What could really anger Hamas? How about this video from a Chanuka party in Bahrain held by millionaire Lazer Scheiner?
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
And yes, this video really does have Hamas seething.
The Islamist group said the video from the event, hosted by the king
of Bahrain and attended by members of the local Jewish community, was
“humiliating” after it was posted on YouTube.
In the clip, Muslim and Jewish men wearing keffiyehs and kippahs
were seen performing a traditional Hasidic dance during a
candle-lighting ceremony.
“In light of the increasing pace of international sympathy for the
Palestinian cause… and the growing boycott of the Zionist movement in
all forms, a group of dignitaries and traders in the State of Bahrain
hosted a Zionist, racist and extremist Jewish delegation and danced with
them in a humiliating and disgraceful spectacle,” Hamas officials said
in a statement.
“Hamas calls on Bahrain to fully stop any form of normalisation with the Zionist enemy.”
But John Kerry thinks it's all about 'settlement' construction.
Oh my: British PM Theresa May in 'unprecedented' attack on US over Kerry speech
In what's being called an 'unprecedented' attack, British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday issued a blistering rebuke of US Secretary of State John Kerry's ranting attack on Israel on Wednesday.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said it was inappropriate of Mr Kerry, America's top diplomat, to attack the make-up of the democratically-elected Israeli government – a key ally of both the US and Britain.
Downing Street also rebuked Mr Kerry for focusing on the single issue of Israeli settlements and not the whole conflict.
Intervening in the increasingly hostile international dispute today, a spokesman for the British Prime Minister said: 'We do not... believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex.
'And we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically-elected government of an ally.'
'The Government believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties, supported by the international community.'
It echoes Mr Netanyahu's riposte yesterday when he accused the US Secretary of State of being skewed against Israel' and talking 'obsessively' about settlements.
Mind you, Britain was one of the 14 countries that voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 last Friday, so why are they now attacking Kerry?
Apparently because they think he went too far.
And Britain is not the only country who went after Kerry today. So did Australia's Julie Bishop.
In a statement released on Thursday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop
said Australia was not currently a member of the Security Council and
was not eligible to vote on the resolution.
However, she said, "in voting at the UN, the Coalition government has
consistently not supported one-sided resolutions targeting Israel".
She
urged both sides to refrain from steps that damage the prospect for
peace and to "resume direct negotiations for a two-state solution as
soon as possible".
Meanwhile, in the US, it's not just President Elect Donald Trump who has been tweeting up a storm in support of Israel. So have many Representatives and Senators from Kerry's own party (and of course from the Republican party).
“While he may not have intended it, I fear Secretary Kerry, in his speech and action at the U.N., has emboldened extremists on both sides,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, the incoming Senate Democratic leader.
A
bipartisan chorus of lawmakers, upset with President Obama’s decision
last week to allow the passage of a United Nations resolution condemning Israel’s construction of settlements in disputed territory, made clear that they were looking past the departing administration.
Senator
Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Foreign
Relations Committee, said he shared Mr. Kerry’s concerns “with the lack
of forward progress on a two-state solution.” But Mr. Cardin also said
he was unhappy that Mr. Obama had not vetoed the United Nations
resolution, instead abstaining from the vote. He pledged to “explore
congressional action that can mitigate the negative implications” of it.
The most ardent supporters of Israel in Congress seemed just as liberated as Mr. Kerry was to let loose.
“Secretary
Kerry’s speech today was at best a pointless tirade in the waning days
of an outgoing administration,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of
Arizona. “At worst, it was another dangerous outburst that will further
Israel’s diplomatic isolation and embolden its enemies.”
Representative
Eliot L. Engel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, called Mr. Kerry’s speech “gratuitous” and “wrong.”
“There doesn’t seem any purpose to this other than to embarrass Israel,”
Mr. Engel said. “It just pained me to watch it.”
Democratic
members of Congress who are closer to Mr. Kerry, a former senator, and
the Obama administration were more measured. Many had been angered by
Mr. Netanyahu’s decision last year to accept an invitation from the
Republican-led House to deliver a speech in the Capitol, where he
confronted the president over the Iran nuclear accord.
Yet
even these Democrats — eyeing the arrival of a Republican
administration-in-waiting that has vowed strong support for Israel —
left little doubt that they were parting ways with Mr. Obama on the
substance of the United Nations resolution.
Senator
Bill Nelson of Florida, who is facing re-election in 2018, said he knew
why Mr. Kerry was frustrated over the settlements, which he called an
“impediment toward a negotiated two-state solution.” But he was quick to
note that he was among the 88 senators who signed a letter months ago
opposing the sort of United Nations resolution on Israel that the
Security Council approved last week.
Hopefully the reactions in Congress will keep the Obama administration from saddling Israel with their 'peace plan.' Perhaps this picture says it best.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive!
The Obama administration's effort to deny Prime Minister Netanyahu's charge that Obama was behind the passage of a UN resolution declaring the Western Wall to be 'Palestinian territory' has come apart under the weight of its own lies.
You will recall, if you follow the links above that the Obama administration denied the Netanyahu government's accusations that Obama-Kerry were behind and orchestrating the UN resolution. And if you keep reading below, you will find out that in fact, the Obama administration has been orchestrating this resolution since September, and that John Kerry's little post-election trip to New Zealand (and Antartica) is likely connected to it.
On Wednesday morning, Israel Radio reported on an Egyptian newspaper report that published a summary of a meeting among Kerry, Susan Rice and chief 'Palestinian' negotiatorbottle washer Saeb Erekat. That led to this denial from US National Security Council spokesman Ned Price:
But in fact, on Tuesday, the State Department's Mark Toner admitted that the meeting did take place. And much more (full transcript here).
QUESTION: Yeah. I mean, tensions have been
increasing since the UN vote on Friday. I’m sure you’ve seen all the
reports and heard a lot of the words. The Israeli officials are now
being quoted as saying that they have evidence that they will lay out to
the Trump administration of – in which the U.S., specifically Kerry,
had discussions with the Palestinians before the vote, a few weeks
before, during a visit to Washington where Saeb Erekat was around, and
basically that he pushed them to go to Egypt and to move ahead with this
resolution. That’s one of the things.
MR TONER: Okay.
QUESTION: So the question is: Was the U.S. hiding behind this
other group of countries to submit the resolution? Were those
discussions ever taken place? Because the Israelis feel that they’ve got
evidence that there was meddling by the Americans.
MR TONER: Excuse me. Forgive me. (Coughs.) I picked up a cold over the weekend too, unfortunately, so I apologize.
So you’re right. We’ve obviously seen the same reports, an
amalgamation of different allegations that somehow this was U.S.-driven
and precooked. What I’ll say – excuse me – (coughs) – is that we reject
the notion that the United States was the driving force behind this
resolution. That’s just not true. The United States did not draft this
resolution, nor did it put it forward. It was drafted and initially
introduced, as we all know, by Egypt, in coordination with the
Palestinians and others. When it was clear that the Egyptians and the
Palestinians would insist on bringing this resolution to a vote and that
every other country on the council would, in fact, support it, we made
clear to others, including those on the Security Council, that further
changes were needed to make the text more balanced. And that’s a
standard practice on – with regard to resolutions at the Security
Council. So there’s nothing new to this.
Actually, it's not 'standard practice' unless you're looking for an excuse not to veto it. If the United States had planned to veto the resolution - as happened many times in the past - it would not have bothered to pretend to make the text 'more balanced,' because it would not have mattered. And it certainly would not have sent Secretary Kerry gallivanting around the world to work on it.
You look like you’re pouncing on me, but go ahead. QUESTION: No, we just —
MR TONER: No, we’ll continue. I can continue, but if you have a – do you have a follow up?
QUESTION: No, no. Let’s just keep going with this.
MR TONER: Okay, sure. And this is a really important point. We
also made clear at every conversation – in every conversation – that
the President would make the final decision and that he would have to
review the final text before making his final decision. So the idea that
this was, again, precooked or that we had agreed upon the text weeks in
advance is just not accurate. And in fact —
QUESTION: But we know that —
MR TONER: Go ahead. I’m sorry. Go ahead.
QUESTION: No, we know that the U.S. didn’t draft it or put it
forward. But was the U.S. in any way coaxing on any – another group of
countries to move ahead and go and move ahead with this resolution?
You mean like 'humiliated' Joe Biden leaning on Ukraine to improve the 'optics' and make it 14-0? But Toner didn't bother to explain that.
MR TONER: Well, again, these are – I mean, again, I think it’s
important to have the proper context, in that all through the fall
there was talk about – and we often got the question here and of course
we replied that we’re never going to discuss hypotheticals in terms of
what resolutions or what is circulating out there – but of course, there
has been for some time in the fall talk about this resolution or that
resolution with regard to the Middle East peace and the
Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Yes, of course. Because without the need to worry any more about himself or his party, the true Jew-hating Obama was free to come out.
So of course, in the – of course, in the course of those
conversations, we’re always making clear what our parameters are, what
our beliefs are, what our – what we need to see or what we – in order to
even consider a resolution. That’s part of the give-and-take of the UN.
QUESTION: But surely these countries, before they would move
ahead, would want to get the view of an influential member of the
Security Council of the UN of who – of what their position would be on
this.
MR TONER: Well, again, I think we – of course, as the draft or
the text was circulated, we said to those on the Security Council that –
what further changes were needed to make the text more balanced. And in
fact, we ended up abstaining because we didn’t feel it was balanced
enough in the sense of it didn’t hit hard enough on the
incitement-to-violence side of the coin.
No. When you abstain and you could have vetoed, that's a vote in favor. Let's call a spade a spade.
Go ahead. You look perplexed. (Laughter.) Go ahead, Said. QUESTION: At what stage did you intervene to try and balance? Was it after Egypt said they’d withdraw it?
MR TONER: I think it was once – yeah, I mean, once – I mean, I
don’t have a date certain. It was once the Egyptians and Palestinians
made it clear that they were going to advance this text or bring this
resolution to a vote and that, in fact, it would be supported by other
countries.
QUESTION: Does that date predate Mr. Erekat’s visit to the State Department?
MR TONER: I don’t know the date of his visit. But again, I’m
not – I’m not exactly – and I’m not necessarily excluding that when he
did visit to the State Department that they didn’t discuss possible
resolutions or anything like that in terms of draft language. But again,
there was no – nothing precooked. There was nothing – this was not some
move orchestrated by the United States.
Please.
Erekat 'visited' the State Department on December 12 - ten days before the Egyptians presented and withdrew the resolution, and eleven days before Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela - with open support from the UK and behind the scenes support from the US - presented it again. Orchestrated? Bet on it.
QUESTION: Could you be clear what you just said? I heard a
double negative in there. You’re not precluding that they didn’t discuss
it. Are you saying they – that when the Palestinians were here —
MR TONER: I don’t have a readout. Yeah, I don’t have a readout
of that meeting in front of me. I just – but I said I can imagine that
they talked about Middle East peace broadly and efforts to reinvigorate
the process. I don’t know that they discussed the possible action at the
UN. But of course, as we – as I said in answer to Lesley’s question,
that was something that was in the mix for some months now in New York
at the UN that there might be some action taken there.
This wouldn't be anywhere near as suspicious had the meeting been publicly disclosed on December 12. But if had, Israel would not have been blindsided.
QUESTION: And what about New Zealand, when the Secretary was there before Antarctica?
MR TONER: Yeah.
Yeah indeed. Let's interrupt for a minute. Here's a New Zealand Herald report from November 13, five days after the US election.
One of the closed-door discussions between United States Secretary of
State John Kerry and the New Zealand Government today was a potential
resolution by the United Nations Security Council on a two-state
solution for the Israel - Palestinian conflict.
After the talks, Foreign Minister Murray McCully even raised the possibility of the US or New Zealand sponsoring a resolution.
"It
is a conversation we are engaged in deeply and we've spent some time
talking to Secretary Kerry about where the US might go on this.
"It is something that is still in play," McCully told reporters after talks today in Wellington.
New Zealand's two-year term on the Security Council will end in ignominy on Saturday. But then, we should not have been as surprised by their behavior as we were. Our bad.
Back to the State Department.
QUESTION: And also I believe he had a meeting here with Mr. Shoukry at some point in early December.
MR TONER: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: Was the resolution discussed at either of those meetings with those diplomats?
MR TONER: Again, I can’t specifically say whether the
resolution – but certainly, if a resolution or action at the UN was
discussed, it wasn’t discussed in the level of detail where there was
some final text. We always reserved the right with any text that was put
forward, drafted and put forward, to veto it or to not take action or
abstain, which is what we ended up doing.
Like I said - when you have a veto and you don't use it, you're voting in favor.
QUESTION: But you advised them on how to put
together a motion that the United States would feel comfortable
abstaining or voting in favor of?
MR TONER: Well, I think what we said is – and this is not just
unique to this process, but once a text, a draft text is to the point
where it’s going to be put forward to a vote, of course we would provide
input on what we believed were – was language that didn’t pass or
didn’t allow us to vote for it or —
QUESTION: You see what I’m saying?
MR TONER: Yeah.
QUESTION: You didn’t just say bring whatever motion you like
up and we’ll vote however we feel about it. You were encouraging them to
bring forward a motion that you would feel comfortable not blocking.
Sounds like game, set and match right here.
MR TONER: Well, but we have to be really careful in how we’re talking about this because what the allegations —
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
MR TONER: No, I know and I understand that. But no, no, but
I’m saying that some of the allegations out there, frankly, are implying
that this was somehow some – as I said, some orchestrated action by the
U.S. to pass a resolution that was negative about settlement activity
in Israel, and the fact is that that’s just not the case. Of course, we
would always provide, when the final text was going up for a vote, our
opinion on where the red lines were. But I think that – I think this is
all a little bit of a sideshow, to be honest, that this was a resolution
that we could not in good conscience veto because it condemns violence,
it condemned incitement, it reiterates what has long been the
overwhelming consensus international view on settlements, and it calls
for the parties to take constructive steps to advance a two-state
solution on the ground. There was nothing in there that would prompt us
to veto that type of resolution.
Actually, no. The only party it calls on to do anything is Israel.
QUESTION: But there was nothing in there —
MR TONER: And in fact —
QUESTION: — because you told them not to put anything in there that would cause you to veto it.
MR TONER: But that – but again, not at all. And I said we did
not take the lead in drafting this resolution. That was done by the
Egyptians with the Palestinians. But again, in any kind of resolution
process, of course there’s moments where – or I mean, it’s not like our
views regarding settlements or regarding resolutions with respect to
Israel aren’t well-known and well-vetted within the UN community.
There’s been many times in the past where we’ve not – or we vetoed
resolutions that we found to be biased towards Israel. But that’s
another point here is that there’s nothing – the other canard in all of
this is that this was somehow breaking with longstanding U.S. tradition
in the UN Security Council, when we all know that every administration
has vetoed – or rather has abstained or voted for similar resolutions.
Actually, no administration other than the Carter administration has ever called 'settlements' illegal. And no administration has ever called on 'all States'
to
distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the
State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967
That's right. In case you missed it, the Obama administration voted for a resolution that backs BDS.
QUESTION: But it’s true then that you had opportunities to ask them not to bring it forward at all and didn’t take them.
MR TONER: I’m not sure what you’re —
QUESTION: Well, instead of saying why not write the motion this way, you could have said please don’t bring a motion.
MR TONER: Well, again, I think when it was clear to us that
they were going to bring it to a vote and that every other council –
every other country on the council was going to support that resolution,
that draft text —
Since when does a country with veto power have to worry about what 'every other country on the council' is going to do, especially a week before ten of the council's 15 members are about to turn over? Funny that we never hear Russia or China worrying about what 'every other country on the council' is going to do.
But the effort to destroy Israel in the council goes back much further than Kerry's trip to New Zealand in November. Here's Adam Kredo from the Washington Free Beacon.
Jonathan Schanzer, a Middle East expert and vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Free Beacon
that he spoke with U.S. officials in September who admitted that “a
U.N. measure of some shape or form was actively considered,” a charge
that runs counter the White House’s official narrative.
“We know that this administration was at a minimum helping to shape a
final resolution at the United Nations and had been working on this for
months,” Schanzer said.
“This isn’t terribly dissimilar from the administration’s attempts to
spin the cash pallets they sent to Iran,” he added, referring to the
administration’s efforts to conceal the fact that it sent the Iranian
government some $1.7 billion in cash.
“The fact is, the administration has been flagged as being an active
participant in this U.N. resolution,” Schanzer said. “Now they wish to
try to spin this as inconsequential. This was an attempt by the
administration to lead from behind, as they have done countless times in
the past and which has failed countless times in the past.”
And if you're having any doubts whether to believe Schanzer or to believe the Obama-Kerry spin, please consider this.
One veteran foreign policy insider and former government official who
requested anonymity in order to speak freely described senior Obama
administration officials as “lying sacks of shit” who routinely feed the
press disinformation.
A senior congressional aide who is working on a package of repercussions aimed at the U.N. told the Free Beacon the administration is scrambling to provide excuses in response to the breakdown in its own narrative regarding the resolution.
“The administration got caught red handed, and now they’re talking
out of both sides of their mouth,” said the source, who was not
authorized to speak on record. “First they claimed the resolution was
simply not objectionable. Now they say it will actually help advance
peace. These denials only look more ridiculous with each passing day as
new evidence surfaces that the White House was behind this anti-Israel
resolution.”
The Obama administration has been caught several times misleading the
public about its campaign to discredit Israel, including the funding of
an organization that sought to unseat Netanyahu in the country’s last
election, according to one congressional adviser who works with
Republican and Democratic offices on Middle East issues.
All of which leads this Jew to believe that columnist and lawyer Kurt Schlichter is spot-on with this tweet.
If you are Jewish and supporting Barack Obama and John Kerry, well, you would have made a fine helper at Auschwitz.
It's not that Kerry doesn't get Israel - he's enraged he can't get rid of it
In an editorial this morning, the Wall Street Journal blasts John Kerry's 'marathon speech' on Wednesday in which he reserved rage only for Israel in the entire Middle East.
We recite this history to show that it’s not for lack of U.S.
diplomacy that there is no peace—and that mishandled diplomacy has a way
of encouraging Palestinian violence. In 2000 then-President Bill Clinton
brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Camp David to negotiate a
final peace agreement, only to watch Palestinians walk away from an
offer that would have granted them a state on nearly all of Gaza and the
West Bank. That failure was followed by another Palestinian terror
campaign.
Israelis remember this. They remember that they elected leaders—Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, Ehud Barak in 1999, Ehud Olmert in 2006—who made repeated peace overtures to the Palestinians only to be met with violence and rejection.
In his speech, Mr. Kerry went out of his way to personalize his differences with current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
claiming he leads the “most right-wing” coalition in Israeli history.
But Israelis also remember that Mr. Netanyahu ordered a settlement
freeze, and that also brought peace no closer.
The lesson is that
Jewish settlements are not the main obstacle to peace. If they were,
Gaza would be on its way to becoming the Costa Rica of the
Mediterranean. The obstacle is Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right
to exist as a Jewish state in any borders. A Secretary of State who
wishes to resolve the conflict could have started from that premise,
while admonishing the Palestinians that they will never get a state so
long as its primary purpose is the destruction of its neighbor.
But
that Secretary isn’t Mr. Kerry. Though he made passing references to
Palestinian terror and incitement, the most he would say against it was
that it “must stop.” If the Administration has last-minute plans to back
this hollow exhortation with a diplomatic effort at the U.N., we
haven’t heard about it.
Contrast this with last week’s Security Council resolution, which the Obama
Administration refused to veto and which substantively changes
diplomatic understandings stretching to 1967. Mr. Kerry claimed
Wednesday that Resolution 2334 “does not break new ground.”
The
reality is that the resolution denies Israel legal claims to the
land—including Jewish holy sites such as the Western Wall—while
reversing the traditional land-for-peace formula that has been a
cornerstone of U.S. diplomacy for almost 50 years. In the world of
Resolution 2334, the land is no longer Israel’s to trade for peace. Mr.
Kerry also called East Jerusalem “occupied” territory, which contradicts Administration claims in the 2015 Supreme Court case, Zivotofsky v. Kerry, that the U.S. does not recognize any sovereignty over Jerusalem.
The
larger question is what all this means for the prospects of an eventual
settlement. Mr. Kerry made a passionate plea in his speech for
preserving the possibility of a two-state solution for Jews and
Palestinians. That’s a worthy goal in theory, assuming a Palestinian
state doesn’t become another Yemen or South Sudan.
But the effect
of Mr. Kerry’s efforts will be to put it further out of reach.
Palestinians will now be emboldened to believe they can get what they
want at the U.N. and through public campaigns to boycott Israel without
making concessions. Israelis will be convinced that Western assurances
of support are insincere and reversible.
It's not that Kerry doesn't get all those things. He does. It's that in Kerry's 60's radical mind - like his boss' - Israel is a neo-colonialistcreation of the West that has no right to exist among the 'natives' of the Middle East.
The only reason Kerry doesn't come right out and say it is because while that kind of talk is acceptable in Europe, it's not acceptable (yet) in the US. Thanks to Donald Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in last month's election, it may never become acceptable in the US.
This is rich: Frequently anonymous source blasts Beacon's Kredo for using anonymous sources
On Monday, Martin Indyk took to Twitter (which is not just a tool of the Trump campaign) to blast the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo for using anonymous sources to attack Vice President Joe Biden for pressuring Ukraine to vote against Israel in last Friday's Security Council vote on 'settlements.'
Typical 'liberal' that he is, Indyk maintains a double standard: When he's the anonymous source, he wants to be protected, but when someone else uses an anonymous source, that's not okay.
Here are a couple of the instances in which it's come out over the last few years that Martin Indyk, now head of the Brookings Institution, which took $14 million from Qatar, and formerly US ambassador to Israel, has been caught being an anonymous source.
Meanwhile, the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo blames it on the
Americans, saying that the White House has had a secret campaign to scapegoat Israel for the 'talks' failure.
Multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon that top
Obama administration officials have worked for the past several days to
manufacture a crisis over the reissuing of housing permits in a
Jerusalem neighborhood widely acknowledged as Israeli territory.
Senior State Department officials based in Israel have sought to lay
the groundwork for Israel to take the blame for talks collapsing by
peddling a narrative to the Israeli press claiming that the Palestinians
were outraged over Israeli settlements, the Free Beacon has learned.
These administration officials have planted several stories in
Israeli and U.S. newspapers blaming Israel for the collapse of peace
talks and have additionally provided reporters with anonymous quotes
slamming the Israeli government.
The primary source of these multiple reports has been identified as
Middle East envoy Martin Indyk and his staff, according to these
insiders, who said that the secret media campaign against Israel paved
the way for Secretary of State John Kerry to go before Congress on
Tuesday and publicly blame Israel for tanking the talks.
“The Palestinians didn’t even know they were supposed to be
abandoning negotiations because of these housing permits, which are
actually old, reissued permits for areas everyone assumes will end up on
the Israelis’ side of the border anyway,” said one senior official at a
U.S. based pro-Israel organization who asked to remain anonymous
because the Obama administration has in the past retaliated against
critics from inside the pro-Israel world.
“Then Martin Indyk started telling anyone who would listen that in
fact the Palestinians were angry over the housing issue,” the source
said. “Eventually, the Palestinians figured out it was in their interest
to echo what the Americans were saying.”
One former Israeli diplomat familiar with Indyk’s tactics said that
he is a crass political player who has a history of planting negative
stories about Israel in order to undermine the Netanyahu government and
bolster his hand in the talks.
“I’ve seen this before and see his fingerprints,” said the source,
who referenced a separate story two weeks ago in which U.S. government
sources implied that newly installed Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer was
not performing his job effectively.
“It’s certainly in Indyk’s interest now [to undermine the Israelis],
but this was a game he also used to play when he was ambassador twice,”
said the former diplomat. “This is part of Indyk’s playbook.”
“There was only one person who would do this kind of thing and it’s Martin Indyk and his staff,” the former diplomat added.
Another Washington-based source familiar with the talks said that
Kerry’s peace team has a track record of trashing Israel anonymously.
“It’s one of the worst-kept secrets in Jerusalem that Kerry’s team
leaks anti-Netanyahu quotes and claims to the Israeli press—not that is
should be a mystery why Israeli reporters based in Israel keep producing
anti-Bibi quotes from ‘American officials,’” the source said.
“But just imagine the outrage if the roles were reversed and Bibi had a team on the ground in D.C. trashing Obama to the Washington Post on background,” the source said.
Martin Indyk is going to resign from the leadership of the Obama-Kerry
State Department's 'negotiating team' for the 'peace process' after
being exposed as the source for Nachum Barnea's YNet story blaming Israel for the failure of the 'peace talks.'
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Indyk
is considering resigning in light of President Barack Obama’s intention
to suspend US involvement in seeking a negotiated end to the conflict,
citing unnamed Israeli officials “who are close to the matter.” Indyk
has informed the Brookings Institute that he will soon return to his
vice president post, from which he took a leave of absence during the
negotiations, Haaretz reported.
“There are a lot of reasons for the peace
effort’s failure, but people in Israel shouldn’t ignore the bitter truth
– the primary sabotage came from the settlements,” the official told
Barnea.
He's a bitter old man, isn't he?
In May 2014, Indyk went on a drunken tirade blaming Israel for the talks' collapse.
US chief Middle East negotiatorbottle washer
Martin Indyk went on a 30-minute anti-Israel rant at a Washington bar on
Thursday night just before meeting with former Defense Minister and
Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Indyk—who has been identified by the Washington Free Beacon as the
source of a recent series of anonymous quotes in the press condemning
Israel—was caught openly lashing out at Israel over drinks with several
members of his staff and wife, Gahl Burt.
The conversation took place in the hotel bar at the Ritz-Carlton on
Thursday night, shortly after Indyk finished delivering remarks at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s (WINEP) annual gala.
While Indyk was critical of Israel in his public remarks, he and his
staff are said to have let loose on the Jewish state over drinks before
Indyk was scheduled to meet with former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud
Barak.
“The tone was nasty,” according to the source who overheard the conversation.
Indyk and his staff “openly blamed” conservative Israeli politician
Naftali Bennett and others for “sabotaging the [peace] negotiations” by
issuing permits for new Israeli housing blocks in Jerusalem.
“In the 30 minute conversation, no one at the table mentioned a single
wrong thing the Palestinians had done,” according to the source who
overheard the conversation. “There was no self-criticism whatsoever.”
Indyk’s staff also weighed in on the peace process, saying that while
the press may believe that peace negotiations broke down over
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ unilateral bid for
statehood at the United Nations, “they knew the truth and that [talks
had broken down] way before that due to settlements,” according to the
source.
“The staff relished how critical Indyk was of Israel in public speech,” the source said. “They laughed about it.”
Indyk also took aim at WINEP executive director Rob Satloff, who had
moderated a question-and-answer session with Indyk earlier in the
evening.
Indyk “was incredulous” that Satloff had offered an alternate
explanation of the settlement issue, one that applied less blame to
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Indyk told his crew that
Satloff’s explanation “was just false” and that no one he knows believes
it.
The conversation then turned to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians,
according to the source, who additionally provided a hand-drawn map of
the bar area pinpointing Indyk’s location.
Indyk did not respond to emails requesting comments, and the State
Department is denying that the conversation took place. But there are
far too many details in this story.
Oh, by the way, in his younger days, Indyk was known as Arafat's yes-man, and the 'Palestinians' continually sought his participation in the last round of talks against Israeli opposition.
Thankfully, he is unlikely to play any role in a Trump administration. Good riddance.
Hamas drone engineer assassinated in Tunisia was working on undersea drone to attack Israeli gas platforms
Ten days ago, a drone engineer who worked for both Hamas and Hezbullah was assassinated in Tunisia. The Tunisian government accused 'foreign entities' of being involved in the assassination, and both Hamas and Hezbullah pointed a finger at Israel.
It now turns out that the engineer, Mohammed al-Zawahri, was developing an undersea drone that could be used to attack Israeli natural gas platforms in the Mediterranean. From Professor Jacobson.
Chief Hamas engineer Mohammad al-Zawahri, who was killed in Tunisia earlier this month, was reportedly working on drones and “remote-controlled submarines” for the Islamic terror group. A TV station in Tunisia recently aired footage allegedly presenting these projects.
Talk show Labes aired photos from al-Zawahri’s lab with host Rashed
al-Hiyari claiming one of them shows remote-controlled “submarines”
developed by the Tunisia engineer.
“Israel knew he was a real threat and that is why it assassinated
him,” al-Hiyari said of al-Zawahri. “There was a failed attempt to
assassinate him several months ago as well.”
Alzoari was an aeronautical engineer who specialized in
the manufacture of drones. For the last few years, he was employed by
Hamas and Hezbollah. According to sources in Tunis, he also designed an
unmanned naval vessel, apparently submersible and capable of attacking
targets at sea.
According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth (the Hebrew language version of Ynet), al-Zawahari was involved specifically in targeting the natural gas platforms.
Dermer to CNN: Israel will present evidence of Obama's UN gambit to Trump administration
Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, told CNN on Monday that Israel has evidence that President Hussein Obama orchestrated the presentation and passage of Security Council Resolution 2334, condemning as 'illegal' Israeli 'settlement' in Judea, Samaria and 'east' Jerusalem. Dermer said that Israel will present the evidence to the Trump administration after January 20, and leave it up to Trump whether to share it with the American people (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News). I would bet on it being shared if it's solid enough.
Israel has evidence that U.S. President Obama's administration is behind Friday's Security Council resolution, Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer told CNN on Monday.
"We will present this evidence to the new administration through the appropriate channels. If they want to share it with the American people they are welcome to do it," Dermer told CNN.
According to Dermer, not only did the U.S. not stand by Israel's side during the vote, it "was behind this ganging up on Israel at the UN." Dermer said it was "a sad day and a shameful chapter in U.S.-Israeli relations."
In his first public reaction to the vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that the Obama administration has carried out an underhanded and an anti-Israel maneuver at the UN Security Council.
Joe Biden gets his revenge on Netanyahu by forcing Ukraine to vote against Israel
YNet is reporting that serial groper Joe Biden got his revenge for being 'humiliated' by Prime Minister Netanyahu six years ago by pressuring Ukraine to vote in favor of a Security Council resolution calling Israeli 'settlements' 'illegal' on Friday.
Ukraine’s decision to vote in favor of the resolution appears to
demonstrate the extent to which US President Barack Obama was behind the
decision.
According to officials in Israel, Ukrainian Prime Minister
Volodymyr Groysman, a Jew who is thought of as one of Israel’s main
supporters, wanted that his country not be involved in the consultations
held on the resolution.
However, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko decided to vote in
favor of its passage following a telephone conversation with US Vice
President Joe Biden.
"The text of the resolution is balanced," Kiev asserted. "It
calls for taking measures necessary for peaceful solution from both
Israeli and Palestinian sides: Israel should stop its settlement
activities while Palestinian authorities – to take effective measures
toward fighting against terrorism."
"Our country consistently advocates the respect for the
international law by everyone and everywhere as has experienced itself
the tragic consequences brought by its violation," the Ukrainian Foreign
Ministry added.
Perhaps this is why one of the first places in which the Netanyahu government has announced that it will build in response to the United Nations is the scene of Biden's 'humiliation,' RamatShlomo.
As Israel seeks help from Trump, Netanyahu spox accuses Obama of orchestrating UN resolution
A spokesman for Prime Minister Netanyahu with what's described as 'ironclad intelligence' is accusing the Obama administration of orchestrating the introduction and passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on Friday.
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, David Keyes said Arab sources, among others, had informed Jerusalem of Obama’s alleged involvement in advancing the resolution.
“We have rather ironclad information from
sources in both the Arab world and internationally that this was a
deliberate push by the United States and in fact they helped create the
resolution in the first place,” Keyes told the US media outlet.
The White House has adamantly denied “cooking up” the resolution, rejecting accusations by Netanyahu to that effect.
“We did not draft this resolution; we did not
introduce this resolution. we made this decision when it came up for a
vote,” said Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes on
Friday. But because of its opposition to settlement activity and concern
for what it could mean for the region, the US “could not in good
conscience veto,” he added.
I'd believe just about anyone before I'd believe BenRhodes.
Netanyahu is now reaching out to the incoming Trump administration,
which takes office on January 20, and to friends in Congress, in the
hope of “deterring” what he sees as further potential Obama
administration-led diplomatic action against Israel, the Channel 2
report said. His aim is for the Trump team to make plain that his
administration will “economically hurt” those countries that voted
against Israel in the UN and that do so in the future.
Netanyahu’s fear is that Secretary of State John Kerry will set out
principles or parameters for a Palestinian state in a speech that he has said he will deliver in
the next few days on his Middle East vision. The prime minister fears
that, in its final days, the Obama administration will seek to have a
resolution enshrining those parameters adopted by the UN Security
Council, the report said.
There are three questions here. First, can Trump deter other nations from cooperating with Obama by threatening them economically? Second, is he willing to use that power if he has it? And third, what price will Israel have to pay in order to get to Trump to act?
In the meantime, hundreds of Syrians are dying daily on Obama's watch, but hey, no Jews involved so what difference does it make?
Oh and by the way, as bad as this situation is, can you imagine how much worse it would be if the President elect were Hillary Clinton?
Deja vu all over again: Obama not the first President to attempt to hurt Israel in his final days
Barack Hussein Obama is not the first US President to try to use the United Nations to hurt Israel in his final days in office. That 'honor' goes to Obama's ideological mate, Jimmy Carter. In this Washington Post editorial from December 21, 1980 (Hat Tip: Mark Dubowitz) (would they publish it today?), if you replace Carter with Obama, the result is uncanny.
THE AMERICAN vote against Israel in the Security Council Friday was,
in a sense, the essential Carter. There was no good reason of state for
the United States to reverse its previous refusal (twice to condemn
Israel for expelling two West Bank mayors -- not least because a change
would mark its previous votes as politically motivated. Moreover, the
issue of the mayors, who are indeed their people's authentic
representatives but are also spokesmen for violence, is more complicated
than any U.N. majority -- and certainly Secretary General Kurt
Waldheim, who immediately offered the mayors the comforts of the house
for a hunger strike -- could be expected to grasp. Yet the
administration condemned Israel. It evidently did so out of a familiar
impulse to be at one with the virtuous souls of the Third World,
notwithstanding the complexities of the larger issue at hand.
That
issue is whether friends should be treated differently from
enemies.It's a tough one. That is, it's a tough one for the United
States and especially for the Carter administration. No other country --
no other president -- has so indulged the luxury of deciding whether to
support friends on all occasions regardless of their failings or
whether to apply ostensibly universal values and condemn them in
particular cases when they are deemed to fall short. It would be truly
regrettable if the United States followed the pack and decided every
case on political grounds alone. At the same time, it cannot be denied
that there is a pack and that it hounds Israel shamelessly and that this
makes it very serious when the United States joins it. Jimmy Carter has
regularly anguished on this score. This time, in perhaps his last U.N.
act of consequence, there was a suggestion in the air that he was
finally doing what in his heart he has always wanted to do: vote for
what he regarded as virtue.
To whatever effect, Ronald Reagan will do it differently.
May God obliterate both Carter's and Obama's names and memories. ימח שמם וזכרם of these evil people. And may Obama's efforts have even less effect than Carter's had.
Obama's hatred of Israel isn't just personal animus against Netanyahu
When Barack Hussein Obama ordered his UN ambassador to abstain in Friday's vote against the 'settlements' at the United Nations, it wasn't just personal animus against Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Mr. Obama’s animus toward Prime Minister Netanyahu is well known.
Apparently Mr. Obama took it as an affront that the President-elect
would express an opinion about this week’s U.N. resolution.
It
is important, though, to see this U.S. abstention as more significant
than merely Mr. Obama’s petulance. What it reveals clearly is the Obama
Administration’s animus against the state of Israel itself. No longer
needing Jewish votes, Mr. Obama was free, finally, to punish the Jewish
state in a way no previous President has done.
What Obama did on Friday went against the views of the vast majority of the US Congress, the vast majority of the American people, and of course, the vast majority of Israelis - including the sane part of the Israeli Left.
I call upon the Obama administration to veto this resolution against Israel at the UNSC.>>
For those who speak Hebrew, there's a video of Lapid blasting the resolution on Saturday here.
What Obama did on Friday will permanently cloud the possibility of any kind of peace. This is from the first link, a Wall Street Journal editorial.
No effort to rescind the resolution, which calls the settlements a
violation of “international law,” will succeed because of Russia’s and
China’s vetoes.
Instead, the resolution will live on as Barack
Obama’s cat’s paw, offering support in every European capital,
international institution and U.S. university campus to bully Israel
with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Here in Israel, there's a palpable fear that the mamzer in the White House isn't done 'punishing' us yet.
At the cabinet meeting yesterday the experts on foreign affairs
presented a scenario in which Obama could even on his last day in office
cause harm to Israel.
The concern is that Obama may promote a move in the UN Security
Council giving guidelines for a peace agreement between Israel and the
Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israel would
find it hard to present an alternative model after these guidelines are
set.
The experts on foreign affairs also posed another concern regarding
the Paris conference which is supposed to take place during the course
of February. At the conference a pro-Palestinian peace initiative may be
presented and could be viewed as authoritative if it is adopted.
I'm less concerned about what could happen in February - when Donald Trump is President - than I am about what could happen in the next three weeks.
Obama has earned the title ימח שמו וזכרו - may his name and memory be obliterated. May God Bring that about speedily and in our time.
Facebook's 'fact checkers': Biased and prevaricating, backed by guess who?
In an effort to eliminate 'fake news' from its site, Facebook has appointed 'fact checkers' to confirm or deny whether stories are true. But one of Facebook's 'fact checkers' has already been caught in a lie while reporting on a story about the Obama administration trying to influence Israel's elections, while another has been accused of falsifying news and embezzling money from its own website.
The first fact checker caught with its pants down is PolitiFact. The second - caught literally with its pants down - is Snopes.
Here's PolitiFact.
PolitiFact, which is part of a new group that will help Facebook flag “disputed” stories, last year rated as “Mostly False” a claim that the U.S. funded an election effort in Israel via the nonprofit One Voice aimed at defeating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
PolitiFact left out of its declaration on One Voice that Craig
Newmark, the founder of Craigslist who lists himself as an adviser and
donor to PolitiFact, documents on his personal website that he has been “helping out” One Voice, where he writes he also serves as an adviser.
Also missing from PolitiFact’s rating about the One Voice claim is that One Voice is partnered with Google, which also happens to be a donor to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which owns the Tampa Bay Times. PolitiFact is a project of the Tampa Bay Times.
A senate investigation in July concluded that the State Department
did not do anything illegal in funding One Voice to the tune of nearly
$350,000 in 2013, but that the infrastructure created by One Voice at
the time of the State Department financing could have been used last
year in the anti-Netanyahu campaign.
While PolitiFact noted that
its March 25, 2015 “Mostly False” designation “may change as more
evidence comes to light,” it did rely largely on One Voice’s word on the matter while failing to note the ties between PolitiFact and the partners of One Voice.
Now a DailyMail.com investigation reveals that Snopes.com's founders, former husband and wife David and Barbara Mikkelson, are embroiled in a lengthy and bitter legal dispute in the wake of their divorce.
He has since remarried, to a former escort and porn actress who is one of the site's staff members.
They are accusing each other of financial impropriety, with Barbara claiming her ex-husband is guilty of 'embezzlement' and suggesting he is attempting a 'boondoggle' to change tax arrangements, while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas.
The Mikkelsons founded the site in 1995. The couple had met in the early 1990s on a folklore-themed online message board, and married before setting up the site.
Oh, and the PolitiFact article tells us that guess who is behind the 'fact checkers.'
Breitbart News last week reported
that a cursory search of the Poynter Institute website finds that
Poynter’s IFCN is openly funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations as
well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, the National
Endowment for Democracy and Newmark’s foundation.
Poynter’s IFCN is also funded by the Omidyar Network, which is the
nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The
Omidyar Network has partnered with Open Society on numerous projects and has given grants to third parties using the Soros-funded Tides Foundation. Tides is one of the largest donors to left-wing causes in the U.S.
Dennis Ross rips Obama over abstention, says it's not likely to matter
Former peace processor par excellence Dennis Ross has ripped President Obama for failing to veto Friday's UN Security Council resolution.
If there is one issue on which the President has been consistent
vis-à-vis Israel, it has been settlement construction in the territories
that Israel occupied after the 1967 war. From the outset of his
administration, he called for a freeze on the building of Israeli
settlements to include natural growth. Even when he vetoed a settlements
resolution in 2011, he had his then UN ambassador, Susan Rice, make a
tough statement about our opposition to settlements even as she
explained that the one-sided nature of the resolution left us little
choice but to veto.
Perhaps, President Obama felt this resolution was more balanced. Truth
be told, resolutions in international forum about Israel are rarely, if
ever, balanced.
This one creates the veneer of balance by referring to the need to stop
terror and incitement, but of course it never names the Palestinians so
this effectively refers to stopping all such actions by both sides.
Moreover, the resolution is criticizing only Israel and calling on it to
cease all its activity beyond the June 4, 1967, lines — which is
defined as a violation of international law. Nothing is asked of the
Palestinians.
Sounds just like Obama administration policy all along, doesn't it? Nothing asked of the 'Palestinians.' But Ross also has some good news for the Israelis.
While the Israelis clearly opposed the resolution and hoped it would be
vetoed by the U.S., one can ask: Does this resolution create a
precedent? It is hard to see how. President-elect Trump was clear about
his opposition to it and has already tweeted in response to the
resolution that things will be different in his administration.
Even in UN terms, the fact that the resolution was considered under
Title 6 and not Title 7 means it cannot serve as a predicate for
imposing sanctions later on — clearly a path the Palestinians would like
to go down.
If there is one area in the resolution that may be potentially
problematic for the future, it is the reference to the settlements being
illegal. That could create problems for the one possible formula for
resolving the border at some point: settlement blocs and territorial
swaps. One way to absorb a significant number of settlers is to permit
settlement blocs which are on a small part of the West Bank to become
part of Israel; in return the Israelis would swap territory as
compensation to the Palestinians. Will that not be more difficult if all
settlements are deemed illegal?
Killing what was left of the 'two-state solution' through his bumbling is clearly right up Obama's alley. The mamzer.
Obscenity personified: Obama lies, stabs Israel in the back, wishes us a Happy Chanuka
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone. And a freilichen (Happy) Chanuka too.
The title of this post was stolen from a tweet by Anne Bayefsky after the United States abstained in the Security Council on Friday, allowing a resolution to pass that condemns as 'a flagrant violation' of 'international law' Israel's 'settlements' in the 'West Bank' and 'east' Jerusalem.
Will this resolution matter? John Bolton thinks it will. Let's go to the videotape.
Meanwhile the killing in Syria continues, but since there are no Jews involved, no one cares.
What better time to break with 50 years of US policy in the Middle East and try to impose a 'solution.'
Oh and guess what the mamzer was doing at the very moment he let the resolution pass... he was wishing all the stupid Jews who voted for him a Happy Chanuka.
Thanks for the stab in the back Obama.
While the resolution has not woken up too many Democrats to the fact that Obama's a Jew hater, it has woken up the Israeli government. In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu claims that Obama had specifically promised to veto any UN resolutions in his last days in office.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday accused President Barack Obama of breaching a specific commitment to Israel by allowing through Friday’s UN Security Council anti-settlements resolution, and compared the outgoing president’s behavior to that of predecessor Jimmy Carter, “a president who was hostile to Israel.”
Vowing not to be forced by international
pressure into withdrawing from disputed territory, he said the incoming
administration of President-elect Donald Trump had indicated that it
would join an all-out war against what he called a “shameful” and
“scandalous” decision.
He described the 14-0 vote in the Security
Council, with the US abstaining, as “the swan song of the old world that
is anti-Israel.” Now, he said, “we are entering a new era. And as
President-elect Trump said, it’s going to happen a lot faster than
people think.”
In this new era, it will a lot more costly for those who seek to harm Israel, he warned.
Practically speaking, Netanyahu also announced
that Israel was re-evaluating all of its dealings with the United
Nations, and that he had already instructed officials to cut off “30
million shekels ($7.8 million) of funding for five UN bodies that are
particularly hostile to Israel.” More such action will follow, he
promised.
He noted that he had recalled Israel’s
ambassadors from New Zealand and Senegal, two of the four countries that
sponsored the resolution that have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Israeli aid to Senegal has also been halted, he said.
I think he should recall his ambassadors from the UK and France and Egypt as well, and call the US and Russian ambassadors in for a dressing down.
Netanyahu had more to say.
The US abstention came in “a complete
contradiction” to a “specific commitment by President Obama in 2011,” he
said. It was “a shameful anti-Israel ambush” by the administration, he
said.
“The whole Middle East is going up in flames,”
he said, “and the Obama administration and the Security Council” target
Israel, the region’s only democracy. “How shameful.”
...
US legislators intend to pass a law to punish
states or organizations, including the UN, that seek to hurt Israel. The
US alone, he noted, provides a quarter of the UN’s funding.
He said Israel was “on a journey” to improve
its relations with the nations of the world. “It could be that this
scandalous decision yesterday will accelerate this process. This is the
straw that broke the camel’s back. Yesterday’s decision is a recruitment
call to all our many friends in the US and around the world — friends
who have had enough of the UN’s hostile treatment of Israel and who
intend to push fundamental change at the UN.”
Therefore, he said, invoking the spirit of the Hanukkah festival which began on Saturday, “the light will oust the darkness.”
I have been back in Israel since late Tuesday night. Totally swamped with work, and therefore I have not posted.
I'd like to share a story that I heard in the US last week. I
understand that it's been making the rounds in the yeshiva world there.
About ten years ago, a car got a flat tire - I think it was on the
George Washington Bridge. An Orthodox Jew changed the tire. The driver
of the car was grateful, and wanted to pay the Orthodox Jew a large sum
of cash. The Jew refused to take any money, telling the driver that the
Jewish people's job in this world to perform acts of kindness for other people.
When the Jew went to pay his mortgage the next month, the bank sent
back his check, saying that the mortgage had been paid off. Thinking
there was a mistake, the Jew went to the bank, which was quite definite
about the fact that the mortgage had been paid.
The driver of
that car with the flat tire had taken down the license plate number of
the Jew who changed his tire, found out who owned the car, and went and
paid off his mortgage. The driver of the car with the flat tire was
Donald Trump.
I can't confirm whether this story is true (but
apparently it has gained credibility in the yeshivas in the US over the
last couple of years), so here's something else to think about: Donald
Trump's daughter converted to Judaism by an Orthodox Rabbi and married
the scion of a New Jersey real estate family that is known in the Jewish
community for its charitable deeds (Kushner Academy in Caldwell, New
Jersey was founded by Jared Kushner's family). Both of Donald Trump's
sons are married to Jewish women. ALL of Donald Trump's grandchildren
are Jewish.
How many of the Jews who say terrible things about Donald Trump can say that all of their grandchildren are or will be Jewish?
Pilots didn't crash EgyptAir plane - there was an explosion
Greetings from... would you believe Lakewood, New Jersey?
Remember that EgyptAir plane that went down over the Mediterranean on a flight from Paris to Cairo back in May? This time, it wasn't a pilot suicide that crashed the plane. It was a more mundane form of terrorism: a bomb explosion.
Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation on Thursday said investigators
found traces of explosive materials on the remains of the victims aboard
EgyptAir Flight MS804.
...
Egyptian officials in July said the word "fire" was clearly audible from cockpit voice recorder
before the plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on May 19, killing
all 66 people aboard. The plane was traveling from Paris to Cairo.
Electronic messages sent out by the jet showed smoke detectors going
off in a toilet and in the avionics area of the plane moments before it
crashed.
The ministry said a forensic report "included a reference to find traces of explosive materials some human remains for victims of the accident."
Think about that the next time you take off from Paris. Yours truly was practically strip-searched by French 'security' while boarding a flight from Paris to the US a few months ago. I guess I fit the profile (not!).
I know I haven't been on in a few days, but greetings from Boston.
On my last trip here (two weeks ago!), I went to Target, found significant discounts that required me to download their app onto my smartphone, downloaded the app (two of them in fact), got the discounts, and started receiving a flood of emails and push notices from Target.
That's kind of expected - but when I clicked on them I couldn't access anything from the emails or from the apps on my phone.
I assumed this was because I was in Israel, because when I tried to access the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' E-Z pass web site (I have now acquired a transponder which I schlep with me from rental car to rental car rather than paying the outrageous fees that the rental car companies charge to rent one), I couldn't do that from Israel either.
Silly me. I assumed that just like the Commonwealth blocked the E-Z pass site to anyone outside the US (they did, didn't they?), so did Target. I was wrong. Dead wrong. It seems that Target was targeting Israelis, although having been discovered, they have quickly opened up the site (Hat Tip: MFS001).
When Jennifer Bayer tried to access Target’s site she got an “Access
Denied” message. After her friends confirmed that they were having the
same problem, she contacted Target directly for an answer.
Tho company responded:
“The reason you’re unable to place orders on Target.com from Israel is to ensure the data security of all our guests. Target.com has made the conscious decision to block IP addresses originating from Israel, as it is one of the top 5 countries from which malicious attacks against our website originate.
Although you can’t access the site from Israel, our team is more than happy to help you place a domestic order over the phone. Please
don’t hesitate to give us a call at your convenience, our Target.com is
available 24 hours a day, every day of the week. To place an order on
Target.com you can call 1(800) 591-3869.”
Well, maybe except I'll tell you a secret: Many US toll free numbers don't work from Israel either. Not even with your VoiP line (of course I have one!).
It only took a few hours of sunlight for Target to see the error of their ways.
We at Janglo want to publicly acknowledge Target.com‘s decision today to unblock Israeli access to their site this evening after countless Israeli users complained.
Just about a year ago, we were very happy to see Target begin
offering shipping to Israel, and we’ve hoped to see them expand their
presence here. In fact, their web site currently offers a discount of
NIS 80 when purchasing NIS 400 or more with coupon code ISRAELSHIP.
Check it out at http://intl.target.com
Target has never indicated any signs of being antisemitic or
anti-Israel, and we hope the store felt no ill intentions by today’s
campaign. Now that you see how strong your customer base in Israel is,
we hope you’ll consider opening a store here soon!
But given that Mrs. Carl and I are both currently in the US (and will actually be staying in the same place for a few days - no, not a vacation - starting tonight), I guess we don't need a discount on shipping to Israel right now anyway....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
