Monday, April 26, 2010

A must read article from the Daniel Hertz at the Columbia Spectator:

As an engineering student at Columbia, the issue of bias in the classroom has been, for the most part, nonexistent—unfortunately, this is, in my experience, not the case for a significant number of classes in the department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS, formerly MEALAC). Despite the constant reminders of professors’ one-sided agendas, I have always tried to take as many of these classes as possible. This semester, my curiosity for the subject led me to check out the class titled “Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Society,” taught by the renowned Joseph Massad. Although I entered the class with a hopeful outlook, it only took a handful of lectures for Massad to prove so many of his detractors right—he not only made his biases obvious but also embarrassed me in the process.
After attending a few lectures, I was still unsure as to whether I wanted to register and remain in the class. While Massad’s reputation had preceded him for the most part, his statements were often tainted with a hue of partiality, making me, and several other students, extremely uncomfortable. With a skillfully crafted curriculum and required reading list filled to the brim with anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiment, Massad had no intention of teaching history—he planned on rewriting it.
The course began with an extremely “brief” introduction to the history of the land. Starting in the 16th century and briskly moving into in the 19th and 20th centuries, Massad had completely avoided the historical context that would nullify his own agenda. During these first few lectures, there was absolutely no mention of the 3,000-year-old Jewish presence in Israel, which is backed by an exhaustive amount of both written and archeological proof. In his subsequent description of the founding of Tel Aviv, Israel’s major economic hub and richest city, Massad once again turned history upside down. Through the use of disturbing anecdotes and baseless accusations, Massad claimed that Tel Aviv was built through a process of Arab labor and expulsions by Jews, disregarding the plethora of proof that discredits these allegations, including dozens of photographs before the city’s founding and endless official British documentation describing the city as built and inhabited by only Jews.
Several weeks into the semester, Spectator interviewed me about Campus Media Watch, a Middle East watchdog group I founded at Columbia. After reading the article, I noticed I was incorrectly described as the sole contributor to one of the group’s innocuous blog posts regarding Massad. The following day, I attended class for what I thought would be a regular lesson. After a few minutes of friendly banter with Massad, I sat down as he brought order to the class. With the full attention of his students, Massad singled me out and asked several questions about my attendance. Although I tried to clarify that I was still unsure about registration, my explanation was useless­—Massad told me to leave his class immediately, explaining that I was in violation of school policy. Confused and embarrassed for being singled out in front of nearly 60 of my peers, I left the class with an uneasy feeling. Over the next few days, many of my former classmates approached me and described Massad’s disturbing reaction to the incident. Although I was not present at the time, I was told that Massad had gone on a “paranoid rant,” denouncing me as a “Jewish spy” for the same organization that “had tried to get him in trouble before.”
After reviewing school policy, it turns out that Massad had the right to ask me to leave the classroom for not being registered. He did not, however, have the right to deliberately humiliate me in front of my peers. Massad’s claim that I was spying on his class is just as bizarre as it is baseless. During the times I attended his lectures, I sat in the front row, making my presence even more obvious with the handful of questions I asked each class. By not confronting me about registration during the time we talked before class began, Massad had the clear intention of making an example of me. I had entered the class with an optimistic mind-set—I had left it embarrassed and shocked by the unprofessional behavior of an instructor at Columbia University. Massad has since filed a grievance against me, which was thankfully resolved, in yet another attempt to stifle free speech and intimidate those who do not blindly follow his teachings. After four years at Columbia, a university known to encourage free speech and debate, I have never encountered a professor who has fought so diligently to vilify and silence a student who he believed had done nothing more than discuss his class on a blog, which leads me to ask a simple question—what does professor Massad have to hide?
The author is a senior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science majoring in computer science. He is a campus fellow for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.
I've discussed Massad a number of times before.

Massad's reading list can be seen here.
  • Monday, April 26, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Qatar, which had been a key third party in negotiations between Hamas and Fatah, is reported to have given up on trying to help unify the Palestinian Arabs.

In an official letter to Egyptian mediators, Qatar said that it felt that the gap between the two sides was too wide to be bridged.

After years of attempts to reach an agreement, no movement had been made.

The Arab world gets more and more sick of the behavior of the Palestinian Arabs whose cause they had been championing for decades, even while the deluded West keeps on giving them increased support.
  • Monday, April 26, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The PA uncovered the largest Hamas weapons cache yet found in the West Bank, with hundreds of kilograms of weapons and explosives. It appears that Hamas was planning large scale terror attacks in the West Bank and in Israel.

The IDF killed a senior Hamas terrorist in a shootout in Hebron. Even though he had a history of being behind shooting attacks, the AP describes him as an "activist." (Ap has since changed the story; I found the original at the Times of India site showing that the original story had AP repeatedly referring to him as an "activist.")



Fatah accused Hamas of arresting 11 more Fatah members in Gaza.

A Fatah spokesman mocked Hamas, saying that even though it talks tough it really accepts a two-state solution. This is yet another of many cases where Fatah's criticism of Hamas is not against its terrorism but against its seeming peacefulness.

A student at Gaza's Al Azhar University was found with a hand grenade.

A supposedly 117 year old woman died in Qalqiliya in the West Bank, leaving behind her 115-year old husband. If she really had been that old, she would have held the record for world's oldest person; if her husband is really that old, he would succeed her as the world's oldest person. The claims seem dubious at best.

Kuwait did not allow Palestinian Arab disabled athletes to travel to Kuwait for the West Asia paralympic competition. Apparently, Kuwait doesn't recognize "Palestinian" passports.
  • Monday, April 26, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Yesterday was "Family Day" in Gaza, and here are some pictures of the celebrations:


If you think that "Family Day" is a time-honored Palestinian Arab tradition, you would be wrong. Their holidays on which they hold celebrations and rallies are centered around being victims as well as important terror anniversaries.

Rather, this celebration was sponsored by UNRWA.
  • Monday, April 26, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
If there is any Palestinian Arab politician who is regarded as untouchable by the Western media, it is PA prime minister Salim Fayyad. Article after article praises him as an economic reformer who is untouched by terror and who is tirelessly working towards an independent Palestinian Arab state using Western and Gandhi-type methods.

Avi Trengo in YNet bursts the Fayyad balloon, in a two-part article:
Fayyad is not a military leader. He is building himself up as a political leader, yet there is no better way to judge his actions than to examine his deeds on the economic front, thereby exposing the immense gap between his words and intentions.

Had his intention indeed been to be the Palestinian Ben-Gurion, he would have been acting for the sake of economic independence and the building of an infrastructure for the state in process. Instead, Fayyad dedicated the huge funds he’s been receiving from the world to paying salaries, in a bid to boost his support. He remembers well that the party he established years ago won less than 2% of the vote in the elections. Just like any politician, this is what truly interests him: building a support base.

Recently, he started rewarding not only the 150,000 employees of the Palestinian Authority and its security arms. Fayyad established a fund (seemingly for development purposes) that hands over funds directly from donor states to salaries in more than 500 city halls and local councils established in the PA. In the past 16 years, these grew fivefold.

The Palestinian prime minister boasts of being an economic reformer, yet in practice the growth we have seen under his leadership originates in greater international aid, which has been growing as result of a promise he has not delivered on: Minimizing Palestinian government bureaucracy.

He also wants us to continue serving as his excuse for not investing the funds at his disposal in development – each report he submits to the World Bank is replete with excuses as to why the development funds had not been fully used. Would you like to guess who he blames?

Had Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad possessed real plans for independence, he would already be starting to prepare an infrastructure for independent Palestinian currency. A state that wants to develop a private sector and the ability to reward exports cannot do it by a clinging to the shekel – the currency of a modern and highly developed economy like Israel’s.

As an economist who worked for the International Monetary Fund, Fayyad knows well that the ability to carry out currency depreciation is the most important capacity demanded by the IMF from any independent state, yet this is apparently unfit for “Palestine.”

This is clear proof that he does not intend to promote real independence. He wants to continue relying on us and remain in an undefined state of half-occupation and half “independence” until demography plays its part. What Hamas is trying to do militarily, and what Arafat attempted to do diplomatically, Fayyad seeks to do economically.
Read the whole thing.
  • Monday, April 26, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Iran's English radio website has an 8-part article makes every major anti-semitic claim in one convenient package.

It starts with the Zionist Jewish aims to take over the world, specifically Europe. It goes on to state that Zionism's goal is a state from the Nile to the Euphrates, that Ashkenazi Jews are all really Khazars, that Jews conspired with Nazis to facilitate immigration to Palestine, that there were no gas chambers, no crematoria and that the Holocaust is a myth altogether, that Jews ("Zionists") are trying to destroy Christianity as well as Islam.

Finally, in chapter 8, we learn where the Islamic Republic got these ideas from: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which are then quoted!

But Iran will keep telling you that they are only anti-Zionist, not anti-semitic.

(h/t Judeopundit)
  • Monday, April 26, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Either they really hate hip-hop or we have more evidence that Hamas is an autocratic, repressive, extremist theocracy:
Hamas police have broken up the Gaza Strip's first major hip-hop concert.

The B Boy Gaza group had just started a lively dance set late on Saturday in a crowded auditorium when police from the Islamist Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip ended the performance with shouts of "the show is over", witnesses said.

"I told one of the policemen that rap meant respect for all people, but he didn't seem to be listening. He said it was an immoral dance," one of the dancers said.
PCHR adds:
The policemen cancelled the show, expelled the audience, and arrested six of the show's organizers. The detainees were taken to al-Abbas police station in the center of Gaza City. The policemen confiscated the videotapes and cameras that were used in the show. According to the testimony of one of the organizers, the police forced two of the arrested ones to sign a pledge not to organize shows without obtaining permits from the Palestinian police.


Sunday, April 25, 2010

  • Sunday, April 25, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
One of the strongest terms in the diplomatic arsenal is the word "condemn." It is used sparingly, to show extreme displeasure, usually for heinous acts of terror and mass murder.

Elder Brother of Ziyon asked me what international incidents the Obama White House has condemned since taking office.

Here's what I could find:

Terrorist bombings on the Moscow Metro
May 2009 fatal terror attacks in Iran
Murder of three employees of US Consulate in Mexico
Violence against civilians in Iran
Terrorist bombings in Iraq
Terrorist bombings in Jakarta
Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest in Burma
Al Qaeda attack on Saudi Arabia’s Assistant Minister of Interior
Brutal murders and rapes in Guinea
Iran's executions of pro-democracy advocates
North Korean nuclear test

and, of course...

Israel's announcing plans to build houses for ordinary citizens in its own capital

Both Robert Gibbs and Joe Biden used the term "condemn" in terms of Israeli building within Jerusalem.

As far as I can tell, the current administration has never condemned Hamas nor the PA. Not for fatal rocket attacks, not for constant incitement for terror, not for the lionization of terrorists.

The Palestinian Arab narrative is that, somehow, Jews building houses in a land that Jews have identified with for millennia is a crime that is on par with mass murder. This meme has only one, very bigoted purpose - to make the Middle East free of any non-Arab control.

Yet its repetition over the decades has turned this lie, founded on other lies and supported by a myriad of further lies, into accepted truth by most of the world.

And this lie, based on pure bigotry, is now accepted as a fact in the mind of the world's most powerful person.
From the Daily Californian:
Three swastikas have been found drawn on hallway walls of residence halls at the Clark Kerr Campus since Wednesday evening, alarming administrators but provoking little visible reaction from students.

The first swastika--measuring 6 by 6 inches--was drawn in pen on a wall in Building 2 between 5:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night, while the second and third--each measuring about 3 by 3 inches--were drawn in Building 3 between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m. Saturday morning, according to Marty Takimoto, spokesperson for Residential and Student Service Programs. All the drawings have since been painted over.

Though campus officials have condemned the drawings, classifying them as "hate incidents," the drawings have elicited little student response.

No students attended a community meeting hosted Thursday evening to open a dialogue about the incident, according to Takimoto.

The reason that there was little student response may be because, as one student wrote in response:
I was absolutely disturbed when I heard that a swastika was found in a residence hall Wednesday night. I wanted to notify other people...but a news report never came out from ANYONE to substantiate these events until now. I was hesitant in telling others because I had heard about the swastika through multiple people, but no one who directly witnessed it.

Had I known there was going to be a meeting to discuss the swastikas, I definitely would have been there and I'm sure my Jewish friends would have been there too. Unfortunately, the university wants to brush this under the rug like other anti-Semitic actions on campus.
In other words, the university never confirmed that the incident happened, it didn't seem to publicize the community meeting about it, and now it seems to use that as evidence that it was no big deal!

Meanwhile, only a couple of days earlier, in nearby Oakland:

Within the span of a few days, windows were shattered at two Jewish food establishments in Oakland’s Grand Lake district.

Police are investigating the broken windows — one at Holy Land Restaurant reported on April 16, the other at Grand Bakery two days later — as vandalism, according to Lt. Kenneth Parris, the Jewish community liaison officer with the Oakland Police Department. As of press time April 21, there were no leads and no one had claimed responsibility for the acts, Parris said.

He added that there was no immediate evidence indicating the vandalism was motivated by hate. Yet given its timing, there is some cause for concern, he said.

“Because of the proximity of Yom Ha’Atzmaut [Israel Independence Day], and the fact that Adolf Hitler’s birthday and Israeli Independence Day came together this year, I am concerned about the potential that it might be anti-Semitic activity,” Parris said. “Two of the three Jewish businesses in the Grand Lake area were hit, and there were no reports of anybody else having this experience.”


  • Sunday, April 25, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
I mentioned earlier today that Israel quickly acceded to a Hamas minister's request to help save his daughter's life.

The BBC tries mightily to spin it negatively towards Israel. Here is its background material for the story:
Israel imposed a blockade on the coastal enclave when it came under control of the Islamist Hamas in 2007.

Its 1.5m inhabitants are rarely allowed to leave.

The UN and a number of international humanitarian groups warned in January that the blockade was putting residents' health at risk.
The last sentence is seemingly meant to imply that the girl's illness - the nature of which has not been publicized - is Israel's fault!

Now, why wouldn't the BBC have written these facts as background information?

- Israel regularly allows Gazans to be treated at Israeli hospitals.
- In 2009, Israel allowed over 10,000 Gazans to come to Israel for medical purposes.
- Another 10,000 Gazans exited the Strip for other reasons.
- An Israeli medical clinic that was built specifically for Gazans injured in Operation Cast Lead was closed down when Hamas refused to allow any residents to get treated there.
- Hamas has methodically taken over all the medical associations in Gaza since seizing power, replacing doctors if their political views weren't deemed to be pro-Hamas enough.
- Hamas has used Gaza hospitals and ambulances to transport and protect its own militants

It seems that the BBC has a narrative about Gaza and it will only mention the facts that it deems relevant to pushing that narrative. It just so happens that this narrative has nothing bad to say about Hamas and everything bad to say about Israel.

(h/t "Guest")
  • Sunday, April 25, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Islamic Jihad has published images showing its "mujahadeen," as it often does through Palestine Today.

Some of them show how they use tunnels to hide and to move from place to place:



  • Sunday, April 25, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
10million.org, an Austrian-based organization that offers a $10 million award to anyone who provides accurate information leading to the freeing of Israeli prisoners, placed an ad in the Arabic Reuters news service web page asking for information on the whereabouts of Gilad Shalit.

This greatly upset Hamas, which blamed Reuters for being "pro-Israel" and says that the wire service loses credibility by publishing such an ad.

Hamas also announced that the ad undermines their "national" security, and since Reuters is based in Britain, it proves that the British are Zionist and have been since the Balfour Declaration.

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