Sunday, June 03, 2012

  • Sunday, June 03, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Empire State Building was lit up in blue and white this weekend in honor of Israel's Independence Day in New York:
 Photo from the Empire State Building's Facebook page
The Empire State Building in New York will form the focal point of Manhattan’s Israel independence celebrations from June 1-3 when it will be lit up in blue and white in honour of the Israeli flag.

The New York landmark will also mark the route of the largest ever parade to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the Jewish State on Sunday, on Fifth Avenue.

More than 200 groups from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Israel will take part in the event - which is organised by the The Community Relations Council of New York, in conjunction with the City of New York, the Israeli Consulate in New York and Israel’s Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs – with 35,000 anticipated participants and 29 floats. Hundreds of thousands of New York City spectators are expected to follow the event in the city’s streets.

The Israel parade will be televised live in the New York metropolitan area for the second consecutive year.
There has been a bit of controversy over the fact that some left-wing groups that advocate boycotting Israeli goods are being allowed to march in the parade. I think it is appropriate to heckle them as they pass by; but I strongly disagree that the parade itself should be boycotted because people disagree with a tiny minority of those marching. It is far more important to show up and express support for Israel.

UPDATE: The anti-Israel site What Really Happened links to this, with the moderator asking "When was the last time Israel lit up their buildings in red, white, and blue?"

The idea that Israel doesn't appreciate America is laughable. There is an entire park in Jerusalem called Liberty Bell Park.

But to the specific question, does this count?


  • Sunday, June 03, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From MEMRI:



The Syrian newsman's logic afterwards - that lies must continue to be broadcast - is truly classic. As if Syria allows the opposition to broadcast their alleged "lies."

Meanwhile, the Arab League asked Arab satellite channels to discontinue broadcasting Syrian news channels, exactly because of the many provable official Syrian lies.

Predictably, Syrian officials are incensed, claiming that not only is this unacceptable "violation of media ethics," but that this is a form of - wait for it - "terrorism."

  • Sunday, June 03, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
What happens when the BDS brownshirts come to town
Why BDS Scars Don't Heal A StandWithUs Production

Richard Beinart and Peter Goldstone – Part I
Into The Fray: Peter Beinart has placed himself in precisely the same category as Richard Goldstone. He should be treated in precisely the same manner.
“In Beinart’s account, one is given the clear impression that the evictees were the helpless victims of some callous, arbitrary act perpetrated by a heartless regime, driven by a discriminatory Judeocentric dogma. Nowhere could the reader get a sense that the reason for the eviction was the tenants’ refusal to pay rent; that their removal from the Jewish-owned property was the culmination of a legal battle that extended over three decades and was backed by a verdict of the Supreme Court, an institution invariably depicted as a jealous custodian of the liberal-democratic values Beinart claims are so dear to his heart.”

Tel Aviv launches nonstop gay pride week parties

PHOTOS: NYC Mural Highlights Israel’s And Neighboring Nations’ Gay-Rights Records

Canada quits UN agency over Mugabe appointment

Turkish pianist charged with insulting Islam

64 Years of the Israel Defense Forces

Saturday, June 02, 2012

  • Saturday, June 02, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Guy Bechor wrote a very powerful op-ed last week about the looming crisis of African migrants to Israel:
When we published an article in 2007 about the nightmare facing Israel from Africa, many were shocked. Today, this vision has become a reality (Then, 400 infiltrators stole over the border from Africa each month; currently, about 4,000 come here illegally every month).

I realize today that I too was naive back then, when I wrote the article. I did not see the depth of the picture unfolding before us. Then I thought that the primarily reason for the infiltration was to improve the lives of the Africans who came here, as it is with the migration from Mexico to the United States, but now it appears that the image is unique to Israel.

The truth is that millions of Africans would like to immigrate to Israel to improve their lives, but it turns out that in Israel there are those who want to exploit this to change our country’s demographic balance. After they failed to let in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into this country, these people now expect a migration of hundreds of thousands of Muslims from Africa to Israel. It’s not a war on immigration that lies ahead of us, but a war over the continuation of the Jewish majority in Israel.

A number of associations, NGOs and others have encouraged this African immigration to Israel. They begin by directing the emigration from the countries of origin, preserving it, preventing it from running into obstacles in the Sinai Peninsula, and providing it with a warm home in Israel. They have spread and continue to spread the rumor in Africa that Israel is a paradise, and that it can be reached by foot.

These are not migrant workers who stand before us, and not refugees, but a majority of African Muslims who come here to settle, and never leave.

...
And what is the plan hatched in secret by those organizations of “human rights?” When the numbers reach a quarter of a million or half a million, and we’re getting there fast, the organizations will turn to the High Court of Justice and to the United Nations, demanding that Israel grant residency to these “immigrants” and even citizenship, as is customary in the West.

With that, the percentage of Muslims in Israel will jump immediately to between 30% and 35%, with all the demographic implications that you can imagine.

Being residents, then citizens, the Africans will naturally be able to bring their family members, and the numbers will double. For those who did not want the Jews in Uganda, Uganda will now come to Israel. Being a small country, these processes will occur very fast, faster than in Europe.

Now we understand that the Muslim infiltrators from Africa (the migrants from Sudan are all Muslim, and most of the Eritrean migrants are, too) are not weak, but rather their Israeli absorbers. They are not the ones being threatened, because they are not war refugees, but rather Israel is being threatened.

The “human rights” organizations have easy access to the media, and they do not hide their desire to see Israel as a state of all citizens and no longer a Jewish or Zionist state, and from this perspective, the Muslim migrants from Africa suit their cause very well. These organizations bear direct responsibility for the new plague that has befallen Israel. They direct the migration, organize it, preserve it from the authorities, help the migrants get permits and papers, empower them, teach them how to stand up to the authorities, how to conduct demonstrations that will touch the sensitive nerves of the Israelis, and even made them a newspaper, in African languages, which is funded by the UN.
I am always reluctant to post a charge like this, that NGOs are encouraging this migration, but some proof comes from a monograph recently put out by the UNHCR:

[O]ne NGO worker argued that civil society organisations advocate a perception of 'universalistic citizenship‘, where everyone should have rights. "They do not see the nationality issue as relevant, but publicly, it is not stated. In today‘s public atmosphere, we will not say it out loud because it does not serve the struggle and the strategy." As the same NGO worker argued: "the central issue here is [one that addresses] the nature of Israeli civil society, the struggle is about the character of Israel as a state, and the refugees are not really sharing this struggle, they are rather disempowered by it".

Rotter.net also translates an interview with one of the Sudanese migrants who names the left-wing Israelis associated with the New Israel Fund that helped him come into the country.

It is not the spontaneous flight of refugees from Africa that the media is implying.

(h/t Ruchie)
  • Saturday, June 02, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Pravda, in an article defending Assad against those evil Westerners:

The U.N.'s human rights office said that most of the 108 victims of a massacre in Syria last week were shot at close range, some of them women, children and entire families gunned down in their own homes, and that most of the dead were killed execution-style, with fewer than 20 people cut down by regime shelling.

This incident is exactly according to the modus operandi of NATO/FUKUS sponsored terrorists, operating around the globe, and most recently in Libya and Syria.
I've heard of NATO, but what the hell is FUKUS?

Ah, apparently I don't read Pravda enough. It was defined a couple of months ago, by a different Pravda writer:
For a start how can the world act with one single voice after what the FUKUS Axis (France, UK US and Israel) did in Libya and after the mission creep their no-fly zone warped into?
Of course Israel is part of FUKUS - we all know how heavily involved the IDF was in Libya and now is in Syria - but it must be an invisible and silent I, just like Israel is. "FUKUSI" doesn't quite have the same effect, sounding somewhat Japanese.

And IFUKUS sounds anatomically difficult.

The Soviet Union might be gone, but we still have Pravda!

Friday, June 01, 2012


Classic science fiction, with a Jewish twist:

The Golem
by Avram Davidson
The grey-faced person came along the street where old Mr. and Mrs. Gumbeiner lived. It was afternoon, it was autumn, the sun was warm and soothing to their ancient bones. Anyone who attended the movies in the twenties or the early thirties has seen that street a thousand times. Past these bungalows with their half-double roofs Edmund Lowe walked arm-in-arm with Leatrice Joy and Harold Lloyd was chased by Chinamen waving hatchets. Under these squamous palm trees Laurel kicked Hardy and Woolsey beat Wheeler upon the head with a codfish. Across these pocket-handkerchief-sized lawns the juveniles of the Our Gang comedies pursued one another and were pursued by angry fat men in golf knickers. On this same street—or perhaps on some other one of five hundred streets exactly like it.
Mrs. Gumbeiner indicated the grey-faced person to her husband.
"You think maybe he's got something the matter?" she asked. "He walks kind of funny, to me."
"Walks like a golem,," Mr. Gumbeiner said indifferently.
The old woman was nettled.
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "think he walks like your cousin Mendel."
The old man pursed his mouth angrily and chewed on his pipestem. The grey-faced person turned up the concrete path, walked up the steps to the porch, sat down in a chair. Old Mr. Gumbeiner ignored him. His wife stared at the stranger.
"Man comes in without a hello, goodbye, or howareyou, sits himself down, and right away he's at home … The chair is comfortable?" she asked. "Would you like maybe a glass of tea?"
She turned to her husband.
"Say something, Gumbeiner!" she demanded. "What are you, made of wood?"
The old man smiled a slow, wicked, triumphant smile.
"Why should say anything?" he asked the air. "Who am I? Nothing, that's who."
The stranger spoke. His voice was harsh and monotonous.
"When you learn who—or, rather, what—I am, the flesh will melt from your bones in terror." He bared porcelain teeth.
"Never mind about my bones!" the old woman cried. "You've got a lot of nerve talking about my bones!"
"You will quake with fear," said the stranger. Old Mrs. Gumbeiner said that she hoped he would live so long. She turned to her husband once again.
"Gumbeiner, when are you going to mow the lawn?"
"All mankind—" the stranger began.
"Shah! I'm talking to my husband … He talks eppis kind of funny, Gumbeiner, no?"
"Probably a foreigner," Mr. Gumbeiner said complacently.
"You think so?" Mrs. Gumbeiner glanced fleetingly at the stranger. "He's got a very bad color in his face,nebbich, I suppose he came to California for his health."
"Disease, pain, sorrow, love, grief—all are nought to—"
Mr. Gumbeiner cut in on the stranger's statement.
"Gall bladder," the old man said. "Guinzburg down at the shule looked exactly the same before his operation. Two professors they had in for him, and a private nurse day and night."
"I am not a human being!" the stranger said loudly.
"Three thousand seven hundred fifty dollars it cost his son, Guinzburg told me. 'For you, Poppa, nothing is too expensive—only get well,' the son told him."
"I am not a human being!"
"Ai, is that a son for you!" the old woman said, rocking her head. "A heart of gold, pure gold." She looked at the stranger. "All right, all right, I heard you the first time. Gumbeiner! I asked you a question. When are you going to cut the lawn?"
"On Wednesday, odder maybe Thursday, comes the Japaneser to the neighborhood. To cut lawns is his profession. My profession is to be a glazier—retired."
"Between me and all mankind is an inevitable hatred," the stranger said. "When I tell you what I am, the flesh will melt—"
"You said, you said already," Mr. Gumbeiner interrupted.
"In Chicago where the winters were as cold and bitter as the Czar of Russia's heart," the old woman intoned, "you had strength to carry the frames with the glass together day in and day out. But in California with the golden sun to mow the lawn when your wife asks, for this you have no strength. Do I call in the Japaneser to cook for you supper?"
"Thirty years Professor Allardyce spent perfecting his theories. Electronics, neuronics—"
"Listen, how educated he talks," Mr. Gumbeiner said admiringly. "Maybe he goes to the University here?"
"If he goes to the University, maybe he knows Bud?" his wife suggested.
"Probably they're in the same class and he came to see him about the homework, no?"
"Certainly he must be in the same class. How many classes are there? Five in ganzen: Bud showed me on his program card." She counted off on her fingers. "Television Appreciation and Criticism, Small Boat Building, Social Adjustment, The American Dance … The American Dance—nu, Gumbeiner—"
"Contemporary Ceramics," her husband said, relishing the syllables. "A fine boy, Bud. A pleasure to have him for a boarder."
"After thirty years spent in these studies," the stranger, who had continued to speak unnoticed, went on,
"he turned from the theoretical to the pragmatic. In ten years' time he had made the most titanic discovery in history: he made mankind, all mankind, superfluous; he made me."
"What did Tillie write in her last letter?" asked the old man.
The old woman shrugged.
"What should she write? The same thing. Sidney was home from the Army, Naomi has a new boyfriend—"
"He made ME!"
"Listen, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is," the old woman said, "maybe where you came from is different, but in this country you don't interrupt people while they're talking … Hey. Listen—what do you mean, he made you? What kind of talk is that?"
The stranger bared all his teeth again, exposing the too-pink gums.
"In his library, to which I had a more complete access after his sudden and as yet undiscovered death from entirely natural causes, I found a complete collection of stories about androids, from Shelley's Frankenstein through Capek's R.U.R. to Asimov's—"
"Frankenstein?" said the old man with interest. "There used to be a Frankenstein who had the soda- wasser place on Halstead Street—a Litvack, nebbich."
"What are you talking?" Mrs. Gumbeiner demanded. "His name was Frankenthal, and it wasn't on Halstead, it was on Roosevelt."
"—clearly shown that all mankind has an instinctive antipathy towards androids and there will be an inevitable struggle between them—"
"Of course, of course!" Old Mr. Gumbeiner clicked his teeth against his pipe. "I am always wrong, you are always right. How could you stand to be married to such a stupid person all this time?"
"I don't know," the old woman said. "Sometimes I wonder, myself. I think it must be his good looks." She began to laugh. Old Mr. Gumbeiner blinked, then began to smile, then took his wife's hand.
"Foolish old woman," the stranger said. "Why do you laugh? Do you not know I have come to destroy you?"
"What?" old Mr. Gumbeiner shouted. "Close your mouth, you!" He darted from his chair and struck the stranger with the flat of his hand. The stranger's head struck against the porch pillar and bounced back.
"When you talk to my wife, talk respectable, you hear?"
Old Mrs. Gumbeiner, cheeks very pink, pushed her husband back to his chair. Then she leaned forward and examined the stranger's head. She clicked her tongue as she pulled aside a flap of grey, skinlike material.
"Gumbeiner, look! He's all springs and wires inside!"
"I told you he was a golem, but no, you wouldn't listen," the old man said. "You said he walked like a golem."
"How could he walk like a golem unless he was one?"
"All right, all right … You broke him, so now fix him."
"My grandfather, his light shines from Paradise, told me that when MoHaRal—Moreynu Ha-Rav Löw—his memory for a blessing, made the golem in Prague, three hundred? four hundred years ago? he wrote on his forehead the Holy Name."
Smiling reminiscently, the old woman continued, "And the golem cut the rabbi's wood and brought his water and guarded the ghetto."
"And one time only he disobeyed the Rabbi Löw, and Rabbi Löw erased the Shem Ha-Mephorashfrom the golem's forehead and the golem fell down like a dead one. And they put him up in the attic of the shule, and he's still there today if the Communisten haven't sent him to Moscow … This is not just a story," he said.
"Avadda not!" said the old woman.
"I myself have seen both the shule and the rabbi's grave," her husband said conclusively.
"But I think this must be a different kind of golem, Gumbeiner. See, on his forehead; nothing written."
"What's the matter, there's a law I can't write something there? Where is that lump of clay Bud brought us from his class?"
The old man washed his hands, adjusted his little black skull-cap, and slowly and carefully wrote four Hebrew letters on the grey forehead.
"Ezra the Scribe himself couldn't do better," the old woman said admiringly. "Nothing happens," she observed, looking at the lifeless figure sprawled in the chair.
"Well, after all, am I Rabbi Löw?" her husband asked deprecatingly. "No," he answered. He leaned over and examined the exposed mechanism. "This spring goes here … this wire comes with this one …" The figure moved. "But this one goes where? And this one?"
"Let be," said his wife. The figure sat up slowly and rolled its eyes loosely.
"Listen, Reb Golem," the old man said, wagging his finger. "Pay attention to what I say—you understand?"
"Understand …"
"If you want to stay here, you got to do like Mr. Gumbeiner says."
"Do-like-Mr.-Gumbeiner-says …"
"That's the way I like to hear a golem talk. Malka, give here the mirror from the pocketbook. Look, you see your face? You see the forehead, what's written? If you don't do like Mr. Gumbeiner says, he'll wipe out what's written and you'll be no more alive."
"No-more-alive …"
"That's right. Now, listen. Under the porch you'll find a lawnmower. Take it. And cut the lawn. Then come back. Go."
"Go …" The figure shambled down the stairs. Presently the sound of the lawnmower whirred through the quiet air in the street just like the street where Jackie Cooper shed huge tears on Wallace Beery's shirt and Chester Conklin rolled his eyes at Marie Dressler.
"So what will you write to Tillie?" old Mr. Gumbeiner asked.
"What should I write?" old Mrs. Gumbeiner shrugged. "I'll write that the weather is lovely out here and that we are both, Blessed be the Name, in good health."
The old man nodded his head slowly, and they sat together on the front porch in the warm afternoon sun.
The End


  • Friday, June 01, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ian:


Caroline Glick
The reign of the fantasists
“Rather than accept this fundamental, but unpleasant truth, Obama and his advisors base their policy of engaging Iran on fairy tales about nonexistent fatwas that purportedly ruled out the development of nuclear weapons. As Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon put it delicately this week, the Iranians are "laughing all the way to a bomb."

Reactions to Ehud Baraks unilateral withdrawal proposal:
Israeli unilateral withdrawal from West Bank will perpetuate Mideast conflict, Palestinian official says
So it's not about occupation?

Clinton agrees
Clinton rejects Barak's unilateral withdrawal
“WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday rejected the notion of unilateral Israeli steps toward separating from the Palestinians.”

Dennis Ross: Saudi king vowed to obtain nuclear bomb after Iran
Funny how Israel’s suspected bomb never provoked such a response.

Egypt prevents aid convoy to Gaza (Iran's ABNA)
“European activists have condemned the Egyptian rejection to implement the obtained regulatory approvals in order to reach the Gaza Strip through the Sinai Peninsula.”

Turks protest the slaughter in Syria – as if
Thousands of Turks rally on anniversary of flotilla

Israel’s creation worst catastrophe to hit world'
“Head of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Badie reminds followers of movement’s “sacrifices” in efforts to destroy the Jewish state.”

Taliban vows to cut Pakistan's bin Laden doctor 'into pieces'
Aren’t leftists always saying the Taliban is separate from Al Qaeda?



Also check out:

My Right Word's article on Madonna in Israel


Challah Hu Akbar on Fatah/Hamas continuing to arrest each other

Israellycool on Israel's latest occupation

Honest Reporting's slideshow about media objectivity


  • Friday, June 01, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Last week's Latma got under the skin of the head of Peace Now:
Yariv Oppenheimer, who heads the ultra-leftist Peace Now group, is angry about a satirical imitation of him, in the form of a character named "Yariv Googleheimer" on the Latma website.

While Googleheimer is a regular on Latma's weekly Tribal Update shows, it seems a particularly strong satire in the latest Update caused Oppenheimer to lose his cool.

The skit is a version of a number from the 1960s musical Kazablan. The original version of the song – "We are All Jews" – celebrates Israelis' solidarity with each other despite the differences between the ingathered communities.

The takeoff is named "Jews united against Israel" and notes the disproportionate representation of Jews among Israel's worst rivals. It bitterly portrays George Soros, Naomi Chazan, Thomas Friedman and a list of other Jewish leftists as competing with each other over the right to castigate Israel on the international scene.

"In this way, systematically and cunningly, the right is attempting to portray whoever does not think like they do as anti-Israeli, as a traitor, as an enemy within," Oppenheimer wrote on his Facebook page. He said he was being similarly demonized by grassroots groups Im Tirtzu and Yisrael Sheli, the Yesha Council, and "Kahane's people."

Here's this week's episode:

  • Friday, June 01, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From TheJC:
The Scottish Church will no longer consider the Israeli perspective when campaigning on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its General Assembly has voted.

Delegates in Edinburgh at the annual conference of Scotland’s largest church, which has over 450,000 members, overwhelmingly voted against a motion to “ensure a proper balance between the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives” at a session on Gaza.

It followed the adoption of a special report and vote instructing the church to lobby the British government to “end the inhumane blockade of Gaza and related violence”. The report suggested the church may stop support for a two-state solution, but also condemned rocket attacks on Israel.

When urged by a delegate to reverse the one-sided approach at last Monday’s assembly meeting of the Church and Society Council, convenor Rev Ian Galloway said: “There could never be a truly balanced view between Israel and Palestine”.

The vote means future reports and resource material produced by the church for its members would not present an Israeli narrative.

A Church of Scotland spokesperson said: “After debate the Assembly agreed overwhelmingly that the [Gaza] report was balanced as it stood. The thrust of the report was not to inform commissioners or congregations about the political explanations of either side but to report on the experiences shared by people living and working in Gaza.”
It did not take long in looking a this "balanced" report to immediately see two examples that show how it deliberately twists facts.

The first comes from the first paragraph:
The Council’s report to the 2008 General Assembly detailed the deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip, quoting a report from Ha’aretz of 19/12/07. “Gaza”, it said, “is surrounded and starved.”
If you look at the actual Ha'aretz article, it is not a "report" but a typical anti-Zionist op-ed and its characterization of Gaza as "starving" is not factual but hyperbole. (After watching reports out of Gaza for nearly eight years now amid charges of "starvation" by people like Jimmy Carter, I have still not seen a single example of someone who starved to death. Even the media finally realized the lie of starvation and changed their memes on Gaza a couple of years ago, something the Church apparently hasn't caught up with.)

Another proof of deliberate bias comes from this:
Exports from Gaza are very limited. In the first two weeks of October 2011 no exports left Gaza whatsoever.
The reason? Because the harvest for Gaza exports begins in November! Given that this report was written after seven months of exports of tons of goods from Gaza, this is clearly a purposeful distortion of the situation. It simply doesn't bother to mention the 600 tons of strawberries, 250 tons of tomatoes, 50 tons of pepper and 10,000,000 flowers exported since then.

Because the truth is not what the Scottish Church wants to push - but a one-sided agenda.

At least they are now up front about it.

(h/t Ron)
  • Friday, June 01, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
David G has been doing this for a while and notes that this is the first month he's recorded that the NYT had not even a single pro-Israel op-ed.
New York Times Op-Ed Index For May 2012


A) Syria’s Threatened Minorities by Jonathan Randal - May 4, 2012


Then, that September in neighboring Lebanon, Maronite Christian militiamen, egged on by allies in Israel’s invading army, slaughtered hundreds of unarmed Palestinians in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. 

My usual rule is that in order to qualify for inclusion in the index, the op-ed has to be substantially about Israel. I will bend the rule this time. By charging that Israel "egged on" the Phalangists, Randal is rehashing the false (though, according to a jury, not libelous) charges Time Magazine made against Ariel Sharon. What happened, according to Daniel Pipes, didn't reflect well on the IDF - "...their culpability was in fact limited to giving the Phalangist militia access to Palestinian camps and then not intervening to stop them" - but it wasn't the same as encouraging the massacre.
It's also worth mentioning that, in the credits, it mentions that Randal's book is being republished by Just World Books. Just World Books is run by anti-Israel activist and terrorist cheerleader, Helena Cobban. Anti-Israel advocacy rather than accuracy is apparently emphasized.


Anti-Israel - 1 / Pro-Israel - 0


B) Power with Purpose - by Thomas Friedman - May 23, 2012
Whenever a nation or leader amasses this much power, with no checks coming from anywhere, the probability of misreading events grows exponentially. Bibi could be assuming that the Palestinians in the West Bank can be pacified simply with better economic conditions. Don’t count on it. Humiliation remains the single most powerful human emotion. It trumps economic well-being every time. Bibi could be assuming that the Palestinian security services will indefinitely act as Israel’s forward police force in the West Bank — absent any hopes of Palestinian statehood. Not likely — eventually they will be viewed as “traitors.” Bibi could be assuming that Israel could strike Iran — and upend the world economy — and still continue to build settlements in the West Bank. I would not bet on that; the global backlash could be severe. Bibi could be assuming that the West Bank Palestinian leadership will always be moderate, secular and pro-Western. If only ... 
Friedman here is arguing that unless Israel placates the Palestinians there will be violence. Aside from blaming Israel for Abbas's refusal to negotiate, Friedman is effectively saying that terror would understandable if not excusable, if the Palestinians don't achieve statehood.


Anti-Israel - 2 / Pro-Israel - 0 

C) Iranians Taking Solace in the Past - By Camelia Entekhabifard - May 22, 2012

Today, life in the Islamic Republic is more difficult than it has been since the eight-year war with Iraq. International economic sanctions, the harshest since the 1979 revolution, have squeezed the struggling middle class even further. Ordinary Iranians live in constant fear that Israel — one of Tehran’s strongest political allies before 1979 — may soon decide to bomb them. So many of the country’s best and brightest students have left Iran to study abroad, and are certainly not willing to come back. 
It's true that Israel is only mentioned twice in this op-ed. On the other hand, both times it is to make the point that the average Iranian fears Israel.


 Anti-Israel - 3 / Pro-Israel - 0


D) Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal - By Yousef Munayyer -  May 23, 2012 
Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport is on the outskirts of Lod (Lydda in Arabic), but because my wife has a Palestinian ID, she cannot fly there; she is relegated to flying to Amman, Jordan. If we plan a trip together — an enjoyable task for most couples — we must prepare for a logistical nightmare that reminds us of our profound inequality before the law at every turn. 
This is a very skilled piece of propaganda. Various disconnected facts are presented all attributed to a single cause. But much is left out. For example, why does Munayyer's wife have a Palestinian ID rather than a Jordanian one? The history, law and rules that keep the Munayyer's apart are varied. Munayyer suggests a single cause: Israeli prejudice. There are of course many real causes, such as the Arab refusal to accept Israel and terrorism that led to the situation he described. Honest Reporting noted that another recent article in the Australian had made similar charges and suggests that this might be a coordinated effort.


Munayyer is a contributor to Peter Beinart's Open Zion. This is a further indication that Beinart's goal is not to support Israel but to attack it.


Anti-Israel - 4 / Pro-Israel - 0


E) Going Directly to Israelis and Palestinians - Shlomo Ben-Ami, Thomas C. Schelling, Jerome M. Segal and Javier Solana - May 30, 2012
Once UNSCOP-2 successfully identifies a set of compromises that both peoples can support, perspectives may shift. Possibly, in response to a directive from the Security Council, both sides will accept the UNSCOP plan as the basis for resumed negotiations. If that is not possible, the Security Council will have to consider its next step. 
As much as I'd like to call this "anti-Israel" because of co-authors Jerome Segal (who is a pro-Palestinian activist) and Javier Solana, this is really just an unrealistic proposal that will never come about. Yes, it treats both sides equally, which is frustrating, but it isn't overtly anti-Israel. NEUTRAL. 


Final Tally: Anti-Israel - 4 / Pro-Israel - 0


Methodology: I searched the archives for the New York Times for op-eds and unsigned editorials from the New York Times from May 1 - 31, 2012. I did not include letters to the editor or articles that were not mainly about Israel or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - though this time I made one exception. The impetus for these exercises was a 2007 column, The Danger of one sided debate, in which the previous public editor, Clark Hoyt, justified giving a column to a Hamas spokesman, lest the paper's opinion section be too pro-Israel. As I've regularly found, there hasn't been any danger that Israel's views would be overrepresented in the opinion pages of the New York Times in recent years. I've been tracking the New York Times opinion pages and this is the first month in which I have not seen even one pro-Israel essay
  • Friday, June 01, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
Since it is the two year anniversary of the Mavi Marmara incident, it is reasonable to remind people:

IDF soldiers were shot on board the ship, and the IHH terrorists shot first. Bullet casings were found that did not match any IDF soldier weapons.

We have photos of some of the guns from one of the passengers' cameras:



And we also have testimony from the soldiers who were shot and who witnessed IHH members with guns.

So even if you want to forget the fact that IHH members prepared knives, iron bars and chains to mercilessly beat and stab soldiers as they rappelled down, remember that they were armed, too. They are in no way "peace activists."

I don't think that this will be mentioned in the Turkish media today as they continue to demonize Israel on this anniversary.

Here are my Mavi Marmara posters:







  • Friday, June 01, 2012
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the LA Times:
If your budget is too tight to actually stroll along the banks of the Seine or trek through Jerusalem, Google is now offering a virtual alternative -- digital tours of famous sites across the world.
The World Wonders Project uses the same Street View technology that allows people to virtually navigate their neighborhoods through Google Maps, but the cameras are focused on historic and treasured sites such as FlorenceStonehenge and ancient Kyoto instead. 
Although many of the images are gathered with cars that have a camera mounted on top, more difficult-to-reach spots, or publicly inaccessible sites, have been recorded on a pedestrian “trike” and other devices.
The U.N. cultural agency UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund are partnering with the company to provide information about the treasured spots. 
Here is how this project describes Jerusalem:
As a holy city for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Jerusalem has always been of great symbolic importance. Among its 220 historic monuments, the Dome of the Rock stands out: built in the 7th century, it is decorated with beautiful geometric and floral motifs. It is recognized by all three religions as the site of Abraham's sacrifice. The Wailing Wall delimits the quarters of the different religious communities, while the Resurrection rotunda in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre houses Christ's tomb.
The Kotel in the 1870s
This description was directly taken from UNESCO.

First of all, no Jew calls the Kotel the "Wailing Wall." That term was made up by Europeans in the 19th century, possibly as a translation from the Arabic "al-Makba," the "place of weeping." Using that term today shows, in its most charitable interpretation, gross ignorance.

Secondly, UNESCO doesn't even know what the Wall is. This description indicates that they think that the "Wailing Wall" is what separates the Jewish, Armenian, Christian and Muslim Quarters of Jerusalem. This description, not surprisingly, minimizes the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem, making it appear that it is derivative of Abraham's sacrifice - the Muslim motif of the Temple Mount - and that there was never a Jewish Temple there nor a Jewish nation centered there.

Other UNESCO documents are hardly better, and UNESCO still refers to the Kotel as "The Wailing Wall" even today.

But this is hardly surprising from an organization that once called Maimonides a Muslim and that refers to Rachel's Tomb by the completely modern, artificial name "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque." 

See also my UNESCO posters here, here and here.

(h/t Daled Amos)




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