Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Twitter 'Mentions' Notifications Making Blasphemy Detection Much Easier (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

San Francisco, October 18 - Heavenly enforcers raked with identifying and tracking blasphemy have had a much easier time since social media platforms began alerting users when others mention them in posts, a divine spokesangel stated today.

Speaking to journalists outside the Twitter offices, Archangel Michael told reporters this afternoon that thanks to Twitter and Facebook Notifications features, the detection of online blasphemy, use of God's name in vain, and sundry other rhetorical sins has seen a remarkable jump in efficiency in the last ten years.

"It used to be much more tedious, but at least in the online realm the detection of blasphemy has become more or less instantaneous," explained the archangel. "Twitter's notifications alert Heaven whenever God is invoked, and our enforcement division can immediately review the content of the tweet to determine whether any speech against Him has been committed." Those who retweet or share blasphemous content are similarly identified and investigated, but those who merely "Like" a tweet are considered as having performed no action at all.

Michael lauded Twitter for its quick action on enabling the feature, but withheld full-throated praise from other social media platforms such as Facebook. "We salute Jack Dorsey and his team for facilitating this welcome development," he pronounced. "Other companies in the arena would do well to follow suit, and not force their users to suffer through unreliable alert systems and overlapping or repetitive notifications."

The angel declined to divulge the number of blasphemy incidents detected since Twitter implemented notifications for mentions, but did indicate that fewer of the cases than one might expect would result in capital punishment. "I'm not at liberty to say how often a blasphemer receives judgment, but I can reveal that when most people think they are cursing God they are actually cursing their own misconstrued, flawed version of God, and not God Himself," he observed. "This often constitutes grounds for leniency, and lies behind the apparent discrepancy between the number of people who bad-mouth the Creator and those who get what's coming to them as a result."

Divine opinion has yet to coalesce regarding other Twitter features, such as the experimental new expansion to a 280-character format, but the Heavenly spokesangel hinted at a measure of Godly displeasure. "God created all of physical existence with just a few utterances," he noted. "Since then, divine communication has occurred infrequently, and not always in verbal form. A wise consideration of these facts should lead one to conclude that more words are not always better."

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10/18 Links Pt1: Isi Leibler: A fusion of evils; UN Watch: Key Facts on U.N.’s Rogue Culture Agency

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: A fusion of evils

World leaders continue to delude themselves that the Palestinians can be induced to make peace if Israel continues to appease them.

Even more delusional is the near-universal consensus that a merger between Fatah and the more radical Hamas is a step toward achieving an accommodation. Such a fusion of evil entities can have no positive consequences.

This potential merger is a result of Hamas' concerns, in the face of economic meltdown, that unless it stems the ongoing collapse of services, it could suffer domestic insurrection.

Hamas agreed that Gaza's administration would be under the Palestinian Authority's political umbrella. However, though the PA will supervise border crossings, Hamas leaders are adamant that security will remain entirely under their control, and they will not lay down their weapons.

Nor would they agree to cease building terror tunnels under the Israeli border. On the eve of the reconciliation, Hamas promoted some of its most fanatical terrorists to key positions and also reiterated that it would not contemplate any accommodation with Israel.

The fusion of these two terrorist entities is likely to enable Hamas to ultimately assume control of the Palestinian Authority or displace it entirely. The objective is to apply similar tactics to those Hezbollah employed in Lebanon and, while initially allowing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to posture as the national leader, Hamas would take effective control of the West Bank.

UN Watch: Why the U.S. Pulled Out of UNESCO: Key Facts on U.N.’s Rogue Culture Agency

The U.S. decision to pull out of UNESCO followed failed efforts to reform the agency. While UNESCO’s mission to promote education, science and culture is noble, the agency has become hijacked by dictatorships. Following are a few examples.

Anti-Israeli Obsession: Between 2009-2014, UNESCO adopted 46 resolutions against Israel; 1 on Syria; and none on Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or any other country in the world. See here and here. Betraying its mission to protect world heritage and culture, UNESCO repeatedly denies the ancient Jewish heritage and culture of the holy cities Jerusalem and Hebron, which was this year declared a World Heritage site of “Palestine.”

Electing Syria’s Assad to Human Rights Committee: In 2011, UNESCO elected Syria’s Assad regime to its human rights committee. When UN Watch exposed the outrage and launched a protest campaign, the U.S. and UK were embarrassed and tried to remove Syria — but failed to get enough votes to do so.

Glorifying Violence: In 2013, UNESCO enshrined “The Life and Works of Ernesto Che Guevara” in its “Memory of the World Register” —even though Che Guevara led the first firing squads of the Cuban Revolution, and founded Cuba’s “labor camp” system that would later be used to incarcerate gays, dissidents and AIDS victims. President Obama’s representative demanded that UNESCO’s program not “not be used as a tool to glorify or legitimize violence.” His objection was ignored.

Naming Prizes for Dictators: UNESCO created a $3 million prize in 2008 named for and funded by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the brutal and corrupt dictator of Equitorial Guinea. His state radio announced that Obiang “can decide to kill” without anyone calling him to account because he is in “permanent contact” with God, “who gives him this strength.” In addition, UNESCO created an education prize in the name of, and sponsored by, the despot of Bahrain — the “King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize.”

“World Philosophy Day” in Tehran: In a 2010 address, UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova spoke of her efforts over two years to sponsor a “Philosophy Day” in Tehran — despite Iran’s horrific record of repression and censorship after the fraudulent elections of 2009. Absurdly, Bokova said “I hope this will be a major opportunity for free intellectual debates around the topics.” Eventually UNESCO was forced to cancel the event.

Melanie Phillips: The west takes up its usual position

What is it about unconscionable agendas that sends the western head plunging ever deeper into the sand? Please join me here as I discuss with Avi Abelow of Israel Video Network the reaction to President Trump’s speech on the Iran deal, the new pact between Hamas and Fatah and Tony Blair’s latest contribution to the west’s incorrigible myopia.

UNRWA-USA blames Israel for Abbas cutting services to Gaza

UNRWA-USA executive director Abby Smardon writes about her recent visit to Gaza. Of course, her preferred place to publish is the rabidly anti-Israel Mondoweiss:

I’ve visited the Gaza Strip for each of the past six years, including in 2014 a few months after Israel’s devastating military assault. And yet, I’ve never seen Gaza like I did when I had the privilege of visiting this summer.
I call it a privilege because, due to the blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel (with the support of Egypt), which is part of Israel’s now 50-year-old military rule over Palestinians in the occupied territories, internationals allowed in and out of Gaza are few, and Palestinians even fewer. This illegal land, air, and sea blockade, which has just entered its tenth year and amounts to collective punishment, as has been noted by the UN and human rights groups, has decimated the economy of Gaza and allowed for the near complete destruction of critical infrastructure. Experts use the term “de-development” to describe this once-bustling Mediterranean coastal enclave of two million Palestinians.

Why is Gaza worse now then it was in Smardon's previous visits?

Upon arriving in Gaza, which requires a permit from Israel and extensive humanitarian coordination, I immediately saw the crippling effects of the ongoing electricity crisis which has been wreaking havoc since March. Electricity is now only available for 2-4 hours a day, a situation that has been exacerbated by internal Palestinian political divides. This has brought life to a near complete stop for many in Gaza, and has enormous public health and environmental implications.

Smardon goes on to describe how things are so bad because of the electricity crisis:

The first day of my visit, I visited a water pumping station at Al-Shati refugee camp by the coast. There, I witnessed raw sewage pumping directly into the water. The sewage would normally flow to a treatment plant, but without electricity, that’s not an option. Instead, it pumps directly into the sea, not far from where people swim and fish. Their fish will be contaminated, just like their water. The sea, which is at the heart of Gazan culture, now poisons them. Despite more than 65% of the shoreline being unsafe for humans, people continue to go to the beach because it’s the only source of relief left during the sweltering summer.
At an UNRWA health clinic, I met with doctors and nurses who are facing the challenges of the electricity crisis both at work and home. A nurse shared with me that she wakes up at 2 am to do her family’s laundry because that’s usually when she has electricity. A doctor told me that he only gets 3-4 hours of rest each night because the heat keeps him awake. Regardless of their personal struggles, they both come to the clinic every day committed to providing quality healthcare for their fellow Palestine refugees.
Because the medical equipment runs on a different current than the clinic’s back-up generator, x-ray, ultrasound, lab testing machines and others aren’t able to run at full capacity, and the machines will break down much sooner than they should. The World Health Organization warns that at least 30 hospitals, 70 primary health care centers, and a blood blank in Gaza are at severe risk of full or partial closure due to continued power outages and not enough fuel or spare parts for back-up generators. It’s a health catastrophe in the making.

And Smardon's conclusion?

Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip deserve humanitarian support, but no amount of assistance will ever substitute for the necessary political action, including that of the US, to stop the violation of human rights that Palestinians face on a daily basis. Lifting the blockade on Gaza would be a start.

Smardon knows that Gaza's electricity and medicine crisis - and it really is a crisis - is the result of the Palestinian Authority decision to cut services that they had provided.

But UNRWA's fundraising arm will never demand that Palestinians take responsibility for other Palestinians. No, she insists that Israel is the guilty party. Even though Israel provides all the fuel that Gaza (and its sponsors) are willing to pay for, and Israel was supplying all the electricity it could directly before Abbas demanded that it reduce the amount and he stopped paying.

Just more proof that UNRWA-USA is an anti-Israel organization, and doesn't really want to help actual Palestinians.

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Largest Palestinian newspaper claims Khazar Jews expelled "real" Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492

Al Quds is the largest circulation newspaper in the Palestinian territories.

Azzam Tawfiq Abu Al-Saud writes in today's edition:

A friend sent me a week ago an analytical reading of the book "Hidden Khazaria" by the Russian writer and researcher Tatiana Grachova. Since I read the article, I have been intrigued and wanted to read more about the Khazars or the Khazars... When I searched for the name of the writer, I found only a Russian athlete with this name, and no trace of the book in Amazon or other book sites!
But in the end I found the book translated into English. I was more intrigued when the writer was identified as a strategic researcher at the Russian Military Science Center with a Ph.D. Although I still read the book, I wanted to share with my readers some of what I know about the Khazaria empire.

Al Saud says that the Khazari rulers who converted to Judaism divided Jews into three classes: those with Jewish Khazari fathers and mothers, those with only "Jewish" mothers and those with only "Jewish" fathers.

The top class Khazari "Jews" were a ruthless people.

The second class, whose mothers were Jewish, later appeared in Poland and Hungary and merged into societies, including France, Germany, England and Andalusia. While the third class lived in cantons in Europe because they could not integrate into European societies, and some lived in different areas of Russia.

Wealthy Jewish families, like the Rothschild family, spread to Germany and France, and from there went to England, later to establish the Bank of England. From there, they came to America and founded the Bank of America, which had the privilege of being the only place to print and issue the US dollar. Hence their dominance over the British and American economies.

The Jews who arrived in Spain, and were not of the first category, lived under the Muslims in Andalusia, and enjoyed the many advantages that led them to be ministers and secretaries of the kings of Andalusia Arabs, but the strange thing is that the wealthy Jews in France, England and Germany, They waged wars against the Muslims, the Andalusian kingdoms, and spent a lot of money for this purpose, in order to expel them from Andalusia, and in the end expelled Muslims and Jews from Spain to Morocco !! Jewish money makes us believe that the Jews of Spain were expelled, but they were not Jews, but third-class Jews, who allowed the wealthy Jews to sacrifice them because they doubted the purity of their Jewishness! .. This is the Jewish style through the times of history, in their way of thinking to reach their goals.

So, according to Al Saud, it was Khazari Jews who were responsible for the expulsion of Muslims from Andalusia.

The book that inspired him to go on this research project is a completely insane antisemitic conspiracy theory. I found a translation here.

Here is only a small section of its table of contents:

PROJECT "KHAZARIA"
Who stands behind the world behind the scenes
The war in the mental space
Discreditation of the existing ideology or history of the state
Depriving people of their history
Forces of historical revenge against the forces of the sacred history of statehood
Khazaria - the chimera State
Belligerence and ruthlessness of the Khazars in the war knew no bounds
Khazaria was a predatory parasitic state
Khazar kingdom vanished like smoke
After Khazaria
Only 2% of modern Jews are Oriental Jews
Totally Khazar roots of East-European Jewry
How can someone go back to a place where he had never been
The idea of a Jewish national identity - fiction
Return of Khazaria
Head of the State of Israel must be a person with roots in Russia
Is creation of a chimera a worldwide solution to the problem?
"To take over the world, we must possess Russia"
ZioNazis commit terrorist acts in the synagogues
Israel becomes the ultimate power of the future
The snake biting its own tail. Anti-Semitism - a product of Zionism
Anti-Semitism was funded by wealthy ZioNazis
The German company I.G. Farben, Director - Max Warburg - ZioNazi
Farben manufactured 95% of all German poison gas
Hitler admitted that he was financed by ZioNazis
Collaboration of Zionism with anti-Semitism has a long history
"The Nazis goes to Palestine"
Zionism wanted to sacrifice all the European Jewry to the Zionist state
Zionist leaders have played a sinister role in the drama of Nazism
Rudolf Kastner and a deal with the Nazis
The European Jews must accept the suffering and death
Genocide of the Jews with Zionists hands
ZioNazis offer military-political alliance with Germany
Anti-Semitism - wei wei wei
Hitler was actually a stooge of the anti-system
The same matrix of Khazaria
U.S. chose the Hazar path - the path of war
"A democratic use of force"
Anti-Semitism is needed so Jews would flee from persecution and go to Israel
Tribe of the Danites in the land of Magog
The southern branch of the tribe of Dan settled on the lands of the Khazars
The coat of arms of the tribe of Dan is a snake
The U.S. dollar and the euro create the foundation of the global financial anti-state
Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom with the symbols of the tribe of Dan
U.S. military strategy consists of hidden provocations and sabotage
"Star of David" or the Shield of David is forgery
The matrix of the global anti-statehood
Britain promises Palestine to Zionists
This is how the Khazars became what we call today Jews
United States participation in the seizure of Palestine
"If you support terrorists, you are also a terrorist"
"Chimerical nationality Jew is the nationality of a merchant"
"From a political standpoint, we are the aggressors"
Now, after Iraq, this conflict has become a world war
The Tzitz - the golden crown for the Antichrist has been cast
How realistic is it to start building the Temple today
The coming post-industrial era demands the need for a global revolution
"Israeli Empire"
The obsession with revenge
Invisible Khazaria is a global network formation
Mode of operation of invisible of Khazaria - a Thanatocracy (thanatos - death)
"Jewish Communal Register" clearly defined Zionism as a Marxist movement
The most effective is the revolution created by the Chabad emissaries

Yes, this is the type of "scholarly" research that Palestinian thought leaders openly embrace and believe.

Once again, keep in mind that the fact that an unhinged Arab writes a conspiracy theory article in a major Palestinian newspaper does not damn all Palestinians.It tells us something about the newspaper editors, but not much else.

Here's the issue:

Not a single Palestinian ever publicly objects to both the antisemitism and to the explicit promulgation of absurd lies. They claim not to have a problem with Jews yet virtually every single Palestinian does not reject this hate in their midst. Maybe they don't believe it themselves (although clearly many do,) but they tolerate and condone it. You will not find a single Palestinian who opposes this sort of hate.

That's the problem that no one wants to talk about.

And the fact that not a single "progressive" NGO or media outlet, the types that are up in arms over neo-Nazi antisemitism, ever says a word about the explicit and blatant Jew-hatred published in major Arab newspapers every day, damns them as hypocrites and enablers to antisemitism as well.

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The Holocaust victim who loved Palestine

The Times of Israel has a story about how the infamous Sobibor death camp is being revamped to show its history more accurately.

One photograph in the story is especially poignant:

A doomed Jew had loved the Land of Israel so much that he or she made a pendant out of a British Mandate Palestine coin minted in1927.

The pendant was discovered in 2014 during an archaeological excavation near the entrance to the gas chambers.

Other jewelry was found at the excavations at Sobibor over the years as well; Yad Vashem is even trying to find the relatives of the ones that have names engraved.

But the coin pendant speaks to us beyond the other jewelry hurriedly and tragically discarded by the doomed Jews.

It shows that the only people who loved Palestine from the time of the British Mandate through 1948 were - Jews.

Because Palestine was the Jewish homeland. The Jews who lived there were called Palestinian. the Jewish-owned and run newspapers and sheathes and sports teams all proudly represented Palestine. Jews throughout the world prayed for Palestine, dreamed of Palestine, and were willing to die for Palestine - otherwise known as Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. Every mention in Jewish sources from the 1940s about Palestine is referring to Eretz Yisrael.

The Arabs didn't love Palestine and they rarely referred to themselves as Palestinian. Instead they were Arabs or Muslims or Bethlehemites or whatever.

A Jew who was murdered over 70 years ago shows us, today, which side truly loves and treasures the land, and which side now cynically uses the term "Palestinian" not to create a nation, but to destroy one.

(h/t EBoZ)

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Explainer: What Trump did with the Iran deal, and how everyone is getting it wrong

The Corker-Cordin law describes what the President must do every 90 days:

COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATION.—After the review period provided in subsection (b), the President shall, not less than every 90 calendar days—

“(A) determine whether the President is able to certify that—

“(i) Iran is transparently, verifiably, and fully implementing the agreement, including all related technical or additional agreements;

“(ii) Iran has not committed a material breach with respect to the agreement or, if Iran has committed a material breach, Iran has cured the material breach;

“(iii) Iran has not taken any action, including covert action, that could significantly advance its nuclear weapons program; and

“(iv) suspension of sanctions related to Iran pursuant to the agreement is

“(I) appropriate and proportionate to the specific and verifiable measures taken by Iran with respect to terminating its illicit nuclear program; and

“(II) vital to the national security interests of the United States;

Much of the media is reporting that President Trump didn't certify based on condition 1, that iran is not implementing the agreement, or condition 2 or 3 or even 4(II.) . But what Trump did was to decertify based on condition 4(I), that the suspension of sanctions are not "appropriate and proportionate to the specific and verifiable measures taken by Iran with respect to terminating its illicit nuclear program."

Trump said this explicitly:

When the agreement was finalized in 2015, Congress passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act to ensure that Congress’s voice would be heard on the deal. Among other conditions, this law requires the President, or his designee, to certify that the suspension of sanctions under the deal is “appropriate and proportionate” to measure -- and other measures taken by Iran to terminate its illicit nuclear program. Based on the factual record I have put forward, I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification.

Given that Iran does not allow the IAEA to inspect its military facilities, meaning that there is no transparency on what Iran is actually doing, and the sanctions were removed anyway, this is quite accurate. It is consistent with what Trump has said all along about the deal.

This was explained on NPR by NSC spokesperson Michael Anton to clueless reporter Rachel Martin:

MARTIN: If President Trump thinks this is such a bad deal, why not just rip it up altogether? Why this half measure of punting the issue to Congress?
ANTON: Well, a couple of things. First of all, you know, when you - in the lead-in, you used the phrase decertify, which isn't exactly accurate. And the other point I want to make, which is a related point, is we're talking about two different things. The action that the president declined to take on Friday was an action under U.S. law, the so-called INARA, or Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. And it really does not directly relate to the deal. That's a law that Congress passed because the prior administration did not submit the deal to Congress as a treaty but made it an executive action only. And Congress wanted to have a say. One of the things they did is they put this 90-day requirement into a law that says an administration has to tell Congress if they think Iran is working in good faith in four particular areas.
MARTIN: But the bottom line is the president believes that Iran is not complying with the deal.
ANTON: No, that's not what he said. What he said was - again, there are four criteria. And what he said - one of those criteria - is the deal - the sanctions relief provided under the deal appropriate and proportional to the benefits? And he has said all along, since he first started running for president, that he thought the main flaw of this deal was that it gave Iran too much for too few concessions. That is a criteria that Congress wrote into the INARA law. And that is the criteria in which the president cited when he declined to certify the deal.
MARTIN: Then how does that change? Because now you've said Congress sits in your court. But Congress can't unilaterally renegotiate what was a deal that was...
ANTON: No.
MARTIN: ...Brokered between many allies.
ANTON: Right. That's not what we're asking Congress to do or what we're working with Congress on. What we're asking Congress to do is to set new conditions in U.S. law that hold Iran accountable and that - to a standard. So for instance, what we want to say is if Iran gets within one year of a breakout period where they can achieve a nuclear weapon, then American sanctions automatically step back. Everything that we're asking Congress to do are things that are designed to prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon. And if the goal of the nuclear deal is to prevent that, it's hard to see how anybody could oppose these measures.
MARTIN: Do you think that's likely to happen? I mean, Congress, even with Republicans holding the majority, have struggled to move ahead with a whole lot of things the president has called them to act on. So do you think Congress is going to get in line?
ANTON: We'll see. We're very hopeful. As I said, there doesn't seem to be, in my view, any constituency in Congress for Iran to get a nuclear weapon. So the passage of some new, tough measures to ensure that that never happens should not be controversial.
MARTIN: The president has put a lot of stock in the opinions of his military advisers, talking often about the generals, how much he values their advice. But both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford, and the secretary of defense, James Mattis, have said the president should stay in the deal unequivocally. What are they missing?
ANTON: There's no - this is a misinterpretation of comments that they've made. What they said is right now it's in the national interest of the United States to remain in the deal. Well, guess what? The United States is still in the deal. The principals, that is including General Mattis, General Dunford, the secretary of state and others, presented the president with a consensus recommendation of what to do this time, which was to remain in but seek to address the deal's flaws both in U.S. law and working with allies.
And the one thing, too, that I need to make clear, which is a fundamental point here - what the president did on Friday was much more than announce his decision on what to do with a certain 90-day certification requirement in U.S. law. Although he did announce that, he - what he really did more fundamentally was roll out a comprehensive Iran strategy that puts forth ideas and plans for the United States to counter the full range of Iranian malign behavior, which includes nuclear weapons activities but also includes ballistic missile development proliferation, support and funding for terrorism - they're the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror - and regional destabilization, including fueling the Syrian civil war.

Too bad the media doesn't want to get this right.

(h/t TIP)

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10/17 Links Pt2: The British Labour Party’s ‘Kosher Stamp’ for Anti-Semitism; BBC radio: Nazareth is a ‘Palestinian city’

From Ian:

David Collier: Inminds Jew haters gather. Fools, conspiracy theorists and antisemites

On Saturday 14 October, a group of anti-Israel activists went to protest outside of Jason Atherton’s ‘Little Social restaurant’. The group behind the demonstration was ‘Inminds’, a small, highly active, and particularly thuggish group, whose activists clearly have an issue with Jews. This time, they gathered to protest a restaurant participating in ‘Round Tables‘, an international culinary festival in Tel Aviv. As is so often the case now, you can become a target for these haters merely for not being antisemitic yourself.

When I arrived, Jonathan Hoffman was already there. Standing by the door of the restaurant with an Israeli flag. Taking this position meant the Inminds crew wouldn’t be able to crowd the restaurant door and intimidate the restaurant’s clients. Three other counter demonstrators arrived, Richard Galber, Tony Jacobs & Stephen Franklin. These four Zionists spent their Saturday lunchtime, countering an attack on the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

On the other side of the argument, the Inminds crew arrived. In the end there were fifteen protestors in total (not counting two children). As is always the case when dealing with material of this sort, many of the links on this page may not be safe to open at work.

MEMRI: Algerian Journalist In Antisemitic Article: 'Our Dispute With The Jews Is A Religious One'

In an article published August 10, 2017 in the Algerian daily Al-Shurouq, journalist Sultan Barkani wrote that the Muslims' dispute with the Jews is religious rather than political. He stated that the Jews have been plotting against the Muslims since the days of the Prophet Muhammad, and that they are responsible for most of the disasters that have befallen the Muslim ummah. By controlling media, cinema, art and fashion, he said, they control the Muslims' minds and character, inciting them to promiscuity and depravity and causing them to be feeble and defeatist. He called on Muslims to search their souls and return to Islam before it is too late and before the Jews and their secularist agents strip the Muslim ummah of everything it has.

The following are excerpts from his article.
"We all know that the Jews hated the Prophet Muhammad and fought his da'wa [call to Islam]. We also know that they plotted against the [Muslim] ummah after the Prophet's time, that the Righteous Caliphs [the first four Caliphs] were killed because of their slander and the quarrels they sparked, and that the disagreement among the [Prophet's] companions broke out because of their treachery and deception. We know that the Jews continued to plot against the Islamic Caliphate until they eventually managed to topple it in the first quarter of the 20th century,[2] and that they exploited the ummah's weakness to conquer the blessed land [of Palestine] and turn it into the headquarters of their scheming against the ummah. But is that all the Jews did and are still doing against us and our ummah?

"Today, many among us believe that our conflict with the Jews is only because they occupied Palestine, but the truth is that our conflict with them is a religious one, because they hated our Prophet and plotted against our religion and faith, and continue to do so. They were also behind most of the calamities that befell the ummah before the toppling of the Caliphate and the conquest of Palestine, and they continue to be behind most of the troubles that afflict it. It was they who acted to divide the ummah into small countries. [Then] they appointed unambitious rulers to head them and embroiled them in corruption and immorality scandals, so [they could] pressure them and carry out their plans in the Muslim countries.

"It is the Jews who control the media that afflicts the ummah today – media that spreads lust and religiously-dubious [ideas], fills the Muslims' hearts with feebleness, turn food, drink, clothing, cosmetics and cars into their greatest desires... causes them to fear the power and the weapons of the enemies, and turns them into empty-headed cowards. This media fights good traits and morality [by] spreading corruption and depravity, destroys the family unit, and encourages wives to tease and oppose their husbands and daughters to rebel against the authority of their fathers.

Why is the Center for Jewish History celebrating anti-Zionism?

The campaign demanding the firing of David N. Myers as CEO of the Center For Jewish History has been covered by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and countless other media outlets including establishment Jewish newspapers such as the New York Jewish Week and Los Angeles Jewish Journal.

Allowing Mr. Myers, who mourns the “nakba” (the term meaning catastrophe, used by the Arabs for Israel's Independence Day) to remain in his role, seems to mean that events celebrating forms of anti-Zionist activity become the norm at the Center for Jewish History. Events as these are the direct result of having a CEO who supports a boycott of the Jewish state. If, for no other reason than the fact that in the course of two weeks, multiple events have been planned which are Anti-Zionist, Is there no reaction to an organizational leader hosting events which are violently Anti-Israel?

Mr. Myers remains an active board member of the New Israel Fund, an organization which Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett has called upon to be boycotted (as does Birthright Israel). Bennett said that he would “boycott whoever persecutes Israeli soldiers,” and “not apologize for it.” Bennett went on: “Members of the New Israel Fund, listen carefully: Whoever harms, slanders and persecutes Israeli soldiers are not my brothers. The NIF works methodically and consistently to attack our Israeli soldiers, accuse them of war crimes, of torturing Palestinians and intentionally attacking women and children. They turn to the UN and to the committees that are most hostile to Israel and try their best to convince them that Israel is a war criminal.”

How can the leader of the Center for Jewish History sit on a board that persecutes Israeli Soldiers?

We call upon the board of the Center for Jewish History, including Bruce Slovin, Ira H. Jolles, Martin Karlinsky, Bernard Blum, David Dangoor, Michael Jesselson, Ed Stelzer as well as the American Sephardic Federation, Yeshiva University Museum, American Jewish Historical Society, Leo Baeck Institute and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research to stand up and replace David N. Myers as head of the Center for Jewish History.

Saudi paper: Why so many Jewish Nobel Prize winners? It's obviously fixed!

Saudi Arabia's Al Watan looks at Nobel Prize statistics:

Over the history of the award, Jews who make up 0.2 percent of the world's population and 2 percent of the population of the United States received 179 of the Nobel Prize winners. For example, Jews accounted for 22% of the recipients of the award between 1901 and 2009, and 36% of the Americans who received the Nobel Prize in the same period in the fields of scientific research in chemistry, economics, medicine and physics...

31 Jews won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry which is 20% of the world's total. 13 Jews won the Nobel Prize for Literature, 12% of the total recipients in the world. 9 Jews won the Nobel Peace Prize. 47 Jews won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Fifty-three Jews were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, accounting for 27% of all of them.

On the other hand, the total number of Muslims in the world to about one billion people, or 20% of the world's population. Muslims and Christian Arabs received seven Nobel Prizes in literature, peace and medicine.

This is a mystery to the Saudi writer.

At first glance, it may be understandable why so many Jews win in the branches of medicine, physics, chemistry and economics. But the number does not seem logical. There is no scientific theory of their association with a particular race or religion.
In the fields of literature and peace, the exaggeration of Jewish favoritism among Israelis and non-Israeli Jews is revealed to a large extent. To name but a few, where is the peace created by Yitzhak Rabin - who wanted to break the bones of the Palestinians in the first Palestinian intifada, - and Shimon Peres, godfather of the Israeli nuclear project, and who was turning the Middle East into a new Hiroshima ?.

Arafat, of course, deserved his prize. After all he was the father of modern terrorism and a pioneer in pretending to be peaceful in some venues while planning terror attacks in others.

Every once in a while I see a story in the Arab media that notices the Nobel disparity between Arabs and Jews and it causes a little bit of self-reflection. Not this time. The Jews obviously control the Nobel Prize.

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Time for the annual olive harvest lies by the Palestinian Authority

The PA's official Wafa news agency reported on Sunday:

Palestinian locals Sunday managed to foil an Israeli settlers’ attack against olive pickers in the village of Qaruot to the south of the West Bank district of Nablus, said a local activist.

Ghassan Daghles, monitoring Israeli settlement activity in the north of the West Bank, told WAFA settlers coming from 'Eli’ and 'Shilo’; two illegal Israeli settlements located along Nablus-Ramallah highway, attacked Palestinians harvesting olives in the village of Qaruot.

Locals scuffled with settlers and managed to fend off their attack. No injuries were reported.

Yisrael Medad, who lives in Shiloh, checked out the story and it is complete fiction.

Fake news.
Never happened.
All made up.https://t.co/dNsLXNNZed @odedrevivi @epieprz
— ymedad (@ymedad) October 15, 2017

Long time readers of the blog may recognize the name of the person who made this accusation, Ghassan Daghlas.

Over the years, his accusations have been published in Arab media - almost invariably without a single photo or video to corroborate his accusations.

He is literally paid by the Palestinian Authority to make up these stories. His job is to "monitor Israeli settler activity." And he knows that no one will check his stories.

Wire services and major newspapers will quote him without the slightest reservation.

Hundreds of times.

Daghlas has been busy during this start of olive season, with daily stories in Wafa. Yesterday he claimed that Israelis stole the entire olive harvest of two villages and today that the exact same thing happened with two more villages.

Evidence? Photos? Names? No need. Daghlas knows that his stories will end up in Ma'an and Mondoweiss, and with luck Reuters and the New York Times. As long as they are quoting him, without saying that his record of truth-telling is virtually nonexistent, he has no fear about lying again and again - being paid with your tax dollars.

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10/17 Links Pt1: Netanyahu's Blistering Attack On Iran's FM; Tony Blair: It was wrong to boycott Hamas

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The opportunities and risks of Trump's Iran initiative

So long as the US continues to maintain a policy based on the false view that all that is necessary to destroy the threat of a nuclear armed Iran is a combination of the nuclear deal and economic sanctions, it will continue to ensure that Iran and its nuclear program remain a major threat. Distressingly, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, the most outspoken supporter of decertifying Iranian compliance in the Trump administration, told NBC on Sunday that the US intends to remain in the nuclear deal.

To understand what must be done we must return to Trump’s speech and its strategic significance.

By taking a holistic view of the Iranian threat – grounded in a recognition of the inherent hostility of the regime – Trump opened up the possibility that the US and its allies can develop a holistic policy for confronting and defeating Iran and its proxies. If the Iran deal and sanctions are two components to a larger strategy rather than the entire strategy, they can be helpful.

A wider strategy would target Iran’s regional aggression by weakening its proxies and clients from Hezbollah and Hamas to the regimes in Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It would target the regime itself by empowering the ayatollahs’ domestic opponents. It would pin down Iranian forces by arming and otherwise assisting the Iraqi Kurds to defend and maintain their control over their territory along the Iranian border while strengthening the ties between Iranian Kurds and Iraqi Kurds.

Friday, Trump created the possibility for such a strategy. It is up to members of Congress, and US allies like Israel and the Sunni Arab states to help Trump conceive and implement it. If they fail, the possibility Trump created will be lost, perhaps irrevocably.

Amb. Dore Gold: There Is a Precedent for Renegotiating Flawed Agreements

Is it realistic to try to deal with the flaws in the Iran agreement and change them? In fact, there's precedent for it. In 1979, the Carter Administration negotiated the SALT-2 treaty with the Soviet Union. Whereas the Iran agreement was never a formal treaty, SALT-2 was a negotiated treaty.

But the SALT-2 treaty was flawed. It did not adequately address the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It put a limit on the growth of the nuclear forces of the two superpowers, but it didn't reduce them.

Subsequently, however, a new administration came into power under President Ronald Reagan and he decided a different approach was necessary. It was called START - strategic arms reduction talks. Rather than limiting the growth of nuclear weapons, it reduced them, and this became the preferred approach.

During the last few weeks a number of flaws in the Iran agreement have come out, but the one that received the most focus was "Section T" of the JCPOA. What Section T tries to do is define activities in the area of weaponization that are prohibited. But, of course, Iran has not allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency or anyone to do proper verification to see that Section T in the Iran agreement has been addressed by them.

This is a huge flaw. One has to remember that in the May 2011 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are frightening details about the Iranian nuclear program that include weaponization activities. It says that the Iranians were conducting design work and modeling studies involving the removal of the conventional explosive payload from the warhead of a Shahab-3 missile and replacing it with a spherical nuclear payload.

Presently, President Trump's strategy to reopen the Iran agreement to remove the flaws and produce an agreement that will safely protect the interests of the West is the only reasonable approach.

US bipartisan support for Israel -- when and how did that start?

Apparently, the birth of that bipartisan support for Israel came about during the term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, despite FDR's antagonism towards Zionism.

FDR. Photo by Leon A. Perski, 1944.
Source: Wikipedia

And a lot of the credit seems to be due to Netanyahu.

In FDR’s Retreat on Zionism–and What it Means Today, Rafael Medoff writes about Roosevelt's attitude towards then-Palestine and Zionism.

Roosevelt opposed both, vigorously:

On January 17, 1943, on the question of restoring the pre-war equal rights of North Africa’s 330,000 Jews following the liberation of Casablanca, Roosevelt suggested that “the number of Jews engaged in the practice of the professions (law, medicine, etc) should be definitely limited to the percentage that the Jewish population in North Africa bears to the whole of the North African population,” so that local Arabs would not be angered.

Roosevelt also opposed settling Jewish refugees in North Africa: “I know, in fact, that there is plenty of room for them in North Africa but I raise the question of sending large numbers of Jews there...That would be extremely unwise.”

In April 1943, Roosevelt approved of a suggested Allied ban on all public discussion of Palestine until the end of the war. He backed down after Secretary of War Stimson called such a measure "alarmist"

On March 9, 1944, Roosevelt rejected the request of Rabbis Stephen S. Wise and Abba Hillel Silver to open Palestine to Jews fleeing Hitler. He claimed that the move would enrage Arabs and responded to them, “Do you want to start a Holy Jihad?”

Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise; Library of Congress portrait.
Wikipedia

Abba Hillel Silver; excerpt from YouTube video

Also in 1944, Republican Senator Robert Taft introduced a resolution affirming US support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine. In response, Roosevelt claimed that the resolution would be “responsible for the death of a hundred thousand men.” As a result, the resolution was table for a year, and when Congress passed it – there was no Arab rioting.

Yet despite all this, the same Roosevelt who rejected a request by the Palestine (Jewish) Symphony Orchestra to name one of its theaters the “Roosevelt Amphitheatre” for fear it would link him too closely the Zionists -- did in fact turn around and support Zionism.

To a degree.

In the fall of 1943, it appeared that the Republican contender in the 1944 presidential election would go after the Jewish vote.

A major factor in adapting a strong pro-Zionist plank at the Republican National Convention was Netanyahu -- Benzion Netanyahu, the father of Israel's current prime minister.

Benzion Netanyahu in 2007. Source: Wikipedia

Medoff writes:

Benzion Netanyahu, scholar and activist (and father of the current prime minister) arrived in the United States in 1940 as an emissary of Revisionist Zionism, the militant wing of the Zionist movement, headed by Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Netanyahu organized rallies and authored full-page newspaper advertisements challenging the Roosevelt administration for abandoning European Jewry and the Zionist cause.

Netanyahu also spent part of his time on Capitol Hill. In an interview with this author, Netanyahu recalled the political landscape he encountered in the nation’s capital: “Most of the Jewish and Zionist leaders, led by Rabbi Stephen Wise, were devoted Democrats and supporters of President Roosevelt. The idea of having friendly relationships with Republicans was inconceivable to them.” In the months prior to the June 1944 Republican National Convention, Netanyahu did the inconceivable–he took his case to GOP leaders, including former president Herbert Hoover; Senator Robert Taft, who was chairing the convention’s resolutions committee; and the influential Connecticut congresswoman Clare Booth Luce, who was slated to deliver the keynote address at the convention and would also serve on the resolutions committee. Netanyahu’s goal was to have the GOP platform include a plank supporting Jewish statehood in Palestine. Neither party had ever before taken such a stand.

The efforts of Netanyahu -- and Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver -- resulted in the inclusion of the following in the Republican platform :

In order to give refuge to millions of distressed Jewish men, women and children driven from their homes by tyranny, we call for the opening of Palestine to their unrestricted immigration and land ownership, so that in accordance with the full intent and purpose of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the resolution of a Republican Congress in 1922, Palestine may be reconstituted as a free and democratic commonwealth. We condemn the failure of the President to insist that the Palestine Mandatory carry out the provisions of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate while he pretends to support them.

In response, Rabbi Wise felt forced to try to get the Democrats, with Roosevelt's approval, to include a pro-Zionist statement in its platform as well.

To a large degree he was successful. The Democratic platform supported the “unrestricted Jewish immigration and colonization” of Palestine as well as the establishment of “a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth.”

One could argue that this was the beginning of the bi-partisan support for Israel that despite its ups and downs continues to this day.

Medoff writes:

Wise summed up what was achieved: “With the plank in both platforms the thing is lifted above partisanship.” The adoption of the two party planks ensured that support for Zionism, and later Israel, would become a permanent part of American political culture. No subsequent Republican or Democratic convention could go back on it without significant electoral ramifications.

Despite the questions that are raised today about the extent and degree of Democratic support for Israel, that bi-partisan support does in fact continue.

As does the tendency of Netanyahu's not to quietly acquiesce to US policy towards Israel.

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Palestinian Arab snowflakes upset at Balfour celebration at Manchester U

From Al Jazeera:

A British university has drawn criticism for its decision to allow a Balfour Declaration "celebration" organised by a pro-Israel group.

The Manchester Balfour 100 event will be held at the University of Manchester's main campus later in October and is part of a broader series of events to mark the anniversary of the declaration made by then British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour on November 2, 1917.

The university's decision has been slammed by both academics and students.

"Having the celebration of the Balfour declaration on campus is totally disrespectful to students of Palestinian origin," said Ayham Madi, a Palestinian studying at the university, adding: "Many people lost their homes, land and their lives."

The cybersecurity student said a hundred years later, Palestinians continued to feel the impact of the declaration and that he felt "great pain" that the university has allowed the event to take place.

The National (UAE) adds:

BDS campaigner Huda Ammori, 23, told The National that the university’s decision to allow the event to take place on its premises had upset many Palestinian students.

“The Balfour Declaration is seen by many Palestinian students as the invitation of the ethnic cleansing, which took place in 1948,” she explained.

Ms Ammori, who is in the third year of an international business, finance and economics degree at Manchester, described how some of the students on campus felt when they discovered the celebration was taking place.

“It was quite an emotional step back for some of the Palestinian students because it’s a mockery, especially when they are painting it as a celebration. Not an educational talk - a celebration,” she said.

“They (the university) are making a clear statement by holding it on the campus. They are completely disregarding Palestinian students.”

The BDS campaign at the university has joined other student societies in writing a letter to president and vice chancellor, Nancy Rothwell, demanding the event be cancelled. If it is not, Ms Ammori said a protest will take place outside the venue where the celebration is held.

Poor snowflakes.

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