This week, leading Gaza-Hamas activist Salah al-Bardawil told The Guardian newspaper that in the event of a war between Iran and Israel, Hamas would not back Teheran. Hamas Foreign Minister in Gaza Mahmoud Zahar later appeared to refute Bardawil’s stance, saying that Hamas would respond “with utmost power” to any “Zionist war on Iran.”
These statements reflect confusion and divisions in the main Palestinian-Islamist movement. The confusion derives from the variety of options which the Arab upheavals of 2011 have placed before Hamas.
Two photos tweeted in the past 24 hours, both allegedly depicting the results of Israeli air strikes in Gaza in recent days, have been proven false.
1. The photo first tweeted by Khulood Badawi (@KhuloodBadawi) and later by Diana Alzeer (@ManaraRam), allegedly depicting a Palestinian girl killed by an Israeli air strike yesterday, was proven to have originated in 2006 and to have had nothing at all to do with Israeli action. This photo is now the top tweet for #Gaza, with over 300 retweets. It is completely false. …
Further research revealed that the photo was taken in 2006 by Reuters, and that the girl, initially thought to have been killed in an Israeli air strike, was injured by falling off a swing. When confronted with this information, Alzeer stated that the photo was taken last night and forwarded to the press that day. …
In fact, the photo was taken by Reuters on August 9, 2006. It was originally released with an incorrect caption, and then corrected a day later…
… Call on the UN to take the appropriate action by contacting the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs through its Contact page - http://www.unocha.org/contact …
The Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) event last night at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario was the worst hate crime and incitement to violence I have witnessed in my years of observing IAW events. This episode was nothing more than pandering to a crowd of 200 loyal “sponsors” and “supporters,” including Independent Jewish Voices, whom mocked civilized values by bringing in a Jewish speaker urging for the elimination of the Jewish State. I am pleased to report that The Never Again Group (NAG) has the evidence on digital audio (click here and here for more). Miko Peled, who spoke at the IAW event, is an anti-Israeli hatemonger who ripped history asunder and provided his own version with Israel the worst villain on the face of the earth. He openly advocated hate against those he terms “Zionists.” Peled said that supporters of Israel would in the end be begging for forgiveness on their knees in front of a “tribunal,” evoking the memory of the Nuremberg trials. He used the platform to slander Israel.
Is there going to be a “third intifada?” I have no idea. That is a question most likely to be determined by those who set Palestinian strategy and they will surely differ among themselves. What interests me is the question of what factors would determine their choice.
When this issue is discussed publicly it is attributed almost entirely to the idea that frustration will motivate revolt. This is certainly the point made by Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders. The argument is that unless they get their way diplomatically violence will be the logical outcome.
In light of Israel Apartheid Week, which hit cities and campuses throughout the world recently, supporters of the Jewish state find it difficult to agree on the best response to this hate fest. Some suggest emphasizing Israel’s peacemaking efforts, others propose rebranding the country by highlighting its numerous achievements and success stories. Still others advocate reminding the world of “what Zionism is – a movement of Jewish national liberation – and what it isn’t – racist.” Each of these approaches has its merits yet none will do the trick.
… “The heckling [of civilized pro-Israel advocates] continued unabated for the next 15 minutes. The speaker did his best to continue, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying…”
The police standing by did nothing to intervene and stated, “we have been instructed by our supervisor not to stop hecklers, and if you try to stop the hecklers, we have been instructed to close down the program.” …
An Israeli tries to speak at an American university, and he is not civilly accorded time to talk; rather, he is shouted down with grotesque slander: “How many women have you raped? How many children have you raped? You are a child molester.” He was invited to the university under legitimate auspices. What do university police do to ensure his right to speak? Nothing; they protect the disruptors, not the disrupted.
“We were just following orders.” Sound familiar? At the end of WWII, scores of German Nazi civilians and soldiers tried to hide their murderous guilt and stay out of trouble by using this refrain, often accompanied by, “nicht Nazi!” (I’m not a Nazi!). Often, they were standing next to piles of Jewish bodies while they cowardly prevaricated. I know. My dad was there. He didn’t make this up. Similarly, UC-Davis police were “just following [the] orders” of the school’s administrators. If the administrators support the “hecklers” who won’t even consider dialog with Israelis, how could they be interested in peace? Sounds like fascism to me.
These “administrators” believe that disrupting anything pro-Israel — squelching free speech — is fine despite academia’s claim to open debate. Don’t believe me? Watch the video below from patch.com. Here’s the usual rule by the Arab/Muslim/leftist thug/mob, who exercise control because weak, cowardly Westerners are afraid to stand up to them:
We are into the eighth year of a propaganda exercise bent on the extermination of Jews that is known as Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). Art, politics, lectures, photography, and writing are all being used in ways that mimic the programs that went into the propaganda campaign of the Third Reich to justify the Holocaust. The Holocaust was hastened by the hateful, dehumanizing propaganda which led to the most horrific crime against humanity of all time.
“Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people.
All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed.
The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses.
The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning.”
The new Middle East strategic battle is heating up and this is only the start. It has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with two more serious lines of battle: Arabs versus Persians and Sunni versus Shia Muslims.
The Arab-Israeli or Israel-Palestinian dispute is increasingly unimportant, despite the hatred of increasingly powerful Islamist forces for Israel. The real struggle is over who will control each Muslim majority country and who is going to lead the Middle East. Both issues have almost nothing to do with Israel. At the same time, Israel has virtually no role to play in these struggles, except to ensure that Hamas doesn’t take over the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority.
Richard Falk, Princeton University professor emeritus of international law and United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, is well-known for his hostility towards Israel. Indeed, this antagonism, and his high-profile involvement in any number of anti-Israel organizations, led to his expulsion from the country in 2008.
A recent lecture at Stanford Law School entitled, “Imagining Israeli-Palestinian Peace: Why International Law Matters,” provided a platform for more of the same vitriol. Approximately 100 people attended, about evenly split between students and local residents. One of the latter, when asking a question, described himself as an “activist” and an elderly couple sporting keffiyehs and political buttons sat in the front row, nodding enthusiastically in agreement throughout the lecture.
Aish.com has produced another great video which is, “a musical satire about the real obstacle to peace in the Middle East.” The real obstacle: The twisted Arab/Muslim World and mindset — teaching children to hate Jews, using Jews as a scapegoat for all problems, and an ultimate quest to annihilate Israel. Watch, enjoy, or just cry:
Norman Finkelstein, a frequent critic of Israel and supporter of Palestinian terrorists, has gone on camera to actually admit what civilized people have known all along: The collection of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) groups agitating against Israel are “disingenuous” — a “cult” determined to “eliminate Israel.” I’d use stronger terms: They are neo-Nazi, anti-Israel, genocidal bigots, but let’s let ol’ Norm speak for himself, from HonestReporting:
Of all the issues that drive the Arab-Israeli conflict, none is more central, malign, primal, enduring, emotional, and complex than the status of those persons known as Palestine refugees.
The origins of this unique case, notes Nitza Nachmias of Tel Aviv University, goes back to Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Security Council’s mediator. Referring to those Arabs who fled the British mandate of Palestine, he argued in 1948 that the UN had a “responsibility for their relief” because it was a UN decision, the establishment of Israel, that had made them refugees. However inaccurate his view, it still remains alive and potent and helps explain why the UN devotes unique attention to Palestine refugees pending their own state.
When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, they promptly demolished the Aztec capital (Tenochtitlan) and built a cathedral on top of the natives’ great and most important twin temples — the city center. Did the desecration/destruction of Tenochtitlan and slaughter of the Aztec people legitimize the Spanish conquest of the great Valley of Mexico? Of course not. The Spanish were greedy, murderous thugs. Similarly, Arabs invaded and destroyed Jerusalem in 691 A.D. and built their al-Aqsa mosque on top of the indigenous Jews’ most holy place. So yippee for the Arabs?
So now we find that Muslim Arabs point their fannies at the “sacred(?)” al-Aqsa Mosque during their daily prayers. That’s a strange way for showing reverence for the “third most important” Muslim shrine. It’s plain silly. Watch for yourself:
In 2005, Saudi prince Alwaleed Bin Talal donated $20 million dollars each to Harvard and Georgetown Universities. In the years since, Georgetown has earned considerably more press for its use of the prince’s largesse, through which it renamed an extant center founded in 1993 as the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). This is due in no small part to the efforts of the center’s director, John Louis Esposito, America’s foremost apologist for ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam. The result of the Saudi-Esposito lash-up has been the emergence of ACMCU as an academic institution that promotes vigorously the “Palestinian narrative” and hostility to Israel.
Between 1967 and 1993, just a few hundred Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza won the right to live in Israel by marrying Israeli Arabs (who constitute nearly one-fifth of Israel’s population) and acquiring Israeli citizenship. Then the Oslo Accords offered a little-noted family-reunification provision that turned this trickle into a river: 137,000 residents of the Palestinian Authority (PA) moved to Israel in 1994-2002, some of them engaged in either sham or polygamous marriages.
Israel has two major reasons to fear this uncontrolled immigration. First, it presents a security danger. Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet security service, noted in 2005 that of 225 Israeli Arabs involved in terror against Israel, 25 of them, or 11 percent, had legally entered Israel through the family unification provision. They went on to kill 19 Israelis and wound 83; most notoriously, Shadi Tubasi suicide-bombed Haifa’s Matza Restaurant in 2002 on behalf of Hamas, killing 15.
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