Media Bias in Reporting on Terror Attacks in Israel

[ScottL]

I know I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here, and I'm glad for that. Things were not always good for pro-Israelis in this forum. And they still pretty much suck over the rest of the WWW, despite the obvious. Israel holds 100% of the moral highground in its neverending war with the Palestinians. Still, it's curiously fascinating how biased the world, even the US media is against Israel, and how far they go in a headline to alter the truth - SL

Media Bias in Reporting on Terror Attacks in Israel - Yair Lapid (Jewish News-UK)

• In the past two weeks terrorists have been chasing Israeli civilians across the country armed with knives, axes and guns. Jihadists are murdering and maiming, stabbing and burning. They no longer pretend this is about foreign policy, or even about settlements. It is religious fanaticism which knows no limits. In their own words, they want to murder Jews because they are Jews.
  
• Those in the media covering this wave of violence have created the impression that the victim is the aggressor, that the ones protecting themselves are the murderers, that Israel has no right to defend itself. Here are a few examples:
  • BBC headline - "Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two"
    The Palestinian who was shot wasn't a passerby; he was a terrorist who stabbed two Jews who walked past him.
  • CNN headline - "Joseph's Tomb Catches Fire"
    The tomb, a Jewish holy site under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction, didn't "catch fire." It was set on fire, it was arson.
  • Los Angeles Times headline - "4 Palestinian teens killed in Israeli violence"
    There is no mention that the four Palestinians were on a murder spree when they were killed.
  • NBC headline - "Man shot after rushing past police"
    The man tried to stab a police officer in the neck at Lion's Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.
• Before I was a politician I worked in the media for 31 years. I covered wars, international conflicts and countless clashes. I can say, with total responsibility, that this is an incomprehensible number of incorrect reports, misleading headlines, distortions of fact and total falsifications of the truth.
• It doesn't happen anywhere else in the world where democratic countries fight Islamic fundamentalism. When Israel isn't involved, the world understands that murderers can't wander free on the streets with guns and knives.
  

 

[festeringZit]

Keeps Jew-haters like Guesser happy...

 

[The Guesser]

Keeps Jew-haters like Guesser happy...

Go Fuck Yourself, you sick, Muslim hating, anti semitic Racist. No surprise you rail against a Jewish Bernie Sanders.

 

[ScottL]

Keeps Jew-haters like Guesser happy...

Too much of this Shit in here. A personal attack on Guesser is like, "Fuck your thread Scott!" Because you know where the thread heads after that.

To all: If you don't want to discuss the topic of a thread I start that's perfectly fine. Let it sink to page 2 and beyond. But don't use the threads I start to attack another poster. And keep your personal battles out of them as well. Thanks.

 

[Willie99]

I know I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here, and I'm glad for that. Things were not always good for pro-Israelis in this forum. And they still pretty much suck over the rest of the WWW, despite the obvious. Israel holds 100% of the moral highground in its neverending war with the Palestinians. Still, it's curiously fascinating how biased the world, even the US media is against Israel, and how far they go in a headline to alter the truth - SL

Media Bias in Reporting on Terror Attacks in Israel - Yair Lapid (Jewish News-UK)

• In the past two weeks terrorists have been chasing Israeli civilians across the country armed with knives, axes and guns. Jihadists are murdering and maiming, stabbing and burning. They no longer pretend this is about foreign policy, or even about settlements. It is religious fanaticism which knows no limits. In their own words, they want to murder Jews because they are Jews.
  
• Those in the media covering this wave of violence have created the impression that the victim is the aggressor, that the ones protecting themselves are the murderers, that Israel has no right to defend itself. Here are a few examples:
  • BBC headline - "Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two"
    The Palestinian who was shot wasn't a passerby; he was a terrorist who stabbed two Jews who walked past him.
  • CNN headline - "Joseph's Tomb Catches Fire"
    The tomb, a Jewish holy site under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction, didn't "catch fire." It was set on fire, it was arson.
  • Los Angeles Times headline - "4 Palestinian teens killed in Israeli violence"
    There is no mention that the four Palestinians were on a murder spree when they were killed.
  • NBC headline - "Man shot after rushing past police"
    The man tried to stab a police officer in the neck at Lion's Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.
• Before I was a politician I worked in the media for 31 years. I covered wars, international conflicts and countless clashes. I can say, with total responsibility, that this is an incomprehensible number of incorrect reports, misleading headlines, distortions of fact and total falsifications of the truth.
• It doesn't happen anywhere else in the world where democratic countries fight Islamic fundamentalism. When Israel isn't involved, the world understands that murderers can't wander free on the streets with guns and knives.
  

there's a reason they are one of the least respected professions on earth, they're liars and most of the world knows it deep down inside.

 

[ScottL]

[h=2]Monday, October 26, 2015[/h] [h=3]A Palestinian Pop Culture That Fuels Jew Hatred and Murder[/h]
...Withdrawals from territory or even concessions in Jerusalem won’t satisfy this blood lust any more than a withdrawal of every settler, soldier, and settlement from Gaza prevented it from being turned into a terrorist state run by Hamas. The reality of this culture of hate isn’t easy to accept for those who prefer to believe Abbas really is a man of peace and that a two-state solution is viable. But it remains the real obstacle to peace.

​

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
23 October '15..

The latest wave of Palestinian terrorism continues to take its toll of Israeli dead and injured this week with stabbings, shootings, fire bombings and attempts to run over Jewish pedestrians. That means millions of Jews in Jerusalem and the West Bank, not to mention cities throughout the country where attacks have occurred, remain on alert. But Israelis aren’t getting much sympathy these days no matter what the Palestinians do.

Though the violence is being driven by lies about mythical Jewish plans to destroy the Temple Mount mosques, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization voted this week to condemn Israeli “aggression” in Jerusalem while determining that various Jewish shrines throughout the country were solely Muslim. UNESCO gave official sanction to the blood libels fueling a new holy war as well as condemning Israel because so many of the terrorists attacking Jews were killed before they could stab or shoot more of them. Yet until now, relatively little attention has been given to the way Palestinian popular culture has embraced not so much a new wave of nationalism as a spirit of blood lust. But while a front-page article in today’s New York Times devoted to the topic was, in that sense, a breakthrough, it was perhaps to be expected that the only critical notes about this dismaying trend in the piece concerned the poor musical quality of the hit tunes extolling murder.

While the violent and hate-driven nature of Palestinian pop culture is not a surprise to anyone who follows the subject on essential websites that monitor the Muslim world like Memri.org and Palestine Media Watch, this is news to the readers of the Times, who are more accustomed to articles that paint Israeli society in the worst possible light. But the fact that the top hits of the day among Palestinians are titled “Stab, stab,” or “Run Over, Run Over the Settler,” ought to give even Americans who tend to idealize attacks on Israelis as a legitimate form of protest pause.

The article correctly points out that popular music is integral to spreading the message that killing random Jews with knives or by any other means is a laudable activity. Some of the artists tell the Times that their goal is only to get Palestinians to stand up for their rights. But it’s hard to see how pulling a knife and stabbing ordinary Israelis will do that. That’s especially true when you recall, as Times articles never do, that the Palestinian leadership has rejected several Israeli offers of statehood and independence that would have given them control over almost all of the West Bank, a share of Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Indeed, the focus on the mosques on the Temple Mount, a standard theme of Palestinian leaders dating back, as I noted earlier today, to Hitler’s Palestinian ally, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, is a reminder that the real issue for the Palestinians isn’t borders or settlements but the Jewish presence anywhere in the land. In their eyes, the “settler” that the song wants to run over can be a resident of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem as much as a Jew living in a West Bank settlement.

Nor is there any divide within Palestinian society between those urging peaceful protest and those cheering murder. As the Times points out, a Palestinian, who won the “Arab Idol” television song contest and was appointed a United Nations goodwill ambassador, released a new song this past week that specifically references stabbing incidents in Jerusalem and Afula. The common denominator that runs between these more sophisticated offerings and more crude efforts is the shedding of Jewish blood and willingness to glorify anyone who kills Jews as a hero whether it is a youngster with a knife or Hamas fighters launching rockets at Israeli cities.

The response to this lamentable situation from Israel’s critics is to blame the victims and to urge Israel to redouble its efforts to make peace and thus ally the anger that is driving this culture of hate. Yet prospects for such gestures are not bright. While Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has been one of the chief inciters of the violence, refuses to accept Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s offer of negotiations without preconditions, there have been some efforts to defuse tensions over the Temple Mount. Despite the lies Abbas has spread, Israel has pledged not to change the status quo at that holy site which keeps it under the culture of a Muslim Wakf and discriminates against Jews by forbidding non-Muslim prayer. But in order to calm the disturbances Abbas caused, the PA and Jordan are now demanding that the status quo be altered to make all visits to the holiest site in Judaism contingent on Muslim approval. In other words, their goal is to render the area Jew-free.

That same sentiment was reflected in the original text of the UNESCO resolution passed this week that treated the Western Wall as part of the Al Aqsa mosque and a Muslim place with no Jewish connection. While that offensive clause was eliminated, the final resolution passed by an overwhelming vote still omitted any reference to the fact that the Temple Mount or Jerusalem is linked to Jewish history and faith and declared shrines such as Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs to be similarly without a Jewish connection.

What has this to do with Palestinian popular songs? Plenty.

Both reflect a view of the conflict that has nothing to do with disputes about borders or settlements that we are constantly told is what is making the Palestinians so angry. In the eyes of those making claims on Jewish holy places at the United Nations as well as the composers of Palestinian snuff songs, or those taking up knives, guns, and firebombs to slaughter, the conflict is a zero-sum game. Their goal is the same as that of Palestinian nationalists in the time of the Mufti of Jerusalem: Reverse the history of the last century and end the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty over any part of the country. Just as Abbas won’t accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn, the people hearing his lies about the Temple Mount who go out to murder aren’t killing for the sake of a better border.

Withdrawals from territory or even concessions in Jerusalem won’t satisfy this blood lust any more than a withdrawal of every settler, soldier, and settlement from Gaza prevented it from being turned into a terrorist state run by Hamas. The reality of this culture of hate isn’t easy to accept for those who prefer to believe Abbas really is a man of peace and that a two-state solution is viable. But it remains the real obstacle to peace. Perhaps someday, when Palestinians pop culture is no longer dominated by anti-Semitic visions of Jewish blood, that solution will be possible. But until then, those urging Israel to weaken itself to appease those singing such songs are doing no favors to the Palestinians or the Jewish state. Rather than encourage more violence with actions like the UNESCO resolution, the world would do better to tell the Palestinians to sober up and realize their only path to empowerment must begin by renouncing violence and hate.

Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/palestinian-pop-culture-hatred/

 

[ScottL]

[h=2]Tuesday, October 27, 2015[/h] [h=3]Any wonder we are losing the information war?[/h]
...Naturally when an Israeli criticizes Israel, a listener is prepared to credit what he says much more than when it comes from an outsider. Anti-Israel Israelis are helped in this by the large fraction of Diaspora Jews who, for whatever reason, are always found among Israel’s most vehement critics. There is no comparable phenomenon among Arabs and Muslims, who maintain admirable message discipline.

​

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
26 October '15..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2015/10/when-do-we-stop-ignoring-the-information-war/

Despite the vicious and brutal nature of the violent uprising that is under way in Israel now, the rest of the world is either silent or approving. The implication seems to be “they are getting what they deserved.” How did this happen?

This was written by an Israeli graduate student studying at Oxford:

When conversations regarding Israel do ensue, they deal with the disproportionate use of power during the 2014 war in Gaza, the high death toll among Palestinians (statistics which many British students with whom I have spoken can quote), the violent behavior of settlers towards Palestinians documented in videos that have gone viral in the UK as elsewhere, the checkpoints, the economic ruin of the Gaza strip and the continued refusal of Israel to recognize Palestinian independence. There are students who can recite without difficulty Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comment on Israel’s election day about the need to counter ‘droves’ of Arab Israelis on their way to vote. …

Despite immense efforts, Oxford scholars do not regard Israel as a high tech nation, a gay tourist destination or a model for modern democracy. They remain unconvinced by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertions that Israel is the bastion of Western norms, the forefront in the struggle over terror. Nor do they prescribe [sic] to Israel’s moral relativism according to which the world must denounce Saudi Arabia and Bashar Assad before it denounces Israel. In the eyes of Oxford’s students, injustice elsewhere is not a defense for injustice in Israel.

To this international community, Israel is synonymous with bigotry, violence, hate and the oppression of human rights. It is the global spread of this notion that reveals that no public diplomacy campaign, no sophisticated national slogan and no infographic shared online by StandWithUs can counter the impact of the images that arose from Gaza in 2008, and 2012 and 2014, or those that currently emerge from Jerusalem.​

His own political leanings and the fact that this was published in Ha’aretz are unimportant. The picture he paints is confirmed by other observers in universities in the UK and the US; you could hear the same things at Berkeley or the University of Toronto. It almost seems as though the more prestigious the institution, the worse they think of Israel. The students at these universities are future leaders of the West in politics, business, law and every other field.

Anyone who knows the truth knows that the ‘evidence’ cited for Israel’s alleged depravity is nonsense. The actual death toll of the last Gaza war was about half the number the students will cite (which came from Hamas sources) and most of those were Hamas fighters; the absurdity that Israel supplies Hamas with food, water, medicines and electricity while it targets Israeli towns with a blitz of rockets is ignored; as is the basic fact that the ‘independence’ sought by the Arabs is the death or dispersal of the hated Jews from their homeland.

The objective of the demonization and delegitimization campaign is to support diplomatic and legal warfare against the state, to damage her attempts to defend herself and to prevent her from realizing political benefit even from military victories. Military strength by itself is not enough to prevent political defeat.

How did Israel allow herself, with all of her alleged intellectual muscle, to get into this situation? How could there have been such a massive failure to tell our story – our true story to the world? Can it be turned around?

Israel is failing at hasbara for two main reasons:

First, the state suffers from a massive oversupply of homegrown critics, who attack it with as much or more vigor than outsiders. I think if we had a way to measure the pro- and anti-Israel output of our media, academics and cultural figures, we would find that the negative far outweighs the positive. Naturally when an Israeli criticizes Israel, a listener is prepared to credit what he says much more than when it comes from an outsider. Anti-Israel Israelis are helped in this by the large fraction of Diaspora Jews who, for whatever reason, are always found among Israel’s most vehement critics. There is no comparable phenomenon among Arabs and Muslims, who maintain admirable message discipline.

Not only is this pervasive self-deprecation damaging to our image, it may be responsible for the fact that we don’t even try to project a positive one.

Second, like the whore in Catch-22 who hits Captain Orr over the head repeatedly with her shoe, our critics are getting paid to beat us up. Molding the way the world thinks about a subject isn’t cheap, and our enemies haven’t spared the expense. Here are just some ways anti-Israel dollars from governments and wealthy individuals (George Soros) are effectively employed as information weapons:

- Direct grants are made to universities to endow chairs and whole departments who naturally share their point of view about Israel. Anti-Israel scholars like Ilan Pappé and Steven Salaita are helped to get positions despite academic incompetence.- Public figures – e.g., Jimmy Carter – receive contributions to their personal foundations and huge speaker’s fees to espouse their positions.- Front organizations – e.g., J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace – are created and funded to channel particular types of anti-Israel expression. These sometimes work to infiltrate other groups not normally concerned with the conflict to support BDS, pass anti-Israel resolutions, and so forth.- Worldwide satellite channels like Al-Jazeera receive massive governmental support (there are thousands, in many languages, many from Middle Eastern countries).- Contributions are made to the major ‘human-rights’ NGOs, like HRW and Amnesty International, which provide the raw material for anti-Israel UN reports and resolutions.- Money is funneled to smaller NGOs inside Israel like Breaking the Silence, B’tselem, and others. They give legitimacy to accusations of racism and war crimes, engage in ‘lawfare’, and spread the anti-Israel message far and wide.- Last, but not least, the huge financial resources of the UN are employed to create and disseminate anti-Israel propaganda (e.g., the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People).
​

And what does Israel have? Its poorly funded Foreign Affairs Ministry, many of whose officials disagree with government policy. There is no Ministry of Information, and no government-supported worldwide satellite channel. Israel’s academic establishment is permeated by radicals who, when they go abroad (and are not boycotted – an irony which is wasted on them), present papers attacking the state of Israel. International Jewish solidarity, despite what the antisemites think, is a joke.

No wonder we are losing the information war – we are barely fighting it!

Of course Israel does not have the financial resources that its enemies do. Saudi Arabia has been spending millions to buy influence in the US and Europe for decades. Qatar, a tiny country with the world’s third largest reserves of natural gas and its highest per capita income, was able to launch and support al-Jazeera in a way that few countries could.

But Israel has leveraged technology and brainpower before to overcome its lack of resources. Maybe Israel can’t make grants of $20 million each to Harvard and Georgetown as the Saudis did a few years ago, but it could license potentially lucrative patents to universities in lieu of cash.

Israel could also take steps to shut down the flow of money to anti-state NGOs at home, and even clean up the sewers of extremism that some academic departments in our universities have become. We can act more aggressively against provocateurs – both Israelis and foreigners – that create incidents for propaganda purposes. The Ha’aretz newspaper – or rather, its English website, because few Israelis read the paper – is an anti-Israel organ of major significance outside of Israel. I don’t advocate limiting freedom of the press, but maybe there is some way to neutralize or counteract Ha’aretz.

A satellite channel in English and Arabic isn’t impossible. There is a natural attraction to what is considered challenging to authority; if done intelligently and with scrupulous regard for truth, I think it could be successful. Israeli musical talent alone is world-class.

Enemy propaganda gets a boost from pre-existing anti-Jewish attitudes. If we did a better job in presenting Jewish belief and history (and I don’t mean belaboring our Holocaust victimhood) then we might defuse some of it.

Every once in a while there is a flurry of activity (the oft-derided “Brand Israel” initiative is an example). Unfortunately it’s not as simple as blowing a few hundred thousand shekels on fancy consultants. A beginning would be to create a well-funded Ministry of Information which would deal only with these issues. We need to study what our enemies are doing, and turn it around. It may take years. But it will never happen if we don’t start.

 

[ScottL]

But I thought they hated Arabs?

Israel Makes Arabic Compulsory in Schools - Joe Dyke (AFP)
Israel's Knesset voted unanimously on Wednesday to make Arabic classes compulsory for students from the age of six.

 

[ScottL]

Israeli Woman Stabbed in the Back by Palestinian at Supermarket - Tovah Lazaroff
A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli mother of eight in the back just outside the parking lot of the Rami Levi supermarket at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank on Wednesday afternoon. Security forces arrested the terrorist. The store is considered an oasis of coexistence where both Palestinians and Israelis shop and work. (Jerusalem Post)

 

[ScottL]

The Responsibility of Arab Culture in the Continuation of the Palestinian Tragedy - Hassan Mneimneh

While presented as resistance, some Palestinian militants are engaged in the commission of abject injustice, not a realization of justice. Knifing a bystander is not the means to regain lost rights. Brainstorming creative means to harm the innocent in no way equates to supporting the oppressed. And aggression against these innocents - men and women, young and old - is not an act that bestows honor on the perpetrators, their supporters, or any culture that finds these acts praiseworthy.

Arab media is saturated with solemn declarations that Israel should be eliminated. Virtually all Arab media jubilantly welcomes the killing of any Israeli. It is only reasonable to expect that this attitude results in an Israeli hardening of position and action as a response.

There is a need, now long overdue, for an honest reconsideration of the Arab approach to the Palestinian cause. Arab culture must address the fundamental question of whether it conceives of a place for Israel in the Arab region. Currently, the disagreement in Arab culture vis-a-vis Israel is between the proponents of its elimination through active "resistance" and the advocates of waiting for its extinction through passive "moderation." Either way, there is no room for Israel.

The end result is an Arab culture that calls for death and prides itself on murder as long as it is inflicted on the other. (Fikra Forum)

 

[ScottL]

The Jew-hating EU continues to throw away money on the Fakeastinians.

Make EU Funds to Palestinians Conditional on an End to Incitement to Violence - Lars Adaktusson
The recent attacks are symptomatic of a malaise in Palestinian society that the international partners, and Europe, in particular, have been trying to duck for several decades: Hate speech and incitement to violence. The EU should stop tiptoeing around this issue by continuing to make large wire transfers to the PA bank account. We need to be assertive and condition all the EU funds for the territories on an actual Palestinian renouncement of hate and incitement to violence. Building a Palestinian society that will see cutting people's throats as abhorrent as it is for any Western society is not a pro-Israel position. It falls into the oft forgotten category of the right thing to do. The writer, a Swedish journalist and television news anchor, is a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs. (Ynet News)

 

[ScottL]

• Ending a Century of Palestinian Rejectionism - Daniel Pipes
  Every year or two a campaign of violence is spurred by Palestinian political and religious leaders spreading wild-eyed conspiracy theories (the favorite: al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is under threat). Each round ends with the Palestinians in a worse place in terms of dead and wounded, buildings destroyed and an economy in tatters.
  Further, their immoral and barbaric actions harden Israeli opinion, making the prospect of concessions and compromise that much less likely. Only when Palestinians realize they will not be rewarded for homicidal conduct will they stop their campaign of violence and start to come to terms with the Jewish state. The writer is president of the Middle East Forum. (Washington Times)
• Palestinians Refuse to Recognize the Jews' Right to a State - Zalman Shoval
  The goal of the terror war being waged across the country is the same goal held by Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, his student Yasser Arafat, and Abbas as well (and of course Hamas and other Islamist groups): the removal of the Jews from their country. Even within U.S. administration circles, some are beginning to understand that neither the settlements, nor Al-Aqsa, are the reason for the failure to secure peace or calm; rather the Palestinian refusal to come to terms with the permanent existence of the State of Israel. The writer is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. (Israel Hayom)
• The Hidden Hand Behind the Palestinian Terror Wave - Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi
  The wave of Palestinian terror against Israel is winning open support from all the Palestinian institutions including the PLO, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and the Hamas authorities who control Gaza. The green light was given by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 30, in which he lauded Palestinian terror and threatened political chaos - that is, a descent into an all-out intifada-type conflict.
  By unleashing Palestinian terror, Abbas hopes to bring about greater international intervention in the conflict, meant to pressure Israel to withdraw from the West Bank without negotiations. The Palestinian struggle against Israel will then continue from the new borders under improved circumstances. The writer is a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center. (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
• Terror Wave Will Subside When Palestinian Leadership Stops Incitement - Boaz Ganor
  Israel is in the throes of a nationalist and religion-driven wave of terror fueled by incitement falsely accusing it of desecrating the al-Aqsa Mosque. This kind of propaganda had been disseminated for years, but these inflammatory messages received a tailwind when senior Palestinian Authority officials joined the chorus, urging Israel not to "contaminate" the Temple Mount. This mainstream voice was the catalyst that drove inflamed young people to randomly wound and kill Israelis.
  The current wave of terror will only subside after the incitement abates and the messages from the Palestinian leadership to the Palestinian public change. Prof. Boaz Ganor is founder and executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. (Jerusalem Post)
• The Latest Intifada: A Sense that Palestinian Opposition to Israel Has Failed - Haviv Rettig Gur
  The latest wave of Palestinian terrorism has broad support neither among the people nor among the elites. One of the most remarkable facts about the stabbings and protests that dominate the headlines is how few Palestinians are actually participating in them: a few hundred, and, at moments of dramatic mobilization, perhaps a few thousand. The simple arithmetic is undeniable: the Palestinian people are not lashing out at the Israelis. They are staying home.
  The attackers of Israelis, who are often dying almost instantly in the attempt, are battling, too, the growing Palestinian realization that their national movement has no answers, no narrative or political vision that offers a way forward to better days. Few Palestinians now expect or even seriously fantasize that any sort of victory might flow from these new suicides.
  Israelis who ultimately brushed off the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada by continuing with their daily lives will not be cowed by stabbings in the street. The quick deaths the attackers meet time and again only bring the collapse of Palestinian solutions and self-respect - and Israeli unflappability - into sharper relief. If the Jews can't be made to leave, then what is the value of Palestinian sacrifices made on the altar of this misbegotten strategy? (Times of Israel)
• Stabbing at a West Bank Supermarket - A Blow to Coexistence? - Pinhas Inbari and Lenny Ben-David
  A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli woman outside the Rami Levy supermarket in the Etzion Bloc on Oct. 28. According to Western logic, including that of Israelis, Palestinians have a vested interest in keeping their jobs in stores and factories near the Jewish settlements in the territories. But some Palestinians - including the Palestinian Authority (PA) - see things differently. They fear that being involved in economic cooperation with Israelis will alienate the Palestinian people from "the struggle" and therefore must be prevented. This includes the Rami Levy supermarket chain.
  The PA is also opposed to workers who work in Israeli industrial zones in the West Bank. Therefore, Israel's policy of positive economic gestures may convince the West of its good intentions, but the PA itself is opposed to these gestures.
  Five years ago, a Palestinian official in charge of boycotting economic cooperation with Israel visited the Rami Levy market to view her enemy. She found all her relatives, neighbors and acquaintances there purchasing their needs for the week. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
• The Economic Costs of Palestinian Unrest in the West Bank - Dani Rubinstein
  There are 14 Israeli industrial zones in the West Bank, including Adumim near Jericho with 330 factories, Barkan in Samaria with 160 factories and the zone between Jerusalem and Ramallah. The factories are involved in food processing, textiles, printing, furniture manufacturing, construction and plastics. More than 30,000 Palestinians are employed in these industrial zones, with some 20,000 more working in construction, transport, supply and agriculture. In total, more than 200,000 Palestinians make a living from activities in contact with Israel and represent more than one-quarter of the Palestinian workforce. (Calcalist-Hebrew-Worldcrunch)
  

 

[ScottL]

• Israel to UN Human Rights Council: We Shall Exercise Our Right to Life - Amb. Eviatar Manor
  Israel's Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Eviatar Manor, said Wednesday: "How is it that, when the citizens of Israel undergo a vicious terrorist assault, my country is accused of murdering children, summarily executing attackers and using excessive force. What is the difference between the behavior of the security forces in Paris and Trollhattan, and the actions of Israel's security forces? In Sweden, last Friday, a young assailant armed with a sword murdered two people and wounded two others and was shot and killed by the police....Was the attacker summarily executed as well or was he shot in order to prevent further killings of innocent people?"
  "When are victims confused with perpetrators of terrorist attacks and when is maintaining public security confused with carrying out terrorist attacks? Let me make it clear: Israelis stabbed or run over by a car while walking in the street or waiting for a bus are victims; Palestinians shot while actively attempting to stab civilians are terrorist perpetrators."
  "Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's said on Oct. 19: 'I also understand the anger many Israelis feel. When children are afraid to go to school, when anyone on the street is a potential victim, security is rightly your immediate priority.'"
  "The days of spilling Jewish blood without Jews allowed to defend themselves are long gone. The Human Rights Council has forgotten that the right to life is a basic human right and that it is universal. Jews in Israel have it, too. And we shall exercise our right to life." (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

 

[ScottL]

Western Wall Rabbi Condemns UNESCO for Declaring Forefathers' Tombs as Islamic Sites - Jeremy Sharon
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Supervisor of the Western Wall and the holy places, strongly condemned UNESCO for asserting in a resolution that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel on the outskirts of Jerusalem are an integral part of Palestine. The Cave of the Patriarchs is the most ancient Jewish shrine in the world and the second holiest site of pilgrimage in Judaism.
Regarding the Tomb of Rachel, Rabinowitz wrote to UNESCO that "Centuries of documented history prove not only the deep and strong connection between the Jewish nation and this tomb, as is evidenced by the pilgrimage made to it even during hard times and at great personal risk, but also that there has never been a Muslim claim to the site."
"Anyone with eyes can see the despicable act of utilizing religion and faith in God for territorial gain and harming the sacred sites of another people. I find it hard to understand how a body like UNESCO, whose stated purpose is preservation of cultural and heritage values of the nations of the world, takes such a clear stand behind such an imaginary claim....Is this the way to build peace? By strengthening lies and fanning the flames?" (Jerusalem Post)
See also Ottoman Sultan Recognized Jewish Rights at Rachel's Tomb (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

 

[ScottL]

• No Shit, Really???
  
• Palestinian Violence Part of Worldwide Islamic Terror - Moshe Arens
  Understanding the roots of the latest wave of Palestinian violence can provide the key to dealing with it effectively. Those who go out to stab Jews or run them over in the street are not doing so because they have lost hope in the peace efforts chaperoned by John Kerry. What we have seen on the streets of Jerusalem in recent weeks is just another chapter of the wave of radical Islamic terror that has attacked targets around the world during the last few years. The perpetrators are inspired by the gruesome decapitations carried out by ISIS.
  The knife wielders in Hebron are probably longing for the "good old days" when their ancestors butchered the Jewish community there with knives and hatchets in 1929. These terrorists cannot be appeased. Their aim is death to the infidels - to the Jews and the "Crusaders." The resumption of negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas is not going to placate those brandishing knives in the streets of Jerusalem and Hebron. The writer served as Israel's Minister of Defense three times and once as Minister of Foreign Affairs. (Ha'aretz)

 

[ScottL]

Sorry Bill, It's Not Up to Israel - Jonathan S. Tobin (Commentary)

Bill Clinton spent the years after he left the White House loudly and bitterly lamenting the fact that Yasir Arafat cost him a Nobel Peace Prize. Clinton hosted a peace summit at Camp David in the summer of 2000 at which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians an independent state including almost all of the West Bank, a share of Jerusalem and Gaza in exchange for peace. Arafat said no and months later launched a terrorist war of attrition.

But in spite of this, Clinton told a huge crowd in Tel Aviv on Oct. 31 that "it is up to you" in order to make peace in the Middle East. Clinton was an honored guest at a peace rally/commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's murder. It is all well and good to praise the search for peace. But the last 22 years have taught us that it clearly is not up to the Israeli people.

Barak repeated the offer the next year, and Ehud Olmert sweetened it in 2008. Both times the Palestinians against refused. Before that, Ariel Sharon withdrew every soldier, settler and settlement from Gaza, hoping to create an opening for peace. Each time Israel took the kind of risks for peace that its friends and critics had been urging it to do, yet got neither peace nor credit for the sacrifice.

What more can Israel do to convince the Palestinians to make peace than they have already done? According to the Obama administration and critics of the Netanyahu government, they need to stop building homes in existing settlements in the West Bank and 40-year-old Jerusalem neighborhoods or release more convicted terrorists.

But does anyone really think that will convince the Palestinians to make peace when offers like the ones Barak and Olmert made were not enough? Did Sharon's experiment in trading land for peace - which turned out to be an exchange of territory for terror - not go far enough?

The problem isn't Israel not recognizing Palestinians' rights and aspirations. The problem is that even PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian lauded by President Obama as a moderate and a champion of peace, won't recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn.

It's not the Israelis who need the lectures from Clinton and Obama. It's the Palestinians. Israel has taken plenty of risks for peace. It's time for Americans to stop ignoring that fact and start putting pressure on Israel's foes to take some risks of their own.

 

[ScottL]

The Facebook Intifada - Micah Lakin Avni (New York Times)

• Three weeks ago, my father, Richard Lakin, was riding on a public bus in Jerusalem when terrorists from east Jerusalem shot him in the head and stabbed him multiple times. Two weeks after the attack, he succumbed to his wounds.
  
• What inspired the two young Palestinian men to savagely attack my father and a busload of passengers? One was a regular on Facebook, where he had posted a "will for any martyr." Very likely, they made use of one of the thousands of posts, manuals and instructional videos circulating in Palestinian society like the image of the human body with advice on where to stab for maximal damage.
• My father raised me to cherish and protect free speech, but the very liberty that free speech was designed to protect is at stake when it is used to spread venom and incite violence. Rampant online incitement is a danger that must be reckoned with immediately, before more innocent people end up as victims.
• Facebook, Twitter and the others must realize that the question of incitement on social media is, first and foremost, a moral one. Ordinary young men and women are inspired by hateful and bloody messages they see online to take matters and blades into their own hands.
• One immediate solution is to remove blatant incitement without waiting for formal complaints - it's one thing to express a political opinion, even one that supports violent measures, and another to publish a how-to chart designed to train and recruit future terrorists.
• To that end, an Israeli nonprofit took legal action against Facebook, demanding that the company do more to monitor and remove unacceptable content. My family joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs. Any truly successful effort to curb the culture of hate on social media must come from the companies themselves. Companies can and must work harder to create an online culture that does not tolerate violence and hate.
  

 

[ScottL]

Sick Nazi Fucktards!

"Stab the Zionist": Palestinian Songs Celebrate Killing Jews - Paul Alster (Fox News)
Songs about stabbing Jews to death - including one by the winner of the Palestinian equivalent of "American Idol" - are all the rage on West Bank airwaves, a year after the twisted hit parade featured calls for running down Israelis with cars.
The youth of the Palestinian territories are being bombarded with tunes and lyrics about murder and martyrdom on government-controlled radio.
"We're going down from every house with cleavers and knives," goes the refrain in "I'm Coming Towards You, My Enemy."
YouTube videos that accompany the songs feature images of Palestinian terrorists stabbing Jews, and then being "martyred" by Israeli forces, or cartoon animations glorifying the knife as a symbol of resistance.
Other big current hits sweeping the Palestinian charts include "Continue the Intifada," and "Stab the Zionist and Say God is Great."
Nan Jacques Zilberdik of Palestinian Media Watch said: "We see the leadership trying to fuel the rage and enflame the Palestinian street by all the time repeating the libel that Israel is faking the attacks."
"They say that all the terrorists are really just innocent Palestinian victims who were walking by Israeli soldiers on the way to school or on the way to the mosque, then Israel shoots at them and plants knives at the scene."

 

[ScottL]

Anti-Israel Protestors Disrupt Israeli Diplomat's Talk at Canadian University - Sheri Shefa (Canadian Jewish News)
A group of anti-Israel students at the University of Windsor hijacked a lecture by Israel's first Bedouin diplomat, Ishmael Khaldi, who has been working for the Israeli Foreign Ministry since 2004.
In a video uploaded to the Palestinian Solidarity Group's Facebook page, the protesters can be seen interrupting Khaldi by standing in their seats and taking turns shouting slogans at Khaldi before walking out as a group.
Khaldi said protesting an event like his is a waste of time, saying, "I'm not a politician, I'm just here to share my experience and my story."
Law student Trevor Sher, who serves as the Jewish Student Association president, said:
"One of the things Khaldi explained after the walkout was that people who take those kinds of actions are a barrier to peace. He made a really powerful statement... about there being only one pathway to peace, and that is through negotiation and dialogue."

 

[ScottL]

Israel, the Designated Villain, Never Gets an Even Break - Editorial
The outbreak of knife attacks this fall, often against Israeli civilians, was clearly terrorism by the Palestinians. Presenting these episodes by identifying the Palestinian dead as victims - as is done often in the international media - distorts reality. The attack on Pearl Harbor might have been headlined: "Americans slay two Jap pilots taking Sunday-morning flight over Pearl Harbor."
"You'd be hard pressed to find an example of terror in the world - outside of Israel - where mainstream media outlets prioritize the fate of the perpetrators over that of their victims," concludes UK Media Watch. (Washington Times)