Gaza's Ismail Haniyeh from running against Meshal in internal Hamas elections. Haniyeh became second in command.

Now, according to this article, representatives from Qatar and Turkey have been meeting with Hamas committee members in Gaza to lobby for them to continue to support Meshal - and they are offering $1 billion to offset the loss of Iranian support.

The article makes it clear that part of these funds are going towards rocket manufacturing and terrorist tunnels.

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BDS Supporters Strain Muscle Patting Selves On Back (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Davis, California, February 10 - A group of activists campaigning for the boycott of, divestiture from, and sanctions against Israel reported to the Health Services Unit at the University of California campus today complaining of shoulder, neck, and upper back pain after an unusually strenuous ritual of patting themselves on the back, a student publication said today. The three activists were diagnosed with strained muscles.

Jasmine Hadid, Anthony Carlisle, and Gretchen Devries, all sophomores in the Sociology department, spent Tuesday afternoon rallying against the inclusion of Jews in several organs of student government, lest their presence imply that the student body condones Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. Holding aloft placards, chanting slogans, threatening Jewish-looking passers-by, and disrupting the proceedings of various student functions, the trio broke for lunch and congratulated themselves on standing up for morality, humanity, openness, freedom, and progressive values. However, they immediately felt pain, and decided to repair to the infirmary.

Medical staff at Health Services asked each of the moral giants to perform simple movements, and determined which muscles were affected by gauging where those movements produced pain. The staff recommended refraining from strenuous activity for several days and suggested an over-the-counter analgesic, but further medical intervention or advice was refused, as such additional treatment ran the risk of benefiting from technology or pharmaceuticals developed in Israel.

"I'd rather suffer this pain than legitimize those Zionist colonizers," declared Hadid, 20, who otherwise seems not to have a problem with Zionist technology in the smartphone she never puts down. "This pain reliever isn't generic, is it? A lot of genetics are made by Zionists," she wondered, examining the label.

"It's really important to show solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians," added Carlisle, 19, wincing as he held his neck at an awkward angle. "That's why we did the right thing and harassed Jews, who are collectively responsible for Palestinian suffering, and for using collective punishment on them."

Devries refused to answer a reporter's questions without vetting him as to his acceptance or rejection of Israel's legitimacy as a state. "I won't talk to anyone who accepts the inherently racist premise that one ethnicity should exclude others in exercising sovereignty," she intoned as if to the room. "Violating that condition would be a microaggression and a violation of my civil rights. Give Palestinians their own state already. OW! Goddamn it! You! Nurse! Give me some [expletive] medicine! I can't lift my arm to wag my finger self-righteously in this condition!"

At press time, the students were yelling at the clinic's clerical staff not to use their software to keep records of the treatment they provided, software that might have been developed in Israel.

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02/10 Links Pt1: Should we stand by knowing Hamas intends to attack?; Reconciliation, jihadi-style

From Ian:

Reconciliation, jihadi-style

Palestinian officials met in Doha on Sunday, as part of a Qatar-led initiative to cause rival factions Fatah and Hamas to bury the literal and figurative hatchet. Turkey was also in on the act, ostensibly interested in getting the leaders in Ramallah and Gaza to present a united front for the sake of an agreement with Israel.
This is amusing, to put it mildly, since the only thing on which Fatah and Hamas actually do agree is the ultimate goal of annihilating the Jewish state.
They are at odds about everything else, including the pace at which their shared aim should be carried out. But mainly, they -- like the rest of their Islamist brethren throughout the region and the world -- are engaged in a deadly power struggle.
So perpetual is this battle that the so-called unity deals the two groups signed in the past, most recently in April 2014, have unraveled before the ink on their contracts was dry. But the signatures did serve an unwitting purpose: to show those who still could not see that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a partner for jihad, not peace with Israel.

The Yasser Arafat school of Zionist history is poisoning the Zionism narrative

Like environmental sludge seeping into the groundwater, anti-Zionist toxins are poisoning standard discussions about Zionism. The latest example of how the campaign delegitimizing Israel insidiously undermines the Zionist narrative is a serious, non-polemical New York Times article quoting nine Zionists and no anti-Zionists. Steven Erlanger’s article “Who are the true heirs of Zionism” reflects the new (ab)normal: an inability to discuss Zionist history without wrapping it around the Palestinians’ self-serving, one-sided tale of national woe. Increasingly, consciously or unconsciously, many American elites, including Jewish intellectuals, are parroting the Yasser Arafat school of (anti-)Zionist history at worst, or the equally wrong, if less genocidal, post-Zionist school at best.
Just as environmental engineers construct clay barriers to prevent seepage into the soil to protect the groundwater, we need substantive Zionist education to detect and refute these distortions. Zionism has truth and fairness on its side. American history isn’t just about Native Americans or African Americans – and Zionism isn’t all about Palestinians.
The Times article begins by charging that “Zionism was never the gentlest of ideologies. The return of the Jewish people to their biblical homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty there have always carried within them the displacement of those already living on the land.” Erlanger then provides this bizarre, distorted perversion of Zionist history: “The earliest version of Zionism based the creation of a Jewish nation on the revived language of Hebrew, to unify the huge variety of dispersed Jews. Beginning in the 1920s and especially with the Holocaust, suggests Bernard Avishai ... came the idea of ‘political Zionism,’ which required a state and a military both to protect Jews against anti-Semitism and to transform them into a modern state, to defend themselves and, if necessary, to defy the world.”
Erlanger’s crackpot chronology is like starting the history of the American republic with Andrew Jackson in the 1820s, three decades after George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Israeli, French envoys face off online

It's its not everyday that two senior ambassadors debate on one of the world's most popular social networks. But that's exactly what happened this week when the French ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud and his Israeli counterpart Ron Dermer, exchanged barbs in front of everyone on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It all started with tweets by the senior French ambassador, who was formerly French ambassador to Israel and the United Nations. Araud retweeted statements made by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in conversations on achieving peace in Syria, which stated that "there can't be a political negotiation when one side is murdering the other."
Israel's ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, responded in kind to Araud's tweets, implying hypocrisy on the part of the French ambassador. "hmmm. Wonder if that wisdom will one day be applied to when Jews are being murdered in Israel," read his sarcastic tweet.
Araud waited a day and chose not to respond directly to Dermer, but his indirect response was sufficient:"Israel/Palestine. So predictable that any pretext leads one side to declare that the other one is evil."
After users responded to his tweets, including some Israelis, Araud addressed the subject with another tweet: "A tweet on Syria. An unrelated reaction on Israel/Palestine and an outpouring of one-sided tweets without any link with the first tweet." Araud later posted a third tweet: "Israel/Palestine. Feeding the passion instead of analyzing the situation from both sides is a good way to escape the real issues."

UNRWA offices torched by grateful Palestinians

Dafaa News reports that an UNRWA office in Shuafat was torched on Monday night.

No details on why the Palestinians are so grateful to the agency that has given them billions of dollars for free.

This news of Arabs torching a UN agency has been silenced. UNRWA of course doesn't mention it (I emailed them for comment, no response.) I could not find this story anywhere else in Arab media.

How many other similar stories just disappear because no one has any interest in publicizing them?

(h/t Yenta)

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Amnesty "specialist" writes a love letter to a Hamas supporter

ABC Australia reports about Hamas supporting hunger striker Muhammed al-Qiq:

The Israel army told the ABC that Mr al-Qeeq was detained because he is accused of "involvement and activism" with the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas and that he poses a "danger to local security".

Mr al-Qeeq was arrested and jailed three times in his 20s and his wife admitted he was involved with Hamas as a university student, but she said he was not active now.

"I tell you no Mohammad is not a member of Hamas," she said.

"He is a Palestinian journalist. Since he got out of jail in 2009 until he got arrested in 2015 he didn't organise any activities."

The ABC has seen video that Israel said proves Mr Al Qeeq incited others to violence.

Speaking at a West Bank University in November he praised young Palestinian attackers who had recently killed Israelis and spoke glowingly of a famous Hamas commander and bomb maker Yahya Ayyash.

Amnesty International is among the international bodies that have voiced concern for Mr al-Qeeq.

"Amnesty International has called on the Israeli authorities to release Mr al-Qeeq unless they are going to charge him with an internationally recognised criminal offence and trial him according to international fair trial standards," said Jacob Burns, Amnesty International research and campaign assistant.

Mr al-Qeeq has also alleged he was tortured by the Israeli security services.

"He says he was tied in a stress position known as the banana to a chair for up to 15 hours a day," Mr Burns said.

"And that his Israel interrogators threatened him with sexual violence and told him he would not see his family again for a long time if he did not confess to the allegations against him."

Israeli security officials have told the ABC the allegations about torture are "totally baseless".

Now, Edith Garwood, who is the "country specialist" for Israel and the territories for Amnesty USA, has written - on Amnesty's official blog - what can only be described as a love letter to the terrorist supporter.

Muhammed -What were you thinking about when you accepted the reality of your own death?

What thoughts and images went through your mind when you realized you were willing to risk permanent physical damage or even death to gain your freedom?

Were you thinking about the softness of your babies’ cheeks? How they smelled so fresh and their skin felt so soft after bath time?

Did you think of all the moments with your children, your babies, that you would miss?

Your children’s first day of school? Sending them off with their little backpacks or maybe how they would proudly walk up the aisle to receive their high school diplomas?

Maybe you imagined yourself dancing with your daughter at her wedding as your body started to shut down and you began to vomit blood.

Did you picture your wife’s face just as it was when you asked her to marry you as you were unable to resist the intravenous drip being inserted in your arm against your wishes?

Or maybe, when she told you she was pregnant, as your internal organs began to shut down?

Perhaps you were thinking of how they tortured you, using stress positions and threats of sexual violence?

Were you scared when you went on hunger strike? Hopeful?

The italicized sections of the article reproduced here are indented, making them appear to be a quote from someone else, the conclusion of the article - not set off as a block quote - shows that Garwood herself is indeed the author of this love note:

So, I wonder, knowing all this information, understanding his options – or non-options – what was Muhammed thinking when he realized that he may very well be leaving his wife and two, young children, his mother, his friends and profession at the hands of death as a last, desperate act to fight the unjust situation and on the small chance he would win his release?

What was he thinking when he chose – freedom?

Garwood is a former ISM volunteer and had written plenty of absurd, one-sided anti-Israel polemics before Amnesty decided that she is the perfect fit for that organization.

Now she writes the same things with the imprimatur of a major human rights organization.

And Amnesty has no problem with officially believing and publishing, without any disclaimer, the claims of a terror supporter about being tortured.

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Music video incites Palestinians to blow up Jews in buses

This video, entitled "The Roof of the Bus Goes Flying," was released for the anniversary of the death of master bombmaker Yahya Ayyash.

The bomber approaches the "Jews" waiting for the bus

Tens of thousands of people have viewed it in just a couple of days, and there have been Arabic newspaper articles praising it.

At least 40 people were involved in the production of this video.

It is a reflection of how truly sick Palestinian Arab society is that such a video can be produced to begin with, let alone praised and popularized.

Lyrics include:

Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. Oh bearer of good tidings, wrap the explosive belt around your waist. The story of the Intifada will only be told when the roof of a bus goes flying.

Oh Martyrdom-seeker, heed the call of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, make the blast of the bomb reach further and further. Make Netanyahu flee in shame, unable to count the number of casualties. Scatter them all over, strike fear among their people. Show no mercy to their settlers. Dispatch them to Hell. Nothing awaits them but the grave.

Oh martyrdom-seeker, the Al-Aqsa Mosque has called: Oh son, come to martyrdom! Blow yourself up, oh you with strong resolve. We will defend the soil of the pure Al-Aqsa.

Oh martyrdom-seeker, it is our duty to defend our people. You are the voice of honor within us.

With your explosive belt, we will defend our free women. We want the dead to fill the streets, and the blood to intensify the pain. Make the Zionist withdraw from the wrath of my avenging people.

Disclose your secrets to the Compassionate. Oh martyrdom-seeker, the Lord has chosen you. Our Prophet Muhammad will be your neighbor. In Paradise, your home has already been built. Step up and take revenge on behalf of your religion. Blow it up – may you be successful. Oh you who wears the explosive belt, your head is held high, when we bring the good tidings.

Oh Martyrdom-seeker, put on your explosive belt, and blow it up. This is your finest hour. How sweet are your bombs and explosives. Blow up the shameless Zionist.

Of course, one cannot find any Arabic language disavowals or criticisms of this video coming out of Palestinian media or social media. I would love to find a single Palestinian in the territories who is unabashedly anti-terror and against such incitement arguing with the masses of Arabs who praise it - but so far I have not found that single person. I have not even seen a single example of anonymous criticism.

The only conclusion is that the apologists are wrong - there is broad support for the most heinous terror attacks across all levels of Palestinian society. The disavowals of terror are said in English to the gullible idiots of J-Street and the White House. The polls that show reluctance to use terror show not that the people are against terror for moral reasons, but that they don't believe that blowing up Jews is tactically wise at this time.

Yahya Ayyash is a hero in Palestinian society. Period. Not a terrorist, not a flawed hero, not a product of his times - but a role model.

Make no mistake - the vast majority of Palestinians support the depraved message of videos like this, both explicitly and implicitly, by refusing to say a single negative word about them. And that is a message that Western media and politicians simply refuse to acknowledge.

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UNRWA gets money from a terror-linked bank (EoZTV)

UNRWA opened a girls' school this week. Nothing wrong with that.

But there is something very wrong with the Arab bank that funded this school.

Watch the details in the latest edition of EoZTV.

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02/09 Links Pt2: Israel’s dangerous anti-strategic game; In France, it's dangerous to be a Jew

From Ian:

Israel and the Apartheid Narrative: 2 South African Student Leaders Weigh In

About two-dozen people file into Dodd 175 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus on a Thursday night, scouting out seats and picking at the kosher pizza in the back of the lecture hall.
Miyelani Pinini knows the drill. A former student president of the University of Cape Town in South Africa, she’s attended and even organized her share of free-pizza events.
But now she and a fellow South African student leader were the stars of this one, brought to campus by StandWithUs, a pro-Israel education and advocacy organization, and Students Supporting Israel, a national network of pro-Israel campus groups.
Having traveled to Israel and the West Bank on the inaugural trip for the South Africa-Israel Forum (SAIF) in January 2015, she and law student Jamie Mithi undertook a whirlwind southern California speaking tour, weighing comparisons between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the South African apartheid regime.
“Our apartheid narrative is literally being stolen right under our feet just as our resources have,” Pinini told the lecture hall at UCLA on Feb. 4.

1975 anti-Semitism speech to UN even more relevant today, UK historian says

In 1975 Chaim Herzog gave a firebrand speech to the UN General Assembly vehemently rejecting its resolution that equated Zionism with racism. Today, 40 years later, prizewinning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore describes the address as “one of the great speeches of the 20th century.”
He speaks from knowledge: A 2013 book Sebag Montefiore edited, “Speeches That Changed the World,” features Herzog and his speech, alongside figures ranging from Jesus to Churchill.
1975’s infamous UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 had been promoted by the Soviet and Arab blocs as part of a diplomatic campaign to isolate Israel. Although the anti-Israel resolution was denounced by the Western, democratic states which opposed it, it was adopted on November 10, 1975, by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions) following a furious debate.
Herzog, who refused to be put on the defensive during the debate, declared, “For us, the Jewish people, this is but a passing episode in a rich and an event-filled history.” He further stated that the resolution’s supporters were motivated by the “two great evils” of “hatred and ignorance.”

Seth Frantzman: Israel’s dangerous anti-strategic game

Israel has a difficult strategic problem. In the long term its support in Europe is eroding. Its support in America is likely to erode as a new generation takes the reins of the Democratic Party. It has new allies in Asia and the disintegration of the Middle East is both a benefit and a threat. It is so entangled in the West Bank its ability to withdraw is in doubt.
The worst thing for Israel is the constant abdication of responsibility by its political elites. “They hate us” is not an answer to a strategic goal. Israel chose to conquer the West Bank. It chose to export a half million citizens into the West Bank. It chose to annex east Jerusalem. In all these choices the local Palestinians were not asked their say in the matter. All of the choices are Israel’s. Yet the rules of the game are such that the media and international community are biased against Israel or hold it to a higher standard.
Israel abdicates responsibility by deciding that despite knowing the rules of the game, it will continue to play by the Palestinian timetable, waiting for peace and love to breakout, managing the conflict and complaining that the rules won’t change.
Someone needs to remind Israelis and their supporters: The rules are never going to change. The international community and media will continue to be biased against the country. Most Palestinians will never change their overall views of Israel. Brand Israel will continue to be toxic in the West. You have more to lose, and time is probably not on your side. There is dire need for a long-term strategy to address that. It’s time to ask the right questions, rather than just feign irresponsibility.