Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Surprise? No BBC reporting on suspension of allegedly Hamas linked UNRWA employee - by Hadar Sela

...Although this latest story has been reported by a variety of local and international media organisations which do not have permanent staff and offices in the Gaza Strip, such as the Times, the BBC – which does have a bureau in Gaza – has to date chosen not to cover it.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
28 February '17..

As regular readers know, representatives of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) featured regularly in the content produced by the BBC during the summer 2014 conflict between Israel and Hamas as well as in previous and subsequent reports concerning the Gaza Strip.

UNRWA does not confine its activities to humanitarian work and frequently acts as a political campaigning group, with one focus of its efforts being the issue of the border restrictions imposed by Israel in order to curb Hamas terrorism. Notably, UNRWA’s approach to that issue dovetails with Hamas’ standpoint, as seen in the terrorist organisation’s ceasefire demands made during the 2014 conflict.

The BBC has frequently used its various platforms to amplify UNRWA’s political campaigning on that topic

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Question. Why aren't the BDSers targeting Hitachi, Hyundai, and many others? by Elder of Ziyon

...But it might be fun to see if any of these so-moral anti-Israel activists drive Hyundais or Volvos.

Elder of Ziyon..
27 February '17..

Here is a photo of Israel destroying a house built without a permit in Kafr Qasim, an Israeli Arab town.


Even though the BDSers love to target Caterpillar, there is no Caterpillar equipment here. Only Hyundai and Hitachi.

So how come we never hear of any initiatives to boycott those companies?

Could it be because Hyundai and Hitachi products are sold in the Palestinian Authority areas?

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Iran Calls for Palestinian Terrorist Attacks. Where’s the Coverage?

...Reuters, however, was one of the few U.S. news outlets to even note Khamenei’s vow to support Palestinian terrorism.


Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Sean Durns..
CAMERA Snapshots..
27 February '17..
Link: http://blog.camera.org/archives/2017/02/_wheres_the_coverage_iran_call.html

The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for Palestinians to carry out terror attacks against Israel. Khamenei’s Feb. 21, 2017 exhortation was underreported by major U.S. news media outlets.

Reuters news service—citing a transcript of Khamenei’s remarks posted on the Ayatollah’s official website—reported the dictators’ comments. Khamenei called Israel a “cancerous tumor” and claimed, “With Allah’s permission, we will see this intifada will begin a very important chapter in the history of fighting and that it will inflict another defeat on that usurping regime.” The phrase, “usurping regime” is frequently used by Islamists to refer to the Jewish state’s presence on land that they consider to be Muslim.

Khamenei also asserted: “The Palestinian intifada continues to gallop forward in a thunderous manner so that it can achieve its other goals until the complete liberation of Palestine.” As CAMERA has noted, Iran’s desire to “liberate” “Palestine” includes the theocratic regime’s self-stated objectives of the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jewish citizens.

Monday, February 27, 2017

Remembering what winning in a long game requires (Divest This!)

...Winning in a long game requires forgoing today’s single marshmallow for tomorrow’s two. In other words, it requires resisting impatience, thinking in terms of decades, rather than weeks, and refusing to allow foes or friends to turn support for the Jewish state into a domestic partisan football.

Divest This@Elder of Ziyon..
27 February '17..

Fools, apparently, rush in where angels fear to go. At the same time, he who hesitates is lost. So it seems that folk wisdom doesn’t provide obvious advice on how fast to move when military or political advantage opens up.

As mentioned last time, timing is one of the crucial ingredients for any sort of political or military strategy. And for a small nation such as Israel, which has been at the center of military and political conflict since the nation’s birth, deciding between “full-speed-ahead,” “steady-as-she-goes” and “proceed-with-caution” is a routine decision.

At this moment in history, when a U.S. President hostile to the Jewish state has been replaced by one respectful of its interests, there is an understandable tendency to want to rush ahead and gain as much advantage as possible. In some cases, this is a wise choice, especially in places like the UN where American backing of Israel has returned with a vengeance.

At the same time, while it might seem that this is the right moment for Israeli politicians to push controversial legislation, or for Israel’s supporters abroad to assume a friendly White House and Congress means brighter days ahead, there are a number of reasons to move cautiously through the today’s uncharted waters of US and international politics.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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UNRWA forced to suspend employee elected to senior Hamas role after defending him - by Elder of Ziyon

...Given the history of UNRWA with al-Hindi, don't bet that this suspension will last any longer than his last one. Gunness is being exposed as a liar yet again in front of our very eyes.

Elder of Ziyon..
26 February '17..

Two weeks ago, Hamas held elections in Gaza.

One of the people elected to a senior role was Dr .Suhail Hindi, who was head of UNRWA's Gaza teachers' union and has been known to be affiliated with Hamas for years. When UNRWA tried to fire him in 2011 after that little fact was publicized, the Gaza teachers all went on strike (he was the head of the union, remember) - and UNRWA caved, allowing Hindi to keep his job as a principal.

After being elected to a Hamas position this time, Hindu still wanted to keep his UNRWA principal's job. So, with an almost unbelievable amount of nerve, he vehemently denied that he was elected to anything, even though his name was published as one of the members of the winning slate.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Operation Menashe 2017 is underway - by Michael Freund

...Queried by a journalist as to why he wanted to make aliya, Fanai looked surprised by the question, as though he had been asked why he desires to breathe. "It is a mitzvah," he said, without a trace of cynicism,...

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
26 February '17..
Link: http://www.michaelfreund.org/19700/operation-menashe-2017

Last week, less than a month shy of his 50th birthday, Lyon Fanai fulfilled a dream he had been nurturing for as long as he could remember. After an arduous journey across multiple time zones and spanning more than two millennia, Fanai and his beautiful family arrived safely in Israel, part of a group of 102 Bnei Menashe who made aliya from the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram.

And thus began Operation Menashe 2017, which was launched by Shavei Israel, the organization I founded and chair, in conjunction with Israel's Absorption Ministry.

With God's help, over the course of the next 12 months, we aim to bring another 600 Bnei Menashe back home to Zion, more than 27 centuries after their ancestors were exiled from this land.

Yes, despite the image put forward by much of the mainstream press, there are great things happening in the Jewish state.

Indeed, the normally bustling arrivals hall at Ben Gurion Airport was even more spirited than usual, as the immigrants emerged from customs and fell into the arms of loved ones they had left behind many years ago.

Menachem Menashe, who made aliya in 2006, was reunited at last with his sister, her husband and his six nieces and nephews, whom he hadn't seen in more than a decade.

A young man named Ariel was literally beaming with joy at the sight of his fiancé, who arrived with her family. They had not gazed into one another's loving eyes for more than seven years. Shortly, they will stand under the marriage canopy and finally be able to start a Jewish household together here in the Jewish state.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Hamas' new Gaza leadership: Educating towards a desperately worse future - by Arnold Roth

...As misconceived, camouflaged and fraudulent as UNRWA's role in the disaster happening daily in Gaza's education system is, UNRWA does not deserve all the blame for the horror. Other contributors, including UNICEF, Defence for Children International, UNESCO, Child Rights International Network, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, Save the Children, Arab Council for Childhood Development deserve long-overdue attention for the unforgivable and complicit silence and apathy that serve as their indictment.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
26 February '17..

One of the ugliest dimensions of the conflict between the Arabs and Israel is the tight, bear-hug relationship that exists between the oddest of United Nations agencies - UNRWA - and the Islamist terrorist group Hamas. There's fresh and disturbing evidence today for those willing to look, as opposed to those who systematically look away, preferring not to know.

The United Nations has a major stake in taking care of the world's refugees. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is based in Geneva and has won two Nobel Peace Prizes (1954 and 1981). Its origins were not so auspicious. It began life as a creature of UN General Assembly Resolution 319 (IV) in December 1949 with a mandate to operate for three years. That was later broadened by additional UNGA resolutions until today. Its mission is

to provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them... [source]

A person would have to be especially mean to object to goals like those. Giving support on a humanitarian, non-political basis - what could be more appropriate? Providing them with protection, and especially for their children - the most helpless of the helpless - is often the thing that fragile, dispossessed people most lack. And seeking a solution? Well - obviously.

Which brings us to the Palestinian Arabs who, uniquely among all people of the world classified as refugees, are not served at all by UNHCR.

Is this a screaming injustice? No. That's because they, and only they, among all the world's unhappy people with a deep grievance, have a "refugee" agency all their own.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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AP Fact-Checkers and Misleading Half-Truths - by Ricki Hollander

The AP purports to set the record straight on statements by David Friedman to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his confirmation hearings for ambassadorship to Israel. But the AP "fact-checker" counters Friedman's fully accurate facts with misleading half-truths.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
22 February '17..

The Associated Press' Josh Lederman purported to set the record straight on statements by David Friedman to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his confirmation hearings for ambassadorship to Israel. Under the rubric of "AP Fact-Check," the author countered fully accurate facts with misleading half-truths. The feature was distributed to and ran on multiple mainstream media outlets.

Below is CAMERA's fact-checking of AP's fact-checker.

1) Lederman takes exception to Mr. Friedman's accurate statements that Palestinians have failed to "end incitement" of violence and about "unwillingness on the part of the Palestinians to renounce terror and accept Israel as a Jewish state."

He counters this by asserting that "Not all the Palestinians are the Same," and presents three arguments, all half truths:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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The International Federation of Journalists' lofty "respect for truth." - by Tamar Sternthal

...In any event, it is evident that there is no truth behind the International Federation of Journalists' lofty "respect for truth." Nor is there any justice at the International Federation of Journalists, which pretends to fight for freedom of press and against discrimination, but which provides cover and comfort to Abu Baker, and which actively discriminates against Israeli journalists, denies them their freedom of press, and which endangers their lives by sending the message to Palestinian officials and journalists that the Israeli reporters are not welcome there.


Tamar Sternthal..
Gatestone Institute..
23 February '17..

"The journalist shall be aware of the danger of discrimination being furthered by the media, and shall do the utmost to avoid facilitating such discrimination based on, among other things, race, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinions, and national or social origins," declares the Declaration of Principles of the International Federation of Journalists, the world's largest organization of journalists that represents 600,000 journalists in 140 countries.

One might imagine, then, that this organization that defends press freedom, truth and equality, would vigorously counter a boycott by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate of Israeli journalists, especially in a discriminatory campaign that endangers Israelis covering the West Bank by sending the message to Palestinian officials and journalists that the Israeli reporters are not welcome there.

That presumably should be the position of an organization which says it "promotes international action to defend press freedom and social justice," but it is not.

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Tamar Sternthal is director of the Israel office of CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America).

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Saturday, February 25, 2017

Human Rights Watch’s Political War Against Israel - by NGO Monitor

...“The only ‘shocking’ aspect of this incident is that HRW, despite repeated exposure, continues its unprofessional and obsessive practices,”

NGO Monitor..
Press Release..
24 February '17
Link: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/press-releases/background-human-rights-watchs-political-war-israel/

In response to the Israeli government denial of a work visa for its new hire, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is pushing a self-serving image as a professional and apolitical player in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In contrast, the evidence clearly shows that both the individual in question and the organization are deeply implicated in BDS and other forms of political warfare against Israel, noted Jerusalem-based research institute NGO Monitor.

“For two decades, Human Rights Watch has been one of the most blatant and aggressive anti-Israel NGOs in the world,” said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. “Their defenders need to ask why they systematically hire pro-BDS activists for key Israel-related ‘research’ positions, while lobbying to isolate Israel through false allegations.”

In October 2016,HRW hired Omar Shakir, who has been denied a work visa by the Israeli government, to serve as its “Israel and Palestine Country Director.” Shakir is a consistent advocate of a “one-state framework” and strident supporter of BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) tactics. For more details, see NGO Monitor’s website.

The most recent HRW campaigns targeting Israel include joining the Palestinian effort to punish Israel at FIFA (the world football body) and promoting a United Nations blacklist of companies that do business with Israel.

Friday, February 24, 2017

The “Soldier who Shot in Hevron” is sentenced - by Vic Rosenthal

...I would like to see Azaria pardoned. He’s been punished adequately since the incident. I would like to see our soldiers and police continue to act aggressively to stop terrorists, and know that their superiors will go to bat for them. And let’s think seriously about the death penalty for terrorist murder.


Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
24 February '17..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2017/02/the-soldier-who-shot-is-sentenced/

On Tuesday, a military court pronounced sentence on Sgt. Elor Azaria, called in Israel’s media “the soldier who shot in Hevron.”

Azaria was convicted of manslaughter after he put a bullet into the head of an Arab terrorist who had been wounded after he stabbed and injured an IDF soldier in March of last year. The incident was filmed by a Palestinian working for the left-wing NGO B’tselem. The video was shown on Israeli television and a massive media/political circus ensued. Even before the IDF investigation was finished, the army Chief of Staff and the Defense Minister made public statements accusing Azaria of misconduct in the harshest terms.

The rules of engagement forbid harming a terrorist who has been “neutralized,” and unless it could be shown that Azaria could have reasonably believed that the terrorist sprawled on the ground was still a threat, shooting him would be a serious violation of protocol. Depending on his intention, it could also be manslaughter or even murder.

During the trial, Azaria’s defense team tried to establish that the shooting was justified. He testified that he feared that the terrorist might be wearing an explosive belt, or that he might reach for a knife nearby. His lawyers even called a witness to argue that it was not Azaria’s bullet that killed the terrorist.

The defense’s arguments were unconvincing, and Azaria’s testimony was at times contradictory. There was testimony from another soldier in his unit that after the shooting Azaria said “He tried to stab a friend of mine and he deserves to die.” The trial continued for several months and numerous witnesses and experts were heard. It was accompanied by heavy media attention and public demonstrations for and against the accused.

The court – three military judges – rejected all of the defense contentions in a very unsympathetic decision that took more than an hour to read, and rendered a verdict of manslaughter. The judges then took up the question of punishment. Azaria could have received as many as 20 years imprisonment, but the prosecution asked for a sentence of three to five years. Tuesday, he was sentenced to 18 months in military prison, 12 months probation, and reduction in rank to private. The contrast between the court’s harsh decision and the very lenient sentence was striking.

Reactions to the sentence illuminated the chasms that exist in Israeli society. Azaria’s family and supporters joined arms and sang “Hatikva” in the courtroom after the sentence was pronounced, and called for him to be pardoned. His father hugged him and said “Elor, you are a hero!” His lawyers promised to appeal the verdict. There were demonstrations in the street outside in his favor, as there were during the trial itself.

But some thought that the verdict was far too lenient. Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg wrote on her Facebook page that “They sentenced [Azaria] to just a year and a half in prison. Azaria needed to be punished, and seriously.” Most public officials have been very uncomfortable with everything having to do with the incident and want to put it behind them.

Not so fast.

Convicted murderer of Israelis finds friends at the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace - by Stephen Flatow

...It’s ironic that an organization founded by college students should be embracing someone who murdered two college students. I suppose as long as she didn’t murder any members of JVP, they don’t consider her to be the enemy.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
22 February '17..

A Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Hebrew University of Jerusalem students has found a new ally, the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) group. How mainstream Jewish liberal groups respond will be telling.

The killer, Rasmea Odeh, is locked in a battle, initiated by the Obama administration, to deport her for lying about her terrorist past. It all began in February 1969, when the 20-year-old Odeh, together with a fellow member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), set off a bomb in a Jerusalem supermarket. Two Hebrew University students who were shopping in the store, Edward Jaffe and Leon Kanner, were killed.

Odeh and her accomplice were soon arrested. It didn’t take long for the authorities to build an airtight case. Bomb-making materials, including explosives, had been found in Odeh’s home. She confessed to the bombing within a day of her arrest, provided details of the operation and even made a videotaped reconstruction of how she planted the bombs. Her co-conspirators also confessed, and they all implicated each other. (Later, in a documentary film, one of her comrades named Odeh as the mastermind of the attack.)

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Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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The fate of another Shalit Deal murderer and what this means for peace - by Arnold Roth

...The world would not be a better place - not our world, not the Palestinian Arab world - if men like these were handed back their freedom. Basic notions of justice dictate that not one of them ought to have gotten free via the kidnapping and ransom demands that were integral to the Shalit Deal. The deaths and destruction that have followed have demonstrated via blood and tears how well-founded the outrage and anger at the catastrophic Shalit Deal were and are.

New Yorkers standing up for the rights of
another unrepentant, convicted 

Islamist murderer/"political prisoner"
January 2017 [
Image Source}
Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
23 February '17..

A Ma'an News Agency report ["Longest-serving Palestinian prisoner resentenced to life in prison plus 18 years", February 23, 2017] throws some light on how the catastrophic Shalit Deal is viewed in Palestinian Arab circles.

It starts by focusing on Nael Barghouthi, 59, whom it terms "the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner". It says he was sentenced yesterday by an Israeli court to life in prison with an additional 18-year sentence, and quotes the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society as its source.

PPS said in a statement that the court had ruled that Barghouthi, 59, was to serve the remainder of his previous sentence received prior to his short-lived release in 2011 as part of a prisoner swap deal between Israel and the Hamas movement. Israeli forces first detained Barghouthi, who is from the village of Kobar in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah, in 1978 when he was 20 years old for alleged membership in an armed resistance group. After being released as part of a prisoner swap exchanging Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit with more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, he was redetained in June 2014 when Israeli authorities claimed that he had broken the terms of his release, and was sentenced to 30 months in prison... However, he remained in Israeli custody after a military court rejected an appeal to release him in January... [Ma'an]

It then offers this piece of unsubstantiated analysis:

Since the Shalit deal, Israel has initiated mass detention campaigns to bring hundreds of former prisoners released in the exchange back into Israeli custody, in violation of the agreement.

Violation? Here's what really happened.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Thursday, February 23, 2017

Propaganda Tours and Flood Libels In Hebron - by Sheri Oz

Can Ashkelon and the Krayot Blame the Occupation for Their Floods Too?

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
23 February '17..

Flooding causes hardship. In this day and age, there is no reason that a shop owner should lose his or her products because of winter rains that can come down suddenly and hard. But Hebron’s Arab residents say that the evil Israeli occupation causes the floods because Israel delights in making their lives so difficult that they would up and move, leaving the place for the Jews alone. And deliberately causing floods would certainly qualify as being evil.

Screenshot from Youtube video
Uploaded in October 2015, the description of the video from which the screenshot above was taken claims that the shop owner is:

saving her goods from a swirling flood directed deliberately through the market in Al Khalil, Old City by the occupying zionist forces who have blocked the proper direction of the water by building a wall next to the souk.

That is not exactly accurate because it was not a wall that was built but a plate metal gate that was put up to prevent the movement of people and vehicles through an ancient passageway leading out of the Casbah. But the word “wall” certainly has a good ring to it in today’s world of security walls, aka “apartheid walls”.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Both BBC and Sky News promote different headlines to English and Arabic speakers - by Hadar Sela

Where BBC and Sky News headlines for same story differ according to target audiences

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
23 February '17..

Last October we documented a case in which the same story was presented with differing headlines on the BBC’s English language and Arabic language websites.

The practice reappeared on February 21st in reports concerning the sentencing of the Israeli soldier Elor Azaria.

Visitors to the BBC’s English language website found an article titled “Israeli soldier gets 18 months for killing wounded Palestinian attacker” and while the word terrorism was absent from the report, the opening paragraph also used the term “attacker”.

“An Israeli soldier who killed a wounded Palestinian attacker in a high-profile case that split opinion across the country has been jailed for 18 months.”

In contrast, the word “attacker” did not appear in the headline of the Arabic language version of same story which was published on the BBC Arabic website under the title “Israeli soldier sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for killing wounded Palestinian”.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Does the BDS movement owes its origins to a poorly conceived CIA program? by Michael Rubin

...The more things change, the more they stay the same. Has BDS directly evolved from the CIA’s work with AFME? Perhaps not, although the same themes replicate absent the Cold War context. In effect, while BDS activists might rail against the CIA’s activities throughout the years, they fail to recognize that they are replicating the work of some of its most dishonest and prejudiced employees.

Image by © Bárbara Boyero/Demotix/Corbis
Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
21 February '17..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/anti-semitism/the-cia-roots-of-bds/

The Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is the most prominent effort today to single out and delegitimize the State of Israel. In recent months, BDS has lost some steam both because it ties itself to extreme and often anti-Semitic partners and also because some academic and church groups recognize that such political boycotts are anathema to scholarly discourse and peace-making.

The BDS today is nevertheless driven by the hatreds and obsessions which the post-Edward Said Middle Eastern studies community world promotes. At Columbia University, Brandeis, and many other elite universities, Zionism is considered original sin and students who support Israel as a Jewish state increasingly face ostracism. Whereas once African Americans and Jews found common cause and maintained a de facto alliance in Congress, progressive activists now cite the idea of intersectionality to demand blind loyalty to a collection of movements no matter how illiberal some causes like rejectionist Palestinian nationalism can be.

Because colleges and university classes too often de-emphasize fact in favor of political frameworks when tackling history, too many progressive activists imagine that when they support BDS and agitate against Israel, they are waging an anti-colonialist battle against the forces of imperialism. In effect, they see strength and power as sin, and cannot fathom that they have reversed David and Goliath; that Palestinian nationalists have prostituted themselves to become proxies of Iran, Turkey, and various Arab regimes. Israel, the United States, the CIA are by definition bad, whereas the Palestine Liberation Organization and like-minded or even more radical groups are good.

How ironic it is that so few BDS proponents recognize that they may very well be repeating if not cultivating the seeds planted by CIA Arabists half a century ago. From the Jewish Telegraph Agency on February 20, 1967:

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

(Spot-on) Win wars, not trials by Boaz Bismuth

Regarding the parallel drawn between Eleazar Maccabeus and Sharif: Eleazar fought for freedom and to defend his people. Sharif and those like him fight for the destruction of another people. Not even B'Tselem's cameras can change the truth.

Boaz Bismuth..
Israel Hayom..
22 February '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=18457

The lenient sentence handed down by the military court in Tel Aviv Tuesday did not sign and seal the case of the "Hebron shooter." Only a pardon for IDF soldier Elor Azaria -- if and when it is given -- will bring about an end to this dramatic tragedy before us.

Still, we can sum this up and say that the "Hebron shooter" case is far from being the watershed case of the IDF's morality, as they tried to convince us. Rather, it was an unfortunate incident in a hostile setting, after a terrorist attack (with warnings of additional attacks), wherein an IDF soldier shot an injured terrorist who was lying on the ground, and was filmed doing so -- making all the difference -- by a camera belonging to the left-wing B'Tselem organization.

Were it not for the age of the importance of public mindset in which we live -- the same mindset to which the judges refer in the 56th paragraph of the sentencing -- it is very possible that we would've been spared from all of this. Azaria would have stood trial for what he did, not in court but in an internal IDF disciplinary hearing. But it seems that the chain of events was blown well out of proportion. The choice to move forward with legal proceedings rather than disciplinary proceedings did damage in the "battle for the public mindset," and, as was written in the judgement, "a failure in this field does great damage."

In the name of that very "mindset" that we must save, we ended up with an unnecessary trial that led to a loss of control, interference from politicians and interested parties, and an online frenzy. They sought to make an example of Azaria's trial. Instead of this, we received a confusing trial wherein values got mixed up inside citizens' heads, as though we tried to win over the minds of the world but lost in the battle for the mindset of the Israeli public.

Welcome to the PSC. Hugging antisemitism and holocaust denial. by David Collier

...The argument that antisemitism is about legitimate criticism of Israel simply has no weight against this research. The bar for antisemitism that was used is unnaturally high. As an example, if the worst I found was an activist suggesting Israel should be destroyed, is committing genocide and Zionists are all Nazis, that activist *would not* have made the grade for this research. Let that fact sink in.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
22 February '17..

I have just concluded an in-depth investigation into antisemitism inside The Palestine Solidarity Campaign that has spanned months but drew on several years of underlying research. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) claims to be “the biggest organisation in the UK dedicated to securing Palestinian human rights.” The PSC patrons include: Jeremy Corbyn MP, Pat Gaffney, Rev Garth, Ken Loach, Dr Ilan Pappe, Hilary & Steven Rose, Alexi Sayle, Baroness Tonge of Kew, and Betty Hunter. It partners with many of the largest unions in the UK.

The result of this research is an eighty-page report, that focuses on seventeen separate PSC branches across England and Wales, and culminated with an in-depth case study of a mass demonstration in London. The full report can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

In truth, I stopped the detailed analysis at seventeen branches simply because I was inundated with material. Although not mentioned in the report, I also found ‘qualifying material’ at the PSC branches in Brighton, Faversham, Camden, Haringey, Lambeth, Waltham Forest, Liverpool, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth & Portsmouth. As the researched progressed, finding more of the antisemitism at every branch became an exercise in pointing out the obvious. The question became to how to find a way to measure and quantify it.

When I refer to antisemitism within this study, I avoided *all references to the conflict*. We all know the trick is to deflect accusations of antisemitism with a false cry about criticism of Israeli policy. I set out to avoid this. I was only interested in those pushing conspiracy theory, holocaust denial or classic antisemitic tropes. The argument that antisemitism is about legitimate criticism of Israel simply has no weight against this research. The bar for antisemitism that was used is unnaturally high. As an example, if the worst I found was an activist suggesting Israel should be destroyed, is committing genocide and Zionists are all Nazis, that activist *would not* have made the grade for this research. Let that fact sink in.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Surprise? NY Times Hypes Australia Opposition to Netanyahu Visit - by Ira Stoll

...One could get 60 genuinely notable Americans to write a letter criticizing the New York Times’ coverage of Israel, and it almost certainly wouldn’t generate a full New York Times article with two photographs under a headline asserting “Times Coverage of Israel Is Met With Opposition.” It’s only certain sorts of opposition where even “small” groups of protesters are met with favorable and extensive Times coverage — a clue, as if any more where needed, to where the newspaper stands when it comes to Israel’s prime minister and the country he was elected to lead.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
21 February '17..

Before Prime Minister Netanyahu even begins his visit to Australia, the New York Times is out with an article amplifying the voices of his critics in that country while minimizing his supporters.

I can understand the impulse to preview the trip, though it’s hard to think of a world leader other than President Trump or Pope Francis whose international travels are subject to such extensive scrutiny by the Times.

What’s strange is the way the Times goes out of its way to more or less declare the trip a failure before it even happens. What was “intended to be a warm meeting,” the Times claims, “is generating a bit of pushback. Sixty notable Australians, including political, religious, cultural and business figures, have signed a letter opposing Mr. Netanyahu’s visit because of his government’s policies toward the Palestinians. And small groups of protesters have demonstrated in Melbourne and Canberra against the visit.”

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Hamas deserves credit for one thing: Its honesty concerning its intentions - by Bassam Tawil

...Indeed, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority share a deadly determination to sacrifice as many Palestinians as possible in their war to destroy Israel.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
21 February '17..

The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas has once again demonstrated its priorities: killing Jews. That clearly takes precedence over easing the plight of the two million Palestinians living under its rule in the Gaza Strip.

Since Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, the conditions of the Palestinians living there have gone from bad to worse. Crisis after crisis has hit those under the Hamas rule; electricity and water as well as lack of medicine and proper medical care are in dangerously short supply.

Disputes between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have left the Gaza Strip dangerously short of fuel, resulting in massive power outages. Palestinians there consequently have had to resort to using wood for cooking and heating. Hamas, which has brought about three wars that wreaked havoc on its people, is unable to provide them with basic needs.

Last week, Hamas received an offer that no sane entity would turn down. It is to be noted that the offer did not come from Hamas's friends and allies in Iran and the Arab and Islamic world. Rather, the offer, which promises to turn the Gaza Strip, where most residents live in the poverty of "refugee camps," into "the Singapore of the Middle East," came from Israel.

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Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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BBC’s sketchy reporting on Gaza power crisis highlighted - by Hadar Sela

...once again highlights the fact that BBC audiences are being serially denied the full range of information necessary for understanding of this topic.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
20 February '17..

BBC reporting on the topic of the perennial electricity shortage in the Gaza Strip has long been noteworthy for its failure to inform audiences of the full background to that crisis.

The latest example of that style of reporting was seen at the beginning of this month in Tim Franks’ radio report from Gaza for the BBC World Service and it was also evident in two BBC News website reports published a couple of weeks earlier.

The Times of Israel recently published an interview with the Qatari envoy to the Gaza Strip which once again highlights the fact that BBC audiences are being serially denied the full range of information necessary for understanding of this topic.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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An Example of a Journalist’s Blind Hatred of Israel - by Simon Plosker

...glaring error in his first paragraph is not an auspicious start and in this case, presenting Israel as somehow violating a world heritage site is a portent of the anti-Israel agit-prop to come.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
20 February '17..

Fairfax Media’s Chief Political Correspondent Mark Kenny’s opinion piece “The West’s blind support for Israel has done it no favours” appears in both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. The word “blind” in the headline is an apt description of Kenny’s views when it comes to Israel.

He begins:

Descending east from Jerusalem into the Rift Valley, the landscape turns decidedly hostile, and that’s just the start of it.

The Number 1 freeway first arcs up from the Holy City’s eastern flank towards the Mount of Olives before cutting underneath the world heritage site to emerge in what quickly becomes another country, a different land.

Except that the Number 1 freeway doesn’t cut “underneath the world heritage site” that is the Mount of Olives. Any look at a map will show that the road tunnels underneath Mount Scopus. There simply is no tunnel underneath the Mount of Olives. A glaring error in his first paragraph is not an auspicious start and in this case, presenting Israel as somehow violating a world heritage site is a portent of the anti-Israel agit-prop to come.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Monday, February 20, 2017

How Israel taught me the meaning of “E pluribus unum” - by Forest Rain

...We are the many who have gathered from the four corners of the earth to live our oneness. One family, each member strikingly different from the other but all connected by an unbreakable bond. This is Israel.

Forest Rain..
Inspiration from Zion..
19 February '17..

I can’t believe it’s been twenty years.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It’s not the day itself I remember, just one vivid scene that forever changed me.

I was in 10th grade. Recess. Suddenly the school sound system was broadcasting the news.

They never did that. Sometimes they played music. Usually it was used just to sound the recess bell. Never the news.

Israeli schools are loud. Israelis in general are loud, boisterous, passionate, excitable… Younger Israelis are generally noisier than grown-ups. Israeli schools, because they are made from concrete and don’t have carpeting or furniture that absorbs sound, can be extremely noisy during recess.

Not this time.

There was dead silence. The moment the news began every student froze on the spot. A silent scattering of statues, everyone was listening intently to the report.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Israeli Sovereignty in Judea and Samaria: What Arabs in Hebron Really Think

Ashraf Jabari, an Arab Muslim resident of Hebron talks about relations with the Jewish community, spokesperson Noam Arnon, Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, and what local Arabs think about the Palestinian Authority.

Hebron Israel..
19 February '17..
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXNW0Mpt780

This speech was part of a panel discussion at the 4th annual Sovereignty Conference held in Jerusalem. Also on the panel were Noam Arnon of Hebron, Sheikh Abu Halil El-Tamimi, Abu Naim al Tarifi of Ramallah, Anett Haskia of Akko, journalist Shalom Yerushalmi of Ma'ariv news, and Jonathan Elkhoury of Lebanon.



Speeches were held in Arabic and Hebrew with translation into English.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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Sunday, February 19, 2017

Impartiality ditched in portrayal of ‘international law’ by BBC’s ME editor

When the BBC covers stories concerning disputed territory in places such as Cyprus or in Western Sahara it does not find it necessary or appropriate to provide its audiences with an opinion on what is legal or illegal. The difference of course is that the BBC has not adopted a campaigning role in relation to those locations.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
19 February '17..





When Jeremy Bowen was appointed to the post of Middle East editor in 2005, that role was described as follows:

“The challenge for our daily news coverage is to provide an appropriate balance between the reporting of a ‘spot news’ event and the analysis that might help set it in its context.

This challenge is particularly acute on the television news bulletins, where space is at a premium, and because the context is often disputed by the two sides in the conflict. To add more analysis to our output, our strategy is to support the coverage of our bureau correspondents with a Middle East editor.

Jeremy Bowen’s new role is, effectively, to take a bird’s eye view of developments in the Middle East, providing analysis that might make a complex story more comprehensive or comprehensible for the audience, without the constraints of acting as a daily news correspondent. His remit is not just to add an extra layer of analysis to our reporting, but also to find stories away from the main agenda.”

On February 15th a report by Jeremy Bowen concerning that day’s meeting between the US president and the Israeli prime minister was broadcast on BBC One’s ‘News at Ten’. Revisiting the ‘blank cheque’ theme he promoted days earlier on BBC 5 live radio, in that report, Bowen told viewers that:

“Before he was elected president Mr Trump seemed ready to give Israel a blank cheque on the Palestinians. Mr Netanyahu authorised thousands more homes for Jews in the occupied territories, in defiance of international law, within days of Mr Trump’s inauguration.” [emphasis added]

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 
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