Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Haredi man dancing to Emirati song makes waves in Arab media

The Israel Speaks Arabic Facebook page posted this video showing a Haredi man dancing on top of his car to a song that he was blaring during an unusually long red light.

Arab media picked up on this, calling it "shocking," because the song is a very popular Arabic song by an Emirati singer. It apparently is being used in Egypt as a song of support for Egyptian president Sisi.

The man dances until the light turns green when he goes back into his car.

The graffiti on the car says "simcha," or "happiness." Chances are the driver is a Breslov hasid.

I'm not sure what this signifies - except that Arabs really do read the official Israeli Arabic hasbara media. The video has received 202,000 views so far.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

We are a tiny tribe.
Threatened from all corners of the earth, from near and from far.
We are Jews.

So few. So threatened.

So brilliant and yet so very stupid.

Our enemies laugh while, instead of uniting against them, we fight amongst ourselves.

I follow the religion more correctly than you!

I am more modest than you!

I am more studious than you!

I am more Zionist than you!

My physical strength protects you!

My spiritual strength protects you!

It goes on and on…

Our friends shake their heads in wonder.

And our enemies laugh.

The Jew says: “I am modern! I belong to the world! I am first German/American/Gay and Jewish second.”

The enemy responds: “You don’t belong to the world, you belong to Israel and we feel Israel is vile. You can march with us, but only if you utterly reject your Jewishness.”

I have heard Olim tell diaspora Jews that they are superior because they are “true Zionists”.
I have heard diaspora Jews tell Israelis that we should be grateful to them, do as they say, because they contribute money to Israel.
(I have heard both tell non-Jews that they cannot be Zionists because they are not Jewish)

How do any of those attitudes help?!

There are so many of them and so few of us.

We are the Jews.
Together we are indestructible.

Of course, our enemies want to divide us. They would much prefer that we stay weak.

But why do so many Jews collaborate, participate eagerly in this damaging and dangerous game?!

Our enemies laugh, knowing that there are those amongst us, working from within to weaken the tribe.

History has shown that the Jewish people are invincible – accept against the enemy from within.
Baseless hate. Jealousy. The desire to receive credit for achievements. The desire for political gain.

All somehow couched in terms of “I do this because I care…”

Pushing someone else down to make yourself feel superior is the action of an inferior personality.
Jew working against Jew is, in the long run, suicidal and potentially genocidal.

It is time for every Jew around the world, and every friend of Jews, to call for unity.

We must stand together. Opinion may differ but family is an unbreakable bond.

We are the Jews.

Our tribe is small and every member is needed.

Those who live in Israel must protect Zion from within. Those who live abroad must protect Zion from without. Each does what he or she knows how.

We can all do more, do better.

If only we would all be decent people first.
“Decency precedes the Torah”. Of all the enlightening revolutionary ideas, our tribe has brought to the world, if we only learned that one lesson, dayenu.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

06/27 Links Pt1: The Fallacy of Israeli Intransigence; UN’s worst despots take aim at Israel

From Ian:

The Fallacy of Israeli Intransigence

It is a fallacy that Israeli intransigence is the key stumbling block in Arab-Israeli relations, and that, therefore, Israeli concessions are the key factor that will create the conditions for a solution. The Israeli withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 should have dispelled this idea forever. Rather than having a calming effect, however, those withdrawals only served to increase the bloodlust of Hizbullah and Hamas.
Any withdrawal from territory on the West Bank, therefore, must come with ironclad guarantees of Israeli security. Given the unsettled state of the region in general, the advances of the Iranian alliance in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, the persistence of al-Qaeda and ISIS, and the split among the Palestinians between Hamas and Fatah, no Israeli government could take severe risks with respect to Israeli security on the West Bank and still hope to remain in power.
Israelis are already intensely aware that in a very short period of time they might find themselves peering across the Golan Heights at Iranian soldiers ensconced in Syria. How can the world ask them to take steps that could potentially lead to the Iranian penetration of the West Bank as well?
The writer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, was a senior director at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration. These remarks are from his address at the UN Security Council on June 20, 2017. (Hudson Institute)

Caroline Glick: The PLO's IDF lobbyists

In contrast, and again against the wishes of the government, the Civil Administration has repeatedly acted to block Israeli construction in Area C. For instance, the IDF insists that no land deal between Israel and Palestinians is final until the IDF approves it. The policy harms Israeli construction in two ways.
First, it gives the Civil Administration the power – which it uses – to delay Israeli construction indefinitely.
Second, by forcing parties to land deals to come forward publicly, the Civil Administration intimidates Palestinian land sellers. They know that if their land deals with Israelis become public they will face execution by the PA.
Returning to Abbas for a moment, the PLO chief may have overplayed his hand by insulting Trump and his senior envoys. All the politicized retired and currently serving Israeli generals together cannot convince Trump to send US tax dollars to a terrorism supporting leader who trashes him and his senior officials. Consequently, there is every reason to believe that the Taylor Force Act will soon be signed into law and the US will end its financing of Palestinian terrorism.
But even if Washington cuts off funding to the PA, Israel is still left to deal with its radicalized generals who exploit their rank to undermine the government.
The best way to end this situation is for the government to shut down the Civil Administration and get the IDF out of the governing business in Judea and Samaria. So long as the government continues to empower unaccountable generals to administer civilian areas instead of its accountable, civilian bureaucracy, we will continue to be confronted with the surreal spectacle of Israeli generals lobbying for Palestinian terrorists.
If the government applies Israeli law to Area C, it can still negotiate with the PLO, just as it has negotiated about the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. But in the meantime, it will remove one of the most corrupting and corrosive forces preying on our generals and our democracy for the benefit of the Israeli and Palestinian residents of Area C alike and indeed for Israel as a whole.

'Breaking the Silence has been forced to look in the mirror'

Avichai Shorshan, founder of “Ha’emet Sheli” (“My Truth”), an organization of combat reserves soldiers that has taken upon itself the task of telling the real story of IDF soldiers, told Arutz Sheva that the investigation against “Breaking the Silence” Spokesman Dean Issacharoff and the voices of protest against the investigation raise questions about the the sincerity of the radical left organization.
“[Breaking the Silence], since its founding, has tried to create an image for itself as the guardian of morality in the IDF, and now [that image] is exploding in its face. A soldier [in the organization] testifies about himself, admitting that he beat a Palestinian and as a result, the authorities want to investigate him. Suddenly they say there’s no need to investigate him - it’s the fault of the ‘occupation.’ To shake off responsibility is the most disgusting thing you can do.”
Shorshan called on Breaking the Silence and all the leftist organizations to focus on facts rather than invent them. “As far as we’re concerned, every soldier who acted against protocol needs to be investigated and, if he is guilty, needs to pay the penalty. Woe upon us if we know of soldiers who use force in an unauthorized way. Every one of us is obligated to report to his commander and check if he sees something not acceptable.”
He said that the incident concerning Dean Issacharoff places a mirror in front of Breaking the Silence. “From this incident, they can see themselves as they really are. They don’t really want the IDF to be more moral - they are politically motivated. They tell all sorts of tall tales about the' war crimes' of the IDF; some of these stories are taken out of context, and some of them never happened at all.”

The incomparable Dexter Van Zile wrote an excellent piece about how the current spreading campus culture of censorship and violent intimidation to enforce ideological conformity had its origin in the ways Israel and her friends have been treated on college campuses for more than a decade.

To understand the full impact of what Dexter is talking about, it’s worth considering his insight in the context of another phenomenon first articulated by the late Senator and former UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan which he called “defining deviance down.”

When Moynihan first introduced the concept, he was referring to mainstreaming behaviors once considered taboo.

Clearly not all changes to societal norms should be considered bad. Replacing contempt for women, minorities and gays with open mindedness and respect represents obvious improvement, for example. But toleration of other behaviors (like drug use and casual sex), while liberating for the individual, have personal and societal consequences (addiction, AIDS, etc.) which are hard to even discuss (lest one come off as “reactionary”) before their full negative consequences emerge.

With regard to campus shout downs and censorship, the targeting of Jews with those tactics clearly preceded their current much-wider expansion. But correlation does not mean causation. So might we be able to identify a mechanism (and historical precedent) whereby starting with one group (the Jews) served as a similar warm-up act for a much wider (and sinister) agenda?

Because the BDSers are such a reactionary bunch, it’s easy to dismiss any progress they make as the result of ruthlessness and relentlessness vs. innovation. But this would be a mistake. For the community of which the BDSers have always been a part has proven itself to be remarkably inventive when it comes to thinking of ways to either seize power or get others to relinquish power to them.

Seizing control of human-rights machinery created to make the world a more peaceful place and turning it into a weapon of war, while ghastly and immoral, is also a remarkable breakthrough in propaganda “technology,” as is the rhetoric needed to convince progressives that supporting a repressive society (the Palestinians and their Arab allies) aligns with their principles better than supporting an open one (Israel).

The Prophetess Ruth Wisse, in her analysis of anti-Semitism as a political ideology vs. one of many forms of bigotry, identifies the reason why totalitarians first targeting the Jews on their way to terrorizing and ultimately controlling or destroying everyone else.

As described in this piece (which is part of this longer series), the gap between Jews’ perceived power (or omnipotence, in the eyes of the anti-Semite) and their highly limited actual power (and willingness to use what power they have) becomes an open invitation to the would-be tyrant. For if you want to convince the public that you are arming yourself against an all-powerful threat with near 100% certainty that this “threat” will not hit you back, your best choice of target are the Jews.

We’ve seen this kind of behavior with the last century’s totalitarian movements. Think of Hitler arming his supporters and organizing secret police forces to ferret out the Jews controlling the planet, creating machinery that was later used to set that planet ablaze. Or Saddam Hussein who hung Jews in the public square to demonstrate his resoluteness with regard to this urgent Zionist “threat,” after which he got around to placing that noose around the neck of the entire nation of Iraq.

So what we have seen over the last several years is not just an attempt to shut down voices of just one opinion (support for Israel) but an experiment to see how far the system can be pushed in allowing a small, loud minority to control discourse and, eventually, the campus as a whole. And because not enough people did anything when the problem was just “the Jews” the brutes have now come for all of us.

With that in mind, the one place where I diverge from Dexter’s commentary is his use of the phrase “canary in the coal mine,” an image that comes up frequently in discussions on this topic. For the coal-mine canary (which alarms miners of deadly gas by graciously dying before humans can be harmed) is just an early warning system. In contrast, the role we Jews play in this ugly game of tyrants is that of experimental lab animal.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Yesterday I noted a Haaretz article about how Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority has essentially shut the door for Gaza medical patients to be treated in Israel.

Today, the Gaza Health Ministry announced the death of 9-month old Ibrahim Samir Tubail as a direct result of his not being able to travel to Israel for treatment.

He had a type of fibrosis.

Two other babies, both with heart problems, also died in the past 24 hours in Gaza after being denied permission to go to Israel for treatment by the PA.

According to Al Quds newspaper, 12 patients have died in Gaza this year from being denied permission to leave the sector. Six of them were children.

But a Ukrainian doctor who lives in Gaza, married to a Palestinian, managed to get her rare Persian long-haired cat to Israel for treatment who broke her jaw from a fall.

After she couldn't find any veterinarians in Gaza, Tatiana Zaqout contacted the Brigitte Bardot animal foundation who eventually connected her with Israeli pet experts who helped her arrange for the transfer of her cat, Sonia, to Israel.

Sonia's treatment is costing about $3000 and Zaqout is raising the money to pay.

Sonia is the daughter of "Bessie" and..."Vladimir Putin."

The babies dying in Gaza don't get as much consideration as a cat.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The English language page of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has a short synopsis of his "Quds Day" speech last Friday.

In it, he reiterates his opposition to Israel, but unlike how the Western media usually portrays it, his speech was in purely religious, and not political, terms.

He stated, "Palestine is the first important issue of the Muslim world. According to the Islamic Fiqh (jurisprudence), when an enemy dominates Muslim lands, Jihad is the duty of all, in any form possible. Today, the fight against the Zionist regime is obligatory for the Muslim world. Why do some abandon this job?"

Arabs aren't impressed with Khamenei's religious ruling. In response to his tweet, one answered this way:

Your troops are in Syria killing Muslims. They are a short way from Israel. If you want to fight them use Google maps to show you the way.
— سنجرستاني (@Singari10) June 27, 2017

The full version of his speech should be posted soon.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

06/26 Links Pt2: Europe must stop funding demonization of Israel; We could all be Otto Warmbier

From Ian:

Cinnamon Stillwell and Michael Lumish: Professors Spin Antisemitic Conspiracies at Cal State-Fresno

California State University, Fresno (CSUF) is the last place that one would expect conspiracy theories about Jewish power to proliferate — because Jews make up less than one percent of Fresno’s population. But leave it to the academic world to provide fertile ground for this ugly trope.
It began last year, when CSUF sought to hire someone for an endowed professorship to be named after the late Columbia University professor Edward Said. When the hiring committee failed to appoint one of the final four applicants — all of Middle Eastern heritage — and CSUF canceled the search, an acrimonious battle ensued.
It didn’t take long for anti-Israel CSUF professors to push the antisemitic canard that Jewish faculty members and outside groups had interfered in the hiring process based on the job candidates’ ethnicity.
Joe Parks, the Equal Employment Opportunities representative on the search committee, told the Fresno Bee, “The search was canceled because when the finalists came to campus, the Jewish faculty complained.” Elsewhere, Parks singled out “the Jewish community” as being responsible for the school’s failure to hire one of the applicants.
In solidarity with Parks, Vida Samiian, the semi-retired director of CSUF’s Middle East Studies Program and dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, quit. “I have decided to resign in objection to the unethical and discriminatory cancellation of the Edward Said Professorship,” she wrote. “The administration carried out the vicious and discriminatory attacks launched by Israel advocacy groups against the search committee and the four finalists who were of Middle Eastern and Palestinian ethnicity [emphasis added].”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan Faces Criticism for Refusal to Back Hezbollah Terror Designation

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has come under fire for refusing to confirm that he would petition UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd to designate all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The question regarding the terror group’s status was raised last week by London Assembly member David Kurten (UKIP) in response to the presence of Hezbollah flags during an anti-Israel Al-Quds Day march in London.
“That will close the loophole to stop people marching through the streets of London with a flag with a gun on it,” Kurten said in support of the terror designation during a London Assembly meeting.
At the same meeting, Assembly member Andrew Boff (Conservative) accused Khan of not doing his job, saying the mayor seems to be “avoiding saying, ‘Yes I’ll [confirm the designation with the home secretary].’”
Rudd said she would explore the possibility of banning the annual Al-Quds Day march and designating all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
In the past, the European Union has come under scrutiny for making a distinction between the so-called “military” and “political” wings of Hezbollah, only giving the “military” wing a terror designation.
The grassroots group North West Friends of Israel amassed 20,000 signatures on a petition advocating for the Hezbollah terror designation.

Seth Frantzman: We could all be Otto Warmbier

Otto Warmbier’s tearful confession still haunts me. There is something awful in it. The crying out of a young man who knows he faces a ruined life based on accusations of a regrettable act that he cannot undo. Warmbier faced injustice after injustice in North Korea. A sham trial, a coerced confession, a life-destroying 15-year prison sentence of hard labor, sickness and then death. He was 22 years old.
His last few days were spent back in the US after he was released on “humanitarian” grounds by the very regime responsible for his incarceration and the illness that led to his death. His supposed crime? He was accused of trying to take a government sign as a souvenir. The North Korean government claimed this act undermined the foundations of the state.
He is not the first or last to receive an unspeakable punishment while being innocent of any real infraction. Men, women and children have been executed throughout history for minor infractions. Le Miserables is based on the story of a man sentenced to harsh labor for stealing bread. Nor is the North Korean regime unique in handing down these kinds of punishments in our time. In Thailand people are sentenced for insulting the monarch. In other places they are caned or beheaded, as happens in Saudi Arabia. Women are stoned to death or murdered by their families for looking at a man the wrong way or dressing “immodestly” in countries such as Pakistan.
Albinos are lynched in east Africa. Tourists are sentenced to death, accused of smuggling drugs, in countries like Indonesia.
In discussions about the murder of Warmbier, many excuses have been made and some writers have gone so far as to blame the victim. Time magazine callously titled their story “How Otto Warmbier Made It Out Of North Korea,” and pretended his treatment was due to “the latest grim chapter” in US-North Korea relations, as if bad relations between countries excuses the arrest and death of a young man.
Other hate-mongers claim Warmbier is an example of “white privilege” and his death was deserved because of his skin color. But the only privilege he asked for was not be sentenced to decades in prison and then killed by maltreatment over accusations of stealing a small sign. That’s not privilege, that’s a basic human right.

Antisemitic events June 2017

From an email I received from the World Zionist Organization:

UNITED STATES / 20-06-2017
In Samford someone used fecal matter to smear a swastika and the Star of David near the entrance of the Rich Forum Media Center. The theater is where filming of the “Jerry Spring Show,” “Maury Show,” and “Steve Wilkos Show” takes place.

UNITED STATES / 19-06-2017
Someone vandalized the sidewalk outside a popular Jewish deli in Naperville. The phrase "Free Gaza" was spray painted in black on the sidewalk near the front door at Schmaltz Deli and the restaurant owner released a statement saying that he is angry and surprised by the vandalism.

BRITAIN / 19-06-2017
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters marched through the streets of central London on Sunday on the annual “Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day” demonstration convened by the Islamic Human Rights Commission. At a rally outside the US Embassy following the march, one speaker blamed the tragic fire at west London’s Grenfell Tower public housing project on “Zionists.” Many of the marchers brandished signs calling for a boycott of the State of Israel. A number of flags of the Lebanese Islamist terror organization Hezbollah were also in evidence, including one at the front of the protest that was tied atop a Palestinian flag.

GERMANY / 16-06-2017
Tombstones of anti-Nazi resistance fighters and Jews were desecrated with the inscription of profanities. The desecration included a commemorative stele near the Gottschalk family’s gravesites. Joachim Gottschalk, during the Third Reich, refused to be separated from his Jewish wife and their son; following considerable oppression by the Nazis for this choice, the family member committed suicide.

BRITAIN / 15-06-2017
A Jewish couple were walking in Hackney and were subjected to vicious anti-Semitic abuse at the hands of a group of teenagers, two of whom approached them shouting abuse about Jews and swearing. At one point they grabbed the Jewish man’s hat and continued to shout abuse when he asked them to give it back.

UKRAINE / 14-06-2017
For the fourth time, vandals desecrated the grave of Sary, the eldest daughter of the Holy tzaddik, Rabbi Nachman of Brastslav. Vandals set fire to the house of burial in the town cemetery and the monument is completely broken.

BRITAIN / 12-06-2017
A 16-year-old Jewish boy was resting on a park bench when he was approached by two younger teenagers who grabbed at his bicycle and hat, which is of the kind traditionally worn by charedi Jews. When the Jewish boy asked them to stop, the two teenagers threatened to “beat” him. Members of the public came to the boy’s defense.

GERMANY / 7-06-2017
Tombstones at the Jewish cemetery outside of the German city of Gotha were desecrated with Antisemitic graffiti. About 18 swastikas were spray-painted on the tombstones throughout the cemetery.

UNITED STATES / 6-06-2017
Antisemitic signs were placed above a Portland highway on a pedestrian bridge. The signs were hung on both sides of the bridge and read, “Jews did 9-11”.

These are only the tip of the iceberg. Here are a selection of headlines from The New Antisemite blog that covers Europe:

Portugal: Israeli ambassador and Jewish leader physically threatened on campus - demonstrators shouted "Hamas! Hamas!"

Germany: BDS activists storm lecture by MK in Berlin Humbolt University

German neo-Nazi party builds alliance with Assad and Hezbollah

UK: Teenagers grab at Jewish boy's hat and bicycle, threatening to “beat” him

Germany: Two sculptures of Jewish sporting heroes destroyed in Frankfurt

UK: UKIP candidate Philip Rose tweeted David Icke’s conspiracy myth about “Rothschild Zionists”

Austria: Half of Muslim youth hold antisemitic views

UK: Pro-Israel group harassed by in Brighton by Holocaust denier

UK: Man at polling station arrested after threatening to kill Jewish voter

Romania: Large anti-Semitic tags found at historic Cluj synagogue

Spain: Police arrest Arab Hamas supporter accused of inciting violence against Jews

Netherlands: Muslim council politician calls Israeli school children future child murderers

Italy: Lawmaker speaks of 'Zionist influence in Italian media' and 'Zionism is synonymous with racism'

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

06/26 Links Pt1: Why Abbas Cannot Stop Funding Terrorists; Palestinian rejectionism means no deal

From Ian:

Palestinians: Why Abbas Cannot Stop Funding Terrorists

This is their way of expressing their gratitude to those who have chosen to "sacrifice" their lives by trying to murder Jews. It is also their way of encouraging young people to join the war of terrorism against Israel. The financial aid sends a specific message: Palestinians who are prepared to die in the service of murdering Jews need not worry about the welfare of their families.
The more years a Fatah terrorist serves in Israeli prison, the higher the salary he or she receives. Some Fatah terrorists held in Israeli prison are said to receive monthly stipends of up to $4,000. Many of them are also rewarded with top jobs in both Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Why should any Palestinian go to university and search for a job when he can make a "decent living" murdering Jews?
Such a plan to dry up the funds that support terrorists and their families, is doomed from the start unless these leaders reverse their behavior and embark on a process of de-radicalizing their people.

PMW: When a Palestinian man hits his wife, is Israel responsible? PMW responds to UN report

During a recent UN Human Rights Council meeting, Israel was blamed for causing Palestinian men's violence against Palestinian women. It was claimed that there is a "clear linkage between the prolonged occupation and violence against women." However, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Palestinian Authority TV teaches Palestinian men how to beat their wives according to Islam. At the UN session, UN Watch director Hillel Neuer responded to the claims by citing a PMW video, which exposes a Palestinian religious official describing on PA TV the conditions under which a man may hit his wife.
However the example that was cited at the UN is not a solitary example of justification of Palestinian male violence against women on official PA TV. The following is a PMW compilation of a repeating message on official PA TV, even by a female TV host, that a Palestinian man has a right to hit his wife under Islamic law, and describing the way he should do so.
The following are the instructions broadcast on PA TV:
How to hit your wife properly
The following are broadcasts from official Palestinian Authority TV explaining the conditions that a Palestinian man should follow when hitting his wife, according to Islamic law:

Arabs denounce Israeli Eid holiday greetings as "provoking feelings of Muslims"

Yesterday was the Muslim holiday of Eid al Fitr that follows Ramadan.

For the occasion, Binyamin Netanyahu gave his best wishes to the Muslim world.

Arab sites were not happy, claiming that this is not sincere, saying that he regularly massacres Palestinian Muslims so there is no way he could actually want to give holiday greetings to any Muslim anywhere.

IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee also offered his best wishes for Eid on his Facebook page, and included a video showing female IDF soldiers also wishing everyone an Eid Mubarak.

This was too much for some Muslims, who wrote that this video wishing a happy holiday to Muslims is "an attempt to provoke the feelings of Muslims in Palestine in particular and around the world in general."

Well, what else could it possibly be?

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Hamas is getting more and more nervous about its position in the Arab world, which is increasingly considering it a terror group like ISIS.

At an Eid al-Fitr speech in Gaza, Hamas deputy speaker Khalil al-Hiya said, "Do not confuse Islam with extremism, and resistance is not terrorism. [Resistance] is not violent and extreme, it is a legitimate right under all laws and regulations."

Meaning that a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv is wonderful, a suicide bomber in Aleppo is awful.

Why ISIS, which is trying to create an Islamist nation in Iraq and Syria through "resistance," is any different from Hamas which is trying to create an Islamist nation in Israel, is not quite elaborated on.

Instead, al-Hiya stressed that "extremism is exploited by our enemies to distort Islam" and it has nothing to do with "resistance and national liberation."

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Haaretz reports that over the past two months, the number of vouchers issued by the PA to allow Gazans to travel outside the sector for medical treatment has plummeted from over 2000 a month to a few dozen. Some 90% of the requests are being ignored.

People with cancer and heart disease who had been treated in Israel cannot resume their treatments. Children who have been traveling regularly to hospitals in Israel are stuck and their parents are frantic.

And, as I previously reported, the PA has stopped shipments of anesthetic to Gaza, meaning that most operations cannot be performed in Gaza itself.

Between this and the PA's refusal to pay for electricity and fuel for Gaza, we see a total disregard by Mahmoud Abbas for the lives and well-being of his people.

The only political leader in the region who shows as little regard for his own people is Syria's Bashar Assad.

Yet Gisha, the NGO that monitors travel and goods through Gaza crossings, has been silent about the Palestinian Authority's responsibility for the electricity crisis, the banning of medicines and anesthetic and the decision to not allow Gazans to leave for medical treatment. In fact, Gisha essentially exonerates the PA in its "fact sheet" about the electricity crisis:

Isn’t it the PA’s decision to cut supply? What does Israel have to do with it?

Even if the PA asks it to do so, Israel has its hand on the switch and would be complicit in and accountable for the certain devastation that would occur in the Strip as a result of further interruption in supply.

As always, if Israel cannot be blamed, then these things are just not of interest to the vast majority of the media nor to alleged "Palestinian activists" and "human rights organizations."

And Mahmoud Abbas cannot possibly be blamed for indirectly killing his own people, because the media has invested so much space into the idea that he is a man of peace and a moderate. It simply would make the journalists and analysts look bad if they would suddenly report that he is a despot who willingly lets his own people die and who collectively punishes millions for purely political reasons.

It means the news media have had him wrong for the past 15 years, and they are way too invested in the myth of moderate Abbas than the facts. Stories that support their anti-Israel bias are highlighted - and stories that contradict their pro-Palestinian bias are ignored or soft-pedaled.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.