"Nakba survivor" admits she fled without seeing a single Jew

Every year, on "Nakba Day," Arab newspapers scramble to find old people who can act as eyewitnesses to the horrors of how Israel treated their people who would become to be known years later as "Palestinians."

Al Watan Voice published an interview with 80-year old Mrs. Kalhout, who lived in a village called Ni'ilya which was near Gaza.

She describes how her family fled the town - and makes an interesting admission.

Residents of the village and surrounding areas tried to prepare themselves battle. Leaders gave them clubs to go out and attack the Jews. But they didn't find any, and returned to their homes.

Then, she says, after hearing about the massacre by Israel in Deir Yassin and in other Arab towns and villages up north, home towns of the northern region and carrying out massacres there, everyone fled to Gaza without seeing a single Jew enter their towns.

In fact, this happened in November 1948, many months after Deir Yassin, and the IDF fought with Egyptian forces in the area. Mrs. Kalhout says that they thought they would be able to return after a day but they couldn't.

In fact, this was the pattern for the large majority of the Arab refugees - they left their homes based on wild Arab rumors or direction from Arab leaders, promising that they would return in no time. But the vast majority of Arabs who left what became Israel were not expelled and never even saw an Israeli soldier.

I don't recall ever seeing a first-hand account of Arabs who were told to or forced leave their homes by Israeli soldiers. It definitely happened in some cases, especially where the areas were critical for Israel's defense, but that was by far the exception rather than the rule.

And that goes as well for none other than Mahmoud Abbas, who admits that his family left Safed voluntarily:

"Until the nakba" (calamity in Arabic - the loaded synonym for Israeli independence), he recounted, his family "was well-off in Safed." When Abbas was 13, "we left on foot at night to the Jordan River... Eventually we settled in Damascus... My father had money, and he spent his money methodically. After a year, when the money ran out, we began to work.

"People were motivated to run away... They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations - particularly from the Safed ones. Those of us from Safed especially feared that the Jews harbored old desires to avenge what happened during the 1929 uprising.... They realized the balance of forces was shifting and therefore the whole town was abandoned on the basis of this rationale - saving our lives and our belongings."

When people say that the Nakba is the anniversary of the Arabs being expelled from Palestine, they are lying.

The Elder of Ziyon Haggadah (2009) - download it now!

Two years ago, I made a Haggadah:

It contains the full Haggadah text, including English (except for Nirtzah.) It includes dozens of commentaries that I found on the Internet, almost all from a religious-Zionist perspective. Many of the commentaries assume that the audience is religious, so there are many transliterations of Hebrew words that I did not translate. I did not write anything original; I just compiled and edited it, pretty quickly.

The Haggadah is in PDF format, suitable for printing. It is 61 pages long and looks decent when printed two-sided on a color printer.

I had always hoped to rewrite it and make a real printed edition, which would entail  paraphrasing all the commentaries and expanding it, but I never had the time.

(I seem to remember that a paragraph in Maggid is missing, but I couldn't find it now from a quick glance. Maybe I'll fix it next year.)

About 1500 people downloaded the Haggadah so far.

I still can't believe that there are not more Haggadahs with an explicitly Zionist theme, at least in English. The theme of redemption seems such a natural fit.

(Here's one that is implicitly Zionist, based on the writings of Rav Kook. )

To download the Elder of Ziyon Haggadah, click here and then click on the text that says "Click here to start download from MediaFire."

חג שמח!

05/14 Links Pt2: Anti-Semitism in a liberal disguise; Should American Jews Embrace the Evangelicals?

From Ian:

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How Israeli ‘Human Rights’ Groups Threaten Our Very Existence

Im Tirtzu has issued a number of position papers to counter the narratives slandering Israel, including: Nakba Nonsense, which refutes the Nakba narrative; a report on Palestinian funding of organizations which produced “evidence” against the IDF and Israel during Operation Protective Edge; a report that revealed the organizations behind and the funding of the migrants’ protests; and position papers focusing on foreign governmental funding of Israeli organizations.
A comparison of the issues that are emphasized by these organizations with those they choose to ignore reveals a completely different picture from what one might expect from a human rights organization. In fact, these organizations, which speak in shrill tones in the name of equality, are actually and deliberately perpetrating ethnic discrimination as part of their political agendas.
Organizations that scream in favor of basic living conditions for every infiltrator are encouraging the distress of the residents of entire neighborhoods (and, ironically, of the infiltrators themselves). Adding in the reality of foreign funding produces a frightening picture in which European governments have deliberately sought to promote racist attacks against Jews and their rights in their national home.
The appropriate name for these organizations is actually “organizations for the exploitation of the issue of human rights as a political objective.” Not only the State of Israel, but also its supporters all over the world, must understand the threat that hangs over it from foreign funding intended to prejudice the country’s identity.
Above all, Israel must stop the destructive influence exercised by anti-human-rights “human rights” organizations.

Belgian groups condemn airing of video featuring anti-Israel guide at Auschwitz

Belgian anti-racism groups condemned a public broadcaster’s airing of a video showing a guide at Auschwitz telling visiting youths that she is pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic because of Israel.
The video was aired by the Flemish VRT network on May 8 as part of the program Terzake. It was about a trip organized by the “Trein der 1000” nongovernmental group for 1,000 teenagers from Belgium to the former Nazi death camp in Poland. The program is meant to teach adolescents about the Holocaust in order to educate them about the dangers of racism.
At the camp, the group’s Jewish guide, Lydia Chagoll, 84, is seen saying: “I am pro-Palestinian. I’m anti-Semitic.” Chagoll made the statement while talking to 18-year-old Fida’a Temraz, a Belgian high school student of Palestinian descent, and several other students. Referencing Israel, Chagoll added: “I am an anti-Semite, because I think it is a scandal that cannot be permitted. It cannot happen.”
In a statement, the Flemish Forum of Jewish Organizations wrote that Chagoll’s statement about being anti-Semitic was probably sarcastic, but that because of her actions, “an activity meant to be educational turned into a disgusting and historically incorrect statement.”

‘Rubble-washing’? Israel’s disaster outreach does little for its image

Providing emergency disaster relief has become something of an Israeli tradition. Jerusalem sends help almost wherever and whenever calamities occur: Rwanda, Haiti, Japan, the Philippines and even Turkey and Egypt (in 2004, members of the IDF’s Medical Corps and search and rescue teams rushed to Taba in the Sinai peninsula and stayed for three days after several explosions killed and injured dozens, including 13 Israelis).
Each aid delegation that rushes out brings with it accusations from critics of the Israeli government of “rubble-washing” — that Israel is providing aid in far-flung areas, at least in part, to distract from human rights violations at home.
Others argue, though, that Israel, which has mastered the art of emergency medicine, altruistically yearns to help those in need, simply because it’s the right thing to do.
A look at recent disaster relief operations shows that Israel could not have realistically expected any diplomatic dividends beyond slightly improving its image through worldwide coverage of its field hospitals. And that’s precisely how things have played out: A little bounce in Israel’s standing, but no substantive benefit; just the satisfaction of doing the right thing.

Israel’s Magnificent Medical Efforts to Save Syrians

A couple of remarkable news reports have been broadcast in recent days about the care given Syrians wounded in the civil war across the border. One – the more dramatic one – was at the Israeli news site Ynet (affiliated with the daily Yedioth Ahronot); the other at CNN.
The Ynet article written and narrated by one of the paper’s top journalists, Ron Ben-Yishai told of an injured man -likely a jihadist – who was severely injured by a bullet to the stomach and shrapnel wounds. Israel has “trusted intermediaries,” on the other side of the border who communicate when there is an injured person who needs treatment in Israel.
Most of the injured are woman, children and the elderly. However there are also younger men, such as the subject of the article. In this case the Israeli were told that without a hospital the man would die.
Despite having contacts in Syria, the Israelis know who’s on the other side of the border on the Golan Heights, so they have to take care:

Should American Jews Embrace the Evangelicals?

We live in a world that is hostile to the Jewish people. Few ethno-religious groups have ever been so embattled for so long, having had to endure persecution, intolerance, war, and exile for millennia. This still holds true today, in all its old and new incarnations, particularly as anti-Semitism sweeps across the “tolerant West” with renewed vigor. Following the Holocaust, we questioned how so many could turn a blind eye or, worse, actively participate in the savagery of those dark days. Conversely, we honored the brave souls who rescued Jews from certain death and hailed them as “righteous gentiles.” In either case, one constant remains: Historically our enemies have always outranked our friends, and this is a sobering fact that we rightfully lament. It’s odd, then, that many American Jews are so wracked with ambivalence toward millions of people who are doggedly trying to extend a hand of friendship and offer their support to the Jewish state.
Of course, I am referring to Evangelical Christians; a demographic which comprises nearly 100 million people in the U.S. alone, and whose mere mention invokes reactions ranging from warmth and appreciation to outright repudiation among members of the Jewish community.
For the most part, despite Evangelicals’ support for the Jewish state and desire to embrace the Jewish people, their affection has often largely gone unrequited. In fact, only one-third of American Jews view Christian Zionists in a favorable light. This harsh reality, however, has not deterred Evangelicals from trying to befriend the Jewish people both at home and in Israel. According to a recent Pew poll, 69 percent of Evangelicals view American Jews positively, while 64 percent of American Jews view Evangelicals with skepticism or even negativity. In fact, Jewish Americans trail only atheists in their coolness toward Evangelicals.
What is at the root of this stark imbalance?
The answer is hardly obvious. While divergent theological beliefs certainly play a role, as does Christianity’s history of anti-Semitic transgressions, the root of some American Jews’ modern-day distance from Christian Zionists may actually lie in the two communities’ often polarized political and social ideologies.

Anti-Semitism in a liberal disguise

The fifth Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism (GFCA) opened in Israel on Tuesday evening in the presence of senior statesmen, parliament members, diplomats, research bodies, Jewish community heads, religious leaders and international organizations from dozens of countries, led by the Foreign Ministry.
The state of anti-Semitism has never been as serious as on the eve of this forum. Seventy years since the darkest chapter in the history of Europe, anti-Semitism is reaching levels which have yet to be seen, and there is barely a single area in Europe which is free of hatred towards Jews. There are thousands of cases of anti-Jewish violence, anti-Semitic incitement and Holocaust denial.
One of the reasons is the export of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to European countries through extreme propaganda led by radical Muslim immigrants, who are intentionally blurring the distinction between Israel and the Jews. In addition, Jews in Europe have become the target of the radical and communist left, and at the same time we are witnessing the rise of neo-Nazi and radical right-wing parties.
The "liberal" or "institutional" anti-Semitism, which has developed from the political center, is also growing stronger in recent years, and it may be the most alarming type of anti-Semitism: "Liberal" activists are leading efforts to outlaw key elements in the Jewish life, presenting circumcision and kosher slaughter in a demonic way, thereby igniting the winds of hatred.

Google and Facebook need your help to police online hate

According to Google and Facebook policy directors, only through users’ input will questionable material even be reviewed. Speaking in Israel at the biennial 5th Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, Google’s Juniper Downs and Facebook’s Simon Milner joined a panel called “The Oldest Hatred in the Newest Vessels: Toward Solutions” chaired by the US special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism Ira Forman. UK Ministry of Justice head of the Cross Government Hate Crime Programme Paul Giannasi and Prof. Raphael Cohen Almagor rounded out the panel.
Although many governments have legislation against hate speech, there is no unified legislation, making an international product like the world wide web fertile ground for anti-Semitic or other racist individuals and groups to spread their screed.
Governments are becoming increasingly aware of the issue of online hate. In the wake of the jihadist terrorist attacks against journalists and Jews in Paris, The New York Times reported that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls announced last month his government is dedicating €100 million over the next three years to combat racism and anti-Semitism by launching a nationwide awareness campaign, instituting harsher punishments for racist acts, and increased monitoring of online hate speech.

Canadian Minister: Defending Israel Key to Beating Anti-Semitism

Supporting Israel is part and parcel of the fight against anti-Semitism, and other countries should learn from Canada's example in doing so, a Canadian minister has said.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva at the 5th Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, Minister of State for Multiculturalism Tim Uppal said it was "only natural" that the Canadian government should send a senior delegation to the event.
He cited Canada's role as a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution in the past, including some 40,000 holocaust survivors "who came to the country, established themselves and really helped helped build the country into what it is today."
Apart from that, Uppal said Canada was immensely proud of its roughly 330,000-strong Jewish community, and its contribution to Canadian life.
"We have a strong and vibrant Jewish community right across the country and it has contributed to Canada in every single way... Economically... but also towards our social fabric and culture itself."
But Uppal, who is the first ever turban-wearing Sikh to serve as a cabinet minister, admitted his government was concerned about anti-Semitism not only globally, but also in its own backyard, citing Bnei Brith reports in a rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes.

Anti-BDS bill passes Illinois House committee, Senate

A bill that would bar state pension funds from including companies that participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel passed an Illinois State House of Representatives committee.
The bill on Wednesday was unanimously approved by the Illinois State House of Representatives Executive Committee by a vote of 10-0 and will now move forward for a vote by the full chamber. It previously passed the Illinois State Senate unanimously, 49-0.
The bill requires the state’s pension system to remove companies that boycott Israel from their portfolios. The bill, an amendment, is based on existing legislation that the Illinois Investment Policy Board currently enforces, mandating that state pension funds be divested from foreign firms doing business in Iran, Sudan or other countries with known human rights violations.
In a statement, B’nai B’rith International said it “applauds Illinois citizens and their representatives for taking such a strong stance against a movement rooted in anti-Semitism that ultimately impedes the peace process by opposing constructive dialogue between Israel and Palestinians.” (h/t Jewess)

New Organization Monitors Campus Radicals to Expose Them to Future Employers

A new organization was launched on Tuesday to track organizers of anti-Israel movements on U.S. college campuses and alert the public, as well as future employers, about their involvement with the hate groups, The Algemeiner has learned.
Canary Mission was founded by students and citizens concerned by the growing number of campus movements that work to demonize and boycott Israel, harass Jewish and pro-Israel students, and spread radical, antisemitic ideas.
In a statement issued on its website, Canary Mission’s anonymous founders said the public has the right to know who is a part of this “dangerous campaign” of “ugly antisemitism and anti-Americanism that drives the anti-Israel movement on campuses across the United States.”
“So do the future employers of those who immerse themselves in antisemitic activity as college students,” the statement continued. “We are determined to expose the statements, activities, and unsavory affiliations of all of those responsible for spreading this hate on our campuses.”

BDS Battles Taking Toll on Jewish Students

Haaretz reporter Ari Shavit paid a visit to two dozen US campuses and came back with a dire warning: the Jewish future is slipping through our fingers, he writes, referring to those who support Israel and Zionism.
What he found on his listening tour was a besieged Jewish community, squeezed between the extreme rhetoric of BDS on one side and their own concerns about Israel’s policy on the other.
We feel like we’ve been abandoned on the battlefield, many of them told me. The anti-Zionists, they said, are accusing us of collaborating with evil, but Zionism doesn’t understand us and doesn’t speak to us; instead, it’s busy building more and more and more settlements.
Zionism, Shavit writes, has failed provide “a reliable, relevant and inspirational narrative” to counter the “near-overt anti-Semitism” of the BDS offensive. “And when they arrive on campus and are exposed to anti-Israel venom, the Jewish and pro-Israel identity of many of them collapses.”
In other words, it’s a battle for legitimacy. And Israel is losing.
The signs are clear, even without Shavit’s poignant account of beleaguered students and tearful conversations.

Protesters Arrested for Storming Synagogue in Protest of IDF

Two men from New Haven, Connecticut were arrested on Tuesday after storming a Westport synagogue hosting a delegation of the Israel Defense Forces.
The Hartford Courant reported that Gregory Williams, a student at Yale University's Divinity School, and Daniel Fischer, a community activist with the Middle East Crisis Committee, were both charged with first-degree trespassing and second degree-breach of peace.
According to a Westport police statement, a call was received at around 1 p.m. local time, with complaints of "unwanted people protesting" a luncheon and discussion at Temple Israel featuring IDF soldiers.
Witnesses believed one of the suspects was carrying a gun as he approached the building, but police said no weapon was found on the premises.
"A witness had observed one of the men approaching with a shirt over his arm and hand which led some witnesses to believe he was carrying a gun," police elaborated in the statement.
According to the police report, the two suspects entered the synagogue and were immediately confronted by staff who told them to leave. They refused and continued to walk past the staff.

Denying Jews the Right to Define Judaism is Anti-Semitism

In honor of this week’s 5th Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, I’d like to propose a new definition of the term: Anti-Semitism is when Jews, alone of all the world’s religions, are denied the right to decide for themselves what their religion’s core tenets actually are. Nobody would dream of telling Christians that, for instance, their religion really has nothing to do with Jesus. Nobody would dream of telling Muslims that their religion really has nothing to do with the Koran. Yet a growing number of people seem to feel they have a perfect right to tell Jews that their religion really has nothing to do with being part of a nation.
Thus you get people like Jannine Salman, a member of the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, blithely telling the New York Times last week that Jews have no call to feel their religion is under attack by strident anti-Zionists, because “There is a bifurcation: Zionism is a political identity, Judaism is a religious identity, and it does a disservice to both to blur the line.” And never mind that neither the Bible nor 4,000 years of Jewish tradition recognize any such bifurcation.
Indeed, the concept of Judaism as a religious identity devoid of any national component is so foreign to the Bible that nowhere in it are Jews ever referred to as adherents of a “religion.” Rather, the most common Biblical terms for the Jews are bnei yisrael, the children of Israel, and am yisrael, the nation of Israel. The rough modern equivalents would be kin-group and kin-state, though neither captures the Biblical imperative that this particular kin-group and kin-state be committed to a particular set of laws and ideals.

The Biggest Mistakes Pro-Israel Advocates Make #4: How to Not Look Like A Total Jerk

I don’t think I know a pro-Israel advocate who hasn’t lost their marbles, threw off their kid gloves, and thought, “no more Mr. Nice Guy/Girl!” at least once. There are, after all, some pretty rabid antisemites and nutcases out there. However, the more seasoned, prominent pro-Israel activists I know are very professional and seldom if ever lash out at their opponents no matter how fed up they are. And when closed-minded nitwits refuse to listen to anything you have to say because, for example, you’re not their friend so they won’t trust you over their friend who is saying the opposite of what you are (or who claims his cousin’s best friend’s sister’s husband’s aunt’s house was destroyed in Gaza and she was only given five seconds’ warning to grab all her belongings so how dare I deny her lived experience), or because to them the fact that the Palestinians are the underdog and the Israelis are victorious necessarily means the Israelis are the oppressors of the Palestinians, sometimes you have to know when to quit. Case in point illustrating what not to do: calling people closed-minded nitwits. To their face, anyway. You can vent all you want when you go home to your husband or your best friend or your local Zionist World Domination Planning Committee meeting.
When you start to feel like you’re talking to a brick wall despite your best efforts, when you start to realize that too much is at stake for the person you’re talking to should they decide to change their opinion for them to ever consider doing so, you need know when to stop what you’re doing. I even have friends whom I’ve been friends with since high school or earlier who are anti-Israel because they fell for the “Social Justice” anti-Israel rhetoric in university hook, line, and sinker, but they’re still my friends. I just gave up talking politics with them because I knew I would never get anywhere (not for lack of trying, through) and that any further attempts would only create friction between us. I have other friends who were more open-minded whom I was successfully able to convince. So your mileage may vary, but you have to know that when there are sparks – the first signs of a flame war on both sides – you sometimes have to put out the fire and just leave the building, otherwise you just burn down with it and all you’ll be left with are ashes.

Jewish Groups Protest Outside UJA over NIF Funding

A number of Jewish organizations banded together on Monday for a rally outside of UJA-Federation in protest of the UJA's promotion of organizations with ties to the Boycott Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Some 200 protestors carrying signs against the BDS movement, called on UJA to cease support for the New Israel Fund (NIF) as well as to bar the organization from marching in the Celebrate Israel Parade to be held in New York City later this month.
The New Israel Fund has been found to finance organizations that promote BDS against Israel, as well other anti-Israel groups.
Recently, Israeli grassroots organization Im Tirzu published a report tracing NIF funds to a Ramallah-based Palestinian organization that financed reports by Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem accusing the IDF of war crimes during Operation Protective Edge.

 Petraeus: BDS Poses ‘Strategic Threat’ To Israel

Efforts by anti-Israel activists to boycott the Jewish state pose a “strategic threat” to the nation, according to former CIA head David Petraeus.
The former intelligence chief warned about international efforts to promote the anti-Israel Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement and said they are just as dangerous as the threat posed by terrorists.
“You see growing worries about the possibility of a so-called ‘international intifada,’ the boycott, divestment and sanction moves,” Petraeus was quoted as saying by the Times of Israel during a recent discussion in New York City. “That may be coming back to a strategic issue that has to be resolved at some point.”
Petraeus also warned that a nuclear deal with Iran that will provide the Islamic Republic with billions in sanctions relief could open to door to an uptick international terrorism.
“The lifting of sanctions will mean that Iran will have vastly more resources. It will be reconnected with the global economy,” he was quoted as saying. “It’s going to have a lot more resources to pursue mischief around the world and that concerns me.”

EU Amb. to Israel: Boycott? What boycott?

The slogan of Israel Science Day, held this year on May 12, is "Science is everywhere". In scores of events throughout the country, the general public, especially young people, will be exposed to lectures and demonstrations on how science affects all of us in our daily lives.
Israel has good reason to be proud of its outstanding scientific achievements. However I wonder how many Israelis are aware of the important role that Europe has played in turning the ideas generated by Israel's excellent scientists into real research projects.
The EU's cooperation with Israel in the field of science and technology took a giant leap forward in 1996, when Israel joined one of the EU's seven-year R&D Framework Programmes. It was raised to its highest level last year when Israel became associated to the EU's 80 billion euro Horizon 2020 program, the biggest research program in the world. To this day, Israel is the only non-European country in the world to be fully associated to such programs.

Israel preps media battlefield for next Hezbollah war

Much of the war against Israel is fought in the media and through deceptive “Non-Governmental Organizations” which issue endless distorted reports against Israel.
There hardly is any pretense of objectivity anymore — there is an attempt to tie Israel’s hands when dealing with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which strategically use civilians as shields.
In Gaza, the media was intimidated by Hamas, and maintained a near-silence about the use of the main hospital in Gaza as a Hamas headquarters, and the firing of rockets from near schools, apartments and hospitals. But a few reports leaked out and some reporters admitted to the distorted reporting after leaving Gaza:
This media war is important because one side (Hamas, Hezbollah) uses media outrage as a strategic weapon to shape the physical battlefield. And biased, agenda-driven NGOs and media organizations are part of the plan.

Jim Clancy’s Obsession With Hatin’ On Israel (Updated)

The last we heard from ex CNN anchor Jim Clancy, he had interviewed with Lebanon’s Daily Star, spreading his anti-Israel views.
After Brian pointed this out, Clancy himself paid us a visit to deny he was disseminating anything anti-Israel.
But judging by his twitter timeline, he is not just anti-Israel. He’s really anti-Israel.
Here is but a sample of his recent tweets.
Update: Since I posted this, Clancy has become even “less polite” with his hatred for Israel.

BBC News misrepresents BDS campaign yet again

The report includes a description of the adverts promoting BDS but fails to inform readers that they also featured a series of inaccurate maps frequently used in anti-Israel propaganda. Whether or not the BBC’s description of ‘Charlotte and Lizzie from Hellerup’ as “two Palestinian women” is in fact accurate is unclear.
Clearly readers will be unable to comprehend the bus company’s decision to remove the adverts because, as usual, they are not informed of the aims of the political campaign promoted by the non-transparently funded ‘Danish-Palestinian Friendship Association’ – despite the fact that a link to the organisation’s website appears in the BBC’s report.
Whilst the BDS campaign’s political crusade to bring about the demise of Jewish self-determination by means of delegitimisation and demonization is not infrequently directly or indirectly amplified in BBC programming, the corporation inevitably refrains from informing its audiences exactly for what its ‘one-stater’ supporters are campaigning.

Freed Al Jazeera Journo: Network an Arm of Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood

After spending 400 days in an Egyptian prison, an Al Jazeera English journalist is suing his network for $100 million dollars in damages, and has accused the Doha-run news organization of violating his contract.
Mohamed Fahmy and two colleagues were thrown in jail after they were charged with being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is designated as a terrorist organization in many countries. He is currently free on bail while he awaits retrial for the charges.
Fahmy now claims that the network is responsible for putting him in situations where it appeared as if he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He claims that the news network acted as “an arm of Qatar’s foreign policy” and “was not only biased towards the Muslim Brotherhood — they were sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
“Egypt put us three journalists on trial instead of punishing the network,” Fahmy said during a press conference in Cairo. “But I will not be as lenient as Egypt and I am here to announce that I will set the record straight and put Al Jazeera on trial in Canada’s top court.”

German court authorizes return of two Nazi-looted paintings

A German court formally authorized the return of two Nazi-looted artworks from the collection of the late art collector Cornelius Gurlitt.
The paintings, among the most valuable of the more than 1,400 artworks discovered in Gurlitt’s home in Munich and later in a second home in Salzburg, Austria, can be retrieved this week by the heirs of the Jewish owners from whom they were stolen, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday following the decision by the Munich District Court.
The court did not reveal the names of the owners of the artworks — Henri Matisse’s “Woman Sitting in an Armchair” and Max Liebermann’s “Two Riders on the Beach” — or the names of the heirs who will receive them, according to The Associated Press.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Libermann painting was stolen from David Friedmann, a German-Jewish collector who died in the early 1940s, and the Matisse was stolen in a Nazi raid on a bank vault in France belonging to Paul Rosenberg, a Jewish art dealer.

Unlike Portugal, Spain Sephardic citizenship plan hits snags

Spanish lawmakers are finally preparing this month to approve a law that potentially allows hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of Sephardic Jews around the world a shot at citizenship, though there are no reliable estimates of how many people might be eligible.
A Spanish passport means those who get it would be able to live or work anywhere in the 28-nation European Union, and apply for citizenship for immediate family members. While some European nations are experiencing a surge in anti-immigration sentiment, Spain and Portugal are not, and the laws have not generated opposition.
Many would-be applicants thought the Spanish law, announced in 2013, would carry few requirements beyond thorough vetting of ancestry. That’s the case with the Portuguese law, which was proposed after Spain’s but went into effect in March 1.
But Spanish lawmakers ended up adding amendments making the process for Sephardic Jews similar to that faced by permanent residents seeking citizenship. The hurdles are significant: Sephardic applicants must learn and be tested in basic Spanish if they don’t speak one of several Jewish languages rooted in Spanish. They also must pass a current events and culture test about Spain. And they have to establish a modern-day link to Spain, which can be as simple as donating to a Spanish charity or as expensive as buying Spanish property.
Paredes Henriquez — whose Spanish ancestors were driven into Portugal by the inquisition — predicted the extra steps would translate into more lost time, money and frustrating red tape. In Portugal, he only has to prove his family history and that he has never been convicted of a crime punishable by three or more years in prison.

Israeli researchers use supercooling to revolutionize delivery of drugs

A new Tel Aviv University study shows how the complex process of crystallization through supercooling could revolutionize the delivery of drugs in the human body, providing a way to “freeze” the drugs at an optimal time and location in the body.
The new study, published in Scientific Reports, is the first to break down the rules governing the complex process of crystallization through rapid-cooling. According to the research, membranes can be engineered to crystallize at a specific time.
“We describe a supercooled material as ‘metastable,’ meaning it is very sensitive to any external perturbation that may transform it back to its stable low-temperature state,” said Dr. Roy Beck of the Department of Physics at TAU’s School of Physics and Astronomy, who co-lead the study. “We discovered in our study that it is possible to control the process and harness the advantages of the fluid/not-fluid transition to design a precise and effective nanoscale drug encapsulating system.”
The research was led jointly by Beck and Prof. Dan Peer of the Department of Cell Research and Immunology at TAU’s Faculty of Life Sciences, and conducted by TAU graduate students Guy Jacoby, Keren Cohen, and Kobi Barkai.

Israeli big data teaches farmers a cup of joe means better crops

Big data isn’t just for cybersecurity or mobile app developers. Farmers, too, can use it to increase their productivity, believes Ron Shani, CEO of ag-tech big data firm AKOL (Agricultural Knowledge Online).
“Our platform lets users see exactly what to do to take care of crops, when to do it, and how much of it to do, in order to get the best results from their fields” – even if the thing they need to do is to drink a piping hot cup of coffee in the morning, said Shani.
“For example,” said Shani, “we discovered that for farmers in Serbia, there was a definite connection between drinking coffee and farm productivity – that farmers who did not drink coffee first thing in the morning were not as productive as those who did.”
Chinese agricultural authorities signed a deal last month with AKOL to use its “agricultural cloud” technology for fish farms. The AKOL system allows fish farmer operators to access in-depth information, gathered via sensors and analyzed on the system’s servers, that instructs them when to clean pools, how much and when to feed fish, etc.

Israel Increasingly Attractive for Chinese Academics, Investors, and Tourists

East China New University and the University of Haifa this month launched a joint Israeli-Chinese research center in Shanghai—the first center of its kind and the latest testament to the growing alignment between the two countries.
As part of the venture, the Jerusalem Post reported, the research center will foster collaboration between Israeli and Chinese academics in the fields of computer science, mathematics, and more, and the two universities will also have a student exchange program.
More broadly, Israel and China have been building broader strategic ties through special high-ranking delegations that have traveled between the two countries.
On the economic front, China was Israeli’s fourth-most-popular destination for exports in the world, and the most popular among Asian countries, wrote Dr. Yoram Evron, a member of the academic staff at the University of Haifa’s Department of Asian Studies, for Yedioth Ahronoth. Chinese investments in Israel have grown to at least $4 billion in less than four years, while Chinese companies have been increasingly establishing infrastructure projects in Israel. The Jewish state recently applied to join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
According to Evron, “Beijing appreciates Israel’s stability and regional strategic importance and sees it as one of the regional central pillars in the foreseeable future,” particularly considering the instability in much of the rest of the Middle East.

Backyard unit eats trash to make biofuel

When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the sukkah of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin during the Jewish harvest holiday last October, he was treated to a demo of a machine the government has given to Bedouin families to convert organic waste into clean biogas for cooking, heating and lighting, as well as organic liquid crop fertilizer.
“He got very excited and told us, ‘Millions of women and children die each year due to indoor smoke from open fires. This is just the thing they need. The UN should be purchasing these units!’ recalls Ami Amir of HomeBioGas, which develops and manufactures a new class of anaerobic biodigesters to convert organic waste to clean renewable energy.
“He asked us to be in touch with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to see where and when our systems could be deployed,” the marketing director tells ISRAEL21c.
The family-size TevaGas (TG) backyard units, available as an easy-to-assemble kit, generate safe energy and fertilizer through bacterial anaerobic digestion of organic waste such as food scraps and animal manure. They provide a sustainable solution for off-grid urban and rural families, as well as environmentally conscious homeowners and small farm owners, in warmer climates.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem announces plans for Einstein Museum

The planning of an Einstein Museum was announced by the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University at a dinner hosted in Toronto Wednesday evening. The museum, along with three other Einstein-related initiatives, are in celebration of the centennial of Einstein's theory of relativity.
The Einstein Museum will be the first institution dedicated to continuing the legacy of Albert Einstein, who co-founded the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and bequeathed to the university his entire estate.
In addition to the museum, designer Ron Arad has been commissioned to create the world's first 3D printed book, featuring essays from leading opinion formers, Cosmic Pictures will produce an IMAX 3D film exploring the origins and meaning of Einstein's ideas, and the third annual "The Next Einstein" competition will soon get underway.

Jerusalem Day Statistics Reveal Israeli Capital’s Progress, But Room for Growth

May 17 marks Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) in Israel, a national holiday commemorating the reunification of eastern and western Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. In honor of this year’s holiday, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics has released figures showing the growth and development of the Israeli capital in the last five decades, based on data collected from 2013-14.
These key findings, as translated from Hebrew, reveal both the progress that the city has made and its room for additional growth. Here are the highlights:
1. Jerusalem is currently the largest city in Israel. At the end of 2013, Jerusalem’s population was 829,900. Sixty-three percent of the city’s residents were either Jews, non-Arab Christians, members of other faiths, or those not registered as belonging to any faith in Israel’s Ministry of the Interior. Thirty-seven percent were Arabs. The population of Jerusalem also grew by 14,600 residents in 2013.
2. Among the Jews living in Jerusalem, 35 percent define themselves as haredi, 18 percent as religious, 12 percent as traditional-religious, 14 percent as traditional-not very religious, and 20 percent as secular.

‘Mr. Sinatra Adored Israel, and Israel Adored Him Back.’

Sinatra’s initial visit to Israel came in 1962, as part of his first world tour. At the height of his popularity, his managers wanted him to embark on a series of concerts that would take him as far as Japan. Sinatra also had personal reasons for touring: His falling out with the recently elected JFK and the rest of the Kennedy clan, due to a combination of Sinatra’s volatile temper and allegations concerning the singer’s links to organized crime, hurt him deeply. Sinatra turned toward reviving his own career and stepped up his charitable work, which his managers hoped would “temper the image of the flip playboy.”
In May and June of 1962 Sinatra gave 30 concerts in cities around the world. A percentage of the proceeds went to children’s charities. The tour began in Tokyo, where legions of fans turned out see and hear the singer. Because Israel appeared on Sinatra’s schedule, the Arab League rejected proposals that he perform in Cairo and Beirut.
Israel—and the response to European persecution that it embodied—was a deeply personal cause for Sinatra. He was born and brought up in an Italian-American enclave in Hoboken, New Jersey; his grandparents had emigrated to the United States from Italy in the 1890s, and the anti-immigrant bigotry they faced in turn-of-the-century New York still lingered in Frank’s childhood in the 1920s. He told his friend Pete Hamill that “growing up, I would hear the stories … things that happened because you were Italian … the stories were there. The warnings, the prejudice you heard about it at home, in the barbershop, on the corner. You never heard about in school. But it was there.”
These experiences of prejudice made the young Sinatra aware of other forms of bigotry, including anti-Semitism. And there were Jewish connections in his Hoboken childhood. Among his caretakers (Frank’s mother worked often outside of the home) was a Mrs. Golden. She spoke to him only in Yiddish, and in his adulthood Sinatra often joked that he “knew more Yiddish than Italian.” For decades Sinatra wore a Jewish star pendant that Mrs. Golden had given him.

The great sell-out (poster)

This quote, which I mentioned tangentially a couple of days ago, deserves a lot more prominence:

Or, in the words of a Yiddish proverb I heard in relation to this issue yesterday, if one person says you are drunk, you can ignore him. If two people say you are drunk, you should go to sleep.

When the Arabs and Israelis agree on something, the world should listen.

Photos of Arabs setting fires outside Joseph's Tomb last Sunday

Wire services actually published pictures of Arabs from Shechem (Nablus) setting fires at Joseph's Tomb last Sunday - a Jewish holy place that they, unbelievably, say is holy for them as well.

Is this how you treat a holy place? 

Getty Images

Reuters

And here they are vandalizing the Tomb:

Reuters 

Palestinian rioters set fire and break facilities in Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus April 24, 2011

Video can be seen here. And here's an article about the world's silence on the murder of a Jewish worshipper.

(h/t Yerushalimey, Vandoren)

Dialogue with a Western Leftist (Nick Cohen)

This should probably be made into one of those XtraNormal animations....

"You say you support the Palestinians?"


"Yes."

"Which Palestinians?"


"What do you mean 'which Palestinians'? I support all Palestinians. Their oppression by Israel is the great injustice of our time. Western hypocrites ignore racism, and use false accusations of antisemitism to stop legitimate criticism. The Zionist-controlled media label resistance 'terrorism', while ignoring the state terrorism of Israel which is the root cause of all the violence in the Middle-"

"All right, stop there. You still have to choose. Do you support the Fatah leadership in the West Bank, which may be corrupt and unpleasant but is at least presiding over an economic boom and allowing some freedoms, or Hamas, which tortures its enemies and tramples on the rights of women."

"Hamas won Gaza in free elections. Palestinians must unite against the colonial enemy and the Israel Lobby in the West."

"But they cannot unite. Religious reactionaries from the extreme right - and 'the extreme right' is the correct term, by the way - who are building an Islamic emirate in Gaza and want a caliphate to cover the whole world, do not mix with democratic politicians, however imperfect they may be. You saw what happened in Gaza. The Islamists won one election, cancelled all future elections, and threw their opponents from high-rise blocks. If David Cameron threw Ed Miliband off the Post Office Tower, would you still say that he was worthy of support?"

"It is not for us to intervene in Palestinian affairs. Hamas is an issue the Palestinians must resolve themselves."

"Listen to yourself. 'It's not for us to intervene?' You and your friends intervene all the time. You close down Jewish shops, oblivious to the ghosts of Kristallnacht that thuggish policy raises from the grave. You lobby to stop Israeli academics visiting our universities, and don't worry that the last movement to ban Jewish intellectuals was-"

"I knew it, I knew it! I knew you would accuse me of antisemitism. Your kind always does. It's a dirty trick to silence legitimate debate."

"I agree it can be sometimes. But when you will not condemn Islamist movements that lift Jewish conspiracy theories direct from the screeds of European fascism, I am entitled to suspect that you suffer from a severe case of Judeophobia at the very least. Your repeated references to the 'Israel Lobby' and 'Zionist-controlled media' don't reassure me on that score either."

"I am a left-winger, how dare you accuse me of racism? I have fought racism all my life, and don't ignore the Islamophobic racism of Israel and her friends, as you do. If there are antisemitic elements in the Islamist movement, they are a rational response to Western oppression. You would hate Jews if Israelis were doing this to you."

"Dear God, where to begin with that. Do you really believe there's no racism on the left, and that extremism can be rationally explained? In any case, it's not just antisemitism you excuse, is it? You have abandoned internationalism, secularism and, most disgracefully, the struggle for the emancipation of women. Your friends in Gaza have even banned women from sucking on hookah pipes - and, let me tell you, I don't need to have a psychiatry degree to understand the male sexual hysteria that lies behind that telling prohibition. Here's a test. The Palestinian Authority is about to declare the territories an independent state. The Israelis hate the idea, what do you think?"

"I worry that a two-state solution will not be full and just. The expelled refugees must have a right of return."

"That is a recipe for war without end. Israelis will never allow millions of Palestinians to swamp their state. Your trouble is that you are a voyeur. The violence of bearded reactionaries with a Koran in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other excites you. You prefer their thrilling intransigence to the arguments of boring men in suits in Ramallah, who are willing to compromise for a better life. You need the burning corpses of Palestinians and Jews to bring light to your empty life."

"And your trouble is you are a sly apologist for imperialism. You never condemn Israeli atrocities, but use nit-picking points of detail and clever rhetorical tricks to distract attention from crimes against humanity. You are a neo-con and a zio-Nazi, and I am never going to speak to you again."

"Don't worry, there are millions more like you out there, and I'll be having this conversation for the rest of my life. Send in the next one on your way out."

The "Merchants of Peace" racket (Toameh) (UPDATED x2)

From Khaled Abu Toameh in Hudson-NY:

A "peace activist" based in Jerusalem this week sent out the following email to friends: "For my birthday on May 2, I'm asking my friends and family for a special gift: help me raise $5,000... It's a great cause that advances peace –two states for two peoples – Israel and Palestine. Please consider giving to my Birthday Wish, and together we can help to make peace."

The Palestinians call such people who go out asking for money in the name of coexistence and a two-state solution "Merchants of Peace." And there is no shortage of such "peace activists" in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

There are, in fact, dozens of non-governmental organizations that raise millions of dollars every year under the pretext that they want to help the cause of peace in the Middle East.


Most of the money goes to paying high salaries to the directors and employees of these organizations.


Some of these organizations also invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in "seminars" and joint Israeli-Palestinian meetings in five-star hotels in Europe in the name of peace.

Those who are invited to these gatherings are usually people with close ties to the heads of the organizations and government officials on both sides. Only a few represent the grassroots in both societies.

Many Palestinians and Israelis who attend these meetings say that they rarely contribute to the cause of peace.

In many instances, Palestinians and Israelis who go to these meetings as friends return home as enemies after being forced to confront each other in front of foreign audiences.

It is time that the donors who fund such organizations start revising their policies and think of better ways to invest their money.

They should, for example, consider supporting Palestinian university students who come from poor families. The money could also go to build sports facilities and create job opportunities for Palestinian youths. In short, there are one million projects that the donors, some of whom appear to be extremely gullible, could make use of their money to help the cause of peace.

Giving a US-born "peace activist" a $5,000 gift on his birthday is certainly not one of the ways to help advance the cause of peace. It is also hard to understand how such a gift would help bring about a two-state solution.

There are, however, so many deprived Palestinian families who, with $5,000, could feed their children for weeks and months.

Indeed, as we have seen, the average West Bank worker earns $22 a day. $5000 would feed his family for over seven months.

I confess I am not so familiar with the many dozens of groups that say they foster peace. Some do seem to be doing important things, others seem more like what Toameh is talking about.

But it does bring up the question: who funded Vittorio Arrigoni's life in Gaza for the past couple of years? The ISM? The ISM says that donations are

...used to cover operational expenses in Palestine such as communications, transportation, legal expenses, apartment maintenance expenses and small stipends for key coordination positions.

Sounds like a scam right there - probably the bulk of ISM's contributions (many of them laundered through the A. J. Muste Institute in order to be tax deductible) go to maintaining the lifestyle of Greta Berlin, Adam Shapiro and other rabid Israel-haters.

I wish Toameh would have named names. It would be fun to track back the money trails of useless "peace" organizations.

UPDATE: Stan says he got the same email: from IPCRI's Gershon Baskin.

Sure enough, a quick look at its website shows that ICPRI does essentially nothing. It styles itself as a "think tank" and holds lots of meetings and conferences that accomplish little. (I only found one exception: helping sewage treatment in an Arab community. Even that project's link doesn't work to find out more information.)

Even more outrageous, many of their "policy papers" are not available at their website (they claim that many of them are "classified!") The only articles I could find are the ones that Baskin writes for the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere, with very few exceptions. Their downloadable e-books are all over ten years old.

If the only output that IPCRI generates is stuff that Baskin writes, then maybe I should turn this blog into a think-tank! I probably generate more content than he does.

Hey, donate some money to EoZ! I need to work on my begging techniques!

UPDATE 2:  Here is the email (h/t Stan):

Here you can see his progress towards the $5000.

Fairies, unicorns and a peaceful binational state

Yossi Beilin in the NYT writes:

[W]e who know that a peace settlement is essential for Israel’s future should now rethink the ultimate goal. When I do that, I keep returning to the idea of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation, rather than a classic two-state solution. By acknowledging that our two peoples live too close together to ever be completely separate, we might finally persuade both sides to make historic concessions to each other.

I answered this stupidity in 2010 when an Arab proposed it in another op-ed in another major US newspaper. Here was my post:

---

George Bisharat, writing in the Washington Post, paints a lovely picture of how well a bi-national state in Palestine would work:

The answer is for Israelis and Palestinians to formalize their de facto one-state reality but on principles of equal rights rather than ethnic privilege. A carefully crafted multiyear transition including mechanisms for reconciliation would be mandatory. Israel/Palestine should have a secular, bilingual government elected on the basis of one person, one vote as well as strong constitutional guarantees of equality and protection of minorities, bolstered by international guarantees. Immigration should follow nondiscriminatory criteria. Civil marriage between members of different ethnic or religious groups should be permitted. Citizens should be free to reside in any part of the country, and public symbols, education and holidays should reflect the population's diversity.

Although the one-state option is sometimes dismissed as utopian, it overcomes major obstacles bedeviling the two-state solution. Borders need not be drawn, Jerusalem would remain undivided and Jewish settlers could stay in the West Bank. Moreover, a single state could better accommodate the return of Palestinian refugees. A state based on principles of equality and inclusion would be more morally compelling than two states based on narrow ethnic nationalism. Furthermore, it would be more consistent with antidiscrimination provisions of international law. Israelis would enjoy the international acceptance that has long eluded them and the associated benefits of friendship, commerce and travel in the Arab world.

It sounds so lovely! Palestinian Arabs from Lebanon, Syria and Jordan can move into this new binational Palestine by the millions, but don't worry: they won't do anything to hurt their treasured Jewish minority.

Once upon a time, not too terribly long ago, there was an Arab majority in Palestine. How well did they treat the minority population? Here are the news briefs for a single day, September 4, 1938, in the Palestine Post:



Wasn't life just grand then? Didn't everyone live together in peace and harmony? No need for a state for Jews - that would be racist. No, they can live in peace among the Arabs, in full safety and security, knowing that they are protected as dhimmis by force of Koranic law.

Bisharat couches his dream in multicultural terms:

The main obstacle to a single-state solution is the belief that Israel must be a Jewish state. Jim Crow laws and South African apartheid were similarly entrenched virtually until the eves of their demise. History suggests that no version of ethnic privilege can ultimately persist in a multiethnic society.

The idea that there are 22 or so states that define themselves as "Arab" - and discriminate against non-Arabs - is not a problem at all for Bisharat. The fact that the constitutions of many of those statesproclaim that their state religion is Islam, and that the Koran is the source for their laws, is also just peachy for oh-so-cultured Bisharat. No, the only evil is a Jewish national home - that is racist! Jewish self-determination is inherently evil, while the addition of another de-facto Arab state is supremely moral.

His plan recalls another Arab plan.

In 1947, on the eve of the partition, Arabs put forth another single-state plan in a desperate effort to avert the possibility of a Jewish state, however tiny, in Palestine.



In this plan the Arabs stressed that the state would have equal rights, free access to holy places, and they would even deign to let Hebrew be spoken in certain ghettos where Jews would be the majority.

This plan was just as utopian-sounding as Bisharat's plan today, and its purpose was exactly the same: to destroy Israel.

Yet one only has to look at what happened a mere ten days after this transparent Arab plan couched in liberal terms of equality and tolerance and co-existence was offered. Jews were attacked mercilessly by the very people who were supposedly ready to display tolerance towards them. 

And what happened when the relatively liberal kingdom of Transjordan took over the Jewish areas? Jews were forbidden to visit their holy places. Every Jew in the country was expelled. The Jewish Quarter was destroyed; the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives gutted, dozens of synagogues burned down in the course of a few weeks.

This is the reason why a Jewish state is needed. To have a tiny area in the world where Jews can live as Jews, without fear. The morality of a Jewish state where Jews can live safely and securely far outweighs the pseudo-morality of Bisharat's vision where the clock would go back to the days of Jews being bombed in markets because of a never-ending series of perceived injustices and affronts. 

When the Arab world shows that it can treat its minorities with the sensitivity that Israel treats hers, then maybe Bisharat can make a valid point. When Jews can buy land in Jordan and Lebanon and Syria and Saudi Arabia and move there without fear, then maybe we can talk about how Israel discriminates against parts of its population. When that day occurs, and Jews can live anywhere in the world with as little fear as Muslims can today, then the raison d'etre of a Jewish state would melt away.

However, today, it is Arabs themselves who show by their actions exactly why a Jewish state, in the Jewish homeland, is not only  necessary but moral.

(h/t Yoel)

Zippy Porath's letters to her American family from besieged Jerusalem, May 15-16, 1948

Zipporah Porath  arrived in Mandatory Palestine in Oct. 1947, as an American student, for what was intended to be a year of study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  But, caught up inIsrael's War of Independence, she served first as a medic in the underground Haganah defense forces, and then in the nascent IDF and the fledgling Israel Air Force. These volunteers from abroad were later recognized as part of the MACHAL volunteer corps.

The letters Zippy wrote to her parents and sister capture the historic events as they occurred. They are compiled in the book, Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948. 

The stamp that she used was issued before Israel had a name. It says "The Jewish State" and shows a picture of the 1947 Partition Plan - including, it appears, Jerusalem as a separate political entity. I had never heard of that stamp before.

---

Jerusalem,

May 15, 1948

Dearest Family,
It's the most incongruous and inexplicable feeling. I'm sitting  with our soldiers, listening all hearts and ears to the proceedings at the UN Security Council over a broken down battery radio -- trying to find out who will recognize our new State. The room is lit only by a small kerosene lamp which throws eerie shadows on the wall and plays havoc with the imagination.

The voices fade in and out, the static is maddening and it is hard to hear who is speaking. At the moment, the "Representative from Canada" is saying something stupid -- it's difficult to catch more than a word here or there -- so I'll use his time to write a few words ....which may never reach you.
Awareness of the full impact of the significance of this day has been somewhat lost to me in the immensity of rapidly developing events that have gripped Jerusalem. The British are actually leaving. We are fighting desperately to take over their strongholds before the Arabs do. For the last three days we have been on full alert and this is ZERO HOUR.

We are waiting impatiently for the return of the contingents of boys dispatched for today's engagements. Many dear friends are among them. Somehow, that seems more important to me than what the "Gentleman from Canada" is jabbering about -- or is it the Egyptian now?

Egypt. Oh, yes. They are invading rapidly to assure "peace and order."

The faces around me relaxed a bit after hearing that America had recognized OUR STATE. I feel a bit redeemed. Everyone in the room pivoted around to look at me as if I had had something to do with the decision.

What am I doing here? I'm in charge of the first-aid post which has been whitened and brightened for the gruesome business it anticipates. The stretcher bearers are squatting nearby. One of them, a boy with dark curly hair, is resting his head against my knees and looking past the ceiling to the future. Everything we have is ready -- blankets, bandages, a bit of cognac, ready for... we don't know what. This afternoon, it was heavy mortar fire, 25 pounders or more. Tonight, it may be air bombardment.
When I first donned these overalls and learned to sleep with my boots on and one ear open, I felt like a character out of a Hemingway novel; a partisan -- one girl for every hundred men. Now, I'm into the role completely.

We are completely cut off. No mail service out of Jerusalem, but writing eases the anxiety of waiting and worrying. How many of our boys will make it back tonight?

I wish we could know what is going on. So close and so far from the overall picture....

---

Jerusalem

May 16, 1948

Hello Again,

Day two in the THE STATE OF ISRAEL. Had to abandon writing temporarily for more pressing business. It's a beautiful day, plenty of sunshine, flies and shooting.

My only American compatriot here, Herbert, dug up a pair of shorts for me to wear. He says the boys need it for their morale and never mind if Florence Nightingale never wore shorts. What an outfit for duty.

Everyone gets such a kick out of the fact that there are " Americans" in their midst. I'm actually the first American GIRL most of these men have ever seen. In fact, I'm becoming a legend here. They call me "Tzippy HaAmericait" (Zippy, the American).

There are about three hundred men at this base from all over the world but only two of us from the U.S. Anyhow, what we lack in numbers, we both make up for in other ways. For one thing, we are doing a fine job of public relations, having constantly to improvise with practically nothing at hand. Herbert set up a first class cafeteria in the mess and is demonstrating what American efficiency is all about. And I'm doing my best in the two fields at my disposal, woman and nurse. The sweetheart of the camp and all that. I also set up a very cozy infirmary, thanks to super resourcefulness.

Later...

Pardon the inconsistencies, but I'm constantly being interrupted by minor emergencies -- a scorpion bite, an attack of appendicitis, infections, a misdirected bullet, all in a day's work. In between, I serve sulfa and good cheer -- the best part of the job. Our soldiers are like no others I'VE ever seen. They don't have much to fight with besides guts and determination. No swagger, spit or polish. No drinking, no shirking. Doing the dirtiest jobs, they sing and joke -- even in the fiercest moments, and never with a "here today and gone tomorrow" attitude. TOMORROW is what it's all about.

I am grateful to be here with them. I have become one of them more than ever now. All my love -- thank God for the present -- and pray for the future...

.
PS

Don't part with this envelope if you ever receive it. The stamps were issued for 5 days only  prior to the declaration of the State and were available only in Jerusalem. They'll probably be valuable to stamp collectors in a couple of years.

Iran cheated under the interim agreement, and multilateral "snapback" is dead

Going back again to Joe Biden's speech at the Washington Institute, where he defended the Obama administration's negotiations, he stated:

The second argument I hear is that no deal is worth the paper it’s written on, because Iran will simply cheat. And it’s true that Iran could try to cheat, whether there’s a deal or not. Now they didn’t cheat under the interim deal -— the Joint Plan of Action -— as many were certain they would. But they certainly have in the past and it would not surprise anyone if they tried again.

Sorry, Joe:

The Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology useable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions, U.N. experts and Western sources said.

Some details of the attempted purchase were described in the latest annual report of an expert panel for the United Nations Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, which has been seen by Reuters.

The panel said that in January Iran attempted to buy compressors - which have nuclear and non-nuclear applications - made by the U.S.-owned company Howden CKD Compressors.

A Czech state official and a Western diplomat familiar with the case confirmed to Reuters that Iran had attempted to buy the shipment from Howden CKD in the Czech Republic, and that Czech authorities had acted to block the deal.

The U.N. panel, which monitors compliance with the U.N. sanctions regime, said there had been a "false end user" stated for the order.

"The procurer and transport company involved in the deal had provided false documentation in order to hide the origins, movement and destination of the consignment with the intention of bypassing export controls and sanctions," it added.

The report offered no further details about the attempted transaction. Iran's U.N. mission did not respond to a query about the report.

How many cheats weren't noticed?

And how come the UN itself - the specific committee that is charged with enforcing the sanctions -  didn't publicize this report, and it had to be leaked to the media?

That is in many ways more troubling than the cheating attempt itself.

---

Also, the "snapback sanctions" idea is pretty much dead.

Biden said:

And there will be a clear procedure in the final deal that allows both the U.N. and unilateral sanctions to snap back without needing to cajole lots of other countries -– including Russia or China –- to support it. That will be written in the final deal.

Uh, not really:

The Obama administration is trying to sell a nuclear deal with Iran to skeptical Arabs, Israelis and U.S. lawmakers by saying that United Nations sanctions will be restored automatically if the Iranians are caught cheating.

Not so, say the Russians, who have one of five vetoes in the 15-member UN Security Council.

“There can be no automaticity, none whatsoever” in reimposing UN sanctions if Iran violates the terms of an agreement to curb its nuclear program, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told Bloomberg News on Wednesday. He didn’t elaborate.

While the Obama administration maintains that Russia agreed “in principle” to the need for a sanctions “snapback” mechanism if Iran fails to comply with the agreement now being negotiated in final form, the Russian government has offered no corroboration.

Instead, President Vladimir Putin on April 13 lifted a ban on exporting missile defense systems to Tehran, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said lifting all the sanctions against Iran is good business for Russia.

Now there is very little incentive to stop Iran from cheating, which is the entire point of the nuclear agreement.

And don't assume even American sanctions would "snap back" immediately upon evidence of Iranian cheating. For example, the Czech discovery of the illicit compressor deal isn't 100% clear-cut for those who prefer blindness. The compressors have non-military use, after all. Just because they were imported using dummy companies and false paperwork isn't proof that they were meant for nuclear purposes, it is just a string indicator of cheating. How would the Obama administration react to cheating like that which can be rationalized away?

Iran knows the answer, and deep down, so does everyone else.

(h/t Yenta, Omri)