The current rapid illegal build-up is funded by hundreds of millions of euros annually, funneled by the European Union and individual European nations into scores of building and infrastructure projects.
“Area C,”
which comprises some 60 percent of the 'West Bank', also known as Judea
and Samaria, is making news these days. This time, the hot button issue
is illegal Palestinian settlements sprouting across the region,
shredding the last vestige of the Oslo Accords, which, for a generation,
propelled the “two-state solution.”
Most observers of the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis are accustomed to hearing talk of “illegal
Jewish settlements” on slivers of land comprising one to two percent of
the 'West Bank', mostly near the green line of Israel proper. But,
attention now focuses on an explosion of thousands of illegal
Palestinian Arab constructions: village clusters, agricultural tracts,
water networks, roads, and general infrastructure crisscrossing Area C
of the 'West Bank'.
All of this violates the 1993 and 1995Oslo
Accords, which specify full Israeli administrative control in Area C.
Under the international agreement, only the Israeli Civil Administration
can authorize new construction in the zone—for Israeli and Arab alike.
However, continuous waves of recent Palestinian Arabv settlements are
being established without permits—often without even bothering to apply.
One senior official of the Israeli security apparatus called it “the
wild west.”
According to Israeli activist watchdog groups, such
as Regavim, in the past half-decade, illegal Palestinian settlements and
infrastructure have sprawled across more than 9,000 dunams in more than
250 Area C locations, supported by more than 600 kilometers of
illegally constructed access roads and more than 112,000 meters of
retaining walls and terracing. This massive works project is being
conducted in broad daylight, often heralded by tall announcement placards and proud press releases.
When
questioned, various Israeli government officials did not dispute the
Regavim numbers. In exasperation, one military spokesman close to the
Area C files located at Bet El estimated “close to 10,000” illegal
construction efforts are now underway—adding they felt “powerless to
stop them.” The rapid illegal build-up is funded by hundreds of millions
of euros annually, funneled by the European Union and individual
European nations into scores of building and infrastructure projects.
Understanding the tortuous history that created the current sovereignty vacuum in Area C can be daunting and confusing.
Leaving out 99 percent of everything …
The
indigenous Israelites of Canaan were expelled starting in 70 C.E. by
the Romans, who renamed the region “Syria-Palaestina”—or Palestine, for the Philistine sea invaders from the Greek Islands.
In about 637 C.E., the Islamic invasion swept up from the Arabian Peninsula to conquer and convert.
For about four centuries, the Turkish Ottoman Empire governed until its 1918 defeat in World War I.
After
WWI, the Allies dismembered Ottoman colonies throughout the Middle East
and concomitantly encouraged self-determination for ethnic peoples
across the Levant.
The League of Nations, in association
with 51 countries and competing nationalist groups, eventually
established five modern Arab countries: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, modern
Hejaz (Arabia) and post-colonial modern Egypt, plus one democratic and
pluralistic Jewish State in Palestine. The original 1920 “Mandate” boundaries of
the modern Jewish State extended from the Mediterranean Sea across the
area now known as Jordan—a country which then did not exist.
The
Arabs were shortchanged by the French in their quest for an Arab Kingdom
in Syria. So, in recompense, the British modified the Palestine Mandate
in September 1922 by virtue of an official memorandum, carving off some 70 percent of the intended Jewish nation to invent Trans-Jordan (now Jordan)—the territory extended from the Jordan River east to the borders of Iraq and what is now Saudi Arabia.
For decades, co-existence between Arabs and Jews in the former Turkish colony could not be achieved. In 1947, the non-binding UN Resolution 181—known as Partition—recommended
side-by-side Jewish and Arab states. In those days, the identity of the
two peoples was “Arab” and “Jewish,” as local Arabs did not adopt the identity of “Palestinian” until about 1964.
Israel
accepted Partition, but the Arabs refused. The surrounding
League-created Arab nations attacked the newly declared Jewish State. In
1948, Jordan (created by the British memo) illegally invaded and annexed the area west of the Jordan River, including East Jerusalem, thus coining the new term, “West Bank” for the still-disputed former Turkish colonial provinces.
In
1967, when Israel fought its preemptive Six Day War, expelling Jordan,
the Jewish State reoccupied this same disputed former Turkish colonial
region, still called the 'West Bank'. In 1988, Jordan rescinded any claim of sovereignty, deepening the sovereignty vacuum.
In
1993 and 1995, after years of diplomatic wrangling, Israel and the
avowed terror group Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo
Accords, envisioning a peaceful two-state solution. Under the complex
Oslo Accords, and subsequent modifications at Wye, Sharm el-Sheikh, and
elsewhere, the “West Bank” is divided into three separate administrative
zones, Areas A, B and C.
Area A is reserved for Palestinian civil
and administrative control and seats the Palestinian Authority in
Ramallah. Area B is governed by Palestinian civil control under a joint
Israeli-Palestinian security apparatus.
Area C —also
called Judea and Samaria—comprises roughly 60 percent of the 'West
Bank'. It more closely resembles the Biblical and original international
demarcation of a Jewish State during the initial League of Nations
mandate—but is now considered occupied by the international community.
The majority of Area C residents are Israelis—an estimated 325,000
alongside some 300,000 Arabs (some
say 80,000). In essence, Oslo normalized and structured the Israeli
occupation and administration of the disputed former Turkish lands.
But
by virtue of a cumulative multibillion-euro effort, European capitals
are working hard to destabilize the last pillars of the Oslo Accords.
Thus, these countries seek to create a Palestinian state along the 1948
armistice line — also known as the 1967 lines— without further
consulting the Jewish State. This ensures the Palestinian Authority
knows it need not negotiate with Jerusalem—even as the United States and
Gulf countries make a daring dash to achieve peace.
As the
urgency of Area C is becoming clearer, still murky is the source of the
diverse European funding that enables this conflict and the routes those
billions of euros take across the Mediterranean. What’s more, there is
widespread fear that millions in funds are continuously funneled through
entities openly accused of being affiliated with established terrorist
organizations.
Edwin Black is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author ofIBM and the Holocaust, Funding Hate, and the journalist who inFinancing the Flames documented the terrorist salaries now known as “Pay to Slay.” Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24314 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
Al Sharpton is betraying black people currently enslaved in Africa.
The eminent African-American economist Glenn Loury recently wondered in the New York Times why leading Democrats would defend Al Sharpton, a man who is a blatant anti-Semite, an anti-white racist, and to many, a simple con man. Joe Biden calls him “a champion in the fight for civil rights.” Elizabeth Warren says “he has dedicated his life to the fight for justice for all,” and Kamala Harris lauds him as a man who “has spent his life fighting for what’s right.” Records show that President Obama had Sharpton visit his White House 118 times.
This, after Sharpton’s many outrages: the Tawana Brawley rape hoax of 1987, the anti-Jewish Crown Heights riots of 1991, and the firebombing of a Jewish-owned Harlem fashion boutique in 1995.
Loury suggests that any one of these things should have disqualified Sharpton from national platforms, along with any praise by Democratic Party leaders. But there’s something else, something no less repugnant, and perhaps even more shocking, that should obliterate once and for all the perception of Al Sharpton as a tough guy who never buckles when it comes to defending his race.
Al Sharpton is betraying black people currently enslaved in Africa. He went there. He spoke to them. He promised the slaves he met that he would awaken American blacks to their plight, but then he abandoned them. He abandoned them, I believe, because they are enslaved by Arab Muslims. A review of just how this came about should be instructive.
In 2001, as Sharpton contemplated a run for president in the 2004 election, he made a trip to Sudan to verify reports of the ongoing enslavement of Christian blacks there by Arab Muslims. Reports were emerging of Arabs from northern Sudan raiding black Christian villages in the south of Africa’s then-largest country, killing the men and enslaving the women and children. (Full disclosure: At the time, I headed a movement to educate the public about modern-day slavery. We worked with the human rights organization Christian Solidarity International, which over the years redeemed tens of thousands of slaves in Sudan who were returned to their villages.)
To be fair, Sharpton’s 2001 trip to Sudan required courage. He flew with CSI leaders into a war zone on one of CSI’s regular slave redemption missions to see and talk to the slaves. The mission was protected by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a black militia defending southern villages against an onslaught that had over the years killed millions and enslaved tens of thousands, an onslaught that the Islamist rulers in Khartoum designated a jihad. Sharpton was appalled. He said it was “outrageous that no nationally known civil rights group has gone over to Africa to criticize what is happening there.” He met with slave women, who showed him their scars from being beaten and raped. One asked him if the world knew of her people’s suffering; Sharpton replied, “They don’t know now, but they will soon.”
There was speculation that Sharpton not only used this trip to launch his presidential campaign, but also to climb to the top ranks of black American leadership. Indeed, he took a subtle shot at Jesse Jackson, who had been silent about slavery in Sudan for years.
When Sharpton returned from Sudan he met with senior members of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam. Farrakhan had been vigorously denying that Arabs [editor: the writer probably means Muslims] were enslaving blacks. His mission is to convince American blacks that Islam is the path to authentic freedom; it would be damaged by living and breathing proof that blacks are enslaved and slaughtered in African countries like Sudan where Islam dominates. Equally damaging for Farrakhan is the case of Mauritania, where black Muslims, who had been converted to Islam centuries ago, are nevertheless enslaved by Muslim Arab-Berbers.
Indeed, the mounting reports of Arab Muslims owning, breeding, and torturing black Muslims with impunity may have pushed Farrakhan into an unforced error: As reported by the New York Times, when he was cornered at a televised press conference and pressed by a reporter about his silence on the current enslavement of blacks, Louis Farrakhan grew visibly angry and challenged the gathered reporters. “If slavery exists,” he shouted, “why don’t you go, as a member of the press?! And you look inside of the Sudan, and if you find it, then you come back, and tell the American people what you have found!” The editors of the Baltimore Sun took him up on his challenge and sent two reporters to Sudan, where the reporters personally purchased the freedom of two black Christian slave boys. Three months later, the Sun published a Pulitzer Prize-nominated account of their trip. Clarence Page, the Chicago Tribune’s black editorialist, who had written about a billion-dollar “loan” to Farrakhan by Libyan dictator Qaddafi for purposes of fomenting a revolt among black soldiers in the U.S. armed forces, now taunted Farrakhan to respond to the Sun report. But the leader of the Nation of Islam fell silent.
One can imagine Sharpton, upon his return from the slave liberation trip in Sudan, being read the riot act by the Farrakhaners: “You want to divide the black community?!” In any event, Sharpton reneged on his promise to the freed slave woman that he would make sure black Americans learned about the plight of her people.
In 2017, after ignoring Africa’s slaves for many years, Sharpton returned to the issue. The occasion was a CNN report on Arabs in Libya capturing and selling Africans as slaves which featured a video of an auction where a man was sold for $400. This raised eyebrows in the black community, and Sharpton announced his decision to lead a delegation of black clergy to Libya to learn more about the slave trade there. For whatever reason, Sharpton never actually went to Libya, but he did meet with Libya’s U.N. ambassador Elmahdi Elmajerbi to discuss the problem -- and made sure to get the photo-op. Just as with his trip to Sudan, however, Sharpton’s ire quickly faded and once again the slaves went down the memory hole.
Today, in five Arab and Muslim African countries -- Sudan, Mauritania, Libya, Nigeria, and Algeria -- blacks are enslaved. These are known realities, easily documented.
Sharpton and Farrakhan have ignored or denied the current-day plight of black people who are taken as slaves They do so for two primary reasons; first, so as not to denigrate Islam, and secondly, to keep “America’s racism” a singular and unique focus, the benefits of which would be lost to them if blacks here knew that today, sadly, in some parts of the Islamic world, African men, women, and children are still in bondage, captured, bought, and sold as chattel.
Al Sharpton had the chance to marshal the power of America’s black community to help free today’s slaves. That black power, political and moral, has been won with courage, persistence, and volumes of blood. It is evoked in the example of Harriet Tubman, a runaway slave who went back into the South to bring more of her people to freedom. She explained, “I have heard their groans and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them.” Al Sharpton heard the groans of enslaved black Africans, saw their tears, and then, seeing the way the wind was blowing, ran away.
Charles Jacobs is president of the American Anti-Slavery Group. Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/08/how_al_sharpton_abandoned_africas_slaves_.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
He's just too embarrassing to be able to win the presidency
The signals are unmistakable to all willing to see: Joe Biden is being written off by the power structure of the Democratic Party. He's just too embarrassing to be able to win the presidency despite what the polls purportedly say about him beating Trump in a head-to-head match. The decision has been reached, and the principal propaganda organ of the Democratic Party (as revealed by its executive editor Dean Baquet) delivered the decisive blow in this article, titled "Obama and Biden's Relationship Looks Rosy. It Wasn't Always That Simple."
Biden's sole appeal to the national electorate is his presumed status as the logical successor to Barack Obama. The New York Times article begins the process of demolishing that logic.
The body language in this 2015 Oval Office photo is clear.
(Photo credit: White House photographer Pete Souza).
The first paragraphs make clear that Obama's choice of Biden had little to do with his merit as a potential successor to the Oval Office:
Barack Obama was riding his call for generational change to the Democratic presidential nomination in the spring of 2008 when he began musing about potential running mates with aides traveling with him on the trail. "I want somebody with gray in his hair," Mr. Obama, then 46, told one of them. He was thinking about an "older guy," he told another. That older guy, people around the candidate would soon learn, was Joseph R. Biden Jr., 65, a has-been to pundits but to Mr. Obama a sweet-spot pick — a policy heavyweight with limited political horizons, assuming that would ensure loyalty and minimal drama. Mr. Obama was already phoning Mr. Biden two or three times a week to solicit advice, and to decide whether the Delaware senator's many positive attributes outweighed his singular liability, a notoriously self-tangling tongue. Over the next several months, Mr. Obama's top advisers would present 30 alternatives, all of whom he respectfully considered. (snip) In Mr. Biden, he found a running mate who would conjure the comforting past and provide experience he did not possess, but would not maneuver for the presidency from the No. 2 slot. Deep within the long article comes the coup de grâce: The two men spoke at least a half dozen times before Mr. Biden decided to run, and Mr. Obama took pains to cast his doubts about the campaign in personal terms. "You don't have to do this, Joe, you really don't," Mr. Obama told Mr. Biden earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the exchange.
It's not exactly a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper, but the message of publicizing this conversation at this point is clear: Biden's chances at the presidency sleep with the fishes.
Biden now has the choice of exiting the race the hard way or the easy way. The easy way would be to announce that his concerns for his family take precedence over the call to duty, and that he is going to support whoever wins the nomination that he now is forsaking. The hard way would be further investigations into the suspicious enrichment of his family coincident with his foreign policy duties with countries that acted as benefactors of his brood, all publicized in the corporate media followers of the New York Times' lead. And don't forget the stream of embarrassing stories about his incompetence as veep and Obama's frustrations with him, hidden from the public earlier. And feature stories about the lingering effect of brain aneurisms.
New Hampshire voters already have the message: as President Trump addressed a record crowd in New Hampshire, Biden's counter-rally there drew 30 souls.
Thomas Lifson Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/democrats_long_knives_are_out_for_biden.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
Sirens sound in four Gaza-area communities, activating missile defense system.
Sirens sounded Saturday night in the city of Sderot, the community of Ibim, the kibbutzim of Gevim and Nir Am, the Havat Shikmim sheep ranch, and in the Sapir College.
Residents reported hearing explosions, but there have been no reports of injuries or damage. The Iron Dome missile defense system was activated.
"A siren was set off in city of Sderot and in the kibbutzes of Gevim and Nir Am, in the Sapir College, in the town of Ibim, and in the Havat Shikmim ranch," the IDF confirmed. "Details are being investigated."
A later IDF statement read: "Following the reports regarding sirens that sounded a few minutes ago, three projectiles were recognized to have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. Two projectiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defense system." A Magen David Adom (MDA) spokesperson said: "At 9:10p.m. a report was
received at MDA's Lachish Regional Dispatch for a rocket which landed
in the Sderot area."
"NO bodily injuries were sustained in the incident. MDA EMTs and
Paramedics are treating a 30 year old female for a panic attack.
"MDA EMTs and Paramedics are treating six people, two of whom
sustained minor injuries while running to the shelter: A 40-year-old man
who fell from his electric bicycle and a woman who fell in her home. In
addition, MDA teams are treating four people with panic attacks, of
which one, a 76 year old woman, is being evacuated to Barzilai Hospital.
Two others include a 30-year-old women and a man did not require
evacuation."
On Friday evening, the Israel Air Force attacked
two Hamas underground terrorist infrastructures in northern and central
Gaza on Friday night, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit confirmed.
According to the statement, the air strikes were carried out in retaliation for the rocket fire from Gaza on Friday evening.
Arutz Sheva Staff Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/267534 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
The lies about the State of Israel are amplified in the West through the "mainstream media", such as: The New York Times, The New Yorker, the BBC, The Guardian, MSNBC, and CNN.
"To try to defeat an irrational supposition – especially when it is firmly held by its proponents – with a rational explanation is virtually impossible. Any information that does not correspond with the conspiracy theorists' preferred social, political, or ethnic narrative is ipso facto false. Social scientists have described such theories as having a "self-sealing quality" that makes them "particularly immune to challenge." — Deborah Lipstadt, Antisemitism Here and Now, 2019 pp 7-8.
The lies about the State of Israel are amplified in the West through the "mainstream media", such as: The New York Times, The New Yorker, the BBC, The Guardian, MSNBC, and CNN. Churches join in, and of course the United Nations, as well as so-called human rights organizations where pretty well anything goes: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.
This bias is well monitored by a number of websites that work to identify their inaccuracies and deliberate distortions about Israel, the IDF, or Palestinian terrorism. CAMERA, Honest Reporting, UK Media Watch, and BBC Watch all dissect bad reportage, and contact editors to request corrections.
How often have we seen commentaries concerning the situation in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, made with intensity, even passion, which purport to tell readers the "facts" about Israel? They often narrate falsehoods that might put to shame a string of fraudsters, conmen and conspiracy theorists.
It seems, at times, that there is no limit to anti-Semitic modern fantasies about the Jewish state of Israel that overwhelm the even older libels about Jews controlling world affairs, as in the totally fraudulent forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Today, we are given to believe that it is Muslim Palestinian children who are slain by sneering Zionists and that the government of Israel works hand in hand with a global network of Christians and Jewish bankers, politicians, and media bosses.
It is not surprising to see ordinary folk taken in by anti-Semitic meanderings and anti-Israel fiction. A 2015 study by Chicago political scientists, J. Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood, provided evidence that belief in conspiracies and other falsehoods is widespread even in the United States:
Using four nationally representative surveys, sampled between 2006 and 2011, we find that half of the American public consistently endorses at least one conspiracy theory and that many popular conspiracy theories are differentiated along ideological and anomic dimensions. In contrast with many theoretical speculations, we do not find conspiracism to be a product of greater authoritarianism, ignorance, or political conservatism. Rather, the likelihood of supporting conspiracy theories is strongly predicted by a willingness to believe in other unseen, intentional forces and an attraction to Manichean narratives. These findings both demonstrate the widespread allure of conspiracy theories as political explanations and offer new perspectives on the forces that shape mass opinion and American political culture.
As shown frequently (for instance, here,here and here), human beings are by nature gullible and willing to take on board all manner of bunkum before breakfast. How else to explain the popularity of arch-conspiracists such as Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin? Of course, dictators like Hitler and Stalin can enforce their twisted notions by threats and force. In democracies, however, regardless of the open availability of verifiable information from libraries, universities, colleges, and government agencies, large numbers of people fall for any number of fantasies promulgated by internet trolls, the tabloid press, and, not infrequently, politicians with axes to grind.
The multiple-award winning British journalist, Will Storr, has written one of the most thorough investigations of people with controversial or outright bizarre ideas -- believers in past lives, anti-evolution fundamentalists, and all forms of self-delusion. The Heretics (published in the US as The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science) describes a wide range of believers who cannot be convinced by any contrary evidence that their convictions have no foundation in observable fact.
It would be a mistake to assume that everyone who takes unconventional ideas on board must be uneducated or unintelligent. Many highly educated people, including physicians and scientists, take seriously leading forms of alternative medicine and carry out extensive research into them. The US National Institutes for Health has a branch known as the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, which funds and engages in such research. These are all controversial forms of healthcare, but at least are capable of being scientifically tested.
This willingness to listen to alternative viewpoints while retaining a critical stance serves well in such contexts and is a fundamental part of original scientific and general rational method. All great scientific breakthroughs have been achieved by thinkers willing to challenge the received wisdom of their day -- giants such as Giordano Bruno, Galileo, Darwin, and Freud, to name but a few.
One of the worst examples of a presumably intelligent individual persisting in a much-discredited conviction is the Holocaust-denying historian David Irving, whose reputation underwent severe humiliation during a high-profile libel trial in 2000. Cambridge historian Richard Evans, as the chief expert witness in the trial, tore apart Irving's claims to be a credible historian at all.[1] It is possibly worth adding that Irving had no formal training in history; his two failed attempts to gain a university degree were in physics and political economy.
After such a public disparagement, most people would shrink into embarrassed oblivion. Yet Irving, now 80, continues his Holocaust denial, his anti-Semitism, and his general defiance of official historiography. He writes books, manages a constantly updated website in which he supports the Maduro regime in Venezuela, and links to a series of private meetings he holds. He has many followers in Europe and the United States. His impact may not be great, but in an era of rising anti-Semitism, his persistence in whitewashing Nazism sits well.
It is not surprising that Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the author whom Irving tried unsuccessfully to ruin in that trial, writes in her latest book, Antisemitism Here and Now (London, 2019), about the power of conspiracy theories:
Conspiracy theories give events that may seem inexplicable to some people an intentional explanation. If we were to provide these conspiracy theorists with evidence that the landing was indeed on the moon, they will a priori dismiss what we say and assume we are part of the conspiracy. To try to defeat an irrational supposition – especially when it is firmly held by its proponents – with a rational explanation is virtually impossible. Any information that does not correspond with the conspiracy theorists' preferred social, political, or ethnic narrative is ipso facto false. Social scientists have described such theories as having a "self-sealing quality" that makes them "particularly immune to challenge." (pp. 7-8)
Holocaust denial is, thankfully, an obsession for only a tiny number of bitter die-hards. Lipstadt, however, is writing about something beyond that. Anti-Semitism, in its various forms, is the longest-lasting conspiracy theory across much of the globe. It consists of an assumption of innate Jewish wickedness and has led to millions of deaths, expulsions, and wars, not least in the progressive 20th and 21st centuries when we were all supposed to have become rationalists.
Within the broad range of anti-Semitism, there is one controversial subject in which innumerable educated and intelligent people abandon any willingness to listen to the other side, to investigate the full facts, or to reach conclusions wherever those facts lead them: the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians.
The link between traditional anti-Semitism, irrational thinking, and hatred of Israel has been summed up in an article by Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.
"Anti-Israelism is the modern face of anti-Semitism and just as toxic. Anti-Israelism is a modern-day religion in that it demands unquestioning adherence to a dogmatic doctrine and rejects non-believers as morally inferior."
The anti-Israel dogmatists of whom I speak are not the denizens of the Arab, Iranian, and wider Muslim world, where hatred of Israel and support of the Palestinians is enforced by governments and clerics. They may possibly be excused because they lack the freedom to learn or speak freely about the issue or even board a plane for Israel to see reality on the ground.
The lies about the State of Israel are increasingly amplified in the West through the "mainstream media", such as:
The New York Times: In April, the New York Times published what Amb. Dani Dayan called "the correction of the year" after the Gray Lady wrote that Palestinian Authority payments to terrorists and their families are a "far-right conspiracy theory." – CAMERA.org, January 2, 2019.
The New Yorker: "Raja Shehadeh's 'Letter from Ramallah' is filled with misrepresentations that don't belong in a respected publication like The New Yorker – even in an opinion piece." – CAMERA.org. January 7, 2018.
The New York Times: "NYT Issues Correction after Labeling Palestinian Support for Terrorists Fake News" – National Review, Jack Crowe, April 24, 2018.
The Guardian: "The Guardian Delegitimizes Israel in Lying Editorial: The Guardian crosses the line with an editorial replete with lies, distortions and delegitimization of Israel." – Honest Reporting January 23, 2019.
BBC: "Another Gaza maritime smuggling story ignored by the BBC" – BBC Watch, June 11, 2019.
Disproportionately singles out Israel for condemnation, focusing solely on the conflict with the Palestinians, misrepresenting the complexity of the conflict, and ignoring more severe human rights violations in the region" --
Systematic NGO Monitor analysesdemonstrate that HRW disproportionately focuses on condemnations of Israel and that publications related to Israel often lack credibility. HRW also promotes an agenda based solely on the Palestinian narrative of victimization and Israeli aggression.
"Promotes a Palestinian 'right of return,' which, if implemented, would effectually mean the elimination of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people."
Ironically, many of the media involved, notably sections of the print and online press, are among the most articulate of our sources and are read by the best-educated sections of society. If one can leave aside for a moment their political bias in general, there is no doubt that newspapers such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Independent, The Guardian and others stand apart from the tabloid press in how they report on and debate about a range of serious topics. That they are all left-wing does not usually detract from the quality of what they write. But they are by far the most inaccurate and bigoted when it comes to reporting and debate about Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Authority.
To read most of their reports and articles on these topics, one might well believe that Israel is the most hideous and cruel state on earth -- a position held widely in the United Nations and its agencies, which are not left-wing or socialist, but which contain a majority of Arab-bloc members and their supporters.
This bias is well monitored by a number of websites that work to identify their inaccuracies and deliberate distortions about Israel, the IDF, or Palestinian terrorism. CAMERA(Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), Honest Reporting, Honest Reporting Canada, UK Media Watch, and BBC Watch all dissect bad reportage, and contact editors to request corrections.[2]
One form of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic speech that is often overlooked can be found in the comments sections that follow many articles, regardless of whether or not the piece itself has those qualities. Even a mild pro-Israel comment can unleash a storm of untruths, distortions of fact and rawness of language.
Two comments were recently in The Independent. On February 1, 2019, Independent staff and agencies published a reasonably accurate report entitled, "US cuts all aid to Palestinians in occupied West Bank and Gaza". The report begins: "The US has ended all financial aid for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, government officials have said."
This might well be interpreted by readers to mean that both the West Bank and Gaza are currently occupied by Israel; so this author posted the following comment:
"When will it sink in that Gaza has not been occupied since 2005, when all Israeli military and civilians finally pulled out? And when will people on the left wake up to the fact that millions from aid money to the PA are given to support terrorist murderers in Israeli jails and the families of 'martyrs' who have died while attacking innocent civilians, with payments increasing in proportion to however many an individual terrorist has killed. You don't have to be a Tory (I am not) to see how support for terrorism undermines genuine left-wing values."
It was not long before Deanna 12 left the following response:
"Quite a disgraceful, uneducated and foolish comment. Has not been occupied since 2005? What nonsense. Do you live on this Planet? The PA is democratically elected organization. As far as murdering innocent civilans (sic) go, your comments are laughable. It isn't (sic) the PA shooting inncocent (sic) medics and diabled (sic) protestors on border fences - with explosive dumdum bullets. It isn't (sic) the PA running an apartheid (sic) system. And it isn't (sic) the PA shooting inncocent (sic) children for fun. Its (sic) well documented. "Children have been shot in other countries I have covered - death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria - but I have never before watched Israeli soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport like in Gaza". Chris Hedges - 2002 Pultizer (sic) Prize Winner."
There is much one could reply to this claim; however Deanna 12's infatuation with a series of fantasies regarding Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas clearly seem so deeply ingrained that no amount of substantiation is likely to induce her to find any facts -- including about Chris Hedges -- for herself.
Dr. Denis MacEoin taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at a British university and for a time Arabic to English translation at a university in Fez, Morocco. Resident in the UK, he is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
[1] For a shorter account, see Richard Evans, Telling Lies about Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial, here. [2] On these see Manfred Gerstenfeld and Ben Green, "Watching the Pro-Israeli Media Watchers", Jewish Political Studies Review, 16:3/4, Fall 2004, pp. 33-58; available on subscription online here.
Dr. Denis MacEointaught Arabic and Islamic Studies at a British university and for a time Arabic to English translation at a university in Fez, Morocco. Resident in the UK, he is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14412/conspiracy-theory Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
In April of this year, in an article
titled "4 Reasons Why London is The Worst," Maria Ebele had this to
say: "London has the reputation of one of the greatest cities in the
world. But I’ll let you in on a secret: if you ever want to make friends
with a Brit who is not from London, casually drop in conversation that
London isn’t your most favourite place in the world. Then sit back and
watch. Most likely, you’ll see his or her eyes light up with glee at the
opportunity to rip into the nation’s capital."
The author has
a point. Over the past couple of years, more than 340,000 people have
moved away from London amid rising levels of knife crime, according to reports.
Extortionate property prices and poor air quality are also cited as
reasons for people choosing to leave the capital and set up a new life
elsewhere in the UK. Obviously, people want a better quality of life;
also, people would prefer not to get stabbed.
However, could there be another reason for the mass exodus?
I ask this because London is acquiring an increasingly Islamic face.
In the words
of Maulana Syed Raza Rizvi, an eminent preacher in the city, “London is
more Islamic than many Muslim countries put together.” Yes, that
London, as in the home of red buses and posh accents. The "traditional"
picture of London has been replaced with a more worrying one. According
to Giulio Meotti, a researcher at the Gatestone Institute,
by 2020, “estimates are that the number of Muslims attending prayers
will reach at least 683,000, while the number of Christians attending
weekly Mass will drop to 679,000.” Next year, Islam looks likely to be
the dominant religion in the capital. As Meotti notes, since
2001, more than 500 London churches of all denominations have been
turned into private homes. During the same period, British mosques have
been proliferating. The proportion of Britons who identify themselves as
Anglicans continues to fall, while, according to a NatCen Social Research Institute report, the number of Muslims continues to grow by the thousands. As Jean Patrick Gunberg laments,
“Churchgoers are declining at a rate that within a generation, their
number will be three times lower than that of Muslims who go regularly
to mosque on Friday.”
Of course, Islamification doesn’t occur in a vacuum. In Birmingham,
the second largest city in the UK, an Islamic minaret dominates the
skyline. The "City of a Thousand Trades" has a huge Muslim population
(22%). There have been petitions to allow mosques to place loudspeakers throughout the city. Why? To call people to prayer three times a day.
Imagine this occurring in Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S.
Demographically, the Britain of today is very different from the Britain of the '90s and early '00s; the most common name in England and Wales is now Mohammed, including spelling variations such as Muhammad and Mohammad.
Outside of London and Birmingham, other major cities have huge Muslim
populations: Manchester (15.8%) and Bradford (24.7%). In the latter
city, half
the children are Muslim. The cultural, demographic and religious
revolution in which Christianity declines and Islam advances is almost
complete. The future of the UK is one rooted in burqas and strict
interpretations of Islam.
An exaggeration? I think not.
As Innes Bowen noted in a piece for The Spectator, of the some 1,700 mosques in Britain, only two - yes, two - now follow the modernist interpretation of Islam.
The Wahhabis control many mosques throughout the land. Call it what you
will, "ultraconservative," "austere," "fundamentalist," or "puritan,"
but Wahhabism is premised on an abhorrent doctrine.
Worryingly, major British cities are full of sharia courts. London, for example, has over 100. How did this happen?
According to the aforementioned Giotti, “The advent of this parallel
judicial system has been made possible thanks to the British Arbitration
Act and the system of Alternative Dispute Resolution. These new courts
are based on the rejection of the inviolability of human rights: the
values of freedom and equality that are the basis of English Common
Law.”
Acquiescence bordering on capitulation has also played a role. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Justice Lord Phillips have previously suggested
that British law should "incorporate" elements of sharia law – you
know, the law based on the religious precepts of Islam, not the actual
law that civilized societies in the west recognize.
British universities have also acquiesced. Take a quick look at the report titled "external speakers in higher education institutions,"
published by Universities in the UK. There you will read that "orthodox
religious groups" may separate men and women during events. As The
Daily Mail reported, females at Queen Mary University of London
had to use a separate entrance and were told to sit in a room without
being able to ask questions or even raise their hands. Remember, this
took place in London, not Lahore.
According to reporters at The Telegraph, the Islamic Society at the London School of Economics held a particularly notable gala. Here, like livestock in a shed, women and men were separated by a seven-meter panel.
This should worry us all, especially those of us who care about the UK as a bastion of civilized values.
John Glynn is a professor of psychology at American University of Bahrain. Follow him on Twitter: @John_A_Glynn. Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274592/when-britain-died-john-glynn Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
Lawmakers Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) will not be traveling to Israel.
The excursion, slated for Friday, was nixed by Israel’s interior
ministry headed by Aryeh Deri. Decisions to grant or deny visas to
Israel are the domain of the Ministry of Interior but given the
high-profile nature of the visit, it is a virtual certainty that Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was consulted and had the final say.
The decision to bar entry for the duo – known for their frequent
anti-Semitic outbursts – was not without controversy but demonstrated
significant political fortitude. In 2017, Israel passed a law permitting
the interior ministry to deny entry to those advocating for boycotts,
divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Omar and Tlaib are among
the most notorious advocates of this malign ideology. In fact, both
sponsored a congressional bill in support of BDS and obscenely compared
boycotts of Israel with boycotts of Nazi Germany.
Following the asinine comparison, the United States State Department updated
its definition of antisemitism to include as an example, “Drawing
comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The
malign positions held by both Omar and Tlaib place the two squarely
within the State Department’s definition of antisemitism.
Last month, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, indicated that the Omar-Tlaib visit would be allowed to proceed
unhindered “out of respect for the US Congress and the great alliance
between Israel and America.” But circumstances changed measurably once
Israel became aware of their malevolent itinerary.
The itinerary was titled, “U.S Congressional Delegation to Palestine.”
The United States does not recognize a legal entity known as
“Palestine.” Moreover, there was ominously no mention of Israel. The
itinerary highlighted plans to meet with various heads of Arab
governmental and non-governmental organizations with long records of
hostility toward the Jewish State. No meetings were planned with any
members of mainstream Israeli political parties. Finally, their trip was
planned by MIFTAH, a Palestinian NGO headed Hanan Ashrawi, a
Palestinian Authority lawmaker and PLO central committee member.
In 2013, MIFTAH (which publishes in both English and Arabic) featured
an article in Arabic invoking an ancient antisemitic blood libel which
claimed that Jews used the blood of Christian children as an ingredient
in Passover matzah. Rather than apologizing, Ashrawi initially accused
those exposing the hate-filled article of running a “smear campaign.”
She ultimately issued a belated apology but only after being threatened
with loss of Western funding for her antisemitic NGO.
Clearly, Omar and Tlaib, sponsored by an NGO that propagates blood
libels and antisemitic conspiracy theories, had no intention of learning
and educating. Their intention was to spread their venomous antisemitic
and anti-American poison, and advocate on behalf of BDS and its
pernicious ideological underpinnings.
The 2017 anti-BDS law
was passed in Israel after robust parliamentary debate and several
readings. That is how laws are passed in democracies and these laws
should be respected. Israel is under no obligation to commit national
suicide by allowing nefarious elements wishing to inflict harm on the
Jewish people into the country. Every nation has the right to safeguard
its borders and Israel is no exception. The law has been invoked on
several occasions and validated by Israel’s supreme court, a highly
regarded judicial institution known for its judicial independence.
In July, Israel expelled
Fouad Ahmad Assadi, an anti-Israel Spanish lawmaker of Palestinian
descent who landed at Ben Gurion airport to attend a socialist
conference in the Palestinian-occupied settlement of Ramallah. Israel
promptly handed him a one-way ticket back to Spain. Spanish BDS advocate
Ana Sanchez Mera was refused entry into Israel in 2018 as was Jewish
Voice for Peace (which is neither Jewish nor peaceful) activist Ariel
Gold.
These individuals from disparate backgrounds maintained
one recurring common denominator. They each shared a passionate hatred
of the Jewish State and fanatically advocated for BDS.
Omar
and Tlaib are deeply antisemitic. Both have repeatedly expressed
anti-Semitic canards and conspiracy theories. Both have publicly argued
that U.S. Jews maintain dual loyalties and their dollars (or “Benjamins”)
are used to purchase political influence and votes. Both have compared
Israel to Nazi Germany, and both have minimized the significance of the
Holocaust by comparing the plight of illegal aliens housed in detention
centers to those of Jews in Nazi death camps. Omar once alleged that
Israel maintains hypnotic powers over the world while Tlaib asserted
that the Holocaust gives her a “calming feeling”
because it reminds her of how her Palestinian ancestors provided Jews
with “safe haven.” Tlaib is apparently unfamiliar with personalities
like Haj Amin al-Husseini, Fawzi Kaoukji and Hassan Samaleh nor is she
familiar with events like 1929 Hebron massacre or the 1948 Hadassah
medical convoy massacre. Perhaps a refresher course is in order.
These and other outrageous canards spewed by these foul-mouthed
anti-Semites should have been reason enough to deny them entry into
Israel. But it was their itinerary that sealed the deal for the interior
ministry for it proved that these malign individuals wanted to spread
their hate rather than learn and engage in productive dialogue. Bravo
Israel for taking a principled stand and sticking by it despite intense
political pressure.
Ari Lieberman is an attorney and former prosecutor who has authored numerous articles
and publications on matters concerning the Middle East and is
considered an authority on geo-political and military developments
affecting the region. Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274645/israel-bars-omar-and-tlaib-ari-lieberman Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
From
1941-1945, historian Antonio J. Muñoz estimated that about 5,000 Arab
and Indian Muslims volunteered to serve in the German armed forces,
hardly sufficient to constitute an army of liberation. Their worth as a
military force was negligible compared with units created with Muslims
in the Balkans and the USSR. Though the Germans failed to conquer the
region, the units did have propaganda value which the Nazis exploited.
Joseph
Schechtman credited the mufti in helping establish espionage networks
to provide information about British troop movements. His news
transmissions to the Middle East reported acts of sabotage that would
normally have been censored. His agents, who infiltrated the Middle East
by land or by air, cut pipe and telephone lines in Palestine and
Transjordan and destroyed bridges and railways in Iraq. He
also organized an Axis-Arab Legion known as the Arabisches
Freiheitskorps that wore German uniforms with “Free Arabia” patches
Schechtman said. As part of the German Army, the unit guarded
communications facilities in Macedonia and hunted down American and
British paratroopers who jumped into Yugoslavia and were hiding among
the local population. The legion also fought on the Russian front.
Another major success was el-Husseini’s recruitment of tens of thousands
of Balkan Muslims into the Wehrmacht. Moshe Shertok (Sharett), chief
of the political department of the Jewish Agency, reported that on a
visit to Bosnia in 1943, the mufti appealed to local Muslims to join the
Moslem Waffen-SS Units and met with the units that were already
operational.
In addition, Middle East expert Robert Satloff said
Haj Amin used his contacts with Muslim leaders in North Africa to urge
them to obstruct the Allied advance in every way possible. After Allied
troops invaded North Africa in November 1942, Vichy officers in Tunisia
established the Phalange Africaine, also called the Légion des
Volontaires Française de Tunisie. There were 400 men in the unit,
approximately one-third Arab and the rest a mélange of European
pro-Fascists. The German Army assumed command of the Phalange in
February 1943, fighting the British and the Free French for most of
1944. In 1944, a French military court convicted the unit’s commander,
Pierre Simon Cristofini, of treason and executed him.
A second
all-Arab unit under German command, known as the Brigade Nord Africaine,
Satloff noted was established by Mohamed el-Maadi, a former French
officer and antisemite whose nickname was “SS Mohamed.” They fought the
partisans, a group of resistance fighters, in the Dordogne region in
South-West France.
In March 1944, Schechtman said the mufti urged
the Arabs to “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God,
history and religion.” In keeping with this religious imperative,
historian Raul Hilberg said the mufti asked the German Foreign Minister
on May 13, 1943 “to do his utmost” to prohibit further departures of
Jews from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary to Palestine. Four thousand
Jewish children, accompanied by 500 adults, had recently arrived in
Palestine, prompting the mufti to urge that the escape routes be
terminated. When the International Red Cross asked Romanian Prime
Minister Marshal Antonescu, two weeks later, to allow Jewish emigration
to Palestine on Red Cross ships, the German Foreign Office refused,
asserting that Palestine was an Arab country.
Historian Yehuda
Bauer stated that in 1943, when Himmler suggested that 20,000 German
prisoners in Allied hands be released in return for allowing Jewish
5,000 children to leave the Third Reich, the mufti allegedly said he
would rather have all the Jews be killed. When the plan failed to
materialize, the mufti got his wish.
On July 27, 1944, Jeffry Herf
noted that the Mufti wrote to Himmler to ask that Jews be prevented
from entering Palestine. In acceding to the mufti’s request, Himmler
would thus demonstrate Germany’s “friendly attitude” to Arabs and
Muslims.
Had Rommel had been victorious at the Second Battle of
El-Alamein, (October 23, – November 1, 1942), the Germans would have
reached Palestine enabling Hitler to exterminate the Jewish populace.
German historians Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers found that Nazi
intelligence informed their superiors in Berlin that once Rommel entered
Cairo and Palestine, he could rely on some Egyptian officers and the
Muslim Brotherhood for their help. An SS division had been activated to
fly to Egypt to oversee the destruction of the Jewish population.
Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler
Gideon
Hausner, who as Israel’s Attorney General, headed a team of prosecutors
at the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961,
described the mufti’s “long standing” relationship with Adolph Eichmann,
who played a critical role in the destruction of European Jewry. In
early 1942, the mufti and his entourage met with Eichmann’s office in
Berlin, to outline the nature of the Final Solution.
The mufti was
“so strongly impressed,” with what he heard, he asked Heinrich Himmler,
the “Architect of Genocide,” to assign someone on Eichmann’s staff to
be his ”personal adviser” on “finally solving” the Jewish problem also
in Palestine, as soon as the Mufti was reinstated in his position by the
triumphant Nazis. Eichmann appreciated the offer. “A priceless
jewel…The biggest friend of the Arabs,” is how the mufti described
Eichmann in his diary.
German Islamic scholar Gerhard Höpp, noted
that the mufti had a cordial relationship with Himmler, whom he often
met for tea. In his memoirs, the mufti records that in the summer of
1943 Himmler informed him that “up to now we have exterminated [abadna]
around three million of them.
The mufti labored diligently to
ensure the destruction of the Jews of Europe. Jeffry Herf found that he
even urged the Germans to bomb Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv. Historian David
G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann, lecturer and political and foreign policy
consultant, add that in 1943 the mufti began asking the German Air
Force Command to bomb the headquarters of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem
and to launch an air assault on Tel Aviv on November 2, the anniversary
of the Balfour Declaration. The appeal was refused as was the one he
made on April 1, 1944.
At the post-war Nuremberg Trials, Dieter
Wisliceny, an aide to Adolf Eichmann, claimed that the mufti was an
“initiator” of the policy to exterminate the Jews. Eichmann and the
mufti denied the accusations at the Eichmann trial in 1961. Historian
Bernard Lewis found no corroborating testimony about either statement,
but the Germans hardly required any encouragement from anyone to
annihilate the Jewish people. Dr. Alex Grobman is a historian and author of The Palestinian Right To Israel (Balfour
Books, 2010). He co-authored "Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust
Never Happened And Why Do They Say It?" (University of California Press,
2000). His newest book is License to Murder: The Enduring Threat of the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24309 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter
There was speculation that Sharpton not only 
