Luxury Alongside Poverty in the Palestinian Authority

A new  photographic essay from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs  profiles life in the Palestinian authority. Photos of luxury as well as  poverty are juxtapositioned with facts about the new reality on the ground- facts that many Westerns are not aware of.

Since the establishment of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government has committed approximately $5 billion in bilateral assistance to the Palestinians, who are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid.

Overall, Palestinians receive approximately $2 billion in aid each year.

Palestinian economic analysts estimate that the PA has received a total of $25 billion in financial aid during the past two decades

The CIA World Factbook reported the poverty rate in the West Bank as 18% in 2011,20 in contrast to Israel’s poverty rate in 2012 of 21%.

In 2015, life expectancy in the West Bank was 76 years.  This was notably higher than the life expectancy in Arab states of 71 years (in 2012), and the average life expectancy around the world of 70 years.

In 2015, the infant mortality rate in the West Bank and Gaza was 13 per 1,000 live births,24 compared with 27 per 1,000 live births in the Arab states in 2013 and 36.58 per 1,000 live births in the world in 2014.

According to the 2012 Happy Planet Index – a survey conducted by the New Economics Forum to measure happiness around the world – the Palestinian Authority was the third happiest Arab country and the 30th happiest in the world, making the PA happier than many developed countries like the U.S., UK, Sweden, Australia and Canada.

From the essay-  unexpected photos from the West bank

The Nablus Mall

The Tuqan Building in Nablus

Sky Land Park in Ramallah

The Caesar Hotel, Ramallah

                                                 Jawwal cell phone company in el-Bireh

Read it all here

Yasser Arafat's Gaza home to be made into a museum

Empty for 8 years, Yasser Arafat's house in Gaza has been turned over to the Fatah party, to be made into a museum.

From the Miami Herald:

The two parties have made symbolic gestures. Handing over of Arafat's house was one of them.

The house, located near a security compound under Hamas' control, is full of Arafat artifacts. Old computer screens and photocopy machines sit on desks on the first floor. Arafat's military uniforms are laid out on his bed. The walls are adorned with pictures of Arafat and his wife and daughter.

It was the first time the house was opened to the media. Jameel Al-Majdalawi, a board member of the Yasser Arafat Foundation, told The Associated Press that the establishment "will work on transforming this house to a national museum for all our people, where we will collect the heritage of this peerless leader."

aza

Daily Cal: Berkeley Human Welfare Commission wisely rejects inappropriate BDS resolution

On October 21, after hours of public comment, the Berkeley Human Welfare Commission voted down an Israel divestment resolution.  In an op-ed published  several days later in the Daily Cal, Carol Sanders of Jewish Voice for Peace wrote the inevitable "Even when we lose, we win" statement.

 Dr. Mike Harris responds:

Carol Sanders’ Oct. 29 op-ed, “Commission’s divest resolution, despite failing, breaks important ground” celebrates the fact that anti-Israel activists hijacked a Berkeley Human Welfare and Community Action Commission into holding a hearing on an anti-Israel resolution that the Berkeley city attorney deemed it had no business even considering. Such “victories” are standard fare for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.

Sanders claims it was somehow remarkable that the issue of “Palestinian rights” was discussed. American policy for many years has been to support a just peace on the basis of two states for two peoples — the Jewish state of Israel and a future Arab state of Palestine. The real problem here is that BDS insists that human rights and justice for the Palestinians require limiting the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their homeland. The central demand of the BDS movement — the “right of return” for millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled from 1947-49 during the war launched by the Arabs to destroy Israel at its birth — would turn the Jewish people into a minority in their own homeland. And as Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement states, “I am not for a two-state solution.”

Former commissioner Cheryl Davila, who was removed from her position after refusing to remove the divestment resolution, is not a heroic victim in this entire matter. Over the course of a year, she knowingly diverted the work of the commission, trying to fit the square peg of anti-Israel activism into the round hole of addressing poverty in Berkeley. As one example, she attended the recent Atlanta conference of the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, where an award was given to Rasmea Odeh, a convicted terrorist involved in the death of two young Israelis.

The hearing at the Human Welfare Commission itself was far from an enlightening debate. Some anti-Israel speakers presented the usual canards and lies, such as the charge that the fate of the Palestinian population under Israel’s control is similar to the genocide of European Jewry in the Holocaust — factually wrong, as the Palestinian population has grown four times larger since 1967.

Letters sent to the commission in favor of the resolution bemoaned that Berkeley was “deeply influenced by the monied Jewish lobby” and tried to defend the diversion of the commission’s work as an issue of “free speech.” Jewish Voice for Peace claimed at the commission’s September meeting that it represented the Jewish community, but grassroots Jewish community members turned out to oppose the resolution. A letter to the commission opposing the resolution was signed by many Jewish community leaders and rabbis. By my count, in the end nearly two-thirds of the speakers, Jews and non-Jews, urged the commission to reject this deeply flawed and biased measure.

Read it all here

UPDATE:
Dr. Mike posts his "actual response to Carol Sanders of Jewish Voice for Peace" at Bluetruth.
Read the reply before it was sliced and diced by the the Daily Cal editors

Rolling Stone: StandWithUs Refutes Roger Waters' Comments on Israel

In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this week, Roger Waters attacked the pro-Israel organization StandWithUs, accusing the organization of being "an arm" of the Israeli government.

The response from StandWithUs

StandWithUs is an independent non-profit organization founded and headquartered in the United States. It is not, as Roger Waters claimed in his recent interview by Rolling Stone, "an arm" of the Israeli government. It is run by American citizens who are concerned about the rise of misinformation, discrimination and bigotry against Israelis and Jews – a trend which Roger Waters unfortunately plays an active role in perpetuating.

Waters' history of racism includes projecting the Star of David (the universal symbol of the Jewish people) onto a pig during concerts, waxing conspiratorial about the "Jewish lobby" and making slanderous, dehumanizing statements about Israelis. Waters also wholly ignores violent racism against Israelis by Palestinian political and religious leaders, and whitewashes the murder of innocent civilians that follows this abhorrent incitement.

He may believe that he's doing this with the best of intentions, but it is up to the Jewish community, not Roger Waters, to decide whether or not he has engaged in anti-Semitism. In fact, his words and actions fit squarely within the U.S. State Department definition of anti-Semitism, which includes demonizing Israel (like when Waters compares Israelis to Nazis), delegitimizing Israel (like when he erases Jewish history, rights, and indigenous roots in the land of Israel by labelling them "colonizers") and applying a double-standard to Israel (like when he demands cultural boycotts against Israel, but not other nations with plainly far worse human rights records).

Furthermore, as a leading spokesperson for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, Waters promotes an agenda that undermines hopes for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. BDS actively discourages cultural exchanges between Israelis and Palestinians, effectively seeks to censor Israeli artists and has been overwhelmingly condemned for promoting violations of academic freedom. BDS's ultimate goal is the elimination of Israel and the violation of Jewish rights to self-determination – just ask their co-founder, who has said that "we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine." Indeed, the core of BDS is not reasoned criticism of Israeli policy, but rather the notion that Palestinians can't be free without turning the Jews back into a stateless people.

Those who oppose censorship, support academic freedom and want to see a just resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict have a moral obligation to oppose the bigoted movement known as BDS. People of conscience should support Israelis and Palestinians who understand the importance of mutual recognition, mutual respect, co-existence and self-determination for all peoples.

StandWithUs calls on Roger Waters to look more deeply into this age-old conflict, its root causes and the pain and suffering on both sides. We hope he will stop perpetuating a destructive agenda that singles out Israel and its supporters for vitriol, while hurting Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Boasting about Dead Jews on Social Media

Hamas is boasting about its missile range on social media:

No, its not just about "rocks' and "knives". Hamas and other  terror groups in both Gaza and in the West Bank are committed to acquiring new deadlier weapons to maximize the killing of Jews.

Palestinian Family Values

Meet baby Mohanned Halabi, named after the cold blooded murderer of Jews

Mohanned Halabi murdered Aharon Bennet and  Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, and attempted to murder Aharon's wife and child. For his deeds, the Palestinian Bar Association awarded him an honorary law degree, calling him a "martyred hero”
Meet a baby girl, born in Gaza, named "Knife of Jerusalem"

How can we make peace with these people?

Save the Date: Northern California Festival of Lights

Save the date for the Northern California Festival of Lights. All of your favorite people will be there

Save the Date! -- "Festival of Lights" Channukah Celebration, a ‪‎StandWithUs‬ celebration in cooperation with IBSI - Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel !!

Saturday evening, Dec 5th  at 7:30, Congregation Netivot Shalom will host a "Festival of Lights"! a StandWithUs celebration in cooperation with The Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, with their Director, Dumisani Washington, as our keynote speaker. Dumisani is also the director of The Hebrew Project Artists (THP), who perform Hebrew-English gospel music. He is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and founder of The Zion Academy of Music in Stockton. This is a great opportunity to celebrate our community and the interfaith relationships we have built. The Hebrew Project Artists - THP will be a phenomenal addition to the evening, singing songs in Hebrew.

List of Palestinian Terror attacks in recent days

Via UN Watch: Palestinian terror attacks in recent days

November 2

Netanya (north of Tel Aviv): A 71-year-old man was seriously wounded in a stabbing attack. The assailant was shot.

Rishon Lezion (south of Tel Aviv): Three people were wounded, two seriously – including an 80-year-old woman – in a stabbing attack by a Palestinian from Hebron (19) at a bus stop in the center of the city. The assailant was apprehended.

Gilboa (Jalama) crossing, north of Jenin in the West Bank: Two Palestinians attempted to stab a soldier at a a gas station adjacent to the crossing point. One assailant shot, the second apprehended.

November 1

Hebron: Three Border Policemen wounded in car ramming attack. Earlier, attempted stabbing attack of IDF soldier during a violent riot. Assailant shot on site.

October 31

Gilboa (Jalama) crossing, north of Jenin in the West Bank: Palestinian (17) armed with a knife tried to stab Israeli guards and was killed on site.

October 30

Tapuach Junction (Samaria): Two terrorists, arriving on a motorbike armed with knives, attempted to stab Border Police officers. One killed, second apprehended.

Jerusalem (French Hill): One person moderately injured in stabbing attack near light rail. Terrorist shot at the scene.

October 29

Hebron: Terrorist stabs and lightly injures soldier near the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Terrorist was shot and killed. Later a Palestinian attempted to stab an IDF soldier in the Beit Hadassah neighborhood. Assailant was shot on site.
In the evening, shots were fired from a passing vehicle towards a bus stop near Jerusalem.

October 28

Gush Etzion Junction: A woman was stabbed in the back, moderately wounded, outside the Rami Levy supermarket. The assailant was apprehended.
Earlier, a Palestinian who attempted to stab an IDF soldier near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron was shot and killed by security forces.

October 27

Gush Etzion Junction: IDF soldier moderately wounded in stabbing attack. Two assailants shot on site.

Jerusalem: Terror attack foiled – two Arabs (17 & 16) from eastern Jerusalem armed with an axe and a knife were arrested in the center of town (Kikar Tzahal).

October 26

Hebron: IDF soldier stabbed, seriously wounded in the morning north of Hebron. Assailant shot on site. A second attempted stabbing of an IDF soldier outside the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in the afternoon was thwarted. The assailant (19) was shot.

October 25

Metzad (Gush Etzion bloc): Man (58) moderately wounded in stabbing attack after his car was stoned.

Hebron: Female Arab terrorist (17) attempted to stab border policeman with knife. Officer shot the terrorist, who later died of wounds.

Ariel junction (Samaria): Israeli man (25) waiting for a ride was stabbed by terrorist who fled the scene and was later apprehended.

October 24

Gilboa (Jalama) crossing, north of Jenin in the West Bank: A young Palestinian (16) posing as a sweets vendor tried to stab a security guard and was shot and killed.

October 23

Gush Etzion:  IDF soldier injured in stabbing attack. Assailant shot on site.

Beit El (north of Jerusalem): Israeli couple and their three young children wounded in a firebombing attack on their car.

October 22

Bet Shemesh: Yeshiva student (18) moderately injured in stabbing attack at bus stop near a synagogue. Two terrorists (21) from the Hebron area armed with knives tried to board a school bus full of children. They were shot and killed by police.

October 21

Yitzhar (Samaria): Attack foiled when security forces noticed a young woman (15) approaching the gate armed with a knife. The woman was shot and apprehended.

Ofra (north of Jerusalem): An Israeli policeman was mildly injured in an apparent car-ramming attack when the driver crashed into a checkpoint, ignoring police warnings to stop. The driver fled.

Adam junction (north of Jerusalem): Female soldier critically wounded in stabbing attack. Terrorist killed by IDF forces.

Maale Adumim (east of Jerusalem): Attack foiled when security forces found home-made explosive devices in a car. Two Palestinians were arrested.

Beit Ummar (north of Hebron): Five soldiers injured – after their vehicle was stoned, the soldiers got out to arrest the stone-throwers and were rammed by a Palestinian car. The attacking driver was shot and seriously wounded.


October 20

South of Hebron (Al Fawar junction): Avraham Hasno (54) of Kiryat Arba run over and killed by truck after his vehicle was stoned. Earlier, an IDF officer was lightly injured in stabbing attack in Hebron.

Gush Etzion junction: Two lightly wounded in car-ramming attack at bus stop at the Gush Etzion junction. The terrorist then drew his knife before he was shot and killed.

Car-ramming attack at Gush Etzion junction (Oct 20, 2015)
Copyright: Magen David Adom

October 18

Beer Sheva: IDF soldier Sgt. Omri Levy (19) killed and 10 civillians and police officers wounded when a terrorist armed with a knife and a pistol entered the central bus station, shot the soldier, grabbed his gun and started shooting. Police officers shot and killed the terrorist, an Israeli Arab (21) from the Bedouin town of Hura. An Eritrean asylum seeker, Habtom Zerhom (29), who was mistaken for a second terrorist and shot by a security guard, died of his wounds.

October 17

Jerusalem (Armon Hanatziv neighborhood): Terrorist (16, from Jabel Mukaber) tried to stab Border Police officers; one of the officers shot and killed him.

Knife used in terror attack in Jerusalem, Oct 17, 2015
Knife used in terror attack in Jerusalem
Copyright: Israel Police

Hebron: Three separate attacks: (1) Palestinian tried to stab a civilian walking back from morning prayers; the civilian shot and killed the terrorist with his personal firearm. (2) Palestinian woman (16) stabbed and lightly wounded a female Border Police officer, who shot and killed her. (3) Terrorist (18) from Hebron, stabbed and moderately wounded an IDF soldier at Police checkpoint. Second soldier shot and critically wounded attacker.

Kalandiya checkpoint (north of Jerualem): Terrorist tried to stab police officer, and was shot in lower body; then tried to stab a bomb squad officer. Another officer shot and killed him.

October 16

Nablus: Joseph’s tomb, a Jewish holy site, set on fire overnight by Palestinian rioters.

Palestinians set fire to Joseph's tomb in Nablus

Jerusalem: Border Policeman foiled possible terror attack after detecting explosive device at a checkpoint at east Jerusalem’s Issawiya neighborhood, near the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus.

Hebron (Zayit junction outside Kiryat Arba): Palestinian terrorist disguised as a photojournalist stabbed and moderately wounded an IDF soldier. A second soldier shot and killed him.


October 14

Jerusalem: Attack foiled by Border Police. Officers who boarded a bus full of passengers discovered a knife hidden under a seat. The owner of the knife had boarded the bus with a young child in his arms to allay suspicion.

Jerusalem, Damascus Gate at the Old City: Terrorist (19) from Hebron lightly injured two people before being shot and killed by the security forces.

Jerusalem: Woman (72) stabbed and injured while waiting for a bus at the Central Bus Station. Terrorist shot and killed.


October 13

Raanana (northeast of Tel Aviv): Two stabbing attacks in the morning, an hour apart: The first at a bus stop in the center of town, in which a man (32) suffered light wounds; the attacker (22, from eastern Jerusalem) was subdued by passers-by and held until the police arrived. The second attack resulted in one seriously wounded and three lightly wounded; the terrorist (a construction worker at nearby Beit Levinstein) was arrested.

Jerusalem: Two terrorists, both residents of the adjacent Jabel Mukaber neighborhood, boarded an Egged bus in East Talpiot in southern Jerusalem, one armed with a gun and the other with a knife. Chaim Haviv, 78, and Alon Govberg, 51, were killed, and 15 wounded, several seriously. One terrorist killed by police, second apprehended. Richard Lakin, 76, who was shot in the head and stabbed in the chest, succumbed to his wounds on October 27.


Makor Baruch, a religious neighborhood. Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky, 59, of Jerusalem was killed and five wounded. The terrorist, who was apprehended, is a resident of the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood who holds Israeli citizenship, was an employee of Israeli phone company Bezeq, and was using a company car to commit the attack.

Hamas praised the attacks, saying they are “a message to anyone who harms our holy places.”


October 12

Jerusalem: Stabbing attack foiled at Lion’s Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City. Terrorist (18, from eastern Jerusalem) was shot and killed.

Jerusalem (Ammunition Hill, northern Jerusalem): Border policeman was stabbed and lightly  injured by a female terrorist (16). The officer managed to shoot and stop her, and she was evacuated to hospital.

Jerusalem (Pisgat Zeev in northern Jerusalem): Two terrorists (both teenagers) stabbed and seriously wounded a man (25) and a boy (13) riding his bicycle. Police shot and killed one terrorist and apprehended the second. The boy is in critical condition.

Scene of terror attack in Pisgat Zeev neighborhood of Jerusalem on Oct 12. 13-year-old boy riding his bike critically wounded.


Jerusalem (8:30 pm near entrance to city): Terrorist on bus stabbed a soldier (19) and tried to grab his gun. After a struggle, the terrorist was shot and killed by a police officer.


October 11

Maaleh Adumim-Jerusalem highway: Police officer lightly injured when he pulled over a driver acting suspiciously, and the (female) driver set off an explosive device. Gas canisters were later found in the vehicle.The terrorist was seriously wounded.


October 10

Jerusalem (Sabbath morning): Arab (16) stabbed two Jewish men in their 60s near Damascus Gate, leaving them moderately and lightly wounded, respectively. The terrorist then attacked Border Police officers, who shot and killed him.

Jerusalem (near Damascus Gate): Palestinian (19, from Shuafat) stabbed two police officers. Nearby police shot and killed him, and accidently wounded a third officer. Officers in serious-to-moderate condition.


October 9
Jerusalem (Shmuel HaNavi St.): Jewish boy (16) was beaten and stabbed and lightly injured. Attacker (18, from Hebron in West Bank) was later apprehended by police.
Kiryat Arba: Terrorist stabbed a police officer (47) and tried to grab his gun. Other officers shot him.

October 8
Tel Aviv: Female soldier and three others stabbed. Terrorist was shot and killed.
Jerusalem: A yeshiva student (25) was seriously injured and another man lightly injured in stabbing attack near the light rail. Terrorist (age 19) arrested.

Kiryat Arba (Jewish town near Hebron, south of Jerusalem): Man seriously wounded in stabbing attack. Victim evacuated to Jerusalem hospital. Terrorist escaped.
Afula (town in Galilee): A soldier was wounded in stabbing attack. The terrorist was apprehended soon after

October 7
Petach Tikva: Knife attack at shopping mall wounded one man. The knife broke, preventing further victims. Bystanders apprehended the terrorist.
Jerusalem: A Palestinian woman (18) stabbed a 36-year-old Jewish man at Lion’s Gate of the Old City. The victim, moderately wounded, shot and wounded the terrorist.
Kiryat Gat (southeast of Tel Aviv): A terrorist stabbed an IDF soldier and snatched his gun, then ran into a nearby apartment, where a woman was just returning home. She fought with him and managed to flee. The terrorist was killed by police.

October 4
Jerusalem: Moshe Malka (15) was stabbed and wounded on his way to prayers at the Western Wall. Terrorist was shot dead by security forces.
October 3

Jerusalem: Two killed in stabbing attack near Lion’s Gate. Aharon Banita-Bennet (22) was stabbed to death on the way to the Western Wall in the Old City on Saturday evening with his wife and two young children. His wife and two-year-old son were wounded. Rabbi Nehemia Lavi (father of seven), who came to the aid of the Banita-Bennett family, was attacked and stabbed to death. Police shot and killed the attacker.

October 1
Near Nablus in Samaria: Rabbi Eitam Henkin (31) and wife Naama (30) murdered in a drive-by shooting while traveling with their four young children (aged 9, 7, 4, and 9 months). Security forces arrested members of Hamas cell responsible.

Israel: Happy and Healthy

Palestinians and their enablers want soooomuch to make Israelis miserable, yet they consistently fail.

Not only is Israel one of the happiest nations in the world, it is also one of the healthiest.

Bloomberg  ranked countries with a population of 1 million or more with a health score and a health-risk score. Each country’s rank was calculated by subtracting their risk score from their health score.

The health score is based on factors such as life expectancy  while health-risk is based on factors including smoking and immunization rates

Israel is the 6th healthiest country in the world.

Palestinian Human Rights Activist: Media ‘Full of Antisemitism, Hatred for Israel’

From Algemeiner

A prominent Palestinian human rights activist lamented on Monday night what he called the media’s unfair treatment of the Jewish state.

At a pro-Israel gathering hosted by advocacy group StandWithUs in New York City, Bassem Eid, a Jerusalemite, said the press, which is “full of antisemitism” and “hatred,” is “much more interested in fighting against Israel” than discovering the truth. ..

Talking about the current wave of terrorism sweeping Israel, Eid said, “When I watch TV and see a Palestinian youth — 13, 14 or 15 years old — holding a knife in his hand, running in the street and wanting to stab and kill, I think it’s the most barbaric thing I’ve ever seen. Will stabbing Jews solve my problems? Will killing a Jew solve my problems? Look at Hamas — in the past nine years they’ve been shooting rockets. What have we, as Palestinians, achieved? Let us be a little bit realistic.”

He went on, “I [as a Palestinian] don’t want to be a victim anymore… I want to be considered as a human being who has full control of my own future and my children’s future.”

Read it all here

NBC Investigates: California Looks towards Israel to solve her water woes

An el Nino year isn’t going to be enough to rescue California from four years of drought. Its been estimated that California  will need more than 11 trillions of water just to catch up. That translates into an inch a day for 13 years.

NBC’s investigative unit has determined that the water shortage will not be solved by rain alone.
They have traveled to Israel looking for ways to quench California’s thirst.



What NBC has learned is that it took a dramatic policy change for Israel to achieve water security. By treating water as a national priority,  Israel now produces 20 % more water than its population can use.  An aggressive water management  strategy that includes advanced water recycling,  efficient irrigation techniques,  rain catchment systems at schools and other buildings, and desalination plants, coupled with conservation and advanced leak detection, created a system that now can withstand years of drought

Currently, California lags behind Israel in terms of water use efficiency. A wet winter will not be enough to solve California's water woes.

Read it all  here.

The Vampire's Kiss: Berkeley Style.

Via Emunah:

From the Jerusalem Post, written by our friends at Divest This.

Legend (or at least Bram Stoker) posits that a vampire can only enter someone's home if he or she is invited across the threshold.

There could be no metaphor more apt for the divest-from-Israel campaigns that have proliferated among schools, unions, cities and churches in the US and Europe over the last four years.

Either small, unrepresentative groups of activists invite BDS into their organization, or outside activists join only in order to infiltrate it. The key to the strategy, as he and others have pointed out, is the “halo effect,” which allows puny groups of extremists to “punch above their political weight.” The strident clamors of a fringe group, which would otherwise go unnoticed, acquire gravitas and urgency when issued under the auspices of a respected organization. By the time the majority of the membership wakes up and sees the carnage, it is too late. The organization is left wounded and debilitated, and the vampire moves on to its next victim.

We recently witnessed this phenomenon in Berkeley.  Over the course of a year, anti-Israel activists have lobbied, virtually unchallenged,  a Commission  mandated with administering federal block grants to alleviate poverty to adopt a divestment resolution targeting Israel. 

Originally appearing on the Human Welfare Commission’s agenda on September 17, 2014, the divestment resolution introduced by Cheryl Davila has reared its ugly head on nearly every Commission agenda since then.  The divestment resolution appears on the Human Welfare Commission agenda on November 11, 2014. January 28, 2015. February 9, 2015. February 28, 2015. April 15, 2015. May 20, 2015. June 17, 2015. September 16, 2015. October 21, 2015.

Its rather a remarkable achievement  for a group that still insists its voice has been "silenced'

In spite of the wording which co-opts the language of the civil rights movement, this divestment resolution and the whole tactic of BDS is not about peace with Israel. Its about peace- without Israel.   Cheryl Davila is no innocent. She knows the truth. She stood with her BDS colleagues at the Oct 14 “Day of action”  at UC Berkeley while SJP chanted  “From the river to the sea”  and “We support the Intifada”. And again, on October 15, she stood with them in front of the Israeli consulate on Montgomery Street when they chanted “We don’t want one state. We want 48"  She attended the Atlanta Conference of the US Campaign when an award was given to Rasmea Odeh- a convicted terrorist responsible for the death of 2 young Israelis.

Cheryl’s willingness to neglect the Human Welfare Commission’s core responsibility in pushing this resolution ultimately led to her dismissal from the commission.   

During the public comment period before the Commission's October 21 vote, 54 spoke against the resolution, and 36 spoke in favor. The resolution failed to pass. 

But like Bram Stoker’s vampire, (or Monty Python’s parrot) BDS in Berkeley may not be quite dead, yet. Commission Chair Praveen Sood  is pushing his own BDS-lite resolution. And local anti-Israel activists are attempting to groom Cheryl Davila to seek an elected office.

This time Berkeley is mobilized to fight back.  Tired of having community institutions hijacked, a local attorney has written to the city, urging them not to continue squandering public funds and community resources. 

Again from Divest this!

Divest-from-Israel campaigns are kind of like Count Dracula: no matter how many times a stake is driven through their heart, they keep trying to get up (albeit always a bit more decrepit and overwrought than the time before).

Norwegian doctor Confirmed: Mad Mads Gilbert to speak in Berkeley

Extremist Mads Gilbert is coming to Berkeley, sponsored by the usual suspects, including   Jewish Voice for Peace-Bay Area, Middle East Childrens Alliance, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, NorCal Friends of Sabeel, American Muslims for Palestine, the American Friends Service Committee and  Bay Area Women in Black and Students for Justice in Palestine (UC Berkeley).   Mads Gilbert is a  political activist and member of the fringe Norwegian Maoist ‘Red’ party.  He rose to notoriety in the days following the attack on the World Trade center, when he justified the attack that left nearly 3,000 innocents dead.

 

In an interview for the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet Gilbert said "The oppressed also have a moral right to attack the USA with any weapon they can come up with." When asked directly "Do you support a terror attack against the USA?," Gilbert replied, "Terror is a bad weapon but the answer is yes within the context which I have mentioned."

 

He’ll be speaking at the South Berkeley Senior Center Thursday night, Nov. 12 at 7pm.

 

According to NGO Monitor: 

 

In 2009, Dr. Gilbert traveled to Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital as a member of the Norwegian Aid Committee, NORWAC, an NGO funded by the Norwegian government ostensibly to provide health care services in partnership with the Palestinian Ministry of Health. During the fighting and afterward, Gilbert repeatedly and falsely accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians and invented allegations of use of illegal weapons, while making no mention of evidence that Al-Shifa hospital had been used for military purposes and also shielded the Hamas leadership.

 

Hamas' use of Shifa Hospital in Gaza  was disclosed by Wikileaks:

 

NGO Monitor president, Prof. Gerald Steinberg continued:

 

"We urge media outlets and human rights organizations to treat Dr. Gilbert's comments and assessments from Gaza with great caution...By justifying terror, supporting Hamas and fueling the conflict, NORWAC and Mads Gilbert have violated the Hippocratic Oath - 'first, do not harm'."

Norwegian Doctor Confirmed  Justifying terror, supporting Hamas and fueling the conflict - all in a days works for Mads Gilbert and his Jewish Voice for Peace sponsors

 

 

American Muslims for Palestine: Celebrating British Colonialism

American Muslims for Palestine is doubling down on their assertion that the coins of the British mandate reflect their ancestral heritage

(Pssst. The Hebrew letters stand for Eretz Yisrael- the land of Israel)

From the  1925 New York Times,writing about the new coins

By a recent decision of the British government, Palestine is to have its own coinage, the names of the units sheckels, dinars and prutahs being those used  in an ancient monetary system closely connected with Jewish history

Two years after, in 1927, the New York Times announced the news coins with a headline "Hebrew Coins Circulate again"

The British colonial powers' homage to an ancient Israelite civilization is an odd thing for the American Muslims in Palestine to embrace  under the theme of "Reclaiming Our Narrative".  Perhaps "Borrowing a Narrative" or   "Inventing a Narrative"  might be closer to the truth.

A Complete Guide to "Normalizing"

For the Palestinian activists and their hard left enablers: A guide to "normalizing", from the extremist PACBI.

Don't you dare humanize anyone who disagrees with you.  Don't even think it.

Its about "institutions", not  "individuals'. This will give you a convenient out if you are accused of "McCarthyite" tactics and blacklisting.  (But shhhh. You know as well as I do that its about individuals that disagree with you.)

There can be no solution to the conflict that leaves Israel intact.  Treat anyone who disagrees as an enemy.

 Justice = Just us. Just us. Just us. Just us.  Got it?  Good.

More advice for Palestinian activists and enablers:

Avoid genuine peace-seekers. Treat sincere attempts at dialog as an existential threat to your dignity. Speaking outside of your usual echo-chamber  may subject you to inconvenient truths, and therefore should be avoided.  Complain loudly about being silenced while refusing to talk to anyone who disagrees with you.  That's the battle-cry of an authentic Palestinian activist.

Walmart Offers Israeli Soldier Costume for Halloween

Walmart is now offering an Israeli soldier costume for children, for Halloween.

Ok, then.

Why is Facebook censoring Bernard-Henri Lévy: Things We Need to Stop Hearing About the ‘Stabbing Intifada’ ?

From Stand With Us: Why did Facebook pull every single posting of Bernard-Henri Lévy's column, "Things We Need to Stop Hearing About the ‘Stabbing Intifada’"? They'll leave up detailed instructions on how make sure your knife attack on an Israeli is fatal, but they took down and won't even let you post the column by one of France’s most famed philosophers, a journalist, and a bestselling writer.

So we're posting the text here. Please, share and complain to Facebook. This is so very wrong.

See the full article at Algemeiner 

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Lévy is considered a founder of the New Philosophy movement and is a leading thinker on religious issues, genocide, and international affairs. His 2013 book, Les Aventures de la vérité—Peinture et philosophie: un récit, explores the historical interplay of philosophy and art. His new play, “Hotel Europe,” which premiered in Sarajevo on June 27, 2014, and in Paris on September 9, is a cry of alarm about the crisis facing the European project and the dream behind it.

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Bernard-Henri Lévy: Things We Need to Stop Hearing About the ‘Stabbing Intifada’

It is painful to hear the phrase “lone wolves” applied to the handful — and perhaps tomorrow the dozens and then the hundreds — of killers of Jews “liked” by thousands of “friends,” followed by tens of thousands of “Tweeters,” and connected to a constellation of sites (such as the Al-Aqsa Media Center and its page dedicated to “the third Jerusalem intifada”) that are orchestrating, at least in part, this bloody ballet.

It is equally painful to listen to the refrain about “Palestinian youth no longer subject to any control,” after seeing the series of sermons published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, in which preachers from Gaza, facing the camera, dagger in hand, call upon followers to take to the streets to maim as many Jews as they can, to inflict as much pain as possible and to spill the maximum amount of blood; doubly painful to hear that refrain from Mahmoud Abbas himself, at the outset of this tragic chain of events a few weeks back, describing as “heroic” the murder of the Henkins in the presence of their children, and then expressing indignation at seeing the “dirty feet” of Jews “defiling” the Al-Aqsa Mosque and declaring “each drop of blood” shed by “each martyr” who dies for Jerusalem “pure.”

Not only painful and intolerable, but also inapplicable, is the canned phrase about “political and social desperation” that is used to explain — or excuse — criminal acts. Everything we know about the new terrorists, their motives and the pride their relatives take in converting, post-mortem, crime into martyrdom and infamy into sacrifice, is, alas, much closer to the portrait of the robotic jihadist who yesterday would take off for Kashmir and today turns up in Syria or Iraq.

It is highly doubtful that “intifada” is the right term to apply to acts that bear more resemblance to the latest installment of a worldwide jihad of which Israel is just one of the stages.

It is doubtful that erudite disquisitions on occupation, colonization and Netanyahu-esque intransigence explain much about a wave of violence that counts among its favored targets Jews with sidelocks — that is, those Jews who are the most conspicuously Jewish, those whom their killers must consider the very image of the Jew, and who, by the way, are often at odds with the Jewish state when not in open secession from it.

It is doubtful that the very question of the state, the question of the two states and thus the question of a negotiated partition of the land — which is, for moderates on both sides, the only question worth posing — has anything to do with a conflagration in which politics has given way to fanaticism and to theories of vast conspiracy, one in which some decide to stab random others as they pass by because of a vague rumor reporting a secret plot to deny Muslims access to Islam’s third holiest site.

It is doubtful, in other words, that the Palestinian cause is being helped in any way by the extremist turn. On the other hand, it is absolutely certain that the cause has everything to lose by it, that the reasonable heads within the movement will be the ones who wind up flattened by the wave, and that the last proponents of compromise, along with what remains of the peace camp in Israel, will pay dearly for the reckless condemnations of the imams of Rafah and Khan Younis.

Intolerable and inapplicable, too, is the cliché of the “cycle” or “spiral” of violence, which, by putting the kamikaze killers and their victims on the same footing, sows confusion and amounts to an incitement to further action.

Intolerable, for the same reason, are the rhetorical appeals “for restraint” and disingenuous pleas “not to inflame the street,” which, as with the “spiral of violence,” reverse the order of causality by implying that a soldier, police officer or civilian acting in self-defense has committed a wrong equal to that of someone who chooses to die after spreading as much terror as he possibly can.

Strange indeed, how tepid are the condemnations of the stabbings of innocent passers-by and rammings of bus stops — condemnations that I have to think would be less half-hearted if the acts had occurred on the streets of Washington, Paris or London.

More than strange — disturbing — is the difference in tone between the equivocal reaction to the recent killings and the unanimous and unambiguous international outpouring of emotion and solidarity elicited by the fatal hatchet attack on a soldier on a London street on May 22, 2013, a scenario that was not very different from those unfolding today in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Intolerable, again, that most of the major media have paid the grieving Israeli families only a fraction of the attention they have paid the families of the perpetrators.

Intolerable, finally, the minor mythology growing up around this story of daggers: The weapon of the poor? Really? The weapon one uses because it is within reach and one has no other? When I see those blades, I think of the one used to execute Daniel Pearl; I think of the beheadings of Hervé Gourdel, James Foley and David Haines; I think that the Islamic State’s videos have clearly gained a following, and that we stand on the threshold of a form of barbarity that must be unconditionally denounced if we do not want to see its methods exported everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

This article was translated from the French by Steven B. Kennedy.

UPDATE:

The articles are back. For now

Mother of Palestinian Terrorist Pulls Out Knife in Interview, Threatens to Carry Out Attack

This is what Israel faces. Chilling evil.

via MEMRI

Umm Muhammad Shamasne, whose son Muhammad was killed while perpetrating a terror attack on a bus in Jerusalem on October 12, was recently interviewed in her home by the Lebanese Al-Quds TV channel. Offering the interviewer candy to celebrate her son's martyrdom, Umm Muhammad Shamasne said that she hoped her other sons would follow in his footsteps, and pulled out a knife, threatening: "My deeds will speak louder than words." The interview aired on October 22, 2015.

Winning a Debate with An Israel Hater

Via Dr Mike:
Cross-posted at Legal Insurrection  and at Bluetruth

“It often happens in the middle of an otherwise pleasant day — you’re shopping, or walking across a college campus, and you encounter THEM. They’re holding signs that claim Israel is an “apartheid state” and charge Israel with committing “genocide” against Palestinians. They’re calling for boycotts against Israeli products, and divestment from companies that do business with Israel.

You know supporting Israel is the right thing to do. And you’re not alone. For decades, polls have shown a large plurality, usually a majority, of Americans back Israel. But here’s the problem: you don’t know how to respond – or if you even should – to these Israel haters.

This is an all-too-familiar sight, and has become more frequent in the past decade as Israel-bashing extremists have taken their hostility into the public square.

Their words don’t represent a simple disagreement with specific actions or policies of the Israeli government. Instead, they’re an open call for the elimination of the one country that shares American values in a region full of despots and anti-American fanatics. Simply put, they’re not just promoting a Palestinian state, they’re demanding that it replace the Jewish one.”

This is the opening of my new book, “Winning A Debate with an Israel-Hater“, published earlier this month by Shorehouse Books.

I wrote this book to give people the information they need to effectively confront these extremists in their own neighborhood—not to change the minds of those protesting Israel, but rather to let the general public hear the other side of the story.

It’s extraordinarily important that we don’t let the lies of the PIDS (People with Israel Derangement Syndrome) go unchallenged. According to Manfred Gerstenfeld’s book Demonizing Israel and the Jews, they have managed to get over 150 million Europeans to believe that Israel is “exterminating” the Palestinians; you don’t want to see them successfully selling that malignant myth on your neighborhood.

As a grassroots Israel activist, I have over a decade of experience countering anti-Israel groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, not only in person but also on TV and radio. I’ve also given many talks, both to pro-Israel and to more neutral audiences.

(Video background: SF Jewish Film Festival Audience Jeers Pro-Israel Speaker but Cheers for Ahmedinejad)

This handbook distills all of that experience into a useful guide for Israel supporters, and also does it with some satirical humor to both entertain, and make the points easier to remember.

Successful advocacy, however, is not just knowing the facts; it’s delivering them with effectiveness, and– just as importantly– avoiding mistakes that can undermine those facts. Here is a bit of advice that I call “The Five Commandments of Successful Advocacy” (Perhaps you were expecting a different, more biblically connected, commandment number? Sorry, I don’t want to suggest that these small kernels of advice were the result of any type of divine revelation.)

COMMANDMENT #1: TELL THE TRUTH (OR AT LEAST DON’T KNOWINGLY LIE)

It’s important that our side be credible. You won’t be able to fact-check on the fly when confronting the PIDS, so it’s vital to stick to what you already know is the truth.

Of course, this is even more important in any online encounter where your words can remain visible for an eternity. You don’t want your rhetorical gaffe about Israel to end up like a drunken party photo posted on Facebook. Even editing a blog post or deleting a Tweet is no protection against the infamous “screen shot” that captures what you initially sent into cyberspace.

It should also go without saying that we don’t need to resort to “Pallywood” techniques of faked pictures and maliciously edited videos to make our points. And we don’t want to find ourselves in the moral sewer inhabited by PIDS who, during Operation Protective Edge, posted pictures of the murder scene of the Fogel family—butchered in their home by Palestinian terrorists—claiming them to be Gazan victims of IDF operations.

Also, beyond substance, consider style. Nothing undercuts the punch of an online comment like bad speling and gramur, ‘cause if you don’t rite good then your statement looks fulish.

COMMANDMENT #2: AVOID AD HOMINEM ATTACKS

Never say that the person you’re responding to is an idiot. Even when he is. (For those who remember the original Saturday Night Live “Point-Counterpoint” sketches, avoid the “Jane, you ignorant slut” response.)

These people may be wrong on the facts and their train of thought on this issue may not be running at full speed, but they are often otherwise quite functional and rational. Instead, take a deep breath and simply point out the errors of either facts or logic.

Although you can go “Law and Order” on them and “impeach the witness” if the person (or the organization they represent) has a track record of making statements that are demonstrably wrong. The person seeking the moral high ground should also occupy the rhetorical high ground.

COMMANDMENT #3: DON'T GENERALIZE

Avoid overly broad statements such as “all Palestinians are supporters of terrorists.” Do too many of them support radical Islamist terror? Absolutely—even one is too many. But recognize that just as you want the PIDS to make unforced errors to which you can respond with authority, they want you to do the same. Don’t help them out. You can blame the Palestinian leadership for refusing to negotiate peace with Israel, but you can’t blame every Palestinian-in-the-street for that.

COMMANDMENT #4: DON’T DISTORT

Avoid conflating all anti-Israel activism into the most extreme position (which is, for you newbies, supporting Hamas and its calls for genocide).

There are ample ways to counter anti-Israel arguments without accusing every Israel boycotter of secretly holding a “Friends of Hamas” membership card. (Though some of them might.)

COMMANDMENT #5: USE POSITIVE LANGUAGE

The PIDS couch their anti-Israel screeds in the language of “human rights.” You should use similarly sympathetic terms, as they’ll appeal to the audience. Neil Lazarus suggests that whenever possible, include the words “hope,” “peace,” “children,” and “future” in any statement that you make. As in “Israelis want a future of peace for their children, and also for Palestinian children. We hope that the Palestinian leadership will end its 67 year war against Israel and come to the negotiating table.”

Winning a Debate with an Israel-Hater is available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle.

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