Tel Aviv protests are a win-win for Israel haters

PreOccupied Territory has been making a series of flowcharts showing how anything Israel does can be spun against it.

The recent demonstrations in Tel Aviv seem to be a similar situation:



The Arab media has been enthusiastically reporting on the protests, happily using them s evidence that Israel is racist. (Al Jazeera, ironically, refers to the Ethiopians by the derogatory name "Falashas" while self-righteously reporting on Israeli racism.)

Funny, the only African people in Gulf countries seem to be servants.

The Jewish Press reports that the violence seems to have been instigated from outsiders who want to paint Israel as racist, and want to help it along when the police don't cooperate.
Police said Monday morning that anarchists incited protesters to violence in last night’s march in Tel Aviv against police brutality and racism undermined demonstrators’ objectives.

Protesters were armed with rocks and metal objects that they hurled at police officers, 56 of whom were injured lightly. Police arrested 43 demonstrators and hurled stunned grenades in the middle of a crowd blocking a major artery at rush-hour in Tel Aviv.

Both a senior police official and “Elazar,” who made Aliyah to Ethiopia years before the massive airlift in Operation Shlomo, told Voice of Israel radio (Reshet Bet) that the protest turned violent partly because of anarchists.
So do Israeli police only use tear gas and stun grenades against blacks and Arabs?

Of course not. Police have used water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas against haredi Jewish protesters in Israel.

So surely Israeli police are just violent in general, using tear gas at the drop of a hat?

Tell the British, who used tear gas only last week at a protest against gentrification of neighborhoods.

Tell it to Canadians, whose police recently used tear gas and rubber bullets against a student protest.

For some reason those didn't make world headlines. In fact, they didn't even make major headlines in their own countries.

But the desire to paint Israel as a racist society is irresistible to a large number of reporters.

10,000 Muslim clerics: "Arab uprisings might be a Zionist plot"

From Arab News:
KOTTAKKAL, Kerala: The ulema conference organized by the Samastha Kerala Jam’iyathul Ulema, a body of Islamic scholars, has warned against the possibility of the uprisings in Muslim nations into the hands of Zionists.

“The Zionists and colonialists are doing everything at creating cracks in the unity of Ummah on the ethnic and nationalist lines. The Muslims should be cautious about this trap,” a resolution adopted by the three-day conference attended by more than 10,000 scholars said.
It's difficult to find the pattern of Zionist plots, but I think I cracked the code:

Anything going on in the world that you, personally, are uncomfortable with, is a Zionist plot.

Don't thank me, I'm glad to help.

Max Blumenthal trots out a lie (NewsRealBlog)

My latest post at NewsRealBlog, written by request:
Max Blumenthal uses the assassination of Osama Bin Laden as an excuse to push the ridiculous claim, advanced by Israel-haters for years, that Binyamin Netanyahu was overjoyed at the events of 9/11.

Blumenthal says that Netanyahu called the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon “very good.” But what he glosses over is the question he was answering....

The question was specifically about US-Israeli relations, not about what he thought of the terror attacks. Netanyahu answered accurately and then immediately realized that this obvious truth could be twisted by people with an agenda–like Blumenthal–so he clarified what he meant.

Blumenthal, like all Israel-bashers who suffer from terminal intellectual dishonesty, ignored the context of the comment.

Yet the truth is undeniable–9/11 did make Americans wake up and realize what Israel has gone through for decades. It caused previously complacent Americans to realize that there was a global threat from Islamist terror groups. It woke up the government to be less sanguine about what national security means in an era of jihadists deliberately targeting civilians.

Not only that, but the US has used Israel as the model on how to fight terror. We went on the offensive, forcing the enemy to fight trained soldiers rather than have the luxury of planning attacks on innocent civilians on our shores. We used unmanned armed drones, sophisticated electronics intelligence, and beefed up our more traditional human intelligence, just like Israel. We adopted Israel’s methods on how to fight in urban areas while minimizing casualties of civilians. We used Israeli technology and methodology to help treat battlefield injuries and to help defeat threats from IEDs and missiles.

Even at home, city police forces and hospitals took lessons from Israeli experts on how to deal with local threats.

Bibi was correct in that 9/11 helped US-Israeli relations, on many levels.

To say that he therefore is happy about 9/11 is, however, pure slander. It would be similar to saying that CNN was considers 9/11 “very good” because its ratings soared as the only 24-hour news channel at the time, or that the head of the Department of Homeland Security is thrilled that 3,000 Americans died because their deaths gave him a high-profile job and budget. In short, Blumenthal’s charge that Netanyahu–and, by implication, all Zionists–are happy when Americans die is nothing short of obscene. It is a sick, transparent attempt on his part to drive a wedge between America and Israel.

To him and his friends on the far Left, the strong relationship between the US and Israel is the real evil that must be fought, not radical Islamists who want to see Blumenthal dead just as much as they want to kill all Jews and Americans.
Read the whole thing.

Will Abu Amr replace Fayyad as PA prime minister?

Al Manar is reporting that Dr. Ziad Abu Amr, who lives in Gaza, is a frontrunner to replace Salam Fayyad in the new "unified" PA government.

Abu Amr is a former foreign minister for the PA. He is said to have good relations with both Hamas and Fatah as well as other terror groups. In fact, he wrote a book called "Islamic fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad" which looks, at first glance, to be fairly well done.

He received his masters' degree and doctorate from Georgetown.

US and EU don't look at maps, and that hurts the chances for real peace

Last week:
Washington on Thursday called Israel’s approval of building 900 apartment units in a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem “damaging and inconsistent” with its commitment to a two-state solution.
The condemnation of the move by the State Department came less than a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the formation of a new governing coalition.

“This is a disappointing development, and we’re concerned about it just as a new Israeli government has been announced,” US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said at a press briefing. “Israel’s leaders have asserted that they remain committed to a two-state solution, and we need to see that commitment in the actions of… the Israeli government.”

Rathke said that the US government would “continue to make our position clear that we view this as illegitimate.”
Of course, the EU piled on:
Israel's determination to continue its settlement policy despite the urging of the international community, not only threatens the viability of the two state solution but also seriously calls into question its commitment to a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians.
A simple look at where the construction is planned shows that in no way, shape or form does building at Ramat Shlomo hurt the two state solution.

Here is Peace Now's map of the planned construction at Ramat Shlomo, in red, when 1500 units were planned:




Here is the same area from satellite:


The new construction is on the southern end of Ramat Shlomo, towards the Jewish neighborhoods of Sanhedria, Har Hotzvim and Ramat Eshkol - that are mostly within the Green Line.

In other words, there is no possible way that the land that is being built on would ever, in any universe, not remain in Israeli territory. Not under any peace plan ever promoted by any serious group. Never.

Even the far left Geneva Initiative, one of whose members was PA minister Yasser Abed Rabbo,  included major Jewish neighborhoods much further to the north than Ramat Shlomo as remaining in Israel:


When the US and EU say that Israel cannot build anything at all for Jews in Jerusalem who live in areas that everyone agrees would be part of Israel forever, they are saying that Jerusalem must remain static and unchanging  They are also saying that the rules for Israeli Jews are different than for Israeli Arabs, who have moved into Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem and whose additional construction approval do not get condemned by the EU or US.

This is not helpful to "peace." It just signals to Israel that it is alone, and that its opponents have bought the extreme anti-Israel positions of the Palestinians, and that their rules are particularly against Jews.

Which in turn makes Israel less likely to negotiate over other areas, since the third parties that want to be part of the solution have already signaled their extreme bias against any Jews - and only Jews -  living in any part of Jerusalem that happen to live across what  was meant to be a temporary armistice line.

Who wants to negotiate their own destruction? Who wants to negotiate under the friendly auspices of people who have loudly announced their bias against you?

Hamas has murdered another child

From JPost:
Daniel Raphael Viflic, the 16-year-old boy who was injured in the anti-tank missile attack on a school bus in the Negev by Hamas terrorists 10 days ago, died on Sunday after a steady decline to critical condition.

When the bus sustained a direct hit by the missile, Viflic suffered severe head trauma and was artificially respirated at the scene. He was rushed to Soroka University Medical Center Hospital in Beersheba, where his family has been holding vigil for the past ten days. On April 12, the severity of his condition was upgraded to extremely critical and doctors expressed concern that he had suffered irreparable brain damage.

The missile hit the bus moments after most of the children got off, while it was traveling near Kibbutz Sa'ad, about 2.5 km. from the Gaza Strip. Just two people were on the bus when it was hit – the driver, who was lightly injured, and the boy, who was en route to visit his grandmother.
May his parents be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
ברוך דיין האמת

Tonight's picture of Gazans' intense pain and horrible deprivation

From AP via Daylife:
A Palestinian family rides a tourist boat with a flag of the Spanish soccer team FC Barcelona, in the Mediterranean sea off the beach of Gaza City, Wednesday, April 27, 2011.
I'm surprised that Gaza, with its citizens having to suffer under such gut-wrenching activities as these just to stay barely alive,  didn't make the top ten list of humanitarian crises by Doctors Without Borders. Those pushy Congolese grab all the headlines instead.

Just in case you still thought the PCHR was unbiased...

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights put out a statement condemning the murder of Vittorio Arragoni, the terror-supporting member of ISM (but I repeat myself) who was killed on Friday.

If you believe that the PCHR has any objectivity left after its willful labeling of Hamas terrorists as "civilians" in Gaza, check this out:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, on Thursday evening, 14 April 2011, a group named "Group of the Companion Mohammed Bin Maslamah" announced the kidnapping of the Italian journalist, Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, a prominent member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and a human rights defender. In a video posted on the Youtube website, the group demanded the release of detained members of the group, affiliates of the so-called "Salafist Jihadist Group". The kidnappers threatened to kill Arrigoni if the government in Gaza did not meet their demands within 30 hours.

In a grave development, contrary to fundamental values shared by all Palestinians, the group carried out their threat. On Friday morning, 15 April 2011, security services found the body of Arrigoni in a house located in the 'Amer project area, west of al-Karamah building in the west of Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip. In his testimony, a PCHR staff-member reported signs of beating on the victim's face, signs of handcuffs on his hands, and signs of strangulation around his neck.
Yes, a so-called human rights organization is stating as a fact that all Palestinian Arabs are against murdering innocent people.

This same PCHR had, up until a couple of years ago, prominently detailed hundreds of instances of Palestinian Arabs being murdered by other PalArabs. It know quite well what Fatah and Hamas did to each other. It knows what Hamas did the the Salafist group in Gaza. Yet PCHR states as a fact that all Palestinian Arabs share fundamental values against murder!

Do we detect a wee bit of bias here?

One more fun part of the PCHR report:
[The PCHR] appreciates the role played by the International Solidarity Movement and other human rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territory;
The ISM is not a human rights group, it is a terror-enabler group. So is, apparently, the PCHR.

Lying Free Gaza co-founder visits my blog

I received a comment yesterday from Mary Hughes Thompson, co-founder of Free Gaza, about my post on the terrorist gun-running archbishop who spoke at the funeral of terrorist-supprting Vittorio Arrigoni:

I know this gentle man. Israel tried to frame him, as it has framed thousands of innocent Palestinians. Nobody believes a word that comes out of the mouths of any Israeli leader. Archbishop Capucci is a gentle man, as my friend Vittorio was a gentle man. Israel's lies can never harm men like these. God bless you Vittorio. Your star will shine long after zionist Israel is no more.

Thompson is a serial liar. As far as Hilarion Capucci is concerned, the Washington Post on November 4, 1977 wrote after his release from prison:

There seems to be very little question that Capucci was in fact smuggling arms for the Palestinian Liberation Organization and at least one Israeli is thought to have died as a result. The PLO denies his guilt and has declared him a martyr, but privately many PLO members do not bother to deny his guilt and deplore his carelessness in getting caught.

During his questioning, Capucci tried to weasel out of his crimes by claiming that the PLO “forced [him] into guerrilla service by threats of blackmail.”

During the Iran hostage crisis, Capucci visited some of the American hostages. Here's what one of the hostages said:
From his home in Olyphant, Pa., Michael J. Metrinko, political officer, criticized Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of the Melkite Church of the Eastern Rite. He said the Archbishop, who made one trip with Father Rupiper [another priest who had visited the hostages], had seen a few well-treated prisoners ''and spent the rest of the time enjoying himself with the guards.''

''I tried to tell Capucci what things were like, and he just went into a diatribe about how bad things were in Israeli prisons,'' Mr. Metrinko said.

Thompson's lies are not limited to what she writes here about these two, terrorist supporting, "gentle men." She also had written in 2007 that "Palestinian children are killed every day by bombs and bullets from Israeli occupation forces," a statement that is provably ridiculous, as the link shows.

Moreover, she wrote concerning the Mavi Marmara:

I stayed up throughout the night to monitor the spot beacon signals coming from our boat CHALLENGER and the live streaming from the Turkish boat, and to wait for the onset of daylight. Suddenly we began to receive repeated distress signals from the spot beacon, and shortly thereafter we watched in horror and disbelief as vivid color images appeared on the video stream of masked and heavily armed troops firing weapons as they descended onto the deck of the MAVI MARMORA. Israel claims it used paint guns, but no paint was in evidence. Perhaps initially they used stun guns or tasers, though we doubt that too. Passengers were seen trying to get away from the line of fire, screaming in panic and fear. Immediately it became apparent that passengers had been shot as we saw bodies falling and bleeding everywhere, as others tried to render aid to them and move them out of the line of fire. We saw no signs of any resistance.

Later we and the rest of the world began to see the images supplied by the IDF which showed a completely different version of what happened. While showing that the IDF commandos did in fact board the MAVI MARMORA, they deleted the portion showing the violent attack by the troops, showing instead pictures of resistance by some passengers. Clearly there was resistance, as panicked and no doubt angry passengers who had witnessed the wanton shooting of several dozen passengers apparently picked up whatever they could find with which to defend themselves against Israel’s clear intent to continue its murderous rampage. IDF is trying to claim that this resistance from passengers actually preceded the violence from the commandos. Anyone seeing the uncut footage streamed from the MARMORA could have no doubt as to who was responsible for all of the violence, the injuries and the deaths.
The original footage that Thompson was watching was from a satellite feed and it was widely available immediately after the raid on the ship, showing that the passengers were armed ahead of time with iron bars and other makeshift weapons. Other videos also showed that they were prepared well ahead of time. So Mary Hughes-Thompson once again lied.

And she now says that Israeli officials are the liars!

Come back anytime, Mary. It's fun exposing hypocrites, and you're such a easy target.

Bending the arc — away from Israel (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Alex, the son of anti-Zionist billionaire George Soros, is starting a Jewish political action committee:

Bend the Arc PAC will back progressive candidates by making direct contributions to their campaign committees. It will focus on issues such as income inequality, marriage equality, social justice and immigration reform.

Alex Soros explained that
There’s an opportunity to launch something that actually speaks to what the American Jewish community cares the most about and to show the narrative of what the real American Jewish experience is.
But what’s the point of creating yet another ‘progressive’ PAC? Why specifically target Jews when there is no specifically Jewish issue that it is concerned with? The answer lies in what it is not concerned with:
Hadar Susskind, who has previously worked for other Jewish organizations including J Street, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, will serve as director of Bend the Arc PAC…
“We don’t touch any foreign policy stuff,” he said. “One of the reasons behind doing this is that [the other Jewish groups] aren’t really representing the views of the American Jewish community…” [my emphasis]
Does that sound familiar? It’s J Street without Israel! This PAC will undoubtedly fund the very same candidates that the J Street PAC does. But J Street has been losing its appeal, as the Obama Administration’s anti-Israel policies have begun to make even some ‘progressive’ Jews uncomfortable.

Since Roosevelt’s presidency, American Jews have leaned left because of their concern about social issues, as exemplified by the civil rights movement. Reform Jews have even been criticized for acting as though Judaism was synonymous with liberal politics. Most, however, strongly supported Israel — and so did most Democratic politicians. With the advent of Obama, that is no longer the case, and liberal Jews are caught in the middle.

Soros has come along with a brilliant solution to their dilemma: be progressive, but don’t think about Israel.

Bend the Arc will be able to funnel Jewish contributions to the left-wing politicians that support and will continue the administration’s policies, including its anti-Israel ones. But because it won’t “touch any foreign policy stuff” none of those hard questions about Hamas and Iran need come up. Jewish progressives will be able to donate to it with the clearest of consciences, with warm and fuzzy feelings about gay marriage and immigrant rights, without any nagging doubts that perhaps they are betraying their people.

The traditionally liberal Jews who have been forced to choose between their progressive domestic agenda and their love for Israel will now have a home.

And it won’t be a lightning rod for criticism by Zionist Jews the way J Street was. Anyone who opposes Bend the Arc can be dismissed as a right-wing ideologue, or even a Republican.

Finally, it is a diversionary tactic. It will work to focus the Jewish community on domestic issues. The less any American, Jewish or otherwise, thinks about the radically anti-Israel and anti-American policies of the Obama wing of the Democratic Party, the better it will be for them.

I doubt that any of the Democratic presidential candidates — yes, I expect challenges to Hillary — will explicitly campaign on the foreign policy record of the Obama Administration (it’s too gruesome), but I do expect that at least one will embody the same philosophy of helping America’s enemies and hurting its friends.

And you can bet that that candidate will be the favorite of Bend the Arc.