Ahmadinejad's Propaganda TV Channel Under Threat From "The Zionist Lobby" (video)

Ahmadinejad's propaganda news channel, Press TV, where you can see such luminaries as Yvonne Ridley, George Galloway, and Lauren Booth strutting their stuff, is in a spot of bother with the British broadcasting regulator, Ofcom.

And how the usual suspects on the Israel-bashing left are howling.

Tweets a certain Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch in a typical attitude:

 Tell Ofcom that PressTV's the one UK channel reporting what the mainstream don't. And it's virtually trivia-free. facebook.com/pages/Hands-Of

 It doesn't matter that the regime for which the channel is a mouthpiece brutally persecutes gays, women, Bahais, and political dissidents, of course.  Or that despite its alleged commitment to cutting edge journalism it never gets around to telling us about that grim often gruesome aspect of life in Iran.

"Jewish Homosexual Pig": Islamic Extremists Threaten Pro-Israel MP

It goes without saying that demographic factors influence elections and politicians' attitides, which is why the comparably larger size of Muslim communities in the UK and other western democracies to those nations' Jewish communities poses a worry to supporters of Israel.  The assumption, of course, is that MPs in constituencies with a significant proportion of Muslims - especially MPs elected to Westminster and other legislatures by a small margin of votes - will be tempted to downplay any support for Israel they may harbour, or to jettison it altogether.

But the worry focuses on the increasing political clout of Muslim communities and of the way they behave at the ballot box, to the presumed detriment of Israel's interests in the UK.

Now, however, as Al Beeb reports in the London news section on its website, a bunch of Islamic extremists belonging to the group Muslims Against Crusades, formerly known as Islam4UK (notorious for its poppy-burning - the photo below shows them on their way to do so - and advocacy of autonomous Sharia-governed zones in certain British cities as a first step towards the Caliphate) have physically intimidated a pro-Israel MP.

On Friday afternoon Mike Freer, Member of Parliament for Finchley and Golders Green, and a member of Conservative Friends of Israel (and also, incidentally, of British Asian Conservative), encountered a noisy demonstration as he arrived for a constituency "surgery" taking place at the North Finchley Mosque.  While talking to a constituent he was confronted by about a dozen members of MAC who had forced their way inside.  They had, it seems, planned the action on their website.

One called the non-Jewish Mr Freer (who was active in the campaign to keep Sheikh Raed Salah out of Britain this year) a "Jewish homosexual pig".  He was reportedly threatened, and with the help of staff at the mosque took sanctuary behind a locked door until police arrived (there were no arrests, by the way).

Unlike its previous incarnation, Islam4UK, MAC is not proscribed. Little wonder, in light of its latest antics, that Mr Freer wants the Home Secretary to monitor its actions closely.

Read more here
More still here

Damp Squibs & Demons

I'm reliably informed that there were few Israel-bashers in evidence in the Sydney suburb of Newtown this Saturday, despite one of the regular anti-Max Brenner demos being scheduled, as touted on Facebook and elsewhere.  The reason for this damp squibbery, as my informant (take a bow, Shirl!) suggests, is surely not hard to seek: the "rent-a-crowd" ratbags were preoccupied with the "Occupy" nonsense taking place in the city.

That the "Break Down the Wall" and the "Break Down Wall Street" mobs have much crossover has been amply demonstrated over the past few weeks.  One of the most brazen spinoffs of antisemitism on the part of anti-capitalists has ocurred on Facebook, with a page charmingly entitled: "Jews Are Greedy C*nts"
(racism and sexism in one, huh?!)  Read all about it here

One Cool Dude: Israel's Ishmael Khaldi

There's no doubt about it. Israeli diplomat Ishmael Khaldi is one cool guy.  A Bedouin and a Muslim, Mr Khaldi was a former shepherd boy who joined the Israeli Foreign Ministry and became the number two person at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco.

Although Mr Khaldi is, I believe, by no means totally uncritical of Israeli domestic policy, he is an articulate defender of the State he serves.  In the line of duty he finds himself as, figuratively speaking, a punching bag for the loathsome fanatics who  would like to free Palestine "from the River to the Sea". 

Last year, he remained calm and collected while subjected to a barrage of abuse from Scottish Israel-haters who, in true totalitarian leftist fashion, prevented him from speaking as scheduled at Edinburgh University.  You can see the footage of this odious display of intolerance here and here and here

On 25 October Mr Khaldi gave a lecture at Kent State University in Ohio.  It focused on his own story, as told in his autobiography A Shepherd's Journey, and he explained how people labour under misconceptions regarding Israel, citing it's current aid to earthquake-ridden Turkey as an example of Israel's humanitarianism.

Afterwards, he invited questions from the floor, and history professor Julio Pino, a convert to Islam,  was quick off the mark:

'Standing at the back of the auditorium, Pino asked Khaldi how he and his government could justify providing aid to countries like Turkey with blood money that came from the deaths of Palestinian children and babies.

This is not Pino’s first brush with controversy. In 2002 he wrote an opinion column for the Daily Kent Stater praising a suicide bomber. In 2007 he made national headlines when the The Drudge Report featured a story accusing him of contributing to a blog called Global War, which refers to itself as a "jihadist news service".

The crowd fell into an awkward silence as the two continued to exchange words from across the auditorium.

"It is not respectful to me here," Khaldi said.

Pino responded by saying "your government killed people" and claimed Khaldi was not being respectful to him.

"I do respect you, but you are wrong," Khaldi said. "It’s a lie."

 The exchange ended as Pino stormed out of the auditorium shouting "Death to Israel!"

One person in the crowd retaliated by shouting [at Pino] "Shame on you!"'

Read more about this incident and Mr Khaldi's response here

"The Ground Will Tremble, The Dust Will Fly": Gaza Convoy fundraising gig in Kiwiland

"In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians" goes the chorus of one of the songs in this gig in Auckland, New Zealand.  "Until Palestine is free, this world will never be at peace" goes another line.
The inveterate Israel-bashers and their naive well-meaning cronies are gathering funds for a new Gaza Convoy in December, and in the wake of Moubarak's downfall vow to force the Rafah Crossing to open permanently.

Guest-Preaching Against Israel To Sydney Churchgoers (video)

One video of quite a few of this talk by an Israeli-born American "peace activist" called Miko Peled that have been posted to YouTube by a fervently pro-BDS Christian cleric in Sydney called Father Dave is quite enough for our purposes.  It shows the plausible-sounding soft-spoken Peled, who was on a speaking tour of Australia, telling an audience of church-goers why boycotting Israel is "the right thing to do". He accuses Israel of supporting "terrorism" and assures the faithful that the Boycott is not antisemitic.  Ho-hum.

Beneath this video on YouTube someone named Hocking has commented:

"Australians are hidden from the truth buy the media, which is owned by a 1/2 Jew [sic] called Murdock [sic]."

Sadly, the comment - as antisemitic as it is inaccurate (Rupert Murdoch is not of Jewish descent) -  has earned no reprimand from the Christian cleric who uploaded the video. To be fair, perhaps he hasn't seen it.

As for the media in Australia, well aside from such stalwart champions of Israel's cause as Andrew Bolt, Gerard Henderson, and Greg Sheridan, it would seem to be much of a muchness with the press elsewhere, as the following people questioned by the Australian Jewish News on Carlisle Street in the heavily Jewish neighbourhood of East St Kilda indicate.  (Incidentally, the bakery in the background to one of the interviews is Glick's, celebrated for its bagels and pastries.  Check it out if you're ever in town!)

It's Time To Release Jonathan Pollard

The Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer has chosen an alliterative title for his latest article: "Palestine – Peace, Petulance, Posturing, and Pollard".
It comes as usual via the antipodean J-Wire service.

Writes David Singer:

'Two significant – yet seemingly unrelated – events  have occurred during the past week within the ongoing Jewish-Arab conflict.

1. Israel’s release of 1027 terrorists for one of its soldiers – Gilad Shalit – with 80% of Israelis reportedly supporting the deal.
2. The PLO’s continuing refusal to resume negotiations with Israel until Israel ceases all building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – despite strenuous efforts by the Quartet to get PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table.

The confluence of these two events, however, now presents an opportunity for the Quartet to get Israel and the PLO talking to each other again.

The Quartet represents probably the strongest diplomatic negotiating team ever assembled in history. Yet it has been made to look impotent in its inability to get the conflicting parties to sit across a table to try and peacefully resolve their differences.

Comprised of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – the Quartet is obviously concerned at the fallout that can occur should Abbas continue to unilaterally forge ahead with his request for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood in breach of UN Security Council Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords and the Bush Road Map.

Yet the Quartet has within its grasp a powerful negotiating card – the ability to pressure America to release and repatriate to Israel the convicted civilian American Naval Intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard in return for

• Israel implementing a total building freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for an agreed specified time period and
• The PLO immediately resuming direct negotiations with Israel

Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment almost 27 years ago for disclosing vital security information to Israel – which Israel was legally entitled to receive anyway according to a 1983 Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries.

The information withheld from Israel included Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan and Iranian nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare capabilities – being developed for use against Israel. It also included information on ballistic missile development by these countries and information on planned terrorist attacks against Israeli civilian targets.

Pollard never had a trial. At the request of both the U.S. and Israeli governments, he entered into a plea agreement fully so-operating with the prosecution, which spared both governments a long, difficult, expensive and potentially embarrassing trial.

Yet he received a life sentence and a recommendation that he never be paroled – in complete violation of the plea agreement he had reached with the government – which promised a far less severe sentence.
Pollard was indicted on only one charge – passing classified information to an ally without intent to harm the United States.

No one else in the history of the United States has ever received a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally – only Pollard. The median sentence for this offence is two to four years. Even agents who have committed far more serious offences on behalf of hostile nations have not received such a harsh sentence.

In November 1995, Israel granted Pollard Israeli citizenship.

On May 12, 1998, the Government of Israel publicly acknowledged Pollard as an Israeli agent and  indicated its commitment to securing his release and repatriation to Israel.

It was the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who, in 1995, first began openly to negotiate for Pollard’s release as part of the peace process.

President Clinton promised Prime Minister Rabin that he would release Pollard as part of a Middle East peace settlement, but the President refused to honor his promise after Rabin was assassinated.
The opportunity presented itself when Israel’s current Prime Minister – Benjamin Netanyahu – went to the Wye River Plantation talks in 1998 with Yasser Arafat – thinking that he would return to Israel with Jonathan Pollard in return for the concessions Israel made at those talks. President Clinton strenuously denied there was any such agreement.

Pollard is now in poor health. Surely he has paid a high enough price for his transgressions. The circumstances leading to his life sentence following the intervention of Secretary of Defence – Caspar Weinberger – remain unexplained.

If the Quartet wants to see Israel and the PLO resume direct negotiations then a decision to release Pollard as part of a deal to bring this about would undoubtedly be received in Israel with the same overwhelming support that greeted the news of Shalit’s release.

A similar proposal was floated by Israel twelve months ago but fell on deaf American ears. The political situation has deteriorated since then and the future appears bleak for both Arabs and Jews – indeed for world security – if negotiations are not resumed..

On the 20th February this year Gilad Shalit’s father made the following plea to President Obama on the occasion of Gilad’s 1,700th day in Hamas captivity in Gaza:

"[Pollard] has served his sentence, and the time has come to free him."

One week previously a letter from 19 former Soviet Prisoners of Zion was sent to President Obama asking him to grant Pollard clemency – which stated:

"Your silence worries us We, former Prisoners of Zion in Soviet Russia, know the danger of silence. We know the terrible suffering that comes with each passing day in prison. Therefore, we appeal to you with a heartfelt cry – end this Jewish prisoner’s prolonged and terrible ordeal! You are the only one who can do so. Please, Mr. President, free Pollard now!"

Prominent Americans who have recently called for Pollard’s release include former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle, former CIA Director James Woolsey and  former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz.
However any such decision will be difficult for President Obama to make following Vice President Joe Biden‘s recently reported remarks:

"President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time. If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life."

Well it is not up to Vice President Biden – it is a decision which only President Obama can make.
The decision to release Pollard in the interests of pursuing peace stands in stark distinction to Netanyahu’s extremely difficult decision to release 1027 terrorists – a decision which almost certainly will cause a further threat to peace – judging by the reported  comments of some of those released.

Pursuing peace – not perpetuating petulance or political posturing- should be President Obama’s catch cry at this very critical point in time.'

Protest Against Lush Cosmetics (video)

Lush might be a soap company, but as is probably well-known by now, it's been engaging in something very grubby. I've made several posts on the subject, starting with the one here

It's great to see these Californians taking a principled stand, in view of Lush's demonisation of Israel.  And as the uploader of the video points out on YouTube, there's hypocrisy and double standards involved in Lush's despicable campaign against Israel:

"They set up shop in countries where it is illegal for women to drive a car (Saudi Arabia) and where being gay faces a death penalty. It asks for you to support the PLO, who has asked for death to Israel and everyone it it, that includes Jews, Muslims, Christians.

 But it seems to think that the only point to get on a high horse about is Israel, and ignore Syrian, Libyan, Iranian, Egytian slaughtering of people for protesting."

Indeed, and isn't the latter stance the usual practice of the anti-Israel brigade, when all is said and done?

Read more here

"It Is A Beautiful Thing, To Realize A Person's Dream": The freed terrorist sentenced to 16 life terms (video)

Here's the unrepentant Ahlam Tamimi, responsible for the massacre at a Jerusalem pizza restaurant ten years ago in which 15 people died (when informed that 8 victims, who included a two-year-old, were children, she smiled) and 130 were injured.

For a lengthier interview, in which she makes the boast in my header, click here
Hat tip: Shirl in Oz

A trailer for a harrowing interview with a family which lost several members in the Sbarro restaurant atrocity, including a two-year-old girl, appears here (it's in Hebrew)

The Notion of Jewish Chosenness (video)

As seen in my last, the notion of Jews as the "Chosen People" is subject to widespread misunderstanding, and is of course a potent gift to antisemites.  The religious Israeli speaker in this video attempts to clarify the term and dispel misconceptions.

Of Wet Dreams, & Chosen People ...

The following, entitled "RMT Senior Official Directs Tirade Of Antisemitic Abuse At Israel Advocate," is a crosspost by the prominent British pro-Israel activist Jonathan Hoffman.  It also appears on the Jewish Chronicle blogs and is crossposted here with the author's permission.

Writes Jonathan Hoffman:

'Astonishing scenes at SOAS [the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University] last night where a small group of Israel advocates managed to dominate a hostile meeting of BDS supporters, called by the RMT trade union (the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers - many of the staff on the London Underground are members).

The Israel advocates had the PSC [Palestine Solidarity Campaign] and RMT apparatchiks completely flummoxed with questions such as "why was Israel singled out by the RMT?" and "was the RMT's obsession with Israel not just a smokescreen to mask the Union's ineffectiveness at delivering jobs and pay for its members?"

PSC Chair Hugh Lanning was left squirming after being brought to task for making that tired old claim that all criticism of Israel is labelled "antisemitic". Hugh, you really must change your shtik, along with that hoary old one about taking pride that the Reut Institute calls London the hub of Israel hate. You need to get yourself a decent scriptwriter Hugh - surely the TUC can afford to get you one?

Moshe Machover - a tired old Israeli-born Commie whose lawyer son Daniel consistently abused the Universal Jurisdiction law against Israelis, until the Government recently close the loophole he exploited - resorted to obscenities:

"The wet dream of all major Zionist parties is ethnic cleansing"

Very astute, Moshe - we can see why you were a professor.

Ilan Pappe is another professor. Here is what fellow historian Benny Morris thinks of him:

"At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two."

Pappe last night demonstrated astonishing ignorance about the economy of Judea and Samaria. Growth rates in recent years have averaged 6-9% but Pappe insisted on referring to the "impoverished people" of the West Bank.

Adam Hanieh is a lecturer in development at SOAS. We got from him the tired old dog-whistle words of the haters: "Bantustans" .. "apartheid" ... Does he not know that (for example) Arab women in Israel get the best education in the Middle East?

Things really heated up however when Steve Hedley (Bob Crow's right-hand man in the RMT...) let rip at one of the Israel advocates (me).

First he called me "one of the Chosen People" (this phrase used in an abusive manner is a favourite of antisemites: of course the phrase "Chosen People" in the Bible clearly means chosen for responsibilities and not chosen for privilege).

Then he referred to "your friends in the media" (the trope that Jews "control the media" is beloved of antisemites - it appears of course in that well known antisemitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion").

The Engage website has a timely piece by Eve Garrard about the "Chosen People" trope:

"Things are different now, and this trope has been resurrected for the same old use: to denigrate Jews and stir up dislike, or worse, against them. In fact it’s very effective for that purpose: most people (very understandably) dislike anyone who claims to be inherently superior to everyone else; and so to attribute such a claim to Jews is a very economical way of making people dislike and distrust them. By referring to the Chosen People you can, without saying another word, tell your listener that Jews are an arrogant supercilious bunch who despise the rest of the human race, and that you yourself don’t much like that kind of thing; and indeed your listener (or reader, as the case may be) probably doesn’t much like that kind of thing either, being a decent honest person; and so you and she together can enjoyably agree that there’s something pretty obnoxious about Jews, or they wouldn’t be claiming to be ‘chosen’, would they, or insisting that one Jew is worth 1,000 other people, which of course they must believe, since Gilad Shalit was exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, and there’s no other possible explanation of that ratio, is there, eh?

All that hostile implication from just two well-chosen (so to speak) words, or even in Orr’s case one word alone – she writes with casual familiarity about ‘the chosen’, apparently assuming that her Guardian readers use the term so readily that no misunderstanding can arise from the informal contraction. This is indeed real economy of effort in the business of producing Jew-hatred. Orr herself may not, of course, have intended to stir up dislike of Jews; but the language which she chose to use did all the work that was needed for that unlovely task.

What’s worrying about this use of the Chosen People trope is not so much its appearance in a little piece by Deborah Orr: a minor journalist making derogatory insinuations about Jews isn’t anything so very special. But with Orr as with Mearsheimer it’s the silence of the others, of those in the wider context – the colleagues, the editors, the readers at large – that’s the really chilling thing."

Richard Millett's account [Richard, indomitable chronicler of such meetings, a great photo-journalist of a blogger, was threatened with a "right hook"], with audio and video, is here'

Brotherly Ambition: The ultimate goal of the Muslim Brotherhood (video)

It's not only in the Arab Spring that the Muslim Brotherhood is flexing its muscles, according to insiders - its longterm aim is hegemony over Europe, and it's managed to dupe Western politicians into a false sense of security owing to its skilled habit, as one expert explains in this video, of speaking "with two tongues".  Indeed, it's stricter than its founder was - even his sister did not wear the hijab ...

Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog

For a sobering analysis of the situation in the Middle East see Professor Barry Rubin's piece here and for his take on Libya's future see here

The Wages of Terror

Hamas is urging more kidnapping of Israeli soldiers in order to swap them for about 5000 Arab security risks and terrorists still in Israeli gaols, and a petition has been started among IDF reservists to declare that under no circumstances should they, if ever captured, be released in exchange for such people. And an elite IDF officer has expressed his abhorrence at the release of the appalling individuals he and his men risked their lives to apprehend.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, it's reported, will be dipping into funds provided by the United States and the European Union to be put towards the estimated grant of £5000 he's bestowing upon terrorists freed in exchange for Gilad Shalit. I guess this can be termed the wages of terror.

So much for Mr Abbas's undertaking not to encourage terrorists.

"As a Jew" Squalid Display in Bondi, New South Wales (video)

No bronzed lifesavers in this video from the world-famous Sydney beach suburb of Bondi.  No bikini belles in sight.  And the only flashing being done is by a group called "Jews Against The Occupation" - including one member who went on the flotilla/flytilla - performing as a "flash mob" outside the local Max Brenner. As an additional piece of petty offensiveness they chant their pro-BDS hatred to the tune of Hava Nagila.

Hat tip: Shirl in Oz

"Nazis & Communists Always HaveTo Have Scapegoats" (videos)

This schoolteacher made shocking remarks about "Zionist Jews" at the "Occupy Los Angeles" rally.  As a result she was fired from her job. In this video she reiterates her repugnant views - and what's rather telling (and certainly shameful) is that one of the protest organisers refuses to be drawn into condemning the schoolteacher's antisemitic rant.

"The Palestinians should march to Jerusalem - they should take Jerusalem, it's theirs!" ... "It's correct to blame things on Israel" ... "Death to Israel" ... "Death to NATO" declares this mercifully soft-spoken pro-Gaddafi self-styled "Marxist-Leninist" dunderhead in Occupied Ottawa.

(Hat tip for video: Blazing Cat Fur blog)

This crazy mixed-up mindset (Arab nationalism praiseworthy, Jewish nationalism prohibited) is all par for the course on the Jew-baiting far left, of course.

This substantial video examines the antisemitism manifested by the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its offshoots and is well worth watching:

A good commentary on the phenomenon is by Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Dr Harold Brackman for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Read it here

Jihad For The Siblings Of Apes & Pigs (video)

As a kind of postscript to my last, here's a Hamas bigwig sounding like a cross between a fire-and-brimstone preacher and the infamous star of the Nuremberg rallies as he indulges in some blood-curdling antisemitism:

Hat tip: Shirl in Oz

Dhimmitude, Jihad, & That Imagined "Secular, Democratic State"

During the early 1970s the celebrated Tunisian-born French Jewish author and essayist Albert Memmi - who, I seem to remember, remarked in one of his early books "It is a tragedy to be born a Jew, just as it is a tragedy to be born a woman or a negro" - attended a colloquium in Paris organised by the newspaper Le Monde. Muammar Gaddafi was the main attraction, and Memmi had no hesitation in laying into him, asking him, inter alia:

"Is it enough to have been born an Arab to be entitled to everything and to have been born a Jew to have a right to nothing, except to be condemned to remain eternally second-class citizens, exposed to humiliation and periodic massacres? And if you seriously wanted to avoid our gathering together in that corner of land we call Israeli to renew a most ancient tradition, why have you pursued and hunted us down throughout all the regions where your [Islamic] writ runs?"

I found this anecdote in an article in the Jewish Chronicle (7 November 1975) by Marc Tsiboni, who unfortunately does not tell us what the Libyan dictator (whose own halachic Jewish status was already known, by the way, since Maariv had reported in 1972 that his mother was a Jewish woman from Benghazi who converted to Islam on marriage) replied.

Describing the "golden age" of Jewish-Muslim relations in twelfth-century Moorish Spain as a brief aberrant interlude, Tsiboni saw Maimonides' message to the Jews of Yemen in 1172 as typifying the situation:

"And as you know that no nation was more hostile to Israel than they [the Muslims], that no nation has sought such refinements of evil as they have to weaken, diminish and humiliate us."

Of course, Maimonides was writing before many of the horrors inflicted upon Jews in Christian Europe had occurred.  But Tsiboni noted that in his book Juifs et Arabs (1974) Memmi maintains that, the Holocaust excepted, there has been little difference between the treatment of Jews in Europe and in the Islamic world, exactions and pogroms being a feature of both, even in the twentieth century.

"Never, and I mean never," Memmi has remarked, "have the Jews lived in an Arab country otherwise as an underprivileged and insecure group, with the odd pogrom from time to time to keep them in place."

In Les Temps Modernes (1974) the Moroccan Muslim writer Said Ghalleb observes:

"...the worst insult one Moroccan can proffer another is to call him a Jew.  My childhood friends have remained Jew-haters.

They mask their virulent anti-semitism by maintaining that the State of Israel is the creation of Western imperialism... And the whole Hitlerite myth is cultivated among the popular classes.  There, Hitler's massacre of the Jews is acclaimed with delight.  They even believe that Hitler is not dead... and they await his arrival ... to deliver the Arabs of Israel."

A scene in Brussels

A large proportion of Muslims in Europe today are of Moroccan extraction, particularly in France and Belgium, countries in which violence towards and harassment of Jews has occurred for many years (although the BBC and its ilk scarcely report it).

Hungarian-born semitic scholar and educator Georges Vajda, of Paris, an expert on Islam, once said:

"It seems that no Muslim power, however 'liberal' it may like to think itself ... could depart from the line followed in the past and continued de facto in the present, and confer on the Jews anything but the historic status of 'protected persons,' patched up with ill-digested and unassimilated Western phraseology...

If there does in fact exist a path to a harmonious symbiosis between men of divergent convictions, only those who succeed in genuinely breaking with their past will be able to set out on it."

The antisemitism seen in Cairo, Tunisia, and Libya during the so-called Arab Spring reminds us that Vajda's words - though decades old - are still valid.

And of course we have only to search YouTube to see that the following indictment of Jews, by an antisemitic Islamist quoted by the scholar David Littman, is widely replicated:

"...the Jews, whose wickedness is incurable unless they are subdued by force.  No good is expected from them unless they live under the aegis of Islam."

All this does not bode at all well for the status and safety of Jews in that One State that Israel's Western leftist enemies envisage - it's what used to be called, by lefties such as the British Labour politician Peter Hain (when, in an earlier incarnation. he was the enfant terrible of the Liberal Party and as active a campaigner against Israel as he was against South Africa, even opposing the migration of Soviet Jews to the land of their ancestors) a "secular democratic state" of Palestine.

Which is of course why One State must never be allowed to happen.

By the way, as a bonus here's a guy who has answers to four pertinent questions. I don't think he'd claim to be an intellectual like those I've been discussing.  But he seems to know his onions.  At any rate, what he says isn't conducive to a good night's sleep...

 Skip him to sleep tight!

Send In The [BDS] Clowns (videos)

The BDS movement is often likened to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany during the "Devil's Decade" of the 1930s.  The remixer of this 30-second clip obviously agrees:

And pity the ear drums of the poor toddler in the pushchair (aka stroller) who's being wheeled to this loud venomous demo in Melbourne.  Many of the faces in the crowd are becoming quite familiar, including the huge young chap who looks as if he's in the habit of consuming more than his fair share of "big breakfasts" at McDonalds at a single sitting - well, it would hardly be Max's chocolates, would it?

"You Won't Hear This On ... CNN Or BBC..." (video)

Here's Michael Coren again, describing the barbaric death of a small Israeli child at the hands of an Arab terrorist who made the boy's father watch before he too was murdered in cold blood.  The assailant in question, and other monsters like him, is among those prisoners freed to secure Gilad Shalit's release.  Coren observes that heinous acts against Israelis aren't much in evidence in reportage on those news channels which insist on talking about "Palestinian militants." He's convinced, though, that despite current high levels of Jew-hatred and although "the fashion now is to hate Israel and support Palestine," truth and right will prevail in the end.

Michael Coren & Kathy Shaidle On Occupy Wall Street Anti-Jewish Manifestations (video)

Yes - they do mean anti-Jewish. Not merely anti-Zionist.  Anti-Jewish.  And they are right.  Hat tip to Shirl in Oz for this video of Canadian talk show host Coren and his studio guest, who talks of "total Jew-haters".

What A Piece Of Work! The Guardian's sinister mistranslation of Abbas's words regarding the Shalit deal

The sometimes quite unscrupulous anti-Israel reportage of the leftist-"intellectual" British newspaper The Guardian is, of course, notorious, and not only to Israel's friends in the UK. Sydney lawyer David Singer, a founder member of the International Analysts Network, has drawn attention to a recent instance in the following article via the antipodean J-Wire service.  It's entitled "Palestine – Abbas Gets Lost In The Translation"

Writes David Singer:

'PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been often criticised for making statements in English that are contradicted by other statements made by him in Arabic. Abbas has continued this art of doublespeak first perfected by his predecessor Yasser Arafat -  tailoring his views to the audience that he is addressing.

What is equally as sinister – and indeed should perhaps be regarded with even more alarm – is the apparent attempt by some sections of the media to put Abbas in a favorable light by deliberately mistranslating into English what he says in Arabic.This is illustrated by considering two differing versions of remarks made by Abbas – when greeting some of the convicted terrorists released in exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The Guardian reported Mr Abbas as saying:
"Your efforts have not been in vain,” he told a crowd of thousands, which included 133 of the freed prisoners. “You have sacrificed, fought and paid the price."

This identical quote was  also carried by such media outlets as UTV News and NewsRack

Sky News however reported Mr Abbas’s speech in different terms:

"Your sacrifices and your efforts and your work has not been in vain. You have sacrificed and fought"

This version was also carried by Lebanon News and The Australian newspaper.

The discrepancy between both reports is glaring .

The omission of "your work" in the Guardian story cannot be described as  "nitpicking" or "inconsequential".  Such omission could not have been purely accidental or due to the Guardian’s translator having less of a grasp of Arabic than the Sky News translator. 

If Abbas was to be seen in Western eyes as openly and publicly condoning and praising the “work” of these released terrorists, it could well have an adverse affect on Abbas’s image as a peace-seeking diplomat presently touring world capitals to enlist support for the PLO‘s application for recognition of the State of Palestine and its admission as a member of the United Nations.

In the absence of a satisfactory explanation as to why he chose to use these clearly inflammatory words – or to deny he ever used them – member States of the United Nations would be entitled to take a strong view against acceding to his request to join them in the United Nations as head of a fellow peace-loving state.
Mr Abbas has signed and made the following Declaration to the United Nations as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation organization:

"In connection with the application of the State of Palestine for admission to membership in the United Nations, I have the honour, in my capacity as the President of the State of Palestine and  as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, to solemnly declare that the State of Palestine is a peace-loving nation and that it accepts the obligations contained in the Charter of the United Nations and solemnly undertakes to fulfill them."

Can Mr Abbas’s peace loving declaration have any meaning  when one considers his praise of the "work" these returning terrorists had done and that he told them had not been in vain – and which remarks the Guardian seems to have been so concerned to conceal from its readers ?

The "work" performed by these terrorists included:.

1. Amna Muna – a young woman – who had lured a lovestruck Israeli teenage boy by the name of Ophir Nahum to a Palestinian city over the Internet, only to have him killed by waiting terrorists.
2.  Ahlam Tamimi  another woman now aged 31 – who was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in jail for her involvement in the terrorist attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001 that claimed the lives of 16 innocent victims, amongst them many Jewish children. Tamimi has never expressed remorse and told reporters in 2006: "I’m not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence. Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land." Accepting her statement at face value – it appears clear that Tamimi intends continuing to resume her "work"in the future.3.  Abdel Hadi Ghneim – the surviving perpetrator of the Tel Aviv Jerusalem bus 405 suicide attack that killed 16 civilians after he drove the bus down a ravine.
   4.  Abd al-Aziz Yussuf Mustafa Salehi – photographed in 2000 displaying his blood-soaked hands to a jubilant Palestinian mob after lynching an Israeli soldier and beating him to death

Praising this kind of "work" can be expected from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh -  not from Abbas.

Abbas’s statement is the very antithesis of seeking peace and reconciliation and makes his declaration to the
United Nations a mockery.

Article 9 of the PLO Charter still remains Mr Abbas’s real intention – as his praise of the work done by these terrorists makes clear:

Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm     resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it. 

Murdering innocent civilians and lynching a captured Israeli soldier are still seen by Abbas as not only justifiable – but worthy of praise and commendation.

His peace-loving declaration to the United Nations is not worth the paper it is written on.

Neither is the Guardian’s inaccurate report of what he supposedly said.

"Some Troubling Questions About The Far Left Agenda": The Helen Thomas Affair (video)

Here's an interview between Marc Golub and Rabbi David Nesenoff, regarding Helen Thomas's vilification of Israel.  Rabbi Nesenoff took the footage that led to Ms Thomas's removal from the White House press corps. He talks here of his shock at her words, at her denial of Jews' connection with Israel, and at the "sub-media" of bloggers and others who feel that her freedom of speech was removed and that the fuss her opinion unleashed was much ado about nothing (Newsday didn't cover the incident at all, he notes). The words I quote in the header are Golub's, in his introduction regarding current manifestations of antisemitism in the United States.

Rabbi Neseneoff notes that many of the 25,000 items of hate mail he has received since he made Helen Thomas's words known contain explicit obscene stuff, by no means always anonymous, the senders having no shame.

Observing that he reports those messages that contain death threats against him to the police, he asks rhetorically: "Who do I call about the death threat against the Jewish People?"

The video's almost 50 minutes in length - but it can be regarded as something to listen to rather than to watch.

A New Front Opens In The War Against The Jews

In the summer of 2010, to the dismay of women's rights activists, an Islamic organisation in Malaysia spawned an offshoot called, in English, the Obedient Wives Club, dedicated to preventing divorce by encouraging Muslim wives to accept polygamy without complaint and to subordinate themselves to their husbands in all things.  Read more here

 The Obedient Wives Club's latest initiative - suggested in some pretty racy language - is to prevent the husbands' thoughts straying to women outside the marital home by advocating group sex between a husband and his four wives.

The only reason I raise so delicate a matter is because the initiative is entitled Islamic Sex: Fighting Jews To Return Islamic Sex To The World.

"Come again?", I hear you say.

Yes, that's the title of the pamphlet, and I find the concept as puzzling as I'm sure you do.

More is revealed here

Out Of Hamas's Hands ... And Into Them

A friend remarked to me today, as the first welcome images of Gilad Shalit returning to Israeli soil came through on our television screens, that Israel's release of so many Palestinian prisoners will create goodwill for Israel in the eyes of the world.  More cynical, I thought immediately of Bibi Netanyahu's phrase "Better a bad press than a good epitaph," contained in his thunderously heroic speech at the United Nations last month. - and also of that same friend's unfulfilled prediction, as the earliest reports that Islamic terrorists had brought down the Twin Towers came into our living rooms, that "Now the world will realise what Israel has had to put up with for all these years."

No doubt the release of so many Palestinian prisoners will make some observers think more kindly of Israel - Al Beeb seemed to me, in the snatches I managed to get of its coverage of Gilad Shalit's homecoming, far more balanced than usual (it was, for instance, most gratifying to see Jonathan Sacerdoti and Mark Regev interviewed fairly and at length).  However, there's no pleasing Israel's hardcore detractors - plenty of them have been posting snide comments over the internet claiming that the ratio 1:1027 shows that Israelis value Jewish lives so much more highly than Arab ones.

What the ratio does show, as Isi Leibler points out in a characteristically superb article, is the underlying importance that Jewish tradition attaches to

"the mitzva of pidyon shvuim – the obligation we have to ransom captives – that was traditionally regarded by Jews as a priority. It reflects the reflects the humanity and concern for one another that has personified the Jewish people over years of persecution and isolation. No other country would conceivably act in this manner and it reveals the compassion Israelis share and the lengths they will go to not to forsake their sons on the battlefield."

Look at who Israel is freeing in order to have their young soldier home (compiled in the article "Murderers' Row" by the JTA ):

* Abd al-Hadi Ghanim: In July 1989, during the first Intifada, Gaza resident Abd al-Hadi Ghanim grabbed the steering wheel of a Tel Aviv-to-Jerusalem bus on Israel's main highway and steered it into a ravine. Sixteen people were killed.

* Yihia al-Sinwar: A founder of Hamas’ military wing, Yihia al-Sinwar was involved in the October 1994 kidnapping of Sgt. Nachshon Wachsman, an Israeli soldier who had American citizenship. Wachsman was killed by his captors during a rescue attempt several days later by Israeli commandos. Al-Sinwar's brother is believed to have been an organizer of Gilad Shalit’s abduction.

* Aziz Salha: In October 2000, Aziz Salha produced one of the most horrifying images of the second intifada. He was photographed proudly waving his bloodstained hands out of the window of a Ramallah police station after participating in a lynch mob that broke into the building and beat to death two Israeli reservists who had been taken into Palestinian custody there after making a wrong turn into the city. An Israeli court convicted him of the murder of Cpl. Vadim Norzich.

* Mona Awana: In January 2001, West Bank resident Mona Awana, pretending to be an American with a romantic interest in an Israeli high school student, used the Internet to lure 16-year-old Ofir Rahum to meet her in Jerusalem. They then drove Rahum to a prearranged location on Ramallah’s outskirts, where he was shot and killed by Palestinian gunmen.

* Fuad Amrin: In May 1992, Gaza resident Fuad Amrin stabbed to death 15-year-old Helena Rapp on her way to school in the Israeli city of Bat Yam.

* Husam Badran: As the leader of Hamas’ military wing in the northern West Bank, Husam Badran was the instigator of several of the deadliest suicide bombings of the second intifada, including the 2001 bombing attacks on a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem (15 killed), the Dolphinarium discotheque bombing in Tel Aviv (21 killed), the 2002 suicide bombings of a Passover seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya (30 killed) and the bombing of the Matza restaurant in Haifa (15 killed). More than 100 people were killed in terrorist attacks directed by Badran.

* Tamimi Ahlam: In August 2001, Tamimi Ahlam, a female university student and journalist originally from Jordan, led a suicide bomber to the downtown Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria where he detonated himself, killing 15 people, including seven children.

* Walid Anajas: Hamas operative Walid Anajas assisted with the 2002 suicide bombings at Jerusalem's Cafe Moment (11 killed) and a gaming club in Rishon LeZion (16 killed), and the remotely detonated bombing of a cafeteria at the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which killed nine people, including four Americans.

As Leibler also says, this state of affairs plays right into Hamas's hands:

"The exchange of 1,027 terrorists, including the most cruel and barbaric mass-murderers and masterminds of major terrorist attacks plus six Israeli Arab terrorists, in return for one Israeli soldier, is not merely a stunning victory for Hamas and global terrorism. It also conveys a number of other disconcerting messages that will undoubtedly return to haunt us.

First, Hamas can now show conclusively that murder and terror are infinitely more effective than negotiation. The exchange will embolden terrorists throughout the world and encourage them to intensify their efforts. Indeed, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan has repeatedly stated that past precedents demonstrate that the release of these killers will have deadly future consequences and undoubtedly facilitate the murder of many other Israelis. In fact, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal explicitly boasted that “those released will return to armed struggle. It is a great national achievement.”

The full impact will only become apparent to us in the weeks to come, when the world is subjected to Hamas-sponsored victory celebrations in which the murderers will be paraded in the streets as heroes.

Second, by exposing the “soft” side or “Achilles’ heel” of an otherwise tough Israeli adversary, Hamas (and Fatah) share a clear incentive to exert every effort and make every sacrifice to kidnap additional Israeli hostages in order to impose new demands.

Third, it will be much easier to recruit terrorists who believe that no matter how many Israelis they kill, if apprehended there is every likelihood that they will be released.

Fourth, Hamas has undoubtedly displaced the PA and demonstrated that it was able to force Israel and other states to negotiate and thus provide itself with legitimacy. Indeed, Hamas, which remains adamantly committed to terrorism and the total destruction of Israel, has now emerged as the dominant face of a future Palestinian state.

Fifth, this is also a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent organization, which is emerging as the principal power broker in Egypt. The new Egyptian government will therefore impose far greater pressure on Israel in relation to Hamas than was the case during the Mubarak era. Israel must also factor in Turkey, which in addition to Iran has now emerged as a vociferous supporter of Hamas."  Read the entire article here

Useful Idiocy In Melbourne (video)

This Israel-demonising Aussie's no orator, but the haters are lapping his words up. The uploader of the video onto YouTube has a few strong things to say about him.

No Free Speech For Israel's Friends: Pro-Israel Activist Banned From Amnesty International Meeting in London

This is a crosspost by that doughty British Zionist Jonathan Hoffman (pictured).  Entitled "Human Rights ... unless you want to defend Israel at our hate meetings," it also appears in the blogs section of the Jewish Chronicle website.

Writes Jonathan Hoffman:

Last night (17 October) Amnesty International in London had a meeting: "Demolitions & Discrimination against Palestinian Citizens of Israel: The case of Al-Araqib"

The title of the meeting tells you that Israel was vilified. If you still have doubts, look at the speaker lineup:

Dr. Awad Abu Freih - Al ‘Araqib Popular Committee & Negev Co- existence Forum;
Dr Mansour Nsasra - Politics Department, Exeter University;
Miri Weingarten - EU Advocacy Coordinator for Israel/OPT - Israeli Human Rights Consortium.

Exeter University is a centre for vilification of Israel. Ilan Pappé is there. Weingarten is a member of Physicians for Human Rights.

Amnesty has a long history of holding Israel-hate meetings. If you look on my blog and Richard Millett’s blog you will find these meetings documented:
http://www.thejc.com/blogs/jonathan-hoffman/amnesty-hosts-deluded-self-o...
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/shame-amnesty-international-its-biased-isr...
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/amnesty-the-scum-ngo
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/vote-eric-lee-restore-objectivity-amnestys...
http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/censoredcensoredcensored

Scandalously Amnesty never called for Gilad Shalit – whose release we celebrate today – to be freed:
http://www.thejc.com/blogs/jonathan-hoffman/amnesty-not-asking-gilads-re...

I pre-registered for last night’s meeting in order to make the following points in the Q+A:

- The Bedouin inhabitants of Al-Araqib are squatters – much like some of the gypsies at Dale Farm in the UK. The village is on land that has been government-owned since Ottoman times. This status was adopted under the British Mandate and has been taken into Israeli law.

- The demolitions of houses were according to the law. The buildings were erected only recently by the Abu Madyam and Abu Jaber families. The Bedouin have been unable to substantiate their claim of land ownership with any documentation. The Supreme Court ruled that the inhabitants acted in bad faith, unable to provide evidence for their ownership claims.

- On occasion Bedouin have tried to expel other Bedouin

- The families who claim Al-Araqib also own villas and plots in Rahab. Abdullah Abu Madyam is a merchant who is said to be using the illegal structures to store his merchandise. There are photos of him arriving in a luxury car. The Al-Uqbi family – said to be one of the dispossessed families – has been given free land by the government in Hura.

- The Goldberg Report has made comprehensive recommendations for the betterment of the lives of the 191,000

Bedouins in the Negev:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/context/research-and-analysis/latest-bicom-analy...

I wanted to make these points in the Q+A

But I could not.

Because I was refused entry to the meeting.  Yet again Amnesty has proved that "Human Rights" do not extend to the right of Free Speech to defend Israel at its hate sessions...

"Activist [aka Antisemitic Thug] Snatches Some Paperwork ..." (video)

"Activist snatches some paperwork and is punched on the back of the head" - that's how a scene from the following video, of the "Coaltion Against Israeli Apartheid" marching through central Melbourne on 15 October, is described on the video.  I have already added the video to a previous post, but I think it deserves a spot of its own.

That which is described sarcastically as "some paperwork" is a small replica of the Israeli flag.  It is being held aloft by an elderly gentleman in a blue baseball cap.  As a tall and much fitter young bloke in a black cap passes this elderly gentleman - who is quite possibly one of the Holocaust survivors who (with their descendents) comprise the bulk of the "Shtetl by the Yarra" (as Melbourne Jewry is often dubbed) - he shows his visceral hatred of the blue and white flag (symbol of the national liberation movement of the Jewish People and of the Jewish State) by tearing it from the obviously much smaller and frailer elderly man's grasp leaving him somewhat shaken.

Shame on the antisemitic thug. Shame on the movement he represents.

"Destroy Israel": Wickedness In The Windy City (video)

What a repulsive anti-Israel anti-Western mob we have here (Occupy Chicago rabble).  Hat tip: [the Sherlockian] Shirl in Oz.

"A Bunch of Smelly Antisemites Yelling At The Top Of Their Voices" (two videos)

Here's more from the Occupy Melbourne rabble.

In truth, I don't know how fragrant (or otherwise) they are in their persons.   It's their antisemitism that stinks.

My header was inspired by the following comment beneath the video on youtube:

"I just had to look this up! All I wanted was a signature Max Brenner chocolate fondue, and this is what I got instead. A bunch of smelly anti-semites yelling at the top of their voices!" 

If I find any further footage I'll post it here.

Here's more ("From the River to the Sea,,,") Hat tip: Shirl in Oz

We'll Go Gathering Nuts ... At The Occupy Sydney Demo (photo)

Yes, folks.  Nice people these far leftists attract.  A man with a Hezbollah flag.  A woman with a 9/11 conspiracy theory poster - it's da Joos wot did it

(Frank Lowie referred to on the poster is Frank Lowy, a prominent Aussie businessman and member of the Jewish community.)

(Hat tip for photo: S & P)

For more on the Occupy Australia antics see my previous post and this site here

Warning: Does Contain Traces of Antisemitism –That Old Blood Libel Has Melbourne Hard Leftists In Its Spell (videos)

Again.  Against Max Brenner as usual. In the first of these three videos (the second and third relate to a big anti-capitalist demo that took place in Melbourne today) a girl holds up a vicious, stupid sign: "Allergy Warning. May Contain Trace of Genocide".

In truth, each of these protests can be labelled: "Warning. Does Contain Traces Of Antisemitism"

Bravo to the commenters who've posted these messages beneath the above video on youtube:

'Tough as is must be for these Leftists to swallow, they actually have far MORE in common with Israel than they do with its Arab "neighbours".Just try being any of the following in any Middle Eastern country outside of Israel

 - female - gay- non-Muslim - a protestor

While Israel is educating its people (very, VERY well), and contributing hugely to virtually every field of human endeavor (count their Nobel Prizes) the Arabs are still stoning women for being raped or not hiding their faces.'

'Disgraceful preening poseurs Australia - the country where mobs harass Jewish shopkeepers. Imagine what Aboriginal activist William Cooper (not that you posturing fools know him from a loaf of bread) would think.....'

As noted, there was another demo today.  Here's the antisemitic lead-up (it's that so-called  "rich man antisemitism" which I mentioned so very recently):

And here's the footage.  In the words of the uploader:

"On Day 1 of Occupy Melbourne, activists set up camp, had their first general assembly, and a section of the occupation marched from the occupation to protest Max Brenner as part of the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid."

It seems that the Israel-vilifying guy in the red and white top, who claims that Max Brenner has done "appalling atrocious things" and that "people power" will close down such corporations, has done appalling, atrocious things to his vocal chords, since he sounds somewhat hoarse and (oh dear!) soprano-like by turns.  I guess that's the price these rabble-rousers are liable to pay for screaming "Occupy Melbourne, Not Palestine" and "Long Live Palestine, Long Live The Intifada" over and over again.

What an absolutely disgusting despicable display.
See also my subsequent posts here (raw antisemitism in Sydney) and here (the Melbourne rabble all worked up)

Online Petition To Prevent The Release of One of The Terrorists Due For Release In the Shalit Exchange

The petition (in which time is of the essence) concerns Ahlam Tamimi, whose victims (15 killed and 130 wounded) include the fifteen-year-old Malki Roth.

Explains Malki's father, Arnold Roth:

'Ahlam Tamimi was not the driver of the Sbarro restaurant suicide bomber. On the day of the massacre (9th August 2001), she personally transported the bomb (10 kg) from a West Bank town into Jerusalem, concealed inside a guitar case. Taxi cabs brought her and an accomplice by the name of Al Masri, a young, newly-religious fanatic, to an Israeli security checkpoint and from there into Jerusalem. To reduce suspicion, they dressed as Israelis and the bomb was not detected. Tamimi, who inspired, planned and engineered the Sbarro attack, personally led her "weapon" - Al Masri - to the target she had carefully selected at Jerusalem's busiest intersection.

The target was a pizza restaurant, selected because it was located in the heart of Jerusalem and on a hot summer vacation afternoon it would be teeming with women and children. Tamimi instructed Al Masri to wait fifteen minutes before detonating the explosives to give her sufficient time to flee the scene safely. He followed her orders. As to this being (as some journalists have implied) an act of momentary madness or lack of sound thinking, take into account that a short time prior to Sbarro attack, Tamimi carried out a 'dry run', placing an explosive inside a downtown Jerusalem supermarket (Hamashbir Lazarchan) which exploded causing damage but resulting in no injuries.

According to a journalist I met who had interviewed her some years ago, she is a charismatic and influential woman who played a central role in Neve Tirza, until now the prison for Palestinian Arab female security prisoners. And, he told me, a monster.'

The logic behind the petition is that if one specific terrorist is removed from the list of those due for release, namely Ahlam Tamimi, it may prompt a much more thorough thinking process about the real damage that will flow from this agreement. The official Israeli version of the to-be-freed list goes out some time tomorrow (perhaps after Shabbat) via the Israeli Prison Service website. If the petition sponsors can obtain a substantial number of supporters by then, they may be able to have some influence over what ensues.

The petition is online here

Giulio Meotti has an article on the prisoner exchange here, entitled "Why Did Israel Betray Its Victims".