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Amnesty International activists delivered a “special Christmas gift ” to the UK Foreign Office earlier this month, to highlight campaigners’ demand for a ban on Israeli settlement produce.
The gift was stocked with olive oil, wine, dates, and oranges marked with “Delicious but tainted” stickers.
According to Amnesty, “these items are just some of the thousands of products from illegal Israeli settlements that end up on our shelves in the UK.”
In addition to the hamper, Amnesty activists also submitted a petition “urging the UK government to ban Israeli settlement goods”, which more than 50,000 members of the public had signed.“For over 50 years, Palestinians have been forced from their homes, detained and killed – all to make way for more illegal Israeli settlements”, Amnesty stated. “Products from those settlements often make their way into UK markets and onto our shop shelves.
These products are made on stolen land, with stolen resources, and profit from human rights abuses,” the group added. Amnesty also said that in 2019 there will be a new campaign launched “targeting some businesses that are profiting from human rights abuses in illegal Israeli settlements,” the petition said.
Read more @ MEMO
Interview with Els van Diggele: ‘I concluded that there was a century of stagnation, destruction and a power battle which was fought on the back of common Palestinian Arabs.’
“My first book appeared in 2000 and discussed Israel’s internal conflicts regarding the state’s identity. The Dutch title translates into English as ‘A People that Dwells Alone.’ I published my next book in 2007 which deals with the divisions between Christians in Israel. The title translates as ‘Holy Quarrels’.”
Els van Diggele was born in 1967 in the Dutch village of Warmond. After her history studies at Leiden University she followed a postdoctoral journalism course at Rotterdam’s Erasmus University.
“I wanted to complete a trilogy by writing about the Palestinian Arabs. I resided in the Palestinian Authority region, carefully looking for people who would dare to tell the truth. Otherwise I would only hear: ‘Everything is fine. The Israeli occupation is the problem.’
“My first insight occurred when a Palestinian Arab asked me: ‘Do you write about our occupation? We are occupied by our leaders. The Palestinian occupation starts in our family with our father and uncles. Afterwards we are occupied by our boss and our leaders. The individual does not exist.’ He added: ‘That is our greatest real problem and explains our society’s stagnation.’
“I lived for a year in the Palestinian Authority territories. I did not register as a journalist with the authorities. I was not hindered by the authorities in any way, though there have been people who suspected me of being a spy.
Read more @ Arutz Sheva
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Jordanian soldier Ahmad Musa Dakasma, the notorious murderer of seven Israeli schoolgirls, was recently released from prison after serving 20 years. His name is back in the headlines following a series of posts he wrote recently encouraging the murder of Jews inside Israel. Dakasma claims that such incitement is consistent with Jordanian law, citing an addition to the State Security Law of 2013. Israel should demand that Jordan immediately abolish this addition to the law and stop Dakasma from inciting the murder of Jews.
Jordanian soldier Ahmad Mussa Dakasma, the murderer of seven Israeli schoolgirls in Naharayim on March 13, 1997, was released from prison in March 2017 after serving only 20 years for the heinous massacre. Many Israelis well remember the kneeling of King Hussein during his visit to the families of the murdered.
If you thought the liberated murderer had repented, or at least come to regret his actions, you are wrong. Dakasma’s name has been in the headlines again in recent days after he wrote a series of posts inciting the murder of Jews and encouraging people to carry out attacks inside Israel.
On October 2, he posted this on Facebook: “Every time I’m sad I remember that I murdered a few Zionists [the Israeli girls], and then I feel calm and my conscience is quiet, and sadness leaves me.” The post was removed following many requests from Israelis. On the same day, he wrote in another post: “Anyone who calls for resistance and can enter Israeli territory even as a tourist – and does not carry out an attack against the Zionists – is just a talker.” This post has not been removed, despite complaints. In another post that was removed, the terrorist called for the murder of Israeli children on the grounds that when they grow up they will serve as security guards.
Read more @ BESA
On October 26, 2018, Jihad Watch covered the troubling ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that “an Austrian woman’s criminal conviction and fine for her statements accusing the Prophet Muhammad of pedophilia did not breach her right to free speech.”
Insulting Muhammad is now forbidden, according to the ECHR, which has conceded to Sharia imperatives. This ruling is important not only for the “Austrian woman” who was not even named in the Daily Sabah article, but for all who support free speech. The next step for the expansion of Sharia provisions in Europe will be the prohibition of all speech that is considered to be broadly offensive to Muhammad’s established religion — Islam.
This is clearly the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who was fined and given a jail sentence for calling Muhammad a pedophile. He married a six-year-old and consummated the marriage when she was nine, but “the Austrian courts had held that ES was making value judgments partly based on untrue facts and without regard to the historical context.
I had the privilege to meet Elisabeth in Warsaw last month at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Human Dimension Implementation Meetings. The Center for Security Policystates:
For the last decade, a civil society delegation led by Austrian patriot and freedom fighter Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff has attended ODIHR meetings to express concerns that especially European countries were potentially unwittingly facilitating these Sharia-compliant practices, to their great and increasingly obvious detriment.
Elisabeth is a powerful advocate for freedom. The ECHR ruling on her case bears grave implications for everyone worldwide who supports human rights. Elisabeth sent me her statement on the ECHR ruling this morning. We owe her much gratitude and support for her fight for the freedom of speech, the hallmark of democracy:
“On Thursday, 25 October the ECHR ruled that my conviction by an Austrian court for discussing the marriage between Prophet Mohammed and a six year old girl, Aisha, did not infringe my rights of freedom of speech.
I was not extended the courtesy of being told of this ruling. Like many others, I had to read it in the media.
The ECHR found there had been no violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights and that right to expression needed to be balanced with the rights of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.
In other words, my right to speak freely is less important than protecting the religious feelings of others.
Read more @ JihadWatch
Ramadan Dabash wants to help the residents of his village of Sur Baher in particular, and east Jerusalem in general, improve their living conditions. He wants them to receive better services from the Jerusalem Municipality. The 52-year-old businessman and social activist, however, has been facing a campaign of threats by several Palestinian leaders and administrative bodies over his decision to run in the municipal election, slated for October 2018.
Recently, Dabash announced his decision to run in the upcoming election at the head of an Arab list called Jerusalem for Jerusalemites. He has repeatedly made it clear this summer that his decision is not politically motivated and that his only intention is to seek improved municipal services for the Arab residents of Jerusalem. Dabash has also called on Arab voters to end their boycott of the municipal election because they are the only ones who stand to lose from such a move.
Read more @ Gatestone
The hypocrisy of the leaders of the Arab citizens of Israel, who are now crying foul over the new Jewish Nation-State Law, has, in the past few days, reached new heights.
These are the same leaders whose words and actions for the past two decades have caused serious damage to relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, and to the interests of their own constituents, the Arab citizens of Israel.
Israeli Arab leaders, specifically the Knesset members, say they are outraged not only because the law defines Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, but also because the new legislation does not include words about full equality of rights for all citizens.
If there ever was a tempest in a teapot, this is it. It would have been redundant to add those words: the new law does not rescind any previous law or Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which already encompass all that. In Israel, there are also other Basic Laws that guarantee equal rights to all. For example, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, passed in 1992, stipulates:
“The purpose of this Basic Law is to protect human dignity and liberty, in order to establish in a Basic Law the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”
“Fundamental human rights in Israel are founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free; these rights shall be upheld in the spirit of the principles set forth in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.”
Israel’s Declaration of Independence from 1948, which obviously is not affected by the new Jewish Nation-State Law, also promises equality to all citizens, irrespective of their religion or color or race. It states:
“The State of Israel will foster the development of the country for all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
So, as Israel’s pre-existing laws and its Declaration of Independence remain unchanged and guarantee equal rights to all citizens, what exactly is behind the Israeli Arab leaders’ fierce attack on the Nation-State Law? Is it really because they are worried about equality or is it something else? The answer can be found in their own statements: they are basically opposed to the idea of Israel being the homeland for the Jewish people. They know very well that the Nation-State Law does not affect the Arab citizens’ status and rights as equal citizens of Israel.
Take, for example, the case of Arab Member of Knesset Zouheir Bahloul (Zionist Union), who announced this week his intention to resign from parliament in protest over the Nation-State Law. He complained that the Knesset had become a “rubber stamp for racist legislation.”
First, Bahloul is the last Arab citizen of Israel who is entitled to complain about discrimination. For decades, he was one of Israel’s most popular sports journalists, revered by Arabs and Jews alike. As such, he has always enjoyed a comfortable life in Israel — one he could never have dreamed of experiencing in any Arab country.
Read more @ Gatestone
If this were the first time that Hamas deliberately provoked Israel into self-defense actions that resulted in the unintended deaths of Gaza civilians, the media could be excused for playing into the hands of Hamas. The most recent Hamas provocations — having 40,000 Gazans try to tear down the border fence and enter Israel with Molotov cocktails and other improvised weapons — are part of a repeated Hamas tactic that I have called the “dead baby strategy.” Hamas’ goal is to have Israel kill as many Gazans as possible so that the headlines always begin, and often end, with the body count. Hamas deliberately sends women and children to the front line, while their own fighters hide behind these human shields.
Hamas leaders have long acknowledged this tactic. Fathi Hammad, a Hamas Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, stated as far back as 2008:
“For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: ‘we desire death like you desire life.'”
Hamas used this tactic to provoke two wars with Israel in which their fighters fired rockets from civilian areas, including hospitals, schools and mosques. When Israel responded, it tried its best to avoid civilian casualties, dropping warning leaflets, calling residents of potential targets and dropping non-lethal noise bombs on the roofs of houses that were being used to launch rockets and store explosives. Inevitably, some civilians were killed, and the media blamed Israel for these deaths, despite the precautions it had taken.
The same was true when Hamas built terror tunnels used to kidnap Israeli civilians. The entrances to these tunnels were in civilian areas as well, including mosques and schools. Using their own civilians as human shields, while targeting Israeli civilians, is a double war crime. Yet, the media generally focuses on Israel’s reaction to these war crimes, rather than Hamas’ war crimes.
The cruel reality is that every time Israel accidentally kills a Gaza civilian, Israel loses. And every time Israel kills a Gaza civilian, Hamas wins. Israelis grieve every civilian death its army accidentally causes. Hamas benefits from every death Israel accidentally causes. That is why it encourages its women and children to become martyrs.
Calling this the “dead baby strategy” may seem cruel, because it is cruel. But don’t blame the messenger for accurately describing this tactic. Blame those who cynically use it. And blame the media for playing into the hands of those who use it by reporting only the body count and not the deliberate Hamas tactic that leads to one-sided body counts.
Read more @ Gatestone
I’m writing this for my good friends, my moral humane friends, and for all those who are concerned and angry over the Palestinians killed and injured on the border with Gaza.
In the biblical Exodus from Egypt, when the Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea just before overtaking the Israelites, our sages say that God prevented the angels from singing and rejoicing, scolding them with the words “my creations are drowning in the sea and you are singing?!”
I write these words with great caution, and from a sense of mission. I can understand and identify with all of those good and moral Zionists who fear that the many Palestinian victims may be our fault, the result of mistakes made by our side. I’m writing because I am one of the few who was there, in uniform, in the reserves, but I was there. Yes, right there on the fence where the demonstrations are happening. It was last Friday, but I saw it with my own eyes; I was on our side of the fence but I could see and hear and understand everything. I want to testify from my firsthand knowledge, not a theoretical point of view. Because I was there.
I want to testify that what I saw and heard was a tremendous, supreme effort from our side to prevent, in every possible way, Palestinian deaths and injuries.
Of course, the primary mission was to prevent hundreds of thousands of Gazans from infiltrating into our territory. That kind of invasion would be perilous, mortally dangerous, to the nearby communities; would permit terrorists disguised as civilians to enter our kibbutz and moshav communities, and would leave us with no choice but to target every single infiltrator. That’s why our soldiers were directed to prevent infiltration, in a variety of ways, using live ammunition only as a last resort.
The IDF employs many creative means of reducing friction with Gazans and uses numerous methods, most of which are not made public, to prevent them from reaching the fence. In addition, over the past few weeks there have been serious efforts to save the lives of children and civilians who have been pushed to the front lines by the Hamas, who are trying to hide behind them in order to infiltrate and attack Israel.
Read more @ Times of Israel
At Jerusalem conference on Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy, hitherto indecipherable pieces of texts from Qumran cave revealed after being placed in cigar boxes in 1950s.
Previously unseen Dead Sea Scroll fragments, which had been stored in cigar boxes since archaeologists unearthed them in the 1950s, were identified and unveiled at an international conference on Tuesday in honor of the 70th anniversary of the scrolls’ discovery in Jerusalem.
The tiny fragments, all thought to be taken from Qumran’s Cave 11, are game changers and provide new puzzle pieces towards completing the picture of known published scrolls, experts said.
Read more @ Times of Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday accused Mahmoud Abbas of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial after the Palestinian leader suggested in a speech that the persecution of European Jews was because of their professions and not their religion.
Jewish groups also condemned Abbas’ comments, made in a speech on Monday to the Palestinian National Council, that Jews had suffered historically because of their professions, such as banking.
“It would appear that, once a Holocaust denier, always a Holocaust denier,” the Israeli prime minister said in one of a series of Twitter posts.
“I call upon the international community to condemn the grave anti-Semitism of Abu Mazen (Abbas), which should have long since passed from this world.”
Read more @ Middle East Eye
On March 30, an attempt by tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to infiltrate the border with Israel launched a six-week campaign of mass protests — called the “March of Return” — organized by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other radical Palestinian groups.
The groups encouraged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to head to the areas adjacent to the border with Israel. The protesters were also encouraged to try to infiltrate the border, thus putting their lives at risk.
Hamas and its allies told the protesters that the “March of Return” marked the beginning of the “liberation of all of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.” In other words, the Palestinians were told that infiltrating the border with Israel would be the first step toward destroying Israel.
Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yehya Sinwar, who joined the March 30 mass protests along the border with Israel, did not hide the real goal behind the “March of Return” — to destroy Israel and thwart US President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East.
Read more @ Gatestone
A visit to Morocco shows that the claim of Palestinians to a “right of return” has little historic, moral or legal basis.
Jews lived in Morocco for centuries before Islam came to Casablanca, Fez and Marrakesh. The Jews, along with the Berbers, were the backbone of the economy and culture. Now their historic presence can be seen primarily in the hundreds of Jewish cemeteries and abandoned synagogues that are omnipresent in cities and towns throughout the Maghreb.
I visited Maimonides’s home, now a restaurant. The great Jewish philosopher and medical doctor taught at a university in Fez. Other Jewish intellectuals helped shape the culture of North Africa, from Morocco to Algeria to Tunisia to Egypt. In these countries, Jews were always a minority but their presence was felt in every area of life.
Now they are a remnant in Morocco and gone from the other counties. Some left voluntarily to move to Israel after 1948. Many were forced to flee by threats, pogroms and legal decrees, leaving behind billions of dollars in property and the graves of their ancestors.
Today, Morocco’s Jewish population is less than 5,000, as contrasted with 250,000 at its peak. To his credit, King Mohammad VI has made a point of preserving the Jewish heritage of Morocco, especially its cemeteries. He has better relations with Israel than other Muslim countries but still does not recognize Israel and have diplomatic relations with the nation state of the Jewish People. It is a work in progress. His relationship with his small Jewish community, most of whom are avid Zionists, is excellent. Many Moroccans realize that they lost a lot when the Jews of Morocco left. Some Israelis of Moroccan origin, maintain close relations with their Moroccan heritage.
Read more @ Gatestone
The BBC, SkyNews and other media outlets across the UK shockingly omitted Israel from their headlines about Prince William’s visit, despite the future king being set to make the first official Royal Family to visit Israel. He will also be visiting Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, but in an example of blatant bias by the media, many headlines only highlighted his visit to the “Palestinian Territories”.
Some of the press went even further by referring to Palestinian Territories as Occupied.
Read more @ Christians United for Israel
The director of the Queens Museum was a supporter of the boycott-Israel movement and used her views to cancel a prestigious event last year by the Israeli government marking 70 years of the United Nations’ recognition of it as a state, according to a scathing report issued Wednesday by the museum’s board.
The report, prepared by an independent investigation, also accused Laura Raicovich, the president and executive director of the museum, as well as her deputy, David Strauss, of lying to the board after they unilaterally cancelled the event.
Raicovich, the report said, “showed immediate hostility to hosting the event at the museum even before consulting with the board and then, together with Mr. Strauss, sought reasons why the board should not agree to the event.”
Israel’s U.N. office booked the museum months in advance since the city-owned property was the home of the United Nations General Assembly at the time of the historic Nov. 29, 1947, vote recognizing the state of Israel.
But in August, as word of the event became public, Raicovich began expressing concern in the media about feedback she was receiving from “Palestinian friends of the museum.” She ignored phone calls from Israel’s U.N. ambassador for several weeks, before notifying him that she was reversing the decision and would no longer agree to host the event. She cited a board decision not to hold a “political event.”
The event was rapidly reinstated after an outcry by New York City elected officials and the two museum leaders were forced to resign last month. Raicovich said at the time that she “just felt that my vision and that of the board weren’t in enough alignment to get that done.”
Read more @ Hamodia
It’s pretty clear that Laura Raicovich, the ousted executive director of the Queens Museum, doesn’t like Israel, not one bit.
Her anti-Israel politics are her right, but it was not her right to go rogue and use her office to try to kill a November ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the 1947 United Nations vote to establish a Jewish state, back when the museum building was the UN headquarters.
Nor was it her right to lie to the museum’s board of directors when they started asking necessary questions.
After an August cancellation, outcry and immediate rescheduling of the event, the board knew something fishy was afoot, and so, asked a law firm to conduct a pro bono probe into what happened.
It was far worse than they, or we, thought. This wasn’t a case of botched communication. It was all about one woman’s animus and a torrent of falsehoods to try covering it up.
Read more @ Daily News
German political correctness has led to the cover-up of antisemitism — in both its classic and anti-Israeli types — among Muslim immigrants. Suddenly, a tipping point seems to have been reached. This has probably been caused by the public burning of self-made Israeli flags by Muslims after President Trump announced that the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The video of the Berlin flag burning was seen around the world.
While flag burning is far from the most severe type of antisemitism in contemporary Germany, it called up powerful associations with the book burning in 1933, when the Nazi party came to power after a democratic election. Suddenly, leading politicians have started to speak out against antisemitism among immigrants. Some have even been more explicit, using the term “Muslim antisemites.”
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, said that the responsibility of Germany for its history knows “no limits for those who were born later and no exceptions for immigrants.” He added: “This is not negotiable for all those who live in Germany and want to live here.”
Read more @ The Algemeiner
Berlin’s local government has come under fire after reports of frequent, habitual and sometimes criminal misconduct by Berlin’s police cadets. According to the reports, such misconduct, especially by those with a migrant background, is rampant in the Berlin-Spandau police academy.
The scandal was revealed when a private WhatsApp voicemail was leaked to the public. The author, a paramedic who had given classes in the academy, complained:
“Today I held a class at the police academy. I’ve never experienced anything like it. The classroom looked like a pigsty. Half of the class [are] Arabs and Turks, rude as hell. Dumb. Could not express themselves. I was about to expel two or three of them because they disturbed the class or were actually sleeping. German colleagues related that some of them had threatened to beat them. … [Some students] speak virtually no German. I am shocked, and afraid of them. The teachers … believe that when they expel them, they will destroy the cars on the street. … These are not our colleagues, this is the enemy among us. I have never before felt such hatred expressed in the classrooms. … They throw punches during class — you cannot imagine that.”
The paramedic sent the voicemail to several people, one of whom brought it to the attention of Berlin’s Chief of Police, Klaus Kandt.
The first reaction came from police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf, who acknowledgedthat there were “frequently problems” at the police academy; he also admitted that some of the cadets committed crimes — but “they are immediately expelled.” Neuendorf then attacked the paramedic by saying that “the tone and the form” of his criticism had been “inappropriate”. Moreover, Neuendorf said, the paramedic should have reported these things only to his superior.
At the same time, it emerged that Berlin’s police commanders and the Senate had been aware of problems with cadets “of migrant background” long before this exposé.
The newspaper Die Welt quoted from the leaked minutes of a high-level police meeting, according to which the staff of the police academy complained about problems that “developed in the course of hiring officers with a migrant background (currently 30%).” Some of them could not swim, even though this was a requirement for employment. Many police candidates had a “lack of professional ethics”. Some candidates showed “condescending behavior toward female employees, whom they treat like cleaning women.”
