Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Mainstream Arab criticism of Abbas is mounting

In what may be an unprecedented move, a Saudi newspaper has criticized Mahmoud Abbas for reflexively rejecting Binyamin Netanyahu's invitation for him to speak to Knesset during his speech at the UN last week:

The Palestinians should not be too quick to dismiss the invitation extended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to address Israel’s parliament in return to “gladly come to speak peace with the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah.” Netanyahu’s gesture was quickly rejected by the Palestinians as a “new gimmick” but the invitation is reminiscent of the one issued by former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to visit Israel — and the rest is history.

...The Palestinians have rebuffed Netanyahu’s past offers for such invitations, saying his hard-line position on all core issues made dialogue impossible.

...But the Palestinians should note that at the time, Egypt and Israel were mortal enemies, having fought three wars. Camp David called for a five-year transitional period of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. The transitional period would include the introduction of Palestinian self-government and an end to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Much of the Arab world derided it as a weak deal. But in hindsight, if the provisions had been carried out, Israel and the Palestinians might not be in the impasse they are in at present.

Notably, top Egyptian intelligence official also derided Abbas in a leaked phone call:

A high-ranking Egyptian intelligence officer ridicules Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a leaked telephone conversation with exiled Palestinian strongman Mohammed Dahlan, it was revealed Saturday night.

Abbas was referred to as “stupid,” and his movement Fatah “screwed,” by Major General Wael el-Safty of Egypt’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID), which is responsible for providing national security intelligence both at home and abroad.

In the latest leaked recording, only the Egyptian side of the conversation is audible. Safty’s voice is heard, but not [Mohammed] Dahlan’s responses.

Still, it is obvious that the person on the other end of the telephone is Dahlan, because he is referred to by his kunya, or traditional Palestinian name, Abu Fadi.

Furthermore, after exchanging pleasantries, Safty asks about members of Dahlan’s family by name.

“Abu Fadi, the years are passing,” the Egyptian intelligence officer reminisces early on in the tape.

Soon thereafter, they begin talking about someone whose “concentration isn’t at full capacity”. Safty then says this person “has nothing to offer”.

The tapes go on to make clear that the man they are talking about is Abbas, 81.

“You told me something I still remember to this day,” Safty tells Dahlan. “You said that he [Abbas] is like a camel.”

The implication here is that Abbas is repeatedly churning out old ideas without bringing anything new to the table. Camels, like cattle, are ruminant animals that digest then re-digest their food a number of times.

“He isn’t smart at all,” the Egyptian intelligence officer says. “The issue of [Abbas’] age also comes into it… He doesn’t want to change, he doesn’t want to do anything.”

At this point, the conversation turns from petty insults to expressions of real frustration with Abbas. Safty lets loose.

“Fatah is completely screwed,” he says. “The [Palestinian Liberation] Organisation is even worse.”

“He can’t even contain the factions [within Fatah],” he says. “These are the ones that Abu Mazen [Abbas’s kunya] couldn’t contain, these people drove me absolutely crazy, their positions have begun to align with Hamas.

“He can’t bring them together,” Safty tells Dahlan in utter exasperation. “I swear, he can’t bring them together.

“It's stupidity,” he says, before again referring to Abbas’s advancing age, adding that the PA president does not have many laps left to run: “The track is running out, if you excuse the phrase.”

Khaled Abu Toameh adds:

Abbas, his aides admit, is today more worried about the "Arab meddling" in the internal affairs of the Palestinians than he is about "collective punishment" or "settlement activities." In fact, he is so worried that he recently lashed out at those Arab countries that have launched an initiative to "re-arrange the Palestinian home from within" and bring about changes in the Palestinian political scene.

The Arab countries behind the initiative -- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates -- are being referred to by many Palestinians as the "Arab Quartet."

In an unprecedented critique of these countries, Abbas recently declared:

"The decision is ours and we are the only ones who make decisions. No one has authority over us. No one can dictate to us what to do. I don't care about the discomfort of Washington or Moscow or other capitals. I don't want to hear about these capitals. I don't want the money of these capitals. Let's free ourselves from the 'influence' of these capitals."

Although he did not mention the four Arab countries by name, it was clear that Abbas was referring to the "Arab Quartet" when he was talking about "capitals" and their influence and money. Abbas's message: "How dare any Arab country tell me what to do, no matter how wealthy and influential it may be." Abbas sees the demand by these Arab countries for new Palestinian leadership, unity and reforms in Fatah as "unacceptable meddling in the internal affairs of the Palestinians."

So what exactly is it in the new Arab initiative that has so enraged Abbas, to the point that he is prepared to place at risk his relations with four of the Arab world's preeminent states?

According to reports in Arab media outlets, the "Arab Quartet" has drafted a plan to "activate the Palestinian portfolio" by ending the dispute between Abbas's Fatah and Hamas. The plan also calls for ending the schism within Fatah by allowing some of its expelled leaders, including Mohamed Dahlan, to return to the faction. The overall aim of the plan is to unite the West Bank and Gaza Strip under one authority and end the state of political anarchy in the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The "Arab Quartet" has even formed a committee to oversee the implementation of any "reconciliation" agreements reached between Fatah and Hamas and Abbas and his adversaries in Fatah. According to the plan, if such an agreement is not reached, the Arab League will intervene to "enforce reconciliation" between the rival Palestinian parties.

The irony of Abbas being subject to an imposed solution to his splits with the Dahlan faction and Hamas is too delicious. His major initiative, after all, is to have the international community impose a solution on Israel.

Abbas and Fatah leaders in Ramallah are convinced that the "Arab Quartet" members are actually planning to pave the way for promoting "normalization" between the Arab world and Israel -- all at the expense of the Palestinians. They claim that the four Arab countries are using and promoting Dahlan in order to facilitate their mission of rapprochement with Israel. These countries have reached the conclusion that as long as Abbas and the current PA leadership are around, it would be very difficult to initiate any form of "normalization" or peace treaties between Arab countries and Israel. The PA leadership's position has always been that peace between the Arab countries and Israel should come only after, and not before, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.

Bibi's vision of peace between Arabs and Israel that he mentioned at the UN is further along than people realize - and Mahmoud Abbas is the main obstacle. The Arab world has been sick and tired of the Palestinian issue for years and the Arab leaders correctly realize that it is the Palestinian side that has blocked any chance for peace, by insisting on having its own demands fully met before any other movement.

At a time when the Arab world has real enemies and real problems, issues that they share with Israel, the Palestinian position becomes less and less relevant.

The cracks in the purported Arab unity on the issue of Israel are widening.

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A new subchapter in the Simona Sharoni saga:From Plattsburgh State's student newspaper Cardinal Points:

Plattsburgh State gender and women’s studies Professor Simona Sharoni has received a slew of online threats after making comments about feminism and the conflict between Israel and Palestine, particularly in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, BDS, movement.

The threats were received by Sharoni through both her PSUC and personal email accounts, as well as tweets directed to her Twitter handle.

“The vast majority of of the messages were sexist in tone and incoherent in substance. They consisted of attacks on my character and academic reputation with several messages that included threats to my career and job security and two messages, which included direct threats to my safety,” Sharoni said in a letter addressed to PSUC colleagues. “One threatened me with rape and the other with both rape and physical violence.”

The initial twitter campaign against Sharoni was initiated April 19 by user @ElderofZiyon, whose bio on the social media site states he is a “International man of mystery, who just happens to run the world. Zionism, Israel, the Arab world, Palestinians, all from a different viewpoint.”

Twitter user @Mrvigilante tweeted to Sharoni, “may be [sic] you should try rape and terrorism to see the difference. Can be arranged.”

I tweeted to her exactly once in April, which is not exactly starting an entire Twitter campaign, and certainly I have nothing to do with any alleged threats of rape against her:

Idiot professor @simonasharoni pretends to link campus rape to Israel https://t.co/ohpUH8xnBo #AcademicFraud pic.twitter.com/tJXdeUf8SN
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) April 20, 2016

I wrote to the newspaper and asked why they mischaracterized my role.

The answer I received is that Sharoni herself is the one who accused me of starting this campaign in the letter to her colleagues!

(The editor says that she will correct the article, although that hasn't happened yet. Her characterization of two alleged threats as a "slew" is more sloppy reporting.)

After the initial threats were received in April, Sharoni said she contacted University Police.

She said she “was fairly satisfied with the response of campus police and IT specialists,” though she still felt vulnerable on campus.

The example from @MrVigilante of a "rape threat" does not strike me as that at all, either. While I don't condone it, he is saying that Sharoni's linking of Israel to rape is less credible than linking Palestinian terror to rape, and crudely offering to help her research the topic. Again, I don't support that statement nor did I have anything to do with it, besides publicizing her own words.

If Sharoni felt threatened by him or any other tweet, she should have gone to the actual police or the FBI, not the campus police. This was not even remotely a credible threat to her.

But Sharoni decided to make an issue of her being "threatened" and "harassed" by Freedom of Information Law requests because she simply cannot defend her absurd positions linking Israel to campus rape via "intersectionality." She claims that she is being persecuted because of her support for BDS, but in fact she is being criticized for this tendentious linkage which she admits is an anti-Israel strategy she made up to inflame passions.

Essentially, Sharoni does not have the ability to defend her slanderous and false accusations against Israel, and to divert attention from her own failings in logic and truth, she is claiming victimhood because people are now asking questions about how an academic can so easily make such false statements.

It is not unreasonable to ask whether someone entrusted to teach students is trustworthy herself.

What is sad is that her colleagues, her college newspaper and some media are accepting her version of events without even bothering to check her accusations. Even this incident shows that Sharoni has no academic rigor as she lashes out at her ideological opponents armed with nothing but false accusations and lies.

I invite her colleagues at Plattsburgh State to read my critique of her words and to agree - or argue -with me. It is something that Sharoni clearly doesn't welcome herself.

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EoZTV: The pre-debate show

In which we discuss the statements that each campaign made after meeting with Bibi.

I wonder why Donald Trump posted his statement after his meeting with Bibi on Sunday, but Hillary only released hers to the press but didn't post it anywhere I could find.

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09/26 Links Pt2: Kontorovich: The Palestinians illegal ‘football war’ against Israel; Israel qualifies for its first-ever World Baseball Classic game

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: The Palestinians unsporting and illegal ‘football war’ against Israel

Human Rights Watch published a long, graphics-rich report on Sunday denouncing Israeli semi-pro soccer (football) clubs in towns in the West Bank. A few weeks ago, a group of European Parliament members sent a letter along similar lines to FIFA, the international soccer governing body. The parliament members argue the clubs violate international law, and for good measure, the FIFA constitution, and call for the expulsion of the teams, or Israel itself, from world soccer.
These efforts are all part of a broad Palestinian push to pressure Israeli in international forums. The legal arguments raised in these documents are entirely contrived. They contradict longstanding FIFA practice and create a double standard for Israel. And that’s just not sporting.
The human rights claims in the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report are tendentious — they assert that the local soccer leagues (all quite small-time) are “making the settlements more sustainable, thus propping up” the system. Most of the communities in question are just a few kilometers from the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli armistice line and would remain in Israel in all the major two-state proposals; their residents typically commute to work in bigger nearby cities. It is laughable to think anyone would leave them if the football league moved a few kilometers down the road. In any case, contrary to the HRW’s claims, there is simply no support in international law for prohibiting business in occupied territories, as British and French courts have recently affirmed.
Indeed, Morocco maintains a team, part of its national football federation, in occupied Western Sahara. Yet the HRW completely fails to mention this fact in its report. The human rights abuses in Western Sahara — where the majority of the population are Moroccan settlers and the indigenous population has been heavily displaced — are too vast to recount. No one — including the HRW and the Parliament members — has suggested expelling Morocco on account of its team, based deep in land taken from the Sahrawi.
The football-as-human rights-violation arguments against Israel are tendentious and prove too much. So those campaigning against Israel rely principally on a lawyerly claim about FIFA’s rules: The clubs “clearly violate FIFA’s statutes, according to which clubs from one member association cannot play on the territory of another member association without its and FIFA’s consent,” the members claim.
Curiously, the Parliament members and the think tanks that support them do not cite any statutes saying this. And that is because the statutes specifically do not say that — and numerous precedents show it is not how they are understood.

Lib Dems: Tonge’s ‘Jewish power’ article not anti-Semitic

By sharing an article about “Jewish power” in British politics, former Lib Dem peer Baroness Jenny Tonge was not being racist, according to the Liberal Democrats.
The ruling, from the party’s Regional Parties Committee, follows a complaint from Gary Spedding, a liberal activist in Northern Ireland, who took issue with Tonge sharing an article by Israeli musician Gilad Atzmon.
Tonge, who is a strong critic of Israel, is no longer a Lib Dem peer and sits in the House of Lords as a cross-bencher. While she remains a member of the party, she does not speak for it in an official capacity.
Relaying the decision, a Lib Dem spokeswoman says: “Having reviewed your complaint, our view is that an opinion can be controversial – and even offensive – but still fall short of being racist.”
She explained: “We are a liberal party that places immense value on freedom of speech… That includes the freedom to criticise in the strongest terms the actions of states and governments and the causal effects of their policies… Any desire not to offend also needs to be balanced against the right to criticise in the strongest terms the actions of states and governments.”
Spedding, who had called for Tonge to be thrown out of the party altogether, said was left “speechless” by the response to the complaint.

UK's Liberal Democrats suspend former MP for alleged antisemitic tweets

A party member of the United Kingdom's Liberal Democrats has been been suspended after posting a series of alleged antisemitic tweets to social media, The Jewish Chronicle reported Sunday.
Matthew Gordon Banks was sacked by the faction after accusing party leader MP Timothy James "Tim" Farron of winning his position due to "London Jews" financing his campaign.
“What fascinates me is that Farron's leadership campaign was organized and funded by London Jews,” Banks posted to Twitter earlier in the week.

Google Translate autocomplete says Israelis are terrorists. But so are a lot of people.

A reader pointed out to me that when he did a Google Translate on Israelis, the autocomplete function returned with this:

Since the tool learns what to guess based on the user input, I wondered what came up for other nationals when typing in "X are..."

A surprising number are terrorists.

It didn't work out that way for Jordanians or Lebanese or Saudis, which had no suggestions. But Canadians are apparently terrorists too according to users of the tool:

But not Americans.

And the French (once you add the "The") live up to their reputation.

(Google does not change the suggestions based on the target language.)

(h/t Ira G)

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Manal Tamimi: Still proud to showcase her hate on Twitter

Manal Tamimi: Still proud to showcase her hate on Twitter

Petra Marquardt-Bigman

When I first documented Manal Tamimi’s hate-filled views under the title “Screaming hate on Twitter” a year ago, Manal Tamimi reacted with defiant pride. As I documented in an update to this post, she responded on Facebook and Twitter reaffirming her views, and promptly continued posting additional tweets expressing her hatred for Israel and her support for terrorist attacks and a “Third Intifada”. More recently, presumably in response to my Tablet piece marking the 15th anniversary of the Sbarro bombing, she took the trouble to leave a comment on my site, thanking me (again) “4 taking all this time 2 follow me on Twitter & FB and taking time 2 write this article about me” and encouraging me to “keep [up] the good work by keeping following me so you will be updated.”

So I should really say: dear Manal, you are very welcome. In fact, it is me who should thank you for taking all this time to provide us with such a revealing glimpse of your ardent support for terror and your equally ardent Jew-hatred.

But courtesies aside, I’ll admit that I was not just being polite when I followed Manal Tamimi’s encouragement and put together a slide show featuring about 40 of her tweets. There are several reasons why her tweets are important. First, it should be recalled that Ben Ehrenreich’s tribute to the Tamimis, which was featured as a New York Times Magazine cover story three years ago, presented her as a member of the “homegrown media team” that runs the PR efforts of Tamimi Press, noting that Manal Tamimi had taken it upon herself to supplement these efforts “with a steady outpouring of tweets (@screamingtamimi).” So it seems fair to conclude that the views she expresses are not just her own, but reflect the outlook of her fellow “activists” in Nabi Saleh. Indeed, if one considers the publicly available social media posts of other prominent Tamimi clan members (also documented in this EoZ video), it is clear that Manal Tamimi’s output on Twitter is quite representative of the hatred and extremism they all regularly exhibit – so far apparently without jeopardizing the support they’ve enjoyed for years from Amnesty International.

Moreover, given the fact that the prevalence of similar attitudes has been documented in Palestinian opinion surveys for almost two decades, it would be wrong to see Manal Tamimi’s tweets just as a reflection of what the Tamimis stand for. So-called “pro-Palestinian” activists often demand that more attention should be paid to Palestinian voices, and the outspoken Manal Tamimi should definitely count as a Palestinian voice that can tell you all you always wanted to know about Palestinian “resistance” – but were rightly afraid to ask.

However, it would perhaps be unfair not to note that in her recent comment on my website, Manal Tamimi claimed to know the difference “between zionists & jew,” and she asserted: “I have a very good jew friends who come 2 my house where I cook meals and eat , laugh and enjoy our time together.”

When you view her tweets in the slide show, you can decide for yourself how well Manal Tamimi knows the difference “between Zionists & jew.” But given her reference to “very good jew friends who come 2 my house,” one should perhaps recall how she responded last fall, when veteran Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin criticized her on Twitter for calling a teenage terrorist “habibi” (a common Arabic term of endearment). But Manal Tamimi saw no reason to feel embarrassed and responded: “@gershonbaskin shame on me ???? Shame on me ???? And why is that Mr Gershon,” reminding Baskin later on: “uve been in my house & my children welcome u despite u r jew, do u remember?”

Some four weeks after this exchange with Baskin, Manal Tamimi posted a cartoon showing a Nazi figure beating a hideous creature marked as a Jew. As you can see, there is an almost identical image that identifies the creature as a “Jew Rat.”

The comment Manal Tamimi added to the image – “Hhhhhhh palestinian and zionists” – equated Palestinians with the Nazi figure, which was a somewhat surprising departure from her usual habit of denouncing Israelis as Nazis or “zioNazists”. When an obviously well-meaning Twitter user warned her in Arabic* that she had posted “a picture of Nazism” even though “the Palestinians are more honorable than the Nazis, they are defending their land and their freedom,” Manal Tamimi confidently declared: “The important thing is the idea, we the Palestinians are the ones who are going to teach Israel a lesson, we are going to hurt them and we will achieve victory over them as well.”

Perhaps she just meant to say something like “Sieg Heil”?

*Translations from Arabic courtesy of Ibn Boutros; since the Tamimis sometimes delete posts that attract widespread public criticism, the post is archived here.

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09/26 Links Pt1: What Would a Palestinian State Look Like?; Egyptian official mocks Abbas ‘stupidity,’

From Ian:

What Would a Palestinian State Look Like?

Why do the United States and the European Union continue to underwrite such a ruthless regime? Every revival of the "peace process" comes with billions in grants for the Palestinian Authority, without any steps taken to promote decent governance or end decades of corruption. Most recently, in May 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the PA would be rewarded for reaching a peace agreement with an additional $4 billion in aid.
In a recent article titled "What to Expect from an Independent Palestinian State," Fred Maroun, an Arab living in Canada, summed it up: "If a Palestinian state is created without correcting [its] destructive practices, it is highly likely that the new Palestinian regime will follow the same pattern already established, and be a hatemongering, corrupt, undemocratic, oppressive, belligerent, and ineffective regime."
Peace can evolve between Israelis and Palestinians, but only once the Palestinians have been freed from the rule of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. It will require time and patience, but it is achievable. It will come when people realize that peace improves their lives, that peace brings prosperity. Alas, the Oslo Accords put an end to what was an informal economic peace process that could have evolved into a political settlement, perhaps in the form, as in Switzerland, of a loose Arab-Israeli federation of independent cantons. The corrupt government begun by Arafat—imposed on the Palestinians by a clueless Israeli leadership—put an end to this promising evolution.
Peace can still be resuscitated, but not while the Palestinian Authority continues to be supported by billions from U.S. and European taxpayers. Only then will decent Palestinians, now terrorized into silence, be able to build a civil society, the basis for a better life and a healthy polity. Such a civil society would negotiate a real and lasting peace with Israel.
A two-state solution, by contrast, would merely take the repressive Palestinian Authority and invest it with the standing of a nation-state. That wouldn't bring peace, but only delay it by another generation.

Michael Oren: Palestinian Celebration of Munich Olympic Massacre Shows They Are Not Ready for Peace

The 2016 Olympics remembered the 11 Israeli athletes massacred by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich games, but the Palestinian Authority (PA) is praising the atrocity. The International Olympic Committee erected a memorial in Rio to the slain Israeli sportsmen and honored them at the closing ceremony. Yet on September 5, the anniversary of that horrific event, the official website of Fatah, the organization headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, hailed the outrage as an "heroic operation" and “one of the most important actions in modern history.”
The Munich Massacre took place on September 5, 1972, when members of Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group closely allied with al-Fatah, infiltrated the Olympic village with explosives and automatic weapons. They took 11 Israeli athletes hostage, brutally beat and tortured them,while shooting two of them to death. The rest they killed with gunfire and grenades when German forces attempted a rescue. A German policeman was also murdered.
And the PA takes pride in that as indeed it does in all acts of terror against Israelis. Recently, after the stabbing and shooting of three Israeli civilians—among them Richard Lakin, an American citizen and devoted peace activist—the PA lauded the Palestinian killers as ”heroic martyrs" who promptly "ascended to heaven.”

Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas to Arab Leaders: Go to Hell!

Abbas and Fatah leaders in Ramallah claim that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (the "Arab Quartet") are using and promoting Abbas's rival, Mohamed Dahlan, in order to facilitate their mission of rapprochement with Israel.
Many Palestinians were surprised to see veteran Palestinian official Ahmed Qurei, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister and one of the architects of the Oslo Accord, come out in favor of the Arab plan, which basically envisions ousting Abbas from power.
This, and not Israeli policy, is Abbas's true nightmare. After all, he knows that without Israel's presence in the West Bank, his regime would have long fallen into the hands of Hamas or even his political rivals in Fatah.
The "Arab Quartet" plan shows that some Arab countries are indeed fed up with Abbas's failure to lead his people towards a better life. These states, which have long been politically and financially supportive of the Palestinians, have had enough of Abbas's efforts to secure unending power -- at the direct cost of the well-being of his people.

At the UN last week, Syria was represented by Deputy Prime Minister Walid Al-Moualem.

He called Israel "terrorist:"

Syria is confronting mercenary terrorists on its territory today, but it has long confronted a different kind of terrorism; the terrorism of Israel that has occupied a precious part of our land in the Syrian Golan since 4 June 1967. Our Syrian Arab people in the Occupied Golan continue to suffer as a result of Israel's oppressive and aggressive practices. These practices are no longer confined to the Occupied Golan, and are currently affecting the security and life of Syrians in the southern part of the country. Israel is intervening militarily to assist in every way the terrorist organizations operating in that area.

Syria calls on the international community to put an effective end to all these practices and to compel Israel to implement relevant United Nations resolutions, particularly resolution 497 on the Occupied Syrian Golan.

Isn't it great when a country that is murdering tens of thousands of its own people tries to insult others?

But Syria did have kind words for some:

[The UN] should also compel Israel to allow the Palestinian people to enjoy their inalienable rights, including the establishment of their independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital, and the return of Palestine refugees to their land, in accordance with internationally-recognized resolutions.

...We congratulate Cuba and Iran on reaching agreements to lift the embargo imposed on them and we look forward to their implementation. We renew our call for removing the illegal economic measures imposed on the Syrian people and on other independent peoples in the world, notably the peoples of the DPRK, Venezuela and Belarus.

These are all of the countries mentioned favorably by Syria.

They all have lots in common with Syria, too.

(h/t Irene)

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Why calling Zionism colonialist is false - and antisemitic

There have been many articles about the student-designed course at UC Berkeley called “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Inquiry.”

But as far as I can tell, no one has addressed the main question: can Israel be considered colonialist?

It can't.

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition, and expansion of colonies in one territory, imposed by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole, or parent state, claims sovereignty over the colony, and the social structure, government, and economy of the colony are changed by colonizers from the metropole. Colonialism is a set of unequal relationships between the metropole and the colony, and between the colonists and the indigenous, or native, population .

Zionism is not tied to a metropole/parent state. It is entirely based on the fact that Jews are returning to their homeland from which they never severed their emotional, religious or even physical ties. Zionism is anti-colonialist in that it fights against outsiders who invaded and colonized it over the centuries during the Diaspora. It is not a colonial movement, it is a national liberation movement.

This should be obvious. All one needs to do is spend a few minutes researching the definition of Zionism and the writings of early Zionists to know that Zionism is about self-determination, not imperialistic extensions of European hegemony over parts of the Middle East. On the contrary, the Zionists consciously rejected their European past - they revived Hebrew as their language. Zionists didn't call any new villages "New Vilna."

Jews in Europe were treated as "the other." There is little nostalgia for the shtetl from the people who actually lived there.

Israel, on the other hand, was always considered home for Jews. Way before Zionism, Jews have made the trip to the Land. The yearning for Zion and Jerusalem has been a fixed part of Judaism and has been part of the daily prayers ever since the destruction of the second Temple. Zionism is

So why do some scholars insist that Zionism is colonialist?

The only way that it makes sense is if they deny that there is a Jewish people.

If the Jewish people exist, then it is obvious that they have the right to self-determination and national liberation in the land that they have considered their own for 3000 years.

But if Judaism is a mere religion, then Jews have no national rights and their desire to return to their homeland is twisted into "colonialism" - even without the metropole.

Arab nationalists originally agreed that there was a Jewish people but denied that their ties to the Holy Land was anything beyond religion. Here is how influential Arab nationalist George Antonious described it in the 1930s:

This was summarized and extended in Article 20 of the 1968 PLO Charter to denial of a Jewish people altogether:

Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

Ironically, even the Quran refers to the Children of Israel as a nation (in many translations) in 2:47:

O Children of Israel! Remember My favor which I bestowed upon you, and that I favored you over all nations.

This explains why the Khazar theory is so popular among Palestinian Arabs. It only gained widespread currency after the PLO Charter was written but it becomes a perfect way for Muslims to reconcile their denial of Jewish nationality with the obvious assignment of such nationhood to Jews in the Quran.

This denial of Jewish peoplehood is an inherent part of the argument that Zionism is colonialism. And such denial is, in fact, antisemitic. It is an attempt to rip away a huge amount of Jewish identity from without and to minimize what it means to be a Jew.

The Berkeley course takes away all of Jewish history and only looks at "Palestine" through the lens of invented colonialism - meaning it denies up front that there are any Jewish ties to the land. So like all attempts to label Zionism as colonialism, it is inherently antisemitic.

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Human Rights Watch has released another biased and lying report, this one demanding that FIFA expel Israel because some football clubs operate in Area C.

Area C is territory that is under full Israeli control under the Oslo Accords interim agreements between Israel and the PLO. Those agreements do not limit any Israeli activity in those areas. While the agreement was meant to be temporary, the Palestinian decision to reject Israeli peace offers and instead engage in a terror war against Israeli Jews essentially froze the agreements where they were. But that is the only relevant international law that governs the areas.

HRW, however, regards all of the land in Area C as "stolen," as the report says:

“By holding games on stolen land, FIFA is tarnishing the beautiful game of football,” said Sari Bashi, Israel and Palestine country director at Human Rights Watch.

HRW is now making a claim of land being "stolen" and implying that the rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court which has ruled on many aspects of Israeli activities in Area C is illegitimate. If the land was indeed privately owned by Palestinian individuals, then calling it "stolen" may be accurate, but since most of the land Israel controls was state land under Jordanian and Ottoman law, calling it "stolen" is not a legal term, but an inflammatory lie. The Israeli Supreme Court routinely rules on issues of land ownership in the territories with detailed descriptions of its legal reasonings. HRW, on the other hand, simply declares it "stolen" without any serious scholarship behind that slander.

However, HRW goes beyond those lies to claim that there is some sort of litmus test that Israel uses to check if someone is of Jewish ancestry before allowing them to attend football games or even to enter settlements:

Military law in the West Bank limits entry to settlements to Israeli citizens and residents, holders of Israeli visas, or individuals of Jewish ancestry. The West Bank’s 2.5 million Palestinian residents, excluding East Jerusalem residents, are not allowed to enter settlements, except for approximately 26,000 laborers bearing special permits. Arab citizens and residents of Israel, like their Jewish counterparts, may enter the settlements.

That's funny, because I've driven into "settlements" without any Israeli soldier checking to see if I was circumcised. So can anyone else visiting Israel from most countries in the world - even without an Israeli visa.

HRW gives two purported sources for this claim, and neither one of them say anything about a Jewish litmus test to enter settlements.

Human Rights Watch simply made this up to pretend that Israel is practicing anti-Gentile apartheid and Jewish supremacism.

Now, why would a so-called human rights organization falsely claim that Jews are discriminating against non-Jews?

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

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EoZTV: Mahmoud Abbas, the consummate liar

EoZTV returns with Elder and Mrs. Elder, discussing my favorite lying world leader, Mahmoud Abbas.

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Nah, they're not antisemitic

Some Palestinian Arab editors saw their Facebook accounts suspended on Friday.

Facebook apologized and reinstated them on Saturday, saying that it was a mistake.

But before that, Arab publications posted this cartoon trying to show how Facebook was firmly Zionist.

If you want to make Facebook look as Zionist as possible, how would you represent them?

Here's how:

Caption: Facebook makes an agreement with Israel in confronting “incitement” on its pages

By the way, last week Twitter added a warning to any link to my blog, saying it was "unsafe" or that it violated their terms of service. It also didn't allow me to post anything that included a link to my own blog.

Did this happen because of Israel haters complaining to Twitter about me? I don't know; I had to pull some strings to get Twitter to fix this (a friend of a friend of a friend). At the same time conservative writer Instapundit was briefly banned from Twitter as well.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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