Al Awda orders. Jewish Voice for Peace Complies

Al Awda orders.

Eyad Kishawi  of Al-Awda orderd the shut-down of Israeli peace activist

Jewish Voice for Peace complies.

Jewish Voice for Peace members were among those arrested at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center for attempting to silence former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Arrest of professional Israel-hater Ellen Brotsky of Jewish Voice for Peace 

From the J Weekly:

Speaking May 16 to a near sellout crowd at the JCC of San Francisco, Barak said the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies are “embarrassing,” and that they have “locked the door on the two-state solution, which is the only viable and sustainable one.”

In town as part of a book tour in support of his newly published memoir “My Country, My Life,” Barak was scheduled to speak the next day at the Commonwealth Club. At the JCC, he said many things that would please progressive observers of Middle East politics, such as harshly criticizing Netanyahu’s support of Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank.

Not progressive enough for more than a dozen anti-Zionist protesters in attendance, part of a larger group protesting outside. They noisily interrupted Barak three separate times, chanting slogans, such as “Palestine will be free,” and calling Barak — a former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces — a war criminal.

Eyad Kishawi's response

More Lies from Eyad Kishawi

 Eyad Kishawi, posting in Facebook as Eyad Kay remains a consistent source of misinformation. 

Ahmad Amer was shot after attacking a soldier with a knife.  Yet Eyad, co-founder of the extremist group Al Awda shared a post that claimed:

He had a pen, not a knife, yet he was executed by Zionist occupation forces today, his name is Ahmad Amer from Zawyah village, near Salfit, he is a 16 years old schoolboy, 9 March 2016.

Eyad, how many  "innocent" 16 year olds write a will before they leave home?

KQED capitulates to Bullies

During Friday's morning pledge drive, local radio station KQED offered the home carbonation system, Sodastream, as a thank you gift for subscribers.

The BDS cru saw blood.

Via social media, an organized campaign began to bully KQEd into capitulating to their demands. While the pro Israel community were busy at their day jobs, the "Don't they have a life?" contingent began the process of pressuring the station.

Here's the quick and dirty anatomy of the attack.

Anti-Israel agitprop site Electronic Intifada issued a call to arms.

Dr Hatem Bazian, who infamously called for an intifada in America  encouraged people to call KQED.

 Eyad Kishawi, of the extremist Al Awda movement also jumped on the bandwagon

Soon, others were spamming the KQED Twitter feed, 

as well as their facebook page

Rather than do independent research, KQED simply capitulated to the bullies, tweeting to anger management poster child Deppen Webber   "Controversy surrounding Sodastream would undermine our unbiased message"

Interestingly, according to the Electronic Intifada  the station had  been "unaware" of the controversy surrounding Sodastream until this incident.  What does that say about the alleged "momentum" of this "movement"?  After years of letter writing, emailing, "twitter storms", "thunderclaps" "culture jamming", protests and flash mobs,  the BDS 'holes had not yet succeeded in propagandizing a Bay Area progressive radio station

If only KQED had taken the time to really examine this issue.

Eyad Kishawi: Haters Gonna hate

Eyad Kishawi of Al Awda doesn't seem like our little local blog very much.  He writes:

 "Hello to my network- savvy friends. Below is a vitriolic sight to think about, which spreads lies and defames justice- for- Palestine activist. Their Google ranking is number one on BDS and high for every activist they defame" 

I left your typos in, Eyad, because I want to be accurate in quoting you. Zionists are like that.

Eyad continues:

"Time to bury them on google by mentioning them in context"

 It sounds like Eyad Kishawi is proposing cyber warfare.

Eyad. I have an alternate plan. If there is anything here that is inaccurate, please let us know, and we'd be happy to update the information. If anyone feels they have been "defamed", we'd be happy to evaluate their allegation, and adjust or update the posts accordingly. Accuracy is important to us, because, well, you know. Zionists are like that.

Mahatma Gandhi once said “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Eyad Kishawi is initiating the "fighting us" stage. We both know what comes next.

Let it roll, Eyad. Let it roll.

                                               

Eyad Kishawi of Al Awda spreads misinformation. Again

Eyad Kishawi, one of the movers and shakers of the northern California extremist group, Al-Awda might be a little too quick on the send button.  Although he's been challenged more than once for sending false and misleading information,  it still seems to happen. regularly.

Presenting this weeks indiscretion from Eyad Kishawi: Spreading a quote  falsely attributed to Nelson Mandela, and widely exposed as a fraud as early as 2007.

From the Augean Stables, written by Prof. Richard Landes:

Joel Pollack of Guide to the Perplexed has a couple of posts on the Sabeel conference at the Old South Church. In the first one he discusses a quotation from Nelson Mandela on the back of the Official Program.

I sat down in a pew near the front and opened the folder of conference materials. The back page of the official program was entitled “Apartheid?” and was filled with quotes and maps aimed at proving the Israel-apartheid analogy. They had a line from Jimmy Carter, a line from Archbishop Desmond Tutu (the conference’s keynote speaker), and a line from—no, wait, really?—Nelson Mandela:

“Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.”

Sounds rather damning, doesn’t it? And who could disagree with Nelson Mandela? There’s only one problem: Nelson Mandela never said, wrote or endorsed those words. They are the creation of an Arab journalist named Arjan El Fassed. When I exposed El Fassed’s fraud earlier this year, he claimed: “There is no possible basis for Pollak to say I intended people to believe the memo was written by anyone other than myself.”
In spite of El Fassed’s admission, the Israel-haters continue to use his Mandela quote to promote their views.

Years after this quote was exposed and relegated to the midden heap of agitprop, its still  polished off and paraded as fact. According to the media watchdog CAMERA  this fake quote, written by Arjan El Fassed, an activist affiliated with Al Awda (You knew that Eyad. I know you did)  made it though eight PC(USA) voting bodies (five presbyteries and three committees) before it appeared on the agenda of the denomination's General Assembly in 2012. And  now, 6 years after it was first exposed as a fraud, Eyad Kishawi is still spreading it.

Prof. Landes writes "The ability to distinguish empirical information that reflects what happened, and information that comes from dishonest sources, constitutes one of the fundamental skills of any civil society."

Admit the fraud, Eyad. Apologize for your role in perpetuating it. We'll happily post your disclaimer.

UN cuts ties with official tied to false Gaza tweet

 All things come to those who wait.

Kulhood Badawi, a public affairs officer at the United Nations Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)  has been terminated.  Badawi  gained notoriety for tweeting a 2006 photo of a girl from Gaza, and falsely insisting she was killed by the IDF during its shelling of Gaza  Its taken nearly a year, and its likely too late to undo the damage. At the time,  Badawi's tweet was picked up by dozens, and spread virally via social media.  In the Bay Area, Eyad Kishawi of the local Al-Awda chapter also spread this discredited photo

From the J Post

Kulhood Badawi, a veteran public affairs officer in the Jerusalem branch of the United Nations Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has been "separated" from the UN, say officials in New York.

The de facto firing, publicly explained as a contract non-renewal, comes shortly after the conclusion of an internal investigation lasting almost a year.

The investigation conducted by the UN Development Program centered on a February 2012 Twitter post containing the photograph of a dead Palestinian girl, who Badawi insisted was killed by the IDF during its shelling of Gaza.

Subsequent investigations revealed that it was in reality an archived Reuters photo originally taken in 2006.

According to Reuters, the photograph was that of a young woman killed as the result of local clashes in Gaza, not as the result of any IDF action.

Badawi, it was later discovered, had been involved in several earlier controversial actions, including a 2006 demonstration in Jerusalem in which she labeled current Defense Minister Ehud Barak a "war criminal." UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs Valerie Amos, while not disputing Badawi¹s actions, publicly questioned whether the world body could be held accountable for "personal" tweets.

As such, she launched the inquiry that Israel's UN mission charged was a "whitewash," with Ambassador Ron Prosor repeatedly insisting that Badawi be fired.

Amos then explained she was awaiting conclusions and recommendations. Yet weeks turned into months, with the investigation having been concluded in October 2012, and repeated inquiries to Amos for updates produced nothing.

On Wednesday, an email from the UN revealed that all facets of the fact-finding mission had finally been completed, and that the organization had opted not to renew Badawi's contract.

Avi Mayer describes how the story went down at Storify

BDS fail of 2012. Record Tourism in Israel

The year isn't even over yet, but it looks  like 2012 will set a new record  for incoming tourism to Israel.. Nearly 3.3 million visitors arrived in Israel up to the end of November 2012, and even more are expected for the Christmas holiday season.

Thats a massive BDS fail.

According to Al Awda's Eyad Kishawi, in an article published in  Al-Jazeerah, January 19, 2006 "Divestment from Israel in its 5th year"  (Yes, divestment started in 2001, and has been been failing for over 11 years now) there is only one strategic call:    "Material isolation of Israel until Palestinian exiles are repatriated to their towns of origin and receive reparation for lives and properties destroyed by Israel.".  Eyad Kishawi is calling for the end of Israel as a Jewish state,  and BDS is a tool for achieving this goal.

Tourists are flocking to Israel, Eyad.  Your dream of an isolated Israel is failing.  What happens to a dream deferred?

From YNET 

To date, the year 2012 will end as a new record year for incoming tourism. About 3.3 million visitors arrived in Israel up to the end of November 2012, and of these 60% were Christian tourists (52% Catholic; 21% Protestant and 10% Orthodox)

About half of all Christian tourists are pilgrims. Most of the Christian visitors to Israel also visit Bethlehem passing through Rachel’s Crossing and the various offices work to facilitate a welcoming, fast and comfortable transfer every day of the year.

According to the ministry’s 2011 Incoming Tourism Satisfaction Survey, about 87% of pilgrims were first-time visitors. Most pilgrims visit Capernaum, Yardenit, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Mount of Olives, Via Dolorosa and Bethlehem.

Source countries where pilgrims represent a very high rate among those visiting include Indonesia (83%), Nigeria (82%), Poland (69%), Portugal (59%), Romania (57%), India (50% and Brazil (49%).  

Eyad considers divestment a 20 year process, but even he must be grinding his teeth  just about now.   If the goal of  BDS was the isolation  and the eventual destruction of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people his movement is failing.  BDS at 11 is no further than achieving its goal than BDS at 5.

Eyad Kishawi of Al Awda Deceives to Demonize Israel

Eyad Kishawi, from the local branch of the extremist organization Al Awda just sent out this email - to thousands

From: Eyad Kishawi
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2012 10:37 PM
Subject: [Al-Awda-SF] Israeli Zionism in action-another massacre in Gaza [2 Attachments]

[Attachment(s) from Eyad Kishawi included below]

Please share and break the silence. Show how Israel murders our children and has been doing so for 64 years. Let people know what Obama and Netanyahu do to a population under siege.

End Israeli apartheid, end the occupation, end ethnic cleansing. Boycott, divest and enforce sanctions on this criminal entity.

This girl deserved a future.



Eyad, like J Street, needs to hire a fact checker. This photo was taken in 2006, and had been used fraudulently to demonize Israel before.



ATTENTION EDITORS - CAPTION CORRECTION FOR SJS01 - 05 WHICH WERE TRANSMITTED AT APPROXIMATELY 1725 GMT ON AUGUST 9, 2006. THE CAPTION INCORRECTLY STATES THE CAUSE OF DEATH. CORRECTED VERSIONS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOW THIS ADVISORY. WE ARE SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED. REUTERS. A Palestinian man carries the body of three year-old Raja Abu Shaban, in Gaza August 9, 2006. The three-year-old girl who had been reported killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Wednesday actually died of an accident, Palestinian medical workers said on Thursday. Workers at Gaza's Shifa hospital said on August 10, 2006 that the initial mistake over the cause of death appeared to have arisen because the girl's corpse was brought in at the same time as the bodies of the gunmen. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES)

Thanks Israellycool for bringing this to our attention.

We've learned today that J street can be fairly casual with truth and accuracy, but when prodded will issue a correction. Eyad Kishawi will get a copy of this post via email. Will he issue a retraction to the Al Awda email list? We'll let you know.


UPDATE:

Eyad has issued a retraction. Of sorts. He has proven that once again, reading comprehension and historical accuracy are not the hallmarks of anti-Israel activists.

He writes

Hello Friends

"I was contacted and threatened by "Zionist Warriors" claiming that Israel does not murder our children and that we send out fraudulent information on Israel. To underscore the truth, I am sending out the photo of the latest 12 year old Palestinian child recently murdered in cold blood and cleansed from the Gaza open air concentration camp. Long live Palestine. Zionist threats only make us stronger."


This is the email that Eyad claimed was "threatening".

To: "ekishawi@yahoo.com"
Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2012 9:05 PM

Eyad- you recently sent out an email showing a little girl that you represented as being killed by Israel

However, the photo you attached was from 2006, and showed a young girl that had been killed in an accident.

You wrote:

"Please share and break the silence. Show how Israel murders our children and has been doing so for 64 years. Let people know what Obama and Netanyahu do to a population under siege.

End Israeli apartheid, end the occupation, end ethnic cleansing. Boycott, divest and enforce sanctions on this criminal entity.

This girl deserved a future."

See attachments- your photo, and the original photo from Reuters in 2006 See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1681556/posts
Reuters corrected the caption on the photo which mis-represented that the little girl's tragic death was caused by Israel.

ATTENTION EDITORS - CAPTION CORRECTION FOR SJS01 - 05 WHICH WERE TRANSMITTED AT APPROXIMATELY 1725 GMT ON AUGUST 9, 2006. THE CAPTION INCORRECTLY STATES THE CAUSE OF DEATH. CORRECTED VERSIONS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOW THIS ADVISORY. WE ARE SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED. REUTERS. A Palestinian man carries the body of three year-old Raja Abu Shaban, in Gaza August 9, 2006. The three-year-old girl who had been reported killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Wednesday actually died of an accident, Palestinian medical workers said on Thursday. Workers at Gaza's Shifa hospital said on August 10, 2006 that the initial mistake over the cause of death appeared to have arisen because the girl's corpse was brought in at the same time as the bodies of the gunmen. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES)
If you share a commitment to truth and decency, I trust you will send an email to the Al Awda list retracting the photo, and apologizing for the misinformation


Have we inspired Eyad Kishawi from San Francisco's Al Awda- Palestinian Right of return coalition to pursue truth and accuracy in reporting? Somehow, I doubt it.