Thursday, April 27, 2017

From Ian:

Palestinians: This is How We Intimidate Journalists
In the world of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, a journalist's loyalty to his leaders and their cause supersedes his loyalty to the truth. In a word, it is the truth vs. Abbas's security forces.
As the international media relies heavily on Palestinian journalists and "media assistants" in covering Palestinian affairs, this intimidation of Palestinian journalists heavily colors the reporting of Western journalists. The stories Palestinian journalists tell their Western colleagues are limited to ones that will not endanger their own lives. This censorship, whether by the Abbas's security forces or self-imposed, explains why one rarely reads or sees a story in Western mainstream media about negative things happening in the PA-controlled territories.
Even when their Palestinian colleagues are beaten and arrested by Abbas's security forces, these "journalists" fail to report such incidents. This makes some sense: should they open their mouths with the truth, Abbas and his cohorts might indeed stop inviting them to press conferences and banquets in the fancy restaurants of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jericho.
Eugene Kontorovich: Palestine, Uti Possidetis Juris, and the Borders of Israel
Israel’s borders and territorial scope are a source of seemingly endless debate. Remarkably, despite the intensity of the debates, little attention has been paid to the relevance of the doctrine of uti possidetis juris to resolving legal aspects of the border dispute. Uti possidetis juris is widely acknowledged as the doctrine of customary international law that is central to determining territorial sovereignty in the era of decolonization. The doctrine provides that emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries.
Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights). VIEW PDF
Evelyn Gordon: Israel’s Wrongheaded Retreat on BDS
Regardless of whether you support or oppose a new law allowing Israel to bar entry to prominent supporters of anti-Israeli boycotts, one outcome was eminently predictable: Israel would lack the guts to enforce it even when doing so was most justified. That was amply proven by Wednesday’s decision to grant a one-year work visa to Human Rights Watch researcher Omar Shakir. By this decision, Israel eviscerated the one crucial point the law got right, despite the many it got wrong: You cannot wage an effective war on the BDS movement while giving the people behind it a pass. As the old truism goes, people are policy.
Shakir is the epitome of someone who should have been denied entry, and his case exemplifies why the law’s basic assumption–that boycotters must be targeted personally–is 100 percent correct. He has given lectures on college campuses in which he accused Israel of being an apartheid state, advocated anti-Israel boycotts, compared Zionism to “Afrikaner nationalism,” rejected a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the grounds that it would “institutionalize injustice,” and called for ending Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. His resume also includes a stint as a legal fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization that provides legal assistance and training to BDS activists and files war crimes suits against Israeli defense officials. Nor would discovering all this require any great research skills on the part of government officials; it’s all in a handy memo, complete with links, that NGO Monitor published in December.
Yet in his new role as HRW’s “Israel and Palestine director,” Shakir is supposed to oversee the production of unbiased, objective reports about human rights violations in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Needless to say, the very idea is fatuous; when someone has already made up his mind that Zionism is racism, Israel practices apartheid and a Jewish state has no right to exist, expecting him to produce unbiased research on this subject is like expecting the head of the Ku Klux Klan to preside fairly over the trial of a black man accused of raping a white woman. Instead, Shakir will spend his year here producing reports full of vicious anti-Israel slurs. Thanks to the “halo effect” enjoyed by all human rights organizations, those findings will be treated as credible by numerous well-meaning people overseas and will further undermine Israel in the international arena.

  • Thursday, April 27, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
After the British government refused to apologize for the Balfour Declaration, the thugocracy that is known as the Palestinian Authority did what it does best: it threatened Great Britain.

The Palestinian ambassador to the UK said on Tuesday that the UK would not apologize for the Balfour Declaration, which contributed to the establishment of an Israeli state, as the 100th commemoration of the signing of the document is marked this year.

Palestinian Ambassador Manuel Hassassian conveyed the news to Voice of Palestine radio that the UK government has officially refused an apology for the 1917 document which supported establishing a Jewish state on what would become British Mandate Palestine.

Hassassian also confirmed that the UK would hold celebrations, along with the Israeli government, during the centennial anniversary of the document on Nov. 2, despite Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urging the UK not to celebrate the document during the recent Arab Summit in Jordan and encouraging the government to officially apologize to Palestinians instead.

Palestinian leaders have continued to issue threats of suing the UK government over the declaration, with Hassassian reportedly saying that there were a “number of attorneys in the UK” who have already begun taking steps to sue the government.

If the UK backs down, apologizes to the Palestinian people and recognizes the state of Palestine, the issue of suing the UK will be cancelled,” official Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted Hassassian as saying.
What, exactly, would they demand in a lawsuit?

An apology?

Reparations?

What?

The threat of a lawsuit was first brought up by Mahmoud Abbas in a statement last July. At the time, he said:
With this anniversary, the painful solutions, and the passage of about a hundred years on this historic massacre of our land and the capabilities of our people, and with the continuation of this disaster without a solution, we ask the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States to support our preparation to file a lawsuit against the British government which issued the Balfour Declaration, and its implementation of the Mandate then, causing the plight of the Palestinian people, and dispersion, and depriving them of living in their homeland and to establish an independent state like the rest of the peoples of the region.
The specifics are...unclear.

Maybe he should sue the Arab leaders, including Palestinian Arab leaders, who refused to accept the UN resolution that would have given them a state in 1947!

Please, please sue the British government, Abbas. Sue them to demand an apology. Sue them to demand money. Sue them as publicly and noisily as possible. If you cant find a legal excuse to sue, please continue to threaten a lawsuit anyway.

It is a sure way to lose support for your cause in the West, as people are slowly realizing that the Palestinian Authority is more interested in stunts than peace. The Arab world is already there, and your actions are the surest way to ensure that your people will be whining about their terrible lives in their villas in Ramallah for the next century.




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Thursday, April 27, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
The dictionary definition of incitement is "something that encourages people to be violent or commit crimes, or the deliberate act of encouraging violence or crime."

Writers like me, organizations like Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI, and the State of Isael itself have accurately and effectively documented thousands of cases of incitement in Palestinian media and from Palestinian leaders, directly encouraging their people to act violently and encouraging terror by praising and paying the terrorists and their families.

The PLO has no defense, so they are trying to accuse Israel of incitement as well.

But the evidence of Israeli incitement to violence against Palestinians is thin. So they have to simply change the definition of incitement to fit with their purposes.

The Negotiations Affairs Department of the PLO published a document that accuses Israel of having an official policy of "incitement."


In this document they portray legitimate political positions and policies as  "incitement". Here is every category of "incitement" they list:

"Israel's incitement against the two state solution"

"Expand existing settlements"

"'Land Theft Law'"

"Jerusalem: 'Eternal and Undivided Capital of the Jewish People'"

"Incitement against Palestinian prisoners"

One specific example of "incitement" listed is saying that Marwan Barghouti is a murderer.

Another is a statement from the Prime Minister's office that "We are in the land of the Bible, in the city of Jerusalem. Everything that happened there happened here. This is our land, our heritage, our book, our story, our faith and our hope."

Yes, the PLO officially claims that mentioning that the Bible is the story of the Jewish people is "incitement."

That mentioning the importance of Jerusalem to Jews is "incitement."

That noting that prisoners who tried to, or succeeded in, murdering innocent civilians are terrorists is "incitement."

That making legal claims on parts of the Land of Israel is "incitement."

They know that they are lying. But that is what the PLO does.




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Thursday, April 27, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
Today's news, illustrated:



UPDATE: Actually, some Gazans are blaming ...UNRWA!






We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Thursday, April 27, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has been designated a terror organization by the United States, Canada, the EU and other countries.

Yet it is allowed to operate freely by the Palestinian Authority, where it is part of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas' ruling party.

Here are photos and video from a rally in Yatta, near Hebron, on Wednesday. The terrorists are masked, openly firing weapons, and the Palestinian Authority condones this open display of violence by a known terror organization.



Most real governments would ban a separate military group from roaming the streets, masked, firing in the air. But Mahmoud Abbas' government doesn't have a problem with them. They gave permission for this rally, whether explicit or implicit.


The Aqsa Brigades have been responsible for numerous terror attacks, including some of the most heinous suicide bombings of the second intifada, killing well over a hundred Israelis.

And Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority  is on their side.


So why exactly does the world consider the PA to be moderate again?



We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

  • Wednesday, April 26, 2017
  • Elder of Ziyon


UNRWA-USA sent out a fundraising email entitled "Your Gaza electricity crisis questions answered."

It fails any fact check.

The reason for the Gaza electricity shortage is summarized in this recent Washington Post article:

Until now, the Palestinian Authority received fuel from ­Israel and sold it to the power station in Gaza, which is under Hamas’s authority. The Pales­tinian Authority even reduced the taxes. But financial ­difficulties meant other countries ­occasionally had to step in to cover the cost. In January, after public unrest over power cuts, Qatar and Turkey donated three month’s worth of fuel to Gaza.

But that arrangement has ended, and the Palestinian Authority has said that as long as Hamas remains in charge in Gaza, it should be responsible for paying the electricity bill — at the full cost.

The political fighting between the two Palestinian factions has left Gazans to survive with between four and six hours of electricity a day.

UNRWA-USA doesn't want to talk about the infighting between Palestinian leaders over who pays for the fuel. No one will donate to help a dysfunctional "state"  which can't even get it together to help their own people.

So UNRWA-USA blames - well, you know who.

What caused the blackouts in the first place? The electricity crisis in Gaza has been ongoing since June 2006, when an Israeli airstrike hit the GPP. It was targeted with another airstrike in July 2014, temporarily shutting it down. The damage sustained in these airstrikes, combined with the chronic fuel shortage due to the blockade, has forced the GPP to operate at half its normal capacity for years.
 What is the current energy crisis caused by? On April 17, the GPP was forced to shut down completely due to exhaustion of all fuel supplies and a complete lack of funds to replenish them. On April 20, the fuel supply from Egypt was also cut off due to a technical malfunction that has not been repaired.
Actually, the Gaza power plant never reached anything close to full capacity since it was built in 2002, because Gaza power lines couldn't handle that amount. The most it ever generated was 90 MW out of 140 MW capacity; recently it was generating around 70 MW  while Israel supplies 120 MW directly to Gaza.

And Israel has not limited the amount of fuel to Gaza in years. The "blockade" has nothing to do with why the power plant has no fuel.

UNRWA-USA goes on to deceive would-be donors:
No matter what, UNRWA remains the largest humanitarian provider for Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip, and the Agency will stop at nothing to provide critical education, health and mental health care, social services, and emergency response to the 1.3 million refugees who remain trapped under siege.
UNRWA does not buy or provide fuel for Gaza. This fundraiser is meant to appeal to the donors by saying how terrible those sieging, blockading Israelis are for making Gazan lives awful, without noting that UNRWA is not even helping them get electricity or fuel.

And all without saying a negative word about Hamas and the PA who every Gazan knows are the ones to blame for this problem.

Of course, we already knew that UNRWA-USA workers are rabidly anti-Israel.

UPDATE: JPost reports
The Palestinian Authority informed Israel that it is stopping all payments for electricity that enters Gaza through 10 electrical lines, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said on Thursday.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has warned over the past two weeks that he will take “unprecedented measures,” if Hamas does not concede some of its control over Gaza to the PA.

Hamas has said that it will not give in to “the threats” of the PA president.

The electrical lines entering Gaza from Israel account for some 120-125 megawatts, more than half of Gaza’s current electrical output. An electrical line from Egypt provides 27 megawatts and a power station, when fueled, delivers between 60-80 megawatts. The power station has not been working for almost two weeks for lack of fuel. Gaza needs a total of 420 megawatts.

Without the 10 electrical lines from Israel functioning, Gaza will almost certainly face a major electricity crisis.
Of course UNRWA will be silent about this as well, and only blame Israel for shutting down the electricity if it gets to that point.

If Israel were smart, it would continue to send electricity to Gaza for humanitarian reasons and withhold the equivalent tax payments to the PA the way it has done in the past.



We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
From Ian:

Michael Lumish: Fun with antisemitic anti-Zionists
I suppose this is rather stupid, but I find "trolling" antisemitic Facebook pages to be kind-of a kick.
There is a page called "Israel is a War Criminal" that I recently became aware of and - as one would expect - they specialize in separating out Jewish people in Israel, if not pro-Israel Jews, more generally, as a unique evil.
Therefore this morning I dropped in briefly to say hello with this little message:
Good morning anti-Zionists! How are you guys today? One of the things that give me a great deal of satisfaction is the knowledge that the Jewish people, after 2,000 years of diaspora have reconstituted our ancient homeland and reclaimed Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people. That in itself is a very beautiful thing, I can hardly even tell you. But, y’know, when the Jews who arrived in the Land of Israel from the concentration camps nobody thought that they could actually beat the combined Arab armies. But nobody quite realized that the combined Arab armies were so feminine.
Former dhimmis, along with Jewish women and half-starved Holocaust survivors actually beat the very cream of the Arab fighting forces in 1948 to re-establish Jewish sovereignty on historically Jewish land. And then to see this small struggling country not only survive but thrive just fills my heart with joy and gladness for the redemption of the Jewish people. Now, of course, Israel is a world leader in a variety of areas including technical and medical sciences, water reclamation, agriculture, not to mention arts and letters. Some of the top universities in the world are in that country. It’s really very gratifying.

Peace to you, please, my friends.
No, Ben-Gurion did NOT say “We must expel Arabs and take their place.”
Though, it’s rare to see this completely discredited quote appear anymore at ‘mainstream’ news outlets, on April 25th, The Irish News (of Belfast) published a letter which included the following claims:
The scene was set in 1937 when Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, in a letter to his son wrote “Negev land is reserved for Jewish citizens, whenever and wherever they want… we must expel Arabs and take their places… and if we have to use force, then we have the force at our disposal…”. This was, and is, the Zionist mindset before the great Estate Agent in the sky decided who really owned the land of Palestine.
In addition to the false quote concerning “expelling Arabs and taking their place”, the letter also distorts Ben-Gurion’s words concerning the Negev and the use of force. Here’s the actual sentence, again, translated into English by CAMERA.
All of our ambitions are built on the assumption that has proven true throughout all of our activities in the land [of Israel] — that there is enough room for us and for the Arabs in the land [of Israel]. And if we will have to use force, not for the sake of evicting the Arabs of the Negev or Transjordan, but rather in order to secure the right that belongs to us to settle there, force will be available to us.
As you can see, the actual Ben-Gurion quote has almost no resemblance to the way it’s presented in The Irish News letter. The “Zionist mindset”, as the letter writer put it, was not that Arabs should be expelled, but, rather, that there was room for both peoples in the land.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Gorka
“Every young person holding a placard to protest my parents and myself—I challenge you now: Go away and look at everything I have said and written in the last 46 years of my life and find one sentence that is anti-Semitic,” Sebastian Gorka said yesterday before walking out of a panel at Georgetown University. “You won’t find one.”
Gorka is right. But who cares? More specifically, why do I care? I’ve spent much of the last two months talking about Sebastian Gorka, and I’m tired. When I raised objections to the ludicrous assertion—repeated frequently and loudly by numerous media outlets—that the senior aide to President Donald Trump is some sort of crypto-Nazi, I was accused by many people of being a Gorka apologist.
Let’s get some things out of the way. I’ve never met Sebastian Gorka and don’t know much about his work on Islam or terrorism. I’m also not a fan of his boss, Donald Trump, which I’ve made clear in one or two or three hundred articles this past year.
What I object to—and what my interlocutors maddeningly refuse to engage with—is the effort to use history and Jewish memory, in particular, the crimes of the Holocaust, in the service of partisan political tricks. The falsification of history, in particular, the history of the Holocaust, is something that all Jews should object to because it is both the foundation and also the most frequent justification for Holocaust denialism. Indeed, it gives aid to Holocaust deniers—in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe—by using the same methods they do and giving credence to their loathsome rhetoric, which seeks to erase history by insisting that all crimes are the same, whatever their scale.
What I am asking readers to do here is to resist, for a few minutes, the social-media-driven knee-jerk outrage du jour, and instead consider the far weightier issue of how these arguments play into an abuse of history.

Sigmar Gabriel
Just three days after Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel refused to abstain from meeting, at the Prime Minister of Israel's request, with so-called “human rights” organizations dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel. Of course, you’d never know this from reading the news. News reporters are smart, you see. They wait and take their cues from their guy.

And since anyone who is pro-Israel is not their guy (for instance, the Prime Minister of Israel), in this case their guy by default is German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel.

Gabriel issued a statement and BOOM. Just like that, all the outlets had their lead. The statement read (emphasis added):
“Imagine if the Israeli Prime Minister, who is also foreign minister, came to Germany and wanted to meet people critical of the government and we would say: ‘No, this is not possible’.
“Doing that, and therefore cancelling our meetings, would be unthinkable. It works both ways.”
The German Foreign Minister makes it sound as if Israel is trying to rob him of his freedoms. Like we’re a repressive government that doesn’t allow for a difference of opinion. Like Israel is not a democracy.

Well, the media took its cue from this mischaracterization and Wapo’s lead, for instance, reads (emphasis added), Israel’s Netanyahu snubs German foreign minister for meeting activists critical of government, and the Jerusalem Post’s lead said, Netanyahu Nixes Meeting With German FM Over NGO Critical Of IDF. People who read these articles would naturally think that Netanyahu wanted Gabriel to abstain from meeting with these organizations because they are critical of the government or of the IDF.

This is a lie. It’s a brazen lie that a German has no right to make in the days following the day on which we remember the 6 million of MY people HIS people systematically gassed and incinerated. 

How dare this man misrepresent us as a repressive, totalitarian country! It’s appalling.

Of course, there's nothing new under the sun. Menachem Begin had the number of people like Gabriel way back when.

Almost as bad as the articles that suggest that Israel bans legitimate criticism are those that refer to PM Netanyahu’s warning as a “snub” (except for the Wapo piece listed above, which did both)! Outlets referring to Netanyahu’s warning as a snub (other than Wapo) include the Times of Israel, the Guardian, Yahoo News, and the Telegraph.

But it was not a snub. It was a warning. It was Bibi, as the representative of the Jewish State, saying to a representative of Germany: if you insist on meeting those bent on our destruction, I won’t meet with you.

This was a brave stance for Bibi to take (how often do we defend ourselves like this????) and it  makes me glad I voted for him, when there are so many other days on which I regret that vote.

Other outlets called what happened a “spat” as if that were somehow more evenhanded: just two crazy kids fighting in the sandbox. Which is a blatant misrepresentation of what happened here which is this: the German FM insisted on meeting with people bent on Israel’s destruction and so Israel’s official representatives saw no point in meeting with him.

Who called it a “spat?” The Toronto Star, SFGate, McClatchy, and EuroNews.

We already know the end of this story, or at least some of it. Gabriel went ahead and met with all those organizations bent on Israel’s destruction. We just don’t have the names of all the organizations involved.

The reason? The organizations locked the press out of the “briefing” (which some may prefer to call an “indoctrination”). We do know that B’tselem and Breaking the Silence were two of the organizations taking part in this meeting, thanks to the Times of Israel.
A "spat." Just two crazy kids fighting in the sandbox

Now these two organizations, Breaking the Silence and B’tselem, are not merely critical of Israel. If they were, no one would have a problem with them or with a German minister meeting with them. These organizations have an agenda and that agenda is to destroy the Jewish State. We know this because of the way they operate and the lies they tell. Here is an excerpt of NGO Monitor’s findings regarding the activities of Breaking the Silence:

·         Breaking the Silence (BtS) “collects testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifada,” claiming that the “testimonies portray a…grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regarding Palestinian civilians [which] demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military…Israeli society continues to turn a blind eye, and to deny that which happens in its name.
·         Active in promoting “war crimes” charges against Israel. These charges were based on anonymous and unverifiable hearsay “testimonies.”
·         Although claiming to address Israeli society, the NGO’s lobbying and media advocacy focus on international audiences, including presentations in Europe and the United States. Yehuda Shaul, BtS co-founder, defended this practice: “Sometimes, when you want to deliver messages to the inside, you must go outside.”
·         Between September 2012 – June 2016, BtS held more then 80 lectures, exhibitions and events across Europe, America, South Africa and Australia (See map below).
·         In June 2016, Ben-Gurion University canceled a NIS 20,000 reward to Breaking the Silence because it is “not in the national consensus”. In response, the New Israel Fund published a Facebook post announcing that it will donate NIS 20,000 to BtS and accused Ben-Gurion University of canceling the prize because it is concerned “that it might be the target of the next campaign”.
·         In June 14, 2016, Israeli new site NRG published a video documenting BtS co-founder, Yehuda Shaul, telling tourists in Israel that “Yeah, One of the villages, this village actually, its new that they came back, because few years ago the settlers basically poisoned all the water cisterns of the village…” This allegation is completely unsubstantiated, and was never proven. It appears to be based on a single compliant from 2004 which investigated by the Israeli police and was closed due to lack of evidence. (See below: Anti-Israeli campaigns using Breaking the Silence).
·         BtS refuses to comply with the Israeli government request to provide the information on an incident documented in a former soldier’s testimony which reflects an alleged crime. This resulted in a court hearing in May 23 where the state sought an order that the NGO provide all the information it has on the case. BtS argued that that they should be allowed to “protect their sources” similarly to journalists, despite their lack of engagement in journalistic activities.
·         On January 11, 2016, Israel’s leading nightly news program on Channel 2 aired footageof Ezra Nawi, a radical activist from the NGO “Ta’ayush,” visiting the offices of Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence (BtS). There, a BtS employee provided Nawi with NIS 1,400 in cash. It is unclear what services were rendered to warrant such a payment, but Channel 2 showed footage of Nawi writing checks for Palestinians, ostensibly for taking part in protests that he, himself, planned.
·         In summer 2015, during a training session in BtS office, Nadav Weiman, the activists’ coordinator, explained that “most of the Palestinians are not terrorists, but fighters for their freedom, sometimes with means I don’t agree with. The word terrorists – I find it hard. Although whoever murders a baby in its bed is a terrorist… If you try to kill soldiers you are not a terrorist. This is also according to international law”. He continued: “If there is a country that occupies your country, in the area you live in, you are allowed to use violent means against the occupier- only against soldiers and policemen or border police. Not against civilians…” Weiman added that “Refusal [to serve in the army] is legitimate, but we don’t encourage it…”
·         In a video published by Ad Kan, Weiman explains the NGO’s role in providing data to international political actors: “You don’t understand who we are outside of Israel…the diplomatic community… ok, Yehuda [Shaul], you won’t fund anyone who doesn’t know Yehuda… ambassadors and parliament members… outside of Israel we are the voice that is considered very reliable and critical that lets say if they want information they approach us… Yehuda takes ambassadors, consuls, and parliament members every week. Just now he was with American Congress members who arrived in Israel… no one knows they are here. But they came and Yehuda took them on a tour.”
·         In May 2015, NGO Monitor revealed that following the 2009 Gaza conflict, several BtS donors conditioned the transfer of money to the group on its ability to gather a minimum number of incriminating “testimonies” against the Israeli army.
·         In 2010 BtS published a highly tendentious book titled Occupation of the Territories – Israeli Soldier testimonies 2000-2010, which claimed to provide a counter to the “official Israeli position” on IDF actions in the territories. NGO Monitor analysis has revealed that this book was rife with methodological problems and appeared to tailor the testimonies to predetermined “analyses” that falsely claimed that Israeli actions are not aimed at self-defense but at “terrorizing the civilian population.”
·         This book was later re-published under the title Our Harsh Logic and translated into Swedish, German, and Dutch. The launching of the book in the various languages served as a platform for further demonization and delegitmization of Israel, including accusations of “racism” and alleged “political assassinations” of Palestinians, claims that Gaza is still “occupied,” and implying that Israel is ethnically cleansing “area C.”
·         Analysis by Amos Harel in Ha’aretz: “Breaking the Silence…has a clear political agenda, and can no longer be classed as a ‘human rights organization.’ Any organization whose website includes the claim by members to expose the ‘corruption which permeates the military system’ is not a neutral observer. The organization has a clear agenda: to expose the consequences of IDF troops serving in the West Bank and Gaza. This seems more of interest to its members than seeking justice for specific injustices.” (July 17, 2009)
·         BtS members and anti-Israel activists Yonatan and Itamar Shapira were on the “Jews for Justice for Palestinians” boat “Irene,” which sought to violate Israel’s security-based policies regarding naval traffic into Gaza (September 2010).
·         During a BtS event at a museum in Sweden (March 2011), Itamar Shapira stated that “We [Israelis] are creating the terror against us.”
·         Conducts tours to Hebron and the South Hebron Hills to “witness first hand the dire situation.” Criticized by Israeli police officials for “antagoniz[ing]…settlers in the hope that the settlers will attack them.”

     Here is what NGO Monitor has to say about the employees of B’tselem:


  • ·       On January 8, 2016, Israeli investigative news program “Uvda” featured an expose showing B’Tselem employee Nasser Nawaja and Ezra Nawi, a radical activist from the NGO “Ta’ayush,” discussing informing the Palestinian Authority security services about a Palestinian man who allegedly intended to sell land to Jews in the West Bank. The sale of Palestinian land to Israelis is punishable by death under Palestinian law, and according to Nawi, suspects are tortured and then killed.
    ·         In 2014, journalist Tuvia Tenenbom published a book, “Catch the Jew,” in which he recounts a conversation with B’Tselem “researcher” Atef Abu a-Rub, who accused Germany of “giving money to the Jews” and then referred to the Holocaust as “a lie.”
    ·         Former CEO Jessica Montell has said: “I think the word apartheid is useful for mobilizing people because of its emotional power. In some cases, the situation in the West Bank is worse than apartheid in South Africa.”
    ·         In April 2010, staff member and NGO activist Lizi Sagie resigned after the organization came under pressure for statements made on her personal blog, including: “The IDF Memorial Day is a pornographic circus of glorifying grief and silencing voices,” “Israel is committing Humanity’s worst atrocities…Israel is proving its devotion to Nazi values…Israel exploits the Holocaust to reap international benefits.”


  • There is much more about both organizations at the NGO Monitor website. Anyone who reads the documentation about these organizations must come away knowing that these organizations wish Israel only harm. But in case you need further proof, let’s talk about what these organizations said after meeting with the German Foreign Minister. The Times of Israel has all the good, juicy, dirt in a piece called, After meeting German FM, B’Tselem calls on world to punish Israel. (Now doesn’t the desire to “punish” Israel prove B’tselem’s noble intentions toward the Jewish State?)

    The article in question describes the organizations and Gabriel as “defiant,” as if it were somehow meritorious and courageous that a German met with organizations bent on Israel’s destruction three days after Holocaust Memorial Day in a meeting to which the press was disinvited. And of course, the spokespeople for these organizations weren’t satisfied just with expressing their distaste for Bibi’s actions, they had to describe him as “psychotic.”

    At a Meretz party gathering in Tel Aviv shortly after the meeting, Breaking the Silence CEO Yuli Novak said of Netanyahu’s behavior that it was “so psychotic that a prime minister acts so unreasonably, by any standard. Calling him a diplomatic bull in a china shop would be a compliment.”

    Yeah. It’s real “psychotic” not to hold meetings with people bent on your destruction.

    The article goes on to talk about the “occupation” (as if Israel chooses to have these people under its rule. Feh. Let them leave), and asks the international community to punish us
    B’Tselem followed up the meeting by issuing an English-language press release calling on the international community to punish Israel for the continued occupation.

    “There must be a price to pay for continued military control of another people while thumbing one’s nose at basic moral values and international law,” the statement said. 
    It claimed that “the Israeli prime minister and most of his colleagues in both the coalition and opposition parties have no intention of ending the occupation,” and added, “As long as it does not meet the minimum conditions of democracy, Israel cannot enjoy the privileges that go with being a card-carrying member of the club of democratic countries.”
    Oh, yeah. Can’t you see how this is just an organization that’s merely critical of Israel? They care about us. They just want to HELP us. Uh huh. Which is why they’re telling the world not to give us money, arms, or have any kind of diplomatic relationship with us.

    This reminds me of my brother. He used to tickle me and my siblings mercilessly and when we’d cry he’d say in this loud, whining, sing-songy voice, “I just want to make you happy.”

    Argh.

    At any rate, this business of Gabriel, well, we might overlook it and say it was the action of one man, that it doesn’t represent Germany as a whole. This is, unfortunately, not the case, as Merkel’s spokesman has issued a statement repeating the garbage about it being “regrettable” that Israel tried to stop Gabriel from meeting with organizations “critical” of Israel.

    Furthermore, Gabriel didn’t stop at meeting with organizations bent on Israel’s destruction but then repeated the canard that, “Only a two-state solution will be sustainable," when no one, not Israel, not the PA, nor Hamas, believe this to be a workable solution.

    What is it with all these people who dare to tell Israel, a sovereign nation, how to conduct its business? And how dare a German meet with people bent on Israel’s destruction and try to characterize Israel’s reaction as repressive.

    If this doesn’t make you livid, it should.

    h/t Miriam Savir for the Begin clip.



    We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
    Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory

    Check out their Facebook page.


    rubble
    Damascus, April 26 - Syrian military officials acknowledged today that a barrage of rockets fired at the rebel stronghold of Idlib yesterday may have missed their target and hit a position of military value. Seven insurgents were killed in the blast, according to opposition sources.

    General Aryuf Aqqinqiddenmi of the Syrian Army told journalists this afternoon that four Scud missiles were fired at the one remaining hospital in Idlib Tuesday morning, but a software malfunction caused them to overshoot the target and instead strike a series of fortifications used by opposition forces. He promised an investigation into the mishap, which he said does not reflect the culture or policies of the army.

    Addressing a press conference at the Ministry of Defense, General Aqqinqiddenmi told attendees that the military regrets the error and will conduct a thorough inspection of remaining missile stocks to prevent a recurrence. "We regret the error," offered the contrite senior officer. "The army in no way intended to hit non-civilian targets; it is not our way."

    Others in the Assad administration called for the implementation of safeguards to forestall such an outcome again. "There has to be a way to minimize these blunders," insisted Baath Party official Ayhaf Bludlust. "I hate to invoke the Zionists here, but they have a mechanism, which for some reason they use in the opposite way, under which all strike orders are first run by the Military Adjutant, who determines how the projected impact on noncombatants squares with the Laws of Armed Conflict. Of course in our case we would take a different approach to the answers. It also wouldn't prevent technical snafus such as yesterdays, but you have to take every possible measure."

    Errant projectiles have killed opposition fighters instead of civilians before, noted Bludlust, but investigations determined that those incidents resulted from soldier fatigue and battlefield stress. "Soldiers make mistakes," he acknowledged. "The question is whether those mistakes point to a systemic problem. In most, of not all, of the previous cases where non-noncombatant deaths were the primary outcome, our oversight concluded that there was nothing systemic about these unfortunate incidents. But perhaps more is called for."

    General Aqqinqiddenmi added that he and his colleagues had already appealed to allies such as Russia, which has extensive experience with the matter, even in Syria itself. "We've been calling the opposition 'terrorists' since this war began," he noted. "But Syria has such a long record of harboring and supporting terrorists that, despite the political disagreements, we can't bring ourselves to actually target them. So ethnic cleansing and genocide of the civilian population will have to do."



    We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
    From Ian:

    Gil Troy: Act like lions to impose peace, not lambs
    Even those still mourning Hillary Clinton’s loss must admit: if she were US president, Israel would be drowning in peace processors. The Oslo Evangelists would return, wielding their tired ideas, their worn maps, their usual fingers pointing at Israel, their inexcusable blinders regarding Palestinian incitement – replicating president Barack Obama’s failures.
    Shimon Peres, their spiritual guru, never admitted that the Oslo peace process failed, despite Yasser Arafat’s deadly tricks, despite Palestinians’ return to terrorism in 2000. By contrast, president Bill Clinton blasted Arafat, saying: “I’m a failure and you have made me one.” Those who cannot acknowledge mistakes cannot learn from them.
    Those ready to escape the Oslo rut should consult the historian Daniel Pipes.
    His recent Commentary essay “The Way to Peace: Israeli Victory, Palestinian Defeat,” reflects two rules of war so conventional they have become clichés: “to the victor belong the spoils,” and, as Dwight Eisenhower said, “in war, there is no substitute for victory.” Israel should do what victors do, Pipes says, crushing Palestinian hopes of destroying Israel. Only by feeling defeated will Palestinians finally accept Israel.
    This Thursday, Republican Representatives Ron DeSantis and Bill Johnson will launch the Congressional Israel Victory Caucus (CIVC) boosting this plan – I wish they had bipartisan support.
    Oslo made Israelis diplomatic Charlie Browns, forever running to kick the football – only to have Palestinians as Lucy pull it away at the last minute, repeatedly. The Palestinians make demands as if they won.
    The Palestinians Don’t Want a Mandela, They Want Another Arafat
    Part of his appeal lies in the fact that he’s been in prison for the last 15 years, while the rest of his Fatah party’s corrupt leadership has been running the West Bank like mafia chieftains. Even though there’s no reason to think a former Arafat aide like Barghouti will be different, like the equally corrupt and more fanatical Hamas rulers of Gaza, the current PA leadership is entirely discredited.
    But Barghouti’s popularity rests on more than just the fact that he isn’t Abbas. Throughout the century-long Palestinian Arab war on Zionism, the political bona fides of that movement’s leaders have always rested on a resume including violence against Jews, not good government or a vision of independence and peace. Barghouti’s credentials rest solely on the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of Jewish men, women and children during the intifada. The political culture of the Palestinians — which is reinforced by a media and an education system promoting hatred of Jews and glorifying terrorism — is what makes Barghouti look good to the Arab street, not the hope he will rise above a record of wanton slaughter.
    The reason why Abbas has been incapable of making peace, even if he really is a moderate, is that he understands Palestinians see any recognition of the legitimacy of a Jewish state — no matter where its borders are drawn — as a betrayal. The same factor argues that a man with Barghouti’s record will be expected to pursue more violence rather than become a Mandela. If the last quarter century has taught us anything, it is that the Palestinians don’t want a Mandela in the person of a transformed Barghouti. What they want is another Arafat.
    A Palestinian State or an Islamist Tyranny?
    Abbad Yahiya's novel takes aim at Palestinian taboos such as fanaticism, Islamic extremism and homosexuality. The novel's publisher has been arrested and a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Yahiya.
    The head of the Union of Palestinian Writers, Murad Sudani, attacked the writer and called for an exemplary punishment. Ghassan Khader, a Facebook user, wrote on his page that Yahiya "should be killed".
    We could go on with this list of Palestinian intellectuals who paid a high price for daring to speak the truth to Mahmoud Abbas and his corrupt circle on many issues: coexistence with the Jews, secularism, sexual freedom, freedom of conscience, human rights, or telling the truth about the Holocaust.
    A Palestinian state created with the current Palestinian Authority would destroy freedom of conscience for journalists and writers; exile Christians and homosexuals; torture Arab inmates; impose sharia as the only law, and put people to death for "atheism" and "apostasy" (read, conversion to Christianity).

    • Wednesday, April 26, 2017
    • Elder of Ziyon


    It is sad that the obvious becomes news.

    YNet interviewed Jacques De Maio, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
    Israel gives us—unlike the security establishments in many other countries, including Western ones—quick access to senior officials in the IDF, the Prison Service, and other security services. We have useful, productive and professional dialogue with them. We clarified with them the issue of shooting assailants who carry out terror attacks and we reached an unequivocal conclusion that there is no IDF order to shoot suspects to kill, as political officials tried to convince us. The rules of engagement haven't changed, and have actually been made stricter. It is true that individual soldiers have made the wrong decision at times and that there are many instances of outrageous behavior at border crossings—at times in complete violation of orders. We do not hesitate to report that to the IDF and we usually get a professional response. That is why we rejected the accusation, and there were immediately those who claimed we were covering up war crimes committed by the IDF, and that we were serving the Zionists.

    The Red Cress was very familiar with the regime in South Africa during Apartheid, and we respond to anyone who makes the argument that Israel is an apartheid state: No, there is no apartheid here. There isn't a regime here that is based on the superiority of one race over another; there is no disenfranchisement of basic human rights based on so-called racial inferiority. What does exist here is a bloody national conflict, the most prominent and tragic feature being that it is decades long, and there is occupation. Not apartheid.
    De Maio plays a little fast and loose with this part of the interview:
    The most complicated thing is to maintain the Red Cross's fundamental principle: neutrality, not taking a position in a situation where each side believes its position is the most moral and just and demands us, the Red Cross, to affiliate ourselves to it and condemn the other. I am constantly asked how we could treat both the aggressors and those who are defending themselves—terrorists and those who fight against terrorism—with the same level of leniency. And I answer: We offer help to people as human beings who need our help. Almost all of our work is done quietly, without publicity, often in secrecy, and our only goal is to protect people's natural rights. Not to deal with politics. Battling politics and political manipulation takes too much time and resources from us.
    Unfortunately, the ICRC's position that Gaza is still legally occupied is nonsensical and the only reason they hold that position is political.





    We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
    • Wednesday, April 26, 2017
    • Elder of Ziyon
    Yesterday, Caterpillar announced much better results than expected and its stock price rose by nearly 8%.

    I half-jokingly tweeted that a smart investor would look carefully at any company that the anti-Israel idiots want to boycott, because it might make a great investment.

    So I decided to test my theory.

    Here are all of the publicly traded companies I could find listed on the BDSList.org site, and their stock prices from a year ago and today, with the percentage gain or loss. (Some are only listed on the Tel Aviv Exchange.)

    Company 4/27/2016 4/25/2017 % Gain/Loss
    Afcon  114.7 165.8 45%
    Bank HaPoalim 26.25 31.35 19%
    Bank Leumi 13.76 17.25 25%
    Caterpillar 78.68 104.42 33%
    Elbit 100.21 119.19 19%
    Hewlett Packard 12.76 18.61 46%
    Motorola Solutions 76.04 85.39 12%
    Sodastream 13.9 55.34 298%
    Teva 56.23 30.76 -45%
    AVERAGE 50%

    If you would have invested equal amounts in all these companies a year ago, you would have made an astounding 50% profit. (The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 16% in that time period. The top funds rated by Kiplinger for the past year made about 30%.)

    It is every investor's dream to beat the market. Thanks to BDS, now we can! (And Sodastream, the one company BDS hates the most, has done unbelievably well!)

    By the way, this "BDS Fund" also way outperformed the Israel-specific funds I checked out for the past twelve months, so the BDS method of stock picking is truly amazing.

    If anyone wants to hire me as manager of their EoZ BDS Mutual Fund, let me know!


    (I probably need to add the disclaimer that Past Performance Is Not An Indicator Of Future Results)





    We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

    AddToAny

    EoZ Book:"Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism"

    Printfriendly

    EoZTV Podcast

    Podcast URL

    Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
    addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

    search eoz

    comments

    Speaking

    translate

    E-Book

    For $18 donation








    Sample Text

    EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

    Hasbys!

    Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



    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.

    Donate!

    Donate to fight for Israel!

    Monthly subscription:
    Payment options


    One time donation:

    subscribe via email

    Follow EoZ on Twitter!

    Interesting Blogs

    Blog Archive